The Boundless

by Kenneth Oppel

Mr. Dorian shakes his head. Will takes a sip of his hot chocolate. It’s just the right sweetness and very creamy. He still isn’t sure how to speak to Mr. Dorian. Is he a friend, or a prison warden?

  “Are you going to handcuff me again?”

  “That depends. Can we trust you?”

  “Trust me? I’m not the thief.”

  “I have my reasons for being one,” says the ringmaster.

  “What’s so special about this painting?”

  “Quite simply, I can’t live without it.”

  Will gives a sniff of laughter, but then sees the serious expression on Mr. Dorian’s face.

  The ringmaster looks from Will to Maren. “You have a right to know. You especially, Maren, since you’re helping me. I am the inheritor of a family curse—medical in nature, not magical. My great-grandfather, a man of immense strength and vigor, died at the age of thirty-nine. My grandfather died at the same age. As did my own father. All three were felled by a sudden and massive seizure of the heart. I am two weeks away from my thirty-ninth birthday.”

  Looking at Mr. Dorian, Will finds it almost impossible to believe that he could suffer from any illness.

  “Have you seen a doctor?” he asks.

  “Many. And all say the same thing. I have some tragic flaw in my heart. There is nothing to be done about it. It is a clock that will eventually trip over itself and stop.”

  Will isn’t sure what any of this has to do with stealing a painting.

  “Given my parentage, carving out a life for myself was no easy thing,” Mr. Dorian says. “But I did it. I built my circus into one of the finest in the world. But there is still too much I want to do. Too much left to achieve. I will not be snuffed out in my prime.”

  “But you can’t know it’ll happen to you, too,” Maren says.

  Mr. Dorian gives a dry chuckle. “The history is not promising. But I mean to thwart it.”

  “How?” Will asks, glancing at Maren. She looks just as confused as he feels.

  “You’ve heard the legend of the fountain of youth, yes?”

  Will nods. “But—”

  “Listen a moment. The Arawak people of the West Indies told the first Spanish settlers about it. There are many accounts of a natural spring in Florida that bestowed permanent youth. A Spaniard called Juan Ponce de León found it. But he left no written record. I spent years searching for that fountain.”

  “But I thought you didn’t believe in magic,” Will says.

  “I don’t. Why is it any more magical than the sasquatch or the muskeg hag? You’ve beheld both with your own eyes. There’s no magic about these things. We may not understand them yet, but they’re part of our world, and anything that exists in the world is real.”

  “Did you find it?” Maren asks.

  “The site only. The pool had long ago dried up. But I did learn that an enterprising fellow had devised a way of secretly transporting the water. He soaked up the last of it with fabric, and divided that fabric into a number of canvases. And it turned out that if you painted someone’s portrait upon the canvas, that person remained young, and only his picture aged.”

  Will says, “This . . . it can’t be true.”

  “Time is a mysterious thing. You’ve seen how it can falter when we cross a time zone. This water simply helps time forget itself. Beyond that, I have no understanding of the water’s properties. Apparently one of the canvases made its way to England, where it’s been keeping a very unpleasant fellow young for many years; another went to Persia, another still to a Russian prince. One found its way to our shores and fell into the hands of a painter, one Cornelius Krieghoff. He painted a blacksmith shop on it. Clearly he had no idea. Nor did Van Horne.”

  There have been moments—and Will remembers each one—when he has sensed his life shift. He felt it that day in the mountains when he met Maren for the first time. And he feels it again now. The entire world seems much larger and stranger than he could ever have imagined. It now contains not only sasquatch but a muskeg hag—and canvases that can trick time itself. He certainly doesn’t understand it, and he’s not even sure he believes it.

  “I need that painting,” says Mr. Dorian, “and I happen to know it’s inside Van Horne’s funeral car. It’s just hanging unseen, like a relic in an Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb. I want my portrait painted on the back. From that moment on my body will not age. My heart’s clock will not snap its spring. And that, William Everett, is my story. What do you say? Am I a villain?”

