Go for the Juggler

by Leanne Leeds

“You are dating him? The quarterback from my high school football team? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  “You knew my type was big and tough,” Aidan laughed again and nodded. “Come on, don’t you think he looks like that movie star we both thought was adorable?”

  “If you shave his head, give him a tan, and stick a smile on him occasionally, maybe,” I told him sarcastically.

  Aidan laughed.

  “Gosh, Aidan, it’s terrific to see you. I was really worried when… Well, you know.”

  “When my refusal to admit who I am exploded our social lives into epic drama like we were guest stars on a telenovela? It’s okay, Charlotte, it’s been almost a year since it happened,” Aidan said. “Back then I was really depressed. I mean, really depressed. Once I realized I wasn’t pulling myself out of it, I got a therapist. She really helped me work through it. Become comfortable with who I am.”

  “That’s good, I’m glad. I’m really happy for you, Aidan.”

  “Yeah, well, when I finally got my head on straight, I came to see you to apologize, and you had disappeared. Your parents were kind of sketchy about why they couldn’t get a hold of you. I was worried for a while, but then I just figured it was their polite way of letting me know you didn’t want to talk to me.”

  “That wasn’t it at all, I promise. Taking over the Magical Midway wasn’t a situation that I had a lot of notice about. My Uncle Phil—”

  I stopped abruptly in the middle of my story.

  How was I supposed to explain to Aidan why I suddenly disappeared to take over the circus? I couldn’t tell Aidan that Uncle Phil had died considering it was possible Uncle Phil would stroll out of the Magical Midway at any moment. I couldn’t explain cell phones were banned because GPS could track us moving across the country in the blink of an eye.

  “Charlotte? You okay?”

  “Yeah, I just… It was a family thing. It’s kind of complicated, so let’s just leave it at that. In any case, I didn’t have much notice that I was going to have to leave. I would’ve called you before I left, but…”

  I was teleported, Aidan, and I had no time to pick up the phone.

  “You thought I didn’t want to talk to you, didn’t you?”

  “Yep, that was exactly it,” I lied. “We all just scattered to the wind. I figured you were going through a lot more than I was, so I just left you alone figuring you would contact me when you were ready. After I started traveling with the circus, honestly, I just didn’t have a lot of time to think of home.”

  “Aidan, what are you doing here?” Detective Roberts asked sharply as he walked up to us.

  “Hi!” Aidan smiled warmly at the detective. “I saw the midday news and figured you might be here a while. Since I’m intimately familiar with how out-of-the-way this place is, I brought you lunch.”

  Detective Roberts grabbed the bag from Aidan’s hand and murmured a thank you that was anything but warm. I bristled at the distracted way Kyle Roberts was treating Aidan and his lack of gratitude. I sensed annoyance flowing off of the burly detective.

  “Next time, call first,” he said as he held up the bag. “Appreciate it though. I have to get back to work.”

  “Right, right, sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Aidan responded as disappointment trickled from him. Images of he and Kyle eating lunch together flashed in my head as Aidan moved his hand to hide his own lunch bag behind his hip. “Will I see you tonight?”

  “Maybe,” Kyle grunted as he turned away. Aidan watched him go.

  “So, that… That’s your boyfriend?”

  “That’s my something,” Aidan said as he sighed. “I don’t think I’m very good at this.”

  “Well, it is a murder scene. Maybe he was just distracted?”

  “That’s kind of you to say, Charlotte, but you’ve always been pretty intuitive. You and I both know that wasn’t just Kyle being distracted,” he said.

  “Is he the first guy that you’ve gone out with since coming out?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Come on,” I said, grabbing his hand. “Let me show you around the circus. No one can stay sad or troubled at a circus.”

  At least no human could.

  Unfortunately for us paranormals, the circus atmosphere wasn’t quite as carefree.

  Aidan nodded, and we walked toward my nomadic magical home.

  6

  Just before we crossed the invisible boundary into the Magical Midway, Aidan jumped.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked him.

