The Life She Was Given

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

  Then the canvas entrance flapped open and a slice of sunlight burst into the viewing area. Lilly couldn’t see the door, but it seemed as if she could feel the townies coming into the tent. The air grew thinner and hotter, and she could feel the presence of other humans, other beings, other bodies. A thousand smells filled the air all at once—cologne, popcorn, sweat, cigarette smoke, roasted peanuts, hot dogs, soap, leather, perfume, lace. It felt almost as if the townies were pushing in on her, trying to smother her, even though they were nowhere near her stage. Her breath grew shallow and tight in her chest. One, two, three, four.

  At first, the townies made their way into the tent talking and laughing. Then, little by little, they grew quiet as they looked at the first freaks. Women whispered and gasped in surprise, men talked in hushed voices and laughed nervously.

  Lilly gritted her teeth and stared at the grass on the other side of the rope, waiting for the first person to appear. What would their reaction be when they saw her? Would they recoil in fear? Would they cry? Would they laugh? Would they be sick? Would they jump onstage and try to hurt her? Would she be able to stand here and let them gawk without screaming? What if she couldn’t do what Merrick wanted her to do?

  Just when she felt like she was about to pass out from terror, a little girl came into view, wearing a faded jumper and pulling her father by the hand. When she saw Lilly, she let go of her father’s hand, stopped, and put her pale fingers to her mouth. She drew closer to the rope and stared up at Lilly with wide brown eyes. Lilly steeled herself, waiting for her to cry or scream. She touched her tongue to her clenched teeth. One, two, three, four...

  Behind the father and the little girl, more townies squeezed into the viewing area. What seemed like a hundred faces looked up at Lilly. A sea of mouths twisted and moved and chewed and smiled and scowled and laughed. A thousand eyes stared and squinted and widened and blinked and gaped. Sweat broke out on Lilly’s forehead. Her mouth went dry.

  The little girl took another step closer. “Daddy, is she really a princess?”

  The father took her hand again. “No, honey,” he said.

  “But she has a crown,” the little girl said.

  “That doesn’t mean anything.” The father pulled her away and moved on.

  “But, Daddy, I wanted to . . .” The little girl’s voice trailed off.

  Little by little, the first group of townies left while more streamed into the viewing area. Some walked slowly and others hurried past, as if they had changed their minds about coming into the freak show. Most people stopped to study Lilly for a few minutes before moving on. A frowning mother covered the eyes of the young child on her hip and refused to look at Lilly while the man she was with pointed and whispered in an older child’s ear.

  “They don’t need to be seein’ things like this,” the mother hissed.

  “Stop your frettin’,” the man said. “It’s all in good fun.”

  “Yeah, well, it ain’t gonna be fun when they wake up with nightmares later.”

  The man rolled his eyes and moved on.

  A freckle-faced boy stood in front of her stage for what seemed like forever, staring at her with droopy eyes and chewing his gum with his mouth open. Lilly had no idea what to do, or what he was waiting for. She tried not to look at him, but he was hard to ignore. Three groups of townies came and went before he finally left. When he did, she breathed a sigh of relief. Then, during a quick break in the flow of gawkers, a little old lady in a flowery hat stopped to let her tiny black dog relieve itself near the back wall of the viewing area, and a horrible smell filled the tent.

  After a while, Lilly’s feet started to go numb in her shoes, and her calves began to ache. Her head felt like it was about to explode from clenching her jaw. When the crowd finally started to thin, her chest began to loosen and her heartbeat slowed. The grass in the viewing area was flat and muddied, trampled by thousands of feet. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her shoulders dropping. At last, her first show was almost over. And no one had screamed or cried or gotten sick or tried to slit her throat. Then, suddenly, there was a shriek and a crash in the direction of the entrance, and the sound of a body hitting a stage.

  “Get the hell out of here!” someone yelled. And then, “Are you all right, Dina?”

  A boy laughed and others joined in.

  A girl giggled and said, “Come on, you guys. Leave her alone.”

