Bringing Ezra Back by Cynthia DeFelice

don’t rightly know,” I said uncertainly. “He can do whatever he likes, I reckon, but me and Molly and Pa’d be glad to have him as long as he wants to stay.”
    She took that in, then asked, “You say you knew him before. Could he speak?”
    I shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Can’t I just see him?” I asked.
    â€œIn a minute,” she said.
    I sighed and said, “He couldn’t talk then, either. It’s a—a long story, how he lost his tongue.”
    â€œThere’s no time for that now,” Miss Mary said. “But tell me this, did he have some life about him back then?”
    I nodded. “He didn’t talk, but he didn’t have to. We had a way of getting on together.”
    â€œSo, besides not talking, he was like other folks?” Miss Mary asked.
    It was a difficult question, and it took me a while to sort out the answer. Meantime, I could still feel the eyes of all the other show people, as they leaned forward to hear every word. I wondered if Ezra, inside the men’s wagon, was listening, too.
    â€œNo, I reckon he was always different, even back then.” I blurted out the questions that were tormenting me. “What happened to him? Why didn’t he even look at me when I called his name?”
    I stopped, feeling near to tears.
    A loud groan came from the Trasks’ wagon, followed by mumbling. I nearly bolted at that, but Miss Mary held my arm and said, “That’s just the whiskey talking.”
    She sighed then. “As to your question,” she said quietly, “I don’t know. We were out in western Ohio someplace, I remember. Trask went to town and came back with this white feller dressed in tatters and animal skins, wearing his hair long like an Indian.” She made a face and added, “Hiram’s got a nose for sniffing out misfits and misfortunates.”
    After another sigh, she went on. “You heard him for yourself: Trask’s a cunning liar. I don’t know what he said to get your friend to follow him, but I don’t suppose it took much. Ezra was mighty dispirited, even then. That very night, Hiram and Lovey put him up on the stage and told their hokum story, made him open his mouth and show the crowd that gaping hole.” She paused. “And ever since, I’ve watched him die a little more every day.”
    Gesturing with her small hand to the men’s and women’s wagons, she said, “You see, Calvin, Pea-Head, Betty, Amelia, and me, we belong here. We chose to be here—well, all except for Amelia. Her parents sold her to the Trasks when she was just six years old.”
    I shook my head in wonder at such a thing.
    â€œHere we have a roof over our heads, and food, such as it is,” Miss Mary said. “I know that doesn’t sound like much, and maybe it isn’t. But we also have each other’s company. Out in the world, people stare and say cruel things. Of course, they do that at the show. But they have to pay for the pleasure and, to us, that makes all the difference.”
    Her keen eyes peered at me in the darkness to see if I was following. I nodded to show I got her meaning well enough. I did, too. But I was so impatient to get to Ezra, it was hard to stand and listen.
    â€œYour friend, he doesn’t belong here,” Miss Mary said. “Trask knows that. I figure that’s why he keeps him apart.”
    â€œApart?” I repeated warily. “How do you mean?”
    Little Miss Mary hesitated, then took my hand before saying, “The rest of us, we’re not allowed to talk to him. Trask keeps him alone, in that—that cage. ” She pointed with her other hand.
    â€œCage!” I gasped. I broke free of her grasp and ran past the end of the men’s wagon to where a boxlike shape stood half-hidden in the brushy undergrowth near the riverbank. It wasn’t much more than some boards nailed to a