Oddity

by Eli Brown

  Yellow Mouse turned his cloud-colored eyes skyward. “What have you seen here?”

  “I’ve seen armaments as good as any we have,” Clover answered, “and lots of them. I’ve seen Yellow Mouse alive and making plans, and I’ve seen more than just the four Sehanna tribes here. It looks like some plains Indians are here too, ready to fight under your banner.”

  Yellow Mouse laughed. “Let her tell them that!”

  The chief and Margaret argued briefly in their own tongue, then she grabbed her rifle and left. Yellow Mouse sat in silence for a minute, squeezing his great-grandson’s feet.

  “I’m telling you, there will be trouble at the mine,” Yellow Mouse said.

  “I know that.”

  “If you come here again, you will be shot from a distance,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” Clover replied.

  At last, Clover had a horse. It was a strong breed with short legs and an oatmeal-colored coat. It wasn’t terribly fast, but it didn’t flag even though Clover pushed it hard past the stake walls of the camp and down a wooded trail, hoping she was moving in the right direction. As the sun set, Clover heeled the little horse into a faster gallop. She’d lost too much time already.

  Yellow Mouse had given her a cake of smoked pigeon, pumpkin, and cranberries wrapped in a corn husk. Clover had gobbled it as soon as she rode out of the camp, licking the grease from the husk shamelessly. It reminded her so much of something she might have eaten at home, she almost felt happy. For once the heavy bags were off her shoulders and her belly was full.

  She cut across a shallow stream and emerged from the trees just as the sun notched itself into the slot made by the mountains, and the light cut through in great shafts of pink glory. Soon the foothills rose up around her. She shot out of the grasslands and charged through a narrow passage cut by floodwaters at the beginning of time. The cliffs were painted dream colors by the setting sun. She heeled the horse again, ignoring the chafing from the unfamiliar saddle and ignoring too the Indian riders who followed her at a distance.

  The Sehanna tribes weren’t much for horses, preferring their hidden networks of running trails or a swift canoe, but some of the plains warriors who had joined their ranks at the camp were practically centaurs, and Yellow Mouse had arranged the loan. Clover didn’t know enough about plains tribes to identify them, but the horsemen who followed her wore buffalo-fur mantles and sweeping leather tassels that danced behind them as they rode. Clover wondered what would happen if more plains tribes migrated north to join the Sehanna. Would the Confederation crack under the strain of so many different cultures? Or would it become stronger with every new member?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by an unsettling odor. She smelled the Wine Marsh miles before she saw it.

  The cliffs fell away, revealing an uneven terrain dotted with stunted trees. Clover heard the horse’s hooves squishing and looked down to see rivulets of dark mud. The riders behind her whistled, and she pulled the horse to a stop. She patted its cheek gratefully, then dismounted to remove her bags.

  The riders whistled again, and the horse returned to them. Then they took a trail up into the hills. Clover waved her thanks, but the riders did not wave back.

  Susanna muttered to herself contentedly in the haversack, but Clover could feel that Sweetwater was hungry. She let the serpent slide down into the stunted shrubbery to find prey.

  With her eyes closed, Clover could almost smell the rodent that trembled somewhere nearby, sense the warmth coming from a little hole in the ground. She didn’t want to see what came next. She opened her eyes and forced herself to focus on what was before her: the vast, turgid wasteland called the Wine Marsh. The smell coated her nostrils, as if she’d stuck her nose in a jar of pickled fish.

  She felt the Indian riders watching her from the hills, even if she couldn’t see them. If they knew a safe route through the marsh, they had not told her.

  The sun was long gone by the time Sweetwater returned, belly thick with some swallowed rodent. Clover looped the snake around her neck like a scarf and walked through a stand of sickly-looking trees. She knew better than to attempt a crossing in the dark. She found a pile of dry leaves under a leaning tree and curled up under her shawl.

  Clover tried to guess at Hannibal’s progress. Parts of Abbot’s Highway were snow covered year-round, and Clover prayed that Hannibal was half-buried in a blue drift. Her shortcut through the prairie at the Sehanna border had saved her miles. If she could cross the marsh, she’d be nearly there. The marsh gave off an unnatural warmth that kept winter’s chill at bay. Her belly was full. Sweetwater’s belly was full. She used the bags as a pillow and was asleep before the moon rose. Clover slept strangely well.

