The windfall, of course, was her inheritance, but she wouldn’t be around to enjoy it. She might as well use it up while she could, and it made me feel unbearably sad as she pressed gloved fingers to her chest, dimpling with pleasure as she swore she’d finally buy that bonnet she’d been coveting.
As a fresh-faced girl settled across from me, cheeks rosy with youth and daring, I felt as wrinkled and useless as an old apple.
“Stay away from black horses,” I warned her. “And boys with blue eyes who promise you rings.”
But my heart wasn’t in it. The only futures I cared about right now were mine and Ruby’s, and I didn’t even know if they would be entwined. I looked over the top of the girl’s huge hat for my Nana but saw only an endless line of frail humans waiting for tragic ends and impossible windfalls in their easily bruised, easily broken bodies.
As the young girl left, replaced with a blue-eyed cad whose gaze followed her bustle a little too closely, something tugged on the hem of my skirt. It was Pemberly, Criminy’s pet clockwork monkey, her tiny green fez askew. A curl of paper clicked out of her mouth, and I pulled it out to read it.
Torno missing. Any information?
With a hiss of breath, I reached for a plumed pen and scribbled on the back: Did not see anything bad when glanced 6 years ago. Have not seen tonight. What do we do? The monkey’s copper paw clicked around the paper, and she skittered away into the crowd to find her master.
Perhaps it was uncharitable, but the first thought that entered my head was that perhaps my grandmother, newly bludded and hungry, had chosen the largest creature in the caravan as her first kill. My second thought was that even if she’d caught our strong man unaware, the ensuing fight between a starving predator and the biggest, strongest, most heavily muscled man I’d seen in six years in Sang would have attracted plenty of attention and probably become the most popular attraction at the caravan.
But Torno, for all his might, was a kind and tragic soul, the sort of man who would probably hold my grandmother up by her ankles and politely ask if she needed a teacup of blood from the dining car while her jaws snapped on air. Thinking back, I hadn’t seen him all day, but that was perfectly normal in the caravan. Until the crowd arrived, each performer’s time was his or her own, and thanks to my grandmother, I hadn’t been in the dining car for the usual company meals. Torno the gentle giant being absent during the show? I’d never seen it happen, not in six years with the caravan. Even Eblick the lizard boy took yearly vacations, but Torno was a constant. When I’d glanced on him, I’d seen only his tragic past and a possible incident with Catarrh and Quincy. Which had to mean he was fine, right?
I grew more and more agitated, omitting the theatrical flourishes of my act and giving each person the bare minimum. My tips were pathetic, but what did I care? No one looked at old hags, so it wasn’t as if a new gown or hat bought with my earnings would change anything. I was basically a kept woman, my needs covered by the caravan’s room and board—and her master’s undying sweetness. If everyone in my line had given up and left to see the other acts, I wouldn’t have minded, but a true glancer was so rare that they would accept a muttered sentence of unpleasant truth if that was all I grimly offered. I bravely soldiered on.
After Pemberly had finally shooed away the last lingering customers with a monkey-sized umbrella, I stood and stretched, my back and hips cracking in a dozen places. The caravan always felt so empty at night, once the crowds shuffled back onto their bus-tanks and trundled toward their cities. Gaily striped cups rimmed in cocoa and fluffy balls of dropped popcorn danced over the trampled grass, caught in the same soft breeze that ruffled my graying hair and made the strings of lights sway gently against star-strewn skies. I was startled as a velvety red bludsquirrel darted out of the high grasses to grab half a wrappy sadly dropped on the ground. In the cities, the small beast was considered a dangerous pest hell-bent on draining innocent humans, but out on the moors, it was just a comical furball with an oversized fuzzy tail struggling with a chunk of sandwich. Thanks to enterprising creatures like him, we never had to hire a janitor. All trash, big and small, just . . . disappeared.
“You get ’em, buddy,” I said. In response, it dropped the wrappy and chittered through snake fangs before snatching it back up and disappearing into the darkness.
I usually loved this time of night, loved waiting for Criminy to come find me and carry me, laughing, to our wagon. But with Torno missing and my grandmother strange and predatory, I felt off-kilter and trapped in a way I hadn’t for years in Sang, not since Jonah Goodwill had stolen the necklace that let me pass between worlds.