by S. W. Clarke
“Patience …” Mariana said.
“I know.”
As I said it, a rumble sounded through the sky. Like thunder, but vibrating straight to the center of my chest. It didn’t want me here. The demon inside me fed off this memory, grew from it.
In coming to this place for the truth, I had pressed a finger into the festering wound inside my chest. Even as I thought it, pain blossomed at the center of me.
I drew my hand up, slapping my palm to my chest as I doubled.
“What is it?” Mariana said, gripping me tighter.
“It hurts,” I choked out. I dry-heaved once into the mud, my eyes watering through the pain and convulsion. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“You should,” she insisted. “You—”
She was cut off by a crack of thunder. Above us, the sky roiled with darkness as an unexpected wind picked up.
It hadn’t been windy on the night of the GrandExodus. And it hadn’t rained, but as I felt the first drops on my shoulders and face, I knew this was different.
I straightened, stretching out my palm. A drop fell on my skin, illuminated by the light from the tent.
It was blood.
My mind was conjuring every horror it could think of to keep me from knowing this truth—whatever it was that lay inside the tent.
My eyes shot to the tent flap, where Valdis and his vampires still stood. I had to get inside if I was going to defeat it.
And the demon knew as much.
The wind kicked up even further, and Mariana’s dress was blown around her, her golden hair circling her head in wild tendrils. She shrieked, and I squeezed her hand.
“Don’t let go,” I yelled over the noise. More blood-rain had begun to fall, coating us both in red. And though I leaned toward the tent’s flap, the wind had conspired to press me in the other direction. My boots left long divots in the mud as I was pushed back.
Mariana pointed ahead. “It’s only a few meters still. Dig in.”
She and I pressed forward, our heads tucked, but we managed no forward momentum at all. And the pain in my chest wouldn’t leave; it had become a part of my body, another struggle.
A black specter appeared before us, its body a plume of swirling smoke. The eyeholes were too large, the mouth opened in three-inch fangs. It let out an awful screech, swiping at my face as it wreathed around me.
I raised my hand too late; its knifelike claws dug into my cheek, five rivulets of pain all at once.
That was when I lost my balance.
I tumbled backward, and though I fought to keep hold of Mariana, I lost her grip.
I heard her call my name as I was blown onto my side, then my back. I managed to grab hold of a tuft of grass and scrabble onto my stomach. And as the blood-rain poured down and I finally lifted my head, I caught a single glimpse of Mariana.
She was surrounded by wraiths—creations of my demon. One by one, they grabbed each of her limbs and pulled.
“No!” I yelled.
They pulled so hard, she ripped into four pieces.
I screamed as the parts of her were blown away across the circus grounds. Her golden hair was the last I saw of her, floating like seaweed as she disappeared.
“Mariana?” I called.
No answer. None but the wind.
She was all I had, and she was gone.
I was alone. Why did it seem I always ended up alone?
A spike of fear shot through me. If Mariana was gone, I was done. And with that thought, a rare and potent feeling took hold of me: Defeat.
I can’t do this, I thought. I can’t possibly do this alone.
If I hadn’t been able to handle it in five years, who was to say I would be able to now? I was fooling myself. I was a fool.
I forced my eyes shut against the beating rain and sobbed once. As I did, I could almost feel my father’s hand on my four-year-old cheek. Behind him sat the trapeze swing, dangling over the long expanse.
He allowed me to be afraid. And then, he told me to grab the swing and leap anyway. I did, and I didn’t die.
I always leapt, and I hadn’t died yet.
Even if I would lose, I would still leap.
I opened my eyes, my chest a swirl of pain and anxiety. Ahead, Valdis and his men remained where they stood, staring in on my parents, their forms rippling with latent violence.
The blood-storm was beating too hard for me to fight my way to the main tent. I couldn’t even stand without risking being blown away.
But I could crawl.
And behind me, one of the sideshow tents flapped open. From it, a faint and familiar light offered itself amidst the darkness.
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As the blood-storm raged, I crawled my way to the smaller tent. I reached out and grabbed at the wet ground, pulling myself low across it. My wet hair kept pushing into my face, and I had to press it aside, leaving mud all over my cheeks and temples.
Was Mariana still alive? She had died in my memory, but that could have been my brain’s way of shutting her out. Right now, I knew, my mind was working against itself.
The rational part of me crawling through the mud was working to find answers. To know the truth.
The irrational part of me growling through the sky was doing its damndest to keep me from reaching those answers. To protect whatever it had locked so tight, the memory of it was slowly eating me from the inside out.
Of course, none of that mattered right now. All that mattered was what lay inside that little tent.
I finally managed to pull myself halfway in through the flap, and the absolutely pristine stillness and quiet that greeted me was almost overwhelming.
I came to a crouch inside, swicking bloody mud off my hands and face. The cuts on my cheek were agony, but they would just be scars if I lived through this.
When I had gathered myself, I lifted my face. Around me sat the storage tent. It was the farthest thing from beautiful or mysterious or miraculous, but it was exactly what I needed.
