"She Moved Through The Fair" and "The Unquiet Grave" are long part of the public domain, so no site admins can crash my party for using song lyrics. MOO HA HA.

"Lucky you," crooned the ticket seller in a boozy singsong drawl, baring a handful of rotten snaggle teeth as he counted his money. "O'Malleys are settin' up in the big tent right about now."

"Who?" Phineas demanded—rather stupidly, Edward thought, because one would have to be blind or simple to miss the giant poster tacked at eye level to the side of the ticket wagon. The Flying O'Malleys—World-Famous Funambulists, it read. Formerly of County Cork, Lately of Coney Island. High-Wire Thrills and Chills Abound! It was accompanied by a caricature of a prim brunette, nonchalantly twirling a parasol as she poised on a tightrope over the wide-open jaws of a crocodile.

"What are yeh, simple?" The man tapped the poster with the butt of his cigar and guffawed, breath reeking of moonshine. "Them's the O'Malleys. Consider yerselves lucky—yer some of the last folk to catch the tightrope act. After this tour they're switchin' to the trapeze—like that Leotard feller over in France. That's what the folk be wantin' to see. Least the name'll finally fit—they ain't exactly flyin' now, after all, are they?"

"Fascinating," Prudence said in her usual monotone, though her eyes were fixed on the path of a monarch butterfly through the air, which might have been the source of her comment.

Asa looked intrigued. "So they really walk over a croc pit? Hey, Edward, let's go see that fir—Edward?"

But Edward's attention had been drawn to another poster, a smaller one, tacked below the one trumpeting the O'Malleys. This one featured all sorts of strange drawings done in thin, spidery lines: a dripping-wax man that resembled a living candle; a sinister-looking plant, not unlike a Venus flytrap with teeth, with a human arm protruding from its "mouth"; an eyeless face that gazed serenely out at nothing from within a crystal ball. For some reason Edward couldn't stop staring at that last one.

Tall letters stretched across the head of the poster in spidery script to match the artwork. Professor Claude Crump's Museum of the Weird.

Asa, peering around Edward's shoulder, attempted to sound out the first few words before giving up and studying the pictures instead. "Oh, the freak show," he said dismissively. "Thought you'd've had enough of that for one day by now. Let's go find some seats; I don't want to be standing in the back the whole time."

"R-right," Edward said at last, craning his neck one last time for a look as he let Asa drag him over to the largest of the tents. Surely it was just his imagination again, but there was an echo of familiarity, if ever faint, in the lightly inked Mona Lisa smirk of the face in the sphere.

"That's right, folks, there are no wires! This lithe young lady must rely solely on her toes—if you'll pardon the pun. Balance, grace, and poise in spades—not to mention nerves of steel—and she does it all without breaking a sweat. The last in this intrepid line of rope-walkers. Ladies and gentlemen, the lovely Miss Lillian!"

The ringmaster's megaphoned proclamation was nearly drowned out by a harsh cacophony of cheers, whistles and applause. Edward joined in politely, noting that Lillian O'Malley did not look quite like her counterpart caricature on the poster—and it had to be her, as the remainder of the O'Malley clan consisted of two teenage boys and a middle-aged man. Beaming, auburn-haired and at least sixteen, she had performed a routine purportedly from Giselle on the taut wire—a shade different from the demure brunette one misstep away from a grisly death.

Next to him, Asa was whining.

"This can't be it. They haven't brought out the crocs yet! I oughta go back and complain about the false advertisin' right now—"

"Hey, they're lightin' torches outside," Phineas informed them of a sudden, poking his head through the gap in the wooden bleachers where Edward and Asa were sitting. "Them roustabouts out there said that some fellow's going to juggle them blindfolded, then swallow the flames. You leave now, you're gonna miss it."

"Eh…" Asa shrugged, but quieted his grumbling at the tantalizing possibility of human combustion.

Edward's thoughts, meanwhile, had wandered back to the Museum of the Weird, and he began fidgeting in an un-gentlemanly fashion, wondering if he ought to try and slip away from the others without anyone noticing. It was probably the only chance he'd get, as none of the others seemed particularly interested, and Asa had all but tried to discourage him. And maybe Asa had been right to do so—but the curiosity was an unbearable itch at the back of his mind.

An opportunity finally opened up when Fercurius Fennel, the Human Furnace, dropped one of his torches in mid-juggle, causing nearly everyone, including Asa, to lean forward and gasp. Edward slid off the edge of the bleacher and sidled out of the tent as quickly as possible. Five minutes—maybe ten—and then he'd come back, and hopefully no one would be the wiser.

