by Leanne Leeds
“There may be a mistake,” I told him, and a quick check of Ningul’s energy indicated extreme shock at my statement. I didn’t have any reason to believe Ningul knew anything about what Dergal may have done, but now I felt more comfortable trusting him. “We’re currently trying to investigate so we can get the full picture of what happened. Dergal has denied being at the weredeer party, as well as taking the drink that we know poisoned my uncle from Jeannie to my uncle. Jeannie, however, is clear that Dergal had the cup.”
“Wait a minute… I was at that party. I saw Dergal several times.” Ningul turned to the younger centaur. “Why did you tell them you weren’t there?”
“I don’t owe her any explanation for anything I do,” Dergal scoffed.
“She’s the ringmaster, Dergal.”
“Women are not ringmasters. When we get a real ringmaster, I’ll answer his questions. We’re centaurs. We don’t answer to mere women of any species,” Dergal said furiously.
Ningul stared at Dergal’s smug face as if he had grown a second head. The centaur leader’s strong hands ran through his dark hair nervously as the two men’s eyes locked on one another. After a time, Ningul turned his attention back to me.
“First, I need to apologize again for young Dergal’s disrespect. I am mortified that one of my own would speak to you in such a manner,” Ningul said. “It seems we have been quite lax in teaching the newer generation some of our histories. I promise you that I will rectify that.”
“It happens,” I told the centaur. “I’m not as wrapped up in all this formality, but, frankly, he shouldn’t be talking like that to any woman. It’s what he said that concerns me more than who he said it to.”
“I understand, Ringmaster.”
“Please, call me Charlotte. I really do get uncomfortable with all this formality,” I told Ningul. He nodded. “In addition to the problems he’s causing with the investigation into my uncle’s murder, he put his hands on Alessandra. I saw her this morning, and there were bruises up and down her arm.”
“You told me that she was sick and you were carrying her home!” Ningul exploded toward Dergal. The powerful man stood up and planted himself in front of the younger centaur. “You don’t put bruises on a woman that you are attempting to ensure will get home safe!” Dergal fixed his stormy eyes on his leader and flexed the fists at his sides, but wisely said nothing.
“Mark Botsworth, the mentalist, interceded between them. I haven’t talked to him yet, but until I do, I want to make sure that Dergal is unable to hurt anyone else.”
“I agree, and I thank you for preventing this young colt from engaging in any more of his arrogant stupidity! You will tell the ringmaster the truth! Now!” Ningul roared at Dergal.
I flinched, and Ningul wasn’t even yelling at me. Angry centaurs were terrifying to behold.
Dergal exploded out of his chair and raised his arm to hit the older centaur, but his fist harmlessly bounced off Ningul’s chin with the now familiar metallic clunk. Dergal roared, turning to slam his body through the exit door.
“Cornered animals are rarely easy to deal with, Ningul,” Fiona told the centaur leader quietly as he sank down on the love seat and buried his face in his hands. She got up and went to sit beside him, resting a comforting hand on his back. “Those of a horse nature most of all. You cannot control the herd. You can only lead them and hope that they follow.”
“Our last leader, he was a strong man. But he believed that like the centaurs of old our bestial nature should be allowed reign over our civilized nature more often than I felt was healthy. He allowed wine once a moon. When he passed, and I became the leader, I stopped that.” Fiona nodded while I listened with fascination.
“Why don’t you allow the centaurs to drink wine?” I asked.
“Alcohol drives us mad. We become aggressive, demanding, with desires to fight and conquer others. We have evolved over time, and so the madness is not what it once was,” he told me. “But it seems the madness has evolved as well. Young Dergal drinks too much wine. I could smell it on him here. His attitude, his aggression… It is a form of the centaur madness.”
“See, Charlotte, each paranormal creature has something akin to an Achilles heel. Some herb or food or drink that can throw them back into their natures of old,” Fiona told me as she continued to distractedly stroke the brokenhearted Ningul’s arm gently.
