The Book of Speculation: A Novel

“I’ve spent twelve years of my life in reference doing nothing but properly exploring facts. I have obituaries—my mother’s, my grandmother’s, her grandmother’s. I’ve gone all the way back to 1816. I have facts and reliable texts, enough that at this point for my sake—for my sister’s sake—I think I’ve earned a little leeway to speculate.”


A woman’s voice is in the background. The much-spoken-of Marie. Churchwarry tells her that he’ll be a minute. There’s a warmth in his words, a warmth that says his house, his shop, his person, is filled with traces of her. Alice has left a tiny scrape of sand near the door, dusting from a sandal, but that is all.

“I’m sorry,” Churchwarry says. “I suppose I expected a more cheerful outcome. In the past when I’ve gifted books to strangers it’s always been a positive experience and even earned me a customer or two. I was hoping for a bit of happy providence and now I can’t help thinking I’ve opened Pandora’s box.”

And I can’t help but feel I’ve invited him into sadness, a genuinely nice man who knew nothing about drowning women and the tragedy that was growing up a Watson. “My family is a little dark,” I say. “But even Pandora’s box had hope.”





16


Though Burlington, New Jersey, was bustling and an excellent place to restock, it was not expected to be a financial boon. “Friends,” Peabody muttered while writing. “Fiscally responsible teetotalers. A difficult lot for any showman.” Amos’s brows raised in question. “The Quakers, my boy. Fine persons with whom to conduct business, but they do not indulge. How I wish purse strings were not so reliant upon the flow of liquor. You’ll find your work with Madame Ryzhkova to be lighter here than you’re accustomed. Perhaps you’ll enjoy a rest. Spend a bit of time with our mermaid, yes?” In his book, next to Burlington, Peabody had written, Witch trials here before war. Shall take care with Amos.

Peabody’s words proved accurate. For the first time in many months Amos was at loose ends. There was still work to be done, supplies to be purchased, horses to be reshod, smudge-charred cloth to be replaced, all of which Burlington could provide. Amos liked Burlington. A patchwork of buildings ran along High Street, some brick and peaked like New Castle, others wood with squared barnlike roofs. There was also a firehouse with a towering steeple almost like a church. A mix of people filled the streets; dark-skinned men walked freely here—Amos had even spied one working in a bakery. Wandering the town, he began to picture a small house, brick perhaps, with a chimney, and a bed that didn’t rattle over wagon ruts, a place he might share.

He’d been helping Meixel haul feed sacks—a bit of white ribbon tucked away in his pocket for Evangeline—when Madame Ryzhkova snatched his ear and twisted it painfully. “Come,” she barked. Amos’s face turned hot at Meixel’s laughter.

The seer pulled him into the wagon with such ferocity that he tore his pant leg on an exposed nail. As Ryzhkova berated him, he worried the frayed threads with his thumb, comparing their softness to Evangeline’s hair.

The angrier Ryzhkova became, the harder it was to glean her meaning; she slipped into the other language, clunking syllables like falling rocks. He knew she railed about Evangeline. Ryzhkova waved the cards at him, disgust carving deep lines in her face. It was too much to see Evangeline and not touch her, not talk with her, but he’d known that they’d become reckless, and suspected they’d been seen trading kisses. Ryzhkova knew. Her skin grew mottled and purple, and Amos became afraid, for himself and for his teacher; bodies were not meant to work in such a way. He took her hand, brown fingers closing around the cards and her crooked knuckles.

At his touch Ryzhkova’s voice dropped to a whisper. Amos felt the portraits watching, begging him to listen. When he looked in her eyes he found them tired and sad.

Amos had learned much from Evangeline, how a smile did not always mean happiness, that crying might mean sadness or joy, and that women could be much comforted by an embrace. He put his arms around Ryzhkova, resting his cheek by her breastbone in the curved space where women held their children.

She cried upon him, her words weaving an incantation. “My son.” My son, my son, my son. She spoke of worry, how she could not bear another loss. She knew Evangeline was this thing, Rusalka. If he was a good boy, if he was smart as she knew him to be, he would listen. My son, my son. She told him his lies mattered little, but he must stay safe. She could forgive him anything except losing his life. My son. She’d read him in her cards, had known she’d find him, she’d given him the name meant for a son of her flesh.