by H C Turk
“More people than you and I are interested in wonderful animals, miss. Therefore, certain animal professors have collected a faire of them and travel about the world to display the menagerie. Since London is a great city filled with people who would view great beasts, the faire has settled here for a spell. And, I say, miss, it awaits us.”
Immediately I arose.
“Sir, we travel there at once.”
“Yet I am the one accused of loose activity?” he muttered, looking up from his settled position, hand on the dog. “Millney is such a distance that we would not likely return before nightfall even if departing now. I doubt that even your imagination, Miss Alba, is so loose as to save us after we are discovered alone, together, outside in the dark all day.”
“Cannot we simply lie?” I countered. “Is that not the way of sinning Londoners?”
“It is not, as any lady knows. Though we might decide to lie in order to retain peace in our lives, not likely would we convince our superiors.”
“The Rathel will be of no concern.”
“Perhaps, miss, but my parents will be outraged. In all honesty and in genuine shame to me, my father is convinced that you and I should not be acquainted, though he has failed to provide me with an acceptable motive for this belief. Therefore, were he to learn of such a journey as Millney—nay, even one as simple as this—I would fear for the continuity of my existence.”
“You are correct,” I stated while standing above Eric and the dog. “My suffering would be scant. You are the person whose eternal being is in jeopardy.”
“’Tis true, I fear,” he returned with a sigh. Eric then inhaled a huge, loose breath to call out loudly, “We’re off!” and leapt to his feet.
The socialite then established our plans.
“I return home with Randolph, gain funds for our carriage hire and entrance into the faire—and we depart at once for tremendous glee!”
“Or,” I returned, “for astonishing danger.”
• • •
I smelled the creatures a distance removed, and became frightened. Such odors perceived on Man’s Isle would have sent every witch and animal fleeing to seek protection, yet here I was approaching. Eric then explained that the beasts were not only peaceful in essence, but also constrained and thus unable to attack persons if any wild reversion overcame them. But I was no person—I was a witch, and imagined fantastical creatures leaping upon me as had Randolph in his savagery, imagined having to make friends with a hoofed tree trunk with spots as it chewed my neck.
We approached a dress, a huge hoop skirt with a roof, this latter appropriate in that the garment was the size of a building. Eric explained that the impermanent structure was known as a “tent,” the animal faire being housed within. Exiting the carriage, we stepped past a sign denoting “The Drs. Imbriati Traveling Exotique Of Animales.” After Eric provided a sinner with the required coin, we moved inside with other Londoners.
The next smells to accost me were of soil and straw tainted by the wastes of Unknown Animal. After a few anxious steps, I saw the first. Though Eric’s descriptions were excellent and my view was lengthy, I am yet without words to fit a giraffe. And I was relieved upon nearing to learn the beast had no especial concern for the witch who stared up to those ears, down to those bony legs, side to side at those spots, all along the endless neck. Scarcely could I imagine living in any portion of God’s world wherein such a creature was indigenous.
The giraffe was obvious to all, but only I was aware of the rarest creature, aware that the witch’s identity must be retained. Therefore, I placed myself in the audience amongst mother sinners and their cubs. Eric followed me, and between us we promulgated suitable awe. Then my sinning guide led me to monkeys. These beasts seemed virtually normal compared to the giraffe. Considering their boastful screeches and frenetic scurrying bar to bar, was not their imprisonment appropriate? Given a few tools, they could have been sinners.
Then we arrived at the elephant.
“Master Eric, your accuracy in having measured this beast in my mind is astonishing,” I wheezed.
“Yes, miss, and let us so observe as to revive these sights forever, sharing them long after we have departed the faire.”
The elephant’s texture was its most impressive initial characteristic. Sensible it seemed for such a colossal beast to have sturdy grey hide instead of fur. The hooves resembled those of a pig, but the bulk of those toes! The elephant’s nose was remarkable for being out of place, for it seemed either a boneless leg or a fat, hollow tail. And if my responses seem mad, truthfully I was moved toward distracted sensibility by the creature, and was amazed fully anew at God’s ability to effortlessly imagine animals that common people could only wonder of insanely.
