The Boneshaker

with illustrations by
ANDREA OFFERMANN

CLARION BOOKS

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Boston New York 2010

In her cupped hand she held a model of a bicycle and rider. She could see tiny gears.... But try as she might, she could see no place to wind it.

CLARION BOOKS
215 Park Avenue South
New York, New York 10003
Text Copyright © 2010 by Kate Milford
Illustrations copyright © 2010 by Andrea Offermann

All rights reserved.

The illustrations were executed in pen and ink.
The text was set in 11-point Letterpress.
Book designed by Sharismar Rodriguez

The sibyl's dialogue on pp. 142–47 304 is taken from
"Mesmeric Revelation" by Edgar Allan Poe.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,
write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

Clarion Books is an imprint of
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

www.hmhbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Milford, Kate.

The Boneshaker / by Kate Milford ; [illustrations by Andrea Offermann],
p. cm.
Summary: When Jake Limberleg brings his traveling medicine show to a small
Missouri town in 1913, thirteen-year-old Natalie senses that something is wrong and,
after investigating, learns that her love of automata and other machines make
her the only one who can set things right.
ISBN 978-0-547-24187-6
[1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Automata—Fiction. 3. Bicycles and bicycling—Fiction.
4. Medicine shows—Fiction. 5. Demonology—Fiction. 6. Missouri—History—20th
century—Fiction.] I. Offermann, Andrea, ill. II. Title.

PZ7.M594845Bon 2010
[Fic]—dc22 2009045350

Manufactured in the United States of America
DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
4500222081

This book is for Mom, Dad, Phil, Buddy, Stephanie,
Tom, Alexa, Jason, Amy, Susie, Walt,
and most of all, for Nathan

ONE
The Town at the Crossroads 1

TWO
The World's Fastest Bicycle 19

THREE
The Devil and Tom Guyot 39

FOUR
Some Kind of Grace 50

FIVE
The Snake Oil Salesmen 59

SIX
Vitamins 77

SEVEN
The Prankster Demon 88

EIGHT
To Your Very Good Health 100

NINE
The Old Village 110

TEN
Dr. Limberleg's Nostrum Fair and Technological Medicine Show 125

ELEVEN
Phrenology 150

TWELVE
Limberleg's Ginger-Angelica Bitters 178

THIRTEEN
Confidence 195

FOURTEEN
The Collector of Hands 208

FIFTEEN
Amber Therapy 225

SIXTEEN
Jumper 239

SEVENTEEN
Jasper Bellinspire's Bargain 260

EIGHTEEN
Burning the Lot 292

NINETEEN
First, Do No Harm 303

TWENTY
Gingerfoot 329

TWENTY-ONE
Crossroads 359

Missouri, 1913

S
TRANGE THINGS
can happen at a crossroads.

It might look like nothing but a place where two dusty roads meet, but a crossroads can be something more. A crossroads can be something special, a compass with arms reaching to places you might never find the way to again; places that might exist, or might have existed once, or might exist someday, depending on whether or not you decide to look for them.

But whatever else it might be, a crossroads is a place where you choose.

The town of Arcane sat very near one such place, a shallow bowl of waving grass and scrubby trees where two highways met alongside the remnants of a dried-up river. On one of those highways you could go all the way from Los Angeles, California, to Washington, D.C. A fellow could leave his home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and visit family all the way north in Canada by way of the other. They were well-traveled roads, but there were great stretches of America along them where nothing much had yet been built, so Arcane and the other little towns that had sprung up here and there had hotels and saloons, dry-goods general stores, and water pumps and stables for the travelers passing through.

A hundred years ago, there had been a town there where the roads met, but now it was only a deserted shell of bare foundations and uneasy walls that leaned at odd angles under collapsing roofs. The founders of Arcane had started from scratch a little ways down the east-west road, and the new town had grown up stronger and bigger than the husk they now called the Old Village. But (maybe because of the nearness to that eerie, half-crumbled ghost town) travelers didn't stop off in Arcane for long. Folks bought their cans of gasoline or shoes for their horses or had a wheel replaced, but if they thought they could make it to the
next
town, even if the wheel bumped or the horse limped a little, they would try. People didn't like to stop in Arcane if they could help it, even if they weren't sure why. Even the drifter with the carpetbag and the old tin lantern slung on a pole over his shoulder wasn't likely to linger for more than a meal and a night's rest before starting another long march. Although, with this particular drifter, it would be hard to say for certain.

"My kind of town," he muttered to no one in particular as he paused where the two roads met to survey the tumble-down remains of a general store. Despite the glaring sun overhead, the lantern glowed dimly through a pattern of holes punched in the sides. It gave a quiet jangle as he turned to watch the progress of a little twist of swirling dust crossing his path.

With his free hand he yanked the felt hat off his head and wiped sweat from his forehead before shucking out of his long leather coat. He pulled a watch from his pocket—a rather nicer watch than one would expect a drifter to carry—and flipped it open. He glanced down the eastbound road, away from the town of Arcane, and made a noise of impatience before adjusting the carpetbag and the lantern and continuing on. He had a roustabout's lean muscle, and although life on the road usually put years on a man quicker than life in town, under the sweat and smudges of dirt his face looked young. Only his eyes, light green like old glass and lined with wrinkles from squinting against the sun, gave any impression of age.

The drifter smiled as he strode toward Arcane, but the smile was odd and awkward, and even he walked a little faster on his way out of the Old Village than he had on the way in.

