by Steph Post
When his estranged fourteen-year-old daughter had finally found and confronted him, Pontilliar had only shrugged his shoulders. Ruby had held out the proof, the circus playbill she had carried all the way from the mountains, but Pontilliar hadn’t bothered to question the validity of her claim. He also hadn’t been impressed by the arrival of his only offspring. Pontilliar had simply asked her what she could do. What skills. What talents. How she could contribute to the show. When she had answered that she could hunt and trap, he had laughed at her. What useful skills? She was a pretty good thief when she needed to be, so Pontilliar had set her up as a picker: she picked up the trash on the midway and picked the pockets of the rich gentlemen and ladies who had been marked by a chalky hand patting them on the back as they passed through the ticket booths.
Ruby had no illusions about her father. She had not really expected him to love her and so was not disappointed by his coldness. Ruby had found her family; the Star Light accepted her as one of its own and became her home. No one even seemed to know that she was Pontilliar’s daughter, although eventually rumor spread, and if they did know, only a few appeared to care. She had seen Zero, the clown, frown when Pontilliar scolded her as he would any other employee and she often caught Samuel Mtangoo, grandson of a captured Wagogo chief and son of Sir Richard Grimthal’s head butler, staring at her from across the midway. Samuel bothered her, he seemed always to be watching her, at times she was sure he was following her, but Ruby knew better than to complain. The Star Light had become her touchstone and she clung to her place within it with a fierce desperation.
In truth, Samuel was the keeper of the one secret which, if she discovered it, would have driven Ruby away from the carnival forever. Ruby’s mother had been both the queen of the Star Light and Pontilliar’s young wife. Miranda had been everyone’s darling, the heart of the show, and had taken the circus to a new height of glamor, but Pontilliar’s ambition couldn’t be contained. He wanted more than a big top arena. The new public fad was for sideshow freaks, but Pontilliar was having trouble paying for them. He had read about Dr. Christopher Fillini and his proposed chemical and psychometric dysgenic experiments for aiding Francis Galton’s new eugenic research. Pontilliar decided to conduct these experiments himself and began to slowly and secretly poison Miranda when she was pregnant with their first child. He began with drops of an atropine solution in her coffee every morning. She miscarried in the middle of a show, blood smeared down the side of her white horse, the clowns quickly closing in to distract the crowd and carry her away. Pontilliar had insisted on examining the fetus. Normal. No tail. No lobster claws.
The second baby was a stillborn, the birth agonizing, the only indication of Pontilliar’s endeavors was a slight webbing between two toes. He considered putting the body in a jar for the pickled punk show, but Miranda wouldn’t let him. The baby boy was buried; Miranda heartbroken beyond solace. Pontilliar was frustrated and redoubled his efforts, varying his chemicals. When Ruby was born, perfect and healthy, Pontilliar gave up on subterfuge. He needed Miranda’s help. He needed to try more combinations at higher doses, and for that Miranda needed to be a willing participant. When Pontilliar explained to her what he had been attempting to do over the past four years, Miranda became hysterical. She had taken her daughter and left her married name, her career, her stardom, and returned home to the sanctuary of the mountains. The only other person who had been aware of Pontilliar’s diabolic experiments had been Samuel and, though he was sworn to secrecy and would never renege on an oath, he took it upon himself to protect Ruby as penance for his silence.
After two years of watching his daughter dip into pockets and collect trash, Pontilliar approached Ruby with a proposition. She didn’t have a talent, either in skill or physical features, and had basically proven herself useless to him. He would be willing, however, in light of their filial relationship, to invest in her carnival career. If she was willing to go on a journey. If she was willing to transform. If she had what it took to become a star like her mother.
Ruby did not know then about Pontilliar’s diabolical scientific proclivities. She was unaware of her unborn siblings, of the thin, wailing voices that had haunted Miranda’s every step. She knew Pontilliar felt no true affection for her, but she was dazzled by his promises of ballys and billings, his exuberance for her future success. He put his arm around her shoulder, touching her for the first time in months, and wrote her name in the air before them. One day, he enthused, her name would be written in lights. And she would have done her mother proud.
