by Eli Brown
“You’re with them?” Clover stared at Nessa, the truth sinking in.
“Don’t take it hard,” Willit said, climbing onto his horse. “Nessa comes by it naturally. Her uncle was the best swindler I ever met! He spun golden lies and picked a pocket with every song.”
“Shut your mouth!” Nessa raged, her fists balling at her sides. She looked like a bull about to charge. “You do not talk about Uncle!”
“Pick up the pace, boys,” Willit said, ignoring her. “And someone throw a jacket over that cage.” He half stood in his stirrups to scratch his calf, then heeled his horse into a gallop.
Digger clicked his tongue and whipped the horses pulling the wagon.
“You liar! You . . . pox!” Clover cursed as the wagon lurched past Nessa. She felt her heart, just moments ago ripening with hope, withering to a rotten apple.
“Hold up!” Nessa shouted at the poachers. “Wait!”
She made a dash toward Clover and leaped up to catch hold of the wagon. Bracing herself against the cage with one hand, Nessa started tugging on the latch, saying, “They said they only wanted the oddities —”
CRACK!
Nessa went rigid as the sleeve of her shirt shredded. The cloth fell away, exposing a spiral of welted skin. A brand circled her upper arm, blisters rising even as Clover watched. Stunned, Nessa landed on her butt in the road.
Willit held up his smoking Pistol. “Last warning, Nessa!” He had fired without looking, and still the bullet had cut a sinister path through the fabric of Nessa’s sleeve, leaving her arm intact.
Nessa got to her feet and stood in the billowing dust, her tears cutting bright lines down her cheeks.
Clover found the gold tooth in her pocket and threw it into the dirt.
“You killed me, charlatan!” she spat.
Bolete and Digger exchanged some tense words, and then the long-necked man removed his duster and draped it over Clover’s cage. It smelled like cheese and only covered two sides of her view.
“Nice and comfy?” Bolete asked.
Clover didn’t answer.
Willit had gone ahead again, but Clover heard the other poachers lingering on the trail — probably scouting for trouble. Peering out from under the coat, she saw crows sitting in the trees like bottles of Bleakerman’s tonic. She felt the pockets of Digger’s long coat but found only smears of lard and crumbs of coal.
“Where are you taking me?” Clover asked, swallowing her fear.
“Most of our hauls go to Senator Auburn these days,” Bolete said. “He’s got a hunger for every oddity he can lay his hands on.”
“What happens then?”
“What do you think happens?” Bolete said. “We sell you with the rest of the mess and come away rich as bear fat.”
“But what would Senator Auburn want with me?” Clover asked, her voice quavering.
“He’ll burn you, I expect.”
Clover shuddered. “Burn me?”
“What else are you good for?”
At this, Clover’s mouth went dry and her vision narrowed. She pushed the desperate words out. “I am a doctor’s apprentice. Tell Willit that if he sets me and Hannibal free I can cure him of that rash.”
“It ain’t a rash,” Bolete said. “It’s a curse. He’s been smote by the witch, and she gives him no rest, even though he’s tried an’ tried to get on her good side.”
They were passing a derelict hunting shack when Bolete cussed, pulling the wagon to a shuddering stop. “Aw, bung worms! It’s Smalt!”
The coat had slipped down enough for Clover to see Willit standing by the road, talking with a tall dandy dressed in a blue satin suit that could have come from a prince’s closet. Even in New Manchester, Clover hadn’t seen anyone wearing such a lavish costume, though she had seen illustrations of styles like this from before the Louisiana War. Lace frothed at the ends of his sleeves, and his cravat was so thick it looked like it was strangling him. The preposterous curls of Smalt’s wig were held in place with periwinkle ribbons. The wig sat high on his head, slightly off center, and the faint breeze blew clouds of white powder off it like snow from a mountaintop.
Behind him stood a hound the size of a pony, its cheeks like steaks dripping with gravy.
Smalt leaned toward Willit like a rotten tree. Clover remembered the word “Smalt” mentioned briefly in a journal paragraph about dangerous oddities, but she had imagined Smalt to be a bottomless pit or a poisonous cloud hovering in a desert somewhere. Now she saw that Smalt was a man.
