Clockwork Angels: The Novel (15 page)

Peke appeared with a long dark wig, flouncing and swaying his hips and walking an imaginary line on the ground, obviously pretending to be Francesca. And then Deke snatched Owen’s porkpie hat and stared at the faux Francesca, eyes round, mouth gaping like a mooncalf. Deke pretended to swoon, falling on his back, and “Francesca” simply walked over the top of him. All the carnies laughed along with Owen (though he was the only one who blushed).

Everyone sang to him, out of tune but with great heart. Louisa even shared a small jug of hard cider she had procured in one of the recent towns. She poured him a mug to celebrate, and Owen’s voice caught in his throat. “This is the next best thing to the Tick Tock Tavern!” he said, and then realized it was untrue. This was even better.

Best of all, after he had eaten a second piece of cake and felt the warm satisfaction of a full belly and a warm heart, Francesca wiped a stray bit of frosting from his mouth and licked it off her finger. Then she leaned forward and kissed him full on the lips to whistles and catcalls from the other carnies.

Though he might have been homesick on his birthday, Owen gazed at Francesca and decided to stay with the carnival for a while longer.

I learned to fight, I learned to love and learned to feel

O
ver the course of the touring season, the Magnusson Carnival Extravaganza traveled a route that was like a pendulum— swinging outward to villages that radiated away from Crown City, then back into the capital, then outward along a different line of identical villages for the next set of performances.

Crowds of families with smiling children came out to enjoy the games and performances. By now Owen was even earning a few coins by juggling (when he managed not to drop his apples), passing around his porkpie hat for donations. He included Tomio’s special soap-bubble spheres in his little show and, thankfully, did not drop another one.

Each day offered another adventure, never quite the same. Twice, Francesca even lured him out onto the practice tightrope. She stood just out of his reach, beckoning him, smiling. “Look at me.” She pointed her fingers at her dark, hypnotic eyes. “Focus on
me
, not on the fall.”

“That I’ll gladly do.” He stepped forward, one foot in front of the other. But he wavered, overcompensated, wavered even more, and then fell every time. The drop was only a few feet, however, so other than a few bruises, he injured only his pride. It was no worse than Tomio’s stinkbomb bubbles.

Francesca laughed as he picked himself up off the ground, but not
at
him. “A few scuffs will only bring out your character. One of the first skills to learn in tightrope walking is how to fall with grace.”

“I’ll keep practicing,” he said.

From the platform, Francesca called down. “I watched your expression—what were you thinking when you tried to walk the tightrope?”

He brushed himself off, ignored the soreness of what would surely become a bruise. “I was thinking,
Don’t fall
.”

She tossed her hair. “Instead of fearing what might happen, what should you be thinking about?”

He climbed the pole again and guessed, “Getting to the other side.”

“Wrong again—you should not have any goals. Just clear your mind, enjoy the sensation of your feet on the wire, the wind blowing through your hair. Think of
nothing
and let your feet do what they already know how to do.”

He fell again the next few times but made it further, more than halfway across. And when he finally did succeed, Francesca didn’t drown him in celebration. “That’s once. Now do it again. And do it every time.” She took a bite of an apple she had carried up with her. “When you’ve practiced enough, we can start you juggling at the same time.”

Several more times, Owen sent brief messages home to Barrel Arbor, but there was so much to tell he felt he couldn’t get across much of anything at all. He came to consider the carnies his extended family, making friends with the game runners, the performers, the roustabouts.

At each show, Tomio teased carnival attendees with his sword, dancing about in playful challenges and then startling them with bursts of colored smoke. He developed an amusing routine with the three clowns, chasing them, slashing at the backs of their trousers until they dropped flaps to reveal polka-dotted underwear.

Owen continued to watch the relationship between Tomio and Francesca, and his heart ached every time she laughed with the handsome swordsman. She would brush against Tomio, elbow him, and walk close by his side with a carefree grace. Tomio didn’t even seem to notice. But when Francesca did such things to Owen—

and he remembered every single instance—he was unable to think straight. Her kiss on his birthday was a moment as profound to him as when he’d first seen the Clockwork Angels. . . .

Burly Golson took it upon himself to strengthen Owen, encouraging the young man to swing the huge mallets and drive tent stakes into the ground each time the carnival set up in a new place. Though Owen’s arms and shoulders ached, Golson pronounced his work satisfactory, promising that it would get better through practice. Only later did Owen realize that the strongman had tricked him into doing some of his chores, but he didn’t mind. Golson repaid him in many ways, and Owen was eager to learn.

The strongman had him practice light sparring to improve his reflexes and strength. Owen pummeled a suspended leather bag filled with sawdust, defeating the imaginary enemy; after the young man was exhausted and his knuckles sore, Golson nudged him aside. “It’s acceptable to win by wearing down your opponent, but I find it much less tiring to do it in one blow.”

