The Immortal Circus (Cirque des Immortels)

by Kahler, A. R.

  When I woke up this morning, the VIP tent and all its inhabitants were gone. The parking lot on the other side of the road, however, still has a few cars waiting like tombstones. I don’t mention it. To her credit, Melody says nothing about our encounter or the ticket. Kingston doesn’t give her the chance.

  “I still say you should tell her,” he whispers.

  “They’re just nightmares,” Melody says, giving her head a shake. “Everyone gets those.”

  “Really?” he asks, then looks at me. It’s enough to make my heart do a double-step. It doesn’t help that when I see him, I can only picture him in place of the man on the chaise longue. “Been dreaming much lately, Vivienne?”

  I take a drink of my coffee and try not to wince at the bitterness. These carnies like it strong.

  “Not that I recall.” Thankfully. I can only imagine what my mind would have come up with after yesterday.

  “Precisely,” Kingston says.

  I sigh. “Let me guess, that’s in the contract, too?”

  “For most of us,” he replies.

  Maybe I should retract my previous cold-heart-warm-six-pack assumptions about him. He’s looking at Mel with real concern in his eyes, that brotherly type affection that makes my insides melt. He really does care about her. I can tell from that one exchange that he would do pretty much anything to keep her safe. I try to tell myself that’s a good thing, that I can be attracted to him for something more important than his body and charm. But it only drives one deafening point home: all that love and affection is directed toward someone else. So far, I’m still thinking I’ll be lucky if I reach good friend status.

  Before he can say anything else, the Shifter guy who nodded to me is tapping Melody on the shoulder.

  “You ready for tear-down?” he asks. He’s got at least a dozen piercings in his left ear alone, and his mohawk is tipped with light blue. I think his name is Roman. Melody glances to the Shifter leader and then back to her untouched breakfast.

  “Yeah,” she says. She yawns again and hands Kingston the roll. “Ladies,” she says with a small curtsy, then turns and follows Roman to the rest of the group.

  “Why are we leaving so early?” I ask.

  Kingston takes a quick glance around. Then, without so much as a twitch of his nose, the spare roll goes up in a puff of fire and smoke. He flicks the ashes to the ground and looks back at me.

  “Mab’s always itchy the day after Noir. Doesn’t like lingering.”

  “So I see.”

  I look over his shoulder to where the Shifters are already disassembling. A few of them have begun pulling down the sidewalls from the tent, while the rest have gone inside to start tearing down the bleachers. I still don’t see why Mab doesn’t just have Kingston magic the tent into the giant semis that carry our load. Apparently, she’s against using magic in broad daylight. That said, as I watch Roman jump into one of the semi cabs, I can see he’s already bulked up to twice his normal weight. Shapeshifters: the perfect grunts.

  The very mention of Tapis Noir brings back memories I don’t want. It’s not just the thought of what I saw in the tent, but what my mind brought up in the darkness after. Scenarios I’m too ashamed to admit even to myself: Kingston in a black mask and torn pants, me in white, and I don’t care if he’s biting or if the roles are reversed. Kingston on a hoop, on the sofa, his skin soft and hard and glowing in the candlelight. I feel the heat rise to my face and turn away, pretending to study the table of fruit beside me.

  So much for focusing on his caring personality.

  “You feeling okay?” he asks.

  “Fine,” I say, grateful my voice doesn’t give a pubescent crack.

  “You better not be getting sick, too.”

  “I’m fine,” I say. When I think my cheeks aren’t as red anymore, I look back at him, trying to push aside the image of him completely naked. My love life prior to joining the circus is a blur like everything else, but I know without a doubt that Kingston isn’t the type of guy I’d go for. Or, if I’m being honest, he isn’t the type that would go for me. He’s in control. He’s powerful. And, without a doubt, he’s out of my league. And very much in love with someone else. I try not to be that much of a masochist. This time it doesn’t appear to be working.

