“Gabriel?” Mom asked, raising one eyebrow, and I sighed inwardly at my mom’s strange insistence on calling everyone by their full given name.
“Gabriel is my full name.” He glanced at me, looking caught off guard. “Most people call me Gabe, though.”
“Gabriel, then,” she repeated. She smiled thinly, then her gray eyes rested on me. “Be good.”
With that, she left us alone, standing awkwardly in the small, dingy Winnebago. I felt his eyes on me, but I wouldn’t look at him directly.
“I don’t understand.” Gabe rubbed the back of his neck. “I feel like you’re mad at me, but you’re the one that lied to me.”
I bristled. “I didn’t lie.”
“Fine. I’d categorize it as a lie by omission, but whatever. You left something out. I don’t care how you want to think of it,” he said in exasperation. “The point is that I didn’t do anything. So I don’t understand why you’re mad at me.”
“You didn’t have to do anything.” I shook my head. “I saw it in your face.”
His brow furrowed in confusion. “Saw what?”
I swallowed hard. “Contempt.”
“Contempt?” He scoffed. “Why the hell would I look at you with contempt?”
“Because.” I stepped back from him, hating the twisted pain that grew in my chest when I thought about the names I’d been called by guys who I had thought liked me, by people I’d thought were friends, and by strangers who didn’t even give me a chance.
“Because why?” Gabe pressed.
“Because that’s what they all do!” My voice was quavering, and I was practically shouting. “Once people know who I am, and they see that I’m just some poor loser traveling with a freak show, it all changes. I become like subhuman garbage to them.”
“I am sorry if anyone has ever made you feel that way, Mara, I truly am,” he said, and the softness of his expression and the hurt in his eyes made me believe he really was. “But those are just really shitty people, and I am not them.”
I shook my head, fighting back tears. “You can’t lie to me. I saw the look on your face when I told you what I really was.”
“That wasn’t contempt. It was the realization that you were leaving.” He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “I was sad, and I was a little angry that you knew you weren’t going to be here very long, and you didn’t tell me.”
I lowered my eyes. “I didn’t think you’d care.”
“Why wouldn’t I care? I like you.” He moved closer to me. “And until last night, I thought you liked me too.”
“I like you,” I said softly. He put his hands on my waist, gently, warmly, and I lowered my arms to my sides and let him pull me closer. “But it doesn’t change anything. I’m still leaving soon.”
“So?”
I looked up at him. “So?”
“You knew you were leaving since the day you met me, and you still kissed me. And you kept seeing me. Why?”
“I don’t know.” I raised one shoulder in a lame shrug. “I just wanted to be with you.”
“Let’s just be together then, for as long as you’re here.”
I smiled despite myself. “Okay.”
“Good.” He bent down, kissing me on the mouth, and just when I put my arms around him, he abruptly stopped and stepped back. “Sorry. I just feel like your mom is gonna walk in at any moment, so I thought I should stop that before things get too heated.”
“Good call.” I laughed.
“Why don’t I take you out on a real date tonight?” Gabe suggested. “We can see something outside of the carnival. I’ll show you everything that Caudry has to offer.”
“I have work to do, but I could probably be done by six,” I said. “And I’d have to be back by eleven to help take things down.”
“So, between six and eleven tonight, you’re mine.”
23. bedouin
Gabe had been gone for all of thirty seconds before my mom came back into the Winnebago, meaning she had been waiting and watching. I’d already turned, pushing aside the beaded curtain to go into the bedroom.
“So you’re not gonna tell me what that was about?” Mom asked.
“You mean you didn’t hear it all from wherever you were spying?” I asked, but I was mostly teasing.
I knelt on the floor and opened the drawers underneath my bed to rummage through my clothes. Mom waited on the other side of the curtain, so I couldn’t really see her, but I knew exactly how she was standing—arms folded over her chest, toe tapping anxiously on the floor, her lips in a thin line and her eyes cast down in a mixture of anxiety and feigned indifference.