He cocked back his fist and delivered a punch as hard as a steam-driven pile driver—so hard, in fact, that the stitching split and sawdust spilled out of the stuffed leather bag. “It’s not so much your muscles or your actual strength. Your
confidence
can be all you need.” He pushed the punching bag close so that Owen could take another swing. “Now I’m large enough that I don’t have to prove myself.” He pinched the young man’s biceps, which were still rather scrawny. “
You
, on the other hand, might have to rely more on confidence.”

Late one night after a busy show in another village, César Magnusson rounded up the carnies and said in his booming voice, “A Regulator courier delivered a special newsgraph printout!” Beneath the extravagant handlebar mustache, Magnusson showed perfect white teeth. “In one week’s time, in honor of the summer solstice, the Magnusson Carnival Extravaganza has been requested to perform in Chronos Square!” A perfect showman, the ringmaster paused for the flood of gasps, chuckles, and applause. “We will be seen by the Clockwork Angels and even our loving Watchmaker from his high tower!”

Owen’s heart pounded; this was more than he had ever dreamed. The summer solstice was one of the most important days of the year, when the sun stopped in its path and switched direction to sweep toward winter. Not only would Owen see the Angels again, but he would be part of the show!

With a flourish, Magnusson reached into his tuxedo jacket and withdrew a stack of prismatic tickets, which he handed around to the carnies. “A special pass for each of you.”

Owen took his ticket as if he had won a prize and placed it with the now-dried rose that Francesca had given him.

The caravan of chugging flatbeds and rolling wagons crossed the countryside to the next destination. Owen hadn’t even asked the town’s name. Before jumping aboard the nighttime steamliner that one surprising night, he had never traveled beyond Barrel Arbor, but now he had visited so many identical villages that they blended together.

This town specialized in pig farming, and when they arrived, the sign
Welcome to Ashkelon
seemed somehow insincere. A weathered stone angel figure stood at the entrance to the town, but she seemed to be facing in the wrong direction. Although the village had its standard clocktower, tavern, and small newsgraph office, the smell of the place was anything but standard.

And Owen found that those who herded, wrestled, and slaughtered pigs had a different character from assistant managers of apple orchards. He found them to be ruder, edgier. Very few of them gave him appreciative tips, but they laughed at every small mistake he made—laughter that sounded like derision rather than enjoyment.

The Cage of Imaginary Creatures was a sturdy rectangular vault with reinforced metal walls. It groaned and rocked as if it contained something large, powerful, and restless, and various lenses of distorted colored glass provided peepholes into the box. Once a visitor paid the price, he or she could look through the shifting lenses to see the mythical creatures imprisoned within. The prominent warning was meant to tantalize rather than frighten.
Do You Dare Look Inside Your Imagination?

During the Ashkelon show, one shrill woman paced around the attraction, her face flush with anger. “I want my money back. There’s nothing inside!”

As she excoriated the ticket-taker, more audience members gathered around, angry on their neighbor’s behalf, immediately turning against the carnies. Striding along with top hat in place, the dapper César Magnusson stopped to calm the disturbance. “We are a carnival extravaganza, madam. You are to expect the unexpected!”

“There’s nothing inside that box! I can look into an empty box at home without having to pay for it.” She planted her hands on wide hips and looked like a bull about to charge.

Magnusson bowed. “For you, madam, I have no doubt there is nothing within the Cage of Imaginary Creatures. Please accept this refund.” He reached into his pocket, withdrew a coin, and placed it in the woman’s hand. She wrapped her fingers around it like a Venus flytrap closing, then stalked off.

Owen had watched the exchange with growing uneasiness, and the people from Ashkelon moved away from the attraction. The ringmaster regarded them with disappointment.

Having never gotten a chance to look inside before, Owen gathered his nerve and stepped up to the cage. “What is inside it, sir? Is it a trick?”

“No trick at all, Owenhardy. It is a standard imaginarium.” He twirled his mustache. “Have a look and see what you see.”

Owen flinched when the solid metal walls of the cage groaned, but the ringmaster encouraged him again. He peered through one of the distorted glass lenses and saw the murky, rippled form of a muscular centaur, a human body joined with a fine stallion’s body. He drew back in amazement.

Magnusson smiled. “Try another one.”

Owen walked around the box to a different window, a greentinted lens. This time he saw a reptilian form with great bat wings, a long scaly tail tipped with an arrowhead barb, and a narrow head that was majestic and terrifying at the same time.

“A dragon! But dragons aren’t real!”

“Your imagination is real,” the ringmaster said.

Other windows showed him a basilisk, a griffin, a unicorn. “How can they all be inside this one vault?”

Magnusson brushed his black jacket. “They don’t exist in the vault, but in your mind. The Cage of Imaginary Creatures is an imagination amplifier. You see expansions of the wonder that is inside yourself.” He looked up, sniffed. “Some people, like that woman, have no imagination to amplify. Alas.”