“Dr. Murphy is a philanthropist and an upstanding member of the church,” the woman said stiffly. “His charity and generosity are without peer.”
“If you say so,” said the stranger. Then: “I thought you Mormons believed in the same man having as many wives as he wanted. Why’s your master still looking for the one he lost? Shouldn’t he just get a fresher plot to plough and,” he made an obscene sucking sound, “give up on the old baggage?”
The woman’s cheeks flushed a brilliant red. “I’ll thank you not to speak of Miss Grace in such terms,” she said. “That’s the last help you’ll have from me. Use that sort of vulgar language to refer to the mistress in Dr. Murphy’s hearing, and your next of kin will be the ones receiving an unwanted visit.”
They might, she thought cruelly, have been better off in that circumstance. This man was worn thin and hard by the desert and the road. His skin was leather, pocked with old sores; his teeth were too straight and white to be his own. He was a scavenger, stealing everything he had from the world around him. If he died here, Dr. Murphy would feel compelled to pay compensation to whatever family he might have, and she had absolutely no doubt that this man was worth far more dead than he would ever be alive.
“Understood, ma’am,” said the man, eyes twinkling with unholy mirth. “I can’t help notice your own rush to defend the lady. You don’t believe this nonsense about her being dead, do you? Why, a smart woman like you. You must have figured it all out long ago.”
“That is none of your concern,” she snapped, before catching herself and buttoning her lips. This man, this dreadful desert-clad man, was trying to tempt her into a place of blasphemy. He wanted her to speak against her master, her household, and her Lord, all in a single sentence. She had seen the body of Grace Murphy with her own eyes, laid out pale and perfect and finally free from the trials of mortal flesh. To claim Grace were anything but dead and gone, why, it was to play at a second resurrection, which would not be granted to any living soul left on this world now that the Messiah had come and gone.
It was not right. It was not suitable. This man had no place outside Junkyard—no. He had no place in Deseret. His kind could not be saved. They could only be pitied, and allowed to go about their vile business until Kingdom Come, and the faithful were lifted into a better world, leaving the filth of this place behind them.
He chuckled. Even his laughter sounded dirty, like it was smearing on her skin, leaving her somehow tainted. “I always forget how mannerly you Deseret girls are,” he said. “While you’re home, anyway. I’ve known a few of your castoffs in my day, and I promise you, they’re as rude as any other lady the night has ever known.”
The woman said nothing, but walked a little faster, relief flooding through her as she saw the arched door to Dr. Murphy’s lab come into view. As a senior member of his household, she not only had her own key, but had his express permission to disturb him while he was working—unless, that was, he had told her that his day’s efforts involved volatile chemicals or, more rarely and dangerously, a visit from Dr. Hellstromme. He had given neither warning today, only mumbled vague pleasantries before making his retreat.
She unlocked the door. Opening it turned on a small blue light on the wall, where she couldn’t help but see it; a visual reminder of the course she was setting for herself. A matching light would come on after five seconds in the master’s lab, notifying him of her approach. The pause was to give her time to change her mind and withdraw—and quite honestly, she often did exactly that, deciding that whatever problem had caught her attention wasn’t worth troubling Dr. Murphy, who was a brilliant, sensitive man and didn’t deserve to be burdened down with the petty business of running a household.
Slowly, she began the descent toward Dr. Murphy’s lab. The man from the desert followed, so close behind her that she could smell his stinking breath, rich with the scents of spoiled meat and the Devil’s whiskey. She resisted the urge to wrinkle her nose. Showing him that she was disturbed would only reward his vile behavior. A man like that, in a place like this, why, he must be looking to shock. That was the only reason the unfaithful ever came to the Holy City. They wanted to shock, to startle, and to tempt good men and women away from the path of righteousness.
She would not be tempted, either in word or in deed. She was stronger than they.
The stairs ended at a doorway, matched to the one in the hall upstairs. She knocked three times before unlocking it, stepping through before the man could shoulder past her. Dr. Murphy’s privacy was being violated. He deserved to know the reason.
