Wicked Ever After (A Blud Novel Book 7) (5 page)

She jerked away and scooted back on the bench. I’d been close enough to lean my head on her shoulder, but now she was looking at me as if she’d bite me for trying. “Hide? Just to make some small-minded idiots feel safe? Sugar, that’s not how I’m going to live my life here. If this is what I am, and if this is what saved my life, then I’m damned well going to be proud of it.”

“Damn straight,” Catarrh said, and Quincy gave an embarrassingly bad salute.

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t be proud. I’m just saying that you don’t need to go looking for trouble. If gloves and a tie allow you to have a wonderful night at the circus, I really don’t see a problem.”

My grandmother rolled her eyes to the ceiling as if asking Jesus for help, but when she turned her kohl-rimmed eyes on me, smoothed back her bob, and licked her fangs, she looked more like a creature straight out of hell.

“Look, sugar. If there’s one thing I learned in eighty-six years on Earth, it’s that you got to start standing up for what you believe early on, or else you get in the habit of doing what’s easy, of going along just to get along. I got a chance to start over from scratch. New person, new body, new world. You’re the only one from Earth who knows me here, and I find that I don’t so much care what you think anymore.”

My eyes burned. “What are you saying, Nana?”

She shook her head, hard. “I told you. Don’t call me that. Your grandfather came up with that because that’s what he called his grandmother, and I always hated it. I wanted to be Gigi or Mimi, something sweet and sassy. Nana just sounds like banana, like that dang dog from
Peter Pan
. What I’m saying here is that my name is Ruby, and I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be the same person I was. I’m going to be me. I’m going to be Ruby.” I must have looked pretty horrified, because she tried on her old, sweet smile and cupped my cheek. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, sugar. Tish. Honey. It just means that you’re going to have to accept that I’m not the world-weary, exhausted old lady you got used to bossing around and drugging at night.”

“Nana, I—”

She let go of my cheek, and I put my hand there as if hunting for something long gone. “It’s okay. I know it was for my own good—that’s why I never said anything. Seemed to make you feel better when I got me some sleep. I did have some peculiar dreams, though.” She shook her head. “Something about this place is so familiar. The way the air smells. Did you ever think we’re maybe just dreaming? Or that this is heaven?”

That set my lips tight together. “It’s not heaven. I’ve seen too many bad things here. It’s real. I used to go back and forth, but now I’m stuck here.”

“There! That right there.” She pointed at my mouth in triumph. “ ‘Stuck here.’ How can you say that? You got so much more than you ever had on Earth. All that history, all those mistakes—gone. Jeff never existed here, and you never let yourself give up your life for that bastard. You got your own caravan, a good man. I can’t figure out why you’d ever choose to go back there.”

There.

She was already thinking of it as . . . a bad dream. This thing that happened.

The tears came then, hot and fast. My chest was full, my jaw aching. “I went back for you, Nana,” I said softly. “No, that’s not right. You’re not my Nana. I went back for
her
. Not you. You’re Ruby. And I left all this to make sure the woman you used to be didn’t have to die alone. Do you know what that’s like? Never knowing when it’s going to happen, when another plate is going to fall? It killed me! But I did it, always hoping for some sort of miracle.”

She caught my wobbling chin in firm fingers tipped with claws. “And you got that miracle,” she said softly. “I’m starting over. You should, too. I love you, honey. But not enough to give up my freedom again. Not for you. Not for anyone.”

“Do you even care? Do you care about me at all? About what I did for you?”

Her eyes looked deep into mine, and it was like seeing a different version of myself through a fun-house mirror. Those were my dark-blue eyes, but they glittered madly and had no wrinkles, no crow’s-feet, no purple smudges. That was my nose, my cheekbones. The hair was different, a bright auburn chestnut instead of my dark brown, but everything else was like seeing a doctored photograph. Just as I had once been a better, younger, more refined version of her, now she was an improvement on what I’d become.

“Oh, sugar.” She dropped my chin, stood on the bench, hopped onto the table to get around me, and landed on the floor with more energy and grace than I’d ever seen in an octogenarian. “I care. I’m grateful. But we don’t need those kinds of ties between us anymore, weighing us down. I guess you never thanked me for giving birth to your mama, but I did it anyway, and here you are. Let’s just move on.”

“Move on?” The tears had turned to rage at whatever this . . . thing was. This creature my grandmother had become. I didn’t see love and affection in her eyes, that proud warmth she used to exude when she saw me. We were strangers. And it was unbearable. “How can I move on when my grandmother doesn’t love me anymore?”

