“What’s the plan?” Nathan asked me as we descended the stairs from the elevated platform to the street.
I did have a plan. We would start at the entrance to Steeplechase Park, where Ruth was going to meet her mysterious stranger, and locate anyone—ticket takers, buskers, security guards—who worked there regularly and show them Ruth’s picture. But I hadn’t figured on the crowds. As we descended from the train platform we were swept up into a stream of people and carried along like bits of flotsam and jetsam onto the Bowery, the wide avenue named after the more disreputable street in Manhattan, which led to the amusement parks and was, itself, an amusement park of sorts.
“Hang on!” Nathan cried, linking our arms under his as we plunged into the masses. It was impossible to even hear each other over the cacophony of the laughing crowd, the antic calliope music that seemed to come from everywhere at once, and the buskers advertising the many attractions.
“Look well upon this group of savages, ladies and gentlemen!” one cried. I craned my neck to make out an African tribesman in a fur loincloth, his shaved skull and bare chest covered in tattoos.
“That man is nearly naked!” Helen whispered into my ear.
“See the freak show! See the bearded lady and the ape woman of Borneo!” Out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman dressed in a beautiful lace dress, only her face was covered with fur. She stood with an odd regal dignity, her eyes fixed on a point above the heads of the crowd.
“This way for Delilah of the Seven Veils,” another shouted. “The hottest show on Earth! See her dance the hootchy-kootchy! Anywhere else but in the ocean breezes of Coney Island she would be consumed by her own fire!”
A woman with a veiled face but an exposed midriff shimmied by us, clinking finger cymbals and twining one of her scarves around Nathan’s neck. An intoxicating scent of jasmine mingled with the aromas of fried clams, salt air, and circus animals. Nathan’s eyes followed the dancer as she wove through the crowd.
“How very familiar of her!” Helen sniffed.
The hootchy-kootchy dancer wasn’t the only one who was familiar. Twice I felt a stranger’s hand on my person, but when I turned to catch the offending party I looked into a sea of laughing faces so distended with hilarity they resembled the grotesque sign the changeling had mimicked. And then I saw the face itself, looming over the crowd like the guiding spirit of the place—a spirit of antic glee that put my teeth on edge but somehow made me want to smile and dance to the crazy tune of the calliope.
“Over here!” I shouted to Nate, who was fending off a mountebank in plaid trousers holding out a handful of playing cards. Helen, wide-eyed, was watching a spooning couple whose limbs were so intertwined they appeared to be one creature. I steered them both to the entrance of Steeplechase Park, where there was a pocket of open space just below the funny-face sign. I saw why when we got there. A giant of a man stood in the center of the empty space. He wore white robes that billowed in the breeze, a white tunic and turban, brilliant red pantaloons, and a matching sash. He stood absolutely still, his dark face immobile as a statue carved out of mahogany, jet-black eyes boring into the crowd of spectators that had stilled around him as though under a spell. I thought he might be a statue until he raised his arm and pointed at a girl in a navy blue swimming costume.
“You!” he bellowed. “Do you not believe in the magic of Omar the Magnificent!”
The girl covered her face with a cheap paper fan and giggled. But when Omar spoke next her giggles stopped and the whole crowd fell silent.
“And why do you not believe? Because it is told to you at Coney Island and in your heart you say . . . what is the word? Humbug? But I ask you, why should I come all the way across the oceans, far from my own land where the sun is hot all year and the sacred Ganges flows to the sea from the great hills that wear white turbans of eternal snow and whisper secrets in the ears of the stars—why should I do this if my entertainment is humbug?”
His voice dropped to a low whisper that seemed to tickle the inside of my ears. He seemed to be looking straight at me now.
“And why should you come if not to find the lost one you seek?”
Then, without another word, he turned, his robes billowing around him in a white swirl. There was a flash of blinding light, a puff of smoke, and he was gone. The crowd gasped as one.
“See more of Omar the Hindu Hypnotist at the Golden Pavilion!” a spieler announced.
