by Anya Allyn
I know grandfather is wise and I don’t question his words.
“Where’s my mother?” I ask.
“I’ll explain everything later,” says grandfather.
I don’t like it when he says that. A picture draws itself in my head. I don’t want to see it, because I know it’s bad. Like when I peeked at the pictures Henry keeps in a trunk and I saw ugly things. But this is different, even worse.
I see my mother. She’s at the bottom of a mountain. She’s tangled in something, something like a chair with wheels. All squashed like a bug and smashed and covered in blood.
It’s not nice to think bad things like that about people. I want to lie down. I step over to the bed and curl up there. I rock and sing to myself. I have to shut out the pictures in my head.
The next minute I hear screaming, and I want it to stop. But the more I want it to stop, the louder it gets.
Grandfather puts a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, Jessamine. I’m here. I’m here with you. Everything will be alright.”
I realize the terrible screaming is coming from me. I need to stop it. What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me? I clasp my arms around my knees. A terrible pain wells up inside. I think I am going to die. My breaths quicken. Nurse Daniel hastens to give me a small white tablet and a glass of water.
After a few moments, I’m floating. But the hurt is still there.
I step into sleep, dreaming of blood.
For days, I stay in the bed, moving in and out of sleep. I have a fever and dreams. And neither daddy nor mother come. Only grandfather and the pretend-nurse come. Trucks drive in and out and everything sounds noisier when you are trying to sleep.
Every day, the nurse forbids me to come downstairs, but tonight, grandfather insists I am well enough to have dinner with everyone.
Audette and Henry are already seated at the table. Audette has her people-face on—the face she uses when people are around. She always scowls at me when we are alone together. She wears a frilly pink dress with spots on it that look like measles.
Sister Daniels charges at me with a thermometer and takes my temperature. “Still more than a touch too high.” She twists her mouth and shakes her head.
“Now, now,” says grandfather. “It’s a warm night and I can’t see the harm in her moving about a bit.”
“But her lungs are delicate. They sustained quite a bit of damage in the accident and you must be careful with her.”
“What accident?” I tilt my chin at grandfather.
He frowns at the nurse. “That’s enough. And she’s fine.”
“Yes, I know.” The nurse made a tut-tut sound. “You are circus folk and circus folk are tough.”
Grandfather winks at me. “I’m glad we finally understand each other, Sister Daniels.” He doesn’t answer my question about the accident.
Sister Daniels sits down with us to dinner. The maids bring out a roast, with large helpings of corn and potatoes. Sister Daniels eats more than I’ve ever seen anyone eat, while Audette picks at her food like it isn’t nearly good enough. Henry eats in the way he always does—as though he’s sitting in the grandest restaurant eating the grandest food. He keeps complimenting the maids, which makes Audette’s eyes narrow into slits.
After dinner, the nurse says she has a headache and must retire to her room. Before she leaves, she says I must return to my room too. Grandfather sighs and nods in my direction.
I skip away to the stairs, but I don’t go any further. I’m tired of being in my room. Grandfather, Henry and Audette go out to the front porch while the maids pile up dirty dishes at the table. I wander through the kitchen and out through the side door, then steal around to the porch.
Creatures shriek and roar in the dark. As though the animals from a thousand circuses have escaped. I huddle behind a potted plant. Henry and grandfather smoke cigars together. Audette sits at the table, painting her nails with long strokes.
“In any case,” grandfather tells Henry, “I won’t be longer than a month.”
Henry blows a long stream of smoke into the night. “We’ll manage.”
“I want to be certain you’re taking this seriously. They may come through her to get to me. Or they may even suspect she knows more than she does. If they come, she must remain hidden. Henry and Audette, you are the only family besides Jessamine that I have left. You must take good care of her."
I hate it when grandfather talks about things I don’t understand.
"Uncle, you know I will." Henry leans his head back as though examining the stars.
“These are dangerous people. Whoever set the bomb off on the train is willing to do anything, at any cost to human life.” Grandfather taps his cigar on the small table.
Audette blows on her long fingernails. Red paint glistens on them. "Well of course. Scary stuff. The kid will be in safe hands with us. I hate to mention this now… but we will need some sort of means for her upkeep, and that of the house…."
"I will leave plenty of funds to cover all expenses.” Grandfather’s voice is short and sharp.
They keep talking but I can’t hear more, because my head is swimming. I can hear a ripping of metal, can feel myself being thrown and tossed as a train falls from its tracks. Screams, yells, shouts. And my mother twisted inside the strange chair. And blood, so much blood…
I slip away. I don’t want to know any more of their words.
28. GRANDFATHER
I wake to find an old, grayed man sitting on the end of my bed. Grandfather. Early light peeks through the gaps in the curtains.
“Jessamine, I have to go away.”
I can only make one sound. “No…”
“I’m afraid there’s no way around it. There is something I must do. It will only be for a short while.”
“Take me with you.”
“You’ve been ill. You’re in no condition to travel.” He closes his eyes and his shoulders slump a little. “There’s some things I need to tell you.”
