The Museum of Extraordinary Things

MAY 1911

PATHS ALONG the river were rife with swamp cabbage, and sweet peas, and meadow grass. Even the city work crews, most of them ill-paid Irish immigrants, who had arrived at dawn to shore up the banks with huge boulders, could not disturb the larks floating from tree to tree. The clouds in the sky reflected in the river, as if they were stepping-stones that might allow a man to walk across the water, all the way to New Jersey. Eddie fished every Saturday near the same spot. Each time he wished that he would come upon the trout he’d set free. People were said to revisit the scene of a crime, and dogs had been known to find their homes after traveling hundreds of miles, wasn’t it possible for a fish to be driven by memory?

As Eddie trekked through the unfolding ferns, the undergrowth gave off the scent of cinnamon when it was crushed underfoot. He felt the watch inside his vest pocket, beating, as if he had a second heart. He’d brought along another bottle of rye, in case Beck gave him any trouble for again coming onto what he considered to be his land. He found a quiet place and hunkered down. Though it was early in the season, crickets were calling, and there was the hum of mosquitoes as they drifted over the shallows. Eddie had brought along his rod, but today he merely watched the stream, looking for a flash of silver. After an hour, and then two, he still saw only the shimmering water. Clearly, trout were smarter than men, choosing not to return to the site of their previous sorrows.

He went to the shoreline and began to photograph the river, hoping to capture some of the beauty of the place. The air was soft, as it often was in this lovely month, and Eddie inhaled its sweetness. He found himself uplifted as he worked, caught up in something outside himself and his petty wants and needs. The clouds drifted like ice in a tumbler. Through his lens the river seemed made of light, there was the shimmer, and for a moment the world seemed whole to him. As the afternoon lengthened, the light began to fade. The river darkened and shadows cut through the woods. There was a shuffle in the bushes, most likely a covey of quail or a raccoon. Mitts, who had been so well mannered all day, now reverted to his exuberant ways. The dog didn’t wait to find out what his quarry was, or whether it was larger and more dangerous than he, before he leapt into the brush and disappeared. Eddie went crashing after him, calling out and whistling. Once darkness fell it would be all but impossible to find him, and there were said to be coyotes that stalked their prey in these valleys.

Mitts’s bark echoed from the woods. Eddie did his best to catch up, but he was soon hindered by thick mud as he crossed several small rivulets. The land was a cattail marsh, and blue herons had begun nesting, with dozens of enormous nests set into the top branches of the tall, half-dead sycamores circling the wetland. Eddie finally reached firmer ground. The last of the day’s sunlight was a pale yellow drifting through the branches. Mitts was making a serious racket, growling low in his throat. The last time the dog had taken off Eddie had raced to find him in a clearing. Grabbing Mitts by the collar, he’d been struck by an unnerving sense that he wasn’t alone. For an instant he’d thought he spied the figure of a woman. A white shirt, masses of black hair, a slim beautiful form. But there was no one in sight, only the wavering branches.

Now as he made his way over a grassy valley where Queen Anne’s lace and red clover grew wild, Eddie sighted a tar-paper shack. There was Mitts in the clearing, barking like mad. The dog, and now his master, had discovered Beck’s abode. On the porch, a wolflike creature had been tied to a post with a chain. The beast lunged at Mitts, but the chain snapped him backward. Mitts darted closer, enjoying the freedom of taunting the fierce creature. When Eddie ran to grab Mitts, the hermit’s monstrous pet did his best to reach the both of them, but got no farther than the first steps before he was pulled back. Eddie noticed the beast had yellow eyes. He wondered if Beck wasn’t a liar after all. No dog had eyes like that.

There was enough of a racket to wake the dead, but apparently Beck had slept through most of the clamor. Now Eddie’s shouts had awoken him. He came out his door in a black mood, dressed in long underwear, holding a rifle. His unkempt hair was tied back, and he squinted through the falling dusk. He didn’t appear to recognize Eddie, for he aimed straight at his intruder.

Eddie quickly threw his hands up to show he had no weapon, only his camera and equipment. “You know me,” he called. “The photographer.”

When he held up his camera, he managed to pierce the hermit’s fog of sleep and drink. Beck nodded. “I know you’re around these parts far too often. You and the rabbit that pretends to be a dog.”

“I presume that’s your dog.” Eddie eyed the snarling creature beside Beck.

Beck snorted. “He’s a wolf.” He roughly patted the wolf’s head, and the beast quieted. All the same, the creature showed a glimmer of his teeth to Mitts, who submissively lay down in the ferns.

The dark was settling in, and Eddie would have liked to take his leave and start for home; it was later than he’d hoped, and the journey was long, at least three hours. Still, he didn’t wish to offend the hermit. Not when the old man carried a gun and knew these woods better than the squirrels that ran through the brambles.

“It’s one thing to have you steal my fish, but I sure as hell didn’t invite you here. It’s my home, you understand. No one else’s,” Beck said darkly.

“This was the dog’s idea, not mine,” Eddie assured Beck. “He took off on me.”

“Ah, Mr. Friendly.” Beck came down the steps. He fitted his rifle over his shoulder and nodded for Eddie to follow toward his campfire. “Now you’ve stayed so late you’re likely to drown if you try to make it out of here on your own.”

Eddie shadowed the hermit to a ring of stones placed a few feet away from the shack, to ensure sparks from the fire wouldn’t fly onto the tar-paper roof.

“Did you ever hear of the fish that climbed out of the Hudson?” Beck asked, as he took hold of the bottle of rye Eddie handed over, a peace offering quickly accepted.

“I didn’t expect you to believe in fairy tales.”

Beck grinned. “I believe in dogs with tails.”

“In this world, a fish can’t walk,” Eddie ventured to say. “That much I know.”

“It can if it has two legs.”

There was a metal grill fitted over the campfire, used for cooking fish and game. Beck kept the sparks hot, and he quickly got the fire going by tossing on some tinder wood. Between this spot and the river was a series of freshwater bogs, some so deep the water reached a man’s waist, where there might easily be snapping turtles nesting. The hermit was right. In the dark it would be difficult going. Eddie had no choice but to placate Beck if he wanted to be led through the marshland.