The people who lived in Arcane were just like anyone else. They went to work, kept kitchen gardens and cats and dogs, and had jobs and children and houses with broken screen doors or squeaky porch steps. The children waited all year for summer holidays, then for winter holidays and presents, then for summer again. There were bullies and victims, rich kids and poor ones, like there are anywhere.

But strange things can happen at a crossroads, and even if you were a perfectly normal child in a crossroads town you'd grow up hearing stories, maybe even see one of those odd happenings yourself. For instance, by the time she was thirteen years old Natalie Minks knew all those strange stories by heart. She knew the one about how the Old Village became an abandoned shell, and all the tales of that ancient forest to the southwest of Arcane, in which strange things had walked long ago. She even knew why Mrs. Corusk, who kept a little farm at the north edge of town, insisted on living by candlelight when most everybody else had had electricity since before Natalie was born.

It was hard sometimes to tell which stories were true and which ones weren't, but if Natalie was sure of anything, it was that in Arcane, you couldn't be sure of anything at all.

Except maybe my family,
Natalie thought as her father slammed his finger in the big barn doors the way he always did when he came into his shop. Her family never seemed to change.

"Found it," he announced, waving a wrench over his head with his uninjured hand.

Natalie reached for a bicycle tire hanging on the wall and used it to pull herself up onto one of his workbenches. "How far's the trip?"

"About a hundred and ten miles." Her father sucked in a breath. "Natalie, be—"

A socket wrench on the bench launched itself from under her foot and skittered across the floor—no wonder her dad was always tripping over things in here. Natalie grabbed the tire again to keep from stepping on her father's collection of radio parts, only to have it spring away from the wall in her hand. Her arms windmilled.

Her father sprinted to catch her and took the most obstacle-laden route to do it, filling the shop with unmistakable sounds of destruction. Natalie caught her balance just in time to keep from landing on her backside on the shop floor, trampling any radio tubes, or, worse, stepping on the little clockwork flyer she and her father were building together.

"Careful," she said as her father skidded uselessly to a halt beside where she stood on the workbench. "I know."

He gave her a severe look and picked his way back across the shop to return to what he'd been working on.

She wouldn't have cared much about a bruise, but the flyer, which she and her dad called the
Wilbur
after the Wright brother who'd died only last year, was a mechanical labor of love. It was an automaton (the word itself was one of Natalie's newest and most favorite acquisitions), a small machine that would eventually move on its own when wound with a key. She set it aside gently, careful not to upset the gears inside it that controlled the tiny propellers and wings.

On tiptoe she could just see out the little window high on the wall above the workbench. She wiped a few years' worth of grime off the glass and stared at the crowd on the street. Of course, they were trying not to look like a crowd, but on any other Wednesday morning, half the town of Arcane would've had better things to do than try to look busy outside Minks's Bicycle Shop.

"You got an audience." Natalie stretched a little farther and saw a clutch of boys from school playing halfheartedly with a board balanced on a big tin can. A few girls nearby pretended to watch them. It was the first day of the summer holiday. For sure the kids had better things to do. "A big audience," Natalie said smugly.

A noise like a circus animal passing gas erupted from the hulk of machinery crouching at the center of the shop. It didn't sound healthy.

"Dad?"

Only her dad's lower half was visible; the top half was hidden in the boxy front of the machine. Natalie waited patiently until the thing was puttering rhythmically and asked again, louder, "
Dad.
It's going to run,
right?
"

"Sure." His voice sounded like it was coming from inside a tin can. When he emerged he gave her a sooty smile. "It'll work. 1 promise."

When Natalie ventured outside an hour later, the crowd on the street had doubled in size. No point in trying to melt into it; they were all watching her. She climbed up to sit on the edge of a rain barrel and nonchalantly shined an apple on her overalls.

The first person to give up pretending he wasn't waiting for the big barn doors of Ted Minks's shop to open was a kid called George Sills. He sauntered over and gave Natalie a gap-toothed sneer. "My dad says Doc Fitzwater's motorcar couldn't make it across town, let alone all the way to Pinnacle."

Natalie chewed her apple and made a point of watching Old Tom Guyot shuffle across the street with his crutch and tin guitar instead of acknowledging George Sills. Tom was more interesting anyway.

George was fourteen and didn't like being ignored. He kicked the barrel she was sitting on hard enough to make Natalie grab the rim for balance. She gave him a withering glare.

"It's not just a
motorcar,
it's a
Winton
." A lot of motorcars came through Arcane, and they weren't all the same. There were little runabouts and bigger touring cars, Stanhope-style and high-wheeler-style autos. Some of the older ones had tillers to steer with; the newer ones had steering wheels. Most had radiators to keep their engines cooled with water (although Natalie had seen a Franklin once that was air-cooled and looked a little odd without a big radiator sticking up in front). Doc's car, like most of them, had to be wound with a crank to start up, but the new Cadillacs started electrically, and they came with electric lamps.

Natalie had seen nearly all the Fords, except the Model A, and could even tell the difference between the N, S, and T models. She had seen a few kinds of Bakers, a Moon, and a Speedwell—even a Fiat from Italy and an Oldsmobile Limited limousine earlier this year.
That
was a pretty motorcar. The Winton, though ... the Winton was
beautiful.

But explaining the difference to George Sills would be like trying to teach the alphabet to a puppy.