Ahab's Return

by Jeffrey Ford

  That’s when I heard a growl come from the dark corner next to Malbaster.

  “Oh, yes. I forgot to introduce you to my pet,” he said.

  Something moved in the shadows. The blue eyes and a multitude of teeth caught the fluorescence of his bulbous head and gleamed. “We’ve met,” said a smooth, female voice. “I nearly made this wretch my dinner some nights ago at the old cotton warehouse. His treacherous little brat shot at me.”

  I never intended to speak, but I found myself asking, “A manticore—how is it possible?” Both Malbaster and the creature laughed.

  “A manticore that speaks, no less,” he said. “Fabulous. There’s nothing that the combined will of the people can’t conjure. Love generates great energy with which to form the world. But Fear and Ignorance aren’t bad themselves, producing their own grim yet powerful magic. The secret, Harrow, is e pluribus unum.”

  As the words fell from his lips, Misha entered the room in her nightgown, her graying hair let down to the middle of her back. Her eyes were open and yet her gaze fixed on no one thing, as if she were sleepwalking. I tried to get up and go to her, but it was as if I were glued to the chair. “Run, Misha,” I yelled, my words sounding like the buzz of a mosquito.

  “I think your plotline, so to speak, is a little crowded, Harrow. I’m going to extricate you from such difficulty and remove this pointless character from your world.”

  “What do you mean, remove her?”

  “Erase her as you might a faulty word when composing in pencil.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The manticore slunk forward, ringlets bobbing like springs, padded paws silent on the office floor. She drew within two feet of Misha, and then the tail whipped out of the shadow behind the creature and stuck its poisonous stinger directly into the center of Misha’s forehead. The tail pulled back, leaving a neat round hole leaking blood. I gasped.

  “What I mean is what I said. I’m having her erased,” said Malbaster. With that, the manticore opened wide its mouth and took a huge bite out of Misha’s left buttock. She stood there wrapped in a trance, enduring it all. Still trapped in my chair, all I could do was watch in horror as my housekeeper, my friend, was vanished bite by bite. There was no blood or bone or viscera. Instead, there was nothing; each subsequent bite was like the pass of an eraser over words, wiping away that which was Misha.

  The final portion was her face. The manticore used its teeth to lift the scrap from the floor and drop it in Malbaster’s hands. “I’ll have a bite,” he said and took away a good portion of Misha’s forehead. I groaned, unable to accept what I was seeing. When there wasn’t a crumb of her left, Malbaster banged his walking stick against the floor twice, pointed to me, and commanded, “Sleep.”

  22

  I woke in my chair, my cheek resting upon my writing desk. Nearby was an empty bottle of gin. One of my cheap cigars had at some point rolled out of my hand and left a burn mark in the desk’s wood surface. My head was heavy, my eyes bleary. I pushed myself upright, and as I rose, I noticed that my notebook was open and I’d obviously been working.

  I picked up what was left of the cigar, lit it, and read through what I’d managed to scrawl in my weariness. It was not the adventure of the Indian Caves as I had planned. I vaguely remembered having the revelation, awash in gin, that perhaps a meeting with Malbaster at this juncture of my Ahab series might breathe new life into it and pave the way for not one but multiple new articles about the captain. Somehow my drink-addled mind had reasoned that the consumption of Misha by the manticore would excite the most primal reactions in people and draw them more deeply into the story.

  At that moment, my housekeeper entered the room and inquired about her gun. I nearly cried in relief, realizing my article had been pure confabulation, and quickly closed the notebook. I knew that at some point I would have to suffer Misha’s discovery of her unusual demise. But it would be days until the article was published. I came right out and told her I was nearly killed relying on the blasted pepperbox.

  “But where is it?”

  “In the bushes, somewhere at the northern edge of Manhattan.”

  “You just threw it away?”

  “It was useless. A gun is supposed to shoot bullets,” I said.

  “It’s been scary around here at night,” she told me. “A voice out in the garden reciting poetry.”

