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Mrs. Barnum talked about a tightrope, once. When the circus had first come together; when Anne saw Barnum’s circus from fifty feet up in the air for the first time; when W. D. had refused to talk and everyone around them was strange but familiar in that strangeness. One of the other colored women had asked Mrs. Barnum what it was like to be married to “such a great man.”
Mrs. Barnum had smiled, politely. Her eyes sparkled for an instant before their light went out. Anne’s jaw clenched in anticipation. “It... it’s like walking a tightrope,” she said. Her tone was that of a wealthy woman’s, at odds with the holes in her hem. “You never know what’s going to happen, or if you’ll fall. But it is a good deal of fun.”
Anne and W. D. rehearsed that afternoon. Her head was clear as they swung and spun, moving from hoop to rope to each other’s grip. But she thought about tightropes. At the end of their shared practice, she told him “I’ll never get married,” just as her toes found the sawdusted floor.
His mouth ticked up at one corner. His own landing was more solid, less graceful.
“Oh?”
Strong and balanced, with shoulders set, Anne turned her back on him and unwrapped her wrists. “I don’t like tightropes.”
He said nothing.
“Not enough movement,” she continued. “And it’s all about balance. There’s no fun in that. Who wants a tightrope when you can do trapeze instead?”
His sweaty hand clasped her shoulder as he passed, on his way behind the curtain.
A few nights after that, Anne’s dreams found her on the edge of a cliff, of a waterfall, of a building. A hoop was there, familiar and warm in her grip, but the second she stepped off the edge, her feet found the knife edge of a long, taut rope. The hoop disappeared. A hand extended out of the misty air, beckoning. Gloved. Sometimes she would reach out and it would fall. Sometimes, she turned her back, and then she’d be the one falling, falling, falling until her fists clenched the rough cotton sheet of the bed she and W. D. shared.
She forgot about the tightrope in time. Mrs. Barnum had to be a bit of a show-woman herself, to marry a man like P. T. His energy was never exhausted; his twinkle never dimmed. He spent and ordered and dreamed so much that Anne and everyone else was dragged along. That had to be why his wife was so quiet and dreamy in turn: that was how she handled him.
At the circus, Barnum had the opposite effect. Everyone he touched burst into fiery bloom. They exploded into color where they had been black and white. Anne turned in drab cotton for purple satin, brown curls for a pink coiffure. W. D. bared his black skin. The two of them painted on brilliant smiles every night, with matinées every Wednesday and Saturday. It became easier each show to forget why they were here in the first place. To forget how people saw them outside the circus’ walls.
In every explosion, though, someone gets burned. A Wednesday matinée; Anne is the star of the show because General Tom Thumb is hungover. They replace his stunts with a complicated routine Anne and W. D. whipped up the previous Sunday, and her whole being is focused on getting it right. She swings—flies—soars through the air like the swiftest sparrow. She hears the audience gasp. She raises her arms, lifts her head, and—
P. T. stands beside him, and suddenly Anne knows what it’s like to stand on a tightrope. Blue eyes stare into hers; a man takes off his hat for her, watching her. Her stomach drops. Her heart leaps into her throat as she realizes the hands in her dreams weren’t gloved: they were white.
God, no.
He must have an act, she thinks. Everyone has an act. Everyone hides something nasty and sharp and cruel under their pretty, perfect faces: W. D. has the fleur-de-lis on his shoulder and the knife in his belt. Lettie has the scars between her legs. The general’s got his wicked tongue. Barnum has his slick-talking and double-dealing. This Mr. Carlyle must have something behind his open face.
It’s liquor.
Carlyle has a flask on his hip that he drinks from all times of day or night. By the fifth time she sees him toss it back instead of arguing with P. T. over this, that, or the other, she snorts. He looks her way and cracks a smile.
So he drinks too much. That’s not so bad. What is he really hiding? Why join the circus when this Carlyle is the same one whose name is plastered all over the proper theaters?
“Miss Wheeler!”
Her hand slips. Anne falls, landing hard on the circus floor. So much for keeping her mind on her work.
In an instant, W. D. lands beside her, but she brushes him off.
