Four
‘I beg your pardon?’
The man sighed and began again. ‘What is your n-n-n-name?’
The Raven grinned. His stutter was hilarious. ‘The Raven, the only hybrid in Anglisca.’
‘A hybrid?’ The armless woman’s bright blue eyes opened wide in surprise. ‘A real life, honest to goodness hybrid?’
‘Less of the honest to goodness,’ the Raven said, ‘but certainly real.’
‘My, my. Fancy that.’ She lifted a foot and pointed to the fire. ‘Come closer, there’s enough room.’
The Raven scooted a few inches closer. ‘How do you do that?’
‘Do what?’
‘All that with your feet. It looks so weird. But it’s kind of clever.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand you.’ She looked offended. ‘I was born this way. I learned how to use my feet like this.’
‘And y-y-you d-d-do it very well,’ the man said, smiling at her.
‘I don’t think you can talk about being different, anyway,’ said the right hand twin. ‘You’re the strangest one in the room.’
‘Thank you,’ the Raven said modestly. ‘I think you’re strange too.’
‘We’re all d-d-different,’ the man said peaceably. ‘I’m C-c-olb-b-by, but I’m st-t-taged as Gaub-b-b-bert, the st-t-t-uttering Florian rigolo.’
‘Tough luck,’ the Raven said. ‘Either way, you’ve got a b to trip over.’
‘This is Eldreda the Armless W-w-wonder and these are Lionel and L-lyndon, the One Twin. And this is Frona.’
The Raven blinked at the One Twin. ‘Left blondie – Lionel, right blondie – Lyndon. Gotcha.’
The little girl, Frona, looked up, gave a tiny, tight smile and stared at the floor again.
‘Who called you the Raven?’ Eldreda asked. ‘Your manager?’
‘Master,’ she corrected. ‘He thought it sounded fancy… My hair was longer then as well, when he found me, so it looked blacker.’
‘He named you because of your hair?’ Lyndon asked incredulously.
‘There’s worse reasons. It’s better than being called simple “freak,” anyway.’ The Raven stretched out her arms towards the fire, feeling the heat concentrate in her palms. ‘I don't burn in fire,’ she said conversationally.
‘Yes, you do,’ said Lionel.
‘How do you know?’
‘Just because you're a hybrid don't mean you're fireproof,’ he said.
‘Hybrid.’ The Raven blinked at him. ‘We bend the rules. Mother Nature rejects us from the clockwork of her order.’
‘So what?’
‘So so so!’ She beamed at him, and he frowned slightly.
‘D-d-don’t q-q-q-qua – don’t argue,’ Colby said. He smiled peaceably. ‘Mistress Ad-d-die’ll be c-c-coming soon. We’re eating late, y-y-you see.’
This last was directed at the Raven, and she nodded. ‘Second time around, no less sweeter to hear.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘The eating late. What’s it going to be?’
‘We are having stew,’ Lionel said. ‘No idea what you’re having.’
The Raven grinned at him. ‘True! Surprises are like spices, sa?’
‘“Sa”?’ Eldreda scratched her cheek with her toe. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s Elv-v-vish,’ Colby said.
‘Actually,’ the Raven said, grinning still more, ‘it’s Danann.’
‘D-d-d-d-dan – ’
‘It’s making fun of you,’ Lyndon said.
‘It’s mocking your stutter,’ Lionel added.
‘Who, me?’ The Raven blinked.
Colby looked surprised and rather hurt. There was an awkward silence. The Raven lay down on her stomach with her feet in the air. Frona shuffled away, her humped back ducking up and down. She looked about eleven, but small for her age. The Raven put her chin on her arms and blew on a thread hanging from Frona’s dress.
‘Stop it.’ Frona snatched her dress hem away.
‘She speaks!’ the Raven exclaimed joyfully.
‘’Course I speak.’ She huddled together, her head resting on her drawn up knees.
‘Frona don’t like speaking much to people she don’t know,’ Eldreda said.
‘Very right and proper.’ The Raven reached out and patted Frona’s shoulder. Frona flinched. ‘Never, never talk to strangers. Won’t you come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly. I do desire we be better strangers.’
‘Don’t fiddle with her,’ Lionel said. ‘She doesn’t like it.’
‘I never fiddle,’ the Raven said sternly. ‘I can’t fiddle, actually. I never learned how to play the violin.’
‘Shut up.’ Lyndon twisted his head around as far as he could to glare at her. ‘You talk far too much.’
‘Alas, we all have our faults.’ The Raven sighed and rolled onto her back. ‘Did you know that if you think, that’s proof that you exist? “I drink therefore I am.” That’s what Druth said. Well, singed. Sung. Singed. Sung. Philosophers tend to get very thirsty. It’s all the brain exercise they do. Humming, buzzing, snapping, fizzing, tingling brain twitches. I wonder if their brains actually look different? More muscled, less soft and spongy? Work the flab off. Toned.’
