The Boneshaker (7 page)

Past the soda fountain on the left was the cracker barrel, where all the broken cracker pieces lived. For a penny you could scoop as many cracker bits as would fit into a little paper bag, and every once in a while, like a buried treasure, you found a perfect, whole, unbroken cracker somewhere in the mix. On the right, opposite the barrel, were two spinning display racks: one held dozens of picture postcards and the other packets of flower and vegetable seeds.

Beyond the cracker barrel, the aisle passed between two big, curvy glass cases full of five- and ten-cent goodies: tiny perfume bottles, fans, hatpins, artificial flowers, celluloid collars, and chewing gum. Behind the five-and-ten cases stretched two mahogany counters, one on either side of the room. Mr. Tilden kept all sorts of goods on shelves behind the counters, from Chinese firecrackers (Natalie had been allowed to pick out a whole dollar's worth of explosives to set off for her birthday last year) to medicines to flour and sugar and fabric. Small glass displays and racks stood here and there up and down the lengths of the two counters. At the very back of the store was Arcane's central switchboard, where every now and then telephone calls and telegraph messages came in. Mr. Tilden's wife usually ran "Central."

Mr. Tilden himself was busy with a customer at the left-hand counter, and there was no mistaking who. Only Mrs. Byron wore dresses like that, with old pearl buttons down her rigid back.

But businesspeople didn't let old widows get under their skin. Natalie reached up to set the bee on the counter and waited for Mr. Tilden to finish, studiously refusing to look up at Mrs. Byron, who smelled of disapproval the way some ladies smelled of too much perfume.

Mrs. Byron sniffed. "Miss Minks."

"Hello, Mrs. Byron." Businesspeople were polite, even to hags. Even a hag could become a customer. You never knew.

Across the counter, Mr. Tilden looked up from the parcel he was wrapping and glanced from Mrs. Byron to Natalie to the bee in its jar. A very slight smile crossed his face as he turned and disappeared momentarily into the back room.

Mrs. Byron sniffed again, loudly enough to make Natalie glance up. It was a mistake. The look Mrs. Byron gave her was so full of dislike that Natalie had to look away. But businesspeople didn't lose their poise. She shoved her hands in her pockets and stared hard at the bee zooming around in the jar.
I'm a businesslady, I'm a businesslady.

"There were tire treads in my rose garden this morning, Miss Minks."

Not again. Natalie took a breath and said as calmly as she could manage, "Mrs. Byron, I never—"

"Nonetheless they are there, Miss Minks. I shall have to speak to your father, I suppose," Mrs. Byron said crisply. Her eyes glittered meanly behind the little pince-nez glasses perched on her thin nose.

Behind Natalie, Ryan and Alfred shouted in protest. "I never!" Natalie snapped. To heck with business, a false accusation was a false accusation. "I never did that! You can't go and tell my dad—"

"Do take care not to shout, Miss Minks. It's unbecoming in a young lady." Her gaze flickered over Natalie, taking in her overalls, bee, and companions. Clearly, she thought
shouting
was just one item on a lengthy list of unbecoming attributes Natalie had collected.

Natalie willed the red flush off her face
{Businesslady, businesslady!
) as Mrs. Byron swept past in a cloud of musty violet scent. "That old lady's a bat," Ryan muttered when the door had clattered safely shut behind her.

Alfred whistled. "How come she hates you so much, Natalie?"

"'Cause she's a
bat,
" Ryan insisted.

Natalie found herself staring through the jar at Mr. Tilden and swallowed down the last of her indignation with effort. "I notice, Mr. Tilden, that you don't have much in the way of bees for sale in your fine shop."

As she spoke, a light bulb over the switchboard built into Mrs. Tilden's exchange desk began buzzing. Natalie had asked about the exchange desk with its board full of cords and plugs often enough to know that this light meant someone wanted to complete a telephone call. Mrs. Tilden put down the novel she was reading, chose one of the score or so of cloth-covered patch cords from the rows set into the back of the desk, and plugged it in. She lifted a bell-shaped earpiece from a hook set into the wooden side panel, then leaned in close to speak into a small silvery horn on a candlestick-shaped stand near her elbow. "Central," she said crisply. She listened to a voice in the earpiece for a moment, then reached for a pad of paper and began to jot something down.

