The Immortal Circus (Cirque des Immortels)

by Kahler, A. R.

  “You don’t look a day over two hundred,” I say. “Must be all the popcorn.”

  He shakes his head, but he’s smiling nonetheless. Again, he looks at me like I’m amusing. But there’s something else behind it. Surprise?

  “What did you do?” I ask. “Why did you join?” Most of our performers were in a bind, Mab had said. What could Kingston have done?

  “Well,” he says. “I used to live in Salem.”

  “Oh.”

  He takes a deep breath and stares off at something past the bleachers. “Yeah. Oh. A little over three hundred years ago, I was being burned at the stake. I’d accidentally lit someone’s pig on fire, which sounds much funnier in hindsight. At the time, when I didn’t realize I actually was the type of person all the menfolk were burning, it freaked the shit out of me. I was found out, given a trial befitting the times, and found guilty.

  “So there I am, bound to a pole in the town square, getting called every possible name for a bastard heathen. I was crying because I knew I was guilty and going to hell, but I didn’t want to die. But that doesn’t really mean anything to them, you know? Anyway, Mab must have been watching for some time, because a minute or two after they lit the kindling — bitch let me roast for what seemed like eternity — everything just…stopped.”

  He pauses and looks at me, clearly making sure I’m still following along. I am. Either he’s a good storyteller or I’ve got a vivid imagination: I can practically smell the wood smoke.

  “I mean, it’s like being in a movie. Everything’s on pause. I still remember there was a rotten tomato hovering like a foot away from my face. And then she appears out of nowhere in a puff of black smoke. Didn’t look anything like she does now. She was in her PVC boots and mohawk phase, even had a British flag as a belly shirt. Think Tank Girl but infinitely more badass. Certainly made the right impression.”

  I let the image of Mab dressed as a true punk seep in. It’s quite at odds with her current glamorous self.

  “She offered me a job then and there. Work for her and she’d not only set me free, she’d let me get revenge and teach me how to use my powers. I accepted, of course. I mean, it wasn’t much of a choice: burn an agonizingly slow death, or get out of jail free. At the time, I thought I was just hallucinating because after I’d agreed, everything started back up again. People were yelling, the tomato missed me by an inch. Then I realized the ropes on my hands were gone, and the fire didn’t seem so hot. That’s when the fire turned blue.

  “Everyone started screaming and trying to run away, but there were demon eyes in the flames and I heard Mab’s voice in my head. This is your power. Do with it as thou wilt.”

  “And?” I ask.

  “And I killed them,” he says, tossing the ball into the air. “All five hundred and forty-three of them. Men, women, children. All burned, just like they would have done to me.”

  I stare at him. My mouth is open, I’m sure, but I can’t close it. If he notices, he doesn’t pause to point it out.

  “It wasn’t until later, of course, that Mab set out the actual terms of my contract.”

  “Which was?”

  “One year for every life lost. So, yeah, I’ve killed before. And I’m paying dearly for it. Circus freak for life,” he says with a sigh.

  “I don’t remember any of that in the history books,” I say. Here I was, freaking out because I might have killed three people, and he’s killed hundreds. He doesn’t look like the type who’d have blood on his hands. But then I remember the way his eyes flashed when doing some of his more dangerous tricks. Not everything is as it seems. His words. He was definitely talking about himself.

  He just shrugs. “Mab’s good at misdirection.” The look he gives me is loaded, but I’m too wrapped up in the idea of him fricasseeing small babies to let it sink in.

  “Do you regret it?” I ask, shaking off the image. “Joining? Your contract?” In other words, killing all those people.

  “Hell, no,” he says, standing. “I’d do it again.”

  He tosses the ball into the air. At the top of its arc, it explodes in a burst of sparks and flutters away as a pearl-white moth.

  “You don’t fuck with a witch,” he says. “Ever.”

