The Magician's Lie (26 page)

I knew what the future held, at least for a few weeks. The tour schedule was already in place; Clyde had set us up through the end of July. The tail end of the circuit was set. Indiana, then Illinois, then Iowa. Three states to live through, I told myself. Only three states. By then, I'd figure out my exit, one way or the other.

At first, I had plans. I'd slip out through the stage door, the moment before the show was to begin, and run for my life. I'd call for the doctor and wheedle him for laudanum, with which I could drug Ray's coffee. I'd buy a gun from someone in the company, secret it in my blouse, shoot him dead in the railcar. But quickly, too quickly, the pain took over. I hadn't realized exactly how, and how much, it would hurt.

The physical pain was bad enough, but the other pain, deep inside, was worse. I hurt because I'd lost. I had fought so hard to get away from that girl I'd been, the one who'd let herself be brutalized, who had accepted for a long time that she wasn't worthy of being saved, and now I realized I'd never stopped being that girl. All those years, all that money, all the gleeful crowds, and I was still exactly as weak as ever. She had finally caught up with me.

Within a week, I had dark circles under my eyes. After two, I moved more slowly, my legs and arms turning to lead. At my best I was exhausted, and I was rarely at my best. In a town called Flora, I almost missed the show altogether, because he'd knelt on my forearm and slowly, slowly bent my right pinkie back until it cracked. The pain of the broken finger was excruciating, but just as bad was the pain of knowing he could do that, or anything else, to me that he wanted. I'd given him permission. To save Clyde, I'd signed on for that deal.

And as bad as each act was, the anticipation of the next one made it worse. Because I knew he would only escalate. Cuts and bruises were the opening act. Bones came next. Small bones first, and then larger. And after that, along with that, I knew one night he would violate me in a way that didn't show at all on the outside, a way that I would never be able to heal. He could have done it the very first night or any night after, but he knew that I expected it, and he held back, waiting. He tortured me with the things he hadn't yet done as much as with the things he had.

He climbed on top of me, over and over, always looking for something new to bend or crush or break. If I wasn't looking at him, he'd lock his fingers around my forehead and twist my head around until I did. I thought I could probably recover from a broken neck, and some nights it was bad enough I thought it might be better if I didn't, but he seemed to know just how far to press or pinch or wrench to have the effect he wanted. He'd made a lifetime study of bodies, and before long, he knew more about mine than I would have thought possible.

Perhaps the rumormongers were more right than they knew about me. In the end, I did just what they'd accused me of. I sold my soul to the devil.

No one knew what a nightmare my life had become; I doubt they even suspected. The ones who might have read the signs and guessed my misery were gone. Of those left, none were inclined to rock the boat. It was easy, too easy, to see it with their eyes. To them, Ray was charming and jovial, a pleasant man to have among the company. If we spent rather a lot of time alone together in the railcar, well, that was easily explained away as the thrall a new romance—a honeymoon, perhaps—could bring. He had only kind words for anyone in the company. By all outward appearances, he was no one's enemy.

The days and nights became a blur. I was no closer to figuring out how to get away. My body was weakening from the abuse. My mind was clouded by exhaustion and fear. I was healing myself over and over, muttering a wish for every wound, letting him believe that he was the one with the healing power, the reason my cuts and bruises could disappear in a matter of hours. Yet I had to keep up an illusion greater than any that had come before: the illusion that nothing was wrong.

In Terre Haute, the reporter asked me all sorts of prying questions about my life, and I smoothly answered him back with the usual vague claptrap. No, I wouldn't say where I'd come from, before I'd come up through the ranks with Adelaide Herrmann, as everyone knew. No, I wouldn't reveal the source of my powers, nor comment on the rumor that the brown part of my eye was a sign from the devil that he had taken one quarter of my soul as a promise of payment of the rest. No, I wouldn't discuss the inspiration for the Halved Man.

