by Leanne Leeds
“Uncle Phil, we still don’t know who killed you. That means we don’t know why someone killed you. You could have been poisoned because you did something to somebody and they were angry. You also could have been killed because you were the ringmaster, and someone wanted the ringmaster dead,” I told him as my pacing slowed.
“Well, yes, those could all be possibilities, my girl,” Uncle Phil agreed. “But I’m dead now. So whatever reason someone wanted me killed, they achieved their objective. I don’t see why we need to waste time on the whys and wherefores of the situation. We need to get you more familiar with your role as the ringmaster. That is much more important than figuring out the end of my silly little story.”
“But now I’m the ringmaster. So if someone wanted you dead because you were the ringmaster, they might try to kill me. And no one’s even looking into it.”
Uncle Phil stared at me as if he had swallowed a leprechaun.
“Oh, I see what you mean,” Uncle Phil said quietly. Then his face brightened, and he snapped his fingers. “Well, don’t eat or drink anything, my girl, and you should be fine.”
“You’re a ghost! You don’t have to drink or eat to survive, but I’m still human. I still have to eat.” As I pointed this out to Uncle Phil, my stomach growled loudly. I realized that I had not eaten in two days, and it was lunchtime.
You are not human, Samson pointed out as he slumbered on the bed next to Uncle Phil. You are a witch. A witch is not human. A human cannot be a witch.
“Slow your roll there, Samson. Since I am a witch does that mean I don’t need to eat or drink to survive?”
Of course not. You still need nourishment like any other living thing.
“Well, why did you bother pointing that out?”
One thing I must do is correct your ignorance.
“Oh, man, this is going to take every ounce of patience that I have,” I grumbled.
Likewise, said Sampson.
“We will have to deal with the food and drink situation later. At the moment, I think we need to discuss what we’re going to tell the Witches’ Council,” Uncle Phil said. “I have no doubt that they’ll be here within the next couple of hours.”
“What do they have to do with the Magical Midway?”
The Witches’ Council consists of the governing body for all witches on the planet and witches in directly accessible paranormal alternate realms adjacent to our primary reality, Samson informed me. All witches are subject to their guidelines and judgment.
“Well, within their power to enforce the judgment,” Uncle Phil chuckled.
True. The Council has incredible power over witches. No one can hide from them, and few can get away with anything for long. There are, however, two witches that possess a power even more significant than the Council’s.
“And they are?”
The two ringmasters of the last two surviving paranormal circuses. That would be you and Roland Makepeace. Roland is your counterpart at the Makepeace Circus.
Samson’s eyes were closed as he lay curled up on the bed. His tail flipped back and forth lazily. Though we were conversing, you would never know it from looking at the black cat.
“So, what does that mean, exactly? Break it down for me in practical terms.”
“It means they don’t like you very much, Charlotte,” Uncle Phil warned.
They hate you, Samson countered bluntly. They believe no witch should have more power than the Council. While outwardly they make a show of supporting the objectives of both circuses, internally they do not. A few have secretly been working to get rid of all the carnivals and take their magic.
This whole ringmaster thing just keeps getting better and better.
“So why are they coming here?”
“They always show up when the power’s first passed. I got my first visit from them within twenty-four hours,” Uncle Phil said. “They’ll probably send the three witches from the Ministry, so that would be Mina, Mabel, and Mercy. They will hope that you don’t realize you really don’t need to listen to them.”
Once they realize you know that what they demand means less to you than a wand in the teeth of a rabbit, their personalities will become decidedly less friendly, Samson added.
“Fantastic. Do I have anything to worry about, you know, physically? Are they going to attack me or beat me up or cast some crazy spell in my direction?”
“No, nothing like that,” Uncle Phil assured me. “Witches are not allowed to harm other witches even if you could be harmed that way. In fact, no paranormal is allowed to harm another paranormal.”
“And everyone abides by that?”
