A Circus of Brass and Bone

by Abra SW

  Lacey trotted up, riding the white mare she favored. She reined in when she saw the spectacle presented. “I see the mayor was not exaggerating.” She ran her fingers along the brim of her hat, checking its straightness, and then pointed at a wide swath of green inhabited by only a couple of squatters. “That will do nicely. I’m sure they can be persuaded to move in exchange for free tickets.” She glanced at the sky. “We had better hurry. There’s not much time to get everything set up before sundown.”

  That there wasn’t. As soon as the roustabouts raised the tent he shared with the other human oddities, Jonathan unfurled the canvas poster painting of “The Skeleton Man”—a flattering likeness, despite the attenuation of his waistline—and hooked it onto the rings at the top of the tent wall. He arranged his extra-wide chair (the better to appear narrow next to, my dear), and set his fife on the footstool beside it. A little pipe music helped to lure in the townies, and the long narrow instrument contributed nicely to the skeleton man act, just as his tall stovepipe hat did.

  Then Jonathan made himself scarce, lest he be drafted into the war against the setting sun. Tent men unloaded the big top’s center pole, attached ropes to it, and pulled. Once they’d raised the king pole, they hitched draft horses to the smaller poles and levered them up into alignment while stake men pegged down the base of the tent and canvas men laced together the pieces of canvas to form the walls. Too much was going on, in too short of a time, for any available hand not to be drafted, so Jonathan took himself and his hands off to lurk in the shadows among the animal cages. The animal handlers had eyes only for their charges as they soothed them, fed them, and prepared them for their acts. Jonathan found a darkened corner between the hippopotamus and the alligator wagons and settled down on a straw bale to wait.

  When he heard voices on the other side of the hippopotamus, he peered around the corner. The hippopotamus flicked an ear as if to shoo away a fly, but didn’t give him away.

  The fortune teller and Ginger the clown had buttonholed the equestrienne. Behind them, the snake charmer lifted her giant boa from the glass-sided wagon and draped him over her shoulders. “There, there, Goliath,” she cooed, as she stroked the snake’s head.

  “Who do you think the new ringmaster should be?” the clown asked Lacey.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Shouldn’t we vote on it?”

  “There’s hardly time, dearie,” the fortune teller said.

  The snake charmer turned from stroking her boa, clearly interested in the conversation. “Why not you?” she asked Lacey. “You have authority in the ring.”

  “A woman? Don’t be absurd. They would boo me out,” Lacey said briskly.

  “Somebody has to be first.”

  “Not today. Today has to be the show as usual. We need a man.”

  “With a fine suit,” the fortune teller said. “And some authority in his presence.”

  Jonathan drew himself up, fluffed out his frock coat, and straightened his cravat. He was about to step forth from the shadows when Lacey said, “The doctor!”

  He deflated.

  “An excellent idea! I’ll ask him directly.”

  Jonathan sulked away.

  Miraculously, the circus came together just as the sun lowered to the horizon. The tents were raised, the posters hung, the freaks in their positions, the menagerie arranged, the acts prepared, the performers in costume, the lemonade seller fully juiced, and the barkers poised to unleash their spiel.

  The circus was ready to awaken wonder and delight—and now, oddly enough, a sense of normality.

  ~ * ~

  William McCormick

  Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts

  Earlier that morning.

  When William’s mam saw that he’d brought Robert and Lena back to Dr. Fallon’s house, she opened her arms and said, “Oh, poor children! Come here!”

  Lena ran to her and burrowed under her arm like a rabbit. Robert took stiff, jerky steps until he stood beside her. When she wrapped an arm around him, he bowed his head and his shoulders shook with sobs that he didn’t let himself voice. If hugging them hurt her ribs, William’s mam didn’t show it.

  William wanted to curl up in his mam’s arms. He wanted to tell her about all the awful things he’d seen and let her kiss it better. But the words couldn’t fit past the lump of indigestible anger in his throat. It choked out his happiness at finding his mam doing better, and his relief that Robert and his sister still lived, and his gratitude to Dr. Fallon for tending to his mam.