The stares of the circus folk cast his way as they milled about varied: there were appraising looks and nods from much older women in very inappropriate outfits; threatening sneers from men with equally scary-looking inked patterns on their backs and biceps. Edward did his best not to look at any of them as he sought out Professor Crump's tent.

It stood separately from the others, the much smaller pariah of the group draped in black and purple. Edward peered around the tent flap in time to see an aging man in an immaculate white suit, wild hair a frayed halo surrounding his face, toss a dark cloth over a tall cage. "I'm afraid that's all the raw meat Medea can handle for now," he announced, eyes gleaming with frenetic energy as the small crowd assembled on the benches before him applauded, "but do return at her regular feeding time tomorrow, if you'd like to see her take on a live chicken."

Well, Edward thought, he'd missed the meat-eating plant, but no matter. He wasn't certain his stomach was up to such a spectacle, anyway. And he was just in time for the next act. Fleetingly he wondered if the face in the crystal ball would put in an appearance.

"Speaking of birds," Professor Crump went on, clasping his hands together and flashing a broad smile, "we have a very special recent acquirement here at the Museum, all the way from the Orient. Perhaps some of you have heard the story behind it: the famous gold Nightingale, sent from the Emperor of Japan to the Emperor of China, who, when wound up, enthralled an entire kingdom with her song." Several assistants wheeled a much larger cage into view as he spoke.

Slowly, Edward deposited himself on the end of an empty bench in the very back of the tent. A memory drifted to the forefront of his mind, of himself, at a very young age, huddled on Charles's bed with him and Alice, all in their nightclothes; while their mother read aloud from the crimson wing chair. Something about a wind-up bird that broke when it had sung too much and an emperor lying at death's door.

Gads, did he only ever remember the morbid details?

"Well, she comes before you now, repaired and re-fitted with a more familiar repertoire of songs, for your entertainment." Crump whisked a gold brocade cloth off the cage with a dramatic flourish. "Behold, the Nightingale!"

Edward stared in something between horror and wonder. There, upon a velvet perch behind the iron bars, sat a young girl no older than he. Her head was nearly concealed by an elaborate headdress of gold feathers, and what was visible of her face had been coated with white pancake makeup. Paste jewels dotted her cheeks; glittering necklaces and bracelets wrapped round her throat and weighed down her wrists. The elaborate costume did nothing to mask the misery in her eyes.

"Excuse me a moment; I've forgotten to wind her." Crump pantomimed the act of winding a nonexistent key behind her back. Most of the audience laughed. Edward grimaced, wondering how on earth one could endure this humiliation on a daily basis. Was it even legal, to force a child into such a charade? Was she some orphan under Crump's care, or perhaps even his own daughter?

Somehow he doubted that. There was no paternal warmth in his wild eyes, or in the vaguely threatening way he stood over her. Nor was there any trace of elation in hers as she beheld the crowd, as there had been in Lillian O'Malley's. She stared blankly out at the audience, eyes fixed somewhere on the back of the tent.

Crump mimicked one final motion and stepped back. Mechanically, the girl's mouth fell open, and a clear, high, chilling voice rang out:

"Cold blows the wind to my true love,
And gently drops the rain.
I only have but one true love,
And in green wood he lies slain.
I'll do as much for my true love,
As any young girl may.
I'll sit and mourn all on his grave,
For twelve months and a day."

She sang her way through the old traditional, the notes sweet and clear, but hollow and joyless underneath. The crowd appeared to take no notice, applauding at the end. Her voice was mesmerizing, but Edward could not look at her face for longer than a moment without feeling absolutely wretched. At the end of the first song, he told himself he should leave; yet by the third, he had forgotten all about it.

"Last night she came to me, my dead love came in
So softly she came that her feet made no din
As she laid her hand on me and this she did say
'It will not be long, love, 'til our wedding day.' "

As Edward's eyes ventured back to her face, the girl's gaze inadvertently met his. Her eyes widened briefly; when he blinked, she had returned to staring at the tent wall. A smattering of applause sounded, and with a sudden rustle of gold cloth, the girl disappeared from view.

"The Nightingale will be on exhibit again tomorrow afternoon," Crump proclaimed, his wide smile disconcerting as the Nightingale's cage was wheeled back out of sight. "I invite you all to return then, once she's had her daily tune-up."

Light laughter floated after Edward as he ducked out of the tent, feeling vaguely sick. Oh, was there ever a stupid, foolhardy idea brewing in the back of his mind—but he'd already had several of those today, and doubted one more would make much difference. He was already due to catch it upon his return; he might as well go all the way.

He crept around the tent to where he presumed the "back" might be, and crouching nearly in the mud, lifted the edge and stuck his head into the darkened interior of the tent, craning his neck uncomfortably in order to look around.