  “Really?” he asks. “Because you look like Melody does every time she sees someone she wants to fuck.” He’s grinning as he says it, which just makes the fading blush brighten anew. Then his smirk fades, and I worry for a brief moment things have clicked and he’s read my thoughts.

  “Shit,” Kingston says, glancing over my shoulder and then studiously regarding his mug. “Penelope,” he mutters.

  I sigh. “No rest for the wicked.”

  “There you are, my darlings,” Penelope says from behind me. I turn around, a smile already plastered on my face.

  Even in faded jeans and a hoodie, she looks like she’s onstage, a feat I’ve never understood. I can’t help but wonder how long she stared in her mirror this morning, making sure she looked just disheveled enough. I don’t want to believe it comes naturally; it would make people like me hopeless. She smiles and reaches out to wrap an arm over my shoulders. I can’t make out her perfume, but I’d be willing to bet Ocean is somewhere in the title.

  “Which of you lovelies would like to help me with the front of house?” she asks as soon as she lets me go.

  “I’m on costumes this site, I’m afraid,” Kingston says. Though he’s so quick about it, I can tell not one bit of him is sorry. “Vivienne should be free.”

  “Yeah,” I say. Technically speaking, I should be helping load up the concession stands. The first time I tried, however, it became wildly clear that the Shifters not only had it under control, but saw me as a hindrance rather than a help. I was now the proverbial floater, which meant a morning talking business and sideshow fashion with Penelope. “I’d love to help.”

  I can’t help but notice Kingston’s smirk as Penelope guides me away. In truth, it’s probably for the best. I have a feeling that being around Kingston when he’s in one of his flirtatious moods would be dangerous. Especially after what my mind was dreaming up last night.

  Melody was right; I need to get much, much better at lying. Otherwise I’ll never be able to look Kingston in the eye again.

  It’s not until we’re halfway to Penelope’s trailer that something Kingston said strikes a funny chord. “You look like Melody when she sees someone she wants to fuck.” Those aren’t the words I’d expect him to say, not about his own girlfriend. Not while smiling. I take a deep breath and try to calm the sudden quickening in my pulse. Now’s not the time to start thinking I had it all wrong. That hope is far too dangerous right now.

  Front of house is mostly administrative work. While the rest of the crew is loading the trucks, Penelope and I sit in the shade inside her trailer, the hum of the air conditioner almost drowning out the thuds and clangs of the demolition outside. The performers’ trailers are just that — double-wide trailers divided into even smaller cubicles. Mine has a bed that wouldn’t pass for a twin, a desk, and enough shelf space for a few pairs of clothes and the huge rubber boots Kingston recommended I buy at our first site, in case of a mud show. Penelope’s space is twice the size. It’s nearly half a trailer, with a queen bed in one corner and a large vanity with a fish tank against the other wall. In the middle, bolted to the floor, is a table covered in receipts and ticket stubs and a small laptop playing some sort of classical shit.

  “So,” she says as I sort the ticket stubs into piles based on show time and seating area. She’s typing something into the laptop, and even though I can’t see the screen, I don’t doubt for one second that she’s just checking her email. How long has it been since I’ve checked mine? Once the thought passes, it fades like mist in the sun, replaced by Penelope’s voice. “How are you enjoying our troupe so far?”

  “It’s great,” I say. “The people are really nice.” I hope it doesn’t sound as fake as it feels.

/>   “Mmm,” she says. “I’m glad to hear that. You’re making friends, yes?”

  I nod, then realize she isn’t looking. “Yeah. Mostly Kingston and Melody.”

  She smiles and I look at her for a moment, trying to pinpoint her age. There are tiny crows’-feet at the edge of her eyes, almost perfectly hidden beneath her foundation.

  “They’re a lovely pair,” she says, giving one of the keys a sharp tap and then looking up at me. Our eyes meet, and her smile becomes inquisitive. “I have to wonder…do you miss your family? Your old friends?”

  I look back at the ticket stubs and try to focus on reorganizing them. My mind goes as blank as my face.