“You see?” Willit said, pointing at the wagon. “It’s nothing but a load of junk. We have nothing you want. Begone, devil.”
Smalt spoke with a curdled voice. “You forget your manners. Shall Smalt tell your cohort why you wear the ears?”
Willit said, “There’s no reason for threats. I’m in a hurry, is all.”
“But you hurry east, when your esteemed buyer is northwest, in Brackenweed, where I myself am headed. You must be running side errands. For whom?”
Willit looked over his shoulder before saying, “The one who makes the dead birds sing.”
“Oh, her.” Smalt dismissed this with a flick of his wrist. “Smalt already knows about your sordid history with the Seamstress. Stop stalling and give me my due!”
“What more do you want? You’ve already milked us dry!”
Smalt wrinkled his nose. The huge dog took its cue and lunged, backing Willit against a tree. With the hound’s paws pinning his shoulders, Willit’s hand went to his Pistol, and Bolete raised a rifle. But Smalt didn’t flinch. He adjusted his wig and said, “Consider carefully, ragpickers. Recall that Smalt’s messengers are posted in every city. If something happens to me, they will deliver the envelopes exposing you.”
Smalt’s slick voice made Clover’s skin crawl. His accent was high society, but every syllable came up wet, like a frog trying to escape a butter churn. “Even your Pistol cannot reach my messengers,” he continued. “Shoot me only if you wish the newspapers to print your every secret. Your deepest, most ruinous — but what is this?”
He pointed to Hannibal. “Is that who I think it is? The senator will have your hide —”
Willit said, “The senator don’t need to know.”
“You know I’m happy to keep a secret.” Smalt spotted Clover half-hidden under the coat. “Are you trading in urchins now?”
“She’s nothing,” Willit said. “A mountain girl with a bounty on her head.”
While the growling hound kept Willit pinned to the tree, Smalt strolled to the wagon. This wasn’t the kind of rescue Clover wanted.
Smalt tugged the coat off the cage, and the two examined each other. Smalt’s suit and wig looked antique, but it was impossible to guess his age, for his face was caked with a cosmetic so thick it cracked and crumbled at the corners of his mouth. His false teeth seemed too large, and he spoke around them like a horse considering the bit. He held an enormous top hat of blue silk.
“Has she got secrets?” Smalt asked, his teeth clicking wetly behind his lips.
He snapped his fingers, and the dog let Willit go.
“No,” Willit said. “Just a prairie surgeon’s daughter.”
“But a bounty means there’s surely something in there. Smalt will find out.”
“Ten dollars and I get to listen,” Willit said, edging warily around the hound.
Smalt’s chin lifted with disdain. “Out of the question!” He teetered a bit in his heeled boots and steadied himself with his silver-headed cane. “A secret shared is no secret at all. In exchange for not telling the senator that you’ve abducted his prized chicken, Smalt will give this mountain girl a little squeeze. It won’t take long. You and your idiots take a stroll. Find some weeds to water. We’ll be done here before you can shake it dry.”
Bolete and Digger climbed down from their seats as Hannibal squawked, “This mistreatment is an affront to the dignity of a decorated officer —”
Smalt sniffed once and gestured for the dog, whic
h placed its paws up on the wagon on either side of Hannibal’s cage, growling. “Take that with you!” Smalt said. “My Hat doesn’t work on beasts.”
Bolete hoisted Hannibal, cage and all, off the wagon. Then the poachers sauntered down the trail, leaving Clover alone with Smalt.
His suit bunched at the joints as if his limbs were held together with twine. Despite its obvious expense, his sky-blue coat seemed too small one moment, then clownishly large the next. Between the heavy face-cake, the towering wig, and the gloves, not an inch of his skin was visible. By the way his clothes warped and buckled, it was clear he was the frailest of men, doused in a geranium perfume that gave Clover an instant headache. But of all the unsettling things about Smalt, the worst was the way he looked at Clover, as if she were a pudding he intended to eat.
“Salutations.” He smiled, and his lips puckered around the teeth to keep them from slipping out. He opened the lid of the cage, and Clover pulled herself up with a grunt. She would have leaped out, but her legs were bloodless from the cramped quarters, so she just stood in the cage. This close, Smalt’s perfume stung her eyes.
