Wonder Show (21 page)

But she knew the answer, felt it pricking the back of her skull.

She could not wait for anyone else to save her.

She could only save herself.

What Comes After

They were obvious when they arrived, because they were dressed in dark suits and driving a dark car, and they were not dusty. They were strangers, but not strange. They did not look away from anything. Their eyes were not on the ground. Two men, one taller than the other by a head (just one head, a normal- size head), both of them wearing hats and ties that looked as if they had never been undone.

Marie was the first one they spoke to.

“We’re looking for this girl,” the taller man said, and held up a photograph. He did not attempt to hand it to her.

It was not unusual for men in suits to come looking for someone at the carnival. Marie had been presented with photos before, but usually they were mug shots of hard-looking men, and if she ever recognized them, it didn’t matter because they were roustabouts who had collected a couple of checks and were already long gone, and she could only say, “Yes, he was here. I don’t know where he is now.”

So Marie did not expect to see Portia’s eyes, her face, Portia’s hair, under the man’s fingers where he pinched the photograph so it wouldn’t fly away in the breeze. Even though he had said “this girl,” she wasn’t prepared. She faltered.

“Yes . . . er, no. I don’t think I’ve seen her. But we go through so many towns . . .”

“She isn’t traveling with you?”

“With me? Oh, no.”

“She isn’t part of your show?”

“Not unless she has flippers or a tail.” Marie forced herself to laugh and fluttered her eyelashes at the shorter man, who remained silent.

“Mind if we look around?” the taller man asked.

Marie scanned the midway and saw Gideon hunched next to the bally stage, tapping on the wood as if he were hunting for treasure. Surely the men had seen him too, and if they showed him the picture and his poker face was no better than Marie’s, they would know more than enough. Too much by far.

“I’d be happy to show you—” Marie started.

“That won’t be necessary,” the man said. “We’ve done this before.”

“Well, good luck, then,” she said, and turning to go, she tangled her feet and fell to the ground.

Luckily, the men were not without compassion, at least the shorter one, who immediately crouched down to help Marie stand. “Are you all right?” he asked. His voice was surprisingly gentle, even kind.

Marie looked over his shoulder and saw Gideon running toward her. “Oh, yes,” she said, more loudly than necessary. “It’s difficult to keep my balance sometimes. I’m sure you understand.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” said the man. He tipped his hat and went to stand next to his partner again just as Gideon arrived and said, “What happened?”

“Oh, it was nothing, you know how I take a wrong step sometimes, Gideon, perhaps you could help me to my trailer, lovely to meet you, gentlemen, I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“But—”

“Come along!” Marie said. “I haven’t got all day!”

Looking utterly perplexed, Gideon did as he was told.

“You’ve never taken a wrong step in your life,” he said. “Did one of those guys knock you down?”

“Where’s Portia?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Because,” Marie said over her perfect and swiftly moving shoulder, “they’re looking for her. And I don’t think they mean well.”

Joseph

There were two men. One was tall and one was short. I thought maybe they were a new act—they looked like normals, but they could have been rubber-skinned men or contortionists. With marvels, you can’t tell until you see what they can do. Freaks, you know as soon as they walk by you.

Marvels get to hide if they want to. Blend in with the normals. I used to think of ways I could do that, too—makeup, maybe, or some kind of costume—but I gave up eventually. Not because I stopped wanting to blend in. It just started to seem, I don’t know, like wishing on pennies in a fountain. You make a wish and throw your penny and then you realize that it’s just going to sit there under water until someone takes it out. It’s a penny. There’s no magic to it.

I keep my pennies in my pocket now.

I watched the men for a while, to see if they did anything interesting, but they were just walking around and showing something to people. I couldn’t see what so I got closer and then I could see it was a picture, and then I got a little closer and I could see it was a picture of a girl, and when I got close enough to see it was a picture of
her,
the tall man said, “Holy shit.” Which meant he saw me, too.

