The Life She Was Given

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

  “Escape and go where? She’s just a little girl.”

  “I don’t care,” Merrick said. “She’s staying in our car where we can keep an eye on her, and that’s final. It’s either that, or back in the stock car with the goats and llamas.”

  Glory gave Lilly a worried glance. “Okay,” she said. “But I’ll take her to the dressing tent with me while I get ready.”

  “No, you won’t make it back to the train before the show opens without the rubes seeing you.” He started walking again. “Now come on.”

  Glory and Lilly trailed Merrick past the next three cars, then climbed the steps of the fourth and waited while he unlocked the door. The inside of the car looked the same as Mr. Barlow’s except with faded, torn furniture, dull paneling, and no ceiling fans. Dirty glasses filled the small sink, and a set of yellow curtains hung in the open doorway between the two rooms, their edges stained gray. The air felt hot and thick, like the air in Lilly’s attic bedroom in the middle of summer.

  Lilly did not like the place.

  Merrick tromped over to a sideboard, opened a bottle, and poured brown liquid into a glass. Glory picked a newspaper and a rumpled blanket off the couch and straightened the pillows.

  “You can sleep here,” she said to Lilly. She lifted an overflowing ashtray off a table piled high with magazines and brushed fallen ashes to the floor. “Sorry it’s such a mess.”

  Standing frozen by the door, Lilly didn’t know what to do or say. This was her new home, whether she liked it or not. She pictured her old room, her lumpy bed, her stained pillow, Abby sleeping on her woolen blanket. The sudden realization that this was final, that she was never going to see any of it again, that she was never going to see Abby again, hit her like a sledgehammer. It was the worst feeling in the world. Her eyes flooded and her lungs started to close. She tried counting the floorboards to calm down, but it didn’t help. Glory saw what was happening, came over, and knelt beside her.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Just breathe. I know it’s a lot to get used to, but I’ll take care of you, I promise.”

  After several long minutes of struggling to get air, Lilly’s chest finally loosened and she stumbled over to the sofa and collapsed into it, her face smeared with tears and sweat. Her vision grew blurry and she closed her eyes. She was exhausted and wanted to disappear into sleep, but her mind wouldn’t stop spinning. She needed to come up with a plan, she needed to get out of there and go home.

  Maybe this afternoon, when the circus opened and Merrick and Glory left the car to go to work, she could sneak out and follow the railroad tracks in the other direction, toward Blackwood Manor. She had no idea how long it would take to walk home, but she didn’t care. Maybe she could steal some food and a blanket, and sleep in the woods at night. At least it wasn’t winter. She pictured herself crossing her parents’ fields and walking across the lawn, marching up the steps and knocking on the front door. Daddy would answer, surprised and happy to see her. Momma might be mad at first, but if Lilly promised to be good, promised to stop asking for things she couldn’t have, and promised to memorize the Bible and say her prayers every night, maybe Momma would let her stay. Then she thought of something else and started to tremble.

  What if Daddy wasn’t happy to see her? What if he knew all along Momma was going to sell her to the circus? After all, he let Momma lock her in the attic. If he really loved her, he wouldn’t have done that. And what if he really “wasn’t long for this world”? What if he really was dying?

  The thought made her feel like she was falling off a cliff, her arms and legs limp and useless, her hair fluttering around her face and head. She buried her face in a pillow and sobbed.

  Glory knelt beside her. “It’s all right, go ahead and cry. You have every right to be sad and mad and scared and all of those things. It’s not fair what your momma did to you. When my parents dropped Viktor off at the asylum, I was six and he was five, but, God help me, I remember thinking how glad I was that they were leaving him there instead of me. Because he was crying so hard and I—”

  Merrick slammed his glass on the sideboard. “For Christ’s sake, Glory,” he snarled. “Quit your blubbering. The show starts in an hour and you need to get ready.”