I sit up on the pillows. I am very sure I don’t want to hear what grandfather has to say.
“First of all, I want to you to know you’ll be okay when I’m gone. Henry and Audette are here. Also Nurse Daniels. They are all here to take care of you. You don’t need to worry. I know that things seem very confusing right now, but they won’t always be that way.”
“I won’t stay with them. I want to be with you.”
“I know… I know. But I need you to be safe. And I can’t keep you safe where I am going. But I am going to keep you extra safe while I am gone. I want you to come and see.”
He takes me by the hand. I swing my legs from the bed. They feel better. My leg is not nearly so sore. My hand feels strangely big in his, and I am as tall as his shoulders. I feel wrong. Perhaps the nasty nurse is giving me medicine that makes me big sometimes.
I push my feet into my slippers and go with him. It doesn’t matter I am still in my nightdress, he tells me, because there is no one here to see. Everyone else is asleep.
We walk through the grounds to the big shed. There is nothing inside the shed but what looks like a big lid sitting on the ground. Grandfather bends down and twists the lid backwards and forwards, then takes my hand again and we stand on it. The lid goes straight down—like an elevator—to a dark cave.
“Why are we going in here?” I hold tightly to grandfather’s arm.
“Just trust me.” He smiles down at me.
We have to climb down a ladder just to get to the floor of the cave. Lots of grandfather’s things are stored here. Circus things. Like someone picked up the entire circus and broke it in pieces and put it in here. Even grandfather’s car is down here.
He turns on a series of big lights and I can see a tunnel ahead.
“Why are there tunnels down here? They weren’t made by a big spider, were they?”
“No.” He chuckled. “The tunnels here were made by an old volcano. But don’t worry, the volcano’s lava went through here a very long time ago. We
don’t need to worry about it coming back.”
I still don’t like it here. The tunnel smells old, hundreds of thousands of years old. We walk for a long time, until we come to something large and round. It is one of the carousels from the circus. We step through it into a brightly-lit area.
“Go! Look!” he says.
We walk down a corridor made of rock. Carpenters hammer together cupboards in what looks like a kitchen. A big table and huge chairs have already been built.
“For you to have tea parties, Jess,” he says.
He takes my hand and we walk further down the corridor. I peek inside a large crack in the wall—so large even grandfather could fit through it. The cave inside is dark and awful and smells like dead plants.
“Come on.” He pulls me by the hand. We walk to the end of the corridor. “There’s something I need to show you first, and after that I have some surprises to show you.”
At the end of the corridor, the path goes left and right. To the right is a horrible tunnel with no lights. I don’t want to go that way, but that’s the way he goes.
He shines his torch around the slimy walls. “See? Nothing scary here.”
After a short distance, I am happy to see a rock wall blocking our path. But grandfather presses on a jutting rock and a secret door scrapes open. My heart bangs as we walk what seems to me a very long way.
A statue stands next to a far rock wall—a man with a beard and long robes. I step over and touch the face of the statue. It seems that I’ve seen it before, but the memory hurts and my mind shuts the memory out before I can see it.
“That is Saint Jerome,” says grandfather. “This is a replica of a statue that is very important to me. You won’t remember, but recently we had a bit of an accident and landed at his feet. And we ended up okay. He’s like a lucky charm. Don’t let him scare you.” He gives a short chuckle.
He places his hands around the statue and heaves it out of the way. It takes all his strength and he grunts and sweats. Behind the statue is a small cave in the wall, about as high as my chest and packed with brownish sacks.
“The contents of the bags are worth a great deal of money, Jessamine. I brought quite a bit of the gold and diamonds that I own with me from America. You’re to tell no one that it’s here, but if something should happen that you need money, it’s yours.”
“What do you mean, grandfather? Why should I ever need money?”
“You won’t, of course, because I’ll be coming back for you soon. But just in case, it’s here. It’s enough to buy many houses and live a comfortable life.”
He pushes Saint Jerome back into place and we head back through the secret door and out of the dark tunnel. I don’t ever want to go back in there again. To the left is an enormous, brightly lit room. My heart leaps at the sight of my favorite carousel from the circus. I run and hug my horse—the horse that has been always been mine. It is blue and shiny with jewels on it.
“I had it brought over from America too.”
From the corner of my eye I see people sitting on a daybed. No, not people. Big dolls. Dolls that are bigger than grandfather. Stepping down from the carousel, my feet walk cautiously over to them. I know these dolls.
“Do you like them? You lost all your dolls in the… I mean, you lost all your dolls at the last place we were at. But I had them all made again, just for you."
The dolls confuse me. I know them but I don’t know them. There’s a bear and two dolls with pretty dresses and a set of rag dolls. The rag dolls sit together on a rocking chair—grandfather’s old rocking chair. And standing proudly near a wall is the wooden clown daddy gave me—only stretched and huge.
“Thank you.” My voice sounds as stiff as new shoes.
“I had them made large, so that if you spent much time down here, they could be friends for you. And look over here…” Grandfather gestures towards huge shelves of books. “A library. With more books than you could ever read. I know how much my little Jess loves her books.”
