He recovers quickly. Only a few days later, he is out and about, The Baltimore Sun reporting that “the mad tragedian has arrived in our city.”

And in another paper: “Is this man a maniac?”

No one is able to explain to Rosalie what the fight was about. It seems none of them know. Her father says that he gave Iago’s speech as he bludgeoned Mr. Flynn.

And nothing can or shall content my soul

Till I am evened with him, wife for wife,

Or, failing so, yet that I put the Moor

At least into a jealousy so strong

That judgment cannot cure!

Until suddenly the story changes and now he thought he was Othello, and what he shouted was,

Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore!

Mr. Flynn’s version, confided to Mother, confided to Rosalie, is considerably less Shakespearean. Mr. Flynn said Father was angry because Mr. Flynn was preventing Father from having a fair shake at Mother. Rosalie doesn’t know what a fair shake is and she knows better than to ask. Mother didn’t see the fight herself, but she thinks that poor little Edwin may have seen something. “He had the biggest, saddest eyes after,” she tells Rosalie. Edwin always has the biggest, saddest eyes. “Like saucers. When I picked him up, he buried his head under my arm as if hoping no one would find him there.”

Rosalie knows that her father, who is so tender that he weeps over dead birds and won’t kill even the poisonous snakes, a man who can’t pick a flower because to do so means the end of that fragrant blameless life—that this same father can be cruel when opposed. When opposed and drunk, he’s dangerous. She knows that her mother, who treats him with extraordinary reverence, is also deeply afraid of him. Rosalie loves him very much and is deeply afraid of him, too.

These are things the other children do not know and do not feel, and Rosalie is very sorry to think that Edwin may be learning them at such a sweet age.

She asks Edwin about his trip to Charleston. “Such a big trip for such a big boy,” she tells him. Fortunately, the only thing Edwin seems to remember is being put to bed among the costumes in Father’s trunk.

vii

Broken face and all, Father is off on tour again before three weeks have passed. One night, something, a premonition or an unexpected noise—Rosalie doesn’t know what—wakes her. She makes her silent way to the stairs and down. In the dark, she skirts the chairs and tables by finding the edge of the Turkish rug and sticking to it until she’s at the front door, which she opens. She might be dreaming. The moon is high and shiny as a dime above the trees. Masses of stars have been carelessly tossed about it. The nearby owl calls. A raven launches into the air and Rosalie can hear the whomp whomp whomp of its wings. The world is black and silver. She can smell that rain is coming.