Meanwhile, Mr. Tilden wasn't quite sold. "Er. No bees. How right you are." Natalie followed his glance to a rough sort of rack by the register where five or six interesting gears and sprockets hung from braided strings like the one around Natalie's neck. A hand-printed sign on the rack read:
NECKLACES TEN CENTS.

"You're ... ah ... expanding your business?" Mr. Tilden gave the jar a wary look.

"Yes. To include a bee business," Natalie confirmed.

"I see. And this would be ... one such bee."

"Yes."

"A ... a home-caught bee, naturally?" Mr. Tilden hazarded.

"Exactly."

The light tinkling sound of the bell over the door and the quick tread of feet reminded Natalie to hurry along. "And for twenty—no, fifteen cents—"

Mr. Tilden handed Natalie four nickel packs of Tootsie Rolls as he glanced at the newcomer striding up behind her. Natalie sighed, pocketed the candy, and lifted the jar again. Businesspeople knew when to cut their losses.

The three of them had just about reached where Miranda stood by the soda fountain when Ryan stopped. "Natalie." She followed his nod to where the new customer stood at the counter with Mr. Tilden. They were speaking quietly, but Natalie listened hard and heard the newcomer pronounce the word
mechanic.

Something about this man seemed ... out of place in the general store. It was hard to say where a man like that might belong, but he surely didn't belong
here.

He was taller than anyone she knew, and he wore an old-fashioned frock coat like her grandfather wore in old pictures: long and flared at the bottom and too heavy for a summer noon. He carried a tall silk hat under one arm, and there was something odd about his hair, too; the way it stood off his scalp was like the way her hair billowed when she dunked her head underwater.

Mr. Tilden waved her over. "Natalie, want to show this fellow over to your dad's shop?"

The stranger turned.

He was even odder face-to-face. Under that mop of red hair so full of gray, his face was young; older than Charlie's, who was sixteen, but younger than her parents'. His eyes regarded her from behind blue-lensed glasses. He held out a hand.

Natalie handed the jar to Alfred and shook the fellow's hand. Her small fingers disappeared into a pale leather-gloved palm. Whether it was because of the curiousness of gloves in June, or something about the feel of the glove itself, Natalie took her hand back a little faster than was probably polite.

"Your father is a mechanic?" the newcomer asked.

"A
bicycle
mechanic," Natalie corrected, wondering for reasons she couldn't put a finger on whether there was a courteous way to get out of going anywhere with this fellow. "But he can fix anything."

The stranger paused, considering something, then conjured a business card from his waistcoat, handed it to Mr. Tilden, and put the silk hat on his head. "Lead on."

The kids from the soda fountain had all clustered out on the porch. They were whispering among themselves and staring at a procession of boxy mule wagons painted in fading jewel tones and draped with bunting, lined up out on Bard Street. Some of those wagons might once have been beautiful; carved figures stood out from the corners, rising suns and linked rings circled the sides, and giant medallions like big round shields glimmered feebly with old gilt and silver flake.

The little knot of kids parted for the man in the silk hat. Natalie straightened as she strode along behind him so she would look a little taller.

"Go on ahead," he barked to the man holding the reins of the head wagon, then looked down at her sharply. "Well?" he said. "Which direction is it?"

"This way." She pointed to the right and stumbled into motion; he was already out in front as if he knew the way, long legs carrying him twice as fast as hers could.

Natalie sprinted to catch up. "Is that a circus?"

"Does it look like a circus?"

"A carnival?

He didn't answer. It was a really aggravating adult habit.

"Well, what
is
it?"

"It is a medicine show."

"What's a medicine show?" Natalie turned to look at the wagons, slowing down just to annoy him. "I've never heard of one of those."

"There's likely a great deal you've never heard of," the stranger said, pausing to glare at little old Chester Teufels, who was leaning against one of the legs of Arcane's big old water tower and laughing hysterically for no apparent reason as they passed. "How far is the shop?"

"You don't know?" she mumbled, jogging a few steps to keep pace. He glanced at her sharply without breaking stride, and she smiled cheerfully. "We'll get there when we get there." And then, under her breath, as she fell behind once again, "Sorry if I'm holding you up."

The big barn doors of Minks's Bicycle Shop were half-open. Natalie sprinted in just ahead of the man in the frock coat. He swept his hat off his head, glanced around appraisingly, and stepped carefully inside.

