by Mav Skye
She held the hatchet and scalp up in victory and walked from one side of the stage to the other, showing the audience that the scalp and hatchet were real.
They drew back in disgust, horror, and ultimately delight. When she’d passed by all the bleachers, the Clown Girl glided back to the center of the stage and stood by the dead Chief, still holding his scalp and the hatchet. The lights turned out, and the spotlight focused solely on her.
She curtsied again.
The audience rose as one and clapped. They laughed and jeered. They threw food and bottles. One almost hit her, and she had to step aside. She began to shake and shiver, and once more, the Clown Girl shoved the fear aside and focused on her mother’s voice. Dance! Dance! Dance!
The Clown Girl plied and leaped and pirouetted light as a feather, innocent as the sky, soaked in the Chief’s blood. As the audience’s claps began to fade, a violin began to play. This was the Clown Girl’s queue for the grand finale. The Clown Girl rolled the mask up from her chin and tossed it into the air. She removed the pins from her bun and let her hair fall to her shoulders. The audience sucked in their breath as one. She whisked off her bloody white silk jacket and lacy gloves, exposing her tanned skin, revealing that she herself was not white, but an Indian.
She had killed her own.
The audience let out their breath with surprise and shock, and then delight at the monstrosity of a small child murdering her kin.
They stood and roared, gold coins flicked toward the stage. The little Clown Girl waved like she’d been taught. She waved at the crowd as the man with the red nose dressed as a clown ran out from behind the stage, picked her up, and pretended to spank her and waggle his finger.
She grabbed at the bottom of her ruffled petticoat, and rubbed where he had spanked her, and stuck her tongue out in defiance as she had been taught.
The clown walked over and examined the Chief, then turned to the crowd and shrugged. Oh, well.
The audience laughed. The clown marched over to the girl, threw her over his shoulder and ran backstage as the audience stood and exploded into clapping once more.
The man with the long red nose plopped the girl into a dark corner as the other performers hustled to get out before the audience bored.
The Clown Girl sat cross-legged in her bloody dress, staring horrified at the scalp and hatchet in each of her hands.
A trapeze artist who also acted as The Bearded Woman glared at the Clown Girl with disgust and dismay. “You’re nothing but a monster.” She spat on the girl’s hair and disappeared.
The little girl dropped the hatchet and scalp and leaned back into the darkness, pulling her knees into her chest and wrapping her arms around herself, trying not to cry.
She imagined the horned serpent, beautiful and hated by the town people who didn’t know better.
The Clown Girl huddled deep into the tent folds, and, as the serpent, she was invisible once more, seeping into a sea of darkness where time stood still.
Chloe woke with a start. She opened her eyes to harsh light overhead. The blood pressure cuff swelled on her arm, and a light beeping noise accompanied it. To her right, Chloe was surprised to see Diana in the visitor chair. Her eyes were closed; head lolled back against the wall, her lavender shawl drawn closely about her shoulders. An open Dean Koontz book sprawled across her lap.
How long had Diana been there? How long had Chloe been out? Other questions jabbed her mind. Where were Wes and Tanya?
And… Why were there tears sliding down her cheeks? She moved to wipe away the wetness, and that was when she realized she was cuffed to the bed.
Chloe sighed and relaxed back into the pillow, thinking of the dream she had, though it hadn’t felt like a dream. It felt more like a memory, but not hers. Who was the little Clown Girl? She had the black and white mask and held a hatchet. Just like Mr. Jingles, though obviously the little girl was not Mr. Jingles.
Mr. Jingles…
“Ugh.”
A lithe nurse whisked into the room with a chart. Brandy was printed on her name tag. She wasn’t the same nurse from earlier.
Earlier. Chloe’s heart rate jumped when she thought of the clown she’d tackled. Had she killed him? Was that why she was strapped to the bed? Was she under arrest?
“And…she’s awake. And my, your heart rate.” Brandy, tucked her healthy blonde mane behind her ear, clicked her pen and scribbled on the chart, avoiding eye contact with Chloe.