The short man had the picture and he held it up and asked me, “Have you seen this girl?” I didn’t know what they wanted but I don’t believe in lying so I said, “Yes.”

Except that’s a lie. I lie all the time. When Mother asks me if I’ve been near the elephants again, I lie. When Mosco accused me of being the one who switched Marie’s knives around, I lied then, too. (I didn’t really mean to switch the knives, though. I was just looking at them and then I guess I put them back wrong. It wasn’t really my fault—they all look the same.)

I could have lied to the short man, too.

But I wanted her to go away. She made me miss Violet too much. And maybe if she went away, Violet would come back and things would go back to the way they were before.

So I told the short man, “Yes, I’ve seen her.”

I guess I’m sorry.

Caught

She was alone when the men found her. Portia had never seen them before, but she recognized them. The dark of their suits was the same dark that came from the windows of Mister’s house, the same dark that hung in Mister’s eyes. They looked like they’d been made out of shadows.

She was not with anyone.

She was wearing a red dress.

She was reading the list of names in her notebook.

She was thinking of Gideon’s face.

She was alone.

She watched the two men coming for her, and she did not move.

But then she heard them. Faraway voices, coming closer, all of them calling her name. And then she saw them: Mosco, Marie, Gideon, and Jackal, running. The two men in suits did not run—they walked steadily and did not look behind them at the approaching pack of voices. They were coming for her, and she could not move.

Everyone got to her at about the same moment.

Portia stood up.

“How did you know where to find me?” she asked Short.

Tall answered, “The little boy told us.”

“What little boy?” she asked Short.

“The ghosty one,” said Tall.

“I’m gonna kill that kid,” Mosco muttered.

“His name is Joseph,” Portia told Short.

“I do the talking,” Tall told her.

“Too bad,” Portia said. “I’m not tall enough to look you in the eye. And if I’m going to go anywhere with anyone, it’s going to be someone I can look in the eye.”

“Wait a minute,” Gideon gasped, still breathing hard from running. “Who says you’re going anywhere?”

“The man who hired you,” Portia said to Short. “Is he ever going to give up?”

Short shook his head.

“Is he ever going to let me go?”

He shook his head again.

Portia pointed at Short and said to Gideon, “That’s why.”

“That’s . . .” He put his hand to his temple and rubbed at it, as if he could dislodge the word he was looking for.

“Brave?” Portia offered.

“Ridiculous,” said Gideon. “You’re going to give up because he won’t? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“It’s not just that. You were right. This is no way to find someone.” She reached for Gideon’s hand. She did not care what the others thought anymore. She wanted to imprint her touch on him while she had the chance, to make him understand. “I have to go back to where I started before I can figure out where to go next. I’m just hiding here. I can’t hide here forever.”

Gideon did not pull away. He did not move. He simply looked at her.

His eyes were flecked with gold.

She would not cry.

She let go of his hand.

“Okay, then,” Tall said. “Let’s go.”

He started toward the black car, reached for Portia’s arm as though he was sure she’d try to run. But she knew as well as he did, maybe better, that there was nowhere to go. She sidestepped his hand and walked just behind him, with Short a half-step behind her.

Suddenly Tall stopped. He looked back and scanned the cluster of trailers. Then he looked at Portia.

“Where’s the bicycle? He told us to make sure we got the bicycle, too.”

She pointed, silently, to Gideon’s red truck, where the bicycle lay nestled in its bed. Tall strode over and hauled it out, came back with it hoisted over one shoulder. “Let’s go,” he said again, and the black car was right there, waiting to swallow her whole.

Meanwhile

There was something else.

Mister still had her file.

All summer Portia had searched the crowds. For Max, for Sophia, for her aunts, her uncles, her cousins, anyone familiar. She thought she would find them. And she wasn’t sure if she didn’t because they weren’t there, or because she couldn’t remember well enough what they looked like.

