by Sarah Noffke
“Wait, then why did he put on the hat? Was it a mistake?”
Ian shook his head. “No. After I told Dave about his death, then your future shifted. Before that it had shown you in the distant future and it was beautiful. You were happy, Zuma, unlike you’ve never been granted before.”
“Wait…before Dave knew about his death, I had a potential future to have the curse broken?”
“Yes,” Ian said. “And Dave knew that since he was extremely invested in your happiness and you obtaining it. Dave actually had me make him aware of everyone’s future. That’s how he was able to make plans and change them to ensure his people had the best life.”
“That’s crazy,” Zuma said with a breathless gasp.
Ian nodded in agreement. “But the thing is that after Dave knew about his own death your future shifted. The future where you were happy disappeared and instead you grew old and died never experiencing real happiness.”
“But Dave lived in that future, right?” Zuma asked.
Ian nodded again. “And as Dave ordered I informed him when your fortune shifted. We both discussed it at length and decided it was his death that triggered the potential of your happiness. It was Knight taking over Vagabond Circus. It was everything happening after Dave’s death that made a happy future a possibility for you.”
“What? My happiness was hinged on Dave dying?” Zuma said, her stomach suddenly aching.
“Yes. I’m sure that’s a hard piece of the history for you to digest.”
“So that means…” And Zuma choked out a sharp painful tear and covered her face from the sudden shock. She rocked with three convulsions and dry tears burned her throat. Ian wrapped his thick arms around her. He pressed her to him and she pushed her face deeper into her hands and firm into his chest.
“Yes,” he whispered just above her head. “That’s right. Dave willingly put on the top hat knowing it would kill him. He allowed himself to be murdered so you could one day be happy.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
For ten long minutes Ian comforted Zuma while she cried and shook and convulsed with confused tears. Finally she slid her hands out from in front of her face to show her reddened skin. Ian stepped back, feeling drained by how much he’d seen and felt in the girl, his divination stronger when he touched someone.
“Why?” she said through the tattered tears that had shredded her throat. “Why couldn’t Dave find another way to bring the future of my happiness about? Why was him dying the only option?”
Ian nodded, having expected this question and having talked it over with Dave at length. “He couldn’t risk it,” he said. “Yes, he could go after Knight but he’d already tried that and he hadn’t been successful. The man has been in hiding for all these years. Dave’s death lured him out and made him exposed. Knight had to take over the circus.”
“Dave died knowing Knight would come, paralyze Jack, and create havoc?” Zuma’s head felt like it would explode from learning this strange history.
Ian nodded. “But Dave also knew that tragedies bring about great fortunes sometimes.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Zuma said.
“Did I ever tell you about the first vision I saw?” Ian asked.
“The girl at your synagogue. You held her hand and saw she was going to step off a curb, making a car swerve and go off the road,” she said slowly as the story came back to her mind.
“Yes, and the driver would die,” Ian said, finishing that part of the story for her.
“But she didn’t because you told her.”
“And the driver went home and murdered his wife,” Ian said.
A chill ran over Zuma’s shoulders. “So you messed with reality and a woman died?”
“That woman, I later found out, was the lead scientist at a private firm who was studying the cure for cancer,” Ian said. “I interviewed her team a few years ago because I was trying to unravel how much I changed by telling that girl not to step into the road that day. They told me the woman who was murdered was the closest anyone has ever been to finding a cure for the disease. However, none of her notes made sense to them. That cure may have died with her.”
“So her husband was supposed to die?” Zuma said.
“Yes, to bring about a better future. Dave knew this. He knew how the universe operates. Sometimes I can give information to assist, but intervening is usually a problem. Creates worse futures.”
“Then why the other day did you tell the circus members that if they stayed then they could beat Knight? That was a lie,” Zuma said.
Ian slid his large calloused hand through the loose curls on his head. “Because of you,” he said in a heavy voice. “Your future keeps changing in my head.”
“What?”
“Now it’s gone back to you never being happy,” Ian said. “You die without ever knowing that emotion. The curse is never lifted.”
“But Dave died to bring about the other future,” Zuma said, her voice shaking.
“Dave died for many reasons. He died because Jack being paralyzed was a better future for him. Knight taking over the circus was better for Titus. And Dave dying was better for your future. And although all those futures have stayed mostly static, yours has changed. You still aren’t ever going to be happy. Something isn’t right and I can’t figure out what changed or what I need to do to get things to go back to the way I saw before. I did see a future where people left and that was the future before that meant you didn’t get your happiness. So I told everyone to stay to see if I could change things.”
“And?” Zuma asked, her nerves making her breathless.
“No change yet,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Ian…”
“I know,” he said, reading the look of concern on her face.
“You’re playing with futures…for me. That can’t be safe.”
“It isn’t. It’s a huge risk, but I have to,” Ian said. “Right now the future I see isn’t just bleak for you. It’s bleak for so many others. Everything’s gotten worse. Dave died for this and I have to make it work out.”
“But you said that Dave dying was going to help Titus and Jack and others,” Zuma said.