“Of course not!” my uncle laughed. “Your defenses, however, will work on anything they throw at you. Oh my stars, it really gets their goat, too.”
My uncle’s ghostly body shook with laughter as I glared at him.
The Council will abide, Sampson said. They are the law bearers of your kind. Should any of the Witches' Council harm a witch, the scandal would be an enormous one. It would undermine their power, and if there is one thing the Witches' Council would never do is anything that would undermine their power.
As the three of us spoke, a hush seemed to fall outside of the yurt. The Magical Midway always bustled with some activity if the sun was up. There were stands to be mended, foods to fix, and coats to brush continuously. The dull murmur of over a hundred paranormals chatting and going about their daily chores was a constant soundtrack on the fairgrounds.
That noise had all but disappeared.
“They must be here,” Uncle Phil told me quickly. “They know you can contact me, but they do not know that the ringmasters have near-constant contact with their predecessors. Let’s not tell them.”
I nodded and swallowed nervously.
You will do fine, Samson said with confidence. The cat lifted his head from his paws and stared into my eyes. After all, over one hundred paranormals are depending on you. There is no option to do other than fine.
I stared at the slit that served as the entrance and exit to Uncle Phil’s yurt and waited. I wondered what other surprises were in store for me I did not know were coming—and that I would no doubt be woefully unprepared for.
Bob Larry stuck his scruffy head in the opening and swept his eyes around the tent. It occurred to me that Bob didn’t realize Uncle Phil was in the room. From his viewpoint, his new boss was standing in an empty tent while a cat slept quietly on the bed. I made a mental note to ask Uncle Phil who knew what about the power we had and the things we could do after the meeting with the Witches’ Council.
“Hey, boss lady?” Bob called after nosily examining the entire interior with quickly scanning eyes. “There are three witches here to see you from some Council. You want me to make them go away?”
“No, Bob, go ahead and show them in, please,” I told him as my uncle shimmered and disappeared. “Wait! Where you going?”
Bob tilted his head and stared at me. “Um. To go get them. Like you just told me?”
“I’m sorry, Bob, go ahead.” Bob eased slowly out of the tent backward while his eyes were glued to me.
I am still here, Uncle Phil’s voice echoed in my mind. It's distracting to have my visual presence in front of you, so I just made myself invisible for the meeting. Don’t worry, Charlotte. I can still see and hear everything. Be careful. Just think to me, niece.
I feel like I will never get the hang of this, I forcefully thought.
You will, he sent back. Everyone feels overwhelmed at the beginning. You are doing fine, Charlotte. Samson and I are right here.
At that moment, the yurt flaps parted wide and pushed out well into the circled room. In a line, three women walked in one after another. Their faces pursed as if each had sucked a lemon, and all held their arms against their bodies tightly to avoid touching anything. The energy of haughty judgment surrounded them like a mean girl aura.
They stopped in a chorus line before me with broad smiles as their teeth sparkled. Their
eyes narrowed as they weighed me.
“Charlotte Astley!” boomed the redheaded woman who had been the first to enter. I flinched at the painfully loud volume. Her flaming hair was piled high atop her slender head and tumbled from an updo that would be more appropriate at prom than a circus.
“Congratulations! We of the World Council of Witches extend our most sincere and most affectionate hand toward the newest witch leader of our magical world!” The redhead stuck her hand straight out from her body nearly poking me in the chest. As I shook it firmly, she continued. “I am Mina World, Chairwoman of the Ministry for Peace and Understanding.”
“P.U. for short,” the platinum blond standing next to her cooed with an even broader smile as I struggled not to burst out laughing.
Despite the name, these three are the heads of the committee that deals with propaganda, persuasion, internal civility, and human/witch relations, Uncle Phil sent. Mainly, they try to tell everybody how to think and how to act.
“Thank you so much,” I told Mina as I pulled my hand back. “Can I get you ladies something to drink or eat?”
“Surely not,” the brunette snapped. “I certainly don’t want to ingest the same witch killing poison that cut your uncle down.”