“As a witch, you have a sensitivity to henbane,” Ningul explained. “It will pop you right out of your body and allow you to walk your spirit with ease. It takes only a tiny amount, but too much, and it will separate your spirit from your body forever.”
“For everyone else, henbane makes us feel like we’re flying, or drunk, or can sedate us, so we’re happily barely conscious if we have an injury. It’s also awesome if you have a toothache,” Fiona said.
“That’s good to know. Although I don’t know where anyone would get henbane.”
“Any apothecary, even in the human world,” Ningul said. “Though it’s not as common as wine, which is our current problem.”
“Humans will sell anything, even if it’s toxic,” Fiona said.
“Yeah yeah yeah, I know, bad humans. Blah blah blah. Let’s get back to the issue at hand. If Dergal’s not going to tell us the truth, how do we figure this out?” Fiona and Ningul stared at me in expectation.
You are the ringmaster, Samson said. They are waiting for you to tell them what’s going to happen.
“Maybe it’s time to talk to Mark Botsworth,” I announced. “I’d like to know what he saw.” They nodded.
It’s good to be king, hmmm? Samson said.
9
As we stepped into the sunshine in front of the Haunted House, Ningul let us know that he would go look for Dergal. Though the angry centaur could harm no one physically, he was unhinged, and Ningul wanted to protect others from him, and him from himself. As the three of us spoke quietly at the bottom of the stairs, a shimmery head poked through the closed door above us.
Like, through the door. A head, right through the door. It was a man, handsome, with an old-fashioned haircut and spectacles.
“Excuse me, Ringmaster?” the voice called.
“What. Is. That?” I asked Fiona.
“One of the ghosts. In the Haunted House?” If Fiona didn’t stop looking at me like I was daft, I swore to myself I would sneak up on her in her pen and put a knot in her darn tail that no one would ever get out.
“So. I’m sure this is a dumb question. But I’m going to ask it anyway. We have real ghosts living in the Haunted House?”
“Of course we do,” Ningul answered as he raised an eyebrow toward Fiona. No one at this damn place seemed to bother with the effort to be furtive about their shock at my ignorance. “What did you think was in the Haunted House?”
“Um, animatronics? Like at Disney World?”
“Oh, please. Like those aren’t real ghosts at Disney World,” the ghost head still hanging out of the door said. “Ringmaster, I just wanted to let you know that you left your black drink tumbler in here.”
“I don’t think that’s mine. Mine’s silver not… black…” Slowly remembering my mother’s reason for giving it to me, I raced up the stairs and threw the door open—walking right through the ghost man. Which was about as creepy as you would think.
Next to where I had been sitting was the tumbler my mother had given me. It had changed color from the bright silver to a dark and ominous black. Pulling off the lid, I could see dark grains of something floating in the water.
Fiona, who had raced up behind me, stared into the cup in shock. “But I could swear he was never near your glass! He sat next to Ningul the whole time!”
Ningul, who had followed Fiona, fell to his knees and bowed his head, begging for mercy. “Please, Ringmaster, do not slaughter the entire herd because of one young stallion’s folly! I beg of you, Ringmaster, do not kill us all!”
The hallway instantly filled with ghosts popping into place. The crowd seemed
to take up every available space in the reception area, murmuring and exclaiming as they watched Ningul on his knees with concern.
“Oh, my gosh, could everyone just stop a minute!” I shouted as the din of ghosts chattered, Ningul begged, and Fiona hyperventilated. The chaos of panic squeezed out any rational, cognizant thought I might have been able to have. “Just calm down, everyone!”
Why is Ningul on his knees? I practically shouted in my head at Samson.
If someone is caught trying to murder a new ringmaster within the first moon of their reign, every member of that guilty species is killed. The shared responsibility is supposed to protect the new ringmaster while they are getting to know their new position, Samson explained.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Who came up with that insane idea?
Ringmaster number three.
So, do I have to follow that rule? Samson paused as he thought about my question.
No, Samson said.