  Will thinks carefully. It’s still stealing, but it’s hard to care very much, when it’s something that otherwise is just going to hang in the darkness forever. Why leave it there when it could save a man’s life? And yet . . .

  “Getting Maren to crawl underneath . . . ,” he says hesitantly. “You shouldn’t. It’s not right to ask her to do something so dangerous.”

  Mr. Dorian smiles. “Your chivalry is a credit to you, William. But I think Maren has made her own decision.”

  “Yes,” she says, surprising Will with the annoyance in her voice. “And please don’t bring it up again.”

  He frowns. “All right. . . .”

  “It’s bad luck having someone around who doesn’t think you can do something,” she says. “Hands.”

  He stretches out his hands so she can reapply more skin paint. “I think you can do it,” he says as she roughly brushes makeup on. “But that just turns the power off. Do you even know where the door is?”

  “Of course,” says Dorian. “It’s in the right side, ten feet back from the front of the car.”

  Will tries to conjure it before his mind’s eye. He saw it only briefly that day in the Junction—he was in such a hurry to find Maren. He remembers his eyes getting lost in the complicated contours of the decorations. All those sculpted metal wreaths and garlands and ivy and blossoms and fruit. He supposes the door must be hidden there.

  “And if you get the painting, who’ll do your portrait?”

  “Madame Lamoine,” says Mr. Dorian. “She’s got quite a fine hand.”

  “Ah,” says Will, disappointed somehow.

  The car gives a little forward jerk, and then another longer pull.

  “There we go,” says the ringmaster. “We’re on our way again.”

  “What about Brogan and his men?” Will says. “They must’ve been looking for me. Why else were they out there?”

  “I hope they all drowned,” Maren mutters.

  “I doubt that,” says Mr. Dorian. “But I’m hopeful they might not have seen you properly. In any event, there are too many people up and about tonight for them to try anything. Our door is locked, and I have no need of more sleep. I hope you’re not thinking of running again, William.”

  Will lets out a deep breath. Twice they’ve saved his life—and that counts for a lot. Even if he wanted to run, he doesn’t have an ounce of energy left.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he says, and is rewarded with a smile from Maren.

  “Good.” From his breast pocket Mr. Dorian takes one of the Native tools Will saw mounted on his stateroom wall.

  “What is that?” Will asks uneasily.

  “A Cree hide-scraper. Tricks can be useful, but I’ve often found this can be equally persuasive.” He rests the wickedly sharp metal blade on his lap and turns to face the door.

  “Are you standing guard because of Brogan? Or because of me?” Will asks.

  Mr. Dorian glances back with a smile. “You should try to get a little more sleep before daybreak, both of you. We have a performance at noon.”

  IN THE SALOON

  * * *

  Will sleeps late, and when he wakes, Maren is already dressed, sitting cross-legged on the floor and looking out the window.

  “Where’s Mr. Dorian?” he asks.

  “He’s gone to get us some breakfast. He doesn’t want us wal
king around.”

  Outside the window, trees flash past, their leaves bright with the morning sun. The Boundless has left the muskeg behind. Will sees farmland, enclosed with rough fences, mist still pooled in the low fields. There’s a house and barn in the distance, a horse in a pasture.

  From his bunk he pulls his trousers and shirt from a peg. He dresses under the covers.

  “Do you think it’s true?” he asks.

  “The canvas? I don’t know. He knows so much about so many things. Nothing tricks him—he knows all the tricks.” She shakes her head. “If he thinks the fountain of youth is real, it must be.”

  “How well do you know him?”

  “Not well. I don’t think anyone does. He’s charming when he wants, fiercer than he needs to be sometimes.”

  “Is he a good man?” Will says hopefully.

  “Well, he runs a good circus. No one’s better at finding talent and putting together new attractions. He’s got the best show in the Dominion, and he wants to be the best in the world. Some people think he’s a slave driver, because he gets people to sign contracts for a long time.”

  “Like yours.”

