Show of Wonders Read online

  I wonder if she’s nervous, Bianca thought. Or is she bored?

  She watched as Papa and Mickey approached the old man. How strange to see her meticulous father looking disheveled in the wrinkled white shirt and jodhpurs he’d worn the night before.

  “Good heavens!” Papa cried. “It really is an elephant!”

  “Yes,” the old man said. His voice was clear and carried in the morning air. “She’s a great lady, and you may call her Lady. Are you the leader of these people?”

  Bianca felt a flash of pride as Papa straightened his broad shoulders and nodded. “I am.”

  “Then it is with you I must speak.”

  Papa moved closer to the old man and bent his head, for the old man was not tall.

  As the men talked the elephant’s trunk kept moving, as if exploring the territory within reach. It snuffled the old man’s shoulder, then moved on to remove Mickey’s cap from his head.

  “Hey!” he cried, snatching it back. The corners of the elephant’s wide mouth curled up in a smile.

  “All right,” Papa said to the old man. “We’ll do it.”

  He turned to Mickey.

  “Send some men to get the animal performers. Tell them I need them here in five minutes.”

  While they waited, Bianca moved closer until she stood alongside Mickey, who was deep in conversation with Papa about Lady. If Lady reached out with her trunk again, Bianca might be able to touch her.

  Hello, hello, Bianca thought. I’m here, Lady. I want to be your friend.

  She dug into the pockets of her riding jacket where she normally kept treats for the animals. She found nothing except a few old peanuts.

  Still, having something to offer was better than nothing.

  She stretched out her hand, palm up, fingers flat, so the peanuts could be easily seen. Sure enough, Lady’s trunk swung in her direction. Bianca grinned, delighted, as the delicate, probing upper tip of Lady’s trunk, almost like an extended finger, grasped the peanuts and plucked them away. The trunk curled under, Lady’s mouth opened, and the peanuts disappeared.

  Then Lady smiled at her. Bianca was certain of it.

  Bianca smiled back.

  By now the animal performers were shuffling up. Some of them gaped when they saw the elephant. Others simply yawned, unimpressed.

  “What do you need, boss?” Fred, Leo the lion’s tamer, asked.

  “This gentleman’s name is Steward, and he’s asked that you all present yourselves to this elephant,” Papa replied.

  “Present ourselves? How exactly are we supposed to do that?”

  Papa turned to Steward. The old man said in his clear voice:

  “If you would kindly stand in a line, about five feet apart, the Lady will view each of you.”

  “Boss,” Bianca heard Mickey say in a low tone, “this is crazy. That elephant isn’t going to choose its own handler.”

  “I’ve seen too much of life to decide what’s crazy or not on the face of it, Mick. Let’s go along with it for now. Just think: an elephant! We’ve never had one. What a magnificent creature!”

  Then in a loud, ringing voice Papa called:

  “All right, folks! Line up!”

  The performers grumbled under their breath, but obediently shuffled into place.

  “You too, Mick,” Papa said. “He wants everyone who works with animals.”

  Mickey rolled his eyes but strolled to the end of the line, ten feet from Bianca.

  Steward said something to the elephant in a low voice that Bianca couldn’t quite hear. Lady flapped her ears, waved her trunk, then walked forward to stand only two yards from the first performer in line.

  This was Daphne, who worked with the beautiful white performing horses. She wore a fluffy yellow robe, which made her look like an enormous dandelion. Lady fixed a large topaz-colored eye on Daphne for a long moment while her trunk rose and fell, then rose and fell again. Finally, she took another step forward.

  The old man shook his head at Daphne, who frowned. Bianca couldn’t blame her.

  She probably hasn’t even had her coffee yet, and she’s already been rejected by an elephant!

  Lady continued down the line, pausing to examine each performer. Always, she moved on. Finally she reached Mickey, and, after what seemed to Bianca a briefer pause than the others, kept walking.

  “Humph,” Mickey said.

  “Well?” Papa asked Steward.

  “She doesn’t choose any of these,” he replied.