“Ningul, no one’s going to slaughter any herd of anything. Get up,” I told him as I reached down and pulled the large, sexy, muscled man from his knees. “Now, all of you ghosts—did any of you see anything? Did you see the cup turn from silver to black at any point?”
“No, Ringmaster,” one ghost said. The other spirits quietly chimed in that they, too, had seen nothing.
“The tumbler was black when you came to visit,” a young shimmering girl told me. “I know it was because I was watching out the window upstairs even though mama tells me I shouldn’t watch the window. But I was, and I thought it was pretty how your cup matched Samson.”
“What’s your name, honey?” I asked the tiny ghost as I walked over to her.
“Anna. My Mom is over there,” she pointed cheerfully. Her shimmering mother smiled and bowed her head in my direction.
“How old are you, Anna?”
“Two hundred and fifty-seven!” she told me proudly. I stared at the girl.
“Ringmaster,” Anna’s mother stepped up and wrapped a ghostly arm around her daughter. “Anna was five when she and I passed on from the material world in a house fire. Five she was and five she will always be.” I stepped over and squat down so the ghostly little girl and I could gaze at each other eye to… um, eye likeness.
“Well, for a little girl, Anna, you did a crackerjack job. That was important information, thank you.” I bumped my forehead toward hers, and she giggled as the edges of her visage broke apart and fogged around my eyes.
“Momma, the ringmaster said I did a good job!” Anna told her mother proudly. The matronly ghost leaned down and swooped up the image of her daughter and hugged her. “I did, Momma, I did! Am I in trouble now? For looking out the window? And what’s a crackerjack?”
“No, sweetheart,” her mother answered. The little girl beamed.
“So, Dergal didn’t do it here. It doesn’t mean he didn’t do it at all,” Fiona observed as she stared at the offending tumbler. I capped it again and sighed. “Be careful with that, Charlotte. If you forget and drink that, you’ll be dead. And meaning no offense, but we’re fast running out of eligible ringmasters.”
“I am not going to the Makepeace Circus,” one ghost said. “That man is just as uppity as those other witches in the towns. That place is horrible. Horrible!”
“Protect the ringmaster!” another ghost shouted, and the assembled thirty or so spirits suddenly converged on me. Like a wriggling, seething shield, they formed a ghostly egg that must have appeared very much like the shimmering cocoon I saw in Samson’s visions.
Except this one had over thirty faces, sixty arms, and legs, and dropped the temperature of the air around my body at least fifty degrees in an instant. My hands felt like ice, and my teeth chattered as the assembled ghosts shouted and cheered themselves on.
“W-w-while I ap-p-preciate the sentiment,” I said as my breath blew white into the cool air and I struggled to move within my impromptu ghost body wrap. “P-p-please g-get away from m-me. I’m f-f-freezing to d-death. I won’t n-need to worry ab-b-bout poison.”
It was as if they hadn’t heard me. The ghosts didn’t move.
My lungs felt as if a weight was pressing down on them, a brick of ice squeezing all the oxygen from my body. As I pleaded with them to back away, the chattering grew more pronounced, and I began violently shivering.
Enough of this, Samson thought. Light flashed, and ghosts flew away from me in every direction. A balmy yellow glow surrounded me, and I felt my body warm. You must learn how to use your magic. If you die of something as silly as ghost-induced hypothermia, I will never live it down.
Thank you, I sent him as I warmed up. The hypothermia and the warming seemed to take place at a pace far faster than it would have been in the human world. Everything in the paranormal world seemed to somehow be magnified - magnified benefits, amplified consequences.
“Again, I appreciate the sentiment,” I said once I could speak without chattering my words. “But I have my own defenses. I promise you guys, I’ll be okay.”
Speaking of which, my automatic defenses didn’t seem to help, Samson. What gives?
You can still feel the weather, Samson said. I don’t know that the concept of a ringmaster wandering about the Alaskan tundra in their skivvies was an attack anyone ever considered crafting a defense for.
