The Mysterious Madam Morpho

by Delilah S. Dawson

  “Curiosity killed the cat. That’s what they say, is it not?”

  “Where I came from, it was mostly bludrats or my father with a grain sack and a visit to the Thames.”

  His eyes softened, and he held out a hand to her. “I think the world has been unnecessarily cruel to you,” he said softly.

  She stared at his hand a moment before taking it, unsure of what he wanted. Would he pull her close for another kiss, perhaps hold her as if she were a frightened child?

  Instead, he tugged her over to the worktable, saying only, “Work will soothe us both, I think.”

  The plans had been covered by a few casually strewn newspapers. He stacked them neatly to the side as she ran a finger over the cunning designs, each carefully labeled and drawn as if one could see straight through the objects in question. The musical instruments were wonders of clockwork, the machines for feats of strength as magical and seemingly fragile as the butterflies themselves. These plans weren’t simply a man’s response to his employer’s request. They were a gift of rare beauty and imagination.

  Holding up an ink-smeared handbill showing a drab and featureless woman with a very high price on her head, he said, “Vil was right. This isn’t you. It could be anyone. And it doesn’t nearly do justice to your beauty.”

  She looked up at him, a smile trembling on her lips, one hand on his drawings.

  “These plans are a credit to yours,” she said.

  10

  After an afternoon spent discussing butterfly species and colors while he cut and filed bits of metal, Imogen realized it was long past time to go. How odd, that one could spend the day in a room full of ticking clocks and still utterly lose track of time. When she opened the wagon door, it was dark outside, and the caravan was in full swing, a riot of noise and light.

  Henry stood a little away, as if he didn’t want to be seen by anyone who might be lurking beyond his door.

  “So I’ll see you tomorrow after breakfast?” he said, and she nodded and said, “Of course.”

  But she paused, one hand on the door, uncertain. The sound of a calliope danced on the brisk air, interlaced with laughter and bells and the merry burble of voices. She could smell candy floss and smoked meat and popcorn, overlaid with the metal tang of the train and, nearer, of Henry. The moon was a bare sliver, high in the sky, outshone by the lanterns strung around the perimeter of the caravan. A sharp line of light divided the warm atmosphere of the show from the dark emptiness of the surrounding moors. They’d been so busy that they had missed the dinner bell, and for whatever reason, Vil had not brought a tray, which Henry had said was his usual manner of meals. Her stomach clenched in hunger, or so she told herself.

  “Do I just . . . go out?” she asked. “Is it safe?”

  Henry laughed and took a step closer to the door. And to her. “You’re a carnivallero now, dear lady. Have you never been?”

  “Never.”

  The longing was clear in her voice, and he took a deep breath and stared out the door as if a firing squad waited on the other side, crossbows poised.

  “I can’t . . . I haven’t . . . It’s just been a very long time since I went out among people,” he said.

  Her fingers drummed on the door in time with the calliope’s glad pipes. “You do not seem like a coward to me.”

  “Nor you to me, and yet here you stand, on this side of the door.”

  “Perhaps it is not fear of the carnival that keeps me here. Perhaps I remain for selfish reasons. Enjoying someone’s company is not an exhibition of cowardice,” she said, chin high.

  “What a strange, plain-speaking creature you are.” His eyes seemed to seek something in the carnival’s glow behind her. “But I find that I share your curiosity. It does sound very exciting out there, doesn’t it? I so rarely open my door when the show is on. Bide a moment, and we’ll see what I can do.”

  She closed the door and leaned back against it. As soon as he was in the workshop, she darted to the mirror to check that her hat was set right. But no—it was still on the rack. She had almost gone outside without a hat! The impropriety was shocking, not to mention the risk, as Bludmen were about en masse and would surely be feeling their hunger. Plucking her topper from a tentacle, she buttoned it to the back of her jacket collar and set it at just the right angle.

