by Paul Ruditis
“Okay,” Leo said.
“He needs to go down for his nap, by the way,” Piper said.
“Will do,” Leo replied. “Now go vanquish your demon and don’t worry about us.”
“Hopefully I won’t be gone long,” Piper said, giving Leo a kiss on the cheek. Then she leaned into the playpen and blew a kiss down to Wyatt. “Be good for Daddy.”
Once again, the baby gurgled in response.
Leo watched as Piper left the Manor. “There goes Mommy,” he said to Wyatt. “Off to thwart evil and rid the world of demon-kind. And maybe have a little fun along the way…Ho, ho, ho.”
Wyatt watched as his father’s hair went white and grew down to his shoulders, his eyes flashed from green to purple, and his mundane, Elder-approved outfit turned into Puck’s far flashier garb.
“There, that’s better,” Puck said. “I much prefer this look. Although throwing voices was really fun.” He looked down at Wyatt in his playpen. “But you probably have no idea what I’m talking about.”
Wyatt simply gurgled at him.
“That’s cute, kid,” Puck said. “But now, it’s off to have some real fun!”
With a wave and a flourish, Puck vanished in a puff of smoke.
Baby Wyatt blinked in surprise as the smoke cleared and he saw the strange man was gone. But in the moment before he realized that he had been entirely left alone, Puck reappeared.
“Oops, silly me,” Puck said to the baby. “I can’t just go leaving you unattended. Mommy wouldn’t like that.” Puck looked around the conservatory, but didn’t find anything that would be helpful.
He moved out to the hall. “I swear,” he continued. “What was she thinking? Like I’d be going after a child. Babies aren’t any fun. All they do is eat, sleep, and poop.”
Puck made his way through the foyer and to the front door. He stuck his head outside and gave a little whistle. Within moments a pair of squirrels, three birds, and a raccoon came scampering and flying into the Manor.
“I need you guys to keep an eye on the baby for me,” Puck told the animals as he shut the door and led them back to the conservatory. “His mother has changed him a couple times this morning, so he should be fine in that respect. He does need to be put down for his nap, though. And there’s some milk in the fridge. If there’s an emergency…well…I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”
And without another word—or any concern over leaving a child in the care of animals—Puck disappeared.
Chapter 10
Phoebe wound her way through the maze of circus trailers behind the Cow Palace. The pass Reed had given her had allowed her and her sister to get past security. Once they were in the off-limits area, she and Paige had split up. There was no reason for the two of them to interview Reed together. Especially considering Paige could snoop around relatively undetected as the circus performers were busy preparing for the start of the show.
After a left, a right, and another left, Phoebe found the trailer that Reed had given her directions to earlier. The sign on the door read REED HUNTINGTON, PUBLIC RELATIONS. Phoebe knocked and only waited for about a second before the door opened.
“You found me,” Reed said with a look of pleasant surprise on his face. “I’m always amazed when people manage to find their way through our little circus city on their own.”
“You gave very good directions,” Phoebe said as she entered the small trailer and took a look around. “Nice digs.”
Reed had done his best at making the crammed trailer look like a formal office. There was a desk, two guest chairs, and a file credenza, with assorted office supplies neatly arranged around the room. The fact that everything was built to a slightly smaller than average scale helped give the illusion that the space was larger than it was. It made sense that even the circus offices were built on illusion and showmanship.
As Phoebe took in her surroundings, she noticed a small blank notepad resting on the desk. She considered this a lucky break since she hadn’t really come to the circus prepared to play the part of Phoebe Halliwell, Cub Reporter.
“Would you like something to drink?” Reed asked as he turned toward a small refrigerator beside the credenza. “I can offer you, well, water. Sorry, that’s all I’ve got.”
“Water will be great, thanks,” Phoebe replied.
While Reed had his back to her, Phoebe picked up the notepad, along with a pen that was lying nearby, and settled into the small couch that had been hidden behind the door when Reed had welcomed her inside. She flipped over the first few pages of the notepad and scribbled a quick, nonsensical message to make it look like she was in the midst of gathering research for her story.
“I would have thought you’d have a TV in here to watch your performance on the news,” Phoebe said from her perch on the surprisingly plush tiny couch.
“The televisions are in the media trailer next door,” Reed said as he took two bottled waters out of the small fridge and handed one to Phoebe.
“What’s back there?” Phoebe asked, pointing to a door that led to the back of the trailer.
“The bedroom,” Reed said. “My office doubles as my home.”
“It must cut down on your commute,” Phoebe said.
“What can I say, my life is a circus,” Reed said, making what Phoebe assumed was a well-practiced joke. “So you can see why I get so upset when people attack us. I wouldn’t have left my comfortable home and taken on this extremely full-time job if I didn’t believe the circus treated all of its employees with respect.”
“I don’t remember starting the interview,” Phoebe joked lightly.
“I just want you to understand that I’m not speaking in sound bites,” Reed said. “I truly believe in the work we do here.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Phoebe said. “The article will come across better if you’re speaking from the heart.”
