by A. G. Howard
The Hummingbird Heart
A.G. Howard
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 A.G. Howard. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Please refer all pertinent questions to the publisher: Golden Orb Press.
For more information on A.G. Howard and her books, visit her website: www.aghoward.com
Table of Contents
Prologue
Part I One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Part II Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Part III Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Part IV Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Prologue
The outskirts of Westminster, London—1891
Mama is a hummingbird.
Willomena watched from the shadows of the empty big top as her mother glided from one trapeze to another—soaring over a net. From up high, she looked as small as the wasp-sized bird Willomena had seen a month earlier sipping nectar from a hollyhock. She had thought it an insect, until Momma bade her listen to the high-pitched song of its wings.
Now the ropes rattled with Mama’s movements—playing their own tune—a rhythmic creak. A slant of sunlight filtered in from the open flap, warming the top of Willomena’s head while a summer-scented breeze turned through her long curls.
Squatting beneath the benches, Willomena busily gathered her prizes: discarded cigars—she liked those best for the scorched, sweet smell; farthings, crusted brown with mud; red, green, and blue ticket stubs to paste on paper and make pictures.
Everything she found she dropped into a basket with her doll … a porcelain, cream-skinned beauty with real hair the color of a wheat field.
“See my treasures, Tildey?” Willomena grinned at her doll and scratched her itchy nose, her hands grubby with dirt. Mama wouldn’t mind. Dirty hands made the tape grip better. And Willomena’s turn to practice came after Mama’s. She rubbed her fingers on her leotard when a glistening spatter of crushed stained-glass caught her attention.
“What’d you find there, Dragonfly?”
Willomena patted her papa’s shoe fondly before looking up at his face. “A rainbow … a diamond rainbow.” She licked dirt from her lips and smiled.
“Ahhh.” Papa crouched next to her, folding his stature to fit beneath the tallest bench. He tweaked her nose. “Be careful. That rainbow will bite.”
“Don’t discourage the child.” A strange man’s voice erupted from behind her father.
Papa startled upright, standing in front of Willomena to block her view. She peered between his knees.
The speaker stood in the tent’s opening, a black, shadowy giant against the blinding light outside.
“Even at the age of five,” the shadowy figure said, “she’s already seeking treasure in everything she finds. If that doesn’t prove she’s fated for him, I don’t know what will.”
Papa tightened his stance. “You son of a—”
“Now, let’s not get personal.” Three more men had appeared behind the first one, slapping something that looked like sticks across their palms. “How long did you think it would take him to find you? How long did you think you could keep up the pretense?”
“We have friends here … they’ll not stand by blindly—”
“Blinders can be easily bought. Get the girl.”
Willomena sucked in a breath, frozen in place, too scared to know where to run: to Papa or to her hiding place. Grunting, Papa shoved her toward the lowest end of the benches. She ducked to roll under them, her hair catching on the splinters of a seat. As her body completed its turn, the hairs ripped free and she yelped at the pricking in her scalp.
“Run, Willomena! Run and hide!” Her mother’s strained voice drifted from the heights, pelting Willomena’s ears like hot sand.
“Tildey…” Willomena stretched her arm to fish her doll from the basket. One man snatched her wrist but Papa jumped him from behind and broke his hold. Scrambling out onto the other side with Tildey, Willomena ran for the center ring. Her legs pumped, the dirt beneath her taped feet shifting.
Mama and Papa had practiced this with her over and over. She knew where to go; she knew to fold her body up tight into a space so small no one would think to look for her there.
Yet they never told her Papa would be groaning, that he would gasp with each breath. Willomena’s heart pounded, her chest hurt … maybe Papa’s did, too. She glanced across her shoulder, sliding to a stop when she saw him on the ground. One man rubbed Papa’s face into the diamond rainbow while another pounded his shoulders with a stick.
“Papa?”
His neck jerked back to expose his face—stained with dirt and oozing blood. “Get…” He coughed and spat out bits of glass slick with red smears. “Get out … Willomena!”
She started to back away, shaking her head, fingers twisted in Tildey’s blue pinafore. Her throat tightened on a sob. She looked up to the trapeze platform to see Mama wrestling with a rope that had bound around her ankle. Another one of the strangers climbed the ladder to get to her.
Papa struggled on the ground. He overpowered one of the men and pushed up to his knees. They screamed at him in that foreign language now … in the English words only Papa understood.
The second man lifted his stick. A thud sounded when the blunt end burrowed into Papa’s skull. He slumped to the ground and gurgled once. Mama screamed from overhead and Willomena’s arms tightened around Tildey.
Tears blurred her view and an ugly silence stitched up her tummy, making it coil tight. “Papa?” Her voice shivered like the leaves on the trees outside.
The two men rushed toward her, clucking their tongues as if she were a frightened puppy. Her legs didn’t want to move away from center ring. They wanted to run to Papa … to wake him. Her gaze darted toward the tent’s front flap. Where were all their friends? Why did no one come?
