The Life She Was Given

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

  At the far end of the room, a long, narrow hole in the floor opened to a staircase. Momma went down the wooden steps, her lantern light disappearing into the tight space. At the bottom, she stopped in front of a short door and looked up at Lilly.

  Lilly couldn’t move. She felt like she was going to throw up.

  “Hang on to the railing and take one step at a time,” Momma said.

  With shaky hands, Lilly gripped the railing and lowered her foot over the edge to the first step. She had never walked down a staircase before and her head felt light and woozy. It was a little bit like stepping down from the stool she used when she was younger to see out the dormer window, but this was a whole row of stools. She felt like was about to fall forward and tumble down the stairs. She swallowed and glanced down at Momma, who was watching with a scowl. It was either move down the steps, or make Momma madder.

  “Let’s go,” Momma said. “We don’t have all night.”

  Lilly put both feet on the first step. One. Then she took another, putting both feet on that step before taking the next. Two. Three. Slowly but surely, she made her way to the bottom. When Lilly reached the last stair, Momma ducked and went out a short door. Lilly followed her into a narrow space about twice the size of her water closet. On the other end, another door led into another room. Momma told Lilly to wait, then locked the door to the staircase and reached up to pull a red string. A shiny cloth decorated with a house and flower gardens fell over the top half of the door. Then Momma moved a small table with feet that looked like claws beneath the shiny cloth, and, like magic, the door disappeared. Momma put her ring of keys in the table drawer and led Lilly out into another room with an enormous bed and odd, sheet-draped figures.

  What is beneath those sheets? Lilly wondered. She stayed close to Momma, fighting the urge to hold on to her arm. But Momma didn’t like to be touched, so Lilly didn’t do it. She wanted to close her eyes, but then she’d trip and Momma wouldn’t like that either.

  After the bedroom, they went into a long, thin space with shiny floors and walls lined with pictures and decorations. What was it called? Lilly tried to remember but couldn’t. One side of the space had a swirly metal railing instead of a wall, like the swirly metal bars outside her window. She stayed close to the wall and away from the railing, feeling mixed up and dizzy, like she was going to fall. Everything felt too big, too wide, too long. Her breath rattled in her chest. She touched her thumbs to her fingers and tried to count, but kept losing track of her numbers. She coughed and Momma gave her a stern look.

  If she had known the bottom part of the house was going to feel like a giant pit waiting to swallow her whole, she never would have wished to leave her room. She wanted to run back up there now, but that would make Momma really mad. As they made their way toward a staircase with more swirly railings, Momma’s lantern reflected off the high ceiling and cast marching shadows above her head, making the walls seem like they were moving. Lilly gripped the railing tight in her fists and made her way down the steps, certain she was going to cartwheel and tumble, end over end, to the bottom. On one hand, she wanted to see everything, to explore and inspect every part of Blackwood Manor. On the other, she wanted to close her eyes and make it all go away.

  At the bottom of the staircase, she followed Momma across an open area with a fireplace, bookshelves that went up to the ceiling, and chairs that looked soft as pillows. The air smelled like soap and wood and metal and dead flowers. Pictures of mountains, people, and horses filled the walls, and a sparkly light made of shiny beads hung from the ceiling. The rug beneath Lilly’s feet felt as thick as the mattress on her bed.

  She could hardly believe what she was feeling and seeing and smelling. How could the ceilings be so high, the walls so far apart? What kept such a giant house from falling in on itself? And what did her parents do with all this space? This one room alone could house twenty people. She felt weak and wobbly, like she did when Momma forgot to feed her. More than anything, she wanted to go back upstairs. The world was almost too much.

  Then she pictured Momma reading a book next to the fancy windows while Daddy smoked by the fireplace, his feet on the footstool. She pictured Momma and Daddy comfortable and warm, drinking hot tea and enjoying each other’s company. And for the first time ever, anger at Daddy knotted in her stomach. How could he leave me upstairs? Why didn’t he let me come down here when no one else was around? Maybe then I wouldn’t be so scared right now. Didn’t he care that I was all alone?

