Sleight: Book One of the AVRA-K

by Jennifer Sommersby

  “We got her,” Ted said.

  “10-4, Ted, thanks. She okay?”

  “Seems fine. Cold and wet, but alive. Thanks, Mattias. Over.”

  “10-4. Meet you back at the mess tent.”

  “Gemma, honey, how did you get out here?” Marlene said, her arm tight around my shoulders.

  I was dazed. “My feet hurt.”

  “I should say so! You’re only wearing socks, sweetheart. Do you want Uncle Ted to carry you back in?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Hon, do you know—”

  “I don’t know, Marlene,” I said, cutting her off. I didn’t know how I’d gotten out there. The last thing I remembered…lying down on my bed with the bloody nose. After seeing Alicia.

  As we walked back toward the main camp, I noticed something new. A strange buzzing in my ears. But it wasn’t buzzing, as in the static of a radio. It was…talking. Conversations between people, quiet conversations spoken in hushed tones.

  I wonder what she was doing out here…It’s so sad, with her mom being gone…Seems that maybe she’s starting to unravel a little…Was she drinking? She’s half naked, for Chrissake. I’ll bet it’s drugs…Poor Marlene. So stressful for her…She’s been hanging around with the new boss’s kid. Henry, right?…Hope there’s hot coffee waiting for us…You hear Ted’s going with the Roulette this weekend…

  I looked among the crowd. The voices—the company members

  —had spread themselves across this open swath of property, in the pitch black under a moonless sky, the air hovering just above freezing, to help Ted and Marlene search for me.

  And I could hear their conversations.

  I waited to entertain further discussion until we were away from the group, back in the warmth of the trailer. The only logical explanation for my midnight jaunt was that I’d been sleepwalking, and although I’d never done so before, I was too freaked and too tired to debate the issue with Marlene and Ted.

  “It might be a puberty thing,” Marlene said. “I read once that even if a kid doesn’t sleepwalk when they’re little, it’s not unheard of for it to begin in adolescence.” She and Ted talked about safeguarding the trailer—they could add an extra lock to the door to keep me from walking away at night, pile up extra sawdust around the stairway in case I fel. Their ideas were ridiculous—I wasn’t a toddler in need of childproofing—and it pissed me off that they were completely missing the point.

  “Enough!” I yeled. They both looked to me, stunned. “You’re talking about…about nothing!”

  “Gems, we’re just trying to help here,” Ted said.

  “If you want to help me, then explain to me why al of these weird things are happening. I saw Alicia today. She was crying, behind the trailer. She said something about getting the book to her father, and she wanted me to tel Henry that she loves him. I thought her father already had the book, and that’s why we have this little problem in the first place.”

  “I…I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Ted said. He looked away as he answered me.

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not lying,” he said, again refusing to look me in the eye.

  “What else is going on, besides seeing Alicia?” Marlene said.

  I thought for a moment about teling them everything, about the vision in the field with Delia, Alicia, and the cloaked man, about seeing the guy in the mess tent, Delia’s stuff from the mental hospital, the message scrawled in her copy of La Una, and now the ability to hear the spoken conversations of people not standing near me. But I sensed that I wasn’t getting the truth from Ted. I felt a distance growing between us, among al three of us. There had been a lot that the Cinzios had withheld, and while I knew their actions had been rooted in a desire to protect me, my gut told me that ful disclosure on my part was unwise. At least for the time being. My trust in Ted, in both of them, was eroding with every new deception unveiled.

  “Nothing. Forget it,” I said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a shower and go to bed.”

  They looked at one another, concern heavy on their faces.

  “You sure you’re going to be okay in here alone?” Marlene asked.

  “Maybe you should just stay with her, Mar,” Ted said. “Irwin’s in the office. You want me to send him in to sit with you?”

  “No. I’m fine,” I said. “I’m realy sorry I got lost. I didn’t mean to.”

  “We know you didn’t mean to, sweetie,” Marlene said, her smile sympathetic. “If you’re sure…”

  I nodded. I didn’t need a babysitter.