“Run!” Upon hearing Mama’s yell above, Willomena dashed toward the back end of the tent. From behind, one of the men caught her elbow, his grip harsh and rough like burlap.
Willomena howled as he tugged her up in midair by one arm. Her legs dangled, her other arm hugging Tildey with all her might. He threw her over his shoulder, knocking the air from her. When she gulped a breath, his tobacco scent sucked through her nose—bitter-sweet like the dark candies Mama liked, and warm like the rum Willomena always smelled on the ring master’s clothes. But the stink of the stranger’s sweat was stronger, and made her nose burn.
Willomena lifted her head upon hearing Mama’s cries. Through a curtain of hair, she watched her dive from the trapeze platform to escape the man on the ladder. She floated toward the net. The abandoned ropes swayed up above her, still creaking as her white leotard flashed like a shimmery cloud descending from the sky.
The fourth man appeared in the shadows beside
the net, holding something shiny and silver. With one stroke of his hand, he sliced the anchor lines in the instant Mama stretched out her arms to land.
The mesh net plummeted beneath her, as useless against her weight as a spider’s web. A sickening crack broke the air when she hit the ground like a bag of potatoes. The ropes stopped swinging. No more creaking songs. Nothing but stillness.
“Mama!” Willomena’s cries shattered in her own ears. Her throat swelled with screams so loud they hurt her lungs. A canvas sack encased her head in blackness. Something inside of her snapped. She screamed again, using Tildey’s stiff body to beat the man holding her. When that didn’t work, Willomena kicked her legs out like Papa had taught her to do … like the circus mules that pulled the wagons.
Hot tears drenched her face; her hair clung to the moisture and itched against her cheeks. Shoes crunched over the dirt, walking toward her.
“Fiery little thing,” a voice rattled in Italian. Words she understood but didn’t want to. “She’s going to need that where she’s going.”
“So, what are our instructions?” The one holding her squeezed tight around her ribs, forcing her to stop struggling.
“First we mark her for the boss.” Willomena felt the knife’s cold blade raking along her leotard at the small of her back, the fabric catching it with tiny pops. “She belongs to him now. Hell. She always has.”
Part I
Not all those who wander are lost.
~J.R.R. Tolkien
One
Diurnal assignments for Friday, April 15, 1904:
1. Oil the carousel’s cranking rods and ring gear; 2. Complete design for new ride; 3. Present Lord Desmond with a written request for funds; 4. Buy a birthday gift for Emilia in Worthington.
Julian Thornton ceased writing on the assignment page in his log and resituated the pocket-sized leather-bound book in his lap. Leaning his head against the tree trunk behind him, he flipped to the back pages reserved for his inner musings. Fountain pen to paper, he opened his mind, giving voice to the ink.
Emilia is sixteen today. My sister—who still occupies my memories as a fine-boned, pink babe swaddled in blankets—is a lady. And I have ne’er felt more inept in our relations. She has sprouted wings and eaten her way out of her cocoon. Now she flies above me, leaving me a mere shadow on the ground. I am an echo fluttering beneath, always a few steps behind or ahead—never in sync.
I can no longer talk to her. She’s too high to hear me. The only secrets we share are those bequeathed us through our lineage; we were both born of a ghost story, after all. And though most people would consider that impossible, to me, the chance of death crossing over into life is more fathomable than the quirks of the fairer sex.
After nineteen years of living alongside ladies, I find that there is an inexplicable pull between the antipoles—male and female—a negative and positive charge that when left uncontained leads to an explosive combustion … an electron-spin so effulgent it renders anyone in its path blinded by the resulting holocaust.
“Hmm … so that’s how you plan to defeat us, aye?”
The same instant the familiar voice broke into Julian’s concentration, two tell-tale drizzles of red syrup oozed down from the branches overhead, landing soundly upon his log’s opened pages. The ink melted into sticky purple-black puddles.
Damn. Inhaling the magnolia-spiced morning air, Julian managed to keep the oath beneath his breath. He’d always been taught one shouldn’t curse in the presence of a lady … he supposed it applied even if said lady was in a tree, cozied up in the branches like a narcoleptic monkey.
He drew out his handkerchief and snapped it open to dab the sickly-sweet pools of raspberry ice from his journal’s page, hoping to salvage the folded parchment beneath, whereupon he had drawn the designs for his newest amusement ride. “Defeat whom, Willow?” He set his book aside along with his pen, regretting the invitation to talk the moment he’d offered it.
“Your mortal enemy, of course. Women. You plan on incinerating us with your electron-spin.”
Julian’s back tensed at her successive snort and his ears grew hot. Having had eleven years to grow up alongside one another, Willow knew how he abhorred anyone reading over his shoulder. He flashed a glare up at her.
“Say, where are your spectacles?” she asked.
Two more sticky droplets fell, this time landing on a snowy magnolia, one of thousands upon the shrubs that surrounded his oak tree like castle walls. Over the past twelve months, Julian had always found solace here in the mornings. However, for the last few weeks his placid kingdom had been stormed by this most formidable foe—quiet as a lizard and clandestine as a cat.
