When his head drooped, Ryzhkova brushed his muddy cheek. “I would paint you,” she whispered. “I would put your face with my family.”
That night, Amos tried to sleep in Peabody’s wagon but could not. His legs ached with restlessness and his mattress stuck him no matter which way he turned — odd, as it had not bothered him before. Racing thoughts plagued him, of the reading Ryzhkova had done, the seer’s hands moving the cards around, of the dark one he’d seen only briefly. Its image refused to take shape. He’d sat through countless readings and had never seen Ryzhkova have such a spell. Perhaps she was ill. The thought troubled him. He opened the wagon door, silencing the hinge with his palm so as not to disturb Peabody. Peabody talked to himself, sketching and scrawling as he murmured the occasional comment about “impossible roadways.” Amos smiled despite his disquiet.
Outside the sky flickered with heat lightning and balmy air made his limbs slow. He heard the snapping of a fire that others tended and watched their shadows trip from the flames, Susanna’s cracking and twisting as she practiced contortions.
From the woods came movement.
A volley of electricity lit the night a bright purple, illuminating the campground with the harshness of midday. Were it not for the flash, he would not have seen the girl stumble from the trees, drenched, shivering, clothed in a nightdress that clung to her legs, dirty and sodden. She wore no shoes. Her feet were bloodied, and her black hair hung to her waist, riddled with knots and leaves. She was a convergence of angles and curves, light and dark. His feet hit the ground noiselessly as he moved toward her.
* * *
Peabody watched Amos leave the wagon and run toward the woods. He gazed in the direction the young man traveled and his eyes widened. Between fog, lightning, and moonlight, the girl looked utterly impossible. Had he not been a skeptical man well versed in fantastical embellishment, he would have thought her a wood sprite. He observed Amos running and could not help but smile. 20th May 1796. Hudson, past Croton. Spring lightning storm brings excellent potential and a woman of unsurpassed, most ethereal beauty. He snuffed the candle he’d been working by and stood by the door to the wagon in hopeful observation. “Yes, dear boy, bring her to us.”
* * *
From her doorway, Madame Ryzhkova saw the girl’s pallid complexion, the ink-dark hair, that she was soaked to the bone. The storm was dry and the river lay in the other direction. Through the dirt, her skin shimmered as if made of water. No woman, no girl, looked as such. The girl was something Ryzhkova had not seen in long years, not since her father had gone missing. She’d left everything she’d known to flee from it. She would not say its name. To name such things was to give them power, and yet it was impossible to stop her mind from whispering.
5 JULY 2ND
Finding information on Verona Bonn has proven something of a snipe hunt. I started in the simple places, ancestry websites, public records, filling the time between book requests and cataloging with casual queries. But beyond a newspaper clipping of a svelte woman balanced on a diving platform, not much turns up. The deeper hunting lies locked beyond paywalls or affiliations with institutions. At the moment I don’t have the cash lying around for a casual foray into genealogy. Like Mom, my grandmother seems to have worked under different names. Verona Bonn must have been her last incarnation, leaving little clue as to why someone would scrawl her name in the back of a very old book, a problematic book.
Save for the book, Peabody’s Portable Magic and Miracles has no record of existing, and I found no evidence of contemporaneous traveling troupes. Hermelius Peabody’s particular breed of entertainment was frowned upon during the Revolution all the way until 1792, when John Bill Ricketts set up an arena in Philadelphia. Yet from what I can tell, Peabody performed, traveled, and profited as early as 1774.
Worse, the names in it are real.
* * *
A printout of a scanned newspaper page, the Catskill Recorder, July 26th, 1816, sits on my desk. It took three days of searching to find it, but now I’ve read it enough times that when I close my eyes the words float in negative.
24 July 1816. Bess Visser, entertainer, found drowned in the Hudson River ferry crossing at Fishkill, presumed to have tragically taken her own life. The lady is reported to have been distraught, suffered from bouts of sleeplessness and mania. She is survived by a daughter, Clara, age four.
July 24th, and not simply a drowning, a suicide, like my mother. The coincidence is too much. When my search for Clara Visser came up empty, I turned back to the book. There, in the back, just before the wash of ink, I found Clara Petrova.
It’s this that has me calling Martin Churchwarry again.
“I thought you’d like to know what I’ve found.”
“Fantastic. Was the book your grandmother’s then?”
“No, nothing so direct. I did find other names in it, though, someone named Bess Visser and her daughter, Clara. My mother knew Bess’s name, so there’s a connection somehow. I can’t imagine it’s a common name.” Something in me holds back about the dates of their suicides. It feels too personal to share. I offer this instead: “In a way I think you did give me a little piece of my family.”
I can almost hear him smiling. “That’s kind of you to say, Simon. Thank you. I’m just glad to know the book has found a good home.”
“It’s fascinating, honestly. I’d like to show it to my sister. The tarot sketches that are in it — my sister reads cards. My mother did as well. I wish I knew something more about them. The sketches are interesting. Different somehow.” I think about Enola, how uncommunicative she can be, and I can’t imagine her telling me anything. “You wouldn’t happen to have any good texts on tarot, would you?”
“Cartomancy?” he says with a light laugh. “I’m sure I must have something around. There’s always at least a little interest in the subject. Hang on a moment.”
I hear him walking around, the subtle thump of slippered feet, followed shortly by the sound of claws scrabbling on hardwood and a muttered, “Down, Sheila.” So, he keeps a dog in the shop. I imagine it’s a beagle. Something about Churchwarry screams beagle. He descends a staircase, a subtle change in creaking boards. “Let’s see. I don’t typically keep a large occult section — my father was more a classics man — but it’s never a bad idea to have a few volumes. Ah. Oh, here you are, you sneaky bastard. The Tenets of the Oracle. That’s all I’ve got at the moment. Lovely edition. 1910.”
I jot the title on an envelope and tuck it into my notebook. “Would you mind seeing if there’s a particular card in it? That is, if you aren’t busy.”
“Oh, not at all. Marie will be delighted that I’m speaking with a customer.” He chuckles and I can’t help but imagine a long-suffering wife, with wispy gray hair and plump cheeks. I describe the card and listen to him flipping softly through pages.
“Yes, that’s it. The sketch you described sounds very much like the Tower. The simple interpretation says that signifies abrupt change, probably violent.” There is quiet muttering. “There’s a much more detailed explanation, though it’s beyond me. I don’t know how helpful it will be as our book predates The Tenets by a century at least. You might look it up for yourself, though. The Tenets is a fairly common book — though my copy is splendid, should you be interested. Gilded edges. Embossed cover.”
“Something tells me I can’t afford your copy.”
“And the longer I hang on to it, the less I can afford to keep it. The two-sided problem,” he sighs.