The Hidden Goddess

by M. K. Hobson

  “How interesting,” Emily said, if by interesting one meant gruesome and queer.

  “Well, his family had hit a rough patch, and he wanted to feel that he could be some use to ’em.”

  “Did he die?” Emily asked.

  “Well, eventually, I suppose he did. But not from me buying his eye.” Pearl lifted a hand. “That was strictly a money transaction, fair and square. I meant him no harm. We had an old Celt Witch do the honors for us. He woke up five pounds richer, and I woke up with one eye that could see for miles without strainin’. Didn’t do much for my fine appearance, but somehow I managed to convince Mrs. Pearl to take me anyway.”

  Pearl took the larger brush and dipped it into one of the opened pots, which contained powder that glowed white. He carefully tapped the end of the brush over the pot and conveyed a minute amount of the white glowing dust to the hair stick in his hand.

  “Ye don’t want to be breathing too much of this powder,” he commented quietly. “Faery Readers have gone mad from years and years of inhalin’ this infernal stuff. Not as mad as the Faery Writers, of course, but that’s why you never had one who was th’ other.”

  “How do you mean?” Emily asked, watching as he gently brushed one side of the hair stick with the brush. His movements were clean and precise. “You mean that Faery Writing and Faery Reading aren’t the same profession?”

  “Completely different,” Pearl said. “Faery Writing’s about the most maddening magical occupation a man could undertake,” Pearl said. “That’s why no one does it anymore. There’s better ways to hide secrets now. Cryptocrystalography, Otherwhere Encoding …” He paused, squinted closer at the hair stick. “Gar, look at that, will you! It’s there all right. And bless me if it ain’t in violet scale!” He turned to look at Emily, and it was as if his strange golden eye peered at her through the tiny end of his long loupe.

  “Violet scale?” Emily prompted him.

  “Why, I haven’t seen violet scale since … well, ever! No one writes violet scale. No one in their right mind, that is.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There are a variety of scales at which Faery Writing can be executed,” Pearl said. “Red scale, that’s the largest. Most Faery Writers, back in the day, they worked in the red scale. Most any Warlock with a pot of red reading could decipher it. The scales got smaller after that … orange scale, yellow scale, green scale, blue scale … You saw yellow scale sometimes, and blue scale almost never. But violet scale …” He shook his head. He opened a specially fitted compartment in the black enamel box and pulled out a very tiny vial of glowing purple powder. He paused, showing her the vial.

  “In all my years, ever since I put this kit together, I’ve never had call to open this vial even once,” he said. “And here it is, my last day in this city after ten years, and you come along. It’s like fate, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, certainly,” Emily said.

  “The only folks who used violet scale much at all were the Russians. It was a particular favorite of Peter the Great’s secret service. Maybe you got some old invasion plans for the coast of Malta scribbled on here.”

  Pearl lifted out the tiny vial of glowing purple powder and placed it carefully onto his workbench. He opened the vial and brushed it on the hair stick. Infinitely tiny writing appeared. Pearl peered at it for a long time.

  “Oh, I’ll have a headache for days from reading this,” he said ruefully. “I’ve never seen tinier.” He paused again, squinting harder. “Wait, I can just make out a name … Aleksei Morozovich. Just as I guessed. Russian!”

  Aleksei Morozovich. She knew that name. Where had she heard it? She turned it over and over in her mind, trying to remember.

  “Yes, I can decipher this,” Pearl said after peering at the stick for a little longer. “It’ll be tedious line-by-line business, and I’ll have to stay up all night working on it, but I believe I can have it ready for you first thing in the morning, with a transcription written in my own fine hand. But I won’t do it for a penny under two hundred.” Pearl’s tone was slightly apologetic, but firm. “That’s the price of the headache I’ll have once I’m done.”

  Emily licked her lips. Even though she was sure Pearl expected her to haggle, it sounded like a fair deal, and the thought of haggling over her dead father’s memory was repugnant to her.

  “All right,” Emily said firmly, extending her good hand. They shook on it. “But I am sorry you’ll have to stay up all night.”

