Rain Village - Carolyn Turgeon [12]
“I don’t have to do anything, munchkin. Tell me now!”
I sat back on the bed and crossed my arms. After a moment, she sighed loudly. “Fine,” she said.
“Okay,” I said, my pulse racing, my heart in my stomach. I lowered my voice. “Did you know that Mary Finn was in the circus?”
“What are you talking about?”
I squinted in the dim light, focusing on her face. “No, really,” I said. “She flew on the trapeze. She said she knew people who could eat fire!”
She looked at me suspiciously. “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
“No, no,” I said. “She knew boys covered in fish scales, girls with wings! She said she knew men with bodies as tall as skyscrapers or as short as daffodils.” The words spilled out on top of each other.
“How do you know?”
“I met her!” I said. “I went to her library.”
Geraldine sat still for a minute, then said, “What’s she like?” She looked at me with wide eyes, waiting. For a second, she seemed almost shy.
“Oh, she’s wonderful,” I breathed. “She’s so beautiful and she smells like cinnamon and she tells the best stories and can tell fortunes, too.”
“And she was really in the circus?”
“The Velasquez Circus, the famous one from Mexico.”
“I know them!” she said. “They came to Kansas City last year.”
I spent the next half hour talking about Mary—the library and jars of herbs, the men who lined up to check out books from her. Geraldine listened, rapt.
“I know Mom and Dad don’t like her,” she said, hugging her knees, “but I think she looks like a princess.”
“Me too,” I whispered. “I want to be just like her.”
At that, Geraldine let out a huge guffaw. “You? You could never be like her! You’re too ugly,” she said, the old smile creeping over her face. “And a freak!”
She turned her back to me then and collapsed onto her bed, snorting.
Shame shot through me, into every part of my body. I lay back in my bed and pulled the covers over me.
CHAPTER THREE
The next morning, I woke up dreaming of the circus. Mary and I on the flying trapeze, soaring over everyone, while men breathed out fire on all sides. We took off into the air and just kept on going, past the fire and through the circus tent, up into the sky above. I looked down and saw my family, no longer gigantic but tiny specks, down below. Good-bye, I waved, grasping Mary’s hand.
I woke up with a pounding heart, and felt disappointment wash over me as I looked around the dusty, wood-filled room, and at Geraldine’s body slumped on the bed across from me. I glared at her, wished I could will her away completely.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. It was only a matter of time before she told on me, I thought, but there was no use in punishing myself. I slipped out of bed and stepped into my clothes.
“Where are you going?” Geraldine asked, sitting up.
I ignored her, couldn’t wait to get away from her and from all of them. Today I would not even bother to wait until after lunch. I ran down the stairs and into the front yard as if a ghost were chasing me.
Mary looked up as I burst through the door of Mercy Library. I almost stopped in my tracks, she was so dazzling. “I was about to close up for an hour and head into town for a few things,” she said. “You want to come?”
She stood by the front desk, dropping her keys and some letters into her purse and then swooping it up and over her shoulder. I nodded and watched, fascinated, as she slipped a pair of wing-shaped sunglasses over her face and rubbed her forefinger into a small pot that was open on her desk, then spread a dark coral color over her lips, the same color as her toenails in her open sandals.
“Let’s go,” she said, brushing past me and reaching for my hand behind her. She locked the door and we ran down the steps and into the grass, her skirt swishing around her ankles.
I had to walk fast to keep up. “A beautiful day, isn’t it, Tessa?” She grinned down at me and gestured to the trees and sky. It was late summer and the air was filled