Welcome, wanderers in spirit and in science, seeking answers beyond those offered by the ways of ordinary men. Welcome to the famed City of Wonders, Salt Lake, and to the glorious independent state of Deseret, where none who walk with Christ in their heart and with good intention in their hands will be turned aside. Come in peace, go in peace. Or better yet, stay. Stay and serve the great machines, bringing progress and plenty to the world beyond Deseret’s enlightened borders.
Come.
From a distance, the city of Salt Lake—often referred to as “the City o’ Gloom,” and none who have walked there would ever question the origins of the name—was a great gray smudge, as though the thumbprint of some uncaring God had been pressed into the landscape, blurring the desert’s natural beauties away. The closer a visitor drew, the more visible the city walls and spires would become, until the smog had become an accepted part of the landscape, virtually unnoticeable. It was a slow dive into deep pollution, and taken one step at a time, there would be no shock to the system.
(But when that same dive was repeated in reverse, oh! The shock of clean air, the pain of breathing all the way down to the bottom of the lungs! Common indeed were travelers who left Deseret and hacked and coughed until they had expelled what seemed like a bucket of tar from their chests, leaving them light and aching and unwilling ever to return. So many of them would return, sadly. Deseret was its own kingdom, and what wonders it contained, it did not yield easily to those who refused its hospitality.)
Up close, the bones of the city were visible, still as strong and lovely as they had been upon their original construction. There were wonders to be found in Salt Lake, beautiful walls and elegant architectural curves. It could have grown up from the surrounding desert, perfect in its symmetry, if not for the gray smog that hung over everything, staining stone and fogging windows. The people who hurried through the streets wore masks over their mouths and noses, trying to protect themselves from the sting of pollution for just a little longer. Those who had been felled by black lung or by other, darker diseases could not work in the factories, could not do their part for the ascension of Deseret.
It was easy for a traveler to think that this was all that Salt Lake had to offer: these narrow, stained, beautiful streets filled with weary, strained, unbeautiful people, whose lives were being consumed one day at a time by the factories. Indeed, for the uninvited or the faithless, this might as well have been all that there was of the city. They would never be allowed past the walls, into the beautiful gardens or the elegant homes of the faithful. They would never see how sweet life could be in Salt Lake City, where elegance and humility went hand in hand.
But for those lucky few, ah! They could make their way through those dirty streets to the walls that separated the homes of the common folk from the elegant neighborhoods set aside for the children of Joseph Smith, for whom Salt Lake would always be a Holy City, greater even than distant, lost Jerusalem. They could walk through the gilded gates and find themselves walking down streets of polished marble, where everything was scrubbed and perfect, seemingly untouched by the smog that hung only a few blocks away. Women strolled along the boulevards, modestly dressed but with their own benchmarks of beauty on display: clear skin, lovely hair, eyes unclouded by pollution.
Their children were similarly healthy and hale, and walked beside their mothers like well-mannered shadows, already learning their place in the world. The boys walked faster than the girls, who trailed a foot or so behind, well-schooled at even the youngest age in the ways of obedience and humility. Their clothing was fine, machine-stitched and hand-finished, tailored to present them as the little ladies and gentlemen that they were becoming.
Even these houses, close to the border of the secular part of Salt Lake—unkindly referred to as “Junkyard” by many of those who didn’t have to live there, and wearily called the same by those who had no other choice—were often regarded as small and shabby, too near the pollution to be truly worth coveting. The streets wound their way deeper into the Holy City, and then out again, heading for the border, where the homes of the truly wealthy and truly elite sat on their own large plots of land, surrounded by slices of captive desert where no rattlers swam and no unwanted dangers lurked.
Toward the very edge of the city, barely contained within Salt Lake’s boundaries, sat a home large enough to be considered an estate. Three stories high, with wide, carefully landscaped gardens surrounding it. They were desert gardens, cactus and blooming succulents and hardy brush plants, but they were no less beautiful for their dryness. If anything, the fact that they were equipped to thrive in this climate, without demanding expensive watering systems or excessive labor, only made them more beautiful. They were things that could thrive.
The front door was mahogany, imported from wetter climes, inlaid with swirls of abalone shell, until standing in front of them was like beholding the world’s largest perfect pearl, so close to untouched that they might as well have been constructed by the very hand of God. A cunning bell system had been installed, allowing visitors and tradesmen to summon a butler with the press of a button. It was a small technological wonder, hinting at the amazements that were to come, if only access to the house were granted by its owner.
Dr. Michael Murphy did not grant that access easily, or often. Had not done so, in fact, since the death of his wife some seven years before. Grace Murphy had been the finest woman any of his servants had ever known, and her sudden passing had cast a pall over the entire household. Childbirth was always a dangerous time for a woman, but she had seemed to bounce back easily from the ordeal, and had even been seen walking in the halls in good spirits before she had taken to her bed and faded away.
