The Book of Speculation

10

The mermaid’s shifting woke Amos from dreamless sleep. Frayed thumping filled his chest as he recalled her frightened eyes, how he’d held her, and the deep satisfaction of touching another skin to skin. Evangeline blinked, eyes dim with sleep and morning. He brushed her hair from her shoulder and smiled, an expression that felt stretched and unfamiliar. He pressed his fingers to the curve of her collarbone then to his own.

Evangeline shrieked and scrambled from the tub, knocking Amos back and jarring his bones against the slats. She fled, skirts trailing behind.

He waited. She would come back, if only because there was nowhere to go. Though Peabody and Ryzhkova’s schooling had imparted a loosely civilized veneer, his patience remained weak. A quarter hour’s time had him searching. Finding her wasn’t difficult; humidity made the ground soft so that each step left a perfect impression, the curve of her instep, a divot from the ball of her foot. He followed her steps as he had so many deer paths.

He found her under an elm, crying and crumpled like discarded cloth. So much water from one woman, as if she held a lake inside; his animal heart knew that he and she were made of different things. He waved in greeting, but her head remained tucked against her knees. He wanted to call out, to see how her name felt on his lips. To show he meant no harm, he tipped his head and lightly touched her shoulder.

She brushed him away. “Go. Please.”

He sat beside her. She rocked, cried, and refused to face him. He wrapped his arms around her, light enough to pull away in case she struck him. She gasped and it sounded like a breaking river.

Meixel cooed to the horses after rowdy towns, Peabody sang when writing, and Benno hummed when fixing axles — Amos wanted these things for himself. He held Evangeline, pressed his forehead to her shoulder, and matched his breath to the rise and fall of her sobs. From his throat came keening like bullfrog rattling and squealing wagons; sound, but not voice. Startled, he snapped his jaw closed and hid his face.

“Is that your voice?” A soft question.

He shook his head, pressing his lips together until they hurt.

“You made a sound. I heard.”

He shook his head; it was all he could do but not nearly enough.

“From sound comes speech,” she said.

He wanted it to be true, but knew his tongue to be unwilling, and his mind unable to fathom summoning sound, or how to make it pleasing. He shut his eyes against an unfamiliar sting.

Evangeline began to extricate herself from his arms. “We can’t stay like this,” she said. “I think it best I go, lest we be seen. Neither of us need mention what happened.”

He wanted her to stay until his breath felt right again, but she wiped her eyes and stood. Before leaving she paused, a curious expression crossing her face. “You must stop looking after me, Amos. No one need look after me.”

He watched her weave through the trees toward the wagons, and the burning in his gut intensified; he had felt the sensation before — shame. He tried to slow his heart and feel its place in the air, but peace did not come. Frustrated, he attempted a shout, but produced no sound. He had to speak. Hours slipped by while he worked the problem until the answer appeared as an image: the Fool.

He sprinted toward the wagons. In chance moments his feet settled into Evangeline’s footprints and her warmth seeped into him.

Stealing the cards wasn’t difficult. Harsh swearing from Peabody’s wagon told Amos that Ryzhkova was settling her accounts. Departing a town required Peabody’s review of the run’s expenses and earnings. All finances were handled in the menagerie master’s wagon, and Ryzhkova kept as tight a fist on her money as Peabody. The cards were unwatched.

Amos dug through scarves, sage bundles, and trinkets until he found the box. Once, when they’d been stuck inside during a storm, Ryzhkova had told him the story of the painting on its lid, of Ivan Tsarevich pulling the tail feather of the Firebird, of water that restored the bodies of dead men and water that would bring their bodies back to life. When his fingers touched the cards his skin hummed.

He crouched in the corner, his hands tripping frantically through the deck, searching for a specific picture whose meaning he knew well. Ryzhkova had taught him to smile when turning it over, how women’s eyes grew soft when it appeared in their fortunes, and that if he held a woman’s hand after revealing this card, the woman would pay him more. He tucked the card into his scarf, put the rest of the deck into his pocket, and went to seek Evangeline, only to run directly into Peabody, exiting his wagon and looking ruffled.

“Expanding horizons, Amos. Options as wide as the sea,” he said, as though continuing a prior discussion. He smacked Amos on the back, jostling him. “As with the girl there, ah yes, My Lady Mermaid. An excellent match. Well chosen, my boy.” Peabody patted his belly and murmured something. Amos caught the words delicious bit. Madame Ryzhkova peered from the wagon door. He tensed and focused on Peabody.

