There was so much going on, I knew that I shouldn’t even be worrying about what Gabe thought of me, or if I really would see him again. But I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t meant to make a connection with someone just when everything at home seemed to be falling apart.
“You okay?” Luka asked, noticing me dash out of the restaurant.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I smiled to reassure him. “Let’s just go see Leonid.”
Gideon led the way up the rickety stairs, and it was obvious that any repairs being done hadn’t extended beyond the front of the house for the bar and grill. Before we’d even reached his door, I could smell something off—like acetone mixed with sulfur.
“Gross.” Luka wrinkled his nose. “It’s like someone spilled nail polish remover on a pile of rotten eggs.”
“That means this is Leonid’s place,” Gideon said under his breath, and knocked on the door. He glanced back at Luka and me. “You guys hang until I see how Leonid is doing, all right?”
Leonid Murphy had traveled with the sideshow for many years, and I didn’t know the full extent of the reason he’d left three years ago, but there had been very strong rumblings of drugs. I knew that Gideon didn’t seem to care when Blossom or Doug smoked pot, so I figured it had to be something harsher and more complicated than that.
At any rate, Leonid had left on amicable terms—Gideon had given him a handshake, a few hundred dollars, and wished him all the best. That’s why, despite Leonid’s sketchy history, Gideon had trusted his old friend’s postcard. Well, that and desperation.
“Just a second!” Leonid’s nasally, slightly high-pitched voice wafted through his door.
Moments later, the front door flew open, and Leonid was exactly as I remembered him. He towered half a foot over Gideon, who was quite tall in his own right, and Leonid had answered the door shirtless, so I could see every rib and bone protruding through his pale skin.
His skeletal frame had nothing to do with any alleged drug use—it was the reason he’d joined the carnival. No matter how much he ate, he’d never gained a pound. He’d worked as a contortionist, and I’d seen him dislocate all his joints and bend himself up into a shockingly small pretzel.
“Gideon!” Leonid exclaimed, and without warning, he threw his arms around Gideon in one of the most awkward embraces I’d ever seen.
Then his eyes drifted over to Luka and me, and I noticed his normally green eyes had gone muddy. The left one, in particular, looked glossed over, like glaucoma had set in, even though Leonid couldn’t have been more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight.
“Mara, Luka!” Leonid shouted, letting go of Gideon. “Oh gosh, the gang’s all here. It’s so great to see you all. I’m so glad you came.”
“Well, you did invite us,” Gideon told him, and he’d stepped back, leaning against the stair rail so he’d be a bit farther out from Leonid’s reach.
“I did. Of course, I did.” He moved back into the doorway, and motioned for us to come in. “Come on in. Welcome to my home.”
Since he was so tall, he had to hunch over to invite us in and he kept his long arms folded up so we could pass. He looked very much like a praying mantis, and suddenly, I heard Blossom’s voice in my head—as crisp and clear as if she were standing beside me—reading aloud from a book of poetry, “‘Will you walk into my parlor?’ said the Spider to the Fly.”
16. the hermit
Inside the stench was stronger, and I wanted to plug my nose, but I didn’t want to appear rude. Luka had to wipe his eyes, since they’d begun to water. The kitchen below must have had its own more appetizing scents strong enough to block out whatever Leonid had cooking up here.
Leonid’s apartment was small and cluttered, but not particularly dirty. Stacks of magazines, newspapers, VHS tapes, and records filled most of the space. A ratty old couch sat across from a massive floor television. The coffee table beside it was mostly cleared off, with only a few books and a small stack of papers on it.
The windows at the back of the apartment were open, but the air felt stale and musty. In the distance, a lone bird sang a mournful song.
“Sorry about the mess,” Leonid said, then pointed to the couch. “Y’all can have a seat. Take a rest.”
I took a seat in the middle, and the worn-out cushions felt like I was sitting on a blanket thrown across a two-by-four. Gideon and Luke sat on either side of me, and Leonid disappeared into the front room before returning with a plastic kitchen chair.
