Page 41 of The Peculiar Incident at Thistlewick House
Later that day, Mallory was walking past the Ballards’ covered waggon when she heard Samson and Katerina arguing inside.
‘For God’s sake, woman, we need to leave before there really is trouble. We’ve come all the way up here for reasons I don’t truly understand, and there’s still no sign of the money you promised. I don’t like it here. There’s something about this place that sends a chill through my bones.’
‘I told you, next veek. Be patient. I am not liking this place either. And then ve return to London and you sell the ridiculous zebras to the Kingsley man for his silly circus.’
Not wanting to be caught eavesdropping, Mallory returned to the big tent.
Hazibub was outside on the grass, in the dim light of early evening, practising his fire-eating act.
He took a flaming torch, tipped his head backwards and popped it into his mouth, whereupon the fire was immediately extinguished.
It looked impressive and thrilled the crowds, but Mallory knew that heat travelled upwards, so by being beneath the flames, they were directed away from him.
The trick was to quickly exhale as it approached and then to close your mouth around the fire, starving it of oxygen.
That wasn’t to say it was risk-free, and he still occasionally suffered burns, using preparations of honey and chamomile to soothe the blisters.
He smiled when he saw her, but his eyes were sad.
This was most unlike him, so she was immediately worried.
She had a soft spot for Hazibub and knew it was reciprocated, but the man himself remained a mystery.
No one knew where he was from, only that it was somewhere far away and eastern; Persia perhaps, India or maybe Egypt.
Even his name was no clue, as it was another fabrication of Katerina’s.
Unlike most of Samson’s troupe, who professed to have no religion, he quietly worshipped his gods, but no one was quite sure which gods because his prayers and ceremonies were intensely private.
But there was also something other-worldly about him.
Of all the acts she’d ever seen who claimed to have psychic abilities or that they could perform sorcery, he was the only one who seemed to possess real magic – not the illusions and sleight of hand that others employed to dupe a gullible punter out of a shilling, or to make a body levitate or disappear.
There was an energy about him that she couldn’t explain.
Most snake charmers, for example, had tricks to make the cobra compliant.
They removed the fangs, drugged the animal or, rather alarmingly, sewed the mouth shut.
But Hazibub did none of those things. He played a haunting melody on a long wooden instrument, as the speckled, tan-coloured creature rose up from its basket.
Its tiny black eyes, like elderberries and so much smaller than those adorning its distinctive wide hood, were completely mesmerised by the man who’d disturbed it.
As Hazibub swayed with the music, the snake swayed too, and then he chanted some incomprehensible words, as the six-foot-long body writhed and thrashed on the ground, tying itself into a perfect knot.
Every time. There was no trickery involved, just a bewildering understanding between man and snake – a creature impossible to train.
He stuck the torch in a pail of water to ensure it was properly extinguished. It sizzled and steamed, as he met her eyes.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. Had it been anyone else he’d have brushed the question off but there’d always been an honesty between them.
‘I am knowing that I will be dead before the month is out.’ He shook his head from side to side. His eyes were wild and white against his dark skin, making them seem even bigger.
‘Are you ill?’
He shook his head. ‘No, this will be the doing of others. But I’m not knowing when this will be happening or how.’
Hazibub’s unnerving second sight, which he largely kept to himself, not wanting to overshadow Katerina and her theatrics, was occasionally shared with Mallory.
There was an uneasy swirling in her stomach. He’d already predicted bad things were on the horizon, but this pronouncement was chilling in the extreme.
‘I know my time is coming, too,’ she confided. ‘I constantly feel sick and have terrible pains in my stomach.’ She held out her arms. ‘Everyone can see I’m losing weight. Something is slowly killing me from within.’
He reached his bony brown fingers out and rested them across her chest. ‘And yet—’ the old man frowned ‘—I have always been knowing that you will live the longest of us all. Whatever will be happening to me, there is a much-deserved happiness in your future. I am seeing a few years of the waiting but be patient because I am also seeing happy times ahead. A man who is loving you very much.’
Mallory wanted to laugh out loud. That she should have finally found a place where she belonged and was accepted for what she was, was a wonder in itself, but to think she’d one day find love was utterly ludicrous.
Besides, she wouldn’t live many more months, never mind years.
However, she said nothing because Hazibub’s words unsettled her.
Katerina’s fortunes were as fake as her accent, as she gazed into the glass ball that stood on its ebonised plinth, or traced a delicate finger over the lines of a woman’s upturned palm.
But the enigmatic snake charmer used no tricks or props to predict the future.
He simply reached out to touch you and closed his eyes, before quietly delivering his alarmingly accurate predictions.
‘You must be getting out of this cold,’ he said, lifting a flap of the tent for her to duck under. The light was fading fast now and her stomach grizzled. Given the time, she and Po Po should probably start to prepare the food.
They had a small kitchen area set up inside the tent this time of year, although it was far safer to cook in a pit outside. She set about washing the periwinkles she’d collected earlier, and then skinning and gutting some rabbits Harry had caught in the woods.
There was a scrabbling sound behind her and the black nose of Master Felthorpe’s pointer appeared under the canvas.
Within seconds, Captain had pushed his way in and was sniffing around the table, obviously drawn to the smell of the meat and looking for scraps of food.
Po Po shooed him away and he lifted his leg and urinated over one of the benches in defiance.
‘Someone get the dog out,’ Mallory shouted, from behind the trestle table, but everyone was busy doing their own thing and no one could be bothered.
She was up to her elbows in rabbit guts and watched as he wandered aimlessly about the space.
Alerted to the presence of another creature by his strong sense of smell, the dog nudged at the snake basket, and she was horrified, as it chewed at the string and shook its head back and forth to free the lid.
‘Someone get the damn dog out!’ yelled Mallory a second time. ‘It’s at the snake.’
It all happened in a flash.
The lid tumbled to the ground and there was a loud hiss before the wide head of the cobra shot out at the dog, who yelped and threw itself backwards. Finally, her friends paid attention.
‘Fetch Hazibub.’ A frantic scrabble of feet. The sound of a whimpering animal and agitated mutterings.
Mallory wiped her bloodstained hands on a cloth and dashed over. The dog started to tremble, wobbling on its legs, until it collapsed completely. It was obviously having difficulty breathing and she noticed the puddle around its rear as it wet itself.
‘Will it die?’ she asked.
‘It’s damn well not our fault if it does,’ Samson replied. ‘That Felthorpe lad was warned. Needs to keep the bloody dog under control.’
Hazibub appeared with his small cabinet and fell to his feet beside Captain, soothing noises coming from his mouth as his hands worked quickly to gather what he needed from the bottles and pots within.
‘Can you save it?’ Katerina asked. ‘I do not need this troubles.’
Hazibub shrugged. ‘The venom is in his system. It is depending on the strength of the dog.’
After a few minutes, he announced that he’d done all he could. It was now in the lap of the gods, and Captain was carried out of the tent by Samson, who was presumably taking him back to Master Felthorpe.
An hour later, he returned from the hall to say that the gentleman had been out – no one knew where – but that the dog was calmer and still breathing when he’d left it with staff.
It was early evening by the time Mallory realised that she hadn’t seen Zella all afternoon.
But when the oldest Ballard girl finally reappeared, and they all sat around the fire to eat their food, Mallory noticed a thin silver chain around her neck. It was new and obviously a gift.
And it didn’t take a genius to work out where it had come from.