Through the Looking Glass (7 page)

"Abuse?"
Gideon said slowly.

Maggie nodded. "It's funny about kids and clowns. Lamont never laughed very much as a kid, but now he paints on a smile and makes the kids laugh. He's still very insecure and anxious. That's why he worries about losing things."

"Why does he wear the makeup all the time?"

"Because he wants to.
Maybe because he can't quite smile without the paint.
Not yet, anyway." She began walking.

After a moment Gideon followed. He didn't much like this. He wanted the carnival's future to be a side issue between them, and Maggie was forcing it center stage. He didn't resent the compassion for these people that he was beginning to feel— but he was aware of other feelings creeping in to disturb him.

This place meant a lot to her, he could see that. He couldn't help but wonder how much.
Enough so that Maggie was willing to make herself part of a package deal?
She was showing him these people as individuals, all of whom truly had nowhere else they could fit in—but what if he ignored emotion and made the logical decision to sell? Would her next ploy be to offer herself in exchange for an assured future for the carnival?

How much of her enigmatic surface was the chameleon face of an actress?

Gideon didn't want to think that. He didn't want to believe that her passion had a price tag, that her mystery was sheer artifice. But because he had so many questions and so few answers, doubts were nagging at him.

"Your world's beginning to look a little grim," he said.

"Not the world. This world is an escape from grimness."

"What are you escaping from, Maggie?" He needed answers of some kind.

"A boring summer vacation."
A few feet from the tent Maggie expertly balanced herself as a raven-haired urchin about Sean's age erupted from the opening and ran into her. "Where's the race, Buster?" she asked calmly, setting him upright again.

He looked up at her with china-blue eyes shining angelic innocence. "I didn't do it, I swear I didn't."

"Do what?"

"Buster!"

The child closed one eye in a comical grimace as the enraged shout came from inside the tent. In a subdued tone he murmured, "I didn't forget to lay out papers for Alexander last night. He must have
ate
'em. Or Sean stole 'em just to get me in trouble. Tell Ma I didn't forget, Maggie, please?" The stare he directed up at her was heartrending.

She didn't appear to be overly affected. "Buster, we made a deal, didn't we? I told you Alexander could sleep in your tent if your parents said he could, and if you trained him to use the papers."

"He
don't
like to use the papers," Buster said ingenuously. "He likes to use the floor of the tent. An' he's just a puppy, Maggie—"

Two more people emerged from the tent, an average-looking man somewhere in his thirties of medium build with a placid expression, and a strikingly beautiful woman whose fierce frown didn't quite hide her peculiarly vacant china-blue eyes. "Buster," she said, "
get
in here and clean up the mess!"

The boy looked up at Maggie's calm expression, glanced at Gideon's faintly amused one, then hung his head and turned back toward the tent. "Aw, Ma," he muttered, but quickened his pace when she said his name again warningly.

When he'd disappeared inside, Maggie said, "Sarah, Tom—this is Gideon."

Sarah looked him up and down with childlike curiosity. "What do you do?"

Having learned that carnies apparently didn't shake hands with strangers, Gideon left his in his pockets. "I'm a banker," he replied, wondering if that was what she was asking.

She looked at Maggie in bewilderment. "Are we trying to borrow money?"

"It hasn't come to that yet," Maggie answered.

Tom nodded a greeting to Gideon,
then
looked at his wife. "He owns us now. I told you," he said in a gentle voice.

Gideon wondered silently if he should point out that slavery was illegal. He decided not to.

"He looks different," Sarah said stubbornly.

"He was wearing a suit yesterday," Tom explained.

Sarah studied the visitor again. "You should stay away from suits," she told him. "They make you look mean."

"Ill
remember
that," Gideon said.

Dismissing him, she looked at Maggie. "Tom says Jasper went to town. Did he, Maggie?"

"I expect so."

"Of course he did," Tom said in the same gentle but firm voice. "He goes off on his own a lot, you know that." In a sudden tone of surprise he said, "Look at this. I've lost a button, Sarah." He was gazing down at his open hand, in which lay a button.

