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Billy Birch, his face covered in burnt cork (although the back of his neck and his ears remained defiantly pink), winked at me as he made his way offstage, he and his fellow minstrels resplendent in green-and-yellow checked waistcoats and orange pants. “You ain’t afraid, are you, Vinnie?”

“No!” I was weary of people asking me this. “Why should I be?”

“No need,” piped up the tenor minstrel, his voice high and reedy. “And if anything does happen, we’ll all be here watching, so don’t worry. We’ll get you out in a jiffy.”

“What might happen?” My heart was beginning to pound, but Billy only grinned. Frowning, I turned my attention back to Sylvia as she moved through the red-velvet curtain, allowing a sudden sliver of light to pierce the backstage gloom. Without a musical flourish or any introduction, she simply grabbed the curtain and stepped forward. I found this odd, but then again, Sylvia seemed perversely devoted to shattering every notion I’d ever had about life upon the stage. Earlier, when I’d asked to see her notices, she’d stared at me and shrugged, remarking that she’d never thought to keep them.

There was a startled, collective gasp from the audience the moment she pushed her way through the curtain. The gasp was quickly followed by silence, which was soon replaced by whispers that grew louder and louder. I held my breath, waiting for something to happen; the silence onstage seemed ominous.

Finally someone spoke, but it wasn’t Sylvia; it was a voice from what I had to assume was the audience. “How tall is she?”

“Seven feet, I wager,” someone else replied. And then suddenly Colonel Wood, in his role as master of ceremonies, began to speak in a smooth, practiced patter—yet another side of his personality I’d never before witnessed.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, come this way! Come stand next to Miss Sylvia Hardy, the Maine Giantess, eight feet tall if she’s an inch! Why, Miss Sylvia here used to be the finest nursemaid in all of Wilton, Maine—she could carry an infant quite easily in the palm of her hand!”

I heard gasps; I couldn’t contain my curiosity, so I jumped nimbly off the trunk and hurried around to the side of the stage, pushing my way through boxes and crates and furniture. When I got to the edge of the curtain, I peeked around it, safely hidden; onstage, Sylvia was extending her large, meaty hand toward the audience. There was no doubt that a baby could fit within it.

“But what does she do?” I whispered to Billy, who was suddenly kneeling by my side. “What’s her act?”

“ ‘Do’?”

“Yes—what does she do? Doesn’t she sing? Recite?”

“Sylvia doesn’t have to do anything. All she has to do is stand. She’s not a performer, Vinnie.”

“Not like us, you mean?” I didn’t look at him; my eyes were still trained on Sylvia, who was now standing with her arms extended horizontally; beneath them, two men stood, with room to spare.

“Well—that is—no.” Billy patted me on the shoulder gingerly; most of the members of the company still seemed afraid to touch me, as if I were made of glass. Sylvia, ironically, was the only one who did not display this tendency. “No, not like us. You sure do take the cake, Vinnie, I’ll tell you that!”

“So why does she do it, then, if she doesn’t want to perform? She looks miserable.” And indeed, Sylvia’s face reminded me of an illustration of Joan of Arc that I’d once seen in a schoolbook: stoic, unflinching, with upturned eyes that were overflowing with the pain the rest of her homely face could not express.

“Somehow that Barnum fellow found her up in Maine; she didn’t have any family living. She’s been alone most of her life, they say. I guess that Barnum can persuade a mouse to go after a cat, so he somehow persuaded Sylvia, of all people, to appear at his American Museum. Don’t think it went over too well, though. Doesn’t seem to have lasted very long, and anyway, she wouldn’t be here if it had, would she?”

“Barnum? Sylvia was at the American Museum? Does Colonel Wood know that? I imagine he does, being they’re such good friends.”

“Wood and Barnum? Friends? Whoever told