by Sarah Noffke
Finley’s face lit up as he turned to Zuma. “Your last name is Zanders?”
“Don’t pretend you didn’t know that,” she said.
“I didn’t. I had a guy named Mr. Anders who helped me out once,” he admitted honestly. His name was George Anders. He’d helped Finley just recently. Had found him lost walking down Sunset Boulevard. George must have sensed Finley’s confusion and also his fear. He gave him directions without Finley asking and also told him where a safe hiding spot was for those trying to get away from people. He then shook his hand and told him his name. If it wasn’t for Mr. Anders then Finley never would have gotten away. He wouldn’t be at Vagabond Circus. And he still didn’t know how George knew he needed help. He just seemed to sense so much about Finley. His fear, his confusion, his need to hide away. It kind of reminded him of the things Sunshine knew about Finley without him telling her.
“Whatever,” Zuma said, rolling her eyes at him.
“Your parents named you Zuma Zanders?” Finley asked, suppressing a laugh.
“Yeah, they thought it was amusing,” she said, not sounding amused.
“Well, I really didn’t know that was your last name, so it’s a nice choice on my part and a bit uncanny,” Finley said.
“Revolting, more like it,” Zuma said.
Dave stopped laughing. “Okay, that’s enough, Zuma. I think Finley Anders has a great ring to it.”
“Thank you,” Finley said, taking a bow. He then turned and held out a hand to Zuma. “Ms. Zanders, shall we put on a show for these two?”
She turned, not taking his hand, and marched to her starting position.
Chapter Thirty-Four
When Finley dipped Zuma low at the end of the act Dave jumped to his feet, clapping so fast that Zuma whipped her head up at a strange angle, banging her forehead into Finley’s. He pulled her upright and she rubbed the place on her head where they hit.
“You all right?” Finley asked, rubbing his own head.
She ignored him and turned her attention to the ringmaster and creative director. Dave was still clapping and Titus sat behind him, legs crossed and a satisfied look on his face.
“Simply brilliant,” Dave said, bouncing over to Zuma. He then wrapped his arms around her, squeezing the girl in tight and patting her back. He pulled back and cupped her chin. “You, my dear, made me want to cry. That was an unbelievable display of your talent. Never seen you move in quite that way.”
Zuma smiled back at him. A genuine one. It made Finley instantly envy Dave, for he’d caused that smile and therefore had been rewarded with it.
“And you,” Dave said, turning and slapping Finley on the shoulder. “Well, I don’t think you were just the secret ingredient Vagabond Circus needed to do better but you were also what Zuma needed to unlock her true talent. You two are perfection together,” he said, puffing up his chest and walking back to his seat.
Zuma leaned over to Finley. “I love Dave, but he’s going senile if he thinks you unlock any of my talent,” she said in a whisper.
Finley shrugged like he didn’t care. “Well, you unlocked something in me,” he admitted freely.
“The true jerk inside you?” she said, looking interested in his answer.
Finley ignored her and turned his attention to Titus, who was shuffling through notes. “Yes, I totally agree with Dave. That’s going to be our best act.” He stacked a few pages together. “Maybe it’s better for the circus if you two don’t get along,” he said with a snicker. He then stood and handed the pages to Finley. “Here’s my notes on things I want you two to work on. There’s also notes on the other acts you’ll be incorporated into. Read through them and you two rehearse during dream travel time tonight. We have a dress rehearsal first thing tomorrow. Which reminds me, stop off at the costume trailer, Finley, before heading to your own trailer tonight.” Titus then turned to Dave, who had a huge grin plastered on his face.
“Yeah, yeah, Dave,” Titus said, walking past him, having read the expression on his old friend’s face. “You were right. This will be great,” he said dryly.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Stars were poking out one at a time through the darkening sky when Dave entered the miniature big top. He froze. Someone had been in there. Someone who wasn’t Titus. He and Titus had shared an office space since the beginning and it worked because the creative director respected Dave’s obsessive compulsive disorder. His friend ensured that all papers were stacked straight. Titus was careful to put back writing utensils with their tips down. And he never touched Dave’s laptop, which the ringmaster constantly cleaned with toothpicks and condensed air.
Dave knew instantly that someone had been rummaging through papers, using the pens, and touching his laptop. The greasy fingerprints on the screen were proof enough that someone was snooping around. Dave’s head swam with dizziness. His gloved hand steadied himself on the table. The germs had voices in Dave’s head. They spoke to him, antagonized him. Yelled his name. The germs of this foreign person were like heat marks on an infrared screen inside his mind. He could sense every one of their marks and it stretched his tolerance to a deadly limit. The chaos this person created by making things slightly askew made Dave scratch, first at his elbows, then his arms, then his sides. He could hardly stand being locked inside this space that felt like the aftermath of a battlefield.
Dave reached for the cabinet of chemicals he kept beside his table, his hand shaking. I don’t have time for this, he thought. And because his OCD was so overwhelming his first thoughts had been dedicated to how he’d have to clean the office quickly before the creepy crawling sensation on his skin sent him into one of his panic attacks. Dave could only manage his life at the circus, being around germs constantly, because he had two private, sacred places.
