The Haunting at Bonaventure Circus

by Jaime Jo Wright

  Chandler had dialed 911 as she ducked from her rented cottage.

  “I’ll be back soon,” she called to the high-school babysitter, who had just been readying to leave after a day of watching Chandler’s son. The sitter accepted the opportunity to make an extra ten bucks and stay longer. So, in spite of the pang of regret as Chandler wished she could crawl in beside the curled-up form of her precious seven-year-old son, she left. To confront a trespasser.

  “Or a ghost,” Lottie had whispered just before she hung up. “It might be the ghost!”

  Now, stepping inside, Chandler fumbled for her flashlight, irritated she’d beat the cops to the building. Small towns. They probably didn’t have a squad car at every corner, did they? This wasn’t exactly the ghetto. It was just the run-down, historic south side of a small town, population eight thousand.

  “Don’t touch anything.”

  Chandler screamed, falling onto her backside and casting a panicked expression in the direction of the depot door she’d unlocked less than two minutes before. She could barely make out the outline of the door. The moon was dark, and now her flashlight flicked off as it rolled away from her across the wood floor.

  “You don’t want to disturb anything.” Instruction came from a monstrous man in the doorway behind her.

  Chandler berated herself for not waiting for the police as her mind scrambled to come up with some method of self-defense. Pepper spray—in her back pocket—a quick burst of it and he’d be temporarily blinded—or shot through with adrenaline and therefore becoming more dangerous. She’d heard of that. Men in the throes of violence reacting to pain as a stimulant. She listened to the audiobook biographies of serial killers. They were fiends of another breed entirely.

  “I’m not going to kill you.” The man moved toward her.

  Chandler backed away, her rear end scraping against gritty floorboards that probably hadn’t been walked on in decades. She couldn’t see much of his features, though she could make out the longish hair, scraggly and unkempt, which waved away from a broad forehead.

  His hand shot out.

  Chandler bit back a second scream, opting instead for a feminine growl that sounded more like a strangled yelp.

  “Knock it off. I’m trying to help.” He barked and gripped her wrist, pulling her up from the floor. Corded muscles in his forearms boasted the type of veins that jutted out after a solid pumping of iron in the gym. She could feel them against her skin. Glancing down, Chandler caught a glimpse of a tattoo that ran a diagonal coil around his skin. A crucifix with an inked rosary wrapped around it that disappeared beneath the rolled cuff of his shirtsleeve.

  “Let go!” Chandler twisted her arm from his grip, and he released her easily. She rubbed her wrist but noted vaguely it wasn’t sore. He’d handled her rather gently. She swiped the back of her jeans, casting off dust and debris from the floor, then straightened her glasses that were tilted on her face.

  “Who are you?” Chandler demanded, feeling everything foolish and stupid for coming here alone. Like she was going to be some sort of aggressor and shoo away a trespasser. But heck. She’d expected a kid maybe. Some prankster. Not a Sasquatch hiding in the darkness.

  She raised an eyebrow and hoped she looked stern. She’d always been described as “too pretty to be ugly” and learned that, sometimes, ugly earned a woman a lot more respect in a male-dominated world. But it didn’t matter. If she could barely make out his features, her casting him a stern eye was going to have minimal impact.

  The man ignored her and stalked in a wide circle around her. His eyes were narrowed, his dark brows pulled into such a deep valley that he reminded her of a wolf stalking its prey.

  “Did you see the light too?” he questioned, even as he held his massive hand toward her, palm up, arm outstretched. “Don’t move.”

  Sirens howled in the distance.

  Chandler snapped her head around to glance at the door, then shot a suspicious look back at the man.

  “It’s the police.” She stated it like a threat. Chandler didn’t miss the quiet snort from the man as he stood in the middle of the large ticket room, staring up into the cavernous darkness toward the roofline.

  “Do I look like I care?” His shirt was unbuttoned at the top few buttons. A wrinkled, nondescript button-up shirt with no logo or distinct pattern to it. At least that Chandler could make out through squinted eyes.

  The sirens grew more pronounced.