  “Oh, I’ll sleep on the train.” Pearl waved a hand. “And I wouldn’t have slept tonight anyway; all the beds have been packed up and we’re camping out on blankets. The kids are all aflutter about it. Kids love adventures.” He put a finger aside his nose. “Grown up folks, too, sometimes.”

  Emily smiled at him.

  “Tomorrow morning, then?”

  “Tomorrow morning,” Pearl said, bending back over his work.

  * * *

  When she got outside, Farley was nowhere to be seen. Emily had been in the shop for quite a while, though, so it was to be expected that he’d found someplace to park the carriage and was waiting nearby. The traffic had picked up considerably as morning marched toward noon; the street hummed with flower sellers and fruit vendors and drayage wagons and light carts.

  She went next door to the shop Mrs. Pearl had directed her to. And, indeed, there it was in the window—a large, full-length picture of her in the extravagant white ballgown she’d worn the night of the Investment, posed with her glittering ringed hand resting on her shoulder. It scarcely looked like her, the picture had been so carefully retouched and softened. She looked like an angel.

  When she went into the shop, she was hardly surprised that the clerk did not recognize her. In the picture she was all white and glowing and sparkling and delicate. In real life, by contrast, she was grimy from spending two hours in Abner S. Pearl’s back room and the feather on her hat was drooping limply from the already oppressive heat.

  “Can I help you, miss?”

  “I’m interested in obtaining a copy of the photo in the window … the photo of Miss Emily Edwards.”

  “Nice picture, isn’t it?” he asked. “What size did you want? Cabinet or portrait?” He showed her both, and she selected the one that seemed small enough to pack but still large enough for Mrs. Pearl to show off in her store.

  “So you sell these?” Emily asked. “But they have the name of another studio on them.”

  “Oh, we didn’t take the picture,” the man said. “We just sell copies. Pictures of well-known folks are sold all over town. I imagine you could find this photo in a hundred stores from the Battery up to Harlem. It’s our most popular print.”

  “You have to be kidding me,” Emily said.

  “Well, especially after all the brouhaha that’s been going on at the Institute. Everyone knows about Dreadnought Stanton, but no one knows about this mysterious beauty he’s marrying. I hear she’s some kind of cattle baron’s daughter. Rich as Croesus, I’ll wager. She’s awful pretty, don’t you think?”

  Emily blushed, but didn’t answer.

  “That Dreadnought Stanton, I’m sure he’s a fine man,” the clerk continued. “Son of a Senator, he comes from good stock. But a man needs a good woman to stand behind him. To help him keep his feet on the ground.” The clerk looked at the photo, and Emily saw something in his eyes—a mix of wistfulness and desire. It startled her. And it was so terribly odd, this man staring at her image so longingly while the real her was standing right in front of him, in flesh and blood, and he didn’t even make the connection. The clerk was transfixed by the Emily Edwards in the photo, but he didn’t give the real Emily Edwards a second glance.

  After a long moment staring at the picture, the clerk looked up at her, gave her a cheerful smile.

  “Let me wrap this up for you, then.”

  After Emily purchased the photo, she returned briefly to Pearl’s shop to deliver it. Mrs. Pearl had gotten the children cleaned up for
the promised trip to the ice cream parlor, and they waited in a neat—if somewhat disorderly—line as Emily used a steel-nibbed fountain pen to carefully write the promised accolades. Mrs. Pearl smiled at the inscription as she waited for the ink to dry.

  “As good as money in the bank, an endorsement from the beauty queen of New York City!” the woman said gleefully. She looked at Emily. “Don’t you worry about a thing, Miss Edwards. I’ll keep my man working on those items for you all night, if required. And thank you … Thank you!”

  Emily shook the woman’s hand and left the shop quickly.

  From the distance came a rumbling, creaking sound. Emily looked up at the elevated tracks above the street as a huge steam engine thundered overhead. Ashes and soot and sparks filtered down in a fine snowy drift as the train passed; passersby, apparently used to being showered with bits of debris, lifted newspapers or parcels over their heads. Emily darted forward, taking shelter behind a large wagon loaded with boxes of live chickens. The birds chuckled at the beauty queen of New York City as she brushed flakes of ash from her dress.

