From time to time she paused and listened to the world around her, closing her eyes and narrowing her reality to nothing but sound. If the thing that had killed that boy was following her, it moved like a whisper through the wood, so sure-footed and silent that not even the crackle of pine needles gave it away. Nothing natural was that silent. Even most of her oddities made more noise than that. She would open her eyes and continue, confident that she was not being stalked; not yet.
(What of her oddities? If she died out here, devoured by some unseen beast, who would take care of the oddities? They needed special care and handling. They needed to be treated with cautious respect. They were not worth her life, or the life of her daughter, but she feared for what would happen if she died here.)
The white stones were more frequent than she had believed them to be; many had been dropped in a way that left them half-covered with loam, difficult to see from the direction she had been coming. She walked faster, confidence growing …
And stopped. Three white stones had been dropped in almost the same place, forming a triangle. One was close to her. The other two formed the start of two new paths. One would, presumably, take her back to the forest’s edge and the edge of the bowl that contained The Clearing. The other would lead her into some unknown part of the wood. Her breath caught.
“Ah,” she sighed, soft and sad and virtually silent. She had no desire to attract the attention of the beast; speech was a human luxury, unnecessary here. But it still made her feel a little better to voice her dismay.
While Annie had no intention of going home until she had found her daughter, there was a difference between descending into The Clearing long enough to rouse a search party and abandoning her search altogether. She had been hoping to have the opportunity to do the former, to gather the roustabouts and sharpshooters they paid to accompany the show and turn her solitary hunt into something more likely to be successful. Mr. Blackstone would not mind her making off with half of his men. Under the circumstances, he might well decide to join her.
Only now, she had no way of knowing whether the direction she chose would lead her home, or take her deeper into danger. There were no good choices left. There was only the darkness, and the promise of the beast in the trees, all claws and teeth and hunger.
“I believe,” she said, to herself, voice barely above a whisper, “that I felt myself bending to the right as I ran, which would make the leftmost stone the correct choice. But if I am second-guessing my route, the rightmost stone may be the one to follow. I would greatly appreciate it, world, if you would send me some sort of a sign as to which way I should go. My Delly is only a little girl, and she needs her mother now as much as she ever has.”
The world did not send her a sign. The world was rarely so accommodating.
Annie sighed and started forward again, stepping toward the leftmost stone. Another gleamed in the dark beyond it; she kept walking. It felt better to be moving than to be standing still. Even if she were heading in the exact wrong direction, at least she was doing something.
The foolishness of searching the entire forest by herself was undeniable. Oregon was a wooded territory. It would take humanity hundreds of years to clear the land, even if they were to make a concerted effort to try—based on the inhabitants of The Clearing, the people drawn to this green and shadowed land had no interest in making it open to more habitation.
If she had been in control of the state, if its future had been hers to determine, she would have ordered her men into the forest to thin and clear all this wood away long ago. Force the woodland back from the town, if only a little; give them room to breathe. People needed room to breathe. They weren’t meant to live all penned-in like livestock, unable to safely roam.
These woods were too thick, too dense, too untouched by the hands and cutting tools of mankind. They needed to be cut back and put into their place; they needed to be tamed. Annie had walked in woods before, with none of her current misgivings. It wasn’t just her daughter’s absence—that colored everything, but she was spending so much energy on suppressing the urge to panic that she could view the trees with a certain amount of detachment. It was the closeness of it all, the intolerable darkness clinging to her skin and filling her nostrils. She couldn’t breathe.
Adeline must have been so scared, out there alone in the dark. She was just a little girl. She was fearless under normal circumstances, but she had never been so far from her mother’s sight before. When something distressed her, or when her lungs began to burn and she needed her medicine, she would run back to her mother’s side, and what was wrong with that? She was still so young. She was still so small. She would always be fragile, thanks to the circumstances of her birth. It was only reasonable that she should need her mother, almost as much as her mother needed her.
The white stones were more closely spaced than Annie remembered, and the ground around them seemed to be virtually undisturbed, as if no one had walked there in quite some time. Perhaps she had taken the wrong turn after all. She hesitated, preparing to backtrack.
Something howled behind her. It was the long, drawn-out wail of a hunting coyote, but too deep and low to have come from any coyote’s throat. A wolf, then, vast and terrible and somewhere behind her. Following the trail of stones back to the fork was not an option.
Annie began to walk faster, still taking care to set her feet down as lightly as possible, in case there was some chance—however slight—that she would be able to slip away without being heard. She couldn’t leave until she found her daughter. But she was not designed to move silently through these trees, or to avoid predation. She could not climb. She could not fly.
The snarl came from only a few feet behind her, low and deep and angry. It was a sound filled with teeth, and hearing it reminded Annie of the one thing she could do.
She could run.
