Bacchanal

by Veronica Henry

  She shuffled the cards, asked Liza to pick out five, and lay them on the table in front of her. Hope flipped over the first one, the Empress. Harmless—the nurturing feminine. “This one here means you’ll have a long and healthy life.” That she’d made up to make her friend relax a bit, but Liza affected the look of one whose interest lay elsewhere, glancing out the window, picking at her fingernails.

  “The next one is also pretty standard. Hierophant. You have a talent, one you haven’t fully developed yet, but you will. Learn everything you can.” Hope breathed a little easier. With a flick of the next card, the Lovers, she pronounced, “And there is a man in your life. But you are resisting him. He’s a good man, though. But it looks like you also have a choice to make.” She grinned and batted at Liza’s arm. “Wonder who that is? That boy Jamey you always trying to act like you don’t see or the other one?”

  “I’m not even responding to that,” Liza said. “I’m going to go, see if somebody else needs some help.”

  “You’ll sit right there till I finish your reading.” Hope flicked over the next two cards at once and knit her brows into a frown, shifted gears into panic, and turned the corner at horror before skidding to a halt with a futile attempt at composure.

  “What?” Liza said. “What is it? What do those cards say?”

  “Nothing.” Hope grabbed the cards and shuffled them back into the stack. “Go on now, I’ll see you later.”

  Liza stood over her, not moving.

  “I don’t know,” Hope finally said. “Look, it doesn’t make any sense.”

  Liza opened her mouth but thankfully held her tongue and left.

  Hope studied the cards. Death. It didn’t mean death in the literal sense, like some other readers tried to frighten people with, but the death of something else, an ending. Coupled with the next card—the Wheel of Fortune—it meant Liza was in for a major transformation, one that would affect them all. In a bad way. Hope stared after her friend, her stomach fluttering like it held a thousand butterflies.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SO LONG, WACO

  Liza lounged half-asleep in her trailer, the morning sunshine slicing through the windows. As usual, Autumn lay with her eye mask on, one arm flung luxuriously overhead, the thin blanket bunched tightly in her right hand.

  Liza was restless. Mico slept as he always did, in the uppermost corner of her bunk, nearest to the wooden wall. The little monkey had the sleeping habits of a cat, curling up for a snooze whenever the urge hit him. He lay, snoring and clasping one of Autumn’s beads possessively. She’d given it to him as a gift, since he so admired all the shiny stuff on her costumes.

  Liza had read about many places. At times, those writers Mrs. Margaret had introduced her to made her fantasize that she had sipped coffee at a café in Paris, strolled along the cobblestone paths in England, and run through the outback in Australia. But Liza was not a worldly woman; that was different from being well read. She spent her life in lazy places like Pensacola and Baton Rouge. Colorful places, with even more colorful people, but nothing of note ever happened there. She’d figured they were probably the most boring places on earth.

  But Waco claimed that prize. It was one of the few places where Mama was able to find the specific pine needles she needed outside South Carolina, so Liza recalled the family passing through more than once. Twiggy was just a toddler then, and Liza had spent most of the time delighting in entertaining the giggling child to fend off boredom. The town was little more than a few squat, sun-worn stucco and adobe structures that looked as though a city builder had gathered them all in enormous hands, rattled them about like marbled dice, and tossed them out along the ground. There were no signs or banners to indicate what was where.

  Which meant the carnival was quieter than she’d ever seen. Liza sat up. Most wouldn’t be up for several hours, and she could spend some time with her animals without anybody hovering over her shoulder. It was a rare opportunity.

  She rose, grabbed her few toiletries, and exited the trailer, careful to quietly shut the door behind her. She was disappointed to see she wasn’t the only one with the same idea. A few carnies were already up and about. She supposed no matter what happened at night, each day started with the hope of profit.

  After making a quick business of the showers, she pulled on a cotton skirt, poked her arms through the crisp but faded white button-up shirt, and tied up her boots. Outside it was still calmer than she’d ever seen it, which meant her animal tent would at least be empty.

