When the children returned from lunch, the tingling began again, and this time, she asked Jamie to stay behind to help her clean the chalkboard after school. Jamie sullenly took the erasers from her for beating outside, and her bracelet pricked her so hard she had to suppress a wince: It was definitely coming from Jamie.
Jamie returned more cheerfully, covered with a thin white dusting of chalk and very clean erasers. Beating something must have lifted his spirits; Annabelle praised his work, and he even gave her a shy smile. “If you apply yourself to your studies the way you applied yourself to those erasers, you’ll be an etheric engineer some day,” she said.
Jamie shrugged. “Don’t think I wanna be that anyhow.”
“Oh? You’re not interested in magical technology? It’s such an exciting time to study it. Is anyone in your family of that mind?”
“Naw,” said Jamie. “We don’t like that sorta stuff. We’re all lawmen! That’s what I wanna be, just like my Pa, and Uncle Rab. Can I go now?”
She sent him scampering home, a frown creasing her brow. She believed Jamie, but it might be time to get a little closer to the sheriff. She squelched the small voice inside that said getting close to the sheriff might be mixing business with pleasure.
Misi, on the other hand, had no such qualms. His mission, as he saw it, was to get closer to Mamzelle, and do it in a way that wouldn’t endanger Annabelle. He might have to tell Annabelle the truth, and Mamzelle might have to tell Bonham the truth, but they could both lie to one another as much as they liked. He would just lie to her about whose demon he was.
Misi slunk along the rooflines, much preferred to picking through the alleyway muck, or dodging among the horses’ hooves on the street. Too many other cats under the boardwalks to go that way, either. He didn’t want to fight cats, or more precisely, he didn’t want to kill them; he liked cats, but he certainly wasn’t going to let one tear a chunk out of his ear or bite him on the head. Territorial little bastards. He crept onto the Palace roof, then down to the balcony.
He heard nothing from her room but her own even breathing--no human breath or heartbeat, no human smell, only the deep red vibration of his demon sense. He peeped through the open doors; as expected, she was alone, watching for him. She lay on a red velvet chaise lounge, her opulent body draped in a white satin negligee, her black hair loose around her exotic face. “‘Allo, kitty,” she said. Her eyes turned an alluring ruby, and Misi licked his lips.
“Hello yourself, gorgeous,” he grinned, strolling into the room.
“And oo’s kitty are you, ehn?”
“Oh, that’d be telling.”
“Ah, you’re unfair to poor Mamzelle. You know my master. I should know yours.”
“I have no master.”
“Mon petit chaton, I wasn’t born last millennium.”
“You don’t know my owner.”
“I would like to meet heem.”
“I’m sure you would, gorgeous, but you should be more interested in getting to know me.” Misi jumped up on the table beside her. “It’d be better for both of us. Let me introduce myself. I’m Misiriplinapos Son of Misorianatus.”
“And I am Mamzellarrainatta Daughter of Zelliniasipatiri,” she replied, dropping the false accent. “‘Ow long has it been for you?” she added, taking it back up again.
“Eight years. You?” said Misi, rubbing his cheek against the chaise lounge.
Mamzelle took the hint and scratched him under the chin. “Forever, or a year. Take your pick. Eight years! Dieu Noir, ‘ow ‘ave you not gone insane!” She picked him up and put him on her lap. “You cannot change form? Eh bien, nor can I, except ze color of my hair, my eyes.” Her hair cycled through red, brown, the palest blonde, white, and back to black. “‘E prefers blonde. Eef he orders it, blonde. Otherwise? Pfft.” She waved her hand. “So. We have common cause, you an’ I. Plans to make, ehn? We shall ‘elp each ozzer.”
Misi purred and flexed his toes as she scratched at the base of his tail. “Help each other how?”
“Trés simple. I kill your master...and you kill mine.”
Misi stopped purring, his fur standing on end. With great effort, he smoothed it back down and resumed purring.
“What is amiss, mon petit?” she frowned.
“Nothing! You just surprised me. Yes, we will make plans, you and I.” What have I gotten myself into? I can’t let her kill Annabelle!