‘I have no idea,’ Eldreda murmured, looking dazed.
‘Shut up,’ Lyndon said again.
‘Maybe they do, ’cos all muscles get fitter the more you use them, and I think the brain must be a muscle, ’cos you use it – well, some people do – and you use it, so it’s like it’s moving, like a leg muscle or something, only it’s thought-movements, with buzzing and fizzling and humming and snapping little flashes and they’re all quick and small, so it must be a quick and small muscle. And if it isn’t a muscle –’
Lyndon tried to twist around but he fell over Lionel’s legs and lost his balance. The Raven looked at him calmly. ‘Next time you want to go anywhere,’ she advised, ‘move quicker and not with a twin hanging from your side.’
‘Shut up, just shut up! Why won’t you just be quiet!’ Lyndon flapped his hand ineffectually in her general direction. ‘Why do you have to talk so much – I can’t understand a word you’re saying!’
The door was pushed open by Mistress Addie, the woman from before, holding a large tray, which she set on the table. On the tray was a large pot, and six bowls. She began doling stew out.
‘Is the hybrid eating with us?’ Lyndon asked, not hiding his disgust.
‘That’s what Mister Quennel said.’ Mistress Addie scooped up a spillage with her finger and put it back in the pot. ‘He said as how it would behave quite nicely, and it knew how to use a spoon.’
‘It’ll b-b-b-be f-f-f-f-fine,’ Colby assured her, giving Lyndon a warning glance.
Mistress Addie took the pot and left. The Raven sat up and crawled to the table on all fours. She selected one of the bowls and sat down cross legged on the carpet, sniffing the steam rising from the heavily spiced mixture of cheap meat and old vegetables.
Colby got up and handed the others their bowls. For some time, there was no sound except a few slurps and quick exclamations when someone burnt their tongue.
The Raven finished her stew and scraped around the inside of the bowl, trying to collect all the juices. Her spoon made little scratching noises against the wooden sides, and Lionel said grumpily, ‘Stop that.’
‘Stop what?’ She scratched her bowl again.
‘That.’
‘Oh, you mean this?’
‘Yes! Why is it so hard for you to just keep quiet?’
She blinked at him, gulped and blew tiny raspberries with her lower lip, making a string of wet popping noises.
‘Just ignore it, Lionel,’ Lyndon advised.
She covered her head with her hands. ‘No, you’re looking at me! Go away!’
‘D-d-d-d-don’t you think it’d b-b-be nice if you were quiet for j-j-just a little?’ Colby suggested.
‘I’m afraid,’ the Raven said, ‘that I talk in my sleep as well.’
‘Oh, great,’ Lyndon muttered.
She grinned at him and reached up to put her bowl on the table. Then she lay down, her back to the door and her face to the fire. A bit of charred black log snapped and a burst of brilliantly gleaming orange sparks flew up into the chimney. The Raven rested her head on her hand and closed her eyes, seeing blotched masses of colour on the inside of her eyelids, a lingering echo of the fire-brightness.
The others began talking above her head, and their quiet murmurs, along with the occasional pop and rustle from the fire were the only sounds in the room.
***
The next day they put on their first performance in Selseaton. The house where they and the others were staying was an official freak shop; it could be rented by anyone so long as they had money and an exhibit. Pace allowed Quennel to share the shop, and Quennel paid a quarter of the rent; that way everyone was happy.
The other freaks were exhibited in the front room of the shop, immediately behind the shop window which displayed the garishly painted posters advertising whichever freaks were in residence at that time. Quennel had put one of the Raven’s posters in the window as well: a painting of a creature that looked like a human crossbred with a dog, and the words, The Only Hybrid In Anglisca – Half-An-Elf and Half-A-Human.
Pace had let Quennel use the smaller room set behind his freaks’ one, and both Quennel and Morley spent the better part of half an hour getting it ready. Morley was putting up the curtain, and the Raven sat watching him, handing him nails when he needed them.
Quennel rested a moment in his sweeping of the floor, leaning on his broom. ‘Raven.’
‘Yes, master?’ She balanced a nail between her first two fingers.
‘Pace said that his freaks had complained about you. You were annoying them last night.’
She closed her fingers carefully, still balancing the nail.
‘I thought I told you to behave.’
Silence. Morley paused in his work, looking down at her, then across the room at Quennel.
‘Raven.’
‘I… did behave. I only – I only talked.’
‘What,’ – Quennel rested his broom against the wall and came to stand in front of her – ‘what have I told you about talking?’
‘I… do too much of it. I don’t talk sense. I don’t talk right. I shouldn’t –’
‘You’re doing it again!’
She tried to watch his hands and his feet at the same time.
‘Look at me, hybrid.’