  Lilly’s heartbeat picked up speed again. What was going on? What had happened to Dina the Living Half Girl? Did someone try to hurt her? A few seconds later, a group of teenagers hurried into the viewing area. The boys laughed and playfully punched one another in the arms and the girls tittered. The girls wore puffy-sleeved dresses, and one had on a red beret over her long blond curls. The boys were in cuffed trousers and crisp shirts. Their eyes were glassy and bloodshot, the same way Daddy’s eyes used to look when he drank too much whiskey. Somewhere a woman was crying. Was it Dina? What had the teenagers done to her? Then the girl in the red beret saw Lilly and stopped.

  “Jeepers,” she said. “Look at her. Is she really made of ice?”

  “Naw,” a boy said. “She’s covered in white paint.”

  “Even her hair?” the girl in the beret said.

  “It’s a wig,” the boy said.

  “She’s supposed to be from another planet,” a second boy said. “That’s stupid.”

  “She’s kind of pretty, though,” one of the girls said.

  The girl in the beret made a face. “I think she’s hideous.”

  Another girl wrinkled up her nose. “She stinks too.”

  “She looks like a corpse,” the girl in the beret said. “Maybe that’s why she stinks.”

  The girls laughed, and the first boy moved closer and grabbed the rope in front of Lilly’s stage. “Are you alive, freak?”

  Lilly blinked at him. She had no idea what to do. Beads of sweat rolled down her neck and back. Then, before she knew what was happening, the boy ducked under the rope and climbed onto her stage. She stepped backward and her heels caught in her dress. “Glory!” she cried.

  The boy smirked and reached for her hair. “Is this real, freak?”

  The canvas wall between the platforms yanked to one side and Glory stormed onto Lilly’s stage, her face contorted with anger. “Get the hell out of here!” she yelled.

  The boy jumped down, crawled beneath the rope, and rejoined his friends, who were laughing hysterically. But instead of leaving, they moved toward the back wall of the viewing area, mocking Glory and Lilly and pointing.

  “Go back to your cave, ya freaks!” the boy who climbed onstage shouted.

  “Yeah, ya ugly freaks!” the girl in the beret shouted. She began to chant and the others joined in. “Freaks, freaks, freaks! Ugly, stupid freaks!”

  The other sidewall between the stages pulled aside and Rosy and Ruby poked in their heads. “Are you all right, Lilly?” Rosy said.

  “Leave her alone!” Ruby shouted at the teenagers.

  They ignored her, still laughing and chanting. Then the boy who climbed into Lilly’s stage bent over as if tying his shoe. When he straightened, a strange look came over his face, a cruel, yet nervous, smirk. He raised his arm and threw something at the stage. A handful of wet dirt hit Lilly in the chest and splattered over her white dress, and chunks of grass landed in her hair. Another boy joined in, laughing as he reached down to get more mud. But instead of mud, he picked up the dog poop and threw it at Lilly. A thick gob of it hit her above one eye and ran down her nose. She dropped the scepter and stood there stunned, her hands up, her eyes and mouth squeezed shut, unsure if she should run or scream. The stench of dog poop made her gag.

  The teenagers’ laughter came to a halt, and in the sudden silence that followed, one of the girls said, “Oh my God, is that dog shit?”

  Lilly stood frozen, a bulge of terror rising in her mind. Momma had been right after all. She made them sick. They hated her. They thought she was an abomination.<
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  One of the girls began to laugh again, a lone, almost frightened, sound. Lilly opened her eyes and shrank back, cowering in disgust and shame. Then the others joined in, the girls giggling, the boys snickering, all of them laughing at her. She let the noise wash over her, dimly aware of Glory saying something and reaching for her. A gut-wrenching flood of homesickness washed through her, and a horrible cry tore from her throat. She put her hands over her face, realizing too late that she was smearing the feces over her cheeks and eyes. She gagged and staggered backward, her only thought to run, to get out of the tent so they would stop laughing at her. But it was like trying to run through molasses. It seemed as if everything had slowed to a crawl. Even the laughter seemed to deepen and slow. She shoved past Glory and her feet tangled in her skirt and she fell off the front of the stage, losing her heels and landing in a tangle of white dress, mud, and dog shit. The boys sprang on her like a pack of hungry wolves, pulling at her hair and clothes. She curled into a ball and covered her head with her arms.

