by A. R. Kahler
I look up and he’s looking down at me. One of his hands is stroking my hair, and the other is on his lap. It takes a few blinks for the rest of the world to come into focus. The darkness behind Kingston’s head is spotted with stars, and the howling in my ears is just the wind. I take a deep, shaking breath and close my eyes. Blue lights still swim across my vision. I don’t remember how I got down here, in the dirt. I don’t remember why it feels like everything’s been torn apart.
“What happened?” I whisper. Everything is a blur, but some recognition is scratching its way to the surface. And it wants to be let out very, very badly.
“Shh,” he whispers. He leans over and kisses my forehead. His lips tingle with warm electricity. My panic subsides, just a little, under that kiss. The touch makes me feel safe.
I push myself up onto my elbows and look around. We’re on the promenade; the entrance to the pitch is in front of us, the giant neon sign unlit. Behind us, the tent perches like a beast, its bowels glowing with a faint light. There isn’t anyone around. I have no idea what time it is. Why the hell am I on the promenade so late?
“Why are we out here?” I ask.
“I didn’t want to move you,” Kingston says. “You weren’t out long—don’t worry. Mab cleared the crowd pretty fast.”
The crowd … there was a crowd. Because of the body.
“Sheena,” I whisper. That part of my memory crackles through the darkness, but it feels incomplete. There’s something else. Something worse. Something swaddled beneath the comfort of Kingston’s touch. But what could have been worse than Sheena’s bruised body just beyond the pitch?
He nods grimly. “I thought we were done losing troupe members,” he mutters. It’s the first time he’s mentioned any doubt about Mab’s ability to handle our situation. It’s not emboldening.
“What happened to her …?” I can’t bring myself to say “body” or “corpse,” so I let the question hang.
“Mab disposed of it,” he says. I remember the other disposals, the puffs of magic and glitter. I wonder what color Sheena’s ashes were.
Silence stretches between us then. Kingston’s looking at me with his eyebrows furrowed, his lips slightly parted as though he’s on the verge of asking a question he can’t stomach voicing. I’ve seen him torn before, but this is different. This makes my chest constrict; for some reason, I don’t want him to say anything either.
“What?” I finally ask. Because that nagging feeling burns in the back of my mind, and it won’t let go.
“Is that … is that all you remember?” he asks. “About tonight? Just Sheena?”
I’m about to say that yes, that’s all I remember, but then my vision gives a little twitch, and it’s no longer Kingston hovering over me, but a boy with tan skin and blue eyes and slicked back hair. A boy whose name feels lost on my tongue.
“There was a guy,” I say. I look left and right, as though maybe he were still standing somewhere not too far off. But the promenade is deserted. Just Kingston and me, surrounded by dirt and starlight. “He said … he said he knew me.” There’s more … there’s more, but it won’t come. It’s scratching and screaming, but its cries are muffled.
“There was,” Kingston says. “What do you remember about him?” I’ve never heard his words this careful, this guarded. As though at any moment I’ll pull out a gun and shoot him unless he talks me down properly.
I bring a hand to my head and squeeze my eyes shut and try to remember. I summon the guy’s face, the football-jock features. His voice, surprised, worried, and relieved all at once. And then I remember. It doesn’t dawn on me; it crashes down like a sledgehammer, explodes across my senses and makes my heart scream.
“Austin.” I mutter, opening my eyes. “His name was Austin. And he said he was my boyfriend.”
“Shit,” Kingston says. He dips his head and runs his hands though his hair, his shoulders hunching over. “Shit shit shit.”
“What?” I ask. I don’t know what to think or how to feel, but a thousand emotions flutter within me like burning butterflies, and I don’t know which will still be alive when they land and which will turn to ash.
“You’re not supposed to know that,” he finally says, his words muffled by the hand he’s dragged over his jaw.
“Know what?”
One of those emotions burns bright, and I push myself to sitting and scoot back to stare at him. I hadn’t expected anger to win out, but it flares through my body like a warning beacon.
“What am I not supposed to know, Kingston?” I ask again, biting off each word like a curse.
When he looks up at me, his dark eyes are haunted.
“You’re not supposed to remember you were in love,” he says. Then he presses his palms to his eyes and mumbles, “We need to get Mab.”
*
Not much has changed in the shadowy interior of Mab’s trailer.
She opens the door the moment Kingston knocks, almost as if she were waiting on the other side for him to call. It wouldn’t surprise me. She knows more than what she’s letting on about everything.
We sit in her office. She lounges behind her desk, wearing fishnets and leather, her cleavage accentuated more than Elvira’s in those cheesy horror flicks I vaguely remember seeing. The shelves surrounding us are filled with old books and crystal sconces and skulls—some of glass, some of bone, some inlaid with gold. On one corner of her desk is her top hat; it rests on a cast-iron cat, the ruby on the satin brim glittering with its own light. This place makes me feel like I’ve stepped into an oddities museum. The wolves howling in the distance don’t help.