  “Wait up!” a voice called.

  Liza tried not to groan as a fresh-faced Jamey came toward her. Like the first time they’d met, she couldn’t help but admire his walk, his sleepy brown eyes, the curve of his shoulders. But another memory nudged its way forward, his face stained with all the shades of judgment when she’d killed the chicken. She liked this boy, but he’d been avoiding her ever since then. Why was he bothering her now?

  “You smell mighty nice this morning,” Jamey said before a look of horror crossed his face. “I mean, you always smell nice. But today you smell, well . . .”

  Liza laughed. Apparently he liked her, too, even though he’d seen what her power could do. A warmth filled her, not like the heat she felt around Ishe, but something softer, easier to control.

  He looked behind her, around her, on the ground. Finally, with effort, he met her eyes. “Want some company wherever you off to?”

  Liza shuffled awkwardly. The door that was beginning to crack open slammed shut. No way she could practice her show around him. He might be able to overlook a dead chicken, but if something happened to the carnival’s animals while he was watching . . .

  “No,” she said. “Thank you.” He looked so disappointed her heart lifted, and she added, “But I’ll be back soon—I guess Mabel will have the cook tent flag up, and we both gotta eat, right?”

  Jamey’s face lit up like a jar of fireflies. “That sounds about right. Well, then. Enjoy your time with your act. I know Clay’s looking forward to what you’re going to come up with. I am too.” He tipped his hat to her and made it a point to turn and leave before she did.

  Liza’s mask of calmness rolled off like a broken wheel. She’d practiced with Ishe so often, but that was different. Her livelihood depended on not messing this up. If she hurt these animals, Clay would toss her out of the carnival faster than a rumor from Mrs. Shippen’s flapping gums. How would she know how far to take it? She couldn’t do it.

  Instead of the animal tent, she headed for the exit.

  The carnival had set up not too far away from the town. Liza strolled along the route, frustrated with herself. A stray dog galloped down the dusty road, a child close on its heels pelting it with rocks. She turned to make her way back to the carnival.

  Perhaps the dog had grown tired of being tormented by the child, or maybe it hoped that a better life awaited it wherever Liza might lead. Its reasons were its own, but the stray trailed her at a respectable distance. Twice she’d stopped, hearing something behind her. And twice, it had frozen into place, its foreleg lifted, as if, like a cactus, it could blend into the surroundings unnoticed.

  She knelt down and called to it, first with her mouth, then her mind. The smoldering ripple that began in her stomach gushed up through her body, coalescing in her mind. The immaterial likeness of herself with other dogs she’d met during her travels drifted across the ethereal link between her and the stray. Practice, Ishe had said. You need to practice. And if you lose a few in the process, better than losing Sabina or Ikaki.

  Grudgingly, Liza had agreed, though she could never look so callously on an animal’s death as Ishe could. She supposed it was the predator side of him.

  Along their link, the stray channeled a happier time of itself on a farm with a strapping white man. But its owner was shot, the farmhouse pillaged, the dog beaten and stolen. Then it had been abandoned—the same as she’d been.

  She sent the dog another image, one she didn’t like to replay.
It was of the last time she’d seen her family. Of Twiggy wailing, of herself holding her own tears until she was in the car and riding away. She hadn’t looked back.

  The dog whined in response, and with control she cut off the connection. She rose and allowed herself a momentary satisfied smile. Her time practicing had paid off. The dog followed her back to the carnival and fell in with the other strays that attached themselves to the show like leeches. It sent her a happy parting image with a wag of its tail, vowing its loyalty to the human who had showed it kindness.

  Her confidence buoyed by images the dog had sent her of it playing and wrestling with the other strays outside the carnival, Liza pushed herself to enter the animal tent. Uly was nowhere to be seen. The turtle swam lazily in circles, and the Tasmanian tiger lay sprawled in a square of sunlight. Neither acknowledged her presence. A small shadow passed through, and Mico leaped onto her shoulder, chittering, annoyed that Liza had been gone too long. She calmed the marmoset with a few scratches and sent him to guard the entrance and warn her if anyone approached.

