So I continued to comply with my teacher’s directions when it suited me and do otherwise when it didn’t. More than once, this led to a punishment where I was placed in the corner of the classroom and made to raise my arms while holding a book in each hand. This had no deterrent effect whatsoever, since it was an exercise that strengthened my arms for dancing, and my mother complimented the improved elegance of my arm positions in fourth and fifth.
One afternoon, when I had become so annoyed with the remedial nature of the reading lesson that I simply got up and walked out of the school, I snuck back into the house and headed upstairs. I was so focused on keeping my footsteps silent to avoid detection that I didn’t see that Ray was in my room, standing in front of the mirror, until I was a few feet from his elbow.
Ray had a straight razor in his hand and was drawing it along his abdomen, making a long shallow cut, and little beads of blood were beginning to well up from the flesh.
I breathed in.
His eyes opened wide and met mine in the mirror. I lowered my gaze. His cotton shirt was unbuttoned and open down the front, and in his reflection, I saw them all. Scars. Scars that followed the lines of his ribs, outlining them in ghostly white, so you could see the shape of the skeleton underneath his skin. He had cut himself again and again, neatly and deliberately, over and over. How long would something like that take, I wondered. Months? Years?
“Get out,” he said, almost growling.
“It’s my room,” I said hotly. “You get out.”
He spun and grabbed my arm with his free hand, the other hand clutching the open, gleaming razor. The blood began to run down his skin but did not drip.
“You keep this to yourself,” he said. “You understand?”
I forced myself only to shrug.
He lay the flat of the razor against the bare skin of my forearm, then my neck, then my cheek. The metal was cold. The ripe odor of his sweat swarmed up around me in a cloud.
“You will keep this to yourself,” he repeated.
“I will?”
“If you tell your mother what you saw, I’ll tell her that you invited me here to your room to seduce me.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said, keeping my eyes locked with his so I wouldn’t look down at the blade and panic. I didn’t think he meant to hurt me, just scare me, but I also knew his hand could easily slip.
“Is it? You’re a lonely girl. I’m a handsome boy.”
“Are you?”
He laughed. “As you like. You’re an insolent girl. I’m a well-behaved boy. I do what I’m told and you don’t. You shouldn’t even be here. Who would they believe?”
I was uncertain of the answer. He never misbehaved, not that anyone caught him at. I was a known troublemaker. My mother had defended me when it suited her, but this was more serious. Certainly she knew something about young girls misbehaving, or I wouldn’t exist.
And the longer Ray stared at me, the less sure I was that he didn’t mean me harm. There was something in his eyes. The intensity of his gaze was becoming almost too much. I forced myself not to look away.
“Now that would be a lie, of course,” he continued. “You seducing me.”
“Yes, it would.”
He tilted his head and gave me an appraising look. “I wouldn’t mind a tumble, of course, if you’re inclined.”
“No, thank you.”
“Lord, blades do make people polite, don’t they?”
An answer didn’t seem necessary. The steel on my cheek was no longer cold. It had drawn its heat out of my skin.
“Do you believe in magic?” he asked abruptly.
“No.”
“I do. I think everyone has a little. I’m trying to find mine. And yours.”
“I haven’t got any.”
“You don’t know that, not for sure.”
I needed an angle. I tried one. “So what do you think yours is? Your magic?”
“Not sure yet. Something to do with healing. I survived a sickness I shouldn’t have survived. It killed my sisters, but it spared me. Don’t you think that’s a clue to something?”
I let my eyes flicker down toward the razor, still against my cheek. “Seems you’re more likely to hurt than to heal.”
He smiled at that and let the razor drop. I didn’t let the relief show.
“Hurting and healing are two sides of the same coin,” he said.
“A funny coin.”
“You’ll understand someday. For all your faults, you’re a quick learner. We’ll talk more about this, someday soon.”
He folded his razor, wiped the blood from his torso with a cloth from his pocket, and buttoned his shirt back up to the neck. And then he left me there. I listened to his footsteps grow fainter and fainter, the thump of work boots going down the stairs and across the floor, and when the sound of the front door closing finally came, I let out the sigh I’d been holding so close.
I looked in the mirror. No one would be able to tell I had just been terrorized. Everything about me was exactly as it should have been, except for three faint marks. In the three places he had touched me with the razor’s blade—the arm, the neck, the cheek—there was a thin line of blood, not my own.
The marks were a simple matter to wipe away.
He was right, of course. I was too scared to say a word. I didn’t think I’d be believed. And besides, what had really happened? He’d done more damage to himself than to me.
That time.
***
Later that year, Mother took it into her head that I could be sent to a dance school. We had settled long ago that there were no schools nearby, but she opened up the possibility that I could attend one far away and board there.
She had often told me of seeing Marie Bonfanti, the prima ballerina assoluta, dance at Niblo’s Garden in New York City. Madama Bonfanti had retired from the stage some time before. But Mother had read the news that Madama had opened a ballet school in New York, where she taught the Cecchetti method. Mother thought the youngest and most tenderhearted of her New York cousins might be willing to use a little influence on her behalf, if properly approached with flattery and eloquence. There was no question of help from my grandparents. A letter from the lawyer had made that clear some time before.
