The Ladies of the Secret Circus Read online

  “Are you looking for my father?” Lara shaded her eyes so she could get a better look at them.

  “No, silly,” he said. “I’m looking for you, Miss Lara Barnes.”

  “Lara Margot Barnes,” she said, correcting him and folding her arms in front of her like she meant business.

  “Oh, how delightful!” The lady turned to the man. “Did you hear that?”

  “Of course I heard it, Margot. I’m standing here, aren’t I?”

  The woman snorted loud enough for Gomez Addams to raise his head.

  His accent was French, like her great-grandmother Cecile’s. The lady’s was definitely Southern, like her mother’s. It was an odd combination. They were an odd pair.

  As she took in the two of them, something in the horizon bent, like the shimmer of air in extreme heat. Lara blinked furiously, making sure that she wasn’t seeing things. The world began to twirl and she found that her legs were bendy as she slid down, like she did when she played dead after being shot from a cap gun.

  When she opened her eyes, she found herself lying on the grass, looking up at the curious pair.

  “Does she know?” The woman looked up at the man.

  He seemed irritated. “Of course not.”

  “Know what?” Lara lifted herself up on her elbows. She’d heard of kidnappers, but these two didn’t look much like kidnappers. Lara figured she could outrun the woman, who was wearing high heels in a field. At least her vision wasn’t bendy and she wasn’t dizzy anymore.

  “That you’re special.” He smiled. “But of course, you know that already, don’t you?” His voiced teased at something. “Someone’s magic has just come in.”

  What was he talking about? What magic?

  “I remember when my magic came in,” said the woman, closing her eyes to savor a memory. “I could turn the radio on without touching it. Drove Maman crazy.” She cocked her head, as if Lara were an exhibit in the zoo. “She’s a pretty child, too. Don’t you think she looks like me?”

  The man closed his eyes in disgust. “Why do I bring you along?”

  “Because I’m your favorite and you know it.” She touched Lara’s cheek again, maternally. “She’s definitely the one.”

  “Oh, she’s the one all right.” The man finally leaned over her. “I’ve made sure of it this time. Remember this, my dear girl. We have bigger plans for you, Lara Barnes. That boy in your future, he is not your destiny.”

  “Oh, she’ll never remember.” The woman sniffed slightly with disgust. Her upturned nose and full lips made her look like a movie star. “She’ll think she loves him. We always do.”

  “Sadly, yes, I’m afraid,” said the man, pulling his sunglasses down so Lara could see his eyes. They were an amber color, and something struck her as oddly familiar about them. It took Lara a moment for it to register. His pupils were horizontal like those of the goat they’d kept on the farm last summer. She could never tell if the goat was actually looking at her and she had that same familiar feeling now, the desire to look behind her to see what he was staring at.

  “Love. It is the bane of my existence.” He shook his head pitifully. “And unfortunately, it’s in the genes for this one, too.” He shot the woman a look.

  “Not my fault.” The woman sat back on her high heels. Lara could see that the heels were still pristine, not a speck of dirt on them.

  Lara looked around, wondering if anyone else—other than the horses—could see them, but the grass swayed quietly. From a distance she heard the screen door slam.

  “One day,” he said. “I’ll find you again, Lara Barnes.”

  He touched her on the tip of her nose, causing her to faint again. When she woke up a few moments later, they were gone.

  Kerrigan Falls, Virginia

  October 10, 2004

  Sometime in the night, Lara woke to find the curtain blowing softly over her bed. She’d downed a sleeping pill when they’d returned home from the church, so mercifully she’d slept until now. She looked at the clock: five fifty-two A.M. She’d been unconscious for nearly twelve hours. Nothing about her wedding day had happened as she’d planned. She slid out of the sheets and crept downstairs.

  Before drifting off, she remembered hearing phones ringing and doors slamming. She’d half expected to find Todd standing by her bed when she woke with some wild story about getting drunk in the woods or falling down a well. She looked around her room. No note.

  But nothing? Has he really not come here?