“You have a visitor, Doctor,” she said, voice frosty. “May he enter?”
The lab was a vast, cavernous space cut into the bedrock beneath the house. The walls were smooth stone, sanded and polished until they shone, and the floor was made of the same stuff. Inflammable, virtually indestructible, and gray as the smog that hung over Junkyard, creating the odd illusion that the entire lab had been sliced out of the sky above the factories and somehow transported to this underground location. Equipment she couldn’t name and didn’t care to understand lined the walls and filled the center of the room, creating a labyrinth in steel and flashing lights and unnervingly thick leather straps. Standing tubes tall enough to contain an adult human were set up along the far wall, shrouded in white sheets. She had never seen beneath their coverings. Something about the shape of them …
No one who worked in Dr. Murphy’s household knew the exact nature of the work he did beneath it. None of them wanted to. Knowledge would carry a responsibility they did not desire.
The doctor himself was bent over something small and mechanical on one of the slabs. He looked up, eyes magnified to three times their natural size by the loupe clipped to his glasses. He blinked, the simple gesture turned huge and horrifying by the magnification.
“Helen?” He flipped the loupe up, revealing his wire-framed glasses, reducing his eyes to their normal size. His gaze went to the man behind her, a frown tugging at his lips as he saw the man from the desert. “Is something wrong?”
“No, Doctor,” said Helen. She finally stepped to the side, letting the man step forward. “This man says he has information for you.”
“Does he?” Dr. Murphy straightened, eyes still on the man. “Information about what?”
“I’m no fisherman,” said the stranger. “Still, even the most landlocked of men might find themselves with their hands on a bushel of oysters. They might find a pearl or two.”
Dr. Murphy went perfectly, utterly still.
He was not a physically imposing man: someone passing him on the street could have been forgiven for thinking that he was nothing of consequence, just one more accountant laboring in the great factories, keeping the numbers in line. His hands were long and slender, a piano-player’s hands, and his shoulders were narrow, the shoulders of a man who had never done a lick of physical labor in his life. He was thin, thanks to a general disinterest in the pleasures of the flesh, but there was still a softness to him, beneath his fine linen and cotton clothing, marking him as no real challenge. His hair was brown, like the hills outside, and his eyes were blue, the color of the sky that hung above the Holy City, visible only to the faithful.
“Helen,” he said finally. “You may leave us. Pack a traveler’s lunch for our friend. I am sure he’ll need it, when he goes.”
“Sir—”
“Charity begins at home,” said Dr. Murphy. This time, there was steel in his tone, a hard core of unquestioning strength that put a lie to his outward appearance. “You may leave us.”
“Yes, sir.” She bobbed a quick curtsey and was gone, running back up the stairs as fast as her legs could carry her.
Dr. Murphy turned his eyes on the stranger. He started toward him, removing his thick leather gloves as he walked, every motion seeming like a threat in the process of being made. “Sir, I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” he said. “Oysters do not keep well in desert countries.”
“Perh
aps not, but it’s well known that you’ve been looking for your pearl for a long while now,” said the man. “I heard there was a reward associated with the little miss.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Murphy. “A reward. Go on.”
“Word was your wife didn’t die. She left you. Ran off in the night with your daughter. A pity. No man should have his good will used like that. You left her with enough freedom to feel she was a valuable pet instead of a captive, and what did she do? Grabbed what meant the most to you and ran.” The stranger shook his head. “It’s no wonder you’d want her back. If anything, it’s only a wonder you haven’t torn this country apart looking for her.”
“Appearances must be maintained,” said Dr. Murphy, sounding stunned. “Have you seen her? Have you seen my Grace?”
“She calls herself ‘Annie’ now. Annie Pearl.” The stranger’s expression sharpened, like a hunting hound scenting the kill. “There’s the matter of my reward to be discussed before we go any further. You understand, being a businessman and all.”
“You shall have every penny you desire upon this Earth,” said Dr. Murphy fervently. “Only tell me, where is my Grace? Is our daughter with her?”
