Pantomime

by Laura Lam

  The afternoon had lengthened. The workers were erecting the tents that contained the smaller acts, calling out instructions to each other. In the big top, the clowns applied makeup, plastering each other in white and exaggerating features with their color of choice. The strongman tested his weights before setting them down with a clatter on the stone. Tauro the bull-man sat in the stands next to Juliet the Leopard Lady, rolling a ball idly between his large hands. Karla curried the amber and gold Kymri horse, speaking with Tym. She rested a hand on Tym's shoulder and kissed his cheek, and I realized that they were married, or close enough to it.

  A woman with a solemn face was fiddling with a metal machine as big as a book in her hands. I craned toward her. This must be Frit – the ringmaster's wife. She saw me looking and gestured me over. She was the first person to actively seek my company aside from the aerialists and the white clown.

  "Hello," I said, suddenly shy. I held out my hand. "I'm Micah."

  She gave me a wan smile. Arik had said her face was sour, but to me she looked sad and tired. She had long, mousy hair tucked into a scarf. Small wrinkles outlined her eyes, and she wore no cosmetics. "The whole circus knows who you are, child. We don't get that many new members." Still, she took my hand and squeezed before letting go. "I'm Frit, as you probably know."

  I nodded. "What is that?" I gestured to the bit of machinery in her hands. The square metal box was blue-black, covered with swirls and characters, with several knobs along the top. It was obviously Vestige – leftover technology from the Alders, who disappeared centuries ago.

  "It's the weather machine for the circus. It's acting a little strange," she said.

  I felt disappointed. "So the lightning and the clouds weren't magic?"

  She chuckled. "Depends on what you call magic, I suppose. I don't know how it was made, and I suspect you don't as well. Who's to say they didn't create it with magic?"

  "Is it broken?"

  She shook her head. "I don't think so." She pointed to a knob. "It's not turning properly, so sometimes the lightning doesn't go off. I think it just needs a bit of oil." She massaged some oil into the machine with a rag. The knob twisted easily in her hand. "Should we try it again?" she asked.

  "I think so. Want to make sure it's working properly for the show, right?"

  "Of course," she said knowingly. "It'd never be because a young lad wants to see a storm inside, now would it?"

  "Of course not."

  We shared smiles. I decided I liked her.

  Frit stood up and clapped. "I have to test the weather machine!" she called.

  The clowns, makeup intact, paused in their tumbling and bumbling and lounged against the stands. Karg set down his weights. Tauro ceased rolling his ball and Juliet the Leopard Lady crossed her arms over her chest, her dappled hair falling over one shoulder. Karla and Tym led the horse out of the tent, so the thunder would not frighten it.

  Frit turned the knob on the left. The machine hissed and fog emerged from a small hole in each side. Within moments, the big top was lost in the sweet smoke. I could barely see Frit as she twisted the knob on the right and then the middle. Lightning flashed, blinding us, and the same temporary stars glittered at us before dissipating with the smoke. The clowns, the Leopard Lady, the Bull Man, and the Strong Man all clapped, along with the newest aerialists' apprentice.

  We all ate dinner quickly, starving after our afternoon of hard work.

  I won three whole spoonfuls of stew from Cook, and the stunted heel of a stale brown loaf. I even managed to nab an apple for dessert. While it was still not as much as I wanted, at least my stomach did not grumble after I had finished.

  Bil was in a good mood that evening. Earlier, he had seemed moody and surly as he barked out orders to his employees. He might have been drunk, judging by the red eyes and the ever-full tankard by his plate. He spoke loudly enough for the entire circus to hear his dinner conversation.

  "Frit, my love, light of my life, saved the circus for us, today," he said, gesturing at her. Two spots of color appeared in Frit's cheeks, but she did not say anything.

  "For what is our circus of magic without our perfect opening of thunder and lightning, eh, I ask you?" he paused. "Nothing, that's what!"

  Some people exchanged dirty looks at this. "Oh aye, we have the most talented performers in all of dear El lada," Bil recovered, "but the magic… the magic is what sets us apart from Riley & Batheo's Circus of Mundanities, for all the gold marks in their safe. It's wha' makes the children starry-eyed and begging their parents to come back the next day. The lightning is the key. It… transports 'em.

  "And so I have my dear wife, Frit, to thank for bringing the magic back into the circus, as she brought it back into my life." He slapped his hand over his heart. Behind him, the yellow clown Fedir pantomimed puking. I hid a smile with my hand.

  "A little applause, please, for my fair lady," Bil said, and the whole circus clapped. Bil clasped Frit's hand and made an elaborate bow before kissing her fingers. Frit smiled and acted bashful, playing the part for the audience. But it did not ring true. Her smile was tight, her eyes nervous, and she kept rolling her shoulder. Though it was billed as playful banter, there was more under the surface. Judging by Arik and Aenea's crinkled brows, I was not the only person who thought so.

  Frit made eye contact with me, and my suspicions were confirmed. She looked trapped.

