“I have no idea,” Kade replied honestly. He reached for the plate of pancakes and grabbed one. “There’s nothing weird or magical about these, is there?”
“Everything I cook tastes as if it was made with magic.”
Kade arched a confrontational eyebrow. “You’re feeling pretty good about yourself this morning, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Of course you are,” Kade scoffed. “You put one over on me. I knew you were lying. Don’t kid yourself on that front. I knew there was some big, dark secret hanging over all of you. I had no idea it was this, though. None. You totally flipped my lid. Congratulations.”
“That’s not what I was trying to do,” I said, reaching over to wipe a smudge of dirt from his cheek before snatching my fingers away a second before contact. “I … don’t worry. I won’t touch you.”
“I don’t care if you touch me,” Kade countered. “Why do you think I care if you touch me?”
“You think we’re freaks. It’s okay. It’s not the first time.”
Kade’s eyes narrowed as he looked me up and down. “Is that what you’re worried about?”
“I find I’m worried about a lot of things right now,” I admitted. “I’m not sure which one to focus on so I’m tackling them one at a time. You happen to be first on my list.”
“And what worries you about me?”
“I … I don’t want you to hate me,” I said. “That’s the one thing I never wanted. I knew we should have told you what was going on from the beginning. Max was dead set against it, though. The idea terrified him.”
“You had to know I was going to find out when you took me on your rescue mission last night,” Kade said. “Did you draw me into that on purpose?”
“No! If you recall, I tried to get you to Max’s trailer before you insisted on walking me back to mine,” I said. “I didn’t want you in danger.”
“That’s funny.” Kade chuckled, the sound hoarse and unnatural in the miniscule environment. “I’m the head of security and you were working overtime to keep me safe. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“There are a lot of things in this world that strike me as odd,” I replied. “I wasn’t trying to protect you because I didn’t think you could handle yourself. I was trying to protect you because … well … I didn’t want to see this. I didn’t want to see the hurt on your face. I didn’t want to ever leave you feeling that I betrayed you.”
“This is why you’ve been trying to put up walls, isn’t it?” Kade pressed.
“It’s one of the reasons.”
“You’re still talking in riddles.”
“That’s part of my shtick,” I said, forcing a smile for his benefit. “Are you staying or leaving?”
“I have no idea right now,” Kade said, rubbing the back of his neck. “My plan is to get through the day and decide then. I figure I owe Max that much.”
“Will you say goodbye if you decide to go?” My voice cracked as I foolishly tried to pretend I wasn’t emotionally invested in his decision.
“Yes.”
“Okay,” I said, moving back toward the door. He needed more time. The least I could do was give it to him. “I’m going to see Max and then I have to make my rounds. Don’t worry about checking anything today. I’ll handle it.”
Kade opened his mouth to respond – even argue perhaps – and then snapped it shut, nodding as he grabbed a pancake. I didn’t say goodbye, opting to leave before my pathetic worry got too much of a foothold. I didn’t have much to cling to, but I did have my pride.
For now.
“I CAN’T believe you let this happen.”
Max was my next stop. I wasn’t expecting him to be happy to see me. I wasn’t expecting him to threaten to fire me either. He’d done that twice already.
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Max,” I argued. “I had two choices. I could take Kade with me and hope we could save Raven together or I could risk sacrificing Raven and myself and keep Kade in the dark. It sounds to me as if you would’ve preferred the second option.”
“Don’t do that,” Max said, making a face. “You know very well I don’t want anything bad to happen to you and Raven.”
“Then why are we having this discussion?”
“Because I’m frustrated,” Max snapped. “You should recognize the emotion. There’s a reason that Luke kids that you have constant PMS.”
I’d never seen this side of Max before. It was … dumbfounding. “Now that the big secret is out of the bag, are you going to tell me why you brought Kade here in the first place?”
“He needed a job and I had one to offer.”
“Why else?”
“Leave it alone, Poet! How many times do I have to tell you that my private business is none of your concern?” Max was practically shouting. I guess I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t slept well the previous evening.
“I took Kade breakfast,” I said, smoothly switching topics.
“How was he?” Max was all business when he focused his attention back on me.
“He didn’t have enough to drink to give him a raging hangover and he seemed … aloof.”
“Aloof? Can you be more specific?”
“Not really,” I replied. “He wasn’t angry. He didn’t ask a bunch of questions. He didn’t call me a freak and walk out. He ate the breakfast I brought. He was … aloof.”
“Is he going to leave?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. If he does, he promised he would say goodbye before he leaves. He said he wanted to get through today and then make his decision. I’ll say this about him: He has a great work ethic. I’m not sure I would be able to do anything but curl up in a ball and feel sorry for myself if I were in his shoes.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Max said. “We both know you’re tougher than you look. You can read his mind if you want to. Do it. I want to know if he’s going to leave.”
“No.”
“Why not?” Max wasn’t used to being denied.