  She moved to the first cage, the turtle’s, and sat down cross-legged. Liza considered what turtles would like to eat. An image bloomed in her mind: the two of them together, sitting near the edge of a quiet river, her holding out a leaf. When the image was solid, she slid it from her mind, a tendril tethered to her like a kite, sending it floating on nothingness toward the animal . . . Ikaki.

  The image floated, floated, hung in the air. As if lowering a child into a crib, she settled the image over Ikaki and waited. It made no notice that it had received the image, still swimming peacefully in circles, its dark-green back glistening, its head tilted up slightly above the water.

  Minutes passed with Liza observing, Ishe’s words in her head: Be patient. Don’t demand; ask the animal what it wants.

  The turtle continued its leisurely swim for a while longer, then crawled over the lip of the pool. It walked so slowly it seemed to float to the front of the cage, where it waited.

  An image came back, and Liza exhaled a breath she’d been holding. A small clear river hidden by tall grass in a vast open land. The warmth of the sun on its shell. Human noises remained distant. She was there feeding him a palm frond. Then in the image, Ikaki changed. The turtle stood on its hind legs and did a sort of pirouette, leaping into the sky. It danced, whirled, and took a giant leap before dissolving.

  Liza blinked. What was happening? She steadied her pulse, and a dark-green sprite appeared in the place where the turtle had disappeared. It spun above the earth, hovering over the river, pirouetting, spinning, and twirling, in the form of a fairy of indeterminate sex. It took her a long time to interpret the image, but when she did, she nearly keeled over.

  Ikaki was a water spirit.

  The spirit then formed an image of being pulled, called forth by an unknown force. When Ikaki emerged from the river as a turtle, a woman waited on the riverbank. She was tall, draped in colorful garb from head to toe, striking. The next image—Ikaki in a box, traveling a great ocean before landing with the carnival. They yearned for home but felt bound, compelled to stay with the carnival. They couldn’t or wouldn’t explain to Liza why, but she felt their profound sadness and loneliness. Who was that woman who’d captured the turtle? And how far had Ikaki traveled to join the show? Across an ocean at least.

  Along with a handful of geography books, there had been a globe in Mrs. Margaret’s library. She’d demanded Liza remember the capitals of all the countries that made up the continent of Africa. The geography books were illustrated, and although some of the images ran together in her memory, others she recalled like the back of her hand. So when Ikaki sent an image of themself in their native land, it looked like Nigeria.

  And if she didn’t understand that, she was downright perplexed when Ikaki conveyed a fondness for Liza because of her grandmother—in Nigeria. A woman she’d never met and whom her own mother had avoided talking about. Her grandmother, it seemed, had a way with magical creatures. And the part of Liza that felt like an empty house just crying out for a well-worn sofa, a freshly painted fence, a toddler’s unsteady first steps to make it whole, that part of her ached for the comfort of a Nigerian grandmother’s strong embrace.

  In the end, what Ikaki wanted was simple. They only wished that somebody had asked them before. They were a water spirit, after all, and since they couldn’t be free, then at least they wanted to dance.

  Stunned, Liza sat back. A Nigerian water spirit. Trapped in a cage in a traveling carnival. How was that possible? Not wanting to convey her foreboding, she severed the connection. Ikaki seemed fine, resuming their place in the back of the cage.

  What kind of carnival was this? Her thoughts returned to the red trailer. What was Clay hiding? How had he managed to trap an African spirit in an American carnival?

  Scooting over to the other cage, Liza peered in at Sabina. Was she also a spirit? She’d never even seen a creature like this, had assumed that Tasmanian tigers were a legend. Sabina gazed at her with thoughtful eyes, then came to the front of the cage and sniffed. Her tail stood at attention.

  The image Liza conjured was of herself with the tiger, sitting amiably as the only human surrounded by other tigers. She neither harried nor pursued but let them sniff and investigate her and Mico. The animal almost nodded, or at least it looked that way to her. She lifted her head in the air as if seriously contemplating the correct response.

