The Clockwork Three (14 page)

“I could hold him no longer.” The voice of Evenor sounded, and Miss Wool and Mister Grumholdt jumped. “And now I go as well. Farewell to you, of the lofty branches who so easily forget your roots, and ignore
the beckoning of time.” Her face fell forward, like the dropping of a curtain.

Hannah rolled back against the wall, away from the scene.

She heard Madame Pomeroy’s real voice. “Mister Grumholdt? Miss Wool?” The voice Hannah knew and had trusted. “Did you receive the answers you’d hoped for?”

“No,” said Miss Wool.

“Not exactly,” said Mister Grumholdt.

“I am sorry to hear that,” Madame Pomeroy said. “Bear in mind that spirits see the living world very differently than we do. It is not that they try to confuse us, but rather that we are so confusing to them. Perhaps I can assist you in making sense of the answers you were given.”

Hannah shut her eyes. Madame Pomeroy was helping the two most loathsome people in the world to steal the treasure from underneath her.

“Come, come,” Madame Pomeroy said. “You can trust me. Let us put aside our previous contentions over Hannah. She is only a maid.”

The words burned in Hannah’s chest. She thought Madame Pomeroy was fond of her, even cared for her. She had bought her the dress and taken her to the opera. But maybe Miss Wool was right. Maybe Hannah was just a toy to her.
Only a maid?
Hannah could not ask for money from Madame Pomeroy now, not after this. She felt a sob rising and touched her throat.

Where the diamond necklace had rested.

Hannah peered down the nearby hallway. In the drawing room, a muddled discussion had begun, with Mister Grumholdt and Miss Wool attempting to talk over each other. Hannah edged along the wall in the opposite direction, toward Madame Pomeroy’s bedroom. She felt her way in the darkness.

It would all be over soon, anyway. Madame Pomeroy would help them find Mister Stroop’s treasure, and then she would leave the hotel. Miss Wool would fire Hannah, and her family would lose everything, even the few scraps Hannah had helped them cling to. And if she did not get money for the drug, the doctor would pick up his bone saw and take her father’s leg.

She reached the bedroom and found the door open. Inside, a timid ray of moonlight nudged between the curtains, and by its light Hannah crossed the room to the dresser. She avoided looking up at her reflection, and poked around among the tins until she found the one with the butterfly. The key within it looked black in the darkness.

She went to the painting and pulled it down. The tremble in her hands made it difficult to unlock the safe, and she fumbled the key. It fell to the ground and rang out like a dropped coin. Hannah listened to see if the noise had brought anyone from the drawing room, and after that every long shadow caught her breath and reminded her of Yakov.

With both hands on the key she managed to unlock the safe and retrieve the diamond necklace from its wooden box. She returned everything to its place and left the room just as she had found it, tucking the necklace away in her apron. Outside in the entryway, she could hear the conversation still spinning in the next room.

Madame Pomeroy’s voice sounded impatient. “Another séance might help, Miss Wool, but there is the matter of price.”

Hannah opened the door to the suite, closed it behind her, and raced back down the grand staircase. She did not know what to do with the necklace, but she knew who to ask. She hurried through the lobby and ran a block down Basket Street to the Footstool Tavern.

Men, mostly drivers and servants from around the city, loitered in the street outside. Hannah moved through them with her head down, but felt their gaze land on her like clods of mud. She reached the doorway, but hesitated under the lintel. The alehouse seemed to stretch at the seams, timbers flared outward under the pressure of the crowd packed inside. An old-timer stood on a small stage with an accordion, squeezing out tunes beneath a billowing cloud of tobacco smoke trapped in the rafters.

She scanned the red-nosed faces and saw him, laughing against the bar, shouldered between a few other porters and waiters from the hotel.

“Walter!” she called, but could barely hear herself over the noise. “Walter!” she tried again.

He looked up and squinted, said something to the man next to him, and pointed toward the door. Then he forced his way through the tables full of cardplayers.

He held out his hands as he approached her and mouthed, “What?”

“I need your help,” she said.

