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    Della Mortika 3: The Circus of Secrets
    Della Mortika 3: The Circus of Secrets
    Della Mortika 3: The Circus of Secrets
    Ebook166 pages2 hours

    Della Mortika 3: The Circus of Secrets

    By Geraldine F Martin

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    Fleeing from the disastrous Library of Wonder fire, which had destroyed their previous home, the Della Morte sisters and their friend Charlie are adopted by a travelling circus which has camped in Melbourne in 1888. The friends settle in, learning new skills and meeting new people. That is, until the circus is bought by a mysterious Melbourne business man. Slowly, things start to change for Abigail, Beatrix, Zarah and Charlie. So much so that their initial feelings of safety start to dissolve. A failed abduction attempt confirms their suspicions and they now enter into an investigation of the goings-on at the circus. Someone wants the friends under his, or her, control.

    Why? Who? Is it the new owner? Is it to do with their captured parents? And most importantly, will they ever see their parents again?

    Book Three in the Della Mortika Steampunk Adventures series
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateNov 24, 2021
    ISBN9781922565839
    Della Mortika 3: The Circus of Secrets
    Author

    Geraldine F Martin

    Geraldine F Martin was born in Melbourne and has lived most of her adult life in the Canberra region where she raised three children, worked in public service and designed hats and quilts. These days she writes stories and scripts with her two cats in her studio, which is located right in the centre of her garden in the country. She and her daughter Marisa co-created the Della Morte Sisters and are in the middle of bringing them to life through writing, animation and film. This is her second DellaMortika novel. The first, Voyage to the Antipodes, was published in 2014.

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      Book preview

      Della Mortika 3 - Geraldine F Martin

      Prologue

      T he Baron Ernst von Barbicon was hunched over a letter that he was reading intently through his pincenez perched precariously on his thin aristocratic nose. He was leaning slightly to the right to catch the very best light from the kerosene lamp on the table next to his armchair. A small fire was casting shadows across his face and his mouth was moving convulsively. The grumbling started deep in his throat and his body began to tremble until he was quivering like a volcano about to erupt.

      Suddenly he cried out, A cataclysmic shower of fire and brimstone on their heads! May they all explode into a thousand speckles of ash! I will not let them get away with this!

      With that, he stood up abruptly and threw the letter into the fire. He watched it burn, his fists opening and closing in time with his breathing.

      Now, now, my dear. What has put you into such a fury? asked a soft voice from the chair on the opposite side of the fire.

      The Baron was still breathing hard, but at the sound of the voice his shaking began to subside and his breathing to slow.

      Without turning from the fire, he said, Ah, Lydia. The Society of Inventors has rejected my application for reinstatement for the fifth time.

      Lydia turned her brown eyes upon him and said quietly, Yes. I can see how that would upset you.

      Baroness von Barbicon was recovering from her most recent bout of the consumption and still retained an unbecoming pallor to her skin and a debilitating weakness in her limbs. She had been afflicted with a chronic form of the disease since she was in her twenties. It waxed and waned and took its toll on her body. She was extremely thin and a little hunched over. Her mind, however, was as quick and as full of the glow of ambition as that of her husband.

      So, my dear. We will continue with our plan? Lydia queried, her eyes focused on her husband’s back as piercing as sharpened rail spikes.

      The Baron turned slowly towards her; glared into her eyes with his own steely determination; and nodded as he said slowly, Oh, yes, my dear Lydia; we will most certainly continue with our plan!

      The Fortune Teller

      February 1889

      C ome forward; don’t be shy. Ask the question your heart most desires to have answered! And I, the Great Gazaly, will answer your questions.

      The crowd was still recovering from the thrilling sight of the tent’s arrival. The occasion had begun with the calliope master playing. He had started with a soft piece of mysterious music which began to draw the crowd from Sideshow Alley and even from outside the circus grounds. The calliope was positioned outside and to the left of the entry to the Big Top.

      The music had started to build and was giving rise to a feeling of anticipation and tension among the crowd. Some years ago, the master had had fitted two extra mechanical arms to enable him to amplify the impact of his music. Now, he brought all his arms into play. The music escalated. Something was about to happen. The crowd could feel it.

      Under the music the crowd could hear a rhythmic sound they had not heard before. It seemed to be coming from behind the Big Top. They gasped as they saw the source of the sound rising slowly above the roof. Rotating blades were lifting something into the sky. The crowd was fixated on what the blades carried. Revealing itself was what appeared to be a circus tent. Not an ordinary tent, but one with working gears and a small steam engine underpinning the structure itself which was covered in billowing canvas tent walls. It was square in shape with a vaulted top culminating in a rotunda, out of the centre of which a pole supporting the rotating blades rose with great majesty.

      The tent rose high in the sky and tipped its front end towards the crowd in greeting. It then circled the Big Top, swooping lower as it travelled over the crowd. The crowd was enthralled, pointing and laughing in awe of this amazing sight.