  So he didn’t say anything. He just went and sat on the floor beside his mam’s chair, leaned his head against her knee, and closed his eyes. The gentle rise and fall of her voice washed over William.

  After the other two children were all cried out, she took them into the dining room. Robert and Lena fell upon the boiled potatoes, cold meat, and rolls. By the time the pace of their eating slowed, their eyes were closing. William’s mam led them into a servant’s bedroom, empty for reasons that none of them asked, and tucked the two into bed. It was barely afternoon, but Robert fell asleep between one breath and the next. He must have been exhausted from standing guard over his little sister all night, knife in hand.

  William’s mam sat in a chair beside the bed. William lay down on the carpet but kept his eyes open. He feared the dreams that sleep would bring. Eventually, he heard his mam’s breathing slow and deepen. He stared at the ceiling and tried to think of nothing. His body ached with tiredness, but he didn’t close his eyes. When he found his mind drifting and his eyes shut, he opened them again as fast as he could.

  After an eternity or two, William’s mam woke. She stood and moved around the room, straightening a picture frame here or dusting a shelf there. When the rustling of her skirts woke Robert and Lena, she led them back to the kitchen. William trailed wordlessly after. She washed their hands and faces with a pitcher and basin, she brewed another pot of hot tea, and she began cooking soup. Robert and Lena kept close to her skirts. William sat in the corner. Once or twice, his mam looked at him with a concerned furrow between her brows. When Lena burst into a storm of tears, however, all his mam’s attention went to the current catastrophe and William was able to exit unnoticed.

  He flitted from one room to another and another. He couldn’t settle. He picked up Dr. Fallon’s knickknacks and set them down again. He sat on the couch, but only on the edge and only for a moment. He climbed the stairs, leaving a trail of squeaks behind him. On the landing, he stopped and gazed out over the lawn.

  His not-sleep had felt like eternity. From the position of the sun, it had actually taken most of the afternoon.

  The majority of the refugees camped out on Dr. Fallon’s lawn had vanished. A steady trickle of those who remained were shouldering their burdens and marching off, like ants forging a trail to a new nest. Soon, only the injured would remain.

  “Where are they going?”

  William jumped. Robert had come up behind him and caught him unaware. “Where’d you come from?”

  “I followed the noise,” Robert said mildly. “You Irish can’t do anything quietly.”

  An urge to laugh bubbled up inside William, but it didn’t seem right, not looking out over the dying city. He smothered it. “They’re going to the Common. Plenty of room for everyone, and it’s safe.”

  “They’re as safe here as anywhere—Beacon Hill isn’t burning.”

  “It might.” Any urge to laugh died. “And how safe do you think our kind really is, anywhere? The Irish are dogs for everyone else to kick.”

  Robert looked at him, eyes distressed. “I’m not Irish. And I don’t kick dogs.”

  “I—no, of course not.” William swallowed hard. “Do you want to go see how they’re doing in the Common? It’ll be safe, I know the men who are—who are helping them.”

  “Could we?”

  William’s relief at hearing that we kept him from thinking too much about fire—and who should burn—until they’d walked far enough to see the C
ommon. The trees’ gold-green autumn finery glowed as the sun sank. Refugees littered the grass. Some huddled together under quilts. Others just sat and stared into nothingness. William averted his gaze hastily, lest he remember the horrors that danced in front of their unseeing eyes. His eyes felt grainy from lack of sleep. The feeling got worse when he looked at the refugees. So he didn’t.

  Around them, the sun’s last rays struck the city. Where they touched, they created the illusion of fire. That, William could watch unflinching.

  Robert gasped.

  His eyes still on the city, William said, “Aye, it looks like fire.”

  “No! It looks like a circus!”

  William blinked. Robert pointed at one of the dark tents, and just like that, William’s understanding of it shifted. Instead of being nearby, it had been raised on the other side of the Common. Instead of being small, it was huge. And it was not alone.