  7

  SUMMER: THE GHOST & THE

  SNAKE CHARMER

  "The Lord of the Sun and the Lady of the Moon said: We brought human dreams to life for them. We named them 'Chimaera'."

  from THE APHELION

  I watched the circus again that night of the Penmoon.

  I sat in the best stand in the house and felt as amazed as I had the previous night. After setting up the props, I knew the secrets to some of the tricks, but it did not matter. Though I had seen the weather machine in operation not an hour before, I still enjoyed seeing it again. Knowing that the fire eaters spat paraffin only made it all the more exciting and dangerous. I knew that when the tumblers first came on the stage they would soon make themselves into a human pyramid. I clapped, though an amused look from Aenea stilled my hands as she bowed at the end, the braid of her hair falling forward and the beads of her costume glinting in the light of the glass globes.

  After the show, I wandered through the carnival again. This time I went to Nina the snake charmer's tent, and I did not have to pay at the door. The audience crowded each other in the tent, smelling of coal dust, grease, and human sweat. A worker switched on a cheap gramophone. Byssian music played – brass and nickel instruments, large drums, and twanging strings. It made me think of sunsets and yellow eyes and deep growls in dark jungles. Nina sidled onto the stage, swathed head to toe in scarves lined in painted wooden beads. I could only see her serpentine eyes, smudged with black and green.

  Nina slid a scarf from her stomach and its wooden beads rattled together. Another scarf slipped, showing intricate henna tattoos along her left arm. Her fingers undulated, beckoning to people in the audience. Mostly men surrounded me, though I saw more women than I had thought I would. Another scarf fell to the floor. The other hennaed arm rippled into view, along with the tail of a bright green snake. The crowd gasped.

  Nina slithered free from her scarves, revealing her face, stained with more tattoos, and black hair in thick braids to her waist. Her stomach was bare, but the rest of her was well-covered. Though erotic, the show was probably very different from what was on offer in Sal and Tila's tent. While over forty, Nina had a beauty that was wise and confident. With her darker skin and hair, I guessed she was half-Elladan and half-Kymri. Her gaze held secrets.

  Her body moved in time with the music. The snake, as thick as a tree branch in its middle, curled about her neck and arms. I had never seen a snake like this before, even in books, and did not know whether or not it was poisonous. Men and women alike sat still and silent as she danced, mesmerized by her movements.

 
Nina untwined the snake from her neck and arms and slid it hand over hand into a wicker basket on the stage. Those in the front row backed away. From somewhere under her scarves, Nina pulled out a small wooden flute stylized to look like a snake and began to play. Her fingers danced along the rainbow of scaled reptilian keys. The snake poked its head up from the basket and swayed with the slow tempo she built. My own eyes grew heavy. Nina and her snake mirrored each other's movements as gracefully as any court dance.

  The music stopped and I shook my head, taking a moment to remember just where I was. I wanted her to keep playing and the snake to keep dancing, to hypnotize me into forgetting my troubles. Nina bowed and passed a hat around. I would have given her some money, but I had none to offer.

  I left the tent, the snake music still echoing in my mind. I found myself humming the tune as I explored the carnival. I came upon a tent that had escaped my notice the previous night: the Pavilion of Phantoms. The black canvas tent hunkered behind the others. Another Vestige fog machine or, more likely, the far more economical card-ice in water must have been spirited away inside it. Fog unfurled from the bottom of the dark tent, as though it had just been set aflame and then extinguished.

  Again, I did not pay at the door. Fewer people attended this tent. The air felt colder inside, and another gramophone played echoing, ghostly music. Thin scraps of ragged grey veils fluttered in an unseen wind. I walked through ankle-deep fog. Haunting motifs in luminescent paint decorated the interior of the canvas, depicting pale ghosts with nothing but black holes where their eyes should have been. There were twisted trees, whose branches seemed to grasp the tattered clothes of the ghosts. A full moon with the hint of a sad face in its craters. Two solitary candles, set well within the middle of the tent and surrounded by small fences, were the only source of light, and their flickering flames made the ghosts painted on the walls appear to move.

  Five others were with me in the tent – two coal miners, the soot forever stained into the grooves of their hands; a middle-aged couple who were probably merchants, judging by their tidy but unassuming dress; and an older man with a beard halfway down his chest who I could not quite place.

  Another gust of wind caused the candles to sputter. The music grew more wailing, and then a disembodied voice began to speak. Though I knew it must be another bit of Vestige, it frightened me terribly – a high, thin voice that spoke in three tones at once, using a language that hardly anyone in the world knew how to speak anymore: Alder, the dead language of the Old Ones.

  Fog swirled into a thin cyclone between the two candles. The voices grew louder, the different tones overlapping with each other until they did not even sound like they could be words anymore. The merchant's wife clutched the arm of her husband. The coal miners and the old man seemed unperturbed by events.

  The fog cleared, and a ghost of a girl stood among us. Though not superstitious nor particularly religious, I whispered an incoherent prayer to the Lord and Lady, just in case. I nearly ran out of the tent, but I knew that the circus was all about illusion. This could not have been a ghost, as much as she looked like one.

