A Circus of Brass and Bone

by Abra SW

  Slip and slide around the corners, he could. Nobody noticed the Skeleton Man, because there was a quarter as much man to notice!

  He drifted out and down the corridor, pausing at each door like a hungry ghost.

  The snake charmer sang to her charges as she coiled them into large woven baskets. The sheets on her bunk writhed of their own accord as serpentine bodies slithered beneath them. One of the closed baskets rattled angrily at her. When the circus made its grand processional, she’d sit in her special glass-sided wagon and let the snakes weave around her.

  Jonathan didn’t like snakes. He knew how many unexpected places he could fit because of his size, and most of her snakes were even smaller. He hadn’t known she let them loose in her cabin, or he’d have slept worse of a night. He shuddered and passed on.

  Little whirlwinds of gaudy fabrics and spangles swirled between the aerialists.

  “The green and silver one is mine!” Leah Eads exclaimed.

  “No, it’s mine, for the act with the sea green banners!” Pamela Dyer-Bennet said.

  “You always steal my clothes! Where is my silver bracelet?” Leah asked.

  “I didn’t take that. You were wearing it last. You lost it yourself!” Pamela answered with exasperated patience.

  Grace and strength intrinsic in their tightly muscled bodies even when they were fighting over their costumes, the aerialists gave a good show, on- or off-stage. But no food. Jonathan pocketed an ivory ribbon that had blown out into the corridor and kept going.

  The Indian mahout’s cabin smelled of incense and curry. Jonathan’s nose twitched. During their time in India, he’d eaten curry and found it good. And if it didn’t sit well afterward, it tasted much the same on the way up as it had on the way down, which could only be an advantage, what with his delicate stomach. My Johnny can’t eat like normal boys, his mother had always said.

  The Indian sat on his steam trunk and twirled an oddly curved knife with a fancy enamel-and-brass hilt. A pink-petaled plant with spiky green leaves sat beside him. Teak traveling boxes, a tiffin carrier, and a rolled-up carpet lay at his feet. Jonathan looked longingly at the tiffin the curry scent was wafting from, took a longer look at the blade in the Indian’s hand, and shuffled away.

  The contortionist’s room was empty except for a number of closed boxes and trunks. Jonathan eyed them suspiciously and kept going.

  Ginger the whitefaced clown juggled his belongings above barrels and boxes spilling over with wigs and costumes and hoops and mallets. Jonathan crept closer, his eye on a sausage that might be a prop—or might just be real. A board creaked ever so slightly under his foot. Other ship noises should have drowned it out, but the clown whipped around fast, his hand on a mallet that Jonathan suddenly doubted was a cotton-stuffed prop. The clown’s hand relaxed when he saw Jonathan, but his eyes narrowed. Jonathan laughed awkwardly and backed away down the corridor. Out of sight, he stopped and wiped cold sweat from the back of his neck.

  The equestrienne’s door was closed. Didn’t want the world to see her packing her underthings. Always trying to be a lady of Quality no matter the circumstances, Jonathan thought, half-jeeringly, half-respectfully. He looked longingly at her closed door. She was just the type to keep a tin of cookies out for tea, too. He bent to peer in the keyhole.

  The soldierlike stride of the approaching Indian mahout sent Jonathan skittering further on down the corridor, where he leaned against the wall and attempted to look like he hadn’t just been spying.

  The mahout knocked. A murmured inquiry came from inside, the Indian answered, and then the equestrienne opened the door. She wouldn’t have opened the door to him, Jonathan thought enviously. Though she did leave the door ajar to maintain propriety. He crept to the door jamb and peeked through the crack.

  “When I am packing, I am seeing this,” the mahout said clumsily in his heavily accented English. “I am not needing it for the elephant, but I am thinking that you might use.” He extended the knife he’d been fiddling with earlier.

  “A hoof pick!” the equestrienne said, surprise shaking her usual composure. “Ah, what an unusual gift. Thank you.”

  The mahout gave an odd, short little bow with his hands pressed together.

  An unusual gift indeed, Jonathan thought. Orientals had weird ideas about women, if they thought that sort of thing to be a grand idea. Chocolates were much more the thing.

