This Broken Wondrous World

by Jon Skovron

  I shouldn’t have said that. Because saying it made it completely real in a way I had been trying hard to avoid. Because saying it forced me to admit to myself that I had no idea where my parents and Ruthven and Charon and Laurellen and everyone else was. For all I knew, they were dead.

  I heard the server crash to the ground, but it sounded distant, drowned out by the sudden pounding in my temples. My vision started to tunnel and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath.

  “Boy?” Sophie’s voice came from far away. “You look really pale. Are you fee . . .”

  I dropped to the ground, still trying to get air into my lungs. I looked down and saw that my big, stitched hands were shaking.

  Sophie sat down next to me. She pulled my head down to her chest and stroked my hair and just said, “Boy, it’s okay, you’re okay,” over and over again. Finally, my heart started to slow down and I was able to get my breathing under control.

  “I . . . I think I just had a panic attack,” I said.

  “Are you feeling better now?”

  “A little.”

  “Listen, we don’t know anything for certain yet.”

  “I know.”

  “Isn’t there some sort of escape hatch down into the trowe caverns you told me about once?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “In Ruthven’s office closet.”

  “Maybe that’s where everyone went.”

  The door to Ruthven’s office lay on the floor in splinters. It looked like it had been blown right off its hinges. Inside, the lone desk was intact, but the drawers had all been emptied. The closet door was open and the floor piece that covered the escape hatch was gone. The hole that led down into the ground was rimmed with black char marks.

  “The ladder’s destroyed,” I said. “And I think it’s about a twenty-foot drop straight down to the bottom.”

  “Maybe if we had a rope . . .” said Sophie.

  “That’s assuming the tunnel’s even still intact. It looks like they dropped some explosives down there.”

  “So people might be trapped down there?”

  I shook my head. “There’s an evacuation tunnel. The trowe used it to get people out before I blew up Vi and most of the theater. I think it goes under the river and comes out somewhere in Jersey.”

  “I’ll bet a lot of people got out through the tunnel, then.”

  I stared down at the hole. “Yeah.”

  Sophie put her small hand in mine. “We should probably go. Mozart is waiting for us. Maybe he found something.”

  We went back to the stage door entrance. Mozart was already back in human form and dressed. He raised an eyebrow when he saw Sophie.

  “Hey, Wolfie,” she said.

  “Any luck?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Someone got to it before we did.”

  He grunted. “Whoever did this, they had firepower, and they knew what they were doing. We need a place to regroup and figure out our next steps before we walk into something bigger than we’re ready to handle.”

  “Where can we go?” I asked.

  “I have an old friend up in Harlem. She’ll take us in for a night or two. She’s kind of known for that—offering a temporary shelter for wayward monsters. We might even find some of the others there.”

  IT WAS ALMOST sunrise by the time we got to Harlem. As Sophie and I numbly followed Mozart down 110th Street, I felt like I’d gone so far past the point of exhaustion that I could have slept anywhere. All my worries and questions about what had happened to my parents, Ruthven, and the others still swirled around in my brain, but at the moment, all I could really concentrate on was putting one foot in front of the other.

  “So, who’s this friend of yours?” asked Sophie. She sounded only slightly more alert then I was.

  “Felicia,” he said. “Just a heads-up, she’s a zombie.”

  “What?” I suddenly felt a lot more awake. “We’re staying with a zombie? Aren’t you worried she’ll eat our brains or something?”

  “The whole eating-brains thing was just a Hollywood invention,” he said. “So was the rotting corpse idea.”

  “Then . . . they’re not actually dead?” asked Sophie.

  “Oh, no, they’re definitely dead. And Felicia does have a certain . . . smell that takes a little getting used to. She’s not much of a conversationalist, either. But you won’t find a more generous monster in the world. I wouldn’t have made it past my first week as a werewolf if it hadn’t been for her.”

  “When was that?” I asked.

  “1935,” he said.

  “You’re pretty spry for a seventy-eight-year-old,” said Sophie.

  “Ninety-four, if you must know,” he said loftily. “I was sixteen when I was turned. Like I said back in Lima, werewolves age slower than humans.” He stopped in front of a gray apartment building. “Now shut up. I’m trying to remember which apartment is hers.”

  “Memory not what it used to be, eh, old wolf?” she said.

  “Cute,” he said, and rang a buzzer.

  The speaker clicked on and there was a dull female voice. “Yes.”

  “This old hammer,” said Mozart.

  “Killed John Henry.” She had a faint French accent.

  “But it won’t kill me,” said Mozart.

  “You may come up.”

  The door gave a long beep, and Mozart pushed it open. Then we started up the narrow stairwell.

  “Was that code?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s from an old folk song about John Henry, the guy who raced a steam engine. He won, but died of exhaustion right after.”

  “Sure, I remember that story,” I said. “Wait, was he one of us?”

  “Like I said before, the line between monsters and humans is a lot blurrier than people want to admit. Anyway, the bokur who made Felicia, that was his favorite story.”

