by CeeCee James
My steps were heavy with dread. Surely, they’d discovered Claudette by now.
It was a little surreal when I noticed everyone still behaving normally. The rest of the acts continued while I watched from the sidelines. Then it was over, and the bright lights went up and all of us entertainers came out to take a bow. I stood and waved as the customers gathered their belongings—balloons, stuffed animals, popcorn—and herded crying kids to the exit.
Finally, the last customer left. The tent drew in a silence that only happened when the show ended. Maybe it was all of us taking in a collective tired breath at once.
I waited to hear mention of the missing bearded woman. But there wasn’t any.
The night wasn’t over yet. I grabbed a broom and began sweeping, while the tech crew climbed over the safety nets and checked them. One of my favorite circus workers, Jerry, caught my eye. He was a young guy who took care of the horses and dogs and cleaned up any messes.
I watched him now, whistling as he worked. I wondered if I dared to tell him about Claudette. But Jerry and I had never really spoken other than a few words in passing. He’d seemed just as shy as I was. I looked down at my broom and kept sweeping.
Around me, trapezes were checked, ladders were checked, everything was gone over for a spare bolt or lose screw. Finally, we all trudged out, clowns with drawn, tired faces despite the painted smiles, slump-shouldered trapeze artists, dancers with feathers bedraggled, rope walkers, and motorcycle stuntmen, we left as one. Weary, drained, and needing food.
It was in the chow tent that life poured back into us again in the form of baked beans and cut franks. There was also cornbread and salad and loads of soda and beer.
The Ringmaster frowned on too much beer, so it was mostly consumed in moderation. At least in public. But the crew all had sneaky Petes waiting back in their bunks to sip out of prying eyes.
After we ate, everyone would disperse, supposedly to sleep, but in reality to different card games and clandestine meetings.
I watched them all carefully. And I waited for the first scream.
For surely there would be one. The bearded lady was dead, after all.
I picked up my bowl of food, listening for any hint about her among the usual sounds of night conversation that rumbled around me. A sharp laugh to my left made me jerk. I chanced a glance to see Bill laughing hard, a beer in his hand. His face was flushed, looking like he had already pushed well past moderation.
I grabbed a spoon and tucked a water bottle under my arm. I could hardly believe no one noticed Claudette wasn’t around. Weren’t they curious where she was?
I sidled along the edge of the tent. The tables were already mostly filled. Two men were pushing each other good-naturedly over a spot that was left. One man stumbled back and fell into me. My bowl of hot beans spilled down his leg and all over the ground. The bowl clattered away under the table.
“Whoa! You serious?” The man asked me.
I recognized him as one of the construction crew who raised and lowered the tents.
“Sorry,” I said, and I apologetically smiled.
“Sorry, she says. Hey, isn’t this Lady Godiva?”
“Lady Godiva? Sure looks shy tonight!” said his friend.
“That’s her, I swear,” said the first one.
“Well, ain’t she something without her mask.”
The first one scraped at his leg with his boot while the other laughed.
I backed away, continuing to apologize, and ran for the exit. The men didn’t follow, having lost interest right after I ran.
I couldn’t take much more at this point. I decided to grab a few apples from the stable and head for my cabin.
That plan was thwarted by Becca who stood outside the stable door. She was talking to someone who was hidden by a scarecrow and a pile of pumpkins.
“Have you seen Claudette?” Becca asked.
Finally! I thought.
A man that I quickly identified as Jerry said no.
“I can’t find her anywhere,” Becca said, sounding worried. I ducked out of sight so she wouldn’t see me. I didn’t want to answer any questions, not now with people drinking. Like the mouse everyone said I was, I ran to my cabin to hide.
3
I ran to my bunkhouse spurred on by Becca’s words. Finally! People were realizing Claudette was missing! Nervousness balled in my stomach and sent prickles down my spine. I couldn’t tell if I was relieved, scared, or just plain hungry.