“You mean the silent girl? She’s there. Ghostly little thing. Walks like she doesn’t know what sound is for, and the way she looks at a man…” The stranger shook his head. “But she’s alive, if not hale. I hear the girl has something wrong with her. In her lungs. She’s sickly. That’s one more crime you can lay at your wife’s feet.”
“No, it’s not,” said Dr. Murphy. He dropped his gloves on the nearest table. “Pearl was always unwell. It was … a consequence of her birth. For Grace to have kept her alive for so long is nothing short of a miracle.”
“The girl goes by ‘Adeline’ now.”
“Does she? A pretty name. My wife’s choice for her, if I recall correctly.” His tone made it clear that he recalled correctly: that he had never been wrong about such a thing in his life. “Where did you see them?”
“My reward—”
“Will be paid in full once I have my answers. Do you think me a man who fails to pay his debts? If you do, perhaps you should take your leave of me now.”
The stranger’s eyes narrowed. “I have information.”
“Yes, and thank God for that. But what one man may uncover, another may find as well. Now that I know they’re out there to be found, and not bones in a hidden grave, I’ll find them. Sooner or later, I’ll find them. Speak and be rewarded, or hold your tongue and leave.”
There was a long pause as the stranger weighed Dr. Murphy’s words. Something about the smaller man was unnerving, unsettling in a way he couldn’t quite put his fingers on. Finally, he said, “You drive a hard bargain.”
“Yes.”
“They’re with a traveling show. The Blackstone Family Circus. Not that there’s any family to it, just a man named Nate Blackstone with delusions of grandeur and reputability.”
“A circus? I see.” Dr. Murphy cocked his head to the side. “Where is it now?”
“I left them in Idaho. Too many freaks in one place for a God-fearing man like me. But I heard they were heading into Oregon, for a town called The Clearing. They should be there now. My payment?”
“Yes. Mustn’t allow a debt to go unpaid.” Dr. Murphy’s long-fingered hand moved, swift as a swooping hawk, and the stranger’s throat opened like a canyon, spilling a ruby waterfall of blood down the front of his filthy shirt.
The stranger made a choking sound, grabbing for his throat like he thought he could somehow stuff the blood back inside. It was too late. It had been too late the moment he had rung the bell at the front door. Some traps were all the more dangerous because they were so easy to walk into.
Dr. Murphy dropped his scalpel and walked to the wall, where he pressed a button. There was a crackling sound. “Helen,” he said, into the speaker. “I need you, and three men large enough to assist me in dressing and disposing of a body. Please send message to Dr. Hellstromme, informing him that I will be needing some time away from my duties.”
“Very good, sir,” said Helen’s voice, as clear as day. “What shall I do with the lunch you asked me to prepare?”
“Have it sent to Junkyard, to be given to some needy soul. Charity begins at home.”
“Yes, sir,” said Helen. The intercom clicked off.
Dr. Murphy turned back to his lab, looking at the body on his floor with distaste. There was so much work to be done, and it was well past time that he began.
Chapter Nine
Annie slid down the side of the bowl that contained the town, nearly toppling end over end in her hurry to reach the settlement and the distant flames that engulfed the bright oilcloth tents of her home. As she got closer, two things became clear: that the boneyard was essentially untouched, far enough back from the fire as to have been spared, and that the damage was almost entirely confined to the attractions around the rim of the show. The tents must have gone up like candles, primed to the slightest touch of flame, but the wagons, the games of skill and chance, those were still largely intact.
Her feet found the flat ground of the bowl’s bottom. She stumbled, once, from the sheer change in her situation. Then she broke into a run, heading as fast as she could for the show. People were running in the opposite direction, townies fleeing from the fire. Annie hated them. She was not a woman much inclined to hatred, but in that moment, she hated them all the way down to the bottom of her soul. She would have thrown every damn one of them to the oddities, and let the godforsaken creatures of the American West decide their fates. She did not think any of those fates would be kind.
