“This some kinda trick?”
“No, sir,” Uly said.
“She’s a Tasmanian tiger, all the way from Australia,” Liza broke in. “Her name is Sabina.”
Both men glared at Liza. The woman stared at her feet. Liza’d seen that look before: How dare she, a woman, open her mouth?
“Don’t you have some muck to go clean out or something?” the man growled.
Liza threw a thumb over her shoulder. “That’s his job.”
Uly was about to charge in on Liza when they both noticed the boy was tossing rocks with great precision at Ikaki. Uly was about to give the boy a good wallop when his father launched himself onto the carnie’s back. The woman inhaled sharply but stayed rooted in place in front of Sabina’s cage.
Liza gasped when Sabina hurled an image at her: Sabina gnawing the hem of the woman’s dress. Before Liza could form a countering image, the tiger acted, poking her snout through the bars and clamping down on the woman’s dress, careful not to nick her legs. As expected, the wife produced a bloodcurdling scream, and the boy ran over and tried to pull his mother away from Sabina.
Uly and the man forgot their fight. “What the . . . ,” the man stammered. “Get it off her, get it off!”
“Liza,” Uly said quietly.
The man turned between them and regarded Sabina, who watched Liza intently, growling deeply in her throat.
Liza hesitated. All eyes bored into her as fear wormed through layers and layers of doubt. The man balled up his fists, poised for another fight, while Liza conjured and fumbled one wrong comeback after another like an amateurish juggler. Wait. Hadn’t Sabina sent the first image?
Liza steadied herself and sent Sabina the message to back off. She bent to nuzzle the tiger’s neck, but the animal backed away from her and, despite everything, still refused to send a return image. A puzzle she had yet to piece together. She looked up at the gaping family.
“Freaks.” The man spat in the corner and hustled his family away from the tent.
Uly stormed off muttering. And Liza danced around the tent celebrating.
Liza wondered whether the foreign sense of calm, the comfort of a new routine, was what somebody would call happiness. As the next-to-last day of the carnival wound down, she contemplated her newfound luck. She’d been with the animals every night, and they’d had no more incidents with customers mistreating them. And she’d settled nicely into her new trailer. Her stomach and Mico welcomed the well-cooked meals Mabel provided. Soon they’d be off to another city, one that she’d actually suggested to Clay.
Liza made sure Uly fed and cared for the animals before she wandered off to see where she could be of assistance. Although she wanted to earn her keep, she was also growing attached to the tiger and turtle. Theirs was a budding rapport formed by companionable silences and expressive gazes that spoke more than words. If she wasn’t mistaken, the air about the tent became charged in a positive fashion when she entered. The misgivings she’d felt, the weirdness she suspected lurked beneath the carnival’s surface, were all melting away.
Jamey ran toward her, waving his hands, frantic. She turned to see if he was looking at somebody else. “You gotta come quick. Clay . . . we got a problem,” Jamey huffed. He grabbed Liza by the wrist and dragged her off.
As they neared Clay, he strode toward them. He was the picture of outward calm as usual, but he couldn’t mask the trembling in his voice. Her boss was normally as coolheaded as they came, so seeing him rattled set Liza’s teeth on edge. “What’s going on?”
“We got us a situation.” Clay struggled for the right words. “It’s Ishe. He’s run off again.”
Run off? Liza’s panicked glance flowed between Jamey, who could barely look at her, and Clay, who—for the first time since she’d met him—seemed to be tongue tied. This couldn’t be good. She waited.
“I know he’s probably in town somewhere. We gotta find him before . . .”
Before what? What the hell was going on? “And why are you asking me?” Liza asked. She was a woman, and a Negro one at that. She wouldn’t want to risk going into town at night. Come to think of it, Jamey wasn’t the best one to go either.
“He turns,” Clay said, as if that answered everything.
Liza cocked her head. “And that means what?”
“Dammit,” Clay said. “I ain’t got the time. Jamey, get a couple of the boys, meet us at the truck—quick now.”
