Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain (15 page)

Quimbly stared back at him, hands in pockets. Now that he'd spoken his unformed desire, he could think of nothing else.

“You have great animal magnetism. I sense this about you. You draw people, don't you?” The Fool did not wait for an answer. “You were drawn to me. But you must realize that I practice with powerful forces. Cosmic forces. Not the sort one takes or gives lightly.”

Ada ran her hand over the Fool's shoulder. “I could use a rest, love,” she said.

“A rest from the bottle.” The Fool tousled the boy's hair. “You must promise, on the blood of your ancestors, and your own if you have no one else, to do good. Solely good. Not one false step. Not one careless word! When you practice my art, you control your listener. Do you hear me? Do you really hear me? Do you understand?”

Warmth coursed through Quimbly despite the chill of spring dusk. His eyes felt heavy, his lips tried to open but could not.

“You must not use the power for selfish gain. You must not abuse it. Not once. Do you hear?”

Quimbly tried to nod, felt the muscles but not the motion. Had he answered?

“Very good,” the Fool said. “Tomorrow, then. Noon at
62 Orchard Street. My dear sister has invited us to perform a cure. Bathe first.” The Fool removed his top hat, revealing damp curls that spiraled around his forehead. “Buy yourself something to eat,” he added kindly, handing Quimbly a wad of folded bills. “And a smart outfit.”

T
HAT NIGHT, AT MIDNIGHT
, under a cloud-covered sliver of moon, was the practice run. Parkhurst and Phineas, the largest of the five boys, carried the rowboat to the river's edge, and Cobb, who noticed the missing oar, raced off to steal one from a nearby pier.

The water looked blacker than usual to Quimbly, and especially cold, as he remembered he'd have to bathe in it the next morning. His parcel, containing new trousers, shirt, and a black stovepipe hat, sat concealed among the rocks. He hadn't returned to the shantytown for fear of finding Bettine, whom he'd managed to avoid all day. He tied his face mask, torn from an old jacket lining Parkhurst brought, and tried to look confident as he stepped into the rowboat.

John Bovee refused to steady the boat, a passive protest against his status as watchman, but Quimbly made his way to the front beside Parkhurst. Behind him Phineas and Cobb argued, the older brother claiming that the younger's strokes scarcely touched the water, forcing the boat to turn constantly starboard. The river moved differently in the
darkness, as stealthy as a burglar, and strong. But the four soon found a rhythm, learned the current.

“We'll have to be faster tomorrow,” Parkhurst said, his oar balanced on his knees.

Tomorrow Quimbly would see 62 Orchard Street. The address alone evoked a happiness as bright as a fresh, plucked fruit. He'd learn how to make magic with his voice, how to hold people trancelike, how to cure and control them.

“Quimbly!” Parkhurst said. “Mind the dock.” And Quimbly ducked just in time to avoid colliding with the wooden rail at the side of a low pier.

“I didn't see,” Quimbly said.

“Be alert. We can't afford mistakes.”

The admonition delighted Cobb and Phineas, who received Parkhurst's displeasure so often they rejoiced when it fell on other shoulders. Quimbly shifted his weight; the boat dipped. Mistakes happened only when he lied. If truth was on his side, as his father used to say when he was sober, so was everything else, and there was no way he could go wrong. He searched for the words to explain this, to assure Parkhurst that everything would work out. “I don't make mistakes,” was all he could come up with.

From the shore came three low whistles: John Bovee reporting a constable or night watchman. “Come on,” Parkhurst said.

“It's not really an alarm is it?” Cobb said. “I mean —”

“Pull,” Parkhurst commanded. “Pull hard.”

The boys pushed off from the dock and rowed toward the hideout to the rhythm of Parkhurst's hissed disappointments: Your heart must be in it. I can't be minding you. You can't be whining, or dreaming, or picking your nose. There's thousands of dollars of gold to be had. Are you in? All in?

Quimbly felt his friend's demanding stare. Cold water leaked into the bottom of the boat, a half inch, but enough to wet his feet and send a chill through his body.

“You haven't been the same since you lost your heart to that girl,” Parkhurst continued.

