The Book of Speculation

22

Peabody was elated at the prospect of Evangeline’s pursuit of fortune-telling; it solved the problem of Amos’s employment and afforded him the opportunity to exercise his creative capabilities. He spent days and nights sketching, searching through chests, and confiscating any errant piece of cloth or bit of ornamentation from other wagons — an intricate piece of ironwork from Melina’s door, a length of muslin Susanna had left out, a tin of silver dust that Nat had held onto from his days as a smith — all snatched, borrowed, wheedled, and cajoled away. He refurbished Ryzhkova’s wagon in what he deemed the highest style. Blue, yellow, and white paint on the exterior, trimmed with flourishes and fleurs-de-lis. Swags of cloth were hung inside the door and the interior was painted an eggshell blue typically reserved for women’s skirts. Peabody painted compasses and stars along the walls, and supplied cushions from his own wagon. When finished, he conceded that he’d transformed Ryzhkova’s lair into a passable replica of an ostentatious French parlor. His book noted the change. A single line scratched through Mme. Ryzhkova, svc. Occult, under which was written M. & Mme. Les Ferez, svc. Oracular. Evangeline became Apprentice Seer, and next to Amos’s name Wild Boy had been emphatically stricken and replaced with Seer; small changes that meant a wholly altered life for Amos and Evangeline. For purposes of record keeping they became Etienne and Cécile Les Ferez.

“Russians are passé,” Peabody explained as he bestowed a costume trunk upon Amos. “Les vêtements,” he said, dropping the box. It thudded to the ground, sending curls of dust into the air. “Think, Amos, all this time you’d been sleeping atop your future. Costumes from my last trip to the Continent.” When neither Amos nor Evangeline took his meaning he elaborated. “France, dear children.” He shook out an age-stained floral scarf. “La France. The very height of civilization, fashion, and art!”

Amos balked when presented with the trunk brimming with stiff white fabric, lace and ruffles. Peabody cleared his throat. “Changes are difficult, but ’tis this or déshabillé. I understood you were not well pleased with being a savage.” He sized a pelisse against Evangeline’s increasing girth. “Most concealing, most concealing,” he murmured. “The French are — how shall it be phrased? Accommodating to ladies of parturient condition.”

The voluminous garb of a Gallic bohemian well disguised Evangeline’s pregnancy when she sat, and she sat a great deal. In her new employment she found that, were it not for the occasional pain and sudden bouts of sickness, pregnancy was not the inconvenience she had feared, and that she liked some of the changes reading cards brought.

Peabody spoke at length on aristocratic attire, the elaborate coiffures, wigs, and powder. “Lice,” he chuckled, “the fiends are rife with lice.” Evangeline took on the task of dressing Amos’s hair in the heavy ringlets Peabody stated were fashionable. Each night she used a fine wooden comb to part his hair into sections, twisting each into a corkscrew, which she then tied with cloth scraps. While she combed, she practiced her accent, pursing her lips. By evening’s end her face grew tired from overuse and Amos looked like a dandelion. While Amos seemed at first embarrassed by the task, after a week’s time she felt him longing for the quiet moments and the simple pleasure of having his hair brushed. She would sit on a chest while he sat cross-legged on the floor, bracketed by her thighs, and gave himself to her ministrations. She watched his breath slow with each pass of the comb. It was good to care for another.

On first inspection of Amos and Evangeline in full costume, Peabody could not contain his delight. “Elegance, my lovely things. You shall be the jewels of our menagerie. Monsieur et Madame Les Ferez, we shall teach the lowly and the unwashed about refinement, their futures, and style.”

But first, Evangeline had to be taught the cards. She was a quick study, provided Amos did not grow frustrated with teaching, which required the use of exaggerated pantomime and steering Evangeline’s questions in directions he could answer. During demonstrations of the spreads, positions, and meanings, he was prone to break into conversations without signaling when a lesson’s discourse had ended. Evangeline suspected that he held back. She noticed that he hid particular cards when they appeared, changing their positions or removing them. A blur of brown skin, a blink of color, it was difficult to see what he’d done. He tucked away the darker cards — the Tower, the Devil, Death, but also Swords and more often Cups. He kept secrets from her, but she could raise no complaint, not while she carried her own shadows.

