“I can make dead things move using the hearts of living things,” Enoch said. “I have to take them apart first, but—”
The girl snapped her fingers, and Enoch’s mouth clapped shut. “You’re nice-looking,” she said, tracing a finger along the line of Enoch’s jaw, “but when you talk it gets ruined.” She smooshed the tip of his nose with her finger. “Boop. More for you later.”
She turned to Bronwyn. “You.”
“My name is Bronwyn Bruntley and I’m quite strong and my brother, Victor, was also—”
“BORING!” the girl screamed. “POOP!”
Feet scurried toward us. The bow-tied teacher appeared in the doorway.
“Yes?”
“I don’t want any more dolls like these, Poop. Just look at them. Do they seem like they would be fun to play Monopoly with? DO THEY?”
“Er . . . no?”
“THAT’S RIGHT. THEY DO NOT.”
She kicked a pile of dolls and they flew everywhere.
“Well, him I like.” She pointed at Enoch. “But the rest are HORRIBLE and BORING.”
“I’m very sorry, Frankie.”
“What should we do with them, Poop?” She turned to offer us a quick aside. “His name isn’t really Poop. I just call him that because I can call anyone anything I like.”
“Perhaps we should eat them,” Poop suggested.
Frankie sneered. “You always want to eat them. It’s weird, Poop. And anyway, that gave me a stomachache last time.”
“Or we could sell them.”
“Sell them? To who?”
“To whom,” the teacher said, and then he put a hand over his mouth and turned pale.
The girl flew into a rage. She pointed at him, then drew a quick, invisible line downward. The teacher fell to his knees as if pulled by strings. “YOU. DO NOT. TELL ME THINGS.”
“Yes, Frankie. Yes, ma’am.” His voice was quivering. “Mater semper certa est.”
“That’s right. That is extremely correct.” A small line of dolls was marching toward him across the room. “Because you’re so obedient, Poop, I’m only going to have them chew off one of your legs.”
The teacher repeated the phrase over and over, faster and faster—“Mater semper certa est, mater semper certa est!”—until the words were slurring together. The dolls swarmed him, grasping and champing their porcelain teeth. The man was crying, sobbing, but he didn’t struggle. When he seemed about to pass out, the girl spread her arms and then brought her hands together, and the clap made all the dolls go limp and fall over.
“Oh, Poop. You’re so funny.”
The man gathered himself, wiped his face, and wobbled to his feet. “Where was I?” He cleared his throat. “You could sell them to the Animists, the Mentats, the Weathermen . . .” He pressed a trembling hand to his neck, quickly checking his pulse, then tucked it behind his back. “But, as always, the Untouchables are paying the highest rate.”
“Blecch. I hate them. But as long as none set foot here . . .”
“I’ll call them and arrange a sales meeting.”
“I’m not selling him, though.” She pointed at Enoch, then traced a U in the air with two fingers. Enoch’s lips curled into an exaggerated, grotesque smile.
“That’s fine, Frankie. That’s very good.”
“I know it’s good. The rest of them, I don’t care. I just have one condition. If whoever buys them does something nasty to them? I get to watch.”
After a long and dreamless blank, I woke up tied to a chair. We were spaced out all in a row, our feet bound to the chair legs and our hands strapped behind us: Emma, Bronwyn, Noor, and even Millard, the ropes hovering around what looked like an empty seat. All but Enoch. He was nowhere to be seen.
We were on the stage of an old theater, arranged behind a tattered yellow curtain. If I craned my neck, I could see ropes and pulleys behind us and lights along a catwalk above. We weren’t gagged, and yet I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even persuade my mouth to open. Then I heard voices on the other side of the curtain. They seemed to be talking about us.
“They were trespassing on my property! Trying to steal from me!” It was the psychotic little girl, Frankie. “I had every right to hang them, but I’m showing mercy instead. And doing you all a favor.”
“That’s funny, usually it’s you who’s tryin’ to steal from us,” said a gravelly male voice. “The last specimen I bought from you turned to corpse-dust after only two days.”
“S’not my fault if you don’t take care of ’em right,” said Frankie.
“The seller isn’t responsible for user error.” An oily-sounding voice I recognized—Poop, the tutor.
“You sold me junk! I’m owed a free one!”
It sounded like a scuffle was about to break out, but then a lady shouted, “Stop it! No brawling allowed on neutral ground!”
Things settled down. The gravelly voice said, “You’ve wasted too much of my day already, Frankie. Let’s get your dog and pony show started.”
“Fine. POOP!”
With a loud squeak and a puff of dust, the curtain began to rise. Beyond it was an empty and decaying theater. The seats were torn, the balcony level was teetering at a precarious angle and looked as if it might collapse at any moment.
On the stage were six people. Their gazes were trained on us but they seemed to be watching one another just as closely, each maintaining a wary distance from the rest. Frankie and Poop stood closest to us, Frankie wearing a coat with tails and holding a baton, as if she were the ringleader of a circus.
It seems amazing to me now, but I had no way of knowing then who the others were. That was probably for the best, because if I’d known their reputations, I might’ve been too intimidated to think straight. Frankie had reached out to the most notorious peculiar gangs in New York, and the leaders of three had made an appearance. Front and center was a young fellow with hair like a cresting wave. He wore an immaculate suit, shoes caked in red mud, and a thin, threatening smile. His name was Wreck Donovan. Standing behind him were his two flunkies, a demure girl who was casually reading a newspaper and a boy who didn’t strike me as someone who could read at all, his mouth hanging open in dim amazement.
Wreck was staring at me while having an argument with someone else: a young-looking girl in an immaculate white dress tied with a huge silk bow. Her hair was coiffed in complicated, ironed curls that cascaded down her back. Her face was milky-white and smooth and very cold, the mouth an inverse of Wreck’s, turned down at the corners and always moving, as if she were chewing something, or talking to herself silently. The strangest thing about her was the cloud of black smoke that hovered around her head and shoulders, churning slowly but never dissipating. It narrowed to a funnel shape that seemed to emanate from her right ear. Her name was Angelica, and she was alone.
Wreck hated to be photographed, but one day I would see a blurred snapshot of him posing much as he sat before me now. Angelica, on the other hand, loved the camera, and one portrait of her in particular—moping on a swing, smoke cloud wafting to one side—would become famous among American peculiars, framed and hung with pride by some, used as target practice or a wanted poster by others.