“Oh, do let’s!” Helen cried. “I want to see if he can hypnotize me. I’m sure he can’t. I’m much too strong-willed.”
“It’s a parlor trick,” Nathan said dismissively.
I found it curious that my friends who knew magic existed were so doubtful of the possibility that it might exist here.
“If he does that little demonstration here every day, perhaps he saw Ruth,” I said, getting on the ticket line. I showed Ruth’s picture to the ticket seller, but he only shrugged and told me he saw “a thousand mugs a day and they all look alike after a while.” I thanked him and asked for directions to the Golden Pavilion. “Just past the Steeplechase and before the freak show. Don’t miss the winged woman.”
I started, but he was already turned to the next customer on line, and Helen was urging me along.
“Look at the beautiful horses!” she cried, pointing to the mechanical wooden horses on the Steeplechase. “I’ve missed riding since we sold our stables! Can we ride on them?”
“After we’ve located Omar,” I said, beginning to feel like the dowdy governess to two rambunctious charges. But when we found the Golden Pavilion there was a sign telling us that Omar the Magnificent’s next sitting wasn’t for another forty minutes. I asked the attendant if we might have a private word with Omar, but he told us that the Great Omar was meditating in preparation for his appearance.
“We might as well ride the Steeplechase in the meantime,” Helen pointed out.
Seeing that it was fruitless to argue, I agreed. We went back to Steeplechase Park and selected our horses. For all Helen’s horsemanship, she needed quite a lot of assistance from Nathan to mount her wooden steed, and once seated she professed herself terrified of falling.
“Look!” she told Nathan. “Everyone is riding in pairs. There’s plenty of room for you, and you can keep me from falling.”
“And who will keep Ava from falling?” Nathan asked.
“I’m perfectly capable of holding on to a hobby horse!” I snapped, sure now why Helen had been so anxious to ride the Steeplechase. All around us I saw girls giggling as their young men tightened their arms around their waists. The whole ride was one big excuse for cuddling. I suddenly felt ridiculous riding alone. I would get off and go show Ruth’s picture around . . .
But then a juddering of gears and a sudden jolt told me the ride was starting. Helen gave a little yelp and Nathan swung into the saddle behind her with all the ease of a cowboy in a Wild West show. I grasped the pole and hung on as the wooden horse trembled beneath me, swooped down over an artificial stream, and then began climbing a long upward-sloping track. I could see the minarets of Luna Park and the great Ferris wheel and the terrifying Loop-the-Loop. We were rising high above the stultifying crowds into clean, cool air.
Beyond the park lay the Atlantic Ocean, blue-green and vast, seagulls wheeling over the whitecaps. The cold salt air lifted the damp hair off my neck and slid under my fine lawn shirtwaist. I closed my eyes and let the air lap over me. It was like diving into a wave. It was like flying. Beneath my corset my wings itched to flex themselves and soar over the ocean with the seagulls. And why not? Here at Coney Island wasn’t everything allowed? Men and women held each other in public, women danced bare-bellied on the streets, magicians vanished in a puff of smoke . . . If I spread my wings now and took off, would anyone think it was more than one of the wonders of Coney Island?
I opened my eyes. Ahead of me, Helen had her head buried under
Nathan’s arm, her arms wrapped rigidly around him. I remembered suddenly that Helen was deathly afraid of heights. She must not have realized that the ride went so high up in the air. Nathan had his hands full—literally—with keeping her from going into hysterics. All the other couples were engrossed with each other. Who would notice my absence?
We had come to the crest of the course. Now! my whole body urged. But even as I rose from my saddle, a scrap of conversation floated toward me on the wind.
“But I can’t leave my family behind!”
It was a girl’s voice, high and querulous. A deeper bass answered her in tones so low I couldn’t make out the words, only the low persuasive rumble.
“Well, if I could send them back money . . . and you’re sure this job out west will pay . . .”
Another rumble, almost a growl, followed.
“Then I’ll do it! Oh, but not today. I’ll have to pack a bag. I’ll meet you next week . . . yes, under the funny face like always. You always show me a swell time . . .”
