Stone Mad

by Elizabeth Bear

  Mad as I was, I hoped to hell it weren’t an ill omen, us spending that night apart. I thought about asking her to stay for the show, at least, as we’d planned, and I expect if I had and she had we would have got over our mad and worked something out. But I didn’t get it out fast enough. I guess my pride was in the way of my common sense, as happens sometimes, and they tripped over each other and both went down in a tangle.

  Then she shrugged, and without another word she turned around, headed for the cloakroom, and left me standing there. And it happened that it didn’t matter if I was looking at her square or not, because I just managed to hold that sob back until I heard the latch click, and not a greased second longer.

  * * *

  The ladies’ parlor was on the way of being an antechamber to the powder room, which was fortuitous, because I weren’t no sight to be seen in public. I ducked through the connecting door and found me a water closet to try and weep silently in. It’s a hot mess crying in silk because you have to catch every tear and drop of snot before it touches the fabric, or the fabric will spot something terrible.

  And so here’s your big bad U.S. Deputy Marshal Karen Memery hunched on the lid of a fancy flush toilet in the nicest hotel north of San Fancy-cisco, holding her corset sides and trying not to sob out loud. One reason to learn to cry ladylike is that sobbing in a corset bruises up your rib cage something awful. Well, I ain’t never had the knack of crying pretty, and that night weren’t going to be the first time.

  Nobody came in, and I finally wound down on my own. I took a deep breath, cautiously, and felt all the sore spots. I didn’t just get the rib cage, but the diaphragm too, and that hurt enough that I managed to settle myself with it. I felt like a horse had kicked me right in the breadbasket, and I thought of my U.S. Marshal friend Bass Reeves, who was from Texas, teaching me about tortillas and how to grill a skirt steak, which was that same part of the animal, and slice it thin.

  That was the bit on me that was hurting so bad. I wondered if I had tenderized it good.

  That seemed to put a finish on the waterworks, so I hoisted myself out of the water closet, walked out to a sink, and washed my face in the cold tap water. The ranch didn’t have no running water, just a well pump in the yard. Priya and I didn’t mind—we could fetch and carry and boil, and knowing my Priya she’d be putting in some sort of Mad Science to run us piping-hot water for washing right into the kitchen before long—but I determined to enjoy the city luxury while I was here. I hadn’t worn paint, not even rouge, because I was a respectable lady now, so my face didn’t need repairs beyond the icy water to bring the swelling down.

  I was dabbing myself dry on a hand towel white and fluffy enough that it could have served for the guests at Madame Damnable’s, still careful not to spot my dress, when the door opened up and the velvet-faced lady in black stepped inside.

  She didn’t seem surprised to see me, from which I done surmised she’d seen two of us go in and only one come out, and that she knew there weren’t no second entrance.

  “Miz Horner,” I said, in my politest, when she’d been staring at me a little while. Sizing me up, like.

  “Well, young lady,” Mrs. Horner said, “that constable informs me that you are an upstanding citizen, in your own way, and he says, I quote, ‘She’s the bravest girl in Rapid.’ So I’m taking it upon myself, as a kindness, to say I hope you aren’t wrapped up in any shenanigans with those henna-headed she-devils, and that if you are, you’ll disentangle yourself fast as fast may be. They will do you no good in the long run. Immoral as cats, the pair of them, and as serving of themselves.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. Because whether her face was velvet or not, she weren’t wearing it like it brooked no argument.

  “You aren’t in cahoots with those rampallions?”

  “No, ma’am. I ain’t never met them before tonight.”

  “‘I haven’t ever,’” she corrected, and for a moment she looked and sounded so much like an older version of Miss Bethel that I laughed out loud. It didn’t do my bruised-up skirt steak no favors. I gasped and clutched my middle.

  “God damn my fajitas,” I said, right out loud, and had to stop myself from laughing again because that would have continued to hurt like the dickens.

  Mrs. Horner studied my plumpness like she could see through the corset. “Young lady, you’re not . . . expecting, are you?”

