Page 45 of The Peculiar Incident at Thistlewick House

Mallory stared at the barren patch of common. It made no sense but proved she’d been right to hide. Whoever was responsible for killing her friends had returned to destroy all the evidence that such a heinous crime had been committed.

Staying near the edge of the trees, she realised that the bodies of the troupe were also nowhere to be seen, although an ominous mound of soil was visible a few yards back from where the campfire had finally burned itself out.

Someone had set the big tent alight, and she could see the charred remains of the large oak poles, the very skeleton of the structure, lying across the space at strange angles where they’d collapsed inwards.

There were ruts in the earth where the waggons had been moved, and the deep impressions of horseshoes intermingled with footprints, where all this activity had taken place hurriedly during the night.

Mallory’s whole world crumbled. There was nothing and no one left.

The only person she trusted, the only person who’d shown her any kindness since arriving at Thistlewick Tye, was Sarah.

She’d already decided on a plan of action as she’d lain curled up beneath the stars, but she couldn’t execute it alone, and was still wrestling with whether it was fair to ask the help of someone so young.

But, ultimately, what choice did she have?

After making her way back to the village, she tried to work out which was the Cleyfords’ cottage from the shadows, eventually spotting the mother enter the house.

She waited a while in nearby bushes, her cloak pulled down over her face in case someone should happen upon her loitering.

It was nearly midday by the time she spotted the young girl, coming out the back door with a small basket looped over her arm, to collect eggs from the wooden coop in their garden.

Bouncing some stones off the tiny roof, she finally got Sarah’s attention and the young girl was both horrified and delighted to see Mallory, as the pair tucked themselves out of sight.

‘Why are you still here?’ she asked, her eyes anxious and confused.

‘The village is full of chatter about the circus leaving last night. How you’ve done more wicked things and were chased away.

Your people have smashed windows on the high street and set fire to the Tutters’ barn of grain.

It’s been blazing all night. And they’re saying one of your men assaulted Mary Tutter.

She’s Dr Appleby’s niece and he’s unspeakably angry. ’

‘It’s all lies. My people are dead. When I returned after we parted last night, I found they’d been murdered. Oh, Sarah…’ The tears she’d been holding in came tumbling out, unstoppable and raw. ‘It’s only because I was with you that I wasn’t part of the massacre.’

‘Murdered? I don’t understand. Who’d do such a thing?’

Mallory shrugged. ‘More than one person but who and why, I don’t know. Our silly feud with the villagers was becoming an issue, but to poison us…’

She explained what she’d found at the camp but kept the more unpalatable details to herself.

‘Could it be an accident? I’ve heard Mother talk of cheap alcohol killing people before, or well water being contaminated?’

Mallory shook her head. ‘This was a deliberate act, but I’ve not the strength nor the courage to investigate. I’m merely here to ask for help.’

She’d spent the night weighing up her options.

Running away would mean starting again somewhere, and as a circus freak who was surely dying this was not an appealing option.

Revealing herself to the people of Thistlewick would make her a target.

She would either be taken advantage of or killed, like her friends. In reality, she didn’t have a choice.

‘Anything.’

Mallory swallowed hard. ‘May I borrow a spade?’

‘Of course. There’s one in the shed. I’ll leave it outside the door when I go back inside.’

‘Also, I need you to be a brave girl and meet me on the common tonight. Go through the woods and come out by the fallen oak, just past where we camped and the horses were tethered. Wait until dark, and wear old clothes.’

Sarah nodded her understanding and, with her mother now calling for her, the two parted.

It wouldn’t be easy, but Mallory knew what she had to do.

* * *

Perhaps if the pains hadn’t been so bad, or she was a braver person, Mallory might have considered seeking justice for the crime that had been committed.

But as she worked, she knew in her heart she was weary of it all.

She was too tired to fight and it wasn’t a fight she stood any chance of winning.

Lies had been told about the circus from the beginning.

And now to claim they’d set a barn alight and attacked a girl from the village…

Someone had taken against them and was spreading vicious falsehoods.

She stood over the hole that had taken two hours to dig. It wasn’t deep enough, but the deeper she’d gone, the harder it was to get the soft sandy soil out. The sides kept collapsing and, in the end, she decided it’d do the job well enough.

‘Is this a grave?’ Sarah asked, her pale eyes wide in the shifting moonlight, but Mallory didn’t give a direct answer.

‘I’m terribly ill,’ she said, reaching out for the young girl’s hands and trying to stress her earnestness.

‘And I can’t go on without them. I belonged somewhere and now I don’t belong anywhere.

This is the first and only time I’ve had any real control in my life and it feels better than I’d expected. ’

Sarah’s bottom lip was wobbling, fearful of what her friend was about to say.

‘Twenty-nine years isn’t bad, and they’ve been largely happy.

I was lucky to find people as understanding as Samson and Katerina.

