Threadbare- The Traveling Show

by Alexandra DeMers

  Prologue: The Cage

  Chapter 1: The Optimist

  Chapter 2: The Errand

  Chapter 3: The Family

  Chapter 4: The Costume

  Chapter 5: The Ride

  Chapter 6: The Search

  Chapter 7: The Gift

  Chapter 8: The Stranger

  Chapter 9: The Condemned

  Chapter 10: The Discovery

  Chapter 11: The Party

  Chapter 12: The Rehearsal

  Chapter 13: The Vision

  Chapter 14: The Prison

  Chapter 15: The Rebels

  Chapter 16: The Plan

  Chapter 17: The Festival

  Epilogue: The Gun

  Acknowledgments:

  For all of my teachers.

  I dedicate this book to the people who read to me, who listened to my first stories, and even to those who said, “Put that book away, and take out your math.” This is for the teachers who raised me, for the one who lent her beautiful name to this book, and for the one I married. Thank you.

  May 17th, 1945

  Pearisville (formerly Greenville), South Carolina

  Sangria barely had enough room to breathe. Head between her ankles, her entire body was crammed into a cage suspended four feet off of the ground. Even if she could move, she didn’t dare try to readjust. Any movement would make the cage swing.

  How in the world did I end up here?

  Sangria took in what little she could of the dark room. The dry smell of dust and scattered straw made her eyes itch. Heavy, canvas walls blocked most of the light and sounds from outside, but they could never block the screams. She would hear them almost every night, coming closer and closer until at last, it was her turn.

  I hate the screams. I hate the gawkers. I hate the jeers. I hate this place.

  Sangria licked her lips. Juan should have let out his familiar, anguished howl by now. She had been hanging for much longer than ever before, and she was beginning to get a little worried. She wished she could look at her watch or move her ankles far enough apart to hear what was going on outside. Suddenly, she heard a rustle of paper.

  “Hey,” she whispered. “Hey! How much longer do I have to sit like this? Are they coming soon or not?”

  “You’re next,” a young man’s voice answered softly from a far corner. Sangria thought that he had one of those accents that made anything spoken in a whisper sound intimate. He suppressed a little cough and added, “Settle down in there or else you’ll start swinging.”

  “You need to repair this cage as soon as I’m out, René,” she growled. “I’ve got a huge wire poking me in the side. I will hold you responsible if it tears my costume.”

  Instead of an answer, she heard another flutter of paper.

  “Are you ignoring me?” she hissed.

  “Of course not, chérie. Fix your cage. Got it.”

  “What are you doing back there?”

  “Reading.”

  “Reading what?”

  “Bon sang, you’re talkative tonight,” he murmured. “Perhaps I ought to make the cage a little smaller, non?”

  “What did you say, Bozo?” Sangria rattled the tiny door and the cage bobbed from side to side.

  “I said Nick must be captivating the crowd again.” René chuckled and reached out to steady her confines. “So I’m reading the newspaper until everybody gets here.”

  There was a pause, and since there was still no sign of her tormentors, Sangria raspberried in boredom. “Well? What’s the news say?”

  René angled the paper so that the print was illuminated by a strip of light coming from a gap in the canvas walls. “The widow of a local hero was arrested by inquestors. Seems that she’s been sent to prison in Nieuwestad.”

  Sangria used the bars on her cage to scratch her nose. “What for?”

  “What else? Participating in the insurrection.” He moved the paper through the strip of light, highlighting the important parts. “She was married to a Favored Citizen, but he died in the war. She lost her fortune and lived in hiding until the inquestors dragged her from her home.” He sighed and scanned a grocery ad for bargains. “La pauvre. The war took everything from her.”

  “Odd that Inkies would nab a Favored Citizen.” Sangria felt a sneeze coming on, and she sniffed it back defiantly. “They’re practically American royalty.”

  “Well, it’s not so odd considering this woman was an immigrant,” René explained bitterly. “Not even her husband’s status could save her in the end.”

