“I’m sorry about Luke. He was a good man.” He glances toward the sky. The clouds above us have gone dark. It’s going to rain again. I’m so sick of rain.
I let out a sigh. “Do you know anything about big cats?”
“’Fraid not.”
“I don’t know who will take care of them.” I need to find someone. I can’t leave them to die. Luke would never forgive me.
“Looks like you.”
I swallow. “Luke never trained anyone to take over?” That was foolish of him. No one knows how to handle them.
“I know one of Amy’s boys wanted to, but Luke said no. I suppose you can ask him how to take care of them at the full moon, but for now, you have to deal with feeding them on your own. There’s only four or five cats.” He lapses back into his intelligent way of speaking instead of his deep southern drawl. I wonder where he’s really from.
“I don’t know anything about big cats. Can you help me?” I really, really don’t want to deal with them on my own. And I don’t really care if Elias dies, as sad as that sounds. He can be the one eaten by tigers.
He lets out a belly laugh. “You’ll manage. I’m not the only one who has noticed that people who hang out with you die.”
I look down at Raptor. “Well, let’s hope you don’t become Fiona’s next meal.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
I’m on day four of feeding the big cats. My favorite is Bob, maybe because he is Maddie’s favorite too. I’m still scared to do anything other than stick the meat in the cage, but sometimes he comes over, and I can scratch his nose.
I stick a broom inside every day and push out the poop. It’s nasty, dirty work. And flat annoying. Fiona has already snapped three brooms in half.
After that, I spray down the cats and the cages with water to minimize the smell of pee. It doesn’t work that well, but at least I feel like I’m putting forth some effort.
I wish I could do more for them, but I have to wait for Luke. At least I’ve kept them all alive and mostly happy. He’ll teach me how to do things right on the full moon.
I feed Bob first and then move on to Marley, the panther. She’s being lazy, but she at least sniffs at her meat. Shrek is eager to be fed. I work my way through the tigers and find Fiona is sleeping on the backside of the cage.
I shove a steak through the slats, but she doesn’t stir. I walk over to the back and poke her. Still no movement.
Crap.
I poke her harder. She’s breathing but not responding. Oh, hell no. I’m not going to be responsible for one of them dying. Especially Fiona. She’s Luke’s favorite. I rush to the end of the cage and open it up. I take a big breath. The last time I entered this cage, I almost died. But I have to see.
I leave the door open in case I have to run and approach her carefully. I sink my hands into her soft fur. Her heart beats under my hands, and her chest slowly rises and falls. I push on her and try to open one of her eyes, but she doesn’t move.
I rush out of her cage, slam the door shut, run through the circus, and burst into Ruth’s tent. She’s sitting in a corner, reading a book.
“Goodness gracious, girl, what are you doing?”
“Fiona’s not responding. I need you to help me with her.”
She stands. “I don’t generally deal with animals.”
I take a couple of steps closer to her. “I don’t want to have killed one of Luke’s cats. Please.”
She sighs. “Lead the way.”
We walk quickly back through the circus. Well, as quickly as we can. Ruth moves a slow as the zombies.
I point to Fiona as soon as we duck into the big cat’s tent. “See, she’s not moving.”
Ruth gives me a glare as she climbs into the cage. She’ll be mad at me for a while after this, but I don’t really care. As long as she helps me with Fiona, and neither one of us gets our heads ripped off.
Ruth looks Fiona over and pokes and prods. “I’m not positive, but she looks like she might’ve been poisoned. I have a concoction that should work, but you’ll need to give it to her every hour on the hour for the next twelve hours.”
Twelve hours alone with Fiona. The tiger that tried to kill me the first day I arrived. I let out a breath. I’ve got this. It’s the least I can do for Luke. I glance down at Raptor. “Can he stay with you? I don’t want him to become lunch.”
Ruth nods and climbs out of the cage, and I follow her back to her healing tent. She goes into her little back room and returns with twelve vials. “Give her the first dose right away. She’ll probably be asleep for the first few, and then you’ll have to be more creative. It should taste good to her, but watch your hand.”
And my head, my back, my legs, and feet. I’ll be lucky to get out of this without another trip to Ruth.
I leave Raptor and stop at my boat to grab a blanket, pillow, and a few books.
I lie down on the ground next to Fiona’s cage and look at my watch. I won’t get much sleep, so I read in between doses. I set an alarm on the old digital clock I took from my boat in case I fall asleep. Fiona wakes after the third vial but is still pretty groggy. She licks my hand gently, but I can’t get complacent.
I’m a little tentative for the fourth one, and I rush out of the cage right after I finish. I collapse onto my makeshift bed and fall asleep right away.
My alarm goes off, and I wipe my face. The air is so stinking hot. I blink my eyes open and see a massive set of teeth. I don’t have time to react before Fiona licks me right on my cheek. Holy flip. I must’ve left her door open.
Her tongue scrapes against my cheek again. I move back a bit, my heart racing. If I run, she’ll run after me, and she can definitely catch me. She stares at me, but she doesn’t move. I pick up a vial and hold it out. I have to give her the medicine, or she’ll just fall ill again.