Liza was poised to say she wasn’t going anywhere until he told her what was going on, but her curiosity clamped down on the words with a vise grip.
Jamey gathered a number of white carnies, and they piled into the back of the truck with netting, billy clubs, and tear gas. Clay and Liza rode in the cab. They rattled down the road, and a pair of headlights approached. “Put your head down,” Clay said. “Last thing I need is a race war with the locals.”
Liza complied, and in the back of the cab, so did Jamey. The folks in the oncoming car waved as they passed.
They rounded a corner into town, parked the car, and got out.
“Liza, Jamey, Jones, you stay with me,” Clay said. “The rest of you, hit the usual spots, and come grab us if you see him.”
Clay distributed flashlights, and both teams set out. Liza followed, keeping to the shadows, lurking around corners as they conducted the search.
Finally, a sharp whistle called Clay and Liza over. A carnie was standing pale faced at the end of an alley, pointing. The group huddled together and peered down the alley. Dim moonlight illuminated the outlines of two figures. One lay unmoving on the ground; the other hovered above it.
“Go get the others,” Clay whispered to the carnie. “And bring the truck on around.” He turned to Liza. “Now don’t go pestering me with a bunch of questions. That there is Ishe, and I need you to talk to him, get him to come out of it.”
Liz craned her neck. “What are you talking about? What’s stopping you from calling him?”
“Woman, what did I say? Come on.” They eased down the alleyway. “You better get to talkin’—he can be unpredictable when he’s like this. Done lost one too many men trying to bring him in.”
Liza didn’t understand, but in her mind, an image coalesced. A ripple on a pond, a water lily floating atop. A field of green as far as the eye could see, sunlight glinting off the blades of grass, where she and Ishe sat together on a blanket loaded with the makings of a picnic.
The standing figure stopped, looked up. A wedge of moonlight fell across its face before a cloud blotted it out.
Liza blanched. “What the . . .”
Clay shined the light on the creature. It walked toward them on two legs and had a mane of spotted hair around its face and the snout of a hyena; saliva and blood dripped from its maw. Chunks of human flesh were wedged between the teeth and trickling down the hairy chest. The arms and feet were those of a man-size dog.
The creature sank to its knees as the truck pulled up. “Come on!” Jamey yelled from the back.
“Hush up!” Clay said. He eased around the creature, who had fallen to the ground in silent convulsions. The other shape on the ground turned out to be that of a very dead older man. Clay spun around. “Goddammit, Ishe, hurry up!”
Liza approached the creature, lowered herself to the ground, and tentatively stuck out a hand.
“Wait, you don’t know—” Clay called out, but her hand landed on the creature’s head. Her insides had turned to liquid, but her heart raced with the undeniable thrill of it all.
Ishe, human again and naked, curled into a ball. He looked at Liza with the satiated but guilty eyes of a hyena.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE TIDE RISES, THE TIDE FALLS
It was the balloons that had drawn him in. John-Avery would never own up to it, but it was his childhood self’s want of another dang-blasted balloon that had coaxed him through the carnival gates. He’d had one before, sure enough. A blue one, tied to his wrist by a stranger who’d taken pity on the scruffy kid gawk
ing outside another carnival long past.
He’d had one dusty, bare foot on his front step when the other boys had wrestled him to the ground and torn the ribbon that fastened his prize to his wrist. He hadn’t cried out to his folks inside as they kicked and beat him, only watched through tears as that blue balloon sailed off into the night sky.
But soon he’d have a baby boy or girl of his own, and such nonsense was behind him. With Ophelia at home, the baby due any time now, the midwife had shooed him away. And though he’d set out for an evening stroll, he’d wound up taking in the last night of the carnival.
Bacchanal.
He moseyed around, hands shoved deep in his trouser pockets, sly glances at the sights rather than looking at anything straight on, as was his nature. A half-eaten candy apple lay in his path. A fly landed on it, but before it could stake a claim, a trail of ants had swarmed the apple, lickety-split. The fly didn’t give up its stake right off, but directly that apple was overrun, and the fly let go of its trophy.