"Mr. Minks?" Natalie's father straightened at his workbench. The stranger offered his gloved hand. "My name is Dr. Jake Limberleg."

Jake Limberleg? What kind of a name was Limberleg?

"The grocer recommended you to replace a wagon wheel," Dr. Limberleg continued. He stopped in front of the workbench under the window and stared at Natalie's automaton, the little clockwork flyer with the name
Wilbur
painted across its side, lying unfinished in the dusty light. "Your daughter"—he glanced at Natalie mildly—"says you can fix anything."

"Well, I'm pretty good with wheels, anyhow," her father said. "Let me guess. The left one in front."

The doctor tapped his fingers on the brim of his hat. "How astonishing."

"Not really. Happens all the time. Popped off where the roads meet, did it?" Mr. Minks collected a few tools into a satchel. "Where's the wagon? Did you find the wheel?"

"We did not." Dr. Limberleg lifted the
Wilbur.
Natalie bit her cheek to keep from telling him to put it back down, that it didn't work but only because it wasn't finished, that the clockwork wasn't tightened up inside and it would all come apart...

Dr. Limberleg's eyes slipped sideways at her as if he could hear her silent protests.

"I happen to collect automata." He smiled faintly.

In his fingers the automaton lurched into jerking motion for a second, propellers spinning like the blades of a fan.

How on earth...?

The key to wind the mechanism lay three feet away on the bench, right where she'd left it. The
Wilbur
couldn't possibly have done what she had just seen it do without being wound at all ... could it?

Dr. Limberleg smiled lazily at her shock. He put the
Wilbur
down and disappeared back through the workshop door into the sun.

Natalie snapped her head around to look at her father, but Mr. Minks was still sifting through his tools and hadn't seen a thing.

How did he do that?

When they joined the strange man outside the shop, he was eyeing Natalie's red enameled bicycle, which leaned against the side of the barn where she'd left it the night before. "A Chesterlane Eidolon," he said in a tone of vague surprise. "I haven't seen another one of those in some time indeed."

Natalie stared at him, then at her father. The idea that Mr. Minks hadn't been able to identify the bicycle, but this aggravating stranger had, was shocking. And ... what had he meant by
another one?

"A Chesterlane!" Mr. Minks was looking at the bicycle as if through new eyes. "Darned if it isn't! Do you know, I've been trying to figure out what that frame was for near a year now."

"Lovely restoration," Jake Limberleg said. "With some rather inventive adjustments."

"Well, I was pretty sure it would be a tough cycle to use," Mr. Minks said, "but Natalie seems to be doing fine with it. Isn't that right, Natalie?"

"Fine," Natalie said coolly. Jake Limberleg fixed her with a look that made it plain he somehow knew she wasn't telling the truth.

As Limberleg stalked off, his customary three strides ahead, Natalie tugged on her father's sleeve. "Wait for me. I'm going to see if Mama wants to come for the walk."

"Natalie." Her father grabbed the strap of her overalls as she turned toward the house. "I think she's taking a nap. No need to wake her up."

They followed Jake Limberleg through Arcane in the noonday heat to an empty lot at the end of Heartwood Street, a flat, dusty space bordered on three sides by green fields of early summer corn. A couple of men were busy unhitching the mules from the wagons, and near the front of the lot another was working with a loud hammer on a skeleton of wood that looked as if it might turn into a stage. That man, spiky-haired and scowling, looked up as they approached.

Her father whistled. "What's this?"

"A medicine show," Natalie said immediately.

Dr. Limberleg glanced at her through half-lowered eyelids. "It is Dr. Limberleg's Nostrum Fair and Technological Medicine Show, in point of fact."

Natalie put her hands on her hips. He wouldn't have had to correct her if he'd answered the question properly when
she'd
asked it. Dr. Limberleg returned her gaze, but Natalie found she couldn't look at him for long without wanting to look somewhere else.

Where the lot met Heartwood Street, a man in a bowler hat was deep in conversation with Simon Coffrett. "Jake," the man in the bowler called. "Look who's come to see us!" The stand of trees that surrounded Mr. Coffrett's mansion was visible past the wagons, just a bit farther out of town to the southwest on the edge of the forest. Natalie supposed he must own the lot. According to her mother, Simon Coffrett's family had lived on the estate called Coffretfonce since the days of the Old Village. Maybe longer.