  Tears blurred her vision, but she kept going. There was no other choice. After the fireplace room, she followed Momma down another shadowy walkway with doors on both sides. The light from Momma’s lantern filled each open doorway, and Lilly craned her neck to see inside the rooms. High shelves and books filled one room, and a long table surrounded by cloth-covered chairs filled another. At the end of the hall, they entered what looked like a kitchen, their footsteps clacking on the black and white tile floor. Copper pots and pans hung over a center counter, and a black stove sat beneath a stone archway. White cupboards with glass doors lined the blue walls. Above the double sink, a flowered curtain hung over a window made of little squares, with potted plants lining the sill. What Lilly imagined were the leftover aromas of cooking and cleaning filled the kitchen—fried onions and baking bread, water boiling in a kettle and strong soap. For reasons she didn’t understand, she wanted to stay there, to open the cupboards and see what was inside, to soak in the warmth from the stove and eat a meal. It reminded her of the kitchens she had read about in books, where mothers and daughters peeled potatoes and frosted cakes, where entire families sat at tables eating and talking. What was it like to stand at a sink and wash dishes in soapy water, to bake cookies in the oven and make soup on the stove? What was it like to eat with other people?

  Momma said Lilly couldn’t eat with her and Daddy because seeing her across the dinner table would make them lose their appetites.

  Remembering what Momma said made Lilly’s lungs squeeze shut. All of a sudden, she couldn’t breathe. She stopped and gripped the edge of the counter, air squeaking in her chest.

  Momma glanced back at her. “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t want to . . .” Lilly said between struggling breaths. “Everyone will think . . . I’m a monster! They’re going to . . . to . . .”

  Momma scowled. “I told you, circus performers are used to people like you. Now stop being bad and do what I say. Your father went to a lot of time and expense to surprise you, and I won’t have you ruining it.”

  Before Lilly could say another word, Momma grabbed her wrist and dragged her into a small room off the kitchen. Coats hung from hooks on the walls, shoes and boots lined the floor, and a door looked like it led outside. Lilly counted the boots and shoes, trying to calm down. One, two, three, four, five, six. Little by little, her chest loosened and she could breathe better. Momma set the lantern on the floor and took a sweater from a hook. She put it on, picked up the lantern, and grabbed the door handle. Then she paused, lifted a jacket from a hook, and handed it to Lilly.

  “Put this on. You might need it later.”

  “Later?” Lilly said.

  Momma shook her head. “I mean, when we come back.”

  Lilly took the jacket and put it on. It felt heavy on her shoulders and the sleeves hung past her hands.

  “Roll them up,” Momma said. “And hurry. We’ve got to get over there before it’s too late.”

  Lilly did as she was told, shivering and sweating at the same time. She wanted to ask what they might be too late for, but couldn’t find the right words.

  Momma pulled open the door and slipped out into the night.

  Lilly stood in the open doorway, holding the jacket tight around herself. This was the moment she had imagined a thousand times, the moment she had dreamed about nearly every night, the moment she thought would be the happiest of her life. But now, the idea that she was about to walk out of the house shocked her so badly she felt like she
was about to float out of her body into the dark outside. It seemed, for an instant, that she did, and she could look back and see herself standing in the doorway.

  “Come on,” Momma called over her shoulder. “Hurry up.” She kept walking, unaware that Lilly had stopped on the threshold.

  Lilly thought about turning around and running back up to her room, but Momma would just come after her. And she would hit her again. That would be worse than going to the circus. Besides, what if she never had this chance again? She took a deep breath, ignored the rattle in her chest, and stepped out of Blackwood Manor. The outdoors felt enormous, bigger than she ever could have imagined, vaster than she ever could have dreamed. She stood shaking, surprised and scared and happy all at the same time.

  She was outside.