Brandy asked, “How do you feel?”
“Tired.” And that was the truth; she felt she could sleep for a hundred years.
Like the horned serpent.
Her heart rate picked up again.
“That’s a wonder. You slept through the whole day.” The nurse set the chart down and slipped a thermometer into Chloe’s mouth. Meanwhile, she began to move the cuffs that held Chloe’s arms to the bed.
She mumbled around the thermometer. “A whole day?”
“Uh huh.” She set Chloe’s wrists free. “Better?”
Chloe nodded with the thermometer still in her mouth and felt relief when she could move her arms again. They were sore, not from the cuffs, but from slugging the clown. The bandaged wound on her forearm from where the clown with the hatchet had peeled off her skin the day before stung like a bee sting. Her knuckles were swollen, bruised, and even cut from bashing the clown’s teeth. The hospital staff must think she was looney—especially if they had checked her previous record.
The thermometer beeped, and Brandy plucked it from her mouth, looked at it, then popped the plastic covering into the trash can and replaced it back in the drawer. “That was quite some performance earlier.” Brandy clicked on a tiny pen light and flashed it in Chloe’s right eye.
Chloe said, “What do you mean?” But instead of words, her voice croaked like a frog’s. Her throat was dry.
The blonde nurse made eye contact with Chloe for the first time and smiled. “Water?”
From beside them came a voice. “Yes, please!”
Both the nurse and Chloe had completely forgotten about Diana. She was awake and alert. Her eyes were flashing with intelligence.
Brandy laughed and touched her collar bone. “You gave me quite a scare, Mrs. uh….”
“Hacksworthy.” Diana smiled, and when the nurse extended her hand, Diana grasped it and shook lightly.
Brandy said, “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Hacksworthy.” She checked Chloe’s IV as she said this. “Two glasses of water coming right up, and-d-d-d…” She dragged out the word almost flirtatiously, then touched Chloe’s shoulder playfully. “Then I want to hear more about what you and that clown were cooking up.” She grinned again at Chloe.
Cooking up? Bewildered, Chloe half-grinned back, and the nurse left the room. When the door clicked closed, Chloe turned to Diana. “What the heck is she talking about?”
Diana sat back and loosened the shawl about her shoulders. “The clown was called in from Carnival Circus to visit a little boy down the hall. The kid just had his appendix out. Anyway, the clown didn’t press charges.”
“He didn’t?” Chloe touched the scar on her forehead, then looked at her hand. There was still a little blood under her nails. Presumably the clown’s.
Diana shook her head. “Nope. Said you two ‘cooked,’” She used air quotes here, “the whole thing up. It was all an act.”
Chloe’s eyebrows shot up and her mouth fell open.
Diana nodded with a knowing look. “That’s what I thought. I can smell a rat when I see one and this clown is about as much of a rat as you can get.”
“But why would he say that?”
Diana closed the Dean Koontz book on her lap and patted it. “That’s what I’ve been asking myself. It just doesn’t make sense.” She glanced up at Chloe. “Or does it?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Diana tapped her nail on the book, drawing Chloe’s attention to the title, Deep Rivers of the Heart. “Have you read this story?”
; Chloe shook her head. “Haven’t heard of it.”
“Shame. The main character has similar challenges as yourself,” Diana said.
Chloe smirked. “He’s crazy?”
“No, no,” Diana shook her head. “Not crazy. Not at all. He has forgotten his past. The first half of the book, he is chasing a woman that he knows will change his life. He knows nothing about her or who she is, but it’s a good thing he follows her, because, about the time he starts tracking her down, his past catches up and hunts him down. He’d been dead if he hadn’t followed his intuition on pursuing the woman.”
“How does this apply to me?”
Diana sighed impatiently. “How is one to prepare for, or even build a future, if one can’t remember the past, Chloe? Everyone’s past catches up with them, eventually—that’s a well-known fact. What you need to decide is whether you’re going to keep running from it or face it head on?”
Chloe frowned at Diana, rubbing her scar.
