by R. T. Kaelin
The only footage of him they had was black and white, but the smile and the eyes, the eyes especially came through in the stills. In reviewing his career, to tie things all together, they said my escape was better than any escape he’d ever performed.
Of course, they were wrong. Harry Houdini’s greatest escape was passing over that gulf that separates life from death. He plucked a reluctant volunteer from the audience, brought him along and got him out. And, true to himself, only Harry would believe he could make the trip twice, the next time to bring back his mother.
And, you know, I don’t doubt he’s done it.
*
Tradition
by Michael J. Sullivan
When the mayor called out her name, Annie Cross collapsed as if the life had been knocked out of her. That’s how it felt, because that’s what happened. She was dead, reality just needed a few hours to make it official. She didn’t remember falling, just found herself on the grass of the village common sitting stupidly while everyone stared. She could have heard a raindrop a mile away in the heartbeat that followed. Then came the screams, shouts, and wailing cries.
Annie wasn’t the only thing that fell. Her father’s rake slapped the street as three men tackled him. Alvin Cross was a strong man. Years of plowing, hoeing and reaping built shoulders on her old man like an ox. He shook off the first two with ease sweat and then crawled toward her. He got to within a few feet before Harold the shepherd, and Charles Lowbottom pinned him to the turf.
“Not my Annie! Oh God, not my little Annie!”
In all her fifteen years she’d never seen her father cry until that moment. They looked at each other across the distance of ten feet, and then they had the ropes on him. It only took a minute. Those men whose daughters were previously called volunteered to do the restraining. They always did their best to be compassionate and often cried along with the men they roped.
Annie’s mother just screamed—screamed and wailed until the other mothers led her away. She was wearing her blue dress—the luck dress—the one she insisted had helped Annie in the previous three callings. She ripped it apart nearly stripping herself before they captured her hands.
Her little sister Amy ran at her, cheeks glistening. “Let me go in her place! Take me! Take me!” Willard who looked after the horses at Lawton’s Stables caught her up in his arms. She kicked and wiggled—might have even bit him—but Willard held Amy close and carried her away.
“Am I going to have any trouble with you?” Edward asked, the sheriff’s long shadow passing over her.
Annie couldn’t talk. No air remained in her body. She shook her head and he helped her up.
Men circled. She didn’t know who—didn’t look—just sensed a group. In previous years others girls had run, not many but a few. Lucy Lowbottom had made it the farthest sprinting all the way to the river before they caught her. That was three years ago, the first year Annie was eligible and as she watched Lucy run, all she had thought was how lucky she was, how grateful that they called her best friend’s name instead of her own. Annie hated herself every day afterward for that thought.
She stopped abruptly then turned causing Sheriff Edward to flinch. He was getting older now and wouldn’t enjoy a chase.
“It’s okay to be happy,” she told the other girls still gathered on the green. “Don’t feel guilty.” She might have said more, but she didn’t have the energy. The shock of hearing her name had been replaced by a growing numbness, a sense of unreal.
They had called my name. How can this not be a bad dream?
The sheriff escorted her to the Night Wait, the little prison made to look like a pretty home. Every family in the village had contributed something: wood, paint, roofing, carvings, moldings, until the mini-house was the most beautiful in the village. As a child Annie always wanted to go inside, but no one ever dared. It turned out, the inside was as lovely as the outside with bright wallpaper, and fine paneling. An enormous bed stuffed with a plush feather mattress and two giant pillows dominated one wall. The quilt was hand-stitched by all the women, each square in the pattern cut from the dresses of those girls who had gone before. Their names needlepointed in beautiful script by mothers, aunts, or sisters.
That evening the Night Wait was also filled with food. A feast of plenty awaited her as every mother had cooked their best meals and delivered them to the little house. In all the years Annie had witnessed the Calling the food had never been touched. Annie couldn’t understand why until that moment. She had always told herself she would eat everything if ever she was picked, but standing amidst the banquet she realized she had no appetite. She had trouble working up the ambition to even breathe.
Surprisingly little was said. What could they say? The mayor and the sheriff and the other elders stood mutely watching her, each appeared on the verge of tears. She saw the mayor wipe his eyes as they locked the door and left her to spend her last night alone. In the morning they would shackle her wrists and together she and the elders would begin the long march up the mountain.
Annie stood in the center of the room for a long time not moving, not thinking, just standing. Her legs grew tired. She sat on the bed, swallowed by its softness. There was about as much chance of her sleeping that night as eating. Had any of them slept? Staring at the floor she couldn’t imagine it. Annie reached out and traced the scripted thread of Lucy’s name on the quilt and wondered why she hadn’t cried yet. The other girls had cried. Lucy had screamed and clawed as they forced her in the Night Wait. Everyone listened to her overturning tables, breaking pots, begging to be spared. By morning Lucy was exhausted, pale, broken.
Annie imagined everyone outside was probably wondering what she was doing in there so quietly.
A mouse scuttled across the floor. Normally terrified of them, she found she failed to flinch. Instead she watched as the rodent climbed the table, appearing to know the path well, and dove bodily into the bread pudding. Perhaps it looked forward to his feast every year.
