by Steph Post
“No one who makes you want to hurt them? Or whatever you were trying to do to me last night?”
Though she could see the intensity in his eyes, Ruby couldn’t help herself. She didn’t know how else to respond. Daniel wasn’t deterred.
“No one who unsettles me so. No one who makes me feel as if I’ve been flayed of my superficiality.”
Ruby shook her head.
“I don’t even know what that means.”
Daniel tilted his head. Finally, there was a small smile on his lips.
“It means I like you. How about we start there?”
Ruby bit her bottom lip as she tried to figure Daniel out. She had never met someone who was at once so vulnerable and so self-assured. He was an enigma, a sphinx of sorts. Perhaps, then, Ruby was the same to him. That was something she could understand, at least. Ruby finally smiled back at him.
“All right, we’ll start there.”
“Good.”
Daniel began to fold up the last row of chairs as Ruby slowly walked around the tent. When she came up to the bloodstained stage, she turned back to him.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve even seen a geek show before. Not all of the way through.”
Daniel shrugged.
“There’s really not much to see. That man who talks for me tells the crowd a ridiculous story about how I have some sort of blood lust, how I can’t control myself and how no small creature is safe around me. I just stand on stage while he talks and then when it’s time, he procures a chicken and lets it flap around for a bit and then I bite its neck and the crowd screams. I have no idea why people find it entertaining.”
Daniel had left two chairs in front of the stage and he sat down in one of them. Ruby crossed her arms and stayed where she was.
“How do you keep from getting blood all over your suit? Don’t most geeks wear some sort of tribal get-up anyhow?”
Daniel cocked his head and seemed to think about it a moment.
“I suppose so. That loud man on stage with me has suggested as much.”
Ruby shook her head and smiled.
“Lloyd. His name is Lloyd. He’s one of the best talkers we’ve got.”
Daniel nodded.
“Well, Lloyd has tried several times to get me to wear some atrocious costume with leather fringe and bones around my neck. I told him I’d bite him in the neck if he so much as mentioned the idea to me again.”
Ruby realized Daniel wasn’t joking and she laughed.
“This is your first time being a geek, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Ruby nudged a wad of melted cotton candy with the toe of her boot.
“So why do you do it, then?”
“Pardon?”
Ruby sat down and crossed her legs. She rested her elbow on her knee and her chin in her palm as she looked at him intently.
“I don’t understand you.”
Daniel’s face didn’t change.
“In what way?”
“Every way. But this geek deal. Come on, let’s be honest. Your suit alone is worth more than you’d make here in ten seasons. You’ve been all over the world. You know about French films and cities, God knows what else. Sure, you’re not the best at expressing your feelings or blending in, but in the grand scheme of things, I mean, it just doesn’t add up. Even if you were on the run from someone or hiding out, why the Star Light? Why be a geek?”
“Why do you do it?”
Ruby uncrossed her legs and leaned forward.
“Do what?”
Daniel leaned forward as well. Their knees were almost touching.
“Ruby, people like you and I have secrets. Secrets maybe no one else understands. But that doesn’t mean we have to explain ourselves to each other. I don’t want to know why you are a Snake Charmer, just as I don’t think you really want to know why I am a geek. Those things about us don’t matter. They are inconsequential to who we are.”
Ruby’s breath caught in her throat.
“And who are we?”
Daniel slid off the edge of the chair. He was on his knees before her and Ruby could see that his hands were trembling slightly. His eyes were locked on hers.
“We are two strangers who have found one another.”
He raised his arms and gently rested his hands on her shoulders. Ruby was holding herself taut, afraid to give in and afraid not to. His fingers were so light against her skin as they moved to trace her collarbone. Daniel’s eyes were on her lips now and then on the bridge of exposed tattoos across her chest.
“I promise you, Ruby.”
He drew his fingers up the side of her neck and cupped her jaw in his hands. She closed her eyes.
“I won’t hurt you.”
She let go. And everything happened in a flash.
“That’s not possible!”
Ruby’s eyes snapped open as Daniel roared at her. For a brief moment, she saw his eyes flicker red and then he wrenched his hands away from her as if he’d been burned. Ruby was too dazed by the unexplainable, overwhelming sensation that had crashed into her like a wave to comprehend Daniel’s movements. He rose and careened away from her, thrashing against the empty chair and then gripping it and throwing it across the tent. Ruby remained where she was, stunned.
“Get out!”
Ruby slowly stood up, shaking her head. Daniel was pacing back and forth across the length of the pit and she couldn’t understand why. He was incensed. She took a few steps toward him, but he shrank away from her in revulsion.
“Get out now!”
He stopped pacing long enough for her to focus on his face. There was nothing there for her but raw abhorrence. And underneath that, a glint of terror. Ruby’s head began to pound as she stumbled toward the front of the tent. She took the canvas flap in hand, but turned around. Daniel was standing with his back against the stage and his hands covering his face. He raised his head suddenly and fixed his eyes on her. Not on her face, but on her chest. On her tattoos. Then a strong wind came out of nowhere and ripped the canvas from her hand as it blew the tent flap wide open. Through clenched teeth, Daniel repeated himself one last time.