He cupped his hand behind his ear.

“I need your help!”

He shook his head and gestured out into the street. They walked together a short distance from the tavern, far enough to feel the cool of the night and breathe clean air.

“I need your help, Walter.”

He smirked. “Sure you don’t want to ask Frederick?”

“Don’t be that way.”

“I’m sorry.” He tipped toward her. “What is it you need?”

“I need to sell something. Jewelry.”

“Jewelry, huh? What kind?”

“A necklace. I’ve heard … That is, there are rumors about you…. You can sell it for me, can’t you?”

“Maybe.” He ran his fingers through his blond hair.

“I need the money by tomorrow morning.”

He smirked again, like a reflex. “What for?”

“I can’t explain right now.”

“Fine. You have it with you?”

Hannah looked around to make sure no one was close enough to see. Then she pulled the necklace from her apron pocket. It sparkled with captured flecks of moonlight.

Walter whistled. “Now that’s something.” He took the necklace from her. “These real?”

“I’m sure they are.”

“I don’t know if I can fence this,” he said. “This pretty item’s going to draw a lot of attention.”

“I need the money, Walter,” Hannah said. “I really need it.”

He narrowed his eyes for a moment and seemed to be considering something. Then he dripped the necklace from one hand into the open palm of the other. It disappeared inside his coat.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

“Tonight?”

He shook his head. “It’ll have to be tomorrow.”

Hannah had to accept that. “Thank you.” She took his hands. “Thank you.”

He waved her off. “Come find me in the morning at the hotel.”

“I will.”

“Need someone to walk you home?”

“Thank you, but I’ll be fine. Good night, Walter.”

“Good night, Hannah. Oh, and for you, I won’t take a cut.” He winked at her.

She went home, and when she arrived she found her sisters asleep in bed, turned away from the oil lamp smoking on the table. Her mother fussed over the blankets around her father’s legs. She had changed his shirt and turned him on his side. When she noticed Hannah, she stood up and gave a weak smile, a smile that seemed to be asking for a reason to be there.

“I’ll have the money by tomorrow morning,” Hannah said.

“Oh, praise the Lord and bless that woman.”

“How is he?”

“I think his fever may have come down a little. Maybe.” Her mother shook her head. “Blessings by the shovelful. A heap of blessings on her. Perhaps I should go to the hotel tomorrow and —”

“No!” Hannah said in a panic. “That is, I expressed our gratitude, Mama. For both of us.”

Her mother accepted this with a nod. She lifted her arms and held them out wide. “Come.”

Hannah stepped into her arms and felt them close on her.

“You’re a wonderful daughter. I couldn’t be more proud of you.”

“Thank you.”

“No, truly, Hannah. I don’t know what we would have done these last few years without you. Some nights I lie awake weeping for what you’ve sacrificed.”

Hannah stiffened. “I’m fine, Mama.”

“I know you are. You’re so strong, like Hannah from the Bible.”

Hannah pulled away.

Her mother was left hugging her chest. She turned and set herself to tidying up the kitchen, wiping a rag over a table that already looked clean. “Strong as you are, it’s all right to be sad,” she said. “It’s all right to be mad. I know I am at times.”

“Mad at who?”

“Sometimes I’m mad at your father. Sometimes I’m even mad at you children. Mostly I’m just mad at myself.”

“For what?”

“For not taking better care of him so this didn’t happen. I knew he worked too hard.”

“It’s not your fault. And it’s not his. It’s no one’s fault.”

“I know. But that doesn’t soothe your anger, now does it?”

When her mother said that, Hannah became aware of a burning inside, like a stove in the corner that someone else had crept in to feed and stoke when she was not looking. The embers glowed behind a door of iron.

“I’m fine,” she said.

The next morning, Hannah’s father felt even hotter to the touch, and his mouth lolled open. He felt distant, as if walled up inside himself. She went to the hotel early to find Walter before reporting to Madame Pomeroy for duty. She wondered if her mistress had noticed the necklace missing. After all, Madame Pomeroy had said she never wore it. In fact, she treated it as though it mattered very little to her. Perhaps its absence would go unnoticed until Hannah could repay her for it.

