The Museum of Extraordinary Things (39 page)

On the porch where they stood, Eddie and Mr. Morris could feel Surf Avenue vibrating as the first buildings at Dreamland began to fall. A scream barreled down the avenue, for fire has a voice. Eddie closed his eyes against the flashes of light in the sky. For a moment he was on the outskirts of his village, running through the forest while fire took everything that had been left behind; he was on the sidewalk of Greene Street watching beautiful young girls fall through the air, their hair and clothes aflame, in the woods watching the hermit’s shack burn, embers floating upward like fireflies. He knew the language of fire, and recognized its destroying call. There was little time to waste, for time itself would soon be devoured by the flames that were increasing at a ferocious pace, racing faster than a man could think.

Mr. Morris hurriedly unlocked the back door. It was their good fortune to enter a quiet house. Sardie was nowhere in sight. All the same, North was left behind to guard the entryway as the men hastened to the cellar. The stairs creaked under their tread, and the darkness doubled until Eddie found and lit a lantern. He thought of the moment when he’d stood in the garden of this house and gazed up to see Coralie staring back at him. He wondered if the river had carried him here, and if perhaps he was again the person he’d been before he walked away from his name and his fate.

The workers and the paid performers who lived at Dreamland were already being evacuated, rushing down Neptune Avenue, which was hardly far enough. The Lilliputians had their own fire department, with small fire trucks and hoses. Once the women and children of their community had been evacuated, the men set to work pumping streams of water on the flames that were ready to engulf the baby incubator house. Nurses in the infant house had taken six premature babies from their incubators, making sure to wrap them in damp blankets to protect them from falling sparks. Under cover of the spray of water, they raced away from the park, with each child
saved.

All through the neighborhood the cries of the animals could be heard as more than eighty beasts, all of which had been located in cages only yards away from Hell Gate, were rushed into the arena. Ferrari and Bonavita and eight other trainers did their best to keep order, which was all but impossible. Mortal enemies were let in together, bears with antelopes, leopards and hyenas alongside the high-strung Shetland ponies, which had to be blindfolded so they would not panic. Only the beloved elephant, Little Hip, who nightly slept beside his trainer, Captain Andre, now at a party in Manhattan, refused to be moved to the arena, despite a chain and whip.

Flames had spread along Surf Avenue, and the enormity of the disaster was just beginning to be understood by residents and bystanders. The heat was nearly unbearable, the black sky turning bright in fits and starts, with garish shadows falling everywhere. Mr. Morris’s hired driver had taken off the moment he spied the inferno. He dared not tarry, for the rush of firemen and policemen would soon enough cordon off the area and the officials might decide to appropriate his horse and carriage to cart away survivors. The driver, who felt the need to save his own skin, apologized to the pit bull as he let Mitts out to fend for himself, certain that the stalwart nature of the breed would help the dog to survive.

The dog moved through the frantic crowds, making his way to the yard of the museum. In a desperate search for his master, Mitts managed to push open the back door. He quickly made a mess of things in the kitchen, leaping atop the table so that pots and pans scattered across the floor. Upon hearing Eddie’s voice echo from the cellar, Mitts raced down the stairs, whimpering and panting, at last settling uneasily when he spied Eddie, now working feverishly on the locks.

The heat being thrown off by the fire could be felt even in the cellar, and the effects were dizzying. Hard to think, hard to breathe. In a dream you must go forward, Eddie told himself, otherwise the dreamworld will disappear with you still inside of it. Paint was melting off the walls and the knob on the workshop door was hot to the touch. Eddie groaned as he fiddled with the brass lock, finally unclasping it. He immediately set to work on the lock fashioned out of iron.

“We have time to get her out,” Mr. Morris said through the billows of smoke that were filling up the corridor.

Eddie continued on, though blisters were rising on his fingers. Mitts was huddled beside his master. When the dog heard footfalls in the kitchen above them, his cutoff nubs of ears pricked forward as he began to growl.