Episode 9: Rabbit's Time of the Month
Misi had almost fallen asleep in Mamzelle’s lap, when she said, “Well?”
“Well what?” yawned the demon cat.
“‘Ow are we going to keel our masters?”
“Ah. That. Yes.” Think fast, old boy. “Yes. There’s a problem with that.”
“Eh?”
“I’m under orders...general orders...not to kill humans.” It’s even true! he thought, though it hurt his pride to confess to such a weakness. It’s so humilitating, being owned!
“Any human?” said Mamzelle in astonishment.
“Only allowed to kill humans my master wants dead,” said Misi. Annabelle had only told him to kill one man, many years ago, and there really hadn’t been any way around it; it was either him or them.
“Not me,” said Mamzelle.
“Oh? Why haven’t you killed everyone in town but Bonham? At least his family.”
“‘E would make me suffer for it, and I am under orders not to keel his family, which pains me already. I wish to scrrratch out the eyes of dat Charity very much so. No, he tells me, keel if you need to, even if you want to, but be discreet.” She shrugged. “Now and again, you just have to keel someone, ehn? So I keel someone nobody will miss--a newcomer--’ow d’you say--a greenhorn. Once a month, I go hunting--tonight, yes, I weel go! De humans think it is a giant wolf. Or a wolf-man. Mais non, ç’est moi, but I keep to de full moon. I play wit’ dem. ‘Oo knows,” she added with a mischievous look. “Maybe we do have a wolf-man.”
Down at the jailhouse, Rabbit and John stared glumly at the calendar. “Tonight?” said John.
“Yep,” said Rabbit. “I guess there’s no way around it.”
“I got company fer the night, then?” said the voice in the corner cell.
“Shut up, Aloysius,” the men responded automatically.
“I hate that cage.”
“So do I, Rab,” said John, “but I don’t know how else to deal with it.”
“Nope, neither do I. I wish I’d never been bit!”
“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, little brother.”
The door banged open and Jamie came running in, chalk dust still covering the tops of his trousers. “Where you been, to the bakery?” said his uncle.
“Huh?” said Jamie. He stared down his front, then beat at his clothes. “Dang erasers.”
“Don’t swear, son,” said his father. “Beating erasers for Miss Duniway, huh? You must like her at least a little bit.”
“I had to, she asked me to, an you told me to do as she says,” sniffed Jamie. “I still don’t like her. She’s askin me and Georgie all kinds of questions.”
“Oh?” said John, sitting down on the edge of his desk. “Like what?”
“I dunno. She asked Georgie about if he knew who tore up the schoolyard.”
“Does he?” said John.
“Naw, nobody knows who done it! He keeps tryin to make me confess, an Pa, I didn’t do nothin!”
“I believe you, son,” reassured his father. “What other questions? What did she ask you?”
Jamie scratched his head with the hand that held his lunch pail. “She asked me if I wanted to be an etheric engineer, if you can picture it! She asked if anyone in the family was interested in that stuff and I said, no, we’re lawmen! And that’s what I wanna be, Pa, so I still don’t know how come I hafta go to stupid Miss Duniway’s stupid school!”
“Stop right there, young man, or it’s the shed!” warned John.
“Aw, I’m sorry, Pa, don’t switch me,” said Jami
e, hanging his head. He glanced up at the calendar, put down his lunch pail and walked over to his uncle, taking his hand. “Hey, Uncle Rab--it’s tonight, isn’t it?” At Rabbit’s nod, he said, “I’m powerful sorry, Uncle Rab. I wish this didn’t happen to you.”
“If wishes were horses,” smiled Rabbit. “Can’t be helped, Jamie. Say, tell me what’s going on down to the ostler’s. You been down that way today?”
As Rabbit and Jamie talked on, John fell into a brown study. That was certainly an odd question for Miss Duniway to ask. No one in the Runnels family had the sort of education you’d need to be an etheric engineer--that was clear to anyone who knew them. Why would she ask such a thing? He wondered where it fit into her game, if she had a game.