  “Okay, I’l be back in a few hours for bed and wil check on you then, okay?” My aunt gave me a quick hug and kiss before folowing Ted out of the trailer.

  I waited for the door to click closed before opening my cel phone to send yet another text message to Henry. I was elated to see a missed text waiting for me. Finaly!

  Can’t talk. Watching me like hawks. Big trouble coming. C u tmrw. xo-HD

  I ignored the part that said he wasn’t able to talk to me and composed a message of my own:

  Ur mom says she luvs u. My mom says we need 2 get 2 Rouen.

  Help?

  I moved to the window and watched Ted and Marlene in the courtyard. To my surprise, I could hear everything they were saying to one another, as if they were standing in the room with me.

  “Ted, what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, Mar.”

  “But what are we going to do?”

  “Marlene, please! We just have to keep going, until I hear from Thibeault. We have to carry on, pretend that everything is fine. Do the show tomorrow, then see what happens.”

  “Ted—”

  “Marlene, stop. Please.” Ted suddenly looked much older than his fifty-some years.

  “It’s just so much for her. First Delia, now finding out about Lucian, and you and Henry,” Marlene pleaded with him.

  “For right now, for the next little while, we just have to pretend.

  Please, I’m begging for your help.”

  “And the halucinations—how do we know that she’s not folowing in Delia’s footsteps?”

  “We don’t.”

  Marlene looked down at her feet. “This could kil her. You have to do something, Theodore. I won’t let Lucian get her, too.” She walked away, leaving Ted alone in the glow of the fairground floodlights. He reached into his pocket and plucked out a cigarette.

  As he lit up, he looked back toward my trailer. I couldn’t tel if he saw me in the window. It wouldn’t matter, anyway. He didn’t need to see my face or know that I’d heard their conversation to know that his secrets were gouging craters in the ground under his feet.

  Pretend that everything is fine. What these genius adults didn’t get was that al this pretending had landed us exactly in this predicament. But when the pretense finaly came crashing down, as it always did, there would be bodies left in its wake.

  :29:

  When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe.

  —Henry David Thoreau

  Just after 4 in the morning, the buzzing started again. I recognized voices of the people who were up and moving around the grounds. This latest trick of mine was going to be very difficult to get used to, the constant chatter droning on in my ears. The faces belonging to a few of the voices flashed in my head like photos in an album as they talked about sports teams, politics, the weather.

  Mundane stuff. Until someone mentioned that the Dmitris were coming to the show today.

  Finaly, I’d get to see Henry.

  While I prepared for the matinee performance, I listened to my iPod to drown out the conversations. School was going to be unbearable if this continued. There was no way I could sit in a classroom with the steady stream of noise playing in the background. No. Way.

  By noon, I had managed to steer clear of any uncomfortable run-ins with Ash. Pre-show prep was always a mad rush of activity with last-minute costume repairs, hair, makeup, w
arm-ups. Marlene summoned me for a briefing in Ted’s office, and upon my arrival, she griled me about how I was feeling, if I was okay to play the show or if Irina should do it.

  “You slept okay after…?” she said.

  “Fine, Marlene. I’m fine.”

  Ted started in with his show review speech. “The last two days have been good—solid gate numbers, smooth performances, and most importantly, no injuries,” he said, his last assessment directed at me. “But today is a whole new bal of wax. We’ve got a big audience expected, and as you know, the Dmitris are coming.” Ted didn’t often alow his nerves to show but he was amped up, gnawing the lid of his pen and fidgeting with the unopened box of Nicorette on the table.

  “Gemma, we’re going to use the headsets and the stage manager wil prompt you on your cues,” he said, handing me an updated breakdown of the act.

  Ted covered Irwin’s and Marlene’s roles, and adjourned our meeting so he could go catch up with the pyrotechnics guy and the fire marshal. Marlene helped Irwin out of the trailer, but I hung back. I needed a private moment with Ted.

  “What are we doing here, Ted?”

  “Let’s just get through the day,” he said, his shoulders slumped and his face drawn.

  “Rouen—am I going there? To the Delacroixs’?” He stared at me. “Yes, yes you are. Please…not now. I wil give you what I can later.”