  A half-moon slid down the side of a cloudless sky filled with a million stars, casting a wintery glow over the summer night. And the smells, oh, the smells! She wasn’t sure what wonderful aromas filled the air, but she imagined grass and dirt and trees and water and mud and insects and leaves. She imagined horses and hay and flowers and rain. The thousands of pictures she had pored over in books flashed in her mind, and now she was about to see them in real life. A warm breeze caressed her face. Night felt warm and soft, like breathing under a blanket. She pushed up her sleeves to feel the air on her skin, and moonlight reflected off her white hands and arms. They looked like they belonged to a ghost.

  Momma kept going, walking fast, and the yellow circle of lantern light moved farther and farther away, bouncing across the grass. On one hand, Lilly wanted to know what it felt like to be surrounded by night. On the other, she was terrified by the massive, empty space. Who knew what lay beyond the darkness, just feet from where she stood? Who knew if she would be swallowed by blackness, or snatched up by a wild animal?

  She hurried after Momma, counting her steps until she caught up. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven . . . The feeling of walking and walking and not hitting a wall felt strange and exciting and scary at the same time. Together they crossed the shadowy yard, past the long silhouettes of trees and the towering shape of the barn. Horses whinnied and nickered inside the dark building, thumping against the walls of their stalls. A sweet, dry grass smell filled Lilly’s nostrils, along with a musty, warm tang she imagined was manure.

  Momma opened the gate to one of the pastures, let Lilly through, then closed it again. Side by side they moved across the field. Insects chirped and clicked all around them. Lilly wanted to walk slower, but Momma was in a hurry. On the other side of the field, they ducked beneath a white plank fence and made their way toward a line of trees. The ground was rutted and uneven and Lilly kept tripping on clumps of dirt and grass. She was wheezing again, but didn’t dare stop to catch her breath. She thought about asking why they didn’t take the road, then remembered they couldn’t chance being seen. Who knew what would happen if someone saw a white monster on the side of the highway?

  Following Momma into a stand of evergreen trees, she did her best to keep up. Her shoes, which she only wore when Daddy asked her to, pinched her toes. Sweat broke out on her forehead and her nose started to run. Inside the trees, Momma led the way along a narrow dirt path padded with pine needles. A clean smell filled the air, like soap and Daddy’s cologne. Lilly wondered if it was the trees. She thought about asking Momma, but it was all she could do to stay behind her. An owl hooted above her head and she jumped, then craned her neck to see it and nearly tripped over a rock.

  When they finally made their way out of the woods, through thinning trees and low bushes, they came out at the grassy edge of another field. From there, Lilly could see the dark shapes of circus tents and wagons. The colored lights had been turned off, and the midway was deserted. Momma led her across the grass into a sawdust-carpeted lot, beneath a huge banner that read: THE BARLOW BROTHERS’ CIRCUS. Overhead, triangle flags hung limp in the warm air. Closed lemonade and hot-dog stands lined the lot next to stands with signs that read: COTTON CANDY, ICE CREAM, and ROASTED PEANUTS. A giant painting of clown faces filled the sky above one tent. The silent clowns stared back at Lilly, frozen mid-laugh. Traces of moonlight glinted off flagpoles, making them look silver and cold. Purple-black shadows and gray light crisscrossed the grounds, and a strange mixture of hot grease and animal dung filled the air. There was so much to see and smell, it made Lilly dizzy.

  “Where’s Daddy?” she whispered.

  Momma shushed her and kept going.

  Lilly scanned the lot, waiting for someone to come running at them through the maze of tents, popcorn, and candy apple stands to ask what they were doing there. If the circus owner had agreed to put on a show for her, where was everyone? Where were the animals and performers? Why was everything so dark and quiet?

  When Momma’s lantern light swept over a row of giant banners in front of a parade of tents, Lilly wanted to close her eyes again. She shrank away from the paintings of scary-looking people below words that read: ALDO THE ALLIGATOR MAN, LUCIFER THE DEVIL BABY, VIDAL THE THREE-LEGGED BOY, and DINA THE LIVING HALF GIRL. The people in the pictures looked like something out of a nightmare, each one more upsetting than the next. Where are the clowns and the elephants and the horses? she wondered. And where is Daddy?

