Petra K and the Blackhearts (2 page)

Only now, the song was having another effect. It made me woozy, but at the same time, I felt myself getting lost in a strange scent. Next to the dragonka cages, I noticed a lab assistant hovering over a brass machine that was emitting colored steam. As the dragonka song changed in tempo and tone, so did the colors of stream rising from the contraption. And the smell that was coming from the colored steam was gorgeous. An odor tickled my nose that smelled like bison grass, followed by deep bassoon notes of fresh clipped heliotrope and melting candle wax.

“Just a whiff,” Ludmilla cautioned the conductor, who cut the dragonka song short. “You see, the notes correspond to scents, which the pherophone translates. We collect the steam and refine it into perfume. Now follow me again, and I will show you some of the raw materials.” Ludmilla led us to a smaller door that opened up on a room the size of a large closet, into which we all crowded.

From a rack she pulled various vials, each filled with a different exotic material: Bulgaryn rose petals, vanilla seeds from Madagascar, Hymilayn jasmine, Swabiland honeysuckle, plus more bizarre scents of Greater Kori tonka bean essence, mold from the wall of Francul’s oldest cathedral, oil from the fur of Ruskyn minks, and refined narwhale blubber, which Ludmilla insisted was essential in the most exclusive perfumes.

“This is our newest scent,” Ludmilla declared proudly, unlocking a combination safe and withdrawing a black crystal bottle. “We are still testing it, but no harm can come in giving you a sniff.” With that she sprayed the bottle in the air, and at once six girls’ noses rose to meet the intoxicating smell. It was like nothing I had experienced before, like breathing in atomized silk, at once oily and sweet, mixed with some ancient unrecognizable spice. I had the feeling of being back in our old house under the palace, and the luxuries we had there. Memories flooded my mind—of my mother in the garden, of my father in his black cape.

“That is lovely,” cooed Miss Kavanova, snapping me out of my reverie.

“I feel strange,” I said.

“How much does it cost?,” asked Tatiana. “I want it.”

“This is not for sale, not yet at least,” replied Ludmilla, closing the perfume bottle back in the safe. I saw Tatiana’s mouth tighten at the refusal, which made her look a good deal older than she was.

When the tour was over, Ludmilla gathered us at the exit.

“I hope you have all enjoyed your visit,” she said. “Any questions?”

In a low mood, I wanted to ask the esteemed practitioner:
“Is it better to be alone and smart than to belong and be stupid? Do the things that make you special, also make you different, and not in a good way?”
But I kept my mouth shut—besides, I thought I already knew the answers, and they weren’t hopeful.

“I have a little parting gift for each of you,” Ludmilla said. Her Newt doorman circulated among us, passing out shopping bags with the elegant Ludmilla’s Cosmetics logo on the side.

Before departing, the class graciously thanked their host; even Tatiana managed a curtsey.

The others waited until they were in the school garden to open their gift bags, which contained sample sizes of cosmetics. I didn’t bother with mine; cosmetics held no interest for me.

“Got it,” said Tatiana, throwing her hand-cream aside. “Got it,” she said of the lipstick. “Got it, in super size,” she said of the citrus perfume. “What a rip-off, I’ve already got it all. Strangeling, let me see what you have!” she said, and grabbed the bag out of my hands before I could resist. “And what is this?” she said, pulling a black crystal vial from my bag. She then held it up to the sun, as though examining a gem for flaws. It looked like the bottle Ludmilla had sampled for us.

“It was in my bag,” I said. “Didn’t everybody get a bottle?”

“No!” said Tatiana with a sudden rage. “Did anybody else get one?”

The others checked their bags, but I was the only one with the perfume.

“You can have it,” I declared, though the other girl had already put it in her purse.

“She must have stolen it,” snickered Margo.

“What are you,” said Sonia, “some kind of dirty criminal?”

“Here,” Tatiana said, handing me her gift bag and mumbling something about a trade, then wandering off, followed by her coterie of friends. “Come on Zsofia,” she called over her shoulder. That was strange, for they had never allowed Zsofia to tag along before. She was
my
friend, which contaminated her in the eyes of the others. Zsofia looked confused: we had a plan to go in on a bag of a poppy buns together and pass the afternoon watching the dragonka being trained in the park. Zsofia looked back and forth between me and the others, gave me a pleading, pitiful look, then frowned and ran after Tatiana.

