The Ladies of the Secret Circus

by Constance Sayers

  When Lara had stepped back onto the Parisian street, the sun was bright and she found that instantly she felt unwell. Within seconds, a throbbing headache debilitated her, causing her to feel quite dizzy. The café across the street was busy and she made her way over there, staggering, not realizing that she was no longer dressed in her black sundress and denim jacket. Instead, she wore a sequined leotard and her shoes had disappeared. As she approached the café, the waiter shooed her away. Confused, she didn’t understand what he was saying. She was thirsty and so dizzy, but she didn’t have her purse. What had happened to her purse? For a moment she panicked, wondering where her passport was until she remembered it was safely locked in the hotel safe.

  She stumbled, which only made the man shoo her away harder, walking out to the sidewalk to stop her there. But Lara found her legs wouldn’t move. There was also now a voice inside her. They think you’re drunk.

  “But I’m not drunk,” Lara answered.

  Don’t talk to me, Lara. They can’t see me.

  “Huh?” This voice was weird. “Cecile?”

  Yes. Lara, listen to me. Your body is having a reaction to me being in it. I had feared this. It will take time to adjust, if it can absorb me. If not, then we have bigger problems, but for now, you need to act normal. Do you understand?

  Looking across the street, Lara could see that everyone in the restaurant had turned and was staring at her. They had spoonfuls of soup and bitefuls of duck on their utensils, mouths agape—all had stopped mid-bite and mid-conversation to take in the spectacle of her. “I understand.”

  Lara heard a groan followed by a sigh of frustration in her head. Obviously, you don’t.

  A man in a suit appeared and stepped in front of the waiter. “You need to leave, now.”

  Lara couldn’t understand him, but the voice in her head did.

  Do you know where you were staying before you came to the circus? I cannot help you, these streets look different to me.

  “Hotel Vivienne,” said Lara to the voice.

  The man did not budge and pointed to the left. “Rue Vivienne. Hotel Vivienne. Allez.”

  Lara knew what allez meant—“go.” But she could feel her legs swaying, which made her think of the chills she was having. Violent chills.

  Lara. Lara.

  She wasn’t sure she answered, but she could feel the impact of the sidewalk on her knees and knew they had to be bloodied.

  Todd was there. Todd? He was overexposed—the too-bright sun, like the scene from the carousel that caused her to squint up at him. She was so relieved to see him. He’d help her. This version of him was glorious—square chin, brown hair that he pulled back into a low ponytail. He sat on the hood of his car, the beloved Mustang. The one he’d been separated from—the same car that had been towed through town. Now he was perched on it as though their wedding day had never happened. This was what it would have been like, Lara thought. He wore a long-sleeved black T-shirt and jeans, black high-top Chuck Taylors. He was peeling a blade of grass in two, and she realized they were parked in a field. She turned and walked up the hill, unsure of what this scene meant—trying to interpret it like a dream. “Where are you going, Lara?” he called. “Stay with me.”

  Lara looked down: She was in a leotard and her knees were bloody. “I can’t stay with you,” she said. “You’re dead.” Something told her this vision was a trap or a choice. This scene had never happened between them, and to accept it as real would seal her doom. She saw something peek from behind a tree motioning for her to come. It was Mr. Tisdale. We are your destiny, he said, without speaking words, of course. She ran toward him anyway, away from Todd, never once looking back. Then someone was slapping her lightly and turning her over. She opened her eyes.

  Do we know him?

  “Lara. It’s Ben.” Ben Archer was crouched down next to her and his wonderful face was racked with worry, but that was impossible. Ben wasn’t in Paris. Oh, how she missed him. Then the chills began and everything clouded over.

  Lara. Lara. Wake up.

  Lara cracked open her eyes. Something was in her arm. She heard beeping. Gray walls with directions in French on how to safely lower the bed. Then nothing.

  You have to stop fighting me or we’ll both die.

  “I’m not fighting you.” She laughed at this. It was that voice again. The one that cared if they lived or died. “Poof,” said Lara.

  Yes, poof. And poof is bad, trust me. We’ll both go poof.

  A nurse came in and checked Lara’s IV bag and wiped something across her forehead that beeped. The chills had subsided for a while, but now they were coming on in waves again. The woman loaded another IV bag behind the nearly empty one. A violent chill rocked Lara and then she was drowsy again.

