Lily

by Michael Thomas Ford

  “I won’t ask again,” Ash told her. “Once you refuse, the door remains closed.”

  Lily shut her eyes and breathed in. The air smelled like burnt sugar, dirt, and grease. She missed the scent of the sea. But she couldn’t go back. Not yet. She had come there for a purpose, and she had yet to fulfill it.

  “I’m certain,” she said.

  “Very well,” said Ash.

  The Wheel in the Sky turned once more, and they descended like the sun setting behind the world.

  T W E N T Y

  BABA YAGA SAT IN front of the dusty, cracked mirror and contemplated her reflection. It had been many years since she had seen her own face, apart from the occasional glimpse in a lake or on the blade of a knife. Once she had been delighted to find a spoon winking at her, until she realized it was her own eye cradled in the polished bowl. Other than those few occasions, she had quite forgotten what she looked like.

  It’s no wonder they scream, she thought as she considered her features. Her nose strived mightily to reach her chin, and crooked first to one side and then the other. The chin it came near to meeting was itself gloriously warted; her teeth were arranged like mossy stumps in a clearing. One earlobe was missing a jagged chunk, lost, as she recalled, to a fox, or possibly the sword of a seventh son who soon found himself made into a stew without even the consolation of receiving a kiss from the princess he had come to rescue. (The princess had made a very satisfactory sausage.) Her hair contained bits and pieces of her beloved forest: twigs, several fir cones, a toadstool, feathers, and three salamanders who were forever singeing her eyebrows with their fires. As to her eyes, she supposed the less inventive storytellers would compare them to new moons, stones, or bottomless wells. Really, they were simply black, which as far as she was concerned was more than good enough.

  She was in the clowns’ dressing tent. Arrayed in front of her were the pots of makeup they used to paint their faces. She took one up, opened it, and dipped a dirt-streaked fingernail into it. She applied the nail to her skin, leaving behind a smear of white. It reminded her of being shat on by a finch, which amused her, and so she added more.

  It took two whole pots to cover her face. One for her nose alone. She then added red spots to her cheeks and mouth, and blue around her eyes. She was admittedly careless about the whole undertaking, and the finished result was ghastly. She cackled happily and grinned, mimicking the expressions of the clowns.

  Horrible, she thought, and cackled again.

  Strewn about the tabletop were any number of the paper flowers the clowns handed out to visitors to the carnival. Baba Yaga picked up a white rose and twirled it in her fingers. She mimed presenting it to someone — a child, perhaps.

  “The flower of salvation,” she said. But her heart wasn’t in it, and she sounded insincere. She tossed the flower aside with a sigh. She was bored.

  A man came in and sat down at the table next to her.

  “I haven’t seen you before, have I?” he asked.

  “I rather doubt it,” said Baba Yaga. “But perhaps. Are you the youngest of three brothers? Did you catch the firebird and pluck its tail feather? Were you born out of a black hen’s egg to a mother far too old to bear a child?”

  The man looked at the empty paint pots. “No.”

  “Well then,” said Baba Yaga. “It’s unlikely.”

  The man found a pot that still contained white paint and began to make up his face. “Is this your first time with the Caravan?” he asked.

  Baba Yaga was pleased to have discovered a conversation starter. “Yes. And you?”

  “Second,” said the man. “I did it for a summer two years ago. Then I got into some trouble in Florida and spent some time on the farm. When I got out, I looked up Everyman and he gave me my job back.”

  “How benevolent,” Baba Yaga remarked.

  The man — now almost a clown — frowned. “I don’t know anything about his politics. But a job’s a job. And the preacher, he don’t care about what you done before, you know?”

  “I do now,” said Baba Yaga. She leaned over. “Just what is it you did?”

  The man applied some red to his lips. “This and that. You know how it is.”

  “I don’t,” Baba Yaga said. “Tell me.”

  The man finished applying his makeup. “Sometimes it’s better not to know too much about a person,” he said. “Prevents misunderstandings.”

  Baba Yaga shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  “We all gots our stories,” the man continued after a moment. “The Reverend only hires men with stories. I’m sure you have one too, just like me.”

  “Oh,” said Baba Yaga with a wide grin. “Yes, of course. I’m practically a book.”

  The man pointed a finger at her. “Exactly what I mean. And I bet you wouldn’t want no one reading your book now, would you?”

  Baba Yaga snorted. It seemed the only answer that wouldn’t be contrary.

  “That’s what I like about the Reverend,” the man continued. “He shuts that book and don’t make you open it again. You just go on and start a new one.”

  He was finished with his makeup. His face floated in the mirror beside Baba Yaga’s.

  “Now we might as well be brothers,” he said. “That’s another thing I like about this job. There’s a hundred other men who look just like you. Makes a guy feel part of something.”

  Baba Yaga winked. “And it makes it difficult to know who to blame,” she said. She picked up a paper flower and extended it toward the man. “The flower of salvation?”

  The man took it from her. “Amen, brother,” he said. “Amen.”