In addition to New York, letters went out to Boston and Richmond and Charleston. Even to San Francisco, and once to Chicago. Abroad, they went to Moscow, Paris, Venice, Bonn. In a fit of optimism, my mother even bought me a valise, so I’d be ready to go.
It sounded like a fantasy, but I encouraged it all the same. The school in Jeansville was tedious at its very best, and I had several years left to go if I stayed. And I worried about Ray more and more. The idea of ballet school sounded like my only reasonable chance at escape. So I practiced and practiced and held out hope.
It was 1894, and I was fourteen years old when my mother received the letter from Madama Bonfanti. She presented it to me at breakfast, her cheeks pink with excitement.
“What do you think of that?” she said with delight, flipping the cream-colored envelope down onto the wood of the table.
She had already slit the envelope across the top, so I tugged the letter out. The faint smell of lavender wafted upward as I unfolded it to read:
We will be at the Biltmore Estate on Wednesday 13 September taking our leisure with the family. If your daughter is as talented as you say, you may bring her to dance for us on that afternoon, and we shall see her.
Mother said, “To dance for Bonfanti. This could be magic, Ada. It could change everything. If she likes you, she could take you to New York. You could enter her Academy. We’re so lucky she’ll be so close by. Oh, it must be fate!”
“She lives at this Biltmore?”
“Oh no, oh no. Biltmore is the home of the Vanderbilts. A palace, nearly. I’ve read about it in the magazin
es. They’re still building it, but it’s already famous across the country. The biggest family house in all of America.”
“And it’s in Tennessee? Why?”
“Over the mountains, dear. In North Carolina. But it’s close by enough, less than a day’s ride. Oh, I can barely imagine. Madama will be in a relaxed mood, receptive. They’re still building the home, but Mr. Vanderbilt might be there—maybe they’ll even invite us to stay! Oh, I don’t know what you’ll wear…your practice gowns are worn to shreds…”
I heard her words but not her meaning. Estates and mountains and coach rides. Too much at once.
She grinned at me, a blinding smile. “This is your chance, Ada, your chance. You could go to her school! You could be a ballerina!”
I finally started to grasp what she was saying. “Madama Bonfanti…of the Academy…wants to see me dance.”
“Yes!” she exclaimed.
“On the thirteenth.”
“Oh. Oh!” she said, rising to pace the floor. Her bare feet made no sound. “The thirteenth! That’s tomorrow! The mail must have been delayed… We’ll have to leave in the dark. The note says afternoon, but no particular time? That’s good. But Victor’s gone with Silas to the horse fair in Montclair. They won’t be back. I’ll have to ask Raymond to drive us.”
“Don’t do that!”
“Why not? We can’t go just the two of us. Even if it were proper.”
I couldn’t explain, so I stayed silent.
She mistook my look for another kind of nervousness, and she reached out and touched my arm. She usually only did that to correct my positions. It was a magical day indeed.
“Go practice,” she said. “You needn’t worry about the details. Just make sure you’re ready. Not too much, just your usual exercises. Make sure you’re graceful. She’ll want to see you graceful.”
Nearly tripping over my own feet in my excitement, I dashed up the stairs. I was already wearing my practice garments, a loose dress over my camisole, enough to cover me down to my calves but give my legs freedom to extend fully. In my room, I donned my pointe shoes and practiced in front of the mirror until the sun went down. As I danced, my confidence grew. This would be the moment. I was strong. I was talented. I would show Madama all my skill in a handful of bravura moves, a sequence of pas de chat and pliés, pirouettes en dehors and fouettés en tournant.
In the evening darkness, I dressed in traveling clothes and squared my shoulders, telling myself I was capable of changing my future. When Mother called me outdoors, I strode downstairs and outside with my head held high.
When I saw Ray standing next to the coach, I faltered a bit on the inside but left the smile on my face. I told myself I couldn’t let him rule me, not through fear, not in any way. I told myself that someday soon, I would need to stand up to him. But this wasn’t the time for it. If this excursion went well, if I impressed Madama Bonfanti with my grace and talent, I would be gone from this place and never have to worry about him again.
“Your mother told me of your good news!” he said. “Such an opportunity.”
The forced, jolly note in his voice jangled my nerves. There was something foreboding about it, something dangerously false. I remembered how he’d touched the razor to my cheek and smiled, murmuring his threats.
Mother waved, only her white glove visible from the interior of the coach. “Isn’t it lovely?” she said. “We’re so lucky to travel in such style!” She looked happier than I’d seen her in months. This trip was as important to her as it was to me, if not more so.
Ray extended his hand to help me up into the coach. I didn’t see how I could refuse, with Mother watching. I paused for a moment to straighten my skirts first, collecting myself as I did so.
“I suppose I’m just your lowly cousin,” he said merrily, loud enough for my mother to hear. “No doubt you’ll forget all about me when you’re famous.”
