by Mav Skye
“Oh?” asked Chloe, trying not to sound too interested.
“But it wasn’t a circus. It was a…show of sorts.” Mama Nola replaced the hat and started plucking blueberries again.
“What kind of show?”
Mama Nola shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t like to talk about it.”
A branch snapped like a bone in the woods. Chloe froze. Goose-pimples traveled up her arms and down her spine before Chloe forced herself to look up.
Mr. Jingles strode toward them from the woods, his pink bunny ears flopping with the brisk movement. He held an arm behind his back, hiding something. The clown’s bright red lips stretched into an impossible smile.
Chloe dropped her voice. “Mama, do you see him?”
Mama Nola paused from her blueberry picking. “What? I can’t hear you. Speak up.”
Chloe stood. “We’ve got to get in the house.”
Her mother leaned on her cane. “Huh?”
Chloe scrambled in the dirt as the Clown reached the end of the garden. She ran to her mother, grabbed her and forced her to walk toward the trailer. “Hurry, Mama! Hurry!”
Mama Nola pushed her away. “I’m not done yet. What’s wrong with you? Why are you acting like this?”
“Please, Mama, we gotta go!” Chloe grabbed her Etsi’s arm and pulled, trembling as the clown grew closer. Closer.
“Now. Now. Now!” Chloe felt herself go hysterical. The whole world moved in slow motion.
“You’re hurting…let go of me, Ayita!” Mama Nola shoved her back, and Chloe tripped over a shovel. By then, Mr. Jingles was only a few feet away. He walked toward her, slowly, surely. Chloe heard the shake of a serpent’s tail. A deep, gravelly voice in the back of her mind commanded, Run!
Chloe scrambled backward, crying, trying to find her footing in the soft dirt. Her mother turned back toward the blueberries, talking loudly and unhappily.
The clown brought his arm out from behind his back. The silver blade of the hatchet gleamed in the sunlight.
Chloe screamed, “Mama! Mama, help me!”
That was when the clown lifted the hatchet high in the air above Chloe’s head, then paused a moment before bringing it down.
5
Scars are Forever
SHE AWOKE IN BED WITH MAMA Nola leaning over her, wiping her face with a damp washcloth. Pain pulsed through her entire skull. “Ouch,” she murmured, pushing the washcloth away.
Mama Nola placed it back on her forehead. “Hush, Ayita.”
“Where is he? What happened?”
“Hush.” Mama Nola commanded.
When Mama Nola lifted the cloth from her head, Chloe cringed at all the blood it had soaked up. “Is that mine?”
She lifted her hand to touch her forehead.
Mama Nola grabbed her palm. “Do not touch.” Etsi tucked her hand back into the sheets, and once more said, “Hush.” She rinsed the cloth in a basin of water, then went back to cleaning the wound on Chloe’s forehead. It stung like the time she had attached her skateboard with a rope to the back of Joey’s bike, and they attempted to ride down Suicide Hill. Chloe hadn’t been able to maneuver around the potholes in the old road, and she flipped and rolled after the skateboard’s wheel got stuck. Her skull felt now as it had then.
Chloe closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip until she tasted blood. Finally, Etsi lifted the washcloth, squeezed it and returned it to a tub of water on the nightstand.
Chloe opened her eyes and watched her mother rinse the cloth in the water. When Mama Nola turned back to Chloe, she held a needle in her hand.
Chloe made a face. “That isn’t for me, is it?”
Mama Nola nodded, then she plucked a piece of her own long hair and put it through the eye of the needle. “I need to stitch it back up.”
Chloe said, “No, no, aren’t there butterfly stitches for that? It doesn’t feel that bad.” In truth, it did feel that bad. She raised her hand to her forehead, but once again Mama Nola snatched up her hand and put it back down on the bed. “We do this the old way. But first, whiskey.”
“Whiskey?” Chloe was surprised when her mother set down the needle and lifted a small bottle from the floor.
She removed the lid, put a large cotton ball over the lip of the bottle and tipped it until the cotton ball was dripping. She then quickly pressed it against Chloe’s wound.
