The Kingdom of Bones Read Free

park attractions. New rides were being planned and added every year. The crowds were dense, but should they fail to find each other Elisabeth had determined that they’d meet at the Lakeside Café. Robert generally made for the larger of the two carousels, where he was fascinated by the mechanical arrangement that gave the animals a jumping motion.
    But neither he nor Frances could be seen there, and so Sebastian and Elisabeth started a slow walk back down the midway toward their rendezvous point. There was no reason to hurry. They had more than half an hour to waste until the meeting time.
    Most of the attractions on the midway were housed in permanent structures, in a row that resembled one side of a small-town street facing out across a green. Some of the vacant spaces had been leased to visiting showmen, and here Sebastian could sense a change in atmosphere and tone. Their put-up buildings were brasher and shabbier than the regular ones, and the show people fronting them were similarly turned out. This was Willow Grove, and so they were on their best behavior. But they were like yard dogs given a bath and a big ribbon.
    Nevertheless, they were a powerful draw. Their ballyhoo seemed to attract even the most decent citizens where, by logic, one would expect it to deter. Brazen, crude, and primal, their showmanship appealed to the primitive in all. Exhibitions of natural curiosities stood side by side with novelty acts. Largest of all, and brashest among the sideshows, stood a boxing booth.
    It was a big tent of dirty canvas, before which a painted proscenium had been raised on a scaffold with a platform that set the pitchman above the heads of the crowd. He had no megaphone, but intoned his message with a nasal cadence that was unlike natural speech but which fell on the ear like a ship’s fog warning.
    “Three rounds!” he was saying. “
Go
three rounds
with
the Masked Champion
and
win five dollars
and
compel him to reveal his face to all.”
    The so-called Masked Champion stood behind him in a dirty robe, his face concealed by a device no more elaborate than three holes poked in a knitted cap. He was tall and heavyset and badly out of condition. He was scanning the mostly male crowd, making a show of seeking out challengers.
    “
Nev
er unmasked and
nev
er defeated,” the barker went on. “Will you be the man to do it? Have we got any men out there? All I see is a bunch of ladies.”
    Some of the people booed and the barker continued to scan the gathering, working them with an expression of superiority and contempt.
    “You!” called out the Masked Champion, pointing at someone in the crowd and shouting in a whiskeyed voice that barely carried over their heads. “I’ll fight
you
!” And when his first random target held up his hands and shook his head, he chose another and pointed and shouted again. “I’ll fight
you
!”
    Elisabeth nudged Sebastian playfully.
    “Go on, Sebastian,” she said. “He says he’ll fight you.”
    And for a moment it did, indeed, seem that the moth-eaten Masked Champion had picked Sebastian out of the mob to issue him a personal challenge. Sebastian avoided any meeting of eyes and told Elisabeth, “I somehow don’t think so,” but already the Champion had moved on and was pointing to provoke another.
    “I have never seen a boxing match,” said Elisabeth.
    Sebastian turned to her in surprise. “Would you want to?”
    She did not reply. But there was a sparkle in her eyes as she returned his look, as if daring him to respond to some hint that she’d just thrown out and he’d failed to notice. It was a look that he’d seen from her before. It usually marked the start of a path that would lead, in the end, to a private act. But he’d never seen it quite like this, and never before in a public place.
    Before Sebastian could say anything more, there was a roar of approval from those all around them.
    “We have a challenger!” the barker announced. “What’s your name,