  With that, he strolls out of the tent, a slight, cocky bounce to his gait. I know I should be looking at him differently. He’s a killer. He’s here because he murdered a town. But then, I can’t say I’d have done much differently if the roles were reversed. Kill or be killed. Wasn’t that the most basic human instinct? Besides, it’s not exactly like I could crucify him for his past when I couldn’t even remember mine. He’s still the guy who promised to keep Mab from kicking me out, the guy who takes it upon himself to make sure Melody and everyone else is safe and happy. He’s still the guy I fell for at the start. I pick up the balls and then realize one thing: he never answered whether or not he’d kill me for trying to kiss him.

  A couple songs later, I stand up and leave the tent, dropping the juggling balls in a props basket backstage. There’s no one around — no one at the pie cart, no one in lawn chairs outside of their trailers. Everyone must either be inside their air-conditioned bunks or out at the watering hole. Hopefully, Mel found some of the eye candy she was after. I wasn’t kidding; one of us deserved some action, and since I clearly wasn’t going to be getting any from Kingston for quite some time, it might as well be her. Was there even anyone else in the troupe who was gay? Or was her only hope at getting laid outsourcing?

  As I head to the pie cart for water, a shape dodges in front of me, then another shadow close behind. Poe chasing a mouse.

  The cat pauses in front of me and turns its yellow eyes up to mine, the rodent forgotten. His front paw is still in a cast. Something in my memories shifts.

  “You can’t have him.”

  I spin around.

  Lilith’s standing behind me. She’s in a lacy white floral dress that makes her look like a doll, her head tilted to the side in that lost-bird manner she often has. There’s even a pink ribbon tied in her hair. The sight of her makes the air feel warmer, makes me take a half step back.

  “What?” I ask. Poe slinks around from behind me and curls around Lilith’s feet. She bends down and picks the cat up, then stands and looks at me dead-on.

  “You can’t have Kingston. He is too good for you. He is mine.” There’s nothing vapid in her voice. The contrast between her words and her appearance chills me to the bone. Not everything is what it seems here. Then what the hell is Lilith hiding?

  “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

  Her eyes narrow.

  “I won’t let you steal him away. I won’t let you do what the bad man did to him.”

  “Bad man?”

  “Bad man Senchan.”

  Her words fill me with fire, and as her brown eyes turn red, my vision burns. Smoke fills my nostrils, screams and crackling as Lilith is there on the field, burning the man from the Summer Court. Burning the fields and the Summer Fey within. Lilith, flames looped around her in cords, flames of her fingers, fire and wrath, and Senchan burning and screaming and cracking apart with corn-husk skin. And then Mab’s there, covering Lilith in a hug, and the fires die down and she’s whispering. My baby, my baby, stop now, please.

  I take a deep, shuddering breath. Bile rises in my gut. I drop to my knees and vomit, my hands clenching the ash-covered earth. Senchan, burning. Senchan, screaming. His ash is everywhere.

  “What…what did you do?” I manage.

  “Bad man,” Lilith says. There’s a smile in her words that twists my intestines. Pride. Sheer, contented pride. “Bad man gone.”

  She kneels down at my side.

  “You don’t look so well, Vivienne. You look weak. Kingston despises weak women. Which is why he will always choose me. Always.”

  She puts Poe on the ground beside me, and together they run off, disappearing into the cornfield like the damned.

  Mab opens her trailer door after
the second pounding knock.

  She’s in a black velvet-and-rhinestone blazer and velvet leggings. Her hair is bleached white today, and her green eyes spark at the sight of me. The air around her seems to shiver with shadows, but I stand my ground. Her trailer is completely dark; no candles, no walls, just shadow.

  “Vivienne,” she says. “I thought I left you under Penelope’s watch?”

  “I remember,” I say. The words come out as a croak. My throat is on fire and every breath is sandpaper and flame. There are two worlds battling in my head, and my body is splitting apart at the seams. “I know about Senchan. I remember.”

  I don’t know how I expect her to react. Shock? Anger? Whatever it was, I wasn’t expecting her to smile and step back into the trailer.

  “Come in,” she says. Her tone grows motherly in an instant. “Let’s talk.”

