The Magician's Lie (6 page)

“Dear God in heaven! What happened?”

“I fell.”

“From where? What did you do?”

I planned to answer her, but then the hands exploring my ankle twisted it to the side, and I yelped in pain, trying to pull it away.

Under her breath, Mother hissed, “Stay still, you little fool.”

I was stunned dumb by her anger, which had never before been directed at me. I wanted to look at her face, but I was afraid. I despaired that I'd failed her so completely.

“I can't—this—this is awful,” she said. “Where's Ray? Ray, come here!”

“What?”

He appeared. I couldn't shrink any smaller than I already had, but I looked away from him. It was all I could do.

I was invisible to my mother anyway, who was peppering Ray with questions. “Didn't you set that horse's broken leg last month? Don't you know about these things?”

“I am not a horse, Mother,” I whispered, and my heart was hammering again. Because Victor had noted how good Ray was at identifying which horses were healthy and which were prone to accidents, and I had never thought much about it before, but maybe he was doing more than observing. If this boy could intentionally injure a person—a girl—he was certainly capable of doing the same to a horse. Not to mention the damage he'd done himself. Suddenly I couldn't get the image of his scars out of my head. That ghostly rib cage hovering over the real one, present with him everywhere.

Lost in my private hell, I paid no attention while he barked instructions to the servants and bound my leg up in a makeshift splint. If I thought about what was happening, I might shatter like a china cup flung against stone. Instead I retreated into my mind, leaving the broken body for others to deal with in my absence.

The promised laudanum arrived, mixed into a cup of sweetened milk, and I was pressed to drink the whole thing. It helped me retreat even further into myself, wrapping me in a soft cushion of a haze.

When I looked up, Madama and the others were gone. The visit was over even though we were still here. After that, the estate's hospitality was generous but curt. No one can provide bounty while withholding approval in the same way as the rich. I had forgotten it from my childhood, but I never would again.

After some time—the hours became liquid, flowing, impossible to grasp—we were informed that it was unsafe to go on the roads in the dark, and we would be staying overnight. We were led by silent servants down long, silent hallways to our rooms. There was a pale, beribboned nightdress laid out on my enormous bed. The freckled face of my servant guide reminded me of my old nursemaid Colleen, but I couldn't muster a thing to say to her, and she remained stern. She spoke one sentence, to ask if I'd like assistance undressing. I could only shake my head from side to side. She backed through the door and pulled it shut.

As soon as she was gone, I exploded in inappropriate laughter. I was light-headed from the pain and its remedy, nearly out of my mind at the absurdity of the entire situation. A room this sumptuous, a bed so large laid with such rich linens, a wardrobe larger than the pie safe at home, and all just for me. And I didn't deserve any of it. My laughter became hysterical. I plastered both hands over my mouth to try to contain it, frightened of being heard and labeled ungrateful, and finally knelt on the floor next to the bed to smother my laughter in the thick cotton coverlet. I kept my face down until the hysteria subsided. When I had mastered myself again, I left my own dress laid out on the floor in the shape of my body, pulled the soft nightdress over my head, and climbed up into the bed like a mountaineer making the summit.

My head heavy with shame and my leg aching in its brace, I wouldn't have slept a wink, except that the feather bed was more comfortable than I would have ever thought possible. Even as my head hit the pillow and I was cursing myself out for a foolish girl, listing off ways I could have avoided letting matters come to this, my thoughts were cut short by a deep blessed unconsciousness as dark and soft as a panther's fur.

In the morning, Madama Bonfanti was not there to bid us farewell. White-aproned women brought us our breakfast, thick slices of warmed ham on featherlight biscuits so delicious I struggled not to wolf them down like a savage. Black-coated men hefted our bags and showed us out. Ray climbed up into the driver's seat of the borrowed coach. Because of my leg, Mother put me across the long seat in the back, so I didn't even have to look at him. It was a small mercy, considering.

The road was long and rough, and every bump on it shot through my leg like fire. I'd asked for another dose of laudanum but was given barely a drop, with the lecture that sometimes people who took too much of it simply stopped breathing, not that I had any way of knowing such a thing. Despite the burning pain, I kept my mouth firmly shut the whole ride home. I wouldn't scare Mother by moaning, and I wouldn't give Ray the satisfaction of knowing how badly I was hurt. If not for him, I would have danced. If not for him, I might have found a way out, been taken to the school in New York, had a new life to live. I couldn't let the fury take me over, so I couldn't open the door to it, not even an inch. I only let my mind go blank, for myself. That was all I wanted. To forget.

