by Diane Zahler
By four thirty, everyone was ready. Even the rousties had shaved and put on clean T-shirts. They gathered on the midway, and Master Morogh came to inspect them. Mattie could hardly bear to look at him.
Almost as bad were the glances everyone gave her—the clowns, Dee, all the Silvas. She could tell that everybody knew now, about the family, about what the ringmaster had done. Mattie wondered how they’d reacted when they found out. Did they think it was interesting, weird, scary that the Marvelwoods could do such bizarre things? Did they even believe it? She couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. But then she saw Dee smile at her, and Bub winked. Mrs. Silva blew her a kiss, and the Bellamys gave her five discreet, identical thumbs-ups. It helped to warm the part of her that had been left cold and empty.
“Good, good, good,” Master Morogh said when he’d looked everyone over. “Dee, cover those tattoos, please. It’s our last night.”
Dee snorted in outrage. “I will not!” she said, holding up her tattooed arms.
“You will,” Master Morogh said. His tone was mild, but it clearly held a threat. Sal handed Dee a plaid, long-sleeved shirt, and she slipped it on over her tank, scowling.
“You can all understand that we must make as good an impression as we can,” Master Morogh said. “We want to be invited back. Do your best, people. Do better than your best.”
Mattie bit her lip. She wouldn’t be doing anything. There was no way she could read clients—the Marvelwoods didn’t fake it. Oh, how she hated the ringmaster!
Master Morogh turned on his heel and started toward his wagon, and Mattie gulped. It was time to put her plan into action.
“I’m going to Selena’s,” she said to Da. Before he could answer, she plunged into the crowd. The gates were open to the public now, and people streamed down the midway. Mattie let the movement of the crowd carry her toward the big top. Then she veered off toward Ahmad’s wagon. She knocked on the door, and he opened it a crack.
“Master Morogh’s going to his wagon,” she said. “I’ll head there now.”
“Give me ten minutes,” Ahmad replied. “And be sure his door is unlocked!”
The early evening heat pressed down on Mattie, though the sun was sinking toward the horizon. She could hear Dee’s dogs barking in the distance as she walked to the ringmaster’s wagon. She wished Tray was with her. He would give her courage.
Then she heard Bell.
“The ringmaster’s got a gun,” he said quietly, off to her left. “Remember? He pulled it out when the tigers were loose.”
“Where are you?” Mattie hissed.
“I have my talent back, you know.” His voice was right beside her. “I’ll go in with you. He won’t see me. I’ll get the gun.”
“It’s too dangerous!” Mattie whispered. “I can’t let you do that!”
“You can’t stop me,” he replied. “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”
Mattie didn’t want this. She was supposed to watch out for Bell. But she had no choice.
“If he gets hold of the gun, you run. Do you promise?”
“I swear it,” Bell said.
She held her breath and rapped on Master Morogh’s red door. The paint looked pale and washed out in the last light of day. There was no answer, so she knocked again, harder, and then the door opened.
Master Morogh stood silhouetted at the top of the wagon stairs. He seemed much larger than he really was, the way he did in the big top.
“Mattie!” he said. “Well, well, well. You should go and get a seat. The show will start soon.”
“I know,” Mattie said. “But I had to talk to you.”
His eyes narrowed, but he said, “Ah. Then come in.” He stood back, barely far enough for her to pass by without touching him. She couldn’t let him touch her. She darted inside, hoping that Bell was right behind her.
The hot breeze slammed the door shut, and she noticed that Master Morogh didn’t turn the lock. That was one good thing. She took a deep breath and looked around. She hadn’t been in the ringmaster’s wagon before.
The part of the wagon she was in looked like an office. The shades were drawn, and the interior was dark. One shade flapped against an open window above a desk that had a green-shaded lamp on top and a chair in front of it. Papers were spread all over the desktop. She thought of the gun. Where was it? And where was Bell?