“I’m fine,” she mutters, rising to her feet. With all the time she’s spent in the air, Anne knows how to land without breaking anything.
Mr. Phillip Carlyle stands sheepishly a few feet away.
“There’s a reason why you don’t interrupt a performer,” she tells him, setting her shoulders. He’s not much taller than her, but his hat and his shoes and his skin give him the advantage here. “Is there something you wanted to say?”
“I-” He clears his throat. She sees his left hand twitch towards the flask at his belt.
“I had a few notes, regarding your routine.”
Anne stares at him. “Are you an aerialist, Mr. Carlyle?”
“No.”
“Have you ever worked on a trapeze?”
“No, Miss Wheeler, but-”
“Then what kind of notes could you possibly have to give?”
“Your style,” he answers. “It’s beautiful.”
She waits for the criticism.
“You have a gift,” he says. “You should play to it.”
“Excuse me?”
In an instant he gains some of P. T.’s energy, striding forward to gesture up to the rigs and ropes above their heads.
“You should play up that grace. You look like you’re dancing up there, and people, they’ll want to see that. Leave the power moves to your brother; let him be the strong man, while you be-”
“The negro princess?”
The circus bustles around them, but Anne is frustrated with this man and his empty praise. Maybe he came from a world where performers earned their spots on merit, but Barnum’s Oddities are all here because they’ll make the audience gasp. She advances on him, glad to see a flash of something other than inebriated confidence in his eyes.
“Why are you here, Mr. Carlyle?” she demands. “Why don’t you go back to your high society productions and leave the circus alone.”
Again, he clears his throat. The smile he puts on is fake, and not well applied.
“Mr. Barnum hired me to make this a class act,” he replies. “I don’t know trapeze, but I do know what audiences like.”
“They like to gawp at us,” she says bluntly. “And laugh.”
For a split second he meets her eyes. “They’re not laughing at you.”
Color bursts in her cheeks, and she glares him down. “They’re laughing at all of us. You think I’m any different from them?”
He hesitates. She turns her back on him.
“Miss Wheeler, I didn’t mean-”
“You don’t know what you mean,” she interrupts, whirling on him. “At least P. T. knows what it’s like to be spit on. You’ve never been out of your ivory tower. You’ve got no business telling me that I’m-”
“Beautiful,” he finishes for her.
Anne storms backstage.
His advice isn’t terrible. People will pay a good deal for beauty, especially in her exotic, African features.
How beautiful would Mr. Carlyle find her if he could see the scars of a lash on her back, Anne wonders. If he knew about the blackened brand W. D. took for the both of them. If he knew what she had done to get out of Louisiana, up to the free states.
Still, his advice isn’t bad. Anne is slight; W. D. is not. Their camaraderie speaks to their shared mother; their builds, their different fathers. It’s almost artful to let W. D.’s power serve as the foundation for her more delicate maneuvers. She doesn’t intend to thank him, though, until she hears a little girl at the end of one show.
“Mummy!” the child cries. Her eyes are bright as stars, turned towards the museum’s rafters. “Did you see her hair? It was so pretty, and pink! I want to be just like her!”
“Hush, Bethann!” the girl’s mother chides. Whatever scolding comes next is swallowed by the crowd, but Anne heard that much. She sits back against a railing post on the fourth floor and smiles.
Someone wants to be her. A child saw her, and wasn’t confused, shocked, or afraid. A little girl… likes her.
Once she strips off the wig, the face paint, the jewelled costume, she’ll tell him so. But once she does that, P. T. called a meeting. It ends with Carlyle’s triumphant entrance, bearing—of all things—an invitation across the Atlantic.
Buckingham Palace; the queen of England; immediately Anne’s mind jumps to thoughts of the fame and glory it would earn them all. Free country America may be, but royalty has an undying sway.
But then W. D. meets her eyes. Suddenly she remembers: Mr. Carlyle would not have thought to ask who would be allowed to attend. Nearly half of the Oddities bear a trace of colored blood, but she and W. D., named performers, stand out the most.
“Are all of us invited?” she asks, breaking through the excited chatter. Everyone else had forgotten, it seems.
