The Ruby Airship

by Sharon Gosling

  “Oh?”

  “Yes — I have recently taken on a German violinist, a man by the name of Dorfmann. Until recently he was traveling with the new circus of Claudette Anjou — the Circus of Secrets, as you say. Come, I will take you to him.”

  J and Thaddeus hesitated, looking back at the airship, unwilling to leave it unattended under the hungry scrutiny of so many unknown people.

  “Do not fear, eh?” said Constanto, and put his fingers to his lips. He emitted a piercing whistle, which was answered by two large men who looked for all the world like prizefighters. “They will take care of the Caravan of the Air, you see?”

  Constanto made to move off. “Hang on a sec,” said J. He looked out at the crowd, and then back at the circus master. “Reckon they’d pay a bit for a squizz inside, like?”

  “J?” Thaddeus asked. “What are you doing?”

  “If we’re going to be here for a bit, we’re going to need some readies, ain’t we?” he said reasonably. And then, to Constanto: “Two . . . what do you call ’em? Centimes? Two centimes for a peek. We’ll split the take wiv you if your blokes make sure they don’t touch nuffin’. They ain’t to scare the pigeons, neither. Right?”

  Constanto grinned. “I like the way you think, young master,” he said, before barking a swift order in French to the two men the size of tree trunks who were now standing on either side of the door. “Any time you want a job, you come to the Great Constanto, no?”

  {Chapter 21}

  REAL MAGIC

  “What’s that?” Rémy asked, pulling up her horse suddenly, sometime later. The forest seemed endless, the trees stretching on as the day lengthened.

  Yannick barely paused, urging his steed to plod onward. “I can’t hear anything.”

  “I can,” she said. “It’s music. Yannick! Listen.”

  He did as he was told. After a few moments, he shrugged. “It’s the bandits, in their camp,” he said. “It must be drifting down the valley.”

  “No,” said Rémy. “No, it’s not the bandits.” She stayed still, listening to the sound, mesmerized.

  “Rémy,” said Yannick. “Come on — it’ll be getting dark soon. We need to keep going.”

  “I know it,” Rémy said, feeling as if she were dreaming. “That music — that tune. I’ve heard it before.” She pulled her horse around, heading in the direction of the sound.

  “Rémy,” Yannick called after her. “What are you doing?”

  “I have to find it,” she told him absently. “It’s for me. I know it is.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said the magician, riding up beside her. He caught hold of her arm and forced her to stop before snapping his fingers in front of her face. Rémy blinked. “I know you’re tired, but come on. We’ve got to find our way out of this forest. Then we can rest for a while.”

  “Yannick, I’m telling you, I know that music.”

  “So what if you do? It’ll be some tune you’ve heard in a bar somewhere — or around a campfire late one night.”

  Rémy frowned. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I think that’s exactly where I’ve heard it. Around a campfire.” She nudged the horse onward again, more determined this time.

  “Rémy,” Yannick tried.

  She stopped and turned to him. “Yannick, I want to know who’s playing that tune. I swear to you, I know it. It’s music I haven’t heard for years, music I didn’t remember existed until a moment ago, but I recognize it and I have to find out why. Come with me, don’t come with me: that’s up to you. But I’m finding the player, regardless.”

  Rémy turned her back on him and continued to wind through the trees. The music was distant, drifting on a rising and falling breeze, but growing stronger. After a few moments, Yannick’s horse appeared beside hers. They fell in step and rode on in silence, listening to the sound of the melody that Rémy knew bone-deep. As the music became louder, the trees thinned. Above them, they could see twilight filtering between the branches, a cloudless, starry night settling over the forest.

  The music was coming from a caravan. It was wooden, hand-carved in the old Romany style, with a rounded roof and half-paneled door. The cross-planks had been painted cherry red, the mid-panels a yellow as bright as the sun. It was standing in a clearing that almost seemed as if it had been created by the forest itself, as if the trees had bowed and taken a step back to make room for it. Fireflies sheltered in their nooks and crannies, imitating the stars still waking up above. In the center of the clearing was a small blaze, the low, curling flames cooking a scrawny wild chicken on a spit.

