The Hunchback Assignments (2 page)

“I’m not interested in trinkets or balms,” the gentleman cut in. “I want to see your prize attraction.”

A door behind the bench slid open and a hag stuck her head out. Her eyes gleamed within a nest of wrinkles. She
was a hundred years old if she was a day. “It is an expensive view,” she rasped. “An extremely rare specimen.”

The gentleman opened a gloved hand. Two golden coins caught the moonlight. “I assume this will cover it.”

The hag nodded and waved a hand at the driver.

“Yes, yes, monsieur,” the driver said, palming the coins. “Of course. Come right this way.”

He led the gentleman to the rear door of the carriage. More bones were strung across the back, charms against death. The gentleman grinned. Only savages relied on such charms and magic to defeat the unknown. Learned men relied on logic.

The old man took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door with a brassy click. He swung it open, and warm, moist air belched out. The gentleman didn’t turn his nose from the rotten smell. He had encountered much worse on the Crimean battlefields.

“Inside, that is where the prizes are!” The old driver tried to climb in, but the gentleman placed a hand on his shoulder and pulled him out of the way.

“I will enter alone.”

“But, monsieur, only I can explain the origins. The magic! The mystery! The restorative power of each item.”

“I don’t need explanations.”

The driver nodded and the gentleman stepped up into the fetid compartment, stooping to keep from banging his head. The cramped space was poorly lit by one lantern swinging on a wire. In a moment his eyes had adjusted and the details became clear. There were canopic jars; glass bottles with hairless, pink creatures; tiny coffins marked with
hieroglyphics; shrunken heads dangling from wires; and the taxidermied body of a half-cat, half-rabbit. He had seen such stuffed creatures before, but this was a very good representation—it didn’t even look as though it had been stitched together. He moved through the collection quickly, ducking under the lantern. He squeezed between a stuffed snake and a giant bat with marbles for eyes.

At the far end of the carriage was a cage draped in black cloth. He leaned in close. From behind the fabric he heard something wheezing. Without hesitation he pulled away the cover.

Two eyes, one larger than the other, goggled up at him in fright. Above them was a tinge of red hair set on a roughhewn, pockmarked skull. The gentleman flinched; he had been expecting something ugly but this was beyond his imagining. A true wretch of a creature crouched in the cage, pressing its back against the bars. It wore a jackal fur vest, which was ill-fitting due to the enormous hump on its back. Pity wormed its way into the gentleman’s heart.

The unfortunate monster couldn’t be more than a year old. It was standing upright, but the small cage forced it to bend its neck, emphasizing its hump. On the bottom of the cage a plaque read
L’ENFANT DU MONSTRE
.

The gentleman could not stop staring. The specimen’s arms looked strong; its legs were unnaturally muscled, but bowed and crooked. Nature had been particularly cruel.

The thing was shivering, but seemed to grow curious. It blinked, mewling softly. The gentleman peered at it impassively. This had been a wasted journey; three days’ travel from London to Provence only to find a child imprisoned
by its ugliness. His informant had spoken so highly of this prize, had said the creature was beyond description and value. Ah! That scoundrel would feel the lash of his anger. The gentleman had lost time, when he had none to lose. All the while England’s enemies would be inching closer to their goals.

He turned away, but the creature mewed again and whispered, “
Puh-puh-ère?
”

Father?
The gentleman stopped. The voice sounded so human, so mournful, and it struck a chord in the man’s heart. Years ago he’d had a wife who died giving birth to their child. A boy, who had only lived long enough for his father to hold him. The gentleman swallowed. It was all in the past and best forgotten.

Yet, he turned back to the creature. By its size and shape he decided it too was a boy. A monstrous, malformed boy. The man considered whether he had any food in his pockets. Foolishness. It was time to leave.

The boy said, “
N-n-non p-partir
,” and gazed at him with such absolute sadness that the gentleman was transfixed. Then the boy let out a yelp, clenching his fists as though he were feeling a sharp stinging. His face contorted, becoming even uglier.