  She padded into the dining room and searched for a sign that he’d called while she slept—even a terse note from her mother telling her “the boy” had left a message. Nothing. The house was silent. It was unthinkable, really. Surely there had been some mistake, some logical explanation. She wouldn’t be forgiving him, not this time, but at least he owed her some kind of answer for standing her up at their wedding. There was a finality to this silence, like she’d been forgotten, abandoned.

  Wedding gifts in silver wrapping sat on the dining room table in a haphazard jumble. She wondered if her mother hadn’t knocked them from their neat pile on purpose. Audrey, still in her blue bathrobe, was asleep on the wingback chair in the living room with the light on. She’d been reading and hadn’t bothered to take off the heavy layer of wedding makeup.

  Lara padded softly through the foyer, passing all the black-and-white family photos as well as photos of their prized horses and the painting of her great-grandmother standing on a horse. As she passed it, a detail caught her eye: the choker necklace. She reached up to touch her own neck. It was bare. Still feeling the imprint of the necklace on her collarbone, Lara couldn’t remember taking it off, but then so many things about the hour after she left the church were hazy. At some point, she must have cooperated with her mother because she was also out of her wedding dress and now in a long sleeveless cotton nightgown that looked like it belonged in another century.

  The minute she stepped outside, the breeze hit her. Goose bumps dotted her arms, and she rubbed her hands over them. She walked out into the field where, as a teenager, she’d sat with Todd so many times. Easing herself onto a soft patch of grass, she thought there was something comforting about being here again. It recalled a simpler time.

  Usually her mother was up by five, so the animals were stirring and restless, waiting for Audrey to feed them. They turned their hopeful attention to Lara.

  She thought she heard rustling in the tall grasses behind her. Lara twisted to get a better look. “Todd?” Instead of his tall figure standing there, she found only the softly swaying grass. Thinking she heard movement again, she turned, hoping that Todd would emerge from the trees. There had been mysterious things—mysterious people—appearing here before, only now she welcomed them. She’d even dreamed about them again last night.

  It was late harvest in the valley, and she knew the nearby winery’s seasonal staff would be out this morning, racing against the clock for any late grapes that were ripening. Expecting to hear the firing up of tractor engines and the shouts and laughter from the early-morning pickers, she pulled her legs closer, meeting the eyes of the tall chestnut horse that had begun staring at her from his gate. It was as though time had stopped. Even the scene in the house looked like one of those episodes of The Twilight Zone where everyone had fallen into a deep sleep with Lara being the only person conscious and left wandering the earth.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting when she heard the gravel shifting then saw the glare of headlights coming up over the drive. Her breath caught. Todd! Oh, thank God.

  This had all been a terrible nightmare.

  But the car that emerged from the trees wasn’t Todd’s familiar white Mustang. Instead it was a dark Jeep Cherokee. She’d seen this car before. The door opened and the outline of a man appeared. From the way he placed his hand heavily on the roof before he came around the car, she knew that whoever he was, he was delivering bad news.

  Lara jumped up and ran down the hill, forgetting that she
was only dressed in a thin cotton nightgown. The sight of her emerging from the field, her hair a wild tangle of blond and her makeup still in streaks, must have been a fright. “Did you find him?”

  The face was familiar, and it took Lara a minute to place it. Ben Archer, the chief of police.

  Immediately he removed his jacket and placed it around her shoulders. “How long have you been out here? It’s freezing.”

  Lara looked out in the field blankly. It was definitely lighter now than when she’d come outside. She could make out the outlines of the mountains in the distance. “I don’t know. Half an hour. I thought I heard something.”

  “Jesus, Lara,” said a voice. Lara turned to see her mother at the door, pulling her bathrobe tight.

  “I found her out here.”

  When they reached the house, Lara’s mother grabbed her arm and ushered her up on the front porch and through the door.

  Once they were inside, the police chief didn’t move much past the stairs. “We found Todd’s car.”

  Lara felt the room spin and could feel herself swaying. In a flash, thoughts came. What questions should she ask? Should she be sitting or standing? Would she need tissues? An eternity seemed to pass before she realized he’d said Todd’s car. Not Todd. Ben had not said he was found dead.

