“Her hand,” he commanded.
Beside me was a slanting-eyed, bald woman with oddly translucent skin that seemed to reflect sunlight. She splayed my hand with four smooth, strong fingers. I tried to jerk away, repulsed.
“A five-finger woman,” he said.
The woman hissed, revealing a snake’s forked tongue. A python, I thought. That’s where I’d seen that skin before. The boar-faced man beside her was also missing one digit on each finger, as were the two dingy children who pulled at my skirt. Everyone was, except the tall man in the robes whose five fingers were long and stiff and covered in a thick, coarse hair.
“A five-finger woman!” he bellowed, and the crowd pressed closer. Their sour breaths turned my stomach. My illness grappled at me, making me weak, knotting my insides.
“Who are you?” I asked the robed man.
“Caesar,” the python-woman hissed, petting my sleeve with strong fingers.
The crowd repeated the word, rolling it like thunder.
Caesar. Caesar. Caesar.
The antlered man brought down his staff. The sharp points of his antlers gleamed in the sunlight. “I am Caesar,” he said. “Minister of the island.”
A beast posing as a religious man. It was as absurd as the commandments that Balthasar had chanted on the ship. Montgomery had refused to tell me what they meant, and now I understood why. I’d have thought him mad.
“Where have you come from, five-finger?” he asked.
There was something too human about his dark-brown eyes. “England,” I said.
The crowd parroted the word, but it sounded foreign on their tongues.
“Across the sea,” Caesar explained. The crowd murmured and nodded, but still seemed vaguely confused.
“You come with the other one.” Caesar nodded to the boar-faced man. “Bring the five-finger man.”
I strained to see about the bobbing heads as he disappeared into the crowd. The python-woman eagerly petted the smooth skin of my arms, her fingers tickling my skin. Another woman slid forward, reaching for my ring, but the python-woman snapped at her. She grinned at me as though she and I were both in a higher class from the others.
The crowd started yapping as the boar-faced man returned. He shoved a scraped and dirty body at my feet.
“Edward!” I dropped to my knees. He sat up, a hand to his head where a small cut bled. “Are you all right?”
He nodded, throwing a wary look at the boar-faced man. He wiped the dried blood off his forehead with his shirt cuff. “As well as can be.” He spit a bloody line of saliva into the dirt. “They grabbed me by the falls. Your father’s behind this. They think he’s some kind of god.”
The crowd grew more agitated. They circled us, leaning in, watching our every move. Cymbeline and the two other boys dropped to all fours, crawling closer, but Caesar pointed his staff at them.
“Thou shalt not crawl in the dirt!”
The boys shrank back and stumbled to their feet.
I pushed myself up, but Edward pulled me closer, just for a second. “Whatever happens, stay close.”
Before I could ask him what he meant, a shadow was cast over his face. The crowd suddenly grew quiet. I spun to find the face of a different kind of beast peering at us, a white parasol balanced on his shoulder.
Twenty-four
FATHER SMILED. “AH, THERE you are. You’ve given us a devil of a time trying to find you.”
Edward and I scrambled to our feet. Through a break in the crowd I caught a glimpse of Montgomery standing next to the wagon with a rifle resting on his hip, avoiding my gaze. I was in part relieved to see him. He’d take us back to the compound’s strong walls and away from the lurking danger in the jungle. But I couldn’t get the image out of my head of the beast strapped to the table, Father humming while the candle wax slowly dripped and Montgomery assisting. I felt betrayed, as though the boy I’d idolized was nothing more than a fantasy. And yet watching him through the crowd, I still felt that pang of the bond between us, a bond now complicated by Edward.
“I see you’ve already met our neighbors,” Father said. “Let me introduce you properly.”
Father was acting like nothing was amiss. I glanced at Edward. We’d said we would play along until we had a chance to escape the island, but this was excruciating. Father had abandoned me. Lied to me. Ruined my life. It was all I could do not to claw his face. I almost would have rather faced the murderer than go back with him.
The beasts stared at him with wide eyes and quivering lips. He was king here. And Montgomery hovered on the outskirts like a reluctant prince.
My knees buckled suddenly. The snakes of my illness were coming fast, coiling up my legs. Edward grabbed my elbow but I waved him away, swaying slightly. I needed an injection. I needed to get away from my father’s all-consuming presence that stole the oxygen from the air.
I leaned on my knees, drawing in quick breaths. Trembling. Trying to quell the rage at this man I once called family. I felt Edward’s hand on my shoulder, heard a few reassuring words in my ear, but I couldn’t make them out. All I could picture was the beast strapped to the table, writhing in pain. Its torturer’s blood flowed in my own veins, a cruel inheritance. I pressed my fingers against my eyes to keep from crying. But a single sob escaped.
Then Edward’s hand was gone.
I saw it happen from the corner of my eye, just a quick movement. The crowd gasped. There was a crack like a twig snapping. And then a flash of blood.
It happened so fast.
Father stumbled back, clutching his face, the parasol falling to the ground. Blood trickled between the white slats of his fingers. Edward’s arm was still balled in a fist. He’d punched Father in the mouth. I gaped.