The reporter, persistent, began to follow me back to the railcar, and I was so distracted I didn't notice him until I was almost to the stairs.

The door swung open and Ray leaned out, clad only in a long, purple silk robe, cooing, “Welcome home, my dearest darling. Did you bring any more brandy? We're fresh out.”

Before I could say anything, the reporter called out behind me, “Oh, is this your husband?”

“You caught us out,” said Ray. “That's exactly who I am.”

The reporter was behind me and couldn't see my face. I stared up at Ray with hatred. I didn't say anything. I didn't need to. Rightful or not, there he was. He'd already taken his place.

Janesville, 1905

Five o'clock in the morning

“It was Ray,” says Virgil Holt, realizing. “Your husband.”

“He wasn't my husband,” she mutters.

“I realize that. But people thought he was. That's what matters. It wasn't Clyde. You didn't marry Clyde.”

“No, I didn't.”

He doesn't think he's imagining the sadness in her voice.

He says, “But the reporter from Terre Haute put it in the paper that you were married and your husband was with you on the road. And the rest of the company thought it was true. So when the body was found, they said it was your husband's body. That's what they told the reporters. He was your victim.”

She protests weakly, “He wasn't…I didn't,” and rattles the two remaining pairs of cuffs.

He believes her now. Fully and completely. He's had doubts all night, but the story has gone to his core. She would never make up something so outlandish to sell him on her innocence. If that were her goal, a simpler story would have done. The fabrication is too elaborate to truly be fabricated.

But now he needs to decide what to do with the truth she's told him, which is the harder part. And there's still one gap to fill.

“But who killed Ray? Who beat him, and broke him, and sank that ax into his gut? Who made him into the Halved Man and left him there?”

She glares up at him, her gaze burning brighter than ever, but he doesn't stop. They're at it now.

“It's your specialty, Arden. Your illusion. Your idea.”

“You can't hang a woman for her ideas,” she says, a note of hysteria in her voice. He knows she doesn't believe that. She thinks they'll hang her no matter whether she's a murderess. She's almost certainly right. “In any case, I wasn't there.”

“If you weren't there, where were you?”

“I don't know.”

He pushes. “How is that possible? You remember everything.”

“Not everything.”

“Everything else. This whole night, you've proved it. You remember what happened when you were twelve and fifteen and twenty years old. You can recall conversations word for word with people you haven't seen in a decade. You remember what you want to remember. It's all in there, every bit.” He reaches out and lays a finger in the center of her forehead, a firm quick tap. “So only last night, not twelve hours ago, you expect me to believe you can't remember where you were?”

“I don't know what time he was killed. How could I know?” He hears the edge of desperation in her voice, the trembling uncertainty.

“But how could it have been anyone else? No one else there even knew who he was. They thought he was a good man, you said it yourself. Only you hated him. So you killed him.”

“No.”

Generously, with a broad gesture of his arm, he says, “I don't know if I'd even blame you for it. The world is probably a better place. You already thought you killed him once. Wouldn't it be easier the second time? Like running a sword through a ghost.”

“Look at me, officer. Please.”

He avoids her gaze. He stares instead at her discarded boots next to the door, laces trailing, one fallen on its side. Beautiful things now smeared with grime that will never come out.

“I didn't kill him. I can only tell you that so many times until you have to decide if you believe me. And it's time, Virgil. Make up your mind once and for all. You have to decide whether you're going to let me go. Just you. No one will make that decision for you. Like Mr. Vanderbilt said. You have agency. Use it.”

“I remember you telling me he said so.”

“And now I'm saying it. To you, Virgil.” She leans forward as far as she can, her shoulders straining, her chin thrust out. “You want to set me free? Do it. You want to turn me in? You can do that too. You're the only one with the choice. And that bullet in your back doesn't mean you've got any less choice than you ever did. Live free of fear if you want to. We all carry something inside us that could kill us; yours just has a name. You want to change your life? Change it. You have no less of a right to be happy than the rest of us.”