The gentleman couldn’t look away. Was it possible? Was the child actually changing, his face shifting so that his features … softened? He let out another whimper. Where, moments ago, there had been a crooked nose with splayed nostrils, now the nose seemed to be straighter. It was as if, seeing the horror in the gentleman’s eyes, the toddler willed himself to change his appearance into something more
attractive. The boy’s brow was flatter, the eyes more even. Was it the flickering of the gaslight? The gentleman stepped closer. No, the boy’s face was indeed altered. Then the child gave another yelp like that of a wounded puppy and shook his massive head.

The gentleman lowered the cover over the cage in amazement and took a deep breath. This monster child was truly a wonder! Worth every moment spent away from England; worth his weight in gold. His talent could prove to be a valuable asset. His development would require years of investment, but the gentleman was good at playing the long game.

He climbed out of the carriage. The old codger was stamping his feet on the ground, hugging himself for warmth.

“I wish to buy the item,” the gentlemen said. “The one in the cage.” He kept his voice steady, hiding his excitement.

“
Non! Non!
” The driver waved his hands. “That is not possible.”

The hag limped around the corner of the carriage. “He’s very precious. Very precious.”

The gentleman produced a pouch of coins. “This will compensate you for your losses.”

A bony hand shot out of the crone’s shawl and grasped the pouch. She pried open the top and squinted inside. “
Oui …
that is a fair deal.”

“Where did you find him?”

“He comes from far, far away,” the old man said, “from the Steppes. In the ancient land of Moldova, near the spawning ground of demons and—”

“The truth,” the gentleman said in a soft, threatening tone. “I demand the truth.”

The hag moved a step closer. “He was abandoned near Notre Dame. We bought him from an orphanage.”

The gentleman nodded. He whistled and his carriage charged out of the fog, pulled by four huge horses. Three men, clean-cut and dressed in dark greatcoats, jumped to the ground. They marched over to the carriage and, at the gentleman’s command, pulled the caged monster-child from the gypsy carriage and transferred it to the other.

“Farewell,” the gentleman said as he mounted the steps. The child could be heard moaning and bumping up against the bars of his cage. There was the crack of a whip as the gentleman stepped inside and the elegant carriage lurched forward into the mist.

T
he boy was seated at a small wooden table. He wore black knee-length breeches, a white linen shirt, and a black cravat tied carefully around his neck, every inch a young gentleman. He stared at the blank parchment for a moment and then, using a chrome-plated cedar pencil, wrote his name with his left hand in large, careful letters:
M o d o.
Beside that, he wrote the date:
October 12, 1864.
He’d been taught how to write a year earlier, at the age of four.

No mirrors or reflective surfaces had been allowed in the room, nor in the rest of the house. The windows were boarded up and papered over, so what sunlight there was entered through a skylight cupola onto his parchment.

Below his name he began to draw how he imagined his own face to look. Occasionally he would hold the pencil up and examine a sliver of his reflection on the smooth side of
the chrome. He could make out eyes and lips, but all his features were distorted. He couldn’t see his nose. When he rubbed the center of his face with his gnarled fingers he felt only a crooked protrusion of flesh. He kept drawing, adding a straight nose and perfectly formed ears. He chose eyes from one of his favorite illustrations of the Royals—the eyes of a prince. He’d memorized so many engravings from the books that he didn’t need to open one for reference. He added a top hat, for effect. All gentlemen wore a top hat.

Through the door was a larger room with Indian clubs and dumbbells hung on one wall, and rows of wooden swords and spears hung on the opposite wall. A practice dummy, made of straw-stuffed sacks, was strung up in the middle of the room. It never failed to give Modo a shiver, as it conjured the hanging he’d read about in a book. A small earth closet had been tucked into the furthest wall of the furthest room, complete with a metal washbasin.

He had spent the past four years inside the rooms of Ravenscroft. Mrs. Finchley had told him a story about how the house was named for the large number of ravens that perched on the roof and marched around the skylight. He had seen them when he climbed up the rope and pressed his face against the skylight to glimpse the tops of trees, his only view of the outside world. Alas, he hadn’t been able to see his reflection.