I crawled over to the far end, passing costumes and food and step-stools and batons and every circus doodad you could imagine. I had my eyes on only one thing: a big wooden chest.
The thing is, Seleema was wrong.
She said I couldn’t fight the demon, that whips and knives and fists wouldn’t work on it. But what she didn’t understand was that my whips weren’t strictly for wounding, and my fists weren’t just for punching.
I’d spent my whole life with leather in my hands, and if I was going to face this creature, I could only do so when I felt most capable.
And what made me feel capable?
As I got to the chest, I lowered onto my legs, sighing deeply. I set one hand over my aching heart, staring down at the beautiful engraving across the wooden surface.
I unlatched the chest, pushed the lid open.
Inside lay Thelma and Louise, coiled together.
This wasn’t where my whips had been on the night of the GrandExodus. Thelma had been with my mother and father there in the center ring, and Louise I’d grabbed from our trailer when I was running away from the circus that night. But then, we weren’t there right now.
We were inside my screwed-up head.
A demon lived here. Blood rained from the sky. And in a small storage tent, the two whips I loved most lay side by side inside a beautiful wooden chest, just waiting for me to pick them up.
And so I did. I grabbed Louise, hooked her onto the back of my belt. Thelma went into my right hand, her grip as smooth and familiar as ever.
I stood, all at once emboldened and energized. This, I sensed, was the last of my energy. If I did not make my stand here, I would be overwhelmed by the demon inside me.
So I made myself a promise.
I would not stop until I reached the main tent. I would fight with everything I possessed.
And if that wasn’t enough? Well, at least I’d gotten on the GoneGodDamn trapeze and swung over the expanse. Nobody could say I hadn’t tried.
I starte
d out of the small tent, ducking through the flap. Outside, the wind hit me hard; at some point, the blood rain had turned to sleet.
When my face emerged, it pelted me in stinging bursts.
I shouldered my way out. I would need Louise for this.
I unhooked her from my belt, brought her into my left hand. The wind hadn’t slowed at all, but as I shot Thelma out toward the nearest tent pole and she wrapped tight around it, I found myself a worthy foe to the wind.
I had whips. And strong arms.
I tugged myself forward until I reached the tent pole. Then I shot Louise out at an angle, wrapping her around a pole diagonal from where I stood. The wind howled, but I only gritted against it and made a slow, steady march toward the waiting tent.
As I drew closer, the wraiths returned. They howled from the darkness, scratching at me as they passed. They left long, painful wounds along my arms and face, but I only forged on.
I couldn’t fight them with my whips or my fists, but I could endure them until I used my whips to get me to where I needed to be.
On and on I went, the circus grounds stretching farther the closer I got. It didn’t matter how close or far they were; I would go until I lost my strength. I would go until I couldn’t go any longer.
The demon bellowed in the sky, swirling with tornadic fury. And for just a second, I thought: This thing would make Percy laugh. How ridiculous is it?
And just like that, the rain and wind slowed for one marvelous moment.
I took that moment. I sprinted toward Valdis and his men.
When I reached them, I grabbed Valdis’s arm. The vampire didn’t even look over at me, but he remained a steady, solid force, staring into the tent.
I breathed hard and fast, blood running down my face and arms from the sky and from all the wounds I’d endured.
My lungs felt shredded. My throat felt like slitted meat.
I stared up at the vampire. This was it. Here was the moment. I would never be completely ready. I would never be confident enough.
I only had right now, ragged and torn and beat-up as I was.
“GoneGodDamn box of frogs … I’m ready as I’ll ever be,” I growled.
And with that, he started in through the tent flaps.
Chapter 11
I was back here again. The last place I’d ever been truly happy, and the site of my grief. Here was where my demon resided.
As I followed Valdis into the tent, I stopped hard. There, some thirty feet before me, stood my mother. Alive. Unhurt. Beside her stood my father, three throwing knives clutched between four fingers.
They were so pretty, both of them. She golden-haired, he with a full head of dark hair. It occurred to me now they were only in their mid-thirties the night they died.
They’d had me at almost the same age I was now.
How had they been so well-equipped to do such a thing—shepherd two human beings through the trials of childhood?
It seemed impossible. I felt constantly out of my depth with just one dragon.
Valdis’s men filtered in around me, filing down the central walkway. Their cloaks fluttered behind them in grand fashion, as though they were part of the show.
And they would be. For one glittering moment, all seated would think they were part of the fantasy.
Until everything turned gruesome.
I gazed up into the stands. The warm circus lights shone down on everyone, and for the tiniest span of seconds, everything was all right. Life was under control, or if not wholly so, then at least manageable.
All three hundred of us in this tent had decided to put aside our worries and unhappinesses and real lives for the span of a few hours. For the span of one night.
I’d never noticed the young couple seated near the edge of the stands, their hands clasped. She leaned her head on his shoulder. And beside them, a family whose son held a cotton candy bigger than his head.
