Author: Kate DiCamillo

In the spring of 1965, Ione Butts, sole proprietor of the Knight’s Best Motor Lodge, widow of the handsome asshole Henry Butts, and mother to a ten-year-old child, inadvertently acquired a sixty-foot knight in shining armor. A man named Franklin Tort came into the motel office with his hat in his hands and said: “I got a knight in shining armor, ma’am, and I am willing to part with him for free. He is of my own construction, built on the scale of a Trojan horse and impressive in the extreme. However, Mrs. Tort is not at all fond of him. She wants him gone and has threatened to dismember him. She has purchased an axe expressly for the purpose of dismemberment. She is forever waving the axe in my face and saying that she means business. I have come to believe that she does mean business; and I thought that, maybe, given the name of your establishment, the knight could be put to some use here.”

“Oh, Mama,” said Ione’s daughter Tanya, who was a baton twirler and a busybody of epic proportions, “please say ‘Yes.’ That is just exactly what we need. We need a knight in shining armor. We do, we do.” And then, turning to Franklin Tort and batting her eyelashes: “My daddy is dead. I am an orphan.”

“You are not an orphan,” said Ione. “Run off and play.”

“I’m too old to play,” said Tanya.

“For God’s sake,” said Ione, “ten years old is not too old to play.”

“I would deliver the knight,” said Franklin Tort, “and set him up in front of the motel.”

“Well,” said Ione.

“People would see him for miles around. He would be like a beacon to your establishment.”

“Oh, Mama,” said Tanya, “we need a beacon.”

“Hush up,” said Ione.

And then, just for the hell of it, Ione told Franklin Tort, “Yes.”

“Just for the hell of it,” had become Ione’s rule of thumb for making decisions since Henry died. Alternately, she resorted to asking herself the questions “Why not?” and “What the hell; who cares?”

On Thursday, the sixty-foot knight arrived. He was lying on his back and strapped to the flatbed of a semi, stretched out as if he were a warrior in a tomb. He was much larger than Ione had imagined he would be, not that she had put much time into imagining him.

In truth, she had almost forgotten about him entirely.

“He’s here! He’s here!” shouted Tanya. “The beacon is here. We are saved.”

Ione watched from the office as the knight was unloaded from the truck and, with the help of a pulley, chains, and several men, raised to a standing position in front of her motel.

“My God,” said Ione when the knight was fully erect. Tears sprang to her eyes. She batted at them with an impatient hand.

Franklin Tort came into the office, sweat running down his face and the front of his shirt soaked through. He said, “I hope that he is placed to your satisfaction.”

“Yes,” said Ione.

That night, the handsome asshole Henry Butts spoke to Ione in her sleep. He said, “Baby, I want to apologize.”

You can be sure those words made Ione sit straight up in bed.

“Go ahead,” she said.

But Henry was silent, unable, even from the great beyond, to say that he was wrong.

Ione got out of bed and went outside where the air smelled, as it often did, of a woman who had been overzealous in her application of orange blossom perfume. Some were charmed by this smell. Ione was not. Nothing about Florida charmed her. It was Henry Butts who had found it all so charming. It was Henry who had moved them from Boston to a place he consistently, idiotically, referred to as the Land of Honey and Dreams.

Semis were roaring down Highway 12 and the knight was standing silent in the darkness. The sight of him made a small spark of something travel up the length of Ione’s spine.

She went and sat on his left foot and lit a cigarette. Henry had not liked it when she smoked and for that reason she had continued smoking even though there had been no particular pleasure in it for her.

Now, though, inexplicably, the tobacco was sweet to her in a way that it had not been when Henry was alive.

Henry Butts had died in a car crash, in a headlong collision with a semi. In the car with Henry was Dolly Fremont, Tanya’s baton twirling teacher. When Ione was called upon to identify the body, Henry was fully clothed and looking very much like himself except for a spot of something red on his forehead, which turned out to be lipstick, and not the expected blood.

Ione had looked Henry over carefully and then asked the coroner if the force of the crash could have actually unzipped her husband’s fly. The man had looked at her with mournful eyes and then looked away.

“Oh,” said Ione, “I see.” An utterance that reminded her, very much, of something her mother would say and the manner in which she would say it, and that called to mind, with frightening force, her mother’s pinched mouth and powdered face and heavy-clasped pocketbook.

And then, still sounding very much like her mother, Ione said, “Yes, that is my husband. Thank you so much for your time.”

And now here she was, the owner of a motel, sitting on the foot of a knight, smoking a cigarette, the widow of a man who had died speeding down the highway with his pants unzipped and lipstick smeared on his forehead.

“God help me,” Ione said out loud.

She waited. She smoked her cigarette down to the end. She bent her head back and looked up at the knight. And then she sighed and stood up and went back to bed.

The next morning Tanya was sitting at the kitchen table dressed in a leotard covered in sequins, eating a bowl of Wheaties. Her baton was propped against her chair like a cane.

“You’re dressed up,” said Ione.

“Today is the Little Miss Twirl contest,” said Tanya, batting her mascara-coated eyelashes. “I am going to win.”