Her old companions in Deseret would have been astonished if they could see her now, running through the dark Oregon woods as fleetly as any roe deer or roadrunner. She felt as if her feet barely touched the ground, bearing her onward with all the speed and strength they had earned during her years with the circus. She was a physical creature now, made for the road, tempered by the hard labors of all the many days between her and her origins, and when she set herself to run, she ran.
The sound of snarling continued to pursue her, never growing any closer. Either she was matched in speed to the beast, or—more likely—it was toying with her, allowing her to exhaust herself before it pounced. Her lantern swung wildly as she fled, making the shadows dance and spin around the trunks of the nearby trees, lending a mad levity to the scene. How could this be anything but a dream, when nothing about it remained constant between one second and the next? How could this have real consequences, when it was so clearly not really happening?
But the smell of blood and rank animal piss wafted from behind her, shed from the skin of the creature at her heels. Even if this were a dream, it was not a gentle one—and if it was not a dream, then there was a very good chance that it would kill her if she slowed, or stumbled, or showed any other sign of weakness. She could not die and save her daughter. The two things were antithetical.
Annie ran. She ran as she had never run before, leaning forward to reduce the drag from the world around her, following the jittering light of her lantern as she struggled to avoid the trees. Their branches snatched at her hair and clothing, almost like hands trying to slow her down. Still she ran. Running was all that she had left. As long as that beast followed at her heels, running was the only thing that stood any chance of saving her and, by extension, saving Adeline, who would need her mother.
The thing behind her snarled, louder and closer than ever. Annie, who had been flagging, put on a fresh burst of speed, running as hard as she could.
The trees ended.
One moment, she was running through the close-packed dark. The next, she was breaking into open air, into more ordinary darkness, beneath a sky so spangled with stars
that it seemed, for a moment, to verge on blinding. She realized what came after the end of the trees and skidded to a halt, digging the sides of her feet into the earth. She stumbled. She did not fall.
Small clods of dirt, kicked loose by her arrival, rolled down the bowl that contained The Clearing to fall, with a pattering sound, to the track below.
Panting, Annie looked back. She thought she saw a shape at the wood’s edge, but only for a moment; then whatever it was pulled back and was gone, if it had ever been there in the first place. She turned to face the town, and froze.
The circus was burning.
Interlude the First
Welcome, wanderers in spirit and in science, seeking answers beyond those offered by the ways of ordinary men. Welcome to the famed City of Wonders, Salt Lake, and to the glorious independent state of Deseret, where none who walk with Christ in their heart and with good intention in their hands will be turned aside. Come in peace, go in peace. Or better yet, stay. Stay and serve the great machines, bringing progress and plenty to the world beyond Deseret’s enlightened borders.
Come.
From a distance, the city of Salt Lake—often referred to as “the City o’ Gloom,” and none who have walked there would ever question the origins of the name—was a great gray smudge, as though the thumbprint of some uncaring God had been pressed into the landscape, blurring the desert’s natural beauties away. The closer a visitor drew, the more visible the city walls and spires would become, until the smog had become an accepted part of the landscape, virtually unnoticeable. It was a slow dive into deep pollution, and taken one step at a time, there would be no shock to the system.
(But when that same dive was repeated in reverse, oh! The shock of clean air, the pain of breathing all the way down to the bottom of the lungs! Common indeed were travelers who left Deseret and hacked and coughed until they had expelled what seemed like a bucket of tar from their chests, leaving them light and aching and unwilling ever to return. So many of them would return, sadly. Deseret was its own kingdom, and what wonders it contained, it did not yield easily to those who refused its hospitality.)
Up close, the bones of the city were visible, still as strong and lovely as they had been upon their original construction. There were wonders to be found in Salt Lake, beautiful walls and elegant architectural curves. It could have grown up from the surrounding desert, perfect in its symmetry, if not for the gray smog that hung over everything, staining stone and fogging windows. The people who hurried through the streets wore masks over their mouths and noses, trying to protect themselves from the sting of pollution for just a little longer. Those who had been felled by black lung or by other, darker diseases could not work in the factories, could not do their part for the ascension of Deseret.
It was easy for a traveler to think that this was all that Salt Lake had to offer: these narrow, stained, beautiful streets filled with weary, strained, unbeautiful people, whose lives were being consumed one day at a time by the factories. Indeed, for the uninvited or the faithless, this might as well have been all that there was of the city. They would never be allowed past the walls, into the beautiful gardens or the elegant homes of the faithful. They would never see how sweet life could be in Salt Lake City, where elegance and humility went hand in hand.
But for those lucky few, ah! They could make their way through those dirty streets to the walls that separated the homes of the common folk from the elegant neighborhoods set aside for the children of Joseph Smith, for whom Salt Lake would always be a Holy City, greater even than distant, lost Jerusalem. They could walk through the gilded gates and find themselves walking down streets of polished marble, where everything was scrubbed and perfect, seemingly untouched by the smog that hung only a few blocks away. Women strolled along the boulevards, modestly dressed but with their own benchmarks of beauty on display: clear skin, lovely hair, eyes unclouded by pollution.