John-Avery made his way on around the bend and paused at the darts game just as a fella he recognized from town won. The man threw his fists in the air and strutted around like a peacock, then placed a doll in a little girl’s outstretched hands. That’s it. He’d win a teddy bear for the baby. But which game? Truth be told, he was the bookish sort. Not particularly skilled at shooting, nor was he what you’d call a strong fella. He lowered his gaze and shuffled toward the exit. Ding. The sound came from another game; he frowned at the words HIGH STRIKER printed in large block letters on a wooden sign. The man running the game had the biggest arms he ever did see.
And right there on a shelf with all the other prizes was a teddy bear with a snazzy red ribbon tied around its neck, Ophelia’s favorite color. He inched forward and watched as, one by one, men more strapping than him failed to ring that bell. The big man grinned as the last losing customer skulked off; he then scanned the crowd and locked eyes with John-Avery. He squirmed and backed away, but the man leaped down from the platform and marched right up to him with a good-natured smile.
“Come,” he said. “You, my friend, are next.”
John-Avery tried to pull away, but the man had clamped a bear claw of a hand around his arm and didn’t wait for an answer before dragging him up on the stage. He was sweating in earnest now. The man handed him the hammer, which he promptly dropped, just hopping out of the way in time for it to not smash his toe. The crowd chuckled and jeered.
“Try again,” the big man encouraged.
John-Avery was ready to turn tail and bolt, see if there was a thinking man’s game somewhere, but the teddy bear . . . it, it turned in his direction. His mouth was still hanging open when the big man shoved the hammer in his hands again. But this time, when that fella’s hand brushed his, a spark of some sort stung John-Avery. That hammer felt lighter than the blanket he’d just draped in his baby’s crib. He swore before his maker he didn’t do a thing, but the hammer swung up and came down. Ding. The puck nearly blew that bell clean off.
Then the teddy bear was in his hands, warm, like a living thing. It nuzzled into his chest. John-Avery left the carnival. As he neared home, he smiled at the unmistakable sound of a baby’s cry and the curious sight of a blue balloon tied to his porch.
For most of her life, Liza had been an oddity—the oddity. The carnival had changed all that. She was in the midst of a band of folks far stranger than herself. But what she’d seen last night was the strangest of them all. Ishe was as much a man as he was some kind of doglike creature. She’d grown up hearing all sorts of folklore and had read about enough weirdness in her treasured magazines, but never had she seen anything like him. The question was—and she had every intention of finding out the answer—how had he come to be the way he was?
She hadn’t seen him since, but repulsed or not, she’d make it a point to seek him out.
She buried herself in an old issue of Astounding Stories, which featured a gigantic sea creature with a marked taste for human meat. Mico sat beside her, eyes intent on the page, as if he, too, were enjoying the read. The magazine was yellowed, a few pages torn. It was a luxury she couldn’t afford while she lived at the boardinghouse, but she’d kept every one that Mrs. Margaret had bought for her, reading them over and over again.
A shuffle of feet outside the trailer got her attention. She looked up and tilted her head, Mico mirroring her movement.
A hand banged on the side of the trailer; a hushed male voice she didn’t recognize drifted up through the window. “Might wanna check on that Tasmanian. Seem old Uly is having a time of it with her.”
“Huh?” Liza said, swinging her sturdy legs over the side of the bunk. Uly tried to care for the animals—she couldn’t argue that—but he had no real way with them. She snatched the rag from her head, revealing a mass of thick black hair that she secured and tied with a strip of cloth. She placed the serial carefully back into the bottom drawer on top of a stack of others.
“What’s all the fuss about?” Autumn called out and turned over, drawing a pillow over her head. Liza ignored her as she pulled on a pair of trousers and slipped her feet into her only pair of shoes. With Mico in tow, she pulled the door closed behind her.
Liza advanced through the series of trailers and lounging carnies, catching snatches of conversation and drifting cigarette smoke as she went. On the way, Hope fell in step beside her, still dressed in her fortune-teller’s garb.