  An old woman sat on the steps of the caravan, her ancient fingers tangled around a small wooden pipe that wove the tune as she blew through it. She looked wizened enough to be part of the forest herself.

  Rémy had never seen the woman before in her life, but she knew that music. She and Yannick stood, watching the old woman and feeling the melody grow into the world like a frond of fern uncurling for the first time. It was at once unexpected and familiar, and when it stopped, Rémy had no idea whether she had been listening for minutes or hours.

  The old woman opened her eyes and looked at them as if they had always been there.

  “Ah,” she said. “The chicken will be done cooked by now. Time for dinner.” She looked at Yannick. “You, boy — make yourself useful. Take ’em off the spit. There are bowls yonder,” she waved one finger at the fire. “Some tomatoes, too. No greens today, but that’s the way of it.”

  Yannick shrugged and did as he was told. Rémy took a step closer to the old woman. Her face was as creased and cracked as the bark of a tree, but her eyes were bright and blue. She pulled a purple shawl around her shoulders and shuffled toward Rémy.

  “Ah, and isn’t it good to see you again,” the old crone cackled, her voice as scratchy as new wool. She raised one ancient hand to Rémy’s face, patting her cheek. “Pretty, too, though I knew you were going to be from the moment you opened that mouth and bawled.”

  Rémy shook her head. “I’m sorry, old mother, but I don’t know you.”

  “I know you don’t, girl, but that’s no matter. I know you enough for both of us. Come on, let’s sit and eat afore the chicken goes to waste.”

  She shuffled toward the fire, Rémy staring after her, confused. Yannick handed the old woman a bowl and she settled on her haunches, turning to look at Rémy. In the firelight she looked even older.

  Rémy sat beside her, taking another bowl from Yannick.

  “Can you tell me how you know me?” Rémy said. “If we have met, I must have been very young, I think?”

  The old woman cackled between mouthfuls. “Oh, yes, you were very young. Next to nothing, in fact. I remember you, though. Oh, how you and your brother made your mother howl.”

  Rémy sighed, her suspicions confirmed. “Ah, old mother. I am sorry, but you have me confused with someone else.”

  The old woman eyed her with a twinkle of blue. “Have I, now?”

  “Yes. I have no brother. My parents had no children other than me.”

  “Is that so?”

  A twitch of annoyance tensed Rémy’s shoulders. The old crone’s tone was teasing, as if she knew what Rémy herself didn’t. “Yes, it is most definitely so.”

  Abruptly, the old woman put down her bowl, shaking her head. “Ah, what a thing, to go through the world without knowing your own kin.”

  “I told you,” said Rémy, “I don’t have any kin. You’re confusing me with someone else.”

  “And I am telling you, Rémy Brunel,” said the old woman, in a voice suddenly as clear as day and as straight as a plumb line, “that I remember you, and I remember your brother.”

  Rémy jumped at the sound of her name on the old woman’s lips and drew in a breath. “H-how do you know my name?”

  The old woman smiled again, the twinkle back in her eye. “I have birthed
babies for the circuses of France since I was thirteen years old. That is longer than either of you can imagine, and I tell you, my girl, that I never forget one of mine.” She smiled again, reaching out to pick up her bowl. “No one expected you, but out you flew, hanging onto your brother’s ankle as if you were already performing in the tent.” The old woman chuckled. “And what a scrawny little bird you were, and didn’t I tell your poor mother so?”

  “That’s . . . that’s what they call me,” stuttered Rémy. “That’s . . . that’s always been my nickname.”

  The old woman looked at her steadily, the slight smile on her ancient lips telling Rémy that she already knew full well that Rémy Brunel was more usually known as Little Bird.