Catarrh and Quincy were openly laughing, and everyone in the dining car was staring at us. I stood, just so we’d be on equal ground. My old, failing hips popped with a crack in the silence, reminding me that even though I was only thirty-two, I felt, looked, and acted like a fussy old lady. My hands were in fists, but Ruby just crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at me.

“Love isn’t a debt. We’re even, sugar. I gave life to your mother, and now your man gave me a new life. I like you fine, I just don’t want to be your pet grandma, dragged around on a leash. I got to find myself on my own. I got plans.”

“We’re not even. You have no
idea
what I’ve given up for you! Years of my life here, my body, whatever beauty I had. I don’t want a pet grandmother; I want a friend. You owe me that much. And you never even said thank you.”

She considered me, bit the inside of her cheek the way she’d always done when she was thinking hard about something that wasn’t easy. I’d seen her do it a million times in the Piggly Wiggly, her hand hovering over the cart as she decided what had to be put back to stay on budget.

“Thank you, Letitia.” It came out formal and cold, as if she had become the willful child and I the foolish old woman who demanded undeserved respect. “I’ll find a way to make it up to you. Just don’t hate me too much.”

My head fell forward as the tears came back. “I don’t hate you. I just miss you.”

“You never knew me,” she said, and the door slammed behind her.

5

Dressed in a
Bludwoman’s low-cut gown and wearing a hideous mauve turban, I rearranged the phony props in my fortune-telling booth for the hundredth time, shining a spot on my crystal ball and fanning out the tarot cards in a perfect arc. As Criminy’s wife, I had to put in my time working in the caravan or suffer horrible gossip and social ignominy. Last night, I’d had a hissy fit in line and run off to another planet, so tonight’s performance was not up for discussion. I kept waiting to see Ruby among the carnivalleros or maybe wading through the moor grass to investigate her first magical night at the caravan, but thus far I hadn’t even caught a glimpse of her, not since she’d stormed away.

Far across the field, the bus-tanks vomited forth their city-dwelling occupants, and I took deep breaths and rubbed my hands, glad at least that there were no germs in Sang, as I’d be handling the flesh and coin of hundreds of strangers tonight. The props were fake, but my ability to see truth when touching people was one hundred percent real.

Soon I was utterly surrounded by the crowd, unable to hunt for a dapper auburn-haired Bludwoman as I gave out fortunes cheerful and bleak, boring and tragic. One woman who seemed no older than I looked would die within the week of what Sang physicians would call an apoplexy, but there was nothing I could do to prevent it. Her aging heart would give out, and she would fall to the cobbles in an alley while tossing out scraps to the bludrats.

“Try to stay inside,” I said with a pasted-on smile. “And treat yourself this week. You deserve it. Your family will see a windfall soon, so spare no expense.”

The windfall, of course, was her inheritance, but she wouldn’t be around to enjoy it. She might as well use it up while she could, and it made me feel unbearably sad as she pressed gloved fingers to her chest, dimpling with pleasure as she swore she’d finally buy that bonnet she’d been coveting.

As a fresh-faced girl settled across from me, cheeks rosy with youth and daring, I felt as wrinkled and useless as an old apple.

“Stay away from black horses,” I warned her. “And boys with blue eyes who promise you rings.”

But my heart wasn’t in it. The only futures I cared about right now were mine and Ruby’s, and I didn’t even know if they would be entwined. I looked over the top of the girl’s huge hat for my Nana but saw only an endless line of frail humans waiting for tragic ends and impossible windfalls in their easily bruised, easily broken bodies.

As the young girl left, replaced with a blue-eyed cad whose gaze followed her bustle a little too closely, something tugged on the hem of my skirt. It was Pemberly, Criminy’s pet clockwork monkey, her tiny green fez askew. A curl of paper clicked out of her mouth, and I pulled it out to read it.

Torno missing. Any information?

With a hiss of breath, I reached for a plumed pen and scribbled on the back:
Did not see anything bad when glanced 6 years ago. Have not seen tonight. What do we do?
The monkey’s copper paw clicked around the paper, and she skittered away into the crowd to find her master.

Perhaps it was uncharitable, but the first thought that entered my head was that perhaps my grandmother, newly bludded and hungry, had chosen the largest creature in the caravan as her first kill. My second thought was that even if she’d caught our strong man unaware, the ensuing fight between a starving predator and the biggest, strongest, most heavily muscled man I’d seen in six years in Sang would have attracted plenty of attention and probably become the most popular attraction at the caravan.

