Lily

by Michael Thomas Ford

  Martha turned and walked back to the curtains, disappearing between them. A moment later, they parted again and a man came out. He was dressed in a suit and tie, and appeared to be perfectly normal. Then he stepped into the light, and the crowd gasped, for where his mouth should have been there was nothing but an expanse of smooth skin.

  Reverend Everyman gestured to the man’s face. “Here you see again the hideous effects of sin,” he said. “In Edward’s case, the sin of lying. Year after year he told lies — to his friends, to his employer, to his family. He gloried in his ability to bend the truth to suit his purposes. He never listened to the warnings of those who tried to help him, until one day he woke up and saw that the evil he had been speaking had eaten away his tongue and caused his lips to close forever.”

  Edward looked at his feet as Everyman pointed at him. “A vicious tongue,” he said, “is fueled by sin. And look where it leads. How many of you are guilty of harboring Edward’s sin inside yourselves?”

  Throughout the tent, Lily could see women and men weeping, as though seeing on Edward’s face a reflection of their own misery. She felt a sense of horror surrounding her and closing in as she thought of what had befallen the two people she’d just seen. Her mind churned with thoughts of what else might be possible in a world where people were disfigured for their weaknesses.

  Everyman ushered Edward to the back of the stage, then faced the crowd again. “And now,” he said, “I will show you the saddest sight of all. A child. Nothing but a young girl. A young girl who should be overflowing with innocence.” He opened the curtain and led onto the stage a girl. She was small, and she was naked. Her skin seemed to be covered in all manner of strange symbols done in black. Even from her perch high up in the bleachers, Lily thought the girl was the most wonderful thing she had ever seen.

  The girl stood on stage, trying to cover herself with her hands while Everyman walked around her. “Look at her,” he trumpeted. “See how she is marked by sin. You may be wondering how one so young, so small, could be already stained in such a way.” He waited for the crowd to imagine all sorts of terrible pasts for the girl before continuing. “I will tell you how. It’s because before her birth her mother gave in to temptation of the worst kind.”

  The crowd began to buzz, as everyone whispered amongst themselves, trying to figure out what the mother’s sin was. Everyman let the expectation build until the tent was humming, then he continued with his story. “I found this girl during my travels over the seas. She cannot speak. She is uncivilized. She was living like a wild animal. When I inquired after her, I was told that her mother was a powerful witch.”

  At the word “witch,” there was more talking in the tent, as people grew more and more excited. Lily found herself shrinking back against the bleachers. She had known some witches in the village, and although all of them had been wise and kind, she knew that there were also witches who practiced a dark magic.

  The Reverend held up a hand to silence the crowd. “I was told that the woman had found pleasure with the Devil himself,” he continued, bringing even more gasps from the audience. “The child had been born in the manner in which you see her now, forever marked as the product of an unholy union. I found her mother, and demanded of her that she give me the child, that I might save her soul. But she would not listen. She worked magic against me. Said spells. Made charms. She sent demons to torment me in my sleep.”

  The girl was staring out into the crowd. Despite her shame, Lily sensed in her a defiance, as though she were angry at being displayed before the audience. The girl seemed not to be listening to the words flowing from Everyman’s lips. She appeared to be looking out onto a world of her own, one in which no one pointed at her or ridiculed her. It made Lily sad to see her.

  “I fought her,” he said. “I fought her with prayer and with the power of the Lord, until she fell silent and was no more.”

  He grabbed the girl by the shoulder and tried to turn her around. When he touched her, she lashed out, kicking him in the shin and spitting. The crowd recoiled in fear. Everyman struggled with the girl, attempting to restrain her by holding her wrists. Still she kicked and cursed him, her feet swinging in arcs that were cut off as she connected with his body.

  Two clowns ran onto the stage and grabbed the girl. Shoving her roughly, they pushed her back into the curtains, where she was swallowed up. The Reverend dusted himself off, picked up his fallen microphone, and addressed the stunned crowd.