As she entered the lobby, Hannah found Miss Wool waiting at the foot of the staircase.

“You,” she said, pointing a finger at Hannah. “Come with me.”

“Begging your pardon, Miss Wool.” Hannah curtsied. “But could I come find you later? There’s something I have to take care of first thing.”

Miss Wool spread her thin lips in a smile. “No. You will come with me now.”

Hannah took one last look around the lobby for Walter and did not see him. “Certainly, ma’am.”

Miss Wool led her along the same path they had taken earlier to Mister Grumholdt’s office. Hannah’s heart fluttered in her chest like a dying moth trapped in a streetlamp. Could Miss Wool have learned of her theft? No. How could she?

They reached Mister Grumholdt’s office, and Miss Wool did not bother to knock. She opened the door, placed her hand on Hannah’s back, and heaved her inside, slamming the door behind them.

Mister Grumholdt sat at his desk, drumming his fingers on the wood next to Madame Pomeroy’s diamond necklace. Hannah’s heart stopped for the length of a wing beat.

“By the look on your face, I see you recognize this,” Mister Grumholdt said.

Hannah realized her mouth was hanging open and closed it, her tongue all dried out.

“Did you actually think you could sell something like that?” Miss Wool said. Her laugh was low and slow, like drips of poison into someone’s food. “Walter knew better than to try.”

Hannah felt her legs weakening. “Walter gave it to you?”

“Of course he did,” Mister Grumholdt said. “The boy’s no fool. Got a reward for it, too.”

Walter’s smirk leered in Hannah’s mind. “I …” Hannah found a chair by feel and collapsed into it.

“So now,” Mister Grumholdt said. He pulled out his watch. “Let’s take care of this, shall we? You know, of course, that you are fired. As to criminal charges, against my recommendation Madame Pomeroy has decided not to press them. The necklace was recovered, and she is satisfied.”

“Could I speak with her?” Hannah asked, but changed her mind as soon as she had said it. What good would it do? Hannah had stolen from her, and she had been caught. There was nothing Madame Pomeroy could do, even if she wanted to, and Hannah doubted very much that she did.

“Do you suppose that she would want to speak with you?” Miss Wool said, echoing Hannah’s thoughts. “She has no desire to see you ever again.”

“Your whites, please,” Mister Grumholdt said. He held out his fat hand.

Hannah stood and slowly untied her apron. She removed her kerchief. Her father would lose his leg now. Her family would lose their home.

Mister Grumholdt rumpled the uniform into a ball and handed it to Miss Wool. He brushed his hands on his trousers. “That will be all. You may go.”

Hannah managed a curtsy and slumped toward the door with ponderous steps. Miss Wool opened it for her and smiled again, wider and thinner. “Good-bye, Hannah.”

Hannah held the doorjamb and stumbled through. She drifted down the hallways, through the lobby, and out over the square like a dried leaf tumbled along by a breeze. She had to return home and tell her mother, her sisters, that they could not pay for the medicine. That they had lost everything. She had to stand and feel the hollow space where she had let hope take root. Hope planted by Madame Pomeroy’s predictions.

But she could not bring herself to go home yet, and wandered husk-like through the morning streets. She stared at the men and women heading to work, on errands, about their business. How could it be that Hannah’s life had come to a wrenching stop and the world took no notice?

But it was not only her life. How could she face her father? She had failed him.

Hannah stopped.

No. It was not all withered away. A tendril of faith remained, a stubborn, woody knot. Miss Wool and Mister Grumholdt had not found Mister Stroop’s treasure yet. Otherwise, why seek out a spiritualist like Madame Pomeroy for the answers? She turned around and looked up at the hotel, lording over the lower buildings bowing at its feet.

She realized the treasure was not up there.

If it had been, Miss Wool and Mister Grumholdt would have surely found it by now, with all their knowledge of the hotel and its design. But there had to be a treasure, and a tombstone had told her where she would find the key to this next obstacle. Hannah checked the time on the Opera House clock. Seven in the morning. She had until that afternoon to find the treasure.

