The Crooked Mask

by Rachel Burge

  It looks like me.

  I drop the puppet and its handles clatter to the table.

  Before I can decide what to do with it, a hideous face appears at the window. The jester. I scream and jump back.

  He moves his hand as if working the handles of an invisible puppet. I stare at the thing on the table, afraid it will come to life.

  Suddenly my right arm jerks into the air. I yelp and try to lower it, but it won’t budge. I stare at my fingers and watch in horror as they wave. The jester grins and waggles his fingers in reply. I desperately try to move but I can’t.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ I shout.

  He shakes his head in admonishment, as if I’ve done something wrong. You dropped the rope, he mouths.

  Confusion gives way to panic. He left the card because he wanted me to go to the big top; he wanted me to find the dead. But why? Has he brought them here to punish me?

  A moment later my arm drops heavily to my side and I clutch it close, my heart pounding. A jangle of bells fills the air and I stare at the window, but he’s gone. A bang sounds on one side of the caravan and then another, and then I hear laughter outside. I spin around staring, terrified the jester will get in.

  12

  I COULD REALLY USE A FRIEND

  T

  apping sounds at the door, quiet and insistent.

  ‘Martha, are you there?’

  It sounds like Stig . . . I pull the duvet tighter and roll over, convinced I’m dreaming.

  A knock at the window jolts me awake. I sit up and yesterday crashes over me like icy water. The jester tormented me for only a few minutes, banging on the caravan walls and laughing, but I lay awake for hours afraid he would return.

  ‘Martha?’

  ‘I’m coming!’ I stagger out of bed, then open the door and blink in the light.

  Stig frowns. ‘You OK? It’s late.’

  I smile, relieved to see a familiar face. And then a shadow of anxiety slants across my thoughts as I wonder what made him come back to the circus.

  ‘I’m fine. I just didn’t sleep very well. What time is it?’

  ‘Eleven.’

  I look along the side of the caravan, afraid of what I might see, but there is only a bank of white. After the jester didn’t reappear, I threw the puppet out of the window. There’s no sign of it now; the snow must have covered it in the night.

  ‘I’d better get ready for work, I guess.’

  Stig smiles as if he’s got a secret. ‘A tree came down in the storm and the road won’t be cleared until later. If it snows again they might not be able to move it until tomorrow.’ When I don’t say anything he adds, ‘No one can get into the circus. You’ve got the day off.’

  ‘Oh. Thanks for telling me.’

  I glance at the pale swollen sky and shiver. If no one can get in, that means no one can get out either. I start to shut the door, but Stig steps closer. ‘I wondered if you wanted to go for a walk. There’s a frozen lake on the other side of the forest. Or we could watch the rehearsal? Oskar is getting everyone to practise for the show, assuming it goes ahead tomorrow.’

  A group of performers walk by wearing tattered rags and horned headdresses. The top parts of their faces and the ends of their fingers are painted black, their mouths and jaws white. Each of them carries a pole decorated with feathers and topped with a ram’s skull. It reminds me of the drawings Mum did before I left. On the back of the paper was a girl with strings attached to her arms and legs. Thinking about it, she had short dark hair, just like Nina.

  Something seemed different about her last night, and then I realise. Her eyes were always black and empty before, but this time there was real emotion behind them. She was afraid. Did she know the dead were waiting for me in the big top? Was she warning me, because she knew what the jester was doing? Is she afraid of him too?

  The jester left me the puppet, and if Mum drew Nina with strings, then perhaps the two of them are connected somehow. I still don’t know if I can trust Stig, but going for a walk with him has to be better than mulling it over on my own, and maybe there’s something he can tell me.

  ‘OK, I’ll come. I just need to get ready.’

  ‘I’ll wait here for you, Miss Martha.’

  I close the door, stung by the casual affection of his words. He used to call me that in the cabin. At the time it made me feel special, as if he really cared for me. A tiny thread of hope pulls at my heart. How does he do that – yank on my strings and make me feel things I don’t want to feel?