She opens her massive jaw, and I pour the contents down her throat.
I move to her cage and open the door, pointing up the handful of stairs. She huffs and lies down on my bed.
Stubborn cat.
I sit across from her, looking for any sign that I should run, but she gives me none. She cleans herself and patiently takes each dose of her medicine after that. I’m wired now and can’t sleep anymore, but I’m cautious around her, ready to lock myself in her cage if she decides I’m lunch. But she doesn’t. By the twelfth dose, she’s batting around a basketball and waiting for me to throw it to her.
“Thanks for saving Fiona,” Luke says. He sits in the cage with her, and she licks his face. I shiver. We might have had an understanding, but I’m still not totally sure of her. Once I got her into the cage after she played with the basketball, I didn’t let her out again.
I shrug. “I wasn’t going to let her die.”
“Well, I appreciate it. You’ve done a good job with the cats.”
“I don’t mind taking care of them, but I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable training them. You can just take them out when you are here. They are okay for two weeks, right?”
“They should be exercised every day.”
“Uh, no offense, but I’m not taking them out. They’ll kill me. Fiona might not have when I was saving her life, but I don’t trust her.”
He gives me an ironic smile. “You can’t die.”
I let out a breath. “That doesn’t mean I’m not scared of them.”
“Oh, come on, Bob wouldn’t hurt a fly. You’ll play with him.”
He’s at my feet, chasing my shoelaces.
“Yeah, but that’s because I know he won’t bite my face off.”
“Again. You can’t die.” He laughs and then sighs. “Okay. But you can roll their cages to the big training area and just let them out. When they get tired, they’ll go back in.”
“I can do that. And I’ll play with Bob.”
“Thank you.” He nods toward the entrance of his tent. “You have people waiting for you.”
I look up and spot Benny and Maddie. I wave them in.
Benny g
rabs me around the waist and kisses me lightly, but Maddie walks around the side of the tent to the cages and coos at Marley.
“How’s she doing?” I ask Benny.
Benny shrugs. “Okay.”
“Where’s Juliette?” Things are still a little tense between us, but I can’t stay furious with her. Yes, she killed Maddie, but she was compelled to and didn’t have any choice.
“Visiting her mom. How are you doing? I can’t tell what you’ve been up to other than taking care of Luke’s cats.”
I sit down on the table. “I haven’t been doing anything. Everyone I love is dead, and Lorena said the only thing that will satisfy her is my own death. I’m so sick and tired of everything, but I feel like I don’t know what to do or where to learn what I need.”
Benny puts his arm around me and tugs me close. “I tried to do some research on ancestral witches, but I couldn't find much.”
I lay my head on his shoulder. “Thank you. I wish we had more alone time together.”
“Me too. Especially because I have to share you now with Juliette, Maddie, and Luke.”
“Ugh. I want to turn back the clock so everyone would still be alive.”
He kisses me on my temple. “But then I wouldn’t have you. At some point, you’ll solve all of these problems, and everyone will be happy.”
I look over at Maddie. “Will she? Or will she always mourn the life she should’ve had?”
“Maybe.”
“If there is any way at all to bring her back, I’d do it.”
“Would you?”
I look at him. “Of course I would.”
“What if the cost was too great?”
I cross my arms. “I don’t care. Maddie doesn’t deserve this. I’d do nearly anything to save her. I don’t think I’d take someone else’s life, but maybe Elias’s or a serial killer.”
“Elias’s life is valuable even if you don’t like him. You wouldn’t do that.”
“I might.”
Benny looks away from me. “That’s not the girl you used to be.”
I stand up and force him to meet my eyes. “This girl has been through way too much to be the same person.”
He lets out a sigh and takes my hand. “I know.”
I pull him off the bench. “Let’s go do something fun.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe just people watch. But let’s get out of here and stop talking about depressing things.”
I drag him over to Maddie. “You want to do something fun?” I ask her.
She shrugs.
“Oh, come on,” I say. “You’re always up for fun.”
“What’s the point?”
I loop my arm through hers. “You need to laugh. Maybe eat some good food. Forget about your predicament for a moment.”
Maddie stands reluctantly, and I squeeze Benny’s hand. “You know the good shows. What’s fun?”
“The clowns.”
Maddie’s eyes go wide. “No way in hell. Clowns scare me.”
“Okay, no clowns. Good thing actually. At the end of their show, they eat their victim.” Benny grimaces.
“I thought they couldn’t kill,” I say.
“The victim is the same. She’s a ghost like the snake charmer’s wife.”
Maddie shivers. “I’d rather be killed by a snake than a clown.”
“So, no clowns. What else do you got, Benny?” I ask. He has to have something good.
We stroll into the crowds of people. “Things that will make you laugh? Not much, but if you want to see something cool, we can go check out the illusionist.”
“Does anyone die?” I ask.
“At the end, but we’ll leave before that.”
I nudge my sister. “What do you think, Mads? Want to see some magic?”
“What else are we going to do?” She sighs and looks down at her hand.
We make our way across the circus. No one dies tonight, thank goodness. I can breathe a little easier. The illusionist’s tent is smaller than most. Benny holds back the tent flap, and we step into a whole new world. I blink against the blinding light. A sun hangs bright in one corner, and soft sand rubs against my bare feet.
