Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
M adame Persephone was located at the far end of the midway. No matter the size of the crowds, the area near her purple tent was always quiet, and today was no exception. Two young women stood with their heads close together in private conversation, their hands touching. An older man leaned on a cane and stared at the ground, apparently deep in thought. A mother sat on a bench nursing her infant while a small flock of jackdaws perched on the grass nearby, their strange gray eyes following Crow and Simeon as they walked. And there was Madame Persephone in the doorway to her tent, smiling at Crow and Simeon as she waited for them.
“Come in.” She made a small hand gesture. Her long, colorful dress flattered her curves and had none of the hoops or stays that today’s female guests had to deal with. Her blonde hair was mostly hidden beneath several layers of tissue-thin silk scarves. Rings flashed on her fingers.
Simeon had always liked the inside of Madame Persephone’s tent. When he’d been new to the carnival, this place had seemed incredibly exotic, like something he might have dreamed after several drinks. But it was also peaceful and smelled pleasantly of incense, and Madame Persephone herself had let him poke about at her cards and crystal ball and other divination objects.
Today, however, Simeon plopped down in a wooden chair on one side of a cloth-covered table—the draped sphere in the center certainly the crystal ball—while Madame Persephone sat more elegantly opposite him. Crow, looking a bit jittery, chose to remain standing.
“You have a decision to make,” she said without preamble.
Simeon sighed. “Aye. I don’t know why it feels so important, though. Why it’s weighing on me so much. It’s only a bloody box.”
“Sometimes the future of an entire country can depend on a single word.”
He didn’t know whether she intended to soothe him or get him more worked up. Mostly it just added to his confusion.
“Dunno what’s come over me lately. I haven’t been myself. Ask Crow.”
She lifted her eyebrows questioningly and Crow shrugged. “Maybe it’s because you’re not completely sure who your self is. I know how that feels. But Madame Persephone’s a medium, not a shrink.”
Her laughter was rich and warm. “Sometimes that’s the same thing. But tell me, Simeon. What do you want from me?”
He sank deeper into the chair. “Tell me what to do.”
“You know I can’t do that. I think Crow might agree.”
Simeon glanced at Crow, who nodded. “You gotta steer your own ship, remember?”
“Don’t bloody know where I want to steer it to,” Simeon muttered under his breath, but only because he knew Crow was right. He gave Madame Persephone an apologetic look. “I’d appreciate any guidance, ma’am.”
She nodded serenely and whisked away the silk scarf that covered the crystal ball, loosely knotting the scarf around her neck. She gazed intently into the globe, and Simeon tried hard not to shudder. The first time he’d met Crow, Simeon had been messing about and flirting a bit, and he’d pretended he was going to use the crystal ball to tell Crow’s fortune. But then he’d been struck by a very real and entirely horrifying vision of Crow’s family dying in a fire and many more deaths after that. It was the only time he’d ever made a prophecy, and he hoped he’d never do so again.
“Can you really see things in there?” asked Crow, his curiosity apparently overcoming his own bad memories.
“Not exactly,” she answered. “It helps me concentrate.” She tilted her head slightly, her gaze unfocused. Her lips parted as if in surprise, but she didn’t seem distressed. No horrible deaths in this vision, he hoped.
When she spoke again, her voice was higher and clearer, like a child’s. “Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?”
Simeon’s breath caught in his throat and his heart seemed to stutter. He recognized those words—and found himself giving a reply. “‘What matters it how far we go?’ his scaly friend replied. ‘There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.’”
Then the spell—or whatever it was—broke, and Madame Persephone re-draped the crystal ball. “Was that useful?”
“I’m… not sure. Perhaps.” But he was sure, because the verses had brought back a childhood memory he’d long ago forgotten. And that had to mean something, didn’t it?
Simeon thanked Madame Persephone and she walked both of them to the tent exit, briefly settling a warm hand on Simeon’s arm. “Whatever journey you make, my dear, you’ll never make it alone. Please remember that.” She shooed them outside and ushered in the nervous-looking young man who’d been waiting.