  She nods. “He pays pretty well, and treats the marvels pretty well, but he keeps most of the money they bring in. I heard he had a pretty hard life, growing up.”

  “Because he’s Métis,” Will says.

  “He hardly talks about it. But I think something bad might have happened to his mother. That’s about all I know. He’s a mystery—like everyone, I guess.”

  “It’s just . . .” Will shakes his head, searches for the right words. “Why should he get his portrait on that canvas? Why not the sick boy in colonist class? Why not you? Why does he deserve it? They say the world’s full of saints, and I’m pretty sure he’s not one of them.”

  He looks at the door to their compartment. No one’s guarding it right now.

  “Still deciding whether to help him?” Maren asks.

  Will sighs. “I’m not sure about him. But I want to help you.”

  “You’ll stay?”

  “I’ll stay.”

  Will feels his face heat up in the glow of her smile.

  She takes her remarkable spool of tightrope from the shelf and brushes some dried muskeg muck off it.

  “Why’d you bring it with you last night?” he asks.

  “It’s kind of a habit. You’ll think it’s silly, but just having it with me makes me feel better. Like I can get out of any scrape.”

  “That doesn’t sound silly,” he says. “It makes complete sense to me.”

  “I have a dream sometimes that I’m crossing a big space on my wire. . . .”

  “Niagara Falls?” Will asks.

  “Maybe. And I’m halfway across, and there’s water beneath me, mist churning. I’m so far from land, I can’t even see either shore.”

  “Is it scary?”

  “Not at first. It always starts off peaceful. But then I don’t know which way I’m supposed to go.”

  “If it were my dream, I’d probably fall,” Will says.

  “Oh, I have those, too. Anyway, my spool comes with me everywhere. Just like your pencil, I suppose.”

  Will laughs in surprise. “Yeah. I guess my thoughts . . . well, they float free when my hand and eyes are busy. It helps me think things through. Also, I love it.”

  “I can tell.”

  “It’s fun when you get to certain parts.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. There’s parts you just know are going to be fun. Like a curtain, with all the folds. And shadows, I love those too.”

  “It seems like it’d be hard.”

  He laughs. “Not as hard as wire walking!”

  “When I’m up there, I feel like I can do anything.”

  “Well,” Will says. “I’m not that good a drawer yet. But I want to be.” He thinks of the conversation he had with his father on the first night. “My father wants me to join the company as a clerk.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “Well, I was thinking, if I worked for the railway, I could maybe make things better for the colonists. Get rid of people like Peters.”

  “That would be good,” Maren agrees.

  “And I might be able to help design things,” Will tells her. “Bridges and ships maybe.”

  “I’m sure you’d be good at it.”

  “It’d be a good job,” Will says.

  “Yeah. You don’t really want to do it, do you?”

  “No. There’s an art school in San Francisco I want to go to.”

  “So why don’t you?”

  “My father doesn’t want to pay.”

  She sniffs. “You could work. Pay your own way. I was working from the age of five.”

  He feels childish. Even when he was poor, Will never had to work. Those years when it was just him and his mother, he took care of himself, and ran errands and chopped wood and pumped water and helped wash and clean. But he never worked. Plenty of kids did. In factories, or workshops. He was spared that, anyway. It sounded hard to make money on your own.

  “Maybe I’m not suited for a hard life,” he says. “That’s what my father thinks.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  He shrugs. “If Mr. Dorian hadn’t taken me in, Brogan would’ve killed me. I got hagged—I didn’t even remember to put those muskeg spectacles on. I would’ve drowned if it weren’t for you. . . .”

  “You’re looking at it the wrong way around,” she says. “You got free of Brogan! You ran the deck of the Boundless—at night! That’s something!”

  He nods, and smiles a little. “I like your way of looking at things better.”

  “So you should go to this art school of yours.”

  * * *

  When Will opens the door to the saloon car, noise pours over him like a cascade of poker chips. A song peals from the upright piano in the corner, nearly obliterated by the laughter and stamping of the patrons.