  Chocolates! Remembering where he’d seen chocolate recently, Jonathan hurried off. Before they embarked, an admirer had brought chocolates to Ms. Selena, the fat lady.

  He never had admirers who brought him chocolate, Jonathan thought morosely. Ms. Selena might complain that some of them looked at her “like they’d eat me right up, toes to nose!” but he thought he wouldn’t mind if they brought him chocolate.

  Ms. Selena’s wide back was to the door of her cabin when Jonathan walked past all casual-like. She moved slowly, with the ponderous grace of a hippopotamus in the water. The cabin shrank by comparison. She hummed to herself as she folded tent-sized dresses.

  Near the door, the open chocolate tin balanced atop a higgledy-piggledy stack of shawls and fans and silk flowers and other tokens of affection. She’d only consumed a third of the chocolate pieces. She wouldn’t notice one missing, surely? Jonathan sidled into her quarters, keeping a wary eye on her back, and snatched a chocolate. He backed out the door rapidly, clutching his treasure.

  The excitement of a close escape jolted through him as he retreated to the ringmaster’s uninhabited quarters to enjoy the chocolate in privacy.

  He lifted up the chocolate and stared at it for a long while, treasuring the moment. The ship whistle blew, signaling that they were making their approach to Boston Harbor. Jonathan popped the chocolate into his mouth. Age and India’s heat had turned the chocolate chalky and fragile, but he rolled it around on his tongue in ecstasy.

  The last trace of sugary deliciousness dissolved too soon. He still hungered. Ms. Selena might count her chocolates, he thought morosely. He couldn’t risk taking another one. They were all such misers, hoarding everything away as if they could take it with them to heaven.

  But if one of them had already gone to heaven (or hell—Jonathan wasn’t partial), they couldn’t object to him making sure nothing would go to waste, now could they? Nobody had thought to pack up the ringmaster’s things. Jonathan stood among shadow-shrouded mounds of clothes and books and the odds and ends that sum up a life. A grin spread across his face as he closed the cabin door and kindled the ship lamp. Parcels and pockets and bags and boxes and chests and oh! the wonderful things he might find.

  The mother lode was inside a burlap bag slumped beside the bunk. Real sausage, and hard cheese finer than what he’d packed away, toffees, pickled vegetables in jars, a half-full bottle of port, pickled eggs, and a dozen clove-studded oranges. He sighed happily, and set to with a will.

  His mouth stuffed full of pickled egg and sausage, a wedge of cheese in one hand and the bottle of port in the other, Jonathan poked and pried. He didn’t have long before everyone would go up on deck. It was possible that they’d miss him and somebody might come looking—and they might not understand the importance of making sure nothing was wasted.

  A flamboyant but rarely worn scarf and a pair of cufflinks found their way into Jonathan’s pockets. His stomach bulged, but his mouth still watered. He felt compelled to keep eating. He stopped in front of a chest with a padlock. Locked chests hid the loveliest things.

  He darted back and pressed his ear to the cabin door. Silence. Most of the others must be on deck. He picked up a paperweight and slammed it down on the padlock. Once. Twice. Third time was the charm. He struck the padlock off. His stomach churned with excitement as he pushed the lid up.

  No food, he thought first, but he didn’t regret that at the moment. His stomach sloshed in rhythm with the waves hitting the ship. A King James bible sat on top, which surprised Jonathan. He’d never thought the ringmaster was the religious type. Underneath it,
papers. He scowled and riffled through them quickly. Numbers and names, but most made no sense. One sheet of paper had a list of names and places that he recognized as towns along the circus route, but the rest were a mystery. He began to smile as he pulled the papers out and tucked them under his shirt. A secret was almost as filling as food.

  The whistle blew again.

  Jonathan went to the cabin door and listened to the silence to make sure he could leave unseen. On the other side of the door, silence listened to Jonathan.

  He eased out of the cabin and trotted off down the corridor. The motion agitated his overstuffed stomach something terrible. By the time he burst out onto the deck, it was swishing and see-sawing so much that he couldn’t think of anything but lurching to the rail. He bent over and heaved his guts out in a long acidic stream that splashed into the waves below. (Such a delicate boy, my Johnny.) A waste of the sausage and cheese and toffee, he thought mournfully. Fin and scale churned the water. He hoped the fish enjoyed their feast.