“Don’t you touch me,” she said, trying to sound brave while she waited for feeling to return to her feet.
Smalt laughed as he turned his Hat in his hands. “Touch? Creature, you are filthy! No, Smalt shan’t touch you.”
With his cane, he rapped the crown of his Hat like a drum. He ran his gloved finger around the velvet rim, which was spattered by purple stains, as if someone had spilled wine on it. Then he presented the Hat before her, like a server offering a meal.
“Whatever you do,” he said, “don’t look inside.”
Before she could think better of it, Clover looked into the empty Hat, and the darkness inside seized her. She could not look away, no matter how hard she tried. Waves of nausea churned her gut.
Smalt grinned. “They always look.”
Clover tried to wrench her face away, but her eyes were pinned to the bottom of the Hat. She couldn’t even blink.
“For a doctor’s daughter, this shouldn’t be unfamiliar,” Smalt said. “Think of it as a purging.”
A sickly gasp escaped Clover’s lips as the cramps got worse. She was going to vomit.
“Come on, then,” Smalt said. “Out with it.”
Then Clover was retching, but instead of bile, tendrils of moist indigo dripped from her mouth and nose. The inky mist coagulated into twitching forms as it pattered into the Hat, forming letters and words, scurrying ants dancing out a horrid calligraphy. Clover heard a whisper:
I stole molasses from Widow Henshaw’s pantry.
Smalt tsked. “Smalt isn’t wasting time on molasses. Come now, pest, reach deep.”
I threw the Ice Hook in the lake.
“Who cares what trash you threw in a lake? Do you have a secret or not?”
Father died because I wanted to be like Mother.
The words fluttered like drowning moths into the Hat. Clover almost fainted with the shame of the confession, but Smalt pursed his lips reproachfully.
“I have a feeling you can do better.”
He flicked the rim of the Hat, and Clover doubled over as the secret she was trying to keep clawed up her throat. She swallowed hard, her guts turning inside out. She almost passed out trying to keep the secret down.
“This must be a good one!” Smalt said, shaking the Hat a little, as if he were begging for alms. “Go on, don’t be stingy.”
Clover groaned as a surge of sour fluid filled her throat, writhing into a grub. It whispered as it slowly emerged:
I carry . . . the necessary oddity . . . something so secret not even Agate knew about it . . .
Clover’s eyes bulged, bloodshot. She clenched her jaw shut, nearly fainting with the effort, but the bitter larva slipped through her teeth and plopped into the Hat.
. . . in the medical bag.
“Much better,” Smalt purred. “What does this oddity do?”
Clover shook her head. She didn’t know.
“Necessary, is it? Could it be the oddity that a particular senator has been searching for? The key to beating Bonaparte? No matter; I’ll ask him myself.” The ghoul pulled his Hat away, and Clover could finally blink. She clutched the top of the cage to keep from falling over. Smalt brushed the last wisps of sticky vapor into his hat before placing it over his wig and giving it a jaunty tap to keep it in place.
He grinned at her and said, “Don’t you feel lighter now? Unburdened? Cleansed?”
“Please.” She coughed. “You mustn’t take it.”
“Of course Smalt will take the bag. How could I not, after you’ve told me what’s in it?”
Smalt pushed Clover back into the cage with a single finger, making a disgusted face, and locked it. “I don’t normally trade in oddities. Secrets are my particular passion, but if it is as special as you say . . .” He peered about the wagon until his eyes fell on the medical bag, and he snatched it with a spidery arm.
“Certain entities are paying top dollar for such things these days.” He snapped for his dog and untied his horse. “Senator Auburn is, as we speak, traveling the state gathering his support. Democracy is not a lucrative business, but war is, and the senator puts on a grand party.”
“Please,” Clover begged. “I promised to protect it.”
Smalt was already in his saddle. Over his shoulder, he said, “Well, you tried your feeble best. Don’t punish yourself. A juicy secret like that, who could keep it to herself?”
Before Smalt could ride away, Willit and the other poachers emerged from the trees with their pistols drawn, blocking his exit. The dog growled, but the poachers stood their ground.
