Circus Mirandus

by Cassie Beasley

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he snapped.

  She fell silent, and Micah immediately felt guilty. She didn’t understand. Maybe she couldn’t. He thought about trying to explain magic to her again, but that would only start an argument. Micah didn’t want to fight. Not tonight.

  They trudged back to the Lightbender’s tent in silence.

  “I’m sorry?” Jenny said when they were almost there. “I guess I shouldn’t have talked to the manager?”

  Micah sighed. “It’s just that he’s the Lightbender’s boss. What if he doesn’t want Grandpa Ephraim to have his miracle?” And he was watching me all that time, he added in his head. Why was he spying on me?

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jenny’s brow furrow. “I’m sure the Lightbender will still come see your grandfather. They came here didn’t they? They wouldn’t do that for no reason.”

  That was true, Micah realized. Circus Mirandus wouldn’t have come all this way if the Lightbender didn’t want to help. He stood a little straighter at the thought. They were almost back to the Lightbender’s tent, with half an hour to go before the show. Everything would still work out.

  “I could wait outside,” Jenny said quietly. “If you don’t want me to meet the Lightbender with you.”

  Micah was tempted to tell her that was a good idea. But Jenny had come so far with him, and she had helped so much.

  “Let me do the talking,” he said. “Just . . . don’t say much at all, okay?”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  When they arrived at the black-and-gold tent, the first thing Micah noticed was that the Strongman wasn’t alone. Chintzy perched on top of his bowler hat.

  “When we have special guests,” she chided, “you don’t send them away. It’s not done. It’s not professional.”

  “We don’t ever have special guests,” the Strongman said. “The Lightbender didn’t tell me to let him in early. And didn’t Mr. Head want to—”

  “Aha!” Chintzy squawked. She had spotted Micah and Jenny. “There you are.”

  Micah looked up at her. “Hi, Chintzy.”

  She bobbed up and down. “Hello to you. You’ve been expected.” She jerked her beak at Jenny. “You haven’t.

  “What did you bring her for?” she asked Micah. “She swatted me.”

  Jenny reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a plastic bag. It was stuffed full of peanut butter crackers. “I brought these in case we saw you again. As a peace offering.”

  Chintzy craned her neck down over the rim of the Strongman’s hat so that she could glare at him. “What’s wrong with you? These children are obviously VIPs.”

  She looked sideways at Micah through a beady yellow eye. “The Lightbender wants to talk to you before his show. He wanted to talk to you before you met the Head as a matter of fact, but Bowler here,” she rapped the Strongman’s hat with her beak, “didn’t get the memo.”

  “Wouldn’t that be the messenger’s fault?” Jenny whispered under breath. Fortunately, Chintzy didn’t hear her.

  “Right now?” Micah asked.

  The golden rope that hung across the entrance to the tent dissolved. Chintzy pointed at it with one wing. “What do you think?”

  The room Chintzy led them to was obviously where the Lightbender lived, even if it didn’t look much like any home Micah had ever seen. A plain four-poster bed was tucked off to one side behind a silk screen, but the rest of the room’s contents were less ordinary.

  Micah assumed the Lightbender must keep his clothes in the big ironbound chest at the foot of the bed, because there were no closets or wardrobes. The only chair in the room had been pushed under a flowery mirrored vanity that looked more like something Aunt Gertrudis would use than a powerful magician. Beside the vanity, a silver coffee service with a steaming pot teetered on the back of a short table that was shaped a lot like Big Jean. A tall mahogany bookshelf curved around one side of the room. Books, scrolls, lanterns, and maps fought for space on it, and some of them had spilled onto the floor, which was covered in ornately patterned rugs and cushions.

  In the midst of it all stood the Lightbender. He looked just like Micah had imagined he would, except for the fact that he was fidgeting with the cuffs of his coat. The coat itself was perfect. The dark brown leather had so many scratches and scuffs on it that Micah knew it must have been part of a hundred adventures. But, he hadn’t thought the Lightbender would be the sort of person who fidgeted.

  “Ah,” he said when they entered. “Micah Tuttle and . . .” He looked curiously at Jenny.

  “I’m Jenny Mendoza.”

  Chintzy flapped to a tall perch beside the elephant-shaped table. “She brought me crackers,” she said. “We like her.”

  The Lightbender nodded as if he agreed that crackers were a good way to determine someone’s character. He indicated a particularly thick stack of cushions with a wave of his hand. “I apologize for the lack of chairs,” he said, his eyes meeting Micah’s briefly before twitching away. “Please have a seat.”

  Micah and Jenny made themselves comfortable on the floor while the Lightbender busied himself with the coffee service.

  “Are you thirsty?”

  “No, thank you,” Jenny said.

  “I’m fine,” said Micah.

  “Would you like a drink?”

  Jenny and Micah exchanged a confused look.

  It took a moment for the Lightbender to realize that he had said something that sounded odd. He glanced at them over his shoulder. “In this tent, those two questions are actually quite different,” he said mildly. “Would you like a drink?”

  “Orange soda?” Micah asked. He and Grandpa Ephraim used to drink it every afternoon when he came home from school, but he hadn’t been allowed since Aunt Gertrudis moved in.