  T W E N T Y - O N E

  ON THE FINAL NIGHT before leaving each town, Reverend Everyman held a baptism for the newly-saved. For these occasions he had built a large tank, complete with a glass window in the front, which would be wheeled onstage and placed beneath a spotlight. Steps were built into each side, and the unbaptized lined up on stage right where, one at a time, they descended into the tank, where the Reverend awaited them dressed in a white suit.

  Unlike the preacher, the participants were unclothed. This was required because, according to Everyman, it was imperative that sinners enter into the waters of salvation as newborn children, having discarded their sinful outer selves in preparation for being cleansed by the healing touch of God. And so those awaiting their turns stood, hands covering themselves as best they could, until it was time for the clowns to hand them down.

  Once in the tank, the man, woman, or child would stand while the Reverend said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” He would then ask three questions.

  “Do you admit your sins before God?”

  “Do you ask his forgiveness?”

  “Do you accept his gift of everlasting life?”

  Once the acceptable answers were given, the sinner was then dipped backward, supported on Everyman’s arm, into the water. After a moment, they were raised up and helped up the stairs on the opposite side of the tank, where they were wrapped in a white robe and escorted off stage.

  Two nights after seeing the witch’s daughter being marked, Lily sat in the big top and watched as the baptism unfolded. It had been a typically successful week of preaching, and the stage was crowded with the soon-to-be-reborn. She found it interesting to watch them as they waited, particularly the families. Her eyes were drawn to a mother, father, and three boys who were standing amidst a group of single bodies. The smallest boy, five or six years old, stood with his hands on his hips, craning his neck to watch those going before him get plunged into the water. Each time one ascended the far side, he lifted his little hands and shouted “Hallelujah!” along with the Reverend, jumping up and down excitedly. His older brothers, twice his age, showed no such enthusiasm, covering themselves with their big, bony hands and looking down at their feet. Their parents, standing behind them, had their eyes closed and their hands lifted up.

&nb
sp; Throughout the baptism, a choir arranged on risers behind the tank sang hymns. The choirs were invited from local churches in each town, and being asked to perform for the Holy Gospel Caravan was a much-coveted honor amongst the singers, each of whom gave their all for the Reverend’s shows. While during the week they sang all manner of hymns and spirituals, during the baptism they all sang the same song. As Everyman asked his three questions, they hummed wordlessly, but as each dedicant was raised from the baptismal waters, they sang:

  “As I went down in the river to pray,

  studying about the good old way.

  Who shall wear the starry crown?

  Good Lord, show me the way.”

  The choice was deliberate. Along with being clothed in a white robe, each person exiting the tank received a crown. Made of paper to which shiny gold stars were glued, they were piled in a bushel basket off to one side. The clown assisting people down the stairs to the stage placed one on each head. They sparkled under the lights.

  Lily knew that both the robes and crowns were returned once the freshly-baptized were backstage, although they were allowed to keep the crowns if they deposited a sufficient number of coins in the collection box under the watchful eye of one of the clowns. Many did. Lily wondered if they wore them once they were home.

  Although she found the singing uplifting, the actual baptisms frightened her. They were too much like drowning. Sometimes the person dunked beneath the water would panic, thrashing about and pressing their hands against the glass until they were rescued by Everyman raising them up again. Occasionally, particularly with the smaller children, they would simply swim across, limbs paddling like a dog’s, while the people watching from the stands applauded.

  Despite the feelings it roused in her, Lily watched each baptism closely, her eyes fixed on the glass to see if she could witness the exact moment when grace was bestowed by Everyman’s god and the sinner was transformed. Was it when the water closed over the head? When the Reverend proclaimed the hallelujah that accompanied each emergence? She didn’t know.

  She saw joy in the faces of those exiting the tank. And there were many tears. Still, she wondered when and how the change occurred. She never questioned the use of water. Everyone knew that water could dispel any number of troublesome things. So it made sense to her that it would be involved, particularly as the other element useful for such things — fire — would be unsuitable. But the mechanics of the thing eluded her.

  Only once had she seen someone resist. A girl of four or five. At first, when she refused to enter the tank of her own accord, Lily (and everyone else) had assumed that she was simply afraid of the water. But then her mother had attempted to carry her in, and the girl had begun screaming and beating her mother about the face. Even the Reverend had been unable to control her, and had ended up with a bloody nose after one of her kicking feet landed a blow to his face. Then the choir had ceased its singing, and he had ordered the mother out of the tank. Lily, staring at the pink cloud that had formed in the water, had been both horrified and somewhat thrilled by the disobedience. Everyman, after the few minutes it took to stop the bleeding, made a comment about sparing the rod spoiling the child, and then carried on.

  The baptism services went on for a long time, and to keep the audience alert, the clowns passed out cotton candy. Lily had developed a taste for it, and now she sat holding a paper cone topped by a bright blue puff of spun sugar. As she watched the procession of people enter and exit the tank, she picked off bits of the fluff and put them in her mouth, where they dissolved on her tongue.

  As the choir serenaded him, the little boy she had been watching clambered up the stairs and, before the clown could assist him, flung himself into the tank. His brothers, waiting their turns, shook their heads, while his parents beamed. The Reverend, laughing, caught the boy up in his arms and lifted him up so that everyone could see his smiling face.