  “As you can see—” He smiled, tight-lipped. “—the child is still under the control of the demons visited upon her soul by her mother. Let this be a lesson to those of you with children that your sin may trickle down into the hearts of your young ones.”

  Throughout the audience, Lily saw mothers and fathers put arms around their children, pulling them tight. Several of the children had begun to cry after seeing the girl onstage biting and kicking as she was led away, and now their parents attempted to comfort them. Lily thought of her own mother, who had refused to comfort her when she most needed it, and wondered where she was at that moment. She began to scan the audience, looking for a sign of her, but her attention was quickly drawn back to the Reverend Silas Everyman as he leapt off the stage and began walking around the tent.

  He made his way to the people sitting in the first few rows. As he neared, people began to reach out their hands to him and to call his name. He stopped and put his hand to his head. “Yes, Lord,” he said. “Yes, I hear you. You say to ask for Amy? Is that right, Lord? Amy?”

  He looked into the sea of waving hands. “Is there an Amy here?” he asked.

  A woman stood up, waving her arms and yelling, “Praise Jesus!” She was very young, but as she pushed her way into the aisle, Lily could see that her left leg was encased in a metal brace. She limped through the dust as she made her way to Reverend Everyman, creating a small cloud of dirt that swirled about her feet when she stopped. She stood before him, wringing her hands and covering her mouth.

  The Reverend laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Amy,” he said. “The Lord tells me that your leg is weak, that it is twisted and you cannot walk.” Amy nodded her head, tears flowing freely down her cheeks and falling into the dirt.

  “It has been this way since you were a child?”

  Amy nodded again. She was saying “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” over and over as Everyman held her. His eyes were closed, and Lily saw his lips moving silently.

  “Do you believe in the power of Jesus, Amy?” the Reverend asked. Amy put her hands in the air and yelled, “Yes, Lord. I believe.”

  The Reverend put his hand on her forehead. “Lord,” he cried out. “Send your power into this believer. And if she truly believes, Lord, then heal her twisted leg.”

  He gave a slight push, and Amy crumpled to the floor, her useless leg stretched out to one side. Lily watched as several people rushed to her side and began to fan her face. After a minute, Amy opened her eyes and looked around, as though she’d been sleeping and had no idea where she was. Two men helped her to her feet, where she stood swaying slightly.

  “Now let her go,” the Reverend said.

  The two men stepped away, and Lily held her breath, waiting for Amy to fall once more. Instead, she took a tentative step, then another. After she’d walked three steps, she undid the brace and it fell away from her body with a clatter. Then the woman took several more steps.

  “She is healed!” Everyman yelled into the microphone. “The power of Jesus Christ the Lord has made her whole!”

  The entire crowd rose to its feet to thunderous applause and shouts of “Amen.” They all watched as Amy, tears streaming down her face, walked around the perimeter of the tent. When she returned to where Everyman stood, beaming, she fell to her knees, thanking him.

  He motioned for her to rise, and the same two clowns who had taken away the girl led her out of the tent. The Reverend moved on to another row of waving people, again closing his eyes and thinking. “Is there a Peter here?” h
e asked, pointing to a group of people holding up signs that read JESUS IS LORD.

  An elderly man stepped forward, helped along by a younger man. “This is my father,” said the young man. “His name is Peter.”

  Everyman stepped up to the pair of men and laid his hand on the older one’s head. “Your father is deaf,” he said, and the young man nodded.

  The Reverend closed his eyes again. “Lord, remove the stoppage from this man’s ears. Remove it that he might hear your words, Lord.”

  The old man staggered back and was caught up in the arms of his son, who righted him again. He looked around, bewildered, and then clasped his hands to his ears as if in pain.

  Silas Everyman took the old man’s hands in his own and pried them from his head. The man winced. “Can you hear me, Peter?” the Reverend asked. The man nodded his head, looking around in awe as the crowd erupted into bursts of applause.