  I almost laughed again but rescued myself in time. A good year of my life spent seamstressing without no needle, if you take my meaning, and I weren’t about to turn up pregnant to Priya. Not unless she had talents that had remained hidden to me so far.

  “No, ma’am,” I said.

  She cocked her head. You might say birdlike, if it were a bird big and tough enough that you’d be worried about it eating you if it took a decision to. “Maybe you can explain to me, then: Why do they call this hotel the Rain City Riverside when the city it’s in is called Rapid?”

  I knew all about that, and you may have noticed that I do like the sound of my own voice. “The Riverside is the oldest hotel in Rapid City. So the thing is Rapid City used to be named Rain City, which to tell you true I think is prettier, but the mayor back then and the city council decided ‘Rain City’ wasn’t so great for tourism. And then they thought ‘Rapid’ sounded more like the sort of place people wanted to move to. So Rapid City it was. This would have been near on twenty, twenty-five years ago, long before I was born.”

  She got a little smirk like old folks do when you talk about your age, but I ignored it and kept talking. “Some folks held out, though, and one of them was old Mr. Bartholomew Roberts—no relation to the pirate as far as I know. He had already named his hotel the Rain City Riverside. You didn’t get to be the third-richest man in the Washington Territory by paying to have perfectly good signs repainted.”

  “Not to mention,” she remarked, “the elegant stonemasonry over the main entrance.”

  I nodded, my pin curls bobbling. “That’s about the only place in the building you’ll find any stonemasonry to speak of, though. The fireplaces and the foundations is laid stone, not dressed, and there ain’t no dressed stone nor brick in the place anywhere.”

  “The whole foundation? Of this great place?”

  “The Riverside is old enough that there weren’t no dressed stone nor brick in Rapid at the time it was built and any suchlike had to be brought in from more civilized climes, so it’s all laid stone and lumber, cut and planed from the first mill in town, before the Gold Rush even started. Which is the mill on the rapids you can see from the dining room, in point of fact. So it’s wood-frame, but they didn’t spare no expense with what they had, if you take my meaning.”

  The place looks like it ought to be in San Francisco. It’s a castle folly with the crenellations at the top, and in addition to that it’s all over jigsaw gingerbread, and it’s painted in the most amazing shades of violet, periwinkle, cream, lavender, and gray. It looks like something you ought to eat, not something you ought to go eat in, and it’s got turrets and gables and balconies and foofaraws and a slated roof patterned in three different colors.

  Sometimes I just like to stop and look at it.

  She laughed, as if the question had been as much a test of my character as a request for information, and nodded judiciously. “If you’re the bravest girl in Rapid City, then, I wonder. Would you like to earn some money?”

  Whatever I had expected her to say, it weren’t that. I contemplated it: Priya and me weren’t destitute, not by a long shot, and the pretty little ranch was paid for. But I knowed pretty well how easy it was to get hurt gentling horses, and that was the only trade I had that Priya’d let me get away with plying anymore. Well, maybe real millinery.

  The bills wouldn’t stop coming if either of us had to stop working.

  “Is it dangerous?”

  “I rather think you’d find it intriguing,” she said, which weren’t exactly an answer. But then she continued, “No, not dangerous. Nor illegal.
My sainted husband was an illusionist—”

  I said, “I know. I’ve a ticket for your show tonight.”

  She smiled, and it seemed genuine. “Well, I was his mechanical engineer. And some of the membership of the Pacific Coast Brotherhood of Illusionists will be attending the show tonight. Most of it I can handle on my own, but for one of his illusions it wouldn’t hurt to have some help. Would you like to be my lovely assistant? It will be two hours of your time, including a little training.”

  “It don’t involve burning no boxes of live doves or nothing? Because I won’t be a party to none such as that.”

  “You do know a little.”

  I nodded.

  “No animals harmed,” she promised. “And I will pay you twenty dollars.”

