Neither mercy nor shame, came the words.
I thought about all Martha’s things, lined up like little soldiers, waiting for her return. I thought about a tattered stuffed bear, a pillow put carefully under its sad little head. I wondered where Martha was, who kept her there, why they knew neither mercy nor shame.
Some nights sleep is a long time coming.
Morning came, all rattling wagon-wheels and yelling drovers and sunlight and bustle. I grumbled and stumbled and cut myself shaving.
I’d barely shambled out to the office when Mama Hog’s short shadow fell over my door. She knocked, once, and then tried the latch.
“You in there, boy?” she shouted.
I made it to the door, unlocked it, stepped aside when Mama came trundling past.
“Where was you last night? I waited for an hour after Curfew.”
Mama carried a basket. I smelled biscuits and ham and hot coffee, and came to my senses before I made any smart remarks about the Regent’s three daughters and a room at the Velvet.
“I was working,” I said, motioning Mama to my client’s chair. “Your friends, the Hoobins, found me.”
Mama sat, plopped her basket down, began to unload it.
“Figured you was.” She paused long enough to look up at me and grin. “Ain’t them Hoobins a humorous lot?”
“That Ethel keeps me in stitches,” I said, grabbing a biscuit. “Now why don’t you tell me what you know.”
There was a biscuit halfway to Mama’s gap-toothed mouth. She looked at me, shook her head and put her biscuit down.
“I don’t know nothing,” she said, and she sounded ashamed. “Can’t tell you a thing. Don’t know what done happened to that poor little girl.”
I nearly choked. “What?” I spat. “Not a single cryptic hint? No veiled allusions to fate or destiny?” I wiped my chin. “Mama, do you need a doctor or a new deck of cards?”
Mama shook her head, sank a little lower in my chair.
“Hey. I was joking.”
“I know you was.” She peered back up at me, her tiny black eyes pinpricks behind that mane of wild grey hair. “But the truth is, boy, that I can’t see nothing. Don’t know nothing. I don’t even know if Martha Hoobin is alive or dead. I ain’t never been so blind about anything, boy. Not ever in my whole long life.”
“You’re serious.”
“Aye,” she replied. She took in a breath, made herself sit up, brushed her hair back away from her face. “Damned if I ain’t.”
“If you can’t see Martha what makes you think I can?”
“Maybe I ain’t lookin’ with the right pair of eyes. Maybe you and your findin’ can go where me and my Sight can’t.”
I sighed, took a bite, chewed.
“That isn’t much of a chance,” I said, after a while.
“I reckon it’s the only one that Hoobin girl has got.” She joined me at breakfast. “You find anything yet?”
“Just this,” I said, between bites. I pulled the silver comb out of my desk and set it down between us. “Found it in a junk jar on Martha’s dresser. The brothers never saw it before. I think somebody gave it to her, and I think she had reason to dislike him.”
Mama wiped her lips on her hands and then wiped her hands on a napkin. She reached out and picked up the comb.
“That’s what you think.”
I nodded. “Makes sense. It’s an expensive gift. But what’s the old saying? Gold from a pig’s ass will still smell of manure?”
Mama didn’t laugh. She took the comb in both hands, closed her eyes tight and started shaking and mumbling, right there at my desk.
“Mama, look, don’t you need a cauldron and a virgin bat for that?”
“Shut up, boy,” she said, and I did, since her words seemed to come out a fraction of a second before her lips moved.
My office got cold. I watched frost spread across the glass in my door and then Mama yelped and threw the comb away.
I caught it. It was cold, like a chunk of ice, but the feeling quickly passed.
“Mama, what is it?”
Mama opened her eyes.
“Damn.”
I groaned. “All that for nothing?”
Mama snorted. “That ain’t right. Even if it just sat in a shop window. Even if you’re the only person who ever took hold of it. Even if it was fresh out of the silversmith’s forge-boy, I ought to have seen something.”
I set it down.
Mama eyed the comb like it was a snake, coiled up in her biscuits and eyeing her back. “Take it away.”
“But why-”
“Take it away!”
I scooped it up, dropped it in a drawer, closed the drawer.
“It’s gone. Now tell me-why the hysterics?”
“I done told you. I ought to have seen something. Felt the touch of someone’s hand. Felt the touch of your fool hand, boy, but I didn’t see nothing.”
She was rattled. I’d never seen Mama rattled. I sat back and pondered for a moment.
“All right. Tell me this, Mama, what could make an object feel like it was brand new? What could take away any history of contact with the people who’ve owned it?”
Mama shook her head. “I couldn’t. Don’t know nobody what could.” She lowered her voice. “That’s black magic, boy. Dire hex. Them what messes with the way things be-well, I don’t even know no names.”
I leaned forward, made Mama look me in the eye. “We’ve been friends for a long time, Mama. I like you. I respect you, and even if I don’t always show it I believe you when you tell me things, sometimes.” I took in a breath. “But isn’t it possible that maybe, just this once, you just can’t see what might be there?”
Mama puffed up, but only for a second. Then she deflated. “I reckon that might be so. Maybe I’m gettin’ old and blind.”
“Never. But even the sharpest eyes can’t see every blade of grass.”
“That a Troll sayin’?”
“It is,” I lied. Mama held Trolls in high regard, and their rustic proverbs even higher. “Trolls also say that a single misstep does not doom a march.”
Mama stood. “You’re a liar, boy. But I reckon you’ve earned them biscuits, all the same.” She cocked her shaggy head, caught up her basket. “What you reckon on doin’ next?”
I shrugged. “More of the same. Go back uptown. Talk to a watchman named Rupert. Ask strangers on the street.” I nodded toward the drawer that held the comb. “Might drop in on a few silversmiths along the way, see if anybody can tell me anything about that.”
Mama grunted. “I know some New People, other than Hoobins. I’ll be seein’ ’em, too. I’ll be askin’.” She hesitated. “You reckon that poor girl is still alive?”
I swallowed, sighed, stood. Eighth day gone, I thought. Eighth day. “Sure she is.”
Mama left, shaking her head.
Chapter Five
I scooped up a handful of Hoobin coin and set out. The air was cool and my feet felt better. I decided to walk again, telling myself that the walk would give me more time to think, but knowing all the time that I was just delaying the inevitable failure of finding anyone who’d seen Martha that last day she left the Velvet.
Traffic was brisk. I’d waited until the dead wagons were packed and gone, waited until the plumes of smoke from the crematoriums that lined the river soared fat and black and rolling. People didn’t look at the smoke, I noticed. And when they did look up, they pretend they didn’t see it.
I set a leisurely pace. Watchman Rupert probably wouldn’t take his shift until after noon, so I killed time by harassing jewelers about Martha’s comb. There are four jewelers between Cambrit and the Velvet, all much nearer the Velvet than my place. All confirmed that the comb was solid silver, of good if not excellent workmanship. As a less than artful piece, it bore no maker’s mark, and yes, they’d all seen similar combs before-swans were very popular with the ladies, a few years back-but no, they couldn’t tell me any particular shop or jeweler who specialized in such things.