He's reeling from what she says. It's too much. He snaps at her instead, with sarcasm. “You're the perfect example of happiness?”

“Not at the moment.” She smiles ruefully and shrugs a little, as best she can. “But whatever happens, I've been happy. I've been loved. I've amazed crowds and drunk in their applause. Not because of luck or favor or magic. Because of will. My will. I've been willing to do whatever it takes. That's the closest thing I have to a secret. And now it's yours.”

It's a lot to think about, and he can't quite digest it. But there's a spark there. Maybe she's right about him. Maybe it is up to him, how much he lets the bullet, and the fear, take over his life. Maybe. Not a curse, but a choice. His agency and no one else's.

She says, “You're right about one part of it. I hated him. With my whole self.”

“But your will failed you there, did it?”

“Not exactly. I was ready to kill him,” she says. “I was absolutely ready. I swore to myself, before the show, that I would find a way.”

“And then?”

“And then, in Waterloo,” she says, pointing across the room, “I found what was in that valise.”

1905

The Slave Girl's Dream

In Waterloo, I did something foolish. It was a silly impulse, and I knew it would make no difference, but I had left logic behind. The railcar that had once been a lovely refuge was now a prison. Sometimes he locked himself in there with me and sometimes I was alone, but either way, I was thoroughly a prisoner, and I grew to hate the ornate ceiling and the framed art and the rich bedclothes and the empty spaces on the brocade walls where the mirrors used to hang. I hated him and I hated myself. There was only one time each day when I was free in both my body and mind. It was the golden time, the beautiful time, as the late afternoon shaded into evening, when he had to let me out to go onstage.

Onstage, he couldn't stop me. He'd never interfere with the show. He escorted me all the way there with his hand on my elbow, his steps in perfect concert with mine. During the performance he would stand in the wings, watching, and follow my every move. The moment I was offstage I was in his grip again, literally. But for a precious hour on each stage in each theater in front of each audience, I was still myself, still in control.

Ever since the Iroquois, I'd made a point of finding out what each theater's precautions were in case of fire. In Waterloo, there were buckets of water in front of the footlights, which was a standard precaution, but there was also an ax hanging on the back wall of the stage, which was not. Nearly every theater had fire axes on the premises to break doors and windows during a fire, to let either people or smoke escape. They were just usually offstage. This one was not, and the moment I saw it, I knew what I would do.

The evening unfolded in the usual pattern, at first. Majestic, I strode onstage in an exquisite gown to a surge of welcoming applause. I entranced the audience with coins that multiplied and disappeared. By turns the stage was a riot of colorful scarves, then a still and silent temple, then a blaze of light and motion. I did not even venture a glance into the wings, but looked out instead over a sea of rapt spectators, their eyes shining. I announced the fire dancers, the Dancing Odalisque, all the other illusions. I performed. We performed.

But this night, not everything was exactly the same as it had been. Just the sight of that nearby fire ax had reawakened me to myself, and I was thinking more clearly than I had in weeks, seeing the act with new eyes. What I saw and felt onstage pleased me. The new assistants were settling into their roles, and although they weren't yet as expert as their predecessors had been, they were growing in confidence and strength. As an act, we were finding our shared rhythm. And as we crescendoed to the Halved Man, I became more and more eager, every muscle a taut wire.

I wheeled the box out onstage, the deaf boy's head seemingly connected to another boy's feet. I made the usual gestures. But instead of reaching for the saw on the table stage left, I turned my back on the audience and walked to the back of the stage, lifting the ax from its tether. I strode downstage again, taking a brief moment to lock eyes with Ray in the wings as I did so—he looked murderous at the improvisation, which pleased and energized me—and then I stood over the box, and instead of gently sawing back and forth through the precut center, I raised the sharp ax blade over my head as high as it could go and willed all my strength into the downstroke.