It wasn’t that my mom didn’t care. In fact, it was the opposite—she cared far too much. But we were now at that awkward stage in our relationship where I was legally an adult, but still a teenager who lived under her roof, albeit a small and nomadic roof.
Not to mention that her job was taking a toll on her, so she wasn’t able to do as much as she once had. That meant many of the adult responsibilities—like cooking and cleaning—had fallen to me.
“I only watched through the window of Gideon’s trailer,” Mom said, as if she hadn’t had her nose pressed to the glass. “I wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“Gabe’s perfectly safe,” I told her, but the second the words were out of my mouth, I wondered how I could be so sure. So far, everything in Caudry wasn’t exactly as it seemed, and everything had a sinister edge to it.
Finally, Mom had enough of talking to me through the curtain, so she pushed through the beads and sat down on her bed behind me.
“Then why haven’t you told me about him?” she asked. Underneath her concern, I heard a pained current.
I temporarily abandoned my search for an outfit, and I sat with my back still to her. “I don’t know.”
“You know, everybody knows everybody’s business around here,” she said quietly, as if everyone was crowded outside our doors, listening. “That means I’ve known for days that you’ve been running around with some boy, a rich townie, and I’ve been waiting for you to tell me. And you never did.”
I turned to face her. “I wasn’t trying to keep it from you. I just…” I sighed. “I knew it wasn’t anything serious, and I didn’t want you to lecture me about not being safe or getting too attached.”
“Oh, qamari.” Her mouth curved into a sad smile. “You’re a young woman. You want your own life, your own dreams, your own loves. I wouldn’t expect any less from you.
“When I was your age, your grandma Basima was still dragging me around the country, chasing the promise of riches or love from yet another snake-oil salesman.” My mom affected the same weary tone she always did when she talked about her mother.
I hadn’t known my grandma all that well, since she’d died when I was three. By the time I was born, Grandma Basima had already started spiraling. Mom claimed that Grandma had overused her powers as a necromancer, and it drove her crazy.
Around the time I was born, she developed dementia-like symptoms, and my mom had to put her in a special home. It was impossible to care for my grandma and me while traveling on the road.
The only thing else I really knew about my grandma had to do with the skull key with the ruby eyes my mom wore around her neck. I couldn’t see it now—it was tucked safely beneath her top, so she could wear it next to her skin—but I knew the key was there. It was always there.
The key belonged to Grandma Basima’s steamer trunk that I’d only seen a handful of times, despite the fact that we carried it with us always. My mom kept it in the cargo area of the Winnebago, below the floor.
When I was young, if I tried to touch it, Mom would slap my hands and tell me to never touch it. It’s not for play, she had warned me, and as I got older, she explained to me that the trunk contained tools of the dark arts.
“She’d had hundreds of boyfriends and thousands of jobs, and none of them were ever the right one,” Mom explained. “So I promised myself that one day I would
settle down, fall in love, and have a family.”
She forced a smile so pained, I was afraid she might crack. My mom always tried to hold herself with such dignity, despite our circumstances, but underneath, I knew how much she hurt.
“But I didn’t know how to escape, so I gave in to temptation and used the gift your grandma passed down to me,” Mom went on. “The spirits never left me alone, making it impossible to hold down a steady job, and your father…”
She trailed off, letting that hang in the air for a moment. “Well, your father couldn’t handle the life of a bedouin, but not many can.”
“It’s not a bad life,” I said, and that was true.
My life with a traveling sideshow had been chaotic, and we’d always been on the edge of poverty. But we all took care of each other and looked out for one another. I was never alone, and no one here ever treated me like I was a freak or different, because I wasn’t. I was just one of them.
“Mara.” Mom held up her hand to me. “I want you to have the things I could never have, that I could never give you. That means that someday you’ll find love and make a home. And that’s why you must never, ever open your mind to the spirits.”