  She stopped next to a ticket stand, gasping for air. “I want to go home,” she said.

  Momma came back to where she stood, grabbed her wrist, and dragged her forward. Lilly tripped and stumbled, but Momma didn’t care.

  Then they came to a big tent with poles and beams and wires sticking out in all different directions, like the bones of a giant beast. It was the big top Lilly had seen from her attic window. The front flap read: TO THE CIRCUS MAIN ENTRANCE. But the entrance was dark. When Momma passed it and kept going, Lilly dug in her heels.

  “Where are we going?” she said.

  Momma ignored her and yanked her forward.

  On the other side of the big top, a train sat parked on the railroad tracks, a long row of passenger cars and boxcars behind a massive black engine. It was bigger than Lilly could have imagined. From her window, trains looked the same size as her model farm animals. Yellow lights shone here and there behind square windows, and circus wagons with animal cages sat on the ground beside the engine and first few cars. Lilly couldn’t see inside the cages because it was too dark, but to the left of the wagons, a group of bulky mounds lay on the grass.

  Elephants, she thought. Real, live elephants. One, two, three, four. Number four stood on its thick legs, its trunk hanging down like a giant worm.

  Lilly started toward them, but Momma pulled her in the other direction, toward the back of the big tent into a cluster of covered trailers, trucks, and wagons painted with horses and winged lions. Lilly tried to get Momma to let go because she was hurting her arm and pulling too hard. But she was no match for Momma.

  “Where are we going?” she said again. “Where’s Daddy?”

  Finally, Momma slowed, and a gloom-shrouded figure moved out from behind one of the trucks and walked toward them. It was a man, quite big, with a thick neck and broad shoulders.

  “Daddy?” Lilly said. Then the man moved into Momma’s lantern light and Lilly screamed.

  It wasn’t Daddy.

  It was a giant monster with a bony forehead, eyebrows grown together over a wide nose, an ape-like jaw, and a mouth that looked like a steam shovel. The monster had massive shoulders and huge arms, and his boat-sized feet kicked up clouds of dust from the earth. A jagged slit ran up the middle of his face, separating his top lip and splitting his nose into two mangled pieces. In the middle of his forehead a mass of dark red tissue looked like a third eye. Big gray teeth filled his mouth, crowding one another for space and overlapping at several points. A checkered shirt stretched over his muscled chest, and the bottom of his worn trousers stopped just below his tree-trunk-sized knees.

  Lilly tried to look away but couldn’t. She stood frozen in terror and amazement. Maybe he was an ogre, like the one in Puss in Boots.
She didn’t know those things were real. Momma gasped and shrank back, but held tight to Lilly’s wrist. Lilly moved behind her, her limbs heavy as stone.

  “Please, Momma,” she cried in a weak voice. “I want to go home.”

  Then a normal-looking man appeared behind the monster, dressed in black trousers and a long jacket. He took a drag from a fat cigar and moved toward them, smoke wafting from the corners of his mouth.

  “No need to be afraid,” the man said. “Viktor won’t hurt you.” His oily dark hair was pulled into a ponytail, and his face reminded Lilly of pictures she’d seen of the moon, with craters and dents and rocky parts.

  “What . . . who is he?” Momma said.

  “Viktor is my star attraction,” the moon-faced man said. “But that’s not what you’re here for, is it? Where’s the girl?”

  Momma dragged Lilly out from behind her, her mouth twisting with the effort. The moon-faced man turned on a flashlight and shined it at Lilly. She blinked and squinted, blinded by the light, then dropped her chin to her chest, breathing hard. Air squeaked and rattled in her lungs. What did the man want? And what would he do when he saw her face? Would he run away in fear, or would he try to hurt her? If she really was the devil’s spawn, maybe he’d try to kill her. Momma had told her over and over that she was only trying to protect her. Maybe she brought her here to prove why.

  “Take off her coat,” the man said.

  Momma yanked the coat off Lilly and let it fall to the ground.

  The man shined the flashlight from the top of Lilly’s head to her feet.