I wish that we would travel east, toward the ocean. Instead, Jasper insists upon a northward route. His fondest dream, he says, is to perform for the Eskimos. If he is joking, I cannot tell.
But before we go to Canada, Jasper says we must make a detour to call upon the apothecary who bottles Dr. Phipps’s formulas. Record sales have depleted the show’s supplies. Jasper gives the credit for this to “our good-luck mermaid.”
Another steaming day oppresses those of us who must ride inside the wagon. I am most seriously considering stripping to my chemise—and then huddling behind boxes so as not to provoke Jasper’s lust.
Soraya naps and Dr. Phipps mumbles. I am not sure whether he is awake or asleep. Perhaps he cannot tell, either. Few of his ramblings are comprehensible, but from what I have managed to glean, he is dreaming again of the visitation of a gigantic winged monster. Sometimes he wails and cries as if the thing were eating him alive.
In her jar, Maren floats like a dead leaf, just below the water’s surface. I keep my back to the jar. The sight of her rends my heart, and I cannot bear to look upon her often. If I am to lose her, I would rather remember her as she was: vibrant and sparkling, her shining hair suspended about her like a halo and her face aglow with delight, swishing her silvery-green tail. Or as my two-legged sister, riding her pony bareback and frightening the hens out of the yard with her wild yelping.
“Soraya,” I whisper when she stirs. “Could you help my sister? She is not at all well. Perhaps if you made more of that liquid you first put her in?”
“I cannot help her,” she says, yawning. “Sometimes they live long, and sometimes they do not. Mermaids are unpredictable. If she dies, we will find another. Eventually.”
“Another? I have no other sister. I will never have another sister.”
“Well, that is no fault of mine,” she says, closing her eyes again.
If I were a fighter, I would beat her bloody with my fists. If I were a stork, I would stab her with my bill.
The day of travel seems endless. I poke my needle into my latest mending project and sew crooked seams that must be ripped out and restitched. And the wagon sways and squeaks, and the doctor snores, and Soraya sighs and flutters her fan back and forth, back and forth.
Through the window, I see a steeple and then a series of slate-shingled roofs. Finally, we stop, thanks be to all that is holy.
Jasper meets me as I climb down from the wagon. Or, rather, as I practically throw myself out of the wagon.
“This is Edgemere,” Jasper says. “You may visit the shops on the main street. I’ll be over there.” He points across the street to a building marked “Apothecary, B. D. Hobart.” He tosses a purse my way. I catch it and it jingles. “Buy a new dress, will you? And throw that outfit into the trash. It is not fit to be seen.” He smiles as if he is doing me a great favor, as if he does not owe me a hundred dresses for all the work I have done for him and his parents.
I summon a polite smile. “Thank you,” I say. I will use the manners Auntie taught me, no matter how rudely Jasper speaks to me.
“Just be back here in two hours. Don’t make me come looking for you.” His tone is jovial, but as he walks past me, he squeezes my arm hard enough to bruise it. I do not mistake his meaning.
O’Neill speaks to the horses in front of the small wagon, praising their diligence and promising them treats. We exchange a solemn glance. I believe he is silently reminding me to be patient, and not to stir up trouble with our captors.
Clutching the purse, I make my way along the street. Beebe’s General Store, The Fern Hotel and Tea Room, and the offices of The Edgemere Gazette occupy one side, and on the opposite side are The Red Hedgehog Tavern, a bakery, and a dressmaker’s shop. The tea room tempts me greatly, but Jasper was right about my attire; my bodice is stained and worn thin in spots, and no two buttons are exactly alike. Not at all fit to be seen.
Inside the dressmaker’s shop, Mrs. Smith, the elderly proprietress fusses over me. She carries no ready-made garments, but offers me something she has just finished fashioning for herself—a practical and modest green dress embellished with black lace. With nimble fingers that belie her age, she quickly tailors it to fit me.
I insist on paying her all the money Jasper gave me—a very generous sum, indeed.
“Wait, dear,” Mrs. Smith calls as I step into the street. “You have left your things behind.”
“My employer said to throw them away,” I say. “Would you mind?”
“Not the item in the pocket, surely,” she says, raising an eyebrow.
The dagger! How could I have forgotten it? “Oh, my,” I say. “Forgive my absentmindedness.”
She beckons me back to the private changing room. “I have not seen such a thing in many years,” she says. She closes the door and takes the scabbard out from beneath the pile of my discarded garments. “May I examine it?”
“Yes,” I say, puzzled by her look of amazement.
She holds the blade in a beam of sunlight and turns it slowly. “How did you come upon such a treasure?”
“A friend gave it to me. Even so, I would not call so plain a thing a treasure.”
She gasps. “You do not know?”
I shake my head.
“It is a healing blade. What it cuts, it mends. It is older than the mountains, made by the pixies in the Old Country.” She sheathes it and places it in my hands as if it was a holy relic. “Take great care of it, my dear. I have a feeling in my old bones that you will have need of it soon. But be wise, for it may only be used once.” She pats my cheek as Auntie used to. “You must be a very special girl to have been given such a thing.”
I hold the dagger in front of me, unsure what to do with it.
Mrs. Smith points to my hip. “Your dress has deep pockets. I never make one without them.”
The scabbard easily slides into a pocket. The skirt falls just so, hiding its presence. “You are a great seamstress,” I say. “And very kind.”
She beams with pride. “Hurry along now, dear. It is getting late.”
The church bell tolls five as I reach the wagons.
“Miraculous,” Jasper says from the large wagon’s doorway. “You should have a new dress every day.”
“Who’s flirting now?” O’Neill says from behind me.
“Shall we duel at dawn?” Jasper asks. “Swords or pistols?”
“Definitely swords,” O’Neill says. “But Clara will most likely win.”
“Touché!” Jasper says with a chuckle as he hops to the ground. “The road beckons, my children.”
As O’Neill passes me, he whispers, “You look very pretty, Clara.”
My face heats. I blush more deeply as I berate myself for blushing too much. Just what I need, I think, to feel even hotter when I am about to climb back into an oven of a wagon.