The girl’s voice was carried away as the ride turned a corner and the wind was coming from the side. I lifted up in my saddle to see which horse the voices had come from, but I couldn’t tell. And even if I could, how could I tell if this girl was being lured into a life of slavery or was only eloping with her sweetheart? Still, if I could follow her next week when she went with her beau, perhaps she would lead me to where Ruth was being held.
We were swooping down now into the final stretch. The couples were all leaning forward, urging their horses on as if they were live breathing animals instead of wooden simulacra. The horse with the heaviest load would go fastest and win and I, alone, would come in last. The girl who was planning to elope would get away. I leaned forward and clucked my tongue as if it would make a difference—and to my amazement, it did! My horse sped up and overtook the others.
“Go, Ava!” I heard Nathan cry as I passed him and Helen, then two other riders. Only one horse was still in front of me. The man had already dismounted and was helping his companion down. I heard her giggling voice declaiming, “We won! We won!” It was the girl I’d heard before. She was wearing a sailor suit and a flower-trimmed bonnet. She threw her arms around the neck of her companion, her back to me.
“Yes,” I heard him say, his voice a deep rumble. “I always do.”
The bass bell in my head clanged as I passed the finish line, as if signaling my victory, but that wasn’t why it was ringing. It was because the man in front of me was Judicus van Drood. I recognized the Inverness cape and Homburg hat he habitually wore, looking heavy and out of place in the summer crowds. Our eyes met and he smiled, a wisp of smoke curling out of his parted lips. Then he slipped from his companion’s arms and vanished through the exit.
I jumped off my horse and ran after him, pushing rudely past the girl in the sailor’s outfit and through a curtained doorway . . .
Where the ground gave out beneath me. I was tumbling down into darkness, my arms flailing for purchase on slick walls, plummeting into the abyss.
7
I LANDED HARD on the wooden floor, lights blazing around me like the fires of hell. A face loomed out of the glare, distorted and strange, the eyes circled with shadows, the nose bulbous and red, the mouth stretched unnaturally wide. The creature held out a red-gloved hand to me, beckoning me toward the hellfire. Ignoring it, I got up on my own and found myself towering over a little man. He shrugged and doffed his hat, and marched forward. Was he leading me to van Drood? A gust of hot air shot up my legs, lifting my skirts up above my knees. From behind the glare of lights I heard a low rumble. Laughter. I blinked into the glare and made out the shapes of heads and hats—feathered women’s hats and men’s straw boaters. It was an audience gathered to watch my humiliation. I pushed my skirts down and strode across the stage, where the little man—a dwarf in clown face—waited.
“Don’t be mad!” he cried in a loud falsetto. “Be bad! Join the audience and laugh at our next performers!”
So that was how it worked. They humiliated you, then offered you the chance to laugh at their next victims. Even if I would stoop that low, I had van Drood to find. I rushed past the dwarf.
“Try the fun house,” he whispered under his breath. “The humbug went that way.”
Had I heard him right? Could I trust him? And what was a humbug? Was he referring to the Homburg hat van Drood wore?
After exiting the stage, which looking back I saw was called the Blowhole Theater, I found myself in a vast vaulted pavilion full of screaming crowds. I looked in vain for van Drood as I passed a ride called the Human Roulette Wheel that spun people around in a mad circle and one called the Barrel of Love that tossed men and women around like bits of laundry in a tub. Then I spied the dark Homburg hat at an arched gateway that looked like the gates of hell. A Hellgate. Yes, that’s where van Drood would go. I entered a long narrow corridor that seemed to get narrower and narrower as I went forward. At the end of it I spied a wisp of smoke trailing behind van Drood. I rushed forward and collided with a wide-eyed, frightened girl.
Was it the girl from the Steeplechase? She looked familiar. But when I reached for her, my hand hit glass. I was staring into a mirror at my own frightened reflection. I wheeled around and a dozen Avas turned with me, all with their mouths gaping open and their eyes popping wide.