“I’ve misplaced them,” he grumbled in reference to his missing spectacles, turning his head away. He only required them for reading, but often wore them to help people differentiate between himself and his twin brother. “They’ve been absent for days. Hadn’t you noticed?” Hearing a slurp from the leafy canopy which shaded him from the sun, he waited for his intruder’s reply.
“Naturalmente. I knew something was different. Assumed your head was shrinking or some such. Back to the subject … best stop your wool gathering. At this rate, you’ll never get your finance request ready in time. You have to pitch it this morning so you may leave for Worthington before noon. Emilia will never forgive you if you’re not back in time for her birthday dinner tonight.”
Julian folded his stained handkerchief and tucked it in his vest pocket. “And pray tell, how am I to make progress with you blotting out my notes like the wrath of God on judgment day, Willomena?”
A distinctive plop parted the ankle-high grass beside him where Willow tossed down her raspberry ice from above. Julian winced; he’d not meant to spout off her full name. Although it always snapped her to attention, it also sometimes had the strangest impact on her mood—a saddening effect. As beautiful as the name was, he had no idea why it would sadden her. Just one of Willow’s many quirks.
Gnats started to gather on the ice’s slushy remains beside him. Julian grinned. Eighteen years old, yet still the woman wouldn’t breakfast on a kidney omelet or seed biscuit like the rest of the cultured world. And damned if he didn’t find it downright charming.
A rustle of fabric stirred overhead. Even without looking up, he could see her in his mind’s eye—a dizzying sequence of grace and agility despite her inelegant pose.
She would be hanging upside down now, her skirts an inverted tumble of plain cotton that mushroomed her upper torso and head. Her chemise would come untucked enough to reveal the prismatic hummingbird tattoo at the small of her lower back—the mysterious marking which she’d never explained—and her lacy pantalets would serve as the only pretense of modesty or whimsy she’d allow herself.
A gust from her movements raked his plaited hair so the shoulder length braid struggled to wrestle free of its leather tie. Still no need to look.
The branches creaked. She was swinging. Back and forth, gaining momentum until her hands could find purchase on a branch sturdy enough to support her slight weight. She grunted, and a sympathetic vibration shuddered in his throat.
He rubbed his fresh-shaved chin. Eyes closed, he pictured her knees releasing, her body a fluid sweep of olive-gold Italian skin as her bare feet drifted to the ground with all the poise of apple blossoms riding a breezy downdraft.
Just as he envisioned her dropping, he felt her standing next to him, radiating warmth from the thrill of descent.
He looked up to meet her gaze and she frowned, the excess of her skirts folded over one arm. Her dark auburn hair draped to her waist, still holding the ravaged crimp of braids not fully brushed out. Tremors skipped through Julian’s fingers—a repressed desire to tame the tousled mess and return it to some semblance of order.
“I know”—he strummed his pen against his leg—“you don’t like me using your full name. I will try to respect that. But you must respect my wishes, as well. No more reading over my shoulder.”
She bowed to him then—an acrobat acknowledging her captive audience—and the little toe of her right foot wriggled within inches of the collapsed mound of raspberry ice.
He applauded and at last she smiled. He responded with a grin of his own. An effortless response, partly due to the jagged, crimson stain streaked across her lips and the slight gap between her central incisors—the one flaw in her straight white teeth. But the ease with which she made him smile was more than her smudged appearance.
Julian couldn’t keep company with any other woman—save his sister, mother, or Aunt Enya—without breaking into an arctic sweat and losing all function of his tongue. Willomena, however, was different. Whatever a lady might do in any given situation, he could rest assured she would do the complete opposite. Which put her, in his mind, in the league of a man. And men he understood.
Willow trounced onto her posterior without any pretense of straightening her skirt. “You’ve been careless today.” Her slender ankles poked out from the billows of dusty fabric and crossed casually. “You missed a cranking gear. And you failed to oil the center beam.”
Considering her statement, he noted the oily splotches at her wrists and on her gathered cuffs. “I was in a hurry. Desmond and his wife are to leave sometime this afternoon. Thank you for double-checking the rides.”
She shrugged. “I had nothing better to do. You might wish to talk to your brother, though. One of the unicorns is in need of a tail replacement before the guests arrive in June. A squirrel must have nested in it over the winter. I would tell Nick myself, but Lord only knows where he’s about this morning.”
“A nest, you say?” Julian wasn’t surprised. It was the biggest drawback to using real horse hair on the carousel. He scooted over to share the trunk’s support with Willow. She propped her back close enough that their shoulders brushed. His nostrils detected raspberries mingled with her unique fragrance—as exotic and intoxicating as jasmine and black opium—and a sudden and sharp pang crimped his gut. His mouth watered. Hunger, he assured himself. He’d eaten very little breakfast. “So, my brother’s missing again?” Julian noted the quiver of her black coppery-tipped lashes upon his query.