  My eyes may have widened. Even in a Yukon Rush town, it was a fair chunk of change. Our fancy dinner hadn’t cost more than a dollar for the both of us, and another fifty-cent piece for the champagne.

  “That’s a yes then. Good. Bring your lovely friend along,” Mrs. Horner said with a smile.

  “She’ll just reverse-engineer your trick,” I said, honestly, and then kicked myself. Priya would just about kill me for queering her chances. And then I thought that Priya would like to about kill me for other reasons right now anyway, and felt worse. Also, she’d be mad as hell to miss this, and I didn’t know how to catch up with her with a message begging her to come back.

  Well, served her right for walking out on me. Sure, and I’d keep telling myself that to keep from thinking of her going home tonight to our little ranch house and climbing into our little tick bed all by herself. There’s two reasons a feller does something stupid: one reason’s pride and the other reason’s love—or lust, at the least of it—and those reasons ain’t no different for women. And when you got both tangled up in each other, well, that don’t end well for nobody.

  Mrs. Horner cocked her head at me, more like a curious tortoise with her lined face under her little ruched black hat than like a bird. “She’s an engineer?”

  “Just a tinkerer,” I said. “She ain’t got her Mad Science license yet. If she ever wants to get it, I mean.” I half-hoped she would and half-hoped not. It was exciting to think of her doing all that inventing, but the backhouse was already going to be a mess, and I was scared to think of what she might do if she got the dueling bug or somewhat.

  “You must bring her along then doubly,” the old woman said firmly, and pressed two slips of paper into my hand. They had glossy printing on them. Passes, with the big word “BACKSTAGE.” “It’s always a pleasure to meet another engineer. Especially a woman.”

  * * *

  I walked out of the ladies’ room wondering if I could borrow or rent a horse to ride after Priya and bring her back for the show, or if it would be better to go to the Western Union office in the hotel lobby and ask the rider there to hustle after her with a telegram. Would she even come back for me? Thinking about asking left me curled up inside with worry about her refusing me again.

  I weren’t sure I could take it if I groveled and bribed and she told me a flat no.

  But them two passes from Mrs. Horner felt like lead weights in my reticule. This wasn’t something I could do without her, not and hope to ever make it up. I paused in the hall, and decided right then that I would in fact go talk to the concierge and get him to rent me a livery horse. My da was a horsebreaker before a wild colt killed him, and I can ride as good as anyone. I could catch her, all right, if anyone could—and at least try to get her to come back. And if she wouldn’t, and if I missed out on Mrs. Horner’s demonstration, well, I would have Priya, and in five years that would matter more than a magic show. Even a magic show I’d waited my whole life to see.

  Priya definitely mattered more than my need to be up to my neck in whatever excitement was going on.

  I had just about made up my mind when I remembered that I was still stinging from her trying to pull rank on me. If I was her wife and so I had to do what she said, then what did that make her to me? I had no intention of being no man’s cur, no, nor no woman’s neither. And if I went running after her and knuckled under, wouldn’t that just prove that she could push me around any time she chose to?

  Well, if these kinds of decisions was easy, nobody would ever make ’em wrong. This one had to be made fast, though, because she had a head start on me and that lead was opening out, so if I was going after her it had to happen now.

  Pride’s worth a lot; it’s the only thing that can keep you walking when it feels like your feet’s worn down to nubs. But as my ma would have said, you got to remember pride is a tool. You use it; you don’t let it use you. And you don’t sell your happiness ’cause your spine’s too stiff to bend.

  I took a deep breath. Once I had the livery pony I could always change my mind and come back, I supposed. If I didn’t get a kind reception, and maybe an apology to match the one I probably should be offering her.

  I squared my shoulders, and turned around—and nearly walked right into the Arcade sisters, who were two steps behind me, and the tall one was just clearing her throat as she reached out to tap my shoulder.

  I drew up short, and they just about ripped their hems jumping back.

  The smaller one—Hypatia—glanced over her shoulder, making sure the corridor was clear, while the tall one drew a breath. “Miss Memery?”