  “Have you ever heard a voice before, Peter?” the Reverend asked.

  The old man shook his head. “No,” he said in a soft voice. “No.” He began to cry, and his son put his arms around his father. “Thank you, Jesus,” the younger man cried, hugging his father tightly. “Thank you, Jesus.” Then the two escorts came and led them away.

  As she watched the Reverend move throughout the tent, laying his hands on one person after another, Lily found herself wishing he would call out her name. She didn’t know how he knew which people to pull from the crowd, but each time he spoke, she hoped it would be to call her forth. She wanted to feel his hands upon her head, filling her with whatever power it was that healed the people he touched.

  She watched for a long time as Silas Everyman went throughout the crowd, calling out names and healing those who came. She saw blind eyes opened, crippled legs walk, and dying children brought to their feet red-cheeked and healthy. Wherever the Reverend went, healing flowed from his fingers.

  After lifting a man in a wheelchair to his feet and sending him on his way, the Reverend returned to the stage. Although many called for him to come back and touch those whom he had not called, he climbed the steps and picked up his microphone. Lily’s heart fell as she realized she would not be chosen.

  “Thank you, Jesus!” He lifted his hands up over his head. “Thank you for sending your healing power to these people!”

  He pointed out over the crowd of standing people. “There are some of you who are still hurting,” he said. “Some of you who wonder why your names were not called.”

  Lily listened carefully to Everyman’s words. She sensed he was speaking to her.

  “Some of you here tonight do not yet know the Lord Jesus Christ,” he said. “And until you do know him, and take him as your savior, you cannot be healed. Like those unfortunate people you saw up on this stage earlier, you are still held captive by sin.”

  Lily thought about the bearded woman, the man with no mouth, and the naked girl. They all had looked ashamed of what they were. She herself felt ashamed. Ashamed that she had allowed the girl inside her to have her way. Ashamed that she was unable to stop her. Ashamed that she had killed her father.

  “Tonight I ask those of you who wish to know the Lord Jesus to come forward. Feel the voice of Jesus calling you to come to him.”

  Just then, lines of clowns entered the tent. Each was dressed like the one she had seen earlier, the one who had tried to give her a flower. They began to move throughout the crowd, holding out their hands.

  “Take the hand of one of my messengers,” Everyman was saying. “Take a hand and come to Jesus.”

  Lily watched as throughout the tent people rose and grasped the offered hands of the men with painted faces. Many were weeping as the clowns led them out of the tent.

  “Yes,” cried the Reverend. “Answer the call. Stand up and come to the Lord.”

  One of the white-faced men was climbing the bleachers towards Lily. She watched him move up the rows, holding out his hands to those around him. His painted smile beamed ceaselessly as he worked his way through the people. He was only a few rows in front of her.

  “Do you seek the healing power of Jesus?” Everyman shouted. “Do you desire an end to your suffering? Then come.”

  Lily stood up. Her body seemed to move on its own, and she found herself rising to her feet. Seeing her, the clown turned and reached out his hand. As Lily moved forward to take it, the people around her patted her on the back. “Good girl,” they said. “Go to Jesus.”

  When the man’s hand closed around hers, Lily saw his death. She saw him in an alley in winter, curled up with an empty bottle at his side. Yet she gripped his fingers even more tightly as he led her down the rows of bleachers, onto the dirt floor, and out of the tent.

  T W E L V E

  “CHRIST, THIS BASTARD gets heavier every night.”

  Baba Yaga held tightly to one of the four ropes that lowered the platform upon which Reverend Silas Everyman descended to the stage. To her the weight was nothing, but the other three handlers were groaning with the effort of keeping an even tension on the guide lines.

  “Letting him down is the easy part,” said another of the men. “Just wait until we have to haul him up again at the end of the night.”

