The circus was a lot more work than Barnabas had expected. One, it seemed, couldn’t just walk out of the trial of Sweet Stephen’s drawing room and right onto the tightrope. It took a full year of practice, swinging back and forth day in and day out, his heart ever in his throat while Barabbas looked on from below, satisfied with Barry’s punishment for talking out of turn. And surely, it would have taken much longer if he was actually doing much more than merely swinging, but from the first moment he climbed to the board and looked down at the apron far, far below, he swore he would not leave his own fly-bar for any reason whatsoever, except to get back down again. Miss Kitty, on the other hand, drove her own schedule as cruelly and relentlessly as any railroad tycoon. Mornings, evenings, and any moment when she wasn’t being shooed out of the tent before a show, she would be up the pole, preening in her little tuxedo and looking down at the far away floor with very feline contempt. Barnabas had come to dread walking into the tent of an early morning to hear high (oh so dreadfully high) above him her loud purr.
Many events occurred over that high-flying year, as can be expected in the company of such curiosities and performers from both Far and Away, well protected from the Age of Reason by their tents and tricks. However, for Barnabas, all that truly mattered was his dreaded act, and no matter what happened outside that tent, be it a unicorn set loose (accidentally) or Angele and Agrathe’s misunderstandings with a certain Mayor of S---- (quite deliberately and on purpose), he would always return. No matter how much he would say he would prefer not to, his heart as ever in his sweet throat, he would climb the awful pole to the terrible board.
It was an unfortunate incident in Mobile that finally brought Miss Kitty to center stage. During one of her more spirited performances, Sirene, that Mistress of the Mississippi, struck a chord (and one could say a pose) so provocative, so enticing, that the barricades surrounding her little portable pool were stormed in seconds by hundreds of hot blooded Alabama men, whooping and hollering and firing their pistols in the air to get through. In the aftermath, with two drowned men on his hands, August thought quite wisely to remove Sirene from the show for a time in order for her to cool down. She, of course, was beside herself, as she had quite hoped to drown a full score more before the Colossus of Rhode Island had saved the crowd by covering her mouth, but with sweet Stephen Shepherd to deal with, she only went back to her water tank and sulked. It was then, as they pitched tent just outside of Biloxi, lacking an act as bewitching and dangerous as Sirene’s to close off the evening’s entertainment, that August called upon Barnabas to fill in. And so here we are.
A warm August night, just outside of Biloxi, on the more amused and relaxed shore of the Atlantic, the tent is lit from below, beckoning the eye upwards and upwards to where the peak nearly touches the stars, striped in such fabulous colors — red, gold and green. From all around comes the sound and distractions of that most marvelous cavalcade that at this time belonged to Shepherd. One can hear the stirring Horse Anthem of Mirromir calling from a small tent to the left, where Dillos rides at the fore of memories and to lyrics even his mount does not know. To the right the jugglers from Milan send their torches spinning up to the falling stars spinning downwards, and the reflection from the gentle tides makes it hard to tell which is which, yet both fires seem very fine indeed.
Here, in the center is our tent, many and more gentlemen are lining up, in top hats and bowlers, in conical hats and felt hats, and even, I daresay, a raccoon skin cap or two. Here is a rather faded gentleman, his pale face rouged with consumption, his eyes a feverish twinkle under the night sky — and does he look a little too long at the placard in front of the main tent before he pays his five cents to Barabbas and takes his chances on the inside? He does. He does. As does a slight, rough man with a well-faded anchor tattoo. Trouble, as ever, is brewing around the cavalcade, and tonight it swirls around this one central tent, outside of which is an image on a placard, which reads:
Dizzy Miss Kitty and her Death-Defying Act!
In colors too lurid for any place but here where it belongs, here beside Mystic Beach, to the accordion strains and bells and the long whirling stir of a Foreign Horse Anthem. And here is Miss Kitty! Not in the flesh, of course, for she is in her little powder room, preparing for her night of stardom. But this painting of Miss Kitty is quite lifelike in all respects, and draws us in, for who could resist the thrill of seeing such a nimble creature, so delicate in her skin-tight tuxedo on the flying trapeze? Five cents is such a small price to pay to satisfy our curiosity; we gladly hand our money over to a very satisfied Barabbas Flynt at the door, and are welcomed in, as the outside often is, into magic and wonder and the smell of popped corn.