  At the darkest point, when she felt herself swinging on the trapeze, then letting go, with no visible net beneath her, Lara was reassured by the familiar touch and voice of her mother. When she opened her eyes, she found Audrey’s warm hand on her face but nodded off only to wake later and find the room empty.

  At one point, Lara’s fever had spiked to 41.1 degrees Celsius. The doctors were looking for viruses, a brain bleed, sepsis, but found no cause. Nurses pushed IVs, cool baths, and dantrolene injections.

  Ben was the first to spy Audrey coming out of Lara’s hospital room. From the grim look on Audrey’s face, he expected the worst possible news.

  “Ben,” she said with a wan smile. He could see she had been crying.

  “Audrey.” He was ready to offer to help, be useful, help make funeral arrangements. As he assembled these tasks in his mind, a hole began to form deep inside him. Lara couldn’t be gone, not before they’d ever started. He wasn’t prepared for this. The lack of sleep, lack of food, travel—everything from the last three days—compounded and he found himself wiping tears away.

  “She’ll be fine,” said Audrey wearily. She took his hand and held it firmly.

  For hours, they sat, side by side, in plastic chairs, silent. Then Lara’s fever broke and then stayed down on its own, for the first time. It would take another eight hours for her to fully regain consciousness.

  But there was something about Audrey’s manner that unnerved him. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Perhaps it was shock, but he couldn’t shake the idea that Lara had only improved after her mother had arrived. Audrey had been the catalyst.

  Ben filled Audrey in on the composition books when Barrow and Gaston returned to the hospital. The three took turns briefing her, correcting one another with more accurate interpretations. The best Ben and Gaston could figure was that, in 1926, the real Cecile Cabot, weakened from childbirth, fell from the trapeze and died. Just as she’d promised, Sylvie took Margot and ran, posing as Cecile Cabot for the remainder of her life.

  Audrey absorbed all of this news with a stoicism that surprised Ben. They’d uncovered a hidden secret about the woman who had raised her, yet Audrey sat on the chair, expressionless. In her features he could see Lara years from now. He tried to think of Jason’s and Audrey’s features blending into Lara’s—the fair hair, big green eyes, and upturned nose—but he didn’t see any of Jason. Except for her raspy voice, Lara definitely took after her mother. Still, Ben couldn’t quite put his finger on what was wrong with Audrey. Instead of being relieved that her daughter’s fever had broken, he couldn’t help but think that she was mourning something.

  Audrey got up and walked over to the window. “I never should have let her come here.”

  Gaston put his hand on her shoulder. “You couldn’t have stopped this. If the circus wanted her, they’d have found a way to get her. And she would have gone, Audrey. You know that.”

  Audrey nodded absently.

  Ben knew what Gaston had said was true. Of course Lara would have gone.

  At noon, Ben decided to go to his hotel. Before he left, he stopped by Lara’s room, not asking anyone, Audrey or the nurses, if it was okay. He needed to see her. To his surprise, he found her lying there with he
r eyes open. A feeling of dread washed over him. The fever had been too high for too long. The doctors had warned them that there was a chance that a seizure may have caused brain damage.

  “I’m not dead.” It was her voice, raspier than usual, but the tone was pure Lara. “So quit looking at me like that.”

  It was the Lara he knew, the one from Delilah’s. Ben felt he could collapse, right there in front of her, in a mixture of relief and exhaustion.

  “You need to get me out of here.” She focused on him. Her eyes were bright, but she looked tired, her skin translucent. He’d seen her bad before—at the beginning with Todd. The IVs had made her puffy, but he was so grateful to see that she was demanding things. “Ben? Did you hear me?”

  “I’m just so happy to see you’re okay—”

  “You don’t understand,” she cut in, studying her hospital gown. “We have to get out of here. I’m not safe here.”

  “Let me get Audrey,” said Ben, holding up a finger.

  “My mother is here?”

  “Lara, you’ve been in and out of consciousness for days. Of course she’s here.” For a moment, he wondered if something terrible had, indeed, addled her brain. There were flashes of rehabilitation centers and fears of a stroke, but to his amazement she was pulling at her covers with the dexterity of someone who was at least physically able.

