The Boneshaker (24 page)

Embarrassment forgotten, Natalie looked thoughtfully at the ageless man on the other side of the table stirring his tea with a silver spoon, the man she'd seen tumbling through the atmosphere and walking amid the ghosts of the past. After a moment, she reached for the sugar bowl.

"So are you selling bees today, or jewelry?" Simon Coffrett said at last. "Or did you just have nowhere else to go for tea?"

Another wind set the great birds in the trees moving. Natalie tried to see them clearly. "Is it all right if I ask you a question, Mr. Coffrett?"

"They're albatrosses. Sea birds."

"
Sea
birds?" Momentarily distracted, Natalie frowned up at the big wings in the oak branches. "But there's no water around here. Not for miles, and definitely no sea."

Across the table, Simon Coffrett smiled into his teacup. "There are stranger things in this town than sea birds,
Natalie, but I suppose you've noticed that. And I don't suppose that was the question you were going to ask."

"No." The wind chimes slowed as the breeze died down. Natalie watched the pieces, shards of painted porcelain and metal hanging on lengths of red string, go still. She hesitated. Only a day ago, Mr. Swifte had said that certain questions carried a risk. How could you tell which ones?

Moreover, it was hard to look at Mr. Coffrett. His spectacles reflected the fractured light coming through the oak leaves and made it hard to see his eyes. The overall effect was almost the opposite of looking at Paracelsus Vorticelt; Mr. Coffrett's face seemed not to want her to look too closely at it.

Confidence,
she thought.
Just like Tom said.
"I wanted to ask you," Natalie said carefully, turning the cup around in her fingers, "about Dr. Limberleg and the medicine show." Simon Coffrett waited for her to continue. "They treated my mother, and I don't like them, and I don't understand it all."

"They ... they treated your mother?" He looked away into the trees where the albatrosses shuffled on their branches. "I expected more of him."

"Who?"
Concentrate, be confident...
but it was no good, wouldn't work. She couldn't talk to him if she couldn't
look
at him, for goodness' sake. Why couldn't she look at him?

"Your father." Anger, real anger, infused his words.

"My
father?
"

For a moment Mr. Coffrett just drummed his fingers on the table. It reminded Natalie of the way her mother sometimes tapped her foot when she was angry and trying
to control it. For some reason, the idea of Mr. Coffrett being angry was a little unnerving.

He ceased drumming and folded his hands. "So they treated your mother," Mr. Coffrett said, conversational now. "What made you come to me to ask about them?"

"Because..." Frustrated, she tried to decide how to answer. She couldn't make her eyes stay on his face. What on earth had he meant about her father, and what would he say if she admitted she had heard Tom Guyot and the others talking about him?

Behind his spectacles Simon Coffrett seemed to be watching her carefully. "Was there more to that, or just ... because?"

"You rented the lot to Dr. Limberleg."

"Yes."

"Well, did he ... did they ... did you know what ... he ... is?"

"What, exactly, is he, Natalie?"

Her hands tightened on the cup in front of her. "Something wicked. I don't know." Simon Coffrett said nothing. "Tell me something! Anything! Will my mother be all right? And my brother? Will they leave, Limberleg and all of them? Will they go? What will happen then?"

Mr. Coffrett leaned back and sighed. A long moment passed as he stared out, looking neither right nor left, just as he had when Natalie had seen him in the strange moment at the crossroads, purposefully ignoring the crowd of staggering figures that weren't really there. "You think I'm in a position to answer all that?" he asked quietly.

Across the table, Simon Coffrett smiled into his teacup.

"Well ... you see things," Natalie said before she could help herself.

"
I beg your pardon?
"

Natalie shrank in her chair. No going back now. "Don't ... don't you? Things that happened? So ... can't you see what
will
happen, too?"

Mr. Coffrett leaned in now as if he was looking at her closely, but there was no anger in the gesture. "Natalie, have you ... have you seen things, too?"

"I saw you falling," she whispered. "I saw you at Trader's Mill."

"So it's started already." He nodded and sat back. Natalie frowned, utterly confused, but before she could speak a word, Mr. Coffrett asked, "What else have you seen?"

"I saw ... his hands," Natalie whispered. "I can't stop seeing Dr. Limberleg's hands."

"Hands are skin and bone, mostly. Some are human; some are not. They're still only hands." He hesitated, and tapped his fingers on the tabletop again for a second or two. "I see things, Natalie, but it isn't as simple as seeing the future and the past. I'm not a fortuneteller. I can't tell you what's going to happen. I can't help you with that."

"But—"

"One more question, Natalie. Ask me one simple question."

You do not question me properly. You must begin at the beginning.
That's what the sibyl in her glass case had said in reply to Natalie's question the day before yesterday. "Why did you rent them the lot?"

He poured himself another cup of tea, added a lump of sugar, and swirled it all together with his spoon. "I rented the lot to Jake Limberleg because all great works begin with small first steps."

"Great works?"

"Much depends on those small steps, Natalie, but they're like puzzle pieces." Simon Coffrett watched the albatrosses shift in the deformed oak trees. "You can't see the picture until they're all in place."

Natalie sat in silence for a moment, then spoke up. "Unless you already know what the picture's supposed to be."

"Natalie, listen very closely to me for a minute." He took off his spectacles. It was like a blow, like taking the lampshade away from a too-bright light bulb. His eyes were different from before. Blinding. Dizziness hit Natalie like a baseball to the head, and once again, just like the day she'd fallen on Main Street, she saw multiple Simon Coffretts splinter away from the one who spoke to her, moving around him like photographic negatives.