  Liza’s legs stiffened, and she even drifted off once or twice. Sounds of the carnival readying itself for a new day filtered into the tent. The tiger regarded her in silent judgment, any response for now unspoken. Finally, when Liza felt her temper beginning to rise, she decided to stop while she was ahead. Even if Sabina wasn’t ready to connect, she could at least do something with Ikaki. The smells, the fluttering flag, and the gathering of people outside told her that breakfast was ready anyway.

  She stood up. Mico chittered, sending his own never-ending hunger images to her. She sent a goodbye to both the turtle and the tiger, her heart lifting when Ikaki sent her a response, a graceful bow over sparkling water.

  Tables and benches were filled, a beehive of performers on one side and workers on the other, the steady hum of their conversations filling the air. Liza gathered a plate and settled right in the center of the tent. In a minute, Jamey settled across from her. Hope and Bombardier had been coming to sit with her as well but veered away, snickering and blowing kisses her way as they settled at another table directly in her line of sight.

  Chewing became hard. The excitement she had felt over discovering Ikaki’s true nature and willingness to dance for her show was muted by other uncomfortable feelings. Liza wiped at her mouth aimlessly, hoping that grease or something else hadn’t lodged itself on her face. She moved her food around on her plate.

  “Best not let Mabel see you playin’ round with her food,” Jamey said. “Good way to get yourself on her bad side.”

  As if reading their minds, the older woman, who took her roles as both cook and hostess seriously, came up behind Liza. “You sick or something?” Mabel asked, lifting her chin, studying her face.

  Liza pulled away. “No, ma’am.”

  “Then why is that food chilling on your plate ’stead of in your stomach?” She looked over at Jamey. “You worried about this here boy? That it?”

  If she had been able to turn into a bird and fly away, Liza would have.

  “Jamey, get up. Can’t you see the child is too shy to have you staring at her while she eat? Go on over there and bother somebody else.”

  Jamey sat with his eyes wide and his mouth open. Unfortunately, he hadn’t finished chewing the bacon he’d bitten into.

  “And close up your mouth ’fore a fly get in there and snatch that piece a bacon off ya tongue.”

  Liza giggled and covered her mouth. Jamey got up to leave. “Stay,” she whispered.

  “Well, if he does stay, you both better finish ya food. Don’t got nothin’ to waste around here.�
�� Mabel finished her command with a slap to Jamey’s back and waddled off to see if her other customers were slacking.

  Though they managed to say little more than pleasantries to each other, they finished their meal together. When they were done, Jamey grabbed Liza’s plate. He told her he’d call on her later, and she allowed herself to look forward to it.

  Uly was irked to no end when Clay announced that the carnival would be moving on at first light. They’d begun taking down all the displays, all the tents, packing up. Waco proved not to be the money magnet they’d hoped for. Near the end of the day, Uly led a few of the carnies off to the town proper in search of a drink and maybe some company.

  What passed for the saloon was a square adobe house. It was dark inside, had a bar lining the right wall and tables arrayed around the rest of the small space. There was a room, little more than a closet out back, where “special customers” could be entertained by someone of the female persuasion.

  Gathered at a table, the carnies ordered one round of drinks, then another. The rest of the crowd was made up of a mixture of Mexican, white, and other men of mixed or indeterminate race. When he’d first passed through the country, he’d marveled that he and the Mexicans could speak the same language but have such a time understanding one another. All eyes on the carnies, and not in the friendliest manner neither.

  Well into their third round of drinks, a beautiful woman emerged from the back room. The man with her went to the bar and left a few coins on the counter before exiting. The woman wore a low-cut red dress that gathered at her small waist, her breasts nearly falling out of the bodice. Jet-black hair was bluntly cut at her chin. Dark makeup decorated her eyes; red painted her lips.

  She sauntered over and began flirting with the men. After a heated exchange, Uly decided to go first. But in record time, he was finished. He was gearing himself up for another try when the woman left the room. He stormed out behind her, eyes blazing. “I ain’t done yet.”