The back of the tent was a mess. There were huge steamer trunks with peeling leather and missing rivets, plastered with paper labels declaring different exotic locales: Paris, Naples, Cairo. Wooden crates with CAUTION or FRAGILE stenciled in black paint on their planks. Cages—there were at least a dozen, the smallest barely big enough to hold a cricket, the largest of the lot containing—

He held his breath. The Nightingale sat with her back to him, legs dangling listlessly from the velvet perch, mane of gold feathers cascading down her back. From the movement of her arms and drooping of her neck, it looked like her attention was focused on something in her hands—as far as he could tell from his pitiful vantage point.

"Hello."

Who'd said that? He'd said that. Idiot. The Nightingale whirled around in alarm at the sudden intrusion, mouth forming a startled O as her eyes finally settled on his disembodied head peeking up from beneath the hem of the tent.

"Uh…please don't scream?" he added hesitantly, offering a halfhearted smile in an attempt to diffuse the situation.

The Nightingale's expression did not change. "What," she asked in a quavering stage whisper that reminded him powerfully of what a little girl she was, "are you doing back here?"

A fair question. One he wasn't sure how to answer. I wanted to cause trouble? I lost something back here. I'm on the run from gypsies. I was drawn here by something—something I can't really explain—

"I wanted to see you." He surprised himself with the simplicity of that proclamation. The girl looked equally as surprised beneath her layers of spackle makeup and paste jewels.

"You can't be here," she whispered, voice not quite regained, as she moved to face forward again and banish him with her back. "The Professor will be furious if he finds you."

"Why does he keep you like this?" Edward pressed, as he crawled all the way under the rim of the tent and ambled to his feet in the cramped space, finally appropriating the corner of a large trunk to sit upon. The Nightingale glanced back again, watching him in fearful exasperation. "Haven't you got parents?"

It was the wrong thing to say, he knew immediately, as her face fell faster than a ten-ton anchor at the words. But he didn't have time to utter an apology before she sidestepped the matter and hissed, "Don't you? Isn't someone looking for you?"

"They're all back at the tightrope tent. And my father doesn't know I'm here."

"Your mother?" she ventured.

Edward's mouth tightened—but he had invited the question, hadn't he? "My mother's dead," he answered curtly.

Remorse flickered through the wide greenish-flecked eyes, before the Nightingale ducked back under her fringe of feathers and whispered: "Mine, too."

For the second time, she allowed her eyes, twitching and uncertain as they crept up Edward's person, to meet his. And the longer Edward stared back, the more aware he was of a new…strange sensation within him. One that caused his heart to flutter—almost as rapidly as her eyelashes did—all the while the warmth was slowly seeping out of his bones. It left behind an ache, a sort of chill, but it wasn't altogether unpleasant. It wasn't enough to make him turn away. Indeed, he found he couldn't—his joints had all somehow locked in place.

"What's your name?" he heard himself ask.

The Nightingale blinked, and hesitated, parting her lips—then gasped instead at the sudden sound of a muffled din coming from the front of the tent, where the show was no doubt wrapping up. "He'll be coming," she breathed. "You have to go."

"Just tell me your name," Edward pushed, "and I'll go."

"You already know it." Her eyes cast one more piercing glance through his before she turned about again, a shadow in a gilded cage hunched beneath a pile of brocade and feathers.

A dull glint of gold drew his eye to the ground. A single feather, likely molted from that voluminous headdress, rested near the sole of his shoe. Furtively, he slipped it into his jacket pocket.

What was she talking about? He hadn't somehow missed her telling him…or was this some sort of riddle? Surely Crump hadn't legally had her name changed to "Night N. Gale", had he? Though he did seem more than a bit mad—

Footsteps. Clanking. He could hear Crump's voice, irritable now that he had dropped the guise of showman, nearing the back of the tent—or perhaps rising in volume. The Nightingale looked behind her again, and her parting glance, along with her voice, held a note of desperation that bordered on begging. "Please go."

Abruptly, Edward fell to his knees and rolled beneath the tent. Once outside and on his feet, he broke into a run, feeling suddenly as if bad spirits—or more likely, Professor Crump—were dogging his heels. He tried making out the silhouette of the great tent over the smaller nearby ones as he ran, but his vision was swimming, along with all the contents of his head—which is probably what caused him to run headlong into the tiny crimson tent, causing it to sway perilously as he fell hard to the ground.

He caught a strong whiff of sandalwood incense, laced with an even stronger note of garlic, as he gingerly lifted his head. Gauze tickled his cheek—layers and layers of filmy veiling that swept the ground, that swathed a vaguely familiar, yet somehow terrifying presence.

He heard the haughty, sneering voice before he saw the face, though he recognized it at once.

"I've been expecting you, little Master Gracey."