Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top (33 page)

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Authors: Ekaterina Sedia

Tags: #Fiction, #Collections & Anthologies, #Fantasy, #short story, #Circus, #Short Stories, #anthology

BOOK: Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top
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Waiting.

“It’s a tent,” Josh said.

Erin sighed.

“Y’think? Wow, lucky I have you with me to explain such mysteries. I can see it’s a tent, Josh, but what is a Big Top doing in the middle of the footy oval at the bottom of your street?”

“I have no idea,” he said, moving forward.

Her fingers slipped away from his skin, and he felt a moment of acute loss. Nevertheless, he strode through the grass, and she had to trot to keep up with him. A jolt of perverse pleasure made his nerves sing as he heard her breathing roughen and saw her white sneakers flash in the dark, almost a blur.

Yeah, that’s it. Jog. You left me, remember? So now you can hustle, bitch. Mush! Mush!

“Josh, wait! Do you think we should go near it? There’s someone there. Maybe we should—”

“I bet that’s where the kid came from. It’s a circus. That’s got to be his dad, or his boss, or something. I’m going to have a word with him about what the little jerk’s been up to.”

“But—”

“You don’t have to come,” he snapped. He cast an angry glare at her, and saw the shocked O of her mouth, the hurt tilt of her head.

“Josh?” The word bore the weight of a thousand questions and accusations. That caused the fight to go out of him, and he wondered just what the hell he thought he was doing.

Go home. See her to her car and let her drive away. Go inside, eat your cold pizza, scribble in your journal until the Big Feelings die. Go to bed. Everything will be ok.

“Good eve,” the man outside the tent said as they approached. “Won’t you step inside?”

“Yes,” Josh said, his tongue heavy in his mouth.

God, the buzzing in his ears was deafening. He needed to sit down and have some water. Erin’s hand was on his arm again, and her small nails dug into his flesh as she coughed, trying to get his attention. He liked the feeling of her hot skin against his. Even the sting of her nails was sweet.

“Hello,” Erin said, nodding at the man.

Now that they were closer, Josh saw the guy was a short, round barrel, clad in a giant baby’s onesie. Bright light spilled out from the tent, and as Josh’s eyes adjusted, he noticed that the fabric of the man’s suit was not only pink, but had little yellow rocking horses dotted all over it. An enormous dummy, easily the size of Josh’s foot, hung around the man’s neck on a thin chain. His head was bald, emblazoned with strange tattoos.

Freak. He’s some sort of circus freak, for sure. Man, I love this shit.

“We’re just out for a walk,” Erin informed the man, who smiled in response. “So thank you for the invitation, but we’d better be on our way. Are you open tomorrow? Will there be a show? Maybe we can come back then.”

“There’s always a show,” the man said, his eyes swinging back and forth between Erin and Josh. “But the best ones are on at night. Right now is a great time. The perfect time, in fact. Would you like to see?”

“Yes,” Josh said again.

Erin hissed next to him, her nails gouging so deep that they must surely have drawn blood.

The man stepped aside and waved his hand in a sweeping gesture of welcome. Josh was already moving forward, Erin’s nails snagging on his skin before they slid away.

“My name is Seth,” the man said.

Erin let out a choked gasp, and Josh smiled.

“Of course it is.” In that moment, everything inside Josh’s mind was red and silver. The flash of light on surgical steel, the wet glee of gushing blood, the sharp, blessed release.

Seth.

How he’d missed Seth. This man was not
that
Seth, of course. Or perhaps, in a way, he was.

“Are you coming in, Ms. Duhammond? Mr. Tarnell seems to be quite interested.”

Josh didn’t turn around to see Erin’s reply. He could already picture the pained look on her face, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to see Seth’s. He stood under the tent flaps, listening to them snap in the breeze, waiting. He kept his eyes on the yellow canvas floor beneath his feet. It wasn’t time to look around yet. Whatever the signal was, it hadn’t been given.

The moment stretched. Josh’s breathing slowed. The sound of his heartbeat in his ears joined the rhythmic motion of the tent flaps.

Erin sighed.

“All right,” she said, her voice thick and wet. “All right. I’ll come in. I’ll do it for Josh’s sake. But you already knew that. Didn’t you,
Seth
? Somehow, you know rather a lot.”

“Ladies first, Ms. Duhammond.”

“Oh, call me Erin, you bastard. We’re getting personal, after all, aren’t we?”

