Circus Mirandus

by Cassie Beasley

  “Are you okay?” he shouted over the noise of the crowd.

  “I’m not sure!” she shouted back.

  He understood. They were so close to the track that he could feel every hoofbeat. It was like thunder in his chest. And the charioteers! They drove their horses so wildly around the curves that Ephraim was sure they were going to crash. The chariots would splinter, and the drivers would be ground between hard earth and pounding hooves. It was almost too much, but at the same time, as the screams of the crowd swelled around him, Ephraim wished it would never end.

  He opened his eyes as wide as he could, and he tried to take in every bit of it. I am inside history, he realized. And it is so much more than it is in books.

  When the race ended, Ephraim found himself watching a meteor shower over a desert at night. Then he stood on the edge of a cliff, looking down at a sprawling city. He watched a fawn being born in a meadow. He tasted strange spiny fruits that were almost as good as mangoes. Sometimes he was with the others. Sometimes he was alone. For a long time, he stood at the prow of an old sailing ship by himself and watched a pod of whales. They breached the roiling surface of the sea and shot white geysers into the air.

  Each new experience seemed better than the last, but when Ephraim found himself traveling on a log raft down a wide black river, he knew he must be in the best place of all—the jungle. The air smelled of damp soil and decaying vegetation, and the humidity plastered his hair to his forehead. Giant spiderwebs stretched from tree to tree overhead, and insects hummed in his ears.

  Ephraim’s father was a fan of adventure stories, and sometimes before bed, he would read to Ephraim about great explorers of the past. Father liked to learn about famous sailors, but Ephraim’s favorite stories had always been about the deep jungles of the world. Pretty much all of the sea had been sailed, as far as he was concerned. The jungle was different. There were parts of the forests so hidden that no man had ever seen them. And that meant that a brave someone, maybe a brave someone named Ephraim Tuttle, could be the very first.

  The raft drifted lazily toward the riverbank, and animals with bright eyes watched from the shadows as Ephraim made his way ashore. Mud sucked at his feet. Leaves as big as umbrellas slapped his face. Real jungle mud, he thought happily. Real jungle leaves!

  He found a twisting path through the forest and followed it. When a rustle overhead caught his attention, he looked up to see monkeys swinging through the canopy. They moved through the trees so easily, like it was nothing special at all. They could, thought Ephraim, be a whole new species of monkey. I could be the very first person to see them ever.

  This was such a wonderful idea that he decided it must be true.

  He walked on, trying to see everything at once and failing miserably. The jungle was the most alive place he had ever been. Centipedes as long as his arm scurried along the ground. The monkeys chattered overhead. Butterflies the size of swallows drank from jewel-colored flowers in the dappled light.

  It’s almost perfect, Ephraim thought.

  He stopped walking. Almost? he asked himself. He was traveling through the heart of the jungle, just like a great explorer. What could be more perfect than that?

  “My father,” he said. The jungle flickered around him like it was trying to decide whether it ought to be something else. Suddenly, Ephraim felt a hand on his shoulder. The Lightbender towered over him, his face expressionless.

  “Are you quite certain?” he asked. “It will not be real, you know.”

  Somehow, Ephraim knew what he was asking. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I . . . I’m sure.”

  The jungle dissolved into a blur of color, and Ephraim found himself at home. He was in his very own living room, standing in front of his very own mother. She had tears in her eyes, but she was smiling.

  “It’s over sweetheart,” she said. “The war is over.”

  For a moment, Ephraim couldn’t move his lips. He hadn’t known what it would feel like to hear those words.

  “And your father is coming home,” she said.

  It felt like taking a breath of air after being underwater for much too long.

  “How?” Ephraim struggled to push the words out. “How did it end?”

  She told him how, and he thought, Of course. Of course that is how it ended. That is the only good way for it to have ended.

  The war had ended all at once and very calmly. It was as if, between one moment and the next, all the mothers of all the soldiers in the world had checked their clocks and realized that their children had been out playing for too long. The mothers set aside their laundry or their piecrusts or their welding torches, and they stepped out their front doors.

  “Davey!” they called. “Klaus! Pierre! It’s time to wash up for supper.”

  The soldiers shook hands with one another and wished one another well. Then they raced back to their mothers, or to their wives and sons.

  “Your father is on his way,” said Ephraim’s mother. “He’ll be here any min—”

  Obadiah Tuttle stepped into the living room before Ephraim’s mother could finish her sentence. He was wearing his uniform, and his chest was decorated with medals and ribbons. “Oh, Obadiah!” Ephraim’s mother swayed as though she might faint.

  Corporal Tuttle grabbed her around the waist, and then he kissed her. Right on the mouth.

  Ephraim thought the whole thing was satisfyingly heroic. A moment later he was swept up into a hug so strong it might have cracked his ribs if his heart hadn’t already been pressing against them from the inside. He smelled his father’s favorite licorice candy. He felt the scratch of whiskers against his cheek.

  “I was so scared you wouldn’t come back,” he said. He had never said it aloud before, but it was safe to say it now.

  “I had to go. I’m sorry. I had to.”