“Let’s just say I’ve never heard of a fish with legs,” he allowed.

“You think you’ve heard of everything?” the hermit asked. “I’ve seen a fox change from red to white right before my eyes. One minute he was scarlet, the next it was as if snow had fallen down on him. You ever hear of that?” He gave Eddie a look. “No. I venture not.”

Beck had reached for a battered kettle, into which he spilled some water from his rain barrel; he added ground coffee beans and soon enough signaled to Eddie, offering a cup of what appeared to be mud.

“I think we’ve got the same thing in mind on this subject,” Beck said. “The fish with legs.”

“Fishing will have to wait for another time.”

Beck narrowed one eye. “You really do think I’m stupid. You’re too dumb to go night fishing. You’d wind up drowned.”

They were sitting together on a log. Set up against the cabin was Beck’s canoe, a beautifully made hand-built boat fashioned of birch and poplar. Eddie hadn’t imagined the hermit capable of such fine work. People on the hill said that in the winter Beck carried his skiff along the ice until he located a current running through, for it was a rare season when the Hudson froze solid. A good fisherman knew where his catch could be found, regardless of the weather.

“I don’t believe you’re stupid,” Eddie insisted. “Far from it.”

“Do you believe in mermaids, then?”

Eddie treaded carefully. He gave the hermit a swift sidelong glance as the old man began to pour rye into his coffee. “Do you?”

“There you go. That proves you think I’m stupid. She wasn’t no mermaid. There’s no such thing. Just a flesh-and-blood woman once upon a time.”

Eddie’s pulse shifted. When he’d worked for Hochman the process of finding someone always began this way. A single sentence could create the beginnings of a map.

“Dead?”

Beck gulped the last of his coffee and rye. “The dead are with us even as we walk. That much I know.”

“We’re talking about a woman in the river?”

“Now you’ve got it.” Beck clapped him on the back, pleased. At last Eddie was grasping his meaning.

Eddie brought out the photograph from his vest pocket. “Did the fish on two legs look anything like her?”

Beck peered at the photograph in the firelight, then handed it back. “Nope, didn’t look a thing like her. But the dead one did.”

Eddie felt his pulse quicken. “There were two of them?”

The hermit rose to his feet so he could douse the fire. For an instant, the world grew dark. “You want more information, you have to give me something in return,” he declared as he headed back to his porch, leaving his guest at the campfire to consider his offer. Eddie tried to figure out what the old man could possibly want of him while Beck pulled on a pair of old trousers. He wore high fishing boots that were caked with mud. The Dutchman grabbed a walking stick, then returned to the smoky fire pit. “We should get going, if you want to make it back tonight.”

“What kind of deal did you have in mind?” Eddie hoped the price would not be too high; after having given his father his savings, he’d have to sell some of his belongings in order to have any ready cash.

Beck nodded to his wolfish pet, sprawled out on the porch, head on his paws, watching their every move carefully. “You make sure he’s cared for if anything happens to me. Set him free.”

“And where will you be while I manage to accomplish this without him ripping me to pieces?”

“I’ll be dead. Otherwise I wouldn’t need you. I don’t want to be in my grave unable to rest because I’m fretting that the wolf is starving to death up in my cabin.”

“Does he have a name?” Eddie eyed the beast, which eyed him in return.

“You think a name means something? You are who you are, whatever you’re called. Call him No-name. Call him Mr. President. They’re the same to me. Just let me know where you stand. It’s a deal or it isn’t. Your choice.”

The wolf was nothing Eddie wanted, but he took it on faith that the hermit would live a long and miserable life. Therefore, he nodded and they shook hands on the bargain.

“And burn this place to the ground,” Beck said. “It’s good for nothing once I’m gone.”

Eddie agreed to this as well. He wished to hear more about the mermaid, but Beck signaled that it was best for them to move on.

Eddie tied fishing line through Mitts’s collar to ensure that the rambunctious pit bull would stay close. The hermit’s black boots stomped over ferns and low berry bushes as they headed for the river. Sparrows flitted by, dropping into the brambles to nest for the night. They went on for some time in silence, but when they reached a ridge, the hermit stopped. The moon was rising, already casting a white light across the long, sweeping view to the river.

“You know how I knew she wasn’t no mermaid? Because her feet were bare. I was always told mermaids have no feet.” Beck pointed to a hollow. “That’s where I first spied them.”

There was a bog to cross, and the earthy scent of mud rose up. Every step meant navigating the muck, which already reached their knees.

“You want to go on?” Beck said, poking fun at Eddie’s obvious discomfort as he batted away gnats. “All sorts of creatures get stuck in there. I found the bones of a baby elephant a trader told me was a woolly mammoth. I’ll probably die in there myself one of these days.”

Eddie gestured for his guide to go on. He hoisted Mitts and carried him through the deepest mud. The clay would dry up in the summer months, but during a damp spring, mud as thick as this could easily pull a man or a dog down as if it were quicksand.

“Walk steady,” the hermit called over his shoulder. “Stop moving and you’ll sink into the land of the mammoths, my friend. I saw a man here at the end of March, stuck in right good, calling for his mother before he pulled himself out with a stick.”

Clouds of gnats circled Eddie as he slogged along. On the other side of the bog there ran an old Indian trail followed by letter carriers before trains were used for mail delivery. Though mostly deserted now, recent wheel marks had been deeply driven into the mud by a horse-drawn cart.

“I came down from the cliff because I’d seen the mermaid pull the other girl out of the water.”

Eddie found himself spooked in this hollow. He wasn’t alone in that. Mitts set to whining, and Eddie ran a hand over the dog’s shivering flank to quiet him.

“She ran away, that’s how I knew she wasn’t a mermaid. I saw she had legs. But she swims in this river the way something human never could. I’d seen her before. When she’d gone, I climbed down to the hollow to watch over the drowned girl. If I hadn’t stayed, the raccoons would have been at her. They would have torn her apart.