“Forgive my ignorance,” said Ione, “but what is the Little Miss Twirl contest?”

“Mama, I told you and told you. It is to discover the best child baton twirler in the state of Florida. Dolly said I am good enough to win. You have to drive me,” said Tanya.

“No,” said Ione.

“You can’t stop me,” said Tanya.

“I most surely can,” said Ione.

Tanya’s lower lip stuck out. Tears trembled in the corners of her eyes. “But Dolly said I could win.”

“Do not talk to me about Dolly,” said Ione. “Or about winning. Or about batons. Or about twirling them.”

“What you mean,” said Tanya, blinking her eyes furiously, “is don’t talk to you at all.” She picked up her baton, slammed out of the kitchen, and went out to the front of the motel. She positioned herself next to the knight and started twirling. Angry sparks of sunlight shot off the baton. The sequins on Tanya’s leotard glowed and the knight shone painfully bright. The whole display was so brilliant that it hurt to look upon it directly. Ione turned away.

The day continued along in an objectionable manner.

Not long after 11:00, Bob Filker from the city council arrived in the Knight’s Best front office to say that the knight in shining armor was a violation of city ordinance.

“What city ordinance?” said Ione.

“Excessive ornamentation,” said Bob Filker. He had a briefcase and a small potbelly and blue eyes. “Excessive lawn ornamentation. The city council would like to see it removed immediately. Also, it’s a safety hazard. When the sun hits it, it’s actually quite blinding.” He cleared his throat. “On the way out here, I myself was almost blinded. I almost drove right directly off the road.”

Ione stared at him. Yesterday, she had been indifferent about the knight. Today, this minute, she was convinced that her life, the motel, the whole world, in fact, would come crashing down without the knight.

“No,” she said.

“Pardon?” said Bob Filker.

“No,” said Ione.

“Well,” said Bob, “it’s not really negotiable.”

“Everything is negotiable,” said Ione, sounding to her own ears very much like Henry Butts.

In the beginning, when they first purchased the Knight’s Best, before Tanya started taking twirling lessons, when Ione still believed Henry, when Ione still loved Henry, and Henry, seemingly, still loved Ione, the two of them had met in the afternoons in Room 8. Eight was one of Ione’s favorite numbers and it seemed to her to be a number, conjoined and intertwined as it was, suited for love.

Now, looking at Bob Filker, Ione saw the number eight superimposed over his confused and anxious face.

And then, clear as you please, she heard Henry Butts say three words: Bribe him, Ione.

“Mrs. Butts?” said Bob Filker. He cleared his throat. His ears stuck out of his head at an odd angle and the late-morning light shone through them and made them glow pink, like the inside of the conch shells that lay in bins in gift shops all up and down the entire state of Florida.

“Look,” Henry had said the first time he saw a conch shell. “Look at this. This is truly the Land of Honey and Dreams. Can you believe something like this comes from the ocean? Isn’t that amazing? Can you believe the wonders of this world?”

“I am sorry about your husband,” said Bob. “I would like to say that. It can’t be easy to run a motel on your own. But it doesn’t change the fact that the, um, ornamentation is against city ordinance.”

Ione turned and took the key to Room 8 off the hook. She put it down on the desk, between her and Bob Filker.

“What’s this?” he said.

“The key to Room 8,” said Ione.

“Oh,” said Bob. “I see.”

 

In bed afterward, Bob Filker rested his head on Ione’s breast.

“I was coming down the highway,” said Bob, his voice dreamy, “I was driving down the highway and I saw that knight and the sun was hitting it and it was blinding, I tell you. I had to slow down. I almost had to stop the car. You never know when you’re going to get knocked off your horse.”

“What horse?” said Ione. The flowered curtains of Room 8 were drawn shut, but there was one small line, one narrow crack where they did not meet. Ione held her hand up to the pencil-thin light. She looked at her fingers with something close to astonishment. She felt as if she had gone on a long journey and just now arrived home.

Somebody started pounding and kicking at the door to Room 8.

“Who’s there?” Bob Filker shouted, sitting straight up in bed.

“Mama, Mama, I know you are in there. Mama, Mama, open up.”

“That’s my daughter,” said Ione.

“Mama,” screamed Tanya, “I am going to hitchhike into town if you won’t drive me. I will, I swear I will. I’ll hitchhike.”

“Is there some kind of emergency?” said Bob. He was out of bed now and pulling on his pants. “Does she need some help?”

“I need a ride into town!” shouted Tanya.

“She’s in distress,” said Bob. He opened the door and Tanya flung herself into his arms.

“There,” he said, his voice gentle, “it’s OK, it’s OK. What’s wrong, honey?”

“I need a ride into town,” said Tanya again.

“Anything you want, honey,” said Bob, “anything at all.”

 

That day, after the Little Miss Twirl contest, when the three of them drove back to the Knight’s Best, Ione could see the knight glowing on the horizon. He was visible from a long, long way off.

“What I meant to say earlier,” said Bob Filker.