Peabody leaned and spoke next to Amos’s ear. “A piece of advice. A touch of chivalry would serve you. A little less wild fellow.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of Amos’s genitals, then ducked back into his wagon.

Evangeline was buckling the lid to a linen trunk when Amos found her. Nearby, Benno stretched, sitting splay-legged, touching both hands to a pointed foot, talking to her. Benno’s scar nearly vanished when he laughed. Evangeline smiled. Amos approached the pair and their conversation trickled into silence. Evangeline started to speak, but Amos raised his palm. Stop. Please. He removed the card from his scarf and pressed it into her hand, cat quick, barely touching her.

A small line formed between her eyebrows. Had he been wrong? He waited for her to turn the card, held his breath as she flipped it to reveal a pretty drawing of an angelic presence watching over two figures — a man and woman in a state of undress, frozen in the moment before running to embrace. He watched her flush blossom.

Benno glanced between them. He cleared his throat. “Three never get on so well as two. We will talk later, yes, Amos?” He bowed to Evangeline. “Good afternoon.”

Amos did not acknowledge his friend. The card drew all his focus. At its bottom, Ryzhkova’s script spelled out The Lovers.

Amos was ignorant, but Evangeline was not; Grandmother Visser had made her learn letters and a bit of ciphering, which kept Peabody from robbing her blind and allowed her to read the words. Her color darkened further. Amos touched a hand to his chest, then to hers before touching the card, his fingers coming to rest between the naked figures.

“Certainly not,” she said.

He brought the card to his chest. She chewed on her lip, but did not stop him when he pressed his other palm to her heart.

“Please go,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, but please go.”

Amos took the card from her, his face on fire, and ran, stumbling toward Sugar Nip’s cart. The image was clear. Ryzhkova had explained one of its meanings as a destined love, guided by benevolent fate. He knew they’d been led to one another. He’d done something wrong.

* * *

A day’s travel found the menagerie in New Castle, where houses were brick rather than wood — red clay dug from the Pennsylvania hills. The sturdy structures seemed at odds with transient wagons, but Peabody insisted that bricks meant money, particularly so close to Philadelphia. Benno laughed at this while he and Amos unhooked wagons. “Bricks mean broken masonry. All the more rocks to stone us.”

The horses were fed and watered. Meixel walked the llama on the outside of town to avoid onlookers. Nat took Sugar Nip into one arm and carried the small horse to the river, while Amos and Benno swept out the animal wagons. Clothing and costumes were shaken and hung out to breathe. Evangeline’s tub was checked for leaks, and righted for the arduous process of filling it. While they stretched, cleaned, and stashed away the loose ends of days on the road, Peabody made rounds with his book, surveying the performers as to any needs that might be filled within town — Susanna had worn through her slippers, Melina wanted knives to practice with, Nat needed a sack of buckwheat to sleep on for his sore back — and what cut of the take each would earn. Amos received a fraction of Ryzhkova’s pay, but the amount did not matter, as Ryzhkova dressed him and Peabody provided for him from his own purchases. He needed little, but what he desired seemed increasingly impossible.

Ryzhkova was in a rush to take clients. She had Amos hook the silks inside her wagon almost immediately upon arrival. “Quickly, quickly,” she said. “Town is full of questions. We must answer.”

Amos was not pleased. After his exchange with Evangeline, he’d hoped to assist in setting up the water act, and to apologize. He looked out from the wagon to the line of performers shuttling water. Benno walked alone, a bucket in each hand. For the second time in as many days, Amos wished to be in his place. Instead he prepared for hours of listening and card turning. Long before the tub was finished being filled, he’d had to don his fortune-teller robes, while Peabody drummed up business from taverns and shops lining the Strand. One after another, the inquisitive knocked at the wagon door until the line of those seeking Ryzhkova’s advice wound past the wagons.

They were more talkative than people from farther north, whispering of trysts, thievery, jealousy, and greed. But, as with the northerners, after an hour or two of listening the voices blended into a single aching demand. Amos tried to recall the shape of Evangeline’s mouth, if she had smiled at all when he’d shown her the card. Ryzhkova clucked with appropriate sympathy, laughed when needed, and patted hands. When the time came for answers, she signaled for Amos.