She darted a quick glance up at him, then ducked against the wall as he kicked her. ‘Ow – master –’
‘Keep your mouth shut. You understand me?’
She clutched her ankle, biting her lip in pain. ‘Yes, master.’
‘We are sharing this shop, hybrid, and sharing means getting along with people. I have to listen to Pace’s pompous dribble, and you are going to get along with his freaks, otherwise we’ll be in the streets, having to wait for an empty shop, simply because I have such a bloody stupid hybrid who won’t do as it’s told! Do you understand me?’
‘Yes, master,’ she whispered.
‘Good. Morley, take a turn with this broom. The Raven’s tattoos need doing again.’
Morley shrugged and took the broom. ‘Better you than me, Quennel.’
‘The Raven is going to behave this time, aren’t you Raven?’
The Raven bit the tip of her tongue and gave a small, jerky nod. Quennel went out the door and back down the passage to his room. Morley began sweeping, whistling Youth’s Yuletide Spirit softly to himself. The Raven fiddled with the feathers tied to her wrists, then let her fingers touch the smeared paint marks on her arm. They were meant to resemble Elvish tattoos, but at the moment they just looked like wavy lines of smudged blue and brown paint. She had seen real Elvish tattoos; the marks she wore were nothing in comparison – a childish parody.
Quennel came back with the leather trunk. He opened it, brought out brushes and paint pots. ‘Now,’ he commanded, ‘stand up and keep still.’ The Raven held her arm out and he began rubbing at the old tattoos with a damp cloth. She closed her eyes, feeling the blissfully clean coolness scrub away the old, dry paint. The walnut juice stains would stay on for months, but they were different. They were ingrained into her skin; they were a stain that she could forget about if she tried hard enough. But paint clung to her skin, drying and cracking in those idiotic designs. It irritated her, made her want to scratch it off, but she knew from experience what would happen if she did that.
‘Hold still!’ Quennel snapped. He lay down his cloth and taking up a brush, dipped it into the pot of brown paint. The cold wet trail of paint slid across her arm, like a snail’s track of slime. She shivered and Quennel growled.
***
It had been a good day’s work. Quennel counted up almost seventeen shillings which he secreted in an inner pocket of his coat. He patted the Raven's head. ‘Good Raven. Good freak.’
Pace appeared at the door. ‘Quennel! Come, Addie’s getting dinner. Put your Raven in with the others again, but just make sure it behaves this time, eh?’ He laughed and patted Quennel’s shoulder.
‘I am sure it will behave,’ Quennel said stiffly. ‘This time.’ He gave the Raven a meaningful glance from the corner of his eye.
She nodded, and Morley gave her a tiny push past Pace and into the hall. He took her back to the freaks’ room, where they were already ensconced before the fire. Colby was reading a book, and the twins and Eldreda were playing cards. Frona sat staring into the fire.
No change there, then, she thought, sitting down beside Colby’s chair. He looked down at her rather coolly.
‘Your m-m-master let you come here again, then, d-d-d-did he?’
She nodded.
‘My my,’ Lionel said in wonder. ‘It’s silent! Your master give you a talking to?’
She nodded again, and now Colby smiled. ‘N-n-n-never m-m-mind,’ he said kindly.
Eldreda smiled as well, and the twins looked a little less sulky. Frona remained impassive.
‘So, did you have a good day, then?’ Eldreda asked her, holding a card between her toes.
The Raven opened her mouth, shut it again and nodded.
‘I think you can talk a little,’ Lionel said.
‘But just a little,’ Lyndon added quickly.
The Raven looked over her shoulder at the door. Still, Quennel hadn’t said she wasn’t to talk at all… ‘Yes,’ she said finally, keeping her voice low. ‘It was a good day.’
‘Oh, splendid.’ Eldreda was too polite to ask just how much they had taken, and she turned her attention back to her card game.
The Raven rested her head against the chair leg and yawned. After a moment she closed her eyes and began humming quietly to herself.
‘What song’s that?’
The Raven opened one eye. Frona had turned around and was gazing at her. She was really quite pretty, the Raven realized, in spite of her hump. Her eyes were light blue, surrounded by pale lashes and her straw-blond hair framed her white face in heavy, shining locks.
‘Hefyd ber,’ the Raven replied, closing her eye again.
‘Does it have words?’
‘Mm-hmm.’
‘How do they go?’
‘Hefyd ber brys, hefyd ber athrach, gormod agengül, na-gwala difrioch…’
‘I don’t understand it.’
‘Oh my,’ she murmured.
‘Is it Elvish?’
‘Mm.’
‘What’s it mean?’
The Raven sighed and opened her eyes. ‘It‘s about changes and difference and not enough of either, but too much needing, and all the while time’s running short.’
‘That doesn’t make sense.’
The Raven suddenly remembered that she wasn’t supposed to be talking, and shut up. Mistress Addie came in with the tea, and the subject was dropped.
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