Excerpt: Mrs. Boytle on the Faerie Canal

Prologue- Where Two Widows Watch At the Edge of the Destruction
March, 1902

“City of Light,” she said, “Bupkus!"

The old woman pointed towards the rubble with the tip of her unopened black parasol. “There’s your City of Light.”

“Not my 'City of Light', Nana” The younger one said, fairly certain that the comment was not wholly meant for her, though she knew she was required to respond anyhow.

“Bupkus!” the old woman repeated "You did your part there. Though at least it was a proper trade."

They were standing at the edge of what used to be Rumsey Farm. Two women cloaked in black, overlooking the wide wreckage that was the Exposition, now a wastland of broken glass, rock, plaster, and statuary.

The old woman decided that she would be indeed glad for the land to be cleared off and to be finally rid of the dread memory of the Pan forever. The same decision she had made every day, nearly every hour, since the day that it had opened.

“No matter. Good riddence to it all. Clear the land and wash the contamination of it away. That’s what needs to be done.”

“They are keeping the New York State Building, but for the most part they are contracted to make everything the way it was before construction began.”

“Yes, yes.” she waved to save herself from hearing more. “You talk as if I don’t read the papers. You can see...that I can see, right, Girlie? I know all about the contracts and all the money issues.”

“Certainly, Nana.”

The old woman looked over at her granddaughter without turning her head. “Bailey Jean, will you please stop fiddling with your jet? You make me nervous.”

The younger one sighed gently and removed her fingers from the piece at her throat. “The pins keep sticking me.”

“You always say that, and I tell you its those modern fashions you keep wearing. Goodness, the way you keep fumbling about mourning you would think you are showing it off proudly. You and I got the same jet from the same jeweler. You don’t see me sticking my thumbs about and pulling at my collar like a jittery boy, do you?”

“Of course not.” Bailey shook her head, remaining patient. Leave it to her grandmother to lecture on proper points of a widow's behavior, even though the granddaughter had been made a widow months before her grandmother was. Still, she had grown used to Nana's direction in conversation in the last year, much of it easy to ignore when necessary. There would always be something that made Nana nervous or worried, whether it be a habit, the weather, or a whim.

They walked silently for a moment, continuing along the perimeter, their boots crunching on grainy snow, the younger woman in a black coat looking at the fallen buildings, and the old one in a thick, black shawl- to her it was not cold enough to warrant unnecessary layers, looked straight ahead, using her parasol as a walking stick, a rather recent habit since taking up The Weeds.

The younger widow broke the silence, “...Still, it seems rather morbid here now. Unnaturally quiet.”

“Quiet? Are you the one losing your hearing? They have been making a racket for the last 6 months. Each time one of those buildings come down I swear my dishes come off their racks.”

“Not literally quiet, Nana. Its more like a unkempt cemetery now. The funeral done. Grave forgotten, uncared for, ghostly.”

“Bailey, you are almost as horrible as Bertie with the analogies and improper imagery. Enough.” She sighed heavily. “If they are supposed to put things exactly they were before they started then it will be the nice kind of quiet you are looking for. If they can wash all this clean.”

She did know what Bailey was getting at, though where Bailey felt the funeral air only in the last few months, probably from not being around the babies anymore, the old woman felt it nearly from the time they first broke ground, so she said.

The whole Exposition had been A Bad Thing. Cursed, even. She had said it several times over from the start, to members of her family, to her visitors, to strangers making small talk as they passed her house and garden if they were in hearing distance of her. She had even said it to her husband, she would tell them, though in truth she could remember no actual conversation with Ruby to that effect.

Anytime that anyone brought up a this or that that was happening there, she was sure to tell them, to make them know, that the wondrous City of Light was indeed a beacon. It was a beacon where good people met fate with Bad Things. She had made a point to remind the three grandchildren who had worked there every time she saw them. Bailey for being one of the nurses at the Infant Incubator, Alberta for reading cards. Little Reuben for doing whichever things the battalion of lawyers need to do there.

Good for her that she still had her sight, and most of her hearing and that she was able to read the papers every day- she needed to in order to keep up with the society events, births, weddings, and deaths these days in her first mourning. She was also able to focus on the Bad Things listed there about the Pan, because she would find a new point to her arguement if someone started in on the drivel about how wondrous and amazing it was. She certainly was not going to harbor talk of sparkle and glitter in her house.

Bad Things happened, not just during the Exposition, but because of the Exposition.

The numerous boys disappearing. The sicknesses occuring from the food and sun. The mysterious groups that were supposedly luring entire families away for one reason or another to come live in their communes. The less-than-scrupulous card readers about that made for a harder time for Bertie. The rutkus about the fairy photographs, ‘Memento Faeri’ or some such- she just knew her husband would have enjoyed seeing that one fall apart in particular.

The President who got himself killed.

That certainly convinced people how the whole affair had been A Bad Thing, right there. It was only at that point, when that the ladies from her whist league paying their calls to her started to agree instead of patronizing her they had before, what with their “Now, now, Nia. Your Ruby wasn’t a part of that Expo”. After the President died, it was all “You know, I knew it too!”. They were lying, of course, but either way by then the sparkle and shine was shown for plaster and trickery to everyone else and not just her.

A Bad Thing, she had said to everyone. Something she did not want any part of, despite being in a time and place where there was no choice but to be a part of it forever.

For her Ruby was a part of the Expo. Back at her house, in her husband’s wardrobe, was his dress coat. In the pocket of his dress coat there were two tickets. Admission for two to the Opening of the Exposition- May 1st, 1901. It was supposed to be a gift, perhaps an early anniversary present, but more likely an early birthday present for himself as he was apt to gift himself.

As it happened, Opening Day of the Pan was the day Niagara Maysmith Boytle buried her beloved Reuben instead of attending the ceremony with him.

She pulled her shawl closer to herself and gripped her parasol, feeling her fingers creek. “Bailey, step faster, will you? I need to make sure the cook gets the roast out of my oven in time.“

“Certainly, Nana.” Bailey didn’t change her step much at all- her grandmother was not actually able to walk faster than she already was, though Bailey was not adverse into letting her Nana think that she could.