Before I knew what I was doing, I had him by the hand, yanking him back into his own living space. “No, no, wait!” I cried. “Please, I need to hear what happened.” As the words came out, they sounded like an excuse even to me. I was grasping. My father’s words were driving me crazy. You’re only as good as your last story. Or were those Bram’s words? What was it about this man?
“You apologize?” he asked, leveling his eyes at me. The fire glowed off the honey color in them, giving the illusion that they were ablaze.
“Apologize for what?” I demanded.
“You’re a writer, am I correct?” he asked.
“How did you know that?” I asked, letting go of his hand. He sauntered over to his bed and plopped down.
“Something about you. A strand of hair, a way of holding yourself… an obsessive drive to uncover a sensationalist story.”
“Am I that obvious?”
“I don’t know if my story can help you,” he said. “When the accident happened, every newspaper in the city was crawling over it. I think it’d be old news.” He sauntered across the room and plopped onto his humble bed as though it were a chaise.
“I think that depends on what the accident was like,” I said. I was determined to get something from him. A lead. A connection. I couldn’t leave empty-handed. I needed something to validate my recent article, a thread of anything promising I had more. “Please, I need this. I’ve just had a breakthrough hit, and I’m afraid I don’t have anything else left in me.” I was shocked by my own honesty.
“You seem to be in quite a hurry. What are you running from?” he asked.
I wanted to tell him nothing, to ask what he was talking about, but it was as though he knew my thoughts. What was I running from? The east side of the river? The life my parents led? Troubles with the landlord? No. There was more.
“I just want a story,” I said evenly. He sighed and scratched his head before beckoning over.
“I’m not telling you anything unless I feel I can trust you,” he said, beckoning me over. “Come take a seat here, and we’ll talk.” He patted a spot next to him on the bed and picked up a book from a small side table.
I hesitated.
“Look, I already had my reputation upended once by reporters who used and abused me. You want a story? You’re going to have to convince me that you’re not just another scandalmonger.” He nonchalantly flipped his book open as if he had no preference as to whether I stayed or went.
I crossed to him. Maybe he was a hypnotist, but I sat down next to him on the bed. I was tense. My head was dizzy, but here I was, sitting on a bed next to a man I met minutes ago, because I wanted another insane story to write about.
For some reason, it felt wonderful.
We sat in silence together for a long moment, neither of us saying anything. He kept reading to himself. I felt my heartbeat slow down. My muscles began their long journey back to a relaxed state. We looked at each other, and he smiled warmly.
“Do you believe in magic?” he whispered. At the moment, I wasn’t sure what I believed in. I had always tried to live a prudent life. My father raised me as a Christian, in his own way. He couldn’t read well, and I later discovered that the Bible verses he quoted to me growing up said something slightly different in the actual text.
“I met a man the other day who did,” I responded, thinking of Edward. “He was willing to stake his professional reputation on it.”
“And you are still unconvinced,” he prodded.
“I’ve never experienced magic,” I confessed. “I’d feel foolish confessing to believe in something I’d never experienced.”
“But you have no reservations writing about magic,” he accused. How did he know what I wrote about?
“I can write about other people believing in magic.”
“What if I told you I made a career on magic?” He raised his eyebrows at me, daring me to ask him more.
“You were an illusionist,” I said. He let out a deep chuckle, one of those laughs that never break past the diaphragm.
“Let me show you something.” He leaned across me and reached under the bed, pulling out a small puzzle box. Small, intricate wood panels rotated as he manipulated their facets until they locked into a cube doubled in size. He slid the lid off to extract an old key. I watched intently, soaking in his movements as if I might, by memory, catch the puzzle box’s secret.
He took the key across the room to an old chest in a shadowy corner. I hadn’t noticed it before. It was cloaked by a queer shadow. He turned his back to me as he unlocked it, obscuring my view. I craned my neck, trying to catch a glimpse of the chest’s contents, but witnessed nothing.
