Circus Summer (Circus of Curiosities Book 1)

by Kailin Gow

  “You’re right. This is all kind of hard to believe, but with what I heard before, with everything that’s happened… I’m not sure what to believe now. My mother. I was going to take her to the Center. I was going to go there looking for answers about my father. If I had…”

  “They’d have taken her,” I say, stopping the car and getting out. I reach out for Leela’s hand. “I had to tell you so that you’d know what the stakes were, and so that you’d be able to make a real choice about staying in the circus.”

  “But if I don’t, my mother still doesn’t get better, right?” Leela says.

  I can hear the party going on inside. There’s music, food, and probably all my friends. I wait a moment or two longer though. “Leela, we’ll get her better, but not by taking her to the Center to be turned into one of those… things. There are still physicians left, in hiding. I can get you to them if you want. It has to be better than you trying to get to the Center.”

  “And these physicians can cure her?”

  “Maybe,” I say. I don’t want to make Leela a promise that might turn out to be a lie. “They’re better than anything around here, at least. The Invaders sent a lot of them off to the war to treat soldiers, or rather to get killed, but some of them know the truth. They’re in hiding, fighting the real war.”

  “Is that where my father went?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. He knew, I’m sure of that, so maybe. If I can help you find out what happened to him. I will. I promise.”

  Leela stands there, looking at me. “Thank you, Zachary. For that. For all of this. I…”

  I don’t get to find out what she’s going to say next, because the door opens at that point, revealing a few of the guys from the football team.

  “Zachary, there you are. What are you doing standing out there? Come on, this party is just getting good.”

  As they pull me inside, I find myself thinking that however good this party is, it won’t be as good as simply spending time around Leela. That’s when I know I’ve fallen in love with her.

  Chapter 21

  Leela

  I find myself alone, looking around the house as the party goes on around me. It’s a nice house, maybe not the largest in town but definitely the most expensively furnished. Because of their store, the Niles’ can afford better things than most people. Because of their truck, they can even simply fetch them from other towns.

  There are plenty of people in the house. Friends of Zachary’s I know from school, other people from around town… there’s music being provided on an old gramophone, wound by whoever happens to be closest. I guess even for the Niles a regular electricity supply is hard to find.

  I feel so alone in the middle of all that. Zachary is there somewhere, but his friends have taken him away for now, leaving me by myself in the party. I can see people looking at me. I didn’t get to go home and change after all, so I’m still dressed in the blue dress I wore to go to the circus. Do they recognize me from there? Of course they do.

  “There you are.”

  I look around to see a woman I recognize as Zachary’s mother. She looks a lot like him, with the same dark hair and steely grey blue eyes. She smiles, holding out a glass of punch that I take gratefully. “Thank you.”

  “I’m glad you did so well in the performances,” she says.

  “Even though I’m competing against your son?”

  She nods, although she looks like there are lots of emotions going on beneath the surface in that moment. She actually looks like she might cry. “You have such chemistry, the two of you. I’m glad… I’m happy Zachary can experience those feelings at least before…”

  I reach out to take her hand. “You don’t really want him to go through with the performance, do you?”

  Mrs. Niles looks at me and smiles, though something about that smile doesn’t quite ring true. “But of course I do. Any parent would be proud that their child made it, and so am I.”

  Yet even as she says it, another set of words spring into my head. It’s like I’m hearing two versions of her. The one speaking, and the one I can hear in my mind.

  “I know you know,” she says in my head.

  I jump as I hear that, almost spilling my drink. Mrs. Niles keeps looking at me, saying something about how we’d best be careful that I don’t get punch on my pretty dress, but the words that matter are the ones that ring through my head.

  “Good, you can hear me. Zachary was right. You aren’t one of them. One of the Invaders. We have to be so careful these days. They’re everywhere. They could be anyone.”

  “How can you tell?” I ask that out loud. It must sound like an odd thing to say to anyone nearby, but I don’t care right then.

