The Book of Speculation

18

At dawn Amos woke, legs tired from dreams of chase. Evangeline lay beside him, a soft presence, warm with sleep. He looked toward Madame Ryzhkova’s round-topped wagon and was gripped by unease. Once, he’d seen a man keel over dead while hefting a cask; the man’s face had turned beetle-shell dark before he gasped and dropped like a stone. Ryzhkova’s face had been a similar color the prior night. Her warnings were twisted and misguided, but she cared for him and it was rare enough to be cared for that it should not be taken lightly.

He climbed from the bed, moving slowly so as not to wake Evangeline, and crossed the camp to Ryzhkova’s wagon to wait at the stairs by her door. She’d always known when he approached, teasing, “I can smell your unwashed hands coming near.” When he sniffed himself she smiled and said, “Think you I would not know my own? I know when you seek me.”

Amos waited until impatience demanded he knock. When there was no answer he turned the handle, only to find the door locked. A hard pit settled in his chest. Ryzhkova was dead and he had killed her. He ran to Benno’s wagon and pounded on the door until flecks of yellow paint stuck to his hand. The acrobat opened the door in disarray, peering out through a crack. Behind him the shadowed form of another sprawled across a mattress. Benno stepped down and hastily closed the door behind him.

“What is this?” he muttered, rubbing a hand across his sleep-drunk face.

Amos took Benno’s arm and dragged him down the steps and to Ryzhkova’s wagon. He pulled the handle to show Benno that she would not answer.

“It is early yet, Amos, barely light.”

Amos smacked the door with the heel of his hand, jarring the hinges until they clanked. Inside no one stirred, but Amos continued to knock, looking at Benno in desperation.

“Stop. You cannot work with bloodied hands.” Benno took hold of Amos’s shoulders, gripping tightly until, at last, he stilled. “I’ll help. Wait here.” Benno jogged off, reappearing a short time later with a small leather pouch. He bid Amos stand aside as he produced a series of thin brass strips. Amos looked on while Benno gently pushed the door until the lock caught.

“Where I am from it is necessary for a man to have skills that are not always looked upon kindly. On occasion they prove useful.” Benno put an eye to the sliver of space between door and wagon frame and proceeded to slip two of the strips along the door’s edge, wiggling them around the wood.

He was a thief, or had been. Though they’d traveled years together, Amos knew little about him, only that he was quick to smile and easy to be around. Amos watched him bend one of the brass pieces, molding it to the door. Then, a flick of his wrist and the lock was open.

“For you only do I do this.” Benno returned his clever keys to the pouch. “Forgive me if I do not stay. I have another matter to attend to,” he said, and hurried back to his wagon, pouch tucked against his side.

With a light push, Amos swung Ryzhkova’s door open. What he found inside was confusing. The cart was stripped bare. The walls bore the faint outlines of where the portraits had hung. She was gone.

Amos staggered down the wagon steps and fled, running toward town. Burlington. She must have gone into Burlington; nothing else was near and she wouldn’t venture to the river alone. He bit his tongue and the blood rose sharp with anxiousness. The road into town was not far behind Peabody’s wagon; he could see chimney smoke from morning fires puffing into the sky and he ran toward that smoke, past the blacksmith and the butcher, and into the streets. The shops were not yet open, the inn was still dark, and the roads were empty save for a half-starved mongrel dog. The streets were so well traveled that searching for her footprints proved impossible. Madame Ryzhkova had vanished as if she had never been. His stomach rolled with a pain worse than hunger. He returned to camp, to Peabody’s wagon.

Peabody lifted the latch and peered out, squinting. Hatless, his scalp glinted pink in the early morning light. He murmured a quick apology and fumbled at a side table before clapping on a curly brimmed hat. “What devil finds you awake? None with a soul is about at such an hour.”

Amos gestured in the direction of Ryzhkova’s empty wagon, but Peabody would have none of it.

“I am aware of what occurs in this menagerie. You quarreled with Madame Ryzhkova,” he puffed. “She is a temperamental creature; I’m certain it is nothing that rest and a new town won’t find the fixing of.” His smile was cut short by a yawn.