Mr. Carlyle looks to the letter in his hand as if it will tell him what to say. But he surprises her. He looks her in the eye and says “If we can’t all go, then we won’t go at all.”
In a month, P. T. Barnum’s Circus of Oddities boards the Great Western steamship, bound for Bristol, England.
What convinces her at last that Mr. Carlyle is not a terrible man, is that he bunks with W. D., all the way to England. Half the circus eyed him when P. T. claimed the bed above General Tom’s. To everyone’s surprise, he turned to W. D. without a pause and asked if he would share his cabin. He even offered W. D. the top bunk.
Maybe he isn’t hiding anything else. Maybe P. T. did what he’s best at, and found the right piece needed to lift his show to shining glory.
The voyage across the Atlantic will take a good two weeks. Anne thanks the stars above her trapeze work keeps her from losing her meals over the bow. She was born with sea legs, and happened to use them all her life in the air instead of on water.
Lettie is in their shared cabin, curled up and clutching her heaving stomach. Anne would rather be anywhere else, so she chooses the open deck. Late afternoon sun slants through the rigging, out here, and fresh air blows her hair back and away.
It’s like dancing, the ocean’s sway. Feet planted and hands clutching at the rail, Anne lets her eyes slip closed and moves with it. Dancing through the air. Trapeze on the water.
Then someone’s footsteps approach.
She sees Mr. Carlyle when she looks over her shoulder, squinting against the light himself.
“Hello,” she greets. She turns back to water. He closes the distance between them in three steps to stand by her side.
“Hello.”
She glances at him. His gaze is fixed on the gleaming horizon.
“So,” he says, “your brother doesn’t talk much.”
Anne grins. “No, he doesn’t,” she answers. “He’s quiet.”
“Strange for a show like this,” he replies, a smile touching his face, too. His flask is nowhere to be seen.
“The whole show is strange,” she counters. “W. D. is hardly the oddest of Barnum’s Oddities.”
He chuckles. “True,” he says. “How we got in with the queen, I’ll never guess.”
“Didn’t you ‘pull some strings’?”
“Well, yes, but there’s only so much strings can do. It’s still a miracle.”
Anne doesn’t answer.
A minute later, Mr. Carlyle speaks again.
“There’s something I want to ask you,” he says, finally turning to face her. “W. D., on his shoulder- he’s got a fleur-de-lis.”
Anne’s grip on the railing tightens.
“Why? It’s the symbol of the French monarchy, but you’re not French, are you? And how is it on his skin? I can’t get a good look at it, but-“
“It’s a brand,” she says. It’s her turn to watch the sky meeting the sea, as Carlyle goes silent. “You haven’t traveled south before, have you?”
“I, um…”
“It’s from Louisiana,” she tells him.
“That’s where we’re from. The Deep South.” Anne pauses; she hasn’t told anyone this story. She and W. D. haven’t been safe enough, long enough. But if Carlyle wants to report them, he’ll have to wait until they get back to New York. She and W. D. can disappear like smoke in Harlem’s lair, if need be.
She grips the rail a little tighter, though, anyway.
“We were born on a plantation there,” she says. “I won’t tell you where; it doesn’t matter. But W. D.’s name was Wheeler. Mama named him after Papa. He was ‘Wheeler,’ too. But he was sold before I was born. Then- then Mama had me. He was Wheeler, and—”
Anne swallows. The sea stays its soothing, peaceful course.
“Mama’s name was ‘Anne.’
“W. D. and I don’t look much alike, but we stayed close. He was sixteen the first time he tried to run away. He said he’d come back for me, but when he did, Master caught him, and… that’s why he has the fleur-de-lis. It’s the mark for runaways. W. D.’s lucky to have it on his shoulder. Some got it on their foreheads, and then we never would’ve been able to—”
Again, Anne stops. Nothing has changed out here, but inside her she feels the urge to climb away into the rafters, the rigging, the clouds—any place too high for men to reach. She steadies herself and goes on.
“We ran away together a few years later. We didn’t get caught, and somehow we made it up to New York State. I don’t remember how. W. D. said I got sick on the way. But he said we had to change our names, so no one could find us. He made his into initials, and I took Mama’s name, and we took Papa’s last name for our own. Then, we… wandered around, earning money where we could, until we found P. T.’s advertisement, and here we are.