  “What about Todd?” Audrey had taken her by the shoulders.

  “Is he hurt?” Lara added, her voice rising hopefully, because the alternative was worse.

  Ben shook his head. “No sign of him.”

  “What do you mean no sign of him?” said Audrey. Her mother’s voice had an edge to it, causing Lara to turn and look at her. Despite the woman’s earlier denial, her mother knew something.

  “We called the state police.” Ben Archer rubbed the back of his neck. “They’re going to take the car and analyze it.” There was a haze of stubble on his face and a look of exhaustion. He clasped his hands in front of him like an undertaker at an unexpected funeral.

  It occurred to Lara that, living in Kerrigan Falls, he probably hadn’t had to give bad news to anyone before, so he had no practice at it. Nothing happened here. Until now.

  “That’s why I wanted to get down here to talk to you,” he continued. “His car is going to be towed through town on a flatbed. People will notice it. They’ll talk.” He stammered. “I just wanted to prepare you. Now I’ve got to tell Fred and Betty.”

  “They don’t know yet?” Lara’s hand went to her mouth from shock. She imagined Betty Sutton hearing this news.

  Ben shook his head. “I came here first.”

  “Where did you find it?” Audrey’s voice was thin and tense, expectant even. “The car?”

  Lara studied her mother’s features, looking for something.

  Ben hesitated before answering. “Wickelow Bend.”

  Audrey’s eyes widened, but not with surprise. Lara made a mental note of that. There was something unsaid between her mother and Ben Archer. At the mention of Wickelow Bend, the air seemed to go out of her mother. “I see.”

  “Wait! The haunted stretch of road that kids are told not to drive on?” Lara looked at Ben. “That Wickelow Bend? Why on earth would Todd have been there?” Lara eyed her mother suspiciously. Audrey had turned completely pale and seemed to be trembling. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “It was thirty years ago today.” Audrey directed the comment to Ben. “You remember that, don’t you?”

  “I was there, Audrey,” said Ben. He put his hands in his pockets and seemed fascinated with his shoes. “It was my dad’s birthday. He always let me ride along with him in the police cruiser.”

  “Oh, I keep forgetting about your father.” Audrey looked weary. “But you were just a boy.”

  “What are you both talking about?” Lara was watching their faces. “You didn’t find Todd. That’s good, right?”

  Ben hesitated as though he were parsing out unfortunate news to a child. “Back in 1974—October tenth to be specific—we found an abandoned car along the road. It belonged to a man by the name of Peter Beaumont. To be perfectly honest with you, Todd’s car was found in the exact same spot today.”

  “We’ve all heard the story,” said Lara. “You’re telling me that it’s really true?”

  “Yes.” Audrey’s voice was soft. “Peter Beaumont was your father’s best friend.”

  “But Todd had no connection to Wickelow Bend or that missing man.”

  “Peter Beaumont wasn’t just some missing man,” said her mother, a surprising tone of annoyance in her voice as she clutched at the collar of her robe, pulling it around her neck. “He and your father grew up together here. They started their first band together in Jason’s garage.”

  Lara was confused. While she knew never to drive on Wickelow Bend at night—no one did that—she’d never heard the name Peter Beaumont until now. Kids told wild tales of Wickelow Bend, but there were no names attached. It was an anonymous bogeyman… a missing man. The idea that someone real had actually disappeared hadn’t occurred to her or her friends, ever. It was just an old legend. And Peter Beaumont? She’d toured with her father’s band for a year. No one knew her father’s musical career like she did. “And yet none of you have ever mentioned his name?” It was a sharp comment and she could see that it stung, but she couldn’t exactly figure out why this revelation was bothering her so much.

  “I have to go tell the Suttons,” said Ben, excusing himself.

  “Of course,” said Audrey, taking his jacket from Lara’s shoulders and offering it back.

  He touched the doorknob and then turned back. “I’m sorry, Lara. I wish I’d had better news for you.”

  “You’re still looking for him?”

  “Of course we are,” said Ben. “Doyle has a team searching the woods. But…”

  “But what?”

  “They never found Peter Beaumont.” Her mother finished Ben’s sentence for him.