If he withheld a piece of trust, she felt justified in having private places. In early morning, while he slept, she would swim. Though she did not miss her act or the leering eyes, she longed for water. As Amos dreamt of tobacco drying sheds and rabbit holes, she slipped from his side to walk into the river and wrap her arms in it.

She’d strip the weighty clothing of Cécile Les Ferez and again become who she’d always been. She dove in, slicing through the reeds, plunging to the bottom to taste the sweet earth flavor of fresh water. If they were close to the ocean and the rivers were salt, she’d float on her back, studying the changing line of her stomach, watching water sluice over it. When the moon was up she looked for silver glints of scales and followed currents the fish rode. With life blooming inside her, the water answered her questions with a whispered yes, and part of her knew home. In a tidal river on the Virginia coast she encountered a peculiar creature that scuttled the riverbed. She held it up and examined the graceful curve of its shell, its neat spike of a tail, and spidery feet that kicked and scratched at the air as she cradled it in her palm. A wonder just for her, she thought. The flickering of a child inside her laughed.

Evangeline and Amos tried out their new selves in the town of Tanner’s Ferry, a stop on the way to Charlotte, North Carolina. “Excellent Ladies and Gentlemen,” Peabody’s voice skated over the crowd. “By special request I bring to you from across the wide seas, from the elegant salons of Paris, the toast of high society, advisors to royalty,” he said with a flourish of his arm. “Kingmakers they are, fine folk, seers of futures and fortune, Monsieur et Madame Les Ferez!”

Amos and Evangeline stood on the stairs of their wagon, stiff in mountains of petticoats and lace. The crowd searched them over with wonder and suspicion. Tanner’s Ferry was little more than a meeting place where farmers hauled their crop for sale and shipment, an outpost to the larger world. The houses were compact, easily built and destroyed should the town need to fade into the woods come another revolution. The women were wives and daughters of local merchants, and their enrapt expressions let Amos know what the lay of the night would be. The girls were taken in by the costumes, having never encountered such extravagance. Amos understood. They would be swamped.

“Counsel to all the French houses,” Peabody rumbled on, enjoying himself. “Their visions have guided the hands of the powerful. Esteemed friends, I bring the luxury and privilege of their cards and sight to you.”

The glint had returned to Peabody’s eyes. He was in excellent form, rolling his rs and gesticulating. Amos looked to Evangeline. A heavy stomacher covered her increasing belly. In the abundant gown, her hair curled and woven into a complex structure, she was not the mermaid or the birdlike girl who’d stumbled from the woods; she was a refined woman, the sort who shrieked and fainted at the sight of a Wild Boy. This was the woman who tied his hair, tugged his lace, and made him into a man none would suspect had been a professional savage. Inexplicably he missed her.

“Don’t you find it strange,” Evangeline whispered, “that Peabody seems none the worse for Ryzhkova’s having left us? She traveled with him for years, but he has every appearance of thriving.”

Listening to Peabody, Amos had begun to think the same. He should be pleased to see Peabody so happy, but found himself thinking of Ryzhkova’s turned thumb, and how she warmed bricks in the campfire to later soothe its ache. He squeezed Evangeline’s hand, making their fingers a tight basket.

“He takes such delight in us that one might think he contrived for her to go. Terrible to say, I know. Yet it would not surprise me.”

From midday to evening, breathless young women and men asked of love, riches, and hope. He listened to Evangeline charm them with a lilting voice he assumed sounded French. He was unable to concentrate on a single reading. Things were moving around him, subtle shifting that left him ill at ease. He focused on the tarot. As they appeared, he plucked cards from the deck and tucked them in his cuffs, cards Evangeline had no business seeing.

* * *

After a difficult section of road thick with mud and overrun with brush, the menagerie rested along the Catawba before their approach to Charlotte. Amos practiced a six-line spread with Evangeline, working with the undealt cards from a prior cross. At the end of the fourth line Amos’s left hand had darted out to snatch a card just as it had been turned. Evangeline grasped both the card and his fingers. “Why do you hide them from me?” she asked. “How am I to learn to do a proper reading if you insist upon taking all the interesting cards?” She saw he was troubled and had meant to be gentle, but he flushed and looked to the floor. “Please,” she said. She turned his hand palm up to reveal the card. The Devil.

Amos did not know that secrets bred their own sort of uneasiness, or that when Evangeline pressed her belly to meet his back she was beset with dark thoughts. He wondered if Ryzhkova’s anger with him lived in cards, corrupting and warping his words. He looked at his hand in Evangeline’s, not much more than a filthy paw.