  “Miss Arcade.”

  They looked at each other. Then Hypatia said, “Did you flip that table over?”

  For somebody named Hilaria, the tall one sure did get her sister to do most of the talking.

  Of all the things she could have said, that one brought me up the shortest. I’d been ready to shake them off and go take care of my home life, frankly, and as you can imagine given Priya’s displeasure and the old lady’s kindness, I weren’t feeling none too sanguine about talking to the Arcade sisters after all. But I did it anyway, and I will admit right now as I could not admit to myself then that it was as much driven by curiosity as it was concern for their welfare.

  Also, I’m not sure if they could have asked me anything that would have given me more of an unsettled feeling. And I have this bad habit when I’m uneasy: I got to get to the bottom of the question as quick as I possibly can.

  I shook my head. “No, I did not. I take it you didn’t, either, then? Which answers my question, actually,” I said, real slow like. “I was trying to wrap my head around how you’d managed it while you was working the levitation trick with yours.”

  Their faces went white under the powder and paint. You could just watch the blood drain down to their toes, and the tall one put her hand out to steady herself against the small one’s shoulder.

  “I imagine Constable Waterson checked under your table,” I continued. “And if he’d found anything, you’d be staying in a different and less comfortable establishment tonight for free. But all of that was a bit much for a bed and a dinner, so I have to wonder what else you’re up to.”

  “You know,” Hypatia said carefully, “we’re Spiritualists. My control and my spirit guides are not always predictable.”

  “With your names you could hardly be otherwise,” I allowed. They both looked at me sharply, but if there’s one thing a retired whore can do, it’s sound pleasant no matter what’s coming out of her mouth—if she wants to. “Just your bad luck to run into Missus Horner while you was having a visitation, then. You know she and her late husband was skeptics, I assume?”

  I slipped my fan out of my glove and used it gently to waft air across my face, though I had it in my mind it would be handy to rap a wrist with if one of ’em grabbed me. The end sticks is ebony and it’s built solid—well, for a fan.

  Now they was both looking at me not with speculation so much anymore as with cold calculation. I figured I had nothing to lose, and I still might learn something.

  “I worked for her,” Hypatia said. “Before I came to understand that my true calling was putting people in touch with their loved ones who have passe
d over, allowing them to make amends and pass along final messages.” Her face smoothed into a saintly mask, which was an impressive trick under all that maquillage.

  “So,” I continued, “Missus Horner’s your mark?”

  “It’s your mother, isn’t it?” Hypatia asked, as if she hadn’t heard me. “The lady with the bright hair. She was so young when she passed over. She was in so much pain. The pain is finished now, Karen. She just wants to tell you that she is at peace, and that she loves you and understands your choices, and that you will be together again one day.”

  I caught my breath in spite of myself. You tell yourself you know better. But she had such enormous, truthful eyes, soft and ingenuous as a blue-eyed Appaloosa’s. You’d think I’d know enough about the kind of ponies as have eyes like that to have been on my guard, me of all people, but I was too busy falling into them.

  They exchanged another look. Hilaria nodded, and Hypatia said, “You did intervene to prove our honesty, Miss Memery, and we know we owe you for the kindness. We’re performing a séance this evening, and you’d be welcome to join us. We do not accept payment for our services.”

  Was Hilaria the business manager of the pair, then? No payment maybe, but I imagined they’d accept gifts, and their spirit guides probably demanded some sort of expensive tribute to show up to work.

  I smiled and tried to pull myself together. It weren’t too hard to figure out a girl like me might miss her mother. And there ain’t no honor among grifters, not exactly, but there’s a kind of camaraderie. It can take a lot of people to work a score. Sometimes, they set up shops—whole establishments where everybody who works there and most of the supposed clientele is in on the scam and draws a regular percentage for separating marks from their money. So they’re used to working in crews.

  Spiritualists are a little different, as they’re usually singletons or pairs, and they do it all on their own. Some of ’em might even believe they’ve got a line to the other side.