  The sound of a whooping laugh from across the street made Emily look up from her dusting. Her eyes found a bookseller’s shop across the street—a hole-in-the-wall with tomes piled high on rickety tables out front. On one of the tables was a great pile of red books, freshly printed. The color was quite eye-catching.

  There were two men standing in front of the shop, laughing with a big man in sleeve garters who appeared to be the proprietor. They were holding up one of the red books, passing it between themselves, reading passages. The recitations, which Emily could not hear, sent the men into gales of impolite laughter that was accompanied with some pointed rib-elbowing. Emily’s eye caught a flash of green; Farley in his leprechaun-hued livery was standing just behind the men. He appeared to be listening to them, but unlike the others, he was grim-faced and unsmiling. He snatched the red book from the hands of one of the men, and with a sour word, handed money to the proprietor.

  The proprietor ripped a sheet of brown paper from a roll and began to wrap the book in brown paper and twine. Emily picked her way through traffic, crossing the street at a trot to avoid being flattened by a team of Clydesdales pulling a load of brewery barrels.

  As she came closer to the bookshop, she noticed that a much larger group of men was walking briskly toward it as well. It was a gang of young men in brightly colored suits. They moved like schooling fish, swerving as the others swerved, kicking cans and conversing loudly among themselves. Emily had often seen groups of such youths in her clandestine travels through the streets of New York; she’d heard them called b’hoys, rowdies, or soaplocks. They had a rolling gait and surly manner, and Emily had always felt it wise to give them a wide berth. Achieving the safety of the sidewalk, Emily came to a dead stop as she watched the first of the young men—the loudest, the one who seemed to be their leader—come face to face with the bookshop’s proprietor.

  The young man planted his hands on his hips, looked over the display of red books with a frown, and began spitting curses in the proprietor’s face—a string, indeed, of the filthiest expletives Emily had ever heard. Within an instant it became too much for the big man in the sleeve garters to bear. He lifted his hands in a pugilistic stance. The young man moved with the quickness of a striking snake. With one hand he grabbed the fabric of the bigger man’s collar; with the other he delivered a vicious uppercut. In a heartbeat, the other b’hoys were throwing themselves on the older man, fists and feet flying. The big man, quickly overwhelmed, crossed his arms before his face and fell to the ground, yelling for help.

  There were startled cries from all around. Farley, along with the two men who had been laughing and elbowing each other over the red book, hurried to pull the young men off. And in an instant, the beating became a full-fledged melee. Young men left off kicking the moaning proprietor and launched themselves at the would-be rescuers. Fists flew, women and children ran screaming, men tumbled to the pavement.

  Emily watched, horrified, as two of the young men began to pay particular attention to poor Farley in his silly green livery. One of them cracked him hard across the mouth, sending him reeling; the other followed up with a hard sock to his midsection. Farley groaned, stumbled.

  “Stop it!” Emily shrieked, running in Farley’s direction. “You … thugs! You rotten dirty hooligans, stop it!”

  The sight of a woman rushing them, screaming at the top of her lungs, made the two young men step back, grinning at each other meanly. Emily fell by Farley’s side, putting her arm around his shoulders. She looked up at the pair of young men, who were now laughing at her. “Two on one? Shame on you!”

  “Shut your rum-hole, lady, or I’ll shut it for you,” one of them offered, showing her a meaty fist.

  “Rackers! Finnegan! Get over here and help me throw these down.” The words came from the young leader who had started the brawl. He had beaten the proprietor into unconsciousness, and was now using his heavy boot to kick over the tables with the red books on them. With a joyful whoop, Rackers and Finnegan came like called dogs, gathering up handfuls of the red books and tearing them in half along the spine, sending ripped pages fluttering down the street in cheap, pulpy drifts.

  “Miss Emily,” Farley grunted, trying to rise, “we have to get out of here. The Stantons will have my hide.”

  Emily stood, helping him up. He remained half bent, his arms clutched around his belly. As he was rising, Emily saw the brown-paper-wrapped book on the sidewalk, and she snatched it, tucking it under her arm.

