APRIL 1911
THE QUIET of the off-season persisted, despite the emerging bloom of lilacs and the haze of green in the gardens of Brooklyn. Small leaves had begun to unfold on the plane trees, but the truest sign of spring was the mud seeping in between the slats of the wooden sidewalks. Even the wild area known as the Gut was quieter than usual, for all racetracks on the island had been closed down and gambling had been outlawed in the hope of lessening crime and vice, though certainly there were still illegal races along Ocean Parkway, often held by lantern light.
Fleets of fishing ships filled Gravesend and Sheepshead Bay, and before long wooden docks were strewn with catches of mussels from Coney Island Creek, along with bass and clams from the bays. The air was blue enough to glimpse the approach of warmer weather, yet the Museum of Extraordinary Things remained closed. A heron circled and considered nesting in the chimney, but when the wind blew cold from the sea, the ungainly creature was frightened off by the slap of a loose shutter banging against a window frame, and it heaved itself into the air. In any other year, carpenters would have been hired to unclasp the shutters, nailed closed in the winter to protect the exhibitions from light. They would have been at work repairing the broken stairs, and begun installing the wooden signs that invited customers to step inside. This spring the Professor had no time to order renovations. He locked himself in the cellar as soon as he awoke and rarely emerged. He refused proper meals and hadn’t bothered to change his clothes in days, though the fabric reeked of chemicals. When the stench was impossible to ignore, Maureen presented him with a clean, starched white shirt, which he grudgingly pulled on. He was distracted, and his gaze was fiery, as though he saw something beyond the confines of their house.
“He’s up to something,” Maureen worried. Though she knew nothing of her employer’s plans, she recognized the fever that marked an obsession. Clearly, some dark dream had taken hold of him. “The next thing you know we’ll have a bear sitting at the dining room table or a giant in one of our best chairs. I only hope there won’t be a snake in the kitchen sink.”
While Maureen went to hang laundry on the line, Coralie crept on her hands and knees, pressing her ear to the wide planks of pine flooring in an attempt to eavesdrop. Her thoughts were consumed by the drowned girl, but there were no telltale sounds rising from the cellar. Still, she knew her father’s urgency to present a monster to the world. He’d insisted this was the only way he could turn their fortunes around. “Do you think I’d have you swim for those fools if we weren’t desperate for the money?” he’d said to her, as if that explained the dreadful things he’d had her do. “We need a real success!”
Coralie would have preferred to live like a mouse, on crumbs and crusts, rather than be subjected to those evenings. “Is there nothing else we might do to change our fortune?” she pleaded.
“There’s worse,” he said darkly, and left it at that.
They had grown poorer, left with only soup and bread for their meals. Maureen complained she could hardly buy groceries with her slim allowance. Coralie wished she could tell the housekeeper about her father’s intentions, but it was as if those wicked evenings in the museum had left her bewitched and mute. She made certain to dispose of liquor bottles and cigar stubs in the mornings that followed her humiliations, tossing bits of evidence into the trash pile. Once a week, it was set on fire. Maureen always encouraged Coralie to come inside on these occasions, for bright cinders snapped up into the branches of the pear tree and smoke swooped above them. But Coralie sat on the porch steps, unmoving. She watched it all burn.
IN TIME, Coralie had come to wonder if the housekeeper had just as many secrets as she did. A house of secrets is like a house of cards, falling in on itself. The more you knew, the more you had to know, and Maureen’s private life nagged at Coralie. The housekeeper had never spoken of where she came from, nor had she mentioned a family.
One day Coralie blundered upon a hint that her suspicions had been correct. She spied Maureen on Neptune Avenue, on the other side of the trolley tracks. It was Sunday, the housekeeper’s day off. The air was bracing due to the spring fog that hadn’t yet lifted. The haze turned the world into a mist, and within that mist Maureen appeared beautiful, her long auburn hair wound up with tortoiseshell combs. Shrouded in the hazy air, her damaged face seemed perfect, as it must have been before she’d been assaulted by her jealous lover. She had no photographs of herself in her earlier years; she insisted that photographs were for the rich. But trust me, she was always quick to say with a grin, I made heads turn.
On this quiet Sunday, Coralie followed the housekeeper to a building where many seasonal workers boarded. She trailed her inside, up to the third floor. When Maureen turned, as if she’d heard footfalls, Coralie darted into the stairwell. At last she dared to glance out, only to find she’d lost sight of Maureen. She went along the hallway, listening in at the doors, her ear pressed close. At one set of rooms she thought she heard the rise of Maureen’s voice, but she couldn’t be sure.
Nearby, a door opened and an old woman peered into the corridor. Coralie had no choice but to pass by on her way back to the stairwell. The hallway was poorly lit, but Coralie could tell the woman gazing out had worked at a carnival or a sideshow, for she was covered with tattoos. Living wonders looked down upon those whose attributes weren’t natural, and the old woman may have felt she was an outcast. Her expression was coarse and bitter. She wore a heavy wool cloak, a hood over her head. When Coralie drew near, it was possible for her to see a mask of flowers and vines on the woman’s aging face, a scrim of blue and red inked around her narrowed eyes.
“What are you doing here?” the tattooed woman wanted to know.
Coralie said she was looking for a Mr. Morris.
“Who are you?” the older woman asked. “His whore?”
Coralie felt the sting of outrage. “Of course not!” She calmed herself and went on. “But I think there is a woman who stays with him. As for him, you’d recognize him—he’s quite covered with hair.”
“Every beast can find a woman. It’s so unfair, for what man would have a woman like me? You can barely bring yourself to look me in the eye, but if you’d like, you can come inside my room. I’ll show you everything, if you have the nerve to look. These pictures cover every bit of me, even the most private parts that were sweet once upon a time.” The old woman gestured for her to come in. “One whore knows another, darling. It’s written all over our faces.”
It was a wretched thing to say. Stunned, Coralie ran down the stairs, her heart pounding, the callous comment still cutting her as she fled. She couldn’t help but wonder if the old woman had a talent as a mind reader, if she’d somehow intuited what had happened on those wicked nights at the museum. Coralie ran home, unaware of the world around her. Once safely in her room, she bolted the door and stood before the mirror. She was a plain girl, nothing more. There were no flowers, no ink, no signs of her true nature. Then she looked down and saw that in her hurry to follow Maureen she had forgotten her gloves. Her deformity had been there for the old woman to see, her own dyed skin, the webbing between her fingers, the mark of who she truly was.
Coralie threw herself across her bed. As she dreamed on this hazy afternoon she found herself lost in the woods. She spied the young man once again and followed him to a cliff. She could view the river from where she stood and hear the birds in the sycamore trees. The young man seemed to know her, and he stepped near. Coralie hoped he would embrace her, but instead he urged her to jump into the river. It’s the only way, he said to her. The danger seemed so apparent, only a fool would make such a leap. Coralie was torn between her wish to win him over and her dread. It’s much easier than you could have ever imagined, the young man told her. She took one step and began to fall through the air, not breathing until she hit the water. There, in the river, she became her deepest self, a monster, to be sure, but one with iridescent scales, a fierce and fearless wonder of the world.