Clockwork Angels: The Novel (11 page)

His face filled with silent laughter. He turned and suddenly found himself facing the tip of a pointed sword like the stinger of a mythical beast. The narrow blade twirled in the air, deftly missing him in a playful threat. “Who goes there?”

He recognized the handsome man who had ingested alchemical powders and then breathed out fire. The man was lean with a tight tunic and black hose. His patchy beard gave him a rakish look.

Owen backed away, raised his hands. “I saw the lights—I just came to see.”

The man danced with his sword, stepped back, bounded forward in a comical caricature of practiced swordsmanship; he intimidated Owen, but left not so much as a scratch on his skin. The swordsman swirled the tip of the blade and circled Owen, who turned in an attempt to keep his eyes on him. “Our next show is not scheduled yet, stranger. The price for the performance is . . .” His voice lilted upward. “Your name.”

“I’m Owen—OwenHardy.” His nervousness made him blurt out the name as quickly as he could.

The swordsman cut and thrust, then danced back, grinning all the while. “So, Owenhardy, I am Tomio—fire-eater, sword swallower, and soon to be expert fencer.” He twirled his blade again.

A rude snort came from the left. “He only calls himself an expert, because he has no one to practice with. That way, he can claim to be the best among us.”

Owen spun again, feeling hunted and trapped. The speaker was the dapper, César Magnusson, still dressed in black tails and top hat, but the handlebar mustache looked cockeyed, as if hastily applied.

“I am expanding my skills,”Tomio said. “Finding new things to incorporate into our act.” He bent backward like a willow bowing in a wind, tilted his head up to the sky, and opened his mouth wide as he stretched out his arms. The tip of the thin blade wavered a little as he lowered it into his mouth. He plunged the sword down until Owen couldn’t bear to watch. Impaling oneself through the stomach—even via this unusual direction—was a skill that not many audiences would appreciate.

Tomio’s performance, however, did quiet the other carnies, who watched in respectful silence. In deep concentration, he slowly withdrew the sword, bent over, swallowed hard, and took a bow. He said in a roughened voice, “I am also a night watchman, apparently, for I discovered this stranger wandering in our camp.”

“I’m not a stranger—I’m Owen Hardy. At least I’m not a stranger to myself.”

“But why are you here, Owenhardy?” asked César Magnusson.

“Because I’m . . .” The full explanation—his long story, his tribulations and adventures, and all the sights he had seen—built up within him and paralyzed his wit. Unable to provide a detailed explanation, he said only, “Because I’m here.”

“You’ll have to do better than that,” said another voice. Francesca.

“I saw you perform!” He fumbled in his shirt, where he found the now wilted and rumpled rose. “You gave me this.”

Francesca chuckled. “You kept it. That’s sweet.”

Tomio raised his eyebrows. “You’ve been flirting again, dear Francesca.”

Owen finally got up his nerve and rattled off an abbreviated description of how he had left his village to see Crown City, but once he’d exhausted his money, the Regulators had driven him out of town.

“And then I saw you,” he said. “Can I stay with you?”

César Magnusson crossed his arms over his chest and regarded Owen. “Don’t you have anywhere else to go?”

Owen shook his head. “No.”

With a toss of her dark hair, Francesca said, “Then this is exactly where you belong.”

Each moment a memory in flight

I
t was a strange and refreshing sort of freedom. When they finally settled down for the night, the carnies didn’t mind that Owen stretched out wherever he liked, exhausted from his journeys and travails. No Regulators chased him from the mound of grass where he curled up near a warm campfire. The wonders, excitement, and uncertainty of the past few days caught up with him; he pulled the porkpie hat over his face and quickly drifted off.

Though Owen got very little sleep—as measured by hours— he awoke energized. Maybe the carnies had discovered how to turn the valve on some underground reservoir to let alchemical energy bubble up from the ground. . . .

