“On your head,” Lilly said.
In one fluid motion Pepper rolled forward and balanced on her head and front feet, her giant back legs in the air. Lilly glanced at Mr. Barlow to see his reaction, but his face gave nothing away. Cole and Hank, on the other hand, were grinning like fools.
“Down,” Lilly said.
Pepper put her back legs down, got on her knees, and rolled over on her side. Lilly took a step toward her, told her to get up, and said, “Lift.” Pepper got up on all four feet, curled her trunk under Lilly like a swing, and lifted her gracefully over her head onto her neck. Lilly smiled and put an arm in the air, imitating the other big-top performers. Cole and Hank started clapping.
Just then, the elephant trainer stormed into the arena. “What in the hell is going on here? What are you doing with my bull?”
“I believe this is my bull,” Mr. Barlow said. “But I’ve been asking myself the same question.” He addressed Cole. “What exactly is going on here?”
Cole gaped at Mr. Barlow as if he were the dumbest man on earth. “Didn’t you see what just happened?” he said, throwing his arm out toward the center ring. “Lilly is a natural. Nine times out of ten, Pepper refuses to stand on her head, but she does it for Lilly every time. The elephants respond to her like no one I’ve ever seen before. If you put Lilly under the big top with Pepper, they’d be your star attraction for sure!”
Mr. Barlow took the cigar from his mouth and scowled. “Lilly is already a star attraction. And so are the elephants. So why would I combine them and lose one? That’s not good business sense, my boy. But I suppose that’s why I’m the owner of this circus and you’re not.” He waved a dismissive hand in the air. “Now get her down off that bull, take it back to the menagerie, and forget about this nonsense. We’ve got a show in two hours.”
Lilly slid down Pepper’s side to the ground and stood beside her, surprised by the depth of her disappointment. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew Mr. Barlow would never allow her to perform with the bulls, but Cole had been so sure about the plan, she’d begun to believe in it too. Now she had to settle back into the fact that she’d be The Albino Medium forever.
Anger and frustration lined Cole’s forehead. “If Lilly is one of your star attractions,” he said, “maybe Merrick should start paying her.”
With that, Mr. Barlow’s face went dark. “As long as Merrick pays me my share of her take, I don’t give a damn what he does with his.” He gave Hank a disgusted look. “I’m surprised you were part of this.”
“He wasn’t,” Cole said. “He brought Pepper over here, that’s it. I didn’t tell him why.”
“Enough out of you,” Mr. Barlow snarled at Cole. “This circus has been running for over twenty years now, without any help from young, smartass whippersnappers like you. Now get back to work before I fire the lot of you!” He stuffed the cigar back in his mouth and marched out of the big top.
Lilly looked at Cole and shrugged, blinking back tears.
CHAPTER 18
JULIA The evening following the ice storm, after Julia and Claude were finished with the horses and Claude had left for home, Julia took an oil lantern into her father’s den to search for more information about her late sister. The electricity was still out, and ice-encased branches trembled outside the windows, rattling against one another like bones. But despite the fact that she could see her breath in the freezing room and she was exhausted after cleaning stalls half the day, she couldn’t ignore the burning need to find the truth.
She set the lantern on the desk, opened the middle drawer, and searched inside for the key to the locked drawer. It had to be in there somewhere. She reached into the back corners, felt along the lining for the shape of a key, and came up empty-handed. She tried picking the lock with a bobby pin but had no idea what she was doing. She shoved a letter opener between the desk frame and the top of the locked drawer to pry it open. The letter opener broke in two and she jammed her fist against the wood.
“Shit!” she hissed. She dropped the letter opener and examined her knuckles. Divots of ripped skin flopped open on each one, exposing raw flesh underneath. Now, along with blisters on her palms from shoveling horse manure, she had scrapes on her knuckles too. Swearing again, she covered her knuckles with her other hand until they stopped throbbing, then carefully searched through the papers in the rest of the drawers. She took them out one by one and held them close to the lantern, squinting to read the fine print. They were business letters, indecipherable doctors’ prescriptions, pay stubs, old bills, and receipts. Nothing of any significance.
Frustrated, she stood and looked around the room as if the answer was hidden there. Lantern light flickered off the walls and bookshelves, reflecting in the trophies and picture frames like tiny flames. She made her way along the shelves and scanned the titles. Then, starting at the bottom of the first bookcase, she riffed through the pages of each book before returning it to the shelf and moving on to the next. The dusty pages made her sneeze. She worked fast, trying to keep warm, and anxious to find the key to the locked drawer, or hopefully, more clues about her sister and what her parents might have done. Along with numerous volumes on horse breeds and veterinary medicine, there were novels, poem collections, reference books, and outdated encyclopedias.
She climbed on a footstool to examine a set of six antique books with worn leather spines sitting between elephant-shaped bookends on the top shelf of the center bookcase. The dust was thicker on these books than the rest, and the pages were thin and yellowed. When she picked up the fourth book, she was surprised to discover it weighed almost nothing, despite the fact that it was the same size as the others. She got down from the footstool, opened the book, and gasped.
The center of the book had been cut out to form a box inside the pages, and a small pile of yellowed newspaper clippings and other papers filled the space, stacked like pressed flowers in a haphazard pile. She took the book over to the desk and sat down, trembling with anticipation. Blowing into her hands to warm them first, she took out one of the clippings and opened it with gentle fingers, careful not to rip the paper.