  In the morning, Clover picked her way between fetid upwellings to stand on the edge of the purple sea. Her heart sank. Swarms of flies roiled overhead, droning like a warped cello. The bone-gray trunks of dead hawthorns reached skyward like the arms of drowning men. Unkind vapors bubbled up: hot wine and rotten eggs. A wandering haze drifted over the surface of the wine. Clover was already dizzy, and she was only on the edge of the disaster.

  How many had become disoriented here, walking in circles until they collapsed? And if the vapors weren’t enough, there was the sinking mud and the thirst.

  The carcasses of migratory birds punctuated the inky muck, ducks and geese that had made the mistake of landing. Their brittle bones crunched as Clover worked her way around the edge, looking for some sign of safe passage.

  A legendary oddity, the Wineglass had touched the lips of kings and queens before being lost in the Louisiana War. No one really knew who dropped it. Now it lay overturned somewhere under all the muck, pouring more and more wine into the mud. Wine enough for all the world to celebrate.

  When the drifting haze encompassed her, Clover held her nose, but the smallest breath made her so dizzy she knelt to keep from falling face-first into the muck. She couldn’t go around. The marsh was too wide and the edges were so steep she’d surely fall in. She was thirsty already, and wished she’d asked Yellow Mouse for water.

  But she’d stalled long enough. Every moment she spent looking for a better course, Hannibal was moving toward the mine.

  Clover removed her boots and took a tentative step, sinking up to her shins.

  As she tried to pick her way through the shallow areas, she saw odds and ends in the wine: combs, lanterns, rifles — all cast off by desperate wanderers trying to lighten their loads.

  When she looked up again, Clover was already lost. The mountains had shifted around her. The dead trees she’d been using as landmarks all looked the same. The marsh branched into inlets and fingers, and even the sun was hidden behind the haze.

  Clover pushed on, trying not to think about the bodies beneath her, the half-preserved corpses of fallen soldiers. Knee-deep in bubbling contagion, she tried to sing a song but couldn’t remember any words. Step after step, she pushed deeper.

  Sitting on a slick log to catch her breath, Clover felt her father’s ghost catch up with her.

  “What an unholy mess,” Constantine declared.

  His voice was patient and steady, and Clover longed to go back to the simpler time when all she had to do was follow his orders. She looked at him. His jaw was shaded with stubble, and his coat was fraying at the shoulder seam. Clover had the irrational impulse to mend it.

  “Well, it’s our mess,” Clover said. “This marsh is still bleeding from the last war. There’s no avoiding the past.”

  “A good doctor —”

  Clover interrupted him. “How could you ask me to be tidy when you knew what I was?”

  “Trouble breeds trouble,” Constantine said.

  “I am the trouble. It’s in me.” Clover felt the anger welling up. “What happened the night mother died?”

  Constantine calmly shooed flies away from his face, the same infuriating cipher.

  “You promised to teach me everything you knew. You didn’t even tell me what I am.”
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  “I gave you the tools to become a respectable doctor, to live a simple —”

  “Was I born this way?” Clover cut him off. “Am I one of her experiments? Was she . . . pleased with what she’d made?”

  “It is enough that you are my daughter.”

  “Are you so afraid of me?”

  Constantine looked hurt, but he didn’t answer.

  “I can’t change what happened to you,” Clover said. “But if I figure out what happened to us, I might be able to change what happens next, for everyone. If you have answers, real answers, speak. I’ve had my fill of lectures.”

  Constantine looked at Clover as if he didn’t recognize her. Clover knew she was filthy, trudging through this toppled world. Tidy was far behind her. Maybe she wasn’t his daughter any longer.

  “I fear for you,” Constantine said at last. It was the simplest truth he’d ever given her.

  Clover looked at the fetid expanse of wine, feeling the ghost shimmering beside her, nearly vapor. “I have to do what you couldn’t. I have to face Mother.”