  Her words made me shudder. I thought of how my article about Ahab’s captivity was prophetic. If the manticore was nearby, it was too close. I asked Misha to take a few weeks and go to visit her niece on Long Island. “I’ll give you money for the trip,” I told her. “Take three weeks.”

  “What? Are you getting rid of me?” she said, her face becoming a grimace.

  “Just vacation. Your position is safe. Trust me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s too dangerous here for you. They know where I live. They’ll come for you eventually. Only three weeks. I aim to solve the entire problem by then.”

  “We’re counting on you to solve the problem?” she said, suppressing a laugh. “Might as well take a month while I’m at it.”

  “I’ll send for you when I need you. Leave me the address. Get packed; I’ll escort you to the ferry.”

  “And what’ll become of you if I go?” she said.

  “Chances are, nothing good, but if something were to happen to you, I’d never forgive myself.”

  “Oh, piffle, George Harrow. I’m not going anywhere. Besides, my niece on Long Island hates me and thinks I’m a meddlesome old bitch.”

  “I’d never suspected her of being that sharp,” I said. Misha smacked the back of my head. “Okay, okay, stay, but you’ll be here alone quite a bit and I, obviously, can’t protect you. There are mythical creatures stalking the streets.”

  “I’ll go right now,” she said, laughing, “and sharpen the butcher knife.”

  Recalling Mavis in action at the Indian Caves, I wondered if I should get my housekeeper some knife-wielding lessons. In any event, I cut the mad article of my interview with Malbaster out of my notebook and secured it in an envelope with the Gorgon wax seal. After stowing that in my inside jacket pocket, I set to recording the adventure of the Indian Caves. Two new articles at once for Garrick.

  Late that morning, I left with my satchel full of my writer’s gear—pen, ink, paper, pencils, notebook, eraser, penknife, wax, matches, and the Gorgon’s Mirror seal. Also in that bag was my last hundred dollars. I’d left twenty with Misha and I owed, out of what I carried, seventy to Mavis. I saddled the white horse and took a roundabout way to Arabella’s, checking to make sure I wasn’t being followed.

  The streets were lightly traveled due to the snow and the wicked wind. A few people still scurried to work and on errands. Tramps huddled together for warmth like dogs under porches and in alleyways. Here and there was an itinerant fire in a barrel or gutter, spewing foul black smoke into the blue day and offering a bit of warmth to those without a home.

  I didn’t trust anyone. I particularly didn’t trust anyone under twenty dressed in a shabby fashion. They may just have been youngsters on the street traveling to jobs at the seaport, but as far as I was concerned they were all the Jolly Host. I was becoming as suspicious and fearful as the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner.

  I recalled the words Malbaster had uttered to me the night before in the Land of Nod. “The secret, Harrow, is e pluribus unum.” I didn’t understand what that meant when I wrote it but recalled it came with such force. Back in school, I had been a scholar of spitballs, not Latin. Still, I knew it was our nation’s motto—Out of many, one. Was Malbaster the one out of many? In the piece I’d written for Garrick, the Pale King Toad had told me he could smell the rotting oyster stink of fear and that it made him nostalgic.

  I returned the coach horse to the stable beside Arabella’s house. After peering up and down the street from behind a pair of juniper trees, I climbed the front porch steps. The door was unlocked. I retrieved the f
id from my satchel and quietly let myself in. The vague scent of the poppy was in the air and all was terribly still. I entered the parlor to find Madi sitting on the yellow satin couch. He opened his eyes, smiled, and put his finger to his lips. Curled up asleep next to him, resting her head on his thigh, was Arabella.

  He slowly, carefully, slipped out from beneath her and managed to wedge a throw pillow under her head. He stood and I followed him out of the parlor and into the hallway.

  “What in God’s name was going on back there?” I asked in an affronted whisper.

  He stopped and turned to face me. I caught him smiling and didn’t like it one bit. “You mean with Miss Dromen?”

  “You know I mean with Miss Dromen,” I said, losing patience.

