The Palace of Laughter (7 page)

M
iles Wednesday, clean-shirted and cat-surrounded, spooned hot porridge into his mouth in the half-light before dawn, while Lady Partridge rubbed soot from the hearth into Little's hair. The result was a dirty, dark gray that would pass for black if you didn't look too closely. Against the dark hair her skin was white as a pearl.

Little was dressed in a boy's jacket, shirt and trousers that Lady Partridge had produced from an old leather trunk in the corner. They were a few sizes too big, but with the trousers turned up and the shirtsleeves rolled they fit her well enough. “These,” said Lady Partridge, “belonged to Will, the
gardener's boy. I used to pass them on to the orphanage when he outgrew them, until I discovered that horrible Pinchbucket woman was selling them to a stallholder at the market and keeping the few pennies for herself.” She had rummaged again in the trunk and found an ice-cream-free shirt for Miles, and a cap that would at least partly hide his face. The shirt felt clean and a little stiff, as he spooned the last of the porridge from his bowl. He felt in his jacket pocket, but Tangerine was sleeping.

Lady Partridge stepped back to admire her handiwork. “You look like you've just fallen off the back of a coal truck, my dear, but I don't think anyone would recognize you too easily.” She wiped her hands on an old cloth that hung from the tree trunk beside her. She looked from one to the other. “Now then,” she said, “the longest journey begins with a single step. It's time you were going, the two of you, or you'll miss your train.” She blew her nose loudly. “And remember,” she said from behind her handkerchief, “wherever your road takes you, stick together and look out for each other. Really, if I weren't so generous of figure I would like nothing better than to shin down that ladder and come with you.”

They dropped from the ladder into an early-
morning mist that blanketed the deserted garden. The dark shape of the old mansion seemed to float among the trees, and the air felt cold and damp after the warmth of the tree house. Little still limped slightly. They clambered out through the gap in the wall, but took a different route through the woods, skirting around the bottom of the hill until they reached the lane that led to the train station.

They walked quickly along the lane between the tall hedges. Just as they reached the station the sun broke over the mountains, lighting the tops of the ornate chimney pots on the station-house roof. An old train stood at the platform. Its coaches were a dark mossy green and rather tattered. The platform was deserted except for the stationmaster, a tall gray-haired man who walked with a stoop, as though he carried an invisible sack on his shoulders. He was making his way along the platform, shutting the train doors as he went—slam…slam…slam. He did not seem in any hurry.

Miles opened the station gate. It squeaked loudly, but the stationmaster continued along the platform without a backward glance. “Excuse me,” said Miles. The stationmaster slammed another door. “Hello?” said Miles. The stationmaster shuffled onward, his
frayed gray trousers dusting the platform.

“Maybe he's deaf,” said Little. The stationmaster stopped. He slammed one more door, then turned around slowly to face them.

“Not deaf, busy,” he said. “I've got a lot of doors to close here, in case you hadn't noticed.”

“We just want to know if this is the train for the Palace of Laughter,” said Miles.

The old man sucked his teeth. He had very few teeth left, and when he sucked them, his wrinkled lips wrapped around them like gray curtains. “The Palace of Laughter,” he repeated.

“That's right,” said Miles. The stationmaster scratched his head. Miles produced the silver ticket from his pocket and held it out. The stationmaster barely glanced at it. “Says tomorrow,” he said.

Miles looked again at the ticket. “Train leaves at dawn tomorrow,” it said along the bottom. “But this
is
tomorrow,” he said. “I got the ticket yesterday.”

“Today is today, son,” said the stationmaster patiently, “and tomorrow is tomorrow. Least it was when I went to school. Train leaves at dawn tomorrow.”

“But tomorrow this ticket will still say ‘tomorrow,'” said Miles. “Tomorrow is always tomorrow!”

“Aye,” said the old man. “You're catching on, lad.
And dawn tomorrow is when your train leaves.”

“How can we be sure?” persisted Miles.

The stationmaster sighed, his lips flapping slightly in the draft. “Because it says so on the ticket. But don't take my word for it, ask them odd folk at the circus. Them's the ones who give out the tickets. Now if you don't mind, I have a busy day ahead of me.” He turned and slammed another door. It was a long train, and there seemed to be no one aboard.

“What do we do now?” asked Little as they walked back along the platform.

“I don't know,” said Miles. “We can't wait around another day, and it might be a good thing if we could get to the Palace of Laughter before the train does anyhow.”

“It might, but we still don't know where it is.”

“I think,” said Miles, “our best chance might be for me to sneak into the circus again, and see if I can find out anything more. You'll have to keep out of sight when we get closer. They might recognize you, soot or no soot.”

They followed the rutted road as it curved around the base of the hill toward the long field. Birds chattered and sang in the trees by the roadside, but the sun had not yet begun to warm the air.
As they came within sight of the field, Miles stopped dead in the long shadow of a poplar tree. The red and black tent was nowhere to be seen, and the trucks and wagons of the strange circus had packed up in the night, as silently and unexpectedly as they had arrived. Not a hoop or a bucket or a rusty peg remained. A large oval patch of trampled ground was all the evidence that was left of the Circus Oscuro—that and the tangle of wheel ruts that curved from the field and out along the road toward the mountains.

“They've gone,” said Miles. He turned to look at Little, but she was staring at the tree where the elephants had been tethered the morning before. Her face, if it were possible, looked even whiter than usual. Miles followed her gaze. For a moment he could see nothing, then he became aware of a figure standing in the shadow of the tree. Although he could not make out any features, nor even if it was a man or a woman, he was sure the figure was staring straight at them.

“I'll go and ask him,” said Miles, “or her. Maybe they know where the circus has gone.”