  He straightened, wiping his mouth sheepishly. He hated it when people saw him being sick. But—nobody was looking in his direction! They stood still, gazing toward Boston Harbor like silent ranks of brightly painted dolls. The breeze off the ocean ruffled their grand entrance finery.

  Ahead of them, a thick pillar of dark smoke billowed up from Boston. Rivulets of smoke straggled into the sky from smaller fires, but the monstrous column was the star of the show.

  “That fire’s the North End,” Jonathan whispered. “All the North End.”

  The mahout climbed up onto the deck, returning from one last visit to the engine room. He stopped and stared. “What happened to Boston?” he said, the words clear despite his shock.

  “What should we do now?” the equestrienne asked, her usually excellent diction broken and soft. “Where do we go?”

  Jonathan watched the circus members look at each other, each hoping another held the answer. None of them looked at him, of course. Why would—.

  His head went up.

  Jonathan hated giving up his treasures, but it wasn’t like he was obsessed with them. He could give them up if he needed to. If the circus really needed them. He could. He told himself that, but his hand stayed pressed flat against the wad of papers he’d jammed under his shirt.

  He closed his eyes and pulled out the sheet with the names and towns. With a wrench that was almost physically painful, he waved the sheet in the air. “Here!” he shouted. “Mr. Loyale had this page with names on it! It says, ‘Mr. Roderick White’ beside Boston.”

  The fortune teller narrowed her eyes at Jonathan, but she didn’t scold him for having the paper—yet. “Mr. White is the assistant to the mayor of Boston,” she said. Nobody wanted to ask her how she knew.

  “But—why would Mr. Loyale have his name?” the equestrienne asked.

  “Let’s ask him,” the fortune teller said cannily.

  “Yes,” the equestrienne agreed. “Maybe he’ll be able to tell us what happened here.”

  They stared out across the city and watched it burn.

  ~ * ~

  William McCormick

  Boston, Massachusetts

  The previous day.

  “Hello, can somebody help?” William called. “Please, my mother is trapped! Is anybody there?”

  He held his breath. Soft whimpers and moans came from the wounded in the factory behind him. As if in answer, he heard a man shouting, “Help! Help me!” He sounded nearby.

  A man grown might be strong enough to move the table pinning William’s mother. He was strong enough to shout; maybe he wasn’t hurt too bad. If William helped him, he could help William’s mother.

  William let go of the door frame and stood on his own. He swayed a bit, but didn’t fall. He took a step. So far, so good. If he had to, he would crawl to get help for his mother—but he’d rather walk.

  By taking it slow and stopping often to lean against a light post or a doorway, William made it two blocks. “Oh, bless you! May the sun shine upon you!” he heard.

  William peered around the corner. One man lay trapped beneath the wreckage of a cart and the mound of coal it had carried. The dead carthorse lay beside him. A group of about ten rough-looking men worked together to free him, under the direction of a large man with a jaunty hat that sat oddly with his stained workman’s clothes. They were hard men, William’s da would have said, but then, his da looked a hard man himself, when he came back from building canals. He only softened up when he’d spent some time around William’s mam.

  Two of the men pulled out the splintered planks that used to be a cart. The rest shifted the mound of coal. Some carried it away in their hands or their hats. Others used pieces of wreckage to clear a large swathe away. They were helping.

  William lurked near the corner, watching, as he tried to figure out the best way to introduce himself. When the rough-looking men pulled a particularly large piece of wreckage out, the fallen man gasped and winced. The man with the hat squatted beside him.

  “Are you alright there?” asked the man with the hat. “It’ll be over soon. Tell me, stranger, what’s your name?”

  “Conrad Zero,” the trapped man gasped.

  “Zero? What kind of name is that for a man?”

  “At immigration, they asked my name. When I hesitated too long—not sure if I wanted to give my full name, you see, in case trouble tried to follow me here—the official shrugged and wrote, ‘Zero’. Suits me well enough. A new life, a new start, a new name.” He looked down at the debris covering him. “If I get out of here.”