“It’s an invasion and I won’t betray him that way,” I replied. “He deserves privacy to make up his own mind.”
“You’re already loyal to him, aren’t you?”
“I … he deserves privacy, Max,” I said. “You were just yelling at me because I was infringing on yours. Now you want me to do the same to him. That’s not loyalty. It’s common decency.”
“It’s loyalty,” Max countered. “You’re loyal to him because … well, I haven’t quite figured out why yet. I think there’s some attraction there … on both your parts … but there’s something else. I can’t put my finger on it.”
“Don’t try,” I ordered. “Kade is a good man and he’s got a big decision in front of him. Let him make it on his own. We owe him that after lying to him.”
“I should have told him the truth from the start,” Max said. “You were right.”
“As much as I love hearing those words – and never stop saying them – this isn’t over yet,” I pointed out, my pragmatic side taking over. “Kade may decide to stay.”
“Do you think so?” Max looked hopeful.
“We’ll know in a few hours,” I said. “Until then … .”
Max sighed. “The show must go on.”
Eighteen
Sundays at the circus aren’t fun. No one is excited about the show. No one looks forward to the games. Everyone dreads packing and loading. No, Sundays are the day when everyone looks forward to the future while they’re still mired in the present.
This Sunday was a little different.
My afternoon was full. I gave more than forty readings, although I took the easiest route possible with most of them. I didn’t have the energy to argue with anyone. I was too worried about Kade and his decision.
After closing up my tent, I aimlessly walked around the circus grounds. I’m a wanderer at heart, and yet the idea of someone else wandering away crushed me.
I was lost in thought and didn’t sense Kade’s approac
h until he was almost upon me. I swiveled quickly, taking him by surprise as his handsome face popped into view.
“Did you sense me coming?”
“I’m not sure I want to answer that,” I said, forcing a shaky chuckle. “You already think I’m a freak. I don’t want to give you more fodder for your imagination.”
“I don’t think you’re a freak,” Kade argued. “That’s not a nice thing to think or say about anyone. I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s written all over your face.”
“You know, Poet, this is new for me,” Kade said. “I never imagined things like this could be real. I never thought monsters existed except in nightmares. I guess when I think about it analytically it makes sense … in a very weird way. There are a lot of unexplained things out there. Now some of them have explanations.
“It’s still hard for me to wrap my mind around,” he continued. “You’ve known about this your entire life. I’ve known about it for fifteen hours. I think I deserve time to come to grips with it.”
“I didn’t say you didn’t.”
“You’re acting as if I’m walking around kicking puppies,” Kade said.
“If you were walking around kicking puppies I would behead you.”
Kade made a face.
“Too soon?” I didn’t mean to tease him. Some things come naturally, though. Apparently flirting with Kade was one of those things.
“Maybe a little,” Kade conceded, laughing despite himself. “When did you find out that you were different?”
“I think I always knew,” I answered. “I don’t remember having some childhood epiphany.”
“Did your parents talk to you about it?”
“No.” I shook my head. “They were … normal. I’m not sure how I knew that I wasn’t supposed to talk about what I could do, but I did. I never talked to them about it and I learned at a young age that it was not wise to mention it to anyone else.”
“How so?”
“When I was in elementary school I read Lori Dawson’s mind in the lunchroom one day,” I said, leaning against one of the generators so I could relax – even though it was a facade. Kade didn’t need to know I was a ball of nerves. “She was upset because she heard her mother and father arguing about the babysitter. Apparently her father was ‘banging’ her. I didn’t know what that meant, but I announced it in front of everyone because I thought it was something interesting for Show and Tell.”
Kade pressed his lips together. “I almost don’t want to know where this is going.”
“I got sent to the principal’s office and my mother was called to the school. She was … not happy,” I said. “So Lori’s parents came in and there was a big argument about how I could possibly know what I told everyone. Lori was crying and saying she didn’t tell me and I was freaking out because I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to explain it.
“My mother stepped in and started making up these outrageous excuses,” I continued. “She told the principal I was on medication and I didn’t know what I was saying. Meanwhile, the principal was busy thinking about how he wanted to look down my mother’s shirt.”
“You didn’t tell your mother that, did you?” Kade’s eyes were filled with mirth.
“I told her that Mr. Walker thought she had a nice rack and was dying to see her boobs,” I said. “Everyone freaked out. Lori’s parents insisted I needed counseling. My mother told them to mind their own business and it was a whole big thing.”
“What happened?”
“Instead of dealing with it, my parents pulled me out of school and I attended the Damascus School for Girls after that.”
Kade snorted. “That’s a great story.”
“From your point of view maybe,” I said. “For me it was a hard lesson.”
“I don’t understand how your parents could hide what you are from you.”
“Sometimes I wondered if they knew the truth about me,” I said. “I thought they made excuses for my behavior because they didn’t want to believe I was different. It wasn’t until they died and I was going through my mother’s belongings that I realized that wasn’t true.”