  A circus?! Zebras and elephants and candy and clowns stampeded through William’s head. The memory of a tent filled with wondrously fabulous creatures—and animals, too—drew him down and into the Common before his fears could catch up with his feet.

  “William! Little man!” Patrick waved at them.

  “Who’s that?” Robert asked.

  “A—friend,” William said, watching Patrick bend down and speak earnestly to two little girls with their arms wrapped around each other.

  Patrick pointed to a scarlet blanket hanging from a tree branch and shooed the little girls in that direction. To one side of the blanket, Dr. Fallon scowled at a redheaded man holding his arm. On the other side, a woman round enough to withstand a minor famine stirred a huge steaming cauldron. She was the Irish cook from the mansion next door to the one Valentine’s gang had taken over. When she saw the little girls walking timidly toward her, she beamed and dug out a couple of metal bowls as she waved them closer. Even Dr. Fallon attempted a smile, though it would have scared the little girls off if they’d had eyes for anything but that soup cauldron.

  “Hallo, boys!” Patrick said when they drew near. “Are you going to the circus, then?”

  “Yes!” Robert said.

  “No,” William said glumly, as he realized the truth of it. “We can’t spare the money.”

  “Now, it would be a shame if that stopped you,” Patrick said, frowning. “You just wait here, and I’ll be back along in a minute. Happens I know some people who’d be delighted to help you lads out.”

  Patrick loped off to begin a circuit of the Common. Now and again, he’d stop and chat for a minute with one or another of the men from Valentine’s gang. When he came back to the boys, his hands overflowed with fractional currency, little scraps of wartime money printed with “3 cents” or “2 cents” or “5 cents.”

  “Here you go,” Patrick said, grinning broadly. “Enough to buy you both tickets to the circus and the menagerie—and peanuts and lemonade besides. It’s twenty-five cents to see the circus, and five for the animals, and the lads came up with almost thirty-five cents for each of you. Hold out your hands!”

  The whispery paper money didn’t feel real in William’s hands, it was so light. But the clink of coin was real, and the weight of it, when Patrick added a scattering of half-pennies and even a couple of shiny nickels.

  William looked around and found newly sharpened eyes looking back.

  “Could you walk us to the circus?” William asked Patrick.

  “Sure and I can! You could ask a lot more of me than that!”

  William didn’t. Yet.

  At the ticket booth, William and Robert waved goodbye to Patrick. A wizened old man took their sweat-dampened, scrunched-up notes, gave them tickets to the big top, and warned them that the show would not start until full dark. Trumpets would sound to warn the crowds.

  William and Robert wandered past the candy seller, and the ring-toss game, and a man selling brightly colored fish in jars, and the fortune-teller’s tent—there was an awfully long line in front of it—and a little girl telling a story while she cut shapes out of newspaper, and all kinds of interesting things. William didn’t want to waste his money, but he did buy a lemonade that still had a tiny bit of lemon floating on top and only tasted mostly like water.

  Shadows pooled at the base of the tents as twilight settled over the circus. The last sliver of sun dropped below the horizon. For a few minutes, the only illumination came from the oil lamps carried by roustabouts and the torches the fire-eater juggled.

  Then the tents bloomed Chinese-lantern bright. A heartbeat later, circles of aether lamps ringing the tents glowed to life. For a moment, all William thought was how magically the pale flickering lights lit the circus.

  A man screamed.

  William remembered the sideways rain of crystal shards when the chandelier exploded, and he yanked Robert away by the arm. “We have to run!”

  “What?”

  “All the aether is messed up! Those lights will blow up!”

  The crowd around them stirred, restive. “What?” an improbably redheaded woman said. “What did that boy say?”

  “He said the lamps would explode!”

  “What?”

  “Dear folk,” a deep voice said, “do not be afraid. I have been personally assured that the aether lights the circus has were unaffected by the freak aether storm we have been so devastated by.”

  Robert stopped letting William pull him away. “That’s the mayor.”

  William paused, unconvinced.