  “I’m Chad Valentine,” the man with the hat said, “and we’ll be getting you out.”

  “Call him Valentine,” chorused the other men.

  “It’s ‘cause he’s such a sweetheart of a slave driver,” one of the men added.

  “It’s not like we’ll be going back to canal-building, Tommy-boy,” Valentine said. “Not after this.”

  “No,” Tommy-boy agreed, looking around. “It’ll be building the factories back up for us.”

  “Maybe. Then again, maybe not.” A smile William didn’t understand crossed Valentine’s lips. He looked back over his shoulder at where William lurked. “And what’s your name, boy? Come on out, don’t be shy.”

  William eased around the corner. Nerves made him want to fiddle with something, so he stuck his hands in his pockets.

  “William McCormick, sir. My mam’s hurt. Will you help her, please?”

  Valentine puffed up his chest. “Sure and we will! Where is she?”

  “The crystal factory, sir.”

  “A factory full of womenfolk needing help, you say? How about it, lads?”

  A chorus of approval came from the group.

  William smiled, glad they’d help but a little uncomfortable.

  “Let’s just get Conrad out, and then we’ll be along to help your mam.” Valentine studied the reduced weight of the coal on top of the man. “Conrad, we’ll grab your arms and pull you out. Holler if you feel something shifting in a real bad way.”

  Valentine and Tommy each took an arm and heaved. Conrad yelped and hissed between his teeth, but he didn’t tell them to stop. He popped out like a chimney sweep from a smokestack, his clothing rags, covered in coal dust from neck to toe.

  “Much obliged!” he said.

  “Now, a prosperous businessman like yourself will be wanting to repay those who helped you, surely?” Valentine asked. His gang stepped closer.

  “Oh, aye,” Conrad agreed sourly, “and I just happen to have the monies from the coal I’ve sold so far here in my pocket.”

  “Would never have occurred to me,” Valentine said blandly.

  Conrad winced. “Agh, but I feel like I’ve got ants biting all over me!” He bent and swatted at his trousers, sending a cloud of black dust up into the air. When he straightened, he swayed. He grabbed ahold of Tommy to steady himself.

  Tommy tensed and his hand knotted. As quickly, he relaxed, but not before William saw.
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  William edged back a bit. “Mr. Valentine, sir, can you help my mam?”

  “Lead the way, kid!” Valentine said, counting the coins Conrad had handed him and passing a few along to his friends.

  The men laughed and patted each other on the back, their spirits raised by the successful rescue. Conrad shrugged and followed along. When William led them along and they passed those lying in the street, dead or struggling to push themselves up, the men grew quieter. When they entered the factory, they were utterly silent as they took in what had happened in the crystal workshop.

  William’s vision had recovered from the blinding effect of the flash of light. He could see clearly now. He wished he couldn’t. Most of the women and children laboring in the workshop looked like they’d died painfully, if quickly. Their bodies had contorted beyond the tolerance of muscle and bone. Blood congealed in their eyes. He’d seen it before, when he’d crawled to his mam, but not—not all at once, like. Some hadn’t died from the storm. Flying bricks from the wall had done for two more. Crystal shards pincushioned half-a-dozen others. Children lay in pools of their life’s blood, their faces cut beyond recognition by crystal prisms that had exploded at precisely child-height.

  “They were just kids,” said Patrick Sullivan, one of the younger men in Valentine’s mob.

  One of the small bleeding bodies stirred. Patrick jumped forward to help. “Here now, we’ll get you to a doctor—”

  The child gave a last convulsive shudder and then—stopped. A fly straggled in from outside and landed on the body. It scuttled around, its suckered tongue tasting dried sweat and blood.

  Patrick turned to the side, braced himself against the wall, and vomited a chunky spew that splashed when it struck the ground. It looked like he’d eaten stew, William thought. He felt shaky and cold. His mam cooked up a good stew.

  Sensing richer reward, the fly buzzed up and flew over to investigate. That made William wonder: why weren’t there more flies? It was a terrible thought, but it nagged at him.