Emporium
Genre: Young Adult Steampunk
Word Count: Approx. 71,000
Status: Complete, seeking publication
Sequels: Two, one complete
Synopsis:
Half-siblings Tyber and Sandra Crawford are children of the legendary Hunter of the last polar bear on earth.
Not that they care.
Nearly all the wild animals have gone extinct after the release of a toxic gas that prevented the Great War. Now, in the sunset of the Victorian era, the Emporium is the last zoo in the world and the crown jewel of the British Republic.
But 17-year-old Tyber would risk taking any photograph for a ticket away from that zoo and across the Atlantic. After falling in love with a deaf boy from colonial India with wit sharper than gin, he thinks taking and selling pictures of the celebrity-Hunters at the Emporium is his only chance to afford running away with the man he loves.
Then, when a lion is spotted in Kenya, and a cash reward tempts reckless wannabe-Hunters in pursuit, Tyber thinks it may be his best chance for freedom.
He signs up.
Which, to Sandra, was the stupidest thing ever.
Willing to do anything to protect her hopeless-romantic-idiot-brother, Sandra feels she has no choice but to sign up too and save him from himself. She sacrifices her dream job to join the safari, but she'll have to keep the lion - AND the rival Hunters - from mauling them both, or else Tyber may not only lose his ticket to freedom and love, but his life too.
Excerpt:
1
(Tyber)
A camera flashed in my face and I lifted a hand.
“Hey, Tiger.”
White exploded in my vision, but I blinked and reached out for my camera. Sandra’s fingers grasped mine before they could graze the smooth bulb.
“Are big cats supposed to blush like that?” She forced herself onto the two inches of bench available and I slid to make room.
My real name was Tyber. I wished it wasn’t. It was far too close to “tiger” for Sandra to resist and went well with my orange hair. Sometimes orange. My fingers rubbed the peels of black paint that this morning’s soap hadn’t washed off. I’d tried streaking tiger stripes in my hair, like I was one of the Hunters about to arrive at the Emporium, and stared at myself in the vanity before mussing it out fast. It just wasn’t me. At least no one would noti–
To my right, Jeshin grabbed a piece of my hair and screwed a face down at it. I pushed his hand away fast and glanced at Sandra, but she was fiddling with the boxy, accordion-looking red camera. Our eyes locked; Jeshin’s probing, intelligent ebony burned easily past my soft grey. He gave one more critical glance towards the shadow in my hair, knowing what I’d attempted, and looked off into the pathway before the Emporium.
“Soooo when are you boys lining up?” said Sandra. She knew I was going to photograph the parade today on the Green Trail winding up to the Emporium. What she didn’t know was how close I intended to get. I cleared my throat.
“In a few,” I said.
Clap! She snapped the box camera closed and we both jumped. To her, it was a cube. To me, an appendage. But then she locked its latch with clean, gentle fingers and my frown softened.
Next to me, Jeshin shifted in his seat and glared at me for clarification.
He was waiting for my translation, and I didn’t keep him, signing an interpretation of her question. His eyes followed the up and down bob of my hands. Although deaf, nothing got past him.
Jeshin nodded when he’d seen enough and resumed looking off at the brick lane. He wore baggy grey trousers and a dull red shirt with a high collar. His chin rested in his hand and his silky black hair was combed unevenly.
On the path, a cane whipped through the air and hearty laughter accompanied the passerby into the Emporium. Jeshin’s dark skin and smooth features blared colonial India, hard to miss among the light Republic British. Most of the people threw him offhand glances. He tapped his fingers on the bench as if entering each of them as one more number in a calculator. I’d ask him why he did it, but he didn’t answer questions he didn't like.
A little color rose in Sandra’s cheeks and complimented her long blonde curls. “You promised you’d get a good angle on him, Ty. You know who I’m talking about.”
I did. She meant one of the Hunters arriving today. The one that happened to be young and attractive.
“I do want a good angle…” I love tormenting her. “Which is your future husband again?”
She shoved me into Jeshin, and he hopped from the bench like a metal ball from the pendulum swinging constantly in Norman’s den. I imagined Norman’s disgusted face if he’d discovered the black paint on my hands and the Hunters I’d tried to resemble. Norman – my father – glowered at the silver studs in my ears enough.
“Why does he even appeal to you?” I said. “He’s all rugged and…Australian.”
“Yeah, but that works for me.” The color in Sandra’s face deepened. Her British accent was like perfume dripping into a bottle. So much more fragrant to the ear than my splintered half-American.
Jeshin was staring impatiently at me again for a translation and I rolled my eyes so he knew it was nothing, taking the camera from Sandra. His expression wavered. I cocked my head and brought the camera strap over my neck.
“Better get to it then, Mrs. Crowe,” I said. I guess the last name didn’t sound bad on her.