***

After the first night's dinner back at home, eaten in near silence, Mother suggested Ray inspect my leg to see how it was healing. I didn't dare speak against her, knowing how angry she must be with me for my failure. So I sat in our best chair and endured the humiliation of Ray's wordless inspection, his hands roaming over me with full license while my parents looked on. Ray's obvious joy was more painful to me than the injury itself. I knew he was indulging his secret fantasy of being a healer, imagining somehow that he was knitting my bones back together with the power of his mind. When he suggested it again the next evening, I said, “No, thank you, I feel entirely healed.” That night, it was a lie, but it was the truth soon enough. After only a few weeks, I'd regained the use of my leg. Mother exclaimed over how quickly it had healed and credited Cecchetti with keeping me in such good health.

My body made a complete recovery, but there was a permanent change to my mind. There were so many what-ifs. If my mother hadn't fallen in love with Victor. If we hadn't come to Jeansville. If I hadn't started dancing in the evenings. If we'd never been invited to Biltmore. Without all these, I never would have practiced my balance on the beam, and I never would have let myself be broken in pieces. Things would be so different. There were so many other lives I wasn't leading, all because of a handful of choices, mostly made by others. I swore to myself that in the future, I'd make my own choices, right or wrong. Then at least when things went haywire, I'd know exactly who was to blame.

1894–1895

Flight of the Favorite

Nearly six months later, two things happened in rapid succession. I happened upon something I shouldn't have, and I made a crucial mistake.

The rainy winter came upon us and gave way to a cool, dry spring. The men were plowing and planting, preparing for the summer ahead. My mother needed assistance with an especially heavy load of groceries she'd brought home from town, and she directed me to fetch one of the men from the barn. I feared I would likely find Ray there, as he was most often caring for the horses, but I had no choice. Mother had softened in her attitude toward me now that so much time had passed since the disaster at Biltmore, and I felt that we were once more on solid ground. I didn't want to jeopardize that.

I stood in the doorway of the barn and shouted, “Raymond, my mother needs your help. Come now.”

No answer. I took one more step inside.

“Raymond?”

The air inside the barn was heavy with hay dust and thick with an animal smell. Suddenly, a horse cried out with a strangled whinny. I had never heard such a cry. I rushed in the direction of the sound and arrived at a stall to see Ray seated at a dappled mare's front right foot, which was in a sling to keep her from striking out with it.

The hammer dropped from his hand when she kicked, and his grip on her leg was lost. She cried out again and shook her head fiercely, mane flying, against the air. I could see a metal spike protruding from her foot. Not from the edges of the hoof where she was shoed, but in the tender center. She had to be in terrible pain. I reeled.

“Leave that horse alone!” I shouted.

“I'm trying to get the spike out of her hoof, you fool,” said Ray.

I knew next to nothing about horses, but I could still see through his lie. “You'd want a claw hammer for that. Not a mallet.”

He reached down, gingerly dodging the horse's swinging leg, and grabbed the fallen mallet.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Right now, I want you to step back,” I said. Shockingly, he complied.

I stepped past him into the stall, laid my palm against the side of the horse's neck, and spoke to her in a quiet voice. When her eyes were no longer rolling back in her head, I lowered both hands as quickly and smoothly as I could to the spike in her hoof, so as not to startle her, and yanked hard.

Luckily, it came clean out straightaway. Thank God I'd caught him on the first stroke. I flung the spike away, and it landed almost silently in the deep hay at the far end of the stall. The horse whinnied and twitched, but she didn't strike out at me. I stroked her neck gently and stared at Ray, still standing just inside the open door of the stall, the mallet in his hand.

“You ruin everything,” he said petulantly.

“What? You were trying to destroy this poor horse, and I ruined it?”

“I would have healed her.”

“That's ridiculous. You can't heal anything.”

“I healed you, didn't I?”

“No,” I shouted, my pent-up anger all let loose. “You broke me.”

“Stupid girl. Do you have any idea how long it takes a broken leg to heal? Weeks, even months. I sent healing powers into your leg, and you healed in days.”

“You broke my goddamn leg in the first place,” I said, nearly hissing in my fury.

“Damaged things interest me. Especially if I damage them.”