Little grabbed his arm, and though she was light as a feather her grip was painfully tight.

“No,” she said urgently, “let's go.” She pulled him
by the elbow, turning in the direction of the disappearing wheel ruts.

“Wait,” said Miles. The figure under the tree seemed to be moving toward them. He felt a strong urge to see the person's face, which still seemed indistinct. It was not that the distance between them was great, but his eyes felt heavy and he found it strangely difficult to focus.

“Stay awake!” hissed Little, pinching his arm so tightly now that he tried to pull himself free of her grip. “Please, Miles.” She seemed on the point of tears, and he looked at her in surprise. “Come with me, now,” she pleaded.

He began to walk slowly along the road. He suddenly felt as though he had not slept for a year. “Walk faster,” urged Little. He turned to look over his shoulder, and again she pinched him hard. “Don't look back,” she said. “Just keep walking.”

Miles forced his leaden legs to keep pace with Little, and they walked quickly and silently toward the distant mountains. A cart passed them on its way into town with the muffled clanking of full milk churns, and Miles could no longer resist the temptation to look back the way they had come, but the figure was no longer anywhere to be seen.

 

In the shortening shadows of the late morning, Miles and Little walked along the center of the road, farther from the town of Larde than Miles had ever been before. They had followed the muddy tracks of the circus wagons until they faded into the road, and continued walking, with no plan left to them but to find the circus wherever it stopped next. Besides, as Miles had pointed out, the road followed the train tracks, more or less, which must lead eventually to the Palace of Laughter.

As they walked, Miles thought about the figure they had seen in the circus field. Little, who seemed incapable of remaining upset or anxious for long, was laughing at the chattering of the birds in the hedgerows, and he felt almost reluctant to bring the subject up, but his curiosity would not leave him alone. The tiredness he had felt had melted away, leaving only the ache of his feet in their cracked boots.

“Who was that, back there in the field?” he asked.

Little fell silent for a minute before answering. “Someone I thought I recognized,” she said.

“Someone from the circus?”

Little shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “It was better not to risk it.” She gave him a sidelong glance, then turned her eyes quickly back to the road.

“Look,” she said, pointing ahead of them. “There's a river crossing the road.”

Miles shaded his eyes and looked where she was pointing. He knew she was not telling him all she knew, but it was obvious she wanted to change the subject, and he did not see any point in pressing her further. He shook his head. “That's just a mirage,” he said.

“A mirage?”

“Lady Partridge explained them to me. It looks like water, but it's just the hot air bending the light.”

Little laughed. “It looks like water because it is water,” she said. She sounded so convinced that Miles almost expected to find himself shortly wading through a stream, but when they reached the slight rise where the mirage had appeared, the road was dry.

“See?” said Miles. “Dry as a dragon's tongue. The water was just an illusion.”

“The water was here, and it still is,” insisted Little. “It just doesn't want to be seen.”

“If you say so, Little,” he said, but she had picked up a praying mantis and was staring into its green bug eyes as it perched grandly on her outstretched finger, the subject of disappearing water already forgotten.

Around midday they arrived at a small hamlet, little more than a cluster of farms and a small village square with a row of shops and a tiny church. A sign by the side of the road said?
WELCOME TO HAY
.
POP
. 481.
TWINNED WITH CARTHAGE
. At the far end of the square stood a rambling inn with benches and tables outside. The inn was called the Surly Hen, and it appeared to have been built over several generations by owners with very different notions of what an inn should look like. The main part had two steeply pitched roofs rising to sharp points, with leaded windows set into white plastered walls that were divided into neat shapes by a web of black beams. Growing out of that was a low, small-windowed extension, roofed with an untidy thatch that looked like it needed a haircut. There were several other additions ranging in style from mock Gothic to simply indescribable.

The long tables outside the inn were crowded with local farmers and travelers at lunch, shoveling chunks of bread and sausage into their stubbly faces and washing them down with pitchers of dark wine. Miles looked at them curiously. An air of resigned misery seemed to surround them like a fog, and hardly a word was spoken as they ate. Two small girls chased each other among the tables,
laughing, but no one paid them any attention. At the nearest table sat a stocky man in a shapeless hat, and a plump woman with several chins. They had a large feed spread out on the rough boards before them, and they were working their way through it with a kind of sad vigor. A half-demolished pie sat in front of each of them, and with a large forkful of steak and pastry on its way into her mouth it looked like Mrs. Farmer was ahead in that particular race. Between them on the table sat a basket piled with crusty bread, and a bowl of green olives that Mr. Farmer was tossing in handfuls between his thin lips after every mouthful of pie. Two plates of sausage were all but done for.

Miles felt a yawning cavern in his stomach at the sight of all this food. His morning bowl of hot porridge seemed a lifetime ago. Mrs. Farmer caught sight of him standing in the road, transfixed at the sight of her enormous lunch. She stared sadly at him for a moment, then returned her attention to her food. As Miles contemplated the best way to get himself and Little fed, without so much as a brass penny between them, the landlady of the inn bustled out among the tables. By contrast to her customers she wore a broad grin, and sang snatches of some tune that must have sounded considerably
better in its original form, or it would have been strangled at birth.

She planted her tray on the end of Mr. and Mrs. Farmer's table. “Now, ducks,” she said happily. “One jug of wine and a bottle of Tau-Tau's.” She took from her pocket a small bottle with a bright green label, which she uncorked and emptied into an earthenware wine jug. She picked the jug up, swirled its contents around for a moment, then slopped a generous measure into two glass tumblers, which she plonked on the table. The farmer and his wife picked the glasses up greedily and emptied the contents in unison. The farmer refilled them at once.