“Uh huh,” said Ione.

“I wanted to tell you about Saul when he was headed to Damascus; and then how he was knocked off his horse by the light of Jesus and he became Paul. His whole life changed. Just like that he became somebody else. That’s what I meant about the horse, about getting knocked off your horse.”

“Yes,” said Ione.

“Are you holding my mama’s hand?” Tanya said, leaning up and putting her head between them.

“Yes,” said Bob Filker.

“She’s a widow,” said Tanya.

“I know that,” said Bob Filker.

“My daddy died in a car crash,” said Tanya.

“Would you please hush up?” said Ione.

“I just thought you should know,” said Tanya.

“He knows,” said Ione.

Tanya sank into the back seat, but then she came forward again.

“I tell you what,” said Tanya, “that is the last time I lose at anything ever. I want to win, win, win. I want to win from now on.”

 

Of course, later, the knight came down. The city council had its way. There was not enough sex, not enough bribery in the world, to convince them to let him stay.

And eventually, Ione would sell the motel and she and Tanya would move back to Boston. Ione would get her teaching degree. Bob Filker and the afternoon in Room 8 would become a memory, a small crack in the curtains of a darkened room in Ione’s mind.

Sometimes, though, she would be standing at the blackboard, a piece of chalk in her hand, and she would be struck by something glowing at the edge of her vision and she would turn slightly, oh so slightly; and just like that, it would come flooding back: the knight and the warmth of Bob Filker’s hand in hers, and the handsome asshole Henry Butts holding up that conch shell, and saying, “Can you believe this, Ione? Can you believe the wonders of this world?”

The sun was out and it didn’t look like it would ever rain. Sopha’s mama was coming toward them, her black umbrella up over her head. She held it high, so it looked like she was reaching up her white hand to hold onto the raggedy wing of a crow. In the other hand, bright orange and small, like the wings of some bug, were two tickets. Sopha was holding onto Hovis. And Hovis was holding onto his pearl-handled pistol with the hand that wasn’t holding onto Sopha. They were at the fair.

Sopha had on new shoes. They were red sneakers and they were too small, but they were brand new, never before worn by another, and they made it so that whichever direction she looked, she was dizzy with happiness. If she looked down at her feet, the thrill of her new shoes, along with the tight pinch of them not fitting right, sent her spinning. If she looked up, straight out in front of her, there was the fair, bright as a star crashed to the earth and, according to Caroline, waiting to suck Sopha’s soul right on out of her. Sopha was happy to give it up, too. In truth, she was almost breathless with the anticipation of having her soul sucked out of her body.

And if she considered what was inside of her, the victory of convincing their mama to bring them here, the deep and solid joy of finally winning against Caroline, well, that sent her spinning, too. It was joy every which way for as far as Sopha could see.

“It’s hot,” said Hovis, shoving his cowboy hat back off his forehead.

“I know it is,” said Sopha. “But here we are. Didn’t I always tell you I would get us to the fair?”

“Yes,” said Hovis, but he didn’t seem impressed or grateful. He fingered his pearl-handled revolver. Hovis was twelve years old, two years older than Sopha, too old to be wearing play guns in a play holster, but he wouldn’t take the guns off, ever. He slept with the holster strapped on over his pajamas and his hands on either side of him, gripping the guns, ready for some nocturnal shootout.

“Now you children,” said their mama, coming up to them.

“Yes, ma’am?” said Sopha, staring at the tickets in her mama’s hand.

“You children got to be good. You got to make me and Mr. Paul Roberts proud with your behavior.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Sopha.

Her mother handed her the tickets. “I am going on home,” she said. “It’s too hot for me to set out here all day. Besides, Mr. Paul Roberts might call.”

Sopha rolled her eyes. The phone wasn’t even hooked up. If you picked it up and listened, there wasn’t any sound at all, not even the dull roar of the ocean like you sometimes heard in a seashell. It was dead, dead, dead. There was no way Mr. Paul Roberts could call.

“Caroline says the fair is the Devil’s Work,” Hovis said.

“Caroline,” said their mama, coming now to sharp attention, her lips a white hot line under the dark umbrella. “You pay attention to me. Not Caroline. I am your mama, Hovis. You are my child.”

“She says it’s the Devil’s Party,” said Hovis.

“Hush up, Hovis,” said Sopha, pinching his hand. And then, to distract her mama, she said, “Tell Mr. Roberts ‘hey’ when he calls. Tell him thank you for letting us go the fair.”

Her mama’s face relaxed. She twirled the handle of her umbrella and smiled. “Mr. Paul Roberts,” she said. “Mr. Paul Roberts has a surprise for you children.”

“What?” said Sopha.

“Hold onto this for me, girl.” She handed Sopha the umbrella. “Hold it up high, now. Don’t let that sun get at me.”
Sopha put the tickets in the pocket of her dress, kept hold of Hovis with one hand and held the black umbrella up high with the other. Her feet were sweating in her new shoes. She looked past Hovis’ cowboy hat and saw the fair crooking a shiny finger at her, saying, “Come this way, come right this way.”