“If W. D. don’t talk much, it’s not because of you. He do- doesn’t like people much. Nobody but me, really.”
Carlyle nods. “When did you learn trapeze?”
Anne smiles. “All my life, I liked heights,” she said. “We had these trees, big magnolias, and they’d go higher than any building you’d ever seen. I climbed them, and… and there was something… something really nice about it.”
Nice? There are no words to describe the freedom, the magic of standing eighty feet off the ground, watching the world go on below. Big white magnolia flowers perfumed the air. Fresh air; it stayed cool even on the hottest days. The higher Anne climbed, the better she felt.
“At home, the children always played around to make our parents laugh,” she says. “W. D. and I liked each other so much, we did our tumbles and showing off together, and we were a hit. And, one day, I guess, we both climbed the tree out back of the master’s house and… tried some of it up there.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Carlyle frown.
“You never had any formal training?” he asks.
“Who would train a mulatto woman?” she asks, smiling ruefully. “Or a black runaway slave? We watched a few professional shows once we got up north, but no one showed us how to do it. We just learned.”
He whistles in amazement. The smile on Anne’s face softens a bit.
That clawing, choking feeling eases more the longer they stand together. The sun sets at their backs; the ocean lulls them to peace. Who knew Phillip Carlyle would be the first person she told her story?
“Miss Wheeler,” he starts.
“Anne,” she counters. “I’m not a high society lady.”
“You’re still a lady.”
She looks at him and chuckles. “Anne,” she repeats. “Call me ‘Anne.’”
“Anne,” he says, reverently.
Her smile falls. “Mr. Carlyle.”
“Phillip,” he answers. “I’d offer to go by initials like Barnum, but having two ‘P. T.’s around could cause some confusion.”
“What?”
With a flourish, Phillip Carlyle bows and kisses her hand. “Phillip Truman Carlyle, at your service.”
Anne surprises herself by laughing, loud and squealing and high-pitched. “No!” she says. “Is that really-“
“It’s my name,” he answers, grinning. “On file with the state of New York and everything.”
“Wow,” she breathes, stifling more giggles behind her hand. “‘P. T. Carlyle.’”
“Phillip, please.”
He hasn’t let go of her hand.
Anne pulls away and turns back to rail.
He goes inside soon enough, and at dinner his eyes are glazed and his breath smells of whisky. But he isn’t hiding anything behind that, Anne thinks. Nothing cruel, nothing mean. Still, though, she doesn’t know why he would want to join the circus.
As soon as P. T. sets eyes on the fabulous Miss Jenny Lind, he’s gone. The way he looks at her, it’s like he’s seen everything he’s ever wanted. To him, she’s wealth, fame, adoration—everything the circus can’t provide. Anne turns away in disgust. Phillip looks between the two of them like he can’t understand what’s happening before his very eyes.
Anne ducks her head to hide a sudden smile. Somehow, it was Phillip who suggested they should all go in formal wear, and P. T. who shot it down. It was Phillip who assured them they would all be welcome, that the queen herself promised no one would say otherwise. Phillip, who helped her down from their hired cab and gallantly helped Lettie down right after.
It’s Phillip who looks over at her as P. T. offers Miss Lind a U.S. tour in exchange for making all his dreams come true.
“So, why did you join the circus?” she finally asks. They’re standing at the back of the theater, the one where the Swedish Nightingale is set to make her American debut. Standing room, by P. T.’s orders.
Phillip’s left hand fidgets with his flask. His eyes sweep the room, its velvet curtains and gold decor.
“You know, I’ve had my plays shown here,” he says. “In this venue. Very grand affair, all the finest of New York’s elite came to watch.”
“Good for you,” she answers.
“Four shows,” he continues. “All plays I would kill to never see again. They were the most boring, lifeless, dull performances… I couldn’t believe anyone would pay admission. But they did. They came by the droves. They watched and applauded.
“They’re going to do that again. Watching this- this singer. She’s talented, there’s no doubt, but she’s far from exciting. She gives her profits away to charities. She’s more virtuous than any woman I’ve ever met. And P. T….”