Kingston hasn’t looked me in the eye since he brought me here, and for my part, I don’t want him to. Because right now I feel like a cheater or like I’ve been cheated on—or some sick mix of both. I keep remembering Austin and the concerned look in his eyes. I keep trying to recall some sort of emotion toward him, something that would signify a relationship. But I feel nothing toward him. Absolutely nothing. And that makes me feel a whole hell of a lot of something else toward Kingston.
Rage isn’t an emotion I enjoy. Especially not when it’s directed at the man I thought I was in love with.
“Tell me,” Mab says as she props her heels up on her mahogany desk, “besides Sheena’s death, what other brilliant news do you two lovebirds bring me this evening?”
There’s a twist to her words. She knows precisely why we’re here. There’s no other reason she’d be looking at me with that little smirk on her lips. Lovebirds.
I open my mouth and find I have no idea what to say. I stutter and hope that Kingston will say something in my place. He doesn’t. Did he know? Did he know I had a boyfriend before this? Was forgetting Austin his choice or mine? Because I know Kingston was there when I signed my contract. Kingston was the one who found me in the first place.
Finally, I say the words that feel like venom in my throat.
“I met someone tonight,” I say. My voice is flat, dead. “A guy. Claiming to be my boyfriend.”
“And this surprises you?” Mab asks. “I don’t mean to be crass, but my dear, it’s not as though you are the ugly duckling. I’m sure you had many lovers before coming here.”
Is she really giving me a pep talk?
“What surprises me,” I continue, “is the fact that I don’t remember him.”
Mab’s smirk increases as she raises an eyebrow.
“Must I remind you, Vivienne, about the parameters of your contract?” She makes a lazy gesture to the bookshelf behind her and the large, leather-bound volume resting above her head. I know that book well; it’s what caused all the destruction when Penelope went off her hinges. The book of contracts doesn’t dislodge itself from the shelf, not like the last time. She knows I remember. There’s not much she’s let me keep, but I do recall that aspect of my contract all too well: I’m not supposed to recollect anything from my past. But what happens when my past starts remembering me?
I know that this isn’t th
e conversation we should be having; I should be interrogating her about Oberon, about the new crew and their rigged contracts. I should be asking about the war. I shouldn’t care about a boy from my past who doesn’t even ring a bell. But suddenly, it’s very, very hard to convince myself that any of this is real.
Austin was real. He looked at me like I meant the world to him, like he’d been looking for me for years. And I didn’t even recognize him.
“I want to know,” I say. “I’m supposed to forget my past, but it keeps coming back. I’m tired of feeling like this, of feeling like I’m incomplete.”
“Then we seem to be at an impasse, love.” Mab slides her feet off the desk and leans over to me. “Because I won’t change your contract. You came to this show because you wanted to forget. I gave you your wish and then some. If I renegotiate with you, the rest of the troupe will want the same grace. I cannot do this. There is already too much chatter going around for my liking.”
I should tell her about Sheena. I should tell her I know I’m being singled out. I should tell her this isn’t just about Austin—this is about everything in my past suddenly boiling to the surface. I might have wanted to forget, but it’s starting to look like that desire was my greatest curse.
“I can’t keep hiding from this,” I say.
“Actually, my dear,” she says, looking over to Kingston, “I think you’ll find you can.”
“No,” I say. The glance they share sends chills down my spine. I push back my chair. “No, I’m not going to let you make me forget this. Not again. Not anymore.”
Mab looks back at me. Kingston studiously stares at the desk.
“Why did you come here, then?” she asks. “If not to forget once more, why did you come to tell me what I already knew?”
“It was me,” Kingston says. His voice is hollow. Mab shoots him another glance, this one far from understanding. “I brought her here.”
“Do explain,” she says slowly.
“I can’t keep this up,” he says. He sounds so tired. Even though my emotions are fighting within me, I want to feel sorry for him. But that pity is nothing compared to the rage I feel building, the lurching recognition of betrayal.
“Keep what up?” I ask. I already feel my stomach dropping through the trailer floor.
“Knowing,” he says. He looks at me then. His eyes are lost. “Knowing that I’m not the only one. That if not for this,”—he waves his hand and a trail of sparks flicker in its wake—“you might still be with him. Underneath all of the magic, you might still be in love.”
My jaw clenches. I stare at Kingston and feel my heart splitting apart. I want to hate him, but it’s obvious this is killing him too. He’s right. How can I say I love him when there’s an equally good chance I’m still in love with a man from my past? How can I say that any of this—any of us—is real?
“It’s your choice,” Mab says. She sounds resigned. “Technically speaking, I should have him wipe your memory immediately, as per your contract. But I am willing to be lenient this once; I suppose, after your help with Penelope and Lilith, I owe you this. You can remember. This one instance, I’ll let you keep a shard of your past.”
“Thank you,” Kingston whispers, barely loud enough to be heard.
I look at Mab and realize that, in spite of Kingston’s relief, it’s still my choice to make. She stares at me with an amused expression on her face, as though she’s secretly delighted things are working out this way. I open my mouth to make my decision, but she cuts me off before I take a breath.
“Before you answer, be sure you understand fully what this entails. Magic is unpredictable at best. If I let you keep this memory, other cracks will appear. That is the nature of manipulating the human mind. I cannot be held responsible for what emerges. Furthermore, should you begin to remember too much, I will be forced to clean the slate fully, as it were. With or without your blessing. Your contract demands as much.” She looks from me to Kingston. “It would also be wise to mention, ignorance is bliss. Especially where romance is concerned.”