"You're so rough on shirts," his wife told him in a scolding voice. "I don't know what I'm going to do with you, Tom! Come inside and let me mend it."

Gideon, who had seen the other man unobtrusively and quite deliberately twist the button off, didn't say a word as he watched the couple retreat into their tent. He followed Maggie as she began moving toward another of the wagons. After several steps, and entirely unwilling, he said, "And them?
Their story?"

"Buster was born in that tent," Maggie said. "Tom and Sarah joined when they were just kids.
Together.
Her family wanted to put her away."

"Insanity?"

Maggie stopped walking, gazing at the wagon still ahead of them. Then she looked up at him. "That's a relative term, isn't it? Sarah... couldn't cope. She got anxious, worried herself into hysterics without reason. Her family was embarrassed by her. And her problems were worsened by the fact that she's so beautiful. When she was fourteen, a strange man promised her a pretty necklace if she'd come with him. Tom protected her then, and he still does. He takes care of her. We all take care of her. She's safe here.
And happy."

"What's their job in the carnival?"

"Tom runs a few games. Honest games. Sarah's our seamstress and designer. She makes beautiful costumes."

Gideon glanced around at the sprawl of wagons and tents and murmured almost to himself, "Sanctuary."

"You could say that."

He looked back at her serene face and bottomless, unreadable eyes. "You're arguing very persuasively for the defense," he told her a bit tautly.

"I'm just introducing you."

"We both know better. You're turning this into a personal matter. I can't make a dispassionate business decision as to whether I should sell after you've forced me to see these people as individuals." He was growing angry now, both because she had made him see what he would have liked to ignore, and because he wanted her to think about him rather than the damned carnival. He didn't like the doubts he was feeling.

"Is that the bottom line here?
A purely business decision?"
Her voice was still mild, but it had an edge now.
"Because if that's so, the decision is already made.
The logical, reasonable, businesslike, untroubling solution to your problem is simply to sell out. No hassles. No worries. No complications. And no need to get involved."

"And if I do? That puts paid to my chances with you, doesn't it, Maggie?"

She could feel her temper slipping from her control, and it was an alien sensation. She felt hot, tense, and even though a reasonable voice in her head was telling her why he was saying these things, it didn't help. A strange, shaken laugh escaped from her lips.

"Oh, am I the prize? If you're a good boy and do what I want you to do, then you'll get what you want? Is that the game we're playing here?"

"You tell me." His gray eyes were steely. "I'd really like to know, Maggie. You put a hell of a distance between us this morning, and since then you've talked about nothing except the carnival and these people. So I've got to wonder. Was that passion last night faked? Are you the bait to keep Wonderland in business?"

She took a step back, almost as if he had hit her. In a soft, shaking voice she said, "You want to sell the carnival?
Fine.
Ill
buy
it. Right down to the broken wagon wheel the birds roost on. Tell your lawyer to get in touch."

Gideon knew he'd gone too far. "Maggie—"

"Leave.
Now.
Your business here is concluded." She turned on her heel and walked away.

He stared after her, a strange tightness in his chest. "Damn," he muttered.

Tina found Maggie brushing one of the horses a few minutes later and stood watching the rhythmic strokes. She looked at the younger woman's set face,
then
said, "He's gone.
Got in his car and left."

"I know."

Lifting herself up to sit on a feed barrel, Tina said, "So?"

Maggie turned away from the horse and sighed. She dropped the brush into a wooden box holding several of them, then sat down on an overturned water bucket.
"So what?"

Tina grimaced faintly. "Hey, this is me, remember? I gave you a reading when you first got here.
Can't hide from Madame Valentina."
She smiled, then sobered. "We both know you're a very smart lady. And you're doing a damn good job of holding this place together. Old Balthazar never did so well. But you don't belong here any more than that redheaded devil who just roared out of here does."

"I fit in here," Maggie said, knowing it was true.

"Sure you do. But you don't belong. The rest of us are all varying degrees of crazy; you're a little strange, that's all."

