The Mysterious Madam Morpho

Page 18

As if they knew their duties and had performed dozens of times, each butterfly musician took to its task. The Monarch that had once played in Henry’s hair squeezed an accordion with its front legs, while a Common Jezebel tapped twin drums with every downbeat of its bright yellow and red wings. A battered Leopard Lacewing held still and aloof as it impossibly blew a tiny horn with its proboscis. A circle of Skippers rubbed their legs over miniature violins, producing an eerie warbling that was magnified by a golden gramophone. Imogen conducted in what she hoped was a waltz, and the butterflies flapped in three-quarter time with her wand.
She was grateful that the mask hid her amazement. Truth be told, she had gone into this experiment expecting to be arrested on sight. With no practice and no actual experience with her circus, she was simply bumbling through as well as she could. The butterflies were magnificent, and she would have kissed them had they not been dead and also easily damaged.
Her eyes sought Beauregard, who was whispering to the Coppers flanking him. Her baton sped up, taking the music with it, as she thought about what he might have to say about her to other citified men. Her cheeks went red with embarrassed fury behind the mask, and she wondered what was being reported about her in London by those who had never truly known her. But when she looked up again at the rest of the crowd, she saw faces slack with amazement and eyes filled with tears.
The crowd, the rabble—they felt the magic.
Of their own volition, the butterflies ended the song with a crescendo that spun out into the night, the tiny violins thready and high and echoing. When the crowd burst into applause that was more than polite, Imogen bowed, one hand carefully on her mask. Perhaps the disguise was the only thing that stood between her and a London hangman’s rope.
The spotlight above snapped off, bathing the scene in darkness. Beauregard had just shouted, “Now!” when a new spotlight burst on, focused this time on stage left. The Coppers made no move to come for her, so Imogen leaned in to whisper to the still forms. The butterflies’ wings tottered slowly upright.
She and Henry had agreed that the feats of strength would be performed by Swallowtails and Birdwings, as they were the largest and hardiest of the lepidoptera. The butterflies in this act were each attached to a complicated machine of pulleys and levers, but they paused as if waiting for further instruction. Just as Imogen opened her mouth to speak, a smaller butterfly crawled to the front of the stage on delicate legs. It was the Lacewing from the band, and it piped a merry song on its horn.
On cue, the Swallowtails and Birdwings began to pull their weights in time with the music, adding a tinkling metallic counterpoint to the horn. Even though these butterflies were bigger than her hand, it was still amazing that they could manage to lift the metal weights at all, much less with such careful coordination and impeccable timing.
The Goliath Birdwing crawled to the front of the stage, wearing a top hat modeled on Torno’s leather topper. It was a male and the largest in her collection, almost a foot across, with wings of proud green and gold, and it stopped before a black barbell that exactly mimicked the one she’d seen the Strong Man carrying under the tent. With a flex of its antenna, it picked up the barbell and pressed it skyward, first with one antenna and then with the other, then with its coiled proboscis. She couldn’t help smiling under her mask, thinking about how long it had taken her to find a book big enough to fit the monster butterfly. The crowd cheered, and she heard Torno’s voice raised over the rest, calling, “That is my kind of butterfly, that one!”
At this point, she realized that she was as enraptured as the crowd. When she had devised this scheme, she hadn’t considered what she, herself, would be doing. She wasn’t like a lion tamer with a whip or a clockwork artificer with his code words. She wasn’t actually necessary, and if there had been any hope of her escaping Beauregard, she would have been worried by her own lack of panache. On a whim, she slid her hand to the Goliath, coaxing it onto her palm. She was surprised at the weight of it and could feel its feet prickling through her gloves as it stepped up. She held it aloft with a flourish as it hefted its barbell, and the crowd erupted in cheers and laughter.
It was a moment of triumph, and she found that she adored the excitement of the crowd, liked being a part of the caravan. She was just about to place the giant butterfly on her hat when the spotlight winked out on the tiny strongmen and a new one flickered onto stage right. The other spots had been warm and golden, but this one was a cool silvery blue, like moonlight on water. There they were—her favorites. The Morpho butterflies. She set the Goliath Birdwing down gently in its place and moved out of the light to let her dearest treasures shine as they deserved.
At her whispered word, their fat wings wobbled upright around tiny black bodies. They had been named after Aphrodite, a pagan goddess from the islands who had been known for the lust her beauty inspired. And the beauty of the Morphos was otherworldly indeed, their wings shimmering with iridescent scales like diamonds layered with starlight. They waited in place for a heartbeat before the tiny band in the shadows began playing a lively air that echoed the caravan daimons’ hurdy-gurdy.
