Witch in the White City: A Dark Historical Fantasy/Mystery (Neva Freeman Book 1), Nick Wisseman [best novels for students .TXT] 📗

“I’m fine,” she murmured, banishing the last of the memories—all featuring Augie—that had filled her dreams after Brin choked her into unconsciousness. “And not to sound ungrateful, but if you’re so worried, why did you bring me here?” An ostrich grunted from its enclosure, one of several featured outside the Midway’s California Ostrich Farm.

“You need to eat something. Dr. Gentles said you fainted from exhaustion as much as fever, and the Farm has the best breakfast in the Fair.” Gentles had discharged Neva into Wiley’s care earlier that morning, following her late-night stay in the Exposition Hospital.

She shrugged. “The omelets are really made with chicken eggs, you know.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Not according to the advertising.”

“The copy for the Algerian Theatre says I’m Arabic. And the Fair is celebrating the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of America in 1492—except it’s 1893.”

“Fair enough.” Wiley tried to coax a smile out of Neva with one of his own, but she looked back at the still-grunting ostrich. “Either way,” he said after a moment, “they’re good eggs.”

She watched the ostrich until an attendant calmed the bird by shrouding its head. “So Dob is at Hull House ...”

Wiley fidgeted with a fork. “It was only for last night. It sounds like he has an aunt he can stay with until we find his mother.”

“If you find her,” Neva said quietly, remembering the diamond-patterned handkerchief the porter—Augie—had used to wipe his bloody lips. Dob’s circumstances had been one of the first things she’d asked Wiley about when he’d collected her from the Exposition Hospital. She hadn’t liked his answer.

She turned to survey the rest of the open-air café. It was filled with fairgoers dressed—as ever at the Fair—in their best clothes. The quality varied, though: some of the coats and dresses looked immaculate, worn by “gentlemen” and “ladies” obviously accustomed to displaying fine things on their fine persons. Other garments were, upon closer inspection, betrayed by fresh patches and newly hemmed edges, adjustments that told of their owners’ dreams to appear above their station while in the White City.

Neva understood the sentiment. What wouldn’t she give to be someone else today? To be just an awestruck tourist, with an ordinary, breathing brother ...

The husband of the family seated nearest them stood to leave. Initially, the motion drew her attention because the man was ludicrously out of fashion: his powdered wig wouldn’t have looked amiss on one of the Founding Fathers. But then she noticed the Chicago Tribune he’d left at his table, and the headline dominating the front page: “MURDER ON THE PIER!”

As soon as Mr. Wig and his family turned their backs and began walking out to the Midway, Neva leaned over and snatched the paper. Wiley frowned, but she read the opening paragraph anyway:

.

COLORED JACK THE RIPPER DIES IN INFERNO!

BONFIELD INSISTS FAIR NOW SAFE

All Chicago was horrified yesterday when a Negro porter revealed himself to be a maniacal monster: with grim delight, he dismembered a passenger of his wheeled chair on the White City’s main Pier, wolfing down the flesh of each limb and tossing the bare bones onto the Moving Sidewalk, upon which they rolled out to the Ferry, rattling hideously. After finishing his heinous meal, the porter—who some believe to be Leather Apron himself—leisurely licked the blood from his lips and began hunting for his next victim.

“You’ll only torture yourself reading that,” Wiley said.

She scanned the rest of the article. “It doesn’t mention Augie by name.”

“Nor you—you’re just the ‘wild Negress who pursued the killer up the Cold Storage Building even as it burned.’ No one else has made the connection. Officially, Augie’s simply missing.”

“He wasn’t in his right mind.” She opened the paper to page two. “He’d been bitten. Those rashes ... It’s a sickness.”

Wiley sipped his water. “I knew a fellow in Durban,” he said eventually. “Went befok with malaria: memories, predilections, personality—all of it changed or gone entirely. Became a different man. Convulsions took him at least once a week, and ...” He glanced at her hand, which Dr. Gentle had wrapped in bandages after an orderly discarded her soot-smudged gloves. “I’m sure it goes differently with each person.”

She leafed through the additional coverage, most of it just as sensational and embellished. But some of it was informative: “They printed a few of the victims’ names.”

“They did what?” Wiley straightened and reached for the paper.

She held on but shifted so he could see where she was reading. “Here—next to the advert. Not all of them have been identified, but they’re saying a man was found downtown, a girl in the Levee, and three women at the Fair.”

“Flaming hell. I only had time to read the front page.” He studied the article she’d pointed to. “We knew the Ripper theory leaked, but this ... It’s flagrant. Reporters: villains with pens. Every one of them.”

Her gaze strayed to a line further down. “‘While the victims were of all manner of description and background,’” she read aloud, “‘they all met a similarly grisly end: dismemberment followed by partial, and, in one case, almost total consumption.’”

“Flaming hell,” Wiley repeated. “So much for being circumspect. The Commandant is going to nail someone’s tallywags to the wall for this. There’s nothing about the White Chapel Club, is there? Oh ... I’m sorry.”

Neva squeezed her eyes shut while she collected herself. When she opened them, they returned to the word “consumption”—a euphemism for eating people. Augie had licked that man’s blood. And last night she’d wanted to bite Brin. “It still doesn’t seem real ...”

“I know.” Wiley cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”

She put the paper down and stared out at the Midway. “When we came in, I thought I saw guards outside the Dahomey Village.”

“Just a precaution. Silly, really. The tribe is all accounted for, and no one with any sense believes they’re cannibals.” He cleared his throat again. “Can I ask you something? About last night? I know you said you were