Familiar from his previous visit, Eric provided a name for that nose-snake. But the witch was too moved by the grand sensation to heed his composition, viewing the creature’s unerring flexibility, its huge neck, the impossible ears flapping like a sinner’s bed sheet. But why should such a portion be called “trunk”?
“Come, you massive lout, show the good citizens your entire bulk.”
Within the temporary rope room that was the elephant’s home, the creature puffed up dust clouds the same color as its hide in response to a sinner’s influence. Around the beast walked a man with a Continental accent tapping the elephant with a stick, lightly striking diagonal feet to incite the quiet animal into rotating.
“The trainer there, one of the Drs. Imbriati,” Eric whispered.
First I thought the trainer remarkable to have tutored such a brute into accepting guidance from taps so meager they would not crack an acorn. But further examination of this thin timber brought me distaste. I perceived with sight the pointed object secured in its end, for one nail is not enough metal for a witch to smell.
With no thoughts of ladylike propriety, I called out firmly to adjacent Eric, “That sinner is stabbing the poor creature with a lance!”
Uncertain whether to temper my speaking or to agree with my protest, confused Eric remained silent. The trainer, however, replied in affront.
“I bring this great animal across oceans for you to see and am called a sinner for it? I am subject to Satan’s eternal fires because I tap the creature with a tack?” And he held the stick’s poking end up for the crowd to see. “Notice, friends, the size of the tack compared to the size of the beast. See the big difference here. See that the creature shows no pain at all. How could something tiny hurt that skin, which is thick as a thatch roof?”
While speaking his theater piece, Imbriati approached me, finally having words specifically for the offender. Preferably, I would have retreated, but more people had drawn near this grey exhibit, and I would have to jostle them to change positions.
“You’d best thank me, girl, for the control I have over the beast, else he’d go wild as is his nature and be stomping you to be eaten.”
The crowd began jostling its own members with that assertion, but though loud and fearful, the sinners refrained from panicked flight. I remained firm in my position, for the trainer’s assessment was insulting to a witch’s common sensibilities.
“Sir, I defy you to convince these sensical folk that such an obviously peaceful animal eats anything more bloody than straw.”
He was looking too closely at me. Too many strong, uncommon odors were about for sensitive smelling, but his countenance implied checked desire. And I knew how foolish I had been to attract this man with words and thus lure him near enough to be attracted by my person.
“I tell that the young miss is both correct and incorrect,” the trainer announced to the crowd, making me part of his theatrical spiel. “True, the creature is harmless now, but only because of my expert control of its heathen instincts. To prove to all ye fine Englanders my success in having tamed the animal, I invite one of you to feed the thing these nut meats,” and he pulled from his pocket some macadamias, “which the elephant shall eat in her manner.” Then, without looking t
o the animal, the trainer held forth his hand, the beast uniquely grasping the foodstuffs with the end of her boneless tail, curling it up to her comical lips.
“Have we a volunteer to prove the elephant’s peace?” Imbriati queried, looking out to the crowd only to snatch his gaze again to me. “Here we have a fine one, in that she’s proven herself both knowing and courageous in the ways of great beasts, as though they line her path in life.”
Holding out his hand to signify me, the trainer asked the crowd, “Will the miss not do?”
The witch-hating sinners surrounding me of course agreed most heartily—even Eric, the traitorous lech—loudly deciding that I, from amongst them all, would be the elephant’s victim.
“Oh, please, miss,” some revolting wench reminiscent of Elsie pleaded, “might not one of us have the courage to confront the beast?”
“Oh, and, yes, miss, for do you not know better than us the monster’s harmlessness?” some sinning fool reminiscent of the Rathel declared.