Her mama dug around in her pink vinyl pocketbook, humming the tune to some sad song. “There,” she said finally. And she held out two dollar bills.

“For what?” said Sopha.

“Why, to spend. That is a dollar for each of you. To spend as you like. Take it,” she said to Sopha, holding out the money.

“I don’t got a hand,” said Sopha, holding onto the umbrella, holding onto Hovis.

“Well for heaven’s sake, girl; you got to learn how to adapt.” She took the umbrella out of Sopha’s hand and then handed her the money.

“Now, Hovis, I am giving your sister the money for you. One whole dollar of that is yours.”

“I’m going to buy you a present with it, Mama,” said Hovis.

“Why, sugar, thank you.”

Sopha squeezed Hovis’ hand hard enough to make him yelp.

“Come here, baby,” said their mama. She took Hovis and pulled him to her and hugged him tight and said, “Oh, Mr. Man, you are my handsome boy. You look just like your daddy, don’t you? You are the spitting image of your daddy.”

“Yes,” agreed Hovis.

“You,” said her mama, letting go of Hovis and turning to Sopha.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“You watch him careful.”

“Shoot,” said Sopha. “I always watch him careful. I been watching him careful since forever. I …”

Her mama stepped close to her. She put her face right in Sopha’s so that Sopha could smell the black heat of the umbrella and see the pink powder clinging to her mama’s face.

“If he has a fit, you make sure people don’t see.”

“I’m gonna watch him. I said I would.”

Her mama bent in even closer, like she was fixing to hug Sopha. She stared in her eyes and then pulled back quick. One of the sharp points of the umbrella grabbed at Sopha’s forehead, stinging her.

“Mr. Paul Roberts might be calling right this very minute,” she said. “I have to go.” She twirled her umbrella over her head and walked away over the worn-out grass. She stopped and turned back to face them. “I’ll pick you up at five o’clock. Right here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Sopha.

“I love you, Mama,” shouted Hovis, like she was already miles and miles away from them and wouldn’t hear him unless he yelled.

“I love you, too, baby.”

“Come on,” said Sopha, jerking on Hovis’ arm, “let’s go.”

***

“Looky here,” said the ticket taker when Sopha handed him their tickets. “What have we got here? Howdy, partner.”

“Hey,” said Hovis.

“Don’t shoot me now,” said the ticket taker, putting his hands up in the air.

“I ain’t going to shoot you,” said Hovis.

“Well, that is a pure relief.” The man lowered his hands. “Got you an official badge too, huh?” He squinted at the pin that Hovis had attached to his shirt. “Says you are a sheriff. Is that right?”

“Yes, sir,” said Hovis. “Caroline says I am a sheriff of the Lord.”

“How’s that?” said the ticket taker.

“Never mind,” said Sopha. She yanked on Hovis and pulled him through the wooden gate. “Come on,” she said.

“How come you wouldn’t let me tell that man who I am?” said Hovis.

“Because he don’t care,” said Sopha. “That’s why. Look.” She swept her arm wide at what was before them, the glittery rides snaking and twirling and spinning in the sun and the game booths full of things you could win, and the cotton candy and the popcorn and the hot dogs all waiting to be eaten. “This is the fair.”

“I want to go home,” said Hovis, still pouting. “I want Caroline.”

Sopha slapped him upside the head.

“Hush up,” she said. “Caroline ain’t here.”

And then she slapped him again harder, just to let him know who was in charge now.

When she woke up that morning, the morning of the fair, Sopha knew that Caroline was gone. She could tell just by the way the house felt, silent and waiting, and there by her bed were the new shoes, red and perfect, waiting for her. She didn’t doubt them or wonder where they came from, but instead took them as proof that things had changed forever. For good.

She put on the shoes and went to remind her mama that they were going to the fair. She picked her way out onto the back porch slowly, walking careful because of the rotting floorboards. One wrong step and you could end up falling who knew where.

Hell is what Caroline would say.

She all the time talked about how the house was positioned directly over Hell and the only thing that saved the four of them from being swallowed right up was Hovis. Hovis and his magic and the sweetness of his soul. Hovis, sheriff of the Lord.

“The fair?” her mama said, when Sopha finally reached her.

She was wrapped up in a flowered sheet, sitting in a glider chair, moving back and forth so fast that it looked like she was trying to get up enough speed to swing herself out off the porch and up into the sky.

“Yes, ma’am, the fair,” said Sopha, her heart beating fast inside her.

“The fair,” repeated her mama, like it was a pretty word she was just now learning.

“Remember?” said Sopha. “You got that letter from Mr. Paul Roberts and he told you to take us to the fair? Remember?”

“Caroline,” said her mother. She stopped her gliding and sat up straighter and pulled the sheet tighter around her.

“She’s gone,” said Sopha. “She left last night. I saw her.”

“Yes, that’s right,” said her mama, smacking her lips the way she did when she was pleased over something. “Caroline is gone. And there is the fair. Mr. Paul Roberts would like for you to attend. I remember. You go on and get Hovis dressed and I will take you to the fair.”