I swung it down furiously, splintering the wood. It was satisfying. I did it again, and it was more satisfying yet. I considered crouching for a moment to whisper to the boys in the box that no harm would come to them, but there wasn't time for it. In any case the deaf boy wouldn't have heard. And I was barely aware of anyone but myself in the moment. I was transported, transformed. I was merely an extension of the ax. We were one, a single instrument of punishment and destruction. We were revenge. I pictured Ray's face as I smashed and smashed. Every blow was an answer to some wrong he had done me. Every upswing of the ax was an opportunity to bring it down again, hard and swift.

Then I heard the blast of a horn, possibly repeated, certainly loud enough to jar me. It was my cue. That brought me back into my body, onstage, and I realized where and who I was. The middle of the box was nearly split into kindling. But no one knew this wasn't what was expected. I had to give them the rest of what they'd paid for.

So I finished up as usual, in a near daze—smoke and mirrors, deaf boy through a trapdoor, a sudden reappearance to amaze them all—and I took my bow. The audience thundered its applause. I raised my arms to thank them. They had no idea what they'd done for me. Without Clyde, I could barely go on, and without them, I wouldn't want to. I wasn't a mere prisoner—not at that moment, not anymore.

The curtain slid closed with a heavy and final-sounding
whoosh
. I stood alone on the bare stage, panting. My shoulders were already beginning to cry out from the effort, but there was a smile on my face, frozen there, my cheeks aching. I still gripped the ax.

I didn't stop smiling when Ray grabbed the ax out of my hands, nor when he marched me to the railcar, hissing at me to go faster, faster, at every step. I didn't stop smiling when he shoved me through the open door of the railcar and slammed it behind us with a mighty thump. I didn't stop smiling as he screamed at me, pushed me to the carpet on my back, and held the wooden handle of the ax against my windpipe with two hands, nor when he pressed down so hard no air could get through, bruising my neck deeply. I must have stopped smiling when I lost consciousness, though it tickled me to wonder if maybe I hadn't, which would have driven him to absolute distraction. When I came to, Ray was gone, and the ax with him. I was alone.

I reached for the brandy as I usually did but stopped myself. It would only deaden the pain for the moment. Drinking would leave the ache on the inside untouched and add a dizzying physical ache to wrap me like a shroud in the morning. And tonight was different. Tonight, I remembered the most important lesson of my life: I had agency.

Tonight I could surely find some better use for these minutes without Ray, however long they lasted, than to drink them away.

I pulled my suitcase out from under the bed. I was torn. Could I try to run away just one more time? Would he be gone long enough for me to get away, free and clear? Seeing and wielding the ax had made a difference. It reminded me that I might be a prisoner but I didn't have to be a victim. Earlier in the night I had told myself with certainty that I would finally kill him, without knowing how I would do so but utterly sure that one of us would be dead before the next day's sun came up. If I searched every inch of the railcar again, might I find something that would make the difference? Should I flee, or stay and fight?

Inside the suitcase was a smaller valise, which I recognized as the one my mother had bought me, all those years ago, in hopes of sending me off to ballet school. My life had certainly turned out differently than she'd intended. That little bag had seen me through many years, lean ones and fat ones, but right now it only reminded me of my failings. I kicked it, hard, so it flew a few feet across the railcar and struck the bed, and when it bounced and popped open, something fell out of the lining.

The straight razor that had been both Ray's and Clyde's.

Ray had hidden it well, but not well enough. I'd found it. And the moment it was in my hand, I knew what I was ready to do.

I positioned myself next to the door, razor at the ready, to kill him.

My body tense with anger and fear, I waited by that door for what felt like hours.

Darkness fell and I didn't light the lamp. My eyes had adjusted to the dark by then, and when he came in, there might be a chance that his hadn't. It would add to the element of surprise. I needed every advantage I could get. My hand still smarted from the broken finger, but I didn't trust my left hand to bear the weapon any better. I would simply wait, in the dark, until he came, and then I would lunge, and it would all be done at last.

Only he never came.