by Leanne Leeds
“Ugh, poor dogs,” I told him.
“Poor dogs? You feel sorry for the dogs?” Tiffany spat with indignation. “How about some sympathy for me, the newly dead person cut down in the prime of her young, wealthy, privileged life? Daddy was going to buy me a sports car next year! Jeez, you people have your priorities all screwed up.”
I stared at the girl.
“Tiffany, to us, the dogs are sentient beings. Not so different than people, actually,” my father explained to her.
“Well, a little different than people,” I disagreed with my father. “Dogs don’t go around bashing people’s heads in with paver stones.”
“Ugh, whatever. They’re just dogs. In some countries, they eat them, you know,” Tiffany told us. “I can’t believe everybody gets so hyped up about one dog dying that I get stuck here and wind up getting bashed in the head. This is ridiculously unfair.”
“Apparently, your calming power can’t turn her into a nice person,” I told my mother while ignoring Tiffany’s statement.
“Nice people get run over by strong people. Nice is a terrible thing to be. It’s weak,” she told me.
That was it for me. Tiffany Drake was infuriating me, and I let loose.
“Those dogs would have given their lives for you. If they could have gotten out of the kennel to save you, they would have—even if it cost them their own lives,” I snapped at her. “Frankly, now that I met you? I’m glad they were locked away safe, so no one else was hurt other than you. You are the most spoiled, entitled brat I have ever had the unpleasant experience to meet.”
“Charlotte!” my mother exclaimed, shocked. “Tiffany is a guest. While I understand how offensive what she is saying is, we don’t speak to people that way. I didn’t raise you to display such a lack of compassion.”
“Compassion for her? Where’s her compassion for anyone else?” I asked. My mother glared at me.
“Hun, why don’t we take a walk,” Gunther said as he got up and leaned next to me to rub my shoulders.
“Hun?” my father asked, stunned.
Gunther froze, his hands wrapped around my shoulders. “You didn’t tell them?” he whispered as if everyone around the table wasn’t only two feet away from me.
“They can hear you, Gunther,” I told him with exasperation. “No. We got interrupted.”
“What does this mean?” my mother asked sharply, pointing to Gunther’s hands on my shoulders.
“Like I said, we got interrupted with Princess Compassion’s murder over there,” I told them. “There were still some other things I needed to let you in on. Like Gunther and I.”
“You and this young man are dating?” Mom asked.
“Well, it’s a little more complicated than that…”
“Oh no! Are you pregnant?!” my father asked, horrified.
“No! No, Dad, jeez.”
“Mr. Astley—”
“Not a word, young man. She may be a ringmaster, but Charlotte is still my daughter. I want to hear this from her,” my father told him sternly.
“We both would, Gunther,” Mom agreed with a bit more calm in her tone of voice. Despite that, I could see she was shocked. “I’m sure you’re a very nice young man, and we mean no disrespect to you, but surely you realize that the two of you having a relationship is the very definition of a bad idea.”
“We’ve been in a relationship for a week now, and it hasn’t been that bad,” I joked. My mother glared at me.
“Do I really need to be here for this? Because frankly, I don’t care about any of you,” Tiffany said. “You can have your stupid little family whatever without me.”
“Can we let her go?” I asked Mom.
“I don’t take orders from you. Let me know when my father arrives,” she said as she floated up and out of the kitchen window.
“I guess I take orders from her now? Anyway, I probably should go after her,” I said as I pushed my chair away from the table and attempted to get the heck out of dodge before this conversation continued. From my perspective, they knew that I was dating Gunther. Mission accomplished, right?
“Oh no, you don’t,” Mom said. “Sit back down. She’s a ghost. She can’t do much damage at the moment. We’re going to finish this conversation.”
I sighed and sat down.
“You can go, young man,” my father said as he poked his finger in Gunther’s direction.
Gunther looked at me, and I nodded.
My controversial boyfriend leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. Nodding to my parents, he walked out the back door to return to the Magical Midway.
I thought about rubber-banding after him, but figured I was gonna have to have this conversation at some point. May as well be today, a few hours after a girl was murdered in my parents’ dog kennels.
Because why not?
Oh, Samson, I miss you right now.