“It does, but not like it did before. I think everything shifted based on your future. The key to their extremely good fortune is centered on yours. If you get to be happy, then everyone also gets a truly happy ending.”
Zuma threaded her hands into her hair and clenched her fingers shut, pulling at her roots. “This is so complicated.”
Ian nodded with a heavy sigh.
“So what are you going to do now?” she asked.
“Something I have only done twice. I’m going to tell someone really important to your future how they die. Maybe if they avoid it then things will shift again.”
“Is that really possible? To avoid death?” Zuma said.
He shrugged his large shoulders, burdened by the potential futures playing in his head. “I don’t know. Avoiding death could also bring it about. That’s what I’ve always thought. I’ve never tried anything quite like this.”
“So if this works then I’ll get my future where I’m happy? And everyone will be happy? And Vagabond Circus will be saved?” Zuma asked each question faster than the previous.
“Yes, but I’m not answering your next question. You can’t know who it is that I’m going to save. I’ve told you enough.”
Zuma closed her heavy eyelids and took a breath. Who was the person that her happiness was hinged on? Before, it had been Dave’s death that brought her happiness. And now it was the saving of another person that created a positive future for her.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The knock on Zuma’s door caused her to jump, making the book hiccup in her hands. Her startled eyes skipped to the clock on the wall. Eight o’clock at night. She sat frozen staring at the door, wishing her super power was that she could see through walls. Was Sebastian on the other side of the door, trying to tempt her to open it so he could “tag” her? Du
ring the day she constantly turned to find him stalking her. And then in the distance behind him Zuma often saw Finley, a protective look on his face.
Again the knock.
“I see your light on,” Jasmine’s voice rang through the door. “And I totally just peeped through the crack in your drapes and saw you sitting on the couch. Open up already.”
Zuma sighed with relief before getting up and answering the door. “You realize that makes you a freak, don’t you? Peeping at me,” she said to her friend upon opening the door.
“Do I look like the type Sunshine would induct into her group?” Jasmine said with a wide smile. Her large white teeth shone in the dark and in contrast to her light brown skin.
“Get your ass in here,” Zuma said, reaching for her friend’s hand and pulling her into the trailer before glancing around the dark circus grounds. Her eyes caught him two trailers over, propped against a tree. Sebastian, as she feared, was stationed outside her trailer just waiting for her to slip up and exit it at night.
“Well, that settles it,” Zuma said, slamming the door and throwing her back against it. Her blood thundered suddenly in her head just from seeing the figure lurking in the dark. The cut of his hair gave him away, shoulder length and longer in the front.
“Settles what?” Jasmine said, plopping down on the couch along with half a dozen wedding magazines she’d been carrying.
“You’re sleeping here tonight,” Zuma said.
Jasmine arched an eyebrow and gave Zuma a flirtatious look. “Is this your way of telling me my greatest dream has come true and you’re actually gay?”
Zuma shook her head, unable to even laugh at her friend. “No, Sebastian is out there. You’re not safe traveling back to your trailer.”
“You do remember that I can break his spine with the tiniest of efforts?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Zuma said, moving away from the door. Again she wasn’t laughing at Jasmine’s light manner. “Sebastian has the advantage over you.”
“I have the strength of ten men and you think that scrawny boy could best me?” she said with a laugh.
“Yes, it’s his gift,” Zuma said.
“Gift? I didn’t know he’d gotten one,” Jasmine said.
“He has and Sebastian isn’t as young as he led us to believe. He’s fifteen.”
“Wait? What? The kid looks twelve, for sure.”
“I know, but he only pretended.”
“Wait, Z, you aren’t making sense. Why would he pretend to be younger?”
“So he could stay with Fanny undetected and hide his ability,” Zuma said.
“You mean when he was here, before he was transferred to Knight’s school?”
“Exactly,” Zuma said, taking a seat on the sofa beside her friend.
“So what’s this gift he’s hiding?”
Zuma looked at Jasmine sideways. Titus had told her to keep what she knew a secret so the circus members could focus and didn’t revolt early; however, she was tired of keeping one of her best friends in the dark. “Jaz, he can kill through touch. It’s something about the oils in his skin.”
“Wait, that’s his gift? That sounds like a curse,” Jasmine said, almost laughing.
“Not to someone who wants to use it for their own evil purposes.”
Jasmine blinked at her friend. “When you were gone, did you bump your head, like really hard?”
Zuma shook her head and grabbed Jasmine’s hand. “No, and I have so much to tell you about where I’ve been and why.”
Just then Zuma heard a clawing sound on her trailer wall. She looked up and through that crack in the drapes Jasmine had peeped through, Zuma saw one green eye staring at her, inches from her window. She jumped as a scream shot out of her.
Jasmine turned around but the sliver of Sebastian’s appearance disappeared.
“What?” Jasmine said, looking at the window and then Zuma.
“Sebastian was there,” she said in a whisper. “Looking through the crack.”
“Why would he do that?” Jasmine said.
“Because he threatened me the other day. Told me that if he caught me at night then he’d touch my skin, which would kill me.”
“No way,” Jasmine said, sitting back on the couch. “Come on, Z, please be real with me.”
