Alice Hoffman - The Museum of Extraordinary Things

When Maureen came up beside her, Coralie pretended to be squinting in the haze. “It’s not you I’m keeping things from.” Maureen slipped an arm around her charge’s waist. “Trust me when I say, it’s best for both of us to keep our thoughts to ourselves.”

PROFESSOR SARDIE was more desperate every day, frantic in his quest to find a wonder that would match the ones soon to be on display at Dreamland. He arranged for Coralie to make one final swim. She had always considered herself to be fearless in the water, but now she felt a wave of anxiety. For the past few nights she’d experienced a recurring dream in which she remained underwater for so long she grew gills and fins. It was a painful, bloody process. In every dream, when she attempted to climb from the river to its banks, she found she could not walk across the grass but instead slipped back into the watery depths, gasping for breath, confused as to what sort of creature she had come to be.

“Perhaps it doesn’t make sense to excite people for something that doesn’t yet exist,” she dared to say to her father as they waited for the carriage. She felt the base of her throat, for her dream had seemed so real she imagined she’d find a line of gills, as if she were becoming what she pretended to be.

The Professor laughed at Coralie’s fears, insisting a real showman could present his audience with a snapping turtle, call it a leviathan, and be believed if the story of its capture was told with enough drama and excitement. Blood helped such stories along, and for this reason he handed Coralie a small, sharp knife, the very one she’d used upon herself.

“This blade will do in lieu of fangs. If the hand of a fisherman is trailing in the water, take up the knife. Let there be blood in the water. That’s how the Hudson Mystery will find its way onto the front page, despite the struggles on the street.”

The liveryman brought them across the Brooklyn Bridge in the fading light of the day. The city was aglow, especially along Broadway, where the electric streetlights came on all at once, brilliant in the pale twilight. It had rained earlier, and when they reached the West Side, a single line of pink hung like a ribbon above the New Jersey shore. As they traveled west and then north, Coralie thought of the young man she had come across in the woods, and once again she was filled with a nameless longing. She had gone to Maureen for advice that very afternoon. How did she stop the attraction to this man?

“Is this someone you’ve given yourself to?” Maureen’s expression had been worried.

“Of course not! But I hear him call to me when no one is there.” Coralie had not mentioned that on these occasions her heart was in her throat.

“If you don’t want to think of a man, say his name backward three times. If that doesn’t work, write his name on paper, burn it, then bury it in the garden.”

Coralie had laughed. “What will that accomplish?”

“We all burn for what is bad for us,” Maureen had assured her. “Burn him in return. Maybe then the bastard won’t have such a hold over you.”

“Did Raymond Morris have a hold over you?”

“That was something entirely different.” Maureen had spoken in a voice so quiet she didn’t sound like herself. “You are young, Cora. So here’s my advice, should you see him again, all you can do is close your eyes.”

“And then?”

“Then pray he disappears, for you cannot change the way you feel. There is no spell or magic to work for that. Just be smart. Look at him clearly. See who he is.”

Coralie practiced Maureen’s suggestion as the carriage continued uptown through the dark streets. She closed her eyes and did not think of him. Instead, she imagined their garden; she thought of the runner beans she would plant, and the heat of the sunlight when the tomato plants began to flower. It did no good. When she opened her eyes all she could think of was the man in the woods. He was like a fever; she could feel him all over her. She was somewhat dazed, as she had been when she’d fallen ill as a child and Maureen feared she’d contracted the Spanish flu.

“What will you say to the authorities if you’re caught?” the Professor asked as they neared their destination. Coralie had no choice but to pull herself together. They had rehearsed her response several times. The Professor did not believe in chance or luck but in being fully prepared. That was virtue in his eyes.

“I decided to take on the Hudson River as a challenge to my skill as a swimmer,” Coralie responded by rote. She felt like a puppet on a string, but one whose heart was beating too fast, whose thoughts strayed dangerously far. If this was what love was like, it was disconcerting, something over which she indeed had no control.

The Professor nodded, satisfied.

There was to be a full moon, perfect conditions for his plan, although the river was running quite high. At this time of year, the murky spring currents carried roots and fallen trees and all manner of man-made items that had been frozen into the ice upstate and had recently been freed in the thaw. As the Professor prepared the monster’s mask, Coralie went to the grassy bank to remove her coat and her shoes. The chill of the air felt like pinpricks. She stretched, as she always did before a long swim, then practiced her breathing technique. The liveryman was nearby, letting the carriage horse graze. Coralie stole a glance and noticed he was staring into the woods. When she followed his gaze, she spied a large gathering of blackbirds, a hundred or more fluttering through the trees. She wondered if this was an omen, and if she should fear its meaning or be relieved.

“So many,” she said, marveling at the birds, forgetting she was not allowed to address the hired man. “I wonder if they speak to each other, like men and women, or if their calling goes unanswered.”

The hired man buttoned his jacket, as if this might make their conversation more acceptable. “Men and women rarely speak to each other, though they often talk.”

They were out of the Professor’s hearing and sight, so Coralie continued. “People might speak freely if they didn’t fear one another’s judgments.”

“Then let me speak freely,” the liveryman said. There were scars on his face and neck, hastily sewn by a surgeon who certainly couldn’t be called a credit to his profession. “I don’t think you should swim tonight.”

Coralie found she wasn’t the least bit uncomfortable conversing with this man, even though Maureen had confided he’d once been the boss of one of the toughest gangs in lower Manhattan, willing to go up against some of the established Italian gangsters of the Cosa Nostra and the Black Hand, who were so numerous Prince Street was called Black Hand Street. The liveryman had been to prison before coming to work as the Professor’s driver, a humbled man who’d done far too much damage when he was young, to others and to himself.

“Blackbirds can sense danger,” the hired man went on. “You’ll never see one in a storm. They take flight long before the first raindrops fall.” He whistled a trilling call. Soon enough one of the blackbirds came to perch on the branch of a nearby sycamore tree.

“You can speak to him!” Coralie was charmed.

The hired man admitted that he’d kept pet birds for a good part of his life, mostly bright parakeets and parrots from South America, along with his beloved pigeons. “A bird will never lie, just as a man will rarely tell the truth. That’s been my experience and no one will convince me otherwise. So I’ll speak as the birds do, with honest intent. The river looks rough, miss. It’s running wildly and it’s dangerous. An experienced sailor could drown in such conditions. I wouldn’t send my daughter into it, if I were lucky enough to have one.”