They weren’t perfect, by any means, and I’m fully aware that I’ve spent my life being worked hard and exploited for profit, but people were always going to stare at me, so I figured I might as well be paid for their pitying looks. ’

‘You talk as though your life’s over, but you can live with me. I can speak to Mother…’

Mallory didn’t answer. She understood Sarah’s concerns, but she couldn’t live here, with these people, and they both knew it.

And she simply wasn’t brave enough to go out into the world alone.

Bad things would happen. Besides, Mallory knew her health was declining rapidly now.

It would be a drawn-out and painful end.

This way, she trusted, would be painless.

‘Taking your own life is a mortal sin,’ Sarah whispered. ‘Suicides aren’t even allowed to be buried on consecrated ground.’

Mallory laughed at that. ‘I was never going to be buried. Didn’t you hear what happened to Joice Heth?

The hundred-and-sixty-one-year-old woman exhibited by P.

T. Barnum as the nursemaid to George Washington?

Her body was dissected in front of fifteen hundred people.

She was a sideshow even in death. Or The Hottentot Venus, an African woman with an unusual body shape?

Her skeleton, and parts of her anatomy preserved in jars, are on public display to this day.

We’re medical curiosities. I don’t want to end up on an operating table, whilst three dozen students stare at my cadaver, then have my bones placed in some dusty museum for people to stare at.

I’ve had enough of that in my lifetime.’ She reached her hand out to her friend’s shoulder.

‘Trust me. This is the best way. No one will notice the disturbed soil between these trees. I want to be buried close to the people I loved.’

She thought back to the mound at the nearby camp and shivered, remembering the horrors of the previous night.

‘All I ask now is you return in one hour. There’ll be a blanket at the bottom of this hole.

Push the soil back in with the spade and fill it up.

Maybe scatter some branches over the top to hide the fact the earth’s been disturbed but don’t mark it in any way.

If you want to remember me, do so when you walk along the beach; it was such a happy day.

’ She hoped that because she’d chosen a spot away from the main paths, no one would stumble across it for a while.

‘My heart breaks that I’m asking you to do this, but I’ve absolutely no one else.

You’re so very grown-up and wise beyond your years, Sarah.

Bright enough to understand my decision.

Had I been blessed with a child, I’d have wanted her to be just like you.

Hazibub gave me some special medicine that will take the pain away.

I’ll drift into a peaceful sleep and he assured me it’s the most wonderful way to go… ’

Sarah pulled back her shoulders and tipped her chin to the sky. ‘I understand and I can do this.’

Mallory embraced the young girl, and they sobbed for a while, reluctant to let each other go, but the wind was whipping up, coming in from the sea, and the temperature was dropping fast.

Sarah eventually tore herself away. ‘I won’t let you down,’ she promised.

‘And will remember you always. “True friends are never apart; maybe in death but never in heart.”’ She echoed the words from the embroidered sentiment, her own eyes brimming with tears.

And then she set off for home, without allowing herself to turn back.

When she was certain she was alone, Mallory climbed into the hole and out of the bitter wind.

The moon was looking down at her – a white circle in the black – and for a moment, she thought the man in the moon was frowning.

She slipped the small blue bottle from her skirts.

The cork was stiff but she wriggled it free and brought it to her lips.

It tasted sickly sweet and smelled of spring blossom.

A warm feeling spread from the centre of her body – a sleepy yet euphoric calm.

She lay back in the dark and pulled the blanket over her shivering body, covering her head and closing her eyes, as her mind began to conjure up a thousand magical visions.

There were leaping horses and tumbling acrobats, shooting arrows and flaming torches.

A scattering of twinkling lights winked and whizzed above her head.

Music drifted in the air surrounding her – not a tune she recognised, but an uplifting melody that filled her with joy.

Her heart raced faster as the tempo increased and she imagined herself swirling about in a dreamlike carousel.

And the colours! Mallory had never seen a sight quite so beautiful.

The spinning slowed and she realised that she was surrounded by people.

All those she loved were there: Samson and Katerina, arm in arm; Little Cupid – rosy-cheeked and with a bottle of gin in his hand; Po Po casting her chicken bones and gazing at how they had fallen.

She looked back up to Mallory, actually smiling, as though the fortune at her feet had predicted the very best of futures for them all.

Zella called out from above, in her most glamourous bodice and stiff, sparkling tulle skirt, as she walked across the sky with so much poise and elegance.

And little Esfir, twisting her tiny body into curious shapes and giggling as her arms wound around her legs.

Beauty and Star galloped towards her from somewhere in the distance, manes flying in the wind and muscles rippling.

Beauty stopped barely two feet from where she was standing, whinnied and put his gentle face next to hers.

She could smell the fresh hay, feel the soft velvet of his muzzle.

Mallory grabbed a handful of mane and hoisted herself up onto his back and turned to the gathered crowd.

‘Oh, my darling friends,’ she said. ‘You waited for me.’

‘Of course,’ Samson said. ‘We wouldn’t go anywhere without you, my beautiful little Toad Girl.’ He smiled that familiar smile and put out his hand. ‘You’re family.’