  “That’s correct. Technically, the Beaumont case is still open,” he said. Ben tapped the front door with his finger, nervously.

  The weight of what they were hinting at hit her in waves. This wasn’t some simple misunderstanding over their wedding. They were saying that she might never see Todd again. Pressure built up behind her eyes, and she fixed on something on the wall so as not to cry.

  “I’ll be in touch.” Ben nodded at Audrey. Lara noticed the thick mud on the pants of his uniform and the dark circles under his eyes. It would be a long day. For that, she was grateful to him. He looked as miserable as she felt.

  When she turned, she saw that her father had been standing in the doorway, listening to the entire exchange. It would make sense that he wanted to be here for Lara after what happened at the wedding, but she hadn’t known he was in the house.

  “I guess you heard.” Audrey ran her hands through her hair, like she was trying to compose herself.

  Anger rose up in her, but Lara wasn’t sure why. “Why didn’t either of you ever mention Peter Beaumont to me?” A name she had never heard until today had suddenly become significant. Now Peter and Todd seemed to be entwined by the same fate.

  “I couldn’t talk about him.” Jason focused on Audrey.

  Something occurred to Lara. She had been so stupid. She turned to her mother. “You knew.” The common blood that flowed between them told her this much. “You’d tried to talk me out of getting married yesterday. It was the date, wasn’t it? You knew something would happen on that day.”

  “They thought Peter actually disappeared on the ninth and that his car wasn’t found until the next day. I’ve hated that day.” Her mother inhaled deeply. “I’d hoped I would be wrong.”

  Lara shot her mother a disbelieving stare and laughed. “You’re never wrong.”

  “No,” admitted Audrey. “I’m not, but for your sake, I wish that I had been.”

  Kerrigan Falls, Virginia

  June 20, 2005 (Nine Months After the Wedding)

  After Todd—didn’t show, split, went missing, jil
ted her, bailed, was abducted by aliens, insert wild theory—Lara had contemplated moving away from Kerrigan Falls.

  Nothing had prepared her for the aftermath. First there were people who speculated on the connection between the Todd Sutton and Peter Beaumont cases.

  Reporters camped out on Wickelow Bend as though they were expecting something to emerge from the trees. They stalked her, trying to get interviews about the last time she saw Todd and if he believed in the supernatural. A television show, Ghostly Happenings, sent a team of “hunters” for an episode titled “The Devil’s Bend” that was the most watched show of the season, leading to odd phone calls at all hours from true believers in the occult. Lara had been so rattled by the intense attention that she didn’t put up a fuss when Audrey insisted she stay out at Cabot Farms. When cars began driving up to the house in the middle of the night, Audrey installed a gate at the bottom of the hill, then changed their number. Lara wasted the days away reading her horoscope, watching General Hospital, drinking Chardonnay, and doing tarot readings for Caren and Betsy, who’d visited her like she was a high schooler home sick with mono. The apartment she’d shared with Todd sat empty. She couldn’t bear to see it without him in it. The radio station gave her a month off.

  Then there were the people who thought that Todd had just bailed on her. In some ways, they were the worst. Wild stories of him being seen at Dulles Airport the day of the wedding abounded, indicating that Todd might have sought a new life elsewhere on a 747. If this group saw her buying mac and cheese in a box at the supermarket, they turned their carts mid-aisle to avoid talking to her as though her misfortune were contagious. To avoid the look of pity, she started shopping at the all-night supermarket on the highway twelve miles away, peacefully steering her cart at three in the morning with the drunks and stoned college kids, bags of potato chips tucked under their arms. Then the daily copy of the Kerrigan Falls Express newspaper started going missing from the mailbox. Furious, Lara called the customer service line, only to learn that Caren, at Audrey’s request, had driven by each morning, snatching up the morning edition so Lara wouldn’t have to see that reporter Kim Landau had written yet another article on Todd’s disappearance. MISSING posters from well-meaning people went up around Kerrigan Falls like Todd was some cat who’d been let out in the night and never returned. A fundraiser was held. What the funds were for, Lara was never quite sure.