“Ow!” Chloe moved her mother’s hand away and sat up, feeling the wound on her head. When she touched the large gap, she cried out in surprise.
Her mother scowled. “Satisfied?”
Chloe nodded her head.
“Drink.”
Chloe was surprised but didn’t argue when Mama Nola pressed the whiskey bottle into her hands. She took the bottle, sniffed it and took a tiny drink, coughing when it hit her throat. Though plenty of her friends at school stole from their parent’s alcohol supply, Chloe hadn’t tried it herself. She’d never the desire. But to have her elderly mother command her to do it was something that didn’t happen to a kid every day.
Mama Nola urged, “Drink! Drink!” And lifted the bottom of the bottle, Chloe drank three large gulps, and then her mother took the bottle away. The whiskey warmed the back of her throat all the way to her stomach. Chloe coughed again, feeling a bit lightheaded and hazy.
Mama Nola pushed her back into the pillow, then reapplied the whiskey to a cotton ball and pressed it again to the wound.
It hurt, but not as bad as the first time.
“Okay?” she asked.
“Okay.” Chloe closed her eyes. And when the needle pricked her skin, she moaned.
“Hush, hush. It’ll be over soon.”
Chloe felt tears pour from her eyes and her head spun with both pain and confusion. Did Mama Nola see the clown smash her with the hatchet? He must not have used the blade or her head would be split in two. Chloe had so many questions, but she held them in as Mama Nola slowly sewed the wound on her forehead. When she finished, she used the cotton ball and whiskey again.
Chloe sucked in her breath, and then her mother dabbed ointment on it. Chloe smelled chicken stew on the stove, and the smell of fry bread filled the air. Her mother sucked at chocolate chip cookies, but her meals were always filling and comforting.
Her mother began bandaging her head.
Chloe still felt dizzy from the whiskey, but she asked anyway, needing an answer. “You saw him, right?”
“Saw who?” her mother asked.
“Mr. Jingles, the clown…”
Her mother scrunched her eyes, shook her head.
Chloe felt hysteria rise in her stomach. “You had to have seen him. He walked right out of the woods by the garden. He was holding the hatchet and I tried to get you to go in the house but you wouldn’t leave!”
She felt the tears fall from her eyes again. This time it wasn’t from pain.
Mama Nola shook her head, wouldn’t meet Chloe’s eyes.
“I tried to get away, but I tripped on the shovel. Mama, listen to me.” She touched her mother on the shoulder and the woman turned to her, a strange look on her face. Chloe said, “He walked right up to me and raised his hatchet like he was going to chop me in half. But part of me was relieved, because you’d finally believe me.”
Her mother wrapped her arms around Chloe, and Chloe cried into her shoulder. “You have to believe me. You do believe me, right?”
Mama Nola stroked Chloe’s long hair. “When you tripped, you hit your head very hard. You landed on the shovelhead.”
“No, no I didn’t.” She pulled away. Her mother avoided her eyes again. “Why would you say that?” Then Chloe’s attention was drawn to the deep red lipstick her mother wore. “Why are you wearing that lipstick again?”
Mama Nola reached up and touched her mouth. “I—”
She raised her eyes to meet Chloe’s and this time her emotion was genuine. “I… I don’t remember.”
“Etsi, you need a doctor.” She touched her forehead. “Maybe I need a doctor.�
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Mama Nola ignored Chloe as she finished the bandaging. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t need a doctor because I put on lipstick. And I take good care of you.”
“But, Mama—”
“Shhhh…” She put her finger to Chloe’s mouth. “I don’t want to hear any more about this clown business. You are older now, Ayita. It is time to put away these child-ish nightmares and imaginary games.”
At this, new tears prickled Chloe’s eyes. “I’m telling the truth.”
Her mother glanced away, tight-lipped, then said, “I need to go stir the stew. You can get up if you like, or rest longer.”
Chloe sat back against her pillow. The food smelled wonderful, but she felt dizzy, and her head ached. “I’ll stay here.”
