The Ladies of the Secret Circus Page 8

  She scanned the room, suddenly self-conscious about what people thought of them.

  Hours later, after finishing the macaroni and cheese special, brussels sprouts, and another glass of wine that was definitely giving her a headache, Lara began to gather her purse.

  Del presented one bill, and Ben Archer reached for it.

  “You don’t have to do that.” Lara reached for the pleather holder with a faded Amex logo to pull it away from him.

  “I know. I should make you pay for both of us.” He lifted one eyebrow, something that Lara marveled he could do. “It occurs to me that among my recent loot, there was no birthday present from you. I’m a little hurt. I could have used a lighter.”

  “You don’t smoke.”

  “For barbecuing and lighting candles,” he said as he scanned the bill.

  “I’ve never seen you barbecue anything and I’m pretty sure you don’t own a single decorative candle, Mr. Archer.”

  “Quit being so smug that you know me so well. An oven mitt, then.”

  “You don’t cook. You come here every night.”

  “A blood pressure cuff, then.”

  “Eh.” Lara considered the cuff before waving goodbye to Del. It was a two-block walk to her house.

  A light rain began to fall as they walked toward their respective homes. They stopped at the street where he went left and she went right and continued to make small talk about the state of the sidewalk repair. Lara remembered she didn’t have to be at the station early the next day, so that was good.

  “I must be doing a really poor job of this.” Ben’s face was getting flushed.

  “Of what?”

  “Hitting on you.” He put his hands in his pockets.

  “Oh.” Lara laughed, pressing her hand to her face.

  “And I’m getting wet, so if you’re going to reject me, do it quickly so I can get inside. This carnival gala thing on Saturday. Do you need a chaperone?”

  “I could use a chaperone, Mr. Archer. As the chief of police, you’d probably be an acceptable one.” Lara wasn’t sure if it was too soon to start something new. She didn’t know if there was a time line for women like her, but she knew that with Ben Archer she didn’t feel like a tragedy. She weighed them both in her mind: Todd and Ben; Ben and Todd. But it wasn’t as though she had a choice. One was gone and one was standing in front of her. Maybe it was time she started living again.

  “What color is your dress?”

  “Why?” She laughed. “Are we matching?”

  “No,” he said, smiling. “You’ll just be wearing a mask. I want to know who I’m looking for.”

  “Blue,” she said. “My dress is blue. And I’ll find you.”

  Kerrigan Falls, Virginia

  July 24, 1982

  As a kid, Lara had loved to run across the field that connected the old Lund Farm, now owned by her grandfather Simon Webster, to the one that belonged to her great-grandmother Cecile. Like bookends, two generations of her family were connected by one sloping field. It took four minutes of a full-on run to make it from porch to porch, a timetable she often tested to make it to dinner on time at one house or the other.

  In those days, Audrey and Jason were still living with Simon. Her grandfather’s house was nearly a museum to the memory of Margot. Simon didn’t like it when things were touched, and Lara seemed to explore the world with her fingertips—candied fingertips. As Cecile was much more forgiving with the furniture, Lara spent most of her childhood at her great-grandmother’s. Simon disliked noise as well, so Jason converted Cecile’s garage into a makeshift music studio where his bandmates came to jam at all hours, the sound floating through the open window screens.

  Summers were blissful with the lush fields and the wavelike chorus of the locusts. Like their own personal amusement park. Lara and her friends wandered around the old circus equipment—trailers and rides—rotting in the field, eventually finding one of the old circus tents in one of the trailers, its canvas ripped but salvageable. Jason helped them stretch it out over the field and found the old poles to get it set up.

  Shortly after the tent had been raised, Lara was twirling her baton, imagining she had an audience for her arm rolls and fishtails. It had been a year since she’d seen the mysterious man and woman.

  She was working on her timed thumb tosses, counting the number of times she could flip her baton over her thumb and catch it with a quick wrist motion, Cecile’s egg timer set for one minute. Lara counted aloud. As the timer went off, she’d done fifty-two tosses. There was a clapping and she looked up to see the man standing there at the entrance to the tent. This time, he was solo.