  Bianca thought Steward would stop Lady now, but he did not. Lady moved forward again, in Bianca’s direction.

  “Where’s she going now?” Bianca heard Papa ask, but he sounded far away.

  For Bianca’s heart was in her throat. Her pulse pounded in her ears. She stood, arms stretched out to either side, hands open in appeal, as if she could embrace the elephant. She called to Lady with everything she had in her heart. Her lips moved, although she never made a sound.

  And Lady came. The elephant stood before Bianca and flapped her ears. She nodded her huge head up and down. Her trunk waved this way and that, then reached out to snuffle Bianca’s shoulders.

  “What’s your name, lass?” Steward asked Bianca.

  Bianca told him. Steward smiled and said: “She’s chosen you. You are the reason we came here. She’s meant for you.”

  “What do you mean?” Bianca asked. “Are you giving her to me?”

  “No.” Steward’s face suddenly looked so stern that Bianca flinched. “She’s not mine to give. My task is only to aid her in her quest.”

  “What quest?” Bianca asked.

  “Why, the Lady’s quest to find you, of course.”

  At that moment Papa appeared by Steward’s side, asking what the elephant was doing.

  “She’s chosen this girl to be her companion,” Steward said, “and assist in her task.”

  “This girl?” Papa stared at Bianca, almost as though she were a stranger. “Do you mean my daughter? That can’t be!”

  “It can, and it is,” Steward said calmly. “The Lady has chosen Miss Bianca. She will have no other.”

  Bianca smiled at Papa and tried to appear calm, as though there was nothing unusual about being chosen by an elephant as a companion. Papa’s gaze turned to Lady, then to Steward, and then returned to Bianca.

  “Well,” he finally said, scratching his unshaved chin. “I suppose with Mickey’s help, you could manage. I mean, if you want to.”

  “Oh yes, Papa, I do!”

  He nodded, then turned to Steward.

  “You’ll teach her what she needs to know?”

  “Yes.” Steward smiled. “Those things she can learn from me.”

  “Well then,” Papa said. “Welcome to the Show of Wonders.”

  STARTING THAT DAY, Bianca’s world revolved around Lady.

  Some things Steward instructed her to do were familiar: Bianca already knew how to muck out a stockcar, for she’d helped Mickey take care of the animals for years. But Steward also showed her how to guide Lady with kind words and gentle taps on her leg or trunk, and how to rub ointment into any sore spots that developed on her wrinkled gray skin.

  Feeding Lady was a major task. Steward explained Lady’s favorite food was watermelon, but she could make do with almost any sort of fruit or vegetable.

  “Like Charlie the chimp?” Bianca asked.

  “Similar.” Steward smiled. He smiled often, making new wrinkles appear around his already deeply-creased eyes. Bianca wondered how old he was, although she knew it would be rude to ask. But she did ask him where he and Lady came from, and he said:

  “A country far from here—yet close to those who know of it. There, the Lady—” Steward always called Lady, ‘the Lady’ —“was trained in the service of a great High Prince, who has sent her here on his behalf to help people learn to see wonders.”

  Bianca wasn’t surprised to learn that Lady belonged to a Prince; she seemed quite regal in Bianca’s eyes.

  Steward slept in
Lady’s car, wrapped in blankets on clean straw. But when Bianca asked Papa if she could sleep there too, he put his foot down.

  “No my dear; it would be inappropriate.”

  Bianca thought he was being overprotective. But she knew better than to argue.

  On the morning of the fourth day, as they sat together inside the menagerie tent feeding Lady chunks of watermelon, Steward said:

  “I think you’re ready to help the Lady meet the people who come to see wonders.”

  So far Lady hadn’t appeared with the rest of the animals in the menagerie. Steward and Bianca spent mornings with her in the tent, hidden from curious onlookers who gathered along the perimeter of the show’s grounds. Before the midway opened prior to the matinee, they walked her back into her car to keep her away from the crowds who, Mickey was certain, would swarm her if given the opportunity.

  Bianca smiled at Steward. “I can’t wait to see the looks on the children’s faces. They’ll be so excited to see a real, live elephant!”

