The Ladies of the Secret Circus

by Constance Sayers

  Just then, Lara saw Marla look beyond her. She turned to see Audrey coming through the gate.

  “Mother,” said Lara, alarmed. “How are you here?”

  “I had a feeling,” said Audrey.

  Marla sighed deeply. “Not you, too. So you’re all now doing his dirty work for him. I warn you all: I’m not going back there.” She leaned against her shovel. “I’ll admit, I’m surprised he managed to wrangle you, of all people, Audrey.”

  Audrey’s mouth was drawn tight. “I never wanted any of this.”

  “Well, that makes two of us,” said Marla. “Audrey, I’ve offered your daughter the opportunity to turn around and leave. I won’t come back to Kerrigan Falls.”

  Audrey snorted. “No one would be foolish enough to believe you.”

  “Well then, since you two are still under your little protection spell, I can’t touch either of you. But that doesn’t apply to him.” Marla turned to Ben and moved to swing the shovel at his head. With a flick of her hand, Lara sent the shovel flying. Marla turned to her and smiled. “It seems you do have some skills. He’s outfitted you well.”

  Lara’d had no idea that she had skills other than flying. She was drawing on pure emotion.

  Marla spun around toward them, wiping sweat with her arm. “Remove the protection spell and I won’t kill him in front of you.”

  When neither Audrey nor Lara answered, Marla shrugged. “Okay then, it’s your choice.” She didn’t even move a muscle. Ben doubled over in pain as though his insides were burning.

  “Mother.” Lara turned to Audrey. “Remove it.”

  “No.” Audrey turned to Ben. “I’m sorry, but I can’t risk it.”

  Ben nodded as he writhed in pain.

  “Remove the spell, Mother.” Lara’s body had merged with Cecile’s mind fully now, the two of them sharing power. She had never felt stronger. “Mother,” commanded Lara. “Remove the fucking spell.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “This ends today. One way or the other.”

  Audrey lowered her head and began to chant quietly.

  “That’s more like it,” said Marla.

  Marla turned toward Audrey, and Lara’s mother doubled over in pain. Lara felt the fury well up inside of her. Marla then turned to Ben, who was now on his hands and knees writhing in pain.

  “No!” Lara put her hand out, and Marla went flying backward. Lara had seen the pitchfork leaning against the wall. She began thinking about the pitchfork rotating seconds before Marla’s back hit the wall, the tines turning and sliding through her body, coming out through the woman’s chest. For just a moment, it looked as though the act hadn’t hurt her at all, because she gazed down at the tines, as if inspecting a stain on her shirt. Then her chestnut hair fell forward and Marla slumped over like a doll.

  Lara let out a breath she’d been holding.

  Within moments of slumping over, Marla shook herself and stood up, the pitchfork teeth still visible through her ribs.

  Lara felt the air go out of her and struggled to breathe, as if someone was gripping her throat. Someone was gripping her throat. Esmé was strangling her, using the same magic she’d employed. As the world began to slip out of focus, Lara could hear Audrey screaming. Then a rattle at the gate diverted Marla’s attention and Lara got a moment’s reprieve. She breathed, the air hitting the back of her throat, then slumped to the ground, wheezing and grabbing her neck.

  “Are you okay?” Audrey was at her side.

  Marla backed up as Oddjob and Moneypenny walked into the yard with a cat-like grace, sizing up their victim.

  Lara was stunned by the change in their appearance. The Oorang Airedales were double their normal sizes. She had seen them stalking prey before, but nothing like this. As they paced, they continued to grow, gazing at Marla hungrily. Lara could hear their claws scraping as they moved.

  “You’ve got hellhounds, Audrey? You have two fucking hellhounds?”

  “I always hated magic.” Audrey smiled. “But animals. That’s a different story. Althacazur gave them to me as a gift when I was a child. He’d heard I wanted a pony.” Audrey raised her eyebrows, suggesting it was a curious gift on his part. “These two are my pride and joy.” In a flash Audrey moved and with her hand out drove Marla back over Todd Sutton’s grave, radiating a power Lara wasn’t aware her mother possessed. Oddjob and Moneypenny each grabbed one of Marla’s arms, and Lara thought they just might rip her in two.