  I throw on some clothes then clean my teeth and brush my hair. It needs washing, but I can have a shower when I get back. I go out and Stig smiles to see me, no doubt relieved that I didn’t keep him waiting for long.

  We turn right, away from the caravans, and head towards the edge of the clearing. The site is bustling with activity. Workers hurry about carrying wood and calling to one another, and men with spades clear the walkways while others hammer and pull on ropes. Oskar stands in the centre of it all, waving his arms and shouting.

  Stig notices me looking. ‘They’re doing Ragnarok for the closing night. There are posters for it everywhere in town. I’ve never seen them do a fire show before. It should be amazing.’

  I nod, remembering how the seamstress said she had to make new costumes. Whatever Oskar has planned, something tells me that Karl won’t be happy about it.

  Stig leads us away from the circus and it’s a relief to turn my back on it. The treetops are thick with ravens, calling to one another with caws and gurgling croaks. The sound sends a chill through me and I scan the trees nervously. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many birds in one place. It feels like an omen.

  He points into the forest. ‘The trail starts over there.’ I follow in his footsteps, my feet sinking into each ice-crusted crater like it was made for me. Watching him trudge through the trees, his hair hanging over his shoulders, reminds me of another time. We didn’t exactly have fun at the cabin, but I’m glad he was there to help me, to hold me when I was scared. Sadness tightens my throat. I could really use a friend right now. I wish things were how they were before, when I still trusted him.

  Stig turns and smiles awkwardly. ‘The path will open up soon.’ He seems apologetic about us having to walk in single file, but I’m relieved we can’t talk for a while. It gives me a chance to organise my thoughts. The last few days have felt so unreal, I don’t know how to begin to tell him about any of it, or even if I should. He was freaked out by Nina, so how will he react if I tell him about the masks and the horde of dead and the jester?

  Just thinking about the dead in the big top makes me shudder. The shadowy figures looked like the souls I abandoned at the tree. Whoever or whatever the jester is, he knew about me dropping the rope. He left the card because he wanted me to find them. But why?

  I walk faster and a hideous thought creeps up and taps me on the shoulder. Now the dead know I’m here, what if they come after me again? I remind myself that they only manifest at night or in dim light. I need to stay focused on finding out about Nina – and this is my chance to ask Stig about her.

  We climb higher, the path falling away beneath us. The forest feels ancient compared to the one on the island. Here the trees are taller and the ground uneven, great hollows and dips in the earth making it look primeval. Among the pines are thicker tree trunks and patches of green moss peeking through the snow.

  After five minutes or so the trail widens and we walk side by side. Stig glances at me then coughs and looks away. Silence grows between us with each step, taking on a shape of its own like a third person on the path. Eventually the trees thin and I see a flash of sparkling white. He pushes away a snowy branch and my breath catches.

  The lake is much bigger than I expected. It looks more than a mile wide. Beyond the expanse of glittering ice is a huge steep-sided valley, covered by an army of fir trees. Fog hangs over the hillside, obscuring the tops of the trees in a swirling shroud of white. It is breathtaking, but ther
e is savagery in its beauty.

  ‘Wow. I had no idea this was here.’

  Stig grins. ‘I knew you’d love it. We can walk on it if you like.’

  I nod and follow him to the shore, my boots sliding on snowy gravel. He steps onto the lake and offers me his hand. I don’t take it, but then my foot slips and I grab his arm.

  The impressions from his coat are sketchy, I guess because he hasn’t worn it very much yet. Even if I tried to read it, I doubt it would hold many memories. All I can sense are passing emotions. Right now, there’s a faint buzz of anxiety mixed with happiness. The idea of seeing Nina again scares him, but it’s a risk he’s willing to take to spend time with me. I pull away, surprised by the tenderness of his emotion, then look at the hard ice and remind myself that he could have something to hide. I don’t want to get hurt again.

  ‘We need skates,’ I mutter.

  ‘What, you didn’t bring any?’ he laughs.

