Chapter 37

Lotte paced back and forth in her room and admired the way the light danced off of the little red stones in her ring. She sighed and placed a kiss on it's gold band.

Mr. Squelch and Dr. Gangle who had been taking care of her all of those years suddenly appeared in the doorway of her little apartment.

Lotte jumped at the sudden sound, but then she smiled at the sight of the familiar faces. "Oh, it's just you."

Squelch raised an eyebrow. "Missing Gustave, eh?"

She sadly sighed and sat down. "He left a week after Christmas, and I haven't seen him since. He's only sent me one letter explaining that he was very busy. I mean, I guess I understand, but I can't help but wonder sometimes."

Squelch sat down next to her on her left with Gangle on her right.

Gangle gently patted her hand. "I'm sure he's just as loyal to you now as he was when he left. Besides," he added, "he'll be back in a little under three months."

"Three months too long," Lotte pouted.

"Why are you so upset now?" Squelch asked. "You were fine yesterday."

She sighed and longingly glanced at her ring. "I just miss him. That's all. When we were little, we saw each other almost everyday. It's so strange now not seeing him at all."

"Mr. Squelch!" a voice suddenly rang from the hall.

He sighed and stood. "Well, that's my cue. Feel better, Lotte."

She nodded and bade him goodbye.

Dr. Gangle stood. "Perhaps I should be going as well."

Lotte grabbed his arm before he could open the door. "Dr. Gangle, may I ask you something?"

He hesitantly nodded and looked over her.

She sighed building up the courage to ask him.

"Come now, child. Spit it out."

She squeezed her eyes shut and quickly blurted out her question. "Do you know why Mr. Y wears his mask?"

There was a strain of silence that made Lotte uncomfortable. She wasn't going to apologize for asking though. Men didn't go around wearing masks all of the time for no reason. She had the right to be curious. Didn't she?

Gangle suddenly shook his head. "Isn't that a question your beau should answer?"

She put her hand on her waist. "Do you think I haven't asked him before? I've asked him numerous times since we were little, but he never gives me an answer."

He guided her back to the settee and helped her sit. "I can only tell you what I know, my dear."

She shifted slightly, ready to listen.

"The day I found out that my being blind in the right eye would prevent me from ever becoming a doctor, I was devastated." He sighed and shook his head. "Are you sure that you want to hear this?"

"Well, you've started," she replied. "You can't stop now."

He nodded and continued. "The only thing I could think of to numb the pain was a drink, so I went downtown. When I got to the local bar, there were two women standing by the door. One was older with braided black hair. She was watching a man in the corner. That's when it hit me. What that man had was better than any alcohol. He had music, and his music was like a drug. The second the sound hit your ears, it was as if the world stopped and you stopped with it. I nudged the lady's arm and asked her who the man was. She told me that he was her younger brother. It was then that I noticed something most peculiar about him."

"His mask?"

"Aye, his mask. I didn't think much else about the mysterious pianist until about three months later. They were advertising a gypsy circus on Coney. My being curious and having a lack of anything better to do, I went. The unfortunate reality was that the gypsies were not so kind to their employees, and I was disgusted by them. I was about to leave when I spotted a familiar looking lady. She was crouching behind one of the tents in tears. I sat beside her and asked why she was so distressed. She told me her uncle was being abused by the gypsies in order to earn money and he was very hurt. I went inside the tent to find that everything she had said was true. There was a man there being put on a wooden stage. He was being beaten, but it seemed as though the man was allowing it to happen. The truth of the matter was that this man was twice the size of his so-called 'master.' He was forced by the brutal overseer to look up at the audience, and what was there was enough to frighten anyone who would dare to look."

Lotte shrugged away from Dr. Gangle. "What do you mean?"

He sighed. "Mr. Y is very much deformed, Lotte. That's why he wears his mask."

"So that man being beaten was Mr. Y?"

He nodded.

"Well then, how did you come to know him? What happened? You can't stop there! What did he look like under his mask?"