  A high wooden bar runs almost the entire length of the carriage. Men perch atop stools, their boots on the brass foot rail, drinking and jetting their tobacco juice into spittoons. Behind the bar the wall is a long stretch of mirror, reflecting the room back at itself, so it seems even bigger and more crowded. A pair of stuffed pheasants stands startled atop the counter. The antlered head of an elk watches solemnly over the gambling tables.

  Gusting through the maelstrom of smells (stale beer, cigar smoke, sweaty leather) is the scent of women’s perfume—something Will hasn’t smelled since his first night aboard the train. But this fragrance is totally unlike the pale scents he’s used to sniffing in drawing rooms, and on his mother. This smell is big and loud, to match the colorful pleated dresses he sees on the women serving tables, or dancing with the men. The dancing seems all the more raucous because of the general rocking and rolling of the train. Everyone lurches and reels.

  The saloon is a double-decker car, and on the second level, men stand against the railing with their drinks, watching the dancers and the card tables. Doors lead into small rooms, and Will spots a man being led into one by a woman with bare shoulders. He catches Maren looking at him and blushes.

  Their porter ushers them over to the middle of the saloon. Against a wall they’ve made a small platform out of whiskey crates and hung a curtain across it so there’s a little backstage area for the performers.

  “I hope this is all right,” the porter says.

  “I’m sure we’ll have their undivided attention,” Mr. Dorian replies drily.

  “Oh, they’ve come to see you,” the porter says. “That’s why it’s so crowded.”

  At one of the card tables a man stands up with a whoop of glee and a fistful of cash. Immediately one of the other men launches himself at the winner, and they tumble about on the floor, beati
ng each other. Behind the bar the barkeep takes a sledgehammer from its brackets on the wall and slams it loudly onto the counter. Quickly the fight breaks up and several men limp away, bloodied.

  “Well, I’m looking forward to this,” Maren says as the porter swiftly departs.

  “Shall we prepare?” Mr. Dorian says, ushering Will and Maren behind the curtain.

  Hidden from the saloon, Will removes his coat and thinks: After this, just two more performances, and then I’m back in first class. But another part of him surges with nerves and excitement for the show.

  They arrange their props carefully. Removing his jacket, Mr. Dorian suddenly winces, his face pale, but then he takes a breath and stands taller.

  “Are you all right?” Will asks.

  Without a word the ringmaster steps through the gap in the curtain.

  Will and Maren put their faces to the opening. He’s aware of the faint metallic mustiness of her jeweled costume, but also the gentler fragrance of soap and skin and hair that seems such an innocent smell in the saloon’s oppressive beeriness.

  Mr. Dorian stands on the makeshift stage, saying nothing. Somehow his mere presence quiets the crowd. The noise ebbs like a gale that has blown itself out. Silently, methodically, Mr. Dorian rolls back his sleeves to the elbows.

  Will has no idea what the ringmaster will do. He doesn’t discuss it ahead of time. So Will is just as curious as everyone else. Mr. Dorian lifts his arms into the air, fingers spread. Then he closes his hands, and when he opens them again, he’s holding a card in each one, between thumb and first finger. Will can see they’re both the two of hearts.

  A few grunts and whispers rumble across the saloon.

  “My granny does it better,” someone sneers.

  Behind the curtain Will whispers to Maren, “They don’t seem too impressed.”

  “Just wait.”

  “What’s he going to do?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Mr. Dorian holds the cards aloft, turning them from side to side, showing the crowd they are just single cards he holds, no more.

  With a flick of his wrists, a three of hearts is added to each hand. There are a few grunts of appreciation, and a smattering of tepid applause. Mr. Dorian stamps his foot against the crate floor, as though reprimanding them for their disbelief, and a third card appears in each of his hands. Very slowly he waves his arms in the air like entranced snakes, closer together, farther apart. And more cards keep appearing in his hands: a five of hearts, a six, a seven . . . and he is moving faster, stamping time with his heels like a flamenco dancer, the cards forming fans.