The click of a distant lock made Modo prick up his ears. Someone was entering the house. He slowed the rate of his breathing, the way he’d been taught, so that his pulse wouldn’t interfere with his hearing. A knife clattered in the kitchen, a drawer closed, and he heard a great sigh. It was
Mrs. Finchley, who was no doubt feeling sad again. Modo wondered what he could do to make her happy. Perform a dance? Draw another picture?

Maybe she needed to play a game. He considered climbing up into the space above the door and clinging there to surprise her, but the last time he’d done it, she’d shrieked and roundly scolded him, so he let the thought pass. A plate rattled on a countertop. She would be bringing him food. He licked his lips.

Modo heard another lock click. The door to the gym room squeaked open and closed, then locked a moment later. His back was to her, but he heard each step, could picture where she was. When she turned the corner into his room, he said, “Mrs. Finchley, is that bread and honey for me?”

She let out a tiny huff of surprise. “You are a clever one, aren’t you? But not clever enough to know that you shouldn’t draw with your left hand.”

“Why?”

“Because most people are right-handed and you don’t want to stand out. Only the devil draws with his left hand.”

Modo shivered and switched hands; he was equally adept with his right. He continued shading the cheeks on the prince’s face. “Is this what I look like, Mrs. Finchley?” He tried to keep his voice from cracking, but failed.

She placed a plate with a piece of bread, slathered with butter and honey, in front of him. “Don’t concern yourself with your appearance, Modo. You’re a beautiful child in your own way.” He gazed up into her green eyes. She was
gaunt and softly wrinkled. He wanted to leap up and hug her, but she had narrowed her eyes as though she had seen something disturbing.

“Why do you cringe when you look at my face?” he asked.

“Sometimes you are too observant for your own good, Modo. You remind me of my Daniel, that’s all.”

Modo knew her son had been killed by a runaway carriage many years before. “Was he beautiful too?”

“Yes, very. But please, let’s not speak of him.” She looked sad again and he searched for some way to soothe her.

“I nodded off reading and fell into a story.”

“You really are a wonder, Modo. Reading at such a young age.”

“Yes, well, it was that book you brought from—from outside—the book with the baby princess. You see, she had lost her gravity, so she floats.”

“I thought you might enjoy that story. One can read only so many books about generals and military tactics.”

“Oh, yes! I did enjoy it. The nurse has to hold on to her tight so she doesn’t drift away. And she only laughs and never cries. In my dream I floated too, and the princess was there. But not her aunt, the witch. She wasn’t in my dream and you were the nurse.”

“You have a marvelous imagination, Modo.”

“Have you ever been a nurse?” he asked.

Mrs. Finchley shook her head. “No, but I once played a nurse onstage at the Theatre Royal.”

“Really? Tell me more! Please!”

“That was long ago and those years are gone. I’m only a governess now.”

“Oh.” Modo sucked in his bottom lip for a moment, then quietly said, “Are you my mother?”

“No. I’ve told you many times already. I’m only here to care for you and to teach you. I don’t know who your mother was.”

“I see.” He paused. “Wot’s me teacher got for me today?”

Mrs. Finchley laughed. “That’s a good cockney accent. You only began studying that last week.”

“Will we be dressing up today? I have a new character to try.”

“It’s Sunday. You know that, Modo. On Sunday you learn history. But eat first, child.” Modo took two quick bites before she whispered, “Eat like a gentleman.”

He ate eagerly but more slowly, at the end licking his thick lips for the last few crumbs and bits of honey. She wiped his face with a napkin. He clasped her arm firmly. “You’re still sad.” She nodded and he squeezed more tightly. “I don’t want you to feel that way.”

Modo looked deeply into her eyes and grimaced. He felt the familiar sensation of his face shifting. As far back as he could remember, he had always been able to do this. He’d seen the locket she carried containing a miniature portrait of her son. He pictured Daniel’s face.

She gasped and tried to pull her arm away, but Modo was strong for his age. His eyes grew smaller and his features compressed as though they were made of clay. His lips thinned.

“Daniel,” she whimpered, “No! No!” Tears ran down
her face. With a jerk she broke Modo’s grip and turned away to wipe her eyes. “No! Don’t do that. Not for me.”

“I only want you to be happy.”

“No. It’s not right. Don’t.”