Inside, as ever, the rough smell of a crowd of men in their hats and coats and mixed swirls of poverty and dignity greet us, all alike sitting on coarse rough-planed wooden planks set up as the grand theaters of old, raked back almost to the level of the board itself, high, high above the ground. To look around us is to see the hundreds, the faces blending into one face, that of expectation, the face of the audience, and feel their need to see, and be satisfied. Here, to the very far left of the stage and far away from the crowd, stands a silk-screened partition, done in reds and golds and dragons from the Orient. Stephen Shepherd has left his small rolling drawing room for this one performance, and while August has made sure there is some distance between the owner and the world, one can see how the crowd, without knowing it themselves, has given him even more — the seats down along both sides of that partition are conspicuously empty.
We can buy some roasted nuts for another penny, or some popped corn, and that smell is the circus, as the smell of men gather together in the night for marvels is the circus. The smell and the warmth of the corn in our hands satisfies, to a degree, but we didn’t pay five cents just to sit and smell with our fellow men, did we? Down far below us, far to the front and quite in the center of the audience, one faded Southern gentleman and a British sailor take their seats, and is that the glint of a pistol we see? In the pocket of the gentleman’s faded and cracked overcoat? It is, it is.
But here. The show is about to start. The one we have been so eager to see all this time. A certain signal is given, and the men, the hundreds, fall silent.
It is in that sweet musical rest that the truest sound of the circus lies — the breath before the act.
There goes Barnabas up the pole, climbing hand over hand, sweet even in his tight costume designed after Monsieur Leotard, but also wearing queer straps made of leather from his wrist to the elbow. To the board he goes, that plank above the dangerous gap below. He waves to the crowd and bows as the ringmaster introduces him, dipping his hands into the chalk by his foot, licking his lip before he turns to face his partner. It is quite cool up there, near the top of the striped cone, but already he is starting to sweat.
Seated at the opposite board, and quite a distance away, is the star of the moment. Some eyes are shaded to see her better, she is so very small. One would think her treed, if not for the way one leg is high in the air, head turned as she preens herself before the performance, ever the face of calm. Her assistant Sarah is there in gold and black shining above the gaslight, holding the flattened fly-bar made especially for Miss Kitty. Barnabas looks across the way. A polite applause follows Miss Kitty’s introduction — “That Dizzy Cat from Connecticut, That Aeronautic Adventuress of the Feline Genus. A Genius of the Flying Trapeze,” and so on and musical so on. All Barnabas is paying attention to is Sarah across the way; his hands grip his bar with tight white knuckles. He does not see the Southern gentleman below grip his mate’s tattooed arm, does not see the sailor’s face turn white with fear as he recognizes the beast on the plank. All is a pond of murmurs, a rippling sea of black hats and upturned white faces, far far below. He waits; Miss Kitty continues to clean herself. And then Sarah nods, her blue eyes flashing.
“Hup!” Barnabas yells into the silence, his voice sweet, and he clears the board, leaving gravity to its own devices
behind him.
He swings, the momentum carrying him, gripping the bar tightly as he swings back to the board, pulling up, lifting himself up, and wrapping his knees around the fly-bar, steadying himself in the down-swing with arms outstretched, sailing out into the void like an angelic pendulum.
“Ready!” he calls to Sarah, though he scarcely feels so. Sarah calls out into the night —
“Hup!” He lets go of the other flyer’s bar.
All at once it happens. Miss Kitty, who seemed to have been ignoring all the commotion, breaks from nibbling on the hind leg she had raised in the air, turns, and in one fluid motion leaps high off the board.
She soars, her whole body flat out, but it seems she may miss — miss her first trick before a live audience. Some put their hands to their mouths, aghast, but no! At the last second, before the apple can fall and remind us all of pedantic laws and physics, her paws catch the edge of the flattened fly-bar at the low point of its arc, and it pulls her along. It turns upside down with the extra weight, drawing the little creature underneath as it flips over. Miss Kitty lets go just as the bar is about to turn again and is once more in the air, turning end over end, all a twist and ripple of taut muscles and grace in her skintight tuxedo, and in the path of her descent is Barnabas’ arms outstretched, covered in those straps of leather, which she grips in her claws, caught perfectly.
“Gotcha!” Barnabas calls, and the audience sighs with relief.