  In one afternoon, she had lain beside a man in the dark, felt the brush of his hand on her face, and then spent hours working with him, head uncovered and elbows occasionally brushing with the most fascinating electricity. If her father had known, he would have been furious. Well, had he not already disowned her. Perhaps for someone with such progressive views as herself, a clockwork caravan was not so much a fall from grace as an exit from a life that had not suited her. If Beauregard was what a woman could expect of respected scholars and businessmen in the city, she had already been treated with more dignity and kindness by Henry, and she had known him for only two days.

  A muffled voice said, “I’m ready.”

  Imogen gasped and then burst out laughing. His outfit was even more outlandish than Vil’s. His wide-brimmed bowler extended down his neck, fastened firmly to a long black coat. Goggles with smoky lenses obscured his eyes. The beard and mustache that normally disguised the bottom half of his face were covered by a mask of leather and brass. His nose was the only part of him visible.

  “Egad. You look a positive outlaw,” she said, fighting the chuckles.

  “Perhaps. But please bear in mind that there’s only one reason I would enter into that mewling, jostling crowd. Madam Morpho, would you be so kind as to accompany me to Criminy Stain’s Clockwork Caravan?”

  He held out his arm, and she took it gladly.

  “I hear the clockworks themselves are quite masterly,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” he answered, “but I understand that the mechanist is rather a genius. And they’re soon to have an arresting new act in which a beautiful woman of much mystery commands a band of exotic butterflies.”

  He opened the door and helped her down the stairs to the ground. She could feel the tension in his arm and looked to his face, but he simply shook his head and said, “Now or never.”

  To the left was the engine, and to the right, a crowd had gathered around Veruca the Abyssinian Sword Swallower. With Imogen’s elbow tucked firmly against his side, Henry drew her in that direction, and she gave Veruca a small wave. The powerfully built woman paused, a scimitar poised at her lips, raising one dark eyebrow at the man on Imogen’s arm. So it was true, then, that no one in the caravan had ever seen the Mysterious Mr. Murdoch. Although she had not doubted his word or that of Emerlie, who had certainly been happy to blab, it was still surprising to know that someone as sharp and watchful as Veruca had never caught a glimpse of the famous mechanist. Of course, to the crowd of amazed Pinkies, they were just one more couple out to enjoy a brief reprieve from the gilded and wired cage of the huge, overcrowded city.

  Imogen had been so frightened standing before the London wall with her self-faked papers, as if the guards would see through her ruse to the rebellious soul within. But the guard had barely looked at her, and as soon as she had settled herself beside her trunk in the conveyance, her heart had seemed lighter and lighter the further she came into the countryside.

  “Where are the bludbunnies?” she asked as they strolled toward the crowd.

  Henry leaned over to whisper, “We can’t keep them out completely, but we try. If carnivalleros see one, they’re supposed to kill it. They get a copper for every ten bodies they bring to Cook. And there are several clockworks designed to kill the nasty little creatures, too. No matter how excellent our technology gets, there are just so many of them.”

  Still, despite the darkness of the night and the number of Bludmen and possible blud creatures about, she felt safe tucked against him. There was just something so competent about the man, a
nd he was clearly a genius. And yet he didn’t share the hubris of the scholars she had known. Imogen wanted to ask him pointed questions, dig out truths equal to those she had revealed earlier. But before she could find the right words, he led her past Veruca to the clockwork between the engine and the red caboose.

  “This is one of my favorites,” he whispered.

  The great copper crocagator was beautiful, so cunningly crafted that she could imagine it crawling up from a deep river, water glistening on its riveted teeth. It sat upright, mouth wide and smiling, eyes occasionally blinking sleepily. Across its great brass stomach were stamped the words RUB MY BELLY, THEN RUB YOURS.

  “Go on.” He grinned and released her arm.

  She swayed in place, unsure. She knew it couldn’t be dangerous. Not if it was part of the carnival, and not if he was urging her toward it. Still, Imogen was leery of approaching such a large automaton and one with such bright, shining teeth. She still remembered the clockwork horror stories from her childhood—a rampaging metal lion in the London Zoo and the ill-fated Royal Carousel that had malfunctioned during the ribbon-cutting ceremony and nearly killed several children and the Magistrate. Even after it had been proven safe, she had never wanted to visit it and ride the moving metal monsters. But surely automata had come rather far since then, and surely a man as talented and careful as Henry would know exactly how to craft his masterpieces.

