Page 43 of The Peculiar Incident at Thistlewick House

The following morning, as Mallory returned to the big tent after relieving herself in the bushes, she saw Hazibub standing in the low rising sun, as it cast long shadows across the damp grass.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked. He held a small sack of salt with a tiny hole cut in the bottom and allowed a trail of the white crystals to trickle out behind him. Curious, she followed as he walked around the perimeter.

‘Protecting us. Please be waking everyone inside the tent, gather the stable lads and be rousing the Ballards. I must be doing this important thing.’

‘Surely, they were just making idle threats to scare us. And,’ she pointed out, ‘some of the accusations were true.’

Hazibub looked at her and shook his head. ‘I am knowing bad things are coming but cannot clearly see what. Trust me, being cautious is always the most wisest of options.’

Harry and the other two lads were already awake, tending to the horses.

They were murmuring softly to the animals as they worked, brushing them down and checking their feet for stones, and she asked them to return to the tent.

She knocked on the door of the covered waggon and explained to Katerina that Hazibub wanted everyone together, and eventually found Po Po standing near the cliffs, looking mournfully out across the sea, probably longing for her homeland.

They all made their way inside to see an iron pot hanging above a small fire – the air thick with smoke and exotic spices – and the benches arranged in a circle.

Hazibub was wearing a white robe and had a smear of red across his forehead.

He picked up a smooth stick and stirred the contents of the pot.

‘Now what nonsense am I being made to sit through?’ Cupid said, his tiny face scrunched up into a frown. ‘I haven’t even had my breakfast yet.’

Katerina passed him a half-empty bottle of gin left on the table from the night before and waved an uninterested hand. ‘Allow him his nonsense. It harms no one.’

Hazibub had collected a live rat from one of the traps that Harry used near the animal feed.

Holding it by the scruff off the neck, he sacrificed it, letting the blood, still warm from the creature, drip into the simmering ingredients.

He chanted words in a language that no one understood and then, using a thick cloth, lifted the pot from the hook and walked around the wooden benches, marking every single forehead, even little Esfir’s, with a thumbprint of dark red.

To give them their due, a hushed reverence descended and the silly comments dried up, everyone entranced by the sincerity of his actions.

‘What’s this all about?’ Samson finally asked, as Hazibub returned to the fire and sat cross-legged before it.

‘You may be thinking this is unnecessary dramatics, but I am fearing for our safety, so I conduct this ritual to ensure that if any harm is coming to us after those threats, we might be given the opportunity to rise again.’

Mallory wondered if he’d seen any other deaths besides his own, but she was also confused by his words.

‘Rise again? Do you mean be reborn after we die? Come back to live another life? Like the Buddhists?’

‘No, my dear, a transmigration. Our souls, our very essence, will be taking an empty vessel to use as our own. Usually, the soul is leaving the body after death, but this spell will bind the two together, for I am seeing a most strange vision of falling bones and rising spirits. It is meaning this will be our chance to be living again.’

‘Empty vessels? Like the body of a dead person?’ Zella asked, shuddering. ‘I don’t want to come back in some wizened old lady who pees herself and is riddled with tuberculosis.’

‘You will be finding that the arrival of your soul brings a renewed energy that heals much of what the body has suffered, although it cannot be turning back the clock.’

‘I’d better come back as someone tall,’ Cupid muttered.

‘Don’t get me wrong, Hazibub, old mate, but it sounds a right load of bollocks, if you ask me.’ Harry scoffed and patted his knee for Po Po to come to him.

‘You’re the bloody reason they’ve taken against us,’ Samson pointed out. ‘Stealing the damn pig and getting into brawls. If I’m totally honest though, I’d rather Hazibub rustled up a little spell to stop us dying in the first place.’

‘Don’t worry, if anyone comes for us, I can have ’em in a fight.’ Cupid jumped up, his fists balled, and hopped from foot to foot, ready for combat. His breakfast gin was kicking in nicely.

‘Ve’ll be gone soon enough. Just stay out of troubles for a few days. Now to vork,’ barked Katerina. ‘Hazibub has done what he needs to do.’

* * *

The following day was dry and gusty. Harry and the other lads set to work sanding and repainting the waggon that held the animal cages. The Caley sisters practised some new tricks with the monkeys, and Samson was lifting weights to keep up his strength.

Mallory was in a lot of pain that day. Her stomach hurt and even Katerina could see she was struggling and so ordered her to rest. She took herself off to the steps of the covered waggon, tipping her face to the weak sun, and looking across the common, feeling drowsy from the few drops of laudanum she’d discreetly taken.