Wait. Bare? I have shoes on. I look down and find myself in a skimpy bikini. Benny stands next to me in a pair of swimming trunks. Maddie has on a matching bikini.
She gives me a weak smile. On the other side of the tent, the ocean stretches out for miles.
“Do you think we can swim in it?” I ask.
Benny nods. “If it’s like any of his other illusions, then definitely.”
Maddie gives me a genuine smile and takes off across the sand. I join her, laughing along the way. We splash into the water, and before we know it, the water is over our heads. Everything about it feels so real.
Benny heads to the corner and chats with a man I’m guessing is the illusionist. He looks younger than Benny.
Maddie giggles behind me, and I turn. She puts her hands on my shoulders and pushes down. I go under and come back up sputtering. She laughs again.
I go back after her, but she splashes away from me. I know I’ll never reach her. I was a better surfer, but she’s a better swimmer. A surfboard floats by, and I grab it. Maddie finds another one.
“I never thought I’d get to surf again,” I say.
Maddie grins. “Me neither.” She points out into the ocean where the waves are perfect. I paddle out and hit the waves like I am at home.
We surf for what feels like hours and eventually end up lying in the sand, staring up at the fake clouds.
I grasp her hands. “Mads, how are you doing?”
She lets out a long sigh. “Not good. If I could, I’d kill myself.”
“Maddie!” I can’t believe my kid sister is having these thoughts. She was always a ray of sunshine.
“What? I’m serious. What do I have here? Nothing to do. No real friends, no family. Nothing.”
“What about Benny and Juliette?”
“They’re okay, but I barely know them.”
“But they don’t seem bored.”
“Well, Juliette hangs out with her family a lot even though they can’t see her. She pretends they can. She has whole conversations with herself that she thinks she’s having with her mom. It’s just weird.”
“And Benny?”
Maddie snorts. “He pretty much watches you all the time. I love you, girl, but not that much.”
I don’t know what to say to her. “What about all the other ghosts?”
“Most of them have been part of the circus for so long they just hang out and talk. A few leave the island, but I don’t even know what I would do. It would be one thing if I could actually do something, like a guardian angel, but I can’t.”
“Benny did once.”
“What do you mean?”
“He attacked a guy that was trying to assault me.”
“But that only happened once, right? I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“Sounds like something you could work on though if you wanted to be that. I think you’d make a kickass guardian angel. You could rescue drowning surfers.”
Maddie giggles. “Right. Maddie the Guardian Angel of Surfers.”
I shrug. “It has a certain charm.”
Maddie rolls onto her side and looks at me, so I roll over too. Her eyes are sadder than I’ve ever seen.
“I want to be alive again. Either that or really dead and on to wherever I’m supposed to be. But this in-between state stinks so much.”
I would take it all back if I could. But I can’t.
“Mads, I’m so sorry.”
She sighs. “Yeah. Me too.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ruth is not as good of company as Lorena used to be, but my lack of people to hang out with has reduced me to this. She’s better than Elias, I guess.
Ruth’s stories consist of her telling me about the great depression. Which I guess could be interesting if it were told by s
omeone else, but Ruth has a photographic memory. She gives me every detail like exactly how much flour she had on November 13th. Then again on November 14th.
But it beats sitting in my boat, twiddling my thumbs.
“No, no, dear. Don’t roll them that way.” She demonstrates the proper way to fold a cloth bandage. “Anyway. On December 2nd, Christmas was coming, so I kept back a fourth of a cup of flour every day so we could have a cake on Christmas…”
I let out a breath and wonder how I can effectively interrupt her. But I don’t know what to ask her about that might be remotely interesting. I wait for her pause and ask the first thing that comes to mind.
“How did you come to the island?”
She shakes her head like she isn’t sure where I came from. “Oh, my son died in the war, and we heard there was a magic man here that could bring him back to life. My husband thought it was a load of hooey, so I went myself.”
“Did Samuel bring him back?”
She snorts. “Of course not. But I thought for sure he could, so I refused to leave until he did. Got myself stuck here. I’ll tell you, when he brought that girl Jocelyn back from the dead, I was spitting nails. I’m surprised I didn’t kill him. I certainly thought about it.”
“Wait. What do you mean, brought that girl back?”
“Jocelyn. Don’t you remember, I told you about her a few weeks ago? She died on a new moon and came back the next new moon because of some deal Samuel made with her lover. But I don’t know what the deal was or how he did it.”
Holy flip.
Maddie doesn’t have to stay dead.
I stand up, scattering the bandages.
Ruth catches one before it rolls off the counter. “Whoa, girlie, where are you going?”
“To see Lorena. Maddie can come back.”
Ruth grips my wrist. “Now, wait a minute. I don’t think that’s a good idea. You know how she is. You’ll end up giving up far more than Maddie’s life is worth. This island is already unstable as it is. You could upset it even further.”
“Look, it’s my fault she’s dead. I’m not letting her stay that way if there is a way to bring her back.”
Circus of the Dead: Book 3 Page 14