I
n a low, sulky mood, I walked home, dragonflies buzzing around my head as I crossed the Karlow Bridge. As always, I made my way alone, because I lived in Jozseftown, which was either the city’s oldest, most historical quarter, or its most degenerate ghetto, depending on whom you asked. And don’t ask my classmates: their opinion has been made clear, and in this case, I have to agree with them. We used to live under the Palace, like the other girls, until my father disappeared while buying the year’s stock of tea in Indya. Then we were forced to move from someplace beautiful and green to someplace colorless, a place that always smelled of boiled cabbage. To be from Jozseftown is to be branded an outcast, or at least somebody worthy of deep suspicion. Shopkeepers never tire of reciting how, through the centuries, the ghetto had been home to the city’s most illustrious magicians, both authentic and fake, as well as a refuge for criminals on the run. But mostly, poor people lived there, in Jozseftown. The dark-skinned Half Nots, and the Zsida, who were prohibited from living anywhere else, commanded by custom and law to live
behind the walled quarter. And people with nowhere else to go. People like me and my mother.

I walked under the arched gate that signaled the entrance to Jozseftown. Almost immediately the vibrantly colored houses turned to gray, soot-encrusted tenements, decrepit and vandalized places that appeared barely inhabitable. I wound my way through the knotty streets, past the betting galleries filled with dark-eyed Half Nots, and the Zsida-owned shops that sold antique books on mysticism or astronomical maps charting the outer depths of the galaxy. As always, vendors perked up at the sight of somebody in a Pava School uniform, at the possibility of a sale, until they realized it was just me, Petra K, one of their own. My face reddened as they turned their backs.

I stopped short at a corner on Goat Square. I lived on the other side, but dead in the center of the square was a brightly painted cart, which was being drawn by a stout pig. Two boys wearing dusty, oversized smoking jackets were chasing each other around the cart. A third was handing a vial to a man dressed in farmer’s garb, and accepting a handful of kuna in return. A dark Half Not girl was corralling prospective customers from the afternoon crowd.

“Revenge potions, falling in love potions, come one come all!” cried the littlest one, who wore a top hat a few sizes too big, so it covered his whole head, with two eyes cut out to see through.

Charlatans, ripping off tourists with their fake potions. I’d been forbidden by Mother from talking to them or those of their sort. Gangs of children made homeless by the Boot, they congregated in Jozseftown, where they could live and conduct whatever shady business kept them alive, without interference from the government police and their red hounds. I always passed silently, no matter what insults they yelled my way. On this day, I did my best to slip by, keeping to the outer perimeter of the square. But the gang’s smallest, vigilant to any potential customer in the vicinity, called out to me.

“Hey you!” he said, racing over, his black hat bobbing like a piston in a steam engine. I tried to ignore him, but it was too late. The others were alerted, and followed him. “What are you looking for?” he said. “Falling in love potions, revenge spells, shape-shifting ones? We got ’em all.” He pulled a small vial from his pocket and opened it: a green mist rose from its mouth. “The real thing.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“I bet you need one to grow taller,” he said, a bit snidely.

“Who’s talking?” I retorted. It was a bad move, because now they were all around me.

I knew my mother was waiting for me to get home, but the gang blocked my way. I felt something cold and bristly brush my ankle. It was their pig, rooting around my shoes as though it might uncover a potato if I moved my foot. “Get it away!” I shrieked.

“Rufus,” said the little one.

“What?” I said.

“It’s not an
it
, it’s a Rufus.”

The others began to move in closer, crowding me.

“Where you from, a uniform like that?” the smallest asked. I could see the tattoo of the black broken heart on his chest: they were Blackhearts.

“Hey—I know you,” said the leader, a boy with long, natty hair, who wore a white peasant blouse and carried a stubby walking cane. “You run through Goat Square like you’re afraid of your own shadow. People think you are from the other side of the river, but you’re not. Just another girl from Jozseftown. You think you are too good for us, don’t you?”

“You don’t know me,” I said. But perhaps he did, for I was looking about myself, worried one of my classmates might see me with them.

