And as bad as each act was, the anticipation of the next one made it worse. Because I knew he would only escalate. Cuts and bruises were the opening act. Bones came next. Small bones first, and then larger. And after that, along with that, I knew one night he would violate me in a way that didn’t show at all on the outside, a way that I would never be able to heal. He could have done it the very first night or any night after, but he knew that I expected it, and he held back, waiting. He tortured me with the things he hadn’t yet done as much as with the things he had.
He climbed on top of me, over and over, always looking for something new to bend or crush or break. If I wasn’t looking at him, he’d lock his fingers around my forehead and twist my head around until I did. I thought I could probably recover from a broken neck, and some nights it was bad enough I thought it might be better if I didn’t, but he seemed to know just how far to press or pinch or wrench to have the effect he wanted. He’d made a lifetime study of bodies, and before long, he knew more about mine than I would have thought possible.
Perhaps the rumormongers were more right than they knew about me. In the end, I did just what they’d accused me of. I sold my soul to the devil.
No one knew what a nightmare my life had become; I doubt they even suspected. The ones who might have read the signs and guessed my misery were gone. Of those left, none were inclined to rock the boat. It was easy, too easy, to see it with their eyes. To them, Ray was charming and jovial, a pleasant man to have among the company. If we spent rather a lot of time alone together in the railcar, well, that was easily explained away as the thrall a new romance—a honeymoon, perhaps—could bring. He had only kind words for anyone in the company. By all outward appearances, he was no one’s enemy.
The days and nights became a blur. I was no closer to figuring out how to get away. My body was weakening from the abuse. My mind was clouded by exhaustion and fear. I was healing myself over and over, muttering a wish for every wound, letting him believe that he was the one with the healing power, the reason my cuts and bruises could disappear in a matter of hours. Yet I had to keep up an illusion greater than any that had come before: the illusion that nothing was wrong.
In Terre Haute, the reporter asked me all sorts of prying questions about my life, and I smoothly answered him back with the usual vague claptrap. No, I wouldn’t say where I’d come from, before I’d come up through the ranks with Adelaide Herrmann, as everyone knew. No, I wouldn’t reveal the source of my powers, nor comment on the rumor that the brown part of my eye was a sign from the devil that he had taken one quarter of my soul as a promise of payment of the rest. No, I wouldn’t discuss the inspiration for the Halved Man.
The reporter, persistent, began to follow me back to the railcar, and I was so distracted I didn’t notice him until I was almost to the stairs.
The door swung open and Ray leaned out, clad only in a long, purple silk robe, cooing, “Welcome home, my dearest darling. Did you bring any more brandy? We’re fresh out.”
Before I could say anything, the reporter called out behind me, “Oh, is this your husband?”
“You caught us out,” said Ray. “That’s exactly who I am.”
The reporter was behind me and couldn’t see my face. I stared up at Ray with hatred. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to. Rightful or not, there he was. He’d already taken his place.
Chapter Thirty
Janesville, 1905
Five o’clock in the morning
“It was Ray,” says Virgil Holt, realizing. “Your husband.”
“He wasn’t my husband,” she mutters.
“I realize that. But people thought he was. That’s what matters. It wasn’t Clyde. You didn’t marry Clyde.”
“No, I didn’t.”
He doesn’t think he’s imagining the sadness in her voice.
He says, “But the reporter from Terre Haute put it in the paper that you were married and your husband was with you on the road. And the rest of the company thought it was true. So when the body was found, they said it was your husband’s body. That’s what they told the reporters. He was your victim.”
She protests weakly, “He wasn’t…I didn’t,” and rattles the two remaining pairs of cuffs.
He believes her now. Fully and completely. He’s had doubts all night, but the story has gone to his core. She would never make up something so outlandish to sell him on her innocence. If that were her goal, a simpler story would have done. The fabrication is too elaborate to truly be fabricated.
But now he needs to decide what to do with the truth she’s told him, which is the harder part. And there’s still one gap to fill.
“But who killed Ray? Who beat him, and broke him, and sank that ax into his gut? Who made him into the Halved Man and left him there?”
She glares up at him, her gaze burning brighter than ever, but he doesn’t stop. They’re at it now.
“It’s your specialty, Arden. Your illusion. Your idea.”
“You can’t hang a woman for her ideas,” she says, a note of hysteria in her voice. He knows she doesn’t believe that. She thinks they’ll hang her no matter whether she’s a murderess. She’s almost certainly right. “In any case, I wasn’t there.”
“If you weren’t there, where were you?”
“I don’t know.”
He pushes. “How is that possible? You remember everything.”
“Not everything.”
“Everything else. This whole night, you’ve proved it. You remember what happened when you were twelve and fifteen and twenty years old. You can recall conversations word for word with people you haven’t seen in a decade. You remember what you want to remember. It’s all in there, every bit.” He reaches out and lays a finger in the center of her forehead, a firm quick tap. “So only last night, not twelve hours ago, you expect me to believe you can’t remember where you were?”
“I don’t know what time he was killed. How could I know?” He hears the edge of desperation in her voice, the trembling uncertainty.
“But how could it have been anyone else? No one else there even knew who he was. They thought he was a good man, you said it yourself. Only you hated him. So you killed him.”
“No.”
Generously, with a broad gesture of his arm, he says, “I don’t know if I’d even blame you for it. The world is probably a better place. You already thought you killed him once. Wouldn’t it be easier the second time? Like running a sword through a ghost.”
“Look at me, officer. Please.”
He avoids her gaze. He stares instead at her discarded boots next to the door, laces trailing, one fallen on its side. Beautiful things now smeared with grime that will never come out.
“I didn’t kill him. I can only tell you that so many times until you have to decide if you believe me. And it’s time, Virgil. Make up your mind once and for all. You have to decide whether you’re going to let me go. Just you. No one will make that decision for you. Like Mr. Vanderbilt said. You have agency. Use it.”
“I remember you telling me he said so.”
“And now I’m saying it. To you, Virgil.” She leans forward as far as she can, her shoulders straining, her chin thrust out. “You want to set me free? Do it. You want to turn me in? You can do that too. You’re the only one with the choice. And that bullet in your back doesn’t mean you’ve got any less choice than you ever did. Live free of fear if you want to. We all carry something inside us that could kill us; yours just has a name. You want to change your life? Change it. You have no less of a right to be happy than the rest of us.”
He’s reeling from what she says. It’s too much. He snaps at her instead, with sarcasm. “You’re the perfect example of happiness?”
“Not at the moment.” She smiles ruefully and shrugs a little, as best she can. “But whatever happens, I’ve been happy. I’ve been loved. I’ve amazed crowds and drunk in their applause. Not because of luck or favor or magic. Because of will. My will. I’ve been willing to do whatever it takes. That’s the closest thing I have to a secret. And now it’s yours.”
It’s a lot to think about, and he can’t quite digest it. But there’s a spark there. Maybe she’s right about him. Maybe it is up to him, how much he lets the bullet, and the fear, take over his life. Maybe. Not a curse, but a choice. His agency and no one else’s.
She says, “You’re right about one part of it. I hated him. With my whole self.”
“But your will failed you there, did it?”
“Not exactly. I was ready to kill him,” she says. “I was absolutely ready. I swore to myself, before the show, that I would find a way.”
“And then?”
“And then, in Waterloo,” she says, pointing across the room, “I found what was in that valise.”