Samuel had sought her out, cautioning Ruby not to trust Pontilliar, but Ruby did not trust Samuel and so his warnings went unheard. She was only sixteen, a girl who had spent so much of her life with a tattered playbill clenched inside her fist, and the father she had spent years seeking was asking if he could give her the moon. Of course, she said yes.
Ruby threw her cigarette to the dirt and ground it out with the toe of her sandal. She stretched her neck back and forth and then felt the back of it. Sweat. There was nowhere to go to escape the heat, but inside the snake tent was hotter than behind it. Every now and then a breeze funneled through the backside of the midway, shuffling the hot air around. It was the Star Light’s sixth night in Baton Rouge and even though it was only Tuesday, it was the biggest crowd they’d had all summer. The midway was jammed shoulder to shoulder and there were lines queued up outside of the Ten-In-One, waiting to push their way through and gawk at the freaks. The grandstands in the big top were full and the Ferris Wheel and the carousel were whirring non-stop. Jasper was turning the tip so fast outside of the snake show that he had to call in one of the rousties to help force people away. There was a feverish energy in the air, as if the townsfolk were fearful that when the carnival went away, they’d never see another one. Perhaps it was the truth. Reverend Tindall had set up about a hundred yards beyond the Star Light’s gates and was damning the carnival to the depths of hell. Pontilliar was making so much money that he didn’t even care.
Halfway through the evening, word had come down the tent line that Beaner, the talker for the electric show, was puking up his guts in the doniker. There was no else to call the bally on Augustus’s show and he was having a fit. Jasper had asked Ruby if she minded taking a two-show break so he could fill in and she’d agreed before he even finished the question. She hung the closed sign on the bally herself and retreated behind the tent where at least there wasn’t a crush of people and a body could breathe a little.
She leaned back against one of the tent poles and was about to shut her eyes for a moment when she saw a familiar figure wrapped in a pink silk kimono coming slowly toward her from the cookhouse. Ruby hadn’t seen January since the previous morning, when she had tried to hold her back from Tom’s body, and she hoped January was coming to see her. January paused, unsmiling, and raised her hand to her hair to check it. Her normally perfect finger waves were frizzy and limp, matted on one side of her head. Her lips were pale without the usual stain of bright red and her face was sallow and waxy. Dark shadows hung under her eyes. She pointed to one of the empty camp chairs set up at the back of the tent, surrounded by a ring of burned cigarette ends.
“You mind?”
January pulled her kimono tighter and sunk down into the chair. Ruby watched her cautiously and then quietly came over to the chair next to her, not sure of what to say. The two women sat together in silence, scuffing their heels in the dirt and staring aimlessly at the ground until finally Ruby spoke. Her voice was halting, timid.
“I tried to see you. I wanted to be there for you.”
January threw back her head and sighed.
“I know. The girls told me.”
Ruby chewed on the inside of her cheek and tapped her nails on the narrow arm of the chair.
“I mean, I am here for you. Anything. Whatever you need.”
“I know.”
Ruby picked at the wooden arm of the chair, trying to pry up a splinter.
“A
nd I know you don’t want to hear it right now, but I’m sorry about Tom. Really.”
January loosened her kimono and then pulled it across her chest even tighter. She looked about as awkward as Ruby felt.
“I know that, too. Thanks. But I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay.”
“That’s all everyone wants to do, talk about it. Tell me what they think happened. He fell, he jumped, he was pushed. This reason, that reason. I don’t care the reason. He’s gone. He’s dead. And talking about it won’t bring him back and it won’t make it better, so I don’t want to.”
Ruby nodded.
“Okay.”
January looked down at her chewed nails. The paint was chipped and her cuticles were red and raw. She jerked her head up and caught Ruby staring at her hands. Ruby had never seen January without a manicure. Even in a carnival, where everything a person touched was covered in a layer of dust and dirt, January had always maintained the illusion of glamor. Her inability to keep the façade going was what hurt Ruby the most. If January couldn’t, how could any of them? January finally shoved her hands between her knees and looked over at Ruby.