“When I heard a carriage come near I took off. I figured the mermaid had gone to get help. But it wasn’t help she brought, just two men. One of them called the dead girl a treasure, so I knew he was a bad one. Death’s no one’s treasure, except for ghouls. The other fellow spoke up that they should leave her in peace, but the first one spat at that idea. Told him no, that wasn’t what they were about to do. So the one who drove loaded her onto the wagon. I should have shot them both before they took her.”

The hermit looked at Eddie closely. “Too much for you to hear?” The old man reached into his jacket to bring forth the bottle of rye, which he offered companionably.

Eddie gulped a bitter mouthful of the liquor. “Do you think they killed her?”

“She was already gone before they got here. I checked. No breath. No heart. But somebody killed her for certain.” The hermit brought something out of his pocket. A strand of blue thread. “Her mouth was sewn shut. I couldn’t let her stay that way, so I told myself it would be like untangling fishing wire, otherwise it would have been too terrible a deed to undertake.”

He gestured for his companion to take the thread, but Eddie recoiled.

“I figured this would happen,” Beck grumbled. “You’re scared by a thread.”

Eddie’s expression was dark; there was only so much insult he could take. “Thread doesn’t scare me. I used to be a tailor.”

“Well, I used to be a baby,” the hermit responded. “Doesn’t make me one now.”

Eddie reached out, and Beck deposited the thread in his outstretched hand.

“The carriage men were there to steal the body,” the hermit said with a sober expression. “The one in charge seemed happy to do so. Not your mermaid, though. She was crying.”

“My mermaid?”

“You almost crashed right into her one night. She and I were both watching you and your rabbit.” He patted Mitts, who panted happily at the attention, tongue lolling. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t burn down my land, so I stayed up on the ridge. She was hidden in the trees. She’s a good swimmer, and she’s got good eyes. But you weren’t much good at seeing what was right in front of you. That’s why I’m leading you out now.”

Eddie felt a burst of heat run through him. He must have glimpsed the girl. That was why he couldn’t rid her from his dreams.

“Who is she?”

Beck shrugged. “A girl that thinks she’s a fish. Maybe your trout brought her round. I told you that fish would lead you someplace.”

“I don’t suppose you recognized the men.” An impossible, hopeless question Eddie didn’t so much ask as think aloud.

“The first fella who almost drowned in the mud?”

“No,” Eddie said. “The two with the body.”

“Oh, I knew one of them, all right.”

This was the way it happened, a single question that could crack open the world, letting in a shaft of light that might allow him to glimpse the truth.

“I saw his picture in the paper years ago. He was a criminal.”

It was dark where they’d stopped, but through the trees the water shone a silvered, glittering gray.

“Do you remember his name?”

“Can’t read. I just use the paper to wrap my fish to soak in cold water. But I read his face just fine, and I remembered it. It was the same man I saw with your mermaid. He put the body under the seat. Then he stood behind the carriage and fed the blackbirds crumbs from his hand. Never seen anything like it.”

Eddie felt a chill along his neck and back. Beck was describing a scene Eddie knew well. The first thing he heard every morning was the sound of the horses breathing in the stalls below him and the liveryman crooning to his pigeons as he sang their praises. Birds are smarter than you think. They never forget a kind word or a face. He’d often witnessed the liveryman feeding the blackbirds out in the alleyway as they perched along his arms, each one waiting its turn, as if entranced.

“Now I’ve told you everything,” the hermit said, “and all that I have belongs to you when I’m gone.” They had reached the riverbank, the end of Beck’s territory and his world. “Don’t forget my wolf.”

The city was quiet, but Eddie’s mind was racing. On his way downtown, he found a grassy place and lay down to rest, his dog beside him. A mouth was sewn shut when there were secrets that might escape or when a punishment was delivered to an individual who talked too much. The thread was nothing special, not silk or mohair, just machine grade. Eddie closed his eyes, and sleep overtook him. When he dreamed he saw his father at his sewing machine. The thread he used was made of glass. It splintered in his hands and drew blood, but his father went on working as if this was an everyday occurrence. This is what happens, his father said in his dream. This is what every man faces in his life.

Dawn was approaching when Eddie woke. He stretched his legs, cramped from sleeping on the grass. He whistled for Mitts, and they headed back to Chelsea, trotting part of the way. Eddie’s breath was hot and he could feel sweat stinging his body. The dog was joyous to have his master run along with him, and they ran until Eddie was doubled over, a stitch in his side. The last moments of night were drifting in between the wooden piers in bursts of blackened clouds. At the mouth of the harbor, the first rays of light broke through in glints of gold and red, and the dark night turned a wild, shivering blue.

The horses in the stable were just waking, ready for their breakfast, restless in their stalls. Their keeper was there and had already piled up hay with a pitchfork. Several of his prized pigeons perched along the old wooden beams. The liveryman sang to them as he brought out their breakfast of seed. With great trust and familiarity, his pigeons came to eat from his wide, callused hands. He turned, wary when he heard the door slide open, suspicious of who might arrive at such an ungodly hour, but broke into a grin when he spied Eddie and the dog. They’d been good neighbors over the years.

“Out early I see,” the carriage man greeted Eddie. “Up before the birds.”

“Long before the birds,” Eddie said grimly. He thought of blackbirds and the silver river. He thought how little he knew about this neighbor of his.

The liveryman finished feeding the pigeons. He then leaned to pet Mitts under the chin. “Here’s a good boy who stays away from my birds, isn’t that right?” The dog, exhausted from his walk, flopped down at the liveryman’s feet. “I expect you’ll both be looking for a few hours of sleep.”

“It’s not sleep I’m after.” Eddie closed the door behind him. At the sound of the heavy doors shutting, the pigeons scattered to the rafters above. “It’s you I’m looking for.”

