by Davis Ashura
Serena reddened. “Thank you,” she said.
Jane continued as though she hadn’t heard or seen Serena’s embarrassment. “Yes. The yellow fabric, and dark piping to match your eyes. We’ll also have some flowered patterns to act as a highlight. I think I have some leftover material. It should work perfectly. Now let’s measure you.” She pulled out a tailor’s tape and had Serena turn this way and that, stand still, walk, hold her arms out to the side, all sorts of postures.
Jane wrote down the measurements, and when the seamstress felt satisfied, she turned her attention to William and Jason. “Now for you two,” she announced. “We’ll have to make sure to highlight your packages. Make them pop,” she said, tapping her teeth. “The women love that. Some men, too.”
William and Jason reddened while Serena chuckled.
Jane had them turning, standing, arms out . . . all the things she’d had Serena do, and after she finished she stepped back with a satisfied smile. “I’ll have the costumes ready in three days.”
The circus packed up and left Wayne, Illinois the next day. Early in the morning after the final performances, everyone, even the artists, helped break down the tents, stalls, and rides. They packed everything, including the vehicles, onto a train to carry it to their next stop. The long day of labor didn’t finish until late afternoon, and by then, most everyone was ready to have an early supper and go to sleep.
Of course the senior performers, such as Sam the Strongman, Mistress Purdy the Mistress of Cats, and Dr. Devious the Enchanter from the Farthest East and his assistant, the Fabulous Winona, dozed in the best spots. William, Serena, and Jason had to accept a set of blankets rolled out on the floor of the combine car.
Jason snored lightly in his nest, but William wasn’t ready to rest. His mind and emotions roiled, and he sat in the open frame of the side door, staring outside. The train rattled along the tracks with the wheels striking a regular rhythm, and the winter-fallow cornfields lay beneath a fresh dusting of snow. His breath misted in the air, and the blaze of lights from a small town briefly brightened the night before the darkness took hold once again. The landscape seemed to unspool before him like a slow, hypnotic film.
“You’re not freezing out here?” Serena asked, sitting down next to him.
William glanced at her. She was wrapped up in a thick coat and a scarf—a normal scarf, not one of the long, silky ones she used in her act. “I can close the door if it’s too cold for you,” he said, rising to his feet.
Serena shook her head. “Leave it open.”
Her voice was as cool as the night, and William figured she was still upset with him. The truth was, he was also upset with her. He didn’t see why she was taking out her frustrations on him, and right now, he didn’t want to be around her. “I was about ready for bed,” William lied. “The door’s yours. Good night.”
“Don’t go.”
William looked her way. She stared out the open door. “You sure?” he asked.
“I’m sure.” Serena held up a hand. “Stay.”
William ignored her hand and sat down.
“I’m sorry for how I’ve treated you,” Serena said. “I shouldn’t blame you for what happened, but you have to understand—”
“Your life’s been torn apart,” William said. “I get it.”
“Maybe you do, but it doesn’t make it right that I took it out on you.”
“What about Jason?”
“What about him?”
William glanced back at his friend. Jason lay buried beneath a mound of blankets. He appeared comfortable. “You blamed me for what happened, but not him or Mr. Zeus.” His jealousy stirred, and with it the anger that never seemed to entirely dissipate.
“Jason’s safe. He’s simple, easy, you know? Around him, I don’t have to worry about . . .” Serena paused.
“Worry about what?”
She shrugged. “It’s nothing. Maybe I blamed you more for getting me in this mess because I care about you more. You kept this secret from me, and it felt more of a betrayal coming from you than it did from Jason.”
“I would have told you if I could have,” William said.
“That’s the only reason why you didn’t say anything?” Serena asked.
William nodded. “It’s the only reason.”
“And you’ve apologized enough for it.” Serena wore a guilty expression. “I should have forgiven you a long time ago.” She took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Just don’t keep anything like that from me ever again.”
William offered a hesitant smile. “Are we still mad at each other?”
“Only if you want to be,” Serena said with a faint smile of her own.
“I’d rather not,” William said. A wash of relief ebbed through him. “I’ll tell you the truth next time.”
“You’d better.” Serena playfully punched his thigh. “I know how to use a sword, remember?”
“I only have your word on that,” William said. “For all I know, you might not know the pointy end from the hilt.”
A challenging glint lit Serena’s eyes. The last of the tension between them dissipated like a phantasm. “Think so, huh? Then maybe you should try me.”
William unaccountably got the sense that she’d wipe the floor with him. “My mom taught me not to fight with girls.”
“Because she knew you’d lose.” She gave him another playful punch to the thigh, and William captured her hand before she could do it again. Her punches stung.
Serena wore a wistful expression. “Can you feel him?” she asked.
William didn’t have to ask to whom she referred. “Yes,” he said. “But not as much. He’s way back there, probably still in Cincinnati. Waiting.”
“Maybe Jason’s right and animals really do mess with his senses. Maybe we’ll be safe here.”
“I hope so,” William said. “But you know we’ll eventually have to deal with him.”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Serena said with a shiver.