  “It’s really you?” He was dressed in a gold costume, kind of like Elvis. To her surprise, she realized how much she’d been looking for him in the last year.

  “Did you fear that I was a figment of your imagination?” He leaned against a post, and she had a notion to tell him not to do that. All the posts in the tent were wobbly.

  The little girl nodded. “I was beginning to.”

  Through mirrored sunglasses, he looked up at the sagging canvas. “I see you put up the old circus tent. Tell me, do you like it?”

  “I love it.” From the opening in the tent, she kept her eye on the horses beyond her—they were good judges of character. But they simply stood there watching the man, their tails swatting flies.

  “That’s good.” The man stepped into the tent. It was a shabby beige-and-blue thing with uneven poles and a sag in the back that Jason had tried to fix by wedging an old tree branch under it. “The circus is in your blood, you know.”

  “I do know that,” she chirped. Lara was confident as only a sheltered seven-year-old could be. “My family owned this circus.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Remember the woman who was with me before? That was Margot, your grandmother. This circus was named for her.”

  Remembering the beautiful young woman, Lara made a face, thinking of Simon Webster, who was an old, grumpy man. They said he had been married to Margot, the woman from the posters, but that seemed impossible. “She’s not that old.”

  “Well, she’d dead, ma cherie. She doesn’t age anymore.” The man smiled and put his hands on the back of his brown pants. “That was a fine circus, but that wasn’t the only circus that belonged to your family, you know. There was another once.” He had a rise to his voice like he was about to tell her a story. “It’s a magic circus, and it belongs to you.”

  “Me?” This was news to Lara. She stood up straight. Now he had her attention.

  “It’s true.” The man did something with his hands, and the circus tent seemed to perk up a little like extra poles had been added or an invisible hand had pulled it up. Color washed over it, brightening the blue and beige silks. A chandelier shone over them. The rusted and dingy artifacts that she’d dragged under the tent were soon replaced by clowns, and most of the space under the tent was now occupied by a spinning carousel. The man walked around to stand next to Lara. The girl looked up in wonder. Had this been what the circus was like? For some reason, she’d never imagined it so colorful. In her mind, it had been an old, shabby spectacle with aging clowns and rusted equipment. She thought all circuses were like that.

  “How’d you do that?” Lara looked up in wonder.

  “You can do it, too,” said the man. “Try it. Make the carousel spin.”

  On cue, it stopped as though it were waiting for her.

  She looked at him like he was crazy and giggled. “That’s silly. I can’t do that.”

  “But that’s not true.” He smiled, leaning down to face her. “You do move things, don’t you? Ouija boards perhaps?”

  Her eyes widened. It was one thing for this man to know her name, but to know about the Ouija board at Caren’s was entirely another. “How did you—?”

  “No matter,” he said, brushing her off. “But you mustn’t fear your power.”

  Yet she did fear the things she could do. Right here, with him performing for he
r, it was fun, like a magic trick at birthday parties. She was a spectator of sorts. Left to her own devices, though, this power frightened her.

  “Go ahead.” He twirled his finger. He picked up a tiny flower—a white clover—and began to spin the stem between his thumb and forefinger. “Here”—he handed her the flower—“instead of thinking of the carousel, keep your eyes on this flower. When magic is new, it’s about drawing on the emotion of what you want most, my dear, not focus. Focus comes later. The magic knows what you want. Just want it harder.”

  “You said not to think about it.” Lara watched the flower clumsily turning under her fingers.

  “Thinking and wanting are not the same thing, my clever poppet. Wanting comes from your heart, not your head.”

  Always a dutiful student, Lara mimicked him with her tiny fingers, and, to her surprise, she could hear the creaking of the carousel as it began to move.

  “Bravo,” he said, clapping.

  She shook her head. “You did that, not me.”

  “No. I swear that I did not, my pet.” He leaned down. “You are the one. The circus—the real circus—it is your destiny. One day, it will need you to do your magic—I will call on you. Do you understand?”