He put away the cards they’d been working with and began to speak in earnest. He showed Evangeline the High Priestess — Ryzhkova. He flipped, shuffled, and turned, telling her of Ryzhkova’s worry and how he was afraid she’d left it in the cards. He laid himself, the Fool, atop Evangeline’s hand, to show her he wished to protect her from what Ryzhkova had feared.

“The Devil is it?” She took the cards from Amos’s hand and set the six-line spread they’d been practicing. The Devil landed soundly at the fourth row’s finish. There could not have been a less auspicious position. The downward turn of her mouth told him that she knew. “There was a woman who believed me Devil possessed,” she said. “And a woman I loved believed that the Devil might be beaten back with a wooden spoon.” Her laugh was high and mirthless. “Anyone defeated by a spoon is not worth fearing. You’ve no need to hide things.” She did not mention what became of the spoon or the Devil who had wielded it.

Amos nodded but did not agree.

Well into the night they were awoken by pounding at the cart. Amos cracked the door to find Benno, lit by the wavering flame of an oil lantern and scarcely recognizable. The tumbler’s normally placid face was distorted by dread, the scar tugging his mouth tight.

“Get Evangeline,” he said. “Please.” When Amos made no move, he continued. “The river. It has turned foul, gone dead — everything. Your woman, she swims there at night while you sleep.”

Amos blinked at this revelation. She’d managed to leave him without his knowing. Benno had been watching.

“I will say no more, it would only anger you. Please, get your woman.”

Sleep rumpled and twisting her hair, Evangeline appeared behind Amos. “Hush. I will come.”

They followed the flickering light of Benno’s lamp through the bulrushes and cattails that ran to the water’s edge. Amos held Evangeline’s hand and kept her close, watching her steps as Benno’s light ducked between reeds, vanishing and reappearing, blinking in the wind. How little he knew her. When they reached the riverbank the light stilled.

“I have seen you swim this river,” Benno said. “Do you know anything of this?”

Decay weighted the night, making breathing difficult for the stench of it. Evangeline had swum the river that morning, reveling in its sweetness. The lamp cast a glow over where land met water. The shore shone in a wash of silver and the air buzzed thick with flies. Piled high at the river’s edge were rows upon rows of fish, dead and dying, gills gasping. Their eyes were clouded, sinister opals. She covered her face to block the smell, stumbling from the reek.

“Or this thing. Have you ever seen its like?” Benno crouched to pick something up from the ground. A dark brown stonelike creature with a leathery shell and a tail like a switch. It twisted in his hands, knocking itself from side to side. “Wicked-looking devil, is it not?”

Her stomach lurched. Though larger and more disturbing, it was the same creature she’d found in the salt river in Virginia. “I’ve never seen such a thing before,” she said.

Amos’s arm went around her shoulders and she wondered if he could feel the cold that had rooted in her bones, if he could feel her lie.

“Of course you’ve not.” Benno’s words were heavy and sad. “But they line the banks now. Do you see them? Like demons from the water. You swim here. I have seen you as recent as this very morning,” he said, dropping the strange creature to the sand. Hundreds like it filled the shore, burrowed underneath the dying fish, hidden among the stones.

“The water was clear when I swam,” she said.

Benno’s eyes roamed over Evangeline as if cataloging the parts that made her. His frown snapped into a flashing smile. “Of course. What could you have done? I thought you might have seen something; that is all. I’m sorry to have woken you.” He glanced back at the river. “However, it is certain we must leave this place.”

Amos watched the bodies thrash on the sand. He knew of no reason so many fish would throw themselves to the shore, only that it was a sign. The frantic flapping of gills and the erratic beats of failing hearts ran through him. Bad things awaited in Charlotte, things that could sour a river. They must depart, but if they continued to Charlotte, he could not say they would not be walking toward darkness. It was certain too that something had shifted between Evangeline and Benno, and he needed to shield her from the man who’d been his friend. He thought of the Ten of Swords — the stabbed man.

Benno had called the pointed little creature a devil, and Evangeline understood that she’d brought it to her. She squeezed Amos’s hand, felt the soft skin on his knuckles. It was she who’d fouled the river. She thought of Amos’s hidden cards and her stolen swims, that they might choke under their secrets until they gasped like the fish on the shore. She carried murder within her and it poisoned everything she touched. I am a killer.