She stood up tall and turned in the direction of McCauley Park, walking with the rising sun’s rays on her back.

McCauley Park

G
IUSEPPE WOKE LATE, THE AIR ALREADY HOT AND HUMID. HE
crawled from his den beneath the outcrop, and the squirrel descended. “Shout all you want.” He rolled onto his back and looked up at it. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He was too hungry. Too weak. Was he dying?

With nothing else to do, Giuseppe pulled out his old fiddle, and never had it sounded so sweet to his ear. The ragged strings sang like the scratchy throat of an old man who had been singing all his life and knew from experience what each song was about. Giuseppe played the tune he had chosen that first night with the green violin, the one that made him think of home. The song sounded different on the fiddle, but not bad. Just closer to the earth.

The squirrel stopped chattering and its tail froze. It seemed to be listening, as if trying to identify this strange birdsong. Giuseppe closed his eyes and played the melody several times over. As soon as he stopped, the squirrel went at him again.

“You still don’t trust me?” Giuseppe asked.

“She’s probably got a nest with her babies nearby,” said a man behind him.

Giuseppe jumped to his feet and spun around.

“Sorry,” the man said. “Sorry to startle you.” He stood on the boulder, dressed in leather clothing, with a rifle on his back and a gnarled walking stick in his hand. He had a heavy mustache, which drooped down into a beard that ran up his cheeks and left his chin bare.

Giuseppe stepped away from him, up to the edge of the water. “Who’re you?”

“My name is Pullman,” he said. “I’m the park warden. Who’re you?”

“Giuseppe.”

The warden hopped down from the boulder. “And what are you doing out here, Giuseppe?”

“Hiding.”

“Hiding from what?”

“The city.”

Pullman’s smile lifted one side of his mustache. “Me too.”

The squirrel’s cacophony had doubled in force, and it switched back and forth between Giuseppe and the warden.

Pullman looked up. “That’s how I found you.”

“The squirrel?”

He nodded. “From that racket, I knew something had to be nearby. And then I heard music.” Pullman gestured at the cave. “That where you been sleeping?”

“A few nights.”

“You have food?”

Giuseppe shook his head.

“I didn’t think so. You’re thin as a reed.” He reached into his satchel and pulled out a handful of nuts and a strip of dried, smoky meat. “Here, eat this while we walk.”

Giuseppe took the food and shoved most of it into his mouth in one bite. “Walk?” he said, chewing.

Pullman bounded back up onto the boulder. “I know an old woman who lives in a cabin nearby. Alice. She’ll fill you up good.”

Giuseppe took a last glance over the shelter by the river and found nothing for him there. He put his old fiddle back in its case and bounded up onto the rock after Pullman. The warden set off, but before Giuseppe followed him he turned back to the squirrel. The animal watched him with its dark eyes.

“Thank you,” he said, and added, “You’re a good mother.” He stepped into the trees.

Giuseppe had a difficult time keeping up. The warden loped along lean trails and through subtle breaks in the foliage, and seemed impervious to the abundant thorns and insects that found Giuseppe’s bare spots. After an hour of walking, the warden stopped by a fallen tree, allowing Giuseppe to catch him up. Vibrant moss sprouted over the tree trunk like green hair on a giant’s leg, and a blanket of fern spread out around them waist high, bowing in waves with the wind.

“We’re almost to Alice’s,” Pullman said. He sat down on the tree. “Have you ever been in that newfangled cathedral?”

“No,” Giuseppe said.

“Well, now you don’t need to.” He pointed the way they had come. “Look.”

Giuseppe turned around, and his eyes opened in awe. Without his realizing it, they had been climbing up a gentle incline and, from their vantage at the top, the forest rolled down in a cascade of leaves. Great
trees buttressed a grand woodland hall, and sunlight gleamed through the arching canopy as if through green stained glass. Bashful saplings sprouted at the feet of their parents, hiding among the bushes.