“At least Tom’s death has been deemed an accident and everyone can lay off their theories. Pontilliar came to the wagon and told me himself. So I guess that lets Hayden off the hook.”
“Hayden’s not important here.”
January shook her head.
“No, it’s good. I mean, at least it wasn’t a suicide like in Sulphur. And we don’t got to worry about somebody having killed him. I can live with an accident. I can bear that. I don’t think I could bear the others.”
January stared down at her hands again and sighed loudly.
“And no one ever really thought Hayden had anything to do with it in the first place. I was looking out the window this morning and I saw you two walking together. You looked happy. I guess you worked things out.”
Ruby realized that January needed this. To talk about something other than Tom, other than her own grief. Ruby dug out the splinter of wood and twisted it between her fingers.
“Yeah.”
“You’re not going to give me any details, are you?”
Ruby glanced up at January. She wasn’t smiling, but there was just the tiniest hint of light behind her eyes. Ruby shook her head.
“Nope.”
“Figures.”
Silence fell between them again until January finally stood up and brushed off her kimono.
“Well, I should get out of here. Don’t you got a show going on?”
“Jasper’s calling for Electro for a couple sets. He’s probably on his way back over now. You’re not working, are you?”
January shook her head.
“No. Maybe after the next jump. I just want to get the hell away from this whole place, you know?”
January was looking over at the Ferris Wheel, blazing and spinning high above the tents. The rumors of Tom’s death beneath it had quickly made their way into town, but it didn’t stop the rubes. There was still a line coiling around the base of the Ferris Wheel as the townsfolk waited to be taken up into the sky. January turned back to Ruby.
“By the way, Samuel’s looking for you or something. He said he needs to talk to you.”
Ruby stood up and groaned.
“I swear to God, that man is going to kill me.”
“What’s he want?”
Ruby grimaced and wiped her palm across her forehead, skinning away the sweat.
“I’m sure it’s about the new geek. Samuel’s got it in for him.”
January frowned.
“Daniel?”
Ruby shook her head.
“Don’t worry about it.”
January narrowed her eyes and put her hands on her hips.
“I know what everyone is whispering. But it isn’t true.”
Ruby wished she had never said anything at all about the geek. She turned back to the snake tent.
“Don’t worry about it, January.”
“No, listen.”
January snapped and Ruby was forced to turn around.
“I’ve got ears, you know. I may be sad, but I’m not stupid. I know what everyone is saying. That there was something going on between me and the new geek.”
Ruby tried to interrupt, but January held out her hand to stop her.
“I talked to Daniel maybe three times. Said hello, being nice. That’s it. Being decent. And next thing you know, I’ve got my skirt up. Because apparently that’s what everyone thinks I do. Oh look, there goes January the floozy. Just talk to her once and she’ll take you to bed.”
“No one’s saying that about you.”
“Oh, yes, they are. No matter what you do, you can’t catch a break in this place. I never once stepped out on Tom. Not once. Why is that so hard for people to believe?”
Ruby tried to reach for January, but she stepped away, angry tears burning in her eyes.
“And everyone that’s talking about Daniel should just stuff it, too. I’m probably the only one who’s even spoken to him. The only one who gave him a chance. And look where that got me.”
January threw her arms out wide. There was an ugly smile on her face.
“God, this place. We’re all a mess and yet everyone is judging everyone else. Gossiping behind their backs, thinking the worst. Everyone biting at everyone else’s heels. Who needs to worry about tripping over a rope and getting a stake bite? We’re hurting ourselves worse just by beating our gums. As if we don’t have all the rubes on that side trying to gnaw away whatever pride we might try to carry, we’ve got to chew each other up and spit each other out for the dogs. What’s wrong with us?”