(Few admitted it aloud, but childbirth in Salt Lake—in all of Deseret—had become more dangerous still since Dr. Hellstromme had come, with his marvelous machines, and made them over into the technological capital of the West. Something about the air, perhaps, damaged the already weak constitutions of nursing mothers, rendering them prey to every infection and disease that came along. The number of orphans and widowers in Salt Lake grew by the season, and no one said anything, because there was nothing that was safe to say.)
After Grace’s passing, Dr. Murphy had closed the windows and locked the doors, retreating more and more often into the safety of his lab, which was tucked down below the house, where it would not attract the curious eyes of his servants. Many of them had expected to be dismissed when the parties ended and the dinners were no more, but as their letters of dismissal had never come, they had continued to work.
The question of remarriage had been raised by the Elders, by concerned friends, even by the other scientists who toiled for the great future of their country. Somehow, none of it had ever come to anything. Dr. Murphy was a man in mourning, and he saw no reason to change that, now or ever.
A man in a tattered cloak and old leather hat slipped through the front gates and started up the walkway toward the house. He was a brown stain on the beige and bone landscape, long, lanky, and entirely out of place here, in a land that was not, could never have been his own. He walked with the easy stride of a gunslinger or a hired man, completely comfortable in his own skin. His eyes traced the gardens around him, marking the position of cactus spine and rattlesnake den—for here, in the desert, even the seemingly safe was never anything of the kind.
He reached the door. He rang the bell. He waited.
Footsteps heralded the approach of a member of the household. The stranger stood a little taller. The door was opened, revealing a woman in a demure dress, her hair covered by a plain white bonnet. She stopped, eyes widening for a moment before she composed herself.
“We do not require any landscaping services,” she said. “Good day, sir.”
“Wait.” The man’s voice was rough, the grate of rocks against one another, the sound of sand on stone. He did not reach for the door to stop it from closing. He didn’t need to. His gaze was enough to freeze her where she stood. “I’m here on official business. I need to see Dr. Murphy, if you’d be good enough to fetch him for me.”
“Dr. Murphy is not receiving visitors.”
“He’ll receive me.” The man hooked his thumbs through his belt loops, looking at her with the steadied unconcern of a hunting coyote. “Tell him I’ve got an answer to his pearl problem. He’s been waiting a long time. I don’t suppose he’ll be happy if I tell him that you made him wait even longer than he had to.”
The woman’s eyes widened again, and this time, they stayed that way. “Please, sir,” she said, taking a step back and beckoning him inside. “Come with me.”
The stranger stepped over the threshold, knocking dust off his boots and onto her nice clean floor. The woman said nothing, merely waited for him to be inside before she closed the door and beckoned for him to follow her deeper into the house.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” said the man, staring shamelessly at the fine silver, the priceless artwork, and the other marks of Dr. Murphy’s hard-won wealth. “One man needs all this?”
“Dr. Murphy is a philanthropist and an upstanding member of the church,” the woman said stiffly. “His charity and generosity are without peer.”
“If you say so,” said the stranger. Then: “I thought you Mormons believed in the same man having as many wives as he wanted. Why’s your master still looking for the one he lost? Shouldn’t he just get a fresher plot to plough and,” he made an obscene sucking sound, “give up on the old baggage?”
The woman’s cheeks flushed a brilliant red. “I’ll thank you not to speak of Miss Grace in such terms,” she said. “That’s the last help you’ll have from me. Use that sort of vulgar language to refer to the mistress in Dr. Murphy’s hearing, and your next of kin will be the ones receiving an unwanted visit.”
They might, she thought cruelly, have been better off in that circumstance. This man was worn thin and hard by the desert and the road. His skin was leather, pocked with old sores; his teeth were too straight and white to be his own. He was a scavenger, stealing everything he had from the world around him. If he died here, Dr. Murphy would feel compelled to pay compensation to whatever family he might have, and she had absolutely no doubt that this man was worth far more dead than he would ever be alive.
“Understood, ma’am,” said the man, eyes twinkling with unholy mirth. “I can’t help notice your own rush to defend the lady. You don’t believe this nonsense about her being dead, do you? Why, a smart woman like you. You must have figured it all out long ago.”
“That is none of your concern,” she snapped, before catching herself and buttoning her lips. This man, this dreadful desert-clad man, was trying to tempt her into a place of blasphemy. He wanted her to speak against her master, her household, and her Lord, all in a single sentence. She had seen the body of Grace Murphy with her own eyes, laid out pale and perfect and finally free from the trials of mortal flesh. To claim Grace were anything but dead and gone, why, it was to play at a second resurrection, which would not be granted to any living soul left on this world now that the Messiah had come and gone.