  “Ben? Is something wrong with you?”

  “No.” He was surprised at her clarity and focus.

  “Did you hear me?” She looked around the room. “I’m assuming, given the explosion of French signs saying SALLE D’ATTENTE, that we are still in France? I’m not safe. Tell my mother we need to go home now.”

  He sat down on the chair next to her. “Can you just wait until the doctor sees you before you flee? You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”

  She snorted and looked at the wall, like she was contemplating something.

  The door pushed open. “I heard noise in here,” said Audrey, peeking her head in.

  “Mother,” said Lara. “Oh, thank God.”

  Audrey put her hands to her face and began to cry. “You’re really okay.”

  “Of course I’m okay.” Lara looked at both of them. “We have to get home,” she repeated. “Now.”

  “We’ll go soon,” said Audrey, who perched herself on Lara’s bed and smoothed her daughter’s hair. “You need to rest.”

  “I’m in danger,” said Lara.

  “No,” said Audrey. “You’re not.”

  “But you don’t understand,” said Lara.

  “I understand everything,” said Audrey. “You’re safe now.”

  Ben had a million questions to ask Lara, yet he couldn’t bring himself to form a single one of them.

  “You need to rest,” said Audrey. “I’m here now. Nothing will happen to you.”

  “But—” Lara began.

  Audrey reached out and stroked her daughter’s hair. To Ben’s amazement, Lara’s eyes began to close and she appeared to be fighting the urge to sleep, but Audrey kept stroking her hair. “Just rest.”

  Before she fell off to sleep, Lara murmured, “He sent me a ticket.”

  “I know,” said Audrey.

  Eight hours later and with Lara’s prodding, the doctors released her from the hospital, still perplexed about the cause of her fever, yet with her vital signs all healthy, and her insisting she wanted to leave, there was no real reason to keep her.

  She was agitated, still wanting to go home to Kerrigan Falls. Gaston had arranged for the four of them to be on the first flight out in the morning.

  Ben could see Barrow’s face fall at this news. He’d hoped to talk to her about what she’d seen at the circus. At the coffee machine in the lobby of the hotel, he cornered Ben. “Has she said anything?”

  “No,” said Ben, as concerned about Lara’s behavior as Barrow was. “She’s extremely cagey right now, but she’s been through a lot, so I guess that is to be expected.”

  While Lara rested in her room, the others gathered on the sofas around the lobby like ladies-in-waiting.

  “She wants an earlier flight,” said Audrey.

  “We can’t get an earlier flight.” Gaston seemed frustrated.

  After a few hours, Ben checked in on her in her room. He found her sitting on the edge of the bed like she was unsure what to do next. “Can we go to Montparnasse?”

  “Yeah,” he said, moving toward the hotel phone. “I’ll just call Audrey.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Just the two of us.”

  “It’s almost ten o’clock. I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” She’d just come back from near death and here she was proposing some new scheme for them in Montparnasse.

  “I’ll go by myself then.” She reached into her closet for a jacket.

  “No, I’ll go with you, but you need to make up your mind,” said Ben, irritation in his voice. “You keep telling us you’re not safe here, and now you want to run to Montparnasse—alone—to get into more trouble.”

  “I missed you, too.” She smiled.

  As they crossed the Seine in a taxi and cut over by Les Invalides to Montparnasse, Lara seemed distracted. Her fingers lightly touched the glass, as if the scene in front of her was fragile and impermanent. Drugstores, vendors selling televisions, restaurants with pictures of food displayed in unappetizing, plastic-looking poses—she gazed out at all of them with wonder.

  “You can let us off here,” she said to the taxi driver when they got to a circle. She was out the door while Ben settled with the driver and then scrambled to follow her. He found her standing in front of Le Dôme Café, looking up. “It hasn’t changed.”

  He thought that was an odd comment for her to make, but after what she’d gone through he was just happy that she was upright and speaking mostly coherently. So he let it go, but he found that he was angry at her, too. While Barrow and Gaston were convinced she’d been abducted by an otherworldly circus, he wasn’t sure he agreed. Her strange behavior, however, was only making him more suspicious.

