“What if,” Petra suggested, listening to the hammer and anvil, “he likes her too much?”
Neel stared at her as if she had just hopped on a fast horse bound for the madhouse. He started to speak, stopped, and finally just muttered something in Romany. He looked at the wagon Sadie had disappeared into and said, “Sadie’s been talking to our ma a long time.”
“Maybe I should’ve stayed in the city.”
“Don’t feel sorry about being here. We wanted you to come. Emil likes to stir up trouble. And my ma and sis got other stuff to talk about than you.” He scuffed his foot in the dirt. “We’re in something of a fix here.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Our horses caught some plaguey thing. Most of them died. And we can’t move the wagons without horses.”
“So you’re stuck here?”
“Like flies in honey. Except it might actually be nice to get stuck in honey. Instead, we’re in Prague.”
“What’s so bad about that?” Although Petra thought parts of Prague were stinking and dirty, she was enjoying her first day in the city. After all, one could find delicious pastries, overhear fascinating gossip, and meet interesting people.
“One, there don’t seem to be any Ursari in the area, so we can’t sway them into loaning us some horses. And we can’t afford to buy more from the gadje. Two”—he was ticking off the reasons on his fingers —“we should be heading south by now to escape the worst of the winter. This part of Bohemia heaps up snow right quick, and then the roads get blocked as good as a sick kid’s nose. Three, we happen to be sitting in the prince’s hunting grounds. Which isn’t exactly law-abiding of us. This means that just about any money we make goes to bribing the prince’s gamekeeper not to tell all and sundry that we’re here. We pay him to tell the prince that if he wants to shoot deer, they’re real thick in a part of the forest miles from here. So we not only don’t have any horses, but it also looks like we won’t be buying any anytime soon. Unless some miracle happens, like Ursari trooping through Prague when we know they’re already heading south toward Spain, we’re well and truly trapped.”
Sadie opened the door to her family wagon. “Neel? Petra? Ma wants to talk to you.”
Neel and Petra walked up the three hanging steps to the wagon door. When they were inside, Neel took off his shoes and set them on a straw mat. Petra did the same. The wagon was about the size of a large room. Two round, glassless windows let in light, which flickered over a raised platform covered with bright cloths and silk cushions. Beneath an iron lantern was a woman with a stern face, sitting cross-legged.
Neel, Sadie, and Petra sat down on the cloths around her. Sadie resembled her mother, but the older woman’s face was narrow, her chin pointed, and her skin dark and lined. “Petra,” Sadie began, “this is our mother, Damara. She would like to hear whatever you were going to tell us about the spider, if you don’t mind.”
Petra gently took Astrophil out of her shirt pocket. The other three leaned closer. Astrophil, she thought. The ticklish sensation in the back of her mind was faint, but it was there.
The spider continued to slumber.
ASTROPHIL.
His green eyes blinked and stared at Petra. How strange. He didn’t seem to notice that he and Petra had company. I was just completing a painting. It was a landscape, and I was using oil paints that were coming out of the tips of my legs, one color for each leg. But where has it gone? It was a masterpiece.
Astrophil, you were dreaming.
That is absurd. To dream you need to sleep, and I never sleep. By the way, where are we? And how did we get here? And—He finally turned around and saw Neel, Sadie, and their mother. What exactly is going on, Petra?
Well, we went with Neel to meet Sadie and then you fell asleep. You fell out of my hair and they saw you. Then they invited us to come to their home for lunch and I decided that was a good idea.
I am starting to believe that I have been sleeping. Because if I had been conscious, I would never have allowed you to do something so extraordinarily foolish.
“This is Astrophil,” Petra introduced the spider. “He was made by my father.” Then she took a deep breath and began to tell them why she had come to Prague.
13
The Hour Strikes
AS PETRA SPOKE, Sadie translated. Damara didn’t ask any questions, but listened thoughtfully. Standing on Petra’s palm, Astrophil was stiff with disapproval. Neel interrupted only once to say, “Your father designed the clock in Staro Square? Really? Prague celebrated its unveiling about a month ago. It’s the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen! And the crowd was so transfixed you can bet they weren’t looking at their purses. Got a good haul that day.”
Petra told them almost everything, except about the clock’s hidden powers. She had promised her father to keep that a secret. And Astrophil might have had a spider’s equivalent of a heart attack if she broke that promise.
She concluded, “So now you see why I want to get a job at the castle. I have to figure out how to get my father’s eyes back. They don’t belong to the prince. He stole them. My father loved his work, and the prince stole his happiness.”
Sadie translated for her mother. Then she said, “Don’t worry, Petra. I’m sure I can find a job for you. The castle employs hundreds of people, and the head housekeeper is constantly looking for someone to do one job or another. They think well of me there. I’ll introduce you to the housekeeper.”
Then Damara asked something. Sadie said, “My mother says that you will be risking your life to find your father’s eyes. She wonders if your father would not prefer blindness.”
“My father has done everything for me. Now it is my turn to do something for him.”
After Damara listened to Sadie she frowned. Then, with the slowness of someone choosing her words carefully, she said that she understood how Petra felt, but that she could not believe her father would agree.
“Why not?” Petra replied. “Neel could get hanged for picking pockets, but you let him do it to bring in money. Why is this any different?”
Neel scratched his head. “Uh, Sadie, maybe you better not put that bit into Romany.”
Sadie looked at Petra, who said, “Tell her.” Sadie shrugged and did.
Damara’s black eyes snapped and she spoke fiercely, glaring at Neel.