  I step inside the trailer. The door closes behind me and all is black, black and empty, save for her hand on my back. Then a cool breeze blows past me, smelling of ice and dust, and a faint blue light flickers in the distance, then another. One by one, a host of candles blaze into life, their flames the blue of a summer sky. Her office materializes from the dark in tendrils of fog, wisps that solidify into an ancient wooden desk, four walls, two chairs, and a bookshelf that covers the entire back wall.

  She guides me into the seat and settles herself in the plush velvet chair behind her desk. Memories of my first time in this very chair settle on my shoulders, but there’s no time to feel at home. Something is wrong, very wrong, and I’m not going to be kept in the dark any longer.

  “So,” she says, leaning back to prop her stiletto boots on the desktop. “Talk.”

  The words are tumbling around in my head but I can’t seem to pick one to start it all off.

  “I know,” I say again. “I remember him. Senchan. The Summer Court.” I take another shuddering breath as I try to think back without losing it — either the memory or my lunch. “I know Lilith killed him. I saw what Lilith is.”

  Mab smiles.

  “I find that highly unlikely,” she says. “But pray tell, what, exactly, did Lilith do?”

  “She burned him. There was fire. A lot of fire. Lilith burned Senchan alive. And all the fey in the fields. She killed them all.”

  Something flickers across Mab’s eyes, but it’s gone in an instant.

  “That is quite a statement,” she says. “Especially since you seem to be the only one who saw such a thing.”

  That’s when reality dawns on me, the memory of Kingston not quite meeting my gaze when I woke up with snake venom coursing through my veins and dueling memories in my head. He knew. Worse, he knew that I was supposed to be in the dark. He lied.

  “You had him erase the memory,” I whisper. “From everyone.”

  “Apparently not,” Mab says. She eases her boots off the table and leans in closer to me, fingers laced together under her chin. “You seem to remember everything. Which is especially odd since — if we are to be completely honest now — you were passed out in his trailer when the incident took place.”

  “I…” I try to remember. She’s right. I know I’d been in Kingston’s trailer. I remember the blood trailing down his neck. I remember him shaking. And I remember Lilith, the two of us swearing to kill Senchan. Taking her hand… “I had a vision,” I say. The words taste strange on my tongue, almost tingling as I speak.

  “That,” she says, “is impossible.”

  “Why?” I whisper.

  “Because. Your contract expressly forbids your visions to manifest. That’s why you joined us in the first place.”

  I sit there in silence as she studies my face. Visions? I’m supposed to have visions? What happened to just being normal? Mortal? Or was that just a lie, too?

  What am I?

  “What are you talking about?” I finally ask.

  “Well,” she says. She leans back and snaps her fingers. “I suppose that now the cat’s out of the bag.” From the bookshelf behind her, a massive volume slips down and glides over to the desk. It flutters open in front of her. My name is at the top of the page, beneath the words Official Contract.

  Her finger slides down to one of the bullet points.

  “Paragraph 1C,” she says. “As part of her agreement, Vivienne Warfield shall have no recollection of her powers, past, present, or future, unless deemed necessary by Queen Mab or…”

  She pauses.

  “That isn’t right.”

  She looks up at me and her eyes are blazing.

  “You’ve been in my office.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve changed your contract.”

  “What? I — ”

  “You are lucky I still have use for you,” she whispers. Her voice is poison in the air. It fills me with fear and magic. “Otherwise, I would make you beg for mercy. What else have you done?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Get out,” she says. “And stay out of my sight until I call on you.”

  I don’t move.

  “Out!” she shouts. The entire room shakes at this, a minor earthquake, and the chair I’m in whips around and topples me to my knees. I stand. I don’t hesitate. I reach for the door and jump out into the sunlight, Mab’s rage a claw sinking deep into my skin.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: GUILT BY ASSOCIATION

  My first impulse is to run. Not just away from Mab’s wrath, but out of the circus altogether. The moment the idea crosses my mind, however, I feel something like iron clamp around my lungs. I stagger and fall to my knees, desperately trying to choke down air. My lungs burn, my eyes fill with stars. Then the idea floats away, and so, too, does the constriction in my chest. I gasp as oxygen floods me. I roll over onto my back and stare up at the blue, blue sky, breathing in deep lungfuls of oxygen.