I did my best not to roll my eyes or look annoyed. “I know, Mom. You’ve only told me that about a thousand times.”
“Mara, I am serious,” she snapped. “This place”—she gestured vaguely around, wagging her fingers in the air—“the energy will tempt you, but you mustn’t let it. That’s why I’m happy you’re seeing this boy.”
“Why?” I asked. “He’s from here. Kinda.”
“Yes, but he’ll keep you distracted while we’re here, so you can avoid whatever it is that’s pulling everyone else in all directions.” She cast a derisive glance out the window, at the swamp that lurked behind the campsite. “And when the week is up, you’ll say your sad good-byes, and we’ll move on. Then you’ll find a nice boy you can really fall in love with.”
I tugged at a lock of hair that had come loose from my ponytail and stared down at my lap. “But Gabe is a nice boy.”
“He seemed nice enough, and very respectful,” Mom allowed. “But there will be other boys, nicer ones. Ones that aren’t too wealthy and don’t live in a place filled with a dangerous energy.”
Still staring down, I chewed my lip. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No, but it’s the truth, and the truth rarely makes anyone feel better.” Mom got off her bed and sat down beside me, putting her arm around me as she did. “I’m sorry, qamari. I didn’t mean to make you sad.
“I only meant to tell you that I understood and that you didn’t need to hide things from me,” she went on. “And now I’ve only succeeded in convincing you the opposite, I suppose.”
“No, you didn’t.” I leaned into her, allowing her to hug me close.
“It’s only a few more days, and then we’ll be out of here and off to somewhere brighter and better,” Mom promised, but that thought hurt so much more than it would’ve before we got to Caudry. Before Gabe.
24. tigris
Hutch leaned against a black trunk marked Gideon’s Magic Act in white paint, and caught his breath. The cargo trailer filled with supplies for Gideon’s act appeared to be half empty, but Hutch already looked exhausted.
It didn’t help that the temperatures were already over eighty with humidity that made it feel like the air was sticking to my skin. Hutch was shirtless, and his wiry frame was covered in a thick layer of sweat.
But I understood it. I spent the morning practicing with my crossbow at the edge of the camp. It was an old crossbow, with the stock literally held on with duct tape. It was all that we’d been able to afford, but it still shot straight, so that’s what mattered.
It’d been hard taking aim with sweat dripping down my forehead and stinging my eyes, but I managed to hit every target I aimed for.
“I come bearing gifts from Betty,” I said as I reached him and held out a big glass of lemonade.
“Thanks,” he said, and gulped it down within seconds of me handing it to him.
“Where’s Gideon?” I asked, peering into the trailer with another glass of lemonade in my hand.
“He’s down at the tent, setting stuff up.” Hutch wiped his forehead with the back of his arm. “You can leave his glass here, if you want. He’ll probably be back up in a few minutes.”
I set it down on the trunk beside him. “Do you need help with anything?”
“Not unless you can get Seth back here.” His joke felt empty, and his mouth twisted into a grimace. “Sorry. This just really sucks without him. I didn’t realize exactly how much we relied on his strength.”
“Gideon called the hospital today, and it sounds like Seth’s on the mend, so that’s good,” I said, relaying what I’d heard from my mom. “I don’t know when he’ll be back, though.”
Hutch squinted, staring off at nothing for a moment. “Do you think that thing we saw last night was the same thing that attacked Seth?”
“I don’t even know what we saw last night.” I shrugged. “I’m not even sure we saw anything at all.”
Hutch looked at the ground and muttered, “I saw something.”
“If it was anything, it was probably a dog,” I said.
“Luka thinks it was a coyote.” He scratched absently at his knee through a hole in his jeans. “At least that’s what he told Tim when they were arguing this morning.”
“They were arguing?” I asked.
He nodded. “Tim’s angry that Luka was chasing after this thing, and it could be a rabid animal or a psycho from town. Tim pointed out that we still don’t know who spray painted ‘freeks’ on Gideon’s trailer.”