“For the love of God! Get out!”
These are things I have done. In 1663, I sank a Spanish Galleon off the coast of Tortuga. This sparked a minor skirmish with the French near Port Royal, which in turn resulted in the keelhauling of Pierre Le Grand, which in turn allowed for a trade agreement with the East India Company, which was certainly not my intention because it made the islands altogether so much less interesting. I was only playing pirate that year and things had gotten a bit out of hand.
A century or so later, I had fun with King George III and drove him mad. But only bit by bit, so his subjects still believed in his rule despite the ridiculous decisions coming from the throne room. Such decisions inevitability led to the traitors in the colonies getting the upper hand and winning the country of America. Again, that hadn’t been my intention. I can’t really see the future, you know, but I’m glad it worked out that way. I’m enjoying this new country of motorcars and modern ideas.
Most of the things I have done over the ages had far less drastic consequences than causing the birth of a nation. I have instigated complicated love affairs that toppled aristocratic families and I have ignited petty, tribal wars and then sabotaged both sides just to even the odds. I once made it rain fish for a week straight, creating a minor religious cult in a remote corner of southern France that lasted for almost seventy years. I got into a bit of trouble over that one, though. It’s one thing to create a new country, yet another to introduce a new god. I was so vexed by the whole fiasco that I went to sleep for most of the third and fourth centuries, which, in hindsight, was probably a good thing. According to the history books, not much was happening during those years and I tend to get restless very easily and create earthquakes just to spice things up.
Because, you see, I can create earthquakes. I could shake one out right now. But they’re mostly useless
and harder to control than one might think. But I could, is what I’m saying, if I chose to do so. Or whip up a tornado, a sinkhole, a pillar of fire. I could flatten all of the buildings in this silly little place and I could rip the trees from their roots and I could set the townsfolk out to baying at the moon like a pack of loonies. I could make it rain pigs, though again, I must be careful when I start doing things that are too unnatural. It’s not like it was, back in the day, when people were stupid and simple and one could construct Stonehenge in a night, just to see the looks on their faces. I have to be careful now of doing anything that might be misconstrued as a miracle. I have more power in this new country of believers, but there are those with even more and I’m not going to be castigated again. Such a bore, such a bore.
I can do all of these things. I can’t make a man’s heart stop just by looking at him, yes, I’ve tried, but I can topple a house on him or swerve a locomotive off the tracks to run him over or even just convince him that the voices inside his head want him to slit his own throat. And he’ll do it, of course. Child’s play. Sometimes this constraint is annoying, say, when you want to wipe out an entire invading army in one go, but it just forces one to get a little more creative and I like that. Just bring in a tidal wave and it creates the same death toll with just a little more effort and sometimes the necessity of a raincoat.
You think, perhaps, I am showing off a little here? Oh, you have no idea. If you let me keep going, I could go on for ages. I am trying to make a point, though, and the point is this: I can do all of these things, and yes, you’d better believe that I can, and no one has ever been able to stop me or resist me. Until now.
For here is what I saw. Here is what I sensed. Here is what came to me when I reached behind that woman’s eyes, into her skull, into the very fabric of her composition, the sinews and the synapses and the breath of her being. Here is what I felt.
Nothing.
Yet here, too, is what I felt. Everything.
It cannot be.
Daniel didn’t bother to knock. He banged open the door to the office wagon and stood squarely in the frame of the mid-morning sunlight streaming in behind him. Daniel frowned at Samuel, bent over a spread of papers at the side of Pontilliar’s desk, but then dismissed him. He turned to Pontilliar, with his suspenders hanging off his sides and a tin cup of coffee halfway to his lips, and got straight to the point.
“I need to talk to you.”
Pontilliar sputtered.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing? Did you see the sign on the door? In case you can’t read, it says ‘Keep Out!’ Jesus Christ.”
Daniel actually looked back at the sign on the door and then slammed it behind him. In one quick stride, he was sitting down across the desk from Pontilliar, with his long fingers folded neatly in front of him. Pontilliar stood up and thumped his cup down, sloshing coffee over the desk blotter. His face was crimson.
“Are you serious?”
“I said that I needed to speak with you. Now.”
Daniel looked over at Samuel. He was standing up straight with a sheaf of papers in his hand. His normally unreadable face had deep lines between his eyes. Daniel nodded at him.
“You can go.”
Samuel tilted his head.
“Excuse me?”
Daniel waved his hand at him.
“Go. You can go. Go away. I don’t want you as part of this conversation. Leave.”
Samuel turned to Pontilliar in outrage. Pontilliar just closed his eyes and shook his head. He slowly sat back down at the desk and rested his forehead in the palms of his hands. He was already sweating.
“Samuel, give us a moment.”
Daniel turned to Samuel with wide eyes, waiting for him to leave. He raised his eyebrows expectantly and flicked his fingers. Samuel tightened his jaw, but dropped the papers on the desk and quickly left. When the door closed, Pontilliar lifted his head and pulled out a handkerchief. He swabbed at his forehead and then began dabbing up the coffee spilt across his desk.
“Well now. Happy? Is this suitable for you?”