But Torno, for all his might, was a kind and tragic soul, the sort of man who would probably hold my grandmother up by her ankles and politely ask if she needed a teacup of blood from the dining car while her jaws snapped on air. Thinking back, I hadn’t seen him all day, but that was perfectly normal in the caravan. Until the crowd arrived, each performer’s time was his or her own, and thanks to my grandmother, I hadn’t been in the dining car for the usual company meals. Torno the gentle giant being absent during the show? I’d never seen it happen, not in six years with the caravan. Even Eblick the lizard boy took yearly vacations, but Torno was a constant. When I’d glanced on him, I’d seen only his tragic past and a possible incident with Catarrh and Quincy. Which had to mean he was fine, right?

I grew more and more agitated, omitting the theatrical flourishes of my act and giving each person the bare minimum. My tips were pathetic, but what did I care? No one looked at old hags, so it wasn’t as if a new gown or hat bought with my earnings would change anything. I was basically a kept woman, my needs covered by the caravan’s room and board—and her master’s undying sweetness. If everyone in my line had given up and left to see the other acts, I wouldn’t have minded, but a true glancer was so rare that they would accept a muttered sentence of unpleasant truth if that was all I grimly offered. I bravely soldiered on.

After Pemberly had finally shooed away the last lingering customers with a monkey-sized umbrella, I stood and stretched, my back and hips cracking in a dozen places. The caravan always felt so empty at night, once the crowds shuffled back onto their bus-tanks and trundled toward their cities. Gaily striped cups rimmed in cocoa and fluffy balls of dropped popcorn danced over the trampled grass, caught in the same soft breeze that ruffled my graying hair and made the strings of lights sway gently against star-strewn skies. I was startled as a velvety red bludsquirrel darted out of the high grasses to grab half a wrappy sadly dropped on the ground. In the cities, the small beast was considered a dangerous pest hell-bent on draining innocent humans, but out on the moors, it was just a comical furball with an oversized fuzzy tail struggling with a chunk of sandwich. Thanks to enterprising creatures like him, we never had to hire a janitor. All trash, big and small, just . . . disappeared.

“You get ’em, buddy,” I said. In response, it dropped the wrappy and chittered through snake fangs before snatching it back up and disappearing into the darkness.

I usually loved this time of night, loved waiting for Criminy to come find me and carry me, laughing, to our wagon. But with Torno missing and my grandmother strange and predatory, I felt off-kilter and trapped in a way I hadn’t for years in Sang, not since Jonah Goodwill had stolen the necklace that let me pass between worlds.

When Crim didn’t arrive with his usual flair to escort me to our wagon, I walked around the outside of the caravan train’s large circle by myself, passing empty acts and gaudily painted sets. Everyone was gone, and a shiver arced up my spine as a pair of bludbunnies tumbled out of the high weeds just beyond the bright lights, fighting over a bit of pink flesh. I hurried around to the striped backdrop where Torno’s weights and blocks were arrayed and wasn’t surprised to find most of the caravan gathered around the ringmaster. Up front, of course, was Emerlie in her lime-green tutu, with Charlie Dregs the Bludman puppeteer almost close enough to put a hand against her back. The denizens of the freak tent huddled together, many of them new: Patrick the human pincushion; a young, heavily tattooed Bludman named Peter with a thick beard and a huge curling mustache; Zazu the mermaid; and a very unfortunate fellow named Murgatroyd with a horrible case of elephantiasis. Veruca the Abyssinian sword swallower and Eblick the lizard boy were aloof on the outskirts, as always, alone even among their fellow freaks.

The crowd parted. Abilene the bearded lady edged away from Catarrh and Quincy as our artificer, Mr. Murdoch, hurried to the door of Torno’s wagon with a magnifying glass in hand and his goggles pulled down over serious eyes. Scurrying beside him, his wife,
Imogen, still wore the scarlet and black Monarch costume
that matched her butterfly circus as she flipped through a book, looking for answers. On the periphery, the knife thrower, Marco, paced nervously, a dagger held between his fingertips and his unnaturally violet eyes watching the moors with suspicion as if Torno’s kidnapper or killer might appear at any time and require skewering.

Marco’s girlfriend,
Jacinda, walked up to me, her journalist’s notebook at the ready
. “As a glancer, Tish, you’ve surely seen a glimpse of Torno’s future. How did he die?”