The sun seemed brighter than it had before they’d entered the tent, the scents of the carnival stronger. Delighted screams came from the rides and a round of applause from inside one of the tents. The whistling lilt of a street organ wasn’t quite loud enough to discern its tune.
“Curiouser,” Simeon said.
“What?”
“I think I’ve a tale to tell.”
In Simeon’s experience, stories were best when accompanied by food or drink. Neither he nor Crow were hungry, so they went to a stand that sold pints of ale and then took their glasses to a table in a quiet corner of the concessions area. A pair of jackdaws landed near them, and Crow tossed them a few peanuts he kept in his pocket, perhaps for occasions such as this. Birds did tend to follow him around.
Simeon took a fortifying gulp. “When I was thirteen, the rozzers nicked me for cly faking.”
“Could you translate that into English for me, please?”
“’Tis the Queen’s bloody English, it is.” Aware that his accent had veered heavily into its original Cockney, Simeon laughed and made an effort to speak in a way that a twentieth-century Illinois farm boy might understand. “The police caught me pickpocketing. Don’t make that face. You know quite well I’m a thief.”
“I know quite well no thirteen-year-old should be forced to support himself like that. ”
“There’s worse ways. They brought me into Holborn Station, and I reckoned I’d be getting a caning or a stay in Newgate—there’s that face again. Stop it. It was a long time ago. Anyhow, I ended up with neither. Instead the coppers handed me over to some people who’d been searching for… well, a boy very like me.”
Crow listened intently, brow furrowed, while Simeon told him about the Frugises, and the posh house where they’d taken him, and the events that had transpired inside that house. “I hadn’t thought about any of this in ages,” said Simeon. “Not sure why. It was quite odd.”
“Quite,” replied Crow dryly.
“Nothing came of it, anyway. I sold the silver spoon and had enough dosh to eat decently for a week. I sold the book eventually as well, but only after I’d read it a dozen times or more.” Even then, he’d wanted to keep it. But he’d been cold and wet from the rain, and the book had bought him a bed for several nights.
“What made you think of this just now?”
“It was Madame Persephone, wasn’t it? That verse she recited—it was from the book. So was the bit I said back to her.”
“Huh.” Crow took a sip of his beer. “What was the book?”
“ Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland .”
Crow blinked at him and then burst into laughter. Simeon didn’t understand why, but since laughing was such a rare thing with his Crow, Simeon would take it however he got it. It transformed Crow’s face, making him look younger and brighter. Made him look like an angel.
“Sorry,” Crow said once he had himself under control. “It’s only… it figures. I feel like I pretty much fell down the rabbit hole when I was eighteen, and I don’t think I ever found my way out. ”
“We’re all mad here,” Simeon said in agreement. “Does this make me the White Rabbit?”
“I thought you were a rook.”
Simeon shrugged. “Don’t recall any of those in the book.”
“Okay, let’s get back to the important stuff. Who were those weird people and what did they want from you?”
Although his first instinct was to say he had no idea, he knew that such a claim wasn’t true. It had all been very confusing at the time, but now, in retrospect…. “They wanted to know whether I had unusual abilities. And they said something about flying.” The reality sank in and his stomach felt unsettled. “They looked like me, love. Like my… my flock.”
He sat back, stunned at his own words. He’d known all his life that he must have come from somewhere. He hadn’t just popped into existence, the product of one of the Amazing Mephistopheles’s tricks. And once he’d learned that he was a rook, he’d assumed that there were others like him in the world and that his original family—whoever and wherever they were—had most likely been rooks as well. But because he’d forgotten about his encounter with the Frugises, he’d never before connected the dots.
“What if I hadn’t run away that day?” He addressed the question more to himself than Crow.
“Do you wish you’d stayed?”
“I… dunno. They frightened me. Not sure what they wanted, even if they were like me.” Then another thought hit him. “If I had stayed, I likely wouldn’t have joined the carnival ten years later. And I wouldn’t have met you.” He grabbed Crow’s hand as if to stave off the very thought of losing him.