She did like that he was passionate about his work. It showed that he cared about more than just a paycheck. Although she did think he was pouring it on a little thick about “the work we do here.” It was a circus, after all, not the headquarters of a world relief organization.
“Where would you like to begin?” Reed asked as he turned one of the guest chairs around and took a seat facing Phoebe.
“How about at the beginning,” Phoebe said. “I’m sorry to say I missed the start of the press conference. And it was kind of hard to hear the Q-and-A session over the protesters.”
“You’d think they’d want to hear the truth about what’s happening, wouldn’t you?” Reed asked. “But, no. They’d rather drown out anyone who doesn’t say exactly what they want.”
“Which is?”
“That the circus is releasing all the animals,” Reed said.
“Is the circus releasing all the animals?” Phoebe asked.
“Not that I know of,” Reed said, though there was a note of insecurity in his voice. “But nobody wants to hear that. It doesn’t make for a juicy story.”
“Well, now’s your chance to set the record straight,” Phoebe said. “With no interruptions.”
Reed leaned back in his chair. He was looking at Phoebe as if he was deciding whether he could trust her. Phoebe feared she was about to lose his cooperation.
“I’ll let you look over the article before I submit it to my editor,” she said. It was, quite possibly, the most journalistically unethical thing she could have said. Then again, since she wasn’t formally a journalist and she had no intention of writing the story, she figured she could get away with saying it with a clear conscience.
Besides, it seemed to work.
“As you know,” Reed said, “it all started with Zeus.”
“Of course,” Phoebe lied.
“Shortly after the start of our run in Los Angeles, Zeus started dragging a little,” Reed explained. “He was slow to hit his mark, and he seemed to have a general malaise about everything. I’m sure you can understand, no one wants to work with a lethargic tiger.”
; “Naturally,” Phoebe said as she jotted “sick tiger” down on the pad to make it look like she was taking real notes. At least she was getting somewhere.
“Once his trainer consulted with the circus vet, they decided to remove Zeus from the final performances,” Reed continued. “We filled his spot with Apollo.”
“You have tiger understudies?” Phoebe asked.
“We have backup performers for all of the animals and for most of the humans,” Reed said. “Illnesses are just as common among animals as they are among people. Thousands of children come to see every performance. They don’t want to miss out on the lions, the tigers, or the—”
“Bears?” Phoebe said.
“We don’t have…” Reed realized that she was making a joke. “Oh…cute.”
“Sorry.” Phoebe blushed at her lame attempt at humor.
“Anyway,” Reed quickly said, “parents get upset when their children are upset. Especially after paying for tickets and whatever other expenditures they may incur here.”
Phoebe assumed that was a polite way of saying that an afternoon at the circus was expensive. Having orbed in for free, she wasn’t about to debate that issue.
“So we have a reserve cast,” Reed continued. “But that doesn’t really have anything to do with the story.”
“Sorry,” Phoebe said again, trying to remind herself to stay on the subject. “We were talking about Zeus.”
“Yes, Zeus,” Reed said. There was a touch of melancholy in his tone. Phoebe wasn’t surprised. She imagined if she lived and worked at the circus, she would also have a bond with the animals.
“While we were in Los Angeles,” Reed continued, “his illness kept getting worse. We have a great team of veterinarians here, but none of the doctors had any idea what was happening. Zeus was refusing to eat. He barely moved. It was like he was wasting away.”
“That’s horrible,” Phoebe said.
“It was,” Reed agreed. His eyes were moist. His concern looked genuine to Phoebe, and she’d had a lot of practice reading people. That particular ability was useful in both of her jobs. “Zeus succumbed to the illness before we had finished the run in L.A.”
“I’m sorry,” Phoebe said. There was a long pause. She didn’t know exactly how to phrase her next question. “I don’t mean to…I don’t know if…well, was there an autopsy?”
“Yes, actually,” Reed said. “Nothing conclusive was found. The vet was at a total loss to explain Zeus’s death.”
Phoebe tried not to let her imagination run wild with that last fact. There could have been a totally reasonable explanation for the illness. But as hard as she tried to believe it, she just couldn’t shake the suspicion that Zeus’s death was not from natural causes.
“But as they say,” he continued, “the show must go on. And so we did. We loaded up the equipment for the trip here.”
Phoebe wanted to ask more questions about Zeus, but she figured there was only so much that the public relations department would know about the illness. She made a note to ask about the vet later. He was definitely someone worth “interviewing.” For now, she had to move this interview forward. “You had mentioned Zabra…or—”
“Sabra,” Reed corrected her. “S-a-b-r-a.”
Phoebe quickly wrote down the name as he spelled it.
“She was a beautiful white Lipizzaner,” Reed said. “She had been with the circus longer than Zeus. As the crews were loading up the animals for the ride north to San Francisco, our horse trainer noticed that his star steed was also looking peaked. She didn’t even make it through the train ride up.”
“You’ve lost a tiger and a horse?” Phoebe asked, trying to make sense of the path the illness was spreading. “I wouldn’t think they interacted much.”