  Sangria rolled her eyes. “Since when did you give a fig about politics?”

  “Since when was sympathy political?” he shot back.

  Sangria’s retort was cut off by a triple-knock on the wall.

  “That’s your cue.” René tossed his newspaper aside and flew off of his stool. He pulled the fly hand-over-hand as fast as he could, raising the curtain with a whir. “Time to untie the Knot-Freak.”

  The room flooded with yellow light, and Sangria heard a woman’s muted scream. Her insides roiled.

  Whatever happened to the gasps of wonder?

  She couldn’t see the crowd, but she judged by the sounds of surprise that there must have been a group of ten or fifteen people standing in the dark outside. Audiences were always stunned by the way she managed to fit into a birdcage, perfectly framing her doll-like face with her arms and legs.

  René hid from the crowd behind the curtain, but the stage lights caught the edge of his rough hand as he gently set a needle down onto her record. The dented old phonograph played the eerie opening violin strains of “Danse Macabre,” and Sangria began to move out. She only had enough time in her performance to display the extent of her flexibility, so she moved in perfect sync with the music. One arm slid from the small opening first, then the rest of her torso. She gripped the chain that suspended her cage and freed her legs. Turning to the side, she dipped backwards so that her head touched her bottom as she stood. She deepened the bend until her head reached her ankles again, her arms outstretched for balance with practiced grace.

  “Now there’s a bendy bird I’d love to stuff,” came a quip from the audience followed by sparse chuckles.

  Sangria snapped up straight and glared into the darkness. “Who said that?”

  “Can you wrap your gams clear around, Knot-Freak?” the heckler called back.

  “I’m a trained dancer and concert violinist!” she shouted before René dropped the curtain like a rock. Sangria clawed beneath the tattered canvas and scrambled out. “You're a goat-mothered bumpkin who's gotta pay money before he can lay eyes on a real woman! Which one of us really belongs in the cage, huh?”

  She felt René’s firm grip on her elbows, drawing her back.

  “Where you going, Birdy?” the man in the audience hooted. “Tell your wrangler that I haven’t got my nickel’s worth yet!”

  “Come and get it, you hillbilly bastard!” Sangria thrashed against René and his hands clamped down on her like manacles. “Get up here so I can choke you to death with my ankles and sell tickets at your funeral!”

  René managed to pull her behind the curtain again. She was incredibly strong for somebody so petite, and he didn’t release her until she stopped struggling.

  “That was certainly the most excitement we’ve had in awhile,” he said breathlessly, fanning himself with his wide-brimmed hat. Sangria fixed him with a green glare. “That man was out of line, chérie. Marmi won’t blame you for getting upset.”

  Sangria sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I have had enough,” she mumbled, backing away from him. “I can’t take this anymore.”

  “What do you mean? You’re not talking about leaving, are you?” René
tilted his head. “Chérie, you can't.”

  Sangria bit her lip and frowned at her backdrop instead of answering him. Her set was a silhouette of a tree with dozens of tin birds that flew out of it on their own. It was inspired by Balinese shadow puppets, and René had spent months crafting it from scrap down to the most minute detail. Joined with her music and performance, the result was a breathtaking scene that was unusual for such a small traveling show.

  They both turned at the sound of coins falling into her lock-box outside.

  “Hear that?” he smiled, rubbing her shoulder. “She can threaten somebody with a humiliating death, and everyone will still love the Knot-Freak.”

  What René hoped would encourage Sangria had instead drove her into outrage. “Don’t you get it, you moron? I did not train my entire life just to be ogled for pocket change at some filthy little mud show!” Shoving past René with a furious sob, she cried, “Damn them all and damn you, too! I will never be the Knot-Freak again!”

  May 18th, 1945

  Cold River, South Carolina

  Amandine Stewart was an optimist. Even as she was forcefully escorted from her home, she tried to imagine what adventures awaited her now that she was homeless.

   “You are doing your country a great service,” said the assistant who tugged her along by the elbow, but he only repeated what the Administrator had said in the den.