As I stepped to the rope aided by the crowd’s rowdy encouragement, my words were only for the young sinner who had led me to this doom.
“My death via trampling shall live with you ever,” I cursed Eric.
He returned a look of utter innocence. Imbriati had a more tactile response, reaching with thick fingers like an elephant’s toes to give the girl a hand, a contact the witch was certain to avoid.
Remaining away from Imbriati, I moved beneath the rope. Once beyond that segregating string, the huge beast was immediate, seeming more landmark than living thing. But I found ingratiating the grace of its swaying head, the kindliness of its eyes and delicate lips, its heavy but peaceful breathing.
“Here now is a nut for the young miss to feed the beast and prove it only formerly a killer,” Imbriati stated, and held out a macadamia for me.
With confidence and no contact against the trainer, I accepted the foodstuff. Supporting the nut on my palm so the beast would not bite away my fingers with its “trunk,” I extended my arm to the elephant, which reached for me with its thick, misplaced tail, removing the food with scant pressure. The sounds of its muscles contracting were massive though quiet, as though a muffled moving of the earth. Louder were the trainer’s clear but foreign words to the elephant. Only after transmitting the meal to her true mouth, however, did the creature respond to Imbriati’s commands, leaning forward to uncoil that frontal tail and push me to the ground.
“Hold, Sheba, you’re no longer the killer!” the trainer cried as the crowd responded with indrawn breaths whose scent was fear. And the elephant refrained from killing me, taking no note of my presence as I looked up to its mass, which had seemingly increased. As he bent to aid my rising, Imbriati spoke again in that strange language—but the elephant was also moving, stepping toward the crowd, which retreated from the murderous beast. Once near the rope, the elephant halted, lowering her slow bulk until reclining between the audience and actors, the male half of the latter aiding the lady by grasping her bosom and thigh.
“The girl is not injured, but is slow to regain her feet from the startling occurrence,” the trainer called out over his obscuring animal while reaching into my apparel to knead my crotch.
Being upon my back with a heavy sinner leaning against me, I failed to remove the man’s hands and roll away. The only part of the audience with a good view of this molestation was the young man who had passed the rope to stand above the groping sinner and the struggling girl.
He could not speak. He could not move farther nor act, Eric only looking downward—more pained than I—unable even to say, “Sir, you will move away if you’re a decent fellow,” unable to cry out to the crowd, to shout for constables.
I was astounded at how thoroughly the trainer was able to hold me down, astonished to find he had circumvented all of Elsie’s clothing to gain an entrance to my body, managing to insert a finger within my baby slot, a contact I found more offensive than painful, though I was angered enough to revert to a wild state no witch could imagine without sinners.
I emitted a thin grunting from the exertion of pulling at Imbriati’s arms and kicking at his torso as the trainer continued to press within me as though a mole making a new tunnel, digging first through the grass of my lace, then into the soil of my sex. But not until my struggles and the trainer’s efforts caused my thigh to be revealed was Eric able to act. His mouth drooping, his face red as though burnt, as though a perverted tart, Eric moved stiffly to the trainer’s stick. His face displaying both fury and dismay, Eric grasped the tool to give this exotic animal a lesson, one not to be assaulting the audience of his opera, not to be reverting to his natural instincts of lust. Not a studious pupil, the trainer paid no heed to the threatening youth until Eric smote him against the head, the educational nail striking the sinner’s skull and remaining.
Breathing as heavily as the elephant, Imbriati fell to his side, reaching with shaking hands to his head, to that wood and metal limb, one completely unlike a trunk, more akin to Satan’s horns.
The witch did not remain. Retaining a fury that Eric had lost, I leapt to my feet to tutor this static youth, who stared at the trainer’s fantastical extremity.
“You wish your stick returned?” I hissed, and grasped his arm, turning Eric from the animals. “We’re off. We leave him as he is and flee,” I concluded, and pulled the sinner away.
Eric responded, moving more quickly now, around the elephant and beneath the rope without a word. I was the only person speaking.