The thought that someone was again rummaging through his personal belongings was a secondary thought. It hardly took up much of his attention until well after the tent was mostly back to normal. He stood back, eyeing the space for anything that needed another wipe down.
Why? Why was someone sneaking around his trailer and now his office? And who? He thought he knew everyone at Vagabond Circus. Dave had personally recruited every single person. And he was an exceptional judge of character. But even he admitted there were people he didn’t know as well as others. Also, people change, he reasoned. Maybe the ones he used to know weren’t who he thought they were anymore. And then there were fairly new recruits whom he hardly knew at all. Was it his imagination or had these attempts increased in frequency since Finley arrived? And why? What would the boy have to do with it? Dave shook the suspicion out of his head as he wiped the laptop down again with a towel drenched in rubbing alcohol.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The bed was soft under Zuma’s sore muscles. She was relieved that the next eight hours of practice would be in consciousness form only, giving her muscles a break. Through dream traveling muscle memory was affected, but it didn’t impact the actual body. Workouts in the dream travel realm built no muscle and strained it very little. However, injury was still possible while dream traveling. This was an unavoidable rule. Whatever happened in the body’s mind, happened to the body. It was similar to the experience of a Middling dreaming they were stabbed and awakening with a sharp pain in their ribs. However, a Dream Traveler would awake with an actual laceration.
What Zuma wasn’t relieved about was spending the next eight hours alone with Finley. She didn’t know how to be around him, and Zuma was the kind of girl who always knew how to be. Her role in the circus had exposed her to all sorts of people. And the circus’s reputation had given her the opportunity to meet fans with various statuses. She had been introduced to princes and movie stars and never had she felt uncomfortable. The girl shook hands with ease, always a confident smile on her face. But with Finley she didn’t know how to behave or react. Should she be nice to him? Or should she have a threatening demeanor? She’d already tried multiple approaches and it didn’t seem to matter.
No matter what, Finley affected her. He made her feel that her very heart lay on the outside of her chest, exposed. But he was just a boy. A stranger. A performer.
Zuma smiled as she closed her eyes. Yes, he is just a boy, she thought. That single idea seemed to make him smaller in her mind, less intimidating. She then turned her thoughts to the place she intended to dream travel to, the practice tent. Finley and she would practice there the entire night, their consciousness working on honing every detail of their acts until they were perfect. The rest of the circus was performing in the big top, ensuring that all the changes would be ready for the run-through in the morning.
The metallic tunnel wrapped around Zuma’s mind as her consciousness relaxed into the dream travel. This was her transport to any place and any time. This was the device that connected her with every Dream Traveler on Earth. Only they had access to these tunnels of consciousness, which bonded them as a race.
It always felt so strange to Zuma that she belonged to this race that most of the world was unaware of. She had often asked her parents why Dream Travelers were not well-known. They had said the same thing that Dave said about magic: People forget that which is fantastic. This was one of Dave’s other reasons for owning Vagabond Circus. He firmly believed if he didn’t take his show up and down the west coast every year, then people would forget that magic existed. He had said that people needed to be reminded because life was inundated with the mundane. And Zuma’s parents had said something similar about Dream Travelers, except no one regularly reminded the world that they existed. And as a race, most thought it was better that they keep a low profile. The rich shouldn’t publish their bank statements, the brilliant shouldn’t tout their IQ scores, and Dream Travelers should live amongst themselves quietly. That was for the best, most thought.
The tunnel disappeared around Zuma, as her conscious mind entered the practice tent. She was really there, her mind seeing it in real time. However, she was invisible to the physical eye. The tent was empty beside her, but only for a minute. Finley’s ethereal body flickered briefly before becoming almost solid. In the dream travel form, bodies have a whitish glow and are solid only to other Dream Travelers, but not to anyone in the physical realm. And to Zuma’s disappointment, looking at Finley in this form still made her feel outside her usual self. Just a boy, she thought.
“You’re late,” she said to him when he approached her, a speculative look in his eyes. He was studying her, like she’d changed somehow.
“I’m always late,” he said. She actually didn’t look any different to him. In dream travel form she was as beautiful as ever, except she glowed even brighter and he hadn’t thought that possible. She would make the brightest light look dull in dream travel form. Zuma was a star, through and through.
“Don’t you own a watch?” she said, trying to keep herself steady under his scrutinizing stare.
At this question, he dropped his eyes. She hated that she instantly longed for his gaze on her. Finley hardly owned anything. The clothes he wore to Vagabond Circus. The things they had given him since he arrived. But other than that he had nothing. He swallowed. “No I don’t.”
“Never mind then,” Zuma said, scooping Titus’s notes into her hands. “Did you read through these?”
He flicked his eyes at the papers. “No.”
“Well, you should,” she said, scanning the page. “A lot of these notes pertain to you.”
“I’m good,” Finley said indifferently.
Zuma looked up with offense. “What? You can’t just ignore Titus’s input. He’s the creative director.”
“I can though,” Finley said dryly. “I don’t work for him.”