A Sunset Morpho in vibrant yellow and orange stepped gingerly across a tightrope so carefully that Imogen forgot for a moment that there was no danger for a winged creature on the slender filament. Butterflies of periwinkle and glittering gray and bright blue and soft brown spiraled into the sky like acrobats, tethered by golden leashes as they twirled in complicated patterns that mimicked city dances. And her beloved Blue Morpho took center stage in a tiny sparkling top hat, flapping its wings at a trio of miniature clockwork lions that sat on their haunches and roared.
Filled with a fierce triumph, Imogen held her arms out like wings, and the crowd drew closer to watch the magic of butterflies in flight.
“They’re real!” a child whispered, and his mother answered, “As I live and breathe.”
“Never thought I’d see another one,” an old woman said, tears shining in her eyes.
“Utter magic,” a large man murmured, voice hitching as he tugged at his cravat as if it was too tight.
At the back of the crowd, Criminy waved a red handkerchief to catch Imogen’s eye. She bowed just the slightest bit, and he doffed his hat to her grandly with a grin. By his side, Letitia grinned and gave her a thumbs-up. So she had a job, then, if only she could live out the night.
The crowd was silent, barely breathing, as the Morphos spun in the air, fluttering in the spotlight. For a few moments, magic held them there, enraptured. But Imogen knew it could only last so long. She was out of acts, and her arms grew tired as she struggled to keep the costume’s wings out and steady. Finally, the tension snapped.
“I demand that this woman be arrested,” Beauregard bellowed. “These are the specimens stolen from the Natural History Museum in London. She is a thief and a fraud!”
The Coppers were through the crowd, up onto the pedestal, and on her in an instant, their leathers creaking as they wrenched her arms behind her and shattered the frames of her wings. One of them ripped off her mask, and it fluttered to the ground. She didn’t fight—what was the point? She had known it would come to this. She glanced into the shadows for Henry, hoping to give him one last, long look rife with things she should have said earlier, but she couldn’t find him.
“My dear sirs,” Criminy Stain said, appearing at her side in a glittery red tailcoat. “Whatever do you mean by manhandling my employee?”
“You’ve seen the broadsheets, bluddy,” one of the Coppers barked. “She has his specimens. Means she’s the thief, don’t it?”
Criminy laughed that wild, charming laugh of his and whispered out the side of his mouth, “Forgive my impertinence, but surely Professor Beauregard can tell machinery from reality? These butterflies are clever frauds, forged by my chief machinist, Vil Murdoch.” With one hand, he snatched the Morpho from the tightrope, and Imogen shuddered to think of its feathery wings being crushed by his white glove.
To her great fascination, Criminy twisted some part of its anatomy, and the butterfly stopped moving. He kneeled on the edge of the platform and held it up to Beauregard. “Pretty bit of metal, is it not? Things can fool you, unless you look very closely.”
“This is an outrage!” the professor spluttered. “That is Jane Bumble, and these are my butterflies, and she has stolen also a charm of great renown. The last known hair of Saint Ermenegilda, the one the Bludmen call Aztarte. Search her! You will find it. A single red hair. It is necromancy, and make no mistake!”
The crowd crept away from the frothing man, and the Coppers began to move toward him. The ones holding Imogen’s arms let her go gently and advanced on Professor Beauregard as if he were a rabid dog.
“Now, Professor, you can see as how it’s all clockwork, can’t you, sir? ’Tis merely a caravan, a circus. All smoke and mirrors,” said one.
“Let’s calm down, now, shall we?” said another. “Won’t do to go frightening the women and children.”
“There is perfidy about! My specimens are nearby! Hidden! Search that woman now! She probably keeps the relic in her corset, thinking you won’t look there. But it’s there!”
Beauregard tried to climb onto the pedestal, but the Coppers pulled him back down.
“What’s your name, lass?” one of the Coppers said, and she almost said, “Jane Bumble.”
But Criminy’s voice rang loud. “Her name is Imogen Morpho, and I carry her papers.” He slid the packet into the Copper’s hands and grinned rakishly at her as they were examined.
“All in order.” The Copper shoved the papers back at Criminy. “Sorry, there, Professor. I understand as how you’re upset, but any bloke can see that she’s Imogen Morpho, and them’s clever bits of metal. Besides, she looks nuffin’ like the Wanted posters. Ain’t nuffin’ we can do. You understand, right?”
Right before the Coppers led him away, Beauregard’s eyes met hers, and her chin dropped just a little. Anger, unkindness, indifference—she’d seen them all in his eyes. But now she saw murder. She might have fainted, had Henry not appeared behind her, his arms wrapping possessively around her waist.