  Glory got to her feet, wiping her palms on her skirt. “Don’t you think it’d be okay if I sit this one out? Others have missed shows before. I should stay here with Lilly and—”

  With that, Merrick flew across the room and slapped her hard across the face. She staggered backward and nearly fell but managed to stay on her feet. Lilly sat up, breathing hard. Glory put her hand to her cheek and gaped at Lilly, her eyes wide with shame and fear. Then, without a word, she hung her head and went into the other room.

  “You better be getting your things together!” Merrick yelled. He went over to the sideboard and poured himself another drink. Lilly watched from the sofa, her fingers digging into the cushions.

  A moment later, Glory came out of the other room with what looked like a miniature suitcase in one hand. A red mark in the shape of a handprint colored her cheek and she gazed at Lilly with glassy eyes. “I’ll be back as soon as the show is over. I’m sorry. I can’t stay.”

  Lilly wanted Glory to stay more than anything, but there was nothing she could do. She watched her leave, then curled up in a corner of the sofa, wondering what would happen next. Merrick locked the door behind Glory and disappeared into the other room. Somewhere a door opened and closed. Lilly held her breath and listened. Was there another way out of the car in the other room? The only things she heard were the violent thud of her heart and what sounded like water running. She got up, tiptoed across the room, and tried the door that led outside, even though she knew it was locked. She tried the windows. It was no use. Everything was bolted shut. She sat down again and tried to think.

  Then the door in the other room opened and closed again, and Merrick whistled as he moved about in there. A few minutes later, he came out in a suit and tie, his hair slicked back from his cratered face. The smell of shoe polish and cologne filled the room, reminding Lilly of Daddy. Merrick poured another drink, came over to the sofa, stood over her, and grinned. She swallowed and pushed her back into the cushions.

  “You and I are going to make a lot of money together,” he said. “But right now, I’ve got to get over to the sideshow.” He swallowed the contents of his glass and headed for the door.

  As she watched him go, the tightness left Lilly’s shoulders. After he left, maybe she could pound on a window to get someone’s attention, or break it and crawl out. Then Merrick realized his glass was still in his hand and went over to set it on the sideboard. She tensed again and, before she knew what was happening, he rushed toward her, clawed hands outstretched. She screeched and tried to scramble off the sofa, but he clamped his fingers into her upper arms and dragged her into the other room. She thrashed and kicked and clawed, but couldn’t get away.

  He hauled her past a chair piled with clothes and a bed covered with tangled blankets, then opened a wooden door and shoved her into a small room. She stumbled and fell between a wall and a toilet, and he slammed the door, casting the room into blackness. A horrible stench filled her nostrils and she gagged. She got to her feet and pounded on the door, screaming for him to let her out.

  “Sorry, kid,” he said through the wood. “But the show must go on.”

  CHAPTER 8

  JULIA

  The morning after her return to Blackwood Manor, Julia woke with a start, her head bent at an odd angle against the arm of the overstuffed couch. At first, she didn’t know where she was. Then she recognized the marble fireplace and the ornate tin ceiling of her late parents’ living room. Now the living room, the entire house in fact, belonged to her. It felt surreal and a bit unsettling. She sat up, stretched, and rubbed her stiff neck. The room was cold and gray, and she could almost see her breath. Sometime during the night the fire had gone out. She stood, walked over to the windows, and pushed back the velvet curtains.
Warm shafts of sunlight burst through the glass, illuminating the dusty air and creating blocks of light on the red Persian rug. A strong wind pushed against the window frame and creaked against the panes. Mother’s dead rosebushes scratched along the sill.

  Outside, the brown front lawn stretched out for what seemed like forever toward a line of towering oak trees, a white plank fence, and the one-lane road that led into town in one direction and the Adirondack foothills in the other. A band of black starlings filled the swaying tree branches and a gray pickup truck lumbered along the way, its exhaust like swirling ice in the air. Even in the sunshine, everything looked lonely and cold.