“Yes, Erin. You’re right. Quite personal.”

Erin’s hand slipped into the crook of Josh’s elbow once more, and his heartbeat sped up to a jackhammer cacophony.

“Let’s begin our tour,” Seth said softly, raising the tent flaps and gesturing them inside.

“The first question that must be answered is both delicate and mundane.” Seth had hopped into a giant brass cradle positioned just inside the entrance, where he perched like an imp, his fingers fluttering to the giant dummy as if for reassurance. “That is, the question of payment.”

“Payment?” Josh only had a balled up tissue and a paperclip in the pocket of his trackpants, and he doubted that would suffice. “I don’t have anything on me . . . ”

“I beg to differ, Mr. Tarnell—Josh, if I may. You have a great deal of value on you at all times. You too, Erin. The real question is: what are you willing to give?”

“Nothing,” Erin snapped. “We’re not willing to give anything. Look, you’ve got a quirky thing going on here. You’ve got the look, you’ve pulled some tricks, and I can appreciate that. But we’ve had a rough night, and I can’t help but feel you’re taking advantage—”

“She still has your scalpel, you know, Josh. She didn’t get rid of it. She lied to you. It nestles in a bed of black velvet at the bottom of her wardrobe. She took it out and showed it to her boyfriend once—showed him the rusty stains on the blade. She told him all about how they got there. All about
you
, Josh.” Seth circled the teat of the grotesque dummy with one calloused finger, caressing it like a lover’s nipple. “She cried on his shoulder, and he
comforted
her all night. Over and over. Isn’t that the darnedest thing?”

Josh turned his head far enough to see Erin’s face. Her chin was shaking and her eyes were wide. She looked at him, hopeless, imploring. Her skin looked unnaturally pale against the vivid yellow interior of the Big Top, and the Big Feelings buzzed and chirruped in his head.

He craved steel in his hand.

“Josh, I’m leaving. I can’t believe you’re going along with this. I came over tonight because I was worried. Remember? I was worried about you. But this is . . . crazy. You can come with me. Now. We can still—”

“You can have her,” Josh said suddenly, surprised to hear his own voice. He felt soporific, floaty. “Would that do? You can take her. But only for a little while. Only long enough for me to have a look around. Then you have to give her back. She’s mine, you see.”

“I quite understand. Thank you, Josh. That’s an appropriate fee.”

“What the fuck—are you completely insane?” Erin screamed.

Josh winced in irritation. The loud, jagged sound was all wrong in this place. He wanted it to stop.


Have
me? I’m
yours
? Do you even know what the hell you’re talking about?”

“Not really.”

“I’m
leaving
. Get that through your thick skull. I’m gone. Take care, Josh. Take a lot of care. In fact, get professional care. You need it.”

Erin turned to go. Josh watched with dispassionate eyes as she paused, her back to him. Her hands—pretty, tender things—fluttered forward like timid birds and began to feel their way across the seamless canvas in front of her. They found no opening. The tent flaps had disappeared, leaving no trace of an exit. Her shoulders rose in a sharp inhalation, fell again as the breath blasted out of her. She seemed to deflate, folding in defeat. Finally, she turned, facing Josh and Seth, her eyes narrowed, her lips thin. Her quivering chin betrayed her unease.

“Ok. I don’t know how you did that. I don’t know how you’ve done any of this. I’ll admit that. But it doesn’t make you clever. It makes you sick. I’ll say this once, and if you don’t do as I say I’ll scream and bring the neighborhood down here: let me out.”

“Scream away, dear girl. We rather like that in here, and nobody out there will hear a thing.” Seth smiled, a broad, moist expression that threatened to split his face in two. “Payment has been given and taken. You’re here until Josh leaves. You can wait where you stand, or you can come with us as we journey through the show. That much is up to you.”

For the first time, Josh looked around. They stood in a short, high-ceilinged corridor. Nothing but blank yellow canvas surrounded them. Aside from Seth’s bizarre cradle, no furnishings broke up the dazzlingly bright space. At the far end of the hall, a red velvet curtain hung, embellished with gold writing that Josh couldn’t quite make out. The air was cool and sweet. The sound of children laughing and something like the jangling of an ice cream van’s music—“Greensleeves,” perhaps—danced across the room to Josh’s ears.

“Josh? Can you even hear me?” Erin appeared at his elbow again, niggling like a horsefly. “Just come back, ok? Come back to me. We’ll leave together.”