“You need to look inside here,” Diana touched her chest, “and search for the thread that will connect you to what you need to know and pursue it. Have you met anyone like that?”
Chloe thought of the twins. As much as she wanted to trust them, they were still criminals in her care. Then a name came to mind: Joey.
She didn’t remember who he was, but his name felt right. Perhaps, he was the key to unlocking the door to her past. She nodded. “Maybe.”
“Good. Very good. Be in the moment and trust yourself, Chloe.”
The words startled her. Where had she heard them before?
“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
“I just heard one.”
Diana raised her brows high and glanced around the room.
“Not like that.”
“Oh,” Diana nodded, her silvered hair floating against her shoulders with the movement. “Of course.”
Chloe said, “I’m ready to learn what happened all those years ago. But it seems that whenever I have a flashback or when I see a clown, I either freeze up or go crazy. They keep sedating me…”
Diana pointed at her. “You go crazy and don’t even know why. Knowledge is the key, Chloe. When you know who you are and who your enemy is, then you’ll know how, and most importantly, when to fight back.”
“Fight? I don’t want to fight anymore. I am so tired, Diana.”
“The dark never rests, and that is why you must persevere. If you love your family, if you love your friends, then you must do this.” Diana clenched her fist and placed it over her heart. “You must fight the darkness that haunts you and the clowns—”
Chloe said, “The clowns that chase me.”
Diana nodded and repeated, “And the clowns that chase you.”
Chloe glanced at the book again, as if it held some secret message for her. Did it hold the secret to fighting away killer ghost clowns? She didn’t think so.
Diana snapped her fingers, bringing Chloe’s attention back to her. “Listen, the nurse will be back soon. This is what you need to know: your doctor, the staff, even Wes, they all bought into the clown’s story that you practiced the scene together.”
Chloe’s jaw dropped again. “Wes did?”
Diana nodded. “Even your Aunt. This is what I think: If you want to get out of here, you need to play along.”
“I could lose my job for lying.”
“You’ll lose your job for trying to kill someone.”
Chloe hushed at this.
“Don’t think of it as lying,” Diana suggested. “Think of it as keeping silent until we can figure out the larger piece of the puzzle. In the meantime, you’ll need to be brave, Chloe. You’ll need to remember.”
Chloe swallowed and nodded like a little girl. She said, “That man, in the book. Did he find the woman?”
Diana nodded.
“Did she help him remember his past?”
“Yes, but not in the way he expected.”
Intrigued, Chloe asked, “What happened?”
“That,” Diana said, tapping on the book once more and smiling, “is for you to find out.”
The nurse strolled back in with two plastic cups of water. “Find out what?” asked Brandy as she handed one cup to Diana.
Diana said, “We were talking about this book I’m reading. Have you?” She held the cover up to Brandy.
“Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that Koontz guy before,” Brandy shrugged. “But I don’t read much. I like the Twilight series.” She huffed on her baby pink stethoscope, checked her watch, and asked, “May I?” to Chloe who nodded as the nurse pressed the stethoscope to her ribs.
Diana asked, “So you do read?”
Brandy paused before putting the earpieces in. “No, no. I meant like the Twilight movies, not the books.”
“Oh,” said Diana with a sad note in her voice—as if the whole world would fall apart piece by piece because of a single person without a will to read.
“What’s that sad voice about?” the nurse said, watching her wrist watch while holding the stethoscope to Chloe’s chest.
Diana said, “Reading is the learning blocks of life. How else would one continue to grow from ignorance?”
“Uh, hello, the internet?” The nurse smiled at Diana with a touch of sarcasm in her face.
Chloe was amused by the exchange and felt a warmth for the older woman.
When Brandy turned back to Chloe and removed the stethoscope, she twirled her fingers at her temple slightly and tossed her head toward Diana. Chloe gave her a piercing look back.
Brandy smirked and produced a penlight and a tongue depressor.
Chloe opened her mouth, and Brandy pressed the tongue depressor and feigned to look at Chloe’s tonsils. Instead, she was glancing back toward Diana uncomfortably. She couldn’t stand to not be the princess in the room.