  After she got the fireplace going again, she went into the kitchen and turned on the teakettle. The first thing on her to-do list was to figure out how to turn the furnace up. Then she could start exploring. She opened the drawer beside the stove and stared at one of the great mysteries of her childhood—Mother’s keys. She could still picture the key ring hanging from Mother’s apron, brass and iron clinking as she strode up and down the stairs, through the rooms and halls like a cat with a bell on its collar. While growing up, Julia had often wondered why were there so many keys on the ring, and where Mother kept them at night. Could it be they were in this drawer all along? No, it was impossible. Mother never let them out of her sight. How many times had she seen Mother reading or knitting, one hand checking to make sure the keys were still tied to her apron? A hundred? A thousand?

  Julia took a deep breath and touched the keys, half expecting to hear Mother’s chiding voice warning her to leave them alone. But there was no voice, no electric shock, no scolding slap of an invisible, cold ghost hand. She picked up the ring and was surprised to find it weighed more than expected. There were seventeen keys, each one unique—short and long, brass and iron, thick and thin, ornate and plain. And now, like everything else in Blackwood Manor, they belonged to her. She took the keys, grabbed her suitcase from the foyer, and went up to her old room.

  The second floor featured a long center hallway, with two hallways leading off each side. Julia’s bedroom was at the top of the stairs, the first door on the left. As she suspected, it was locked. She tried five different keys before finding the right one, then finally turned the lock and opened the door, thinking briefly how odd it was that she didn’t know which key belonged to her old room. The bedroom was freezing and looked exactly the same as it did the night she left, except for the cobwebs hanging from the stuffed calico elephant on the shelf above her headboard, and the dust graying every surface, including the pictures of dogs and cats taped to her dresser mirror.

  She entered and stood in the middle of the room, shivering and still holding her suitcase, a thousand memories flooding her mind. This was where she had spent countless lonely hours—banished for the smallest violation of Mother’s rules. Or doing homework, wishing she had a brother or sister, sobbing into her pillow after being picked on in school. After a long minute, she turned around and walked out. She didn’t have to stay in her old bedroom. She could stay in a different one. After all, there were six on this floor alone.

  She closed the door, put the key in the lock, and started to turn it, then changed her mind. There was no longer any reason to keep her old bedroom locked. Not that there ever was, except for Mother’s insistence it be that way. She carried her suitcase toward the end of the hall, Mother’s keys jangling against her hip. The sound reminded her of lying in bed every night, the clinking of keys outside her bedroom as Mother checked the doors up and down the hall. For what, Julia had no idea.

  She stopped in front of the room opposite her parents’ bedroom, what Mother called “the playroom,” the only other bedroom she was allowed in while growing up. As usual, the playroom was unlocked. Inside, gray light filtered in around the curtains, and a mint green rug embroidered with roses and leaves covered the plank floor like a thick layer of lime sherbet. A brass daybed with ruffled pillows and a white comforter sat against one wall, opposite a blue painted armoire between two tall windows. Unlike Julia’s bedroom, this one had been kept free of dust and cobwebs.

  As a child, she had spent hours in the playroom, combing her dolls’ hair, feeding them bottles, rocking them to sleep, kissing their foreheads. Thinking about it now gave her heart a strange twist. Mother was the one who taught her how to cuddle babies and lay them gently into their beds. She was the one who told her to pat the dolls’ backs and sing them to sleep. Now, Julia couldn’t imagine it. She pushed the image of Mother from her mind and concentrated on the here and now. Trying to figure out the woman who had brought her into this world at an age when most mothers were watching their children get married or sending them off to college wouldn’t change anything. Mother was who she was, and now she was gone.

  She set her suitcase next to the armoire, pushed open the drapes, and looked out a window. The playroom overlooked part of the side yard, where six gnarled apple trees ringed a small lawn. Whenever she was being too loud or trying Mother’s patience during summer vacation, she was sent there to play while the grown-ups drank iced tea and whiskey at a wicker table on the terrace. Over the tops of the apple trees, the butter-colored horse barn and white paddocks sat surrounded by brown fields. Three horses grazed in a round pen while two men looked on. One stood with his hands on his hips, the other had his foot on the bottom fence plank, his arms crossed and resting over the top. The man with his hands on his hips looked like Claude, but she had no idea who the other one was. Then she noticed the gray pickup truck she had seen on the road earlier sitting in the barn driveway. Maybe the other man was the veterinarian.

