The Book of Speculation: A Novel

In the wood among the branches, Amos divested himself of shoes. His bare feet welcomed the ground, toes digging into loam. His coat followed, discarded on a briar, then the tattered neck cloth and shirt were gone, until only skin separated Amos and the forest. It was curious to see how pale his body had grown under years of clothing. His deep brown hands looked like they belonged to another person. He walked for hours, scrambling and climbing. He held on to the piece of ribbon, winding it around his thumb, petting it. He picked his way over tree roots and stones, toe to heel, silent. Where three high rocks clustered, forming a small peak, he stopped. Rippling indicated a nearby stream, and in its sound he heard whispers of Evangeline. You are home. I am your home.

He scaled the boulders, feet digging for purchase in craggy ledges, fingertips hooking into crevasses until he perched atop the tallest rock. His breathing slowed as he came to rest. He sat as he had in the days before Evangeline, Ryzhkova, or Peabody, in the days when he’d crept into the house where he’d been born. The sun began its descent, making long shadows. A short huffing owl call echoed off the rocks. He sat. Amos’s shadow mixed with the trees and bushes, shades black as her hair. His breath slowed further until it became that of the world around him—a low breeze, nothing more. He became a part of the woods and the air, and lines defining beginnings and ends softened. Then the sorrow stopped. One moment a young man sat atop an outcropping of boulders, the next he was gone.

*

In coming days Melina found Amos’s clothing and the ribbon from Evangeline’s dress. She offered them to Peabody, who abruptly ordered them destroyed. Though Melina told him it was done, she stowed them in a traveling trunk for Bess once she grew older. It should not be as if they had never been. Every child needed to know her parents.

Peabody cared for Bess as his own. He doted on her and began to think of her as the crowning achievement of his years of captaining the menagerie. He ensured that she was taught to swim. Bess took to the water as if made from it. He delighted to see that the girl had a remarkable capacity to hold her breath. In evenings he began sketching plans. Alongside columns of figures, a diving tank took shape in brown ink. Glass. If only they could manage glass. Bess’s hair grew long and black like her mother’s. Her eyes stayed wide like Amos’s.

At her fifth birthday he presented her with a lacquered box adorned with intricately painted figures—a prince and a firebird.

“Bess, my little starling,” he rumbled as she worked to open its lid. “These cards are most special; they belonged to your father, a wonderful man, and in them are the keys to all the world. It is time you were instructed. I’ve heard from my son, Zachary. Our friend Benno has found you a guide. Her name is Katya, and she is the daughter of your father’s teacher.”

Bess’s soft fingers touched the orange deck, flipping over the first card. Lightning and flames—a broken sky. The Tower.





29

JULY 24TH


With morning comes pounding. We survived the night. Alice is at the front door, knocking on the glass with her forearm. She is in tall green rubber boots, practical as ever.

Enola rouses when I shake her. She smacks Doyle awake.

“Come on,” I say. “Help me move the coats so we can let Alice in.”

“She’s here? I thought we were leaving her the keys.”

“She probably just wanted to check in.” We move the chairs and throw the coats and sweaters aside, each landing with a saturated thud on the wet carpet. Outside, Alice is bouncing on her toes. Something is very wrong. We open the door.

“Oh God,” she says. “It flooded in here? How bad is it?”

The books. Of course, she’s here for the books. I didn’t know I’d wanted her worried about me until I’d been supplanted by books. “Downstairs got the worst of it. I kept whatever I could dry. I stopped the back door, but there wasn’t much we could do. I’m sorry. The whaling archive is safe, though.”

“Of course it is. In the archive we trust.” The words are joyless. She looks me up and down. “Are you all right?”

“Sure,” I say. Then her arms are around me in a quick hug, warm and good. She’s still in her pajama bottoms. “Are you okay?”

She takes a breath and holds it. In middle school the girls used to have contests to see who could hold their breath the longest; Alice once held it until she fainted. Her words shoot out all at once. “You have to come with me. Your house is going over and you need to get whatever you can out of it now.”

She says something else, but I can’t hear it because Enola is saying, “Shit, shit, shit.”

“It’s bad?” I ask.

“It’s bad. The roads are still flooded. My dad told me to get you. He kept calling and calling, and I didn’t want to pick up but I thought it could be my mother.” She tugs on her hair, wringing it out. “I’m really sorry. Look, I brought the truck. If you follow me I’ll take you back where the roads are good. You can put anything from the house in the truck.”

The water is more than ankle deep through the lot. We pile into my car and slowly move through the flooding, with Alice leading in Frank’s flatbed. She must have picked it up from him, which means she’s seen the house. She leads us nearly to the center of the island. Port must still be closed off.

Enola continues quietly swearing.