  Lifting her chin high, she stepped firmly to the crocagator, her boot heels sinking in the spongy ground. The metal was cold under her glove, and she rubbed the smooth brass in a circular motion. At the press of her hand, machinery inside began to move, and the gator’s mouth opened wider with a contented sigh that verged on becoming a purr. With a hiss, a strip of paper curled out from between his teeth. When it stopped, she reached to rip it off, but for some reason she couldn’t name, she did not read it out loud.

  Good things are in store for you. Bravery is its own reward.

  “Is it a good fortune?” he asked with a grin.

  “Cryptic but positive. Would you like to read it?”

  He threw an arm dramatically over his goggles.

  “Leroi’s fortunes don’t work that way. You must read it and eat it without telling anyone. If you wish it to come true, that is.”

  “Eat it?”

  “Taste it.”

  Tentatively, she touched her tongue to the corner of the fortune, and it dissolved in fizzing sugar.

  “Candy fortunes. How charming. What will you think of next?”

  She shook her head before curling the ribbon carefully in her hand and placing it delicately in her mouth. The fortune melted on her tongue, sweet but tart, like a lemon ice and light as air. When she looked up, she found Henry’s eyes watching her through the smoky glass with that strange mix of curiosity and hunger she caught every now and then, as if he were a cat amazed by a mouse or a scientist enamored of his subject or, more likely, a combination of both.

  “Will you get your own fortune?” she asked.

  He took her arm again, this time without asking, but she found she didn’t mind his proprietary air. As they stopped to watch the next act, he murmured, “Mine is to create the fortunes, not live them.”

  Next were the Twisty Sisters, Demi and Cherie. To Imogen’s eyes, they were lithe young girls in far too little clothing posing and twisting in ways that shouldn’t have been possible.

  “You can hardly tell they’re Bludmen,” Henry said near her ear, but Imogen realized that she could tell. The Bludmen had a certain look about them, a certain cool beauty and smoothness and calm that Pinkies simply didn’t possess. That, and she had never seen humans who could move that way, bent over and around each other like pretzels.

  They passed the juggling polanda bear and paused for a moment to watch Charlie Dregs make magic with his Punch and Judy show. The crowd was mostly children, and they turned to stare at Henry’s get-up with malicious distrust. With a chuckle, he directed Imogen out of the crowd, past a clockwork unicorn, and on to the next wagon, where a woman with a dancing master’s baton was shooing people into two groups.

  Her fiery red skin, ink-black hair, and forked tail had to mean that she was a daimon, the first that Imogen had seen outside of books. In London, like the Bludmen, they mostly kept to themselves in their own district, although she knew that in Franchia, they made up well more than half the population and filled the cabarets, operas, and stages. The woman was beautiful and exotic, in a tightly fitted dress that seemed to be made of pure glitter, and she moved with unbelievable grace and confidence, her tail waving sinuously through a slit in the skirt.

  “You there,” she said, placing a bare red hand on Imogen’s arm. “Ma chère, you must go over to that side, with the ladies. And you, my fine flappy crow. You must go with the menfolk.”

  “But I don’t—” Imogen began.

  The woman clicked her tongue and said, “Perhaps you do not at home. But here, you do.”

  Imogen looked up in confusion at Henry, but he stood already with the men, the mischievous smile she knew was there hidden under his mask. With two steps backward, Imogen stood amid the rustling crowd of London ladies in their fashionable dresses of jewel-tinted taffeta and velvet, their huge hats jostling one another to the tune of nervous giggles. When her eyes strayed to the bright red wagon, she read, Mademoiselle Caprice & Sons, Dancing Masters of Paris.