“Right,” she said. “Later, then, little Tyber. I’ve got matters to see to as well.”
I huffed, and not just because she sounded so British. “Matters?”
“Mind your business.” She flicked my temple lovingly and I winced. Then she skipped back in the direction of the Emporium, long blonde hair swinging. I just stood there for a second, watching her and realizing my mouth becoming dry. Jeshin gave me a moment and then tugged at my shirt sleeve, urging me along.
Looks like she’s keeping secrets, too, he said.
I frowned as we move into the crowd together. Maybe she was. But hers wouldn’t break her sibling’s heart like mine would.
Jesh’s eyes were still on me as we shouldered through the hems and frills of black and grey Sunday best and headed for the Green Trail. I think he realized that what he’d said hurt more than he intended. He was the only other person alive that knew I was saving up to leave Sandra and Norman and this entire place and head to America. I had to. Jeshin was coming with me, which is why he kept my secret.
We were running away together.
So. Jeshin changed the subject. I could read the flash of his hands from the corner of my eye, so I didn’t turn my head. Game plan. We need one.
I’m not getting a pence unless I can get close, I answered. There’d be a million photographers out today. My shot needed to blind the presses.
Or get into the tent, said Jeshin.
I stopped in the middle of the path. Jeshin’s eyes went wide. I was kidding!
That’s exactly what I’m doing, I said, and started walking again. The tent was where all the Hunters ended up after the parade and did their secret handshaking or whatever with the Head Keeper of the Emporium. No reporters were allowed in there. Which meant it’d easily be a ten pound shot to the papers.
How are you going to do that?! Jeshin said.
You know I can get in there without them knowing.
He did know. His shoulders sagged and he stretched out his neck, probably thinking it through. Once, I snuck him into the Emporium at night so we could lie on the floor and watch the red-eyed tree frogs wake from camouflage and slip into their tiny pool of water. There were at least three guards on duty, and visitors weren’t allowed at night. I knew how to not be seen. It was pretty easy considering I don’t think Norman wanted to see me anyway.
Tickets for the annual banquet parade littered the ground. Jeshin shuffled away from my side and tried to step on them like the rest of the earth was hot lava while I fingered the camera hanging from my neck and scoped out the police situation. I was a little nervous, but not about to let Jeshin know. He might have been the most intuitive man I’d ever met, but I could act a Shakespeare alone.
Children skipped alongside their parents in the crowd and toted stuffed animals. Businessmen escorted clients in brown top hats, and I watched as one spread his arms wide before him, announcing the grand, domed building bouncing off sunlight. A black tunnel stemmed out from the domes and two ten foot statues of rearing lions guarded either side. Union Jacks shrugged in the wind and Pellworth rifles were stenciled into the entranceway’s tile.
The Emporium.
It was the only zoo in the world, so I could see its draw. A century ago, in a war against the Arahov Domain, we accidentally released toxic gas into the natural water systems – nearly all the wild animals became extinct. So now…standing before one of the exhibits with a real, moving creature behind the glass was like staring into another dimension. And they kept them all inside, embedded into the walls so that’s it was more of a museum with living artifacts than a zoo. We couldn’t touch them, only look. But by the rumbles and seethes I’d heard coming from down the wings on the lower floors…sometimes I thought they wanted to do more than only look back at us.
To avoid suspicion, I sighed and positioned my camera on the post bordering the Trail, next to about four other photographers who would all capture the same mundane shot. A grey blimp scuttled through the sky. Throngs of people already sandwiched either side of the parade route. They chattered excitedly and hung over the barricading rails. I heard snippets of conversation – the same conversation, over and over.
“A bloody lion! Right in the savannah!”
“A live one, alright.”
I pretended to focus my lens, refusing to place faces to the voices. I’d seen the photo taken from the blimp last week that bled onto every front page in Western Europe and ignited the wildfire of interest in funding a new Hunt to act on it. It was grainy and small, but it could be a lion. I don’t know. Whoever took the shot was no real photographer.
Then the smell of gin pinched my nose and I peered over my shoulder. Sure enough, the officer who oversaw this parade every year weaved by me and shouted for patrons to move along, sweat shining like salt on his bald head and a wide-brimmed, floppy hat in his hand. I could make a collage of that man’s shoulders and wrists I’d snipped out of my photos of the Hunters, the Emporium, the animals before submitting them to the media for money. That word, that unholy word, pounded guilt in my stomach whenever I heard it. It coiled my muscles whenever change rattled into my hand at the film shop. Because I was saving every pence for that new life in America. That new life that wouldn’t be able to include one of the only two people I loved.
I swallowed soreness in my throat.