“Is enamored with her.”
“Right.” Phillip sighs. “He thinks sponsoring her will tell the society columns he’s a respectable man, not a prince of humbug.”
“Will it?” Anne asks. She knows the answer already.
But then the lights go down. The crowd hushes. Their silk-lined trousers and lace fans rustle as P. T. Barnum steps through the curtain to announce his new star.
Phillip leans in so close the heat of his breath tickles her ear. “I joined the circus,” he whispers, “for fun.”
It’s all a game to him. He has no stakes here; he loses nothing if P. T. turns his back on them. Anne doesn’t know why she thought otherwise, that he might be with them; the oddities. The freaks.
For him, her act is beautiful and graceful and tragic and new. For her, it’s the result of years of pain. She is power. She is strength. And she will not let some spoiled, selfish playwright tell her how to run her show.
She dances with the others; she holds her head up high. When Phillip’s anguished eyes meets hers through the upper window, she sneers.
Let him think what he will. She is an Oddity. Anne Wheeler ran to the circus for her life. Trapeze is her salvation, her safety.
For Phillip Carlyle, it’s harmless fun.
He let go of her hand.
It’s a warm day for March. Lettie reminds her at the last minute she has a ticket for the theater. Anne struggles into a green satin gown she found out back of a milliner’s, and paints her lips just enough to draw people’s eyes to them instead of the rest of her face. She feels pretty and modest, for once. It’s novel to turn heads with her legs and arms covered.
Still, though, Anne feels unsteady as she asks for her ticket. Something is off. It shouldn’t be so warm tonight. She’s late; the lobby is empty. The man pinches two tickets between his fingers and extends them like they’re dead fish he’s holding by the tail.
Something is going to happen. Anne’s heart flies into her throat as now-familiar footsteps approach.
It’s Mr. Phillip Carlyle.
“I thought you wouldn’t come if I asked,” he says, looking rightly ashamed of himself.
The long skirt of her gown starts to stifle. The tight bodice won’t allow her to draw breath. Anne runs up the marble steps as a distinguished couple prance down.
Phillip knows them. They know him.
And they call her ‘the help.’ Of course. She doesn’t look like a woman of beauty. She looks like a colored maid who stole her mistress’ gown, or- or rifled through the garbage to feel pretty for once.
The nerve of her, their looks say. Breathing the same air as our son.
What would they do if they knew his lips had brushed the skin of her hand?
Anne runs—strips—goes to practice. This is where she belongs, with her hair free, her skin bared. Dark skin. She is a colored woman. She is the daughter of a slave, and no satin dresses or held hands will ever change that. The trapeze is her only home.
But of course Phillip follows. Has he ever been denied what he wants before?
Anne doubts it. Had he been born in Louisiana, like her, he would never have seen her. She would be just another negro to him. Nothing special. Not beautiful.
And he thinks he wants her now. Anne dances out of his grip, away from his eyes. He can’t have her, because she can’t have him.
“You’re capable of caring for me when we’re alone, but the moment we step outside-”
“I do care for you, Anne!”
She lets the trapeze take her away.
Another show at P. T. Barnum’s Circus ends. The rush of new viewers from Jenny Lind’s concert has slowed, somewhat. Tonight the stands were only three-quarters full.
Anne wanders up to the deserted fourth floor after the glitter fades and the lights dim. Her costume and wig are neatly hung up downstairs, behind lush red curtains.
She clutches her shawl around her shoulders; it’s cold this high up, and drafty. It’s almost quiet. Shouts from the protestors outside echo off the windows, but Anne ignores them.
This high, nothing can reach her. She feels no fear. She remembers falling from this height down to the waiting arms of the other Oddities, and smiles. Their crowd’s gasps of horror touched her like the sweetest music. Who needs the Swedish Nightingale when you have trapeze?
More shouting. Anne frowns, closing her eyes against the noise. Why won’t they leave the circus alone? People pay to see the freaks, don’t they? It’s not like they’re stealing from anyone. P. T. wouldn’t stand for that. Humbug he may provide, but he does so proudly. He’s not trying to hoodwink the crowd. The Barnum Circus promises a show unlike anything they’ve ever seen before, and it makes good on that promise. What’s so wrong with that?