I rolled my eyes and patted her shoulder. “If I knew, I would’ve mentioned it by now. I only saw his past and one incident that we were able to prevent. It happens that way sometimes. There’s no rhyme or reason. Doesn’t mean he’s dead.”

“Scuttlebutt says the last carnivallero to disappear from this circus was
a tattooed girl named Lydia
. Do you know where she went?”

I went cold and pinned her with my glare. “We don’t talk about it. Charlie Dregs buried her. The bludding didn’t take—it was messy. That was before my time. And she wasn’t the last to disappear.”

Before she could shoot her next question with the cool aim of Marco’s knives, I pushed through the throng to Criminy, who stood in Torno’s open door.

“No sign of struggle. Looks like he may have packed a bag.” Crim’s grin quirked up, just a little. “His mustache wax is gone, which tells me he had some say in the leaving, at least.”

He held out his hand, and I let him pull me into Torno’s wagon and shut the door on the curious onlookers. I’d never been in here before; most of the carnivalleros were fiercely protective of their only private space. Torno shared his wagon with Eblick, but they were fortunate to have a carriage that was divided on the outside, like a duplex. Inside, the room was as tidy, spare, and masculine as Torno himself: sturdy wooden furniture, a coat rack, a few pinned-up posters of Italian strong men of old who looked suspiciously like past generations of Torno.

Criminy walked to the bed and flipped up the edge of the bed skirt to show me where the dust on the floor was disturbed in exactly the shape of a suitcase.

“That’s not like him,” I murmured. “Leaving without giving you notice.”

“Which tells us something unusual has happened.”

I stepped back to the doorway and looked through the peephole at the whispering crowd waiting beyond.

“And no one knows anything at all?”

“You’re the glancer, love. They figure that between your magical powers and my general sovereignty, we know everything.” He sighed and knelt to run a finger over a tiny dot on the worn wooden board. When he stood, he held it out.

I sniffed. Blood.

Criminy put his tongue to the red smear on his glove. “It’s not Torno’s, oddly enough.”

“So Torno . . . killed someone in a fit of passion and ran away?”

He didn’t even try to smother his bark of laughter. “You should’ve been a penny-dreadful novelist, love. That’s downright dastardly. Doesn’t seem like our Torno—same fellow who once found a crippled baby bludrabbit and nursed it back to health. Remember how surprised he was when it bit him? If you didn’t see him kill anyone in your glancing, is there a chance Ruby might’ve touched him and seen it? New glancers often wish to try out their powers, whether by stealth or for coppers.”

“I haven’t seen her. We argued. I thought maybe she had . . .” I tilted my head toward the floor, where the drop of blood had been.

“Such a deliciously diabolical mind.” He pulled me close and kissed my forehead, and my boot skidded on something. There were worse places to fall than into Criminy Stain’s arms.

Bending down, I held up the culprit. A pin. Beside it, another, nestled between the wood boards.

“Pins? This would make more sense if he’d had the good sense to kill Emerlie in the costume wagon,” Crim said, holding up the slender bit of metal.

“Just our luck he didn’t,” I muttered.

His answering chuckle was balm to my soul. At least Crim still liked me well enough.

I walked to the wall, put a hand to an empty space between “Luigi the Strong Man” and “Mario the Magnificent.” The blue-striped wallpaper was dotted with tiny holes. “Did he have . . . a map here?”

Crim joined me, cocking his head and pointing. “I think you might be right, love. If this was Sangland and this the mainland, the pinholes would mark all the places we’ve stopped over the years. See how many of them are clustered on London? Here’s Manchester and Glasgow. And this would be Paris, where we visited the cabarets. And here’s Italia, where he’s from.”

“So he took a suitcase and this map. Which means he’s . . . somewhere in this hemisphere. Grand.”

With a deep breath, Criminy went from amused, doting husband to whip-wielding ringmaster. He threw open Torno’s door and stood on the top step, arms crossed. “Torno is missing. Everyone visit your wagon and see if anything was taken or if anyone else is gone. Report anything unusual to me directly.”

“Is he—” Emerlie started, but Criminy cut her off with a hand.

“We don’t know. As of now, we don’t suspect foul play. See what you can find.”

As the crowd turned to go, I put a hand on Crim’s arm and whispered, “Can you ask them about Nana?”

“Oh, and if you should see a Bludwoman in a frilly pink dress—”

“In a gentleman’s suit,” I interrupted.

“In a gentleman’s suit.” Crim tried not to break his stern face. “Do send her along to my wagon. She’s my gran-in-law, and she’s also missing. Good night.”