"Listen," he said. It took effort, so much effort; the spectral-Simons dodging around the real one seemed to be speaking, too. Natalie forced herself to focus on the true Mr. Coffrett, the one staring at her with blazing eyes.

"Only the most rare and valuable things are ever given free," he was saying. "Most things cost something you can give up, but they aren't worth anything—not really, not in the end. But
some
things ... some have to be given free, because if you had to put a price on them, their true value would be too great for any one person to afford. Do you understand?"

She nodded fiercely, not because she understood but because she was a little afraid of how seriously he was talking. She blinked her eyes hard until the dizziness went away and the spectral-Simons merged back into one.

"I'm telling you this, Natalie, because when you ask a question, you must consider that the answer might cost you, and you must be sure that what you ask is worth the price." Those bright-burning eyes refused to let her go. "And you should remember that, too, when someone asks something of you."

"That I should make it cost them something?"

"That it might have cost them already."

"What does..." Cold tea sloshed over the rim as she set the cup down without looking and missed the saucer. She was suddenly very afraid. "What does this cost? All I asked so far?"

"Courage. And tea." He closed his eyes and replaced his spectacles. Right away, Natalie's eyes slid off him again. "Now. Have you any other questions before you go?"

She tried one more time to look him in the face.
Concentrate.
"What are the great works?"

"You want to see what the puzzle looks like." He nodded. "Some people start with the pieces at the edges, but if I were you, I'd go straight to the center. I suspect you'll find you have a gift for putting the pieces in the right places."

They clearly weren't talking about real puzzles. "I don't know what that means," Natalie protested.

Simon Coffrett smiled again, a little sadly. "I know." Natalie waited, thinking there must be more, that he couldn't
possibly think that was any kind of answer. But he only picked up his teacup and took another sip. Infuriating.

"I don't mean to be rude, Mr. Coffrett," she said at last, "but what are you talking about?" He looked up and blinked. She pushed on. "This sounds like important stuff, and you must want me to get something from it...." Secret meetings at the general store, great works, puzzles ... why couldn't people just say what they meant? A thought occurred, hazy but with a sense of rightness to it. "Am ... am I supposed to do something?"

His expression softened a touch. "You have a place in it. Possibly
the
place. But there's a great deal that isn't for me to tell you."

"Who, then?"

"It's for your mother to tell you. This is as simply as I can put it without ... without doing any damage. Arcane is in the path of a storm. It's survived this kind of thing before, but only by a hair's breadth. This time..." Mr. Coffrett pushed his spectacles higher on his nose and leaned toward her again. "What happens this time is likely to be entirely up to you."

Natalie stared across the table for what seemed like ages, but Mr. Coffrett just looked steadily at her until she couldn't take it anymore.

"
Me?
"

"You."

"
Why?
"

He sighed. "Because I'm not sure Annie will be ready to do what needs doing. She isn't well."

"Mama? But ... but she's better now!" Mr. Coffrett said nothing. The silence made Natalie feel like screaming. She held on to the edge of the table to stop her hands from shaking. "But
why?
"

"Because you are who you are. You're your mother's daughter. Because of the things you can see."

"The things I—you mean—
that doesn't make any sense!
" Now she had plenty of good questions, so many she could barely think, they were coming at her so thick and fast. She opened her mouth to start slinging them at him, but before she could get the first word out, he shook his head with finality.

"Natalie, it's not my place. When I step out of my place, it does no good for anybody."

There was no way she was walking away with that being the final word. "At least tell me ... well, can you say what kind of storm's coming, at least?"

He considered. For just a minute Natalie thought she saw a strange reflection in his spectacles. She glanced over her shoulder, certain she had seen something flicker blue over his eyes, but there was nothing behind her but oaks, chimes, and albatrosses. When she turned back, the reflection, if it had been there at all, was gone.

"A firestorm," Mr. Coffrett said. "And that, I think, is all I can safely say."

Natalie pushed her cup away numbly and stood up. "Thank you for the tea, Mr. Coffrett."

"My pleasure. Come by anytime."

Metal and ceramic clinked tunelessly as she descended
the steps and took hold of her bicycle again. All those chimes. On impulse she turned back toward the man on the porch.

"What are all the chimes for?"

"You could say they were gifts." His voice sounded strangely flat. "People have always tied them in these trees." Another breeze slid among the branches, as if the chimes themselves had something to add to the conversation.

"Mr. Coffrett? Do you really think you're dead?" It came out whisper-quiet, mostly because Natalie wasn't sure she really wanted to know the answer.

Simon Coffrett smiled. "Don't tell me you doubt our esteemed phrenologists, Natalie."

"But why?"

A single red butterfly flew past her into the shade of the oaks. Mr. Coffrett followed its flight until it landed before him on the teapot. "A poet named Rilke wrote a line I like very much." He put out a finger and the little insect climbed onto it without hesitation. "He said that angels often do not know whether they walk among the living or the dead."

He watched the butterfly climb from finger to finger. His smile faded into a different, stranger expression, but it was one Natalie had seen before. For just a moment she remembered again the image of Simon Coffrett falling through the air with that same incomprehensible look on his face. She screwed up her courage one last time and asked, "Mr. Coffrett? What does ... what does
jumper
mean?"

"It means someone who jumps." His mouth curled again briefly at Natalie's expression of disappointment. "I think you want to know, What does it mean that I am a jumper."

Natalie nodded. Simon sighed as the butterfly took off again and flitted back into the sunlight beyond the stand of oaks. "Once, long ago, I had two friends who quarreled. I knew they would want me to take a side, so before either had a chance to ask, I jumped off a cliff to get away from the argument." A deeper sadness came over his face. "If I had taken a side, I might have stopped the quarrel, but I didn't. My friends fought each other to the death while I ran away."