by Gini Koch
The more he talked, the more I thought of the soldiers I fought beside over in the war. Boys from England crying themselves to sleep in the trenches, telling me tales of their sweethearts back home. Or sisters. Some were only old enough to have loved a mother.
And this Professor’s voice rankled. It scraped against the memories I had of those lads and chafed me raw. I don’t know that I’d have liked him had we met at the gates of Heaven itself.
When he stuffed a sausage into his mouth, I noted, “Whereabouts are you from? At first I thought you might be out of London, but somehow a little bit of Newcastle slipped in.”
His eyes betrayed nothing. McGann smiled and his answer slithered out. “Ah, have you been to my island then?”
He brought his mug to his face, but his nose curled as he noticed something floating in the drink. He tossed the contents out into the smoldering embers of last night’s fire.
“I’ve been around the area a time or two,” I said obliquely. “Truth is you don’t sound like any Tommy I ever met.”
“Pardon?”
“That’s a’cause he’s not,” Mrs. Hudson said brashly as she waddled through the snow. She presented Maeve with a steaming mug that smelled suspiciously like the chocolate the good lady kept in her own private stash. Along with it was a plate full of food. Twice as much as Crash and I ate.
She swatted at McGann to get him to make room on his bench, then urged Maeve to sit. The girl did as she was told and then stared at the food, eyes wide as saucers.
Mrs. Hudson crunched through the snow to stand beside me. “This one’s puttin’ on airs to make ’imself seem more legitimate.”
“So I’ll ask again,” I said. “Whereabouts are you from, Mr. McGann?”
He rolled his eyes and something seemed to slough away, like he’d shed a skin of sorts. His shoulders dropped, and his long, sharp angles seemed to relax. But he didn’t look comfortable. Not in the slightest.
“Good ear on this one, Haus,” he admitted, his accent shifting to something from the Scottish highlands. Reaching out and taking Maeve’s mug, he added. “Hope you’ve got him workin’ a bally.”
Mrs. Hudson fumed. And she couldn’t have been more threatening if she’d been fifty feet tall and breathing fire. She stalked over, retrieved Maeve’s mug and placed it in the girl’s fist. Then she scooped up grey, muddy snow from the ground with McGann’s cup and thrust it back at him. Without a word, she returned to my side. I gladly made a little more room for her on the bench.
Crash’s smile was one of keen amusement. “Go on, then, McGann. Tell me all about these ruffians and their cryptic messages. Spare no details.”
For the next hour or more, the Professor regaled us with florid tales of vandalism and terror. Like a true showman, his spiel was loud, bringing out the bleary-eyed occupants of the Wonder Show’s campground. Mrs. Hudson tended to their feeding while McGann took it upon himself to entertain the growing mass of carnies with his most curious story.
Apparently, sometime round about the Fourth of July, persons unknown burgled his wagon. They broke the windows, left gouge marks in the walls and floor, but took nothing. As the Professor told it, he needed no further persuading to vacate town quickly and moved himself along. A few weeks later, however, he returned to the wagon to find Maeve in hysterics and fresh paint marring his beloved wagon.
“And what did it look like?” Crash asked, his fingers steepled beneath his chin as he listened intently.
“Yellow,” the Professor said. “And why should it matter?”
“Not the color, dolt, but the shape of it. Did someone merely splatter a can of paint on your vardo or did they leave a message?”
McGann’s eyes twinkled and he hunched toward Crash conspiratorially. “There’s the rub. It seems I’d offended a pack of hobos. They painted stick figure signs on my beloved home, besmirching it with their simplistic sigils.”
“Stick figures?” Crash murmured.
“Indeed. Symbols that appear to indicate a dancing man. Or,” he said, stealing another sip from Maeve’s hot chocolate, “when viewed upside down, they are quite sad and confused flowers.”
“And is that all, McGann?”
“How do you mean?”
“Two separate occasions a handful of months ago; are these your only interactions? For if they are, I still don’t understand why you’d come running here.”