And the schoolhouse vandalism still niggled at him. It was a boy’s prank. No one else would have a motive to do it. It couldn’t have been Jamie--he was too small to have torn out those pickets. So was Harry Lockson. There were a few other children--one or two out in the minefields, a Chinese boy, and then a couple of the working girls who used to live at the Hopewell had children. The miners’ children were working and wouldn’t be allowed to come; the Chinese boy didn’t speak English; and the whores’ kids were just babies.
That left Georgie Prake. Perhaps it was time to pay a visit to the Prakes.
At the mayor’s house, Mrs Prake and Amelia stood at the kitchen table, sorting through a basket of clothes just back from the laundress. “Go through the shirts to look for mending, Amelia,” said Mrs Prake as she separated out the clothing into piles for each member of the family. “I do wish the laundress would do the sorting for us. How hard can it be, after all? She’s already seen every inch of these things. Unfolding and refolding everything like this...”
“Here’s something, Mama,” said Amelia, holding up a shirt of Georgie’s.
“Where does it need mending, dear?” asked Mrs Prake, her back still to her daughter.
“T’isn’t mending, Mama, there’s a stain on the cuff.”
“A stain? That laundress! I declare!” Mrs Prake turned around and took the shirt. There on the cuff was a splotch of black paint. “Well, what on earth--! That Georgie! I’ve a mind to dress that boy in calico shirts like a miner if he’s going to stain things like this. Where would that have come from?”
“Where did what come from?” said Georgie from the doorway. He froze when he saw the shirt in his mother’s hand. “I put that under my bed!”
“Which is where I fished it out from when it came time to take the laundry,” said Amelia with her nose in the air.
“You should have brought this to me straight away, Master Prake,” chided his mother as she scratched at the stain. “I might’ve gotten this out before it set. Oh--perhaps not! Is this paint? How did you get paint on your shirt? Have you been hanging around those sign painters again? I told you those men are drunkards and not to go near them!”
“No, ma’am!”
“Where’d this paint come from, if you weren’t hanging around those rascals?” she demanded.
A knock at the door interrupted them. Mrs Prake took off her bib apron and patted her hair as she bustled to the door. “Why, Sheriff Runnels, how nice to see you!” floated back into the kitchen.
Georgie made a snap decision: He snatched the shirt off the kitchen table and ran out the back door, leaving Amelia squeaking “Georgie Prake, where are you going?”
Episode 10: A Jailbird
The door of Simon’s ethergraph office banged open, and a breathless Georgie stampeded in. “Simon! Can I hide here?”
“What have you done now? Close the door, madcap!”
The door banged shut. “Nothin--well, they think I’ve done somethin, but I haven’t, I swear I haven’t!”
“Come into the back room,” sighed Simon, getting up from his desk. “But you have to tell me what’s going on. What’s with the shirt?”
“Mama’s mad at me because I got a stain on the stupid thing,” said the solid boy, stumping behind his brother into the back of the office. “I wouldn’t mind if she did dress me in calico like a miner, then I wouldn’t have to worry so much about keepin my cuffs clean!”
“Let me see that.”
“No!” he cried, snatching it behind himself. “I’m tellin ya, it’s nothin!”
“It’s a smudge of black paint, Georgie, I’ve seen it already.” Simon crossed his arms. “You sure it’s nothing?”
An echo of his name penetrated through the back wall of the office from the alley, and the anxious Georgie said, “Look, you gonna let me hide here or what?”
“Stay put, short pint,” said Simon with a quelling look. Georgie sat down meekly on the floor next to Simon’s workbench, and his brother returned to the front of the office to his work.
“Georgie!” called Mrs Prake through the back streets of town. “Georgie, you come back here! Sheriff Runnels wants to talk to you!”
John swallowed an exasperated breath, but now that she’d said it, he called, “Georgie! You’re not in trouble, son, I just want to talk to you! That’s all!”
Twenty minutes of fruitless searching, and the seekers returned to the mayor’s house. Mrs Prake said, “Amelia, do you have any idea where he went?”
“No...” said Amelia, worrying her bottom lip.
“Truly?”
Amelia tugged on the end of one fat brown braid. “I don’t, but I bet Simon does.”
On application, Simon said he knew exactly where Georgie was, and pulled him by the ear out of the back of the ethergraph office. “I figured I’d let him hide here until someone came looking for him. That way, I’d know where he was.”