“Return!” Sarah calls across the dread divide, and Barnabas flips upwards as the fly bar swings away and Miss Kitty is hurtled high into the air — a somersault, a double somersault — as Sarah catches the fly bar, steadies it, and sends it back across the void once more, with Barnabas swinging back to the board under the turning twisting spill of the gracious creature.
Once again the arc carries him back below her, Barnabas now sitting, arms raised to heaven as she comes down, her fly bar coming to him from the corner of his eye.
Miss Kitty seems to tire of spinning and so descends, hind legs far behind her in the night, her paws digging into the leather armbands once again.
“Gotcha!” Barnabas calls, and swings his arms down as he turns over once more, upside down, and sends Miss Kitty to the receding fly bar.
This time, she lands on top of the flattened bar, forepaws first, and stays that way for an incredible second, balancing herself with tail and hind legs still high in the air as the fly bar returns to the board, before sitting, tail curled about her, looking down on all of us below, licking one forepaw.
This was the part of the performance that Barnabas detested, for, when they practiced, she would not go on without sufficient applause, and so many were the mornings he would swing back and forth, sweating like an iceberg in summer, clapping his hands raw while Sarah shouted “Bravo! Bravo Miss Kitty! Bravo!” while Miss Kitty preened, waiting for the fever pitch of admiration she felt was necessary for her to continue.
And so they swayed, back and forth in the night air, waiting for that sound all circus performers thirst for — hands clapped to hands, the true payment, and worth far more than a mere five cents could, a sound that believes in magic, fairies, and the illusions of the stage. There, a scattered round goes up. And another, and another, until the audience swells with the life-giving noise, and Miss Kitty leaps off the bar at last, rubbing against Sarah to say yes, she is satisfied, yes, she will go on.
Barnabas grabs the board to send himself off again, relieved. He lets go with that lovely call of “Hup!” that says all — to go on and to go on. Down he swings as Sarah releases the bar again and Miss Kitty takes flight once more to catch the bar. Barnabas calls, “Ready!” for the next trick, more wonderful than the first, arms outstretched as Miss Kitty merely graces the bar with her hind legs, leaping high off it and into the air, into the hearts of all the men below.
All but two. The applause is far too much for the Southern gentleman to bear, and he gets to his feet, as all those around him have risen to theirs, but instead of clapping hand to hand, his palm slaps to the side of his pistol, and he pulls it out in a rush of choleric emotion, following the black and white creature as she soars. But no! He will not fire, weeping even as the arm begins to falter. He will not pull the trigger! Some have turned to notice him, and they raise their arms to grab this madman who would try to extinguish such a brilliant light, such a dainty, enthralling, graceful creature.
But the blame for the bullet lies squarely on the shoulders of his sea-faring companion. He it is who grabs the Southern gentleman’s arm and yells, “Fire! For the love of God, fire!” into his face, and in shock, his blood already up, the startled Southern gentleman pulls the trigger.
Far, far below the crowd swells around two men, pulling them to the ground while high above, just at the moment when Barnabas would call “Gotcha!” at the very instant before holding Miss Kitty safe in his arms once again, Barnabas hears the shot, and feels the force of the round ball strike him in the shoulder, throwing him completely off-balance in the moment just before the catch, and all of a sudden he is falling down, down, and down.
High above him as he falls, another star tumbling from heaven, he catches a glimpse of a skin-tight tuxedo flying alone in the gap and beginning to descend, yowling in despair, but that is all — for the net has caught him, and all around he hears the shouts of alarum, and one voice above all, a voice made broad by coaxing lazy seamen to their feet.
“Thief! Thief! Get your bloody hands off me and seize that cat!”
All is blackness, then. Merciful blackness for a time.
V.
A Southern Gentleman’s Tale
“Constance, my dear Constance, had finally come to an ultimatum, which shocked me, as she had ever been the model woman and wife, modest in all respects. It was either her, or the cat.”
These were the first words Barnabas heard as he woke. It was a little over a half an hour since he had been carried away from the large tent, and someone had bandaged his shoulder. The pain was quite excruciating. Ringed around the circus wagons were the Milanese jugglers, Diillos the horseman, his old friend Barabbas, and a few strangers, he supposed from the audience. Tied to one of the wagons, awaiting the local constabulary, were the two villainous men who had made such a desperate attempt on Miss Kitty’s nine lives. Truth be told, now that they were bound, and with the light of their crimes shining in their faces by the circus performers lanterns, they seemed rather mean and small indeed.