We were not sneaking off anywhere with that officer around – I tried to share a meaningful look with Jeshin to convey just that, but he said,
How do you sign ‘irresponsible’ in sign language?
I remembered not to laugh just in time. His face remained deadpan as he gazed at the gold columns supporting the high, white tent at the end of the Trail, guns and caged animals engraved upon it. Coming from an impoverished slum on the Malabar Coast of India, he was as sickened by the Emporium’s lavish showmanship as I was. The economic waste bothered him the most, but for me, it was the Emporium’s mission. First we extinguished nearly all wildlife. Then we wrestled each other for a chance to imprison the creatures that survived.
We paused and just stared at those gold columns for a moment. Then Jeshin’s smooth, dark hand waved in front of me playfully.
When should we… he started, but something caught my eye, so I held up a finger at him and glanced over though the crowd.
A man in red suspenders and a boy were at one of the gaming booths near the Emporium entrance. The boy couldn't be more than five or six, with mousy hair and an upturned nose. He was standing on a step stool, ratty tweed pants hanging loose on his tiny frame. He clutched a toy rifle in his hands, aiming at the game board and following the wooden lions as they moved back and forth, back and forth.
"There ya go, lad. Nice and steady now," the man said. I didn't know if they were father and son, but I did know that Norman had never spoken to me with such a supportive tone. Norman wasn't supportive of anything but the Hunt.
The boy dropped the toy gun. It clattered to the brick path, and the father struck him. I cringed. He rammed the toy gun back into the boy’s grasp. I couldn’t understand the reprimands coming from his angry face, but the boy retook the rifle and draws shaky breath, relocating the target beneath the fierce, demanding gaze of the man.
Hunters in the making.
There’s a photo I really wanted to take. But no one here would pay me for it. No one here saw anything strange in what I just saw.
Jeshin hit my shoulder and pointed hard to the officer a few bodies away. He was struggling with a priest grasped by the black robes. The priest’s Irish face was harassed and blotchy, spitting out words we couldn’t hear. I rolled my eyes and rubbed my ear stud subconsciously. He was definitely no Arahov, but the Republic didn’t trust the Catholics – or anyone non-Anglican for that matter. The invisible curtain that split Europe into Republic territory in the west and Arahov Domain in east included a protestant barrier that was little more than stubbornness and stigma. The Republic was refined, innovate, and blaringly white and English everywhere west of Germanic Prussia. We thought we were more civilized, superior and imperializing everywhere we touched. The Arahovs were rustic – hanging onto an old religion like Catholicism – and while they were a little behind the game with technology, and their people were poorer all spread out in Russia and the Slavic nations, they were strong and they still outnumbered us. I knew that frightened the Minister.
Ridiculous, I signed at the officer and the priest.
No, said Jeshin. Let’s go! He’s distracted!
I didn’t even sign back that he was right – because he was. I picked up my camera and twirled into the disguise of the crowd. Jeshin melted into the herd with me.
I trotted around the spectators, heading for the other side of the parade barrier, where the tent was. And then a din of applause popped like a champagne cork.
It was starting.
I was practically jumping through limbs and side-stepping around children waving flags, but I peeked through the bodies to see the first arrival on the Trail.
The car seethed steam like a dragon. Last year, I remembered this same model being pulled by several men under horse costumes. Now it moved alone. A few years ago, this sort of technology would have been considered witchcraft.
The first Hunter emerged from the car, and I actually gave a dark smirk, because I realized it at the same moment every year. That our celebrities were not inventors or artists or, as I would like, musicians. They were Hunters. Shooters. The lucky men and women who didn’t die on their expedition for the Emporium like hundreds of others had. I recognized the one ducking out of the brassy steam car.
Nigel. Thin, lanky, and always with a serious expression of superiority, he swung an arm into the air and rallied applause. A red ascot puffed out of his chest. He was my dad’s best friend; been on several safaris together. Nigel caught the African gazelle and resembled one too. The catch was mediocre, but his rifle was strapped behind him as always, as if he was going to rip it off his back and protect us all when another gazelle came stampeding through the ballroom.
I shook my head and focused on my path just as Nigel passed through the Trail and signed autographs grimly, as if this alone were what he was meant to do in life.
Jeshin and I reached the first red stanchions, guarded by another officer who twisted a piece of straw between his teeth and watched the parade with one palm pressed to the stanchion post.
I ducked, patted Jeshin roughly on the back, and crept forward. We’d have to separate now as Jeshin distracted him.
Jeshin pulled the Deaf Card. Started signing frantic nonsense to the guard, who straightened in alarm.
I slipped right under the stanchion and crossed the ground. The shadow of the white linen tent tripped over me and I blended myself into the side of it. The cool fabric tickled the back of my neck. A clump of crates that must have contained the welcoming gifts for the Hunters sheltered me. Keepers – employees of the Emporium – were commentating on the other side of the fabric at my back, inside the tent. I heard a dark, thoughtful grunt in response that I knew must belong to Frobisher Tusk, the Head Keeper.