Daniel leaned back in his chair, more relaxed.
“Yes.”
“So then, why don’t you tell me what is so goddamn important that you need to come bursting in here before I’ve even had my second cup of coffee? You know, if anyone else did what you just did, I’d probably leave them by the side of the road.”
Daniel almost rolled his eyes. It was so easy with him. Like slipping into a warm bath. There was no resistance whatsoever.
“But I’m not anyone else, am I?”
Pontilliar was looking down at his small, dirty fingernails.
“No.”
“I need you to tell me about your daughter’s tattoos.”
Pontilliar looked up, confused.
“Ruby? Her tattoos? What for?”
Daniel sighed and crossed one leg over the other.
“Does it matter? Do I ask you why you wake up every day and breathe? Do I ask you why you haven’t done the world a service and jumped off a bridge? Maybe I should. Maybe I should just have you jump off a bridge.”
“What?”
Daniel closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Never mind. I need to know about your daughter and her tattoos. When did she get them? Where? Why?”
Pontilliar’s mouth was open slightly. It was easy, yes, but it also made them slightly stupid. It was much easier to just drive one insane or get one to drink poison or fall in love. It was harder to do this when he needed information. When he needed them to think. Daniel tried to be patient as Pontilliar worked back through his memories.
“When? I think it was, well, it was a couple of years after she first showed up. She’d been living with her mother and I guess her mother died and she came and joined up with me. I didn’t know what to do with her, just set her about doing odd jobs, staying out of the way. I guess I felt I owed it to her. Then it occurred to me one day that maybe she could be useful. So I told her I’d set her up as a Tattooed Lady.”
Daniel nodded.
“When was this?”
“I don’t know, 1908 maybe? We were still a pretty primitive outfit then, didn’t have so many lights and rides. More circus acts, animals and such. Ruby must have been, I don’t know, fifteen, sixteen?”
Daniel considered this.
“All right. Who gave her the tattoos? Was it someone who was part of your carnival?”
Pontilliar groaned.
“God, but I wish it had been. I mean, look at her, she came back ruined. Ruined. Have you ever seen a real Tattooed Lady? They have pictures on them. Portraits, flowers, landscapes. Presidents. Bright colors. Easy for people to see what they’re looking at. Electric inking had already been around for years and in this business, you’ve got to get the jump on things. Tattooed women were becoming popular and people had expectations. They’d never pay to see Ruby. All those mumbo jumbo designs. I already had a Wild Man in the Ten-In-One then, I didn’t need another tribal bally. I needed someone to compete with Irene Woodward and look what I got.”
Pontilliar paused and drained what was left of his coffee. He stared down into the empty cup as if waiting for it to refill itself. Daniel snapped his fingers at him.
“I don’t care about your petty ambitions. Who gave her the tattoos?”
Pontilliar set the cup down and held it between his hands.
“This cuckoo woman I met in New Orleans once. Back in the late ’90s. I got caught up in the dens around Storyville during the off season for a few years. I wasn’t at my best then. Anyway, this woman called herself Madame Celeste. I tried to get her to join up with the Star Light, actually. People said she was some kind of hoodoo or voodoo priestess down in the swamps. I don’t go in for any of that abracadabra funny business, of course, but I thought she’d make a terrific act. I saw her a few times around the Ma-Jong tables and I stood her once or twice when I was trying to snag her for the show. When I left New Orleans, she
owed me, but I never thought I’d have a chance to call it in. Until this Tattooed Lady business came around. And I remembered she’d said something about inking her people.”
Daniel nodded slowly.
“So, a Madame Celeste in New Orleans is responsible?”
Pontilliar huffed and leaned back in his chair.
“Responsible is the right word. Ruby was supposed to join back up with us at the start of the season a year later. A year later. But she stayed with that old witch for three years and when she came back, she wasn’t the same girl. Not just those awful tattoos, but her hair, her eyes, something about her. Like she’d been living in the wild for those years. Like she came back as something else.”
Daniel leaned forward anxiously.
“Where exactly in the wild?”
“Don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me anything. Just showed back up one day, ready to be a Tattooed Lady. I laughed in her face. I didn’t know what to do with her. I ran through several different ideas, but the only one she was game for was the snakes. So now I have a Snake Charmer instead of a Tattooed Lady. It doesn’t quite pay the same, but what are you going to do? Folks think the tattoos are just part of her costume.”
“She didn’t say where, though?”
Pontilliar scratched the back of his head.
“Never said. Refused to answer when asked, so I left it alone. To be honest, I was too hot under the collar to care.”
Daniel narrowed his eyes, but Pontilliar was telling the truth. He had told Daniel all that he knew. Daniel stood up, irritated and disgusted. He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets.
“Has it ever occurred to you that money doesn’t really matter? Not in the scheme of things. That the moment of your birth and the moment of your death have absolutely nothing to do with the price of an admission ticket?”
Pontilliar looked up at him blankly.
“Why, no.”
Daniel glared at him and then with a flourish, waved his hand over the desk. The papers littering it went flying in all directions, some ripping themselves in half and exploding into pieces. At this, Daniel grinned and left Pontilliar sitting alone at his desk, astonished.