THEY CROSSED the Williamsburg Bridge early the next day, at a time when a steady stream of crowds were headed in the opposite direction, toward Manhattan and the working world. Eddie sat beside the sullen carriage man on the driver’s high bench seat. He wanted to keep an eye on his companion, and for good reason. When confronted, the stableman had professed to know nothing of the matter of a missing girl. But when Eddie hadn’t backed off, and had described the exact location where the body had been found in the muddy hollow, the liveryman had been stunned.

“You can’t know that,” he blurted. “No one knows where we’ve been and what we’ve done excepting my horse, and he wouldn’t tell you if he could.”

The stableman seemed under the influence; perhaps he was a drinker. Certainly, he was not reasoning clearly. He ran his mouth before he could think better of it, eyeing Eddie as if he possessed the psychic powers of a demon. “I told him I wanted nothing to do with it. I said it was bad luck, but he wouldn’t listen and he was the one paying, so what was I to do?”

The liveryman swore he’d committed no offenses, for the girl was dead when they’d come upon her. All he did was help move the body to Brooklyn, and then only as an employee who had no choice but to obey the demands placed upon him.

“In the eyes of the law, that’s an offense,” Eddie assured him. “You’ll be in the Tombs if the authorities find out. Maybe even Sing Sing prison.”

“The eyes of the law are blind. You know it as well as I. Let’s settle this as men, for men is what we are. I could kill you here and now,” the liveryman boasted, “and never hear a word of this again.”

Eddie laughed. “You?”

“Would you feel differently about holding a threat over my head if you knew I already served five years in Sing Sing?”

Eddie had assumed something about his companion’s station in life from his scars, tattoos, and gold-capped teeth. But time in Sing Sing meant a serious criminal background.

“You know nothing about me, so don’t pretend you do.” The liveryman shook his head, for life in that infamous prison upstate was too harsh for anyone who hadn’t served time to grasp. It was pure cruelty to lock men away and give them a view of the Hudson, keeping them always in sight of the beauty of the world while caging them like beasts. Many prisoners had tried to escape; some had drowned in the river, still more had wished they had when they were hauled out like fish and beaten with ropes and chains. “You have no idea what the world is like in that place or what men are willing to do in order to live another day. I’m including myself. I take responsibility for the man I used to be, for I carry him with me. As strong as I am, he’s a heavy burden.”

The liveryman’s story tumbled out. This quiet, stocky fellow had run one of the toughest gangs in the Five Points section of the Lower East Side. His wild boys, the Allen Street Cadets, rode like madmen on their bicycles, perched upon their handlebars so they might attack a victim with a club before leaping down to finish a robbery. He’d risen through the ranks, from a bouncer at the New Irving Hall, a saloon on Broome Street, to a gang boss. The houses of prostitution and opium lairs under his control were overlooked by the officials at Tammany Hall, for those who were meant to govern for the good of the people were happy enough, once paid off, to ignore unlawful acts. In those days, this humble carriage man had often sauntered into the Tenth Precinct, where he let himself into the captain’s office with ease, bringing gifts of whiskey and cigars. He’d considered himself untouchable, and for a while he was, but his long sentence in Sing Sing prison had left him without allies or connections.

When he was released, early, for good behavior, he’d had no choice but to hire himself out for petty crimes, including his work for a professor in Brooklyn. He was now thirty-four, and in the streets where he’d ruled, younger, more brutal men had taken his place. He’d found himself running a livery, mucking out stables, hiring himself out on a daily basis.

“So you lost your power and came to body snatching?”

“I was brought low by a certain passion I have,” the liveryman admitted.

Eddie recalled the times he’d seen this fellow crouched in the alleyway behind the stable, all but hidden in the falling dusk. He’d often had a pipe with him. There had been times when Eddie had observed him fast asleep beside his horses, dead to the world or only half-awake, his eyes hazed over from the effects of smoking poppy. There were opium houses across lower Manhattan, in the cellars of bordellos and taverns. Eddie had been to many such places while working for Hochman. His young age hadn’t mattered to anyone in this world where a man’s craving was paramount. All that was necessary for him to gain admittance was to pay a dime to the sheriff who guarded the door; he was then allowed to search through the warren of cubbyholes. In these dim and filthy cubicles a man could smoke himself into a stupor, most often lying on one hip so he could get to his pipe even as he slipped into a dream. It was a dream from which he’d never have to wake, as long as he had money enough, and wasn’t murdered in his sleep.

“The Professor concocts his own opium in his workshop,” the liveryman informed Eddie. “He takes the raw stuff that looks like amber flakes and mixes it into a paste with those chemicals of his. He’s a wizard, I’ll grant him that. He vowed I’d never go without as long as I keep my mouth shut.”

“But you’re talking now,” Eddie reminded him.

“So I am. I’ve had enough of being lorded over by the likes of some so-called scientist who has me dragging around the dead. I may take his money, but he hasn’t got my loyalty. You keep me out of it, and I’ll talk all right.”

“You’ll do more than that. You’ll take me there.”

Eddie then brought out the dime-store photograph of Hannah. After a single glance, the liveryman looked away, pained. Even a man such as he had a soul, one he worried over more as each year went by.

“That’s her,” he admitted. “God forgive me.”

To Eddie’s great shock, the carriage man then began the initial phrases of the Kaddish, the mourning prayer of the Jews. Yit’gadal v’yit kadash sh’mei raba. May His great Name grow exalted and sanctified. B’al’ma di v’ra khir’utei. In the world that He created as He willed. V’yam’likh mal’khutei b’chayeikhon uv’yomeikhon. May He give reign to His kingship in your lifetimes and in your days. Uv’chayei d’khol beit yis’ra’eil. And in the lifetimes of the entire family of Israel.

The prayer was so ingrained, Eddie found himself murmuring the words in unison, though the liveryman seemed less a Jew than a heathen, a criminal with no allegiance, however he might call upon God.

“There you have it,” the carriage man told his confused companion when the prayer had been completed. “I’m one of your brethren.”

“I’ve left my faith,” Eddie was quick to inform him. “So we can hardly be brothers in any way, shape, or form.”

