by Juman Malouf
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
Copyright © 2015 by Juman Malouf.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 9780698185203
The art was done in pencil on paper.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
PROLOGUE: Rain City
BOOK ONE
1. The Outskirts
2. Identical Twins
3. Mr. Fortune Teller
4. Tabitha Tatters
5. The Seven Edens
6. The Bearded Lady
7. Auditions
8. Kats von Stralen
9. Chestnut Sabine
10. The Train Graveyard
11. Arthur Bloodsworth
12. The Last Performance
13. A White Glove
BOOK TWO
14. Alexandria
15. Underwater
16. Staghart and the Changelings
17. The Middle of the Night
18. On the Way
19. Lost in Rain City
20. The Factory
21. White Beasts
22. Mistress Koch
23. The Lower Depths
24. The Captain and the Library
25. The Golden Underground
26. Underwater Again
27. The Hidden Stairway
28. The Land Where the Plants Reign
29. Memories of Home
30. The Tiffins
31. Crackus
32. Stargazing
33. Ladybug
BOOK THREE
34. Dreaming
35. The Rescue Begins
36. The City of Steel and Smoke
37. Contessa von Stralen
38. A Resurrection
39. The Colossal Birds
40. The Dried-Up Sea
41. The Armies
42. The Starling
43. Charlotte’s Concerto
44. The End and the Beginning
EPILOGUE: Rain City (Reprise)
Acknowledgments
PROLOGUE
Rain City
IT WAS A BLACK NIGHT, AND THUNDER GROWLED OVER the peaks and pillars of Rain City. It had not stopped raining in years. Countless drops scored pits and holes all across the purple brick facades of the Million-Mile-High buildings. Pale-faced people in hooded raincoats pedaled carriages along a network of steel tracks.
Down at the bottom of the city, makeshift houses sat on bricks stacked like stilts above the flooded streets. The sound of shoes clipping against the wet cobblestones woke a beggarman, and he scrambled out of his tent. He crouched, the ends of his tattered jacket dipping into the water, and held out his hand.
“Something for the needy?” he croaked. A pair of perfect black-and-white patent leather pumps came to a stop in front of him.
“Good evening, my humble gentleman,” a voice replied. “Would you be so kind as to point us in the direction of the School for the Gifted?”
The beggarman looked up to see a tall figure in a black suit, a coat slung over his shoulders, and a brimmed hat tilted over one eye. A white Persian cat slunk around his feet, arched its back, and hissed.
“It’s the next street over, m’lord. Bishop’s Row—but for a coin I could show you to Mistress Quickly’s.” The beggarman wiped the rain from his brow with the back of his sleeve. “Real women with perfumed faces—”
“Perhaps another time,” the man said, taking a snort from a diamond-encrusted snuffbox. “Tonight, the voices of youth beckon me.”
He flipped a large metal coin into the air, and before the beggarman could catch it, the tall figure was briskly on his way, something sweeping behind him like a long, rippling cape. The beggarman fumbled in his jacket for a pair of cracked glasses and pressed them to his eyes. The cape looked to be a creature with a hundred heads: wet cats—dozens of them—spitting and snarling, clambered after the mysterious man as he turned the corner onto Bishop’s Row.
CHAPTER ONE
The Outskirts
A MILE FROM THE CITY, TWO SMALL FIGURES CROUCHED atop a massive pile of assorted junk. Their hazel eyes darted as they rummaged feverishly among rusty cans, old toys, crushed boxes, crumpled cartons, and broken bits of who-knows-what. A soft rain drizzled. Sirens blared in the distance. Humming lamps shone on the figures: identical twins with the same shoulder-length brown hair; the same long, lanky limbs; and the same ill-fitting red raincoats. Their names were Charlotte and Sonja, and the only way to tell them apart was the mole above Charlotte’s right cheek.
“We’d better go,” Sonja said impatiently. “It’s getting late.”
“Just a minute longer,” begged Charlotte. She picked up a miniature plastic arm and shoved it into a bag strapped over her shoulder. What she really wanted was a very simple thing: a piece of wood. But a spare piece of wood was an extremely rare thing in the Outskirts—or anywhere else for that matter.
“I don’t want to run into any Enforcers this time,” insisted Sonja.
Charlotte shrugged. “They never catch us.”
“One day they will, and we’ll be thrown into some juvenile prison filled with Scrummagers and other troublemakers.”
“Will you relax?” Sometimes Charlotte wondered how they could be sisters at all. Sonja had no guts.
A flashlight’s beam raked across the hills of trash. Charlotte froze.
“An Enforcer,” whispered Sonja.
A figure in a black slicker and rain goggles appeared on the wet asphalt below. He wore an armband with a lightning bolt emblazoned across it.
“I see you, Scrummagers!” he yelled. “This is city property!”