I used to hate that cotton candy. I’d once eaten so much of it I’d barfed pink, and then just the sight of it got me retching. In fact, I had eaten so much circus food—the hot dogs, the popcorn, the peanuts—that I remembered craving fruits and vegetables, like some bizarro kid.
I had forgotten about those things.
It was like half my memories of my life before this night had been wiped away after this night. I suppose that was the effect of trauma—
You locked parts of yourself away, and other parts accidentally got locked away with the pain.
Of course, it wasn’t the couple or the boy or his cotton candy that held my attention.
It was me.
Me and Thelma, our knees knocking against one another as we sat side by side high up, way in the back. I could barely make us out, deep as we were in shadow some twenty feet up. All I could see were our bare knees, our elbows on those knees, and our faces in our hands.
She looked like a miniature version of me. She held an ice cream cone, and it was melting white and gooey all over her hand. She was that captivated by the show.
A pang struck me; I didn’t remember her having ice cream. How could I have forgotten that? And what else had I forgotten about that night?
“On your left!” my mother called out, and a throwing knife went singing through the air.
It was almost time.
The illusion was about to end.
I couldn’t watch her die again. Not for a third time. I kept my eyes on me and my sister in the stands. That was who I would watch through this misery—Thelma. For once, I would keep my eyes on my sister.
As the last of the vampires walked past me, I heard the first real knife thrown.
It embedded itself in my mother’s neck.
I didn’t look; I just heard the scream.
I closed my eyes hard, clenching my hands as she slumped to her knees. Then my father screamed, and the bootsteps pounded the ground.
The carnage had begun.
I forced my eyes open, staring up at Thelma. Here was where the audience would realize the horror, and fear would strike through their spines like lightning, straightening them up all together as if they were rising from prayer.
And up they went, the stands creaking as three hundred people stood. I lost sight of me and Thelma way up there—we were both too small, too short.
Even though I knew the inevitability of this moment, I begged fourteen-year-old Patience not to lose Thelma’s hand. Maybe this time, the events replaying, she would find the strength to hold on.
The rush began, people flooding down to the center aisle. I knew where my fourteen-year-old self would land—she’d be knocked back, slide down, and end up in the darkness. Then she’d hear bootsteps, and she would remain hidden for the span of a minute.
But what about Thelma? Where had she gone?
I remained where I stood, gazing at the people flooding down, searching for my sister’s face, her blonde hair in its ponytail.
Around me, people screamed. They were yanked back, landed upon, hewn limb from limb. Blood sprayed, pooled, dripped.
But I still couldn’t see Thelma.
Up ahead, I finally saw my fourteen-year-old self. She had been grabbed by the strange man, who tried to yank her out of the tent and into the night. He was trying to save her, but she didn’t want any of it.
She wanted to find her sister.
Her eyes searched, scanning the crowd of people flooding past her. She remained standing there, a rock splitting a river tide with absolute certainty.
Maybe this time. Maybe this time she would find her.
My hand went over my chest, squeezing at my heart. I kept searching. Maybe if I got just one more glimpse of her face, one more chance to see her eyes moving, her lips forming words, it wouldn’t hurt so much.
And then I heard her.
“Patience!” she cried out, so close I could hear the break in her voice.
I gasped and spun.
She was standing right behind me.
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Thelma.
; She was seven years old and she had sticky ice cream all down her arm. Her blonde hair had been mussed, so half of it had come free of her ponytail, which hung limp and sad on her shoulder. She wore a yellow blouse with frilled short sleeves and a pair of light-blue shorts.
On her small feet, two brown sandals. At some point she had painted her toenails glittery purple. Now they were covered in dirt, her small ankles muddy and spattered in other people’s blood.
Her blue eyes were soft and long-lashed, the edges wet with tears. I had seen those tears so many times—often when she tried a new trick. I remembered her first time on the trapeze, because I had been there with her and my father.
I had told her the same thing he’d told me: Fear was all right, but we couldn’t let it stop us.
Sometimes I had seen those tears because she and I had fought. We disagreed often, probably because we slept in the same little bed many nights. It was hard being so close all the time. She was so much younger that I sometimes felt like her second mother, always responsible for her.
And it got harder as I got older.
Sometimes I blamed things on her. Sometimes I lied and said she had knocked over the glass, or she had eaten all the cookies.
Sometimes she wanted to talk to me or play with me—any game would have done; hide-and-seek or Monopoly—and I didn’t want to do either of those things. She wasn’t any real competition, and I had bigger things to think about. Boys and movies, mostly.
Sometimes she wrapped her arms around me at night, and I thought, It’s too warm. And I pushed her away.
I loved her. I loved her as any fourteen-year-old girl does—in bursts, and sometimes selfishly. I thought more of myself, of my own pains and happinesses. But I did love her.
I did. I loved her.
I kept my hand clutched over my heart. Every beat brought a sharp, staggering pain, as though a nail had been driven through the chambers of my heart and hooked around each side.
Every time it thumped to send the blood through my body, I felt the nail.