“I’m going in, Ez. This is something special. You don’t have to come. But you can’t leave, either. I don’t want you to, so you can’t.” He knew she was furious, knew that if they’d been outside this otherworldly tent, she would have given him one of her disappointed, sad looks and walked out on him. She’d always called the shots. If Josh was good, she stayed. If Josh was bad, she left. Reward and punishment. Erin giveth and Erin taketh away.

Well, not in here. And if that pissed her off? Good.

“We’ll just take a
little
bit of you,” Seth said, smiling impishly. “Nothing you’ll miss. The curl of your hair. The shine of your eyes. The softness of your skin. Not such a bad deal, is it? Fair trade, I think.”

Is he serious about those things? Will he really take them from her? How? Why? No. He’s kidding.

“What does the curtain say?” Josh asked, pacing down the hall. Ever since Erin had pointed the tent out to him, his legs had moved with a mind of their own. In fact, his forward movement had almost always been out of his control. That was precisely the problem.

Nearing the thick fabric, he read the large swirls of golden stitching that looped through the velvet:

Salioso’s House of Monsters, Moste Grotesk and Phantastique

“This is the sort of thing I always wished would come to town as a kid. I read about travelling freakshows, amazing monsters, all that stuff. But they’re not real. They’re horror movie fodder.” Josh reached out and touched the curtain. It felt like molten chocolate, the burgundy folds pouring between his fingers in a rush. It was liquid, suspended in semi-solid form. It sent a honeyed golden whisper through his fingertips and into his bloodstream.

“I’ll be surprised and deeply offended if you retain that sentiment once you’ve seen my performers, Josh,” Seth said. “But enough shilly shallying. Shall we begin?”

Seth brushed past Josh and slid the curtain aside. Its brass circlets whickered along the wooden rail it dangled from, and it seemed to sigh as it opened. Now Josh could smell fairy floss, buttered popcorn, and sawdust. The children’s laughter and ice cream van music was gone, replaced by a steady drumbeat and an unfamiliar shuffling noise.

The Big Feelings were blessedly silent.

Erin punched him on the bicep. Hard. For a moment the room shimmered, fractured, and he felt enormous regret as the foul odor that had coated the Long Chat Place filled his nostrils. Then everything was solid again.

Erin pushed past him, scowling.

“If I’m here, then I’m coming with you—but I’ll be damned if I’ll follow you around like some captive damsel,” she bit.

Again, he had the overpowering urge to grab her curls, hurt her, defile her.

“You can follow
me
.”

“Our first stop will be the Hidebehind,” Seth said, before Josh could act on his urges.

“What’s a Hidebehind?” Josh asked.

There was no answer, and Josh walked a little faster, keeping Seth’s curious onesie-clad form in his sights, along with Erin’s bouncing curls.

“In answer to your previous question, Josh,
this
is a Hidebehind.”

Seth motioned to the empty air in front of him with a theatrical flourish. Josh’s shoulders slumped.

It’s all crap, after all.

They stood in a small lounge. A red velvet couch took up most of the room, bursting with stuffing and mangled silver springs. A grandfather clock leant against the far wall. Candles sputtered in gouged-out holes around the clay chamber. A rumpled gray blanket was bunched at one end of the couch, as if someone had leapt hastily out from under it.

“There’s nothing in here,” Erin said.

Josh nodded, sighing.

“Yeah. This was fun for about five minutes, but now I see—”

“Ah, but you don’t
see
anything, Josh. That’s rather the point. Instead, what can you hear?” Seth nibbled on his foul dummy like an aperitif, grinning at Josh around the bulbous thing.

And . . . there was a sound. Followed by another. And still another.

Raspy breathing; the subtle swish of a body shifting its weight; a low snarl that rolled around the room, lingering.

“There
is
something in here,” Josh murmured. Erin backed up against him in silent confirmation, her spine pressing against his belly. He felt her trembling. He didn’t know whether to comfort her or crush her. He settled for wrapping his arm around her shoulders, holding her to him.

“The Hidebehind. American folklore. Never seen directly, but notorious for appearing in the corner of the eye. That couch is our Hidebehind’s universe. He sleeps on it, sits on it, and most of all, hides behind it when his lair is invaded. He’s really very territorial and can be quite aggressive.” Seth’s tone was part rote tour guide, part proud parent.

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