I could see light glowing from my doorway. My roommate must have left the door open for me. It never looked so welcoming. The steps to the door were always a challenge, but I managed to scramble up. Inside was Sally, the sword swallower. She sat at her table with a wad of cotton taking off her make-up.
We had a weird relationship. She was nice to me and the closest person I had here. But, in all honesty, I didn’t trust people very much.
Sally always proclaimed that she rather thought of me as a daughter, something she reminded me of whenever she was giving me advice. Constructive criticism, she’d like to call it, saying, “Trixie, I’m just trying to give you some good guidance here.” Her guidance usually was to highlight what I could improve on. Which was always a list a mile long.
But at the end of the advice, she’d sweetly tack on, “You’re like a daughter to me, Trixie.”
I wasn’t sure how old Sally was. She had a hard look that she tried to soften with makeup. Her hair had been bleached so many times it moved like straw when she brushed it. Of course, working around here had a way of aging a person beyond their years. I did know she had a son. She only mentioned him once to say he was serving time for a breaking-and-entering charge.
“If there’s one thing I always told that boy, it was don’t get caught. He should have listened to me, and you should listen to me now,” she’d told me at the time. She didn’t seem to be the sentimental sort. In fact, I didn’t even know what her son’s name was.
She wiped her red lipstick off now and eyed me in the mirror. “I heard you were late tonight, Trixie. What have I told you about that?”
“The Ringmaster doesn’t tolerate tardiness,” I said. I kicked off my shoes and stuck them in the basket under my bunk and then climbed up into the bed. Inserted in the walls were more baskets where I kept my few clothing items. I found a nightgown and began pulling my bathing suit off.
“You got it, girl. You want to be in charge of the honey buckets? Because that’s what happens to performers he doesn’t like. Toilet paper duty. And let me tell you what, you don’t want to be seeing what’s at the bottom of one of those.”
“No ma’am,” I whispered.
She went back to her lipstick. “That’s right. So now you tell me, what was it that was so darn interesting that kept you so late?”
My heart lurched in my chest. Do I tell her what I saw? I still hadn’t heard the alarm go up. I glanced at her now and a feeling of hope that I could trust someone flickered alive. Do it. Tell her. She’s there for you.
It sank back down as quickly as it had surfaced. I couldn’t do it. “Nothing much. It won’t happen again.”
“That’s what I want to hear. You’re a good girl, Trixie. That’s why I look after you.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Well, I think I’m going to get some sleep now.”
“Sleep well and don’t let them pesky bed bugs bite.”
I chuckled and whisked my curtain shut.
A few minutes later, the cabin’s light flipped off. I heard her bed squeak as she climbed in, and then the sounds of her rearranging her blankets. I chewed my thumbnail and waited for the noise of her heavy breathing that indicated she was asleep.
Why hadn’t I told her? Was it just lack of trust? Or was it because of the thing that I saw that had scared me out of my mind. Now, alone and in the dark, it came tickling back.
The black shadow that rose from the body and disappeared up into the rafters above. I’d nearly passed out at the sight of it.
I’ll be the first to admit, I was as superstitious as the next. I threw salt over my shoulder, I crossed myself if I saw a black cat, and I never walked under a ladder. I didn’t wish another performer good luck. That was something you’d say to someone you hated. None of that was unusual. The circus lived on dark warnings of stories of hauntings, ghosties and ghouls.
Stories were one thing. But I’d seen the shadow rise. It didn’t walk, it floated. And it left behind a dead body.
What if her body disappeared as well? My heart fluttered in my chest. What if the specter was coming for me next?
I gripped my pillow and rolled over in the bed. What was that prayer grandmother used to say when I was a little girl? The one where she held her beaded necklace. I tried to remember it.
“In heaven, as it is on earth,” I muttered. I buried my face in the pillow, smelling dusty feathers, and repeated the line over and over.
The door to our cabin crashed open. I jumped forward, my heart pounding. With a trembling finger, I parted the curtains to peek into the cabin.
Someone was there, but I couldn’t see who.
“Come here. Shhhh,” Sally whispered. “What are you, a caveman?”