Hazibub, Katerina and herself were probably the only ones who appreciated the seriousness of her condition now.

She knew that the waggon advertising The Living Wonders was not to be repainted until the new year.

Samson’s ever-prudent wife was leaving it until last in case the Toad Girl was no longer one of the attractions.

Zella appeared from the woods, skipping as she emerged from the trees but slowing to a wary amble when she noticed Mallory.

‘Where have you been? Esfir was asking for you earlier.’

Samson had also noticed his daughter’s absence but Mallory had covered for her.

‘I’m not answerable to you.’ The young woman stuck her chin in the air and tried to push past her friend to enter the waggon, but Mallory refused to budge.

‘Were you with him again? The man from the big house? You mustn’t.’

‘You don’t understand.’ Zella sank to the steps and sat next to Mallory. ‘He loves me.’

‘You’ve barely known him a fortnight. How can you be so foolish! He’s only after one thing, like your mother said.’

‘You’re wrong – he hasn’t touched me like that, or suggested that we do anything improper. He’s a good man. Such behaviour would go against his principles.’

Sarah had indicated as much to Mallory on the beach, insisting Master Felthorpe was not a man for dallying, as her grandmother had put it.

‘But he’s going to find out that you’re not… that you have experience with—’

‘I don’t mean this unkindly but you don’t know what it is to be in love.

I can’t explain it. When we first met that day on the common, there was this incredible pull between us – as though I’d always known him, like he was part of me – and he felt the same.

Looking in his eyes makes my insides tumble over faster than any somersault I can perform. ’

Mallory tried to understand. She’d been told that love at first sight was possible.

When Samson was in his cups, he often told of how he’d fallen for Katerina within minutes of seeing her across a crowded quay.

And that love had lasted for years. But, even if this thing with Master Felthorpe was genuine, Zella must know it was impossible.

‘Your mother says we’ll be moving on soon. Maybe even before the week is out. Do you seriously expect him to follow us around the country, when he’s set to inherit a large estate? He’s the son of a lord. He is not going to abandon that to join the circus.’

‘Christian wants to marry me. His father returned from his London trip this morning and he’s going to speak to him about letting us stay on the land for the winter.

Try to soothe the rift between us and the villagers.

It’s got out of hand, but there’s no reason we can’t live companionably for the winter months.

It’ll give my parents a bit longer to get used to the idea—’

‘Marriage?’ Mallory was incredulous. ‘You’re as hot-headed as your father. How can you even think of being apart from Esfir? And you’ll abandon us, for what? To swan around a big house and have babies? The monotony of it will kill you. You were born to perform.’

‘Marriage?’ Katerina appeared from nowhere.

It was something she did a lot – lurking in the shadows and overhearing things people didn’t want her to know.

It was another reason she ran the circus so efficiently: she knew everything that was going on.

Although she was somewhat behind with regard to this gossip.

‘Vot is it you’re talking of?’ she demanded.

Zella glared at Mallory, as though the eavesdropping was her fault, but her mother was standing in front of them now, her arms crossed and her face severe. No one dared lie to Katerina.

‘You may as well know, seeing as the cat is out the bag, but I’ve met someone and he’s asked me to be his wife.’

‘And so your head has been turned again?’ Her mother was furious.

‘Did you learn nothing from before? Has vun of the fishermen been sniffing around you? I vill not tolerate this nonsense.’ Katerina was firm in her assertion.

‘I think he said this to seduce you, foolish girl, but even if the silly man thinks it is love, you are too precious to give yourself to some ignorant pudding-head.’

‘He’s not ignorant. He’s a gentleman – Christian Felthorpe from the hall. Even you must see he’s a good catch. He’s promised to take care of me, and that means none of us need worry about money ever again.’

It was unusual for Katerina to be silent, but Mallory watched as all the colour drained from the older woman’s face. Both girls had expected her to launch into another angry tirade but she stood frozen, her mouth agape and her eyes glassy.

‘His father is back from London now and—’

‘Mallory…’ Katerina shook herself from the trance and spoke through her daughter, ‘ask the hands to start packing up the contents of the big tent and get Harry to check the horses. Zella, tell your father ve leave tomorrow. I am putting the full stop to this foolishness this instant. I vill get the money ve need and then ve are on the road again.’ She turned to go but spun back to face her daughter.

‘You do not leave this camp until I return. Understood?’

And through her tears, Zella nodded.