It was not right. It was not suitable. This man had no place outside Junkyard—no. He had no place in Deseret. His kind could not be saved. They could only be pitied, and allowed to go about their vile business until Kingdom Come, and the faithful were lifted into a better world, leaving the filth of this place behind them.
He chuckled. Even his laughter sounded dirty, like it was smearing on her skin, leaving her somehow tainted. “I always forget how mannerly you Deseret girls are,” he said. “While you’re home, anyway. I’ve known a few of your castoffs in my day, and I promise you, they’re as rude as any other lady the night has ever known.”
The woman said nothing, but walked a little faster, relief flooding through her as she saw the arched door to Dr. Murphy’s lab come into view. As a senior member of his household, she not only had her own key, but had his express permission to disturb him while he was working—unless, that was, he had told her that his day’s efforts involved volatile chemicals or, more rarely and dangerously, a visit from Dr. Hellstromme. He had given neither warning today, only mumbled vague pleasantries before making his retreat.
She unlocked the door. Opening it turned on a small blue light on the wall, where she couldn’t help but see it; a visual reminder of the course she was setting for herself. A matching light would come on after five seconds in the master’s lab, notifying him of her approach. The pause was to give her time to change her mind and withdraw—and quite honestly, she often did exactly that, deciding that whatever problem had caught her attention wasn’t worth troubling Dr. Murphy, who was a brilliant, sensitive man and didn’t deserve to be burdened down with the petty business of running a household.
Slowly, she began the descent toward Dr. Murphy’s lab. The man from the desert followed, so close behind her that she could smell his stinking breath, rich with the scents of spoiled meat and the Devil’s whiskey. She resisted the urge to wrinkle her nose. Showing him that she was disturbed would only reward his vile behavior. A man like that, in a place like this, why, he must be looking to shock. That was the only reason the unfaithful ever came to the Holy City. They wanted to shock, to startle, and to tempt good men and women away from the path of righteousness.
She would not be tempted, either in word or in deed. She was stronger than they.
The stairs ended at a doorway, matched to the one in the hall upstairs. She knocked three times before unlocking it, stepping through before the man could shoulder past her. Dr. Murphy’s privacy was being violated. He deserved to know the reason.
“You have a visitor, Doctor,” she said, voice frosty. “May he enter?”
The lab was a vast, cavernous space cut into the bedrock beneath the house. The walls were smooth stone, sanded and polished until they shone, and the floor was made of the same stuff. Inflammable, virtually indestructible, and gray as the smog that hung over Junkyard, creating the odd illusion that the entire lab had been sliced out of the sky above the factories and somehow transported to this underground location. Equipment she couldn’t name and didn’t care to understand lined the walls and filled the center of the room, creating a labyrinth in steel and flashing lights and unnervingly thick leather straps. Standing tubes tall enough to contain an adult human were set up along the far wall, shrouded in white sheets. She had never seen beneath their coverings. Something about the shape of them …
No one who worked in Dr. Murphy’s household knew the exact nature of the work he did beneath it. None of them wanted to. Knowledge would carry a responsibility they did not desire.
The doctor himself was bent over something small and mechanical on one of the slabs. He looked up, eyes magnified to three times their natural size by the loupe clipped to his glasses. He blinked, the simple gesture turned huge and horrifying by the magnification.
“Helen?” He flipped the loupe up, revealing his wire-framed glasses, reducing his eyes to their normal size. His gaze went to the man behind her, a frown tugging at his lips as he saw the man from the desert. “Is something wrong?”
“No, Doctor,” said Helen. She finally stepped to the side, letting the man step forward. “This man says he has information for you.”
“Does he?” Dr. Murphy straightened, eyes still on the man. “Information about what?”
“I’m no fisherman,” said the stranger. “Still, even the most landlocked of men might find themselves with their hands on a bushel of oysters. They might find a pearl or two.”
Dr. Murphy went perfectly, utterly still.
He was not a physically imposing man: someone passing him on the street could have been forgiven for thinking that he was nothing of consequence, just one more accountant laboring in the great factories, keeping the numbers in line. His hands were long and slender, a piano-player’s hands, and his shoulders were narrow, the shoulders of a man who had never done a lick of physical labor in his life. He was thin, thanks to a general disinterest in the pleasures of the flesh, but there was still a softness to him, beneath his fine linen and cotton clothing, marking him as no real challenge. His hair was brown, like the hills outside, and his eyes were blue, the color of the sky that hung above the Holy City, visible only to the faithful.