“I did not.” Quimbly's voice wavered. Bettine meant nothing to him, despite her soulful eyes and hair that always looked neat though she slept on a filthy pink blanket and didn't own a mirror. “She follows me around.”

“Your head's so full you practically lost it on that dock back there.” The boat struck the riverbank, and Parkhurst jumped out to pull it ashore. “We might have to put you on dock watch.”

Cobb and Phineas laughed.

“I'm in,” Quimbly said, words he hoped sounded convincing. Soon he would stand on land again, and he'd feel more in control. “All in.”

• • •

T
HE HOUSE AT
62 Orchard Street, even grander inside than out, had carpeted floors and chandeliers that hung like sparkling gems from the ceiling. Embroidered curtains framed tall windows, and a dark-skinned girl stood beside the door to sweep the step so that it was fresh for each arriving guest. The house was an institute, a special hospital for the head. Quimbly couldn't read the sign, but he overheard two gentlemen speak of it, and the fact that Caroline Stone brought all her suitors for a reading before she would receive them in her home.

The front parlor contained nearly twenty guests, Quimbly estimated, trying not to stare at any of the finely dressed men and women. A dark-haired woman — the Fool's sister, most likely — was greeting each arrival and handing out pamphlets. She wore four gold necklaces and as many gold rings on each hand, and she didn't even look when a heavyset woman hailed her urgently from across the room; she shook her head and said, “Not now, Letty,” nothing more, even when Letty dropped the tray of dried plums she'd been holding and stomped away, leaving the fruits to roll over the floor.

The Fool, fingers dampened with spit, played an old-fashioned glass harmonica, left foot pumping the worn wooden pedal, fingers rubbing the instrument glass with great fondness. The soft notes hung behind genteel conversations
about weather and riding, miracle cures, and the latest fashion.

“Bit late,” the Fool said.

“You said noon.” Quimbly felt small, despite his top hat and clean red shirt fastened with real cufflinks snatched secretly from Parkhurst's stash. He glanced around the room again, searching for Ada, but finding no one quite so glamorous even among the ladies in lovely silk gowns, with lockets — all of them — around pale necks.

The Fool nodded toward the guests as if to apologize for his assistant's tardiness. “Ada's ill, or rather, she's refused cure this morning. A half hour with the baquet is all she needs. But she heard no reason.”

“The baquet?”

The Fool abruptly stopped playing and smiled, and Quimbly stepped back to examine the man completely. He looked more distinguished than ever in a tailcoat and pressed trousers. His fingers, long and pale and relaxed despite the quick notes they created, seemed to belong to the instrument.

He kicked a canvas bag the size of a small dog toward Quimbly. “Iron filings,” he said. “Go on. Make yourself useful.”

Quimbly picked up the heavy canvas sack and followed the Fool to the center of the room where sat a large oak vat
nearly six feet across and perhaps a quarter as tall. Where had the Fool found the device? The wood of the baquet had aged and darkened on the inside, which was filled with water. Submerged bottles, arranged in concentric circles, pointed either toward the center or the rim of the vat, where two dozen iron rods projected, each bent at the end to form a handle.

“Fold that,” the Fool said, tossing the gold velvet cloth that had covered the vat. “No, leave it for now. We have to stir in the filings. Inside this vat, we have magnetized water. The very finest magnetized water, some from as far away as southern France.”

At first Quimbly thought the Fool was explaining only to him, but as the Fool introduced himself and his assistant, “the boy,” Quimbly realized that the show had begun, and he hastened to mix the filings into the tub.

“Step round. Gather round!”

Quimbly raised one arm, just as Ada had, and grabbed hold of an iron rod. The metal was far warmer than his skin, almost so hot that he released it.

“Sore from riding? Exhausted from last night's capers? Pain, sickness. Enough! Behold the baquet.” The Fool's words echoed off the walls. Quimbly was meant to hear that voice, meant to learn the healing art, which he knew would, once he'd mastered it, forever assure him respect.

Quimbly raised his arm again and bowed slightly as the audience turned to him. He could see whose eyes had already partially closed and who still gazed at the baquet skeptically. Soon they too would understand. He smiled, certain that the chandelier light glittered in his cufflinks.

“Come, join my assistant at its side. Feel the force of magnetic fluid. Shed your complaints, your burdensome worries. Embrace somnambulism, let me be your guide.”