  I smile and keep walking. The lake appeared smooth from a distance but peering down I see the pale and bumpy ice is pockmarked with blue-grey bubbles and scored with lines. We venture further out, both of us treading carefully. Stig’s phone rings. He pulls it from his pocket then blows out an angry sigh.

  ‘Your mum?’ I ask.

  ‘She won’t leave me alone. When are you coming back, you can’t keep running from your problems, we need to talk . . .’

  ‘What does she want to talk about?’ I ask.

  ‘She’s selling the house I grew up in and moving to the suburbs with my stepfather. She wants me to live with them and take a job in his factory. Erik is dependable and hardworking, he eats herring on Tuesday and tacos on a Friday –’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So he’s boring. Dad wasn’t perfect but at least he knew how to have fun. If I had a bad day at school he’d let me stay off and we’d go camping, or he’d take me for a ride on his motorbike. Dad was a free spirit. He always had a bag waiting by the door.’

  I think back to the first time I met Stig. When I touched his leather trench coat, I felt two distinct types of emotion – love and kindness, and then a deeper feeling of bitterness, jealousy and hate. I didn’t understand it at first, until he told me that the coat used to belong to his father. Stig is fooling himself. His dad crashed his car and died because he’d been drinking. He wasn’t some free spirit; he was irresponsible and angry at the world.

  Neither of us speaks for a while and somehow the silence makes the air seem colder. The sky weighs heavy above our heads and the wind has dropped for once. There is something oddly still about the place, oppressive almost. This whole time I’ve been telling myself I can go home whenever I like, all I have to do is call a taxi, but now the road is closed. I know they’ll probably clear it, but what if Karl is right and a storm is on the way? If more snow comes, I could be trapped here, like a horrible dream I can’t wake up from.

  Stig turns to me, his eyes piercingly blue. ‘You know, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about coming back, but I’m glad I did.’

  He smiles at me expectantly but all I can think about is the boy with tattoos.

  ‘When you left yesterday, I saw you arguing with that guy.’

  I expect his expression to darken, but his smile barely wavers.

  ‘He thought I took something of his, but I didn’t. It was nothing.’

  I hold his gaze, unconvinced, and he sighs. ‘Nina dated him before me, but she ended it. He’s hated me ever since.’

  It starts to snow, huge white flakes swirling around us, and Stig throws his arms wide and grins at the sky. I imagine how we must look from above: two tiny figures in the middle of a vast icy wasteland. The sense of insignificance is so strong I can feel it in my body: a shrinking, gnawing emptiness in the pit of my belly. It’s like we’re trapped in a snow globe – specks of nothing for the gods to look down on, to shake whenever they like.

  Stig steals a hopeful glance at me and I do my best to smile, but my mind is a blizzard of questions. He was the last person to see Nina alive; there must be something he knows. I think back to what Ruth told me. She said the police were convinced Nina was wearing a harness and it got caught around her neck, yet they were unable to find one at the scene. When I mentioned it to Stig, he got defensive. If he has something to hide, then asking him outright isn’t going to work. I need to take a subtle approach.

  ‘When did you say you first came here?’ I ask.

  He smiles hesitantly, revealing two tiny dimples. ‘The circus travelled up from Oslo a few months ago. I wanted to get away and Nina suggested I come with her.’

  ‘Did you get on well together, you and Nina?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You didn’t argue?’

  He gives me a strange look. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘You said you stayed in my caravan after she threw you out. I’m just trying to understand.’ I don’t mention that I touched Nina’s jacket and saw him yelling in her face.

  He blows out a sigh, his breath like smoke on the air. ‘You still think there’s some big mystery to be solved, don’t you?’

  ‘I think Nina got me here for a reason, yes.’

  Great flurries of white float down and for a moment I can’t see across the lake. Suddenly it feels dangerous to be out in the middle of nowhere. Stig starts to walk away but I step in front of him.

  ‘When we were in the cabin, you told me Nina had met someone new. I remember you joking about her leaving you for a lion tamer. Is that what you argued about, the fact that she was seeing someone else?’