Anne stands. The wood of the balcony is solid beneath her feet, but she needs to be higher, and the rail is sturdy enough. Nimble feet lift her up to dance along its edge.
Anne laughs at the feeling. Look how high she is! No one else would dare climb up here. She twirls, watching the shawl’s fringe flare out above the circus floor. Why, if the rail was any thinner, it’d be like a-
“Fire!”
She slips. Her makeshift tightrope fails her. Lunging for a post, she barely catches it, pulling herself up and onto the balcony again.
Fire. An eerie glow lights the ring floors below, making Anne’s heart stop.
The circus is on fire. She’s on the highest floor, the building’s frame is wood, and she almost fell to her death trying to escape everything below.
The servants’ staircase of the old museum is hot but not yet consumed; Anne flies down the steps. She comes out at the back of the building and sees the surrounding streets glow. The circus—the building—the Oddities!
“W. D.!” she cries. He catches her in his arms as she comes around the front. Everyone’s faces are lit up by the blaze; they’re scared. Flames catch in their wide eyes.
Anne counts them, every one, until she sees Mrs. Barnum, her children, P. T. -
“Where’s Phillip?”
P. T. strips off his coat and runs.
“No!” Anne screams. “No!”
No. No. No.
She doesn’t realize she’s still screaming until P. T. comes out with a blackened corpse in his arms, and W. D. holds her back.
From that moment on, there is no tightrope. There is no trapeze. There’s just sitting on a hospital bed and waiting. There’s hoping, dreaming, crying, singing. The feeling in her chest does it all, drawing from the depths she didn’t think she had.
There is no way to hide. Anne can’t protect herself from this. She can’t glide away, swing away, fall through the air. The circus can’t catch her. Phillip Carlyle lies beneath a white sheet and smells like burnt flesh and ointment, and the only thing that can keep her from hitting the ground this time is the sight of his eyes, opening to meet hers at last.
She braves the nurses’, the patients’, the doctors’ stares to go to his side. Day after day, she waits. Four days after the fire, W. D. catches her as she stumbles in through the doorway of their home.
“Sleep,” he commands.
She can’t.
He presses food into her hands. Her mouth is dry; her eyes are wet. W. D. watches as she chokes on it, somehow hoping to hide her tears from him. The fire he made on their dirt floor blurs, yellow and black. She blinks at it, willing her sight to clear, her weeping to end, her heartache to heal. But the fire doesn’t change.
“Anne,” W. D. says.
The bread in her hand falls to the earth.
“What if he doesn’t wake up?” she cries.
“W. D., he’ll die thinking I- he tried to take me to the theater. He held my h-hand. W. D....”
“He went into the building to get you,” he says. “If he dies, it’ll be for good reason.”
Anne closes her eyes against the desperate, disgusting joy that climbs up her throat. Her vision fills with the sight of P. T. carrying him from the flames
“He c-can’t die,” she whispers.
W. D. doesn’t answer. But he brings over her shawl, gently tucking it around her arms, and lets her cry against his shoulder. He lets her fall asleep against him, supported by his strength.
Anne wakes, and sees herself standing on a tightrope. A threshold. Their threshold; she faces the rising sun, over shanties and merchant ships on the Hudson. The city is as silent as it ever is, and Anne’s breath clouds in front of her face. The sky is liquid light, blue and white and yellow. She stands for a moment, waiting for something. Something tells her to stand, wait, and listen.
Then Anne hears her mama’s voice, winding its way around her heart: Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning, child. Don’t you forget.
It’s from Psalms. Mama used to love the psalms; she said they were the Lord’s love letter to His children.
Joy comes in the morning.
The sun bursts out above the buildings, bathing her face in golden warmth. It’s morning; the fifth day.
Joy comes in the morning.
Anne Wheeler runs to the hospital. There is no change when she arrives, but Mama’s voice echoes in the quiet white hall, and she knows: Phillip will wake up. His blue eyes will see her there. She’ll kiss this man who ran through a burning fire and faced the Queen of England for her.
Today is their last day of sorrow. This morning will bring her joy.