When he rolled over to blink up at the brightening sky, he half expected the carnival camp to have been a dream. But he rubbed his eyes and saw the people preparing for the new day, talking and laughing as they went about their chores.

Over by the wagons he saw Francesca, who seemed like sunrise incarnate. She had a smile that filled her entire body, and even when she walked she seemed to be dancing. Every step was an acrobatic performance.

She paused to talk with the dashingly handsome Tomio, who swept his arm around her waist and swirled her in a half circle. Laughing, she kissed him on the cheek, then went over to talk to Mr. Magnusson. Owen felt a twinge of jealousy and disappointment to watch the close connection she had with the fire-eater and swordsman.

“Join us for breakfast, Owenhardy.”

He turned, recognizing the woman who spoke instantly. Louisa was handsome and not only because of her beard. Owen had stared at her at the carnival gateway back in Crown City. She had brushed out her brown hair and beard, not bothering with the lavender ribbons. Her blue eyes twinkled.

“I’d like that very much.” His stomach rumbled in agreement as soon as he said it. The bearded lady took his arm like a matronly escort—not at all the way the Blue Watch had escorted him out of the city—and led him to a group of plank tables set up on sawhorses.

The gathered carnies slid over to give him and Louisa a place to sit on the benches. He ate a wonderful repast of eggs, bacon, and toasted bread, all heated on a thermal plate powered by reacting packets of chemicals. He listened to their conversations about the upcoming day, the next scheduled performance, and the verified permits, as if the frenetic activity were as much of a routine for them as his own daily chores in the orchard.

Feeling homesick, he told Louisa about Barrel Arbor, and she listened politely, stroking her beard as she munched on a rasher of bacon. “I know exactly what Barrel Arbor is like,” Louisa said.

Owen brightened. “You’ve been there?” He couldn’t remember the last time a carnival had come to town.

“We’ve been to the same village hundreds of times. Maybe it wasn’t called Barrel Arbor, but all country villages are designed on the same master plan. So, yes, we’ve been there.”

Owen had not considered this. Since he had never left Barrel Arbor before, how would he know that the next village up the river or in the hills looked exactly the same? Owen wondered if he had an identical counterpart there—another young assistant manager of the town orchard with a beautiful girl in his heart, the daughter of the local newsgraph operators.

He finished his breakfast, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and didn’t have the slightest idea what to do next or where he should go. Without asking, he helped scrub pots in a basin of dishwater, and no one complained that he wasn’t scheduled to do so. It was unsettling but liberating. Then he looked around for some other way to earn his keep and repay their hospitality.

Afterward, hoping to find a way to fit in here, he asked Louisa, “Is there any way I could help you with your show?” He did not want to leave, not yet.

She smiled beneath her lavish beard. “Oh, I’m not a performer, young man, I’m just a showpiece. People stare at me and move on.”

Ahead, they heard a clang of metal plates as Golson, the burly strongman, flexed his muscles, bent over to slide two more iron disks onto his barbell, and strained to lift it. Golson did not acknowledge them, though he seemed to draw strength from having even this small audience. He had loaded his bar with every weight on the stack except for the last two, which rested off to the side, bound with a chain and padlock.

Finding this very curious, Owen whispered to Louisa, “Does he have a story?”

“Everyone has a story, but not all are worth telling or listening to.” She smiled and continued, “Golson is just a performer’s name, a patchwork of Goliath and Samson, because he says he draws the best qualities of both. His mentor was the greatest weightlifter of all time—our previous strongman.” Louisa lowered her eyes and dropped her voice. “Golson could be even stronger, I think, but he won’t push himself—he refuses to.”

“Why not?” Owen asked.

“It’s fear, plain and simple, although we all sympathize. His mentor was killed when he pushed himself too hard and tried to beat his personal best. He added more weight than he could tolerate, managed to lift it . . . but he couldn’t hold all that weight. He was crushed right there in front of a large audience.”

“That’s horrible!”

Louisa nodded. “And that’s why Golson keeps those last plates padlocked, so he’s never tempted to go too far.”