It was the Southern gentleman who was speaking, his eyes cast down. Already the fury was gone quite out of him, and without that spark he seemed rather grey and wan. Everything from his beard and mane of black hair down to his boots struck one as having once been a sight of admiration and envy — now covered in spatters of wine and faded with age.
His companion had lost none of his murderous rage, however, yet now there was a note of panic to his pale blue eyes. He had been gagged, but even that had not stopped his cries, muffled as they were now, and at every sound in the trees about them he started, and looked to the branches with horror. The broken Southern man sighed, and continued on.
“Well, sirs, God help me, but I chose the creature. I couldn’t bear to cast her out into the night, out into the wild. And the change that came over my dear Constance Penelope after the cat’s arrival seemed so bizarre. It was as if ... it pains me to put it so, but I do believe she quite lost her mind over the creature. She was ... she was jealous of its affections towards me. And my own attention to the cat became too much for her to bear. She gathered her possessions and left.” He sighed once more, as all leaned in to hear.
“For a time, I truly believed I had made the right choice. For a time, she and I were truly happy. Our evenings, our days rolled together in laughter and play. And how she would come, lightly stepping to the door whenever I returned from my business in town. A household could never contain so much bliss, such enchantment as ours did. My friends quite admired her, her whims and elegant posture. A veritable lad
y of the highest order, ever curious, they said. And then, one day, on a lark, I bought her a gift, which turned out to be cursed by all the gods that ever were.
“At the time, I had truly thought, dear sirs, that no creature on earth could resist such a gift. I had it made specially, from a jeweler in New Orleans, who swore the gems were of the best quality, the finest cut, that the gold clasps were no less than eighteen karats. To my shame, it cost quite a portion of my family fortunes, but so caught up was I in my admiration of the creature, I handed it over gaily, laughing as I thought with what pride she would wear it around her neck, how the emeralds would compliment her eyes, and how she would be the envy of all Montgomery, the whole state even.
“Well, sirs, she would have none of it. Never have I seen such a change come over a creature. It was as if all the demons of hell had taken up residence beneath her skin. The sounds she made had the sound of brimstone to them as I put the collar around her neck. She attacked me. Me, her protector, her patron, her most ardent admirer. The wounds healed in a matter of days, but the memory of it still hurts, sirs, still stings like the lash.
“It was then that cruel winter descended on our lives together, as quickly as the spring that had blossomed between us. I would come into my drawing room of an evening, hoping I had been forgiven, hoping to find her once more at the settee, murmuring those soft sounds of delight and satisfaction that ever moved my heart so. Instead, I would find her atop the grandfather clock, glaring down at me with eyes so full of loathing and hatred, that often I felt an urge to run to the nearest looking glass and see if perhaps I had become possessed, for surely I could no longer be the man she once loved and revered.
“She, who before that time never seemed to have the need to explore or roam, as her like are wont to do, now needed to be watched day and night. Should a window or door be open a breath longer than it had to be, she would be at it like a shooting star, so quick you could scarce believe you saw it, but for the twinkle of that cursed collar and the sound of that dreadful little silver bell.
“You must believe me, sirs, that I attempted at several occasions to remove it, but she would have none of that, either. Any approach and she would vanish, leaving in her wake a stream of obscene epithets so full of mistrust and rancor that the very air seemed to boil around them. I so wanted to be forgiven. I was a fool. There seemed to be no hope of reconciliation, and one could hope for our bond to be renewed as much as one could hope for everlasting peace on earth.
“My fortunes, which were never so grand as some had been led to believe in Montgomery, dried up all the more in the years that followed our countrywide folly, and I began to find myself in dire straits. All of my retainers had to be released, and so that house of frivolity and mirth and wonder fell silent, except for the gong of the grandfather clock, and the tinkle of that devilish bell beneath the dressing table. That collar began to appear to me, as I’m sure it would to you all, my only salvation. Would I only be able to lay hands upon it, to tear it free from about her neck, then perhaps our finances would improve, and maybe, just maybe, my dear Salome would find it in her heart to love me once more. The thought grew in my mind night after terrible night, as the remaining articles of my fore-fathers went their ways to other, stranger hands, in exchange for a few more nights of despair in that slowly gutted house.
