The Magnetic Girl. Jessica Handler

AT HOME WAS the first step. When I was ready, people would come to the parlor to watch. After that, he said, I’d play the Magnetic Girl in a theater a few times. Enough to lift the loan from his shoulders, as I’d promised.

      “Consider that fox you say you held in your thrall,” Daddy said. “Who needs a dumb animal when you can hold a roomful of strangers the same way?”

      The lines he drew in his notebook became tight wires with every test, every time.

      “Think of how proud Leo will be,” Daddy said.

      The straight lines in his notebook were my gift to my father. For myself, I only wanted to captivate and practice the power Mrs. Wolf applied to her visitors: the Mesmerist’s kindness toward the unwell.

CHAPTER FIVE

      MY FATHER CHOSE A SUNDAY IN NOVEMBER FOR MY parlor tests. All the guests would be men. Women frighten easily. Just look at Dale, he said. She was a prime example. Men protected ladies, and if men believed what they’d seen was too alarming for ladies, more men would want to come see what the fuss was about. Eventually the ladies would get their way.

      The fact that Mrs. Wolf, when she was alive, was a lady—as was I—didn’t escape my notice. In her writing, she hadn’t seemed frightened at all. Momma was a lady and she didn’t rattle easily. But Leo would, after all, someday be a man, so I might as well practice on men. Still, I didn’t see why I couldn’t captivate a wife or mother when I did a test.

      After church, I waited in the wagon while Daddy invited Mr. Rogers, up from Atlanta visiting family, and Mr. Shepherd, the husband in a young couple Momma had deemed “charming” because they were new and he was in business with the Iron Furnace. I picked dirt from my boot heel and watched my parents stroll with Colonel Furman, who owned The Appeal. Nearly everyone who had fought in the war was called Colonel, no matter what their rank. My father was called Colonel by some. Drummer boys were old enough by now to get themselves called Colonel, and I guessed that was all right.