The Story of Cirrus Flux (3 page)

“I confess that, even now, he is most likely running off in the fields, causing trouble,” the Governor said. “Indeed, we’ve had a most difficult time placing him with a master.”

“Which is precisely why I have come for him now,” said the woman. Her eyes narrowed. “To offer him a position. A trade.”

Mr. Chalfont said nothing. Instead, he gazed into the hearth and, with a casual flick of his fingers, dropped the letter into the flames. The paper flared for a moment, then curled into a tight crimson fist.

The woman, in the meantime, stepped over to an ornate table clock.

“You do know who I am?” she remarked, removing the casing and inspecting the dial.

Mr. Chalfont inclined his head. “Of course, Mrs. Orrery.”

“Madame
Orrery,” said the woman sharply. “Of the Guild of Empirical Science.”

The man glanced up.

“Of the Guild of Empirical Science,” she said again. “Do not think for a moment, Mr. Chalfont, that my origins—or my humble sex—should ever thwart me. I am accustomed to getting what I want.”

“I was under no such illusion,” the man murmured to himself, averting his face so that only Pandora, listening very carefully, could hear. He began to fumble with the ends of his lace jabot, which was knotted round his neck.

“Yet even so, Madame Orrery,” he continued, “I am afraid you seek the impossible. You see, here at the Foundling Hospital, we endeavor whenever possible to apprentice young boys to masters, not mistresses, and Cirrus”—his eyes darted this time to a side door, as though he wished he, too, could escape—“Cirrus is not like other foundlings. His is a special case. His circumstances were …
are …
exceptional.”

Mr. Chalfont almost choked on his choice of words, and his meager smile came slightly unraveled.

Madame Orrery studied the man closely for a moment, her powdered face pinched with suspicion. Then, pursing her lips, she calmly extended a hand, which was dominated by a large oval ring. She smoothed her fingers over its flat, moon-colored surface and somehow retrieved a miniature key from its secret compartment.

“I knew his father,” she said softly, her words shivering in the air before melting into silence.

Mr. Chalfont turned pale. “I see,” he said, mopping his brow with a large linen handkerchief and sinking into the arms of a waiting chair. “I do not suppose he is … still alive?”

Pandora did not hear the response. Like most foundlings, she longed to know where she had come from, exactly who her parents had been, and at the mention of the boy’s father
she had plunged her hand deep into her apron pocket, past the loop of keys, searching for the scrap of fabric she always carried with her. A patch of pink cloth with a single word embroidered across its front:

It was the only memento she possessed of her mother, a token of remembrance she had found in the Governor’s study and taken without permission. She studied its gold lettering carefully, trying to draw solace from its simple message.

When at last she looked up, Mr. Chalfont was squirming in his chair. The woman had withdrawn a delicate silver object from the folds of her gown and was winding it very slowly, using her tiny key, all the while staring intently into the man’s face. A pocket watch. Pandora could hear the instrument whirring and ticking, spinning time.

“Yet, even so, Madame Orrery,” she heard Mr. Chalfont repeat feebly, “Cirrus is a special case. His circumstances are exceptional.”

He ground to a halt, too tired—or else too dejected—to continue.

A sudden rap on the door caused them to turn round.

Madame Orrery snapped the watchcase shut and returned it to a pocket, while the Governor glanced up, bleary-eyed and confused.

“Yes, what is it?” he said as a stout, middle-aged woman looked in.

“Begging your pardon,” said the woman with a curtsy, “but there’s a gentleman to see you, sir. Come about a child.”

“Good, good. Show him to the waiting room,” said Mr. Chalfont. “I’ll be with him shortly.”

“As you wish, sir,” said the woman, giving Madame Orrery a suspicious stare. “Are you all right, sir? You look a bit peaky.”

“Yes, yes, never better,” said Mr. Chalfont, blinking hard. “Just a twinge of the old gout, I’m afraid.” He smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Kickshaw. That will be all.”

“Yes, sir,” said Mrs. Kickshaw, with another curtsy, and closed the door.

Madame Orrery stood for a moment before the fire and then turned to face the Governor. “Are you certain there is nothing I can do to change your mind?” she said. “About the boy …”

Mr. Chalfont held up his hands apologetically, but shook his head.

“Very well,” said Madame Orrery. “I shall not test your patience further, Mr. Chalfont. Good day.”

She moved toward the door.

Mr. Chalfont appeared to have wakened from a disagreeable dream. He blustered to his feet.

“Madame Orrery,” he gasped, rushing to detain her, “if you merely seek a child to assist you in your work, then why not consider one of our other foundlings?”

He crooked his arm round her ruffled sleeve and escorted her back toward the fire. “We have female children—girls,
even,” he said, his tongue tripping over itself in an attempt to make himself useful. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to consider one of these? We are always eager to place them.”

The woman paused. “A girl?” she said, as if tasting the foreign flavor of the word.

“Very obedient girls,” said Mr. Chalfont, regaining some of his composure. He leaned back on his heels and revealed the full globelike girth of his belly. “Trained in sewing and cleaning and general housekeeping,” he continued, unable to stop. “Indeed, we have several in need of employment, ranging in age from ten to—”

“Enough!” said Madame Orrery.

Mr. Chalfont held his tongue and gazed down at the floor like a scolded dog, the hopeful expression on his face wavering just a little.

Madame Orrery considered him for a moment and then said, “Thank you, Mr. Chalfont. That is an agreeable suggestion.”

Her eyes searched the room and a thin smile spread across her face like a ray of sunlight on a very cold day.