The closer she drew to the circus, the more of her own people she saw. They were everywhere, racing around with buckets of water and of dirt, throwing them on the flames. Annie ran past them all, heading for the wagon of oddities. The question of Adeline still loomed large in her mind, but it was no longer the only dilemma she faced. The oddities. The freaks. Tranquility. They were all her responsibility, as much as Adeline was, and she had left them alone. She had turned her back on them.
The smell of ash and charred oilcloth hung heavy in the air, an accusing perfume. Annie ran faster still, until she rounded the tent where the dancing girls shimmied and swayed on better nights, and beheld the dreaded spectacle of the wagon of oddities, burning.
It was not engulfed in flame: the fire was confined to the roof, where it crackled to itself as it consumed the mossy shingles. Annie grabbed the bucket of water she kept next to the wheel for the use of thirsty dogs and horses, swinging it as hard as she could toward the fire. The wave landed with a loud splash, and the fire died back, not going out, but dying down enough that she felt safe running for the door and yanking it open.
Inside, cacophony. The animals that could make a sound were, roaring and hissing and rattling around inside their cages, anxious to be free. Tranquility’s snarls were anything but tranquil, shattering the air in loud trills, like the revving of a chainsaw. Annie rushed across the wagon and opened the latch on Tranquility’s cage, allowing the lynx to rush out.
She did not look back as she ran down the length of the wagon and leapt through the open door. Annie could only hope that she wouldn’t go too far. The townsfolk were understandably upset by their current circumstances. Adding a panicked lynx to the scene might be a step too far and result in bloodshed.
Backtracking to Oscar’s tank, Annie scooped out a healthy bucket of water. The great white catfish watched her warily from his place on the bottom, whiskers twitching.
“I would free you if I could,” she said, and ran back outside, adding her second bucket’s contents to the first.
It took four trips, and four buckets of stolen water, before the flames were out. Oscar’s tank was more than half-empty, leaving the great cat’ pressed against the bottom, half-hidden in the silt. Annie dropped the bucket and sank to rest her hands on her knees, struggling to breathe. It felt as if all the wind had been sucked out of her
, extinguished along with the flames.
All over the circus, similar scenes were playing out. She could see a good few of them, people beating out fires with sheets of canvas or with their bare hands. Circus orphans swarmed from place to place, straining under the weight of the buckets they carried. She saw no townies moving through the chaos. They had their own problems, presumably, and no sympathy to spare for strangers.
But there had been no flames that she could see in the town proper. All the damage was to the circus.
“Annie!”
The voice was Mr. Blackstone’s. She straightened up, wincing as her strained shoulders expressed their displeasure, and turned. The normally dapper ringmaster was running toward her, smudges of ash and char on his formerly immaculate shirtfront. He looked like a man on the verge of absolute collapse.
He ran until he reached her. Then he seized her, drawing her into an embrace before she had a chance to protest.
“I was so afraid that you’d been taken!” he exclaimed, his voice right up against her ear, closer than any man’s voice had been in years. “Annie, Annie, where have you been?”
“Adeline,” she replied, and pulled away, moving so that she could see his face. “Some of the children from the town tricked her into going into the woods to fetch them a pinecone, of all things. I went to bring her back again. I got … I was turned around in the trees. The darkness there is … it’s very dark, in the trees. When I stumbled out, the circus was in flames. What happened? Has anyone been hurt?”
“You weren’t here.” He sounded almost amazed, like he couldn’t believe his own luck. “You missed the whole thing.”
Annie opened her mouth, ready to tell him about the dead body, about the sound of snarls in the wood. Then she stopped, and frowned, and looked at him. Really looked at him, not just at the idea of him, the phantom friend who haunted her memories.
Mr. Blackstone’s skin wasn’t merely covered with ash; it was ashen, like all the blood had been removed from the flesh behind it, turning him into an empty tent waiting for the show to begin. The wax on his mustache had trapped a remarkable amount of char, turning that great black display piece gray as old charcoal. A ring of red showed all around the whites of his eyes, a sign of strain and terror. It was like he had forgotten how to blink.
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