“Hear our little star is kicking up a fuss something terrible in there.”
Liza barreled into the tent, where the prized Tasmanian tiger sat in the corner baring her sizable teeth. Liza gave Uly the evil eye and then opened her mouth to tear into him, but he spoke first.
“I don’t want to hear it, Liza,” Uly said. He was all hard faced and bull nosed, panting with a belt wrapped around his fist. “That bastard has bit me for the last time.”
Liza moved in front of the cage, putting herself between Uly and the tiger. She was a full head shorter than the animal handler but didn’t flinch when she chastised him. “This is the last time I’ll tell you not to mess with my animals.” She wondered when they’d gone from being the carnival’s animals to hers. It was now, at this very moment. She glared at him, turned her back, and bent down in front of the cage. Mico used her hair like jungle vines, swinging around to the back of her neck, eyeing Sabina cautiously.
“Why, I oughta . . .” Uly made to raise his hand against Liza.
“You oughta pipe down,” Hope said, coming up behind him, smiling. Already, she and Liza were friends of a sort. Her husband, Bombardier, held himself up at the corner of the tent. He didn’t say anything and didn’t have to.
The women soldiers, always looking for a good scuffle, found their way to the tent, like lionesses sniffing out their prey.
“I did not like this new girl the moment Clay brought her to us,” Zinsa said, always the instigator.
“I see two witches.” Bombardier made a show of craning his neck to look behind the women. He turned back to his wife and hunched, his shoulders massive. “But I do not see their broomsticks.” He snapped his fingers. “Ah, now I see. Efe rode in on her horse’s back.”
“I have no need for witchcraft to handle a clumsy elephant with the brain of a gnat,” Efe said.
The trio erupted into a shouting match that drew a small crowd. Hope launched herself between them, arms outstretched, trying unsuccessfully to calm them all down. Bombardier wrapped his hands around her waist, hoisted her up, and set her down behind him as if she weighed the tiniest fraction of her no doubt 150 pounds.
Meanwhile, Liza opened the cage, and the tiger trotted out, licked her hand, and sat beside her. She was still mute, even after the incident with the customer the other night, but at least she remained agreeable enough to Liza’s presence.
The bickering stopped in the middle of the insults as all eyes snapped onto the unnerving sight of an uncaged Tasmanian tiger. Liza didn’t dare try to touch her again and turne
d back to Uly. “What did you feed her?”
“Ain’t no better or worse than what we eat,” Uly huffed. “She get what I get my hands on the easiest. I don’t have time to be separating out food for one or the other.”
“Clay said she gets fresh meat,” Liza said. The Tasmanian had apparently survived at times on carnival food scraps. She hadn’t gone hungry, but Clay had made it clear it wasn’t exactly her preferred meal. Liza gestured toward the belt still in Uly’s hand. “And if you hit her—”
“That animal bit—”
“That’s why she bit you,” Liza said, cutting him off.
“Did she also tell you what the weather gonna be in the next town?” Uly said.
Liza didn’t let on that the tiger hadn’t said one word to her. “Don’t be jealous, Uly. You got your gifts . . .” She looked around at the muck in the tent. “And I got mine.”
Uly’s brown eyes turned mean. He stomped out of the tent. Zinsa and Efe, sensing the lost opportunity for a fight, walked off after him, sparing Bombardier one final dirty look.
Again, Liza bent to Sabina, reached out a tentative hand. The animal didn’t pull away this time, allowed her to smooth her striped coat. Mico screeched and Sabina growled as the two eyed each other.
“Now, you two cut that out,” Liza said. “Let bygones be bygones. Mico, come down from there.” The little monkey skittered down her arm and stood in front of Sabina, so small he could fit between the bars of her cage. Sabina, for her part, tried to seem unaffected. Mico stood there, looking between Liza and the tiger.
“I don’t have all night,” Liza said. “Make up now—go on.”
Sabina turned her head and eyed Mico. She lowered her nose for a sniff, and as she did, Mico reached out and swiped her on the nose and then darted back up Liza’s arm. Sabina snarled.
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