  “I, um, I don’t know, actually,” Aidan told me as he patted his hands against his head. “It almost felt like a bee stung me on my scalp, but I don’t feel anything. No bumps. And the pain is gone now. Well, mostly gone.”

  I stopped walking and examined Aidan’s now pale skin. Beads of sweat stood out suddenly on his brow, and his hands shook ever so slightly.

  “You know, let’s go back to my parents’ house instead,” I told him as I steered him away from the circus. “They have air conditioning that’s much more powerful than the fans I have in my tent. I can show you the circus later.”

  Aidan nodded and followed me up the path toward the house as I racked my brain through our past. I couldn’t remember Aidan telling me anything about being psychic, or intuitive, or having any interest in any paranormal anything.

  And yet when he got two feet from the Magical Midway border, he felt something.

  “You’re looking a little better,” I told him. The further away we walked from the circus the more color returned to Aidan’s cheeks. The shaking in his hands slowed, and his forehead slowly dried in the hot Texas breeze.

  “It must be the promise of air conditioning,” he responded, smiling. “I never did get used to being outside in these hot Texas summers. I’m probably just dehydrated.”

  “So, let’s get back to you and the hunky detective,” I asked as we climbed the steps to my parents’ back porch. “Is he always that grumpy?”

  “I know he has a tough job, you know? Seeing people murdered and dealing with dead bodies and people that kill. I mean, I couldn’t do that kind of job day after day,” he told me as he held the back door open. “But I just can’t seem to get past his super tough, suspicious armor. Sometimes I wonder why he bothered going out with me in the first place.”

  “He bothered because you’re handsome, kind, smart and would be a great catch for anyone. Obviously, he sees that, even if he doesn’t act like it.”

  “Doesn’t act like what?” my father asked as he joined us in the kitchen. “Aidan! What are you doing here? With all the tragedy this morning I forgot to tell Charlotte you had stopped by to see her.”

  “Mr. Astley,” Aidan nodded. “My… a friend of mine is working on Tiffany Drake’s case. When I heard it happened out here and that there was a big circus next to the shelter, I took a chance and headed over.”

  “Well, I’m sure Charlotte is glad you came by,” Dad told him while shaking his hand. “Have you taken a tour of the Magical Midway yet?”

  “We were just about to, but I got overheated, I think,” Aidan responded as his hand rubbed over the part of his skull that had pained him. “I thought I was stung by something, and I felt a bit woozy when we walked over there. It was pretty weird, too, because there’s no swelling on my head. Probably a phantom pain from being dehydrated.”

  Dad looked at me sharply.

  “Hopefully, we won’t be here that long,” I told my father. “I can give him a tour the next time we swing into town.”

  “I really want to see it, though, Charlotte! I just need to sit in the air conditioning and drink some water.”

  Mom came in and greeted Aidan. With the two chatting, Dad pulled me into the hallway.

  “Did you cross the barrier with him?” Dad whispered.

  “No,” I shook my head. “I think we were about two feet from crossing when he suddenly felt like he’d been stung. I take it you’re thinking the same thing I’m thinking? That he might
be paranormal?”

  “Clearly, it’s a possibility, Charlotte,” Dad said, thinking. “There’s no other reason he would be sensitive to the Magical Midway energy unless he were descended from a witch. If he were a known paranormal, he would know what the Magical Midway is. You would’ve sensed it by now.”

  “I can’t let him onto the Magical Midway.”

  “Clearly not, but you don’t think that’s going to cause some suspicion? Isn’t he friends with the detective? If you don’t bring him into the grounds, he may tell his friend. It will look like we’re hiding something.”

  “Aidan wouldn’t do that.”

  “Not on purpose, Charlotte. What may not seem suspicious to your friend Aidan could seem very suspicious to his detective friend.”

  I looked at my friend sitting at our kitchen table. Less than a year ago, his lie caused our lives to explode. I wondered if my lie was the new ticking time bomb.