Another chair was pushed against the wall, and Master Morogh motioned to it. “Sit down, Mattie,” he said. He sat in the desk chair, and Mattie perched on the edge of hers. “Now, what exactly do you want? If you’ve come about … what happened yesterday, then I need to tell you, I am not making any more bargains with you. What’s done is done. We came to a fair agreement.”
Mattie gritted her teeth. “I know it was fair. I don’t like it, but I know there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Then what brings you here?” He seemed genuinely curious.
Mattie looked hard at him, trying to find in his round face with its silky pointed beard the forlorn, sobbing baby she’d seen when she touched his hand, the bleeding, dirty little boy. But even though she could read Selena a bit without her talent, she couldn’t read Master Morogh at all.
“There’s something you should know, something more,” Mattie said. She was amazed that her voice didn’t shake.
“More?”
“More to my talent. There’s more you can do with it.”
“Oh, really,” he said. He sounded slightly interested.
“Yes,” Mattie said. She got up and moved around a little. She was starting to realize that ten minutes was a very long time. “You know that if you touch someone, you can read their thoughts.”
Master Morogh nodded.
“Well, if you keep holding the person, but you use two hands, and you close your eyes, then you see even more.”
“What else do you see?”
“You see their deepest secrets,” Mattie said. “You see what they want most to hide. Sometimes they can keep it from you at first, if they’re strong, but this way, they can’t hide anything.” She had spent a long time coming up with this idea as she moved the broom in the dust around the wagon and scrubbed green paint off Tibby. There was a little bit of truth in it—the idea that it was possible to see more than just surface thoughts. She hoped that would make it sound more believable.
Master Morogh was silent. Would he believe her?
“Ahhh,” he said at last. He drew the sound out. It was clear he really liked this idea. His eyes were shining. But then they clouded.
“And why are you telling me this, Mattie my girl?” he asked. “I can’t imagine it’s because you’re so fond of me.”
“I despise you,” Mattie said clearly. “But my parents need this job. They need to stay with your circus. And they were afraid that after—after everything, you’d fire them. We don’t have anywhere else to go.”
The ringmaster was quiet, so Mattie went on. “You said no bargains, so I just gave you this, for free. If you want to give us something yourself in return, well … you can keep us on.” She looked at the floor. She had no idea if he would find this convincing.
“I see, I see, I see,” Master Morogh murmured. “Well, your father and mother and brother are a reliable draw, a definite attraction. But you, now—you’re not so very useful without your talent, are you?”
Mattie winced at his cruelty. She supposed it was payback for her I despise you. She couldn’t help looking up at him. She didn’t know what exactly showed in her eyes, but he smiled, and his smile raised goose bumps on her arms.
“I thank you for the information,” he said, rising from his chair. “Now, shall we test your claim? What secrets are you holding deep in your devious little mind, Mattie Marvelwood?”
He pulled off both gloves and held out his hands, and Mattie backed away from him. There wasn’t much space in the wagon, and she pressed herself against the far wall as he advanced. Her heart was hammering so hard that it shook her with each beat.
She tried
to make her mind a blank. She knew that as soon as Master Morogh touched her, he’d see her plan. He wouldn’t even have to look deep to read it. He came closer and closer, his hands outstretched, and she thought nothing nothing nothing as hard as she could. But of course it didn’t work. Her mind was full of tigers—tigers and revenge—and when his hands came down on her shoulders, he saw it all. His face, close enough to hers that she could feel his breath, contorted with fury.
The ringmaster dropped his hands and spun, heading toward his desk. Mattie realized that the gun must be in one of the drawers, and she clutched at his arm as he passed. When he tried to pull away from her she saw, out of the corner of her eye, the desk drawer sliding open. Bell! Then the gun, thrown by Bell’s invisible hand, arced through the air and out the open window, making the shade flap and landing with a thump in the dirt outside the wagon.
Master Morogh let out a bellow of rage, a shout so furious that Mattie sprang away from him in fright. The ringmaster grabbed her but tripped, falling into his desk and tipping over the lamp, which fell to the floor with a crash. The bulb shattered, and the wagon, its window shades pulled down, was plunged into darkness. And a second later there was another crash: the door of the wagon flying open as Ahmad and his tigers made their entrance.