  She left her father behind her and trudged on through the muck.

  Clover’s toes pickled as flies braided past her head. She was so thirsty she caught herself considering a drink from the thick liquid. Susanna’s muffled grumbles mingled with the faint whispers of the Hat.

  Most of the marsh was deep enough to swim in, but Clover knew her bags would pull her under, so she sloshed through the shallows. If the muck hadn’t been filling her footprints, Clover would have had proof that she was going in circles.

  She panicked when she saw the sun already setting. But it wasn’t the sun. It was a bright yellow patch on the edge of the marsh. Clover rushed toward it, fell face-first in the muck, and pulled herself up. She wasn’t hallucinating. It was a wagon, a yellow wagon.

  Bleakerman’s

  In the distance, Nessa Branagan was filling her tonic bottles with marsh wine.

  “Nessa!” Clover called, but the sour air had curdled her voice, and she sounded like a crow. The vapors made the shore swim. It was hard to know how far away salvation was.

  Clover made a desperate dash across a slimy mat of algae and found herself chest deep in the filth. She tried to pull herself out, but with every move she sank deeper. The flies settled on her lips and neck, impatient for a feast.

  Sweetwater spiraled up her arm to safety, then darted away, a pale current on the surface.

  Clover sank fast, lifting her chin to keep the wine out of her mouth. Sweetwater had gone too far, and Clover didn’t know if she was going to throw up or faint. Susanna climbed out of the bag and tried to pull Clover by her braids, but there was no solid ground to pull from. The Doll sank deeper with every tug.

  Clover tried screaming, but a splash of rancid liquid slipped into her mouth, and she choked and spluttered.

  The haversack tugged her down, so she let it slip off her shoulder and sink. But the medical bag floated, its thick leather holding air. She rolled over it and managed to pull her upper body out of the muck. With Susanna tugging and Clover kicking, inch by inch, they managed to thrash onto a shallow bar of sludge.

  My father’s bag saved me, Clover thought.

  When she finally reached half-solid ground, Clover picked up Sweetwater and stumbled toward the wagon, covered in inky mud.

  Nessa knelt on the bank, bottles clinking. “She was stubborn,” Nessa muttered to herself. “I told her that snake was deadly . . .”

  “Charlatan,” Clover croaked.

  When Nessa saw Clover, she turned pale. “Don’t haunt me! I found a doctor as fast as I could!”

  “I’m too stubborn to die in a drunkards’ inn.” Clover coughed. Despite herself, she was glad to see Nessa. “Water?”

  “No one survives a Sweetwater bite.” Nessa trembled as she handed over her canteen.

  “I did,” Clover said, and poured clean water into her mouth.

  A splash of water revealed the snake hanging in loose loops around Clover’s neck.

  Nessa screamed as she ran. “Vengeful spirit! Show mercy!” In her panic she ran straight for the spot where Clover had almost drowned.

  Clover sent Sweetwater to cut her off. It was only the sight of the viper skating across the water that stopped Nessa from tumbling into the sinking mud.

  “Now, come here,” Clover commanded, slumping exhausted against the wagon wheel. “Ghost or not, you owe me an apology.”

  For a moment Nessa was too rattled to speak. She stood gawking at Clover and her companions. Susanna scrubbed her muddy back against a tree, shaking leaves down around them. Her cotton was stained indigo, probably for good.

  Clover felt the serpent return, twirling up her leg to hang like heavy rope over her shoulder. “Sweetwater is mine now,” Clover said. “Or I am hers. In any case, she’s not going back to your jar.”

  Nessa blinked. “But how did you . . . ? I mean, where did you go? I found a doctor, but you’d vanished. No one would tell us where you went. Those people were afraid of you.” Nessa squinted. “They think you’re a witch.”

  “Not a ghost. Not a witch. I don’t know what I am.” Clover sighed.

  “I had a terrible time trying to get my wagon out of Brackenweed. That city went mad. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Do you know a passage through this marsh?” Clover asked.

  “On foot? Impossible.”

  “Can’t cross with horses,” Clover said. “They would sink faster than we would.”