  While she nodded, she did not understand the things he said—she had no one, neither Cecile nor her mother, to filter, translate, or put them in context for her. Lara watched in awe as the carousel spun, so engrossed she’d forgotten he was standing there. As it wound down, like the batteries operating it had been drained, she turned to say something to him, but he was already gone.

  Turning back, she saw that the carousel was fading and the tent was once again dirty, empty, dull, and limp. The sparkling chandelier was now gone as well, the top of the tent sagging like it couldn’t support the weight of a glass Christmas ornament.

  “Come back,” she said. There was something about the man. Even if she didn’t know exactly what he meant, she knew he was telling her the truth. Her mother could also do things—magical things. Lara observed Audrey unlocking doors, making the phone ring, and even stopping the thunder outside when she didn’t know that Lara was watching. Once Lara heard Cecile and her mother discussing a spell. Audrey had been chanting something with Cecile’s guidance. Lara had flattened herself in the wide space between the floor and the old door to get a look at them. She’d tried to memorize what they were saying, but they chanted too fast. The ritual and the language had been secret and exotic, with the candles flickering and the lights dimming then brightening in the house, like Audrey was drawing energy from everything around her. Lara could feel the tug of the chant, the pull of her mother’s words.

  When magic is new, it’s about drawing on the emotion of what you want most, my dear, not focus.

  After the man had shown her how to change the tent, Lara began to attempt simpler tricks. She began with the lock on Simon’s office door. It was an easy door, requiring just a small movement of the notch on the doorknob. Closing her eyes, Lara thought not of the lock, but of rotating a penny between her fingers. Then she recalled Simon’s candy jar. He’d filled it with peppermint patties that morning. Most of all, she wanted a peppermint patty. Focusing on her deepest desire for the crisp, sugary candy, Lara heard the lock click.

  But now all her corrections were focused on fixing the tent. After a week, she came back to the tent. Starting with color, she focused on the faded blue of the canvas, thinking of the blue of the ocean. Coaxing the worn fabric, she saw it brighten. Next, using her hand to pretend, she lifted the top of it, like she was pulling up the dome of a candy jar. On command the tent lifted and the beige color began to brighten. “Carousel, come back.”

  Nothing.

  “Carousel, come back.” She barked the command loud enough to make Gomez Addams—now named Squiggy—look up in alarm.

  She could see something flicker and could hear the faint echo of an organ as though it were somewhere else, just beyond reach, the volume low. Growing impatient, she said, “Carousel, come back.” Again, she could see it shimmer, but then it faded. With that, the tent sank, returning to its dull state. Lara was exhausted. This was harder than turning locks.

  Lara knew what her father and grandfather would say—she was a child with a “vivid imagination.” An only child, she needed one to keep herself occupied. But when she’d gone to the place where the man had stood, she saw the dried, long-dead clover lying on the ground. The man had plucked it, not her. She gathered it up as proof that what she’d seen was real and took the flower fragments and pressed them in her Rumpelstiltskin book. Months later, she would pull out the book and see the dried flower in waxed paper.

  He had plucked that flower. He had been real. She wasn’t mad.

  She came back to the field every day. If she had to practice the guitar, then she could practice this. For weeks, she brightened and tugged at the old tent. Once, she brought the carousel through but held it only for a few seconds until it disappeared. A week later, a storm blew the tent over, shredding the old fabric.

  As the summer went on, several elderly men and women visited Cecile to reminisce about the old circus. As if they felt the pull of the tide, performers drove their old, battered trucks up the long drive to sit on the porch with Cecile and drink iced tea or Tanqueray and tonic and reminisce about life in the old days.

  Lara loved these visits. When she’d see an old truck sitting in Cecile’s driveway, she’d run through the field at a clip to see who had come. Sitting on the porch, they talked while Lara played with her Barbies or Legos, pretending not to listen, but she never missed a tale. Circus people were great storytellers. One tall, gangly man of the gin-and-tonic set cried to Cecile about the loss of his beloved show horse from colic. Lara knew from her short experience with horses that they were mysterious, fragile creatures. The man was so distraught Lara presented him with her plastic butter-colored Johnny West horse, Thunderbolt.

