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

hadn’t spoken much with the Hobo King recently either—not since April, when so many of the refugees in the fairgrounds, including Dob, had been sick and in need of care. But with the soldiers here, perhaps it would be best to discuss ways to avoid confrontation. “All right,” Neva said. “I’ll be there shortly.”

“Now would be better,” a new voice replied.

Neva turned, confirmed the voice’s owner, and resisted the impulse to strike him. It was easy to keep her emotions in check these days. All she had to do was remember Wiley falling to the blankets, soaking them red and filling the cowry shells’ upturned grooves with blood ... and she was numb again.

“Dob,” she said to the boy, “go back to the promenade and stay there until the soldiers leave. I’ll be there soon.”

“Yes, Miss Neva.” He scurried towards the staircase, obviously eager to resume observing the soldiers.

She watched him leave, then turned back to the new man. “All right, Quill. Let’s go.”

TO AVOID THE SOLDIERS, most of whom still cavorted in the Court of Honor, Quill led her out of Manufactures by the north entrance, then west across the small bridge that connected the U.S. Government Building to Fisheries. Neither was habitable: the search for salvageable scrap was well underway, and both structures had been gutted for steel. The Fair’s organizers had budgeted to recoup half a million dollars by auctioning off reusable materials, even preselling some of its metal to the railroads.

From Fisheries, Neva and Quill crossed to the Wooded Island and then to Horticulture. As they passed the Children’s Building, she shook her head at the number of messages and images scrawled on the structure’s formerly picturesque walls. She saw a few faces withdrawing from broken windows, but the fairgrounds seemed eerily empty. The soldiers’ presence must have sent most everyone into hiding.

The Midway was only a short walk further. Before they reached it, Quill broke his uncharacteristic—yet welcome—silence: “The King’s in a bit of a mood today. I wouldn’t bother him with anything trivial.”

Neva raised her eyebrows. “Like people discussing my ‘chocolate hips?’”

Quill had the grace to blush. “I’m sorry. Kam and his crew are a crude bunch. But it takes men like them to change the world.”

She shrugged. It was possible her former teacher felt badly about his new acolyte’s boorishness. But it was equally likely he’d remembered she’d known the Hobo King before he became his Royal Poorness. Or maybe it was just that Quill was still deathly embarrassed by her refusal of his second drunken advance, which he’d offered—none-too-politely—a few weeks ago.

It was almost a moot point: the King wasn’t in his court.

That much was plain as Neva and Quill walked down what was left of the Midway, its graveled path spotted with weeds, trash, and feces—hopefully all animal. Normally, his Poorness preferred to meet his supplicants in the lowest carriage of the Ferris Wheel. But the soldiers she and Dob had seen break off from the main troop had made a beeline to the Fair’s erstwhile showstopper (now stopped itself). One of the men was climbing the outer rim hand-over-hand to reach the first suspended carriage. Another man lay atop its roof, making a show of sunning himself. The rest ran about like fools behind the confines of the wall that still enclosed the Wheel.

They might as well enjoy themselves while they had the chance. Deconstruction had halted in recent days, no doubt due to labor tensions stemming from the Pullman Strike. But whenever that ended, the remaining pieces would be moved to the Wheel’s new site elsewhere in Chicago.

“In here,” Quill murmured as he ducked into the alley between The Street in Cairo and the German Village. Despite his near-whisper, his words were loud in the quiet—as all sounds were now on the nearly deserted Midway.

“The theatre?” asked Neva.

“For today.”

When use of the Ferris Wheel was prevented by bad weather—or frolicking soldiers—the Hobo King often retired to the Egyptian Theatre. Apparently he’d been quite enamored of Little Egypt’s performances there while the Fair ran ... as Wiley had been of hers in the Algerian and Tunisian Village—no. Please, no. Not now.

But the memory lingered until she entered the Egyptian Theatre and saw who sat opposite the Hobo King’s enormous, balding figure: Brin. Dangling her legs over the edge of the stage as if she owned it.

“Still a bit of jam,” the Irishwoman noted with a wink when she saw Neva approaching.

She replied with a sturdy hug. Her rashes barely twinged—they were only faint scars now, vaguely purple, as if from tattoos inked long ago.

“But you’re thinner,” Brin added, returning the embrace. “Too thin.”

Neva waved this off. “I had the flux—still getting over it. Where have you been?”

“Agitating,” the Hobo King answered for her—as usual, he was squeezed into his favorite seat in the front row. “And I must say, she’s quite good at it.”

Despite swirling with questions, Neva remembered herself and turned to pay her respects. “Your Royal Poorness,” she said, making a half-bow.

He snorted. “Stop it. You know that’s all for show.”

It wasn’t, though—not entirely.

When she’d first met him, he’d been Wherrit: the man who’d lost his mind and bloodied himself on the Ferris Wheel. Now, after returning to the fairgrounds to withstand the winter along with so many other homeless, he was the Hobo King, the closest thing to a leader in the Exposition’s husk. And he liked his ceremony—even if he pretended it didn’t apply to Neva because she’d once helped save him from himself.

“The Pullman Strike,” Neva said, turning back to Brin, “you’re organizing that?”

“Helping.” The Irishwoman nodded at the Hobo King. “Came to talk to him, actually, about getting what support we can from those still sheltering here.”

“Won’t be much,” he predicted. “Not with soldiers about.”

“They’ll disperse; just having a lark, is all.”

“Today, maybe, but this has all the makings of another Homestead. And we’ve already said what there is to say about that.” The Hobo King pointed a beefy finger at Neva.