This Monstrous Thing(13)
I followed Father up one of the narrow paths between the chalets, trying to ignore his grumblings about being the last ones there, until we found our assigned stall. The wooden sign above the counter was still painted from the previous years—FINCH AND SONS, TOY MAKERS.
It took most of the day to lay out the toys in a manner that Father deemed acceptable. The market didn’t open until sundown, and by midafternoon he was making minuscule adjustments to the lines of windup mice and jack-in-the-boxes. I watched him as I chewed idly on a piece of bread Mum had sent for our lunch, and I tried to ignore the smell of roasting chestnuts and gingerbread from down the row.
As twilight bled navy across the sky, clusters of candlelight began to appear around the square. The tree was lit and braziers smoldered orange against the night. Somewhere amid the stalls, a violin began to play “Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle.”
The shoppers arrived with the darkness, first in solitary groups of twos and threes, then in packs, until our time between customers shrank to nothing. A choir started singing just down the way, and I had to speak over them whenever I addressed someone. My voice went hoarse counting out change, listing prices, explaining how to wind the dancing dogs.
When I felt as though I was swallowing sand, I grabbed Father between customers. “I’m going to get a drink.”
He readjusted his gloves, their tips cut off to better handle the toys. His fingers were red and chapped. “Don’t linger.”
“I won’t. Do you want anything?”
“No,” he said, like it was a daft question, then turned back to a woman weighing a windup mouse in her hand. I took that as permission, vaulted the counter, and set off in a snaking trail through the market. I didn’t linger, but I certainly wasn’t direct about it either, and I kept a sharp eye out for marzipan.
I bought a mug of glühwein under the giant pyramide and stood at one of the tall tables while I drank it. Above the noise of the shoppers, I could hear the bells of Saint Pierre Cathedral up the hill chiming eight. It was going to be a long night. The market didn’t close until eleven, and after that we’d have to clean up. I leaned over my mug and took a deep breath, letting the cinnamon steam from the glühwein dampen my face.
Then, from the other side of the square, I heard shouting. It might have been just a shopper with too much to drink, but then another voice joined, and another, and then a scream rose above the chatter of the market and the bells. I raised my face from my mug and stared in the direction of the noise. It was getting louder. The choir stopped with a squawk. All around me, people were turning to look.
An engine snarled from the street, and I turned to see two policemen on steamcycles plowing down the square. People had to leap into the snowbanks between the stalls to avoid being flattened. My first thought was of the trouble Morand had mentioned the day before, and a tight coil twisted in my chest. I abandoned my glühwein and jogged in the same direction the policemen had gone.
A crowd had gathered at the end of one of the rows. People were jeering and shouting, and through the throng I picked out two more navy-blue-uniformed officers on foot. They had a man on the ground, his face pushed into the snow as they handcuffed him. The policemen on steamcycles were trying to hold back the crush of people, who seemed intent on getting to the man. I joined the edge of the crowd, trying to see over people’s heads and avoid being knocked in the face. Something landed near my feet, and I looked down.
It was a windup mouse, gears in its belly exposed, head attached by a single spring.
Panic filled me suddenly, hotter than the glühwein. I shoved through the crowd, ignoring the shouts flung in my direction, until I could see into the center, where the two policemen were dragging my father to his feet. His nose was bleeding down the front of his coat, and patches of mud and snow clung to his hair. The lenses of his spectacles were shattered, the frames dangling off one ear. He didn’t fight as the police forced the crowd apart and dragged him toward the wagon waiting at the edge of the square, but when he looked across the mob, he saw me. His eyes widened and he shook his head, sending his glasses skittering into the snow. Someone spit on him, and it landed, thick and yellow, just above his eye.
I turned and ran.
We had a plan for this. We always had a plan for this. In every city we had ever lived in, we had mapped our escape routes, agreed where to pick up new identification papers, where to find money for a carriage ticket and who to ask if there wasn’t any. I should go north, across the border into France, and we’d meet up in Ornex at Morand’s.
But it had never been like this before, never me alone without Mum or Father or even Oliver. We had never been found out—we always fled together before they could catch up with us. And though I knew in my bones what I was meant to do, I found myself doing something else entirely and heading to the one place I knew I shouldn’t: the flat.
I took the side streets through the financial district and into Vieille Ville at a run, leaping over a pile of blacksmith’s coal and skidding on bloody snow behind the butcher’s. My lungs were burning by the time I reached our shop, but I still sprinted up the stairs and burst into the flat.
The room had been ransacked. Everything was turned over—the bureau, our trunks, drawers pulled from their places and the contents dumped on the floor. Most of the furniture had been smashed, mattresses cut open, and straw and feathers were strewn amid the wreckage like a fine snow. I took a few steps in, and a shard of my mother’s teacup crunched under my boot. “Mum?” I called softly, though it was clear she wasn’t there.