The Marvelwood Magicians

by Diane Zahler

  “It’s not quite the same,” Selena pointed out, teasing.

  “Well, I haven’t had much of a chance with the real thing. I’ve never gone to an actual school.”

  “I’d hate that,” Selena said. “Not that school is so great, but it’s fun being with other kids. Even if they think we’re a little weird. I do gymnastics at school, and I’m way better than the other girls, but I try not to be stuck up about it, so they sort of like me for that.”

  “You couldn’t be stuck up if you tried,” Mattie assured her. She wondered if the kids at Selena’s school would like her at all if she ever met them. She wasn’t really good at anything, and she didn’t have much practice being around people. She’d probably last about an hour in a real school.

  She said as much to Selena, and Selena protested, “No, Mattie! You’re really funny, and you’re nice. That’s all you need. And you’re pretty, too. I think you’d make lots of friends.”

  Nobody had ever called Mattie pretty before, except her parents, and they didn’t count. She wondered if it was true. The mirror in the Marvelwoods’ wagon was old and wavy, and Mattie had never given much attention to what it ref lected back at her. She usually just checked to be sure her face wasn’t dirty and her hair didn’t stick up. She stared at herself in Selena’s mirror, her thick hair tamed by a silver headband studded with jewels. Was she really pretty? Funny? Nice?

  “Well, maybe we’ll go down to Florida with you when you go,” Mattie said wistfully. She couldn’t imagine Maya agreeing, but she longed for it—even though the idea scared her half to death.

  “That would be perfect!” Selena cried. “We have a house there, with a yard and a real television. I have to share a room with Sofia, but she’s hardly ever home. She has about a dozen boyfriends. You could come over all the time. I’ll work on your parents. I’ll get my parents to work on them, too.”

  Mattie smiled to herself, imagining Maya’s response if Mrs. Silva brought it up. The idea of Maya walking around a neighborhood in Florida in her sari and bracelets and henna tattoos, with all the other moms in their shorts and T-shirts and flip-flops staring at her, made her shudder and want to laugh at the same time.

  As much as Mattie loved the Silvas’ wagon, Selena loved the Marvelwoods’ more. The first time Mattie took her there, she gazed in wonder at the thick rugs on the floor, the walls and ceiling draped with printed Indian bedspreads, the curl of smoke from Maya’s incense. “It’s like a foreign country in here!” she said in a hushed voice, running her hands over the velvety tablecloth. Maya was so pleased by her reaction that she painted Selena’s hand with henna right then and there. It was a beautiful design, flowers and butterflies, over and around her fingers and the back of her hand. Selena couldn’t stop admiring it. Even Mattie had to admit it looked great—though when Maya offered for the thousandth time to do hers, she said no.

  On Wednesday morning the rousties put up a big arched sign at the entrance to the lot that read MASTER MOROGH,S CIRCUS OF WONDERS. Twined through and around the letters were painted animals and human faces, and amazingly they looked just like the circus performers Mattie had gotten to know in the last few days.

  “Negyed Bellamy painted it,” Selena told her as they stood beneath the sign, staring up. “He’s a real artist. He did a lot of the wagons, too. The tigers’ wagon is his.”

  “I love the animals on that wagon,” Mattie said, and Selena grinned.

  “Good,” she said. “Because—well, I can’t say. It’s a surprise.”

  “What? Tell me!” Mattie demanded. But Selena mimed zipping her lips closed, and nothing Mattie said would change her mind.

  At last it was opening night. The whole circus took part in a March, a parade through town, in the afternoon. It was the first time Mattie had been back in Frog Creek since the breakfast at Audra’s. Now townsfolk and farmers lined Main Street, and all the closed-up houses were wide open with people grouped on their front porches, the women fanning themselves in the heat. Mattie had never been in a parade before and it was fun. People cheered and hooted as the performers approached, and kids ran up to them and back, their eyes wide with excitement.

  The clowns went first, in full makeup, tripping over their huge shoes and doing pratfalls and making the little kids scream with laughter. Behind them was the tigers’ wagon, the two big cats on their feet, swaying as the wagon swayed and looking out at the onlookers with their fathomless eyes. Ahmad walked alongside, his face impassive. Then came Pinga, the old elephant, walking with slow, deliberate steps, and Dee atop her dressed in yellow and blue to match her hair. The dogs dodged between Pinga’s legs, barking wildly.