Her eyes settled on her dresser, or rather what sat atop her dresser. The jewelry box was open, the little clown’s arms spread wide, prepared to clap. Had Etsi taken it out of the closet to “go to the circus” or was Mr. Jingles messing with her mind?
Chloe touched Godzilla resting on her ear, but the answer didn’t come to her.
She wasn’t sure which scared her more, her mother's bizarre behavior—claiming to go to the circus, taking the jewelry box, and that weird lipstick—or Mr. Jingles clubbing her over the head with the hatchet.
Why hadn’t it killed her?
Because you’re crazy, said the doctor, it’s all in your head.
Shut up, she told him, much the way she would tell off Joey. She shoved the thought from her mind as she reached beneath her bed and pulled out her Fear Diary.
She felt around for her pencil and couldn’t find it. She tapped her nails on the cover, considering her research earlier that day. There was a chapter in The Psychology of Imaginary Friends called Could My Imaginary Friend Be a Ghost? Some people were susceptible to those who still walked the earth after death. What if the clown was a ghost? Did he have a message for her? She doubted it, unless she was supposed to have an epiphany after he clobbered her senseless. She felt her aching skull. Or…or perhaps she had hit her head after she tripped over the shovel. Chloe didn’t remember her face connecting with the ground, but she did see the clown walk right up to her and—
Her head began to spin. It was a familiar feeling, one she’d had when she was a kid, and the clown had stalked her then.
She wished she had written in her Fear Diary back then, so she would have a complete collection. She frowned as she touched her diary.
Mama Nola slowly limped down the hall, her cane falling and rising on the floor just outside her bedroom. Chloe hid her Fear Diary beneath her covers just as Mama Nola pushed open the door.
She held a small teacup, trying not to spill the tea as she shambled over with the cane. “Here’s your feverfew tea. I’m glad we still have leaves left from last year.” Mama Nola had often made this for herself as it helped her arthritis. She handed the hot mug to Chloe.
“Thank you, Etsi.”
“Sure. Sure.” She turned to leave, then paused as if she were going to say something, then kept going.
“Mama?”
Her mother turned at the door and looked at her with those tired, dark eyes. “Yes?”
Chloe said, “I love you.”
“I love you, too. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Ayita, you’re the greatest joy that I have ever had on this earth.”
Chloe lifted her mouth in a grin at her mother, but her mother didn’t smile back. She frowned in the same tired, weary way she always did. When she turned back to the hall, Chloe reached for the library stack beside her bed, opened to the first page, and began to read while sipping her tea.
Sometime soon after, the book slipped from her hands as she fell asleep.
Chloe didn’t hear the soft footsteps come into her room after midnight. Nor did she hear the scrape of her jewelry box as it was lifted from her dresser. She didn’t hear the circus music playing in the room beside hers, or the hands clapping in time to the music. She did hear, somewhere in the dark recesses of her mind, a familiar voice cry out with childlike gaiety, “Dance! Dance! Dance!”
6
Clowning around
“OPEN THIS DOGGONE DOOR, OR I’LL break it down!”
Joey sat at his desk with his head in his hands. He’d made a terrible mistake—just terrible, but he hadn’t known it at the time.
He had helped Mama Nola carry Chloe inside to her room. But the blood, there was so much blood.
He shouldn’t have let Chloe sit for hours reading through those books at the library, energizing her old fears. She felt no one believed her, and Joey knew what it felt like to not be believed, to be alone. He shouldn’t have pulled the prank in the forest. He did it because he wanted to validate her feelings, not to hurt her.
Chloe was the best friend he had, more than that, she was his family and… more. He would do anything for her or Mama Nola. If not for her, all he would have is the selfish old man beating down his door.
Joey had sensed her drifting from him this year, her interest in Donny Hanks drove him near insane, and he was tired of holding back his feelings. He knew a lot of things about Chloe. One could say he knew her better than she knew herself. He could tell her emotions by the way she walked, the tilt of her head, where her hands were placed. He knew her mind was busy at work by the way she touched Godzilla on her left ear. He often read her thoughts by the faraway look in her eyes.