“Not at all, Crash. Not at all. They’ve kept a close watch on my travels. The brigands broke in again and destroyed more of my property with the same symbols. That was after the wedding in Birmingham, wasn’t it, Maeve?”
She nodded sheepishly. “As you say, Mr. McGann—Sylvestri!” she added quickly.
The Professor waved off her gaffe and went on, luxuriating in the sound of his own voice. “The most recent occasion was the worst, Crash. Just last week I woke to the terrible noise of my horse shrieking in agony. I staggered out to find the poor beast flailing in a pile of its own blood, the strange stick figure man dancing a macabre jig on its flank.”
I shuddered at the thought, remembering all too well what it felt like to be cut without the luxury of anesthetic or a good shot of rotgut. Crash, however, stared into the middle distance, pondering the problem before him.
“And the gouges in the floor and walls of your wagon. They are the same symbols?”
“Aye,” McGann said. “All of them different, and each one carved like a sinister warning to do harm upon my person.”
Crash unfolded from the bench and fixed the professor with a hard expression.
“Show me.”
four
THE INTERIOR OF Professor McGann’s wagon proved to be only slightly more accommodating than the one I shared with Crash. A bed had been built into the rearmost recess atop a pair of spacious steamer trunks on their sides. A worn green rug had been thrown over the slats of the floor in front of the stove. Shelves held all manner of things from the mundane to the curious: mason jars full of clear liquid, vials of amber fluid, brass spheres and clockwork dancers. Every inch of wall not devoted to storing his wares, however, was plastered with McGann’s face or name. His smile oozed from posters and playbills next to signs and advertisements shilling “Sylvestri’s Scintillating Serum” or the Professor’s abilities as a mesmerist, hypnotist and numismatist.
“Numismatist?” I jeered. “Didn’t know coin-collecting was something to tell the world.”
McGann’s cocksure smile waned, but he was quick to recover. “I collect as many coins as the marks donate to my coffers, good man.”
The fake accent was back again, along with the sense of unease skittering under my skin.
Haus only had eyes for the green rug. He squatted down, stare intense enough to burn a hole through the tight weave. He stroked the floor with the tips of his fingers.
“Is this where she sleeps?”
“Hmm? What?”
Crash’s sigh was heavy and reticent. “The girl, McGann. Maeve. Is this where she sleeps?”
“Ah, yes.” The Professor resumed inspecting his own reflection in a small mirror. “I keep to the bed and she has her place by the fire.” His eyes grew wide, scandalized, and he turned his full attention to Crash. “Are you insinuating that I’ve had improper dalliances with her? Haus, you disgust and insult me with these—”
“Shut your gob, McGann. If I thought any such thing, you’d already be on the road out of here with naught but your horse and a kit to match Godiva’s.”
This didn’t seem to ease the Professor’s mind at all.
“Where did you find her, by the way?”
“As I said, she was little more than a street urchin trying to rob me.”
“Why take her in?” I asked. “Why not leave her on the trails and move along?”
McGann became uncharacteristically silent. “I don’t know, really. It’s been some time since I had a travelling companion.”
“You were lonely,” Crash mused.
“Aren’t you?” The Pro
fessor shot a glance to me, looked me up and down with enough derision to leave a slime trail. “Well, perhaps not.”
Rather than answer, Crash threw back the rug to reveal the scars on the floor.
The floorboards were marred with—just as the Professor had said—stick figure men. There were two figures, hands joined, limbs mirroring one another as if dancing.
“You also mentioned the walls were vandalized?” Crash asked.
McGann peeled away an image of his own leering face to reveal a similar pair of carvings. They’d been gouged through a layer of patterned paper, leaving a tattered, splintered texture.
“Now I see why you’ve got the posters on the wall,” I said.
“They are far more appealing to the eye than what lies beneath,” McGann agreed.
“That,” I said, “is a matter of opinion.”
Still squatting, Crash studied the wagon. “Is it just these?” he asked with a loose gesture between the two carvings.