  Ephraim touched one of the medals on his father’s chest. “You were very brave,” he said. “I bet you helped lots of people.”

  “Lots,” his father said warmly. “But none of them were you.”

  Ephraim wiped his damp eyes against his father’s uniform. “I wrote you letters. I wrote you so many.”

  His father kissed the top of his head. “I know,” he whispered. “I followed them home.”

  Ephraim attended every show that the Lightbender had for the rest of the week. He even skipped the Amazing Amazonian Bird Woman’s flying show so that he could make sure he was the first person in line. No matter how many times he experienced it, he never grew tired of the magic. The shows were all very close to the same, but never quite identical, so Ephraim could look forward to seeing the deep jungles of the world without having the same monkeys chatter at him in the same way that they had the last time he’d visited.

  The only part that never changed was the end. Ephraim’s father always came home.

  More than any other thing he’d seen at Circus Mirandus, Ephraim carried the Lightbender’s shows inside him. A world that had such magic in it must not be as awful as he had sometimes feared. Having experienced it, he thought he might be able to leave his beach behind and be brave while he waited for his father’s real homecoming. Maybe, he could even go back to school.

  What Ephraim wanted, more than anything else in his last days at Circus Mirandus, was simple but impossible. He wanted to walk up to the Lightbender after the show. He wanted to stick out his hand and say, “Thank you. My name is Ephraim Tuttle, and you have changed me.”

  He tried to do this every day, but at the end of each show he found himself horribly afflicted by nerves. The Lightbender had only spoken directly to Ephraim the one time, and in his more unreasonable moments he convinced himself that he had imagined the conversation. Telling another person that they have changed you for the better is no small matter, and Ephraim knew it.

  But on the last day, the day his ticket expired, he also knew he had to succeed
.

  He worried himself into a state throughout that final show, so much of a state that he couldn’t even remember seeing Antarctica. When everyone else filed out, he held on to his place in the stands with both hands and both knees so that he wouldn’t run away.

  The Lightbender watched the others go, and then he turned and noticed Ephraim, clinging to his seat like a stubborn barnacle. He smiled. “I think you can let the bench go,” he said. “I have never yet seen it try to escape from a child. Did you enjoy the show today?”

  It was really unfortunate timing on the Lightbender’s part, because Ephraim had just worked himself up to say his piece, and being asked a question tossed him off balance. He stood up and threw his hand out in the general direction of his hero and said, “Ephraim Tuttle, very much, what’s yours?”

  The Lightbender tipped his head. “A pleasure to meet you again, Ephraim,” he said. “I am the Man Who Bends Light. If I ever had another name, I have forgotten it.”

  Then he shook Ephraim’s hand firmly.

  Poor Ephraim, feeling twice as embarrassed as he had before, was silent. If I can’t say what I mean to, he thought, I’ll have to say something else or he’ll think I’m deranged.

  “I think you’re just the most . . .” he said. “That is, you’ve no idea how much I . . . the things you showed me were so . . .”

  Ephraim was sure that even his toes were blushing. Say something, he told himself. Say anything.

  He looked down at his boots. “Would you like to see a magic trick?” he blurted.

  He and the Lightbender both blinked at each other in surprise. Neither of them had thought that particular offer would be the result of their conversation.

  “No one has ever asked me that before,” the Lightbender said. He seemed to consider the question very seriously. “Yes,” he said at last. “Yes, I would like to see whatever you have to show me.”

  So the Lightbender sat down in the front of the stands, and Ephraim climbed up on the stage and performed the only magic trick he knew. He took the grubby lace out of one of his boots and set about tying a knot of great complexity. It had so many twists and turns that you couldn’t follow it with your eye, and looking at it, you were certain that it could never be undone.

  Ephraim held it out to the Lightbender and said, “Try to untie it.”

  The Lightbender poked it and tugged out strands and unraveled the bits that he could, but whatever he pulled at only made the knot look knottier. He smiled.

  “I can’t.”

  Then Ephraim reached out with a single finger and touched one strand, just so, and instead of a knot, there was a bootlace. He bowed low, and the Lightbender laughed.

  “What a lovely bit of magic, Ephraim Tuttle. Thank you for showing me.” He patted the seat next to him, and Ephraim took it.

  Suddenly, talking wasn’t so difficult after all. Ephraim asked questions about the circus, and he told the Lightbender about the war and his father and mother. He told him about writing letters every day and about his plans to become a train robber or maybe an archaeologist or maybe a jungle explorer.

  “I worried when you said you wanted to see your father,” the Lightbender confessed.

  “Why?”

  The Lightbender rubbed the side of his nose. “I am not always sure how far I should take my illusions. I don’t want to do more harm than good.”

  Ephraim wasn’t quite sure he understood. “Because I might have been sad when it was over?”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew it wasn’t real, though,” said Ephraim. “Deep down I knew it was a show, so it was okay when it ended. It’s not like you tricked me. That would have been different.”

  Something dark and pained crossed the man’s face then, but it disappeared so quickly Ephraim thought he must have imagined it. “I am glad to know that,” said the Lightbender. “Tell me more about your magic. It was rather astonishing, and I am not easily astonished.”