“Then, one desperate evening, I must admit, I lost all my senses and went for her. She had been glowering beneath the settee where once she basked in the sun like a monarch. I threw the chair over, lunging for the twinkle of those gems I had purchased for her in my days of happiness, now long gone. She spat at me and flew from the room, alarmed, and I followed, stalking her through the empty house, unloading a year of misery and sorrow at her tail.
“From room to room I ran, and the memory clings to me as one wrapped in darkest cloaks of shame, the darkest era of my life. Chasing that vile creature, that fickle spirit who had soured my fortunes and left me as I was, alone with only her contempt for company.
“I cornered her in the bedroom where she had opened her eyes on me on mornings so very long ago, in her fitted black dress with its little white bodice, her press against my chest the one thing I felt I needed in the entire world. That night her face was a mask of fury, of terror, and as I took a step towards her, my hands reaching to savage that collar from her bodice, she leapt. You no doubt must believe me, having seen her grace, her effortless ability, her agility. She leapt upon my shoulder, springing from thence before I even had the thought to grasp for her, and hurtled herself through the window.
“All at once, the fires of my fury were extinguished by the cool waters of sanity. I went to the broken pane, and so clearly could I see in my mind’s eye the poor creature lying broken and bloodied on the cobblestones below that her name was already on my lips before I saw a pair of eyes, glowering under the moon, glaring back at me from the live oak beyond the window. And still I cried, ‘Salome!’ as if any word or deed now could ever heal the deep divide between us. Her reply, a deep hellish snarl in my direction, held within it her final pronouncement upon me, upon my house, and most of all, upon mankind. In another breath she was gone, and with her the last of my fortunes, and the memory of joy that once used to be vibrant and alive between us.”
Once more the Southern gentleman sighed, while his companion struggled to free himself from his gag.
“And so I spent my time traveling along the coast, looking for a sign of my dear little Salome, asking if anyone had seen her, in her little black dress and white bodice, and fell in with lower men.” Here he looked at the older man bound to the wagon, who glared back at him hatefully.
“He said that ... that he knew her. But surely not. Not my dear Salome. I believe now, sir, that you mistook her for another.”
The smaller man finally managed to spit out his gag, and lunged away from the wagon as much as he could in his bonds.
“Fool!” cried he. “Yer all idiots, damn idjits the lot o’ ye. She’s got ye bewitched!” he sneered, his weathered face wrinkled in a terrible display of fear and disdain, made worse by the scars that showed along his cheeks as he grinned his near toothless grin.
“Small black dress and bodice,” he spat at his companion, mocking the wistful note in the Southern gentleman’s sigh. “Was it? Tuxedo, is it?” he sneered at Barnabas, who had propped himself against the wagon beside them, blood still seeping from the wound. “Aye, she’s bewildered and bewitched the lot of ye. It ain’t no tuxedo she be a wearin’. Them be the black-hearted boots of a buccaneer!”
VI.
A Salty-Dog’s Tale
Silence followed as all turned to stare at him, some mouths hanging open in shock. The terror, though, was plain in his face, and he shifted, the better to see above him, to the roof of the wagon, to the tree-tops lit by the full moon. He licked his lips, cracked with years under the sun and spray, and began:
“Hear my words or don’t,” he said, “but I ain’t sorry I went fer the creature. I’m only sorry I missed.” Both Barnabas and the Southern man gasped, and all around shouts rose at such an awful statement, but the old man only grinned his toothless grin until the furor died down.
“Smithe I am, not that it matters. Used ta call me “Shorty” when I were a deckhand aboard the Pride o’ Cardiff. She weren’t much to be proud of, just a trading scupper runnin’ between Nassau and Jackson, sugar the one way and cotton t’other, no matter. I seen yer creature in those days,” he snorted. “An’ her name ain’t Salome or Miss Kitty….” He dripped the names out with syrupy mockery. “That there be Felicity Dey, boys. An’ she’s ‘ad her way all over the Caribbean and beyond. Mistook? Ye fair faced white-livered limp dandy, ye can’t mistake the way she flies from one rope to another, and them eyes.” He shuddered. “I remember them eyes right well.