  “What do you want to do?” Ben wasn’t quite sure about the purpose of this adventure, but Lara seemed mesmerized by a typical Parisian street.

  “I just wanted to see the place again.” Lara was turning on the street, looking around in amazement. He stopped her from rotating, because she was attracting attention. This got him wondering when she’d eaten last; maybe a meal might restore her. He’d managed to leave a note with the front desk telling Audrey where they’d gone. He figured they’d get settled in a restaurant and then he’d duck out to the bathroom and call her to reassure her mother that Lara was fine. “Why don’t we eat something?”

  Lara turned to him, delighted. “Oh yes, I would love that.”

  “Okay,” said Ben, taking her hand. She curled her fingers in his as they crossed the street, finding an Italian restaurant on Boulevard Raspail that had outdoor seating. A fan sent a cool breeze past them on a rather stuffy night with the air like a bath.

  “Picasso had a studio right there.” Lara pointed to the right. Ben turned to see where she was pointing, thinking it was odd that Lara would know about Picasso’s studio. In Montparnasse, she now seemed animated and alive, moving the saltshaker around the table, as if the act of touching things was new to her. She seemed to marvel at sports cars and clothes, craning her neck to follow a man with a mohawk and piercings as he walked by.

  Ben ordered a glass of wine, refusing to let Lara have any. She frowned and took a sip of his before he’d even had a chance to taste it. He was grateful as the spicy drink hit the back of his throat. God, he’d needed a drink. Hesitating, he swirled his glass. “You want to tell me what happened?”

  “You know what happened. I went to the circus.” She leaned back in her seat, focusing on the traffic and not meeting his eyes. There was a childish smile on her face.

  “Really?”

  “What do you mean, really?”

  “I thought you might have been abducted.”


  Lara made a face that said she disagreed. “At the gala, after I thought I’d seen Todd, there was a strange man.”

  “Jesus,” said Ben, sitting back in his seat. “First Todd, now a strange man. That fucking gala was sure crowded.”

  She laughed. “It was a man I had seen before, in childhood. He told me I needed to come to Paris; he’d have answers about what happened to Todd. There was no way that I was not going after that.”

  “And it never occurred to you that this man might be some sick lunatic?”

  “Oh, he’s a sick lunatic, all right, but no,” she said. “Never once, even as I sat there with Gaston and Barrow with the damned ticket in my pocket, did I consider not going.” She brought her leg up on the chair, then she laughed like she often did at Delilah’s—that full, throaty laugh. It was the first laugh he’d heard from her, and it made him realize how worried he’d been that she’d never return. “Tell me, would you not have gone? Even the ticket was magical. It bled when I tried to tear it.”

  “It’s a fantastic story.” He slid his wineglass away and wondered why everyone was so convinced there was something otherworldly circling around them.

  She raised her eyebrow and settled back in her seat. “So, what do you think happened to me?”

  “The woman who chased you might have kidnapped you and drugged you.”

  “Then what?” There was a change in Lara, a confidence he hadn’t seen before. “She just let me go?”

  He had to admit, it didn’t make sense. Had someone kidnapped Lara for the painting, they’d have asked for ransom. There had been no request. He folded his arms.

  There had been something that he’d been worrying about with her. Perhaps in her grief over Todd, Lara had imagined this circus, this ticket. She might have just wandered the streets of Paris this way for days. He knew her grandmother Margot had struggled with mental illness. Was it happening to Lara, too? Was this why Audrey looked so stricken?

  “I’m sure there are people who wouldn’t have thought entering the Devil’s Circus was a grand idea,” said Lara, unaware of the narrative running through his mind, “but then I remembered that people had coveted those tickets for years in Paris. To the best of my knowledge, they all returned safely. I wanted answers, so I went. I stood outside the Palais Brongniart, and one minute there was nothing, then the next there was a circus. Not a tent, Ben. An entire building in another dimension. I took a Ferris wheel down past the River Styx accompanied by a monkey—who might have been a damned Benito Mussolini. The rooms were opulent. Giroux captured the way it looked. Everything has a soft focus and a sharp oversaturated color to it.” She sighed. “I know it sounds crazy; I do. It’s a form of Hell and yet it is the most magical, magnificent place I’ve ever seen.”