Amos seized Peabody by the shirtsleeves and pulled him from his wagon despite his protestations. Heads poked out of doors, Meixel and Nat, Susanna. Evangeline woke. Benno stood on his steps and Melina appeared behind him, rubbing sleep from her eye. By the time they reached Ryzhkova’s wagon, Amos and Peabody had garnered an audience. Amos threw back the door to reveal the barren interior.

Peabody’s face turned ashen. “My dear Amos, I am in terrible need of making apologies. I simply…” His worlds faltered. “Hell. She has done it. No, that is not right. Ah, Amos. I am sorry.” He doffed his hat, touched it to his chest, and wandered to his wagon in a fugue. Amos lacked the will to follow. He sat on Ryzhkova’s steps, dangling his legs and taking note of the air — something of old flowers in it, something like his teacher. He studied each dent on the steps she’d climbed for countless years, outlining the marks left by her boot heels.

Meixel came to him first, giving Amos’s back a rough pat before walking to start the morning’s fire. Nat, the strongman, inclined his head, and Melina squeezed his knee. Their touches did not feel like comfort, more like gifts for the departing.

Benno touched Amos’s shoulder. “I do not pretend to understand why she is gone, but know that it is not for want of caring for you.”

Amos flinched.

* * *

Evangeline waited, knowing that he would come to her in time. He would learn that she’d quarreled with Ryzhkova, that she was the reason Ryzhkova had left. She wondered if everything she touched would sour and die. I am a killer.

* * *

They were to leave that day, following the banks of the Rancocas, but they did not. Whether it was in hopes that Ryzhkova would return, or out of respect, Amos could not say.

“One day more or less shall make no difference to those who don’t know to miss us,” Peabody said.

Amos stayed inside her wagon, running his fingers over where she’d draped cloths and hung portraits, looking for the soot stains from burning sage. He kicked the straw-filled sack that served as her mattress and threw himself upon it, only to knock his head on a sharp corner. There, tucked away beneath the edge of her bed, lay Ryzhkova’s card box.

She’d left them for him.

He lifted the lid and the orange backs smiled at him. He touched them to his chest, feeling their smoothness, feeling Ryzhkova in the paper, cackling, teasing and scolding, kissing his cheeks when he’d done well. Teaching. His heart both broke and mended; he would not be lost. He tucked the cards into his shirt and sought Peabody.

Peabody sat with his book, drawing thick black lines through a long column of figures and names. Near the bottom of the page he had begun a sketch, a wagon perhaps, too vague to yet tell. Upon seeing Amos he cleared his throat. “Apologies,” he said. “Terrible. A great and terrible thing, but not your doing. I had recently conversed with the woman.” He drew a small flourish in the air with his quill. “It was less than pleasant. We shall see the right of it, I promise.”

Amos threw his arms around the man, embracing him.

Peabody coughed. “Yes, well. Quite right.”

Amos pulled the deck from his shirt and nimbly moved through the cards. One following on top of another, he showed Peabody Cups for communication; Pages for a great journey; the High Priestess for her, Ryzhkova, and how they must find her; the Fool for himself, as it was his fault that she’d left.

Peabody’s expression shuttered. He sat at his ciphering chair, looking every one of his years, and smiled with regret. “Darling boy, I cannot glean what you are trying to say.”

Amos cried out, the sound an unnatural grunt. He searched for the Hermit and presented it to Peabody, pushing it to his chest, where buttons pulled at velvet.

“I am sorry,” said Peabody, quieter than Amos had ever heard him. “Deeply sorry, but I’ve no idea what you mean.” He set down his quill, capped the inkpot, and rested his hands on the bulge of his stomach. “I can try,” he gently promised. “But I am old, it will take time.” Seeing Amos’s distress he said, “We’ve managed well enough, have we not?”

Amos began to weep. Peabody patted him, but his ministrations were of little solace. He let the young man curl up on the floor. For long helpless moments he watched as Amos quaked.