Finally I took his hand and put my foot up on the step. He smelled of sweat and old hay. As he boosted me up into the carriage, he bent close to my ear, whispering softly enough that only I could hear him.
“I hope you know I’ll never let you leave,” he said.
I twisted to face him and nearly fell. He put his other hand up to catch me at the waist and kept me in place, staring up at me, with a cold and steady smile. He twined his fingers into mine, clinging in a way that was not at all brotherly, and I strained as hard as I could to free myself from that grasp. Once, twice, three times. At the end, with a look that reminded me it was his choice and not mine to make, he let go.
Released, I sat down hard in the back of the coach. Mother chattered away, speaking about me but not to me, praying everything would be all right when we arrived, since everything in the world depended on everything being all right.
I heard Ray climb up to the driver’s seat and call out to the horses, snapping the reins against their backs. The coach lurched forward.
We rolled on, heading toward a hopeful future, through the dark.
Chapter Five
Janesville, 1905
One o’clock in the morning
She pauses, taking in a deep breath and sighing it out. He finds himself waiting, with a quickened pulse, for her to start speaking again, to tell him what happened next. But he shouldn’t get drawn in, he tells himself. He shouldn’t care. It’s just a story. Most likely not true in any case. Most likely calculated to tease out the exact feelings he’s having right now: equal parts sympathy and dread.
He tells himself that he has a good reason to let her talk, though. She’s exhausted. She’s anxious. If she is lying, the longer she talks, the more likely it is she’ll slip up. Give her enough rope, as the saying goes, and she’ll hang herself. An apt phrase. They hanged that woman two years ago in the Oklahoma territory for what she’d done to a child in her care. Iris had cried for a full week about it, the story was so appalling. He wonders what she’d think of this story. Will it be a tragedy? Or something else, by the end?
“So let’s say,” he says, “that this whole story is true, and I can trust everything you say, and you’re innocent. You didn’t kill your husband. Who did?”
“If someone killed the husband of a famous magician,” she says, tilting her head as if the problem were theoretical, “there are some obvious suspects.”
“Like the magician.”
“Besides the magician. Maybe someone who hated the magician and wanted to punish her. One of her enemies.”
“You have enemies?”
With a grim smile, she says, “Some days I think I have nothing but.”
“You think it was someone out for revenge?”
“Or the victim could have enemies of his own. It could have nothing to do with her—with me—at all.”
“True. What kind of man was he?”
“I can’t even begin to tell you,” she says, her voice oddly unsteady for a moment. “Honestly.”
“Stop using that word. The more you say it, the less I believe it.”
She doesn’t respond.
He circles behind her, his footsteps heavy and echoing against the bare wood floor. He begins to undo a set of cuffs, examining her as he does so. One wrist has been recently cut deeply. There’s a perfectly straight three-inch-long slash, dark with old blood, against the pale skin. Unfortunately it’s already healing and too old to be evidence of a struggle tonight, when the murder was committed. Still, it interests him.
“How did you injure yourself? This cut on your wrist?” he asks casually.
“Things happen on the road,” she says. “Heavy equipment shifts at the wrong moment. The illusions have so many moving parts. I don’t know half the time what happens.”
“And the bruise on your throat?”
She makes a noncommittal noise, a verbal shrug, but he sees her shoulders tighten. There is enormous tension in the back of her
neck. Of course she can’t relax in the situation he’s placed her in, but he saw the change come over her when he asked about the bruise, not before. He’ll ask again later. For now, he has another plan. He has two pairs of the new adjustable Lovell cuffs, which should be just enough.
He hangs the first pair of Lovell cuffs from his belt and begins work on the second. Once the second pair of cuffs is likewise free, he circles around in front of her. He toys with the dangling cuff, opening and closing it. The metal clicks each time he pushes the teeth down against the pivot bar and then thumbs the release button to pop it open again. Like his footfalls, the clicks are loud and sharp in the enclosed space. There are still three pairs of cuffs on her wrists. They both know where things stand.
“Now,” he tells her, “I’m going to finish taking your boots off. I’m asking you to let me. Will you?”
“What if I say no?” she asks.
“I’m asking as a courtesy, ma’am.”
She sits up straight with a bright false smile and thrusts her right foot out at him, the mostly unlaced boot hanging.
“Here you are then,” she says.
He lowers himself slowly to his knees in front of her, then takes the foot in both hands. Then he adjusts his knee to pin the free foot back against the chair. If he’s kneeling on her foot, she can’t kick him with it. A mere moment of cooperation on her part doesn’t mean he’ll let his guard down completely. He’s tired, not stupid.
The lamplight flickers, and he works on the unlacing in silence. It’s so quiet in the room that he can hear the leather and string rasp against each other. When the boot is unlaced, he pulls it off and tosses it away. He does the same with the other boot. She’s quiet but not still. When he’s done, he can feel the warmth of her foot. It squirms in his hand like an animal. The dead silence of the night outside hangs heavy. He can hear his own breath but not hers.
The Magician's Lie Page 4