He hefted the mallet, testing its weight. It made me nervous. Without moving too quickly, I backed out of the stall to put some distance between us.

“Anyway,” he said, “the story is the important thing.”

“And what's the story?”

“I found the poor horse with a nail in her hoof. I risked my safety to free her. And I suffered for it.”

Uncomprehending, I asked, “Suffered for it?”

I saw him lift the hammer, and in a flash, I realized I was well within range if he chose to throw it, but that wasn't what he had in mind.

He brought the hammer back toward his own face, and the flat metal of the mallet connected with his nose, and all of a sudden there was blood everywhere.

I couldn't stay a moment longer. I fled.

When my mother asked, I told her there'd been no one in the barn, and anyway, I was strong enough to help her unload the groceries myself. We started to the work, and spoke no more about it.

But I couldn't get that image out of my head. Swinging the hammer back toward himself, a look of unearthly calm on his face. Indifferent to the coming pain. I knew then that he was capable of anything.

***

Saturday nights, our two families always came together for dinner, one Saturday at the house in town and the next at the farmhouse. I had found Ray in the barn on a Thursday, and two days later, all six of us gathered at the farmhouse dinner table. My mother had prepared roasted chicken and turnips, not one of her better meals, sadly dry and bitter. Starting late, she had never become much of a cook. I could see Silas's wife pushing the food around on her plate with evident disdain. I redoubled my efforts and ate with feigned enthusiasm so I would be able to ask for a second serving. Ray's nose was hugely swollen, an ugly red shot through with violet, which I noted with grim satisfaction. I wondered if his belief in his healing powers was shaken. Clearly he had made no inroads on healing this injury, and I hoped it was causing him great pain.

At length, Silas said, “Son, are you going to tell the ladies what happened to your nose?”

“Got broke,” Ray said.

“The boy's being modest. He was trying to remove a stuck nail from a mare's hoof and she kicked him.”

“Kicked in the face by a horse?” I said loudly. “He could have died.”

“He got almost out of the way,” Silas said, slapping his son on the back. “Barely got grazed as a result. Quick reflexes, my son.”

“Well, thank goodness he wasn't hurt worse,” exclaimed my mother. “That's quite lucky.”

“Unbelievably lucky,” I said. No one reacted.

“I hope the horse will be all right,” my stepfather said.

“She should make a full recovery,” Ray said. “I caught it in time. If she'd been walking around on it long, the nail would have been pushed further in, and it would have festered.”

“Can't make a business on injured horses,” Silas said.

“You're certainly blessed to have the boy's aptitude,” added his wife.

I couldn't believe it. They accepted his story, flat out. No one at all saw through it. They didn't even try.

My stepfather said, “On a different subject, I don't suppose anyone has seen a shepherd puppy on the farm lately?”

“No,” my mother said, and I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.

“Neighbor stopped by to ask if we'd spotted it. Belongs to his daughter, and she hasn't seen it in a week. Of course, the girl is distraught.”

I immediately looked over at Ray, but nothing showed on his face. He took another bite of turnip and chewed slowly.

“That's strange,” said Silas. “Two other neighbors are missing dogs too.”

Ray muttered, “Maybe they've all run off together. Like the dish and the spoon.” His father smiled at this, and his mother laughed.

I cringed. I couldn't stand thinking about what might have happened to those dogs. If Ray had gotten to them. If he had a mind to experiment. Scientists had been experimenting on dogs in England for hundreds of years, even taking blood from one to put into another. If I had learned that in my science lessons, Ray could have learned it too. He might want to hurt them in order to heal. What he would do with the idea made me ill.

It was a small thing compared with the other wrongs, but it was the last straw.

After dinner, in the kitchen, I was alone with my mother. I hesitated to speak at all, but I made myself ask, “Don't you think it's strange, about the neighbors' dogs?”

She paused to consider it, handing me a plate to dry. “These things happen. There are animals in the woods. It's not the city.”

“I know.”

“Are you so concerned? You needn't be. None of the wild animals around here are dangerous to us.”

“I'm not concerned about animals. I'm concerned about—humans.”

“Humans?”

“That there might be…bad people doing things to the dogs.”

She wiped her hands on her apron and picked up another plate to wash. “Oh, Ada. That's not likely.”

“It's possible.”

“Yes.” She sighed. “It's possible. But why would you want to think about such things? It's not good for your mind.”

“It could be Ray,” I blurted.

Her hands stilled.