“We were on our way t’Jackson, loaded down heavy and makin a pretty fair wind, when Tooms up in the nest spied a ship comin’ fast a’ stern. A schooner, by the look of ‘er, an her color
in’.” He looked from face to face around him under the flickering light of the lantern fires. “Her colorin’ was black as hell. Captain let out all sail, fer the way she were comin’ up were unnatural fast. Them sails she were runnin’ were as white as a dove’s breast, and she came through every wave like she could walk on water. Already the crew were settin’ to, and we ran the sails out far as we dared ‘thout catchin’ ‘er over. But that slim bitch of a schooner were built fer nothin’ but the chase, and our hold were chock full and we was blunderin’ through the sea like it were quicksand. She musta felt our fear, fer it was then she let fly her flag.” He shuddered.
“If ye’d ever heard tell of it as we did, boyos, that flag’d put the fear o’ God into the lot o’ ye, an turn yer bowels ta sludge. It were an awful joke at the Union Jack — a white skull screamin’ dead center, topped with Victoria’s Crown in blood red, in honor o’ their own merciless Queen of the Seven Seas. In place o’ George’s cross were two bones runnin’ north ta south, east ta west like compass points, and mockin’ ol St. Andrew were slashes along the diagonals, as if she’d made ‘em herself with her cruel cruel claws. Tell ye lads, when we saw that flag out in the wind it were as if Death ‘erself had pulled back her hood and laughed in our faces, fer we knew it be the Heart’s Desire bearin’ down on us, and at the bow be fell Captain Dey ‘imself, and that hell-spawn mistress o’ his, Felicity.”
He paused for a moment, knowing he had his audience now, his eyes going from man to man, his voice hushed and desperate.
“They say when a man makes his final pact with Ol’ Splitfoot, when all’s been sold and there’s naught left but t’collect someday, the devil sends a creature out from hell to collect ‘is due. No one knew how or where Ambrose Dey ran afoul of his Felicity, but when he did, ‘is mercy were gone forever, and in it’s place was the Heart’s Desire, his hellship, as black as sin and white as death and the creature, ever at his side.”
“We had plenty o’ time to think on it, as the Desire were closin’, but now and then she’d ... she’d slacken her sails to let us get a little bit ahead o’ her, and just as she seemed out of sight, she’d heave to, sails up, and close again.” He shuddered once more. “We spied ‘er early of a mornin’ and by nightfall, she still toyed with us.
“All hands were exhausted. We’d been ready, our guts in our boots the whole long day, and I were up on watch that night when I heard it.” He licked his lips and looked at all gathered ‘round him. “Tell you, me boyos, if you’d ever heard that noise in the dead o’ the night, or seen them eyes flashin’, less than two cables away alongside ye, you’d not think she were enchantin’ at all. I saw her first, and I pray to almighty God day and night t’forget it forever. They’d put out all lights, y’see, and were runnin’ only on her eyes. Them awful devil-given gifts that can see through the black pits o’hell. Their six pounders gave us a fierce roar, and in the light o’ the powder I saw her.
“She were loungin’ a starboard alongside us, and had one murderous glove dangling over the side. They were pitched to us from the recoil fer a breath, and her claws almost brushed the waves, but she didn’t look the least afraid. I tell you boys. Those eyes. Those eyes.” His voice cracked and he looked to the treetops for a moment, before he began again, pleading. “Put them dainty thoughts to a fool’s grave, the lot o’ ye. If ye ever saw that look, that murderess’ smile, the way her jaws twitched with infernal glee. She were cruelty incarnate, handmaiden of Satan himself, and she were ever lookin ‘fer a chance to take ‘is flamin’ throne herself, if ever he thought to turn ‘is red back to her. Aye, she’d be the only creature’d ever think to do so.
“It took only a few minutes, seein’ as how we were takin’ on water so fast, and th’ Captain gave us up for lost. Lost to Ambrose Dey and the Beast.
“Now a regular pirate’d board ye for cargo, or ransom, if ye’ve got high up passengers aboard. But once ‘is crew were satisfied with a few small spoils, Captain Dey ordered them that survived the attack aboard the Desire, and we all watched from them black decks as he ordered the Cardiff sunk without takin’ the cargo, Felicity on his shoulder murmurin’ in ‘is ear. And then, they began to play.