Sopha turned and started making her way back across the porch.

“Girl,” said her mama.

Sopha stopped but didn’t turn around.

“Look here.”

Sopha turned.

Her mama had the letter in her hand. She held it up to the light. “Which way do you reckon Spain is? That’s where Mr. Paul Roberts is right now. Spain. This letter is postmarked Spain. Can you imagine?”

“No, ma’am,” lied Sopha.

“They got castles in Spain,” said her mama.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Sopha. She turned back around. A floorboard creaked. She kept moving. “I’ll get Hovis ready to go,” she said.

It was Harlan Jacobs who had written the letter. She went down there and told him she needed his help. She went down to see Harlan Jacobs all the time.

“What you want with that dirty old man?” Caroline asked her.

“Nothing,” Sopha said.

“You going down there all the time, you must want something.”

“We’re friends, him and me,” said Sopha holding her chin up high.

“Huh,” said Caroline with a snort. “Friends.”

“That’s right,” said Sopha, “friends.”

Caroline snorted again, louder this time. But she did not stop Sopha from going.

What Caroline did not know was that Harlan Jacobs was writing the whole history of the world on the back of grocery sacks and each room of his house was a different part of the book.

“This book,” Harlan told her, picking at his nose, “has got everything in it, from the very beginning.”

“Starting with God making the world?” Sopha asked him.

Harlan laughed. “God didn’t make the world.”

“Caroline says he did,” said Sopha.

“Shit,” said Harlan. “That old woman thinks she knows everything, but she don’t.”

What if Caroline didn’t know everything? What if she wasn’t right about every little thing? Considering that question made Sopha hopeful. She asked Harlan to write her a letter.

“I need you to write me some history,” she told him.

She stood over him while he did it. She breathed in the smell of him, dust and paper sacks and wood smoke and ink. His hand shook so hard that it looked like he wouldn’t be able to write a thing, but the words flowed out of his pen, all loose and silvery.

He wrote three pages. Only at the end did he mention the fair. He said, “I believe that the children should be rewarded for their good behavior. Take them to the fair.” He pointed out the line to her, shoving his big, yellow nail right underneath the magic word itself.

“That meet with your approval, little Miss Sopha?” he asked.

Harlan was the only one who ever said her name like it meant something to him and for that alone she loved him more than she should.

“Now we got to postmark it,” he said, “make it look genuine.”

The prettiest stamp he could find was one from Spain. And that was how Mr. Paul Roberts ended up there. Because Harlan liked the stamp.

Sopha had walked back from his house careful and afraid, holding the letter in her hands like it was a live thing.
At one point, she stopped and looked back and saw the tin roof of Harlan’s house shining in the noonday sun; and she saw, too, the dusty impressions where her feet had been in the clay road.

“Girl,” she said out loud, “do you or do you not want to go to the fair?”

“I want to go,” she answered her own self, “I want to go to the fair.”

And so she turned around and kept walking. She went up onto the front porch of her own house and put the letter in the mailbox. Late that afternoon, her mama opened it and read it and then took it to the kitchen where Caroline was cooking dinner. Hovis was sitting at her feet, taking one of his guns in and out of its holster and admiring the way it reflected the afternoon light.

Sopha stood in the doorway to the kitchen and watched, listening.

“I have had a letter from Mr. Paul Roberts,” her mama announced.

“Mr. Paul Roberts,” repeated Caroline, saying the name like she had never heard of the man, when, in fact, his name was invoked in the house a hundred, a thousand, a million times a day.

“That’s right,” said Sopha’s mama. “Mr. Paul Roberts has written to me.”

“Go on and give it to me then,” said Caroline, turning away from the stove and holding out her hand.

“No. It is mine. Something between a man and his wife.”

“Miss Clare,” said Caroline, turning back around, stirring whatever was in the pot. It smelled like beans to Sopha. Beans was what it usually was. “You know that Mr. Roberts didn’t write you no letter.”
“What is this I am holding in my hand then?”

“I don’t know. But it sure ain’t no letter from your Mr. Paul Roberts.”

“He loves me,” said Sopha’s mama.

“Got a funny way of showing it,” said Caroline. “Hovis. Sweet child, you get on up and go somewhere else. This ain’t for your ears.”

“Why not?” said Hovis. “Why ain’t it for my ears?” He stood up and put his gun in the holster.

“‘Cause I said it ain’t. Now go on.”

“I want to stay,” said Hovis, pulling both his guns out and pointing them straight at Caroline.

“Get,” said Caroline.

Hovis walked backward out of the room, spinning a pistol in each hand, and bumped right into Sopha.

“What are you doing?” he asked, poking her in the stomach with one of the guns.

“I’m working on getting us to the fair,” Sopha whispered. “Now go on.” She shoved him away from her and stepped forward into the kitchen and said, “Mama, what did Mr. Roberts say? Did he mention us kids?”

“Hush up,” said Caroline, pointing at her with the cooking spoon. “This don’t got nothing to do with you.”

“He’s my daddy,” said Sopha.