  When the Lightbender turned back around, he was carrying a cup of coffee and a frosted glass bottle of orange soda. He passed the soda to Micah and settled down on one of the cushions.

  Micah stared at the bottle. It was the same brand of soda Grandpa Ephraim always bought, because they liked the glass bottles better than plastic ones. It was icy cold, exactly like Micah preferred it. But the Lightbender had no refrigerator, and he didn’t look much like the kind of person who drank orange soda anyway. Jenny was staring at the bottle, too, as if she couldn’t quite figure it out.

  Micah took a cautious sip. “It’s perfect.”

  “I do try,” the Lightbender murmured.

  Jenny crossed her hands in her lap and squirmed, but she didn’t say anything. Micah guessed she was taking her promise to let him do all of the talking seriously.

  The Lightbender sighed. “Unfortunately, our time is not unlimited, and we have much to discuss. Tell me why you’ve come, Micah. We’ll move forward from there.”

  Micah took a deep breath. Finally. This was it. “It’s my Grandpa Ephraim, sir. He needs his miracle.”

  “I know.”

  Micah nodded. “It’s his lungs. I think he would have come to you himself only he’s too sick to get out of bed.” He paused to glance at the Lightbender’s face and was relieved to see that he didn’t look surprised by any of this. “The doctor says he probably doesn’t have much time left.” Micah swallowed. “So it’s urgent.”

  He stopped speaking. He hadn’t said much, but he felt like he’d run a race. Jenny reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “What is it that you want from me, Micah? Tell me exactly.”

  Micah had thought that was really clear, but he answered anyway. “I want you to help Grandpa Ephraim. I want you to stop him from dying.”

  Jenny made an upset chirping sound then cleared her throat. “Or if you could just come talk to Mr. Tuttle, sir,” she said. “To remind him of better times and make him feel more cheerful. He knew one of your predecessors, you see.” />
  Micah shot her the most scorching look he could manage, and she fell silent. He couldn’t let this meeting turn out like the ones with Geoffrey and Mr. Head had.

  But the Lightbender only wrinkled his nose, as if what she had said smelled funny. “How old are you, Jenny?”

  She looked confused. “Almost eleven.”

  “Tragic,” he muttered. He turned back to Micah. “Tell me, how much do you know about your grandfather’s time at Circus Mirandus?”

  “Everything,” Micah said confidently. He held up his wrist to show the Lightbender the bootlace. “He told me about your show and about Geoffrey and Fish. He told me you promised you would give him a miracle.” Micah thought. “And he talked about the Bird Woman.”

  “Victoria!” Chintzy squawked. “I knew it.”

  Micah jumped. He had almost forgotten the parrot was in the room.

  “Hush,” the Lightbender said to her. He looked down at the bootlace with a fond expression on his face. “I remember, of course. Can you perform the same magic with this humble lace that Ephraim could?”

  “He taught me the trick,” Micah said. “I’m good at it.”

  For the first time since Micah had entered the tent, the Lightbender truly smiled. “It was right after Ephraim showed me that particular talent that I offered him the miracle.”

  “I know.”

  The Lightbender caught Micah’s eyes with his own. “I promised him anything within my power.”

  Micah nodded eagerly.

  The Lightbender’s face fell. “Perhaps I am going about this the wrong way. Micah—and you too, of course, Jenny—will you please do me the honor of attending my show?”

  “But—”

  “I think it will make everything much clearer,” the Lightbender said.

  Micah hesitated. “You are going to keep your promise to Grandpa Ephraim, aren’t you?”

  The Lightbender’s fingers tightened around his cup. “I am going to do all I possibly can to fulfill Ephraim’s request.”

  Everything that had been wound so tightly inside of Micah began to uncoil.

  The Lightbender cleared his throat. “Let’s talk about something else for our last few minutes together, shall we?” he said. “My show has changed a bit in the past decades, but you’ll be able to experience many of the same things that Ephraim did, Micah.”

  “The show,” Chintzy muttered from her perch. “He wants to talk about the show.”

  “Chintzy,” the Lightbender said in a warning voice.

  “It’s absurd!” she squawked. “You might not get another chance to ask him.”

  “Not another word.”

  “Ask me what?” said Micah.

  The Lightbender and the parrot were having a staring match.

  “It’s nothing important,” said the Lightbender. “Chintzy has been high-strung of late.”

  Chintzy hunkered down on her perch as if she were settling in for a long sulk, but as soon as the Lightbender turned his back, she squawked, “You know something about Victoria, don’t you?”

  Micah frowned. “That was my grandmother’s name.”

  “I knew it,” Chintzy said.

  “But I never even met her,” said Micah. “I don’t know anything about her at all. Did . . . did you both know her?”

  The Lightbender closed his eyes and sighed.

  After wasting almost ten years of her life at Circus Mirandus, Victoria Starling had concluded that children were abominably foolish creatures. Take her younger self, for example. When she had first heard about a circus full of magically gifted individuals, it had sounded like a dream come true. She had been taken in by the grand tents. She had been charmed by the promise of starring in her own show.