  “Do you admit your sins before God?” he asked.

  The boy shrieked and trembled.

  “Do you ask his forgiveness?”

  “Yes!” He clapped his little hands.

  “Do you accept his gift of everlasting life?”

  “Yes!”

  Before the boy could say anything else, Everyman plunged him into the water, shouting, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!”

  Lily, who was watching the boy through the glass, saw him open his mouth. Bubbles streamed out. He appeared to be laughing. Was this, she wondered, the moment she had been waiting to see? Even now, was the preacher’s god performing a miracle on the tiny believer? She strained forward, the ball of cotton candy she had just plucked off sticking her fingers together.

  The preacher lifted the boy from the water, and the choir broke into song. But instead of joyously splashing to the other side, the child lay limply in Everyman’s arms. The Reverend looked down at him, perplexed. He jounced the boy, whose mouth opened and water trickled out. A momentary expression of panic flashed across the preacher’s face. “This child has been overcome by the Spirit!”

  He handed the boy to one of the clowns, whispering something inaudible to the audience. The clown took the child and hurried off into the shadows of the stage.

  Lily looked at the boy’s family. His brothers were looking at one another with frightened expressions. His parents, however, were raising their hands and calling “Amen!” along with the choir. The mother urged one of the older boys forward and up the steps.

  Lily slipped out of the stands, dropping what was left of her cotton candy in a trash barrel as she exited the big top. She walked around it to the back of the tent, where several trucks were parked in preparation for the tear-down that would come as soon as the show was over. There she discovered five clowns standing around the body of the boy, who had been laid down on the grass.

  He wasn’t moving. His eyes, which were open, stared up at the sky, as if he were searching for the face of God in the stars. His chest did not rise.

  Lily, looking at him, saw her father lying on the beach. Before she could think better of it, she rushed to the boy’s side, dropping to her knees in the grass and snatching up his hand. It was cold. But she wasn’t in search of a pulse. She wished to see if this was indeed his death.

  She saw him as a man of fifty-seven. He was lying in a forest while three hounds fended off a bear that was attempting to crush his head with its teeth. The bear had already mortally wounded him, tearing a gash in his belly with its claws. He in turn had shot the bear in the shoulder with his rifle, but now he was out of bullets. He would die within a few minutes.

  But if that was his ordained death, what was the one he was currently in the midst of? Did it mean that someone would save him? Would his god perform a miracle? Lily looked at the clowns, who had drawn back from her and were staring impotently at one another. They would do nothing. The boy’s only hope was her. But should she save him, only for him to die this other, more horrible death? Would it not be kinder to let him go?

  She was inclined to think so. But then she considered all of the things the boy might experience before those final moments in the forest. Love. Children. The untold small graces and delights that comprise a life. Dying now would rob him of those things.

  She bent and placed her mouth on his, pushing breath into his lungs. Her hands pressed on his chest, as she had once seen Alex Henry do to a man who had been rejected by his merfolk lover and cast back onto the beach. She repeated the actions while the boy’s death as a man replayed itself over and over in her head.

  The boy sputtered. Water spewed from his lips, and he blinked his eyes. Lily rocked back on her heels and watched as he coughed again, then turned his head to look at her.

  “Am I redeemed?” he asked. “Did I get a crown?”

  Lily nodded. “Someone will bring it to you,” she said.

  Then the clowns were there, rushing to pick the boy up. She knew they would return him to the big top, and that Everyman would celebrate his tr
iumphant revival. The Lord would be praised, and more hymns would be sung. He would indeed get his starry crown and white robe, and for the rest of his life he would believe that the Holy Spirit had filled him and raised him from the dead. Even at the moment of his death, he would look at the bear that killed him and see an angel.

  Lily got to her feet. Exhausted, she wanted only to go back to the wagon and collapse. But a need for answers took her back into the big top, where she waited behind the stage for the show to be over. When Everyman, his white suit streaming with the holy waters of baptism, finally left the stage and retreated to his private tent, she followed him.

  “The clowns told me what you did,” he said, allowing her to accompany him.

  “He was dying,” she informed him as he walked behind a large wardrobe trunk that stood in one corner and began to remove his sodden clothing. “But I saw another death for him, and so I saved him from this one.”

  The Reverend laughed. “You mean God saved him.” He looked at her from over the top of the trunk as he took a towel and dried himself off. “You were merely his instrument.”

  Lily supposed this was true, and so she said nothing to contradict him. Instead, she asked, “Did you know he would live?”

  Everyman took up a comb and began smoothing his hair down. “Of course,” he told her. “It was all God’s plan. Did you see how the people’s spirits were lifted up when the boy returned?”

  It was true. The crowd, seeing the little boy smiling and wearing his crown of stars, had raised their hands and joined the choir in singing a song called “Washed by the Blood of Jesus.” It had ended with the boy, seated on his father’s shoulders and waving, leading a procession of worshippers out of the tent and into the night.

  Lily was happy to have played a part in whatever plan God had for the boy, but other questions remained. “Can the witch’s daughter be saved by baptism?” she asked.