Their children were similarly healthy and hale, and walked beside their mothers like well-mannered shadows, already learning their place in the world. The boys walked faster than the girls, who trailed a foot or so behind, well-schooled at even the youngest age in the ways of obedience and humility. Their clothing was fine, machine-stitched and hand-finished, tailored to present them as the little ladies and gentlemen that they were becoming.
Even these houses, close to the border of the secular part of Salt Lake—unkindly referred to as “Junkyard” by many of those who didn’t have to live there, and wearily called the same by those who had no other choice—were often regarded as small and shabby, too near the pollution to be truly worth coveting. The streets wound their way deeper into the Holy City, and then out again, heading for the border, where the homes of the truly wealthy and truly elite sat on their own large plots of land, surrounded by slices of captive desert where no rattlers swam and no unwanted dangers lurked.
Toward the very edge of the city, barely contained within Salt Lake’s boundaries, sat a home large enough to be considered an estate. Three stories high, with wide, carefully landscaped gardens surrounding it. They were desert gardens, cactus and blooming succulents and hardy brush plants, but they were no less beautiful for their dryness. If anything, the fact that they were equipped to thrive in this climate, without demanding expensive watering systems or excessive labor, only made them more beautiful. They were things that could thrive.
The front door was mahogany, imported from wetter climes, inlaid with swirls of abalone shell, until standing in front of them was like beholding the world’s largest perfect pearl, so close to untouched that they might as well have been constructed by the very hand of God. A cunning bell system had been installed, allowing visitors and tradesmen to summon a butler with the press of a button. It was a small technological wonder, hinting at the amazements that were to come, if only access to the house were granted by its owner.
Dr. Michael Murphy did not grant that access easily, or often. Had not done so, in fact, since the death of his wife some seven years before. Grace Murphy had been the finest woman any of his servants had ever known, and her sudden passing had cast a pall over the entire household. Childbirth was always a dangerous time for a woman, but she had seemed to bounce back easily from the ordeal, and had even been seen walking in the halls in good spirits before she had taken to her bed and faded away.
(Few admitted it aloud, but childbirth in Salt Lake—in all of Deseret—had become more dangerous still since Dr. Hellstromme had come, with his marvelous machines, and made them over into the technological capital of the West. Something about the air, perhaps, damaged the already weak constitutions of nursing mothers, rendering them prey to every infection and disease that came along. The number of orphans and widowers in Salt Lake grew by the season, and no one said anything, because there was nothing that was safe to say.)
After Grace’s passing, Dr. Murphy had closed the windows and locked the doors, retreating more and more often into the safety of his lab, which was tucked down below the house, where it would not attract the curious eyes of his servants. Many of them had expected to be dismissed when the parties ended and the dinners were no more, but as their letters of dismissal had never come, they had continued to work.
The question of remarriage had been raised by the Elders, by concerned friends, even by the other scientists who toiled for the great future of their country. Somehow, none of it had ever come to anything. Dr. Murphy was a man in mourning, and he saw no reason to change that, now or ever.
A man in a tattered cloak and old leather hat slipped through the front gates and started up the walkway toward the house. He was a brown stain on the beige and bone landscape, long, lanky, and entirely out of place here, in a land that was not, could never have been his own. He walked with the easy stride of a gunslinger or a hired man, completely comfortable in his own skin. His eyes traced the gardens around him, marking the position of cactus spine and rattlesnake den—for here, in the desert, even the seemingly safe was never anything of the kind.
/> He reached the door. He rang the bell. He waited.
Footsteps heralded the approach of a member of the household. The stranger stood a little taller. The door was opened, revealing a woman in a demure dress, her hair covered by a plain white bonnet. She stopped, eyes widening for a moment before she composed herself.
“We do not require any landscaping services,” she said. “Good day, sir.”
“Wait.” The man’s voice was rough, the grate of rocks against one another, the sound of sand on stone. He did not reach for the door to stop it from closing. He didn’t need to. His gaze was enough to freeze her where she stood. “I’m here on official business. I need to see Dr. Murphy, if you’d be good enough to fetch him for me.”
“Dr. Murphy is not receiving visitors.”
“He’ll receive me.” The man hooked his thumbs through his belt loops, looking at her with the steadied unconcern of a hunting coyote. “Tell him I’ve got an answer to his pearl problem. He’s been waiting a long time. I don’t suppose he’ll be happy if I tell him that you made him wait even longer than he had to.”
The woman’s eyes widened again, and this time, they stayed that way. “Please, sir,” she said, taking a step back and beckoning him inside. “Come with me.”
The stranger stepped over the threshold, knocking dust off his boots and onto her nice clean floor. The woman said nothing, merely waited for him to be inside before she closed the door and beckoned for him to follow her deeper into the house.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” said the man, staring shamelessly at the fine silver, the priceless artwork, and the other marks of Dr. Murphy’s hard-won wealth. “One man needs all this?”
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