  She had never been as witless as most children; she had had her ambitions at least. But it had taken her far too long to realize that those ambitions were too small for her. The circus had offered her the trappings of power, and child that she was, she had mistaken them for the real thing.

  It hadn’t been so bad at first. She did like to perform, and she especially liked to perform better than everyone else. Well, almost everyone else. There was the matter of a certain illusionist, but being just a hair less popular than a magician who had been at the job for centuries was no small feat.

  Her shows were masterful, every one of them a unique work of art. As they traveled the world, Victoria had lured more and more birds into her flock, and she had learned how to incorporate them into her routines. She and her flock soared. They danced through the air so flawlessly that even the Strongmen shed an occasional tear.

  And her song—no one had ever heard its equal.

  Victoria could direct any bird with a few crystalline notes. Her silver swans dipped over the crowd. Her parrots sang arias. Hummingbirds swarmed in glistening clouds. In the center of it all there was Victoria herself, and she knew exactly what those silly little faces saw when they looked up at her so longingly from the ground. A lone spot of white amid a riot of color, a feathered angel.

  It was satisfying. She had to admit that.

  It was also utterly pointless.

  Someone with her skills squandering their time to make a tent full of children, most of whom were unremarkable in every way, happy? It was absurd. The fact that a whole circus full of magicians was dedicated to that goal? Practically criminal.

  Once she had finally grown up enough to realize how misguided she had been, Victoria began to withdraw from the other performers. And as she withdrew she saw more and more clearly how useless the circus was. She started taking long flights away from Circus Mirandus. She had heard the Head talk about their purpose a thousand times before—“giving hope” and “fostering belief”—but out in the real world those abstractions weren’t making any difference that really mattered as far as she was concerned.

  During her outings she kept her ear to the ground, and eventually she began to pick up the sort of information that interested her. Circus Mirandus was by far the largest group of magical individuals in the world, but there were others. And some of those others were concerned with things much more worthwhile than the delicate feelings of children.

  With a wider world calling and the other performers constantly nagging her to spend more time catering to the whims of her audience, Victoria made up her mind. She would leave Circus Mirandus, and good riddance. She would have to abandon most of her flock. Traveling with a hundred or so birds wasn’t practical, and she could always get new ones. But, if possible, she was going to take one particularly valuable asset with her.

  It shouldn’t be too hard. He was quite fond of her. After all, they had been friends for years hadn’t they? And he was clever. Surely, he wouldn’t choose this suffocating old place over Victoria Starling.

  The Man Who Bends Light found Victoria in her dressing room. She pulled aside the curtain that served as her door and smiled when she saw him. “I suppose you’re here to scold me,” she said.

  “Are you ill?” he demanded.

  “No.”

  “Are you injured?”

  “No.”

  “Then, yes, I suppose I am here to scold you.” He swept inside. “You skipped three shows today. Without the slightest warning! Mr. Head is furious.”

  “Mr. Head is always furious about something I’ve done.”

  “In this case, it’s about something you have not done. The children were waiting for ages. One little boy cried. Here! At Circus Mirandus. Victoria, what were you thinking?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. She was wearing her costume, which seemed an odd choice to him since she hadn’t bothered to work that day. “Don’t you ever get tired of it?” she asked.

  “Of what?”

  “Of the circus. Of all of these silly shows we waste our time on when we could be doing so much more!”

  “S
illy?” he said. “I have been here for many centuries. Obviously, I do not feel that Circus Mirandus is a waste of my time.”

  “Clearly you haven’t thought about it like I have,” she said.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “The circus is a fine place,” she said, “for some people. But you’re different. We’re different.”

  “Different?” The Man Who Bends Light drew the word out as though it tasted foul.

  If Victoria heard the warning in his voice, she chose to ignore it. “Powerful,” she said bluntly. “We can be like gods out there. We can make a real difference. Why would we stay here and act as . . . as nursemaids to children who aren’t anything special?”

  She had been stepping toward him as she warmed to her subject, but she stopped when she saw his face. “You know it’s true,” she said. “You must have considered it yourself.”

  “Of course I haven’t!” he shouted. “Of all the selfish, ignorant . . . do you really think that you are superior to everyone else? Because you can fly?”

  “Not everyone.” She smiled at him again.

  He took a deep breath to calm himself. “You have always been less than modest about your talents. I had assumed it was a failing of youth.”

  “I’m not that young anymore,” she protested.

  “What I cannot comprehend is your inability to appreciate what we do here. Do you realize that magic as we know it is fading? Do you realize that Mr. Head, Geoffrey, the Strongmen—all of us!—are fighting to keep enchantment alive in the world? You say the children aren’t special, but they are. They are the key to everything. What we do here is important, Victoria.”

  She shook her head.

  “Yes,” he said. “Not only important, but vital. You are part of something great, and the tragedy is that you don’t even see it.”

  “I see clearly enough,” she argued. “What do you know about it? You never go out into the real world. Half of the children don’t even remember Circus Mirandus a few years down the road.”

  “But some of them do. It matters. It makes a difference. I am not as ignorant of the world beyond our gates as you seem to believe.”