Owen swallowed hard. When he had first attended the carnival, he had seen these performers as bright distractions, but now he realized they were people with their own lives, their own tragedies. Maybe some of them had their own picture books given to them by mothers who’d gone away early in their. . . .

Tomio emerged from his private wagon, which had several small shuttered windows. Tiny smokestacks and air vents protruded from the roof. The wagon had its own motivating engine and large tires balanced on an intricate network of springs, so as to minimize shocks from a rough road.

The graceful swordsman concealed something in the palm of his hand; when he hurled it down at the ground, a bright flash of light was accompanied by a puff of purple smoke. “Presto!” He strutted along, brandishing his thin sword and tossing tiny packets with the other hand; he timed his cuts and thrusts to punctuate them with colored smoke. “Presto!” When he had expended his packets of powder, Tomio ducked back inside his trailer to continue more experiments.

Life was so much more exciting outside of Barrel Arbor, Owen realized.

“Francesca!” The bearded lady waved, and the dark-haired acrobat came over from her practice area. Owen’s heart started beating more rapidly. “Owenhardy wants to participate in an act.”

“I . . . didn’t exactly say that,” he said, but before he could make further excuses, Louisa left him. His tongue suddenly became stupid, connected to a brain that could not remember how to form conversation.

“You’ll have to earn your keep if you’re going to stay with us,” Francesca said. “Plenty of work to do.”

Owen was caught off guard by the implicit invitation. He hadn’t planned on staying long, just needed a place until he could figure out how to get back home. “I’m . . . I’m always happy to help,” he finally managed to say.

Francesca placed her hands on her hips. “Well, what can you do?” She was a saucy, energetic, and independent woman—in every way the opposite of Lavinia. Her very presence seemed to sparkle.

Owen wished more than ever that he knew poetry. “I was the assistant manager of an orchard.”

“Excellent,” Francesca said. “Unfortunately, the carnival has no orchard to tend, so we’ll have to find something else for you to do.”

A loud but muffled thump came from Tomio’s trailer. With a clatter, the window shutters blasted open, and curls of smoke wafted into the air. Owen’s mouth dropped open. “Should we go see if he’s all right?”

Francesca wasn’t concerned. “That’s only the first of the daily explosions. We don’t come running unless there’s a much bigger boom. Otherwise, we’d spend all day, every day, rushing to rescue Tomio.” They watched the smoke change colors as it curled from the rooftop vent stacks.

The trailer door opened, and Tomio staggered out, coughing, rubbing his eyes, but he waved to show he was unharmed. He waited for the fumes to clear from his trailer before he ducked back inside and closed the door.

Francesca cocked her head. “He insists that if I worry about his experiments, then he’ll worry about me practicing on the high wire, and I can’t allow that. So we’ve made an accommodation. We have to accept who we are, or it’s not worth being ourselves.”

Near the cook tent, she spied a basket of apples that had been set out for the breakfast hour. She snatched one from the top of the pile. “So, you picked apples?”

“Yes—Sunrise, Red Flush, Ruby Delicious, Tartfire. We had different varieties on the trees.” He was about to relate to her which type of apples made the best fresh eating, which made the best cider, which were most appropriate for pies, and which created potent vinegar. She tossed him an apple, and he instinctively caught it.

“And you cared for the apples?”

“I was a very diligent assistant orchard manager.” She tossed him a second apple, and he caught it.

“Then you should never let the fruit fall on the ground. Don’t let it get bruised.”

“I wouldn’t let any apples get bruised!” He scrambled to catch the third apple she tossed.

“You’d better not.” Francesca grabbed another apple from the basket. “So you’ll have to learn how to catch them all.”

She tossed the fourth one, and Owen had to release one of the apples into the air so he could catch the new one, but then he caught the apple falling down, scrambled to toss another one. But he could not keep the rhythm going, and they all came tumbling down in a disappointing mess.