  “At around three in the morning, Ahab left to deal with the boy who was screaming to be released. All manner of threats and curses echoed through the house. When the captain got up, I sat down and closed my eyes. A while later, Arabella emerged from her writing room dazed on the smoke and sat next to me. We talked for an hour or so. She expressed her grief for the loss of her man, Otis, who’d been with her since before her father had passed. Eventually she must have fallen asleep and tipped over onto my leg.”

  “Somewhat unseemly. Wouldn’t you say?”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  I was about to give him a piece of my mind when he turned to the left and pushed open another door. Inside, I saw Ahab, sitting shirtless and upright in a chair next to a four-poster bed. Gabriel lay there, ropes knotted around his ankles and wrists, his head on a cream-colored pillow the size of a cloud. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be fast asleep. The captain heard us enter and indicated two chairs. We sat, I at the foot of the bed, Madi across the bed from Ahab.

  The captain looked as if he’d covered all watches for a week. His face was drawn and his hair had gone grayer than when I’d last seen him. His eyes were dull and dark circled. Now that the boy was in reach, he dared not sleep for fear of losing him again.

  “Madi says he’s had some complaints,” I whispered to Ahab, nodding down at Gabriel.

  “Aye. A great caterwauling. He’s professed his allegiance to Malbaster. Said the boulder-headed bastard would kill us all. There was much struggling against his bonds. I must hand it to Miss Dromen, she knows how to tie a knot like a sailor.”

  “Her father was a ship’s captain,” said Madi.

  “I knew there was something worthwhile about the woman,” said the captain.

  “From what I understand, there will be more anguish to come for the lad,” I said.

  “Coming off the smoke will likely start this evening. Then he’ll suffer sweats and pains and nausea and shivering and delusions,” said Ahab. “I’ve seen it before.”

  “What does he say about your being his father?” asked Madi.

  “Says he wishes I’d been swallowed by the white whale.”

  “He’ll come around,” I said.

  Ahab shook his head. “No, no. I let the boy vent his rage, for it’s I who’ve done him wrong. I could sit here forever in the quiet of this room and watch him sleep, knowing he is safe.”

  I looked over at Madi and saw him turn away. The captain was such a pitiful specimen, you couldn’t help but commiserate with him. Even I felt the pricking of tears. To cover my emotion, I stood and announced that Madi and I were heading out to try to locate the warehouse holding John Jacob Astor’s considerable stash.

  “As soon as he’s up and about and I’ve managed to corral his affections, we’ll be on the spot to assist you, Harrow. I want to thank you and Madi for saving my boy.”

  “I’ll take a dead Malbaster in lieu of thanks,” said the harpooneer.

  “Aye,” said Ahab.

  “We’ll be back this evening,” I said. “Should you need to flee, take the coach and try to make it to the New Rose Inn. To get there, follow the East River north. Tell Sally Cocharan I’m pleading with her to take you and the boy and Arabella in.”

  The captain quietly nodded.

  After leaving the bedroom, Madi and I passed through the parlor. Arabella was just waking up, stretching her arms and yawning. When she saw us, she asked if we were off to the West Side. I told her we were and said the same to her as I did to Ahab about where to go if the Jolly Host should show themselves.

  “I know the New Rose Inn,” she said.

  “I know you dropped the coach gun when we fled the Host, but have you got any other weapon?” I asked.

  “There’s a double-barreled percussion pistol in my writing room.”

  “Load it and keep it near you at all times,” I said.

  She nodded. “Oh, Madi, forgive me for falling asleep in the middle of our conversation. I was exhausted.”

  Madi waved away her concern and said, “Quite all right, but, you know, Harrow here is upset because when you fell asleep you leaned over and rested your head on my thigh. I’m afraid he feels your honor has been impugned.”

  “Yes, my honor,” she said.

  “I believe he’s wary that I might have tarnished you.”

  “I just wanted to be sure everything was on the up-and-up,” I said and could feel myself sinking deeper into the mire.

  Arabella looked at Madi, raised her eyebrows, and said, “You know, of all people, Harrow’s thoroughly on the up-and-up.” Their laughter was damnably raucous. I left the room before it consumed me. Why did I couch my suspicions of Madi in the guise of superiority, when it was just straight-on jealousy? I’d thought it would give me license to be dishonest with myself but instead it made me a fool.