“There’s something in here that I think you may take a particular interest in,” he murmured. He turned to face me, cradling something in his hand before motioning for me to follow him to the writing desk. I followed, trying to glimpse what he was holding. “You’ve never had an experience with magic? Or so you say. In my experience, we encounter magic every day. It’s just not what people expect. There aren’t sparks or glowing orbs… well, at least not most of the time. The majority of magic goes unnoticed because it looks painfully ordinary. It’s a self-defense, you see. As magic is discovered and exploited, it loses power, so it camouflages itself masterfully. It makes locating magic very difficult. Magic exists where we cannot see.”
He sat me down in a chair at the writing desk, moved aside the tea kettle, and placed a blank piece of paper before me. I stared at it, stupidly, waiting for something to happen.
“What should I be looking at?” I asked after several moments.
“You’re a writer, aren’t you?” he said, placing a pen in my hand. He slid over a glass inkwell, dyed crimson, made almost black by the ink inside it. “You tell me.”
The pen was remarkably heavy for its size. It was fashioned in the steel barrel style that had all but wiped out the quill, but it was intricately carved and etched with symbols I didn’t recognize. It glinted different shades in the light between green and blue, reminding me of gemstone exhibits of alexandrite I had seen once one at a museum I had taken Anna to for her birthday. The writing point made a small elegant curve, finishing in a sharp end. It looked unlikely to hold much ink, and again, the weight of the pen would make it thoroughly uncomfortable as a writing instrument.
The inkwell was encased in a web of ornate metalwork that spiraled in peculiar designs. Perhaps Egyptian? Celtic? Gaelic?
“You want me to write? And with this?” I scoffed. “You really had me going there with your swooshy voice and mysterious words. Magic this, magic that.”
“Three of my comrades died locating that pen,” he replied, a smile on his lips equal parts smug and grim. I wasn’t sure whether to believe him.
“Well, if that’s true, I’m very sorry. I’m just not sure what you want me to do with it,” I stammered.
“Write.”
“My whole purpose here was to find a story. Once I’ve found it, I can write it at home.”
“Write whatever you like. Fact. Fiction. Write whatever story you think would push your publication to the top. Write what you feel.”
“It doesn’t work like that!” I cried. “We aren’t a fiction magazine. I find stories; I report them.” He leaned in over me, putting his face very close to mine. I could feel his breath on my cheek. He smelled like apples and something else dangerous I couldn’t place.
“There. You’ve finally stumbled on the magic,” he whispered into my ear. “This pen has a funny way of turning fiction into fact.”
I gaped at the pen, not sure whether to take him seriously. My heart was racing again with disbelief and nerves. He remained uncomfortably close to me, and it suddenly felt very warm in the tent. I looked up at him, and he did not retreat. We just sat there, staring at one another, sizing the other up. For a moment, I was convinced he was going to kiss me, a prospect that should have sent me running. Instead, I was glued to the seat. But no kiss came, and that w
as enough to spur me to action.
I dropped the pen on the desk. “I’m such a fool,” I muttered. “I have to go.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I believe,” I said, turning on him, “that you are an expert con. How many women have you led in here with vague promises and your little act? If you can pull that one over, I guess that’s its own type of magic, isn’t it?”
I looked around as if to gather my things, but I hadn’t brought anything with me.
“Consider, before you leave, what you might be walking away from,” he taunted with an infuriating smile. “Your circumstance is no different. You still need a story. You wanted to write about a washed-up carnival man who lost his spot in the center ring because of a circus accident years ago. Instead, I’m offering you something more.”
“You are offering me nonsense. I need real stories. I need stories like the one Edward Thomas provided me,” I said.
“And because Edward Thomas is a policeman, the fact that he saw a fogman was good enough for Travis Blakely?” His gaze was steady, piercing, like a bluffing card shark. My breath caught. I had never mentioned details from the fog man encounter, and I certainly hadn’t mentioned my pen name.