“You think so? I did the same as you, covered up who I was. We’re not so different. It was easier for a man like me to make my way without carrying the weight of our people. I suspect the same held true for you. I became whatever and whoever suited the times. I changed my name when need be, and who says that’s a crime? I’ve been Bill and Jack, and half a dozen other people. Joe Marvin, Joe Morris, William Murray—there’s an entire list of who I’ve been, and none of them have been too pleasing. But where do I go when there’s no one else to turn to? Adonai, our God.”

“If you think I’ll let you off easy because of this, you’re wrong. You’ll take me to her.”

The carriage man shook his head sadly. “You’ll likely regret it. I say this in all respect and as a brother.”

“Likely I will,” Eddie agreed. “But I’ll be in Brooklyn when I do.”

A frayed red cushion covered the seat of the carriage, to ease the pounding a person’s rear end took as the wooden wheels hit against the ruts in the roads. Eddie noticed the liveryman didn’t use a whip on the horse, yet the gelding trotted easily, as if he knew his master’s intended destination.

“You’re good with animals,” Eddie granted.

“I don’t need you to tell me so. I owned a pet shop on Broome Street when I was young. I was bird crazy. Still am. Honest creatures, aren’t they? Wild little things.”

The weather was warm and the sky had opened into a clear cerulean blue. The liveryman stopped the carriage on the flatlands, where there were still farms. Rows of cauliflower and beets grew for nearly a mile. The road was dusty, and it seemed no one was around. Eddie’s hackles were immediately raised as he speculated that some foul play was under way. It was possible that his companion would try to do him in on this empty stretch of highway; it might be that one of the liveryman’s old cohorts was nearby, ready with a club or a gun. Then Eddie realized their journey had been halted because they’d come to a well. The carriage man had already leapt down to retrieve a bucket from beneath the rear seat, which he filled so that his horse might drink. Eddie jumped down as well, in order to stretch his long legs.

“What do you want me to call you?” he asked, feeling more good-natured in this rural landscape. The air itself was intoxicating. “You said you’ve been known as Joe?”

“Go right ahead. I’ll answer to anything.”

By habit Eddie had grabbed his camera before leaving the stable, and he was now moved to capture the scene before him. The carriage man, called Joe for lack of anything better, held the water bucket so that the gelding could drink. His free arm was draped tenderly over the horse’s neck.

“All my other portraits were taken at the police precinct,” the fellow Joe said with a grin, showing off his gold-capped smile. “Make sure my beautiful teeth show.”

“Don’t think so highly of yourself. It’s the horse’s portrait I’m interested in.”

“I told you we were alike,” the liveryman insisted. When he finished his chore, he climbed back into the seat and lifted the reins. “We both trust beasts more than we do men.”

“If you mean would I rather stare at the horse’s ass than look at you,” Eddie remarked as he took his place beside his companion, “I can’t disagree.”

They both had a chuckle over that remark. Their defenses were down due to the utter beauty of the day. Terns wheeled across the sky and swirls of bees rumbled through clumps of tall grass.

“You thought I was about to murder you back there.” Joe looked pleased with himself. “Admit it.”

“It crossed my mind. Then I thought of your allegiance to God, and found relief.” Eddie’s edge of cynicism caused a smile to play at his lips. “You’d have to pay when you came before him.”

“I’m before him now,” the liveryman said solemnly. “I’ve come to understand I’m before him each and every minute.”

The marshland sprawled to the south in patches of gold and green. There was a slight haze as they crossed the wooden bridge that forded a watery fen and a rivulet known as Coney Island Creek. The original bridges over the creek had been constructed of wood, but the first roads were made of shells. Shells were still tossed down as seabirds dropped clams so they might smash open on the bridges and the roads. Several migrating ospreys nested in the branches of tall trees. Sun dashed onto Eddie’s face and made his eyes tear. The salt in the air stung their faces and refreshed their spirits. The light was paler here than in Manhattan, tempered by soft clouds. It was the sort of light Moses Levy would have delighted in, for while it obscured the larger horizon, it allowed the camera’s lens to pinpoint the smallest detail even as they entered the streets of Coney Island with their crowds of shoppers. All of Brooklyn seemed bathed in a glow. The gleam of the trolley tracks on Neptune Avenue, the carousels with their painted wooden lions and horses, all glinted with intense color. Even the market awnings shone with bright stripes of crimson and yellow and blue.

The liveryman stopped the carriage on Surf Avenue. The renovation at Dreamland was in its final stages. Huge piles of sandy earth had been dug up, then dumped in the street. Each time the breeze arose, sand whipped into little dirt devils that burst into the air.

“This is as far as I can take you. Otherwise he’ll know it’s me that brought you here.” Down the avenue the roof and gables of the Museum of Extraordinary Things could be spied. “I’d like to kill him, and don’t think I haven’t had the chance. But he’s got access to what I need, God forgive me, so I’ll go no farther.”

Eddie leapt down from the carriage, camera in hand. “Wait for me then. I’ll need a ride back.”

“What do you mean? I’ve done my part, haven’t I? Do you think I’m your lackey meant to do your bidding?”

“I thought you were my brother,” Eddie mocked.

“Half brother.”

“Stay put. And hope that I come back.”

The liveryman turned the carriage despite Eddie’s order, and let out a whistle that caused his horse to break into a trot. “Hope that for yourself,” he called over his shoulder. “Good luck making your own way back.”

THERE WAS so much noise and commotion at Dreamland that it was a relief to turn onto the slate path that led to the museum. A wash of quiet settled over Eddie, and the air was cooler than it had been on the crowded avenue. The institution Eddie approached appeared to be more of a house than museum; it was still off-season, if only for a few days more, and the place was surprisingly run-down. At the end of the path, Eddie found the entryway door locked. The wooden signs that announced the spectacular marvels to be seen within had not yet been hung but were instead tossed upon the grass, the paint dewy and fading. Two lilac trees were lavishly in bloom, surrounded by a cloud of bees. By now Eddie had begun to hear voices. He followed the sound of conversation around the perimeter of the exhibition hall, finding himself on the outskirts of a large yard. There were new leaves on a towering pear tree. Eddie had to peer through the branches so that he might view the gathering on the porch. Another man might have been stunned by what he saw, but Eddie was delighted by the wonders he observed. For a moment he forgot why he had come and was content to simply gaze upon the miraculous forms that had appeared before him.