It was in this gleaned knowledge and body language that Chloe could read the young woman’s entire history:
Brandy was twenty-four years old. She had been raised upper class with everything she had ever wanted or needed, attended a prep school and practiced tennis two times a week with her friends. Brandy had a few years of education under her belt—and let’s be honest, she partied the whole time and barely passed her nursing boards. She was unmarried, and had no children.
Pretty blonde Brandy, she made fresh smoothies in the morning, worked out an hour in her personal gym—what else would you use that second bedroom for?—then spent an hour curling her hair and applying fake eyelashes. She drank martinis with girlfriends in the evening after work—when she wasn’t out shopping for matching shoes and handbags. Then, she enjoyed leisurely weekends, starting with yoga and ending with a facial at her favorite spa.
Popular Brandy, she tweeted her yoga and facials and smoothie ingredients. In fact, she tweeted about everything in her perfect life. She was admired and loved by practically the universe, she knew this because she had one hundred thousand followers, most of them she bought, but no one else knew that. Her review of Shanelli’s fake eyelashes was retweeted two hundred and twenty-five times and liked by eighteen hundred followers. This proved her legitimacy. And let’s not even get into how men loved her hot selfies taken with her selfie stick—and totally retouched to make her look three inches taller and maybe fifteen pounds thinner…because cameras add ten pounds. Everybody knows that!
Exotic Brandy, she made occasional rendezvous to Hawaii with hotties she met on her favorite online dating site. Quite frankly she wouldn’t bother dating the same men she met off the internet in her favorite vacation spots in her real life. In fact, she completely shied away from the idea. She stated to her friends—almost on a daily basis—that she was holding firm to the ideal of feminism (though if she were to be honest with herself in the dead of night, it was fear of intimacy that held her back from genuine relationships with men). Meeting hotties off the internet wasn’t the only reason for her little weekend trips, she’d occasionally go to a doctor in Mexico for a little nip, tuck, and lift. Her
friends always told her she was the perfect Barbie, and Brandy could not fathom ever growing old. Wrinkle? Ew. Stretchmark? Horrifying. Breast sag? Never. It would never happen to her.
Surely, with her full and free life, how in the world would Brandy ever find the time to sit and read boring books about dragons and violence? Weren’t all fiction books about that? Guns and swords are bad. Bad. Seriously, why couldn’t writers write characters more realistic? Brandy couldn’t think of any fiction characters at the moment, but she knew a few comic book characters. Take Batman and Joker. They sit down over a Starbucks and instead of fighting, they talk about serious matters like endangered species: black rhinos, Bengal tigers, the black-footed ferret—for fuck’s sake, the black-footed ferret was in danger of utter extermination. This was a crisis! Batman and Joker needed to face the facts of life and go out there and like…save the animals together. Humanely.
But forget all that. Here was Brandy’s real question on the subject of reading: Why would Brandy want to read? Seriously! Brandy would tell you the answer to this and why she wouldn’t read—refused to read even! The reason she refused to lay a single pretty finger on a book was:
“Because of the fin whales, God damn it!” Brandy threw the tongue depressor on the floor and stamped on it. “They’re dying out there. In the water. Out there!” She pointed her finger at the closed door.
Chloe and Diane looked from the nurse’s finger to the door.
Diana pressed a hand over her heart. “There’s fin whales dying in this hospital?”
The nurse’s cheeks turned scarlet. “No! In the water. Never mind,” Brandy turned to Diana, her cheeks still crimson. “Here’s the thing, Mrs. Hacksworthy, I don’t have time to sit and read boring words about dragons and rainbows and princesses. There’s no purpose to it. I’d rather stay in the real world, where real things happen, you know?” She put both hands on her hips. The look on pretty blonde Brandy’s face said she knew far more about life than the other women in the room.
Brandy took a deep breath, then smiled sweetly as if her sudden outburst had never happened. She grabbed the clipboard and began to scribble.