  “Bokur?” asked Sophie.

  “Haitian vodoun priest. Some might call them witch doctors. But most bokurs don’t really like that term.”

  A woman stood at the top of the stairs. Her black hair was pulled back in a tight bun and she wore a white button-up blouse, a green cardigan sweater, and long tan skirt that went almost to her ankles. She held a wooden rosary in her hands. Her facial features made me think she was originally from Africa or the West Indies somewhere, although her skin tone was more gray than brown. And as we got closer, there was a weird smell coming from her. Like a dank, muddy river. Not bad, but not exactly pleasant, either.

  She stared at her feet as she said, “Welcome, Mozart. It is good to see you.”

  “Hi, Felicia. Good to see you, too.”

  “Do come in.” Still without looking at us, she slowly stepped aside so we could enter the door behind her.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Sophie and I followed Mozart into the apartment. Inside, it was very simply furnished, with a table and four chairs next to an open kitchen area on one side, and a couch with a few upholstered chairs on the other. It would have looked plain, except the walls were covered in crucifixes and paintings of saints.

  “Please, make yourself comfortable,” Felicia said tonelessly as she closed the door and shuffled in behind us. I started to wonder if this was just a rote script she was following.

  “Thanks,” said Mozart, dropping onto the couch.

  After a moment, Sophie and I dropped onto chairs. Felicia just stood and stared at her feet.

  “Has anyone from The Show come by?” asked Mozart.

  “Yes,” said Felicia. “Laurellen was here.”

  “When?” asked Mozart.

  “The day before yesterday.”

  “Was anyone else with him?” I asked.

  “A female who did not speak.”

  “Did she have hair that stuck out in clumps, kind of like feathers?” as
ked Mozart.

  “Yes.”

  “The Siren. Anybody else?”

  “No.”

  “Did Laurellen say anything to you about what happened?”

  “He said The Show had been attacked. It was no longer safe.”

  “Attacked,” said Sophie. “By whom?”

  “He did not say,” said Felicia.

  “Did he say where he was going?” asked Mozart. “New Jersey maybe?”

  “He said the area was too hot. They were going to meet up with the others at The Museum.”

  “Really?” His dark, bushy eyebrows rose in surprise. “That bad, huh?”

  “Where’s The Museum?” asked Sophie.

  “It’s in Philly. I think we should rest here for a little while before we head out. Agreed?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m ready to fall over.”

  Mozart turned back to Felicia. “I’m surprised he said all that. Just casually.”

  “It was not casual. He said you might come looking for him.”

  He nodded. “Thanks for relaying the information.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Mozart turned back to us and pointed toward an open doorway to another room. “You guys take the bedroom. I’ll take the couch.”

  “What about . . .” I glanced at Felicia.

  “She doesn’t sleep.”

  “Is . . . she just going to stand there?” asked Sophie.

  “Yep. Zombies don’t really have a will of their own. They live to obey the bokur who creates them. Usually, when he dies, they just stand around until some human mistakes them for catatonic and puts them in a hospital or something. After a few months with no one to command them, the spark that animates them slowly fades out.”

  “Is Felicia’s bokur still alive?” I asked.

  “Nope, he died about a hundred years ago.”

  “So why is she still around?”

  “The last thing he did before he died was give her an open-ended command to shelter any monster who knew the pass phrase.”

  I looked over at Felicia. She stared listlessly at the ground. A fly landed on her eyelash but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “So she’ll do this forever?”

  “Or until she’s destroyed.” Mozart looked up at Felicia. “I’ve never been able to decide if it was the kindest thing her bokur could have done or the cruelest.”

  “You said she’s helped a lot of monsters, though,” said Sophie.

  “That she has,” said Mozart. “Now, let’s get some sleep.”

  SOPHIE AND I lay side by side on the narrow bed. Even though I was so tired, I couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was the sunlight that filtered in faintly through the blinds. Or maybe it was Felicia, still standing in the middle of the living room, like she was guarding Mozart while he slept curled up on the couch in wolf form.

  “You still awake?” Sophie whispered.

  “Who could have done this?” I asked. “Who could have taken out the entire Show?”

  “Moreau?”

  “That doesn’t make any sense, though. He said he wanted to recruit us.”

  “Maybe he already asked Ruthven. Maybe Ruthven already gave his answer.”

  We were silent for a moment. Outside, I could hear a few tentative honks, a short burst of laughter, music coming from an open window in the building across the alley. The sounds of the city slowly waking up.

  I turned my head and looked into her bright eyes. “I’m sorry about your mom. I know I said it to Claire, already, but . . .”

  She smiled sadly. “Thanks. It’s sweet of you to think of that when you’ve got your own worries right now.” She snuggled into me. “It seems like every other Jekyll and Hyde is doomed to destroy each other. Our grandfathers, our mothers. Even our brothers seem well on their way to killing each other.”

  “But it’s not going to happen to you,” I said. “You’ve figured out how to make it work.”

  “For now.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she sighed. “I dunno, I’m tired and babbling. Let’s try to sleep.”