  Lara scrambled up next to her mother and saw, for the first time, the remains of Todd Sutton in the shallow grave beneath her. He’d been buried like a pet. Anger welled up, and she turned to Marla. “Enough, Esmé. I’ve grown so bored by your antics. And I hate to be bored.”

  Marla looked at her with fury, for she knew the source of Lara’s help. The words that she’d just spoken hadn’t come from Lara or Cecile. Lara placed both hands on Marla’s face. “I’m sorry, I take no joy in this.” These were the last words from Lara before Althacazur fed her the incantation she needed.

  Incante delibre

  Vos femante del tontier

  “My daughter. I was wrong, but now it’s time you came home.” Lara pressed her forehead to Marla’s. As she connected with Marla, she felt Cecile pulling out of her body and fusing with her sister.

  “No. No. Father. Noooooo,” Marla screamed just as a lawn mower powered up across the street, drowning out her cries.

  Audrey had loosened Ben’s wrists, and now he was removing the electrical tape from his mouth. His face registered horror as his former wife stood there with a pitchfork through her chest. She began to deflate like a pool float at the end of summer, nearly folding over. As she did, Lara felt her strength increase and then she began to choke, doubling over gagging and coughing. Cecile had left her. The two sisters—were gone.

  It is finished. Lara said the words that she knew came from Althacazur. While he had not been permitted to interfere directly, through Lara he’d placed his hand on the scales and had tipped them in their favor.

  And yet, it wasn’t finished, not by far.

  Standing there, under the giant twisted oak tree at the top of Cabot Farms, Lara watched as Ben shoveled the final dirt over the graves, patting it down. This was a part of the farm where no one ever ventured, but to be safe, they’d purchased sod to blend in with the existing grass as much as possible.

  It had taken Lara, Audrey, and Ben two weeks to move the remains of Desmond Bennett, Peter Beaumont, and Todd Sutton here for a proper burial. The three were resolute that they could never admit the true story about what had happened to these three men to anyone.

  Who would believe them anyway?

  While Lara had always believed in magic, everything Ben thought he knew had been challenged. While his concussion had healed and his bruises were faded, there was a light that had gone out in Ben. The logic that he believed ran the world had all been an illusion. The idea that a one-hundred-year-old daughter of a daemon had been making sacrifices of young men every thirty years would have sounded crazy—until he’d seen the things he had over the last month. And yet, he never suspected that he was married to her. He’d never picked up a thing, so sure was he that the world was a place of order. Of course, this manifested itself in long silences and extra Jamesons. He and Lara sat silently at the bar at Delilah’s, content just to be near each other.

  They’d moved Todd’s body first, because he was the most recent and there were still gruesome details about him—pieces of his hair were still intact and rotting clothes still hung on his skeletal corpse. Ben and Audrey buried him without Lara. She stood at the bottom of the hill and heard the scrapes of the shovel and then a heavy thud that she knew was Todd being returned to the ground.

  Next they found Desmond Bennett’s body buried under a mature azalea bush, his old wallet barely holding together, but the dog tags from his stint in the army still tucked in the billfold. A week later, after digging in the night, they’d found the remains of Peter Beaumont. While Lara and Ben h
ad offered to bury Peter, Audrey had wanted to help, so the three of them put his bones next to those of the other two men.

  “Lara.” It was Ben who was the first to notice something curious in one of Cabot Farms’ fields.

  She looked up to see the land waver and something open up. It was a familiar sight in the field and yet she had a deep dread. She’d known this time was coming, the reckoning with the devil. A trio appeared—a man flanked by two women—elaborately costumed like they were dressed to greet someone at the train. As the three came closer, Lara saw that Margot was dressed in a beautiful 1940s-style pink dress with cat’s-eye sunglasses and victory rolls in her blond hair. Oddly, she held a square pink pocketbook. Cecile, with waves of platinum hair flowing down her back, was dressed as a flapper in a dress with a plunging back.

  Lara was brushing dirt off her pants but stopped when she saw them. She walked toward them. “I didn’t think I’d see you so soon.”

  “Well, we are rather attached to this lovely town,” said Althacazur, dripping with sarcasm. “I see Bill is here.” He nodded toward Ben.

  “Ben,” said Ben, correcting him from behind Lara.