“What’s in the bag?” Willit asked.
“That’s between Smalt and the girl. You know how secrets work.”
Willit scratched and twitched, following an itch down his neck and into his shirt. He scratched so hard, Clover could see welts rising on his skin. “I said you could take a secret. I didn’t agree to the bag.”
“You lied. She’s more than a mountain girl. And Auburn would be unhappy to know you’re dealing with the Seamstress on the side. So I will keep your secret and this bag,” Smalt said. “Now, have your apes step aside; I have a distance to cover.”
Willit stared at Clover and then at Smalt again. “If you want the bag so bad,” he said, “it must be something good in there.”
“Are you proposing an exchange?” Smalt cocked an eyebrow.
“You only got one thing that I want.”
“Very well,” Smalt sighed. He removed his Hat and held it toward Willit, who flinched away from it.
Clover watched that Hat with disgusted fascination, careful not to let her sight fall inside the rim. The body of the Hat buckled and swelled, churning with an ocean of secrets. How many people had been its victim? What truths were trapped inside that awful oddity?
“Go on, then,” Smalt said with a treacly smile. “Fish it out.”
“Just reach in?” Willit was nervous.
“Hurry up. I have appointments to meet.”
Turning his head away, Willit reached a shaking hand into the Hat and felt around. Clover heard distant voices, screams, even a lullaby coming from the hat, as if a rabble of ghosts were trapped in the velvet lining. One woman’s voice was so familiar that Clover’s breath caught in her throat. She stared at the Hat, straining to hear the words. But they were too faint and faded back into the river-hiss of whispers before she could understand them. Wincing, Willit finally pulled out a dark and dripping cockroach. Its legs scrambled in the air, and Clover heard bits of Willit’s secret hissing from its steaming carapace:
. . . give me my due . . . used the Pistol . . . Seamstress’s curse . . .
“Hold on tightly, now,” Smalt warned. “Once released, a secret may cling to the underside of a shoe or scamper under a pillow. It might spread it wings and fly for miles. When it finds a warm, unsuspecting ear, it will crawl inside to lay its eggs . . .”
&
nbsp; Willit clutched it as it squirmed. “What do I do now?”
“Put it back where it came from,” Smalt said.
“Put it back?”
“Isn’t that what you want? To keep the truth all to yourself?”
Willit shoved the secret into his mouth. It fought, choking him, and he was forced to chew it. Clover nearly retched again, watching bits of the secret falling out, only to be caught and put back in Willit’s mouth. Finally Willit had swallowed the whole mess.
“There, now,” said Smalt. “Your little secret belongs to no one but you.”
“But what’s to keep you from telling it anyway?” Willit blurted, looking very ill.
“Without proof in the Hat, such stories are nothing but wind. Smalt does not trade in rumors. Anyway, your secret wasn’t worth much. Pitiful as it was, no one would have paid for it but you. I only kept it as leverage.”
Willit sat on the ground with his head between his knees, trying not to vomit. He waved his Pistol, and the other poachers stepped aside. Smalt pulled the Hat firmly onto his wig, mounted his horse, and started off down the trail, heading northwest with the hound loping behind.
As he passed her cage, Smalt gave Clover a wink and touched the rim of his Hat, a gentleman’s gesture warped into a threat. Faint threads of indigo unfurled from the Hat behind him, as if the secrets wanted out. Clover could almost make out words in the soft hiss of whispers trailing behind him as he hurried away, mischief . . . malevolence . . . Miniver . . .
Clover pressed her forehead against the slats. Had it said Miniver? “Stop him!” Clover said, clutching the slats. “Bring him back!”
“Let it go,” Willit sighed, setting Hannibal’s cage back on the wagon. “Smalt has done it to all of us. Everyone wants to kill him, but no one is brave enough to try.”
Hannibal continued his protests, “. . . you’ll face the fires of justice . . .”
Willit ignored him and put his face close to Clover’s cage. “All my life I’ve been looking for just a piece of the luck that others got,” he said. “But what becomes of a man who tries to crawl out of the scorched beans and squalor of life? He gets cursed by a witch. At night I can’t sleep for the itching. All the sweaty day I can’t get no rest from the itching.”