Page 33 of The Peculiar Incident at Thistlewick House

Edward stared, open-mouthed, as Maude waited for him to respond. He felt almost physically winded by her announcement, and couldn’t pull his eyes away from the obvious deformities.

The skull was hers?

She was one of them?

‘You were…’ He couldn’t find the right words. ‘An oddity? A freak? Part of Samson’s circus?’

He couldn’t hide his surprise. It was the moment he realised she was as much of an outcast as him, and wondered if it explained the pull he’d long felt towards her.

Even when he thought her a violent drunkard, he’d struggled to reconcile her reputation with her behaviour.

But he’d not once guessed the truth – she was one of the circus troupe and her spirit was trapped in Maude’s body.

The shock was written across his face, even though he quickly adjusted his expression, but she’d seen it, and she stared at him with narrowed eyes, mistaking his reaction for disgust.

Her nostrils flared, and he heard the snort that followed, as she placed the skull gently on the small pine table.

‘I prefer to think of myself as a lusus naturae – a whim of nature. A little game she played and I was the result. My whole body was covered in unsightly lumps and it made me a thing to be stared at and pitied. So, yes, I’m a freak, although Samson was kinder than you, billing those of us who were different as marvels, wonders…

I’d hoped for your support and understanding, Edward, not your ridicule. ’

His already pale face drained of the last vestiges of colour, but he hurriedly tried to explain himself.

‘I’m not passing judgement. You’ve got this all wrong.

Are you forgetting my affliction? I could easily have found myself as a sideshow, especially had I been born into poverty.

Barnum always had albinos on his books – Unzie, the Aboriginal Albino, and the Martin Sisters – and I’m painfully aware that those with my condition are exploited, even now.

But I chose another life for myself. I chose to conceal my albinism. ’

‘How delightful to have the choice,’ she said, and he felt bad for his thoughtless comment.

‘Proving our situations are very different. People turned away from me in disgust, but when I saw you for who you truly were, I thought you were one of the most beautiful creatures I’d ever seen. You look like an angel.’

His stomach constricted at the unexpected compliment but he was confused.

Reading women could be tricky. What they said and what they meant were often at odds.

He’d believed she’d pulled away from him because she found his albinism unattractive.

That she could be friends with him but never anything more intimate.

But perhaps it was her secrets that had kept her at bay.

Did she feel something for him beyond friendship?

He also realised that he couldn’t respond in kind and say he found her beautiful, too, because she’d just admitted the face he was becoming so fond of wasn’t hers at all.

And, even worse, that she’d suffered from a deformity that had made her a thing to be mocked.

Was it a trap? One never knew with women.

‘I’m no angel.’ He didn’t know what else to say.

Turning to the hearth, he tried to work out the consequences of her admission.

Maude was not Maude at all, but someone who’d passed away forty years ago.

All this time, whilst he’d been investigating the bodies and trying to work out if spirits really existed, she’d known the truth.

Recalling how he’d postulated and speculated, he felt a building irritation.

She could have saved him so much time by being honest but instead she’d lied to him.

Or, at the very least, kept this vital truth to herself.

He spun back to face her.

‘Here I am, desperately trying to understand what happened when the circus came to Thistlewick and prevent more murders, and now you tell me that you were there?’ He was frustrated by her deception. ‘I told you my secret and you still kept this from me?’

She slammed her fist down on the table, angry now.

‘You didn’t choose to tell me; I found out when you fell.

Besides, how dare you judge my actions. You’ve no idea how alone and frightened I’ve been these past four years.

I trusted no one until you entered my life but perhaps doing so was a mistake.

Even now, I struggle with how you make your living – defrauding the bereaved.

I heard the villagers talking about the scandal with Lady Temple as I queued for my flour. ’

She walked over to the fireplace, scowling, but he wasn’t having that. He’d carried enough guilt in his life and didn’t need her adding to it. He’d long believed he’d let down the living, but if Maude was part of this missing troupe, was it also possible that he’d let down the dead?

‘How dare you judge me,’ he snapped. ‘Don’t you understand how lonely I’ve been for the past thirty-six years?

My mother died in childbirth, my father couldn’t bring himself to love a freak and my cousin betrayed me.

I’ve never dared take a wife, for fear of her either rejecting me, or of passing on my condition to my children, and so made my living the only way I knew how. ’

They stared at each other for several moments, both furious, but her anger subsided first.

‘I’m sorry for that. I don’t think either of us have had an easy life, but the circus was like family to me, which makes their horrific murder even harder to accept.’

‘You knew they’d been murdered?’ he shouted, his anger boiling up again. He’d started to suspect this was the case, but now she was standing here confirming it. ‘For God’s sake, woman, you’ve got some serious explaining to do.’

She sighed and her defiant posture slumped. ‘I agree, and if you calm down, I’ll tell you exactly what happened.’

She gestured to the bench and he nodded, but knew he still had the biggest frown across his face.

He wasn’t prepared to make this easy for her.

She seemed to understand his annoyance and slid to the floor, her back resting against the seat, as though by being at his feet she was best placed to offer up her confession.

He was the priest; she was the penitent sinner.

The fire cracked and spat, and the bitter smoke circled in the air around them.

As he kneaded at his temples with frustrated fingers, she started to tell her story in a low, unhurried voice – not the one she’d peddled about being married, spiralling into alcoholism and abusing her husband – but the story of Mallory Hornchurch, the Toad Girl, and one of the sideshows in Samson’s Circus of Astonishing Spectacles.