I went on, the words spilling out. “He might have hurt those dogs. He hurt that horse. Mother, he hurt me.”

She didn't look at me. She looked down at her hands. She said, “He hurt you? How?”

“At Biltmore. He found me and he tried…he wanted…” And I found I couldn't say it. Not to her. It was too shameful, and I was too ashamed.

“Ada?”

The accusation hung in the air, incomplete, unbelievable.

“Enough,” she said, lowering her voice. “You want to accuse this boy of—of I don't even know what. You have this fantasy that three missing dogs means something nefarious. I doubt it means anything at all. Honestly, Ada, this is appalling behavior.”

I whispered, “I'm sorry.”

Her face softened then. I saw it change. “You don't need—oh, darling, I'm sorry too. I am. But you see, you must be mistaken.”

Tentatively, I said, “I don't think I am.”

“But you must be,” she said again, squaring her shoulders, speaking quietly enough that we wouldn't be overheard. “Here's why. Because we all depend on that boy's father, for our lives, for everything. We're only here because he allows it. If Ray hurt you, if he's done something wrong, then I will have to tell Victor. Victor will have to tell Silas. Silas will have to respond, and I think you know Ray won't be the one he'll punish. We will all suffer instead. Our family. Is that what you want? You want us out on the street with nowhere to go?”

“Of course not,” I said in a whisper, feeling the hot sting of tears under my lashes.

“So you were mistaken. Weren't you?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

She said, “I'm so sorry, Ada. Once upon a time, I was stronger than this.”

I was afraid to breathe, let alone to speak, so I simply continued to cry, clutching the dish in my hand as if it could give me some kind of solace. Her eyes were dry, but I could see her knuckles turn white as she clutched her own dish, her head bent and staring down into the sink in front of us.

“You're old enough to hear it. I was ready to lose my whole world for your father,” she said quietly. “He wasn't ready to lose his for me. He didn't love his wife. Everyone knew that. Her parents offered him so much money to stay that he couldn't refuse. He didn't refuse. He didn't love me enough. I worshipped him, but in the end, he was weak. And it didn't matter how strong I was, if he wasn't.”

“Victor was strong enough. He loved you enough. He was strong enough to run away with you.”

Grimly, she said, “By then, neither of us had all that much to lose.”

I watched her wipe away a tear, and I realized I would never see her quite the same way again.

“Now we have even less,” she said. “And I can't lose what little we do have. I can't.”

My powerful, beautiful mother, my songbird, my cello. She was only an ordinary woman, and one who felt herself at the mercy of the world. She was right. She wasn't strong enough.

“No more of this,” she said, dunking the dish in her hand under the surface of the water. She swished it from side to side and scrubbed at it even though it was already clean, then handed it to me to dry and return to the cabinet.

And that was all.

***

That night, I lay awake, castigating myself for my error, over and over. Maybe if I'd gone about it differently. Maybe if I'd come right out and said it, told her about what he'd done to me in the barn months before and what he'd done to the horse and himself that day, maybe then she would have to take my side. If I'd done it right, maybe I could have made it all come out differently. Come out better.

But I knew that she was right. Ray was his father's pride and his mother's pet. There was no chance they would take a word against him seriously. I was the troublemaker, the upstart, the bastard girl. I'd botched the confession to my mother, and if I tried to bring it up again, I knew she wouldn't listen. Now I was the girl who cried wolf, even though there really was a wolf, and I had every reason to think the wolf wasn't yet done with me.

Those poor dogs. That poor horse. That horrid, whispering voice when he'd said
I
hope
you
know
I'll never let you leave
, and later,
If
you
tell
them, I'll kill you
. I realized then how foolish I'd been to stay this long. It could be fatal to stay longer.

My mother had told me she couldn't save me. If I wanted to escape—to live—I would have to save myself.

Rising silently, moving through the dark on practiced, careful feet, I fetched the valise my mother had bought me for ballet school. From my bureau, I took two plain dresses; from the kitchen, a half loaf of bread. I paused before I left, thinking of writing a note for her, telling her not to worry about me and that I'd left by choice, but I was too afraid. It would take time, and even if I left a note, there was no guarantee she'd see it. I heard creaks and snaps from the floorboards of the old house, and I didn't know whether it was my imagination or someone rising in the night. It wasn't worth the risk. If Ray found me trying to run, I knew he would hurt me, and I feared he would kill me. There was no coming back from that.