  “Whatever,” said the daemon, who was dressed like he was headed to a steampunk convention: military brown leather trench coat, top hat, and mirrored glasses. “You did a marvelous job battling Esmé. She’s back home where she belongs. I rather think she’s happy to be there, although she would never admit it, of course. She sends her regards, Bill. But now it’s time, my dear.”

  Lara could feel the tears welling up. “I’m not ready. I need more time.”

  Althacazur ignored her, tilting his body to get a good look at Audrey.

  Confused, Lara looked around, continuing, “I did what you asked. I just need more time. Surely, I’ve earned it.”

  And yet Althacazur wasn’t looking at Lara. A thin smile formed on his lips, patronizingly. “You made that perfectly clear.” He put his hands together like the Grim Reaper, waiting patiently.

  But it was Audrey who turned to her daughter, wiping tears from her cheeks with dirt-covered hands. “In Paris, when I got there. You were dying. You didn’t have much time left.”

  Lara recalled seeing her mother in those dark hours, but then she’d seen Todd too. She knew now that she’d teetered on the edge of death, but she’d come back. Lara looked from her mother to Cecile, confused.

  “Despite Father’s efforts, you weren’t strong enough to absorb me on your own,” said Cecile gravely. “I’m so sorry, Lara. Had your mother not intervened, added her magic, you would have died.”

  “Intervened?” Lara shot a look at Audrey. “What do you mean?”

  “I made a deal with him,” said Audrey, a sad smile forming on her lips. She took the shovel and tossed it back toward the graves and shook the dirt from her pants like she needed to be tidy and presentable for what happened next.

  Althacazur stood emotionless, letting the scene play out in front of him.

  “No no no.” A primal scream erupted from deep inside Lara, followed by a gutteral moan. She clutched Audrey. “Please, no.”

  “It was a necessary sacrifice,” said Audrey, placing her hands on Lara to steady her. “I agreed to go with them after we defeated Esmé. It was a fair deal, Lara. Anything to save you.”

  “Oh, Mother, no.” Lara doubled over and Ben scrambled to get to her, but she fell on her knees in the field. “No. No.” She looked up at Althacazur. “Take me instead. I’ll go now. Please.”

  “Oh that I could, you delightful girl.” He leaned on his walking stick and looked down over his sunglasses. “Cecile’s right, so sure was I that you were dying, I cut a different deal. I think you’d call it ‘an insurance policy.’ I’d thought you and Cecile would be strong enough together, but alas I needed more magic. On the bright side, it got you out of your deal, so it looks like we both got what we wanted.”

  Cecile shot him a look to be quiet.

  Lara had bent over like she was choking. “No. Oh please no.” Lara thought this was what it felt like to be gutted. She felt betrayed by Althacazur, tricked. But what had she expected?

  “Ben,” said Audrey, looking up at him. “I need you to promise that you’ll be there for her.”

  He nodded.

  Audrey crouched down next to Lara, who was now on her knees near the edge of the field. She leaned to the side now, like she was unable to hold her body upright. “You and Jason can take care of everything together, Lara. All I ever wanted for you was a normal life. This was the cost, but I’m at peace with this decision.”

  “But I’m not,” said Lara. “It’s all his fault.” She glared at Althacazur with fury.

  “No,” said Audrey. “He gave me a choice. I knew the rules.”

  Cecile stepped forward. “I’m so sorry, but Esmé and I shouldn’t have been born, Lara. It was luck that we are even here. Every day of happiness that we have was more than we were designed for.” Cecile put out her hand for Lara and pulled her up. The woman studied her face. “You know how much we’ve all suffered. The sadness, the magic, the circus—well, those things are our destiny. I’m sorry that is the legacy I have given you.” Cecile brushed Lara’s hair away from her face.

  Lara turned to Audrey. “I’ll go instead. It was me who was dying. You didn’t want anything to do with this magic.”

  “Lara,” said Audrey, more firmly now. “I cannot imagine a better fate for myself than living out my eternity riding horses in a circus—and waiting for you to join me someday.”

  Lara held on to her mother, both women sobbing. Finally, Cecile separated them softly. Ben lifted a shaking Lara and began walking with her up the hill. She fought him the entire way. As if they knew, Oddjob and Moneypenny both began to moan from the barn—a low, mournful sound that continued until the morning.

  Before she disappeared into the night, Cecile turned back. “We will see you again, my dear. We are your destiny.”