“Do you need anything? Want a drink? I think I have some sardines I could spread on crackers if you’re hungry,” Leonid offered.
“No,” Luka said too quickly.
“That’s quite all right,” Gideon replied more gently. “Thank you for offering, though.”
“Yeah, just let me know if you change your mind.” Leonid set the chair across from us, and he made like he was about to sit, but something occurred to him. “Oh, yeah, I should show you this. This is why I told you to come here.”
“Show me what?” Gideon asked.
“I’ll get it, I’ll get it.” Leonid went over to a pile of papers in the corner and began riffling through them. “I know it’s here. I was just looking at it, because I heard there was a carnival in town, and I thought it might be you. I hoped it was, anyway.”
“Yeah?” Gideon asked. “I thought you might stop by, if you were around.”
“I would’ve. I want to. I’ve just been so busy.” He shrugged his bony shoulders. “You know how life gets.”
I tried to imagine what Leonid could be busy with. I wanted to ask him if he had a job, but that sounded too forward.
“Ah-ha!” Leonid held up two pieces of paper, both of them yellowed with age. “Here it is.” He hurried back over and handed them to Gideon.
The first one was a black-and-white flier with a picture of Leonid on it. The headline read, Come See One of the Marvels of the World! Below, in smaller print, it read Leonid the Human Skeleton.
Below the picture was the day and time where people could see Leonid in the Caudry town square. It was dated only a few months ago, during a celebration the town was having for New Year’s. That made it all the more curious that the paper had gotten so yellow in such a short amount of time.
“That’s where I made all the money.” Leonid tapped the flier. “I know it doesn’t look like I’m living high on the hog, but you know how things go. I take the work where it comes, and I actually haven’t worked since then, and I’m still getting by just fine. It had quite the turnout, and people paid to take their picture with me.”
“Good on you,” Gideon said. “You always were a talented performer.”
Leonid smiled broadly at the minor compliment, his mouth spreading so wide it looked like his face might split apart, and he sat back in the chair.
“That other thing, that’s why I invited you here,” Leonid said, gesturing to the paper below the flier. “I got that letter a couple weeks after I did my show.”
I leaned closer to Gideon, reading over his arm.
Dear Leonid Murphy:
Thank you for the wonderful performance last week. It was so amazing to see you, and I know that everyone got a real thrill out of meeting you. You’re a very special man, Leonid, and I hope that you can appreciate all the talent that you have.
While you were performing, I heard you mention that you’d traveled with a carnival where there were all kinds of people like you, each with unique talents of their own. I was wondering if you could put me in contact with them, or perhaps extend an invitation yourself? I know that if we could get something like that here, we could get the entire parish to turn out!
I would love to have the carnival here to signal the coming spring, perhaps around the week of March the thirteenth?
If your friends in the carnival can make it then, I can promise them a hefty payday, along with a bonus for yourself. As a gesture of good faith, I’ve enclosed a check for $500 as a finder’s fee.
Thank you again for your wonderf
ul show, and I’m so happy that you’ve decided to make Caudry your home.
Sincerely,
Della Jane
I didn’t even have to read the name. I already recognized the loopy scrawl from the woman who’d given me her number yesterday.
“I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t tell you about the finder’s fee.” Leonid shifted in his seat. “Since she promised you a payday, I didn’t think it would matter either way.”
“No, it’s fine,” Gideon assured him.
From what I understood, Gideon had spoken to someone at the mayor’s office after he’d received Leonid’s postcard. They’d agreed upon the dates and promised Gideon a flat rate of several thousand dollars if we performed nine days, plus everything we earned from the concessions.
So far, it promised to be a larger wage than we’d earned in years.
“We really appreciate you sending the work our way, Leonid,” Gideon said. “You know how work can dry up, especially in the winter, so it was very kind of you to think of us.”
“Of course, of course. You know you guys are always family to me.” His eyes flitted away then, staring at some distant point on the wall.