Giuseppe breathed deep. Not a trace of smoke in the air. The park was like a droplet of clear water floating on a sea of machine oil. “Do a lot of people live out here?” he asked.

“It’s not allowed.”

“Why not?”

“If it were, how long do you think it would stay like this?”

“But what about Alice?”

“Alice.” Pullman chuckled. “When she talks about McCauley, I can’t tell if she’s talking about the park or the man. She’s just always been here, like a tree. Since I was a boy following my daddy through the woods.”

“Your pa was a warden?”

Pullman nodded. “And his father before him. My great-great-great-grandfather actually knew McCauley.”

“I didn’t know the park was named after a real somebody.”

“Sure it is. Roland McCauley. He and the Gilbert family founded the city. Of course, this was before his mind turned like bad cheese and got real … colorful.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, while the Gilberts were cutting down trees and planting fields and building the village, McCauley spent all his time out in the woods like a wild man. He lived with the Indians, and swore he’d leave the land in its natural condition. But as the Gilberts’ village became a town, and the town became a city, they drove the Indians deeper into the wilderness and left McCauley’s land empty.”

“Nobody tried to build on it?”

“Oh, they tried. But McCauley owned the land, and he could do what he wanted with it. It was his own money he was losing.” Pullman stood up. “You ready to go on to Alice’s place?”

Giuseppe nodded, and Pullman set off. Giuseppe followed him, and as they walked, the warden continued the story.

“When McCauley died, he left a legacy to keep the park safe even after his charter expired.”

“Safe from who?”

“Lots of men through the years. That old miser Mister Twine, most recently. He wants to build a hotel up ahead on Grover’s Pond. And McCauley’s legacy is running out. Soon this will all be up for grabs.”

Giuseppe frowned. He had only spent a few days in the park, but already felt a pang of loss when he thought about someone chopping it all down.

A short distance later they reached Grover’s Pond, where a muddy bank, overhung with a fringe of grass, encircled the lake. The pond was nearly the size of Gilbert Square, and the water seemed to have swallowed its fill of clouds and sky and trees. Lily pads congregated along the lake edge, and the smell of algae lingered in Giuseppe’s nose and mouth like a dead fish.

“Alice lives on the far side,” Pullman said. “The water’s cleaner over there and you can swim if you want.”

“I can’t swim,” Giuseppe said.

They skirted the pond and reached the opposite shore. The water was clearer there, as Pullman had said, and Giuseppe glimpsed shadows moving under the surface, fat fish gliding through thickets of water
weeds on the bottom. A small path led away from the water’s edge into the forest.

“I hope she’s home,” Pullman said. “She usually returns in the afternoon before evening comes on, but sometimes she sleeps in the city.”

They rounded a bend, and Giuseppe saw a squat log cabin nestled down among the trees. The small door was painted yellow, and the round timbers had been chinked with white clay. Garden plots surrounded the home with flowers, vegetables, and herbs. Their fragrance overwhelmed Giuseppe as they stepped up to the door, like he was being wrapped in a giant leaf.

The warden knocked.

No answer.

He knocked again. “Alice? It’s Pullman.”

No answer.

Pullman took a step away from the door. “I guess we’ll have to wait. Help yourself to anything from her garden, I know she won’t mind. There’s carrots and lettuce, some turnips, I think. And behind the house there’s a couple of apple trees.”

“Are you leaving?”

“I just need to check on a few traps. There’s an old snapping turtle in the pond who’s been getting too big for his britches, and eating more than his share of fish and frogs … birds, even. And I’ve a hankering for some turtle soup. You wait here, and I’ll be back shortly.”

Pullman left without waiting for a reply, and Giuseppe shrugged. The sunlight was warm here, without being too hot. The food Pullman had given him earlier had satisfied him for a short time, but Giuseppe’s stomach growled, and he could not remember the last time he had tasted an
apple. He hardly ever ate fruits and vegetables, let alone something pulled fresh right from the tree or the ground. He decided to try the fruit first and walked around behind the cabin, mouth watering.

