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"If any of you are interested in having your fortunes told," the old woman said, "I'll be doing readings after the show. "
I'd been set up for an advertisement. I didn't think I liked it, but since we both needed the festival to do well, I couldn't complain.
I hurried to the performance ring. Joyce waved at me from the middle of the crowd and I waved back. Most of the seats were taken, but I managed to squeeze onto the last one in the first row just as the lights dimmed and a drum began to beat a rhythm that sounded as if it had come out of Africa.
The mountain lion snarled; the grizzly growled and somewhere out in the forest, the same something that had howled the other night answered.
I glanced around, but everyone was focused, fascinated, on the center ring.
Suddenly one of the lights flared, illuminating Sabina. She seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. One minute the ring had been shadowed, empty. The next, there were lights and a girl wearing a snake.
Theoretically, I knew she'd slipped through the shadows while the music and the animals had distracted the crowd, but with the night settling gently around us, I could swear I felt the magic; I almost believed in it, too.
Sabina appeared different in the spotlight. Her inability to speak didn't matter there. Her shyness gone, she danced as if she'd been born to; she no doubt had.
Her eyes appeared lighter than I remembered, more gold than green, not in the least bit brown, most likely just a reflection. Her hair was loose, swirling around her face and shoulders in time to the music, which had changed, becoming faster, more Oriental than African, although that drum still pulsed beneath the surface.
Her skirt swayed; brightly colored, it caught the light, playing hide-and-seek with the golden toe rings adorning her bare feet. From the waist down she was completely covered, but from the waist up she wore more snake than cloth. Her bare arms glowed beneath the lights, writhing up and down, back and forth, mimicking the cobra's movements.
The snake danced, yellow eyes glowing, seemingly as hypnotized by Sabina as the rest of us.
Someone gasped and I tensed, afraid the cobra had become aggressive; then I saw what made the crowd shift and mutter uneasily.
Close to a half a dozen snakes slithered into the ring, moving pretty quickly for snakes. If they wanted to, they could continue right across the circle, over the raised wooden edge, and into the crowd. Since I saw at least one rattler, that could be a problem.
However, the reptiles headed for Sabina, and once they reached her, they paused. She smiled, welcoming them, and when the music slowed, deepening toward the blues, she knelt, leaning backward until her head nearly touched the ground as she bowed her body like a gymnast.
The crowed went "ooooh. " Then, when the snakes began to slither onto her as if she were a bridge, the crowd went "ahhh," although my personal response was "ew!"
Sabina lifted her body until she rested on her knees, then rose to her feet. Her entire torso was covered with writhing snakes, the cobra wrapped around her neck, two rattlers twined around her arms like bracelets, and she appeared to be wearing a python as a belt. She sashayed out of the ring to thunderous applause.
It wasn't until Sabina was gone and the lights had dimmed again that I thought to wonder about her hand. I hadn't noticed during her amazing performance any deformity at all.
Ta-da!
The band blasted a traditional "Wasn't she wonderful?" sally, followed by a single thud of the drums.
Bam. The lights went back on, revealing
an empty ring.
The crowd held its breath. At first the staccato beat seemed to come from the band, but as the sound became louder, I distinguished the rhythm of a horse's hooves.
A ghostly shadow wavered, and then a white horse leaped out of the darkness, landing at the center of the spotlight. Atop the animal's back stood Malachi Cartwright. How had he stayed on the horse?
Cartwright was dressed in his usual black pants, his feet bare, the better to cling to the animal. His shirt red, the sleeves billowy, only a few buttons had been fastened, so that his chest played peekaboo with the fabric, blowing open and closed in the breeze kicked up as he put the horse and himself through their paces.
I'd never seen anything quite Like it, and from the silence of the crowd, neither had they. Cartwright and the horse appeared to be one being. I never saw the man direct the animal. I never saw the animal await instructions. Whether Cartwright stood, knelt, or lay flat on the horse's back, he never lost his balance, never faltered.
The music rose to a crescendo, signaling the big finish. Cartwright jumped off and perched on the edge of the ring. The horse circled, faster and faster, around and around.
I figured Malachi would do some fancy jump and land on top of the animal; instead he raced in the opposite direction, until he stood in front of the audience. He bowed low and everyone cheered. Then he turned to me and held out his hand.
I stared, uncertain of what he expected. The crowd went silent, waiting.
"Would ye be wantin' a ride then?" he asked, playing up his brogue shamelessly to the audience.
My gaze switched to the horse, which still galloped in a circle. "No thanks. "