  “You can have my horse.” Lara remembered loving the toy dearly and holding it by its legs, making sure she’d secured the little brown vinyl saddle tightly as though it would be a selling point.

  The man refused the toy with a smile of gratitude and took a hankie from his back pocket and wiped his face.

  After the man left, Cecile knelt down and sat next to Lara on the floor, and Lara could smell the L’Air du Temps perfume in the air. Cecile—still tan like a raisin with her cropped silver hair and heart-shaped face—was the only woman she knew who wore bright-red lipstick, but it was now faded from an afternoon of entertaining.

  “That was a lovely thing to do, Lara. It was very touching.” Cecile still had a strong French accent, and Lara found herself counting un, deux, trois or saying n’est-ce pas.

  Lara shrugged, making Thunderbolt gallop. “It was nothing. I just needed to take care of him.”

  “What a curious thing to say.” With her accent, there was a musicality to Cecile’s voice.

  “He said the circus is my destiny.”

  “Who said?”

  Lara looked up. She hadn’t meant to talk about him.

  “Lara?” Cecile pressed; there was alarm in her voice.

  “The man in the field.” Lara looked down at the floor.

  “What man in the field?” Cecile’s voice rose.

  She shrugged. “Just the man. Sometimes the woman is with him. Margot.”

  Cecile’s face looked stricken. “Where did you see him?”

  Lara pointed over to the field. “The last time was when we had the tent up.”

  “Tell me exactly what he said.” She spun Lara toward her and drew close to her face. Something on Cecile’s breath smelled like Christmas trees.

  Lara told Cecile every detail, and her great-grandmother’s face fell as she explained about the spinning carousel. The alarm in her voice was evident. She peppered Lara with questions as if she’d done something wrong. “You must not say anything about this. Never speak of it to anyone, do you hear me? Forget him.”

  Lara nodded, fearing Cecil
e was angry at her. “Did I do something wrong?”

  Cecile was slow to smile, but when she did, she beamed at the little girl. “No, my dear. You are absolutely perfect.”

  While she had listened to Cecile that day and never told anyone about the strange man in the field, he had unlocked something in her. With the twirl or snap of her finger, she could move things.

  Little corrections, she began to call them then.

  “Who is he?” Lara asked Cecile once, shortly before the older woman died. Lara didn’t need to clarify the he. Cecile understood her perfectly.

  “His name is Althacazur,” said Cecile. “And no good can come from him.”

  From THE NEW DEMONPEDIA.com

  Althacazur (/altha-ca-zhr/) The spellings Althacazar (/altha-caz-ahr/) and Althacazure (/al-tha-caz-yoor/) have also been used. One of the princes of Hell, he is considered one of the most powerful demons, often called “Hell’s king,” primarily due to representing carnal pleasures, vanity, and lust, which affords him the greatest number of legions. He is said to command the eighth layer of Hell, where his subjects are sent upon their deaths. According to several texts, the River Styx flows primarily through the eighth layer of Hell, making him very powerful in that other demons must pay a toll to cross the main river of the underworld.

  In lore, he is often depicted as handsome and vain, with flowing hair and amber eyes that he often covers with sunglasses when walking among mortals due to the permanent state of his horizontal pupils—an underworld trait that cannot be masked. An 1821 painting, Althacazar, by Bishop Worth, hangs in the British Museum and features the demon in his signature purple robe. In the painting, Althacazur has the head of a ram and dragon wings sprouting from his back. Some biographers of Worth (notably Constance van Hugh in her book Worth: A Life) have claimed the demon sat for the portrait, while many scholars of Worth have dismissed the idea as rubbish and hearsay. Van Hugh’s claim largely came from the source notes of Worth’s daughter who said that she met the demon on several occasions in the parlor while her father worked on the painting and that “when his wings were contained, he [Althacazur] was perfectly able to enjoy high tea.”