  Two daimon boys appeared, one with a hurdy-gurdy and the other in an indigo tuxedo spangled with stars. Bowing deeply, the dancer took his place with the men, and the musician began to play an exotic tune. Imogen lost track of Henry and of time itself as she followed the daimon woman’s example and tried her first dance steps, something most girls in London would have learned before entering society at fifteen. The rhythm was easy enough, and her feet behaved honorably. When Mademoiselle Caprice was finally satisfied with the women’s steps, Imogen looked up, panting with happy exertion, to find Henry waiting.

  “May I have this dance?” he asked with great seriousness, and he took her waist and clasped her hand. His body radiated warmth and competence, and it felt utterly intimate when he pulled her close in the cage of his arms.

  The hurdy-gurdy began to play, and the couples took to the dance in a confused frenzy, their laughter stronger than their dedication to rhythm and grace. But Henry had the knack, and he led Imogen in careful circles, twirls, and dips, pulling her closer each time she spun away from him.

  The magic of the caravan swirled around them, and she gave herself up to giddy delirium. Glitter danced among the stars, and a wild breeze mixed the sugary sweetness of candy floss with Henry’s sharp tang of leather and metal and sandalwood. She had not, to her knowledge, ever been held—at least, not since she was an insensible child. The way he held her now, as they danced with the crowd, merged tenderness and strength, excitement and security. Although other dancers swirled around them in a riot of color and a burble of sound, all she heard was the thump of the hurdy-gurdy driving her galloping feet and her dizzy heart. All she saw were his eyes, unmistakable even through the gray-smoked goggles. When he looked at her, she felt like the only thing left in all the world. If the dance had proper steps, she forgot them and simply followed Henry.

  He pulled to a halt, dipping her so low she feared the tails of her jacket would puddle in the dirt. The strength of his arm was all that kept her from falling, and her eyes locked with his, unblinking, as he bent toward her mouth. It was a shock, when the cold leather of his mask touched her lips. Only then did she notice that the hurdy-gurdy had stopped and the crowd was clapping and moving away, toward refreshment or further entertainment.

  With a mumbled “Forgive me,” he swept her back upright, and she found that her feet felt as if they were no longer connected to her body.

  “Such delightful chemistry,” Mademoiselle Caprice said, appearing beside them with an exhalation of bliss. “You must come b
ack and dance again. Oh, it is delicious.”

  “Thank you, Mademoiselle,” Henry said shortly, “but we must be moving on.”

  He made as if to take Imogen’s arm again but stopped himself, muttering, “Altogether too dangerous.” He all but stomped away from her.

  She fought to keep her head up, mumbling, “Yes, thank you,” to the bemused daimon before she stumbled off in his wake, red with embarrassment.

  Of course, she was a horrendous dancer, as clumsy and clueless on her feet as she was with her heart. But she couldn’t begin to understand why he was so upset. Her father’s dark tempers had been deep and lasting, and she had never discovered exactly what it was about her or the world that set him off. Beauregard’s moods had been disconnected, cold as an empty hallway, and she had felt like an object whenever he was near.

  But Henry’s disposition was altogether different in flavor and timing, fiery instead of cold. Even with her gifted mind, she didn’t understand why he seemed to be so often annoyed with her. She would have to find a book on male psychology, and soon, if she wished to keep working with him, much less to grow any closer to him, a hope that she couldn’t deny to herself any longer. She did not want to make the mistake of running from her father’s house to her professor’s museum to the caravan and straight into the arms of a mysterious and reclusive mechanist, and yet she found herself drawn to him.

  And she wouldn’t sit around wondering, either. Picking up her skirts, she sprinted to his black, flapping coat and caught his arm.

  “We must talk,” she said.

  “Is the magic of the caravan not temptation enough?” he said, throwing his arms wide to encompass the wagons and shaking loose her arm in the process. “Merriment, acts of entertainment, the barest hint of danger. Is this not enough to satisfy you?”

  “I am not a fool, Henry, and I have already admitted to you that I know very little of interpersonal behavior, but I must confess that you confound me utterly. Is there some underlying issue that drives you? Or am I simply so unlawful, uncoordinated, overeducated, and plain-spoken that you find yourself thoroughly disgusted by my very presence?”