But tucked into her valise she had carried a lynx cub, one last gift from the man who had been her husband, who had thought she needed “protection,” although it was never quite clear from what, if not from him. She had refused hunting hounds and mastiffs, calling them poorly suited to the heat and empty spaces of Deseret, where rain was a rumor and green spaces were a lie. Besides, dogs were messy, nasty creatures, and she had not cared for animals then, in any sense of the word; had not enjoyed their company, nor known the tricks of keeping them alive. When pressed, she had allowed that cats were not so bad, and a week later, a box had been in her parlor, hissing and growling at anyone who attempted to get close.
The cat’s name, according to the man who delivered it, was Tranquility; she was a lynx, which was apparent to anyone with eyes. Less apparent was the fact that she had been prepared to live with humans, bred in a private zoo, presumably to be hunted; her adult teeth had been blunted, to make her less dangerous to the people around her. She still had her claws, of course. Removing them would have removed her integrity as a protector.
“No one will even think about troubling you with a watchdog like this on your property,” the man had said jovially. Then: “Your husband must love you very much.”
“I suppose that’s true,” she had said, and began making preparations to run.
When the time had come to actually go through with it, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to leave Tranquility behind. Without the lynx, she might not have realized the depths of her husband’s hubris, or how unwilling he was to listen to her. More, while Tranquility would not have been the only living thing she left behind, she would have been the most vulnerable. It wasn’t the big cat’s fault that she’d been an unwanted gift. It wouldn’t have been fair.
In a way, Tranquility had saved them twice. Annie had run as far and as fast as she could, and just as the money was running out, she had stumbled across the Blackstone Family Circus and Traveling Wonder Show. The thought of joining the circus would never have occurred to her were it not for the people who had seen her with the baby on her hip and the half-grown lynx slung across her shoulders, and assumed that she was circus-folk already.
“Does the cat do tricks?” The question had come from the roustabout at the gate—Danny, she’d learn later, raised under the big tent, circus orphan–turned–gawky lookout–turned worker. Unskilled, like the bulk of the bodies that made up the circus, but when had that ever stopped anyone from having a place in their own home? As long as Blackstone rode the American territories, and the territories of the nearby associated lands, Danny, and the people like him, would have a place to call their own.
(But not Deseret. Even before Annie had come to the show, they had never played for Deseret. That, more than anything, had eventually convinced her that it was safe to stay—that she would never open the doors to the oddities and find herself looking into the one pair of eyes she hoped never to see again.)
“The cat does not do tricks,” she had replied. Tranquility had been panting against her throat, small, sharp breaths that tickled her skin and reminded her of the silent child on her hip, who was so much less equipped to make her needs known. “But the cat could use some water and a shady place to rest, and my daughter is hungry. I can do mending. I can clean. Whatever’s needed, if it buys us rest and a bottle of milk.”
Danny had looked at her with the blank incomprehension of someone who had never been required to think in his life: someone who, if shown a wheel, would gladly put his shoulder to it and push for all that he was worth, but who would never have been able to locate the wheel on his own.
“I don’t know that I’m allowed to hire, ma’am,” he’d said.
Annie’s first reaction had been despair. This was it, then: this was the end of the road. She had run until she’d found herself with no road remaining, and now even the people who would supposedly welcome anyone—the circus-folk her own long-ago nannies had told her stories about, who stole naughty children, whisking them off so that they were never heard from again—wouldn’t have her.
“I see,” she’d said dully. “Thank you for your time.”
“You’re sure the cat doesn’t do tricks?”
Tranquility could take down a rabbit in full flight from the predator at its heels, and would share, most nights, surrendering half the meat to Annie and Adeline. Tranquility could growl like something three times her size, scaring off predators, whether animal or man. Most of the rougher sorts found in towns and in well-lit places did not, it seemed, want to tangle with a lynx, half-grown or not.
(Annie had not been fool enough to linger outside of cities—not yet. As the money ran out and her clothing became more and more disreputable, she had become resigned to the fact that one day she would have no choice. On that day, she would place Adeline in a church pew and pray that God had some mercy left for the West, where little girls with stolen voices deserved as much of a future as any other child; where her daughter ought to have a few good days, before everything fell apart, as it inevitably would.)
Tranquility could keep her warm at night, could purr the pain in her shoulders away, could be a companion where she would otherwise have none save for Adeline, who was too young and too silent to understand what was happening around her.
“No,” she’d said, weary to the bone. “The cat does no tricks.”
“We’ll have to fix that,” had said a voice behind her, and she had turned, and beheld Nathanial Blackstone for the first time.
Any man whose name was painted in giant gilt letters on the side of a wagon train should have been larger than life, six feet if he were an inch, with shoulders like an oak door and a face like a monument. He should have dominated any space that he inhabited, a myth walking. Nathanial Blackstone … didn’t.
Oh, he was tall; taller even than her own father, who had regularly hit his head on doorways and tree branches that no one else would have worried about. But he was also gaunt, a skeleton of a man with his skin drawn taut across his bones. He was one of the darkest men she’d ever seen, with skin so brown that it made the whites of his eyes seem to glow like Tranquility’s did by firelight, seeing everything, even the things that should by rights have gone unseen. There was not a single hair on the top of his head. As if to balance that fact, a bold handlebar mustache graced his upper lip, waxed and curled into a parody of itself, the sort of mustache that would be remembered after everything else about its bearer had long since been forgotten.
