Miraculum

by Steph Post

  Ruby gripped the back of his head and pressed the knife to his throat. One slip and a line of blood would blossom beneath the blade. She snarled her fingers in his hair and leaned in close.

  “Who are you?”

  The man didn’t even bother to raise his hands in defense.

  “My name is Daniel Revont.”

  Ruby leaned in closer, her face only inches from his.

  “Who are you?”

  Daniel’s black eyes were locked on hers, but there was no fear present in them. Neither was there outrage or even calculation. He wasn’t trying to get away from her.

  “The geek your father took on in Sulphur.”

  Ruby adjusted her grip on the knife. She pushed in even closer and spoke slowly, choking out each word from behind her gritted teeth. She was so close she could have bitten him. Or kissed him.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “The man with a knife to his throat.”

  Ruby consider this for a moment. Considered his black eyes and pale skin in the moonlight. He didn’t look the same without the customary smirk on his face. He looked vulnerable, but that might have been because of the knife. Still, he could have fought back, could have defended himself. He had come up behind her while she was sitting out in the field, legs drawn up to her chest, head tilted up toward the stars, and so she was holding him at an odd angle. He could have twisted, broken her hold, slipped out from under the knife, kicked her in the stomach. All of these scenarios were running through her head, but Daniel only stood there, his head pulled back awkwardly, his eyes wide and his hands limp at his sides. Ruby let him go.

  “You shouldn’t do that.”

  She pushed him back and he easily caught his balance. Now he raised his hands up to show her that he was unarmed. Ruby sheathed the small knife back into her boot.

  “Don’t ever do that. Sneak up on me like that. Next time, I might not be able to catch myself before I slit your throat.”

  Daniel smoothed down the front of his suit and then put his hands in his pockets. Ruby noticed that his jacket wasn’t buttoned. It hung slightly open, a sliver of white showing through. He didn’t fix it.

  “You were in control. I trust you.”

  Ruby wiped her hands on the thighs of her trousers and turned away from him.

  “What do you want, geek? What are you doing out here?”

  Daniel came up to stand beside her. The night sky was resplendent over the field, the moon full and the stars dazzling. It was past two and the carnival was dark and asleep. The sky was wide open and clear. Inviting. Daniel looked upward.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  Ruby was closely watching his face. The curve of his cheekbones made sharp shadows across his lips and jaw. This was the first time she had been this close to him. She could see his eyelashes and noticed that they were long. He tilted his head slightly and glanced over at her.

  “Forgive me, though, for startling you. It wasn’t my intention.”

  He looked back up at the stars, his mouth turning down slightly.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not always the best with people. I don’t always…”

  Daniel paused and Ruby watched him swallow. She watched the skin against his high, tight collar contract. She had never seen him with the top button undone or his black silk tie loosened. She wondered if he felt as if he was choking all of the time. He continued.

  “…I don’t always understand other people. I don’t know how to interact with other people in the proper way.”

  “What, is that an understatement?”

  “It’s an apology.”

  Ruby looked hard at him for a moment and then pulled her cigarettes out of her pocket. She put two between her lips and lit them both. When she handed the cigarette to Daniel, their fingers touched. Ruby blew out a stream of smoke and stepped away from him.

  “Well, you know, people are crazy. Especially in this place.”

  She gestured over her shoulder back at the carnival.

  “I mean, I think you’ve got to be to wind up in this joint.”

  Daniel smoked his cigarette and shook his head.

  “Maybe. But that’s not what I’m trying to say.”

  Ruby turned on him.

  “Well, then what are you trying to say?”

  Daniel looked down at his cigarette, turning it between his fingers.

  “It’s an apology to you.”

  Ruby closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead with the palm of her hand. The smoke trailed over her head.

  “Look, mister. It’s late. You’re disrupting the one time of peace that I get out here. And let’s just get to the point while we’re at it.”

  Ruby opened her eyes and looked at him hard.

  “I don’t like you and I don’t trust you. I don’t know who you are, for real, and if you’re not going to tell me at knife point, then I might as well pass that one up. So why don’t you go ahead and tell me what you want. Stop speaking in riddles and be on your way.”

  Daniel looked as if he was about to hand his half-smoked cigarette back, but then raised it to his lips again. He looked away from her.

  “I’m not speaking in riddles. I couldn’t sleep. I was out here, just the same as you. I came out to see the stars, same as you. To look up and wonder.”

  “Don’t presume to know what I’m doing out here.”

  Daniel bit his lip. He waited another moment before continuing.

  “I saw you and wanted to apologize. See, everything I’ve been saying makes sense.”

  Ruby crossed her arms.

  “Apologize for what?”

  “For myself, I suppose. For making you uncomfortable with my presence in the carnival.”

  “You make everyone uncomfortable.”

  “Maybe.”

  Daniel threw his cigarette down into the long grass and stamped it out.

  “But everyone else doesn’t seem to care. It rolls right off of them. My being here bothers you in a deeper way. I see you watching me. You’re angry and you’re wary. I thought it had to do with me speaking to your friend. To January.”

  “You leave her out of this.”