  He moved past Chandler and strode toward a doorway across the room, which was the width of a rolling barn door. The room beyond was even darker. A woodsy scent of balsam or pine mixed with citrus wafted from the man and teased Chandler’s senses. He clung to the doorframe and seemed to assess the blackness.

  “Do you want my flashlight?” Chandler couldn’t hide the edge of aggravation to her voice. He’d barged in. Scared the life out of her. Now he was tromping around the place as if there were ghouls lurking in the corners and he were some vampire hunter.

  Chandler opened her mouth to demand—well, she didn’t know what—when he spun on his heel and charged toward her. Without a moment to collect her wits, his arm shot around her midsection, pulling her against him as he pressed his back against the wall, just to the right of the open main door.

  “What are you—?” Chandler felt his chin on the top of her head.

  “Shh!” His silencing echoed deep in her ear, his breath warm at her lobe as he curled around her, glaring through the inky blackness of the depot.

  Everything in Chandler’s senses awakened. From the vacant stale room with its vaulted ceiling to the hard torso at her back and the feeling of the man’s breath rising and falling in controlled silence.

  She wasn’t safe. No more than the woman who had supposedly died here when the trains still blew their whistles as they entered Bluff River.

  The arm tightened until Chandler found it hard to breathe.

  The sirens were close now.

  A pigeon fluttered as it flew across the room, chortling its frantic irritation at being disturbed in this antique deathtrap.

  Chandler dared not speak.

  She didn’t even try to struggle.

  “Someone was here. I swear I heard someone.” His mouth moved against her jaw, his baritone vibrating against her. His lips outlined the seriousness of his declaration against her skin.

  “I didn’t hear anyone—”

  “Someone was in here,” he whispered again, not offering any evidence to support his claim. His arm tightened against her in a quick squeeze to emphasize his point. “Don’t come here alone ever again. Not at night.”

  When she nodded—what else could she do?—he released her, setting off an emotional controversy in Chandler. With the bulk of the man gone, she was both relieved and bereft. She was in danger, but she was safe. She was terrified, but she was intrigued. She was—

  Alone.

  The red-and-blue lights of the police car illuminated the interior of the old building. The glow revealed nothing but emptiness. The man was gone and the depot, a shell, once bustling with travelers, now dead. Its secrets forever silenced.

  Chapter three

  PIPPA

  Some secrets should never be told. This was the mantra of the circus. They were a proud, exclusive family who held the rapt attention of their audience with the gift of scandalizing, horrifying, and monopolizing on daredevilish acts. Yet they were more than performers, more than humans battling oddities and deformities. They were also wagon masters, trainers, blacksmiths, handymen, costume makers, and more. These were the people who made the circus run. The nuts and bolts, so to speak. These were the private people, the small city of workers and performers who never quite fit into society, who fine ladies whispered behind gloved hands were heathens, gypsies, and ill-bred. Still, they fascinated the general public. A magnetic draw of demonized, underprivileged, hardworking men and questionably moral ladies. Delightful to behold . . . from a respectable distance.

  “And they’re per
fect.” Richard Ripley leaned against the wheel of his Duesenberg Model A, its shiny dark metal frame receiving an absent stroke of fondness under his hand. The white-rimmed tires almost sparkled, and Pippa knew one of their handymen had more likely than not washed them down with soap and water before her father took it out that morning. The car was the flashy exclamation point at the end of the Ripley name. BONAVENTURE CIRCUS were the capital letters that began their story.

  “Have you seen them?” Richard cast a proud grin toward Pippa, who smiled obediently in response. An instinct. Always agree with her father. Always. “They’re a well-working machine!”

  And I should have been one of them. But Pippa didn’t voice her thought. She wasn’t. She was a Ripley, no matter what she felt deep inside her soul.

  The car was parked at the top of the hill overlooking the circus grounds, the river that split it into two, and the railroad tracks that forged their iron path toward the train depot whose roof could be seen a few blocks to the west. In the foreground stood the row of circus buildings. The bright yellow octagonal elephant house, the green menagerie barn, the brick two-story costume house with its white clapboard siding, and on the corner a three-story brick boardinghouse for the circus staff.