Foolish girl, a deep male voice chided. You don’t even recognize yourself.
I spun around again, searching for the source of the voice, and glimpsed the hem of a cloak and the brim of a hat vanishing on the edge of each mirror, as if van Drood had somehow slipped behind the mirrors. The thought that he was standing behind the glass watching me was sickening.
Of course I see you, Ava, van Drood’s voice purred from behind a mirror. I stepped toward it, staring at my own face as if I could find van Drood behind the glass. I’ve always seen you. Since you were a little girl.
My image in the mirrors wavered, blurred, and another image took its place. I was looking into eyes that looked like mine but weren’t. They were a deeper green, older, and shadowed by fear. They were my mother’s eyes. I followed them down to a little girl playing on the beach, running in and out of the surf like a sandpiper. My mother was watching me as a child . . . but why were her eyes so fearful? Then I saw him, a dark figure standing in the misty verge between land and sea.
I turned back to see my mother’s face, but the scene had already changed. I saw myself, older, walking down a street in the city beside my mother, both of us under a large umbrella.
“It’s stopped raining!” I cried, springing out from under the umbrella to leap over a puddle and holding my arms out. In my black cloak it looked like I had wings. As I lit down on the pavement I nearly collided with a man in an Inverness cloak.
“You were watching me to see if I was turning into a Darkling,” I said.
I wasn’t the only one, he replied.
His voice came from behind me. I whirled around and saw another scene from my childhood: my mother standing behind me, brushing my hair. I could almost feel the brush stroking my scalp and the weight of my mother’s hand on my shoulder . . .
And her gaze on my back, eyes shadowed by fear.
She was afraid you were turning into a monster.
“No!” I cried, turning toward the voice. A kaleidoscope of images spun around me: my mother measuring me for a dress, watching me reach for a book on a library shelf, her eyes always shadowed with fear, a look that I’d known throughout my childhood but that I’d assumed was from her own demons.
You were her demon.
“No!”
She was waiting to see what kind of monster you would become. That’s why she fled from her friends and family, why she hid herself in shame. Knowing that you would become a monster like the demon that ravaged her.
“No! That’s not how it happened. She was in love—”
How do you know that? Did she tell you that when you saw her in Faerie?
“No,” I admitted. “But Raven told me . . .”
Of course he wouldn’t tell you that one of his own kind attacked a defenseless girl. That you, too, are becoming a monster. Look.
The images from my childhood vanished, leaving only my present self. But as I stared at my reflection my wings burst through the confines of my corset and spread out behind me, and feathers began erupting from my skin, not just on the enormous wings, but from my hands and face—rough, ugly feathers that made me look like the bearded lady or the ape woman of Borneo. I turned from the sight, but the image followed me, multiplied a hundred times.
It’s a trick, I told myself, an illusion van Drood is creating.
But even as I said the words to myself I knew that if I didn’t banish the images I would see them forever. I would be trapped forever in this fun house, a hall of mirrors as cracked as my mind.
That was it. I stepped closer to the mirror, cringing at the closer view of the monster in it, and pounded the glass with my fists.
The glass shivered and I heard a faint tinkling sound . . . like bells. Why wasn’t my bass bell gonging if I was truly in danger?
Once before in the dungeons of Blythewood my bells had failed me. They’d been muted by the tenebrae. Were they muted now by the mirrors? Was that why van Drood had lured me here—because my bells didn’t work in the Hall of Mirrors?
Where’s your power now, chime child? Van Drood’s voice mocked me. Did you think you would keep it while you became a monster? Did you think that the power of Merope would remain in the body of the cursed race that destroyed her?
“Merope wasn’t destroyed by a Darkling,” I cried. “She loved Aderyn and he saved her.”
Is that what your Darkling lover told you? Van Drood snickered. Would you like to see what really happened?
The image of the feathered monster vanished from the glass. A moment ago I would have been grateful to see it gone, but as I turned around, looking into one blank mirror after another, it felt stranger not to see anything. My own reflection had been wiped from the glass. It was as though I didn’t exist anymore.