  Rémy stood up, a little shakily, turning away. “I don’t have a brother,” she said again. “I — I don’t. I would know if I did. Wouldn’t I?”

  The old woman shrugged. “The things we don’t know in this world are enough to fill the spaces between stars, are they not?” she said.

  Rémy spun to face her. “But . . . if I do, where is he? Why don’t I know him? Where is he now?”

  “I did not stay long enough to be able to answer all your questions, Little Bird,” said the old woman. “I am a midwife. I go where the births are and leave the babies behind me.” She looked into the fire, the sparks illuminating a face that had grown sad. “I will tell you this — when I heard of your parents’ misfortune, I wept over it. They were good people. I expect their offspring are good people, too.”

  Rémy sank down again, her food forgotten. Her head was spinning. Had she really had — did she have — a brother, or was this woman just lost in a world of her own making? Even if she was a midwife, how could she remember every child she ever helped into the world? And Rémy, have a twin? It was impossible, unthinkable. She was alone in the world, except for Claudette. Gustave had seen to that when he’d forced her parents to steal a jewel that had cursed them both, driving them apart and away from their daughter forever.

  Almost as if Yannick had heard what Rémy was thinking, he spoke.

  “Tell me, old mother,” he said, “if you remember all the babies you have ever birthed, do you remember bringing one into the world called Claudette Anjou?”

  Rémy frowned, wondering why Yannick wanted to know. She glanced at the old woman, but she was staring into the fire, her lips set in a determined line as if she were remembering things far in the past. For a moment Rémy thought she hadn’t even heard Yannick’s question. And then:

  “If there’s one thing I can’t abide, boy,” came her cracked old voice, turning harsher, “it’s a question being asked where the answer is already known.”

  Rémy looked at Yannick. He looked back, uncomfortable, and shrugged.

  “You are not wearing your opal,” said the old woman suddenly, as she crooked one gnarled twig of a finger at Rémy’s neck.

  Rémy’s hand flew to where she pointed. “How do you know about —? No . . . I did once. Always. I never took it off, but . . .”

  Something about the look on the old woman’s face told Rémy she didn’t need to say any more, that in fact she knew exactly the gift — and the burden — that the opal had bestowed. Rémy felt faint, the blood rushing from her face. If the old woman knew about the opal, then what else did she know?

  “Let an old woman see it, eh?” she asked, tipping her head to one side. “It is such a pretty thing, such a perfect thing. It has been a long, long time.”

  Rémy nodded, slipping her fingers beneath her shirt and finding the corset’s hem. She felt for the pocket there, and the pouch within it.

  She leaped up. “It’s gone!” Rémy cried.

  “What has?” Yannick asked, standing up on the other side of the fire in alarm. “Rémy? What’s gone?”

  “My opal! It was here, in a pocket beneath my corset, but it’s gone! It’s gone!” She stared at Yannick, her heart turning cold. “You — did you take it?”

  “What?” Yannick asked, aghast.

  “You heard me, Yannick. Did you steal my opal?”

  “How could you even ask me that?” he demanded angrily.

  “How?” Rémy asked, with just as much fury. “Oh, well, let’s see now. Between the two of us, who last stole something? And what was it, exactly? Remind me again would you, Yannick?”

  The magician shook his head in disgust. “I can’t believe you,” he hissed. “After what I did for you, breaking you out of prison. After what I risked for you.”

  They both fell silent, staring at each other across the flames. The old woman stayed where she was, watching calmly.

  “Anyway, don’t you always have it around your neck?” Yannick asked coldly. “Didn’t I see it the other day? How would I be able to steal that?”

  “I took it off,” Rémy said, her voice cracking over the words.

  “You took it off?”

  Rémy was distraught. How could she have lost the only possession in the world that meant anything at all to her? “I sewed a pocket for it, to keep it safe.”

  Yannick made a sound in his throat. “Safer than around your neck? You took off your most valuable possession and put it in a pocket, and you’re accusing me? Any pickpocket could have got at it, Rémy. It was probably one of those bandits on the road.”