  “Yes,” Steward said. “There are many wonders in this world. Some are difficult to find, while others are hidden in plain view, but the Lady is here for all to see. And some, seeing her, will begin to see far more than they’ve ever seen before.”

  Bianca stood, wiping juice-damp hands on the apron she wore when she fed Lady. “We should tell Mickey right away. He’ll need to move some cages to make room.”

  But as she turned to go, she felt a flicker of anxiety. She stopped and asked:

  “Steward, will you be with us in the menagerie?”

  “If you wish.”

  “I do,” Bianca said. “I mean, what if something happens? To upset Lady?”

  “It’s possible,” Steward allowed. “But as you face this new task together, she’ll gain confidence from you. In this you guide her, lass, just as in other things, she’ll guide you.”

  Bianca considered this. “Do you mean,” she said, “if I’m calm, Lady will be calm?”

  “Yes,” Steward said. “And if you’re fearful or angry—well, the Lady will do as she must for love of you. Not all fear or anger is wrong, but remember: you must be aware of yourself, and the part you play in this Show of Wonders.”

  Bianca nodded. Steward always gave her new things to think about.

  Then she left the tent to search for Mickey.

  That afternoon, before the matinee, Lady appeared in the menagerie for the first time. Mickey insisted Bianca wrap a rope around one of Lady’s legs; the rope was tied to a stake, embedded in the ground “for reputation’s sake,” Mickey said. He didn’t want trouble with local authorities who might object to an unrestrained elephant in their midst.

  Bianca thought this silly. She was certain that if Lady wanted to, she could pull the stake from the ground.

  So it was up to Bianca to make sure she didn’t. Bianca stood beside Lady with her hand on Lady’s foreleg as Steward had taught her, while Steward sat on a three-legged stool behind them. Mickey stood two yards away, arms crossed over his wide chest, eyes glued to the rope he’d strung as a barrier between the crowds and Lady.

  Bianca stroked Lady’s leg as the children came, eyes wide and shining, to pluck a few peanuts from the bucket Bianca had placed on the other side of the rope and offer them to Lady. In their faces Bianca saw the same awe she felt when she looked at Lady.

  She smiled to herself, grateful for the part she’d been chosen to play in this Show of Wonders.

  BEYOND THE MIDWAY, at the very end of the sideshow, a much shorter line formed outside the entrance to Madame Mysterion the fortune-teller’s tent: mostly tired-looking old women—whatever beauty they’d once had worn away by long years of care and sorrow—and fresh-faced young ladies clinging to the arms of their beaux and giggling at the thought of what the future might hold. Would he ask her to marry him, or was he merely toying with her heart? Surely asking the fortune-teller for a glimpse of what would happen couldn’t hurt!

  The man called Hunter slouched just inside the tent’s entrance. His mistress Anasophia had ordered him to admit only one customer at a time, and ensure no one strayed from the chair on the near side of the table that stood before the full-length mirror. No one was allowed within arm’s length of the mirror.

  Sometimes the young men protested when Hunter refused to allow them to follow their young ladies inside, but when Hunter looked them in the eye they invariably fell silent and stood back.

  The cowards.

  And some minutes later, when their young ladies emerged from the dark tent, blinking and dazed by what they’d been told, even the slowest among them must have had some idea that something had changed, and that somehow things would never be quite the same.

  It was the hag in the mirror who told the fortunes, of course. The people of this world would never know the mirror was a portal, a forbidden gateway between two worlds. Nor would they realize the hag, once a beautiful queen in another world, was now imprisoned in the mirror, and that from her position in the gap between worlds beheld the very curve of time, as a bird in flight might see the curve of the horizon better than a man who walks the face of the earth.

  They were such fools, the people of this world, although theirs was a fat land, full of riches ready for the taking. And it seemed to Hunter that the witch who was his mistress was well on her way to taking them.