  “Is Henry going with me?”

  He nodded.

  “When? When, Ted?”

  “Soon.” He stood and placed a rough hand on my cheek.

  “Soon. I promise.” He then excused himself, leaving me standing alone in his trailer. The bloodstain on the floor from my accident had stiffened the fibers of the cheap carpet, despite Marlene’s efforts to clean it. Even though the blood itself was gone, the darkness of the moment remained, etched into the polyester for eternity.

  Marlene had already tucked into the bathroom of our trailer, her lengthy makeup-and-hair regimen wel underway, by the time I came in to get ready. I puled out my violin and stretched my stiff arms before sitting down to warm up the strings.

  Irwin opened the door to come in, the trailer rocking slightly under his weight as he climbed the stairs.

  “You ready for today, girlie?” He sat at the table and rubbed a calused hand across his bald head. Othelo’s claws had removed most of Irwin’s recognizable facial features; the skin grafts extending from his chin to the top of his scalp ended his need for haircuts, and he shaved down the few hairs that did grow. I wondered if the damage hurt when it rained, like Marlene’s arthritic knee or Ted’s sore shoulder did. When I was younger, I’d get mad when people stared. Stick my tongue out and wag my finger at them. I loved my Uncle Irwin. Nobody got away with being mean to him, ever.

  “Ready as I’l ever be.”

  “Gems, the shades…they’re talking to you, aren’t they?” I put my violin in my lap. “Yeah, Irwin. They are.”

  “I’ve been having this dream, the same one, every night, over the last few weeks.”

  “About?” I asked. Irwin had never confided in me about his dreams. He hadn’t realy ever spoken to me about the shades, either, other than when I was a little kid and I used to hide my face in his or Marlene’s pant legs. They couldn’t see what I was afraid of, but they trusted me that it existed nonetheless, that I wasn’t the crazy child of a crazy mother.

  “There’s someone near us who isn’t what he or she says they are.”

  “Maybe you should talk to Irina about this,” I said.

  “I did. She’s been having the same dream.”

  “I’m thinking you might realy be going psychic on us, Irwin.” I was sort of teasing, sort of not. It’s not that I didn’t believe him. At this point, I didn’t know what to believe.

  “I see things differently, Gems. My spidey senses tel me something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” Again with the Shakespearean references. “Just be careful, okay? Be on your toes.

  We love you so much. I just want to do whatever I can to protect you, little one.”

  I stood and patted the top of his hand just as Marlene emerged from the bathroom. She was radiant, her new (fireproof) costume sparkling in the early afternoon sunlight, the sequins and rhinestones casting tiny rainbows on the cupboards, wals, and ceiling.

  “Does she look as pretty as she smels, girlie?” Irwin said.

  “She looks amazing. Break a leg, Auntie,” I said, air-kissing Marlene’s cheek. “Or, not. No broken or stabbed anything, please.”

  “Got my lucky penny in my shoe,” she winked and pointed her foot in my direction. “See you inside?”

  Marlene left, the smel of her hairspray and perfume slow to fade. Irwin folowed her out to give me a little privacy to get ready.

  I changed, threw on some makeup, and packed my violin to head into the stadium. The sound of car tires driving on the freshly poured gravel of the parking lot, the feet stamping on the tiny rocks, the swarm of voices coming from the direction of the ticket booths—it was overwhelming. The light wind carried the excited voices of the little kids scrambling toward the big top hoping to catch a glimpse of the elephants en route to the arena. With al this new noise in my skul, I couldn’t concentrate. How was I going to play? How was I going to walk into a massive tent of people without puling my hair out or screaming, or both?

  I should’ve told Ted to have Irina play. Too late now.

  I crammed the iPod earbuds into my ear canals and took a few deep, meditative breaths. It was better with the music overriding the sounds of the crowd. I’d just keep the headphones on until the last minute.

  I nearly stepped on the smal white box resting on the top step outside the trailer. I bent to pick it up, tucking my music under my left arm, and looked around the yard for any sign of the person who’d left it.

  Once in my velvet enclosure, I went through my regular routine.