The little orchard bore green apples on one tree and red ones on another. Giuseppe pulled down a green apple first, unsure of how to tell its ripeness, but the one he chose looked bigger and deeper in color than the others. When he bit through its crisp skin, sour juice exploded in his mouth and twisted up his cheeks and his tongue. He closed his eyes, chewed with pursed lips, and swallowed. He looked at the apple in his hand and wondered if the red ones were any sweeter.

They were, and just as juicy. He had eaten two of them before Pullman came around the corner.

“Come see,” he said, and motioned for Giuseppe to follow him.

The warden led him from the cabin back down to the pond. There on the shore, in the grass, lay a snapping turtle the size of a small barrel. It had a dark shell, fuzzy in places with patches of green water moss, a vicious-looking beak, and two nostrils jutting out square between its glassy eyes. It was dead.

Pullman got down on his haunches and studied the creature. “I had a devil of a time dragging it over here. Thing must weigh near fifty pounds.”

“I’ve never seen one this big.” Giuseppe put a hand out and laid it on the cold shell. “The ones in the markets are a quarter this size.”

Pullman heaved the animal onto its round back and took hold of the hind legs. “You grab the front. We’ll haul it up to Alice’s.”

Giuseppe stared at the long neck dangling to the ground, the mouth lined with razors.

“It won’t bite you,” Pullman said.

Giuseppe bent and grabbed the front legs. Together they lifted it and lumbered up the path, the turtle swinging between them as they walked. When they reached Alice’s cabin, they set the animal down and took a seat on a wooden bench in one of her flower gardens. Bees hummed around them, lifting from flower to flower as if tied to invisible threads. Pullman took out a rag and wiped his brow.

“So do you meet many people out here?” Giuseppe asked.

“No, not many. Every so often I’ll come across a botanist from the city out collecting, maybe a naturalist chasing birds.” Pullman stared out over the pond. “So what are you hiding from out here, really?”

Giuseppe paused. Then he told Pullman a little about his life playing on the streets, and a little about Stephano. But he made no mention of the green violin and said that Stephano had just lost his temper on account of Giuseppe not bringing in enough money. That was why he had run away.

“So you don’t have anywhere in the city you can go?” Pullman said.

“Not where he won’t find me.”

Pullman frowned. “I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do.”

It was late in the afternoon when someone called out to them. “Well, hello there!” said an old woman coming up the path. She wore a checkered apron and a pointy straw hat. “What have you caught today, woodsman?”

“Hello, Alice.” Pullman stood and Giuseppe did the same. “I brought you a stray to feed. And something to feed him with.”

“Oh, I love strays,” Alice said. “Of what variety is this one?”

“The scrawny kind. But a good-natured temperament, I would say.”

“Well, I must have a look at him.” Alice came up and peered at Giuseppe, squinting. “Hello, dear.”

Giuseppe swallowed. “Hello, ma’am. I ate a few of your apples. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not, eat all you like.”

Pullman directed her attention to the turtle carcass on her lawn. “Think you could scare up some soup?”

Alice grinned. “I see you finally caught that old geezer. Good for you, woodsman. Yes, some turtle soup would be lovely. Come inside, won’t you?”

They followed her through the yellow door, and in her house Giuseppe felt the safest he had ever been since coming to America. There was but one room, with small windows that seemed to trap the sunlight in the cabin and age it to a golden yellow. A low hearth opened onto a wooden floor strewn with dried lavender stems. There was a cupboard lined with bottles of every size and shape. Some jars contained leaves and roots, while others were filled with liquids the color of amber, chalk, and mud. Herbs hung in bunches from every rafter, and a small bed snuggled in the corner under a mound of quilts.

“Sit yourselves at the table there.” Alice removed her hat, freeing a tangle of wispy white hair. Giuseppe and Pullman sat down while the old woman stoked the fire back to life. She heaved a kettle up on an iron hook and poured water into it from a large pitcher. After swinging the kettle in over the flames, Alice retrieved a basket hanging from a timber overhead. She handed it to Giuseppe.