“Are you cold?”
“Is that why you think I shivered?” Serena gave him an arch gaze. “Or is that your subtle way of asking if you can put your arm around me?”
It hadn’t been, but William went with it. “I plead the fifth.”
“Even though you only think of me as a friend?” Serena asked.
William had no ready answer. Until recently, he’d thought friendship was all he felt toward Serena, but with everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, he wasn’t so sure any more.
“No answer?” Serena pressed, staring at him with her oddly intense gaze.
“I don’t know,” William answered.
“Honesty,” Serena said. “At last.” She immediately ducked her head, appearing contrite. “I’m sorry. I said I forgave you, and I did.”
Their conversation quieted, and they stared in silence at the world beyond the train.
“You’re really just going to let me stay cold?” Serena asked at last.
William returned her arch gaze. “Is that your subtle way of asking me to put my arm around you?”
Serena chuckled. “Well played.”
William drew her close, and she rested her head on his shoulder.
“I like this,” Serena said. “It’s much nicer than being mad at you.”
William squeezed her shoulder in silent agreement. It was nice, but not enough to overcome his odd disquiet.
“You know, you’re a very unusual person,” Serena said.
“How so?”
“You like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, so many things that aren’t of this world, and yet here you are, part of a world of magic, and you act like you hate it.”
“Yeah, I guess I do hate it in a lot of ways,” William said. “My family died, and . . .” He trailed off.
“Yeah, I see what you mean.”
A horse whinnied, and William glanced into the interior of the railcar before returning his attention to the world outside. The scenery passe
d, dark and quiet except for the train chugging along. The moonlight reflected off snowy fields.
Serena closed her eyes and spoke.
* * *
Fleet-footed, I race across stubbled ground,
Aglow with warm magic and the pale moon.
Unseen lines anchor my hope, and a sound
Of welcome breathes life into my cold heart.
* * *
“What was that?” William asked, moved by the words even though he didn’t understand them.
“It’s an old poem.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“I’m glad you like it,” Serena said, “but it’s not really all that old.” She smiled. “I wrote it.”
“You?”
“Me. You’re the only person I’ve ever told it to.” Serena gazed up at William. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t,” William said, touched by her gesture. “But you should know something about me.”
“What’s that?”
“My brother Landon used to call me a bladder-mouth.”
“You mean a blabbermouth?”
“No. A bladder-mouth. He said I leaked secrets.” William grinned, waiting for her response.
Serena made a moue of disgust. “Gross. Now I’ll never get that image out of my head.”
“Then my work here is done,” William said with a chuckle.
“Really? That’s what you think your work is?” Serena’s eyes twinkled. “Disgust the person who was mad at you a little while ago?”
“It did make you smile, though, didn’t it?”
“I didn’t smile.”
“Your eyes did. They don’t lie.”
A fleeting flash of sorrow passed across her face, so quickly that William doubted he saw it.
“Where are we?” Jason asked, yawning mightily.
The sun had risen hours earlier, and the clamor of grunting bears, growling tigers, and cursing crew filled the air. The train cars that had hauled the animals stood open, and the stench of soiled bedding lingered despite the water hoses washing them down.
A blustery wind blew, chilling Serena. “Newton, Kansas, our next stop,” she answered. “Get up. We’re supposed to help unload the train and set up at some campground.”
“Where’s William?” Jason asked, sitting up and stretching.
“He rolled the Scout off the flatbed and went ahead with Mr. Bill and some of the advance team.”
“I’m surprised he’s not hungover,” Jason said. “Mr. Bill, I mean.”
“I knew who you meant,” Serena replied. She tried to imagine William drunk, and came up with an image of him giggling like a girl. She hid a smile at the thought.
“What are we supposed to do?” Jason asked.
“Clean out the cars where the animals were housed. We’ve got to haul out all the shit—”
“Language,” Jason chided her.
“It won’t be the last time I curse, given the amount of shit we have to clean out,” Serena said.
Jason grimaced. “I wish I’d gone with William.”
“Then you should have gotten up earlier.”
“Speaking of William, why didn’t you go with him? The two of you still arguing?”
“No. He and I made up last night while you were asleep.” Serena felt grateful that she didn’t have to keep pretending to be angry at William. Maybe it was because she thought of William as a friend, and friends didn’t lie to each other. Which was ironic, because Serena lied about everything. Her true nature and motivations, her interest in William, even her supposed feelings for him. In all ways, Serena was a liar, so why had that lie, pretending anger toward William, bothered her so much?
She didn’t know the answer, but whatever the explanation she recognized it as another chink in her armor, another point of vulnerability. She was also vain enough to wonder why her ploy with William, her intention for him to desire her hadn’t worked.
“Good,” Jason said. “He didn’t deserve you yelling at him.”
“Careful,” Serena warned. “You aren’t entirely blameless in this.”
“How’s any of this my fault?” Jason asked. “I didn’t create the necrosed, and I didn’t ask one of them to show up and try to kill us.”
“You lied to me.”