  She opened her suitcase, found a thicker sweater, and put it on, wondering if Claude knew how to turn up the furnace. She had no idea if the house was heated with wood or coal, or where the thermostat was located. After all, she was only a teenager when she left, and she had never been interested in those things anyway. Not that anyone would have explained them to her if she’d asked. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered her father going into the basement to “adjust the valves,” but she wasn’t sure what that meant. If Claude didn’t know what to do, she’d have to figure it out herself, or hire someone. She brushed her hair in the mirror, pulled it into a ponytail, and went back downstairs. In the kitchen, the teakettle was screaming. Hot water boiled from its spout and sizzled on the flame beneath it. She turned off the burner and, without thinking, grabbed the teakettle handle.

  “Shit!”

  She dropped the teakettle on the stove and went over to the sink to run her red, tender palm under the faucet. How was she ever going to take care of this place if she couldn’t even make tea without messing it up? She stared at the running water, wondering if she should quit while she was ahead. Someone knocked on the mudroom door and she jumped.

  “Shit,” she said again. She shut off the water, wiped her hands on her pants, and went into the mudroom. Maybe it was Claude and she could ask him about the furnace. She opened the door. It wasn’t Claude.

  A man in rubber boots, a black toque, and a green barn jacket stood on the steps with his back to her, watching the horses in the round pen.

  “May I help you?” Julia said.

  The man spun around and took the toque from his head. “Sorry,” he said. “You caught me daydreaming. I’m Fletcher.” He grinned and thrust out a hand. “Fletcher Reid. I’m here to see Miss Blackwood.”

  He was tall and lean and looked to be in his late twenties, with a square jawline and chocolate-colored eyes. His short, sandy hair stuck out in all directions above his tanned, rugged face.

  She shook his hand. His handshake was sturdy, his skin rough. “I’m Miss Blackwood,” she said.

  His brows shot up. “You’re the new owner?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re so . . . so . . .”

  Heat rose in her cheeks. “I know. I’m too young to own this place.”

  His face filled with instant regret. “Oh. No, I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. Plea
se forgive me.” He glanced over his shoulder as if plotting a quick getaway, then gave her a broad smile. “Um . . . can we start over?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Sure.”

  He shook her hand again. “I’m the vet.”

  She hesitated, surprised. For some reason, she expected the veterinarian to be old, like Claude, with a bristled face and age-spotted hands. She couldn’t have been more wrong. He looked like one of the surfers she used to watch on Long Island. “Pleased to meet you,” she said. “I’m Julia.”

  “Pleased to meet you too, Julia. Claude and I were wondering if you’d come over to the barn and take a look at the horses.”

  “Me?”

  He nodded.

  “Is something wrong? Because I don’t—”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. A buyer is interested in a couple of our, I mean your, stallions. We were wondering if you wanted to sell or not.”

  She frowned. Why were they asking her to make decisions already? She had just arrived and didn’t know the first thing about horses. “I don’t know... I . . .” She groaned inside. Suddenly, she couldn’t string two words together. He’s going to think I’m an idiot. “Whatever you think will be best for the farm. I trust you and Claude to make the right decision.”

  “All right,” he said. “I know what Claude is thinking, but he said we had to ask you first. Are you sure you don’t want to come and take a look? They’re some of our best stallions yet. Perfect specimens from Blackwood Farm’s most famous lineage. When you see them, you’ll know what I mean.”

  She thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. There was no harm in looking, and she had to go over to the barn sooner or later, not to mention she needed to ask Claude how to turn up the furnace. “Okay.”

  “Better grab your coat,” he said. “It’s a cold one out there today.”

  She opened the door wide and stepped back. “Please, come in and stay warm while I get it.”