  “I don’t really have a family,” I say.

  A beat passes, and I know without looking up that she’s staring at me even more intently, and the thought makes my face go red.

  “Everyone has a family, Vivienne.”

  I close my eyes.

  The words I want to say aren’t forming in my head. All I can visualize is an empty apartment and grey concrete and feeling cold…and hunted. I try to imagine my mother, but she’s just a blur of brown hair and reprimands. My dad isn’t even an impression. It never really bothered me before, the fact that I couldn’t recall much about my past. I just didn’t think about it. After all, what you can’t remember can’t haunt you. I was always one of those focus on the present types.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, and then she’s standing behind me, her arms wrapped around my chest in a tight hug. It takes a lot of self-control to not push her away. “I didn’t mean…I didn’t know you were an orphan.” She hesitates. “Like me.”

  I take the bait, if only to shift the attention. “Like you?” Up close, her perfume is positively suffocating. Cloying, I think is the right word.

  She lets go of me and sits on the side of her bed, staring at the bubbling fish tank.

  “I was Mab’s first act,” she says. Her blue eyes have gone hazy, like a fog swept over the sea. “She found me when I was but a babe. My parents…well, I don’t remember my parents. They left me there in the sand, waiting for the tide to come in and wash me away. Mab saved me and raised me in the Winter Court as her own.”

  “Why would your parents do that?” I ask. I can imagine her, a swaddled baby on the side of the sea, crying at a grey sky as the rain pelts down and the foam of the tide pulls farther in. And then there’s Mab, dressed in black and gossamer purple, sweeping down just in time to rescue the struggling thing from drowning.

  Penelope smiles, and it’s easily the saddest smile I’ve ever seen. She doesn’t say anything, just raises one hand and flexes her fingers. Scales ripple from her flesh, glimmering pale-blue and soft. A shake of the wrist, and they’re gone.

  “We Shifters, we can’t always control our forms, especially not as children.” She looks at me. “I was lucky. In my day, children like me were considered changelings — faeries switched with mortal babies. They believed that the only way to get their true child back was to burn the impostor. Or worse.”

  I swallow and stare at her and can’t help but wonder just how many other Shifters were killed by their own parents by mistake.

  “What was it like in Mab’s Court?” I ask. I want to steer the subject as far away from murder as possible. After last night, the idea of Mab’s nightmarish home is both intriguing and terrifying. I can’t imagine someone like Penelope, someone clearly more comfortable in posh digs, growing up surrounded by such lecherous monsters. Maybe that’s why she pretty much keeps to herself. Ignorance is bliss.

  I should know.

  “It was so long ago,” Penelope begins, and I expect her to wave the question away. She doesn’t. “But Mab’s Court isn’t something one can simply forget. She made sure of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Penelope rustles around in the nightstand beside her bed and pulls out a necklace. It’s a simple silver chain, and on it hangs a diamond that glints as black as night. She loops the chain in one palm and holds it out to me.

  “This,” she says.

  It’s the second time in twenty-four hours that someone’s handed me something without explanation. Fool me twice…I eye it, not moving to take it from her.

  “It won’t hurt you,” she says with a small smile. “One of Mab’s jewelers made it for me. It’s hewn from the very walls of her castle.”

  I still don’t move.

  “What’s it do?” I ask.

  “So suspicious,” she says, though the smile doesn’t fade. “It’s a memory stone. It allows me to record and recollect my history. Otherwise, I’d have trailers and trailers of diaries.”

  “You sure you want me to know all that?”

  She laughs.

  “It will only show you what I want it to.”

  She motions her hand once more. I take a deep breath. Hopefully she’s never been to the Tapis Noir…

  The stone drops into my palm. It’s warm and tingling and as the heat spreads up my arm, the world grows black.