“If you’re in this show then you do. And if you don’t incorporate his feedback into the act then you’re not going to work here for long,” she said.
“Do you forget that he said this was the show’s best act?” Finley said with an unruly smile.
She gave a tired sigh. “This bad boy act isn’t always entertaining.”
“But the act is entertaining some of the time?” he asked, amused.
“So you admit that it’s an act? What are you faking, and why?”
Finley lifted his hand. Zuma had known he was about to reach out for her, but she froze, interested in what he was doing. He tugged gently on a stray piece of her pink hair. “You’re one to talk about fake, aren’t you?”
Zuma slapped his hand away. “Actually, it’s totally real,” she said, stepping backward.
“What? That’s impossible,” Finley laughed.
“Not impossible. A tragedy can cause all sorts of crazy things to happen. People have been known to have white hair after something shocking occurred,” she said.
Finley measured up Zuma before he said, “That’s true. But pink?” After studying her, he thought her hair was slightly reddish, but it might also be the lighting. “What sort of accident?”
“My mother died, if you must know. I watched it happen,” she said, turning around to hide the guilty expression that would reveal her lie.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Finley had thought Zuma had a family. Maybe she was more like him, he realized. In that instant he felt a brand new draw to her. One to tether him to her more completely. He stepped around her, preparing to apologize, to comfort her, but instead he paused. He spied the tiniest crack in Zuma’s tough exterior. Not a painful emotion, like he’d think from an intimate admission like that, but rather a mischievous grin. A jokester’s smile. Heat flared across his cheeks. “Wait. Are you lying?”
Zuma burst out with an indulgent laugh. “You really think a tragedy could cause a streak of pink hair? Oh my god.”
He shrugged, turning around to hide his embarrassment. “I haven’t been out much to be honest. And I also didn’t realize people lied for their own entertainment.”
“You don’t seem like the honest kind,” she said playfully, not realizing how mad she’d made him.
He spun around and sharpened his eyes at Zuma. “So your mother isn’t dead, is she?”
Zuma tilted her head with a confident smirk that said “what do you think?”
He’d been played. A tool used for her amusement. He felt scorned somehow, although he realized Zuma was making it easier for him to push her away. He should have been grateful for that, but he wasn’t completely. “Do you like to lie about your parent’s death? About brutal things you witnessed?” Finley asked, his words sharp and growing hostile.
“Like it matters,” Zuma said flippantly.
“It would matter to you if they were actually dead,” Finley said and just then Zuma caught a haunting look in him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, shifting suddenly, her mind catching up with her unsympathetic heart. “Oh gosh, are your parents dead? Did you lose them?”
He wheeled around and marched off. “Hell, I don’t know. I’d love to. But you won’t find me pretending they’re dead to mortify a stranger.”
He’d almost cleared the practice tent when Zuma called out to him. “Finley! I’m sorry. I didn’t know. You’re right, I shouldn’t be so offhanded about my parents.”
He turned and looked at her with a pointed stare. Sunshine had mentioned that Zuma had a wholesome upbringing; the idea twisted around Finley’s brain like a noxious weed. “You have a family, don’t you?”
She nodded. “Yeah, a good one,” Zuma said in a hush.
“And you just left them to come to the circus? Who does that?”
A sound of frustration fell out of her mouth. “It’s not how you think. Dave is friends with my parents. I made the decision to leave them. And they don’t care.”
It wasn’t that Zuma’s family didn’t care, they didn’t feel it mattered if they did. She often thought they forgot about her, and the thought was just a thought, not something that plagued her. But Zuma’s family hadn’t forgotten her; that was impossible for anyone to do with Zuma. The truth was that Zuma’s family felt they couldn’t handle her. And Zuma’s parents, who craved lit
tle attention, always felt worn out when around her. It wasn’t the girl exactly, but rather the things that happened around her. It had been like that since she was born. People were magnetized to the girl. And as with everything, the attention of people at restaurants, at school, and at parks had no real effect on Zuma. But to her family it was exhausting. They couldn’t go anywhere without Zuma being the center of unwanted attention. There was just something about the girl. She didn’t know what it was and hadn’t much cared. Her parents and siblings didn’t know either. But Dave Raydon had seemed to know. He told her parents, his childhood friends, that the girl had the mystery of the circus buried within her. Dave offered her the opportunity to join Vagabond Circus if and whenever she wanted. When Zuma turned fifteen she decided that she’d join the circus, her parents exhaustedly agreed, and so she did.
“And so you just make jokes about them being dead for fun?” Finley said, trying and failing to understand the girl who stood before him. She was beautiful, and yet had a dangerousness about her.
Zuma wore a toughened look in her eyes, one he hadn’t seen in her before, but realized it was always there. That look was a part of her.
“They wouldn’t care if I made those kind of jokes, at least I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t,” Zuma said.
Finley studied her with sharp eyes. He could dissect a frog with that glare. And Zuma felt that if she was an amphibian then he’d have split her in two. “You’re one of those types who doesn’t feel, aren’t you? You didn’t look back after you left, did you?” He paused, like waiting for her answer.