Mr. Morris cocked his head, upset, certain that Sardie had found them out. Eddie paused for a moment, and they steeled themselves for a confrontation, but no one came down the cellar stairs. Instead, the back door opened, then clattered shut as the footsteps withdrew. Eddie felt himself pulled back into real life, for this was no dream. His hands were sweating, but he managed to open the second lock, and at last threw open the door. A rush of dust, and heat, and darkness greeted him and then Coralie was with him, the scent of sulfur in her hair. She’d heard the cries of the wild beasts and the shouts of men. She’d dampened a cloth and tamped out any stray sparks that flew between the boards set across the windows. When clouds of smoke began filtering through the cracks in the stone foundation, she’d believed her life was about to end. She’d knelt on the dirt floor and said good-bye to the beautiful world. She’d held in her mind a vision of all she would miss: Brooklyn, the tortoise in its sandy enclosure, spring, the pear tree in the yard, Maureen’s steady advice, the man who stood beside her now.

The fire alarms continued to ring so loudly that Coralie could hardly hear Eddie’s words as he embraced her. She thought he said
The world is ours,
and she believed him, though it was tumbling down around them. By now the Dreamland tower had been set ablaze and could be seen for more than fifteen miles. Debris was picked up by the wind; all manner of burning belongings were flung into the air, only to set fire to other entertainments. Fire Chief Kenlon had ordered a double-nine alarm, a desperate plea that called upon all thirty-three fire departments in Kings County. Fireboats and tugboats approached from Gravesend Bay, using seawater to hose down the piers in an attempt to stop the fire from destroying the entire length of Coney Island. Huge crowds had begun to gather, but soon they were stopped a mile away from the sight. Anyone who passed the police stop point was entering into hell’s gate itself—no ride, no trick, no loop-de-loop, but the scarlet portal of hell, with all its fire and agony.

To Coralie, being alive seemed a wondrous trick of fate, or perhaps it was a true miracle at last. She felt the least she could do was act on behalf of the creatures that had depended upon her. She thanked Mr. Morris for his kindness and his care, and told him to hurry and find Maureen, then began toward the exhibition hall. Eddie followed, Mitts at his heels, as he urged Coralie to come away. But she had already begun unclasping the doors of the birdcages, letting loose hummingbirds and cockatiels, along with a stray blackbird the Professor touted as Poe’s pet raven when it was nothing more than a fledging that had fallen from its nest. When Coralie threw open the windows, smoke drifted inside, but the birds were able to make their escape. She turned then to glass containers of monarch butterflies, spotted beetles, and blue dragonflies, releasing them all in a swirl of color. At last she went to the tortoise’s pen, and sat there weeping. This being that looked so monstrous to some had been a dear friend to her, defined by its patience and silence.

Eddie came to crouch beside her, concerned. “We can’t save him.”

“I can’t leave him behind.”

Eddie realized it simply was not in her nature to abandon even the lowliest creature. He felt overtaken by his love for her. Love like this wasn’t what he’d planned or wanted or expected, surely it was indeed a trap, for even when you tried to run away, it followed you through the grass and lay down beside you, it overtook common sense and willpower. Though the fire was approaching, Eddie did as Coralie wished. He quickly struck down the low wooden wall of the flimsy pen with a few well-aimed kicks, then collected one of the velvet curtains at the doorway so they could push the tortoise onto it. He dragged the tortoise into the kitchen, with Coralie then making sure to hold the old beast steady as Eddie hauled it onto the porch, then hurriedly down the stairs. Already, the hedges were burning, the leaves turning to soot. The tortoise’s shell clattered on the wood, the thud resounding so loudly Coralie feared they might mortally damage the very creature they intended to save. There was a last loud thump and the tortoise was free. It had been a hundred years since this had been so, and the poor thing seemed stunned, pulling in its limbs and head instinctively.

By now the air was billowing with smoke. Mr. Morris had searched the avenue for Maureen and had returned, having failed to discover her. He was beside himself with worry. “She should have been here hours ago. She’s never late or thoughtless, especially when it comes to Cora.”