“How do you know about that?”
“A writer like you can’t hide behind a pen name,” he said. “The Steely-Eyed Detective. It was a very gripping tale.”
“Who have you been talking to?”
“If you are so convinced the pen is a hoax, prove me wrong,” he said, holding it up toward me. I bit my lip. I felt tired, exhausted even. I felt guilty, like I betrayed Byron by coming here, conversing with this stranger, touching his hand, and sitting on his bed. Yet, his words made me feel something wild inside. I wanted this to work.
I was fighting it because I wanted a reason to believe him. I liked the idea of such an exotic friend. I liked the idea of such an exotic story.
“If the pen can turn fact into fiction, why aren’t you in the center ring?” I asked.
“Like I said, magic knows to camouflage itself. There are certain rules.” His hand was still outstretched, inviting. Hesitantly, I plucked the pen from it and slowly sat down at the desk again. He crouched on the other side of it to face me. “Write anything that comes to your mind, so long as it isn’t about someone you know.”
“Someone I know?”
“The pen won’t work to benefit your life directly,” he said, smiling. “But for a writer, even news about strangers can be beneficial. If it helps, think of something outlandish then replace the names with anonymous pronouns.”
The pen felt like it was moving on its own, wriggling in my hand. I put it to the paper and scribbled something. He wanted outlandish? I’d give him outlandish.
“Perfect,” he said, whipping the paper up and throwing it into the fire. We watched it burn together. I felt like a child, pretending at witches and wizards. The more the flames consumed the piece of paper, the more foolish I felt. How did I, in the course of twenty-four hours, go from a newly celebrated writer to playing pretend and magic in a desperate attempt to get my next story? This could not have been what my father had in mind.
“What now?” I stammered impatiently.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Bram said, his eyes fixed on the fire.
His complacent indifference toward me made me furious. For some reason, I felt like I had given him a part of myself that night.
“You most certainly will not,” I said. I stormed out of the yurt and broke into a run for home.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hangover
MY HEAD REELED the next morning. My hair was still slightly damp from the washing I gave myself before bed. I had tried to expunge the smells of the carnival from myself and, to no avail, scrub off some of the guilt I felt at my infidelity. I felt dirty. Many women would say I hadn’t been unfaithful, but I knew that, if Byron ever learned about my night’s interactions with Bram… I shuddered to think what it might do to him.
Was it right for me to keep it a secret? I had planned on telling him about my trip to the carnival if it had yielded a story. I may have left out some important details, but I would have at least told him that I went there alone. With a story in hand, surely, it could be believed, justified even. I simply was story sleuthing, as he called it. But now, what did I have to show for my indecency?
When I got home the night before, my sister was still out. I was asleep by the time she got in. Usually, I would have scolded her, but I wasn’t even sure what time I got home. It could have been eight pm or midnight. I could have slept three hours or ten. I felt unusually sore inside and out.
I skipped my usual breakfast with Byron, instead heading down the street to pick up some pastry items from Barker’s Bakery. I was there early enough to have my pick of the shop. I walked inside.
“Luella!” Mrs. Barker cried. “Haven’t stopped by the shop for a good while. And with such dreadful bags under your eyes. Are you well, dear?”
Mrs. Barker didn’t mince words. She and Mrs. Crow played cards together on the weekend. I could only imagine the conversations they had there. What must the glamor of being aged and having abandoned concerns about others’ opinions be like? I imagined they knew everything about everybody between the two of them. Mrs. Barker noticing my haggard, tired face meant Mrs. Crow later asking me about problems with my engagement.
“I didn’t sleep well,” I replied, blushing. “Do you have any filled buns this morning?”
“They’re what I’m known for, dear. Wouldn’t be Barker’s without our signature filled buns,” she said. Mr. Barker burst from a small door behind the baker’s counter with a large crate full of bread loaves.