“Well, we’ll probably never know. It’s not the first bit of unsolved vandalism we’ve come across, and it probably won’t be the last.”
“Maybe.” He stretched as he stood up. “But I hope that we’ll at least figure out what the hell is hunting us.”
For some reason, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and a chill ran down my spine. “‘Hunting us’? Don’t you think you’re being a little extreme?”
Hutch shrugged. “That’s just how it feels to me.”
I couldn’t think of anything else to say to that, so I wished Hutch good luck on the rest of his unloading, and I walked across the campsite to work on my own chores.
The tigers were restless, with Mahilā making mewling sounds. I hooked the hose up and hauled it over to their pen, hoping that a cold pool would help them relax and fight the heat.
When I walked over, Zeke was already there, leaning against the fencing and watching his tigers. His fingers hooked onto the thick metal bars, and he watched as Mahilā paced. The thick scars that marred her soft golden fur looked more pink than normal. As she turned and rubbed up hard against the fence, sending tufts of fur flying, I realized that must be why her skin looked so irritated.
Since Safēda was older and hadn’t had such an abusive past, she was usually calm, preferring to lie in the shade or splash in the pool. But today she couldn’t seem to sit still.
She’d walk across the pen, then she’d turn quickly and walk back toward Zeke and me. Safēda stopped right in front of Zeke and stared up at him with her wide blue eyes.
“What is it, Saf?” Zeke asked. He reached his hand through the bars, and she leaned in toward him, allowing him to stroke her white fur. But only for a moment. Then she turned and darted across the pen again.
“The tigers are acting strange,” Zeke told me, keeping his eyes on the big cats.
“Do you think the heat’s getting to them?” I asked. “Heat can make anyone act crazy.”
“I don’t know.” He pointed to the kiddie pool in the center of the pen. “I just filled that up a half hour ago. They drank some, but then went back to the pacing.”
“I could spray them down with the hose. It might help.”
“I don’t think so.” He finally pulled his eyes off Safēda and looked at me. �
�I already told Roxie this, but now I’m telling you too—I don’t want you feeding the tigers or cleaning up after them or going in the pen at all. Not until we’re out of town. Is that clear?”
“But—” I began.
“I’ll take care of everything,” Zeke interrupted me. “I’ll make sure they have enough water and food.”
I paused, trying to wrap my head around what he was saying. “Does that mean that you think the tigers had something to do with what happened to Seth?”
“It means that my tigers aren’t happy, and when they aren’t happy, people can get hurt,” Zeke growled. “I don’t want to see anything happen to Safēda, Mahilā, or anybody else here. So just stay away from them. Okay?”
“Okay.” I nodded. “I got it.”
I looked over at Mahilā, still continuing with her plaintive song, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the tigers knew that we didn’t.
25. secrets
The sun had begun its descent toward the horizon, and the sounds of the carnival played like a familiar song behind me. I waited just outside the main gates, on the edges of the gravel parking lot.
To keep my hair off my neck, I wore it in a side braid. The air had begun to cool, but only slightly, so I wore a light dress. The humidity still left a halo around the lights, making everything appear to glow more than normal.
Just when I began to worry that Gabe had changed his mind and wasn’t going to show, a cherry red Mustang pulled up in front of me.
“Ready to go for a ride?” Gabe asked, grinning at me.
“Definitely.” I hopped in the car, and he turned down the INXS that was blasting out of the tape deck.
We sped out of the parking lot. The T-top were off, so the wind blew through my hair and cooled my skin. When we hit the streets of Caudry proper, Gabe slowed a little so he could tell me about various landmarks in town—like the small local grocer, a diner that served the best crawfish in all of Louisiana, and the car dealership that Logan’s parents owned.
Then he turned, taking us away from the center toward the outskirts. We continued on a narrow road, with overgrown grass and wildflowers growing up around us, until the Mustang pulled to a stop on an old stone bridge that curved up over a river.
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