Leon pulled a red bandana from his pocket and wiped his forehead and eyes. “A week after the wedding, her husband . . .” He stopped and his face folded in on itself. Then he looked at Lilly, his chin trembling. “Her husband found her tied to the church steps with her face shaved and her throat slit.”
Lilly swallowed and closed her eyes. The thought of someone slitting someone else’s throat made her feel like throwing up. She remembered seeing Daddy going into the woods with a shotgun and coming out with a string of dead rabbits. He said hunters killed for food, but seeing the rabbits still made her stomach sick. This was worse. Is that why Momma kept in her in the attic? To keep someone from slitting her throat? But what if someone in the circus did it? If Daddy didn’t find her soon, and she couldn’t escape because someone might slit her throat, was she going to spend the rest of her life locked in this cage? Between her burning back and the idea that she was never going home again, it was too much. She put her hands over her face and felt herself going someplace else, someplace where it would all go away.
Merrick kicked the cage again. “Wake up.”
She took her hands from her face and struggled to a sitting position. “What . . . What are you going to do to me?”
“You work for me now,” Merrick said. “I run the sideshow, which is why most people come to the circus anyway. They might bring the kiddies to see the elephants and the lions, but what they really want to see are the freaks. And I have the best around. People will pay good money to see someone like you.”
“But Momma said people would be afraid of me.”
“Well, we’ll find out, won’t we? Now, if you’re ready to cooperate, I’ll let you out of that cage. We’ll get you cleaned up and get you something to eat. Sound fair?”
She nodded.
“No more biting and trying to escape? No more kicking and screaming? If you try anything, I’ll just lock you back up. Got it?”
She nodded again.
“Dante,” Merrick said. “Go get Glory.”
“Yes, sir,” Dante said. He gave Lilly a worried glance and jumped out of the boxcar.
Merrick moved toward the center of the car, stood across from the open door and lit a fat cigar. “If you think about it, I’m doing you a favor. Your parents don’t want you, and neither would anyone else. A lot of people look down on carnies. They don’t trust us. But the circus is a place where a person can work for a living even if he’s lost the possessions normal society likes him to have. People try to get a job somewhere else when they’ve lost their moorings, and more likely than not, they’re turned away. Maybe the road is better than whatever they left behind, maybe they’ve got a troubled past, maybe they’re just not cut out for the nine-to-five, or maybe they don’t fit in among decent people.” He took a drag on the cigar, then made his way toward Lilly again, smoke trailing from his lips. “Or maybe their family just don’t want them around. But we take them in, all of them. Even people like you. So you see, it all depends on which side of the fence you’re looking from.”
Lilly didn’t know anything about sides of fences. The only thing she knew for sure was that she wanted to go home more than anything in the world.
After a minute or two, Dante returned with a woman wearing a pink skirt, a sparkly, sleeveless blouse, and a pearl headband in her short, wavy hair. Her face looked soft and pink, but the rest of her skin looked as if someone had written all over it with different colored ink. Drawings of lions, angels, crosses, skulls, hearts, and flowers covered every exposed inch of her arms and legs, each image merging with the others to create one continuous design. Lilly couldn’t take her eyes off her. When the woman saw her in the cage, she gasped.
“Where did she come from?” she said.
“We picked her up at the last stop,” Viktor said.
“Picked her up?” the woman said. “What do you mean, picked her up?” She knelt next to the cage and Lilly watched her expression, waiting for her reaction. The only emotion on her face was concern. Maybe she was pretending like everyone else.
Merrick gave Viktor a withering look. “We didn’t pick her up. We saved her. Just like I saved Viktor from that orphanage, remember?” He gestured toward Lilly. “Glory, meet our newest act.”
Glory smiled at Lilly and in a gentle voice said, “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“I want my daddy,” Lilly said, tears filling her eyes.
Glory glanced at Merrick and frowned. “Saved her, huh?”
“Mind your business, Glory,” Merrick said. “It was a legitimate deal and I’m her legal guardian now. So are you going to help me with her, or do I have to get Josephine to do it?”
Glory stood. “No, keep Josephine away from her. I’ll get her cleaned up and fed.”
“That’s what I thought,” Merrick said. He jerked his chin at Viktor. “Let her out.”
Viktor unlocked the padlock, opened the door, and stepped back.
Glory bent over in front of the cage, smiled, and crooked her finger at Lilly to come out. “It’s all right,” she said. “You don’t need to be afraid.”
“Watch out,” Viktor said. “She’s a wild animal.”
Breathing hard, Lilly stared at Glory and tried to decide if she could trust such a strange-looking woman. Except for the odd drawings on her skin—What were they called? She couldn’t remember— Glory looked normal, and her eyes seemed soft and kind. Lilly leaned forward and slowly crawled across the straw toward the door. Glory stepped backward to give her room and Lilly got out and stood. Her head hurt, her legs felt weak and shaky, and the whip marks on her back throbbed with pain. Glory closed the door and held out a hand. Lilly wrapped her arms around herself and moved away, her eyes lowered.
“Come on, honey,” Glory said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Lilly shook her head. Other than Viktor crushing her to his chest and the men holding her by her arms, the last time anyone had touched her was when she was a little girl, unable to wash and dress herself. Daddy never held her hand or hugged and kissed her, not even on her birthday. When he surprised her with Abby the kitten one year, she was so happy she reached out to hug him, but he drew away. And Momma only hit her. Thinking about her parents, Lilly went limp, as if she were about to collapse in a pile on the floor. Was she ever going to see them again?
“It’s okay,” Glory said. “You don’t know me yet, but we’ll be friends soon. Just you wait and see.”
Lilly stared at her, trying not to cry.