“How did you know that my Uncle Phil was poisoned?” I asked the brunette sharply. Her eyes grew wide, and she turned her head away to break my gaze. The other two witches snapped their heads around to stare at her.
“The WCW tries to make sure that it knows everything that goes on in the territories that we are responsible for overseeing. Which is everywhere, of course,” Mina said as she turned back to me. “Mabel is simply exercising due care for her person considering this location was the scene of a tragic witch murder not twenty-four hours ago.”
Wow. Time really had stopped when we were… well, wherever we were.
“Of course,” I answered noncommittally and smiled at the sour Mabel.
“It must be so terrible to be in charge of such a dirty place and so cut off from your own kind,” Mercy said breathlessly as she stepped toward me like we were lifelong best friends. “Just the smell of this place would be enough to make me run for the hills if I didn’t have to be here. Animal paranormals, and not another witch for miles. What a travesty.”
“Not at all,” I responded calmly. “I grew up living on a property that doubled as an animal shelter, so this is all pretty normal to me.”
“An animal shelter? Like real, mundane, smelly animals?”
Are all witches like this? I thought toward my uncle.
No, he responded. These three are a particularly uppity breed of witch. Just like in the human world, it seems the narcissistic jerks always rise. No doubt because good people rarely entertain a desire to control everyone else while narcissistic jerks chase that ambition like a weregreyhound after a rabbit.
“Yes, my parents still run it. They’ve saved thousands of homeless pets over the years. It was really a fantastic way to grow up. In fact, the Magical Midway contributes a significant portion of the operating expenses to that shelter and saving those animals.”
“Now, ladies, it takes all kinds in the witch world, and we certainly don’t look down on any witch, do we?” Mina said to the other two women in a tone that was both sickly sweet and razor-sharp all at once.
“No, Mina,” Mercy and Mabel answered simultaneously as they shook their heads. A quick sample of each woman’s sincerity clued me into what a monstrous fib that was. Not that I needed magic to figure that out.
“Well, I want to thank you for stopping by but this is my first day on the job, and I have so many things I need to do. Is there anything else that you need before I get back to work?”
“Oh, dear me, Charlotte,” Mina said as she rolled her eyes. “We were just starting out with pleasant and friendly formalities to make you feel at ease. I thought that would be obvious. Wasn’t that obvious, ladies?” Mina said as she glowered to Mercy and Mabel demanding support. The two women flanking the redhead nodded emphatically as they agreed with their leader.
“Doesn’t change the fact that I have a lot to do, so let’s get on with why you’re here.” Though I tried to ensure my tone was amicable, my impatience with their false friendliness was rising.
“Well, that was rude,” Mabel mumbled. I sighed and waited.
“We just wanted to ensure that we got the membership contract signed by the new ringmaster,” Mina said as she pulled out a rolled up parchment with a flourish. “Simply a formality, of course, but you understand the necessity for paperwork in a bureaucracy such as the WCW. It protects you and the Midway, of course.” Mina’s minions nodded in agreement.
“Of course,” I agreed flatly as I took the parchment from her and unrolled it.
This is unnecessary, Uncle Phil told me. We are witches, Charlotte. We don’t have membership contracts, we have magical oaths and pacts. I never had to sign anything.
I held the parchment up far enough away from me I hoped Uncle Phil could read it while I skimmed over its contents. The parchment was written in ink that had barely dried. After scanning three or four of the agreements laid out on the fancy paper, I understood the gist of what the three women had traveled here trying to achieve.
So if I sign this, the WCW has full control over the Magical Midway, and my magical powers are limited to only acting as the anchor of the Midway? I lose all defense spells, all offensive spells, all travel spells, everything?
That’s what it looks like to me, Uncle Phil concurred. By signing this, you would cede Astley family control to the WCW for the Midway. They would also take Sampson.