One of them laughed and slapped some part of Frobisher’s body, for he gave a loud, offended sniffle.
“Here comes Mr. Kiwi…”
Mr. Who? I crawled around the tent on my hands and knees until I could squint at a view of the Trail again and shifted my camera further onto my shoulder, away from the ground.
A long, low car braked at the Trail.
Oh. It was that Mr. Who. The youngest Hunter in history – my future brother-in-law – opened the car door.
Xander Crowe ducked out of the car and into the sunlight. The rays grazed over his light brown hair and blazed across his blue eyes and the corner of his mouth tilted up. He was tall. Lean. Couldn’t be more than twenty. The collar was open on his khaki safari shirt and that genuine crocodile leather belt was worth hundreds.
Women flooofed out yellow fans and flapped them fast even though it wasn’t that hot.
Despite his superstar status, I kind of smiled because liked this guy. He was usually good to his fans, not haughty.
He took one step along the Trail and then, as if he forgot something, spun back to the car. He stooped in to retrieve an object, and I swear I felt the breeze of flapping fans increase as Xander’s brown bush hat – kangaroo leather – appeared in his grasp. He bowed his sandy-haired head and replaced the hat slowly with both hands.
Still flushed to the side of the white tent, I shifted myself to a crouch and sidled closer to the Trail, because I did promise Sandra this shot. I checked fast behind me to make sure no Keeper was rounding the backside of the tent and raised my camera soundlessly.
The audience squealed louder for him than any Hunter, and Xander reached deep over the rails and clasped hands with both of his. He nodded to words I’m sure he couldn’t make out over the din. As the Keeper had said – ridiculed, by the way it sounded – he caught something called a kiwi, and I guessed the tufty gray feather on his hat’s brim had something to do with it.
Then my lips pursed in confusion. From out of nowhere, a Keeper on the Trail grasped Xander by the collar and thrust him towards a group of women. Xander staggered to the barricade. The Keeper raised a camera and Xander, too tall to fit in the frame, ducked and held a hand over his hat to prevent the girls from tugging it off.
As soon as the shot was snapped, the Keeper grabbed him again and steered him towards another batch, but not before taking wads of money from the young women in exchange for the negative. Xander looked over his shoulder at the transaction. His brow lowered and his expression darkened. I frowned, too, and my thumb hesitated from taking the photo.
My heart punched into my throat as I heard a rumbling from the crowd. I knew who it’d be – the finale arrival – and I had to sneak into that tent by the time he made it there. The gold-embossed carriage with fierce polar bears stenciled on either side—teeth bared and enormous paws swiping— juddered to a halt at the Trail.
The door opened, and the cane cracked onto the brick first. My father dragged himself from the carriage.
I should have been moving – right now, when all attention was on him, I should have been stealing my way into that tent – but I couldn’t shove my eyes off him.
Applause boomed. Norman filtered it, breathed it, with callousness, with the gruffness that everyone adored. The gruffness I would never earn. He wore a navy blue fedora, dark gray mustache as it always is, in two solid bars straight down either side of his chin. A polar bear tooth – his polar bear tooth – dangled from his neck, and his rough eyes were hidden behind purple-tinged glasses. Like always, he would sign no autographs and make eye contact with few. Badge-decorated fraternity boys – Hunters-to-Be, and Norman their idol – hooted and stomped, imitating the polar bear, and he allowed himself a rare smile of amusement.
I pushed myself off the floor and slunk around to the backside of the tent. The slit to enter was just a foot away from me, and I pressed myself to the supporting pole.
“Here he comes, boys!”
I winced. That Keeper voice was loud in my ears – probably just inches away through that linen. Then I heard shuffling, excited cackling as they prepared to meet Norman at the entrance of the tent.
I glimpsed inside the tent in a flash, seeing empty space, and then dove in.
My hands and knees flattened the shadowed grass. Frobisher Tusk, the Head Keeper, rose from an armed chair just inches from me, and I scrambled behind the chair for cover. Not a single blade of grass flicked straight again to give me away. I juggled my camera up to find my eyes and looked through the lens.
All the other Hunters were pressed into the small tent, gathered around the centerpiece – Norman and the Head Keeper. I saw Xander remove his hat and sink into a white fold-out seat at the side of the tent, wiping sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. He breathed through his mouth and his blue eyes were fixed on the commotion around him, but no one paid him any mind.
“Mr. Crawford…” Frobisher’s voice was deep and tight. He removed his bowler hat and extended a white-gloved hand to Norman. Norman’s lips twisted into a growl of comradery, and he battered his hand into Frobisher’s, shaking it hard. Everyone clapped, even Xander, but him in a disconnected – or maybe just tired – sort of way.