"Thanks a lot."

Tina smiled again. "My point is that you shouldn't wreck your chances with Gideon because of us. In your life, we're temporary; he looks like being long-term."

Maggie was silent for a moment,
then
said, "You all heard, didn't you?"

"Malcolm heard, since you were so near his wagon. Telephone, telegraph, tell Malcolm. Everybody knows you and Gideon had an argument.
Lot of speculation going on."

"I lost my temper, Tina. I've never done that before. And it was stupid. It was inevitable that he'd have
doubts, that
he'd think I was... Damn." She shook her head slightly. "I don't know if
hell come
back."

"He will."

"Been looking into your crystal ball?" Maggie kept her voice light.

"No. I saw his face before he got into his car. He wasn't angry. He looked like a man who'd been punched in the stomach—and hadn't been very happy to find out it was his own fist that did the job."

Maggie drew a shaky breath. "It was a logical question he asked—if I was bait to keep the carnival intact. The worst of it is that I did think about it when we first met. You know
,
if I could distract him. But I couldn't go through with it."

"Not magnanimous enough?" Tina asked with a grin.

The answering grin was a little strained. "Not dispassionate enough."

"Oh. It's like that, huh?"

"In spades.
As much as I've grown to love this place and you people, Gideon wouldn't have to offer anything in return. Hell, he wouldn't even have to say please."

"Does he know that?"

"Obviously not.
I did too good a job of holding him at a distance today. And then I got really stupid and started telling him a little about the people here. He probably started to wonder if I'd decided to try compassion first."

"Ouch," Tina murmured.

"Yeah.
The thing is
,
I know without a shadow of a doubt that if I did tell him he could have me if he spared the carnival, he'd walk away. He's not a man to buy a woman—no matter what the price tag reads. What's between us is separate from the carnival, but I think he began doubting that I felt that way."

"Maybe you better clear that up when he comes back," Tina suggested dryly.

They had grown to be friends in the past weeks, but Maggie hadn't dared confide her real reason for joining the carnival. So she worded her response to that carefully. "Ill
try
. But the fate of the carnival is in his hands, and he's going to have a hard time forgetting that."

"So you were bluffing when you said you'd buy it?" Tina's voice was casual.

Maggie swore inwardly; she'd hoped that little item had gone unheard. It wouldn't do for anyone here to find out she could afford to buy the carnival. "No. I'd raise the money somehow. I won't let Wonderland be scrapped, Tina. Tell everyone else, okay?" There was nothing else she could say.

"Ill
pass
the word." Tina tilted her head and studied the younger woman thoughtfully. "I guess I can see what you're getting at, though. This place isn't Barnum and Bailey, but the price tag for the whole shebang wouldn't be peanuts; raising the money to buy it would put you in hock up to your ears. Better if you can persuade Gideon just to leave us alone."

"Right."

"It is a problem between you two, though. How're you going to convince him you and the carnival aren't a package deal?"

"I don't know," Maggie said. "All I can do is
tell
him.
Whether he believes it is up to him."

"Guess you're right."

Maggie shook her head. "Well, well see. By the way, what's this about Jasper?"

"Nobody's seen him since last night."

Conscious of a faint chill, Maggie kept her voice casual and puzzled.
"The stuff about his being in town—?"

"A story for Gideon.
He might have—overreacted to the news of one of us coming up missing." Tina shrugged a little. "You weren't here when Merlin disappeared, but I told you how it was. The police didn't give a damn until he was found dead, and then they were all over us. Everybody's paranoid, I think, worried that it could happen again."

"Do you think something's happened to him?"

"Who knows?" Tina's voice was helpless rather than heartless. "He does go off on his own sometimes, but it's usually just a few hours. If he isn't back by dark..."

Maggie nodded and after a moment said dryly, "Tell everyone to stop innocently remarking on it, all right? Gideon picked up on the undercurrent when Lamont mentioned it, and I think he saw Tom distract Sarah by pulling a button off his shirt. Gideon's hardly an idiot."