Lilly lay on her bunk inside the stifling hot car, staring into the darkness and listening to the other sideshow women mumble and snore in their sleep. She was on top of her covers, her cotton nightgown pulled up to her thighs, her long hair piled above her head on the pillow. The train had stopped a few hours ago, and she had been with the circus long enough to know that the smell of bacon, eggs, fried potatoes, and strong coffee meant the flying squadron—the first section of the train to arrive in town—had already set up the cook tent. The roustabouts were laying out the lot, Cole’s father—his name was Hank—and the rest of the menagerie workers were feeding hay and grain to the animals, and the cooks were getting ready to serve the first meal of the day—made from meat, vegetables, flour, milk, sugar, and butter delivered earlier that morning—to the hundreds of workers and performers employed by The Barlow Brothers’ Most Amazing Show on Earth.
Despite the fact that the inside of the sleeper car felt like an oven and her horsehair mattress was full of lumps, she was grateful for both. She’d been sharing this car with the other women for the past four years, and she had Glory to thank for it. Because when Lilly turned twelve, Glory gave Merrick a choice. Either he allowed Lilly to move out, or she would leave him. Lilly knew Glory was doing it to protect her, but she never thought it would work. At first, Glory tried convincing Merrick it was an issue of privacy. But by that point, Lilly had already spent two years on the couch listening to them in the bedroom, talking and arguing and laughing. The first time she heard them having sex, she put a pillow over her head and cried, certain Merrick was hurting Glory but too terrified to do anything about it. When Glory came out of the bedroom the next morning and saw the worried look on Lilly’s face, she assured her that she and Merrick had only been playing a game and she was fine. Then Lilly walked in on them naked one afternoon and Glory gave her “the talk” about the birds and the bees. After that, Lilly put her head under the pillow every night, just in case. So when Glory told Merrick she was worried Lilly might catch them doing something “inappropriate,” he laughed. It was already too late for that.
But then Glory packed her bags and stood in the doorway with tears in her eyes, and Merrick surprised everyone by letting Lilly move out. He still kept a close eye on her—threatening to send her away if she messed up, talking to her like she was a possession instead of a person—but she was no longer a regular victim of his physical abuse. When she was living with him, the slightest slipup or wrong word set him off, and he kept control with insults, the backside of his hand, and sometimes, his fists. Lilly tried talking Glory into leaving with her, but for some reason, Glory refused. Half the sideshow performers said Glory stayed with Merrick because she thought she could change him, the other half said it was because he saved her brother, Viktor, from a lifetime in an asylum.
After Lilly moved out, she asked Glory nearly every day if she was okay. Sometimes Glory looked happy and acted fine, and other times she seemed sad and distant. On the days when she was quiet, she wore more makeup than usual, or combed her hair in a different way to hide the bruises. Lilly eventually realized Glory loved Merrick, despite the way he treated her. And sadly, she knew what it was like to care about someone who misused you. Even after everything Momma and Daddy had done to her, the fact that they never returned her love still broke her heart.
Now, everyone would be getting up soon, and the other sideshow performers in the car—Dolly the World’s Most Beautiful Fat Woman, CeeCee the Snake Enchantress, Hester the Monkey Girl, and Penelope the Singing Midget—would be climbing down from their beds, asking one another what town they were in today. After all, it was easy to forget, considering The Barlow Brothers’ Circus covered fifteen thousand miles and a hundred and fifty shows every season.
Lilly knew two things for sure. They were somewhere in Pennsylvania, and when Merrick returned from scouting out new venues for the past week, he was going to have it out for her again. Even now, despite the fact that she’d been with the sideshow six years and was one of his star attractions, the money she brought in was his to keep. He was her boss and legal guardian, and three meals a day and a place to sleep was all he owed her. She’d asked a hundred times to be paid like the other performers, but he always reminded her that he could get rid of her as easily as he had acquired her.
This time, though, she was going to be in trouble for turning away a line of townies—or as she now called them, rubes. And that was one thing you didn’t do. You didn’t get between Merrick and his take, especially when you were one of his main acts—The Albino Medium. Not to mention she had broken the golden rule—“The Show Must Go On.”
Merrick came up with the idea for The Albino Medium after he convinced Mr. Barlow that the rubes were more interested in Dina the Living Half Girl and Mabel the Four-Legged Woman than The Ice Princess from Another Planet. And Alana loved the concept so much she wanted to help with the act and persuaded Mr. Barlow to give Lilly her own tent.
At first, Lilly thought being The Albino Medium would be better than being in the freak show, where the rubes stared and heckled and spit at her, toddlers cried out in fright, and little old ladies tried poking her with canes. Kids and adults alike threw popcorn and peanuts and half-eaten candy apples at her, laughing when she ducked, hooting when something hit her. And when Merrick put her “out front” to lure rubes into the tent, women touched her face, drunk men grabbed her chest, and teenagers pulled her waist-long hair. More than one tried to yank it out.
But after the first few weeks of her new act, she grew to hate the fact that people thought she was real, and she felt horrible seeing rubes part with their hard-earned money in the hopes of hearing from a deceased family member on the “other side.” Some people were so desperate they paid with jewelry or what looked like their last dollar. Sure, there were a lot of fake acts in the sideshow—The Devil Baby, The Fee Gee Mermaid, The Woman with Two Heads—but that didn’t make her feel any better. Day after day of countless pained faces, all them looking at her with hope and enthusiasm, praying to hear from deceased mothers, fathers, lovers, children, was almost more than she could bear.
How long had it been since the first clueless rube had come into The Albino Medium’s tent and asked to speak to a departed loved one? Two years? Three? It felt like a hundred. Thinking about it now, as she lay in her bunk alone with her thoughts, anguish welled up inside her chest. But she fought it and pushed it back down, packing it away. It was better to be numb.