“If you do not mind, I think I shall take the girl hiding behind the curtain.”

Blackguards!

“D
on’t look like no head to me,” grumbled Bottle Top as he and Cirrus reached the Gallows Tree. They tore off their matching brown woolen jackets, tossed them in a heap on the ground and stared up at the dark, interlacing branches. The clump of shadow was clearly a nest of some kind: a messy bundle of sticks and twigs, patched together with mud.

“What d’you suppose built it?” wondered Cirrus aloud, scratching at the flea bites on his neck. “It’s too large for a rook.”

“Dunno,” said Bottle Top, “but I can find out.”

He peeled off his shoes and stockings, tucked his shirt into his breeches and approached the Gallows Tree. The ancient oak had once been struck by lightning, and a cindery smell still clung to it like a shadow.

“Here, tip us a hand,” he said, placing a grubby foot
against the trunk, which was thick and knotted and scaled with green ivy—the only sign of vegetation on the long-dead tree.

Cirrus moved in beside him and helped heave his friend up to a long, sinewy branch.

“That Jonas!” said Bottle Top suddenly. “Thinks he knows everything on account of he can read. Well, I can show him a thing or two!”

With tremendous agility, he pulled himself up to the next-lowest branch and quickly squirreled across to another.

“Never mind Jonas,” said Cirrus, glancing behind him. “It’s Mrs. Kickshaw you ought to be worried about. She’ll start ringing the bell if we’re not back soon.”

“Well, I for one ain’t in no hurry to return,” said Bottle Top, taking a moment to survey the surrounding land. “Did you see the way she was looking at me? Means to duck me in the cold bath, make no mistake.”

Cirrus picked at the scabs of black bark with his fingers but said nothing. He could see dark clouds rolling in from the horizon.

“And she’ll be after you, too,” said Bottle Top, “with them scissors. You mark my word. First sign of a master, she’ll be trying to make you look
persentable.”

Cirrus brushed a hand through his curls, which were growing back in worse waves and tufts than before. He could well remember the last time Mrs. Kickshaw had tried to trim his hair. “Just look at the state of ye!” she’d exclaimed,
chasing him around the kitchen with a pair of barbaric shears. “Face of an angel with the horns of a devil! What’s to become of ye, I’ll never know!” He grimaced at the thought.

“Soon as we’re apprenticed,” continued Bottle Top, clambering further up the tree, “we’ll need never take a cold bath again. There’ll be plenty of hot water and fine clothes and all the food we can eat. We’ll be proper gen’lemen, Cirrus, you wait and see.”

Cirrus felt a warm glow of satisfaction. Unlike the other boys, who were content to be tailors and drapers in the city, he and Bottle Top were going to seek their fortunes abroad, traveling the world and sharing adventures.

“Nor will we have to listen to any more of Jonas’s stories,” said Bottle Top, glancing up at the nest, which was wedged in a fork between branches. “Aaron’s head, my—”

Just then, several crows that had been bickering over a nearby dunghill let out a savage croak and disappeared in the direction of Black Mary’s Hole, a row of thatched huts clustered round a disused well on the far side of the neighboring field. It was, Jonas told them, an area notorious for murderers and thieves.

Cirrus watched them go and then bent down to retrieve a stick that had fallen to the ground. “D’you believe what Jonas says?” he asked, trying to sound as casual as possible. “About Billy Shrike?”

A giggle snaked down from above.

“Are you afraid of him, Timid Flux?”

“No,” said Cirrus, remembering the cloaked figure he had seen the night before. “But suppose—”

“S’pose nothing,” said Bottle Top. “Don’t believe a word Jonas says. A baseborn liar is all he is. No wonder he ain’t yet been apprenticed.”

Cirrus swiped his stick through the air, making it whistle.

“P’rhaps,” he said, unconvinced.

He fingered the little brass medallion he wore on a string round his neck—a disk embossed with the image of a lamb, marking him out as a foundling—and turned to face the hospital. All around it new buildings were beginning to appear, eating away at the surrounding countryside, but the hospital remained as it was: a refuge for unwanted babies.

He ran his eyes along the solid brick ramparts until he spotted the row of windows directly beneath the eaves of the west wing. The boys’ dormitory.
But suppose Jonas was right?
he was tempted to say.
Suppose someone like Billy Shrike had been watching them all along?

Unable to shake off the suspicion, he moved away from the tree and stepped toward the road.

Something crunched underfoot.

He glanced down and noticed a few thin shards of bone strewn on the ground in front of him, in a patch of grass that looked as if it had been recently burned. He knelt down and examined them more closely. The brittle fragments were rolled up in brown peaty parcels—like owl pellets, he thought, only larger. Scattered among them were several pale
gray feathers, so light they almost flew away when he breathed on them. They had a faint orangey tinge, like the fading glow of embers. He brushed one with his hand. The soft downy fluff disintegrated at his touch, leaving a dark residue on his skin. He sniffed his fingers. Ash.

Puzzled, he craned his neck and studied the nest more carefully. “Can you see what’s inside?” he called up to Bottle Top, who was nearing the top of the tree.

“Almost!”

Bottle Top had twined his legs round a slender branch and was inching his way into the canopy. Nearly a head shorter than Cirrus, he was made for climbing and could scale almost anything—including the balusters of the great wooden staircase in the hospital, a stunt that often got him into trouble with the Governor.

As soon as he was on a level with the nest, he reached out and dipped a hand inside.

There was an almighty din from above.