“Sir,” Annie had said, unsure what else to do. Her manners, like everything else about her, had been worn thin by the road.
“My name is Nathanial,” he had replied. “We always have need of someone to do the mending, especially if you’re clever with a needle and thread; we always have need of someone the children will listen to, if you think you might be able to enforce some discipline over them. Everything else can be worked through in time, if you feel like the circus might be the place for you.”
“Truly, sir, I don’t know whether there’s a place for me in this world,” she had replied. “But it’s worth trying, and if there’s a bed in it for us, I’m happy to do whatever you propose.”
“Good,” Nathanial had said, and put a hand on her arm, and steered her to his wagon.
Now, years and miles and hundreds of shows from there, Annie was the keeper of the freak show and the guardian of the oddities. She still did mending, when necessary, but that hadn’t been her primary job in years. The circus orphans had to find their makeshift mothers in other wagons; all her motherhood was taken up by Adeline, who was delicate and delightful, and needed her.
The cat still, despite the efforts of some of the best trainers the show had to offer, did not do tricks. But she purred. Oh, how she purred.
Her head resting lightly on the flank of a deadly predator, surrounded by monsters, Annie Pearl closed her eyes and slept.
Chapter Three
A hand gripped Annie’s ankle and tugged. It wasn’t strong enough
to drag her out of the cage, but any motion in the oddities wagon was cause for concern. Her eyes snapped open and she sat upright, banging her head on the top of the cage. She made a wordless sound of pain and dismay. Behind her, Tranquility grumbled, the low, deep muttering of a discontented predator.
The wagon wasn’t moving anymore. Annie squinted through watering eyes, trying to see what had grabbed her. Nothing was biting at her flesh or attempting to devour her alive, which meant that it was probably human; other than Oscar, Tranquility, and a few of the nameless snakes, there was nothing else in the wagon that would be so kind.
Her vision cleared. She realized that she could see surprisingly well: sunlight was oozing in around the edges of the closed windows, driving most of the wagon’s occupants deeper into the shadows of their enclosures. Very few of the things in the wagon of oddities cared for direct sunlight—especially Oscar, whose pale flesh could burn just like a human’s.
Adeline was crouching in front of the cage, her fingers still wrapped tight around her mother’s ankle, watching her unblinkingly. Annie let out a sigh of relief.
“Hello, my Delly,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I must have fallen asleep while I was checking on Tranquility.” After so many nights spent running with the lynx asleep at her head and the baby asleep at her breast, the purr of the lynx was a soothing thing. She didn’t succumb to its lure as often as she once had, but still, there were times when the promise of peace was more than she could ignore.
‘I woke up and you were gone,’ signed Delly, a reproachful expression on her face.
“I know, and I am truly sorry.” Annie reached behind herself to give Tranquility a final reassuring pat before pulling her ankle free of Adeline’s grasp and rolling onto her hands and knees. She crawled out into the open, her back protesting the motion. She was not a young woman anymore, to spend her nights sleeping on the floor of a cage without paying for it in the morning.
Adeline was not appeased. She waited until her mother was facing her again before signing, ‘I thought you were eaten.’
“Tranquility would never let that happen.”
Adeline fixed her mother with a disbelieving stare. If most of the things in the collection of oddities wanted to eat Annie, a simple lynx wouldn’t be able to stop them. Even if Tranquility’s loyalty were strong enough to make her join a fight, she couldn’t possibly win. They would both be devoured.
Annie sighed. “Again, my love, I am sorry, and I didn’t mean to leave you alone. We’ve stopped. Are we laying camp, or has Mr. Blackstone found us a stopping point?”
‘Camp,’ signed Adeline, and followed the word with, ‘Hungry.’
“Yes, my dearest. Come along.” Annie stood, turning to close and lock Tranquility’s cage behind herself. The lynx had already gone back to sleep, and didn’t so much as twitch an ear.
Looking down at herself, Annie wrinkled her nose. Keeping oneself clean on the road was a trial, made more difficult by their current unpredictable circumstances. They had run off their usual seasonal route a week prior, and although they had stopped several times for an afternoon of opening the exhibit wagons, they had yet to set up for a full show. Without a full show, there was no cause to set up either the big tent or the boneyard, and without the boneyard—their shared campsite and temporary home during a show—there was no bathing tent. It was enough to make a woman think of clawing her own skin off in the hopes of removing the filth along with her flesh.
“May I change my dress before we go for food?” she asked. Giving Adeline a frank look, she said, “We should do the same for you, lest we encounter townies who decide I beat you every night, and twice in the morning.”
Adeline giggled soundlessly, making a fist and miming punching herself in the jaw. Then she nodded.
“My thanks,” Annie said gravely. She offered her hand. After a moment’s contemplation, Adeline took it, and the two of them walked together out of the oddities wagon.