Ruby knew January was hurting, but she was still shocked. She hadn’t seen this side of her in a long time. January looked like she was going to continue, but when she saw Ruby’s face, she just laughed. A haunting, hollow laugh. January shook her head, turned her back and walked away, and Ruby could only look after her, not knowing what to do. Then she heard the voices behind her, the crowd packing into the tent, shoulder to shoulder in the heat, waiting for Esmeralda the Enchantress to Tame the Serpents of the East! She heard Jasper calling for her, frustrated that she wasn’t ready to go, but she didn’t move. Ruby looked up at the Ferris Wheel, looming overhead, winking its brilliant lights against the sky, and felt nothing but emptiness.
Daniel sat at the table in his wagon and sullenly moved the pieces around. Of course, pieces was the wrong word, as was table. The only person who had been inside the geek wagon since Daniel had taken it over was Tom, and he knew what the drunkard had thought about the carved figures lined up like sentinels along the bench. Dolls. Toys. Statues for collecting along with those ridiculous Dresden figurines the Vanderbilts couldn’t seem to get enough of. Daniel leaned forward and edged one of the Osud Zrcadla back onto its square. Fate Mirrors. Daniel had picked up the set on one of his journeys across the Carpathians. The table was a Deska Kosti, a Board of Bones, and it usually amused him. The figures, intricately carved into representations of men, women, priests and spirits, had chips of mirror affixed to their bottoms and could slide easily across the onyx and ivory surface of the table. The figures of the Thracian Rider and the Domovoy house spirit were Daniel’s favorites. He had no idea what the Deska Kosti was supposed to be able to do or tell him, and he didn’t care. Arranging the pieces in various patterns and groupings often helped him to think. He picked up a figure of a woman with her rosewood arms outstretched and her head flung back, mouth open wide in a howl. He rolled the figure back and forth between his palms and sighed.
He had wanted to leave. The carnival had no place for him; it was not the adventure he had thought it would be. But where would he go? What would he do? It was always the same, so much of the same. Daniel sighed. He tapped the figure on the rim of the table and then carefully set it down on a white square. Then he moved it to a black one. He rested his chin on his hand and cocked his head. No, back to the white one. Dan
iel closed his eyes, listening intently to the Chopin nocturne playing on the gramophone behind him, and tried to decide what to do.
The woman, Ruby, with the wild hair and fierce eyes and strange tattoos, was complicating things. He couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her. She had no fear of him. It seemed she lacked fear for a great many things, what with her affronting stares and her cigarettes. Her absurd trousers. But it was more than simple brazenness. Nothing could shock Daniel, no, but he found her lack of trepidation unnerving. When he had looked at her, hard, she had not turned away, and yet, she had not been drawn into him. She had held her own, meeting him as some sort of equal, at least in her own mind. Who the hell did she think she was?
Daniel opened his eyes and rested his elbows on the table. His gaze roamed across the scattered figures and he began to knock the pieces down one by one, smiling to himself as the wood struck ivory with a pinging sound. He toppled all twelve pieces and then stared at the woman with the outstretched arms, the lone standing figure, still on the square of white. She was curious, this Ruby. And tempting. She could perhaps be more than a mere amusing diversion, as the other one had been. She could be a point of intrigue. This one had backbone and an uncanny appeal, as well as something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Something rustling beneath the surface that he couldn’t place, but couldn’t turn away from either. He wanted to know more. Perhaps this was the first move in a new sort of game. Perhaps this could be fun.
The Chopin recording ended and Daniel’s shoulders slumped. But perhaps not. After all, she was only a woman in a dirty little carnival. He couldn’t expect to hope for too much. The silence in the wagon began to grate on Daniel’s nerves and he quickly stood up. He needed to get out in the open, away from the close walls and the warm flicker of the candle. Daniel extinguished the wick with his bare fingers on the way to the door and then paused to look behind him. There was only one window on the side of the wagon and it let in a faint glow of moonlight. He could see the solitary Osud Zrcadla, still upright on the table with its back to him. He took a step forward, with his finger outstretched to topple it, but then caught himself and held his hands behind his back. He grinned in the darkness. He would leave the woman standing for now. He would see what her fate would bring her.