  Next came the Silvas in their spangled leotards, the Bellamys making the crowd clap and shout at their tumbling and their exact sameness, and last the Marvelwoods, looking a little ragtag compared to the others. Bell was in his element, waving and grinning at the crowd. Maya moved as if she were in a trance, mysterious and graceful and detached, and Da broke into a jig step every few yards. Tibby was so keyed up that Mattie had to walk with a hand on her shoulder to keep her rooted.

  Master Morogh weaved through the crowd, top hat firmly planted, smiling as he patted children on the head and handed parents coupons for cotton candy and balloons. Mattie watched him carefully. Every so often, he would go up to greet someone and take his or her hands in his own for a long moment before moving on. He came to a group that included twin boys, maybe five or six years old, and he grabbed them both by their collars, one in each hand, and lifted them as easily as if they were a couple of kittens. The boys hooted and laughed, kicking their feet above the ground, and the ringmaster lowered them again and bowed.

  “Wow!” Bell said, impressed. “Master Morogh’s stronger than he looks!”

  Mattie nodded in agreement, watching as Master Morogh gripped the hand of the boys’ mother. The woman jolted backward and then frowned. Had he said something to upset her? Mattie glanced ahead at Selena, who had paused after a long line of cartwheels. She knew by her friend’s puzzled expression that she had seen the same thing Mattie had. They shrugged at each other and Selena slid gracefully into a backbend.

  Tibby yanked at Mattie’s arm. “Keep up!” she commanded, and Mattie realized the others had moved forward without her.

  “That ringmaster is one strange guy,” she said to Tibby, and Tibby laughed.

  “Strange, strange, strange!” she agreed.

  After the March, the artistes hurried back to make sure everything was ready for the opening. Selena’s surprise was unveiled: Negyed had painted a sign for the Marvelwoods. He’d had to do it really fast, but Mattie thought it was gorgeous, with pictures of the four Marvelwoods and their names and acts. He’d even put Tibby in the background, which thrilled her just about to death. Selena stopped by to admire it, and she and Mattie watched Master Morogh inspecting his own stage, set up just down the midway. Of course, being Master Morogh, he was dissatisfied.

  “My metronome’s timing is off!” he fussed, stamping his booted foot in the dust. “I need some help. You, Selena, come here!”

  Selena rolled her eyes at Mattie and ran off. “See you under the tent!” she called. “Break a leg!”

  “You, too!” Mattie replied, and then had to explain to a horrified Tibby that break a leg was what you said instead of good luck before a performance and didn’t really mean that Selena should break her leg.

  The first performance was at seven o’clock. Mattie got caught up in the excitement that swept through the Circus of Wonders when the gates opened at five, and people poured in to the midway for the Come-In, the show before the show. Some of them must have traveled from miles away, she figured. There was no way there were that many people in Frog Creek.

  There were rides on poor old Pinga during the Come-In. The little kids sat in the glittery howdah on her back, nearly hysterical with joy. The clowns rode around on unicycles doing things Mattie had never thought could be done on a unicycle. Bub jumped his up and down like it was
a pogo stick, and Solomon and Chaz crashed theirs into each other but somehow never fell off. The parrot, Winston, fluttered among them screeching at the top of his bird lungs, “Gentlemen, behave!” The food stands along the midway sold the usual jumbo hot dogs and soda and cotton candy and ice cream, and just past them was Master Morogh’s booth, where he hypnotized people. And then there was the Marvelwoods’ show.

  Da had hung the new sign next to their wagon, between two poles, so it was like a gate. People paid to get in and then stood in a roped-off area in front of a little stage. Da wanted to make a good impression, so Mattie did her trick of wandering through the crowd, touching one and then another, to read what they were thinking. Then she reported back to Da.

  “There’s a lady who’s obsessed with a vase,” Mattie whispered to him. “It’s big, green, with sort of Chinese flowers painted on the sides. On the front there’s a painted Chinese temple. She thinks her son broke it, or else he sold it. She’s really mad about it.”