I wander over to the colorful spines of the books, running my fingers along them. “Some of these are Miss Kitty’s books. Is she here?”
Grandfather sighs heavily. “No.”
“Where is she? Will she still give me lessons?”
“Miss Kitty… has gone away.”
“Has everyone gone away?” My head feels floaty again.
“Not everyone. Henry and Audette—“
“I don’t care about stupid Henry and Audette. Where’s Miss Kitty gone? And mother and daddy? Where are they? Where is the circus?” Fat tears squeeze from my eyes.
Grandfather takes the rag dolls from his rocking chair and places them by a fireplace, then returns to sit in the chair. “Come here, Jess-of-mine.”
I sit in his lap and feel small again.
“Everything will be okay, you’ll see.”
“I don’t feel okay. I feel very, very bad.” I stare around at the dolls and books and wallpaper and carpets until it all whirls inside my head. “What is all this for?”
“It’s all for you.”
“But why down here?”
“It’s just a safe place to come and play, when you need to.”
“But when will I need to?”
“Henry will know. Now don’t you worry.”
I lay my head on his shoulder. “Am I going to see my parents again?”
He holds my arm. “You will.”
“Is that where you’re going? To find daddy and mother? Are they lost?”
“Yes,” he says in a loud breath. “But I’ll get them back for you, if it’s the last thing I do.”
My forehead tightens. “But where are they? Are they far away? Like on an island in the middle of the ocean?”
“Something like that. But don’t worry. You’ll be with them again.”
He rocks the chair and my head grows heavy. I wish I could sleep until daddy is back again. I think I can see stars, but that’s silly, because there aren’t any stars here under the ground.
“Grandfather, you’re not going to the other worlds, are you?”
I don’t even know why I say that. It’s a mindless, little-girl thing to say.
I hear nothing for a few moments but his long, sighing breaths.
“Jess, what do you remember?”
“I don’t know.” My throat feels half-strangled. “I keep remembering things that aren’t true….”
“Ah, my poor Jess, how you have suffered. Whatever happens, wherever I end up, just know this… I’ll be back for you. We’ll start again, we’ll start new. And everything will be wonderful this time. I won’t make the mistakes I made… before. Money is not nearly as important as I thought it was. I’ll take you somewhere where you can have everything—everything that’s important.”
“Will you be taking Henry and Audette too? And the circus?”
He shakes his head. “You and only you,” he whispers. He brings his face down close to mine, his blue eyes red-rimmed and wet. He presses a small, round object into my hand. It’s his locket. I know what’s inside it—it’s a picture of me and grandfather. “Now you need to promise me something, Jess-of-mine. You need to promise me you won’t open this until I return. Inside this locket is my promise to you – my promise that I’ll be back for you. Just be patient. Can you do that?”
I pull the chain over my neck, placing the locket close to where daddy told me my heart was.
29. THOMAS THE GARDENER
I wake to the sound of the gardener hoeing the hard ground. Thwack thwack thwack. The curtains flutter in the morning breeze, drawing my attention to a new trinket box on the dresser. Inside it is a note—the words are in grandfather’s writing. It says, you and only you.
I know he’s gone, but I run downstairs and out to the grounds, and I look for him anyway.
Thomas the gardener tips his hat at me. His skin is tanned and smooth.
“Are you going to put in flowers?” I ask him.
He shakes his head. “Just a hedge. But
I’ll put in flowers in for you if you want them.”
“My grandmother liked Red Buckeye. They could make a good hedge.”
“Sorry darlin’, we don’t have those flowers out here. How’s about I put in some Bottle Brush for you? The flowers are red and look like the brushes you clean bottles out with.”
Grinning, he stoops and collects some yellow wildflowers from the ground. He twists them into a halo and puts it on my head. “Pretty.”
My cheeks grow warm. The gardener is a lot older than me, but quite young for a gardener—perhaps no older than nineteen. I step away shyly.
“Jessamine…”
I didn’t know he knew my name. I eye him expectantly.
“I saw you go into those tunnels under the ground the other day. Now that your grandfather’s gone away, don’t go back there. I don’t think that’s a good place for you to go.”
There isn’t anything I can think of to say to that. I don’t want to go to the tunnels anyway. I spin on my heel and march away to the river, a long way from Thomas the gardener.
The air stifles me, even though it’s early morning. So strange to think its December and it’s so hot here. I unlace my boots and pull off my stockings. My halo of wild flowers tips into the river and floats downstream. I try to catch it but the water takes it away too quickly. The face of Thomas is still in my head and it makes me want to run, and so I do. I run through the tall, dry grasses beyond the lawn.
Audette watches from my bedroom. She’s always in there, watching.
When I return, Audette looks like she’s sitting in a cloud of poisonous gas, painting furiously at her easel. She’s been painting strange pictures of me outside, running into tunnels of fiery trees. She’s even painted a picture of herself to give to Henry as a birthday present. I have to say that she’s good at painting, because the painting looks sour, just like her.
Dinner that night is what Audette calls fine French cuisine. Snails and fish eggs and everything goopy.