  “Maybe it’s not what we think it is,” I told my dad.

  “Charlotte, you don’t solve anything by pretending that reality is not what it is,” Dad warned me. “Your friend’s power began awakening just being near the paranormal border. Aidan is part witch, and he found his way to the Magical Midway. You have to decide whether to trust the intuition that guided him to that border, or to step in between his pull and block him from a world that is, at least in part, his.”

  “And I have to do it without being able to tell him anything,” I bitterly told my father. “How do you make a decision like that for someone? Decide that when you can’t even ask them what they would want?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t envy you.”

  Regardless of what I decided, the risks were mounting in every direction.

  Gunther, can you hear me?

  Yes, Charlotte. Everything okay?

  Aidan is a paranormal.

  Wait, what? How do you know this? This is your friend from Mickwac, right? The fake boyfriend you had?

  Yes, that’s him, I told him. He showed up here. I was bringing him to the Magical Midway to show him the circus. He reacted to the boundary. My dad and I are pretty sure that he’s a paranormal.

  That’s… Gunther’s telepathic message trailed off as he considered the implications of what I had told him. That complicates the situation, but not incredibly so.

  Aidan is dating Detective Kyle Roberts.

  Okay, that’s a significant complication.

  I know it is.

  How can I help?

  I don’t know, I told him. I just wanted to tell you.

  I felt a warmth flow from the direction of the Magical Midway to me. It was like a soft, pink hug, and I took comfort from it.

  Since Gunther and I had committed to making the relationship work, it seemed as if our bond had strengthened and the powers that connected us grew more powerful. The connection once nothing more than memories of him in my mind had metamorphosized into a keen tie between us.

  The strapping detective opened the back door and walked into our kitchen without asking. Aidan looked up at the rugged man and smiled hesitantly, but Detective Roberts stared back at him and frowned.

  “I guess when you work in small towns and rural areas at some point you get a case where everyone knows everyone else,” Detective Roberts said. “I can’t say that this isn’t a bit awkward, though.”

  “Aidan and I were close friends long before he ever started dating you,” I responded a little defensively. Who did this guy think he was? “I’m sorry if the fact that he’s here is making you uncomfortable. I can’t see why it would.”

  “This whole case is making me a little uncomfortable,” the detective responded as he pulled up a chair at the kitchen table without asking. “It seems to me that with visitors to the shelter, and entire circus within eyeshot of the kennel area, and the entire family that works at the shelter sitting at the window, someone should have seen something.”

  “Is it your experience that murderers often go out of their way to be seen, Detective?” I asked him. I probably should have just kept my mouth shut, but the way Kyle was treating Aidan had gotten on my nerves.

  “It’s my experience that murderers aren’t that smart, Charlotte,” Detective Roberts responded. “This one took the murder weapon, left no footprints, wasn’t on any of the cameras, and wasn’t seen by anyone. That’s either someone very lucky or very experienced in hiding their crimes. Or…”

  “Or?” Aidan asked.

  “Or someone’s covering for the murderer,” Kyle Roberts said as he stared directly at me.

  “And you think that because…?” I asked as I stared the detective in the eye.

  “Honestly? Because it’s one of the options,” he responded, shrugging. “To be honest, none of you strike me as guilty. Though your arrival here, Charlotte, has some ridiculously odd timing. But I don’t think you did it.”

  “While I appreciate that, I’m curious as to why?”

  “When you walked out toward the back you were within feet of the dog kennels,” Kyle said. “Not one of them reacted aggressively. None of them even looked concerned. Unless you have some magical dog power to make them all not bark at you when you’re a murderer, if you had killed that girl those dogs would have reacted. Your parents have been well-known around here for years. I don’t think they would’ve covered for you. Not for this.”

  “Well thank you for your trust in our honesty, Detective,” my father said as he entered. “We may not have been fond of the girl, but we certainly didn’t want to see her dead.”