  Daniel paused again. He put his hands back in his pockets and looked down at the ground.

  “All right.”

  He took a step back, still not looking at her.

  “But now I think it is simply me that disturbs you. And though I can’t do anything to change that, to change how you see me or how I make you feel, I wanted to apologize. We’ve started off at such odds with each other, and I’d rather it wasn’t that way.”

  Ruby took a last drag on her cigarette and pitched it into the grass. She watched it smoke for a moment and then die out. She laughed harshly.

  “If I thought you were off your nuts before, well then.”

  “Well then.”

  They didn’t look at one another. Finally, Daniel turned to leave. He was a few feet behind Ruby when he stopped and called back to her.

  “You’re not going to return the apology, for pulling a knife on me?”

  Ruby turned around and met his eyes.

  “No. I’m not.”

  “Good. I would expect no less from you.”

  Ruby raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. There was a disconcerting half-smile on Daniel’s lips.

  “And thank you for the cigarette. That was kind of you. Good night.”

  Daniel was waiting. He sat on a crate behind the Ten-In-One, one leg crossed over the other, and folded his hands in his lap. It was early afternoon and the sun was blazing in the hazy white sky, but Daniel was not sweating. His pale skin was as clear and cool as ever, though he did wish he had a pair of dark sunglasses like the kind he had bought and left back in New York. He had no magnesium flashbulbs to hide from, but he liked the sunglasses’ expense. Their extravagance. And he liked to take them off at appropriate moments in conversations like the one he knew he was about to have. He liked to twirl them around in his long fingers.
It was like smoking a cigarette. He couldn’t feel the smoke in his lungs, couldn’t feel any sort of nicotine rush, but he liked to have something in his hand. He liked to strike a match or flick a lighter; he liked the simple ritual of it. And it made people much more comfortable around him for some reason.

  Daniel didn’t have his sunglasses and he didn’t have any cigarettes, so he simply clasped his hands and waited. He had made a decision after his last encounter with the woman in the night and now things needed to be set in motion. The midway would open soon and a few of the gamesmen and the rousties trudged past him on their way from the cookhouse. One man spat a wad of tobacco in Daniel’s direction but, of course, it missed his gleaming shoes. Daniel didn’t flinch. He looked at the man, a candy butcher, and winked. In a few hours, the man would leap back from the edge of the hot sugar cauldron with an angry red line burned into his forearm.

  Finally, Daniel spotted the man he was waiting for, heading toward the midway with a sketchbook under one arm. Daniel didn’t move. Hayden looked up from underneath the brim of his hat to glance at him and Daniel smiled. Hayden scowled and started to walk past him, but then slowed, stopped and turned around just as Daniel had known he would. Hayden eyed him for a moment and then came closer. Daniel had never spoken to this man before, had never had cause to, but he could tell that his presence was unnerving to Hayden. Good. Daniel continued to wait in silence, forcing Hayden to speak first.

  “I thought you were leaving.”

  Daniel stood up and faced Hayden.

  “Whoever told you that?”

  “It’s just what I heard last night. Some of the men talking, saying the geek was packing it in. Hayden, by the way.”

  Hayden tucked his sketchbook under his left arm and extended his hand. Daniel dipped his chin slightly and stared down at it. He didn’t take it.

  “Yes. I had thought to leave this place. It seemed as if there was nothing left for me here.”

  Hayden pulled his hand back and shook his head in disgust.

  “Why am I not surprised? And now?”

  “Now.”

  Daniel paused. He tilted his head and looked past Hayden’s shoulder at the snake tent. He slowly brought his eyes back to Hayden.

  “Now, I believe that I’ve discovered something I was looking for. Something unexpected, yes, but which might prove worth waiting around a bit.”

  “Plus, it would’ve looked pretty damn suspicious, you leaving out of the blue like that.”

  Daniel blinked.

  “Do you think so?”

  “I think anyone running off right now is going to look suspicious. Just because Tom’s death has been declared an accident, doesn’t make it true.”

  “And yet.”

  Daniel stepped closer to Hayden. He watched Hayden’s light brown eyes shifting back and forth, trying to take in the measure of him. So foolish. So futile.

  “You are leaving yourself, are you not?”

  Hayden stepped back.

  “What the hell?”

  Daniel smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Just a thought. You leaving. I staying. It could make things interesting.”

  Hayden shook his head and tried to force a laugh, but Daniel could see the confusion in his eyes. It was a little added thrill he hadn’t expected and it delighted him. Hayden stepped forward.

  “Listen here, geek. I don’t know you and even then, I don’t like you. Personally, I think you’re just as cracked in the head as everyone says you are. That and more.”

  “Cracked in the head?”

  “Yeah, a looney. A nut job. If we weren’t in a goddamn carnival, they’d probably lock you up. Maybe that’s why you came here in the first place, I don’t know. I swear, I’d forgotten how crazy everyone is in this place.”

  “Including your Ruby?”

  Hayden leaned forward and grabbed for Daniel’s shirt front. Daniel easily stepped out of reach.

  “Struck a nerve there, did I?”

  “You keep her name out of your mouth, you understand?”