“Come on!” cried Sonja, grabbing Charlotte’s arm.
Charlotte did not budge. Something else had caught her eye. From a mass of smashed tiles and scrap metal, she snatched up a broken but solid oak table leg. She held up the piece of lumber, beaming. “Bingo!”
Sonja pulled Charlotte with a firm jerk. They slid to the ground, ran between the piles of junk, and slipped through a narrow gap in the fence. The Enforcer blew three short, sharp whistles and charged after them out of the yard.
The twins flew down the empty street past more junkyards and trash heaps. Rain City loomed in the distance. Many years before the girls were born, as the populations of the world’s cities grew to unprecedented sizes, an edict ha
d been passed, and all the cities’ borders were walled and gated. The surrounding towns and villages were bulldozed to use as dumping grounds for the cities’ ever-growing waste, and now millions of homeless people, known as Outskirters, lived in the garbage, strictly patrolled and controlled by armies of Enforcers.
This was the world Charlotte and Sonja had been born into.
As the girls ran, another Enforcer emerged from the shadows and took off after them. Charlotte’s heart raced. She struggled for breath. Charlotte only pretended not to be scared of Enforcers. She had seen them do terrible things. Maybe she had finally pushed too hard and gone too far. She had coaxed her sister into sneaking into forbidden junkyards closest to the city, off-limits and extra-risky.
“This way!” yelled Sonja.
Charlotte hurried after her sister, but as they rounded the corner, she saw a band of scruffy boys in smashed bowlers and tattered suits.
“Lookie, dookie!” announced a boy with a rat on his shoulder. “Lil’ ducklin’s!”
“Those is them circus freaks!” yelled another, squinting in the rain.
The Scrummagers began to slowly circle the twins, swaying and sniggering.
Charlotte turned to Sonja and smiled. She knew they would certainly escape now.
A handful of Enforcers came clambering around the corner. One of the Scrummagers shouted, “Coppers!” and the gang scattered in every direction, the Enforcers chasing after them.
The twins dashed away and hid under an overturned incinerator. They waited, trembling, as the goggled men with clunky batons chased the ragged boys. A minute later, the street was quiet. Sonja peered through metal slats. “All clear,” she whispered.
Charlotte crawled out after her sister. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.
“You nearly got us caught—again!”
“But we weren’t, were we? And look what I found.” Charlotte held up the table leg. “It was worth it, wasn’t it?”
Sonja tried not to smile. “If it wasn’t for those Scrummagers, we’d be locked in the back of a van right now on our way to prison.”
“I hope they got away.”
“I hope they didn’t.”
Charlotte never could understand why Sonja hated Scrummagers so much. They were orphans, just like them. Before she could respond, an air horn blasted. Ten o’clock. They were late again.
CHAPTER TWO
Identical Twins
THE TWINS HURRIED THROUGH THE GATES OF A neglected cemetery. Half a dozen small booths had been assembled outside a large circus tent pitched among the crumbling gravestones. Posters advertised Dunk a Clown, Ride a Striped Pony, Kiss a Bearded Woman. Strings of colored lights crisscrossed overhead. A hand-painted sign read: PERSHING CRUM’S TRAVELING CIRCUS. Sonja sighed with relief. They were home.
Sonja and her sister had grown up in the circus, rumbling among the Outskirts in a long caravan, settling in one place after another, all of their lives.
A roar of laughter erupted from the big tent. Charlotte and Sonja ran across the yard and slipped through a pair of curtains into the changing room.
A broad-shouldered, soft-bodied woman with dyed-red hair and squinting green eyes blocked their way, arms crossed. She wore a sequined bikini and a rhinestone crown in her hair. Her oiled and tattooed skin shone even brighter than her sequins and stones.
“You’re late,” she said, frowning. On her shoulder sat a small honey-brown monkey munching on a stick of cotton candy. “Monkey and I were worried.”
She was Tatty Tatters, their adoptive mother, the Tattooed Lady of the circus. Every inch of skin from the top of her neck to the ends of her painted toenails was illustrated in full color: forests, mountains, lakes, deserts, islands, caverns, meadows—and animals and creatures of every size and shape. The script across her chest read The Seven Edens.
“Sorry, Tatty,” Sonja said, out of breath. “It was Charlotte’s fault.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes as the twins each hugged Tatty tightly, breathing in her familiar vanilla scent. Sonja’s beating heart calmed and slowed.
“I hope you didn’t go into forbidden junkyards again.” Tatty studied the girls as she helped them out of their wet jackets.
“Of course not,” Charlotte lied. She wriggled out of her dress and tights.
“How’s the audience tonight?” Sonja asked, changing the subject. She pulled two matching blue crushed-velvet tuxedos from the costume rack.
“A little jumpy,” said Tatty, “so be careful out there. We don’t want anything to happen again.”