  “Let me guess,” he says. A shadow falls over me, and I peer back to see Kingston standing there with his hands in his pockets. “You thought about dodging your contract.”

  My fists clench at my sides. I turn over and jump to my feet so I’m facing him eye to eye.

  “Contracts?” I say, my voice barely holding in all the rage and fear now cycling through me. “You want to talk about contracts?”

  He takes a half step back.

  “Whoa, easy tiger. I don’t know what Mab said but — ”

  “I know,” I say. “You don’t have to lie anymore. I know you know about me. My visions. Lilith. Senchan. I know everything was just an elaborate lie.”

  The moment I say it, I wish I could take it back. Because I know there’s more to the lie than just messing with my memory. That part I’m somewhat okay with — if I signed up for it, at least I had some say in the matter. It’s the things I can’t change, the things I didn’t agree to. Kingston pretending to care, toying with me. Melody pretending we were friends. Everyone in this godforsaken troupe pretending to be a family when we were all just watching our own backs. It’s all broken down now, shattering to the ground in fragments I’ll never be able to recover. No one cared. The only reason Kingston pretended he wanted me to stay was because Mab still needed me. Not because he liked me. Because I was useful. The thought makes my blood boil.

  Kingston’s usual smirk drops.

  “She told you?” he says. “What did she say?”

  “I think you know,” I say. My words tremble and I can barely contain the anger that wants to spill through. “You’ve been fucking with my memory. You made me forget Lilith and the fire. You’ve been messing around in my head!” The last bit comes out as a yell, the words echoing around the empty site. I half expect Mab to come out and escort me off the premises, but she doesn’t. No one comes.

  Kingston holds up his hands.

  “I only did what you told me to,” he says.

  “I never asked for you to erase my memory.”

  “You did,” he says. “I was there, when you signed your contract. When we laid out every single term and conditio
n, you wanted it all gone — your past, your visions, all of it. You begged me to take them away. I was there holding your fucking hand.”

  “No,” I say. His words open a floodgate.

  I shake my head, try to force out the new memories flooding in. Kingston, standing beside me at the desk, one hand on my shoulder. Are you sure about this? It wasn’t Mab who asked, it was Kingston. I put a hand to my head. The vision flickers in and out, fighting with the old memory, trying to fill in holes I hadn’t realized were there in the first place. There’s a ringing in my ears like a train coming down the tracks. And I’m pinned to the rails, waiting for it to strike and blow my mind to bits.

  “So you don’t remember everything,” he whispers.

  “Shut up,” I say, because every word is another memory, another lie to cover another lie.

  “I was the one who found you, Vivienne.”

  I drop to my knees and try to drown out the images, but I can’t, I can’t: Kingston walks down the street while I’m sobbing in an alley. He walks in, his clothes soaked but he’s still gorgeous with his faded jeans and deep brown eyes. When he sees me, he kneels down in the puddle beside me and asks my name, asks why I’m crying in an alley, and I can’t answer. He doesn’t wince at the blood on my jeans that turns the water pink, or the blood on my hands and in my hair. He puts a hand on the side of my temple and his touch is cool in a way that makes the pain feel better. His eyes go wide and he whispers, Oh.

  “No,” I say, my voice cracking. “What…is this?”

  “It’s what you wanted,” he says. He’s there at my side, I can tell. I can feel his shadow in the sun and his voice so much closer. “It’s what you asked for.”

  “How much did you erase? Why would you change my memory, make me think I was bitten when it was Lilith who nearly killed everyone?”

  “I had no say in that,” he says. “Lilith’s secret is written into everyone’s contract, except for mine. Mab decided it was safer that way. And I swear to you, I only erased the memories you wanted gone. I couldn’t change the fact that you wanted to forget all of them.”