  When the platform was down and the Reverend had begun his performance, they let go of the ropes and went about other business. Baba Yaga stayed where she was, in an area just behind the curtain that separated the stage from the back of the tent. There she could hear every word spoken by the preacher and watch the many people who scurried about keeping the show going.

  Thanks to the fortune teller, she also now had a better understanding of Jesus, and so when Everyman invoked his name, she listened. In her lifetime she had heard many gods invoked. Sometimes they came, but more often they didn’t. She waited to see what this one would do. She felt nothing, but the crowd on the other side of the curtain seemed to believe that he had come among them. She considered the possibility that he revealed himself only to the devout. There were some who did that, although in her experience they were generally tricksters masquerading as something more, afraid to show themselves to anyone who might be skeptical of their true nature.

  “Well, it’s showtime.”

  Baba Yaga looked at the person standing beside her. It was unmistakably a woman’s voice she’d heard, yet the presence of an impressive beard on the speaker’s face suggested otherwise. Having whiskers herself, however, Baba Yaga was less concerned with this than she might have been.

  She watched as the woman went onstage, then listened with interest as the preacher described her alleged sins. When the woman passed back through the curtain, Baba Yaga asked, “Is any of it true?”

  The woman laughed. “Only if you believe a child is capable of sin,” she said. “My beard began growing when I was only four.”

  “Why do you let him say those things about you?”

  “It’s this or Bingham & Broadley’s Circus of Mystery,” the woman answered. “And he offered me more than they did.”

  Baba Yaga said nothing. She watched as others passed through the curtain and onto the stage, listened as their failings were enumerated by Everyman. She heard the murmurings and gasps of the crowd, and felt the change in the air when the preacher once again uttered the name of Jesus.

  Yes, there was something here. A presence. Something powerful conjured up by the man commanding the stage. Baba Yaga was impressed by his abilities. But what he had called into the tent remained a mystery to her. He named it Jesus. Lord. God. But it was none of those things. It was something both less and more.

  “What are you?” Baba Yaga whispered. “Why won’t you show yourself to me?”

  She waited for an answer. None came. But Baba Yaga could wait. She had outwaited mountains and kingdoms.

  And so she seated herself on a wooden crate and waited until it was time to pull the ropes again.

  T H I R T E E N

  OUTSIDE, THE AIR WAS cooler, and Lily realized how hot she had felt inside the tent. It was as though h
er skin were on fire. As the clown led her away from the big top, she heard Reverend Everyman’s voice muffled by the sounds of cheering. As soon as she could, she let go of the messenger’s hand and wiped her palm on her dress, as though somehow that would wash away the vision of his death, which remained in her mind like dirt on her skin.

  Without a word, she followed him into another, smaller tent. This one was filled with tables and chairs. The men in clown suits sat on one side of the tables, while across from them sat the people they had led from the meeting. Everyone spoke very quietly, and the air crackled with whispers so that it sounded like the summer night right before a thunderstorm.

  The man led Lily to a table in a corner of the tent and sat down. She took the chair opposite him, fixed her gaze on his whitened face with its large circles around the eyes, and waited for him to speak. Now that she was away from the crowd, she felt a little bit silly, and didn’t know what was expected of her.

  The man rested his hands on the table and smiled, his big red mouth curling up like the edges of a dying rose petal. Despite his smile, his eyes were dull, and Lily found herself wondering what events in his life would take him from the world of the tents to his violent death on an abandoned street.

  “Why did you answer the call?” he said flatly.

  Lily thought for a moment. She really didn’t know why she had done it. When Everyman had been speaking, he seemed to be speaking directly to her. He seemed to Lily to know exactly how she felt inside her heart. But now that she was seated across from someone asking her to explain what she’d felt, she found that she couldn’t. She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said.

  The man looked around and sighed. “Is it because you’re a sinner?” he asked without interest. “Do you feel the touch of sin in your life?”

  Lily nodded. “Yes,” she said simply. “I’m a sinner.” While she couldn’t tell the man why she felt this, she knew that it was true.