It was then they spied her on the roof. The vision seemed like a dream, as all the night had been. In fact, Maureen had arrived too early, for she abhorred lateness, and the Professor had discovered her in the garden before Mr. Morris’s rented carriage arrived. He’d grabbed her so that he might berate her, pulling her into the house to question her, demanding to know if she’d stolen the keys to his workshop and assisted the liveryman in his thievery. When flames broke out, he insisted she help him douse the roof with water. He did this every summer when lightning crossed the sky. Then and now his main concern was to ensure that all of his treasures would escape the fire. He was on the roof, at work with a hose that had been connected to the old well, shouting at Maureen, who’d been forced to fill buckets and pour them out inches away from the flames.

“He’s going to finish the job,” Mr. Morris said. “He’ll have her burn to death.”

Morris dashed inside, maddened, making his way upstairs so that he might gain access to the roof. He stepped out the window, as he had on the day he left his home, only on that occasion there was pouring rain and now the sky was pouring fire. Maureen went to him as soon as she saw him, forgetting that she was afraid of heights, and of fire, and of the Professor. She followed him through the window and then, at the last moment, thought to close and latch it.

In the kitchen, Maureen and Coralie embraced.

“I do not wish to leave you,” Maureen told her charge, though Mr. Morris insisted they must do so immediately. She was streaked with soot, and her clothes were drenched. She clung to Coralie before stepping away. “But what we wish we cannot always have.”

Coralie watched her dear friends go. They disappeared into the garden, then onto the avenue, where they would most likely seem like ordinary people, compared to what now roamed the streets. It was three in the morning, and there was a sudden shooting blaze above Dreamland. The tower that had burned for half an hour was now completely in flames. It crashed and hung on cables just above the animal arena. The keepers had no choice but to shoot as the animals attacked each other or leapt over the fences. In the yard Coralie and Eddie could hear screaming on the wind, and the horrible death song of Little Hip, whose keeper had returned to see his elephant burning alive. Dreamland was no longer an entertainment, and Brooklyn was no longer Kings County, but a wild country where the beasts ran down Surf Avenue.

The wind had shifted and the fire moved inland. In a matter of minutes sheets of it raced along the streets. The crowds on Surf Avenue panicked and ran, trampling one another, when a creature all in flames leapt through the Dreamland entrance. It was Black Prince they saw, the beloved lion, who raced through the crowd and across the street into the entrance of an entertainment called Rocky Road to Dublin, a scenic railroad ride to an outdoor pinnacle. The crowd backed away in terror, more so when the police began to fire at the lion despite the mass of human life. The creature climbed the ride until he reached the top and stood there in flames. It was his trainer, Bonavita, who had raised him as a cub and was more devoted to Black Prince than to his wife, who gave the order to shoot him. It took twenty-four bullets before he fell, and it was said the police were so terrified of him they split his head open with an ax to make sure he didn’t somehow spring back to life. The crowd attacked the poor dead beast, vying for his tail and mane and teeth as souvenirs of this terrible night.

Sparks had been flung upon the roof of the Museum of Extraordinary Things, and the flames that raced along the eaves were impossible to douse. It was the only building on the north side of Surf Avenue to catch fire. Sardie had no choice but to give up his mission. He dropped the hose, which slithered across the roof and fell into the yard, water bursting upward in a rush, dousing the old pear tree. He went to the window, but the latch was down, and as he rattled it, trying to open it, he spied the wolf on the roof. The Professor had had contact with such creatures before, but only after they had been in the hands of a taxidermist. He had a dozen wolf’s teeth in his collection, bought in Canada for a small sum, which he had attached to the mouths of certain specimens to make them appear more vicious. He’d been the master of creature after creature, but not when they were alive and on an equal footing. He ran from the beast, but there was no escape in the air, and he tumbled from the peak of the roof with no net to catch him, and no one who could reach out and break his fall.