  Glory jumped down from the stage with the scepter in her fist. “Get out of here!” she screamed. “Leave her alone!” The teenagers raced toward the other end of the tent and Glory chased after them, swinging the scepter in the air. “If I see any of you in here again, I’ll kill you!”

  Hester the Monkey Girl and Aldo the Alligator Skinned Man came running to help.

  “Are you okay?” Hester said, reaching down to help Lilly up.

  Lilly knew only one thing: She had to get out of there. She scrambled to her feet and bolted barefoot toward the end of the tent where she and Glory had come in. When she couldn’t find a way backstage, she ran out the front entrance through the middle of the crowd, sending the shocked townies left and right, spreading them like Moses spread the Red Sea. Women gasped and stepped back as if she had the plague while men put their arms out to protect them. Children cried out in fear. And Lilly saw them all, how beautiful and perfect they were, wrapped in sunlight and the normal world. She saw the pretty dresses, the rosy faces, the dark lashes, the blond and auburn hair. She hated them and wanted to be them, all at the same time.

  Someone stuck out their foot and she tripped and fell on her hands and knees. She started to crawl along the sawdust-covered lot in her white princess dress, her dog shit–covered hair hanging in her face. Tears of shame and sorrow blurred her vision and she collapsed on the hot earth, breathing raggedly, not caring what happened next. On the ground in front of her, a pair of shiny black boots appeared. With what little strength she had left, she looked up.

  “What the hell did you do?” Merrick said, glaring down at her.

  Before she could say anything, he yanked her up by the arm and dragged her toward the back lot, around the stakes and lines of the big top. Behind the giant tent, the performers, animals, and clowns waited in line for the opening parade. Everyone turned to watch Lilly and Merrick—women in tutus and pink tights, men in white leotards and red jackets. White-faced clowns and women and girls in sequined costumes. All looked on with curious eyes. At the end of the waiting procession, the boy in a tuxedo stood next to a man in work clothes, holding a line tied to the baby elephant.

  Then Lilly tripped and fell again, her head and right shoulder hitting the ground with a bone-jarring thud. For a brief second, as she lay on her side, a cloud of dust nearly obscuring her vision, she saw the boy in the tuxedo drop the rope and start toward her, his face filled with surprise and concern. But the man in work clothes put a hand on his shoulder to stop him and led him back to the baby elephant. The boy glanced over his shoulder at Lilly and retook his place in line, frowning.

  Merrick grabbed Lilly by the hair, yanked her to her feet, and dragged her away. She reached up with both hands to claw at his wrist, but he wouldn’t let go. Over at the big top, the circus band started, the back entrance opened, and the grand parade made its way into the giant tent, greeted by the cheers and applause of an adoring crowd.

  CHAPTER 10

  JULIA

  The evening after Julia’s first full day as the new owner of Blackwood Manor, the wind picked up and the house grew dark and cold, despite the fact that Claude had turned up the furnace. But it was far from silent. Creaks and groans seemed to come from every beam and floorboard, pipes knocked, radiators whispered, and the shutters rattled against the windows. Every once in a while, as she sat by the living room fireplace trying to make sense of the papers from the lawyer, Julia thought she heard rats in the walls. Doing her best to ignore the unsettling noises and pushing away images of a rodent infestation, she studied investment statements and deeds, a copy of her parents’ last will and testament, page after page of legal mumbo jumbo, and bank statements that made her gasp. She knew her parents had money, but until now, she had no idea how much. If nothing else, it put her mind at ease to know she could keep paying Claude and Fletcher to help with the horses. And she could send Danny and his family a nice check so he wouldn’t have to dig for food in the Dumpster behind Big Al’s anymore. Maybe she’d even send one to her old boyfriend Tom, without a return address of course.

  She had already made the decision that she would keep the farm running and, if possible, she would gut the house and turn Blackwood Manor into something fresh and new. She certainly had the money to do it. But first she had to sort through everything, to make some order of all the possessions, the thousands of items that seemed to fill every corner. There were too many memories, too many rooms, too much furniture, too many drawers and cupboards and hiding places. It was going to take weeks, if not months, to go through it all.