  Daniel cocked his head.

  “Why?”

  Hayden threw his sketchbook down on the crate and balled his fists. Two rousties who had been walking past them, giving them a wide berth, paused to watch.

  “You aiming for a fight?”

  Daniel looked Hayden in the eye. His voice was completely level.

  “Not really, no.”

  “Then you stay away from me.”

  Daniel smiled.

  “Oh, I don’t think I’ll have any trouble with that.”

  “And you stay away from Ruby.”

  Daniel grinned, showing his teeth

  “That might prove a trifle more difficult.”

  Hayden pointed at him. His face was red.

  “I mean it.”

  Daniel dipped his head slightly, still keeping his eyes on Hayden’s. Such a fool. He needed nothing more than a little nudge. It was hardly even fair. Daniel put his hands in his pockets.

  “Is that all, then?”

  Hayden wiped his face and picked up his sketchbook.

  “That’s all. Just stay away, you hear?”

  Hayden pushed past Daniel and headed toward the midway. The two rousties who had stopped to watch the potential fight shook their heads and continued on their way. Daniel just smiled and looked toward the snake show tent. It was so easy. So, so easy. It would happen exactly as he knew it would and now there would be one less thing to have to bother about. Ruby would be much more fun on her own. Daniel sighed and headed back to the geek wagon to find his cigarette case.

  Ruby stopped dancing when Hayden burst through the drawn front flaps of the tent. The space was empty save for herself and the heavy black snake she had draped around her shoulders. The snake was new and though it wasn’t venomous, she wasn’t quite sure about its willingness to be paraded around the stage. She was also trying out a new routine to a different song, this one a little more modern. Esmeralda the Enchantress could listen to jazz music, too, couldn’t she? She had been planning to ask Hayden for his opinion of the song, but she thought better of it when she saw the look on his face.

  Hayden came across the tent to the edge of the stage and ripped the needle off the record. The silence in the tent suddenly became very loud and Ruby crouched down, being careful with the snake still around her shoulders. Hayden’s eyes were wild.

  “I have to talk to you. Now. Right now.”

  Ruby ran her hands over the snake’s smooth skin and then lifted him over her neck.

  “Hold on.”

  She stood up and ducked through the half-raised curtain to put the snake in its box. When she returned, Hayden was sitting on the edge of the stage with his back to her and Ruby sat down beside him. Hayden was staring down at his boots, almost as if he’d forgotten her. It was dim in the tent, but cool with only the one side flap open to let in the small breeze. Ruby’s chest began to constrict and she wanted to take his hand, but didn’t. Hayden finally turned to her and his voice was a little less frantic, a little more firm.

  “We need to leave.”

  “What?”

  Ruby stared at him, confused. She had been expecting to hear some terrible news. Another death. But this? Suddenly, Hayden leapt down from the edge of the stage and stood in front of her. He slid his hands up her hips and drew her in close to him. His face was bright, his eyes shining with a mix of determination and desperation.

  “We’re leaving. Tonight. We have to.”

  Ruby didn’t know what to say. Her mouth opened, but she had no words. She didn’t even know how to respond. Hayden gripped her tighter.

  “Don’t look at me like that, just listen.”

  Ruby’s face had twisted into a question. A fearful one. She leaned away from him, but Hayden only pulled her closer.

  “Things are crazy here. Crazy. The first geek hanging himself. And then Tom. And everyone thinking I had something to do with it.”

  Ruby frowned.

&nb
sp; “No one thinks you killed Tom.”

  Hayden shook his head vigorously.

  “That doesn’t matter. That’s not what I’m talking about. You’re not listening to me!”

  Ruby tried to pull away from him, but Hayden grabbed her tight. He was speaking so fast, she could barely understand him.

  “Something’s wrong here, can’t you see it? The deaths. And then that crazy new geek, Daniel. Skulking around. Going after January the way he did. I can’t make heads or tails of this place, but I know it’s not right. This place is different now. The Star Light Miraculum is different than the Star Light Menagerie. It’s all wrong now. Wrong. It has a cloud over it. Maybe you can’t see it, maybe no one else can, but I can. We need to leave. We need to leave now. Now!”

  Ruby’s eyes widened.

  “Hayden, what’s going on?”

  Hayden took a deep breath and for a moment the maniacal sheen disappeared from his eyes.

  “The only reason I returned to the Star Light was for you.”

  Ruby bit her bottom lip and nodded.

  “And I’m here. I’m right here.”

  Hayden shook his head. He let go of her and took a few steps back, throwing his hands in the air.

  “No, you don’t understand! You’re not listening to me. The past is over. We have to only focus on the future.”

  “The future? You’re not making any sense, Hayden. What’s going on with you?”

  Hayden tilted his head and took a step closer. Ruby almost braced herself against him. His eyes were wild again.

  “What’s going on with me? Aren’t you hearing what I’m saying, Ruby? I’m saying I want to take you away from here. From the Star Light. From Pontilliar and Samuel and the rousties and the freaks. From the dirt and the dust and the tents. From the snake show. From that hell-sent geek. From it all.”