  “There is one way to get across.” Nessa shook her head. “But you won’t like it.”

  “Nessa Branagan, I didn’t ask for a birthday cake. If you know a way across this marsh, you best tell it.”

  “I would do anything to help you, Clover. I feel so sorry for how things went.”

  “Then show me how to cross.”

  They climbed into the wagon and rode along the shore in silence, Nessa casting glances at Clover from time to time.

  “Where are you going?” Nessa asked.

  “To the Seamstress. I’m going to stop this war if I can.”

  “Why do you care so much?”

  “It’s a war!”

  “But you seem to take it personally.”

  “This mess just keeps getting bigger,” Clover said. “I thought Father had hidden his secret in the bag, but it was hidden in me.” She looked at the marsh. “It’s also hidden out here. In New Manchester, in Louisiana, in the old mine. It is all around us.”

  Nessa said, “You’re looking to uncover business buried long ago. But some things are buried for a reason.”

  “And you just accept the stories your uncle told you,” Clover countered. “Some of us need more than opera lyrics.”

  If Nessa was hurt, she hid it by combing her hair. “Uncle was a storyteller, it’s true,” she said finally. “He painted the world in brighter colors. He wanted people to smile. So I smile when I can. That’s how I remember him. When you talk about your father . . .” Nessa shook her head.

  “What? Say it.”

  Nessa squinted at her.

  “I loved him!” Clover said.

  Nessa shrugged. Then, as they passed through a curtain of brittle willow branches, she opened her mouth again. “It’s OK to be angry at him, you know. Even though he’s your pa. Even though he died.”

  “You have no right,” Clover said. “No right to say that.”

  “Getting yourself killed won’t bring him back.”

  Clover caught her breath as if she’d been slapped.

  “I know you want to set things right,” Nessa continued. “But some things just stay broken and we have to go on living with it.”

  “You,” Clover bit each word off. “Don’t. Know. What I’m living with.”

  “We both lost —”

  “Your uncle died in an accident,” Clover shouted. “A spooked horse! The men who killed my father were there because of me. They were looking for me!”

  “How is that your fault?” />
  “My father hated oddities. He abhorred them. What did he think of me? You can’t understand.”

  But Nessa was right. Clover was angry. She was angry at Nessa, angry at those murderers, and yes, angry at her father, who could have warned her, could have told her so much, could have saved her all this trouble if only he’d explained things, if only . . .

  She was close to tears, but she tried to play it off by wiping the grime from her forehead.

  “Your father lied too,” Nessa said gently. “He lied to keep you safe.”

  Clover waited for the anger to flare — waited for the words to scream at Nessa — but instead she felt melted inside, tired and sad.

  Suddenly Nessa was holding Clover. Irrepressible, appalling Nessa had taken the reins in her teeth and draped her heavy arms around Clover’s, squeezing her tightly.

  And with the hum of flies around them, the stiff remnants of a dead bison stinking nearby, Clover returned the hug, because she needed it. She had needed it for a very long time. Nessa had a way of accepting things just as they were. Her arms created a shelter that Clover hid inside for three breaths, four . . .

  “You’ve got your wagon back,” Clover said.

  Nessa took up the reins again and gave her a smile. “They said Smalt was dead, so I reclaimed what was mine to begin with.”

  They came at last to a narrow inlet hidden by stunted trees. There, hanging from a thick branch, was a large brass bell.

  “Are you sure you must cross?” Nessa asked.

  Clover just nodded. Nessa leaped down to ring the bell three times.

  “Don’t tell me there is a ferryman,” Clover said.

  “Not exactly.”

  They waited, watching the mists dance over the wine, until a shadow emerged. It was a pontoon with a little shack atop, a shabby home built to skim over the wastes. A man with a long pole guided the pontoon toward the shore. He scratched himself, and rabbit ears flopped from his hat. Even at a distance, Clover recognized Willit Rummage.

  The poacher banked his pontoon on the shore and yelled up at them, “Is it payday again already? Who is that with you?”

  “I said you wouldn’t like it,” Nessa whispered to Clover. “Willit knows the marsh better than anyone. What do you want me to tell him?”