This was my cover shot.
Laying on my side and holding my breath, locking Frobisher and Norman’s reunion and all the other celebrities in my frame, I shot the picture.
Before anyone could even break their applause, I was hastening for the exit in silence. I stood as soon as sun hit my eyes outside the tent flap, unable to keep a grin from my face. I got it. I got my ten pound photograph, and no one saw me.
But I felt something rest on me. Something I was used to feeling rest on me.
I glanced into the slit of the tent flap for only an instant and saw Norman’s cold, infuriated glare impaling my own.
1
(Tyber)
A camera flashed in my face and I lifted a hand.
“Hey, Tiger.”
White exploded in my vision, but I blinked and reached out for my camera. Sandra’s fingers grasped mine before they could graze the smooth bulb.
“Are big cats supposed to blush like that?” She forced herself onto the two inches of bench available and I slid to make room.
My real name was Tyber. I wished it wasn’t. It was far too close to “tiger” for Sandra to resist and went well with my orange hair. Sometimes orange. My fingers rubbed the peels of black paint that this morning’s soap hadn’t washed off. I’d tried streaking tiger stripes in my hair, like I was one of the Hunters about to arrive at the Emporium, and stared at myself in the vanity before mussing it out fast. It just wasn’t me. At least no one would noti–
To my right, Jeshin grabbed a piece of my hair and screwed a face down at it. I pushed his hand away fast and glanced at Sandra, but she was fiddling with the boxy, accordion-looking red camera. Our eyes locked; Jeshin’s probing, intelligent ebony burned easily past my soft grey. He gave one more critical glance towards the shadow in my hair, knowing what I’d attempted, and looked off into the pathway before the Emporium.
“Soooo when are you boys lining up?” said Sandra. She knew I was going to photograph the parade today on the Green Trail winding up to the Emporium. What she didn’t know was how close I intended to get. I cleared my throat.
“In a few,” I said.
Clap! She snapped the box camera closed and we both jumped. To her, it was a cube. To me, an appendage. But then she locked its latch with clean, gentle fingers and my frown softened.
Next to me, Jeshin shifted in his seat and glared at me for clarification.
He was waiting for my translation, and I didn’t keep him, signing an interpretation of her question. His eyes followed the up and down bob of my hands. Although deaf, nothing got past him.
Jeshin nodded when he’d seen enough and resumed looking off at the brick lane. He wore baggy grey trousers and a dull red shirt with a high collar. His chin rested in his hand and his silky black hair was combed unevenly.
On the path, a cane whipped through the air and hearty laughter accompanied the passerby into the Emporium. Jeshin’s dark skin and smooth features blared colonial India, hard to miss among the light Republic British. Most of the people threw him offhand glances. He tapped his fingers on the bench as if entering each of them as one more number in a calculator. I’d ask him why he did it, but he didn’t answer questions he didn't like.
A little color rose in Sandra’s cheeks and complimented her long blonde curls. “You promised you’d get a good angle on him, Ty. You know who I’m talking about.”
I did. She meant one of the Hunters arriving today. The one that happened to be young and attractive.
“I do want a good angle…” I love tormenting her. “Which is your future husband again?”
She shoved me into Jeshin, and he hopped from the bench like a metal ball from the pendulum swinging constantly in Norman’s den. I imagined Norman’s disgusted face if he’d discovered the black paint on my hands and the Hunters I’d tried to resemble. Norman – my father – glowered at the silver studs in my ears enough.
“Why does he even appeal to you?” I said. “He’s all rugged and…Australian.”
“Yeah, but that works for me.” The color in Sandra’s face deepened. Her British accent was like perfume dripping into a bottle. So much more fragrant to the ear than my splintered half-American.
Jeshin was staring impatiently at me again for a translation and I rolled my eyes so he knew it was nothing, taking the camera from Sandra. His expression wavered. I cocked my head and brought the camera strap over my neck.
“Better get to it then, Mrs. Crowe,” I said. I guess the last name didn’t sound bad on her.
“Right,” she said. “Later, then, little Tyber. I’ve got matters to see to as well.”
I huffed, and not just because she sounded so British. “Matters?”
“Mind your business.” She flicked my temple lovingly and I winced. Then she skipped back in the direction of the Emporium, long blonde hair swinging. I just stood there for a second, watching her and realizing my mouth becoming dry. Jeshin gave me a moment and then tugged at my shirt sleeve, urging me along.
Looks like she’s keeping secrets, too, he said.
I frowned as we move into the crowd together. Maybe she was. But hers wouldn’t break her sibling’s heart like mine would.