“Nothing’s happened in weeks,” insisted Charlotte. She snapped on a red bow tie. “Uncle Tell said it was probably just a coincidence, anyway.”
At first, they had thought it was a ghost: curtains blew open, empty seats moved, candles ignited. But soon, the other circus performers noticed that the strange occurrences happened only when the twins were onstage.
Applause erupted. Sonja watched as three clowns stumbled into the dressing room—Balthazar, Toulouse, and Vincent. Balthazar, with a black smile painted on his face from ear to ear, growled, “You’re up!”
The ringmaster lurched in next. Pershing was seven feet tall but more like nine in his stovepipe hat. He wore a plastic flower pinned to his morning coat. “Ah, the last act is finally here.” He looked at the twins. “No funny business tonight, okay?”
“Of course not, Pershing,” Charlotte said boldly.
Sonja silently picked up a small black case. She did not feel as confident as her sister. In the past three months, even though the incidents were few and far between, they had grown worse: hats, umbrellas, and bags of popcorn had been catapulted into the air; lights had burst and showered the ring with glass; a thread-worn carpet had carried the Miniature Woman from backstage and flown her over the audience. After these incidents, the circus members no longer trusted the twins.
“Monkey and I will be waiting for you,” Tatty said, leading them to the curtain. She kissed them each on top of the head before they stepped out.
The girls walked hand in hand to center stage and stopped next to a piano on wheels.
Bright lights shone in their eyes. Sonja could smell the buttered popcorn as she looked out at a sea of doubtful faces. Scattered applause and chitchat faded away.
“Brings back the clowns!” cried a Scrummager with muddy knees.
Sonja cleared her throat. “Ladies and gentlemen! My sister and I were born on All Hallows Eve. We started playing music before we could walk. Allow us to entertain you!”
All her life, Sonja had dreamed of becoming a famous musician. Her idol was the great woodwind player Kanazi Kooks. She had read all about him: he was born in the Outskirts, grew up an orphan, and was discovered at age fifteen by a scout from the Schools for the Gifted, already a fully formed musical genius (and a bit of a heartthrob).
She flung open the case and pulled out a flute almost as long as her arm. Its metallic surface glinted in the light. She pressed it to her lips, tilted her head, and blew into the mouthpiece. A sharp note sounded.
Charlotte took her place at the piano and lifted the lid. She began to play. Her dark chords joined the melody of Sonja’s flute.
The audience grew quiet. The dirty-kneed Scrummager sat down. Charlotte and Sonja’s music was like nothing they had ever heard before. Even the twins themselves were lost in the bewitching tune. Their eyes were pressed shut and their heads bobbed slightly.
Charlotte’s fingers pounded the piano keys. Sonja’s bounced up and down rapidly along the length of the flute.
A rickety post shook, creaking, and the circus tent billowed from a sudden gust of wind. People in the back row turned to look behind them. People on the aisles looked to the sides. A boy up front squinted quizzically as his spiky hair danced on top of his head.
Then a swirling mist began to gather in the air at the top of the r
ing, and the audience watched in disbelief as the mist turned into a cloud, and from the cloud came rain. Umbrellas opened, and puzzled faces huddled beneath, murmuring. All at once, every seat in the tent slowly rose into the air. The audience was floating, shakily, ten inches off the ground. A woman screamed. A young girl started to cry. The Scrummager laughed hysterically.
The twins, oblivious, played on.
“Stop!” cried a voice.
Tatty was already in the middle of the stage, panicked, between the twins. Monkey leapt onto Sonja’s back and gripped her hair like a rope in two little fists. Sonja dropped her flute. It made a twang as it hit the ground. Charlotte brought her hands slamming down onto the black and white keys in a final thundering chord. She looked up, anticipating the applause.
What the two girls saw, instead, was a roomful of chairs and people floating in space for a last, terrified instant—then falling to the floor all at once with a banging, cluttering, clacketing crash. The circus tent exploded into commotion as people screamed and scrabbled toward the exit.
Sonja watched in terrified silence. Her head pounded. She felt hot all over. This was the worst incident yet.
The cloud disappeared.
The abandoned arena was littered with popcorn and rows of upturned chairs. Charlotte wiped the wet hair from her forehead. “Pershing’s going to throw a fit.”
A low voice answered, “You’re right about that.”
The ringmaster stood behind them with his arms crossed, glowering. “I’m canceling your act.”
Sonja picked up the flute and pressed it to her chest. Tears sprang to her eyes. Performing was everything to her. She could not live without it.
Charlotte pleaded, “It won’t happen again!”
“That’s what you said before, and this was ten times worse.” Pershing took off his top hat and shook it. Droplets flew from the brim. “People like it when we scare them a little—but not when they run screaming in fear for their lives. I don’t know what’s happening to the two of you, and I wish I did, but whatever it is, it’s bad for business.”