The next day was Sunday, and Sallie was in full-on Plotting mode. She had updated her list so it now looked more like this:
What We Know
*Amulet bright blue jewel, gold chain, eye(?) carvings, apx size of cookie
Horrible Woman- who is she? Mrs. Canarina, owner of menagerie
‘Auntie Strega’? Yes? Sort of? Said it was a “joke”?
Weaknesses? Sarcastic?
Motivation?? Pure evil horribleness. Said something about Zeb having potent “veev”. What is veev? Is it something she needs? Something blue-eyed kids have?
Destroy? Hit with hammer?
Use? Try this first- maybe we can transform kids back?
She could not help but notice that her list still contained more questions than answers. Furthermore, she was pretty sure that “sarcastic” did not count as a weakness. She sighed and leaned back against her desk chair. Zeb, who had been making short work of the two bananas she’d brought him for breakfast, bounded over and gave a reassuring chirp.
“I know, I know. At least we have a place to start, right? And if I’m going to be doing any breaking and entering, I guess you’re a pretty good ally for that sort of activity.
Zeb flashed his fangs at her in a lemur-grin, and then demonstrated his usefulness by springing to the top of her desk over to a high shelf, which he managed to navigate without knocking anything off. From there he made a great leap out the open window to land in the swaying tree branches.
“Definitely handy,” she smiled, and turned back to her list.
Time to do a little research, she thought, and turned on her computer monitor.
***
A few minutes later she was glaring at the screen. According to what she’d found, “strega” was either a kind of yellow alcohol, or else a witch. Based on the pass-times of Mrs. Canarina, she was willing to gamble that the Horrible Woman was, in fact, a witch.
That’s why it’s a “joke”, she thought grimly. Her name may not actually be Strega, but it’s what she is. Although somehow I doubt she’s anyone’s aunt.
The other word she’d attempted to look up- “veev” was also the name of an alcohol- a clear one. Sallie did not get why grownups had to have so many alcohols. Anyway she knew there was no way the Horrible Woman valued Zeb for his alcohol. It must have been another foreign word- at first she thought maybe it was Italian, like strega, but two seconds with the translator tool had shot that idea down.
She had to risk asking her parents.
***
“Hey Daddy,”
“Hey what, Sallie-girl?” Daddy was hunched over a map covered in lots of wavy lines. Sallie knew it was called a topographic map, and she also knew that when he was studying them he often wasn’t 100% listening to whoever was talking to her, which worked well for her purposes.
“I heard a word the other day and I can’t find it in the dictionary.” It was important to clarify this, because both her parents had a bizarre knee-jerk reaction to someone asking what a word meant- they inevitably sent the person (ie, Sallie) searching for a dictionary. “I think it might be foreign.”
“Mmm?” Daddy was making little dashes on the map.
“The word is ‘veev’. Uh, I-“ but before she could invent a scenario in which she’d heard it, her dad immediately shot back,
“Viva Zapata!”
“Huh?”
“What?” Daddy put down the grease pencil and looked at her. “Oh, sorry. Viva Zapata!- it’s an old movie. Older than me, actually.”
“But… what does it mean?”
“What, viva?”
“Um, I guess.”
“In this instance it means ‘Long live Zapata!’ or more literally, ‘Live Zapata!’ like they’re telling him to live. Zapata, of course, being the name of the Mexican revolutionary that movie is more or less about. They used it the same way the revolutionaries during the French revolution would say ‘Viva la Revolucion!’. Haven’t you studied that in school yet?”
“Nope. We’ve been talking about Lewis and Clarke.”
“Well I guess that does have something to do with France, in a round-about way. Remind me to lecture you on it later. Anyway kiddo, I really need to work on this, so maybe you could go bug your mom for a while, huh?” He reached out and tousled her hair.
Sallie wandered off, mulling this new information over.
Long live… long life?
***
The internet was good for a lot of things, but for some things Sallie had found you just couldn’t beat the library. Specifically the library’s collection of old newspapers. Specifically the local newspapers.
She’d left Zeb playing happily in the tree branches (after explaining to him what she was up to) then hopped on her bike and headed for the library. The librarians there all knew Sallie and her family, which was good in that they were willing to indulge her in certain things (like checking out more books than junior library members were strictly allowed to), but bad in that anything out of the ordinary she did inevitably got mentioned to her parents. Still, Sallie spent enough time looking up random things that plunging into the newspaper archives wasn’t likely to raise any alarm amongst the grown-ups.
That’s the best thing about being naturally curious, she thought to herself as she settled down in front of one of the computers dedicated to housing the archive scans. People forget to take notice when you go poking into something new.
She typed in a few search words, like menagerie and strega, and missing child- and then waited to see what popped up. The computer thought about it for a while, then spat out a couple dozen articles. She didn’t bother to open up the first few- she had already read them more times than she could count. They were the articles about Zeb. Feeling sick, she clicked on an article dated a week previous to that first cluster. It popped open to reveal a short “Out and About in the Community” article outlining the fact that a menagerie had come to town, and giving info on location and price. She found one of these articles every three or five years, stretching back for decades, each time only a week or two before a cluster of “Missing Child” articles appeared.
Well the Horrible Woman did say it had been in her family for generations, Sallie thought grimly.
Finally, in 1967, she found a grainy color picture attached to the article- it was labeled Mrs Canarina, Proprietress. Sallie wasn’t really surprised to see that the woman looked exactly like the Horrible Woman.
That’s over forty years ago, she thought. Maybe she just looks like her grandma…
But Sallie doubted it.
She clicked on the earliest “menagerie” article she could find- dated 1883. It contained a very weird-looking black and white photograph of the Horrible Woman in a stiff pose, holding a leash that was connected to a jeweled collar worn by a sad looking cheetah. Sallie didn’t bother to read the article- the look in the animal’s eyes was enough for her. On a whim she tried one more search.
Canarina.
This brought up only one new article- from 1811. Sallie was pretty sure they hadn’t had photography back then, but she clicked on it anyway.
The image with the article wasn’t a photo- it was a beautiful line drawing of a very familiar woman (although the shoulders were oddly sloped). And the familiar woman was wearing a very familiar pendant. The label read, Mme. Canarina wearing her Eye of Lost Souls. The article was mostly about the necklace and how fabulous it was. Legend said it was cursed, but the author felt that surely someone as lovely and gracious as Madame Canarina couldn’t possibly be wrapped up in something so tragic as a curse. The article went on to mention, almost as an afterthought, that even though Madame Canarina was new to the community she was already very active with local charities, and could often be found delivering comfort and blessings to the poor unfortunates of Our Lady of Mercy Orphanage. Sallie bared her teeth at the screen in an unconscious imitation of Zeb.
I’ll just bet she “blessed” them, she thought fiercely, and stomped out of the library.
Thanks for another great Menagerie entry. Can't wait for the next little bit.
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