  They were spectators this morning. The autumn breeze blew through the thin silk of Pippa’s stockings and pressed the navy pleats of her skirt against her legs. She drew in a breath, taking in the familiar and nostalgic scent of fall, the leaves that fluttered across the street, the damp air that teased of the rain to come and reminded of the rain the night before.

  Richard swiped his hat from his head and slapped it against his leg in satisfaction, drawing not only Pippa’s attention but also that of Forrest. Forrest Landstrom. Her father’s protégé, and her parentally chosen fiancé.

  “A well-working machine in a mud pit.” Forrest’s dark brows were drawn, emphasizing his deep-set brown eyes and winsome features.

  Pippa said nothing, instead turning her attention back to the scene down the hill. The rain had created havoc on the grounds. Wagons were stuck a quarter of the way up their rims. She noticed a man trying to shove a wheelbarrow through the muck, and it might as well have been filled with a hippopotamus for the way he pushed and strained to get it to move.

  Shouts echoed through the valley, drifting to their ears. Cursing. The neighing of horses as they were hitched to wagons and attempted to pull them through the mud that refused to give up their prisoners. One of the wagons had elephants hitched to the front. Four of them, with thick leather straps and harnesses. The beasts bore down, and the circus wagon groaned as mud sucked at its wheels. The vibrant red of the wagon, its gold trim, and the glorious profile of a golden lion’s head were spattered with the evidence of mire.

  It was not a beautiful sight. It was chaos. It was a mess. It was the muddied, sullied faces of men tired of a long season on the rails. The circus traveling from town to town, state to state, and finally ending up here. The wintering quarters of the Bonaventure Circus. Soon the performers who had arrived along with the circus train would all scatter, many of them heading south for the winter. But for now they were here in this little town in the middle of Wisconsin, where the circus’s origins had been birthed by Pippa’s father, a businessman, years before. It had been a fabulous partnering with his entertainment-minded friend who was now dead but who had left behind his son, Forrest. The Ripleys and the Landstroms would be bonded by more than just the circus in the months to come. Pippa’s intended was fully on board with the pairing. Business trumped romance, regardless of the passionate beauty the circus might have inspired.

  “What a phenomenal year this has been!” Richard Ripley slapped his hat back on his head and nodded with vigorous assertion. “You’ve seen the financial reports. We’ve both seen the circus in action this summer. You agree, yes, Forrest?”

  Forrest didn’t bother to exchange any looks with Pippa. To both men, she was barely even there. “Yes, sir. A good year.”

  “And with the elephant calf arriving soon!” Ripley’s grin might have well stretched off his face if that were possible. “Posters for spring have already been printed, and what with all the hype we’ve been able to muster over the past season, our attendance will more than double. Who in America gets the opportunity to see a baby elephant? Not many!”

  “Definitely, it will be only a continued boon, sir.” While Forrest’s reply was agreeable, there was an underlying edge of steel that communicated very clearly to both Pippa and her father that Forrest saw himself as the forty-percent partner that he was. “I would like to spend more time with the train next summer.” Forrest’s comment seemed innocent enough, yet it reeked of insinuation. He had, more often than not, been left behind in the offices this year. Richard Ripley had been the one to travel and meet the circus throughout the summer. To oversee it, Ripley had explained. For he was, after all, the father of the circus. Forrest was merely a son.

  Pippa braced herself for her father’s reaction to Forrest’s barely veiled suggestion that he was wiling his way deeper into the management of the circus.

  But Ripley only nodded. “Of course, of course.” He gave Forrest a sideways glance and smile. “You did enjoy your visit to St. Louis, did you not?”

  Forrest didn’t answer.

  The circus was at the pinnacle of popularity. With the war over now, the States were returning to a lucrative economy. Even the poorest of the poor could muster up a penny, a nickel, or a dime for admission, and if not, the boys would find ways to sneak beneath the canvases of the tents for a peep at the weird and never-before-seen. Granted, it meant the loss of some ticket sales, but those “whelps”—as Pippa’s father called them—were word-of-mouth advertising. A nickel a shout. And the boys’ mouths flapped, and word spread, and Bonaventure Circus was fast becoming one of the most popular circus trains to cross the Midwest and South.