Jesh’s eyes were still on me as we shouldered through the hems and frills of black and grey Sunday best and headed for the Green Trail. I think he realized that what he’d said hurt more than he intended. He was the only other person alive that knew I was saving up to leave Sandra and Norman and this entire place and head to America. I had to. Jeshin was coming with me, which is why he kept my secret.
We were running away together.
So. Jeshin changed the subject. I could read the flash of his hands from the corner of my eye, so I didn’t turn my head. Game plan. We need one.
I’m not getting a pence unless I can get close, I answered. There’d be a million photographers out today. My shot needed to blind the presses.
Or get into the tent, said Jeshin.
I stopped in the middle of the path. Jeshin’s eyes went wide. I was kidding!
That’s exactly what I’m doing, I said, and started walking again. The tent was where all the Hunters ended up after the parade and did their secret handshaking or whatever with the Head Keeper of the Emporium. No reporters were allowed in there. Which meant it’d easily be a ten pound shot to the papers.
How are you going to do that?! Jeshin said.
You know I can get in there without them knowing.
He did know. His shoulders sagged and he stretched out his neck, probably thinking it through. Once, I snuck him into the Emporium at night so we could lie on the floor and watch the red-eyed tree frogs wake from camouflage and slip into their tiny pool of water. There were at least three guards on duty, and visitors weren’t allowed at night. I knew how to not be seen. It was pretty easy considering I don’t think Norman wanted to see me anyway.
Tickets for the annual banquet parade littered the ground. Jeshin shuffled away from my side and tried to step on them like the rest of the earth was hot lava while I fingered the camera hanging from my neck and scoped out the police situation. I was a little nervous, but not about to let Jeshin know. He might have been the most intuitive man I’d ever met, but I could act a Shakespeare alone.
Children skipped alongside their parents in the crowd and toted stuffed animals. Businessmen escorted clients in brown top hats, and I watched as one spread his arms wide before him, announcing the grand, domed building bouncing off sunlight. A black tunnel stemmed out from the domes and two ten foot statues of rearing lions guarded either side. Union Jacks shrugged in the wind and Pellworth rifles were stenciled into the entranceway’s tile.
The Emporium.
It was the only zoo in the world, so I could see its draw. A century ago, in a war against the Arahov Domain, we accidentally released toxic gas into the natural water systems – nearly all the wild animals became extinct. So now…standing before one of the exhibits with a real, moving creature behind the glass was like staring into another dimension. And they kept them all inside, embedded into the walls so that’s it was more of a museum with living artifacts than a zoo. We couldn’t touch them, only look. But by the rumbles and seethes I’d heard coming from down the wings on the lower floors…sometimes I thought they wanted to do more than only look back at us.
To avoid suspicion, I sighed and positioned my camera on the post bordering the Trail, next to about four other photographers who would all capture the same mundane shot. A grey blimp scuttled through the sky. Throngs of people already sandwiched either side of the parade route. They chattered excitedly and hung over the barricading rails. I heard snippets of conversation – the same conversation, over and over.
“A bloody lion! Right in the savannah!”
“A live one, alright.”
I pretended to focus my lens, refusing to place faces to the voices. I’d seen the photo taken from the blimp last week that bled onto every front page in Western Europe and ignited the wildfire of interest in funding a new Hunt to act on it. It was grainy and small, but it could be a lion. I don’t know. Whoever took the shot was no real photographer.
Then the smell of gin pinched my nose and I peered over my shoulder. Sure enough, the officer who oversaw this parade every year weaved by me and shouted for patrons to move along, sweat shining like salt on his bald head and a wide-brimmed, floppy hat in his hand. I could make a collage of that man’s shoulders and wrists I’d snipped out of my photos of the Hunters, the Emporium, the animals before submitting them to the media for money. That word, that unholy word, pounded guilt in my stomach whenever I heard it. It coiled my muscles whenever change rattled into my hand at the film shop. Because I was saving every pence for that new life in America. That new life that wouldn’t be able to include one of the only two people I loved.
I swallowed soreness in my throat.
We were not sneaking off anywhere with that officer around – I tried to share a meaningful look with Jeshin to convey just that, but he said,
How do you sign ‘irresponsible’ in sign language?
I remembered not to laugh just in time. His face remained deadpan as he gazed at the gold columns supporting the high, white tent at the end of the Trail, guns and caged animals engraved upon it. Coming from an impoverished slum on the Malabar Coast of India, he was as sickened by the Emporium’s lavish showmanship as I was. The economic waste bothered him the most, but for me, it was the Emporium’s mission. First we extinguished nearly all wildlife. Then we wrestled each other for a chance to imprison the creatures that survived.
We paused and just stared at those gold columns for a moment. Then Jeshin’s smooth, dark hand waved in front of me playfully.