  “My daughter is with me,” the mayor continued. “Would I have brought my only surviving child here if it was dangerous?” A wide-eyed, brown-haired child clutched his hand.

  “Doesn’t he have two sons, too?” William whispered to Robert.

  “They must have died in the storm.”

  “Oh. Yes, I guess maybe they did.”

  The mayor rubbed his arm. “None of us have escaped unhurt, but there’s nothing to fear from these aether lamps. Enjoy the circus while it’s here!”

  The crowd still muttered and eyed the lights suspiciously, but nobody left.

  William and Robert bought menagerie tickets and went inside the tent to see the animals. A giant hippopotamus whorrfled at them as they entered, and they backed away until their backs hit bars. Something behind them yawned. A huge gust of hot breath washed over William’s neck. When he looked over his shoulder, a lion grinned at him. William yelped and jerked Robert into the center of the tent. They admired the zebras, even if the stripes were so similar from one to the other that Robert said they must have been painted on. They made faces at the monkeys, who made faces back. They whistled at the birds-of-paradise, who didn’t whistle back. They dared each other to touch the glass wall that kept the snakes from pouring out of their cage into the tent, and they were pretty happy that the snakes didn’t touch them back.

  Even if they’d missed the trumpet announcing that the big show would start soon, they would have heard the ostriches hissing like angry cats in response. Giant angry cats. William and Robert edged past the cage, keeping careful watch on the ostriches’ bobbing heads and beady eyes.

  “Don’t mind them,” the carnie sitting on a stool next to the cage said, smiling. “They just don’t like that trumpet. Go on!”

  They left the tent in a hurry but slowed down when they reached a small crowd clustered around a wagon whose sides were painted with advertisements for the Great Doctor Panjandrum’s miracle remedy. Doctor Panjandrum himself stood on the high seat, holding aloft a bottle filled with green-gleaming liquid.

  “Excellent for toothache, neuralgia, and sore chests! It will make women’s hair more lustrous and prevent men from losing theirs! A sure-fire cure for rheumatism and inflammation! Good for muscle aches and nervousness or weakness of the constitution!”

  “How about—um—too much energy? Tremors?” a burly man at the back of the crowd called.

  “Absolutely!” Doctor Panjandrum adapted. “It’s soothing and strengthening. It balances the humors! Regular internal a
pplication—along with a strengthening routine,” he riffled through the stack of pamphlets beside him, “that is described in this pamphlet—will decrease the severity and frequency of tremors.”

  A female dressed in a scandalously short, bright blue riding habit that barely reached below her knees interrupted him. “Doctor,” she said. “We need you elsewhere.”

  “I’m sorry, good people,” the doctor said, handing out bottles to the last people with their money out, “but I must depart. Tell your friends of the Great Doctor Panjandrum’s amazing remedy!”

  William trotted after the doctor, hoping to ask if he could buy just a little of the remedy with his remaining coin. If it was as good as that, then surely it would be a grand help for his mam?

  “I’m glad to see you,” the doctor told the lady in the riding habit. “At least I don’t need to put on an act just to escape these people.” He looked over his shoulder at the dispersing crowd but paid no attention to the small boy dogging his heels. “They’re so desperate for any doctoring, even this worthless snake oil, that I almost sold out. I’ll need to get more gin and herbs before tomorrow.”

  William frowned and dropped back, but not so far that he didn’t hear the lady’s reply. “We may not have time for that.”

  “You don’t understand. Normally, I sell twice as much the second night, after my—patients—tell their friends that they like my tonic. If I’ve sold out, they get upset.” He lowered his voice, and William could barely hear his next words. “I don’t want to see what they’d do if they got upset now. Did you notice the bodies as we rode into town?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Did you notice the fresher bodies?” the doctor asked as they walked out of earshot.

  William didn’t want to hear more about bodies, so he waited for Robert to catch up and then they went inside the main tent and sat. The aether lights inside still made him nervous—with so many people jammed together, it would be a slaughterhouse if the lamps exploded.