McGann shook his head sadly. “No. There are more beneath most of the adverts.”
Crash sprang up and massaged the walls, fingertips gliding over the posters like he was a blind man trying to read the tiniest of ripples. For a time, the only sounds were the rickety squeak of floorboards beneath his weight, the light hiss of skin across paper, and Haus’s hurried breath.
“They’re almost identical,” he remarked. “Always in pairs. Not quite symmetrical. You’ve painted over the one outside, I presume.”
“You presume correctly, Crash. I needn’t travel with such a mark. The gods alone know what sort of message that might send to some. Is it a brand? An order to do bring me ruin?”
“Hobo signs,” I said.
Crash smiled. “Do elaborate, Dandy.”
“Well, the roadmen have their own code. They don’t like outsiders to interfere with their business, but they are more than happy to help with one another. Not all of ’em can read, of course, so they use symbols left in the dirt or painted on signposts to let the rest of their ilk know what’s about.”
“Warnings?” Crash asked, still inspecting the walls.
“Sometimes. They might warn each other off if there’s been a local crime, or if there’s a particularly unhappy dog that might take a knock out of ’em for trespassin’. Other times, they like to share the good news and point one another to places where they can get a few hot squares and a day’s wage.”
“Can you read these?” McGann asked.
I shook my head. “I never lived rough.”
“Then how is it you have such knowledge?”
I didn’t feel like tellin’ this cat I had friends who couldn’t make it after coming home from the war, friends who’d served their country and could now only survive by scavenging and hopping inside box cars. Instead, I just told him, “I know folks.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“Where was Maeve?” Crash interrupted.
McGann rolled his eyes. “What’s this now?”
“Maeve. If she sleeps on here,” he said, punctuating his words with a downward jab, “directly above these rather violent gashes in your floor, where was she when the carvings were made?”
“How the bloody hell should I know?” McGann whined.
“You said she was your ward. You live here, too. For God’s sake, man, where was she?”
“I presume she was here, sleeping, while I spent some time out cavorting. When I returned, the girl was in hysterics. I could barely get two words out of her, but those words were clear enough that she’d been frightened by the vandals responsible.”
“She was unharmed?”
“I...” he stopped to think a moment, eyes rolling to the ceiling. “Now that you mention it, I’m not quite certain.”
Crash slapped the Professor and blazed out of the wagon, shouting, “Imbecile!”
McGann—stunned and mute—gaped at me as his cheek turned a rare shade of pink. I made myself scarce so as to not show him my glee. Crash had done what I’d been aching for since the Professor first rolled up on the lot. And truth be told, I was a mite bit jealous that it was Crash who got to pop him one.
Crash stalked back into the shelter by Mrs. Hudson’s crum car where the dwarf was refreshing Maeve’s cup. He’d just drawn a deep breath to start his questioning, when Artemesia Proust and Jonathan Mars waylaid my roommate. Mars put his considerable bulk between Crash and young Maeve, though I don’t suppose it was specifically to keep the two apart. The strongman’s face was red, and his eyes moist. But a smile beamed through his thick, black beard.
“Crash, you’re just the man I need to see,” Mars said, almost out of breath.
“Jon, I’m a tad busy. Can it wait?”
“It won’t take but a moment, Crash.”
He reached out a hand the size of my cap and curled his thick fingers around Artemesia’s wrist. The Wonder Show’s tattooed lady slid beneath his arm and settled there like they were two pieces of a puzzle. Her smile even matched his.
“Crash,” Mars began. His barrel chest swelled to the size of a steam engine. “I’ve asked the lovely Miss Proust here to be my wife.”
Her tiny hand stroking her lover’s arm, Artemesia gazed at him adoringly. “And I’ve said yes.”
Those within earshot gasped. Whispers passed the news and soon a chorus of congratulations surrounded the happy couple. Hell, I found myself grinning like an idiot; no wonder Mars was so pleased.
