Levi put his hand on Charity’s shoulder. Her body was taut, as if she might break apart at any moment. There was no relief that Amelia was alive, only the distress of a mother bird whose chick has not returned to the nest.
“She’ll come back to us, Mama,” Caroline said. “You don’t have to worry anymore.”
“But how do you know?” Charity asked, the desperation not yet gone from her voice.
“I told you, Mama—because I know,” Caroline said. In contrast with her mother, Caroline seemed supremely assured.
“She’ll want to swim for a few hours,” Levi said. “Let’s get you back to the apartment before Barnum finds you missing.”
“He won’t notice,” Charity said. “All he can see are his dreams crashing down around him with the museum closed.”
Levi handed Charity and Caroline up into the coach.
“Left your sick woman in the water, eh?” the coachman slurred. “Costs a lot less than a funeral.”
Levi didn’t bother answering. The less he spoke to the man, the better. If they were fortunate, he would forget he’d ever seen them when he woke with a headache the next morning.
“Well, now that Amelia is well, Barnum will be able to open the museum again. That ought to make him happy,” Levi said.
Charity shook her head. “He won’t be able to open the museum again as long as those dour-faced scripture readers are outside telling all and sundry that Barnum’s is a den of sin.”
“That damned Hunt,” Levi swore.
“You watch your language around my daughter, Levi,” Charity said.
“I apologize,” Levi said.
“Although I am inclined to agree with you. The man has caused more trouble than we could have imagined.”
“Barnum can’t afford to keep the museum closed indefinitely,” Levi said.
“No, he cannot,” Charity said. “He feels very strongly about the responsibility of the loan he took out to buy it in the first place. I know it seems sometimes he’s only interested in profit for profit’s sake, but he doesn’t want the loan to go into arrears.”
“I know,” Levi said.
He did know. Barnum talked about the loan often, especially in the early days of the museum. And Levi also knew that the tripled attendance had gold coins dancing in Barnum’s eyes, as he dreamed not only of the end of his loan but the luxuries to come after so many years of thrift.
“He’s not going to be able to open the museum with Amelia in there again, at least not right away,” Levi said. “As long as there is a mermaid, there will be someone to protest her presence.”
Elijah Hunt had drawn all the creeping things out of the dark and into the light, Levi thought. Without his spark to light the flame, there might have been some grumblings or the occasional editorial, but his shooting of Amelia had made it impossible for the mermaid exhibit to go on.
“Will Amelia have to leave if there’s no exhibit?” Caroline said. “I don’t want her to leave.”
“Someday she will have to,” Charity said. “She belongs to the ocean, not to us.”
“I want her to belong to us a little while longer,” Caroline said.
“So do I, my love,” Charity said, stroking Caroline’s hair.
So do I, Levi thought.
After seeing Charity and Caroline safely back home, Levi collected some clothing for Amelia and returned to the dock. It wasn’t so very far to walk, really, especially when he was alone.
He knew she was there before he even stepped onto the dock. She was splashing about near the pilings, and when he reached the edge, she looked up at him.
Her face was glittering silver and her teeth were sharp, but her eyes were still Amelia’s and they were shining, shining out of the darkness at him, and he felt punched by a lust so strong he could hardly stand.
“Amelia,” he said.
She climbed out of the water, her body changing from silver to pearl, and there was no sign that the bullet had ever touched her. Her skin was as smooth and perfect as it always was when she changed, like she’d been born anew.
She kissed him, kissed him while she stood there naked and gleaming and his hands went everywhere they could reach, though he knew he shouldn’t, not there, not where someone might be watching.
Amelia pulled her face away and smiled, a smile so full of mischief and temptation that he almost forgot himself again.
He picked up the clothing he had dropped and handed it to her wordlessly. Her smile widened, and she kept her gaze on his as she slowly (so very slowly) put on all her layers, all the armor that women wore to keep their flesh safe from the eyes of men.
Then she let him offer his arm, and she took it, and they walked home in the silent hour before dawn.
CHAPTER 13
I’ve been thinking on our problem, Miss Amelia,” Barnum said after dinner one evening a few days later.
“And what problem is that, Mr. Barnum?” she asked.
Barnum didn’t quail away from her gaze or the curious glances of Levi and Charity as he usually might. That meant he was determined to have something, and Amelia hoped that whatever he was determined to have did not mean more grief for her.
“The problem of having a mermaid exhibit without a mermaid,” Barnum said. “Now we do have Moses’s mummy, and that’s at least enough to keep the public interested for now. But I can’t have you back in that tank with all those Bible-loving folks outside talking about Barnum’s American Museum like it’s some kind of whorehouse. Sorry, Charity.”
Amelia noticed he didn’t bother to apologize to her.
“But you did sign a contract, and I know you want to make a salary. And you can’t make a salary while you’re sitting in my parlor.”
Unsaid but fervently implied was sitting in my parlor, eating my food and drinking my wine and taking up space instead of tripling the attendance numbers as you ought to be doing.
“And what is your proposed solution to this dilemma, Mr. Barnum?” Amelia asked.
“We’ll send you on a tour,” Barnum said triumphantly.
“A tour?”
A tour, Amelia thought. A chance to see more places, more things, more of the country. She would have a start, at least, on the old dream of seeing all the world and all its wonders—although she didn’t know anymore that it was a worthy dream. Still, she felt her life was on hold again, like it had been after Jack’s death, and leaving for a tour would be a chance to begin again.
Charity looked startled. “But, Taylor, how can she go on a tour? You’ve complained all along about how difficult it was to build the tanks for her. How can you send a tank from town to town?”
“Well, Charity, I’ve been thinking on that,” Barnum said.
He looked so pleased with himself that Amelia nearly laughed out loud. He’d obviously spent a lot of time formulating his plan and was prepared for their questions and objections.
“We can build a wagon, a regular sort of wagon with wood on three sides and make it watertight, like a whiskey barrel or a ship. And then on the fourth side we can have a piece of glass and folks can view Amelia through the window.”
“That sounds like it would be very small, Barnum,” Levi said. “How can Amelia swim around in something like that?”
“We won’t have her swimming all day like she does in the museum,” Barnum said. “We can go back to the old way—a performance before an audience. You can put a ladder up behind the wagon with a curtain around it. She can take off her clothes and jump in the water before anyone can properly see her, just like at the Concert Hall.”