      A circular area outside the ticket box to the Big Top had been fenced off prior to the show beginning and eventually the tent stopped flying directly over the fenced area. Slowly, the tent sank to the ground and the blades stopped rotating. The crowd pressed closer and closer, trying to be the first to see what was going to happen next. Minutes passed, then the crowd gasped to see question marks of smoke shooting out of the top of the central pole and the words above the entrance to the tent lighting up with gas-infused energy –

      THE GREAT GAZALY AND HIS VERITABLE VORTEX OF FUTURE FORCES.

      Who was this? What was this? The crowd murmured, turning to each other, asking the questions.

      Suddenly, the entrance curtains opened and out stepped a small man followed by a young woman slightly to his right. Behind them emerged a large glass cylinder that stopped in front of the now closing entrance curtains. The cylinder appeared to hover about two feet above the ground.

      The Great Gazaly was a round, cheery-looking, middle-aged man dressed in the manner known as industrial chic. His hat was a modified bowler complete with brass goggles (the eyes needing protection from the swirling future forces he was about to encounter). His tailcoat was black with rusted trims along the pockets and front. Under his coat he sported a magnificently embroidered waist coat and pristine white ruffled shirt. His trousers were black and his boots were topped with spats to his knees done up with brass buttons.

      He stood outside his tent, spruiking his talents to a growing crowd of Melbournians. It was his job to gather customers together and astound them with his predictions of the future, prior to the opening of the show in the Big Top.

      "Come forward; don’t be shy! Ask the question your heart most desires to have answered!

      And I, the Great Gazaly, will answer your question!

      The Great Gazaly was the circus’s fortune teller and a showman. He was popular with the customers, taking their questions about their future and delivering his predictions through an impressive display of skill and credibility.

      He would listen to their questions and retire to his Veritable Vortex of Future Forces, which was the cylinder of glass that had emerged from his tent, where he could be observed sitting with his eyes closed in a swirl of mist and flashing lights. Atop the cylinder sat a circle of trumpet-like shapes reaching out into the air. The funnels circled faster and faster drawing in strange mists that no one had noticed before. He placed a helmet-like device on his head upon which sat a miniature circlet of funnels which sucked in smaller portions of the mist. When the swirling and lighting ceased, he would remove the helmet, step out of the Vortex and stand, legs wide, head back, thus giving himself time to recover from his recent arduous ordeal. He would then deliver his predictions in a voice of authority. He was rarely able to say with one hundred percent certainty that something would occur, but he could predict with some level of certainty that it would or would not. Often, he was right. Sometimes he was wrong, but not often. He was a great drawcard and the circus owner, the Ringmaster, felt gratified to have secured his contract.

      The Antipodean Circus of Oddities and Amazing Sights had been in Melbourne for four months. The circus would stay another month or so before moving on to other Victorian regional centres. It was February and summer was still hanging on. It had been a hot summer, dry and windy and the circus staff were looking forward to the cooler weather of the coming autumn. The Great Gazaly was too professional to show any of this tiredness and he continued to encourage people to ask him questions.

      The Great Gazaly had an assistant, the young woman who had emerged from the tent with him. She appeared to be about sixteen years of age and was dressed in a long plaid skirt, a blouse with a high ruffled neck and buttoned up boots. Over the blouse she wore a tight-fitting jacket. The whole outfit bespoke a conservative approach to her attire in one so young. Atop her brown hair with its glorious golden highlights perched a tiny top hat adorned with a feather. Her demeanour was calm and welcoming.

      Her job appeared to be to meet and coordinate prospective questioners before they were ushered into the presence of the great man himself. Now she was talking to a young couple. She questioned them, quietly writing a few words in her notebook. Finally, she motioned the young man and woman, who was heavily pregnant, toward the fortune teller.

      Ah, yes, yes, come forward, the Great Gazaly said warmly, encouraging the couple to ask their question.

      I am about to give birth, said the young woman. We want to know the colour of our baby’s eyes.

      I am intrigued that you would need to know this, he said taking notes. But of course, I will be able to tell you once I have had time to consult the Veritable Vortex of Future Forces. Do you happen to know the colour of the eyes of the child’s grandparents? He took further notes. He handed the notebook to his assistant and followed the usual routine.

      Once he had emerged from the Vortex and had recovered sufficiently to speak, he pronounced, I predict the child’s eyes will most certainly be brown. There is a tiny possibility of blue, but this will very probably not happen.

      The young parents looked relieved and thanked the Great Gazaly profusely for his prediction before they sank back into the crowd. The great man looked after them with a puzzled look before they were swept from his mind by the arrival of the next seeker of fortune. He had many predictions to make before the show opened in the Big Top.

      On The Road

      4 Months earlier – 20 October 1888

      I t was four months earlier that the Della Morte sisters and their friends,

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