“He loves you,” trilled her mama, turning to Sopha. “He says that he loves you. And he wants you children to go to the fair.”

“They ain’t going to no fair,” said Caroline. “Ain’t no way you sending Hovis to the fair.”

“I imagine I can do whatever me and my husband decide to do. It ain’t none of your business.”

“Ain’t none of my business?”

“That’s right. That’s what I said.”

“These children my business. Ain’t I raised them up?”

The kitchen was quiet. Sopha could hear both women breathing, could feel the quick up and down of the air leaving their bodies. Outside, it felt like the world was holding its breath. The leaves on the trees were still. The crickets stopped their shrieking. Everything waited.

“You,” said Sopha’s mama finally, “did not raise up my babies.”

There was more silence and then Caroline spoke, the sound of her voice high and tight. “That boy cannot go to the fair.”

“He most certainly can.”

“They kill him if they find out what he can do.”

Sopha’s mama put her hands over her ears.

“That boy belong to the Lord,” said Caroline.

“To me,” said Sopha’s mama, removing her hands from her ears and tapping her chest with the letter. “He belongs to me. And to my husband. Not to you. You are nothing but hired help.”

Sopha spoke up then, pointing them in the direction of what mattered. “Do we really get to go to the fair?” she said.

“Yes,” said her mama, without taking her eyes off Caroline.

“No,” said Caroline, looking right at Sopha.

“My children will go to the fair, as their daddy wishes. And you are fired.”

“Can’t fire me,” said Caroline. She put down the spoon and went out the back door and stood in the overgrown grass. Sopha followed her, but only as far as the door. She pushed her face up against the screen and inhaled its sharp tang of metal and blood and rust.

She stared at Caroline. She saw one tear, two tears, roll down her face. And then she saw that beyond Caroline, past her, the tin roof of Harlan’s house blazed like it was trying to send out a message about the history of the world and who would write it.

Not you, thought Sopha as she watched Caroline cry. You won’t be the one telling the story, you won’t be the one writing it down.

And Sopha was right. Floyd Meerkham came late that night in his Ford truck. The headlights made the grass in the yard look ghost white and left Caroline in darkness and she looked like nothing but a shadow as she walked away from the house and got into the truck.

***

In the morning, the red tennis shoes were by Sopha’s bed and her new life had begun. She was not about to let Hovis spoil it for her, not now that she had finally gotten what she wanted.

“Quit your crying,” she told him. “This is the fair. And you got a whole dollar to spend.” She yanked on his arm and started him walking.

“Win you a exotic bird,” a man called out to them. “Win you a bird of paradise right here.” They turned and looked and saw that his booth was hung all over with cages and in the cages were bright-feathered birds.

Hovis pulled Sopha closer. “These birds are from paradise?” he asked the man.

“That’s right. On a express train from paradise direct to you and me. It ain’t but a dollar a chance to win you one.”

“A dollar is just exactly what I got,” said Hovis, wiping at his weepy eyes with the back of his hand.

“See there?” said the man. He picked out something from between his teeth and studied it for a long time before finally flicking it away.

The booth stunk like chickens. The birds in their cages were strangely silent and unmoving. They stared at Sopha and Hovis with small, mean eyes.

Sopha felt something growing in her chest, something small and hard and disbelieving, a pebble of doubt. “Don’t spend your dollar here,” she told Hovis. “These ain’t nothing but painted-up tiny chickens.”

“Son,” said the man. His eyes traveled leisurely over Hovis, taking in the hat and the revolvers and the holster and the sheriff badge, glinting in the sun. “You look like somebody who knows how to aim a gun.”

“Yes, sir,” said Hovis, standing up straighter, expecting, as always, to be admired, “I do.”

What was it like to be Hovis, Sopha wondered? What was it like to believe that you were chosen and that everybody in the whole world was just waiting to love you?

“There’s rides, Hovis,” she told him. “And food. There’s hot dogs. And cotton candy. We ain’t been here but five minutes.”

“Give him my dollar,” commanded Hovis. “I’m gonna win Mama a bird of paradise.”

Sopha shook her head and took one of the dollars out of her pocket and handed it over to the bird of paradise man, who took it from her and nodded his head and said, “That’s right, win you your very own bird of paradise.” He smiled at Sopha and his teeth flashed in the sun; almost all of them were gold.

“All you got to do, Sheriff, is knock down all them pins with this here ball and the bird is yours.” He handed a wooden ball to Hovis. Hovis took off his hat and put it between his feet and threw the ball hard. Not one of the pins moved.
“No winner,” said the man. “No winner, no winner here.” He smiled at Sopha, his teeth flashing.

The chicken smell was making her sick to her stomach.

Hovis bent and picked up his hat and put it back on his head. He turned and looked at Sopha. His bottom lip was trembling.

“Damn, Hovis,” she said.

How was it that he managed to ruin every little thing for her?

“Here,” she said. And she gave the second dollar, her dollar, to the gold-toothed man.