  Her mind whirled in a hundred different directions at once, and yet, she couldn’t help thinking about the horses and the tour of the barn Fletcher had given her earlier. Growing up, the scent of hay had been a familiar one, but inside the barn it was stronger and sweeter than she imagined. Mixed with the bakery-like fragrance of molasses and grain, and the musky aroma of the horses, it gave the barn a strangely cozy feel that, to her surprise, she found quite pleasant.

  While showing her around, Fletcher had explained that Blackwood Manor raised Thoroughbred and Quarter horses for showing and racing, horses were displayed great foundations and descended from famous bloodlines. At its peak, he said, Blackwood Manor held eighty head of the best stock produced in the state, including their most famous stud, Blue Venture. Julia didn’t understand everything he was talking about, but she appreciated his willingness to educate her. The only thing she knew for sure was that every horse was more beautiful than the last. And she couldn’t believe they belonged to her.

  When they reached the end of the center aisle, Fletcher entered the last stall. The horse inside nickered and turned toward him, nostrils quivering. It was black as night, with a glossy mane and a tail that touched the floor. Julia watched over the door as the horse sniffed Fletcher’s shirt and hair, then nuzzled his neck like an overgrown puppy. Fletcher laughed and scratched the horse’s cheeks and neck with both hands. Clearly, they were fond of each other.

  “This is Bonnie Blue,” Fletcher said. “Blue for short. She’s your top producer and most valuable mare.” The horse nickered again. “Why don’t you come in and say hi?”

  “Who?” Julia said. “Me?”

  Fletcher grinned and glanced over her shoulder as if looking for someone. “I don’t see anyone else out there. Don’t worry, she’s gentle as a lamb.”

  Julia took a deep breath, unhitched the door latch, and entered the stall. She wanted to pet Bonnie Blue more than anything, but it had been a long time since she’d been near a horse and she knew they could sense fear.

  “Put your hand out, palm up, like this,” Fletcher said, demonstrating.

  Julia held out her hand and Bonnie Blue sniffed her palm, then rubbed her head on Fletcher’s arm. “I don’t think she likes me,” Julia said.

  “Sure she does, don’t you, girl? Watch this.” He took a step back and stood in front of the horse. “Shake, Blue.”

  Bonnie Blue lifted her front
leg, extending it toward Fletcher. He grabbed her hoof with one hand and shook it like a dog’s paw.

  Julia gasped. “Wow. How did you teach her that?”

  He let go of Blue’s hoof and scratched her between the eyes. “It was easy. She’s smart. They all are. But Claude wouldn’t be happy if he knew I was teaching her tricks, so let’s keep it our little secret.”

  “Okay. But why would he be upset about that?”

  “Because it can be dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. Why don’t you give her a scratch and get to know each other. After all, she’s yours now.”

  Julia touched the side of Blue’s neck and smiled, inhaling the mare’s wonderful musky smell. Her coat was as slick and soft as it looked. Blue stopped nuzzling Fletcher and gazed at Julia with curious eyes. Then she put her muzzle near Julia’s ear and sniffed, her charcoal-colored nose and lips like warm velvet against Julia’s skin. She blew out a strong breath over Julia’s neck, moving Julia’s hair and giving her the shivers. Then she bumped her massive head against Julia’s shoulder, nearly knocking her over.

  Fletcher laughed. “There. You just got the Bonnie Blue stamp of approval.”

  Julia smiled and ran her fingers through Blue’s mane. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beautiful horse.”

  “She’s pretty special, that’s for sure. And her foals are always perfect.” He moved to Blue’s side. “Come here, I want you to feel something.” He took Julia’s hand, laid it against Blue’s belly, and pushed. Something pushed back. Then Blue’s belly moved in and bounced once, like a rubber ball.

  Julia gasped and pulled her hand away. “What was that?”

  “Blue’s next foal.” Fletcher winked at her. “And your first one.”

  A wide smile spread across Julia’s face. On one hand, it was almost too much to take in all at once—the house, the barn, the horses, the business, a new foal. On the other, it was the most wonderful thing she had ever heard. This foal would be the first born under her ownership. It would belong to her and no one else, not even her parents.