When should we… he started, but something caught my eye, so I held up a finger at him and glanced over though the crowd.
A man in red suspenders and a boy were at one of the gaming booths near the Emporium entrance. The boy couldn't be more than five or six, with mousy hair and an upturned nose. He was standing on a step stool, ratty tweed pants hanging loose on his tiny frame. He clutched a toy rifle in his hands, aiming at the game board and following the wooden lions as they moved back and forth, back and forth.
"There ya go, lad. Nice and steady now," the man said. I didn't know if they were father and son, but I did know that Norman had never spoken to me with such a supportive tone. Norman wasn't supportive of anything but the Hunt.
The boy dropped the toy gun. It clattered to the brick path, and the father struck him. I cringed. He rammed the toy gun back into the boy’s grasp. I couldn’t understand the reprimands coming from his angry face, but the boy retook the rifle and draws shaky breath, relocating the target beneath the fierce, demanding gaze of the man.
Hunters in the making.
There’s a photo I really wanted to take. But no one here would pay me for it. No one here saw anything strange in what I just saw.
Jeshin hit my shoulder and pointed hard to the officer a few bodies away. He was struggling with a priest grasped by the black robes. The priest’s Irish face was harassed and blotchy, spitting out words we couldn’t hear. I rolled my eyes and rubbed my ear stud subconsciously. He was definitely no Arahov, but the Republic didn’t trust the Catholics – or anyone non-Anglican for that matter. The invisible curtain that split Europe into Republic territory in the west and Arahov Domain in east included a protestant barrier that was little more than stubbornness and stigma. The Republic was refined, innovate, and blaringly white and English everywhere west of Germanic Prussia. We thought we were more civilized, superior and imperializing everywhere we touched. The Arahovs were rustic – hanging onto an old religion like Catholicism – and while they were a little behind the game with technology, and their people were poorer all spread out in Russia and the Slavic nations, they were strong and they still outnumbered us. I knew that frightened the Minister.
Ridiculous, I signed at the officer and the priest.
No, said Jeshin. Let’s go! He’s distracted!
I didn’t even sign back that he was right – because he was. I picked up my camera and twirled into the disguise of the crowd. Jeshin melted into the herd with me.
I trotted around the spectators, heading for the other side of the parade barrier, where the tent was. And then a din of applause popped like a champagne cork.
It was starting.
I was practically jumping through limbs and side-stepping around children waving flags, but I peeked through the bodies to see the first arrival on the Trail.
The car seethed steam like a dragon. Last year, I remembered this same model being pulled by several men under horse costumes. Now it moved alone. A few years ago, this sort of technology would have been considered witchcraft.
The first Hunter emerged from the car, and I actually gave a dark smirk, because I realized it at the same moment every year. That our celebrities were not inventors or artists or, as I would like, musicians. They were Hunters. Shooters. The lucky men and women who didn’t die on their expedition for the Emporium like hundreds of others had. I recognized the one ducking out of the brassy steam car.
Nigel. Thin, lanky, and always with a serious expression of superiority, he swung an arm into the air and rallied applause. A red ascot puffed out of his chest. He was my dad’s best friend; been on several safaris together. Nigel caught the African gazelle and resembled one too. The catch was mediocre, but his rifle was strapped behind him as always, as if he was going to rip it off his back and protect us all when another gazelle came stampeding through the ballroom.
I shook my head and focused on my path just as Nigel passed through the Trail and signed autographs grimly, as if this alone were what he was meant to do in life.
Jeshin and I reached the first red stanchions, guarded by another officer who twisted a piece of straw between his teeth and watched the parade with one palm pressed to the stanchion post.
I ducked, patted Jeshin roughly on the back, and crept forward. We’d have to separate now as Jeshin distracted him.
Jeshin pulled the Deaf Card. Started signing frantic nonsense to the guard, who straightened in alarm.
I slipped right under the stanchion and crossed the ground. The shadow of the white linen tent tripped over me and I blended myself into the side of it. The cool fabric tickled the back of my neck. A clump of crates that must have contained the welcoming gifts for the Hunters sheltered me. Keepers – employees of the Emporium – were commentating on the other side of the fabric at my back, inside the tent. I heard a dark, thoughtful grunt in response that I knew must belong to Frobisher Tusk, the Head Keeper.
One of them laughed and slapped some part of Frobisher’s body, for he gave a loud, offended sniffle.
“Here comes Mr. Kiwi…”
Mr. Who? I crawled around the tent on my hands and knees until I could squint at a view of the Trail again and shifted my camera further onto my shoulder, away from the ground.
A long, low car braked at the Trail.
Oh. It was that Mr. Who. The youngest Hunter in history – my future brother-in-law – opened the car door.