The only thing she was sure of was this:

Mister had a file on each and every girl who resided at The Home. That file contained information. And information was the one thing that Portia couldn’t make for herself. She could make a life, a future, a new dress, friends, pies, conversation, noise, peace. She could probably even learn to live with what she’d done to Caroline. But she could not let Mister keep the story of what had happened to her family.

It did not belong to him.

PART THREE

Return

The drive was shockingly brief. For all the faces she’d seen, breaths she’d taken, meals she’d eaten, thoughts she’d had, songs she’d heard, all the stories, steps, dollars, dust, mosquitoes, stars—she had not managed to put much distance between herself and Mister. She had imagined herself in an unreachable place, another world, like a child with her hands over her face who thinks herself invisible.

But the names of all the towns she’d been to fit on one small slip of cardboard, which she still had in her pocket.

Short drove, and occasionally looked at Portia in the rearview mirror, but he remained utterly silent. Tall, too. She wondered if they felt guilty.

But they must do this all the time,
she thought.
It’s their job.
And that made her sadder than anything, to think there were men in the world whose whole purpose was to bring people back to the places they had tried to escape.

She watched the still, dry land roll itself out along the road, and when it blurred through her tears, she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. The wet spots on the fabric looked like ink stains, or fingerprints.

She hoped they dried before she got to Mister’s.

But this was not a day for any of Portia’s wishes to come true, and the spots were still faintly visible when the black car pulled into the driveway. It was just like the first time she’d been delivered there by Aunt Sophia, and she suddenly felt a strange kind of attachment to the black-suited men, as if they were more family she was about to lose.

“Please,” she whispered, “don’t leave me here. Please.”

Tall sighed and said, “She lasted longer than I thought she would. Usually they start this routine as soon as we find ’em.”

Short looked up through the windshield and finally spoke. “Give her a break. I wouldn’t want to stay here, either. Place gives me the creeps.”

Portia had expected his voice to sound rusty like a dry hinge, but it was soft, gentle. It reminded her of Max’s voice, which, to her embarrassment, brought a fresh round of tears.

“Geez,” said Tall, “I hate it when they cry.”

“You have always lacked compassion,” Short remarked.

“Compassion don’t pay the bills.”

“Well, anyway,” said Short, and he turned, extended his hand over the back seat to give her a piece of paper. It was a business card.

KIMBLE BROS.

PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS

READING 4-1136

Portia put it in her pocket with the route card.

“What are you doing?” asked Tall.

“You never know who your next client might be,” remarked Short. “You looking for someone?” he asked Portia.

She nodded.

“See?” said Short. “Everybody’s lost someone. It’s what makes our line of work so rewarding.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Well,” said Tall, “let’s get this over with.” He opened his door, got out of the car, and reached for Portia’s door handle, all of which gave Short just enough time to turn again and say,

“Sorry, kid.”

Then Tall was pulling her out of the car, and like a specter, or a bad dream, Mister was on the porch.

“Welcome home,” he said.

Bluebeard’s Closet

Portia tried not to breathe too deeply. The air was hot and stale and swimming with dust—made, she imagined, from tiny pieces of paper and cardboard that had broken away from the boxes of files all around her. She felt as if she were inhaling the stories of all the wayward girls, as if she were actually breathing ghosts.

She could hear sounds from other parts of the house. Footsteps and muffled voices, the occasional creak or bump from the house itself, but nothing that gave her any comfort. Mister had put her in the secret room (no longer a secret to anyone now) without any indication of when she might be let out. Delilah came twice a day with bread and apples and water. From counting her visits, Portia knew it had been three days. Three days that felt longer than the entire time she’d been away.

She wanted to picture Gideon’s face but stopped herself, in case she couldn’t see him. It already felt, too much, as if she’d never been anywhere but Mister’s. She had had reasons for coming back. It
had
made sense at some point. It must have, or she would have fought harder when Short and Tall came after her.