  A headset was waiting on my chair and a stagehand appeared to do a last-minute sound check and affix the battery pack to the waistband of my skirt. I placed the pages on the music stand and clicked on the tiny lamp so I could see what I was doing. With my violin and bow in my lap, I waited for it al to begin, for Ted’s voice to boom across the PA, welcoming attendees to our afternoon spectacle.

  It was then that I remembered the smal box. I untied the red satin ribbon and removed the lid. Inside, under a cottony pilow, was a necklace bearing a silver charm about the size of a nickel: a letter G. A tiny note hidden in the box revealed the gift giver’s identity. “For luck, for my letter G. xoxo Henry.” I clasped the fine chain around my neck and tucked the violin under my chin. A few more deep breaths while waiting for the stage manager’s cue.

  Ted, swirling cape and black top hat in place, stood adjacent to my area as he awaited the signal to bound through the curtain into the blazing spotlight. The opening music had begun, augmented by the circus orchestra, an eerie yet whimsical compilation intended to excite the crowd, invite them to come along on our mythical journey.

  Our story was a loose adaptation of Dante’s epic poems about a young man who must travel the Three Realms, face insurmountable obstacles in each, so that he might be reborn and live forever. As I sat there, trying to shove the flood of whispers out of the space in my head, I realized that the young man and I had a lot in common, both of us faced with impossible odds, both struggling against a destiny we didn’t ask for.

  I listened for my cue and secured the violin under my chin, bow ready.

  “Five-second warning, Gemma…,” the stage manager whispered through my ear piece.

  I cleared my mind and pushed myself into that place where I only saw, and heard, the notes. Another deep breath.

  Begin.

  :30:

  An act of humanity and benevolence will at all times have more influence over the minds of men than violence and ferocity.

  —Niccolò Machiaveli, The Discourses

  The audience was electric, demanding encores from the company that pushed the show
wel into a third hour. When it was finaly time for al of us to take our bows, my guardians caught the wave of the audience stil on their feet and the spotlight refocused on me as I emerged from the shadows and took my place. As much as I shunned the attention, in circus terms, this was a monumental day for Ted and his precious company, a coup that would quiet the naysayers and usher the Cinzio Traveling Players into a new age of theater and circus fusion.

  Under the glare of the spotlight, my hands tucked in the hands of Marlene and Ted on my flanks, I spotted Henry in between two people I didn’t recognize, Lucian directly behind. The foursome clapped but remained seated, a stark contrast to the excitement of the surrounding audience who roared through the standing ovation.

  The circus orchestra played the audience out of the stadium, and backstage was a celebration of hugs and high-fives. With the overload of sound, I needed to get out of there, maybe sneak through and pul Henry out of the tent so we could talk. Alone. Just as I was putting my earphones back in, Junie bounced in behind me and nearly knocked me over with a bear hug.

  “Wasn’t that amazing? Omigod, that was the best show we’ve ever done! Wasn’t it?” She was jumping up and down like her butt was on fire. “Let’s go, I’m supposed to drag you to the dressing rooms for a meet-and-greet. Come on!”

  “Junie, no, please. My head—I gotta get some fresh air.” I was on the verge of a panic attack.

  “Nuh-uh, party pooper. No escaping! I have strict orders, so come on!”

  She puled me into the festivities where the company members congratulated one another on such a successful show. Wide-mouth plastic wine glasses were passed and filed. I found a spot on the far wal of the tent and focused on it, trying very hard to avoid eye contact with the people in my midst as Junie led the way. Great show…so glad the Roulette went well…Marlene looked freaked…Sven looks hot in his tights…I think I need a raise…

  when’s dinner. The performers were alive with commentary. The sound—it flirted with unbearable.

  We emerged at the opposite end of the mass to join Ted, Marlene, and a handful of others who were surrounded by a group of local reporters, photographers, and distinguished guests. Even the mayor had come, his two kids and gorgeous wife beaming as though they’d just won the lottery. Lucian Dmitri stood with the older couple I’d seen in the audience, and of course, Henry, who gave me only a polite smile.