  Audrey walked arm in arm with Cecile, never looking back, as if to do so would break her forever.

  EPILOGUE

  Kerrigan Falls, Virginia

  October 10, 2006

  After the bones were removed from his garden, after Lara’s mother had gone, Ben built a stone patio, then put his house up for sale. One of the “great homes of Kerrigan Falls,” declared the listing. It had an offer within a day. Marla had been living in the house since 1938, first as her grandmother Victoria, and then as her mother, Vivian. Long trips, lengthy illnesses—no one had ever questioned any oddities as Marla morphed from mother to daughter, and no one questioned them now. Lara had helped with that. While she wasn’t the talented illusionist that Esmé had been, she’d made a correction so that “Marla” showed up to sign the mortgage paperwork. In fact, there had continued to be sightings of “Marla” now and then, until she finally moved back to Los Angeles permanently, to pursue her photography career.

  Sadly, that wasn’t the only story Ben and Lara were forced to manufacture. They’d also had to fabricate for Audrey a sudden trip to Spain about a horse. After a month, when Jason and Gaston hadn’t heard from her, Ben began pressing Lara to do what they both knew was necessary. As much as Lara couldn’t face it, Audrey wasn’t coming back. So at Ben’s prodding, they created a fake car accident, with Lara using an enchanted document as proof to both Gaston and Jason that her mother was dead.

  At the memorial service for Audrey, she and Jason sat on the bench in the old Kerrigan Falls Cemetery. “You should know where he is buried, too.” Then Jason took her hand and walked her around the back to Peter Norton Beaumont’s grave. It was the only indication he’d ever given her that he’d known the truth all along. That—and he gave her Peter’s Fender Sunburst. As they gazed down at the granite stone, Lara longed to tell him that his friend, Peter Beaumont, was interred at Cabot Farms, but she felt a need to protect him. He’d had enough.

  Gaston Boucher had also become a dear friend. She could see the hope that he’d had for a different life for himse
lf with Audrey. She and Ben stayed close to him, inviting him to dinners at Cabot Farms, an empty place at the table for Audrey.

  Lara sold her own house and moved back into Cabot Farms with Ben, and they settled down into a quiet existence—if raising hellhounds could be considered a quiet existence, although Lara found them quite lazy and content to sit by the fire.

  After all that had happened, how did a person just return to a normal life? Now that she knew that daemon blood flowed through her, what could normal possible look like? So Lara found herself moving through her day like the walking dead. That first summer was the hardest. She sat out in the field waiting for him. Only he could fix this. Squinting in the sun, she willed him to come. Had she been nothing but a vessel for Cecile? When he failed to show, she thought she had her answer.

  Yet she refused to accept things the way they were, and so she kept practicing: starting cars, locking doors, opening drawers, dimming streetlamps, cuing records, until the magic had become as reliable as breathing. While her mother had turned her back on spells, Lara found that she didn’t feel the same. It was as much a part of her as her blond hair. She’d felt the magic there flowing through her veins as she leapt from the trapeze. Nothing in her life had felt that freeing. As she struggled to tell Ben, she found that words didn’t describe the Grand Promenade, the carousel. True, it was Hell, but it was breathtaking and strange. And wasn’t she carved from it?

  Everything that Ben thought he knew had been challenged as well. They both moved around each other for a year, like soldiers who’d returned from battle. From the way he hesitated, she knew that Ben was worried about the spaces left by Todd, Marla, and Audrey, even Peter Beaumont, for she’d finally told him about Peter as well. They were two people formed by absences of others. While he never said it, she thought he worried that those who’d remained, including him, were not enough for her. At times, he wasn’t wrong. She was like the mountain that had been formed by the glacier. After it tore through, valleys remained carved like scars. Yet there had been beautiful parts to the story, too. They were in this thing together now, she and Ben, their roots so deep. Early on, there were moments when she was sure the weight of everything would topple them, and yet it hadn’t. He had been a gift through this all, but you didn’t get one without the other. And she’d decided that she was the end of this line. There would be no children for her. While Ben had assured her he understood, she worried that it was a decision he would regret, but then again, he’d been married to a one-hundred-year-old half-daemon, so normal had changed for him as well. She recalled Cecile’s words: It was luck that we are even here. Every day of happiness that we have was more than we were designed for.