  A few blinks and my vision clears. The light is dim and pale blue, like all the light is diffusing through blocks of snow. Penelope is standing beside me, but she’s barely there, just a flicker of a figure. When I glance down, my hands are just as ghostlike. We’re in a hall made of arching black stone. Blue flames flicker along the wall, the fires contained within giant crystals. Plush white carpet lines the hallway, and although the air is as warm as the trailer, everything looks frozen, from the glossy walls to the way the carpet piles like freshly fallen snow.

  “This was the main hall,” Penelope says. Her voice is clear, but seems to be coming from far away. I look at her apparition as she talks. Her lips don’t move.

  I blink, and now she’s standing a few feet away. Another blink, and she’s even farther. I move to catch up. The motion is jerky, like I’m a character in a broken film reel. I only see the hall blink past in flashes.

  Moments later we stand before a large set of doors. They spread from wall to ceiling to floor, made of dark black wood inlaid with silver in curling thorned filigree. She pauses, one hand pressed to the door. She looks at me.

  “Would you like to see the birth of the circus?”

  I can’t imagine any other reason to be here, so I respond with a muted, “Yeah.”

  She looks back to the door, a staccato flicker of her head.

  Then she’s gone.

  I look at the door that stands easily three times my height. I put a hand to the wood. I push.

  I’m inside.

  If the hall was large, this room is beyond comprehension. To say it’s a cavern is an understatement, but that’s the only thing my mind can connect it to. The ceiling domes up, way up, hundreds of feet above. The entire thing is illuminated by crystals and flickering lights that zip around like fireflies. The light falls like snow, dusting down to the floor and fading into the white carpet. Stalactites and stalagmites reach down and up like teeth on all sides, their surfaces carved and inset with silver like the doors. More tiny lights flicker around the formations. And there, sitting right in the center amid a wall of silver stalagmites, is a throne the height of a house. The actual seat rests a good twenty feet from the ground, sitting atop a disturbingly thin spire of stone. The chair back is silver and crystal, the arms ebony and ice. Mab sits there in a dress of white silk and fur. A crown of black ice sits atop her head.

  “Your Majesty?” a young girl asks. She stands at the foot of Mab’s throne. A few steps closer and I can see her clearly. It’s a younger Penelope, with the same blazing red hair and porcelain features. There’s a doll in her hand, one with wings and glittering green eyes. Then the doll twists its head toward me, and I jump back.

  “We have traveled the world together, yes? And you’ve enjoyed it?” Mab asks. I can’t help but stare in awe at this incarnation of Mab. She looks every inch a regal queen, from the crown on her head to the hem of her dress that dangles ten feet below the edge of her throne. She is nothing like the debaucherous M
ab I know, but there’s a power they both share, a presence that tells me they are without question one and the same.

  “I have, my Lady,” Penelope says. Her voice is perfectly composed — not a hint of fear or doubt.

  “But you’ve grown lonely,” Mab purrs. “You desire friends.” She seems to regard the doll in Penelope’s hand. “Real friends.”

  The young Penelope pauses. Apparently, even at an early age, she knew Mab’s offers usually had a hook. Or twenty.

  “Yes, my Lady.”

  “Then perhaps I have a solution.”

  Mab waves a hand and the carpet at the young Penelope’s feet ripples, as though the floor is trying to push its way through. Peaks form and colors melt across the fabric as the carpet becomes a series of tents in blue and black. Tiny shadows move about the tents, and I can hear the sound of applause.

  “What is it?” the young Penelope asks.

  “Your new home,” Mab replies. “I have decided our show is too informal. My scouts in the mortal realm have confirmed that Philip Astley’s show is a great success, and I feel it is in our best interest to follow suit. We are creating a circus.”

  The young Penelope leans in to examine the tents.

  “Imagine it,” Mab says. She floats down from her throne and kneels down opposite Penelope. “An entire show filled with people like yourself — fey and mortals and divinities. Every act a sensation, every performer a new friend.”

  As I listen, I can’t help but wonder if this softer side of Mab still exists, or if it’s been hardened over the years. Could she really have created an entire show for Penelope? Or was that only a ruse to make Penelope feel better about being forced to join?