“Win you a bird of paradise. Win you your very own bird of paradise,” he said and snatched the dollar out of her hand.
Hovis took off his hat again and put it on the ground again. He threw the ball again. Knocked over nothing again and then started to cry for real this time, big old tears streaming down his face. Sopha slapped him because she couldn’t think of what else to do. She slapped him for losing her money and his. That was the first slap. And then she slapped him again. The second slap was just because he was Hovis.

“Now never mind,” she told him when she was done.

She picked up his hat, put it back on his head and then took hold of his hand.

“Win you a bird of paradise,” said the man as they walked away. “Win you a real live bird of paradise.”

Sopha led the crying Hovis to a curb and said to him, “Sit down.” He sat and Sopha sat beside him and looked around her and the pebble of doubt in her stomach turned into a rock. All of a sudden she realized something terrible: This was the fair, yes, but it was still the same old world. It had just dressed itself up in fancy clothes was all.

And then, as if to prove her point, here came Debbie Nort from school, walking toward them, her blond hair brushed and shining bright. Sopha quick stretched out her legs and put her feet flat so that Debbie Nort could see her new shoes.

“Hey, Sopha,” said Debbie.

“Hey,” said Sopha.

“That your brother?”

“That’s right.”

“I heard about him,” said Debbie Nort. “How come he don’t come to school?”

“None of your business,” said Sopha. She still had hold of Hovis’ hand and she squeezed it extra hard, but she could feel the beginning signs. He was quiet and she knew he was slipping away from her.

“What’s wrong with him?” Debbie said. She poked at one of Hovis’ feet with her own foot, like he was something dead in the road.

“Stop it,” Sopha said.

Debbie Nort kept poking at Hovis. “You all ain’t got no daddy,” said Debbie.

“You don’t know what we got,” said Sopha.

“And your mama’s a big old piece of Christmas fruitcake. With nuts. Everybody says so.”

“My daddy,” said Sopha and the words felt strange in her mouth and Hovis’ hand had melted down to nothing but bone and she knew that he was getting ready to have a fit, but she didn’t care. “My daddy is in Spain. I bet you don’t even know where Spain is at.”

“I know them shoes,” said Debbie Nort.

“What?”

“I said I know them shoes.”

Debbie cracked her gum. A fly landed on the brim of Hovis’ hat.

“These are my shoes,” Sopha said slowly.

“Maybe now they are,” said Debbie. She looked off in the distance and squinted her eyes at something.

“What?” said Sopha. Beside her, Hovis sighed and twitched. The fit was coming.

“Well, before you had them they was Mercy Wagon shoes.”

“No,” said Sopha.

“Uh huh,” said Debbie Nort. She was silent again, just grinning at Sopha. “I even know who gave them to the Mercy Wagon. It was Miss Lorna on account of they didn’t fit her granddaughter, Doranne. They’re Mercy Wagon shoes for sure,” said Debbie loudly.

“Liar,” said Sopha, but she said it without conviction. She knew the truth when she heard it. It was a curse, but she did. In this, she was different from Hovis and her mama. Neither one of them even knew what Truth was.

This was the truth: Caroline had set her up. She had put the shoes by Sopha’s bed to show her that she was still in charge, that she could still make a fool out of her. Caroline had won. She had sent Sopha to the fair in Mercy Wagon shoes.

Sopha looked past Debbie Nort’s head and saw the Ferris wheel turning slowly, its metal parts catching the sun.

“I don’t care,” said Sopha.

And right then Hovis slipped away.

“Here it comes,” he shouted. His hand shrunk down to nothing. It was like holding onto the bone of a piece of chicken you had been eating. Part of him was still here, but the real Hovis was gone.

“What’s he doing?” said Debbie Nort.

Hovis slid over onto his side. He let go of Sopha. His legs twitched. His eyes rolled straight back in his head. And then he started talking, the words pouring out of him like a dark river.

“Shit,” said Debbie Nort, stepping back.

Other people started gathering around, staring down at Hovis.

“What’s he saying?” said Debbie. “What’s he talking about?”

“He’s talking about how you are going to hell,” said Sopha, looking straight into Debbie Nort’s eyes.

Debbie stood and stared with her mouth open and then she turned and ran away. Other people came to watch. Hovis’ cowboy hat came off his head. Sopha moved so that she was standing over him.

“Is it a show?” she heard somebody ask.

“Naw,” somebody else answered, “it’s just some little cowboy having hisself a fit, is all.”

They stared for a few minutes and then they left and were replaced by other people who stared and then moved on. No one tried to kill him, like Caroline always predicted they would. No one shouted out that Hovis was speaking God’s words.

Because he wasn’t.

He was nothing but some little cowboy having a fit in the dust at the fair. After a while, it was only Sopha standing over Hovis, watching him, waiting for his jerking and gibberish to end.

“I tell you what,” called out the man from the bird of paradise booth. “I’m going to give that boy a bird.”

“He don’t need a bird,” said Sopha.

But the man was already out from behind his booth, coming toward them, limping and swinging a cage with a bright orange bird inside it. He stood with Sopha and stared at Hovis until the fit was done and then when Hovis sat up, all covered in dirt, blinking and looking around, the bird of paradise man said to him, “Touch my leg.”