“When her blood was up, she’d leap off his shoulder as we made for the Keys. She’d rub up against one of us, poor terrified creatures we were, caught beneath her eyes. And the one she’d rub up against, makin’ that awful purrin’ noise, well ... Ambrose ... he’d….” He swallowed hard. “Now yer all dainty men, so’s I won’t tell you what they done, but sure she’d be watchin’ all the while as we screamed, caught in her awful claws. She liked to torture, lads, not because we had a secret, or we’d hidden our gold up our arses, but because she’d caught us, and we were her prey.” He wept as he spoke. “The things she whispered t’Ambrose to do to us. That foul cruel bitch. Drove our poor captain mad, long before we even got to her worst invention — the Mercy Game
“’Listen here, fellows,’ Ambrose said to us of a mornin’ down in his hold. ’Felicity here tells me you’ve all had enough. Though I disagree. But, she is persuasive.’ We could hear the sound o’ the shore then, out the small window. There were but five of us left, then, the survivors o’ the Cardiff. We were full two and twenty when we were taken aboard the Desire. I heard th’ sound of a dory lowered into the water beyond, and it seemed like we were at anchor. Our captain were bandaged around the belly where they’d cut him open and played with him ‘fore putting him back together again, and he were feverish from it, so none of us spoke. Somehow, she knew, lads, she always knew when death or torture’d not matter much to a man anymore, and that’s when she’d tell Ambrose t’play the Mercy Game. He brought us up to the deck, and we blinked a lot in the sun, bein’ so long down below.
“’There’s a road up there,’ Ambrose said, an’ he pointed. ‘Along the headland—‘ and there always was, boys, believe it or not. ‘It will take you to a village,’ he said. ‘There are some supplies in this dory here —’ and there always were, ‘that’ll see you through until you get there. Go on now,’ Ambrose would say, and Felicity’d be purrin right against him, her tail swingin’ against the other side of his neck. ‘And tell them there you’ve earned the mercy of Felicity Dey. For I’d hang you all right now if I could, but she —‘ and she nuzzled against his face ‘— she’s very persuasive. Best be along, lads. Before I break my promise to her.’ We made it down to the boat, but slow, right slow. And when we made away, we did it careful and slow as well.”
“See, this were the worst of it, an’ to a man we all knew it. We’d heard stories that sometimes she’d actually let some go. It wouldn’t do, y’see, to put you in the boat and have you know you were already up for lost, so every so often she’d let some escape. So we made our way to the headland, waiting for her to change her fickle little wicked mind, when they’d put a shot into the dory, and come for us, and fish us out, and play with us all over again. That little bit of hope we’d been given would make their other games stretch out all the longer. So we held our breath the whole time it took for us to finally get ashore. So that time she was merciful, and that time we escaped with our lives.
“That,” he spat, “that be the creature you brought into yer fine little house, and you too, lettin’ it up on that ‘trapeze’ o’ yours. Kind o’ creature who purred when they hung Captain Dey, and would’ve hung her too, if she hadn’t escaped, and I heard —”
“She’s gone,” August said, coming to the wagons, and Smithe screamed, hiding himself as much as he dared against the wagon. Whatever else he knew of the creature was lost.
“Sweet mother of God, the money!” Barabbas cried, and was gone as quick as a flash. All of them scattered, then, and some went one way, and some went another. Some calling, “Miss Kitty!” and some “Salome!” and a few, fearfully, “Felicity? Here Kitty kitty,” for the tales around her allowed her to survive and escape once more. Some thought to alert Shepherd to her disappearance, and went to his wagon to find him gone, and no one co
uld say where he went, even if they had come upon him, for it is generally the wish of most men to pretend they had never met him, and so forget which direction he had taken.
Much was said that night, and many to follow about Miss Kitty, her act, and her escape, but here we must close, for the act is over, but in closing must say this:
All cats have nine lives, as everyone knows. Miss Kitty, or Salome, or even (I fear) Felicity, has clearly lived all of them, and yet many more besides. She has a nature which others of her kind quite enjoy, and I am sure they have walked away from meeting her having made some sort of trade, all of them thinking they came ahead in the barter - one of their lives borrowed for a brief time, to be paid back at some later point. But that point never comes, and so one day they meet their own short-changed end, yowling in despair and cursing her mischief and caprice. So, if you happen to find that little bewitching hellion in her innocent-looking tuxedo, do tell someone. For, I daresay, half the world is looking for her by now, and none will be satisfied until she’s found.
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About the Author
Poet, Playwright, Producer, Director, Gravedigger, Hotline Psychic (no really) Line Cook, Writer Patrick de Moss lives in the Vancouver area with his wife, Tanya who did a marvelous job of the cover for this story, two very large (but friendly) dogs and cats, one of whom found work as Editor-in-Chief of this piece.
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