The museum began its season early, before Dreamland and Luna Park opened their gates. In this way they could hope to attract weekend visitors who might otherwise overlook such a small establishment in favor of the other parks. The billowing white sheets had already been removed from the cases of specimens, glass canisters and displays of bones had been dusted, and birdcages and fish tanks freshened. On this morning the living wonders had reported in to greet each other after a long winter, signing their names or, for those who hadn’t the skill of writing, making their marks with Xes in a ledger book that charted the acts that would begin performing at the end of the week. Every year some alumnus went missing, and this season was no different. Gianni, for instance, an elderly man from Rome who ate fire and walked barefoot over a bed of hot coals, had simply disappeared. He had been ill at the end of last summer, coughing up bits of cinders and blood, and now people mourned his absence. Those who had returned embraced, gladdened to find they were not the only ones to survive another winter. Some had worked odd jobs, others had traveled with exhibitions or circuses in the South, still others merely waited for the season to begin again, like Malia, the Butterfly Girl, who bided her time in a boardinghouse where her mother took in mending to sustain their meager needs. This reunion was a day of celebration, especially as the Professor had been drinking late into the night and was still in bed. Eventually they would all have to meet with him and discuss their contracts, but for now it was far easier to enjoy themselves when his piercing glance was not evaluating everything that was said and done.

They were gathered around a table, drinking tea, delighting in Maureen’s apple fritters, excellent as always, even better than usual on this day, pastries concocted of sweetened dough that had been boiled in a vat on the huge coal-burning stove before being sprinkled with brown and white sugar.

Eddie stood just inside the garden, inflamed and astonished. There was Jeremiah, a sword swallower who made sure to coat his throat with a thick syrup made in the Indies before each performance and liked his tea especially hot. Two young brothers from the Bronx, the Durantes, ate from the same plate. The Butterfly Girl used her bare feet to partake of her breakfast as another might use her hands, and the Jungle Boy, whom people around the table called Horace, could not speak, yet made himself clear enough when he wished to have three cubes of sugar to his tea. There was a new wonder this season, a spritely man named William Reeves, who kept an alligator the size of a hunting dog on a chain. In Reeves’s act he removed the cap he wore, then held the beast’s jaws open to fit his head inside its gaping mouth, an orifice that was currently tied with string, to ensure the safety of those nearby should the beast mistake a thumb or forefinger for one of the chicken bits he was fed each night.

Eddie hoisted up his camera so that he might catch an image of this wondrous breakfast gathering. The garden itself seemed enchanted. Bands of light streamed over the table in shades of lemon and gold, and there was the scent of mint, and of damp earth, and of fragrant black currant tea. Malia threw back her head and laughed at a joke the Durantes told in tandem—the older brother always announced the punch line—and the new man, William Reeves, gazed at her joyfully, fully appreciating the Butterfly Girl’s beauty, while the sword swallower drank from his steaming cup of tea, his blade with its brass handle leaning against one bony knee. Though Eddie’s camera was so very quiet, the hollow click was enough to make the group on the porch freeze. Perhaps their senses were attuned in ways an average person’s were not. They turned en masse, wary, as though expecting to find a snake stretched along the length of a branch. They seemed startled to see such an ordinary individual there beside the pear tree, a tall young man with short-cropped hair and dark eyes, carelessly dressed in a blue jacket, light wool trousers, and laced boots.

As for Eddie, he approached humbly, knowing full well he was disturbing an intimate gathering. “I hope you don’t mind me stopping. I was passing by and it was such a perfect scene. I’m a photographer.”

Fearing his very presence would spook them, he held out his camera, evidence of his good intentions. Rather than shrink from him, the natural wonders were intrigued.

“I take portraits.” Eddie came closer, encouraged by their reactions. “And I’d be so happy to take any of yours.”

“Would you now?” the character named William Reeves replied with an edge of suspicion. “At what price?”

“Oh, there’s no fee,” Eddie assured him.

“Then you’ve got a deal.”

Reeves was the first to pose, and once he’d agreed, the ice was broken. The others gathered round to watch the slight, wiry man lift the alligator over his lap, placing one hand on its gray-green scales. “I always wanted a picture of Arthur,” he said, for he called his creature by this name. “Do you want me to look solemn?”

“Whatever suits you,” Eddie recommended.

Upon hearing this, Reeves broke into a grin. “This is me, buddy. Happy go lucky. Arthur’s the one who’s glum.”

From the kitchen where she was helping Maureen with the fried dough, Coralie overheard a murmur of conversation, then bright laughter. When there was a round of applause, she was compelled to go to the back door to peer through the screen. She could hardly believe the sight before her. There was Malia, perched on the porch railing as if ready for flight, a beautiful half butterfly. And, far more distracting, there he was, the man from the woods, right in Coralie’s own yard, as if he’d been magicked to Brooklyn. He had beautiful hands, long and pale, like a musician’s. When his jacket constricted his movements, he shrugged it off and continued working in his white shirt and suspenders. He had a brooding expression, so concentrated on his subject he seemed not to take in a single breath of air.

Coralie gazed through the meshing of the door, entranced as she watched him adjust the lens of his camera.

“Stay exactly as you are,” the photographer called to Malia. “This is perfect.”

The next batch of fritters sizzled in a pot on the stove, ready to be scooped out of the bubbling hot oil, but Coralie ignored her kitchen duties. This was the hand of fate. She was certain of it.

The photographer thanked Malia, then quickly began to set up his camera for another shot, removing one plate and inserting the next. The Durante brothers readied themselves for their turn, bending around each other in a fluid circle so perfectly round it seemed to defy the capabilities of the human spine.