“You know, your uncle gave us all those same assurances,” Fiona said as she hugged me. “Don’t get too cocky.”
Considering poison and extreme temperatures could kill me, the amazing indestructible ringmaster, I had to wonder what other limits just hadn’t been tested enough to know that they would fail.
I nodded at Fiona and worried.
As I walked into the communications yurt, I threw the black tumbler across the room in frustration. In my first afternoon as the new ringmaster, I had frightened all the weredeer, nearly been poisoned, almost been frozen, ticked off my familiar, made up with my familiar, and had to deal with the emotional roller coaster of people thinking I was a murderous tyrant or inept.
That doesn’t even count the Magical Midway’s capital and domestic crime problem.
And now I had no water again.
My one week visits to the Magical Midway had not been remotely enough to comprehend the intricacies of this world. I didn’t even know if things were like this because of the paranormal world at large or all this weirdness was limited to the paranormal circuses. If it was all paranormal places, there may not be much I could do about it.
If it was just my circus, I had to fix it.
Come to think of it, if it was just the circuses, I was comprehending why there were only two left. This was a job bigger than any one person should ever have to have.
“Hard afternoon?” my uncle asked from a seat in the corner.
“Where the heck have you been? And how did you do this?” I asked him as I walked across the room to pick up the tumbler I had just thrown. There was possibly poison in it. “Everyone is so emotional, and all these old rules have no place in the modern world. Everyone seems to be struggling with something or angry about something or afraid of something. And I’m afraid to think something too strongly lest I relocate us to Mars! Uncle Phil, I honestly don’t know if I’m cut out for this,” I told him as I sat down next to him.
“Ah, the first stage of grief,” Uncle Phil smiled at me. “It’s the moment that the excitement begins to wear off and you suddenly comprehend that this place is just a little bit crazy, and you are now the mayor of crazy town.”
“That’s not funny,” I told him as I struggled not to laugh. A tiny chuckle escaped my lips. Uncle Phil smiled a little bit. Then I laughed. Then he laughed. Finally, my uncle and I were laughing so hard tears rolled down my cheeks, and he twinkled with little fireworks.
As our laughter subsided, Uncle Phil cleared his throat. “I do understand what you’re going through. Whether it’s a human circus or paranormal circus, people that choose this life are either running away from something or are searching for something that they
’re having trouble finding. Either way, they are a different breed. It means that you have a bigger task, a greater responsibility, and at the beginning until you understand them you will likely have a tougher time.”
“Dergal came at me today, and when we found the poison in my cup, we assumed that he had done it. Ningul was there when we found out, and he was so frightened of me that it freaked me out. Anya mentioned I get to decide whether people live or die,” I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “I just… man.”
“The ringmaster does have ultimate power over the Magical Midway,” Uncle Phil said. He reached out to squeeze my knee, but his hand just passed through my limb. Sighing, my uncle patted the air above it. It wasn’t that comforting.
“I don’t think I like having all this power, Uncle Phil. I don’t know that anyone should have this much power. I’m less afraid of being poisoned than I am of being put in a situation where I have to decide whether someone gets to live or die.”
“You arrived at that conclusion earlier than most of us.”
“Wait a minute… you think ringmasters are too powerful?”
“Of course we are. We have all the talents, all the powers, and all the abilities. If we took the time to learn all that we could do, we would possibly be invincible. Our only saving grace is that most of us, once we discover just how much power we have, choose not to use most of those abilities or test its bounds. We learn what we decide we need to know and leave the rest alone.”
I nodded. “Then why do we still have it?”
“What are we going to do with it?” he asked, waving his arms in the air.” It has to go somewhere. Do you give it to someone? Do you dissipate it into thin air, leaving all the residents here unprotected? Do you limit it permanently, not knowing whether you will need what you have limited at some point in the future to save someone’s life? And if you did, would that limitation even stick?”
I didn’t know. I took some comfort in the fact that evidently no one else, did, either. The Magical Midway seemed to be all or nothing. Despite its name, there really was no middle way for it to survive.