  “None of them got close enough,” Rémy protested. “It wasn’t them.”

  “Really? Check,” Yannick ordered. “Has the pocket been sliced?”

  “No,” said Rémy, pulling up her shirt and turning up the edge of the corset to show the pocket. “I would have felt it. I would have —” She stopped. The corner of the pocket was open, the bottom seam of stitching neatly cut, as if with a knife or pair of scissors. Rémy stared at it in horror. She had been robbed by a pickpocket — she, who had spent her life with the lowest of the low, had been cheated by a common thief.

  Rémy covered her face with her hands and sank to the ground, the tears pricking at her eyes. She should have worn it, always. She should have fastened it around her neck so that no one could ever get at it.

  Rémy felt something on her shoulder — it was the old woman’s hand, squeezing her gently.

  “Be of good heart, Little Bird,” the old woman whispered in her ear. “The opal has only one true owner, and it will always return home, however long it takes.”

  Rémy sobbed a little. “Then I will surely, surely never see it again,” she said, her heart broken. “Because that wasn’t me. My parents stole it, didn’t they? From a Rajah in India. They did not own it, they stole it.”

  “Rémy Brunel, dry your tears and look me in the eye,” the old woman demanded, her hand on Rémy’s shoulder becoming an iron grip until she did as she was told. Rémy stared into the old woman’s eyes, which seemed as deep and as blue as the ocean, and just as old. “Did no one ever tell you that you were an Indian baby? It’s as clear as the pretty on your face.”

  Rémy swallowed her tears, her spine tingling. “Yes,” she said. “Yes. Someone did, once. Not long ago. But . . .”

  The old woman smiled again, letting go of Rémy’s shoulder and straightening up. She said nothing for a moment, just stood beside the dwindling fire, looking up at the stars that pricked the sky, brighter than candlelight.

  “It is time for an old woman to sleep,” she said, eventually, before beginning to shuffle toward her caravan. “Sometimes we all need to go home.”

  “But,” Rémy began, getting to her feet. “Wait, I need to ask you so many questions. Please!”

  The old woman turned to her with a smile. “I am not an oracle, Rémy,” she said. “I do not know the world’s secrets. I have simply lived a very, very long time and I have seen many, many things. Old women need their sleep, and now I need mine. Good night. Rest, now.”

  And she turned her back. She walked slowly to her home and up its little wooden steps, shutting the d
oor behind her without another word.

  Rémy and Yannick settled beside the dying embers of the campfire, but it took a long, long time before Rémy could sleep. Her mind was full of questions and upset, reproach and anger. She had no one to blame but herself for losing the opal. She should have been wearing it, as she always had, but her cowardice had got the better of her, and just at the moment when it seemed she had met someone who knew about the stone and what it could do.

  Rémy thought she would not sleep at all, but eventually the rigors of the day caught up with her. She fell into a fitful slumber. In her dreams, the woods were on fire. She was trying to flee the blaze, stumbling after someone who kept turning to wait for her, despite the flames licking at his feet. Rémy thought it was Yannick, but the only time she managed to glimpse his face, she realized it was Thaddeus.

  {Chapter 22}

  TROUBLING NEWS

  Thaddeus and J left the storm they had created, following the Great Constanto as he led them toward another circle of light. This one was the halo of a bonfire, burning in the center of a small cluster of caravans. From one floated the haunting sound of a violin. A figure formed through the flickering darkness. It was a large man, sitting in front of the wooden wheel of his caravan with his knees hunched and a violin beneath his chin. The music spun into the night sky, accompanying the crackle and spit of the flames.

  “Dorfmann,” said Constanto, his voice softer now. “I have brought two people to see you.”

  The man stopped playing and opened his eyes, which were a deep and melancholy blue. He looked at Thaddeus first, and then at J before settling back on Thaddeus.