Maureen had been pulled into the kitchen by the scent of fritters burning. She gasped when she saw the pot of oil, singed and turning black. “Here’s a waste,” she said mournfully as she quickly lifted the pot from the flame. She noticed Coralie at the door, a strange expression crossing her face. “I’d like to know what all the ruckus is about.” Maureen approached the back door, narrowing her eyes when she took note of the man with the camera. The brothers were cheerfully posing for him. “What does he think he’s doing? He’ll get a thrashing if he’s caught. We’ll all be in the shit.”

Maureen pushed open the door before Coralie could prevent her. “Stop what you’re doing this minute,” the housekeeper called sharply to Eddie. “This yard is private property and there are private lives being lived here.”

Eddie gazed up to see a beautiful red-haired woman whose extreme disfigurement was evident even across the distance between them. He felt humbled by the strength and authority in her tone. “Miss,” he said earnestly. “Forgive me for not asking your permission.”

Hidden behind Maureen, Coralie again felt the hook of her attraction to him. The pulse at the base of her throat was pounding. As for Eddie, he spied a shadow and nothing more. Though he placed one hand over his eyes to block out the streaming sunlight, he could see no farther than the threshold of the kitchen.

“I have no permission to grant,” Maureen told him, “so you’d better hightail it out of here, before the owner finds you trespassing. Then you’ll see what trouble is.”

“He’s only a photographer,” William Reeves explained to the housekeeper. “There’s no harm done.”

“I don’t care if he’s the King of Brooklyn,” Maureen said smartly to Reeves, before turning her attention back to Eddie. “Sir, I’m asking you to leave. Take my advice if you’ve got half a brain in your head.”

Eddie put a hand over his heart and pleaded, “Don’t send me away before I take your portrait.”

Maureen laughed dismissively, though she clearly found something charming in his actions. He appeared as a scarecrow might, with his baggy pants and long arms and legs and dark, handsome features. “Like that will happen,” she called to him.

“Let him do it,” Coralie urged the housekeeper from the shadows. “You’ve never had one taken before, and it will cause no harm.”

Maureen was puzzled, but when she turned to see Coralie’s look of fierce insistence, she understood the fellow in the yard was the very man her charge had spoken of, the one she couldn’t forget.

“If that’s him, he doesn’t look like much,” Maureen said thoughtfully. “Too skinny by far.”

“Go on.” Coralie gave the housekeeper a little push. “Go!”

“Are you mad? What if your father sees?”

“I don’t care,” Coralie told Maureen. The kindness with which Eddie had treated his subjects in the yard had uplifted her. Here was an ordinary man who did not flee from what he could not explain but rather was drawn to what was different, not lewdly out of some sinister inquisitiveness, but due to sheer wonder. “I trust him,” Coralie said.

“Really?” Maureen murmured. “Shall I tell you what I think about trusting a man you hardly know? I’m proof of where that leads.”

“It’s only a portrait,” Coralie reminded her.

“Might I ask what anyone in their right mind would do with a portrait of me?”

Coralie took Maureen’s hand in her own. “Please. Do it for me.”

The photographer gestured for Maureen to enter the vegetable garden. The sky was without a cloud now, causing the shadows to be especially deep, black ribbons running through the grass. As Eddie worked to ready the camera’s plate, he thought about the apple trees in Chelsea, and the huge elms in upper Manhattan. He thought of the forest in Russia and the salty yellow wetlands he had crossed that very morning. The beauty of the world had been apparent to him through the lens of his camera, but he hadn’t known a human being could be as marvelous as a marsh or a tree or a field of grass. Maureen stood between the rows of lettuce and peas, staring straight at him, hiding nothing. She hadn’t even thought to take off her apron. Her face was beautiful and ruined and utterly devoid of artifice. When Eddie had finished her portrait, he went to her and got down on one knee. “My gratitude,” he said.

He knew he had taken his best photograph. Nothing he’d done before or ever would do again would compare to this one image. He wished Moses Levy were alive to observe the print when it was developed. Maybe he hadn’t been such a failure of a student after all.

“Don’t be an ass,” Maureen chided. There was the scent of cooking oil on her clothes. “As long as I never have to see that picture. I don’t even look in mirrors.”

Eddie rose to his feet, embarrassed by his show of emotion. Since the day of the fire, when he had photographed the dead, first on the street and then in their makeshift coffins, he’d been overly affected by his own passions. His eyes blazed with the fervor of a true believer, for though he claimed to have lost his faith, there was a jittery spark of it inside him. He clapped the soil from his trousers. Gazing up, he spied Coralie on the porch steps. Perhaps what happened next was influenced by the passionate state he was in, perhaps it was the intensity of her gaze. He fell in love with her in that instant. He had no idea what was happening, he only felt as if he were drowning, though he stood with his feet firmly on the ground. Coralie’s long black hair was gathered in a ribbon. She wore a simple black dress and a pair of old-fashioned cotton gloves, the sort most young women would have cast away on such a warm, seasonable day. The more he looked at her, the more beautiful she became. Eddie experienced an ache he hadn’t expected, immediate and undeniable, a rush of desire that might easily consume him.

“There you go.” Maureen nodded when she saw his reaction. “Now you’ve seen the treasure of the house.” She elbowed him to make herself clear. “Do her wrong and you’ll answer to me.”

Coralie came toward him, eyes shining. They greeted each other, then, after their introduction, they shifted into the rear of the yard without thinking, both wishing for privacy. The pear tree’s bark smelled sharp and fragrant. The tendrils of the green peas grew beyond the pickets of the fence in wild profusion.

“I saw you and your dog in the woods once, near the river,” Coralie confided, ignoring her shy heart. “I never thought it was possible that we would meet here in Brooklyn.”

The light was fading in the section of the yard where they’d paused, near enough to the trash pile for the ground to be ashy.

“I imagined you,” Eddie responded. “Or it might be that I saw you as well.” Coralie’s eyes were bright; a flush of color was rising on her throat. She hoped he might say The world is waiting for us, all we have to do is run away, but instead he murmured, “I’m here for the drowned girl.”

She came to her senses then. So this was his mission. Another girl entirely.

“You can be truthful with me,” Eddie went on. “To be honest, I know that she’s here.”