He sighed and continued his story. "I promised his niece that I would help her if at all possible. At the sight of his face, most of the audience cowered and left. I almost wanted to myself, but his sweet niece convinced me that there had to be a good reason to take pity on him. Once the horrific show was over, his master beat him with his whip one last time and left Mr. Y to tend to himself. I forced myself to look upon his beaten and bloody carcass. One side of his face was twisted in a bizarre form. Part of his skull was exposed with swollen, twisted, wrinkled yellow skin around the rest of his face. There's a hole on a place where the rest of his nose should have been. Then, adding to the horror, his shirtless chest and back displayed a set of whip and beating scars as well as what looked like scars where his chest had been clawed open. Some of them seemed as old as he was as if he had them since he was a child."

Lotte cringed at the thought and gasped.

"I made my way towards him and gently rested my hand upon his shoulder. He jumped practically ten feet and held the deformed side of his face in his hand. He yelled, demanding to know why I was there and why I didn't run. I told him what his niece had said to which he replied that she wasn't his niece and he had told her never to follow him there. I quickly learned that the man was a genius. He was a composer and a magician. He was at the gypsy circus in an attempt to earn money for his business that he was planning to start. He told me that he had experienced all the gypsies had to offer before he had come there and I should leave him be."

"And I'm assuming you didn't?"

He shook his head. "Of course not! I may have been afraid of him, but I wasn't going to let a man of his genius just be beaten to death."

"What did you do?"

He sighed. "I must admit, my right mind told me to do as he said and let him be, but I just couldn't."

"Yes, but what did you do?"

"Well, it wasn't until he reached for his mask that I even realized that he was the strange pianist from just months before. An idea struck me, and I blurted out a question asking him if he was a pianist."

"And?"

"At first he looked very angry with me, but then he reluctantly answered. I told him about my previous experience with playing trumpet, and -"

"I didn't know you played trumpet!" Lotte interrupted.

"I did. At first he looked at me like I was crazy, but then when he realized it was either put up with me or die, he was willing to make a deal. We started up a band with some of my college peers. We had a few gigs and made just enough money for Mr. Y to buy a little square of land on Coney, and the rest is history."

"Wait," Lotte said slightly confused, "so Mr. Y actually has you to thank for this park? He doesn't seem very grateful. I mean, shouldn't he have repaid you in some way."

"He did. He gave me a job here."

"But that's not a very good repayment!" Lotte protested. "All he ever does to you is order you around!"

"Child, don't you ever speak of Mr. Y that way!" Gangle snapped. "He gave me a purpose when I had none!"

Lotte cringed and nodded. "I'm sorry."

He sighed and calmed himself. "It's alright, Lotte. Yes, I did help him get his start, and in return he gave me a job - a job that gives me a purpose and pays a hell of a lot better than being a doctor ever could. Yes, he does give me orders, but I do them because they are things he can't do himself and trust me, he would if he could."

"But he's so mean when he gives you orders," she whispered.

Gangle waved it off. "Nah, he just likes to be to the point. Mr. Y can be a strange man and understandably so. He's not nearly as bad as he used to be. He used to always be in a fowl mood."

"How come?"

Gangle scratched his chin and shrugged. "You know, I don't know, Lotte. Ever since he composed that piece for Mrs. Christine to sing, he hasn't been the same. It has something to do with her. I know that much, but outside of that, such as how he came to know her, I have no information."

Lotte nodded and then grinned. "How did you come to know Squelch and Fleck then?"

He laughed and stood brushing his trousers free from the dust. "That's another story for another time when we all three can be here." He kissed her hand. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Mr. Y has some business that I need to tend to."

Lotte smiled and watched him leave. When the door shut, she scrunched her eyebrows and found herself deep in thought. She had never thought of the man that chased her and his son around on the pier so many times had once been a beaten, broken man, but he was. She didn't know the details, but she was certain of one thing:

She was going to get to the bottom of Mr. Y's great mystery.