CHAPTER 17
Ahmad and the big cats were inside in a minute, and Ahmad slammed the wagon door shut. It was so dark without the lamp that Mattie wasn’t sure at first if her eyes were open or closed. She struggled with the ringmaster in the pitch blackness, but with his weightlifter’s strength, stolen from some poor circus bodybuilder years before, he was much stronger than she was. He swung behind her and locked his arm around her neck, holding her in front of him like a shield. She could feel him trembling.
She heard the soft padding of the tigers’ paws on the wood floor of the wagon as they advanced, and she smelled their musky odor. But she couldn’t see a thing.
“Call them off, Ahmad,” Master Morogh ordered, his words loud in her ear. “I’ve got Mattie, and they’ll have to go through her to get to me.”
Ahmad’s voice came from the far side of the wagon. It was calm and amused. “Oh, they will eat you from the feet up without touching Mattie,” he said. “By the time they get to your knees, you will let her go.”
“I’ll break her neck,” Master Morogh threatened. “Call them off!” He tightened his arm, and despite herself, Mattie yelped. She remembered that he’d threatened Ahmad’s son with his gun. But would he actually kill a person? Kill her?
Quickly Ahmad said something in his language, and the tigers’ movement stopped. There was absolute stillness, utter silence. In the terrible quiet, Mattie couldn’t even hear the sound of breathing. She waited, not knowing what she was waiting for.
Then out of the darkness a bright light flashed just above her head, exactly where the ringmaster’s face was. Bell shouted, “Mattie, go!”
Master Morogh’s grip loosened just a little in his surprise, and Mattie wrenched herself out of his grasp. In the light she could see Bell, visible again, standing by the door. He held his little army knife flashlight, aiming its beam straight at Master Morogh’s eyes. It had blinded him for an instant—just long enough for her to break free.
The ringmaster reached out to grab her again, but she darted between the tigers and ran to the other end of the wagon, glass from the broken lamp crunching under her feet. She cowered beside the desk. Bell kept the flashlight trained on Master Morogh as the tigers moved toward him. The ringmaster backed away, pressing himself against the wall as if he thought he could push right through it. His face was twisted with terror. Mattie almost felt sorry for him—almost.
“Call them off, Ahmad,” the ringmaster said once more, but now it was a plea.
Ahmad said something else, and the tigers halted again. Their tails switched back and forth. Their eyes were fastened on Master Morogh. In the thin beam of the flashlight Mattie could see sweat beaded on his forehead.
“I could call them off, Morogh,” Ahmad said serenely. “You see that they will do as I ask.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Master Morogh snarled. Hadi obviously didn’t like his tone, because he growled a little, deep in his throat. More quietly, almost meekly, the ringmaster said, “What is it that you want? What will it take?”
“You threatened my son,” Ahmad said. “You have kept me away from my family for many years. How shall these wrongs be righted?”
“Whatever you want,” Master Morogh begged. “I’ll do anything you say.”
Just at the edge of the flashlight’s beam Mattie saw Hasha bend forward to sniff Master Morogh’s feet, and the ringmaster let out a mouselike squeak. Then the tiger raised one of her thick paws with its razor-sharp claws. She ran a claw slowly down the ringmaster’s midsection from neck to belly, popping the buttons on his starched white shirt. The cats were playing with him, like a housecat might play with a mouse before eating it. Although Mattie could see out of the corner of her eye that it made Bell grin with delight, she was starting to feel bad. She’d read enough people’s thoughts to know that everyone was afraid of something, just as everyone had secrets. Making someone’s worst fear come true was an awful thing to do. Even if that someone was Master Morogh.
“Tell him what we want, Ahmad,” she said.
Ahmad looked surprised and a little disappointed, but he nodded. “All right,” he said. “You must give back Mattie’s power, and my own.”
“Give back Mattie’s power?” Master Morogh repeated. “Mattie, is that truly what you want?”