   Amandine hardly agreed, though she wasn’t about to admit that out loud. She took in what she could of the tall corridor instead, taking a final mental picture of the place that had once been her childhood home. She noted the thin scratch in the wallpaper beside the library door, the result of cannon fire during an epic, imaginary naval battle between herself and the maid. The maid had disappeared with the rest of the household staff years ago, long before anyone in the government showed any interest in the Stewart family.

  The girl hesitated for just a moment as she passed the staircase and reached for the banister. Her father put his hand here before he left, back when the wooden surface was still smooth and polished. Now it was grimy from neglect and marred by the scratches her mother left when she was dragged away. Fingertips tracing the gash, Amandine realized that this was the last place each member of the Stewart family touched before they left this house for good. She was jarred from her thoughts when the assistant gave her a shove between her shoulders.

  “Have a good day,” he barked. “Hail to the Republic!” And with that, the double doors slammed shut behind her.

   Amandine smoothed her blue silk dress and looked around. The sun warmed the crisp air after a recent spring rain. It was the kind of day where she once might have liked to take some books outside or play tennis, but the hills surrounding the great house had returned to wilderness. Unkempt shrubs bloomed, and the lawns—once a smooth, striped emerald—were now waist-deep and full of weeds.

  Amandine descended the steps from the house just as three government trucks circled the cobblestone courtyard. Tailgates dropped with a bang, and soldiers unloaded boxes and furniture with trained uniformity.

  They're certainly excited to move in, she thought, keeping out of their way. They didn't even wait for the ink to dry.

  Since the soldiers weren’t paying her any attention, she took the opportunity to reclaim her bicycle. She had to free the garage door from a wall of vines, but she found her bike precisely where she left it three years ago, hanging on the wall above her father’s dusty Deluxe Roadster.

  Amandine was nearly ready to go. She pumped air into the tires, secured her suitcase to the bike with a length of twine, and double-checked her coat pocket for the envelope full of crisp, blue, New American Republic dollars that the Administrator had given her in exchange for her property. As an afterthought, she kept a single bill from the envelope and hid the rest inside her dress front until she got a chance to conceal it somewhere safer. Satisfied, she walked the bike out the back and kicked the door shut behind her.

   She pushed off of the cobblestone and buzzed past the preoccupied soldiers. She offered a quick glance over her shoulder to the red-brick Georgian house, where the marble statues of Mercury and Arachne that flanked the doorway were already being swapped for a pair of dour-looking gryphons.

   “Bye, house,” she murmured. Amandine wanted to wave, but a sharp twinge deep in her chest stopped her. She gripped the handlebars until her fingers turned white, and the feeling seeped away. With a deep breath, she smiled at the sun-dappled road ahead. She didn’t dwell on the fact that her house—and all that remained of her life before the war—was now the governing administrator’s offices. She only hoped Mr. White at the bakery could make her a sandwich for the road.

   Administrator Peter Graft puffed his chest with pride as he toured the new premises. Securing the Stewart house had been quite a piece of luck, and he was confident that his new offices were now the finest in the state. He explored the master bedroom upstairs, imagining it as a lounge or smoking room where he could entertain his superiors. He went to the window to admire the view of the countryside, but when he drew back the curtains, the smug expression vanished from his face.

   A black sedan, trimmed in chrome and glistening like a beetle, rolled right into the middle of the courtyard where the Administrator's men were unloading. Graft's throat felt tight. He wiped his sweating palms on his blue jacket and paced the room. If he had any question about exactly who was paying him a visit, his men's reaction removed all doubt. All at once, they dropped whatever they were carrying and stood at attention.

  “Attention! Inquestor present!”

  A man stepped from the car and straightened his impeccably tailored black uniform. He scanned the courtyard, and suddenly his head jerked up towards the house. Graft stumbled back out of sight. He had no idea what an inquestor was doing here, but he knew better than to keep his guest waiting. Breathing hard, he wiped his receding hair back and went down to meet him.