“She may yet return. We’ll wait the night and sort out the season. If she does not, well, then we must adapt.” He glanced at his ledger. Ryzhkova’s loss would slow their money; they couldn’t afford to keep a man without trade, no matter how much he liked him. He scratched his beard. The best thing for Amos would be to keep him valuable, to reevaluate him. Yes, Ryzhkova was gone, but where there was money lost there might also be money gained. He pondered a small sketch he’d done earlier of a horse.

“Did you know, Amos, that I was once a student of Philip Astley? When there was less of me I rode horses. In London, though I’m certain the name means nothing to you. I sat a fine seat. Astley was a marvelous man. Powerful voice. In my better moments I fancy myself like him; he taught one to swing from a saddle, stand atop it, and how to balance plates and teacups on one’s fingertips while galloping about a ring. A fine time, surely.” He paused to write a few lines. “But one cannot ride forever. I was vaulted over the front of a disagreeable brown mare — Finest Rosie was her name, though she was quite a tart; threw me flat on my back in the middle of the amphitheater with half of London looking on, kicked me in my stomach and back so I was never to ride again. It might have killed me, but I mended. A ship across the sea finds me here, in this place where they’ve never seen one such as Astley, or one such as me. It would be a lie to say that I don’t miss riding, but in many ways this is better. Here I may be Astley, rather than his paler shadow. You see, my boy? I have adapted. As will you.”

When Amos calmed, Peabody helped him to stand. He straightened Amos’s shirt, picked the straw from his hair, and dusted his shoulders. He looked the boy up and down, eyed the soiled spots on his shirt, the frays in his pant legs — no gentleman, but passable. He gave Amos a solid grin that tipped his moustache.

“There now, young master. Powder or a wig would improve you, but we cannot make silk from flax. It strikes me that you are in need of comfort best provided by the fairer sex. Go to your lady. I’ve always found that the sorrow of a departure is best remedied with a greeting — onward to romance!” Peabody pushed the door open, ushered Amos through, and watched as he shuffled from the wagon. A mute fortune-teller was a draw when working with a partner; alone, therein lay difficulty. Without Ryzhkova the accounts wouldn’t balance; he’d lost not one but two of the troupe. In the interim they could hang curtains in the Wild Boy cage, but the thought troubled Peabody; he could not place the moment when Amos had become his second son, but there it was. He thought of his time with Astley, and how it had not been his back that had pained him most, and for the first time in his long life, Hermelius Peabody felt old.

* * *

In the wagon with the small horse, Evangeline waited. “It is true then. Ryzhkova is gone,” she said when he climbed in.

She’d been crying, he saw the redness in her eyes, the spots staining her cheeks. When she tried to embrace him he pulled away, reaching for the cards.

“At least she left you that,” she said.

Amos did not listen; he was desperately tired of listening; he wished to speak. Working through the deck, he showed Evangeline card upon card, building thought from image. The Fool over and over again, the High Priestess, then the darker cards. Amos set them all before her, his life in mosaic, his thoughts, and more than before, his fears. Evangeline tried to keep pace, speaking his thoughts as she saw them, but he moved with furious speed. The pictures flashed, slid, and blurred until at length his hands slowed, and he began to repeat a sequence of cards, one she remembered. In the lesson he’d used two cards — one for him, one for her. Now he used just his, the Fool. He began matching it with another, the solitary old traveler that was the Hermit. No, not Peabody — how layered their language was — in the lesson he’d used the cards to ask, “Are we alone?” Now the variation.

She knew it. “Am I alone?”

He repeated. Am I alone? Am I alone?

She layered her fingers over his and touched her lips to his forehead. “I am here,” she said. She repeated the words, but he did not hear. She searched for her card, the Queen of Swords, then for another with which to pair it — one they’d settled upon to mean home, place, wherever they dwelled. The Six of Cups. Children at play in front of their home. She placed her cards on the wagon boards, touching his in answer.

Am I alone?

I am here.

Am I alone?

I am your home.