  “I don’t think you have anything to hide deliberately,” the detective responded. “But I still think it could’ve been someone else on the circus grounds.”

  “Well, if you believed I didn’t kill her because of the dog's reaction, there’s an easy way to prove if anyone did,” I told him.

  “Oh?”

  “Have everyone walk through the kennels. See if any of the dogs alert on anyone.”

  “How would I know you had everyone walk through?” Kyle asked me.

  “I thought you just said I have nothing to hide?” I asked him.

  “Forgive me for being a little bit suspicious after you told me carnie people don’t trust the cops,” Kyle said with a wry grin. “Are you going to hand over your entire list of employees so I can check each one?”

  “Some people own their own joints, Detective. I wouldn’t have their list of employees.”

  If I handed over a list of people to the detective and he performed any kind of background check, he would discover in short order that a good portion of them just don’t exist in the human world. I couldn’t provide him with the information he would need to clear my people.

  Because, um, most of them weren’t people.

  “Then we’re back to square one. It would take a lot of time to set up, and I couldn’t even be sure that we got everybody. While I appreciate the suggestion, I think I’m going to have to do good old-fashioned detective work to figure this out.”

  “Do you have any leads or directions you’re looking into?” my mother asked him.

  “The elephant in the room is that Tiffany Drake is the daughter of Anthony Drake. I think now that we’ve wrapped up gathering evidence here I need to start poking around Mr. Drake’s enemy list. I also need to learn a little bit more about Tiffany herself.”

  “That enemy list? That could be a very long list,” my mother observed.

  Detective Roberts nodded.

  “Are we free to go if we get a job somewhere else, Detective?” I asked.

  “So soon? Charlotte, we’ve barely had any time to talk!” Aidan protested. “At least stay a couple of days so we can catch up. I don’t know anything about your life anymore, and I could… I could use some…”

  “Some movie nights and popcorn like the old days?” I finished for Aidan since I knew for sure what he was trying to say. He needed advice on Detective Kyle Roberts.

  “Absolutely,” he nodded.

  “Maybe for a coup
le of days,” I told him.

  “It would help if you stayed around,” the detective added. “I’d prefer that nothing about the crime scene change too much if we can possibly avoid it.”

  Even though we were not suspects anymore, I could see that the folks who worked in my circus could potentially move to the top of Detective Roberts’ suspect list relatively quickly.

  We still needed to solve the case to protect the circus.

  We also needed to figure out what, exactly, we would do with Tiffany Drake. I did not want to bring the girl with us.

  The police left the property, the handsome Detective Kyle Roberts going with them. Aidan stood at the front window watching the cars pull away.

  “Okay, he’s gone,” I said as I stepped up next to him. “He seems a little mercurial, and I definitely sensed that he wasn’t the friendliest guy you could’ve wound up with. But he seems like a good person.”

  “He is a good person,” Aidan agreed. Turning away from the window he sat down on the couch in my parents’ living room. “I just don’t know what our relationship is, you know? Are we dating? Is he dating other people? Is he my boyfriend?”

  “Have you just asked him?”

  “Well, no,” my friend responded somewhat sheepishly. “Honestly, Charlotte, I don’t even know how to ask him. I think I’m afraid if I ask him, I won’t get the answer that I want.”

  “What answer do you want?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I stared at Aidan and raised my eyebrow.

  “Yeah, I know. It doesn’t make any sense,” he laughed.

  “Look, you and I didn’t have a wide circle of friends, and we both had some challenges in the trust department,” I told him. “If you’re not even comfortable enough to talk to him about your relationship, it doesn’t seem like this relationship has much of a chance.”

  Aidan nodded, and I sensed a sadness and loneliness in him.

  “Aidan, do you even really like this guy?”

  He looked surprised at the question, but I didn’t sense any shock from my friend. Shrugging, Aidan’s fingers toyed with a frayed rip in his jeans. “He’s a really nice guy,” he said finally.