Each grasping hand added depth, a new vibration to the heat of the baquet. The woman in the china-patterned dress across from Quimbly felt as close as the bareheaded gentleman behind him. The rod burned in his fingers, but he could not release it. His hand had a will of its own, a creature apart from his body, a thing that responded only to the Fool's dulcet voice.

“Create a circuit! Join hands! Feel the energy flow through you.”

Quimbly no longer felt his body. The woman in front of him began convulsing, her chest heaving violently. Laughter and sobs nearly drowned the Fool's words: Relax, he said, give way to the forces. Small waves formed on the surface of the water. The submerged bottles began to shake, to strike each other with dull thuds. Quimbly was laughing. Joy coursed through his body, threw his small frame forward, into the full peach skirt of his neighbor.
The room had grown lighter, the water steamed. “The baquet!” Quimbly cried, though he did not recognize his voice. “The baquet.”

And then it was over. He fell to the floor alongside the fine gentlemen and ladies. He felt breathless, as if he'd run for miles. He lacked the energy to rise when the Fool offered his hand.

“Come along now,” the Fool said, calm but firm. “This house is not so wonderful as it might seem.”

“What happened?” Quimbly said. “I've forgotten —”

“Men often forget.” The Fool handed Quimbly a mop and bucket.

Men, Quimbly thought. He'd never been called by that word before. Through the window, he was surprised to see that night had fallen.

Q
UIMBLY SCARCELY HAD
time to return to the shantytown to exchange his fine clothes for a dark shirt and trousers before he raced to the dock for the predawn gold run. His legs felt numb and his thoughts unclear, but his pocket watch still held the afternoon's magnetic charge, and he wrapped his palm around the warm metal. He remembered little; only the moment he collected change and the Fool tore the bag from his hands with a firm whisper, “Do not ask for money here!”

The Fool had lectured him about audiences and expectations,
his voice no different from Parkhurst's when he became mad. But then he spoke of constellations and planets and the relations of all things to each other, this time to Quimbly alone, and the boy was quick to promise the Fool that he'd help set up the baquet at eight the next morning.

“Where've you been?” Parkhurst demanded. He and the others had already tied their masks and the boat was upright and drawn to the river edge.

“Work,” Quimbly said.

“Work? Not lollygagging with that girl?” Parkhurst laughed and hit Quimbly's shoulder with what might have been a friendly tap except for the force behind it. “After tonight, we'll be rich! Rich beyond belief. And you go to work. Did you hear that? Quimbly, at work.”

“I'm here now,” Quimbly said. He felt older than the other boys, or at least more knowledgeable.

“Are you coming?” Parkhurst unwrapped his knife with a flourish of dirty cloth. “You said you were in.”

Quimbly slipped into his seat and took the waiting oar. He did not want to go out on the river again; Parkhurst's scheme, the whole notion of the River Gang, no longer seemed enticing. But if he backed out now, he'd be yellow forever.

Parkhurst held his knife between his knees, blade pointed skyward as the rowboat made its way to the looming hull of the
Sea Witch
. She had lost half a mast on her
journey and floated like a large broken bird alongside the low pier that had nearly taken Quimbly's head the night before. The rig was dark, lighted by neither oil nor gas lamp. A loose rope flapped against the deck, and water hit the bowed side, plangent beats that soon had all four boys breathing in rhythm.

Cobb tied the rowboat to the rung of the rope ladder running up the ship's stern. Parkhurst started up first, and silent and smooth as shadows, Phineas and Quimbly followed. Quimbly counted the rungs, repeating the numbers under his breath to keep focused. The ship rocked gently.

“Easy,” Parkhurst whispered. The
Sea Witch
seemed abandoned, without even a guard. “Easy as picking pockets.”

“Sh!” Phineas, alert and tense despite the vessel's emptiness, inched toward the cabin. Only the shore light reached them, a faraway glow.

“We're just yards away from —”

“Quiet!” Phineas nearly yelled this time, and the three froze, listening for John Bovee's warning whistle. A gull took flight from the foremast. Far below, Quimbly thought he heard Cobb sniffle. Seconds passed, then Parkhurst nodded and the three moved forward.