“Jaz, do you remember when you recently passed out from a mysterious virus and almost died? You remember that Fanny brought you back, but only barely? It was after you intercepted a note for Dave. Remember that?”
“Yeah,” she said, her mind trailing back to the recent memory.
“That was Sebastian’s doing,” Zuma said.
“Wait, what?” Jasmine said, anger flaring on her face suddenly. “That shithead was trying to murder me?”
“No, not you…”
“Well, then who?”
“Do you remember who the letter was for?” Zuma said.
“Z, you’re telling me Sebastian was trying to murder Dave?”
“Not trying. He did,” the girl said in a haunted whisper.
***
“You do realize that this makes you sound crazy? Knight is a slave owner? Created Finley? Trained him to steal? Uses kids? Paralyzed Jack? Killed Dave?” Jasmine said, ticking off each of the revolting ideas on a long finger.
“But it all fits, doesn’t it?” Zuma had told Jasmine everything, except about the curse on her. She wasn’t ready to talk about that with anyone. She hadn’t come to terms with everything Ian had told her. About Dave. About what he sacrificed. About the person who wouldn’t die and their life would somehow save Zuma’s. Maybe…according to Ian.
“No, it actually makes perfect sense and explains all of my concerns,” Jasmine said, her eyes looking, but not seeing. “I actually wanted to discuss Knight with you but was thinking I was insane for having suspicions.”
Zuma’s head flipped up at once. “What suspicions do you have?”
“Well, it’s just me being sensitive after Dave’s death so I’m trying not to read too much into it,” Jasmine said.
“What?” Zuma asked, not liking how serious Jasmine, who was never serious, was acting.
“Knight pulled me aside today while you and Finley were practicing. I looked right at him and again he warned me to never do that.”
“Yeah, you know you’re not supposed to do that.”
Jasmine gave her a frustrated look. “And you know that I don’t like being told what do. I might have told him that.”
“And then you got a headache, right?” Zuma said, hardly a question in her voice.
“Yeah, how did you guess?”
“It’s one of Knight’s gifts,” Zuma said, remembering the stabbing sensation in her head she’d gotten after meeting Knight.
“Killing by touch. Ability to produce headaches. These aren’t gifts.”
“I know.”
“Zuma…” Jasmine said, her voice careful.
“Yes,” Zuma said, looking at her, sensing the dread in her friend.
“My ears were ringing from the headache and I could hardly hold my head up. I thought I was going to crumble to the ground,” Jasmine said.
“I know. I’ve been there. It’s horrible.”
“Thing is that I could have sworn I heard Knight say that he wasn’t sure if he liked the idea of having someone as strong as me around.”
Zuma’s breath skipped in her throat. “Oh no.”
“Yeah, I told you I had suspicions. Before I thought that meant he was cutting me from the act, but now…”
“You’ve got to be careful, Jaz. Keep your distance from Knight.”
“Are you kidding me? I just found out he’s responsible for Dave’s death. I’m going to kill that man. I’m going to snap his neck with a tiny flick of my wrist.”
Zuma jumped to sitting on her knees. “No, Jaz, you can’t even try. Knight will have his guards. Or he’ll disable you with a headache.”
Jasmine shook her head, a stubborn expression on her face. “We were alone toda
y. I sensed he fears me. And I told him off for telling me that I couldn’t look at him. Told him I would never be marginalized by a man. And I realize now he’s intimidated by me. He should be too. I’m going to sneak up on him during a practice and take him out. This has gone on too long. Titus is too much of a coward and there’s nothing anyone else can do. You’re right, the man is crafty and well protected but an opportunity will present itself and then he’ll be gone and we will be free.”
Zuma sat back, throwing her head into the cushions. If Jasmine was quick, which was an acrobat’s specialty, then she could take him out with little effort. Zuma’s mind inflated with the excitement that her friend could take out Knight thereby making all their problems disappear. “Okay, but be careful and don’t even attempt it if Gwendolyn is around.”
Jasmine nodded, a burning anger on her face. She then stood and walked for the door.
“What are you doing?” Zuma said, suddenly panicked.
“Well, I came to plan the wedding but since you’ve informed me that’s a scam then there’s no need. I’m going to go run a few laps. I need to burn off some of this revolting anger.”
“No, you can’t. Sebastian could still be out there,” Zuma said, considering plastering herself in front of the exit.
“We’ve been talking for hours. There’s no way that prick stuck around. And I’m much faster than him.”
“Jaz, I don’t like the idea.”
“Z.” Jasmine came back and grabbed her friend’s hand. “We’ve been through a lot, but everything’s going to be fine. If my daddies taught me anything it is that you don’t hide when there’s a threat. You fight. You stand up to the bully. You bring them down with your pure unyielding spirit. And you never allow them to hold you down.”
Zuma smiled a little at Jasmine. How had she kept any of this from her? Now that Jasmine knew the truth Zuma felt the first bit of hope. “You’re right,” she said.
“Girl, of course I’m right.” She winked at Zuma before leaving. “Catch you tomorrow,” she said and then laughed at her own pun, since she was the new catcher in the flying trapeze act.