Page 5 of A Malicious Menagerie
“How long has he been working for you?” I inquire, curious to see if he’s been there longer than Rebecca indicated.
He hums thoughtfully. “About a year, I believe.”
Well, that’s not a long time, but it’s better than six months.
Thinking of some potentially illegal animals—creatures like lions and tigers and bears, oh my!—I ask, “Are the animals dangerous?”
He hesitates, which tells me everything I need to know even before he says, “Some, yes. Of course, we take every precaution, but I won’t tell you that every animal is innocuous.”
I know I should be worried about that, but inside, I feel a little shiver of anticipation. Back when I thought I was going to be a veterinarian, I never planned to work on dogs and cats and bunny rabbits. No, I gravitated more toward zoo medicine or hoofstock—big, beefy cattle or beasts with horns and teeth. That dream might have met a premature end, but this job could get me close to what I always imagined. And if I still have misgivings… well, I can always quit.
“When would I start?” I ask, already reaching for his pen.
He offers another subdued smile. “Would tomorrow night be too soon?”
“Not at all,” I reply, and I sign the contract, followed by the NDA, with a flourish.
3
The Menagerie
The next night, a black Cadillac Escalade pulls up outside my townhouse, the dark paint glinting like obsidian under the murky streetlights. How a car can manage to be predatory, I don’t know, but the sight of it shoots a frisson of unease up my spine all the same.
The back door opens to reveal Nathan, his crisp suit and precisely styled hair still immaculate despite the hour. The flickering street lamp above him paints his sculpted cheekbones in sharp relief and casts his shadow long and foreboding across the sidewalk. Or maybe that’s the nerves talking. He steps aside to hold the car door open for me and motions to the dim interior. “Good evening, Ms. Carmichael. Please make yourself comfortable.”
In that moment, I get the strangest feeling of vertigo—almost as if I’m perched somewhere very high with every possibility of tumbling from the precipice. I could step back into safety. Ishouldstep back into safety. Instead, I offer Nathan a murmured “thank you” as I slide into the car.
A moment later, Nathan settles into the seat beside me and crosses his ankle over one knee, his black shoes as polished and shiny as the Cadillac. He looks at home in the space, and the faint smile he gives me is the most sincere I’ve seen from him yet. “Ready?”
Am I ready? I guess I have to be. Trying my best to look confident, I give a firm nod. “Ready.”
Nathan is silent as we traverse the streets that lead out of my neighborhoodand into the industrial area on the outskirts of the city. Meanwhile, I sink deeper and deeper into foreboding. Where could they possibly keep animals out this way? Are they actually taking me somewhere to kill me? Or sell me to traffickers? I’ve never thought I was much to look at, but maybe that doesn’t matter so much. Maybe “desperate and naive” are good enough for slavers.
My mind is so busy spinning that I almost don’t hear Nathan as he calmly states, “We’re here.”
“We’re where?” I ask. I clear my throat when my voice squeaks like a prepubescent boy’s.
He shoots me an inscrutable look. “Here. At your new workplace.”
It’s hard to see out the tinted windows, but I can make out an iron fence stretching away into the dim distance. The car eases forward through an open gate before turning slowly and revealing the front of a boxy warehouse. “Here?” I ask, confusion coloring my tone.
“Mr. Mathis wanted somewhere discreet,” Nathan explains, only half paying attention as his phone dings and draws his eye. “He bought the warehouse from Amazon a few years ago.”
Somehow, I think he means something different than when I bought my favorite cheap denim jacket off Amazon last fall.
The Cadillac pulls to a stop in front of a nondescript door, its only adornment that same small plaque with the intertwined M’s. M for Mathis? There’s a security guard dressed in black posted beside the door, his thick arms crossed menacingly over his chest.
Taking a steadying breath, I carefully edge out of the car until my scuffed boots touch down in the parking lot. The late summer air is balmy, but I rub a chill from my arms anyway while the Cadillac pulls away. It occurs to me that I never saw the driver’s face.
“Your phone, Ms. Carmichael,” Nathan says, and I turn to see he has one hand outstretched. Remembering what he said about having my phone confiscated at the door, I quickly fumble it from my pocket and press it into his palm. “Follow me, please,” he directs, and I scurry after him toward that austere front door. He hands my phone to the security guard before leaning in for a quick, murmured conversation. The door is matte black and smudgedas if the color was spray-painted on by someone who didn’t care much about doing a good job. Not at all where I expected a rich man to keep his collection of exotic pets. Then again, I’m not sure what exactly Ididexpect.
Then, suddenly, everything makes sense when Nathan ushers me through the door.
My favorite book as a child wasThe Secret Garden. I made my mother read it to me over and over until the binding fell apart and I had to put it back together with Scotch tape and Lisa Frank stickers. Then, I made her read it all over again. It’s still sitting on a shelf in my bedroom, enshrined in dust and memories—too fragile to touch, but too important to throw away.
Stumbling through that ugly black door is how I imagine Mary must have felt stepping into the hidden garden for the first time. The path under my feet is perfectly laid red brick glittering with gold and bronze flecks under a soft golden light. When I look up, I see a massive domed ceiling made of frosted glass held up by a scaffold of black iron. Since I’ve seen the outside of the building and it’s built like a squat, square box, I have to assume the ceiling is false and the windows are lit from behind by artificial light. Still, the effect is breathtaking.
The brick path leads up to a massive carousel adorned in deep reds and burnished gold that reflects the flickering light from a surrounding ring of brass gas lamps. The carousel roof peaks in a red-and-white striped canopy like a classic circus tent and is lined by silvery mirrors interspersed with elaborate carvings of sea serpents, birds with flames for feathers, and pixies with butterfly wings. The underside of the roof is lit by a web of sparkling lights arranged in constellations, some of which I know but many more I can’t name. The platform is built of mahogany wood buffed to a high shine, and it supports at least a dozen mythical mounts affixed to spiraling gilded poles. My gaze catalogs a radiant white horse with an iridescent horn twisted up into a fine point from between two soulful blue eyes, a large black wolf with topaz eyes and sterling fangs, and a ruby dragon with golden wings arching high overhead.