  Da climbed the steps onto the stage. He moved his hands gracefully, outlining the shape of a vase, and the vase itself appeared a moment later, swaying in the air. Then Da brought his hands down hard. The vase seemed to fall and break into a thousand pieces, which scattered in the air over people’s heads and disappeared.

  “I knew you broke it!” a woman in the crowd cried. “You’re such a liar, Daniel!” Mattie had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

  Bell stepped up after Da. He stood very small and still and recited a poem. He had a great memory, so it was easy for him. People looked a little bored as he spoke:

  Forward, the Light Brigade!

  Was there a man dismay’d?

  Not tho’ the soldier knew

  Someone had blunder’d:

  Theirs not to make reply,

  Theirs not to—

  Right in the middle of the line, he disappeared. Gone. The audience gasped, and then Bell’s voice came from the back of the crowd:

  —reason why,

  Theirs but to do and die:

  Into the valley of Death

  Rode the six hundred.

  The crowd spun around to stare at him, visible again behind them, and Bell gave a sweeping bow to their astonished faces. The applause was deafening. Mattie saw Master Morogh near the back, clapping with the others. Even from that distance, his eyes gleamed. He seemed impressed, his head bobbing up and down in its birdlike way.

  After that the crowd was hooked. A lot of them stayed for Maya’s fortune-telling and Mattie’s mind reading. They took turns. First Maya read someone, then Mattie did. They worked inside the wagon, like always, because they needed privacy.

  Mattie and Bell sat cross-legged on the floor behind the velvet curtain and listened as Maya did her first reading. The sweet smell of incense drifted past them from the other side.

  “There is a man in your future.” Maya’s voice was hushed. Mattie couldn’t see her mother, but she knew that Maya’s smooth, beringed hands were grasping the woman’s hands across the table.

  “What does he look like?” the woman asked. She sounded both fascinated and wary, as Maya’s clients usually did. Wanting to believe, but not really believing.

  “He is a little older,” Maya said in her lilting Indian accent.

  A little older. Bell and Mattie exchanged a grin. That was the truth, Maya’s way. “You know he’s ancient,” Bell whispered.

  Mattie poked him, putting her finger across her lips.

  “But will we get married?” the woman asked, her tone dreamy.

  “I see a ring,” Maya said diplomatically. “I see many years of happiness.”

  “Will we have children?” the woman asked. This could get tricky. Mattie had seen the woman come in. She wasn’t so young herself.

  Maya paused. “I cannot see that clearly. It may not come to pass.”

  The woman sighed. “Well, you can’t have everything, right?” she said. Mattie could hear her chair scrape as she got up. “That was fun. Thank you.”

  “You are welcome,” Maya said. “And …”

  “What?” Now the woman sounded a little impatient.

  “Be careful of the other man.”

  Bell and Mattie looked at each other again. Oh no, Mattie thought.

  “What other man?” the woman demanded. “What do you mean, be careful?”

  “The one who drinks. Do not get in a car with him.”

  The woman snorted. “I don’t know anyone like that. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Her shoes made no sound on the thick carpet that covered the floor, but she slammed the door hard enough to rock the wagon.

  A minute later, Maya pulled back the curtain, and Bell jumped up. “What happens with the guy who drinks?” he asked. “Does he crash his car? Does she die?”

  “Stop that!” Maya scolded. “It was nothing. I just had a sense …”

  “Oh, Maya,” Mattie said. “Did you have to warn her? You were doing so well before that!”

  Maya pressed her lips together. “Take your next client, Mattie,” she said sternly.

  Mattie read a heavily made-up woman who was about to get married but didn’t want to. When Mattie pointed out the woman’s own reluctance, she burst into tears and ran out of the wagon, her mascara streaking down her cheeks. Of course this made everyone who was waiting more eager to come in.

  She read an extremely boring guy who was just thinking about work and how hungry he was. Then a girl of about eighteen or nineteen who was jealous of her friend who’d gone off to college. Then a boy who really, really wanted a dog.

  “But will I get one?” he kept asking.