Pardon me, they would take who now? The cat’s voice suddenly sprang into the center of the conversation as Samson’s head raised an alert on the bed and stared at the three women. The aura around him glowed a dark red. I wondered if the three women could see it.
“Do you need a pen, dear?” Mina asked me sweetly holding out a feather and inkwell. Suddenly the parchment in my hand burst into flames. In seconds, it was a pile of ash on the ground between the three witches and me.
What happened? I thought.
You’re lucky all I did was turn that contract to ash. I briefly contemplated stabbing her in the eye with that feather, Samson’s voice echoed as his red aura dissipated.
“She’s a silent one of action,” Mabel said to the other two women. “This one will be a problem.”
“Oh, they’ve all been problems, Mabel,” Mina snapped. The coquettishly blond Mercy stared at me in awe. “Even though they have all been problems, we have brought the nomads down from thirty-seven groups to just two.”
“I don’t know anything about the other groups,” I told Mina as I stepped closer to her. “But I do know who I am, and the Magical Midway is mine now. I don’t know what you did to all the other ringmasters, but I can tell you one thing. You’re not going to do it to me.”
“The middle way of anything never accomplished much, you foolish girl,” Mabel said as her eyes glowed. “A witch that lives amongst the homeless dregs of the lowest paranormals. Offense! A witch that allows humans within paranormal land! Injustice! No witch should have as much power as you ringmasters do. You are rogues, rebels, and outcasts. And your time is almost up.”
“Yeah, maybe. But not quite yet.”
I stared at the three women and thought Go Home. They instantly disappeared as the feather and inkwell dropped to the ground.
“Charlotte, are you all right?” Fiona asked as she walked swiftly into the tent. She gazed around as if expecting to see upturned furniture and things on fire, sighing with relief as she realized both I and the tent were intact. “I felt the three furies leave.”
“Wait a minute, those three were furies, too? Like witch furies?”
“No, no, they’re just witches. I just call them the three furies because of their winning personalities. How did your first meeting with them go?”
“Well, they tried to get me to sign a contract to give up the Magica
l Midway, Samson set the contract on fire, and then I magically blinked them back to wherever they came from without asking their permission. So, all in all, I’m going to rate the meeting as ‘not good.’ They really, really don’t seem to like us.”
“Oh, they like you just fine,” Fiona chirped as she bounced on the bed and sat cross-legged next to Sampson. “It’s us lesser paranormals they don’t like. They like it when the WCW is in charge of dictating everything for all paranormals. They act as if witches are the only paranormals that matter and expect all witches to act accordingly. Give them that, and they are sweet as pie.”
“Authoritarian, elitist, bigoted witches? Outstanding.”
Uncle Phil shimmered into view and clapped his ghost hands together. Creepily, that act didn’t make a sound.
“You did splendid, my girl! Simply splendid! It was surprisingly enjoyable watching you give those dour, judgmental women what for!”
“One thing really bothers me about the meeting, though, Uncle Phil,” I told him as I sat down in the chair near my uncle’s old writing desk.
“Just one thing?”
“How did they know that you had died of poison? Is there some magical spell or crystal ball or something that they could have looked into that would’ve given them that information?”
“Only if one of them had psychometry as a talent, and at that only if they had an object of mine that was in my possession at the time of the poisoning. I’m not even sure they would be able to do so then. The Midway is quite shielded,” he told me.
“Those harpies knew that Phil had been poisoned?” Fiona asked.
“Yes, and Uncle Phil just told me there’s only one way they may have known it magically, and he’s not even sure that would have actually worked.”
“So, they either knew it through magic, or they know it because somebody told them.”
“Not just somebody. The killer,” I told Fiona.
“How do you figure that?”
“Last night during the ceremony, my father said publicly that Uncle Phil was murdered. No one said anything about poison. Only those of us in this room and my Dad know that’s what we suspect. Fiona, how did you know about the defensive abilities I inherited when my uncle passed the ringmaster role to me?”