“And how is that?” Coralie wondered what the drowned girl meant to him. “Are you a mind reader of some sort?”

“Not exactly.” Although he had always prided himself on evaluating people’s thoughts and desires, this young woman seemed beyond his reach. He dropped his voice. “We share a liveryman it seems. The one who prefers birds to human beings.”

When Eddie spoke so intimately, Coralie’s attraction sliced through her. Still she remembered Maureen’s words of caution. “Is it your wife you’re looking for?”

“I’m hired to find her by her father, who longs to have her back, no matter her condition. I assume the body was taken for some vile purpose?”

Coralie lowered her eyes. “So vile you could not begin to comprehend.”

“I might. I’ve worked with criminals for the newspapers. I think I would understand.”

She yearned to tell him, but because of where such intimacies might lead, she felt a rising fear. She had entered a country she’d never visited before, though she stood in the ashy earth of the yard she’d known all of her life.

Up on the porch, William Reeves was sitting back in his chair so that he might recite a list of the massive amounts of food his alligator needed each morning: two chickens, three bunches of lettuce, a large haddock, bones and all. That, he announced, was just for breakfast. He intended to inform Professor Sardie that a larger salary was to be expected if he was to join their troupe for the season, for though he’d inked his name on the roster, he’d yet to sign a contract. The very idea of asking for more incited the museum’s employees, and a lively discussion began concerning the possibility of a fair wage, something no one had dared to imagine before. Eddie and Coralie paid no attention to this debate. They didn’t hear the clatter as plates and cups were carried off, marking the end of tea, nor did they recognize the passing of time.

“It’s dangerous to look into things you don’t understand,” Coralie advised. “You haven’t seen the half of what there is in this world.”

“Perhaps you’re one of the extraordinary things I don’t understand. I’ve heard you’re something of a mermaid.”

“Have you?” The very word sent a shiver down Coralie’s spine. It called up images of nighttime performances, mortifying scenes of flesh and wanton desire. “Whoever told you that knows nothing.”

Eddie felt a chill directed toward him. “I don’t mean to offend you. There’s a hermit camped out in the woods who’s spied upon us both. He said you’re a grand swimmer, and that you did your best to rescue Hannah. That’s her name. Hannah Weiss.”

Coralie now understood why the body she’d left sprawled in the weeds had been discovered with her hands folded on her chest, her head placed carefully upon a grassy pillow.

“Can you take me to her?” Eddie asked.

“She’s locked away, and my father is present so I cannot. But even if I could, she’s no longer among the living. Should we not simply forget her?”

“Can you forget what’s lost?” Eddie furrowed his brow, a sort of outrage passing across his features. “If it’s such a simple thing to do, you must teach me, for my mother died when I was a child, yet I mourn her still.” His words clearly touched Coralie, so he went on. “Should I go back to Manhattan and tell an old man to forget his daughter? Not to dig a grave or have blessings recited for her soul?” Eddie’s glance held hers, and he dared to speak his innermost thoughts. “And should I forget you when I leave here on this day?”

“You should,” Coralie insisted, for they had gone too far in words, and words, Maureen had always warned her, were soon enough followed by deeds. “Absolutely.”

“Should is what you don’t want to do, but do anyway. That isn’t me.”

A smile played at Coralie’s lips. “No. I’m sure it isn’t.”

“Nor is it you, I’d wager.”

Coralie shaded her eyes and gazed up into his. They were a deep brown, flecked with gold and black.

“I can get you her belongings.” She did her best to keep her voice even. “Would that help?”

Maureen had come outside to wave at them, gesturing in no uncertain terms for Coralie to send the tall young man away. Coralie had been so caught up in their conversation she’d failed to notice the living wonders had already gone inside one by one to greet her father and sign their binding contracts for the season to come. The porch had emptied, with only Reeves and the alligator remaining.

“It would help greatly.” Eddie’s back was to Maureen. Most likely he would not or could not gaze away from Coralie.

“Wait for me. I’ll be as fast as I can.”

Coralie hurried to the porch, where Maureen was waiting to usher her inside, nearly faint with relief. “Thank goodness you’ve come to your senses,” the housekeeper remarked. “Have you not seen me signaling for you to be rid of him?”

“Don’t let my father find him,” Coralie instructed her.

“You don’t know where this will lead,” the housekeeper warned.

All the same, Coralie could not be dissuaded. She could see Eddie through the screen door, out in the yard, whistling to himself, as he had in the woods. She didn’t intend to deny or disappoint him. Whitman’s poetry had been her schoolroom, and most of what she knew of life she’d taken from its pages. Why should you not speak to me / And why should I not speak to you?

She shrugged off Maureen’s pleas and went swiftly through the hall, taking the stairs two at a time. As she slipped into her room, Coralie heard her father call out William Reeves’s name so that he might be interviewed for his season’s contract. She shifted the heavy horsehair mattress so that she could remove the blue coat she’d hidden. Clutching it, she went to her dresser. There, stored beneath her undergarments, were the tokens stolen from her father’s workroom table. Some hairpins, a small tortoiseshell comb, the gold locket on a chain, the black buttons that had fallen from Hannah’s closed hand. She swept these items into a handkerchief that she tied with a knot.

She prayed her case of nerves would not grow worse until her task was completed. It was then she heard her father’s raised voice. He was shouting at William Reeves, and Coralie feared if she had to pass him, his rage would be directed at whoever blundered by. She went to the window and signaled to Eddie, who looked up confused. Leave, she urged him. Run away. He grinned at her and shook his head, and made it clear he intended to stand his ground. Coralie knew he was not the sort to run, and that he would not forget her, though it would be best if he did. Mr. William Reeves was shouting at the Professor, balking at the deal he’d been offered and suggesting the Professor rot in hell for paying his workers such a pittance, before he slammed out the back door, his alligator under one arm as if it were a suitcase. Apparently, Reeves’s impudence and his demand for a more fitting wage had so infuriated the Professor, he followed the rascal out of the house and, in doing so, came face-to-face with the photographer in his yard.