The one thing he couldn’t read was her interest in him. Chloe loved him as a friend (even though that had been questionable lately), but she reacted differently to Donny than to him. She didn’t get the same blush on her cheeks or glow to her skin around him as she did with Donny, and yet he did sense her heartbeat pick up when they sat on the couch together the other day. And she had kissed him in the woods, right before she bit him, whether she would admit it or not. Despite that, he still had to admit that what he’d done caused more harm than good.
He imagined how terrified she must feel with that gash on her head. And he was part to blame for that. He pounded his fist just once on his desk. “Stupid. You’re so stupid!”
The barricaded door thundered and threatened to break as Pops pounded his fist on it. “Open it up, you little snake!”
Joey touched where his grandfather had fractured his collar bone all those years back. He thought of the scars on his back.
“You deserve a doggone belting! Open up!”
“Go sleep it off, old man!” Joey squeezed his hands into fists, stood up from his desk and began to pace. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could take it from his grandfather. Joey was not as tall or heavy as the old man, but he was lean and strong and had thought about taking him on several times.
“Or you’ll what? Huh? Better not be threatening me, you blasted boy!” Pops pounded three times. Thump! Thump! Thump!
And then it went quiet.
Joey let out his breath, then sat up and looked at the door. Had Pops given up or was he waiting quietly in the hall like a lion waiting to pounce on his prey?
Joey walked over to the door and pressed his ear against it.
All he could hear was silence. Then, the floorboard creaked, and Joey knew the old man was out there, just waiting for him to open up and look to see if he’d gone.
He was tired of being scared, tired of cowering away in his room night after night, afraid of a beating. No wonder Chloe didn’t love him, she wanted a man, someone confident like Donny Hanks, not some kiddie who hides from his grandpa every night.
If he was going to be a man, he needed to confront his grandfather.
Joey crept over to his desk, opened the drawer and took out a pair of scissors. He walked back over to the door. “You want this? Really? Then come and get it!”
He removed the barricade board and flung open the door.
The hallway was empty. Joey tiptoed to the living room where he found Pops passed out in the ancient easy boy chair. His eyes moved rapidly beneath his eyelids. Greasy yellow cheeks lay limp beneath
the gray beard that fell over his wife-beater shirt. A beer bottle dropped from the old man’s hands, making Joey jump when it clamored on the floor.
Joey shook his head and walked into the kitchen, using the opportunity to grab himself something to eat before locking himself in his room for the night.
The bread was moldy, so he took a spoon and a jar of peanut butter into his room and slowly shut the door. He lifted the wood plank into the slots on either side of the doorframe and put his scissors away.
After popping on his headphones and adjusting the dial on his Walkman to the late night talk show, Joey sat down on his bed and scooped a spoonful of peanut butter and let it melt in his mouth. The host was discussing the Devil’s Hole, a mysterious pit located in the deserts of Eastern Washington. Local legend said it leads straight to hell. Not only that, but Tribes in the area claimed that if you threw a corpse into the hole, it would emerge the next day alive. The host took a call from a psychic who claimed she could hear the tortured cries of children wailing as demons beat them with whips, but even this couldn’t keep Joey’s interest.
Living with his grandfather had become his personal Devil’s Hole, one he’d never escape. His thoughts once more returned to Chloe. He wondered what she was doing right now—if she was sleeping or awake. Neither of them had a phone, or he’d call her.
He took off his headphones and plopped the peanut butter on his nightstand and went to his bedroom window, looking up at the starry night. Perhaps he should check on her? He decided against it. Showing up at her window in the late hour would startle her further. He didn’t want that.
He flipped off his lights and lay down in bed. After a few moments, he popped the headphones back on and listened about the hole leading to hell until he fell asleep.
7
Angels
CHLOE AWOKE TO A BRISK KNOCK on the front door. The afternoon light blinded her when she tried to read the alarm clock. She shaded her eyes and was surprised at the time. She had slept a full sixteen hours.