“Enjoy,” she told the mouse, and meant it, finding herself filled with an overwhelming kindness to all living things.
Little things caught her attention for the first time and became sacred. The light of the setting sun—she would never see it again, and said goodbye. The brass fitting of the door latch—why had she never seen the beauty of such a marvel? Her simple white dress—she stared at the workmanship her mother had put into it. Annie missed how her mother embraced and kissed her before bed. She lay back feeling at least the mattress hugging her.
With eyes open all she could see was the ceiling. How many girls had taken in that view before her? Dozens certainly—hundreds? Maybe. The Calling had been around a long, long time. Annie’s mother had taken her turns on the green, so had her grandmother, and hers before. They all had stories they told the nights before the Callings tales of near misses, of friends and sisters lost. None were happy stories. Her grandmother Abby swore by the luck of licking a toad’s back. Her Aunt Prima bathed in the swan pond at sunrise and fasted all day. Annie’s mother just prayed to Maribor—prayed and wore her blue dress.
The sun set, night arrived, and darkness swallowed her and the Night Wait.
In the morning they would call her a hero, and there would be a festival—of sorts. Never was there such an awful celebration as Offering Day. Friends would struggle to speak of her, men would drink heavily choking down toasts, women would stitch her name into the quilt trying not to soak the material too much with tears. Funerals were merrier. At funerals no one suffered guilt.
Annie thought of her grandmother Marah, a feisty old broad who alone in the village could cow her father with no more than a raised finger and a harsh look. She was dead two years, but Annie remembered her quavering voice the night before her first Calling. “If they say your name, Annie-my-bird,” her grandmother Abby had always called her that for reasons unknown. “Just be aware that your sacrifice will give your life a meaning beyond that of all others save those who went before you. You wil
l be a hero. Remember that and it will give you courage.”
Annie remembered. It didn’t give her courage.
She heard a noise, a rattle at the door. Perhaps the mouse had invited party guests. She sat up in time to see the latch lift and the door creep open.
“Annie.”
“Peter?” He was still in shadow but she recognized his voice. “What are you doing here? How did you open the door?”
“I stole the key from my father’s belt. I’m rescuing you.”
Peter stepped closer and moonlight revealed a serious face and a big knife in his belt.
“You can’t do that,” she said. “You’ll get in trouble. Serious trouble this time.”
“I don’t care about that. I won’t let you die. Besides, I have a plan. I have bags of food and clothes down by the footbridge. We’ll both leave and never come back to this wretched place.” She didn’t see his hand in the dark and jumped slightly when he touched her cheek. “I’ll marry you at the first church we come to. Then we’ll travel so far no one will ever find us.”
His fingers slipped up her neck combing into her hair. His other hand cupped her chin and he pressed his lips against hers. He held the kiss and she closed her eyes wondering if this might be the last.
“Come my love,” he told her. In the dark he traced Annie’s arm to her hand and pulled.
“No.” She hauled back.
“What?”
“I can’t go with you.”
“Of course you can. It’s late everyone is asleep.”
She shook her head, but realized he couldn’t see her. “That’s not what I mean. They called my name, I have to stay.”
“If you stay, you’ll die.”
“I know but…”
“But? But what? There’s no but after that.” His face was just a black silhouette against the open door. She wished she could see his eyes, his lips. She imagined his forehead was furrowed with that little divot that developed whenever he got serious. “Do you want to die?”
“If I go with you what will our families do?”
“Who cares! They’re content to let you die.”
“Oh sure—did you see how it took five men to convince my father of his contentment? And my mother? That was her favorite dress. And what about—”
“Okay. I didn’t mean your family, but your family would want you to go with me. They would want to know you escaped.”
“I can’t run.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t you see? If I go, they’ll pick another. They’ll have to.”
Peter didn’t reply immediately, but he didn’t let go of her hand. She heard him take a breath and a step closer. “But it won’t be you.”
He pulled again, but she resisted.
“Annie?”
“I’m staying.”
“But you can’t. I love you. I thought you loved me.”
“I do, but I can’t go. I don’t even know how you could ask me.”
“You don’t know how…Annie, you’re just not thinking straight.”
“It’s you who isn’t thinking. How can I go knowing someone else—another girl who is so relieved tonight that she’s safe, will hear her name called because I was a coward. Is that the kind of person you want to marry? A coward who would let another die in her place.”
“A coward? How can you be a coward? You’re a girl. And I don’t care about the others. You’re the one I love.”
She twisted free of his grip and retreated a step.
“Are you insane? Annie, if you stay here you’ll die.”
“You really don’t understand.”
“What don’t I understand? Explain it to me, but make it quick so we can get out of here.”
“You go.”
“Not without you.”
She didn’t want to fight, not that night of all times, but Peter could be so infuriating when he got stubborn. “Well, I’m not going with you so unless you plan to spend the night—”
“You’re not making any sense, and I’m done talking.” Peter grabbed her around the waist and the back of her knees picking her up.
“No!” she shouted, pushing away from him.
“Stop it!” he growled. “Don’t make me hurt—”
She raked her nails across his face.
He gasped and let go.