Crow’s expression was grave. “And without you, I wouldn’t have survived all the things that happened to me.”
Simeon wasn’t positive that this was true. Crow was enormously strong, even if he didn’t often recognize it. But anyway, attempting to untangle all the what-ifs wasn’t the point right now and would only make him dizzy. “If running away brought me indirectly to you, then it was the right choice.” He gave Crow’s hand a hard squeeze.
“So what do you want to do now?”
Well, that was a good question. He took out the box and stared at it, rubbing his thumb gently over the top. “F. That could stand for Frugis. Could also stand for fucking idiot.”
“Then wouldn’t it be F I?” Crow’s voice was gentle.
Now it was Simeon’s turn to laugh, in part because Crow joked so rarely. He sobered quickly, however. “If the box does have to do with them, how did it get here at the carnival, and why? Can’t be a coincidence. Assuming I can track the Frugises down again—I’m not sure what year it is now—what will happen then? And love, if you come with, you’ll be stuck here. You’ll never see your family again.”
Crow winced a bit at that. After a decade’s separation, he’d finally reunited with his Aunt Helen and met his young cousin, and he loved them both fiercely. But he firmed his chin. “If you want to go find these people, I’m going with you.” As simple as that, but they were beautiful words. Simeon might have cried if they weren’t in public.
“Steer my ship, you said. It feels as if I ought to do this.”
“Then let’s go.”
It wasn’t quite as simple as that; they had a few loose ends to tie up at the carnival. Simeon headed out to beg or buy period-appropriate clothing from other carnival workers, while Crow went in search of Mr. Ame to inform him they’d be leaving .
Half an hour later they met up back at the caravan. It was odd to see Crow wearing the same sort of outfit that Simeon had sported for most of his life: plain black trousers, well-worn but clean; a white shirt; a gray weskit; a brownish sack coat; and a gray flat cap. The only real color was the pale yellow cloth tied around his neck. Simeon wore the same, although his neck cloth was blue. They’d both retained the work boots they’d been wearing for months, which would pass as appropriate unless someone examined them closely.
Crow looked down at himself doubtfully. “Do I look stupid?”
“You look lovely.”
They gathered a few belongings into canvas knapsacks that, even though they were not Victorian, would have to do. And then it was time to leave.
Simeon sighed as he took a final look around the wagon. “I’ll miss this.” It had been his first true home.
“Me too. Hey, Mr. Ame gave me some money. But maybe you’d better keep it ’cause I have no clue what these coins are or how much anything costs.” He handed over a cloth purse.
Simeon knew that Crow was trying to distract him from a fit of longing, and he allowed himself to be distracted. He felt the purse—heavy!—and whistled when he looked inside. “This is a bloody fortune.”
“Yeah? He said it was our pay.”
Neither of them had worried much about wages while in the carnival, where almost all of their needs had been met. On the rare occasions when they wanted something the carnival didn’t provide, Mr. Ame gave them a bit of the local currency. It hadn’t occurred to Simeon that eventually they’d receive a pot of money.
“Should last us a while,” he said.
“Good. Because I’d really rather you not steal, if possible.”
“Understood. ”
Because it was unwise to keep all of the money in one place, he distributed half of the coins between his bag and pockets and insisted that Crow do the same.
“What did Mr. Ame say?”
“Aside from the stuff about our pay? Not much. You know how he is. But he wished us good fortune.”
Simeon nodded, satisfied. Good wishes from Mr. Ame couldn’t hurt. “I don’t fancy saying good-bye to anyone here. We’d bloody be here for hours if we did.” That was an excuse. In truth, he’d made friends here, and it was going to be hard to leave them. Easier just to walk away.
If Crow understood this—and he likely did—he didn’t say so. He simply shouldered his knapsack and together they walked away from the caravan, down the midway, under the arch, past the ticket booth, and into the meadow beyond.