  Mrs. Niles continues talking in her mind’s voice, the words clear and calm, like she’s talking to me from just a short distance away.

  “In the years following the Apocalypse, so many things changed. Humans finally learned to unlock the talents that lay dormant within them. We learned to tap into our sixth sense and communicate with our thoughts. The strongest of us can communicate through visions and dreams, walk through them. But only humans can do it. The Invaders cannot. That’s how I know you’re human.”

  “Why can’t they…”

  Mrs. Niles shakes her head, cutting me off. “Don’t say it aloud,” she says in my thoughts. “Think about it before you speak. The Invaders don’t have the imagination or emotional capacity to do what we do. They’re… cut off from their emotions, I guess you could say. Or maybe they just don’t feel them the same way we do. They don’t think quite the same way we do.”

  “And Zachary…”

  “Shh,” Mrs. Niles says out loud. “Come with me, I want to show you something.”

  She takes my hand, leading me out of the room, away from the party. There’s a door at the back of the kitchen leading to a set of stairs heading down to the house’s basement level, and Mrs. Niles takes me down those stairs. I start to feel a little worried. What’s going on? Where exactly is Zachary’s mother taking me?

  There’s another door at the bottom, and Mrs. Niles knocks on it in a peculiar pattern before walking in, leading me through. The light there isn’t strong, from low oil lamps that don’t glow much, so that it takes my eyes a little while to adjust. When they do, I stand there staring.

  The room we’re in is huge; larger than the whole plan of the house above. There are maybe twenty people in here, most of whom I recognize from Sea Cliff. Mr. Niles is there, and Frank, and Mrs. Tattenbaum. And there’s one person there I’m really not expecting…

  Dr. Dex.

  I almost turn and run from the room at the sight of him. I look around, trying to work out the best way to get out of there. If he’s been talking to the Invaders who came to the circus, working with them…

  “There, there, Leela, don’t be so alarmed.” The words drift into my mind, the same way Mrs. Niles’ did. The same way Zachary’s did. “You are in no danger. All will be explained as soon as everyone’s here.”

  There’s another knock at the door just then. The same complicated pattern Mrs. Niles used. The door opens to reveal Zachary… and Thomas.

  “Thomas!” I say heading over. “I thought after everything, you’d be too mad at me to come to the party, but…”

  Thomas looks so serious then that I stop, not hugging him the way I was planning to. “Leela, I’m not here for the party. I’m here solely for this meeting. My mother told me to come.”

  Zachary moves up next to me, taking my hand. His words echo in my thoughts. “So, Mom thinks it’s time to pull you into all of this.”

  He looks over at Dr. Dex then. He looks as surprised as I am to see him there.

  “Now you’re here,” Dr. Dex says, and he says it aloud, “let’s get started. I don’t have much time. They’re expecting me to give them a full account of each performer… but as it is, they are here in town. The cruelest of the Invaders always come to the performances to see people hu
rt or killed by the acts, so we can’t take chances around them.” He looks over at me and Zachary then. “I’m sorry about Sandy and the others. I know you must think I’m as cruel as they are, but you’ll see that it’s for the greater good. If I don’t make the circus everything the Invaders would want it to be, then I can’t lure them out of the Center the way I want. And they would make the Circus much more brutal, believe me.”

  I think I understand then, and understanding hurts. “So this is all one big trick? They’re tricking us, and you’re tricking them? Is there even a performance at the Center at the end? All these rounds, all this pain, and there isn’t even that, is there?”

  “But there is,” Dr. Dex says. “That’s the point. There will be a spectacular one held at the largest stadium in the Center. The Invaders want it so that they can bet on kids like you. So that they can see you to pick out the best and the brightest of you…”

  “To take us over,” I say.