“We go for the elephant doctor,” I announced to the crowd, “for the beast is fevered.”
The audience viewed the departing girl expert in great animals, then turned to the fallen beast and wondered of its illness. They saw nothing of the trainer and his castigation stick.
“I’ll bloody well not have the constables lured to us for saving myself,” I whispered harshly to Eric as we ran.
We gained a waiting coach and returned without being questioned, without being caught. Night remained too distant to endanger the cab’s inhabitants, a pair of distressed humans slow to calm, one a maturing male, the other an angered witch. But she was not the person weeping.
Chapter 15
The Hides Of Monsters
“My journey with the lad was to the street of his home for the purpose of dog walking. No thoughts had I of attempting to escape London as per your accusations of yesterday. In fact, I was ever mindful of returning before Eric was discovered on the street by his punitive parents.”
“Ah, and it’s thoughtful you are, lass, to be sparing your friend difficulties. But as oft you’re learning as an English lady, it’s no prideful thing to be journeying with no permission and no chaperone.”
“What you have learned, Miss Elsie, is that I am no English lady, but an English witch.”
The servant looked to me with a pity to delay her speaking, shaking her head while examining the deluded lass.
“And ever I’m despising this talk of evil in you, girl. At least it’s rare that you’re telling me this, for then me torment is seldom.”
“Confirmation you were given, miss, of my unchanging identity. But the anguish you receive from hearing of my heritage is no intention of mine, for only sinners feel the need to torment each other. This they call ‘society.’”
“And I’m saying, lass, that if you’re so truly moral—as in fact I’m believing—then you’re a lady in your heart and in Jesus’ holy vision. Even a lady witch, then, should not be traipsing about improperly, and you’ll be learning this or finding great trouble instead.”
Displeased Elsie then turned to withdraw, but her final phrase provided me opportunity to search for gossip, this another of the sinners’ social lessons I had learned.
“Before you depart in anger, miss, I must say how believable I find your warning, for Eric and I yesterday heard an odd tale describing a faire for animals and difficulty there with children.”
“Aye, it’s a tale I’m hearing this morning, chil
d, from a passing friend. She’s saying, then, that an elephant animal and its keeper were having a fracas with a youth who wounded him with a club.”
“Your story, therefore, is not of two girls whom the faire owner attempted to hire as hedonistic dancers, becoming so adamant that the young ladies beat this person to death with a limb?”
“No, and I’m hearing of no girls and no killing, only a boy and a wound. Your tale may be the better, lass, but such stories are changing as they move from one person through the next. So it’s young Eric, then, who’s telling you these…compositions, as you say?”
“Similar to you, Miss Elsie, Eric has friends with whom he shares tales both true and modified.”
“Likely he does, lass, in that we’re all having our friends of a similar station. You’d be having your own if you were of a mind to be friendly toward other young ladies, for a few there are about our ward, and from fine families.”
“Oh, what a wonderful idea, Elsie! Kindly introduce me to any capable of walking beneath the sea long enough to terrify their servants.”
“And I’m thanking you again, lass, for the torment,” Elsie grumbled. “As for friends of the lad you’re knowing, perhaps we’re seeing one now, since a boy his age has been looking toward our door the morning with no purpose. Friend or foe, though, I’m about to be learning who this stranger is on our street parked like a waiting carriage.”
I followed Elsie to the front window. There we looked upon a boy with clothing unfit for a sinner of Eric’s stature.
“I’m seeing him early and now I’m seeing him too late; so I’ll be finding of his business or telling him he has none,” Elsie declared, and stepped outside with the official air of one about to command armies.
Separated by a window thicker than sound, I heard none of their speaking. Not so stern a visage was Elsie’s as to frighten witches, but impressive enough to deliver boys with apprehension sensed through glass. In response to her brief speaking, the lad delivered the servant with a slip of paper. As the boy turned to run away, the witch denoted his relief without need of smelling.