  16

  Teratology

  I’D RIDDEN SUBWAY trains, cars, planes, and even a dragon a couple of times, but I’d never ridden a bus before. As I tried to cram myself into the narrow seats, I decided it was my least favorite mode of transportation.

  “Why couldn’t we take a train to Philly?” I asked.

  “It would have been about triple the cost,” said Mozart. He and Sophie sat in the row in front of me. There was no way anyone else was going to fit next to me.

  “Couldn’t we have hot-wired a car like we did that one time?” I asked.

  “Until we know exactly what’s going on and who hit The Show, I don’t want to do anything that might draw attention to us.”

  “Do you have any theories on who it might have been?” asked Sophie.

  “Lots. But there’s no point in winding ourselves up with speculation. We’ll find out what really happened once we reach The Museum.”

  “What is The Museum?” I asked.

  “It’s a place where they have old, dead things on display.”

  “I mean, is it another monster community, like The Show or The Studio?”

  “No, there’s only one monster who lives there full-time. Odd little guy called the Keeper. Not even sure what he is, really. He’s been around as long as anyone can remember. He’s sort of the caretaker of The Museum.”

  “And it’s an actual museum, then?” asked Sophie.

  “It is on the surface. But it’s also sort of a safe house for monsters. Somewhere for us all to go in times of crisis.”

  Vi buzzed my pocket. It took me a bit to maneuver myself into a position where I could actually reach into my pocket and pull her out.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “I’ve been scanning every public news source for information about the attack on The Show.” Her expression was pinched, with dark circles under her eyes. Sometimes I really wondered what Henri had been thinking when he designed these emotion templates for her to use.

  “Any luck?” I asked.

  “None.”

  “What about police records?”

  “Those are clean, too.”

  “So absolutely no clues whatsoever?”

  “Not exactly. As I said, the police records were clean. One evening in particular, they are completely clean. Not a single incident reported that entire night.”

  “In all of New York City? That seems a little unlikely, don’t you think?”

  “Exactly. The lack of information is our only clue.”

  “You think someone scrubbed the database?”

  “What other option could there be?”

  “Do you think you can recover it?”

  “I’m checking now. Even if I can’t, I should at least be able to trace the erasure back to the source. But with my current limited CPU it will take a while.”

  “Maybe there will be a decent machine we can load you onto once we get to The Museum.”

  She stuck her tongue out at me. “With a name like that, I don’t think we should get our hopes up.”

  PHILADELPHIA TURNED OUT to be sort of a blend between New York and Pittsburgh. It had that dense urban neighborhood feel, but it also had a more relaxed, earthy vibe. I almost wished we had time to explore. It seemed like whenever I was traveling, I was rushing to something or away from something. I promised myself that someday, I would come back to all these places when I actually had the time to enjoy them.

  From the bus station, we walked a few blocks, crossed a river, then walked a few more blocks. Finally, we ended up at a big brick building enclosed by a tall, black wrought-iron fence. It had white windowsills, and out front was a white sign that said TH
E SELZNICK MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY AND TERATOLOGY.

  “What is teratology?” asked Sophie.

  “The study of birth defects and other developmental problems in humans,” said Mozart. “Although if you translate it literally from the Greek, it means the ‘study of monsters.’”

  “One of Ruthven’s little jokes?” I asked.

  “Yeah. But it’s also true. This is a teratology museum.”

  “So . . . what does that entail, exactly?” asked Sophie.

  “Come on. You’ll see.”

  We passed the iron gates and walked up the steps into the museum. The first thing I saw when we got inside was a row of skeletons along the left side. They each seemed to have different deformities. Some had weirdly shaped skulls or only the bottom half of a skull. Some had too many limbs, others too few. Some had short little flippers; others had what looked like a skeletal shell.

  “Ah,” said Sophie. She looked a little ill.

  “Can I help you?” asked a soft, quiet voice from the other side of the room. A small man stood behind a desk. His features looked elfish, but he was too short to be an elf and his pointy nose and chin seemed a bit too long. He had big, round glasses and curly brown hair that he kept brushing out of his eyes.

  “How you been, Keeper?” asked Mozart.

  “Bless me, it’s Mozart!” He jumped out of his chair and came shuffling out from behind his desk. “So sorry I didn’t recognize you immediately!” He took Mozart’s thick, hairy hand in his small, thin one, and patted it. Then he turned to me. “And you must be Boy, the son of the Monster and the Bride.”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said.

  He came over and patted my hand the same way, smiling and nodding and blinking behind his thick glasses. “Such a pleasure to finally meet you.”

  He turned to Sophie and squinted at her for a moment, absently pushing a curly lock of hair out of his eyes. Then his smile reappeared. “Ah! And so, of course, that makes you Sophie Jekyll.” He took her hand. “May I say, my dear, that while I heard you had a certain indefinable charm about you, I had no idea it was this potent!”

  “Er, thanks,” said Sophie. “I’m fairly sure there was a compliment in there. . . .”