   Inquestors were the New American Republic’s response to the civil unrest that ripped across the country after the 1932 election. Distinguished by their black high officer’s uniforms and the silver catamount insignia on their shoulder, they prowled communities everywhere, working above the law to root out anyone who flouted the NAR’s authority. Some of the most notorious insurrectionists were concealed within NAR ranks, and Graft dearly hoped that his impulsive property purchase didn’t put him under suspicion. Nothing could save him if an inquestor had him in his sights.

  Those jealous bastards up at the Pearisville office must have called him, he thought to himself. I bet they thought if they couldn’t have the Stewart place, nobody should. I’ll show them! I’ll deal with the Inky first and then oh, I’ll show them good!

   By the time Graft made it downstairs, the officer was already in the foyer, examining the grand room around him.

  “Inquestor!” He tried to sound cheerful, but his voice trembled. “Welcome! I’m Administrator Peter Graft.”

   The man turned on his heels. He was a little smaller and much younger than any high officer Graft had ever seen. He couldn’t have been any older than twenty-five, and mischief glittered in his dark eyes.

  “Inquestor Marcus Carver. Pleased to meet you.” He dropped his rigid posture and shook Graft’s hand as if they were old friends. “I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time. Your boys look busy outside.”

   The Administrator was caught off guard by the Inquestor’s greeting, and he had to clear his throat. “I apologize. I’m afraid we’re in the middle of a move, and our offices are not operational at the moment.”

   “Oh, I understand. I won't take up much of your time.” Carver gestured with an open hand to the parlor. “I only have a few questions. Before we begin, would you mind if we sat down together?”

   “Of course not, Inquestor,” he chuckled nervously. “After you.”

   Grinning, Carver gripped Graft’s shoulder and forced him towards the doorway with a hard slap to the back. “No, Administrator. Af
ter you. I insist!”

  The Inquestor followed closely, staying just out of Graft’s peripheral vision as he led them to a set of couches arranged before the grand fireplace. Instead of sitting down, Carver glanced inside the fireplace and ran his fingers along the green marble mantle before taking a deep breath. He seemed disappointed.

   “Have you been here before, Inquestor?” Graft asked, sitting down.

   “Yes.” Carver folded his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels. “Oh, yes, I certainly have. Did you say you just bought this building?”

   “I... did not, sir.”

   “Someone outside must have said it,” he shrugged. “Did you buy it today?”

   “Just now, sir.”

   Everything about the Inquestor’s attitude betrayed his frustration. “It's a shame this house will be turned into offices. This room was so nice for taking coffee.” He went to where an elegant sideboard used to stand between two picture windows and prodded the indents in the rug with his polished shoe. “I don't suppose you've got the means to fix coffee yet, do you?”

  The Administrator was about to call for some, but Carver held up his hand.

  “Don't trouble yourself unless you’ve already got a pot going. I was just reminiscing about the last time I visited here.” He sat across from Graft and shouted in surprise when the deep cushions of the new couch nearly swallowed him. “What a gas!” he cackled. “The lady of the house made such a fine cup of coffee, wouldn't you say?”

   “I wouldn't know,” came Graft’s guarded reply. “She didn't offer me any and hardly seemed old enough to know how to brew it properly herself.”

   Carver's expression clouded in confusion as he attempted to sit up straight. “I was talking about the girl's mother, Caroline Stewart.”

   “Never heard of her.” Graft shook his head. “My dealings were with the girl only.”

   “Didn't she seem a bit young to be quite so... affluent?” Carver swept his arm across the room. His gaze caught on something high up on the opposite end of the parlor, and Graft had to turn to see what captured his attention. It was an oil painting of the Stewart family wearing their Sunday best in that very parlor. The father was an imposing man who stood protectively behind his seated wife and the cherubic baby girl in her lap. Though his expression was fairly neutral, Graft got the impression that he was glaring at him, almost as if he was daring him to disrupt the happy life he had made for himself.