The Museum of Extraordinary Things(83)

They had made a pact to work together, for this one day alone. They would never again speak of it, or speak of each other.

“What would make a person sew the mouth shut of a person who’d been murdered?” Eddie asked the liveryman as they traveled toward their destination.

“It’s a message. Ask no questions.”

“It was done to Hannah, the drowned girl.”

“No. I saw her for myself.”

“A person with a kind heart removed the thread. It may be he was killed for doing so.”

“Perhaps he knew more than he should have. Or at least someone believed he did.”

Eddie was now struck by the story of the man who’d been stuck in the mud; how the hermit had watched him struggle to break free. Someone had deposited Hannah in the river. Could this have been the man? “If that’s true it doesn’t serve to drive me away,” Eddie told his companion.

“I wouldn’t expect so. You’re stubborn.” The liveryman grinned. “It’s part of our heritage. If our people weren’t stubborn we would have disappeared by way of our enemies’ hands long ago.”

Eddie’s obstinate nature surfaced in his refusal to accept the physician’s verdict that his right hand might be useless in the future. At present, however, his disability was irrefutable. He had therefore stowed his camera in a cupboard, and he felt the loss of it even more deeply than he did the loss of his hand.

Eddie hadn’t expected the liveryman to be so companionable, or so intelligent in his views. “You seem sure of yourself,” he said. “I think we know each other well enough that I should call you by your right name.”

“Eastman is right enough.” The liveryman gave him a sly look. “As right as Eddie is at any rate. Names don’t matter. Our God knows how to call us to him when he wants us, it’s best to remember that.”

They didn’t speak much afterward; each man was lost in his own private thoughts. Eddie had worried about leaving Mitts alone with the hermit’s wolf, so he’d locked the dog in a stall in the stable, and he couldn’t help but think of the pathetic whining he’d heard when he left for the day. Once they’d entered Brooklyn, both men’s imaginings couldn’t help but turn to the horrors of the Raymond Street Jail, a turreted Victorian building that was damp and freezing cold, said to house the worst of criminal life, along with the largest, most vicious rats in New York.

“I’ve served my last term in jail,” the liveryman mused. “I’ll do myself in before I go back. Five years of my life gone to shit, watching the river and counting out the time, knowing I could never get it back. After this business today is done, I’m considering joining the military. It’s a better life for a man such as myself.”

“I thought you couldn’t leave your pipe.” Eddie tried his best to be civil in referring to the liveryman’s weakness for opium.

“I don’t wish to be a slave anymore. I’m switching to gin.”

They both had a laugh over that.

“And you?” the liveryman asked. “What do you intend?”

“Once I’ve done what I promised, I’ll go back for Coralie. If she’ll have me.” He noticed the liveryman’s dour expression. “I take it you don’t think she’ll leave with me?”

“Do you think it’s her choice?”

“It should be,” Eddie remarked. “And it will.”

“Then you’d best make sure you get rid of him,” Eddie’s companion told him. “I know him well, and what’s his is his.”



All that morning she could hardly keep away from the window. When she returned from Manhattan, she’d slipped back into the house before her father came home, but sooner or later a person breaking the Professor’s rules was bound to be caught.

“You’re a jittery one,” Maureen said. They were making fritters to serve during the living wonders’ tea break, but Coralie had dumped the dough in too quickly and the oil had splashed up, nearly burning them both.

“Spring fever,” Coralie assured her.

Maureen gave her a sidelong glance. “Is that what it is?”

Coralie offered a compliment to deflect attention from her nervous state. “I’m not a cook, though you’ve tried your best to teach me.”

Fortunately, there was much to be done, and Maureen was too busy to investigate any further. She was soon enough taking tickets at the entryway of the museum. Coralie had no one watching over her actions and was free to steal into the yard at the appointed hour. Eddie was already there, crouched beside the hydrangeas. Maureen had added vinegar to the ground to turn the blooms bluer, and they blurred against the color of the sky. As soon as she saw him, Coralie felt as she did when she was about to dive into the river; somewhere inside her there was a gasping, thrilling release of earth and air. She went to stand beside him in the grass. She smelled like salt to him, and some delicious variety of sweet, caramels. As for Coralie, she noticed everything about him in that instant, the cast on his hand, the shape of his head, the broad width of his shoulders, the way he gazed at her with his dark gold-flecked eyes, as if she had never been a monster possessing a monster’s heart and history.

The liveryman had left his carriage down the street, and he now joined them in the garden. It would take two strong men to complete this task, both with steady hands and strong stomachs. Coralie felt a stab of fear. She imagined what might happen if her father discovered them, but she forced herself to push such thoughts aside. They went into the kitchen the way a dreamer enters into a dream, slowly at first, then all in a rush. The liveryman led Eddie down the plummeting stairs to the cellar. They had no idea of how much time they had, and when Maureen might return from the ticket booth, so every instant mattered. Eddie gazed over his shoulder and saw the darkness close in on them as Coralie shut the door, ensuring that anyone entering the kitchen wouldn’t wonder if someone was in the cellar. Eddie quickly put the keys to work. Two turns of the locks and they were in.