said I might have seen the kid, Levi. You know how it is. We get kids hanging around all the time—granted, usually not at that hour of the morning, but still…”
“Where did you last see him?” Hannah asked, suddenly unable to swallow around the lump of fear in her throat.
“I hollered at him to get going and he ran off toward the front of the train—up where the sleeping cars are. He could have just kept going or he could have boarded one of those cars.”
“Let’s go,” Levi said, taking Hannah’s elbow and ushering her past the dapper little man. “Maybe he’s still there—maybe he fell asleep and…”
“He could never sleep through all of this,” Hannah replied as she practically ran to keep up with his long strides. “Besides, he’s an early riser and…”
“Let’s just be sure.”
But after a thorough search of the sleeping, dining and stock cars there was no sign of Caleb. Levi even spoke to the local authorities to see if they might have spotted a boy obviously on his own in town.
“I’ve alerted the authorities in Sarasota,” Levi told the family when they had all returned to his private car where Hans had prepared lunch for them. “And Hans can arrange for your trip home. However, I’m afraid the earliest train is tomorrow.”
“It’s God’s will,” Pleasant murmured, and Hannah shivered at the very idea that God would be so cruel as to allow a boy to wander alone over yet a second night while his mother was miles away.
“Or man’s failure,” Levi added quietly. “I’ll question my business manager again, Hannah. Perhaps there’s some detail he forgot, something that might offer more information.”
“Thank you,” Hannah replied and stood up. “Please excuse me,” she murmured and did not wait for their permission.
Outside she wandered the circus lot, oblivious to the growing throng surrounding her as people gathered for the matinee performance. But as she found her way around the enormous tent away from the main entrance and the smaller side-show tents and ticket wagon, she began to consider her surroundings through the eyes of her son.
The dining tent was mostly empty now. Only a few of the waiters were left, lounging at one of the tables, cigarettes dangling from their lips as they took a well-deserved break. She followed the sounds of chatter and found herself in what Caleb had described to her as the “backyard” of the circus.
“See, Ma,” he’d explained excitedly, “it’s not so different from home if they have a backyard.”
Hannah watched as a parade of elaborately out fitted animals and performers lined up for their grand entrance into the tent. “The big top, Ma,” Caleb had corrected her when she referred to it as a tent on their tour. “Because it’s the biggest.”
“The big top,” she murmured as she trudged on. She had no idea where she was headed. She only knew that she had to find a quiet place where she could think. She had noticed a little creek near the tracks on their way in. Perhaps…
“Watch it, honey.” Hannah glanced up to find that she’d nearly run straight into a highly made-up woman wearing a skin-tight leotard, tights and a sheer flowing skirt covered in sequins.
Immediately, she averted her eyes. “So sorry,” she murmured. “Forgive me, please,” she added as she and the woman engaged in a kind of dance as one moved one way and the other moved in unison so that they were still blocking each other.
“Hey,” the woman said, “you’re the mother of that missing kid, aren’t you?”
The mention of Caleb took precedence over anything that might have proved embarrassing about being so close to a woman like this. She met the woman’s gaze and saw that beneath the layers of mascara and eye shadow, the woman had eyes that were kind and concerned.
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Thought so. Look, honey, you didn’t hear it from me but some of us were talking and we’re pretty sure we saw the kid. Blond hair, right? Looks like it’s been cut by using a bowl as a cap?”
Hannah nodded, unable to breathe for the rush of hope she didn’t want to allow herself to feel.
“Skinny kid but taller than most. White shirt, suspenders holding up high-water black pants?”
“What are high-water…”
“Too short for him,” the woman explained.
“Yes,” Hannah said, her excitement building. “Where…when…”
“All I can tell you is that kid was on the train last night—like a shadow he was.” She chuckled. “Now you saw him and now you didn’t.”
“And now?”
The woman’s laughing eyes sobered. “Haven’t seen him since we got here, honey,” she admitted. “And from the chatter in the dining tent earlier, neither has anyone else. We figured he must have moved on but then I saw you searching this morning and…well, I’m a mother myself and when I ran into you just now, it seemed like I was supposed to tell you what I knew even if…”
“May I know your name?” Hannah asked.
The woman’s eyes narrowed, then she shrugged. “Sure. That’s me there.” She pointed to the painted side of a large float where the words Lily Palmer, The Girl in the Gilded Cage were emblazoned in gold script.
Hannah heard the band sound a fanfare and slowly the parade of people and animals started forward. “Gotta run, honey,” Lily shouted as she dashed off to climb aboard her float. Hannah watched as the woman nimbly climbed up the side of a three-tiered scaffolding and into an oversized gilded birdcage. From her perch up high, Lily waved at Hannah. “Keep the faith, honey,” she shouted and Hannah realized that she was smiling, and that her breathing was coming in gasps of excitement rather than panic. She waved back to Lily and then headed back to Levi’s private car to share the news with the others.
“I thought you said you saw the kid.” Levi fumed later that afternoon as he and Jake went over the orders Jake would need to place at each stop on their way north.
“I told you I saw a kid, Levi. Blond hair, Amish looking duds—seemed to match what you described. Don’t shoot the messenger, okay?”
Jake and Levi had been friends for years. They had both been stowaways and after spending several months riding the circus train and doing odd jobs, Jake had left to find his fortune in Chicago. A couple of months after Levi inherited the Brody circus from his mentor Jasper Brody, Levi contacted his old friend and the two had worked together ever since. He’d quickly realized that Jake’s talents were exactly the right complement to his own. The man had a head for business, plus he was a crowd-pleaser. That meant he was great at negotiating favorable deals for the myriad list of goods and supplies that it took to keep a circus running.
In the process the two of them had become good friends. Jake’s naturally outgoing personality was a perfect complement to Levi’s reticence and as the years had gone by, Levi had been more than happy to let Jake handle the public and promotional parts of running a circus.
“I just hated to disappoint her,” he said by way of apology for snapping at his friend.
Jake shrugged. “You’ve gone above and beyond the way I see it. It’s hardly your concern if the boy decided to take off.”
“He’s younger than most,” Levi said absently.
“Maybe there was trouble at home. Maybe his ma—or maybe his grandpa—were…”
“They’re good people, Jake.”
His friend shrugged. “I’m just saying. A boy doesn’t take off for no good reason.”
“She thinks he fell for the glamour,” Levi said and then both men laughed. For both