I heard stumbling and a loud grunt, before she hissed again, “Shut that door, you buffoon.”
An arm was highlighted in the moonlight as it reached for the doorknob. A second later, the door slammed shut.
“Now come here,” Sally repeated again, her voice softer. Purring.
There was shuffling and a loud bump. A man groaned in pain.
“You okay? Don’t be breaking stuff out there. Come here, now.”
I heard more squeaking as he got into her bed. And then mumbling. And then more.
I laid back in and pulled the covers over my head.
“Now I lay me down to sleep,” I whispered. “On earth, as it is in heaven.”
Eventually, soft murmuring replaced the bed squeaking. There was the sound of a lighter and the scent of cigarette smoke.
“You hear the brothers have been snooping around? I bet they were here for that darn Claudette,” a man said. Who was that? Vincent?
“You still into it with them?” Sally asked. She sounded exasperated.
“I’m out. I’m almost out, anyway.”
“Don’t bring trouble around here,” Sally warned. “I’ve have enough of my own, I tell you.”
“I won’t. I swear, I won’t.”
The murmuring broke down into more kisses. Then Sally said, “All right, now. You got your cookie. Time to get out of here.”
“Aww, Sally,” his voice wheedled.
“Out,” she said firmly. “And next time, you bring those cigarettes I like. A full carton. Not these crappy ones made from the tobacco they sweep off the floor.”
He grumbled, and I heard more thumping as his feet hit the floor. The bed squeaked again as he lifted his weight off.
“Can’t see a darn thing,” he whispered.
I peeked through the curtain, but he was right. With the blinds pulled shut, it was black in the cabin. I saw his movement only as a dark shadow that slowly made its way to the door.
I wrapped my arms around to hug myself. The dark shadow was too close to comfort to what I’d seen earlier.
“He’s real. He’s not the ghost,” I whispered to myself.
“You see that, you buffoon? You done woke Trixie up,” Sally snapped. “Now get out of here before anyone sees where you’ve been.”
“I’m going, I’m going,” he whispered.
The door opened, and then he was a silhouette disappearing through the doorway.
Sally sighed. She stood, and I heard a click as she locked the door.
There were a few muffled footsteps. She hesitated outside my bunk. I lay down quickly and froze.
“You awake, Trixie?”
I held my breath. I didn’t want to answer.
The curtain twitched as though she were going to open it. I heard her breathing on the other side.
Time ticked slowly. I squeezed my eyes shut and breathed evenly.
Giving up, she walked over to her bunk and climbed into her bed. There was a rattle as she shut the curtains. After ten minutes or so, her breathing grew steady and deep.
I lay there, and all I could think about was how icy-cold a ghostie’s fingers must be.
“I will fear no evil. On earth, as it is in heaven,” I whispered into my pillow. “On earth….”
4
The next morning, sunlight bit into my closed eyelids, waking me up. Sally had thrown back my bunk curtains and was standing outside.
“Wake up, honey,” she said, her voice low and urgent. She nudged my leg. “You need to get ready.”
“What?” I asked, flinging an arm up to shield the sun. The door was open, with a breeze blowing inside.
“Get dressed. The Ringmaster says it’s critical.” She slid the curtain closed to give me some privacy. I sat up behind the dark fabric with my heart pumping. The Ringmaster wants to see me.
It was Claudette, wasn’t it? But why did the Ringmaster need to talk with me? There was no time to think. I scrambled into my long john top and then buttoned a flannel shirt over it. I wiggled into my jeans and rolled up the bottoms three times, then reached for my boots off the shelf. Quickly, I tied them.
“What’s going on?” I asked, my legs swinging over the edge of the bunk. I hopped down.
Sally was putting the finishing touches on of her mascara. Her eyes and mouth opened wide while she stroked her lashes. Her lips were like red gashes against her pale face, a testimony that her lipstick had already been applied.
“All I know is that he’s furious,” she said, dipping the wand in again. She drew it across her lashes a few more times then screwed it tight and tossed it on her desk. “Everyone’s been called.” She reached for her peacock blue scarf and wound it around her neck. Then she turned and appraised me.