“Well … of course it is,” Mattie said, confused.
“But now you are like everyone else. With your talent, you will be different again. You will be so very odd.”
Mattie remembered what he’d said when he took her talent. You don’t like to be different. When he’d touched her, he knew it was true. He’d seen her feelings and thoughts.
“The others will make fun of you, as they did me. They’ll mock you. They’ll tease you. They’ll beat you bloody. You’ll never fit in. Never, never, never.” His voice had become low and hypnotic.
“I don’t care!” Mattie exclaimed. It wasn’t true. She did care. It was hard to be different—to be one of the freak family. But now she knew that it was far worse not to be. “It’s what I want.”
“But …,” Master Morogh said slowly, “I read your mind yesterday, behind the wagons. You didn’t want your talent anymore. Your thoughts can’t lie.” He sounded truly bewildered.
Mattie stepped forward a little so he could see her in the beam of the flashlight.
“Thoughts can’t lie,” she acknowledged. “But they can change. Reading minds is a little like what my mother does when she sees the future. She sees what will happen if someone doesn’t change. That’s why she’s always warning people. What I see—what you saw in me—are thoughts that can change. If the person thinking them changes.”
Hadi snarled again, and Master Morogh winced.
“I want you to give my talent back,” Mattie said firmly. “And the others, all the others. The singer Julietta, the ringmaster. Ahmad. All the people you hypnotized. Give back what you took from all of them.”
The ringmaster gritted his teeth. Hasha bent forward once more, and her long tongue came out and licked Master Morogh’s shiny boot.
“Yes!” he cried. “I will, I will, I will!”
“Swear it,” Mattie insisted. “Swear it on your life.”
“I swear it on my life!”
“And how can I know that you won’t do it again? To other people? Will you swear you won’t take anything from anyone else?”
Master Morogh grimaced. He hadn’t expected that.
“But I’ll have nothing,” he said. His voice was faint.
“You’ll have what’s yours,” Mattie said. “You’ll have your ability to hypnotize, and nothing more. Now swear it.”
“That’s only a trick, it’s not a talent,” the ringmaster objected. “Not like you
rs.”
“It’s all you get,” Mattie said.
The ringmaster hesitated, and the tigers stepped forward. Now their heads were almost pressed against him. They growled softly, a low rumble. Master Morogh moaned.
“I … swear it,” he managed. “I swear it on my life!”
“And one last thing,” Mattie said. “You have to go.”
“Go?”
“Leave the circus. Go away. Leave these people alone.”
“But … but the circus is mine,” Master Morogh protested. “It’s been mine for years and years. It’s my livelihood, my life. That’s not fair. I don’t deserve that.”
“How can you say that?” Mattie demanded. “You’ve injured people—you’ve ruined their lives! You deserve worse. You know you do.”
“If you let me stay, I will be only the owner, no more. I won’t interfere, I promise.” Master Morogh sounded sincere, and Mattie felt her resolve wavering for a moment. But then she thought of what he’d done to Selena and Bell and Maya. Of the gun and Ahmad’s son. She shook her head.
“Nobody trusts you,” she said. “We can’t take that risk.”
The ringmaster hesitated, his lips pursed. Hasha pushed her head against his chest, rubbing gently as if she were scratching an itch. He gave a little yelp.
“I swear it,” he said, his voice low and trembling. “On my life.”
“All right. Do it now,” Mattie commanded him.
“Please,” he said. “Call them off.” Mattie nodded at Ahmad, and he spoke again. The tigers took a step backward.
The ringmaster closed his eyes and held his ungloved hands out. The cats tensed, but they didn’t move. Mattie got the impression that Hasha really wanted those other fingers.
Then something happened that Mattie would never know afterward how to describe. It was like a wave moving through the wagon—a wave of air, or of something indefinable. It washed over them—first over the tigers, making their tails twitch. It reached Ahmad, standing behind the cats, and he stumbled and fell to his knees. Bell leaned back and then forward in its wake, making the flashlight beam waver wildly, and finally it hit Mattie.