Xander Crowe ducked out of the car and into the sunlight. The rays grazed over his light brown hair and blazed across his blue eyes and the corner of his mouth tilted up. He was tall. Lean. Couldn’t be more than twenty. The collar was open on his khaki safari shirt and that genuine crocodile leather belt was worth hundreds.
Women flooofed out yellow fans and flapped them fast even though it wasn’t that hot.
Despite his superstar status, I kind of smiled because liked this guy. He was usually good to his fans, not haughty.
He took one step along the Trail and then, as if he forgot something, spun back to the car. He stooped in to retrieve an object, and I swear I felt the breeze of flapping fans increase as Xander’s brown bush hat – kangaroo leather – appeared in his grasp. He bowed his sandy-haired head and replaced the hat slowly with both hands.
Still flushed to the side of the white tent, I shifted myself to a crouch and sidled closer to the Trail, because I did promise Sandra this shot. I checked fast behind me to make sure no Keeper was rounding the backside of the tent and raised my camera soundlessly.
The audience squealed louder for him than any Hunter, and Xander reached deep over the rails and clasped hands with both of his. He nodded to words I’m sure he couldn’t make out over the din. As the Keeper had said – ridiculed, by the way it sounded – he caught something called a kiwi, and I guessed the tufty gray feather on his hat’s brim had something to do with it.
Then my lips pursed in confusion. From out of nowhere, a Keeper on the Trail grasped Xander by the collar and thrust him towards a group of women. Xander staggered to the barricade. The Keeper raised a camera and Xander, too tall to fit in the frame, ducked and held a hand over his hat to prevent the girls from tugging it off.
As soon as the shot was snapped, the Keeper grabbed him again and steered him towards another batch, but not before taking wads of money from the young women in exchange for the negative. Xander looked over his shoulder at the transaction. His brow lowered and his expression darkened. I frowned, too, and my thumb hesitated from taking the photo.
My heart punched into my throat as I heard a rumbling from the crowd. I knew who it’d be – the finale arrival – and I had to sneak into that tent by the time he made it there. The gold-embossed carriage with fierce polar bears stenciled on either side—teeth bared and enormous paws swiping— juddered to a halt at the Trail.
The door opened, and the cane cracked onto the brick first. My father dragged himself from the carriage.
I should have been moving – right now, when all attention was on him, I should have been stealing my way into that tent – but I couldn’t shove my eyes off him.
Applause boomed. Norman filtered it, breathed it, with callousness, with the gruffness that everyone adored. The gruffness I would never earn. He wore a navy blue fedora, dark gray mustache as it always is, in two solid bars straight down either side of his chin. A polar bear tooth – his polar bear tooth – dangled from his neck, and his rough eyes were hidden behind purple-tinged glasses. Like always, he would sign no autographs and make eye contact with few. Badge-decorated fraternity boys – Hunters-to-Be, and Norman their idol – hooted and stomped, imitating the polar bear, and he allowed himself a rare smile of amusement.
I pushed myself off the floor and slunk around to the backside of the tent. The slit to enter was just a foot away from me, and I pressed myself to the supporting pole.
“Here he comes, boys!”
I winced. That Keeper voice was loud in my ears – probably just inches away through that linen. Then I heard shuffling, excited cackling as they prepared to meet Norman at the entrance of the tent.
I glimpsed inside the tent in a flash, seeing empty space, and then dove in.
My hands and knees flattened the shadowed grass. Frobisher Tusk, the Head Keeper, rose from an armed chair just inches from me, and I scrambled behind the chair for cover. Not a single blade of grass flicked straight again to give me away. I juggled my camera up to find my eyes and looked through the lens.
All the other Hunters were pressed into the small tent, gathered around the centerpiece – Norman and the Head Keeper. I saw Xander remove his hat and sink into a white fold-out seat at the side of the tent, wiping sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. He breathed through his mouth and his blue eyes were fixed on the commotion around him, but no one paid him any mind.
“Mr. Crawford…” Frobisher’s voice was deep and tight. He removed his bowler hat and extended a white-gloved hand to Norman. Norman’s lips twisted into a growl of comradery, and he battered his hand into Frobisher’s, shaking it hard. Everyone clapped, even Xander, but him in a disconnected – or maybe just tired – sort of way.
This was my cover shot.
Laying on my side and holding my breath, locking Frobisher and Norman’s reunion and all the other celebrities in my frame, I shot the picture.
Before anyone could even break their applause, I was hastening for the exit in silence. I stood as soon as sun hit my eyes outside the tent flap, unable to keep a grin from my face. I got it. I got my ten pound photograph, and no one saw me.
But I felt something rest on me. Something I was used to feeling rest on me.
I glanced into the slit of the tent flap for only an instant and saw Norman’s cold, infuriated glare impaling my own.