“Young man will show the cards, yes? He has gift, hears fates.” She used her most motherly voice to whisper, “Is why he does not speak. Hears terrible, terrible things.” Ryzhkova’s accent was at its thickest when speaking to customers. Showmanship, Amos thought; not so large as Peabody’s, but there it was. “Secrets,” she said. “They travel to his hand, see? His hand alone makes the cards speak.” The clients watched Amos as if seeing their secrets in his veins.

“Much change. The man here, you see? He is Page. There is obstacle between you and your desire. Ah, I see.” Her singsong voice would have been soothing were Amos not distracted. He’d picked the wrong card; he could have chosen the World, to ask Evangeline to look for possibility, but its meaning was less direct. He’d intended to be clear and instead he suffered for it.

“Three of Swords in past. Poor thing. Heart has broken,” Ryzhkova told a mousy woman.

Three blades piercing a brilliant red heart. An apt image, Amos thought.

Ryzhkova comforted with her ruined hands, touching wrists, calming fears, speaking of future love. Whoever opened her door was told all would be well. It wasn’t true. Amos had seen the cards.

Well into the night, after the last client scurried away, Ryzhkova pulled the drape closed on her cart and shut the door. Amos stood to leave, but she stopped him. “Very important, Amos.” Her eyes were dark with warning. “You must know when to tell truth and when not.” She searched for words. “More money sometimes means less truth. They pay us well,” she shrugged, “we lie a little. Sit with me.”

He sat in a corner and folded his legs, the wood biting into his bare ankles, and watched as Ryzhkova began the lengthy process of unwinding her head scarf. Her hair slid down from the crown of her head, a coarse gray and white rope. Never having seen it out of the scarf, he was surprised at its length. It fell nearly to her waist. He briefly wondered what Madame Ryzhkova had once looked like. He glanced at the portrait of her daughter, searching for similarities that time hadn’t erased.

“I will teach you something,” she said. “Before we begin, you must know you cannot trick me. Only truth between us, yes? No lies. Not for we who tell fortune.” She smacked her palm on the top of a small stool. “You took my cards, yes?”

He nodded.

She laughed. “Good, good. You understand. Do not do this again.”

It was something he could not promise. He remained still.

Ryzhkova inched toward the barrel where the cards lay, still spread from the last client. She leaned over them and gestured for Amos to do the same. The cart felt smaller and warmer than it had moments before. A single candle provided light. Over their heads the portraits of her relatives flickered in light and shadows, their eyes laughing at him. “I will not trick you. No lies for us. But,” she said, raising a gnarled finger, “I will teach you how.”

Until then Amos’s life had been one of unwavering honesty. When he sat with Ryzhkova and watched her fingers play over the cards, he did not know what it meant to lie or that soon he would lie to the very woman teaching him the art of deception.

She showed him how to slip a card into the edge of his sleeve, how to stash one in his scarf, how to reverse a card to change its meaning, all of it too quick for the untrained eye to see. His first attempts were fumbling, clumsy, and sent her into fits of laughter. Hours of quick turns and pocketing, subtle flips and slides later, Ryzhkova grabbed his sleeve.

“You showed my cards to the girl, didn’t you?”

A subtle tic, a twitch of his left hand betrayed him. Anger flared in Ryzhkova’s eyes, then went dead. He had the sudden thought that a strong wind might blow her away like ash.

“You must not see her.”

He raised a hand to protest, but she continued.

“She is beautiful, yes. But she is not like you, not like me. Look at her. She is half a soul, hungry for another. You stay with this girl,” she spat the word, “and she will drown you.”

He shook his head fiercely.

“She will not mean to. She thinks only of love, not the price. She knows only want. That is the way of Rusalki. Drowned girls.” Her voice hitched. “They lure a man, play with him, dance with him until he dies. They drag him into water, not knowing he will perish. When he is dead they grieve. In grief, they look for another to comfort them, and so they go on. Leave her to another boy, to one who is not mine.”

Amos’s stomach lurched. He could not tell Ryzhkova what he’d seen when he’d held Evangeline, or how it had been she who had pushed him away. His teeth dug into his cheek until he tasted blood.

“I say this to protect you. Because I have seen. Because I love you, like my son.” Her boot hit the table. A card bounced. The Page of Cups, a dark-haired boy with an overflowing goblet. “The girl, she may not know, but she will drink your soul. She cannot help it. Half a soul will kill to be whole.” She struck her hands against the card box, bent thumb standing in defiance, shaking with fear and threat. “You will not lie to me. You do not see her.”