The Book of Speculation: A Novel

He slams the door. Plaster crumbles, leaving a dust shower in his wake. Inching back to the desk is a wobbling balancing trick, and when I get to the chair there’s the distinct feeling that I’ll be here for some time. My face itches. I rub it hard. Lack of sleep is taking its toll.

I spend the next hour and a half bouncing through genealogy websites. At last, a name pops up among a record of marriage ceremonies performed in a Philadelphia church. Among a column of names one sticks out, highlighted in yellow. At the sight of it I gasp. Ryzhkova. Katerina Ryzhkova was wed to a Benno Koenig. Madame Ryzhkova’s daughter and the Koenig from the book. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my research it’s that my parents were the exception, not the rule; circus performers tend to marry each other. I can hear Frank loading and unloading things from his truck, a beaten-up flatbed made of rust. He soon pulls out of the driveway, leaving me to work in silence. Their marriage leads me on a search for children, which does not disappoint. Within two years of marrying, the Koenigs had a daughter, Greta. Greta Koenig proves something of a dead end, turning up no records after 1824. In fact, the Koenigs seem to disappear. I dash off an email to Shoreham’s reference librarian, asking Raina if she wouldn’t mind searching for marriage or death records for Greta Koenig. She has a sweet spot for genealogy, her family being one of the oldest on the east end. On a whim I ask her to search for Greta Ryzhkova as well. Performers can be funny about names; if Ryzhkova was a bigger draw than Koenig, it’s possible Greta went by her mother’s name. I go back to the book. While the portraits almost certainly belonged to the fortune-teller Ryzhkova, the curtains have no purchase record; they appear only in drawings and notes on a cage for a Wild Boy. Nothing indicates how or why any of them would wind up in Frank’s possession and there’s no mention of what caused such substantial damage to the book. I’m missing things, in part due to Enola. All the cards. The Tenets of the Oracle should refresh my memory as to what she destroyed. But The Tenets’ pictures are different, flatter somehow, and less sinister; they read like stained glass, whereas the pictures Enola ruined were a shattered mirror.

Frank returns, his truck rattling as it pulls into the gravel driveway. Before I can hobble to him, he’s already set up a sawhorse on the beach grass that passes for my lawn. I get closer and hear a string of swears. He stops when he sees me. It’s clearly an effort.

“I’ll patch the hole so it’s not gaping.”

“Thanks,” I say. “This may sound strange, but is any of your family Russian? The paintings in your—”

“Stop with that. Just stop,” he says as he grabs a piece of plywood. “You’re like a dog with a damned bone. I don’t know about that stuff, we’ve just always had it.”

I offer to help. He looks at my ankle. I limp back to the house and he stays outside. I’m glad he does. He kicks the sawhorse and swears again, then paces around his truck, picking out tools, putting them back, pausing to look at the house and judge the lean of it. I can’t help but see Alice in him, the way she tips her head when looking at something high up in the stacks. If I don’t take his money I might keep her, but then I’m letting the house go, all of it—Mom’s laughter in the wallboards, the only place in the world I can picture my father. Where would I go? To Alice’s? On to Savannah with its grand houses and grass rivers?

Frank drops to his knees, face low to the ground, eyeing the foundation. There’s no need for a level—the interior of the house makes everything clear: no door hangs straight, none of the windows open and, surely as all the tables lean, the house will go over if nothing is done. It’s rotting at its core.

I should have gone to the carnival with Enola. I should be watching her. Last night, she and Doyle staggered in closer to dawn than dusk. I heard him whisper in the rasp-voiced way that makes things louder. He’s fine, Little Bird. It was just a weird day. Get some sleep, okay? They were gone before I woke. She left a note telling me to come by the carnival. Thom Rose wants to talk to me.

Frank walks into the house like it’s his. He puts his hands on either side of the door, resting on Dad’s palm prints, and it feels perverse. “How’d you let it get like this,” he barks.

“It’s been in bad shape for a while. Dad didn’t do much maintenance.”

He squeezes the back of his neck and tugs on the hair peeking out from under his hat. “I thought you were trying to keep the place up, but this? This is structural, the whole damned thing. You did nothing.” He goes on about support beams and foundations, undermining. His color rises until he looks like a ripe plum. “I called the town. They’re sending an inspector.”

The knot on my head announces itself. “You did what? You know what will happen.”

He nods. “Maybe.”