I take a deep breath.
She’s right. If I keep this memory, it will be hard to look at Kingston the same way. I’ll always wonder if he’s the one or whether there’s someone better waiting just outside the tent.
But if I let myself forget … I can’t bring myself to even think of it. That option feels like offering myself up for execution. It’s not a choice.
“I want to keep it,” I say. “The memory. I want to remember.”
“So be it,” Mab says. She leans back again and examines her nails. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have business more pressing than your romantic interludes. A good concessionaire is so hard to find. As you well know.”
“Come on,” Kingston says. He stands and pulls out my chair for me, helps me to my feet. His hand lingers on mine as he opens the door. But his touch is distant. That touch, that bare brush of fingers, is enough to make me feel sick. It already feels like I’ve lost him.
When the door clangs shut behind us, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve made the right choice.
*
“We don’t have to, you know,” he says. He stands in the doorway of my trailer. I’m already by the bed, though that’s not saying much as there’s barely three feet of space between the two. I stare at him. He looks like a teenage boy, waiting at the threshold of his first date’s house. He looks so lost, so meek. Why am I the one who feels like I should be apologizing?
“I don’t like this,” I say. It’s a simple statement, but it’s the only thing that seems to encompass everything. “I’m tired of the lies.”
Kingston looks down. I wish he would say something romantic like I’ve never lied to you, and I never will. But he can’t. He’s lied more times than I can count. The fact that he had to under contract only makes the fact a little more bearable. What between us is even real?
“What are we going to do?” he asks.
“I want you to come here and sit down. I want you to tell me about him.”
His eyes shoot up. There’s no imagining the wounded look splashed across his face like a bloodstain.
“Austin?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. I sit down on the bed and wait for him to join me. He hesitates, then finally moves over and sits down. The space between us is only inches, but it feels like miles.
“I don’t know anything about him,” he says.
“But you saw him. You must have told him something to make him go away.”
Kingston nods, slowly.
“Kingston, what am I supposed to do if he comes back? What if someone else from my family drops in and says hello? What then? I can’t go around wondering if everyone I see is someone I’ve forgotten I know.”
“That won’t happen,” he says. “This shouldn’t have happened.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Because when you signed your contract, you asked to disappear. That meant changing more than just your memory.”
My brows furrow. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, my magic had to cast a wider net.”
“You made everyone forget me,” I whisper.
“There’s only one way to disappear,” he says. “You have to have never existed in the first place.”
And suddenly I remember sitting in Penelope’s trailer one sunny afternoon, filing tickets and receipts and returns, and searching for my name online. Vivienne Warfield. Nothing turned up. No email, no Facebook, no nothing. No one shared my name. There was no trace of me. Ever. How had I managed to forget that? Just thinking about it makes fresh nausea roll over me. Why did I want to vanish so entirely?
I’ve felt lost before. I’ve felt lonely. But I’ve never felt this alone. I’ve never felt like I’ve been plucked from the world and set aside—the isolation, the emptiness, they crush me like a vise.
“So how did he remember me?” I ask, trying to keep myself from falling under the waves of memory. “If you made him forget me, how did h
e know who I was?”
Kingston shakes his head.
“I don’t know. It should be—“
“Impossible,” I finish. “Just like everything that happened before.”
He looks at me, then.
“Exactly,” he says.
A beat passes, and it feels like I’m falling, like my carefully constructed world of glitz and distraction is crumbling through my fingers.
“Kingston, what’s going on?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says. He leans over and buries his head against my neck, nuzzles my collar. “We’re falling apart, Viv. I feel like I’m the only thing keeping us together. And not even that’s enough anymore.”
I don’t want to know if he’s talking about the show in general or about us.
Chapter Five
Love Is a Losing Game
I wake up at seven to the tinny beep of my bunk neighbor’s alarm. The screeching pierces the thin walls of the double-wide. And seeing as Arietta is an aerialist and enjoys getting in her morning Sun Salutations, I never get to sleep in. For some reason, the night’s dreams nag at me, but I can’t remember anything about them beyond the extreme sensation of needing to shower or wash my hands. My head is buzzing, slightly, but I brush it off as my pressing need for caffeine.
I roll over and reach out, and that’s when I notice Kingston isn’t there.
My eyes shoot open and look around the trailer, but it’s not like this is a game of Where’s Waldo—there’s nowhere for him to hide. Kingston’s gone. I never felt him leave in the night. It’s not like him to just up and go without at least giving me a kiss goodbye—he’s always been sappily romantic like that. My heart beats an uneasy cadence. Kingston left, and it somehow feels like my fault.
I force myself out of bed and get dressed, then walk outside just in time to see Arietta step from her bunk with a yoga mat under her arm and a sleepy smile on her face. The girl’s got talent, but anyone who can wake up at seven with a smile is labeled a freak in my book. And in this show, that’s saying something. I give her a slight nod that she returns with a broader smile. My focus has already shifted to the back lot.