  Dr. Dex nods. “This circus has been around for years. I didn’t start it, and nor did the Invaders, but we’re both trying to use it for our own purposes. It’s a way in for me. It’s…”

  He tails off, and I know why, even though I don’t know how I know why. There’s someone at the door. Someone there who isn’t human. There’s a knock. Just an ordinary knock. Mrs. Niles goes to the door, which she opens a small crack. We’re all quiet while she talks.

  “Oh, I was just in the basement, trying to find something for the party. What do you want? Oh, extra napkins because someone spilled something? You can find them in the pantry. Okay, I’ll be up there in a few minutes.” She comes back, closing the door behind her. “It was one of the servers who catered the party. She’s from the store, helping out tonight.” She says that like it’s nothing to have one of the Invaders working for them. “Alright, go on.”

  Dr. Dex nods to Zachary and me. “Tonight’s performance really sparked an interest in them. Something about it caught their eye. They’re so used to seeing brutality and recruits killing one another, seeing the two of you caring about each other seems to have made them a lot more interested than they would be. It’s like, because they’ll never have those emotions themselves, they want to see more of it.”

  “Good,” Mr. Niles says. “That means, Dex, that my son and Leela will both have to survive.”

  It sounds like an order, but Dr. Dex shakes his head. “I’m not fixing it so that they will,” Dex says. “That would be too obvious. The Circus of Curiosities only works if I find the very best to head out to play their game at the Center.”

  Mrs. Tattenbaum chimes in. “Dex is right. The winners must be worth their places at the Center, and the only way to ensure that is to go through with the tests, um, performances.”

  “Even if it places our children at risk?” Mr. Niles asks.

  “They’re all somebody’s children,” Dr. Dex says. “All of them. But for what we can achieve…”

  There’s another knock at the door…a knock that quiets the room instantly. I have a feeling it’s not the server this time, and my stomach fills with a slight fear. What would happen to everyone in this group if the Invaders finds out about them? From everything I’ve heard, the Invaders are brutal, merciless, smart, and conniving. They will get a thrill torturing us.

  Before Mrs. Niles could reach the door, Dr. Dex cuts in front of Mrs. Niles, opening the door a fraction. “Yes, what is it? You aren’t supposed to be here.”

  I recognize the voice of the woman who answers, because I’ve heard her before, speaking out in the darkness of the tents around the circus.

  “I can go where I like. Don’t forget your place.”

  “No, of course not. Even so, I didn’t expect to see you here, at a child’s graduation party.”

  “I was… interested. I wanted to see more. To understand. Not all of us feel the same, but I feel that if we study them enough, we might understand these strange behaviors of theirs. Now, do you have a report for me?”

  “Of course.” Dr. Dex steps outside, not even looking back at us. He shuts the door behind him and I find myself wondering not for the first time that evening, just whose side he’s on. He’s hinted at so much this evening, about wanting to get into the Center, about wanting to get close to the Invaders, about working against them, but he hasn’t said anything about his actual plan.

  And he hasn’t said anything about my mother either. I turn to Zachary then in the group, and he walks over to me, taking my hand. Thomas looks angry and frustrated, but he doesn’t come over to me. He walks up to his mother instead. “What’s going on? Why are we here?”

  Mrs. Tattenbaum puts a hand on Thomas’ shoulder and said. “I finally can tell you, Thomas, now that the Circus of Curiosities has reached us, and you’re old enough to know.”

  Thomas looks at me then. “Does Leela know what’s going on, too, or is it just me?”

  Zachary speaks then. “I just told her. She never knew.”

  “Who was that at the door, and why is the Circus’ ringmaster here?” Thomas asks.

  All the adults exchange uncomfortable glances then.

  An awkward silence fills the room.

  Finally, Frank, my boss, the owner of Cliff View Restaurant, answers. “That was one of the Invaders, Thomas…who has taken over the body of someone who works at The Center, assuming their identity. We think the Invaders have slowly integrated into The United by assuming the identities of the most powerful people at The Center. There are some Invaders out in small towns like ours, but for the most part, they are power-hungry beings so they concentrate in areas where they can achieve the most power.”