  It might be more unassuming, here in Bluff River, but the very essence of the circus permeated the air of Bonaventure’s birthplace. It was magic. It was a fairy tale of Mother Goose proportions. It had stolen from Pippa every sense of individuality she could have ever hoped to have. And yet, even as she stood next to her father and folded her gloved hands in front of her, very aware that she was frail-looking and waif-like in appearance, a part of her drew strength from the sight of the elephants below. Their lunging bodies, rippling muscles, and broad foreheads. The power they exuded. Harnessed into submission, the power hidden inside an elephant could kill a man if he weren’t careful. Yet, the animals worked meekly, without argument, a deep soulful longing reflected in their long-lashed eyes. A longing to be free, perhaps, or maybe just to have a quiet night at home, in the straw, resting and away from the screams and laughter and repetitive pipes of the calliope’s musical diatribe.

  Pippa could relate. She empathized with the elephants. They were there to perform and, when needed, bear the burden of the circus family. But they weren’t loved so much as treasured. And there was a difference between the two. Love sacrificed, whereas a treasure was hoarded.

  Forrest’s hand rested on her shoulder. A light touch. As if he read her thoughts. Read the thin line of rebellion in them that made Pippa wish to run willy-nilly down the hillside, slide in the mud, and throw her arms around the trunk of an elephant and let it swing her onto its back like one of the scantily clad ladies under the Big Top.

  Pippa didn’t cringe or shrink beneath Forrest’s touch. He was a good man. A strong man. He was like her father. She would be treasured. But, she wondered, would she be loved?

  It was a stuffy dinner party. The beauty of candles and crystal aside, claustrophobia drove Pippa outside. She gripped the railing of the wide front porch, her long strand of pearls tapping against the whitewashed wood. Drawing in a quiet breath, the night air entered her lungs like a refreshing dip in cool water. Oak trees lined the street, and beyond them she saw the twinkle of lights in the smaller homes that sat just a little lower than the sun-yellow Ripley Manor with its wh
ite-painted trim. Pippa noticed a few lanterns hanging from carriages that maneuvered down the street and in between a couple of motorcars that rumbled their arrogant exhausts in the announcement of the new, modern era. It didn’t seem that long ago when Pippa was a small child and her father was the only one in town who owned an automobile. But with more and more of them in the streets—honking their horns and disturbing the peace—this seemed to be the way of things now.

  A small whine pulled Pippa’s attention away from the town that sprawled across the valley. It brought her gaze downward to meet deep gray eyes set in a furry face.

  “Penn.” Pippa’s smile was genuine this time. She knelt to greet her dog and run her fingers over Penn’s short steel-gray fur. The pit bull terrier had been her caretaker since Pippa was fourteen. Her nanny dog. She’d been inconsolable when her original nanny dog had passed away. Father had been fast to replace her with Penn. A few of her other somewhat wealthy friends also had nanny dogs, but typically moved on once they passed. Pippa was different. Though it went unspoken, there were times when her leg deformity caused her pain, when it would simply give out, and she took comfort from the guarded nature of Penn. The dog sensed her every mood and nosed her way into the privilege of sleeping against Pippa’s back at night. A habit neither of Pippa’s parents had ever discovered, and one that, even at nineteen and betrothed, Pippa had no intention of sharing. God help Forrest after they were married. Pippa wasn’t certain Penn would give up her place in the bed.

  Warmth crawled up Pippa’s neck at the thought.

  The dog nuzzled Pippa’s chin and gave it a short slap of a wet tongue.

  “Now, now.” Pippa tilted her head away from the offending moisture. “I’m all pretty for the party. You mustn’t mess my cosmetics.”

  Pippa’s attempt at silly humor fell flat even to her own ears. There was nothing entertaining about her. She was mousy. An afterthought. A figurine to be placed on a mantel. She could be content with that too, if it wasn’t for . . .