  Ephraim squinted at him. When he decided that he was not being teased, he grinned. “My father taught me. He can tie all sorts of knots. I can, too. The one I showed you is the best, though.”

  “I agree,” said the Lightbender. “I have never seen a better knot.”

  Ephraim felt like he might float right off the bench toward the roof of the tent. “It’s nothing like what you do, though. Your show . . . it’s, well, my knot is nothing like that!”

  “Do you really think so?” the Lightbender asked. “I’m not sure I agree.”

  “It’s only a little thing,” said Ephraim. “What you do is . . .” He spread his arms as wide as he could to indicate the whole of the tent and the circus and the world beyond it.

  “Just because a magic is small doesn’t mean it is unimportant,” the Lightbender said. “Even the smallest magics can grow.”

  They talked until it was almost time for Ephraim to leave once and for all. It didn’t make much sense, but as the minutes passed, he could feel his ticket expiring. It felt like being slowly muffled over in layers of cotton. Eventually, it became too uncomfortable for him to ignore.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  The Lightbender nodded. “Yes, I know. It’s time.”

  They stood and shook hands again. Then, a strange expression crossed the Lightbender’s face, as if he’d had an idea that was unexpected but not entirely unpleasant. “Ephraim,” he said in a measured voice, “would you like me to give you a miracle?”

  “Yes,” said Ephraim, which is the only answer anyone should have to that question.

  “Anything,” said the Lightbender. “As long as it is within my power. What would you like?”

  Ephraim was on the verge of asking to have his father back home from the war right then, that very minute. Maybe the Lightbender could make the army think that his father was injured, or he could make them forget that there had ever been a Corporal Tuttle at all. He opened his mouth.

  And shut it again.

  His father’s one letter home had said that what he was doing in the war was very important, even if it kept him away from his family. It said he had already saved someone’s life. It said that people needed him.

  But I need him. Mother needs him.

  Ephraim remembered that beautiful vision the Lightbender had shown him. He could have that. All he had to do was ask for it.

  “I want . . .” Two different Ephraims were fighting to use the same mouth. My father, said one of them. To do the right thing, said the other. He was breaking right down the middle.

  Father would want me to do the right thing, he thought. Even if it hurts. He breathed the disappointment in and out a few times to see if he could live with the taste of it.

  He would have to think of another miracle.

  “Trouble choosing?” asked the Lightbender. He sounded surprised.

  Ephraim nodded glumly. “I don’t suppose I could save it for later?”

  “It’s a miracle.” The Lightbender tilted his head and squinted one eye as if he were trying to figure out what kind of creature Ephraim might be. “It doesn’t expire.”

  “Oh!” Ephraim guessed that that made sense. “In that case I’ll keep it for some time when I really need it. Thank you very much.”

  Now that the decision was made, he became aware that the cottony feeling of his ticket running out was becoming a suffocating feeling. His time was up. Ephraim hurried to the door of the tent, and just as he reached it, he found the last bit of his courage. He looked back at the Lightbender.

  “You’ve changed me.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t write the message yourself somehow? Or imagine it?”

  Micah slapped his hand against the quipu’s poster board and glared at Jenny. “You’re just being stubborn!”

  They were standing at the base of the oak tree, loading Jenny’s things into her bike wagon. “How could I imag
ine something like that?”

  “You could have dreamed it?”

  “In the middle of class!”

  “We did stay up really late last night.”

  The suggestion sounded halfhearted at best. Jenny refused to believe that the wind Micah had felt and the arrow in his notebook and the message the quipu had spelled out were magical phenomena, but she was having a hard time coming up with explanations for what else they could be. She also couldn’t deny the fact that the wind had started blowing outside just as Micah saw the message, and it hadn’t stopped since. It was more of a normal wind than a gale now, but it was undeniably followable.

  “Let’s just . . . not argue about it anymore, okay?” Micah dropped The Big Book of Big Tops into the wagon. “What is this thing anyway?”

  “It’s Watson’s Pooch Prowler,” Jenny said, as if that should make perfect sense. Then she saw the expression on Micah’s face and giggled. “Watson’s my mom’s German shepherd. They go everywhere together.”

  She flipped up the bike’s kickstand. “I’m sorry I can’t stay longer. My parents will worry. But are you sure you don’t want me to tell your aunt that you didn’t have anything to do with the feathers?”

  Micah shook his head. “I’ll stay out of her way.”

  Jenny’s smile drooped a little. After a moment of awkward silence, she said, “Sooo . . . what are we going to do about the message?”

  “I’m going to do what it says of course.”

  “I know but . . .” she trailed off.

  “I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow,” Micah promised. “If you want me to, I mean. I’ll tell you about the Lightbender and the Bird Woman and the Strongmen and everything else.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re going to go without me?”

  Micah had thought she understood. “I have to go tonight, Jenny. The quipu said midnight. I think that’s when the circus will open. Grandpa Ephraim can’t wait any longer.”

  One of Jenny’s hands went to a braid and started to pull at it. “I know that,” she said. “That makes sense, but . . .”