Page 31 of The Trick of It

“Lead on, then,” she said, flicking her fingers at him. “No one’s stopping you.”

“You can try if you like,” he told her, wiggling those thick eyebrows of his before turning on his heel toward the shop he’d stopped to peer into on their way to Gordon’s workshop. “I’d like to see it.”

She chewed on the insides of her cheeks to stop herself from smiling. “I still have quite a collection of ropes,” she told him.

“Ah, but the point of those was always that the knots fall out when wrapped around my fine form,” he reminded her. “People liked it better when you were the one tied up and escaping, anyhow. You have to give the people what they want.”

“Do I?” she replied, batting her lashes.

It got another giggle out of him as he led her to a faded yellow door and pushed it open. This shop had windchimes over the entry, rather than a single bell, and they sang in an otherworldly tinkle as they entered.

For a moment, a very brief moment, Seph was frozen in horror. It took several blinking moments for her to adjust to where he’d taken her.

They were surrounded by dead animals, preserved and frozen in a variety of lifelike poses. Some were fully fleshed and vibrant, with the only hint that they were not still alive in the glassy flatness of their false eyes.

Others were skeletons, arranged on posts, carefully reconstructed to demonstrate their delicate and unusual reticulations.

“How do?” came a gravelly, feminine voice from a woman bent over a pair of birds near the window. She popped up, one eye still magnified by the contraption she was wearing over her head, and smiled widely. “New friends?”

“I hope so,” Rhys answered. “I couldn’t help but notice your pretty birdies when I passed by. I had to come in and see them closer.”

“Well, come on then, handsome,” she said, beckoning him closer with a chuckle as she jiggled her magnifier off her head, letting several grizzled curls of hair loose from her bun in the process. “This here’s a hoopoe. Ever seen one? Ever smelled one?”

Rhys bent down to observe the birds, vibrant orange from the shoulders up, and striped in long, black-and-white lines below that. Their heads were crowned with a spray of feathers that stuck straight up, spread apart like a fan. “They don’t smell like much.”

“That’s because I washed the buggers a dozen times,” the lady said with a cackle. “Stinky, little beauties, they are. You can see ’em in the trees sometimes near the Ouse if you’re patient.”

“Those live in England?” Seph heard herself asking, drifting forward despite her initial misgivings. “They look rather … exotic.”

“Aye, they do,” the lady agreed. “Even stranger, this is a male and a female. Usually, lady birds are plain as burlap sacks, but not the hoopoes. Beauties, all of ’em.”

“Can I touch it?” Rhys asked, his fingers already ghosting above the plume of head feathers.

“If you’re gentle,” the lady said. “This pair won’t be done for another day or so yet, though, if you’re looking to buy.”

He stroked the feathers delicately, his eyes shining in wonder. “Do you have anything else as magnificent?” he asked. “My lady here collects the rare and bizarre. She has a shop in Brighton. Ever been to Brighton, missus?”

“Margaret,” the woman corrected. “Or Mags, if you like. And a few times, when I was young and spry. Not much cause for it now. ‘The rare and bizarre,’ you say?”

“Yes,” Seph answered, still moving closer in the slowest, sliding footsteps, her curiosity piqued and stoked despite herself. “I’ve never carried anything … erm … like this.”

“Taxidermy,” the woman said, grinning again. “It’ll be all the rage soon, you mark my words. I mostly sell to London. Toffs love the dead ’uns, kept pretty and safe. I did a whole wolf this summer.”

“I don’t have space for a wolf,” Seph said immediately, directly to Rhys, whose head had popped up excitedly at that. “Or likely the seed investment.”

“What’s the strangest thing you have?” Rhys asked, still twirling orange feathers through his fingers.

“I have a platypus,” she said, raising her thin brows, “but she’s not for sale. Oh! I’ve got a few armored fellas from far afield. Ever seen an armadillo? Or a pangolin?”

“Those aren’t real words,” Rhys said, nudging her like an old friend.

“Give me a tick, I’ll get them from the back. I have a nice, big snake too, just skeletal, mind, but with his fangs in.”

Seph took a breath and turned, taking in the rest of the shop. Near the windows were large, framed displays of various insects, butterflies an unnaturally vibrant and iridescent blue, beetles with spears sticking out of their heads, moths covered in fuzzy pink and yellow fur.

“Goodness,” she said. “I could spend a fortune in here.”

“And make it all back twice over,” Rhys agreed, still keeping vigil next to the orange birds. “It’s brilliant. You ought to get something today, at the very least, and stay in touch for your next trip out here.”