  Thomas looks confused then. “Are you saying The United is run by our enemies, The Invaders, whom we’ve been fighting this long war against?”

  Frank continues. “That’s what we believe.”

  Thomas is scratching his head. “So the Invaders are not humans. They assume human shape, though, to function in our society?”

  “They’re not from this planet, Thomas. That’s why they’re the Invaders. And you’re right. They’re not human.”

  “So that’s how we know who is human and who isn’t,” I say. “They can’t feel human emotions. Like they’re numb.”

  “Which is why they find entertainment in seeing people perform brutal acts. They understand death and destruction. It’s what moves them to feel,” Mrs. Niles said.

  “So that’s how the Circus of Curiosities fits in,” Zachary said, more to himself. “Dex Hightower is using it to infiltrate into the Invaders’ Center.”

  “Perhaps,” Frank says. “We don’t know what his plans are for sure. He was going to explain it tonight, but that Invader showed up. Guess we will have to wait for another opportunity to find out.” Frank looks over at me then. “Now let’s not worry about that. Let’s let Leela, Zachary, and Thomas enjoy themselves tonight. Tomorrow’s another day of performances. Tonight, is a day of celebration for Zachary and Thomas’ graduation, and for Leela and Zachary making it into the final performances.”

  With that, the meeting is over, and everyone heads up the stairs to the main rooms. The music is blasting, and Zachary’s friends seem to be enjoying the large spread of food at the dining room table. The adults head out to the patio area, and I’m alone with Zachary and Thomas, who is standing awkwardly next to me. Thomas’ face is still in disbelief, and I can understand how he’s feeling right now because at this moment, I’m feeling the same way. Life as we’ve known it since we were children, will never be the same again.

  Chapter 22

  We lose more people over the next few days at the Circus. The performances consisted of working with wild animals, riding horses, trying to control beasts the way Carlita Montalban does. Somehow, we come through that without serious injury. Maybe that’s why we’re less careful the next day when there’s another bout of knife throwing as the main performance. It’s the same as it was when we practiced, hitting brightly colored target balloons and pieces of fruit balanced
on each other’s heads or held in our mouths.

  I’m paired with Zachary for that, the way I was in practice. I’m so grateful for that, especially when he has to pluck an apple off my head with a knife at the same moment I take one from his. There is only a small change from what we did while we were training, but the change makes a huge difference in the difficulty, because now the target is moving as Zachary winds up to take his throw at me. I hold my breath and close my eyes.

  This is something we haven’t practiced, and I’m nervous for Zachary, and scared for me.

  I can see and feel Zachary concentrating as he aim and throws the knife. It hits the balloon sticking out of my mouth, and the crowd erupts into applause. We make it. I’m so relieved in that moment that I rush over to kiss him. As with the trapeze, the crowd seems to like that almost as much as the rest of the act. I guess we’re doing what Dr. Dex wants, too, though I’m still not sure if we should be. He hasn’t talked to us about his plans since we were in the basement of Zachary’s house.

  Not everyone is as lucky as us. The small, quick girl from school, Ginny, is partnered with a boy from out of town, and while that boy makes his throw, Ginny’s is off. Not by much, but it doesn’t need to be off by much to hit the eye. With the force we’re throwing knives, the boy is dead before he hits the ground. Ginny stands there, her hands over her mouth, looking so shocked. I have to look away, but when I do, I catch a glimpse of the people from the Center, the Invaders, and I can see the glint of enjoyment in their faces as they watch. It sickens me to the stomach, and I realize how much I hate these Invaders. The more performers die or are seriously injured, the more determined I am to reach the Center and to help the rebel group with their mission to expose the Invaders.

  There are five of us now. Five of us, and just a couple of days of performances to go. I find myself thinking about that at school, at home, on my way to the tent. Zachary’s there waiting for me outside it. The moment he sees me, I know he can see how tense I am too, because he pulls me close, his hands drifting up to the knots of tension in my shoulders.