“This isn’t purely a social visit, though.” Gideon set aside the letter and flier on a pile of records stacked beside the couch, and Leonid looked sharply at him. “There is something I wanted to ask you about.”
“Oh?” Leonid’s eyebrow arched so high, it looked like it might spring off his forehead.
Gideon took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to explain it exactly, but we’ve all felt it.” He looked to Luka and me, and we both nodded our confirmation. “There’s just something … strange in the air. Something playing with our senses.”
“No, I know exactly what you’re talking about.” Leonid nodded feverishly and scratched at his protruding collarbone. “Something around here plays with the senses.”
Gideon leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “Do you know what it is?”
“I don’t know what it is, but I know that it is. It exists.” He swung his long arm back, pointing at the swamp through the cracked windows at the back of his apartment. “Do you know what the swamp is called?”
“Um, Mystic Swamp?” Luka guessed lamely, causing us all to give him an odd look.
“No.” Leonid shook his head. “It’s called the Nukoabok Swamp. Nukoabok means ‘mad river,’ according to the Choctaw Nation.”
“Wait. Wait.” Luka held up his hands. “Are you saying that’s like an old Indian burial ground?”
Leonid snorted—a rather mucus-y sound that traveled through his long nose. “No, of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve been watching too many scary movies.”
“Well, what exactly are you saying?” Gideon asked.
“The Choctaw Nation were the first people to live here, centuries ago.” He stood up and began pacing as he spoke. “But when they lived here, all that time ago, it was a river flowing fast and strong. Even then, though, they felt it. They sensed it the way any person senses it. I bet the animals feel it too.”
“What’s ‘it’?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Leonid gestured wildly. “Whatever it is that you’re feeling, that I feel.” He pointed at that swamp again. “It comes from there. I guarantee it.”
“Then why do you live so close to it?” Gideon asked. “Wouldn’t you at least want to live on the other side of town?”
“The rent’s cheap here, for one thing,” Leonid explained. “And for another, the water’s harmless. I mean, yeah, I believe it has a power of its own, but so do we.” He motioned to us. “We all have some kind of power that everyone else would claim is supernatural. But that doesn’t make us bad or dangerous, right?”
When none of us replied, he asked again, more insistently this time, “Right?”
“Right, of course not,” Gideon said, his tone soothing to help quiet Leonid’s agitation. He looked to Luka and me, and we both smiled. “We’re not dangerous.”
“Right.” He nodded, as if to convince himself. “It’s growing, I think.” He scratched his head, his long fingers tangling with his stringy hair, and looked back at the swamp. “It’s getting bigger. I mean, I know it’s gotten bigger since the Choctaw Nation moved on.”
“Bigger?” I echoed.
“It used to be a river, but the silt slowed it down, and now it’s a nearly stagnant tributary.” Leonid stared out the window at it. “The water used to move through, but now it just sits.” Then he turned back to us with a too-wide smile plastered on his face. “But it’s just like you said. Just because it’s powerful and supernatural don’t mean it’s dangerous.”
But he gulped when he said it, like he wasn’t quite sure he believed it himself.
17. mad river
The midway opened at ten, but our part of the carnival—the sideshow with the acts and the oddities museum—didn’t start until four, when more of the crowds began arriving. We’d gotten back from visiting Leonid a little before three, so Gideon called a meeting at the top of the hour.
With the cheerful music wafting over from the rides, we gathered in the middle of the campsite. A few lawn chairs had been set in a circle, and my mom sat front and center next to Betty Bates. I felt wired, like an electrical current was running through my legs, and I didn’t think I could sit if I wanted to. So I stood off to the back, next to where Roxie, Hutch, and Luka sat on top of a picnic table.
Just before the meeting was set to begin, Tim Phoenix hobbled out of his trailer. A beige Ace bandage was wrapped tightly around his knee, and Luka leaped off the table and rushed over to help him.
“What happened?” Luka asked him in a frantic whisper as he hooked an arm around Tim’s waist.