She fell on the floor then kicked out catching his shin making him grunt. “Get away from me!”
“Shut up! They’ll hear.”
Annie got to her feet and shoved him backward out the door. “Good! Let them hear!” She shouted louder then slammed the door between them.
From the other side she heard Peter’s voice. “I thought you loved me.” He didn’t sound angry. He just sounded hurt.
Annie didn’t answer. For the second time that day her legs grew too weak to hold her up and she slid to the floor. He waited, then she heard the sound of his footsteps walk away.
The tears finally came. She wept into her palms.
When she wiped her eyes clear she noticed a sliver of moonlight. The door she slammed had bounced against the frame, but hadn’t caught. No one had heard. No one came to check on her. Freedom beckoned.
She was so frightened. Annie wanted to run out, chase down Peter, and beg forgiveness. She wanted to run away with him, close her eyes, put their lives in his hands and forget everything that came before. Only…
They would just pick another.
The moonlight inched across the floor and sliced over something shiny. In her scuffle with Peter she must have knocked the knife loose from his belt and it lay a foot away. A carving knife, almost the size of a cleaver, it had a pointed end and a serrated blade. The handle had a worn grip of wood and a small crack.
Annie looked back at the door.
Just know that your sacrifice will give your life a meaning beyond that of all others save those who went before you. You will be a hero.
She didn’t feel like a hero. Annie felt like a victim. If her death would ensure that no other girl would have to die then maybe—only every year there would be a new Calling a new girl to occupy the Night Wait, another to enjoy the solo feast.
“I’m not a hero,” she said to the darkness. Then her eyes found the carving knife again. “But what if I was?”
Annie got to her feet picking up the knife as she stood. She put the handle in her right palm feeling the worn wood grain. She slashed the air, once, twice. The weight felt good, not too heavy, not too light. She ran her thumb sideways against the blade’s edge feeling the harsh scrape of the steel against her skin. The knife did not feel dangerous—it felt miserably small. What she needed was a sword, something impressive, something big, something with killing power. Turning the little blade over in her hands, she sighed—it would have to do. On the banquet table Annie also saw a hand rag and grabbed it. She wrapped the knife and clutching the bundle to her chest, she pulled the door open and stepped out.
The light of a full moon separated treetops from the sky and the pale light hinted at objects: the rain barrel near the meetinghouse steps, the woodcutter’s cart, the old well on the common with its bucket resting on the sill. Annie shivered. Her dress was thin linen and the night was damp. She looked at all the homes surrounding her. She’d never seen them all dark. She was too young to be out so late and yet not so young to…
She looked at the road that led out of the village.
It’s not like I’ll sleep tonight. Why wait?
The time spent in the Night Wait was torture. Better that they just hauled her up the mountain the instant after the Calling. The delay was supposed to be an act of kindness, a chance for the family to accept the choice. After the night passed, there would be a moment at dawn when she would be allowed to kiss her parents and sister goodbye. Annie thought of that moment, the tears, the crushing sadness. The elders had good intentions, but that too was just another torture.
Looking back at the Night Wait, she saw the shackles hanging on the outside.
&n
bsp; I’m not a victim. I’m a hero. Heroes don’t just wait to die.
She faced the road and started walking.
If Peter knew what she was doing, he’d think…she couldn’t even guess what he’d think. She was insane—not thinking straight—but she refused to be a hapless victim. No girl had ever tried what she was about to, and none would ever forget. Everyone remembered Lucy for the merry race she led, what would they think of this? Hers would most certainly be the tale most told on nights before the Calling. Realizing this didn’t help—hers would be a cautionary tale.
Each step was an effort at first, then as she committed herself Annie began to fear doors would open and lanterns be lit stealing her chance. Annie began running up the road, her blond hair and white linen gown fluttered in her wake—a pale ghost, racing through moon-scattered shadows. By the time her lungs burned for air she was out of sight of the village. If they found her missing the sheriff and the elders would search the road south toward Ghent, perhaps west as far as the lake, even east toward Lingard and the valley—the way she imagined Peter wanted her to go—no one would look north toward the mountain.
I’m safe, she thought and then smiled at her own absurdity.
Unlike the other roads, this one was rarely traveled and remained overgrown with brambles and littered with moss-covered trunks forcing her to scrambled over them. A storm was rising—at least a wind blew through the trees swaying their heads in a violent dance. Battered leaves, torn free, flew through the air. Annie brushed hair from her face walking on into the dark finding the path with her feet. She liked the feel of the cool dirt beneath her toes and the feathery brush of grass, the feel of the wind on her skin, the way it played with her hair.
Is this the last time I’ll feel it?
She hoped the coming storm wouldn’t cloud the sky before she cleared the trees. Having already said goodbye to the sun, she wanted to see the stars one last time. There was so much to miss, so much to regret, so much she’d never done. She’d never traveled to Lanksteer for the great fair; never seen the new empress, and they said she would visit Trent next summer; never had children of her own; never spent a night alone with Peter—she wondered if he snored. Yet what filled her most were memories: making pies with her mother, swimming in the lake, lying in the sun with her sister listening to the drone of bees.