It would have been impossible for someone who saw them together to mistake the fact that they were mother and daughter. Adeline’s hair was the color of corn silk, while Annie’s was the darker, more mature color of corn. Both had naturally pale complexions, which tanned quickly in the sun, and eyes like chips of meltless winter ice. They shared a chin, and a nose, and a tendency to furrow their brows when frustrated, as if they could glare the world into submission, or at least into becoming comprehensible.
Adeline was shorter, of course, being only seven years old; her hair was longer and very rarely styled, although she would generally consent to having it brushed. Both of them walked quietly and stood straight-backed and proud, even when there seemed little to be proud of. There was always survival. Survival, under the right circumstances, was enough.
The wagon train was stopped at the side of a road that seemed barely worthy of the name: it was a trail, worn into the earth by wheels and hooves and feet, but never planned, nor tended by anyone who cared for its condition. They had moved onto the grass more out of courtesy than necessity; it seemed unlikely that anyone else would come riding through this particular stretch of desolation anytime soon.
There were trees, but not many; their scrubby branches would provide little shelter if it happened to rain again. Annie gave the sky a wary look as they stepped down from the oddities wagon. The earth was soft, skirting the line between dirt and mud with an expert hand. One more good rainstorm would be enough to see them stopped for days. The earth out here took water easily. It gave it back slow.
There were no houses in sight—not so much as a shack. Whatever they’d stopped for, it wasn’t to put on a show. Most of the wagons had their windows open, which only drew attention to the lack of a crowd. They would never have risked townies seeing into their private places outside the boneyard. The fact that they were willing when they didn’t have the proper protections up only proved there’d be no entertainment for the masses. Not here, not today.
“Morning, Miss Annie,” said one of her freaks—a name she didn’t much care for, but which they bore as a badge of honor. She supposed the word was all in where you were standing while you looked at it. For her, a woman of decent breeding brought low by circumstance, being called a freak would have been an insult. For Edgar, born with hair on almost every inch of his body, so that he appeared in shorts for the amazement of the masses under the name “Arizona Werewolf,” well. “Freak” was a word that meant a place to sleep, and full bellies for himself, his wife, and all three of his children.
(The youngest of them looked set to take after her father, and had been born with a fine coat of downy fur covering her entire body. She was only three years old, and Mr. Blackstone had a firm policy of not displaying living children too young to understand what was going on. Dead children were another matter, and the show had its share of “abomination” babies in jars, infants born too flawed to have ever lived past the cradle. Dead children were simply residents of a graveyard with a view. Live children had rights.)
“Good morning, Edgar,” said Annie, trying to pretend she wasn’t wearing the previous day’s clothing, that she didn’t have straw and animal fur in her hair. Adeline continued tugging on her hand, urging her onward. Annie grimaced apologetically. “I would stop to chat, but…”
“Say no more, ma’am,” said Edgar, an understanding smile on his furry face.
Annie smiled back, as much out of relief at the conversation’s end as anything else, and allowed herself to be hauled onward, back to the safety of her own wagon.
The lantern had burned out during the night. Annie felt a pang of guilt as she looked at it. Once Adeline was actually asleep, it was virtually impossible to wake her. If there had been a fire …
If there had been a fire, she would have burned to death while her mother was sleeping soundly in her caravan of monsters. Annie would have woken to find herself alone in the world, and she didn’t think she would survive that. She had been many things in her life. She had never, as yet, been alone.
; “You are a mess, my poppet,” she said, pointing at the chest of drawers that contained Adeline’s wardrobe. “I want to see you in clean clothes, and washing your hands and face, before I have my corset off. Hop to it!”
Adeline did not hop. She did give her mother a put-upon look before heading to the chest, presumably to follow directions. Annie turned her back to give her a little privacy. The child had been to the manor born, as had Annie herself; she should have had entire rooms for nothing but the changing of her clothes, and here she was, sharing a cramped wagon with her mother, forced to expose her body whether she wanted to or not.
At least it was only Annie who seemed to understand the difficulties of their situation. Adeline didn’t remember where she came from and had no trouble with the cramped quarters or the lack of privacy. She didn’t even seem to understand that she should care.
Quickly, Annie stripped down and unlaced her corset, dropping it on the floor and taking several deep breaths as she allowed her waist to expand to its natural dimensions. Some of the men who traveled with the show asked the women why they bothered with corsetry when there wasn’t a show. It was difficult to make them understand that when all your clothing was cut to fit over something, it could be hard to go without. Besides, a good corset was also good armor, and there were plenty of things to fear at the circus. Kicking horses, swinging doors, even the occasional fistfight between roustabouts—they could all be made less dangerous by the right corsetry.
Annie grabbed a clean corset and tied herself up with quick, sharp jerks, drawing the laces tight enough to allow her skirt to fit, while leaving them loose enough that she didn’t need to get a hook. They were stopped, for now; she didn’t need to worry about presentability, just modesty. She pulled on a patched shirt and an ankle-length red skirt that had started life as part of one of the smaller tents. She wasn’t the only one at the show wearing clothes made of that material. It could practically have been a uniform if only it hadn’t been remade into so many different shapes and types of thing.