“Darling, aren’t you just the funniest little thing. Well, come on.” She opened the door, and I followed as if drawn behind her in her wake like a canoe caught behind a ship.
We hurried to the big tent. Inside was crowded with people, with everyone from animal caretakers, to game attendants, truck drivers, and performers all gathered around a very angry looking Ringmaster. I swear, if stress had an odor, the air was thick with it. The crowd shifted continuously, like everyone was vying for position to stay hidden.
The Ringmaster spun in the circle that we made around him and stared as if it was his duty to meet each one of us in our eyes.
“Who knows why I’ve brought you here?” he finally asked. His voice was always low and dangerous sounding, and this morning it sounded even deeper. It reminded me of the beginning of a showdown, where his next words would be “draw your gun.”
No one answered him. The only noise came from the shuffling of feet and the clearing of throats.
“Does anyone know why you are here?” His voice unexpectedly cracked through the air like the whip he used in the ring.
I jerked in place. Now even the shuffling ceased. I felt like we were all holding our breath.
The Ringmaster’s gaze caught mine and I hurriedly looked away. My skin felt clammy and cold. He knows! Someone must have seen me last night when I found Claudette. Was I about to be called out? Every muscle in my body tightened under a boa constrictor of fear.
“We’ve had a death. A murder.” His voice was low again, but no less dangerous.
I nearly fainted at his words. It was what I expected. The reality of the situation finally being spoken out loud was almost more than I could bear.
Around me, an explosion of exclamations and gasps rifled the air. The Ringmaster waited until we were quiet again before he continued.
“It was Claudette, our beloved bearded woman. Many of you knew her as a friend. She’d been with this circus nearly ten years.”
His face paled, leaving two bright spots of red on his cheeks. It was then that I remembered the rumors of how close
the Ringmaster and Claudette had been. How could I have forgotten? Although the two didn’t act more than cordial to each other in public, it was whispered that he visited her cabin many times. In fact, it was one of the reasons why she didn’t have a roommate.
His hand closed into a fist by his side. It shook from emotion and tension. “I will find out who did this, make no mistake. And I will make them pay. Slowly. Painfully. ”
I swallowed hard, feeling guilty. I didn’t want him to make eye contact with me again, and shrunk down.
He continued. “Do not talk about this with outsiders. Do not go to the police. We will take care of it, ourselves. You know what happens to those who are…indiscreet.”
He turned, and the crowd parted before him and allowed him through.
Why was the Ringmaster so confident he would find the murderer? I knew what I saw—a hovering black shape. Floating in mid-air, until it disappeared out of sight.
Wait. Were there cameras? Can you catch a ghost on a camera?
A horrid thought came to me. No, you probably couldn’t catch a spirit on camera.
But was I on camera?
I felt queasy. What if the Ringmaster thought I did it? My hand flew to my throat, and I grabbed at my shirt collar. He would never believe me.
“Well, that was definitely shocking, wasn’t it?” Becca announced almost happily.
I lurched toward her, still in shock. “Becca, I don’t even know what to think,” I said, being honest for one of the first times to one of my co-workers.
“Nah, I’m kidding. This isn’t that shocking, not really. That girl had a lot of enemies. Although, I do have another theory.” Her eyebrows lifted at the last word.
“Theory?” My voice croaked.
“Yeah. Don’t you think her murder could be a direct hit toward the Ringmaster? Maybe someone trying to send a message to him.” Her voice lowered, and she licked her bottom lip. “I’ve heard the brothers have been around.”
That was the second time in as many days that I heard the brothers named. They were a pair of loan sharks that hung around places like ours. They gave advanced pay-day loans and other things. They took payment in fenced items, which was easy in this industry. We had our share of pick-pockets too, but the Ringmaster kept a short leash on that. He didn’t want the cops to be snooping around for chump change. He always told us if he caught us pick-pocketing we’d be horsewhipped and thrown out in the streets. And I believed him.