Jason waved off her words. “So what? If the necrosed hadn’t shown up, you’d have never learned who we are. You’d have been happy in your ignorance, and not knowing the truth would never have hurt you.”
“You think so? You think not knowing the truth about you, Lien, Daniel, their parents, and Mr. Zeus didn’t hurt?”
Jason eyed her for a moment. “Well, when you say it like that,” he muttered sourly.
Serena laughed. “I’m going to remind you of that one of these days. Now let’s get this done. Those cars aren’t going to clean themselves.”
“You sure about that? I am a very powerful magus, you know.” Jason wiggled his fingers.
“Then what’s stopping you?”
“Maybe I don’t want to.”
“Or maybe you can’t. Weren’t you telling William that you have some sort of thingy that helps you use your magic?”
“Yes, I have a nomasra, a device that stores lorasra. It’s how I stay alive in the Far Abroad.”
“Then it’s finite, isn’t it? Meaning you can’t risk wasting it to wash down the cars.”
Jason frowned at her for a moment before muttering something that sounded like a curse.
“Well?”
Jason sighed. “Even on Arylyn, I couldn’t waste lorasra like that.”
Interesting. Her people had very little knowledge about the magi, their abilities and limitations. Yet Jason had just divulged up information that might prove useful later on.
But how best to use it?
“You sure do know how to take the fun out of something,” Jason said.
Serena blinked. She had to replay Jason’s words in her mind as her attention snapped back to the here and now. “I’m sure I do,” she said. “Now grab a shovel and a rake and let’s go.”
Half an hour into the work, Jason cast down his rake in disgust. “How do animals produce so much . . .” He seemed to fumble about for the right word.
“You can say it,” Serena said with a smile.
“Shit. How do animals produce so much shit?”
“Didn’t you take Biology like the rest of us last semester?” Serena asked. “I’m pretty sure we covered that topic early on.”
“Very funny.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Serena said. “We’re almost done with this car. Just two more to go.”
Jason groaned. “How did we end up with this work, anyway?”
“We were voluntold.”
Jason frowned. “What’s voluntold mean?”
“It’s a portmanteau.”
“A portmanwho?”
“A portmanteau. A word that combines the sounds and meanings of two other ones. Like brunch: breakfast and lunch. Voluntold: volunteered and told what to do.”
Jason grinned. “I like that. I should voluntold William next time we have to clean Mr. Zeus’ workshop.” His grin fell away a moment later.
“Kohl’s still back there,” Serena said.
CHRISTMAS FORTUNE
William backflipped over Jason’s lunge and countered with a thrust. He parried, and angled a horizontal slash that made Jason slide aside to avoid it. Another exchange of blows ended with both of them doing front-flips in parallel.
He and Jason practiced in a small corner of the big top. Other performers also went over their routines in different areas of the tent.
“Break!” Mr. Bill called out. “Fantastic! The crowd will love all that jumping around, and the jabbing makes it come off as so much more dangerous than when you just slap swords at each other.”
William, tired and drenched in sweat, smiled in relief at Mr. Bill’s enthusiastic response.
When he and Jason had first been told what was expected in their act, they
had commiserated with each other with head shakes and eyerolls. All that jumping around would be ridiculous, but they also knew that if that’s what Mr. Bill wanted, then that’s what he would get. They’d worked hard to make it so, and with the fruits of their labor now seen as successful, they shared a grin of triumph.
“William’s flips could use some work,” Luc Dubrovic observed, a balding, middle-aged man of medium height who had the bulldog build of a gymnast. He headed the famous Dubrovic family of tumblers from Croatia, but his real name was Stanley Wilson, and there was no Dubrovic family of tumblers from Croatia. The artists in Wizard Bill’s Wandering Wonders were all American gymnasts who were unrelated to one another and had been thrown together by Mr. Bill’s manic madness.
But family or not, William thought them amazing tumblers. Yesterday, their second day in Newton, Kansas, Mr. Bill had asked Luc to help spice up William and Jason’s routine, and the gymnast had added a bunch of backflips and handsprings, so many that William doubted he’d be able to do them all. Of course, Jason had no such concerns—he was a born athlete, but William wasn’t so blessed. Somehow, though, he’d muddled through, mastering all the rolls, flips, tumbles, and jumps that Luc had built into their act.
“It needs to be tighter,” Luc advised William. “You need to keep your knees and feet together. Otherwise, your legs will eventually throw you off balance and down you’ll go.”
“Fine. Fine. Work on the flips,” Mr. Bill said, waving aside Luc’s criticisms. “But otherwise, it looks great! I can’t believe how quickly the two of you picked things up. At this rate, you’ll be able to perform by our last night here.” His red face brimmed with excitement and a faraway gleam lit his eyes.
“You can’t be serious. There’s no way they’ll be—” Luc began.
Mr. Bill had already wandered off. “Where’s Serena?” he shouted. “She needs to get in more practice, too.”
Luc sighed before turning back to William and Jason. “Take a break,” he said. “Be back here in five.”
“Yes, sir,” William said. “I mean. We will, Luc,” he hastily corrected.