  I have seen false ghosts before. Mother once attended a séance at her friend's summer estate and forced me to come. The ghost that had appeared had obviously been made using an illusion. I researched it afterwards, and it involved mirrors and light, smoke and shadows.

  But this girl did not look like an illusion; instead, she looked so alive, so present, aside from the fact that she was nothing but shades of white and blue and I could see through her. I looked about to see if there was any sort of projection, but if there was, it was too cleverly hidden. I could see every hair on her head and the down on her cheek. I wanted to reach out and touch her, to see if I would feel warm flesh, or only air.

  She was not human. She was taller than I, and looked to be in her twenties. The proportions of her face were more Alder – larger eyes, higher cheekbones, elongated limbs. Strange tattoos dotted her hairline and traced the line of her neck. She wore a simple white gown that trailed the floor and disappeared. But she was not entirely Alder. She was a Chimaera. Behind her rose the giant, gossamer wings of a dragonfly. They were glistening and iridescent, and she flapped them soundlessly. She stared straight ahead, looking thoughtfully at something above our heads. The recorded voices lowered and disappeared.

  A man dressed in a black hood and cape stepped out of the darkness. All five of us started and stepped back. He looked like Death.

  "Friends of the afterlife," he intoned, and I recognized the gravelly voice of Wicket, a circus worker. I relaxed, despite my fear. This was nothing but another Vestige illusion. "I present to you the Phantom Damselfly. She was once a princess of the Chimaera, next in line to inherit the throne of the Dragonfly people. But she fell in love with the wrong man, the son of the rival family, and her parents would not condone the match. One night, the young prince flew into the castle of his lady love. But the king was waiting for him instead of his beloved. The king had a powerful temper, and challenged him to a duel.

  "They fought across the room; the only sounds the clash of steel sword on steel, the panting of breath, and the stomp of their feet. The prince lost. The king cut off his wings and threw him from the tower, and the suitor perished.

  "The princess never recovered from the tragedy. The night before her arranged wedding to another prince of her father's choosing, she tied her wings to her torso and jumped from a tall cliff, disappearing beneath the waves. But even death did not bring her solace, and her spirit wanders still, all these centuries later. She may never find peace."

  I had no doubt that the story was a fiction but it was sad nonetheless. And she did look mournful. The hooded man retreated into the shadows.

  The Damselfly shook her head, as though awakening. She paced in a slow circle, head bowed deep in thought, her wings flickering. One wing caught a candle flame, which did not waver. The other people in the tent backed away further from the ghost, their faces blank with wonder.

  I stepped forward. I could not shake the feeling that she looked almost familiar.

  "Oh, do be careful!" the merchant woman whispered from behind me. "She could steal your soul. They say that dragonflies weigh the soul for the Darkness."

  I ignored her and took another step.

  The ghost stopped her pacing and her head snapped up, her eyes focusing on me. My mouth opened in shock. She was definitely looking at me, not in my general direction. She cocked her head. I shook like a leaf.

  "My, but it has been a long time since a Kedi came to see me," she said, and I could not be sure if she was speaking Elladan or Alder. But I understood her. My breath came in gasps and I stumbled away from her. Her gaze followed me. She flicked her wings, once.

  "I thought you might hear me," the ghost said.

  "Did you hear that?" I asked the others.

  They looked at me curiously. "Heard what, dear?" the merchant's wife asked.

  "She… spoke. She said something to me. You didn't hear her?"

  They shook their heads. "She… spoke to you?" the old man asked, his voice wavering. "Just now?"

  "They won't hear me, little Kedi," the Chimaera ghost said. "Very few can hear me when I speak. You are the first in such a long, long time."

  My breath left my lungs in a rush. I clapped my hands over my ears. "No!" I ran from the tent, leaving the ghost and the shocked customers behind.

  I sprinted to Arik's cart, locking the door behind me and diving under the covers, shivering in abject fear. I almost expected her to follow me, to see the ghost shimmer in the cart. I tried to control my breathing, but it was a long time before I stopped gasping.

  I must have imagined it. There was no possible way a Vestige ghost actually spoke to me. It was some sort of cruel prank from someone in the circus. She was a real woman in makeup and mechanical wings that had been projected into the tent with mirrors. But how would they ever have heard the term Kedi, the term I had so recently learned myself?

 
I rifled in my pack and took out the little soapstone figurine a man named Mister Illari had given me, not long before I joined the circus. He told me a story about a being that was worshipped as a minor god in the backwaters of Byssia. A being called a Kedi.

  I ran a thumb over its crude features before tucking it back into the bottom of my pack.

  Sleep would not come, and I lay awake with only my thoughts for company. I pretended to be asleep when Arik entered after the nightly bonfire. Near dawn, I finally drifted into a fitful doze. I dreamed of snakes twining about my arms and legs, hissing softly in time with Nina's music. But then the snakes tightened, strangling me, and I struggled to breathe. I tried to call for help. Help came, but not the kind I wanted. The ghost Damselfly from the Pavilion of Phantoms hovered above me.

  "I know your secret, little Kedi. And I know what your future will bring. You poor thing."