“Helen,” he said finally. “You may leave us. Pack a traveler’s lunch for our friend. I am sure he’ll need it, when he goes.”
“Sir—”
“Charity begins at home,” said Dr. Murphy. This time, there was steel in his tone, a hard core of unquestioning strength that put a lie to his outward appearance. “You may leave us.”
“Yes, sir.” She bobbed a quick curtsey and was gone, running back up the stairs as fast as her legs could carry her.
Dr. Murphy turned his eyes on the stranger. He started toward him, removing his thick leather gloves as he walked, every motion seeming like a threat in the process of being made. “Sir, I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” he said. “Oysters do not keep well in desert countries.”
“Perhaps not, but it’s well known that you’ve been looking for your pearl for a long while now,” said the man. “I heard there was a reward associated with the little miss.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Murphy. “A reward. Go on.”
“Word was your wife didn’t die. She left you. Ran off in the night with your daughter. A pity. No man should have his good will used like that. You left her with enough freedom to feel she was a valuable pet instead of a captive, and what did she do? Grabbed what meant the most to you and ran.” The stranger shook his head. “It’s no wonder you’d want her back. If anything, it’s only a wonder you haven’t torn this country apart looking for her.”
“Appearances must be maintained,” said Dr. Murphy, sounding stunned. “Have you seen her? Have you seen my Grace?”
“She calls herself ‘Annie’ now. Annie Pearl.” The stranger’s expression sharpened, like a hunting hound scenting the kill. “There’s the matter of my reward to be discussed before we go any further. You understand, being a businessman and all.”
“You shall have every penny you desire upon this Earth,” said Dr. Murphy fervently. “Only tell me, where is my Grace? Is our daughter with her?”
“You mean the silent girl? She’s there. Ghostly little thing. Walks like she doesn’t know what sound is for, and the way she looks at a man…” The stranger shook his head. “But she’s alive, if not hale. I hear the girl has something wrong with her. In her lungs. She’s sickly. That’s one more crime you can lay at your wife’s feet.”
“No, it’s not,” said Dr. Murphy. He dropped his gloves on the nearest table. “Pearl was always unwell. It was … a consequence of her birth. For Grace to have kept her alive for so long is nothing short of a miracle.”
“The girl goes by ‘Adeline’ now.”
“Does she? A pretty name. My wife’s choice for her, if I recall correctly.” His tone made it clear that he recalled correctly: that he had never been wrong about such a thing in his life. “Where did you see them?”
“My reward—”
“Will be paid in full once I have my answers. Do you think me a man who fails to pay his debts? If you do, perhaps you should take your leave of me now.”
The stranger’s eyes narrowed. “I have information.”
“Yes, and thank God for that. But what one man may uncover, another may find as well. Now that I know they’re out there to be found, and not bones in a hidden grave, I’ll find them. Sooner or later, I’ll find them. Speak and be rewarded, or hold your tongue and leave.”
There was a long pause as the stranger weighed Dr. Murphy’s words. Something about the smaller man was unnerving, unsettling in a way he couldn’t quite put his fingers on. Finally, he said, “You drive a hard bargain.”
“Yes.”
“They’re with a traveling show. The Blackstone Family Circus. Not that there’s any family to it, just a man named Nate Blackstone with delusions of grandeur and reputability.”
“A circus? I see.” Dr. Murphy cocked his head to the side. “Where is it now?”
“I left them in Idaho. Too many freaks in one place for a God-fearing man like me. But I heard they were heading into Oregon, for a town called The Clearing. They should be there now. My payment?”
“Yes. Mustn’t allow a debt to go unpaid.” Dr. Murphy’s long-fingered hand moved, swift as a swooping hawk, and the stranger’s throat opened like a canyon, spilling a ruby waterfall of blood down the front of his filthy shirt.
The stranger made a choking sound, grabbing for his throat like he thought he could somehow stuff the blood back inside. It was too late. It had been too late the moment he had rung the bell at the front door. Some traps were all the more dangerous because they were so easy to walk into.
Dr. Murphy dropped his scalpel and walked to the wall, where he pressed a button. There was a crackling sound. “Helen,” he said, into the speaker. “I need you, and three men large enough to assist me in dressing and disposing of a body. Please send message to Dr. Hellstromme, informing him that I will be needing some time away from my duties.”
“Very good, sir,” said Helen’s voice, as clear as day. “What shall I do with the lunch you asked me to prepare?”
“Have it sent to Junkyard, to be given to some needy soul. Charity begins at home.”
“Yes, sir,” said Helen. The intercom clicked off.
Dr. Murphy turned back to his lab, looking at the body on his floor with distaste. There was so much work to be done, and it was well past time that he began.