  “I can’t tell you that,” Mattie said, very patiently. “I don’t see the future.”

  “Well, what good are you then? You stink!” he shouted, and stormed out.

  There was still a line outside the wagon at six thirty, when all at once a tremendous noise started up. It was sort of like music, but not really tuneful. Like an organ, but louder. The people in the line turned toward the big top, and Mattie poked her head behind the curtain, where Maya was waiting for her to finish.

  “What is that?” Mattie asked.

  “It sounds like a calliope,” Maya answered, amazed. “I have not heard one of those in years!”

  The sound of the calliope drew the line of customers away, to the big top. It was time for the show. The Marvelwoods followed the music, too, watching people stream into the tent. The roustie Juan was taking tickets, and he called to them, “It’s a straw house!” That meant sold out. And it was true—there was straw spread on the ground below the bleachers so they could squeeze everyone in.

  There was still a little room left, so the Marvelwoods sat in the straw, cross-legged, and watched. The ballyhoo lights crisscrossed the audience in a figure eight. It almost made Mattie light-headed. She saw them pass over a face she recognized: Audra, from the diner at the edge of town. She sat with two little kids, about six or seven years old—the grandchildren she’d mentioned, probably. Mattie waved, and Audra waved back, beaming.

  Deafening calliope music played, firing up the crowd. Then the Grand Entry began, the artistes filing into the ring and circling it. The Silvas came first, then Dee and her elephant and dogs. The clowns were behind them, and finally the Bellamys. They spun and bowed, did dance steps and little acrobatic moves, and the audience cheered wildly.

  And then there was a sudden silence. Master Morogh came out, dressed in his red coat, top hat, and black gloves. He walked with a peculiar grace that Mattie hadn’t noticed before, his toes turned out, his back perfectly straight. A spotlight shone down on him, making the gold braid on his coat glitter. Somehow, the light elongated him. The shadow he cast was tall and almost menacing, and his voice rang out strong as he called, “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to Master Morogh’s Circus of Wonders!” There were cries and hoots and loud clapping, but the audience quieted fast as he went on.

  “Tonight you will see marvels be
yond your wildest dreams. Beasts of the jungle will terrify you. Daring aerialists will thrill you. The most amazing acrobats alive will astound you. Are you ready?”

  The crowd shouted, “Yes!”

  “ARE YOU READY?” Master Morogh repeated, his voice echoing in the tent.

  “Yes!” they screamed, almost in a frenzy. Mattie was amazed at the way he commanded the crowd. When he fluttered his hands, they swayed. When he raised his arms, they rose to their feet and cheered. It was almost as if he were hypnotizing the whole place, from the blue-painted bleachers to the stalls to the really good seats in the grandstand. Mattie looked around at the faces of the crowd, each one intent on Master Morogh. They couldn’t take their eyes off him, though Mattie thought he looked a little silly in his fancy coat and shiny boots.

  The clowns ran through the audience, spraying people with water from their giant lapel flowers, falling and tossing each other around, making everyone laugh. Then they cowered in pretend terror as Tray, Blanch, Sweetheart, and Crab raced barking into the ring, leaping on them and knocking them to the ground. Up popped the clowns, each with a tiny dog on his head, as Tray herded them out of the ring.

  Pinga came in next, slow and stately, and the dogs came back with her. She did a little handstand on her stumpy front legs, then stood on a stool with her great thick feet, lifting Blanch and Sweetheart in her trunk. She placed the little dogs on her back and plodded around the ring with them, as they stood on their hind legs and pranced atop her. The audience was wild for them.

  There was more clown play, one of their set pieces. One clown in whiteface—Bell whispered that it was Bub—wandered around the ring. Chaz, with his big orange wig, approached him, Winston the parrot sitting on his shoulder. Chaz said, “Hey, Bub, wanna make a bet?”

  Bub replied, “A bet? On what?”

  “I bet you can’t do this,” Chaz told him. He took out a funnel and tucked it into the belt of his oversized trousers so the wide part was up. Then he tilted his head back and balanced a quarter on his forehead. Finally he tipped his head forward until the coin dropped off his forehead into the funnel and down his pants. Everyone laughed.