“Another dozen,” he barked, bumping into his wife. “The rye was temperamental this morning. Oh! Hello, Luella! Tired? You look like the Severn spit you right out.”
“Don’t tell her that, George!” Mrs. Barker said, swatting her husband with a hand towel.
“I only mean that I hope she’s well!”
“She looks beautiful, like a spring flower! You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”
“Must be my eyes then. Forgive me, Luella. I must have been staring at the oven fires too long. You do look lovely.”
I purchased the buns quickly and walked out, secure and validated in my decision not to go to Byron’s. Even the bakers noticed the effects of my little night haunt. Byron would take one look at me and send for the doctor. I hated doctors.
I hurried home to find Anna at the breakfast table, nursing a cup of tea. She looked positively euphoric.
“Luella!” She sighed as I walked in. “You were asleep when I got home, but I simply must tell you about my evening with Jacob!” She whispered the last word, savoring the sound of it as if it were a fine wine. I forced a smile and used my sisterly compassion to swallow my own problems for the time being. I hadn’t decided whether I would divulge my secret to Anna. In so many ways, I betrayed her trust as much as I had Byron’s. After all, what would Jacob’s family think if her sister was wrapped up in a scandal? Plus, assuming things with Jacob didn’t pan out, as I suspected they may not, she relied on me for her welfare. Byron was our ticket off the tightrope we were walking. One step out of place and we’d be back to the gutter. With Byron, we could be more. He wasn’t elite or absurdly wealthy, but at least we’d be taken care of. We wouldn’t have to worry about Mr. Stringham any longer.
Mr. Stringham! I’d nearly forgotten about him. I wanted to hear about Anna’s evening, but I had to get to work. One hit story was nice, but we had increased rent to worry about. “You’re more than your last story.” My father’s words rang in my memory, drawing me back to the strange aromas and sensations from Bram’s yurt the night before.
“The evening began with a walk near the docks,” she said. “Jacob picked me up here, and he looked so handsome. He wore that navy jacket. You know? The one I like so much?”
I nodded, trying to listen. Anxiety was creeping into t
he back of my brain. So many questions combatted for space in there. At the base of all of it was the pressure to discover another story. Why journalism? Why couldn’t I have written a novel or painted a painting that would produce significant figures and give me a moment’s rest? I was a slave now, a slave to the hunt.
“That was when he showed me these earrings he got me. You didn’t even notice!”
I smiled as she displayed her earrings, but I couldn’t concentrate. I kept coming in and out of what she said. I thought about Byron. I thought about Bram. I thought about Edward. I thought about Anna, even though she sat right in front of me and I couldn’t focus on what she was saying.
“Luella, your eyes keep darting back and forth. Is something wrong?”
I pinched the skin on the back of my hand to snap myself out of my episode. “Everything is just fine,” I said. “I haven’t even told you my own news.”
“You have news! Well, of course, you must share but please don’t spoil my fun. After I finish my story, I’ll be all ears for yours.” Poor Anna. If she had anything to say, she would just about burst until she could let it out. She was guileless like that. I saw a future Mrs. Crow or Mrs. Barker in her. Then again, maybe she lacked the interest in others’ misfortunes like they had, and she didn’t observe things as shrewdly as those two gossips. Mrs. Barker could tell something was wrong just by looking at me. Why couldn’t Anna? She was on her third bun.
“That’s when we turned a corner, and he revealed his big surprise,” she continued. “It was enchanting, sister. He took me to the queerest carnival on the east shore.”
“Carnival?” I echoed.
“Yes! It was the most curious little carnival, too!”
I couldn’t believe it. Could it be possible that my hazy inclination brought me to the same outing my sister attended?
“It had these electric lights that gave everything an eerie glow. I don’t know if I could ever grow accustomed to electric lights. But, for a date with Jacob, it was wonderfully mysterious,” she said.
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