  I slipped out the front door, dashed across the lawn to the juniper trees, and hid there waiting for him. I lit a cigar and asked myself what the hell I was doing. I was about to head off with the harpooneer to the West Side to follow the doings of the Jolly Host in order to discover a trove of opium, which we would burn, luring Malbaster out into the open, so that we might slay him. I knew I should flee this insanity, go back home, stay there, write my articles, drink gin, and trade insults with Misha. I wanted to fall asleep at my writing desk, concocting things that weren’t real.

  When Madi met me a few minutes later, we decided to go down to Chambers Street, so I could stop in at the offices of the Cockaigne Times and look up my old friend and competitor, Rufus Sharde. He was a man in the know and could more than likely point us in the direction of the Host.

  The snow had melted somewhat in the morning’s bright glare but by early afternoon the wind grew fiercer and turned it to ice. Our combined footfalls sounded like a regiment marching on eggshells. In addition, there were slippery patches in the road and on the sidewalk. We both came very close to falling more than once.

  By the time we passed City Hall, I was frozen and fed up with the adventure before it had begun. In the park, a trio of turkey vultures perched in a dead elm. We passed beneath them and they followed us, circling above in the cold blue sky, their shadows ominous across the snow.

  “I can’t feel my hands, Harrow,” Madi said and blew into them.

  “My ears have fallen off,” I said.

  The birds followed us a few more blocks to the offices of the Cockaigne Times at the corner of Church and Chambers. I knocked upon the door and the copy boy answered. A voice behind him called, “Who is it?”

  The boy responded, “Harrow.”

  “Let him in,” came the reply.

  “He got a colored man with him.”

  “Let them in, I told you,” came the voice and then its owner appeared and swung wide the door to allow us entry into the fireplace warmth. It was such a relief to be out of the wind, I nearly cried. Sharde led us through the busy production room of the Times where off in the corner, the presses ran pages. We passed by a cluster of women who sat at a large table folding those pages together. They were all talking at once about various topics but their hands worked in concert like machines.

  Once we reached Rufus’s office, he said, “The first order of business is cigars and
whiskey.” I took a seat and tried to hug the chill out of myself. He gave each of us a drink and a smoke and then retreated to the chair on the other side of his desk. “Harrow, you looked like Jack Frost’s father when you first came in from the cold. There were icicles in your hair and you were white as a wedding dress.”

  “I felt like his grandfather,” I said.

  “Is this your man?” Rufus asked and nodded toward Madi.

  “This is my colleague, Madi.”

  “I know him from reading your recent articles about the sea captain. That series is brilliant, George. Brilliant.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” I said. “We’re trying to finish the story, but we need some information.”

  “On a day like this? You’re out investigating, clear across town? Harrow, what’s wrong with you?”

  “We need to track something down.”

  “Track something down, are you serious? Aren’t you spinning the Ahab story out of thin air?”

  “Everything I’ve written has been more or less true,” I said.

  “I love the manticore,” said Rufus and laughed. “A swift stroke of genius, but please, that’s not even less true.”

  “It exists.”

  “Harrow, stay home and let your imagination do the work. I used to think there was actual wonder in the world, and when I started out, I went into the streets armed with my pen to find it. But the years have driven me inside for my articles. Dramas from my dark heart. There’s nothing out there but grimy disappointment.”

  “I’d known that for years,” I told Sharde. “Until Ahab swept by at high tide and shanghaied me into his service, I’d have agreed with you. But of late, the world’s wonders intrude.”

  23

  Sharde loved to lecture me, even though my articles were more popular than his and the Gorgon’s Mirror outsold the Cockaigne Times nearly two to one. I couldn’t completely ignore him, though. When I’d just started out in the penny press humbug business, working for the Weekly Speculator, Rufus had already been at it for a decade. He took me under his wing at the time and showed me the art and craft of confabulation. Without him, I’d never have risen to the position I now hold at the top of the mound of purveyors of print hokum.