I could see the ropy veins in Crash’s neck. He tightened his jaw and flashed a glance past Mars. I looked, too, and saw Maeve bundling herself tightly in that overlarge coat and shuffling off to her wagon, her steps tiny but hurried. Disappointment was a cloud over Crash’s face, then, but when he spoke his tone couldn’t have been more sincere.
“Jon, that’s wonderful. Most heartfelt congratulations to you both.” He placed a chaste kiss on Artemesia’s temple before shaking Jonathan’s meaty paw. Eyes darting toward Maeve’s retreating form, he added, “Is that all you needed?”
With a simple upward tilt of her head, Artemesia asked Mars a silent question. He nodded his response and she engaged my roommate. “Well, it’s just that... well, I don’t know that there’s been a wedding since you came to us.”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“You see, here in the circus we’ve a tradition when it comes to nuptials.”
Crash waited for one of them to continue, but when neither Mars nor Miss Proust offered further explanation, he asked, “You’re not leaving, are you?”
“Oh, no!” Artemesia exclaimed. “We wouldn’t dream of it.”
Mars bellowed, “Crash, there is no place we’d rather be than right here with you and the rest of the Wonder Show. Which is why we want you to send us around the carousel.”
Haus narrowed his eyes. “I’m sorry? I don’t understand.”
“It’s our way,” Artemesia explained gently. “We don’t go in for churches and the like. When a man and a woman want to bond together—for life or just a season—they ride the carousel together for everyone to see.”
“Generally speaking, Crash,” Mars carried on, “the person who starts up the ride sort of acts as best man and preacher.”
His voice trailed off and the small crowd around us grew silent. The levity of the moment shifted, became something somber. A tick or two later than me, Crash caught on and understanding seeped into his cold eyes.
Lines scored Crash’s forehead, driving his brows closer together as the brilliant man puzzled over this simple—yet sacred—request. I couldn’t be certain, being so new to the show myself, but I guessed that the carnies didn’t often ask one not born of their ranks to participate in their rites of passage.
Crash cleared his throat, opened his mouth to speak but closed it again. He swallowed hard. “You... you want me...?” he croaked.
The Professor took that moment to barge in. “You know, I would be more than pleased to wed you both,” he said, voice booming. “After all, I am part of the family. I
was born to the trade, part of this show, and I also happen to be a man of the cloth.”
Crash didn’t honor him with his full attention. “Any church that would have you should rethink its adherence to a god with such low standards of excellence and piety.”
This drew snickers from the assembled mass. Artemesia and Jonathan couldn’t have been more serious, though. Artemesia placed a hand gently on Crash’s arm.
“Please, Crash. It would be our genuine pleasure if you’d do this for us.”
Haus’s fingers clasped hers. “I’d be honored.”
A whoop went up around the camp and clusters of folks began hugging and kissing each other. Mrs. Hudson—after congratulating the couple—waddled around the scrum and looped her arm around mine. She pulled me down and planted a heavy kiss on my mouth.
“Looks like we’re going to have a wedding!” she said.
Crash grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the celebration. I let him, stunned as a deer as I was from that kiss.
“Come on,” he urged, turning me toward our wagon. “We should talk.”
As we left I heard Mrs. Hudson say, “Professor, you help me hitch my wagon to Dandy there, and your dessert’s on the house for the rest of your days.”
five
THE NEWS OF the impending wedding spread with such a quickness, and with such warm fondness, it was almost enough to melt the snow on the camp and bring in an early springtime. Behind the closed doors of our vardo, however, Crash had little on his mind but the Professor’s problems.
He paced—which in the tight wagon was little more than a slow spin—fingers steepled beneath his chin, muttering to himself.
“Means... that’s no help at all. Anyone can find a paint can or knife. Opportunity? With McGann rolling from city to city, any number of people could find the wagon accessible. So let’s examine motive.”
“Spending an ounce of time with him,” I offered, “is motive in and of itself, wouldn’t you say?”