“Yes, I do,” he responded. “You live alone with your mother. Your name is Petra K. You can’t keep secrets in Jozseftown.”

“I’m Abel,” the little one interjected, stepping closer, taking his top hat off. He had dirty blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, and
was in profound need of a scrubbing. “This is Jasper,” he said of the large, mean-eyed one. “That’s Isobel,” he said of a dark, misty looking girl. She was bewitching, in a brightly woven shawl wrapped around her body. “She doesn’t have a tattoo because it is against Half Not tradition, but she is still a member. And this is Deklyn, leader of the Blackhearts.”

“I’m not allowed to talk to you,” I said, which was true. “I need to go home.” Again, I tried to duck from their midst.

“Not so fast, not until you buy something,” said Deklyn. The boy would not budge. Nor would I. I may have gone to the Pava School, but this was my neighborhood, too, and his attitude made me loathe him and his dirty brow. I tried again, only this time I hit him squarely with my shoulder. I could see the surprise in his eye as I walked quickly away from the stunned group. It looked like they might follow me, but my escape was unexpectedly aided by the appearance of a large Half Not boy on the other side of the square. As if in imitation of the Blackhearts, he was holding small vials out to passersby. I recognized him as member of the Big Thumb Devils, a rival gang.

“Hey!” the one called Jasper yelled to him. I had been instantaneously forgotten.

“Come on!” Deklyn said, and took off to confront the boy, the others following. Only Rufus stayed behind, trailing at my feet until I too hurried from the square, toward home.

O
UR HOUSE SAT ON A DARK
and cramped side street, across from an abandoned marionette repair shop. It was an old, decrepit townhouse ornamented with grinning gargoyle friezes on the eves and a chipped wreath of granite roses above the doorway, appearing as though the house itself had been a living creature that was suddenly turned to stone. It was always shadowy, and even to me looked abandoned from outside, though I knew mother was home. I unlocked the door and listened. Behind the first door on
the left lay my mother’s room. Most times she was but a muffled and grave voice, beckoning me in for punishment or instruction.

I tiptoed past the door to her room. How long, I wondered, had it been since she had sealed herself away in there?

“Petrushka!” she called out, using her nickname for me.

I shuddered inwardly, took a deep breath, then twisted the brass knob, which somehow managed to stay the same degree of cold year round. I cracked the door and poked my head in.

“You are late,” mother said sternly. She was lying in bed, as usual, and drinking tea poured from a pewter pot that was at her constant bedside service. “Have you been playing where you are not supposed to?”

By that, my mother meant
anywhere
.

“No. There was a cart in the square. A gang of boys was there.”

“I told you not to associate with their sort. They can’t even bathe in moonlight without turning it muddy.”

“I wasn’t
associating
. I was just
there
.”

Mother always needed educating. No, let’s face it, she needed help. But not in an obvious way. She would protest, and raise her eyebrow if you said anything intended to better her situation. You had to slip things in, like medicine in a sugar cube, so she could come around to things on her own. Though she usually didn’t.

“Petra K, come here,” Mother said. I took a cautious step into her room. The bed ruffled, extending from her like an enormous, worn wedding dress of a jilted bride.

“It’s OK, come closer,” she said when I had stopped at the foot of the bed. I moved around to her side. “Tuck me, dear,” she instructed. I tucked in the sheets expertly; it was my daily chore. “Now give me a kiss and get me some more hot water.” I kissed my mother’s cold, pale cheek. “It’s this neighborhood, dear. We shouldn’t be living here. But because of that … man.” By “that man” she meant my father. “That’s why I keep you close. That’s
why I send you to a proper school though God knows we can’t afford it. So you don’t end up like that superstitious, devious man. No, I have said too much. Now go. Go clean yourself. I swear you are starting to
smell
like one of those little street thugs.”

I reddened and at first felt shunned, then suddenly angry, then very lonely and sorry for the woman, who herself hadn’t washed in weeks. Still, I wished I could stay by my mother’s side for a little while longer, though I knew remaining would only bring more reproach upon me. So I swallowed my hurt and backed away, silently, measuring my steps to the door, then turned and ran, tears burning on my cheeks.