“What did you find?”
“Her journal. She knew something was off about me and she was chronicling my abilities.”
“To what end?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “Once they were dead I couldn’t ask them. I was so lost at that point I’m not sure it would’ve mattered. I couldn’t change things. I couldn’t ask her about my heritage. Everything I managed to uncover I did on my own.”
“What does Romani mean?” Kade asked. “You said last night that you were Romani. I’m not sure what that is.”
“It’s not popular to say but … essentially … it’s what people used to call gypsies,” I said.
“Why isn’t it popular to say?”
“Gypsies are looked upon with derision and suspicion. They’re thought of as thieves and vagabonds.”
“Weren’t you a thief and vagabond at one time?” Kade asked, his dimples popping up to let me know he was joking.
“I was.”
“Can you do anything else? Do you have any other powers?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. He was just starting to come around. Lying to him probably wasn’t going to be the best course of action. “I can make people do things if I want to,” I said. “I can make them forget things. I can make them go to sleep.”
“Why didn’t you make me forget what I saw behind the House of Mirrors?”
“Because I don’t think it’s fair to invade someone’s mind and play with their memories,” I replied. “I did it a lot when I was younger. I thought I had to do it to survive. Max taught me another way. Now I know I was wrong.”
“So, you can read minds, control them, and erase them,” Kade mused. “Am I missing something?”
“Just one thing,” I said, figuring I might as well tell him everything and live with the consequences now instead of delaying the inevitable. “I can change my appearance.”
Kade wrinkled his nose. “Do you mean you can actually change your facial features?”
“It’s called a glamour,” I explained. “I don’t really change the way I look. It’s more that I change other people’s perception of how I look.”
“So you don’t really look like this?” Kade furrowed his brow, concern washing over his features.
“Don’t worry. This is how I really look,” I said. “I’m not hiding a hunched back and peg leg beneath a veneer of magic.”
“Why do you change the way you look?”
“I don’t very often,” I said. “Sometimes I do it when we need to bait a monster into a trap. Other times I do it when we’re short a performer and I can fill in. It’s not something I trot out regularly. I thought you deserved to know, though. I don’t want you laboring under the weight of our secrets if you don’t have to.”
“I’m still not sure how I feel about all of this,” Kade admitted.
“Can I ask how you felt about all of us before you found out the truth?”
“I felt as if I found a home,” Kade said. “I’m not saying it was perfect. The guys here are ridiculously alpha and the women are … distracting.” His grin was sly. “I liked it here, though.”
“You know we’re still those people, right?”
“I know you’re not monsters,” Kade said. “That doesn’t change the fact that you chopped off a guy’s head and burned his body. Sure, he was trying to kill me and I’m glad you didn’t let that happen, but you still killed him without thinking twice.”
“Technically Nellie killed him,” I clarified. “I was going to do it myself before he showed up, though, so … .”
“How many people have you killed?”
“People? I’m not sure. Monsters? Quite a few.”
“I’m not sure how you can make that kind of distinction.”
“Dale Morgan was not a person,” I explained. “He also wasn’t a t
ypical monster. He was different.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Don’t make jokes,” I said. “You don’t want to see the type of monsters who are made up of all ears.”
Kade’s mouth dropped open.
“I’m messing with you.” I patted his arm, momentarily losing myself in the feeling of his muscles as they rippled beneath his skin. “There are no ear monsters.”
“That’s good to know.”
“There is some Norwegian beast that’s rumored to be made up of a thousand eyes, but I’ve never personally seen it so I can’t attest to its existence.”
“You’re having fun at my expense and I’m not sure how I feel about it,” Kade said.
“I’m sorry. What we faced last night was a Wendigo. It’s basically a really nasty cannibal with superhuman strength. The problem is, I don’t think he ever ate anyone so he wasn’t a true Wendigo. That’s why he didn’t set off the dreamcatcher.”
“You mentioned that before,” Kade said. “What’s the dreamcatcher?”
“It’s something Raven and I invented,” I answered. “We join our magic with that of Nixie and Naida and lay a trap. The dreamcatcher calls to evil paranormals and draws them to us. When they cross the lines we’re alerted to their presence.”
“You said it calls to evil paranormals. What about good ones? I’m assuming you consider yourself a good one.”
“We build the evil component into the spell.”
“I thought you said you didn’t have any other magic,” Kade pressed.
“Technically Nixie, Naida and Raven provide the bulk of the magic,” I clarified. “I’m the conduit, so I direct it into the form we want with my mind.”
“And it looks like a dreamcatcher?”
“When the magical threads connect it does. If you stay, you’ll be able to see it when we erect the new one outside of Omaha.”
“Can I see it if I’m human?”
“Yes. Something tells me you might actually like it.”
“If I stay,” Kade stressed.
“If you stay.”
“Do you want me to stay?”
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