“Don’t do it, Hovis,” said Sopha.

“Touch my leg, Sheriff.”

Hovis reached out and touched one of the man’s legs.

“The other one, Sheriff, the other one,” whispered the man to him.

And Hovis, still dazed, sat there and put both his hands out, one on each of the man’s legs.

“That’s right,” said the man. He put the cage down on the ground next to Hovis. “Win you a bird of paradise. Step right up and win you a bird of paradise.” He turned and winked at Sopha and then went limping back to his booth.

“Sopha,” said Hovis.

She stuck out her hand to him and he took it and she pulled him up off the ground.

“I can’t take care of you my whole life,” she said, picking up his cowboy hat and putting it on his head.

“I know it,” Hovis said, his words thick and uncertain.

Sopha bent over and pulled the laces loose on her shoes and then took them off her feet. Hovis watched her.

“Quit looking at me,” she said to Hovis.

He kept on staring at her, his eyes dull like they always were after a fit.

“Come on,” she said, “we’re leaving.” She picked up the birdcage and left the shoes sitting on the ground.

“What about your shoes?” asked Hovis.

“I don’t want them. And if you want to give this bird to Mama so bad, then you got to carry it.” She held out the cage to him. “Take it,” she said.

He took the cage from her and Sopha turned and started walking. They walked through the gates and the ground was warm under Sopha’s feet and she didn’t look back even once. She could feel the fair shining behind her, but she didn’t care. She knew now that it was nothing but sham and fakery and she was embarrassed to have fallen for it to begin with, to have believed in it for so long.

“Sopha?”

“What?”

“Ain’t you gonna hold my hand?”

“No,” she said.

Hovis bumped up against her in a friendly way.

“Don’t,” she told him.

“What did I say?” he asked her.

“When?”

“When I was talking in the voice of the Lord,” said Hovis shyly.

“You weren’t talking in the voice of the Lord,” said Sopha. “You were talking in the voice of Hovis having a fit.”

“I’m telling Caroline,” said Hovis. “I’m telling her what you said.”

“Go on and tell her,” said Sopha, walking faster to get away from Hovis and the fair. “You got to find her first.”

Outside the fairground was Sledecker Road and it stretched on forever. As far as Sopha knew, it went right on to the end of the world. They were walking on the side of it, on the burnt-up grass, when along came Floyd Meerkham’s truck with Caroline riding up in front of it looking to Sopha more like a vulture than anything else.

“Caroline,” shouted Hovis. “There’s Caroline,” he said to Sopha.

“I know it,” said Sopha. She felt tired.

Hovis stopped and waited for the truck to get to them. Caroline got out and came running for Hovis, her arms stretched wide, and he set down the bird of paradise cage and stood and waited for her.

“I had a fit at the fair,” he told her when she got to him. “I talked in the voice of the Lord and Sopha says I didn’t.”
Caroline took him in her arms and hugged him to her hard, but her eyes were on Sopha.

“He ain’t nothing special,” Sopha told her. “People watched him having a fit and just walked on away.”

Hovis started to cry. “I touched that bird man,” he said. “I healed him.”

“Did not,” said Sopha.

“Get in the truck, baby,” Caroline told Hovis.

Hovis picked up the birdcage.

“Nuh uh,” said Caroline. “You ain’t taking that nasty thing with you.”

“It’s for Mama,” said Hovis. “It’s a bird of paradise.”

“Put it down,” said Caroline.

Hovis put the cage down and adjusted his hat and then put a hand on either side of him, each hand feeling for a pistol as he walked to Floyd Meerkham’s truck.

“Where your shoes?” Caroline asked Sopha.

“Maybe back at the Mercy Wagon,” said Sopha, “where you got them from.”

Caroline smiled at her.

“I don’t need no mercy from you,” Sopha told her. “I don’t need nothing from you.”

“Go on and get in the truck.”

“I ain’t,” Sopha told her. “I ain’t going with you all.”

Caroline shrugged. “You go on and walk then. Without your shoes. See how far you get.”

Sopha stood and watched Floyd Meerkham back up the truck and turn it around.

“Why ain’t Sopha coming?” she heard Hovis ask.

“She prefer to walk,” said Caroline. “That’s why.”

After the truck disappeared, Sopha bent and studied the cage and found the latch and lifted it up and told the painted chicken that it was free.

“Go on then, you stupid old thing,” she told it.

And then she started walking. She didn’t look back to see what the bird did, whether it stayed in the cage or got out.

She didn’t care.

She walked. And while she walked she thought how she would have Harlan write another letter.

“Dear Clare,” it would say, “please send my daughter Sopha to me. She is my one and only daughter and I want her close. I want to study her face and hands.”

Sopha walked on, looking down at her bare feet, but what she saw clear as day was Harlan bent over the letter, his thick fingers shaking and the pretty words falling out, one on top of the other, making this one thing true.

“I love her,” the letter would say.

“Please show some mercy. Send her to me.”