  In the four months since they’d come through the portal, his mistress had become the star of the Show of Wonders, the performer everyone most wanted to see. Not satisfied with the crowds’ adoration, she’d also wiled her way into the ringmaster’s affections. And now that she’d married him, her place in this world seemed secure.

  He was surprised to find himself feeling sorry for the ringmaster, for Hunter recognized genuine nobility when he met it. The ringmaster cared for his people; he worked long hours to ensure their needs were met. He wouldn’t allow even a paying customer to treat anyone on his show disrespectfully.

  Despite his naïveté, Hunter thought he might have been a good master.

  But it was too late for Hunter to serve a good master. Hunter had long ago fallen prey to the witch. And when in their own world she’d run afoul of her cousin, the queen, the witch had enchanted the mirror, creating the portal, and dragged Hunter through it with her. The queen, trying to stop them, was caught in the middle of the portal when the witch closed it behind them.

  Unable to return to her own world and unable to follow into this, the queen remained trapped in the mirror, helpless when the witch leached out her youth and beauty to use as her own. In their own world his mistress was the hag, prematurely aged by years spent pursuing dark powers. But here she was enchanting, for she wore the queen’s beauty as a woman might wear a stolen veil and gown to cover any faults of face and figure.

  It had been the witch’s idea to use the queen as a fortune-teller in the sideshow, displaying her prisoner to the common people of this strange world. Hunter wished his mistress hadn’t gone beyond imprisoning the queen to humiliating her as well, but he knew the witch was spiteful, jealous, and vindictive.

  He listened now as he heard the voice of his mistress’s prisoner in the mirror, answering questions put to her by a ragged old woman who looked part hag herself. He knew the entrapped queen had no choice but to answer, for as long as she remained in the mirror she also remained enthralled by the witch.

  He also knew that if he smashed the mirror the queen would be free to return to their world; but then he and his mistress would be trapped in this world forever. And the idea of being trapped here with the witch as his enemy chilled his very blood. He knew very well what she would do to him if he ever betrayed her.

  Chapter Three

  LADY NUDGED BIANCA’S arm with her trunk. Bianca stroked her. But as she bent to pick up a bucket, Lady nudged her again.

  “What is it, Lady? Do you need something?”

  For the past week Lady had appeared in the menagerie twice a day. She’d stood, trunk waving at the people eager to see her
, with what seemed to Bianca an amused, tolerant air. And Bianca had stood by her, hand on Lady’s foreleg or trunk, whispering encouraging words.

  “She wants to carry you.” A few yards away Steward leaned against a tent pole, cap pulled low over his eyes. Bianca had thought he was asleep.

  Bianca stared at him. “You mean ride her? Like a horse?”

  “Nay, lass.” Steward pushed his cap up and smiled. “I mean like an elephant.”

  Bianca looked up at the wrinkled gray slope of Lady’s back towering overhead.

  Riding Lady would not be like riding a horse at all. Riding Lady would be more like riding a house.

  What would Papa say?

  “I-I’m not sure I can,” Bianca said. “What if I fall off?”

  “You might,” Steward allowed. “And while you dither, the earth might open beneath your feet and swallow you, too. Yet we all must do the work we’re called to do, lass, until the very last moment when we can’t.”

  He smiled again.

  “But here’s something to help make staying aboard less chancy.”

  He unstrapped the small knapsack he always kept at hand and pulled out two slender lengths of rope, which he twisted into a series of knots, fashioning a halter.

  “Here.” He handed it to Bianca. “Offer it to her, and see if she’ll allow it.”

  Bianca took the halter in both hands, glad the rope felt soft, not scratchy.

  “Have you ridden her, Steward?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “She’s never asked me to. There’s been no need.”

  Bianca pondered this, then turned to face Lady. This time she looked, not up at Lady’s back, but into Lady’s topaz eye.

  “Would you like to wear this when I ride you, Lady?” Bianca asked, holding out the halter to the elephant. She felt strangely shy, as if she were asking a great favor.

  Lady reached out with the tip of her trunk and snuffled the halter. Then she slipped her trunk through the halter’s roughly square-shaped central loop, as if intending to put it on herself.