“Aw, you’re a fink, Simon Prake!” said the outraged Georgie.
“And you’re a rascal, Georgie Prake, who apparently has some explaining to do,” replied his brother. “Where’s that shirt of yours?”
“What shirt?” grumbled Georgie.
Simon disappeared into the back room and came out with the wadded-up shirt. “This one.”
“I didn’t mess up the schoolhouse, I swear I didn’t!” blurted Georgie.
“No one said you did, son,” frowned the Sheriff. “But now that you mention it, what can you tell me about it?”
“Georgie,” gasped his mother. “You’ve gotten into some scrapes, but I never dreamed--oh, Sheriff, you don’t really think he did it?”
“Well, now, I don’t know. There’re only so many people who’d want to scare off the schoolteacher, and the suspicion is they’re all under five feet tall. You’re a big boy, Georgie. Strong, like your Pa. Strong enough to pull off pickets, perhaps?”
Georgie blinked back tears. “I didn’t do it! Please someone believe me, I didn’t do it!”
Sheriff Runnels nodded slowly. “We’re going to the jailhouse, Georgie.”
“Surely that’s not necessary, Sheriff!” said the boy’s mother.
“Afraid so, Mrs Prake. If you’ll accompany us?” The Sheriff took Georgie by the scruff and marched him out of the office, down the boardwalk to the jail, the boy snuffling and miserable and feeling every eye on him in undeserved condemnation.
When they came in, Jamie was sitting in the corner talking to thin air. He jumped up, put something in his pocket, and returned Georgie’s indignant glare with one of his own. “What’s goin on?” he said.
“In here, Georgie,” said the Sheriff. He ushered his young prisoner into a cell and locked the door. “Mrs Prake, a word,” he said, escorting the shocked woman outside. Once there, he said, “Now, ma’am, I’m just trying to frighten him a little. Georgie is a good boy, we both know that, but we can’t have him tearing up the schoolyard just because he doesn’t want to go to school.”
“No, of course not,” said Mrs Prake, dabbing her wet eyes. “But Sheriff--John! He wanted to go to school! He’s been looking forward to it!”
Inside the jail, Jamie and Georgie stared at one another. “I’m not gonna fink on you, Jamie Runnels,” Georgie finally said. “You’re ju
st a little kid, after all. But danged if this isn’t somethin, lettin a friend down like this! Why doncha just fess up!”
“Because I didn’t do it!” hissed Jamie.
“Where d’you think that paint smudge on my shirt came from?” Georgie hissed back. “You left the can of paint right outside your back door! I was a pal and moved it for you so no one would find out, you lummox!” They huffed at one another through the bars. “So you’re just gonna let me take the blame, huh?” said Georgie.
“I’m not takin the blame for somethin I didn’t do.”
Georgie looked him over and curled his lip in contempt. “From now on, you’re no friend of mine, Jamie Runnels. Until you act like a man and fess up, we’re quits.”
“That’s fine with me!” shouted Jamie. He ran out of the jail, his eyes puffy with unshed tears.
Georgie sat fuming in his cell until he got up and kicked the bars at the mendacity of that coward of an eight-year-old. “You keep that up, yer gonna break that foot, son,” cautioned the voice in the corner cell.
“What do you know, ya spook? You don’t even have a foot!” said Georgie.
“Yer a brave ‘un! Most folks jump a fair piece when I say somethin,” said the ghost. “I tend to keep it buttoned, lest I skeer a body!”
“I ain’t scareda you! Jamie told me all about you, you horsethief.”
“Yep, that’s what I wuz, but if gettin hung by the neck till yer dead don’t change a feller’s outlook on life, I tell ya, bein a jailhouse ghost surely does. I hear all manner’a things.” The voice paused. “You really didn’t do it, did ya, kid?”
“No, sir!” insisted Georgie, then added in suspicion, “What makes you think I didn’t?”
“Like I said, livin in a jailhouse, you hear all manner’a things. I heared the guilty and the innocent, and after a time, ya learn to tell the diff’rence. I think yer not guilty, kid, but it ain’t our Jamie, neither.”
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