  “Hey!” the young leader shouted at Emily, striding over toward her. Farley turned, tried to hurry her down the street, but the hooligan clapped a heavy hand on Farley’s shoulder and made a grab for the book under Emily’s arm. “You’re not going anywhere with that. Give it to me!”

  For the first time, Emily was able to get a close look at the young man, and to her astonishment, discovered that she recognized him. He had anarchist eyes and an overbite. It was the young man she’d seen in Stanton’s office the day before. Gormley, that was what Stanton had called him. Emily stared at him as Farley put himself between Emily and Gormley’s grabbing hand.

  “Don’t you dare touch her!” Farley spat at him, balling a fist. “You rummy bastards should know better than to touch a lady! Shove off or I swear to God I’ll flatten you!”

  Without a word, Gormley delivered two lightning-quick punches to Farley’s face before the man in green even knew what hit him. Blood blossomed from Farley’s nose, cascading down his chin; he reeled.

  “Mr. Gormley, stop it!” Emily screamed.

  At the sound of his name, Gormley disengaged, breathing hard. Rackers and Finnegan closed around him, a threatening phalanx. Gormley glared at Emily for a moment, trying to place her. Once he did, his face transformed from sneering menace to sullen complacency.

  “Miss Edwards.” Gormley dragged a dirty fist across his face, wiping some of Farley’s blood from his cheek. He pointed at the brown-wrapped book under her arm. “That’s one of the books, miss. Everything in there about Mr. Stanton … it’s dirty lies!”

  “Well, whatever they are, they’re fluttering down every street in the Bowery!” Emily pointed to the drifts of paper blowing down the street. “You’ve scattered them like dandelions! How many more people will get hold of those pages now, eh?”

  Gormley clenched his teeth. His eyes burned into her like acid.

  “I don’t know anything about that,” he snarled. “All I know is we’re charged with getting rid of all of ’em. All of ’em.”

  “What do you mean, charged? Charged to destroy a business? Who charged you?”

  “Why, you were in the office same as me when he said it,” Gormley spoke through clenched teeth. “He doesn’t want to hear about it. So he ain’t gonna. He ain’t gonna hear about businesses that sell lies and garbage. He ain’t gonna hear about them getting just what this one got.” He extended his hand, made a curt motion. “Now hand it over.
”

  “No.” She tucked her arm down tightly. Rackers barked a laugh, balled a fist, began to step toward her. Gormley restrained him with a raised hand. He looked at Emily.

  “Give it to me,” he repeated, softly and slowly. From the direction of the bookshop came laughing hoots and screams and the sounds of breaking glass. Emily realized that she was shaking, from the top of her head to the bottoms of her feet.

  “No,” Emily said, biting the word. “I won’t.”

  Gormley took a step forward, grabbing Emily’s shoulder, pulling her close. Farley grabbed for her, but Rackers and Finnegan swept forward as one, shoving him backward, following him as he stumbled back. Emily stood before Gormley, his head close to hers, his breath smelling of onions and whiskey. His fingers dug into the place where her neck met her shoulder, clasping hard, making her wince. His other hand was on the book, tugging at it, trying to pull it out of her grasp. She held tightly, wrapping her body around it.

  “Listen, you stuck-up bitch,” Gormley hissed. “I take my orders from Mr. Stanton, not from you. Just because you’re his—”

  The sound of a police whistle shrilled through the street.

  “Run for it, Gorm!” Rackers was already sprinting away; Finnegan was not far behind. Spitting a curse in her face, Gormley gave Emily a hard parting shake before taking one step back, then breaking into a run as well. He and the other young men faded into alley and saloon, swiftly and silently as dirty water running down a drain. Emily watched as the police arrived, three of them in dark-blue wool uniforms, running heavily down the sidewalk, whistles blasting.

  “Miss Emily!” Farley was at her side. “Miss Emily, are you all right? Did he hurt you?”

  “I’m fine, Mr. Farley,” Emily said, her fingers playing along the edge of the brown-paper-wrapped book as she watched the police bend over the still-unconscious proprietor. The destruction wrought by the swarm of young men was awful. Tables and windows were smashed, and everywhere, the tattered remnants of red books fluttered in the wind.