“They don’t,” Reed said. “We can’t figure out how the disease spread; we weren’t even sure if it was contagious. We didn’t think so, at first. But now—”
Reed seemed to catch himself, and immediately stopped speaking. Phoebe waited for him to continue, but he had clammed up. He looked as if he was going through a silent debate over whether to tell her something.
“Now, what?” Phoebe gently pressed.
“When do you intend to run this article?” Reed asked.
Truthfully, Phoebe never intended to run the article, but for Reed’s sake, she made something up. “Early next week,” she said, providing him with the most reasonable lie she could come up with. She didn’t want to scare him by leading him to think that what he said was going to be in the paper the next morning. “There’s no room in the weekend edition.”
“And if I tell you something that hasn’t been announced to the press yet, can you keep it quiet?” Reed asked. “It’s something we were thinking of holding until after opening weekend, unless the situation changed.”
Phoebe was intrigued about “the situation.”
“I promise you, I won’t write about it before you make the announcement,” Phoebe said, being totally honest with him for once in their brief history.
Reed took a sip of his bottled water. “It’s about Tasha.”
“Tasha?”
“Our lead elephant,” Reed explained. “That’s another strange thing about this sickness. It always strikes the lead animal. It’s as if this disease is specifically targeting the strongest and most skilled creatures.”
An alarm went off inside Phoebe’s head at that very moment. Here was the clue that made this illness more than a simple coincidence—something the Charmed Ones would have to look into.
“How long has Tasha been sick?” Phoebe asked.
“Her trainer noticed that she was acting sluggish two days ago,” Reed said. “You can imagine that, at this point, everyone was sensitive to the signs. Tasha was immediately separated from the other animals and put in a semi-quarantine.”
“Semi?”
“That means that people are free to enter her tent,” Reed explained, “but she’s kept away from all the other animals.”
“Gotcha,” Phoebe said, taking more fake notes on the page. “What else is the circus doing to protect the animals?”
“We’re doing everything in our power to investigate the illness,” Reed said, sounding rehearsed for the first time in the interview. “Our veterinary staff runs tests on the animals every morning. If any of them start showing signs of fatigue, they’ll be immediately removed from the performing roster.”
“But you haven’t canceled any performances,” Phoebe said.
“We employ hundreds of people,” Reed explained. “And we bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars for the local economy. We can’t just shut down over what could simply be a coincidence.”
“A coincidence?” Phoebe wasn’t buying that line of thought.
“The animals don’t interact with one another,” Reed said. “They all have different trainers. We haven’t found anything that even links the incidents. Granted, it looks like they’re connected, but we can’t put all these people out of work just because it seems like something is going on with the animals.”
“But what if more animals get sick?”
“At some point, the call will have to be made, and maybe we’ll have to shut down,” Reed said. “Whether the protesters believe us or not, the Fletcher Family Circus really does care about these animals as if they were family. They are family. Like every other member of this circus.”
“I thought I heard one of the protesters say something about an investigation?”
“You did,” Reed said. “And I want to make it clear that while we are looking into the situation internally, there is nothing to warrant a formal inquiry at this time.”
“Still, it’s an awfully big coincidence,” Phoebe said. “Three animals in the same circus being struck by what seems to be the same illness.”
There wasn’t a doubt in Phoebe’s mind that the tragedies were linked. There was even less of a question as to whether this was what Puck had sent her and her sisters to the circus to take care of f
or him. But she could understand why the circus people might still have their doubts. It wasn’t like they were looking for a supernatural explanation.
Reed paused for a moment, considering whether it was too big of a coincidence. Phoebe was surprised when he finally responded.
“Yes. Yes, it is,” he said slowly.
Chapter 11
“Thanks, Elise,” Phoebe said into her cell phone. “Can you read that last part back to me?”
Phoebe listened as her boss read the final draft of her column while she waited for Paige. Since Phoebe couldn’t make it back to the office, she had called Elise to go over it with her. Phoebe once again counted herself as lucky for having Elise as an editor. Few employers would put up with the unorthodox business practices and erratic hours Phoebe was forced to keep because of the demands of being a Charmed One.
It sounded like Puck had honored her request and changed her column back to the way she had originally written it. Now she would be able to turn in her column nearly on time.
“That’s it,” Phoebe said as Elise finished reading. “I’m glad the computer problem got fixed.”
“I can’t believe the tech guy didn’t tell you what was wrong with it,” Elise said over the phone.
“Well, he kind of did, but you know tech guys,” Phoebe said. “They can be so technical.” Somehow she didn’t think that telling Elise that a magical prankster had hijacked her computer was a good idea. It would have led to more questions, and possibly the suggestion of some vacation time in a nice mental institution.
Now that Phoebe had dealt with the advice column, she got to the other purpose for the phone call. “Hey Elise, I was wondering. Have you heard about what’s been going on at the circus?”
“You mean with those two animals that died?” she asked, indicating that she had heard something. “Yeah. There was some kind of press conference about it this afternoon. I didn’t think there was a story there. It’s unfortunate about the animals, but not really newsworthy at the moment. I’m sure the TV guys are jumping all over it because it makes for good video, but I’d prefer to wait until there’s some actual proof that something is wrong. I know, call me crazy.”