  Stig chews his lip and looks away. I know I’m prying, but I can’t stop. ‘Or did you just say that, and you hadn’t really split up?’

  He glares at me. ‘No. Nina did finish with me. The day she fell, she told me she was seeing someone else.’

  I start to ask another question but he speaks first. ‘Seriously, Martha, we need to get back.’ He’s right – the snow is coming down so fast I can barely see the trees ahead of us. We keep our heads down and hurry over the gravel, only pausing once we reach the forest.

  He pulls away a branch for me to step onto the trail and we walk side by side, our shoulders almost touching.

  ‘So did you find out who she was seeing?’ I ask.

  ‘No. I believed her at the time, but I never found out about anyone else. I think she just said it to upset me.’

  ‘You told me before that she refused to wear a harness to get a reaction from you. Why did she want to make you angry all the time?’

  An edge of bitterness creeps into his voice. ‘Nina was good at finding my weak spots and poking her fingers in them.’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

  He pauses and turns to me, snowflakes glistening on his hair. ‘I wish I had told you everything in the cabin, about seeing Nina’s ghost. I wish I had returned to the island, I wish I had replied to your messages. I want to be honest with you, and I am trying, but sometimes the truth is complicated.’ He holds my gaze, his expression open. There is such kindness in his eyes. I can tell he’s trying to put things right.

  ‘I know you’re angry with me for disappearing like that, and you have a right to be, but please, can we start over? I’ll tell you everything from now on. You can trust me, I promise. It’s just, I know you want things to be black and white, but sometimes they’re not.’

  ‘OK, I’m listening. Explain it to me.’

  He starts walking again then says, ‘Nina saw life as one big party. Everything was an adventure, an event. She was exciting to be with, one of the most exciting people I’ve ever met, but after Dad died I wasn’t much fun to be around. He always used to say that women are fine when you’re being who they want you to be, but show any weakness and they don’t want to know. It was like that with Nina. After he died, I had no energy for anything and she took it personally. She was talented and beautiful, the star of the show, but she was insecure too. If I’m honest, I was tired of pretending to be someone I wasn’t. I was tired of bein
g her audience.’

  I nod, unsure what to say. One thing I do know, the more I hear about his dad the less I like him.

  Stig adds quickly, ‘I don’t mean to say she was a bad person. She wasn’t. She was kind and fun and generous. She just didn’t know how to help me, and I . . .’ His voice cracks. ‘In the end it was me who let her down.’

  I hate seeing him upset, but at the same time I’m relieved he’s telling me all this. It feels like I’m finally getting somewhere. He seemed so earnest about wanting me to trust him – and I want to, but something doesn’t add up. I get that Nina craved attention, but I still don’t understand why she’d want to provoke him.

  ‘So what did you two argue about, when she threw you out?’

  Stig pushes away a branch. ‘She didn’t like me spending time with Ulva.’

  A clump of ice falls down my neck, making me cringe. ‘So you’re seeing Ulva?’

  ‘No. We’re just friends. Ulva is easy to talk to. She didn’t expect me to be happy, or make jokes, or entertain her. We just sat in her caravan talking and watching movies. Nina knew there was nothing between us – she just wanted me to spend all my time with her.’

  I remember the chiffon scarf in the costume trailer and how Ulva desperately wants to leave the circus. I’m sure Ruth said something about her mum taking off.

  ‘What happened to Ulva’s mother?’ I ask.

  Stig gives me a sideways glance, as if surprised by the question.

  ‘I touched her clothes,’ I explain.

  He pushes a strand of hair behind his ears. ‘Her mum was an acrobat here. She was an alcoholic and had a lot of issues. She left when Ulva was twelve. She’s been brought up by the circus since – by Karl and Ruth and Nina and the others.’

  ‘But she wishes her mum would come back and take her away?’

  ‘She did come back. It was just after we arrived here. She asked Ulva to leave with her, but Nina stopped it from happening.’