Free The Magician's Lie by Greer Macallister

silence, Mother suggested Ray inspect my leg to see how it was healing. I didn’t dare speak against her, knowing how angry she must be with me for my failure. So I sat in our best chair and endured the humiliation of Ray’s wordless inspection, his hands roaming over me with full license while my parents looked on. Ray’s obvious joy was more painful to me than the injury itself. I knew he was indulging his secret fantasy of being a healer, imagining somehow that he was knitting my bones back together with the power of his mind. When he suggested it again the next evening, I said, “No, thank you, I feel entirely healed.” That night, it was a lie, but it was the truth soon enough. After only a few weeks, I’d regained the use of my leg. Mother exclaimed over how quickly it had healed and credited Cecchetti with keeping me in such good health.
    My body made a complete recovery, but there was a permanent change to my mind. There were so many what-ifs. If my mother hadn’t fallen in love with Victor. If we hadn’t come to Jeansville. If I hadn’t started dancing in the evenings. If we’d never been invited to Biltmore. Without all these, I never would have practiced my balance on the beam, and I never would have let myself be broken in pieces. Things would be so different. There were so many other lives I wasn’t leading, all because of a handful of choices, mostly made by others. I swore to myself that in the future, I’d make my own choices, right or wrong. Then at least when things went haywire, I’d know exactly who was to blame.

Chapter Seven
    1894–1895
    Flight of the Favorite
    Nearly six months later, two things happened in rapid succession. I happened upon something I shouldn’t have, and I made a crucial mistake.
    The rainy winter came upon us and gave way to a cool, dry spring. The men were plowing and planting, preparing for the summer ahead. My mother needed assistance with an especially heavy load of groceries she’d brought home from town, and she directed me to fetch one of the men from the barn. I feared I would likely find Ray there, as he was most often caring for the horses, but I had no choice. Mother had softened in her attitude toward me now that so much time had passed since the disaster at Biltmore, and I felt that we were once more on solid ground. I didn’t want to jeopardize that.
    I stood in the doorway of the barn and shouted, “Raymond, my mother needs your help. Come now.”
    No answer. I took one more step inside.
    â€œRaymond?”
    The air inside the barn was heavy with hay dust and thick with an animal smell. Suddenly, a horse cried out with a strangled whinny. I had never heard such a cry. I rushed in the direction of the sound and arrived at a stall to see Ray seated at a dappled mare’s front right foot, which was in a sling to keep her from striking out with it.
    The hammer dropped from his hand when she kicked, and his grip on her leg was lost. She cried out again and shook her head fiercely, mane flying, against the air. I could see a metal spike protruding from her foot. Not from the edges of the hoof where she was shoed, but in the tender center. She had to be in terrible pain. I reeled.
    â€œLeave that horse alone!” I shouted.
    â€œI’m trying to get the spike out of her hoof, you fool,” said Ray.
    I knew next to nothing about horses, but I could still see through his lie. “You’d want a claw hammer for that. Not a mallet.”
    He reached down, gingerly dodging the horse’s swinging leg, and grabbed the fallen mallet.
    â€œWhat do you want?” he asked.
    â€œRight now, I want you to step back,” I said. Shockingly, he complied.
    I stepped past him into the stall, laid my palm against the side of the horse’s neck, and spoke to her in a quiet voice. When her eyes were no longer rolling back in her head, I lowered both hands as quickly and smoothly as I