“I just fell during practice.” Tim tried to shrug it off as Luka helped him to a seat. “It’s nothing.”
It would be nothing, if Tim was an average acrobat. But he wasn’t. Tim, his older brother, Brendon, and Brendon’s daughter, Alyssa, all had the power of levitation—meaning they could float, suspended high above the ground, from sheer power of will.
In all the years they’d been traveling with us, I’d never once known any of them to fall.
“Are you all right, Tim?” Gideon asked. He’d taken his position, standing in front of us, and his dark eyebrows pinched as he studied Tim.
“Yeah, it’s just a sprain.” Tim shrugged again. “I’ll be fine for the show tonight.”
“But you fell?” Gideon pressed. “While you were performing?”
“Yeah.” Tim shifted in his chair, and his face began to redden. “I lost my grip, and then I just … I couldn’t catch the air, I guess.”
Gideon seemed to consider this for a moment, then he shook his head, clearing it of whatever had been filling it. As he surveyed the crowd, his eyes were light blue, and I found some relief in that.
“As you all probably know by now, I visited with Leonid Murphy today,” Gideon said, speaking loudly as he addressed the carnival. “There have been strange things going on here. Those of you with extra senses have most likely felt it.”
People began murmuring then, adding their own stories to the ones I already knew—my mom’s excessive mania, Gideon’s faulty divining rod, Roxie’s weak fire. Luka said that his badly scraped knee had healed up just fine yesterday, only to reopen for a while this morning before healing again.
Even those without extra senses, like Betty the Bearded Lady and Zeke the Tiger Tamer, complained of problems. Betty had been having headaches, and Zeke had been having nightmares.
“Maybe that’s what happened with Seth,” Tim said, his voice just above a whisper. “Maybe his strength went out the same way my flying did, and he couldn’t fight off whatever attacked him.”
“So we’ve all felt it?” Gideon asked, drawing everyone’s attention back to him. “Leonid thinks this strange energy comes from the water here, specifically the swamp and tributaries that surround Caudry.”
“What is it?” Bett
y asked, her usually confident voice trembling.
“Is it dangerous?” Brendon added.
“Leonid claims it isn’t, and he’s been living here for some time, as have the people in Caudry,” Gideon explained as best he could. “With our extrasensory abilities, I believe we’re more sensitive to it than the average townsperson.”
“What about Seth Holden?” Brendon’s wife, Jackie, asked. She sat clutching their young daughter in her lap. “What happened to him? You can’t say that that wasn’t dangerous. And Blossom Mandelbaum is still missing.”
“Blossom isn’t ‘missing.’” Roxie used air quotes. “She’s just … not here. And if this energy or whatever is affecting all of us, it had to have been messing with her, and her telekinesis is extrasensitive. She probably got agitated and took off to hang out at the music festival. She’ll be back before we leave.”
“You don’t know that,” Jackie said, her voice growing sharper as she spoke. “And that still doesn’t explain Seth.”
“It stands to reason that if the energy is affecting us, it’s most likely affecting the tigers,” Gideon replied carefully.
Zeke was instantly on his feet. “My tigers would never do this!”
“Zeke, calm down,” Gideon said. “No one is saying your tigers are at fault. Whoever spray painted my trailer probably thought it would be funny to leave their gate open, and with everything going on, the tigers were probably spooked and reacted. Seth just got caught in the middle.”
“Gideon—” Zeke started, but Gideon held up his hand.
“There isn’t a better explanation right now,” Gideon said firmly. “I’m not proposing we get rid of the tigers—not yet—but we do need to take greater precautions. While we’re here, there will be no tiger shows, and that gate is to be kept locked at all times.” Zeke lowered his head. “Is that understood?”
“Fine,” Zeke relented, and sat back down.
“Now, I know some of you probably think we should pack up and cut our losses,” Gideon said.
Only a few murmured their agreement, with Jackie Phoenix being the loudest.
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