Even though I knew there would be no response, the silence within my own head was deafening.
I’ll go check on him while I’m here, Gunther responded in my head. His voice was so clear that it startled me. Good luck with your parents.
Are you on the Magical Midway? Like, on the grounds right now?
Yes. I seem to be getting a handle on controlling this telepathy thing.
Well. That was interesting.
Not only could my boyfriend speak to me telepathically, but our telepathic communication powers were also not limited to being on one side of the Magical Midway barrier or the other simultaneously.
I didn’t know whether to be excited or alarmed.
5
“So, I don’t think Gunther and I dating is as bad as all that,” I finished telling my parents. “We both realize the challenges that come from having a relationship. But he’s not a ringmaster yet, so we’ve got time to try and work it out.”
“Well, I’ll admit you seem to be well aware of the issues that you face, Charlotte, and I’m impressed with how thoroughly you have both thought this through,” Dad said. “I’m glad that the Magical Midway was able to make peace with Roland. He is not a man I would want to be on the wrong side of.”
“I do have some questions,” my mother said. “Gunther thinks the two of you are fated to be together?”
“Yeah, I know it sounds kind of crazy,” I told her. “There’s this whole myth around the thirteenth witch of the circuses, and were both thirteenth generation witches since they started. Ethel Elkins told him since he was a boy that he would marry another thirteenth witch.”
“Well, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s you, Charlotte. The other circus families are still around even if the circuses themselves have disbanded. Surely you’re not the only two left. The circuses were all founded at the same time so everyone in this generation would have a good chance of being the thirteenth generation witch of their family, wouldn’t they?”
My mother brought up a good point I hadn’t really considered, and I felt a pang of jealousy for someone I didn’t even know existed. If they did, though, she would no doubt be way hotter and less of a pain in the butt than me with my stupid superpower job.
“Maybe. There were a bunch of things that Gunther was told, though, that led him to believe it was me.”
“Like what?” my father asked.
“That I would be responsible for leading him to find his place. He figures that was me turning him into a full witch so he could be a ringmaster and a lawgiver,” I told him. “That I would bring ideas from the human world, be annoyed at paranormal world corruption. Stuff like that.”
“That still very general, Charlotte,” Mom said. “The thing about prophecies is they’re so generic you can usually make them fit anything you want them to fit. Seers have always frustrated me.”
“This did come from a norn, Martha. A norn is not just some random seer,” my father pointed out.
“Oh, even the norns practice being cryptic, I think,” Mom told him. “Do you remember that norn reader that we saw on our honeymoon? The one who saw fur i
n our future?”
“Well, we do operate an animal shelter.”
“We do. And if you had taken me to the Werebear Jamboree, that would have been the prediction. If you had bought me a fur coat, that would’ve been the prediction. If we adopted a puppy, that would’ve fulfilled the prophecy. See what I mean? You can apply it to almost anything.”
“I didn’t know witches could be skeptics,” I observed.
“Have you met your mother?” Dad asked.
“There are some things I’m not skeptical about,” Mom said as she glared at Dad. “One of those things is the fact that a ringmaster and a ringmaster heir dating is going to terrify the Witches' Council.”
“I think the Witches' Council is already pretty annoyed at both of us, Mom. Considering our plans to challenge the way they run the paranormal world, I don’t think they are going to be very fond of us anytime soon whether we date or not.”
“It’s more than that,” she said, pausing. “I remember hearing a story when I was a little girl about two ringmaster heirs that fell in love years and years ago. It sent the Witches' Council into a panic.”
“Do you remember why?” Dad asked her.
“Something about the powers combining. That if two families joined into one, the power they both held was doubled somehow. I wish I could remember more, but I don’t.”
“What happened to the two people in love? Did they get married?” I asked her.
“No. They were executed. Now, wipe that look off your face, Charlotte,” Mom said as she glanced over and spotted my shocked panic. “They were both heirs, not ringmasters. Neither one of them held the power that you have. It is something to be aware of, though. Perhaps it’s a good thing Gunther is staying at the Magical Midway.”
“That boy has put himself at great risk for you,” Dad said with some admiration. “A greater risk than you have put yourself at for him.”
“He loves me,” I told Dad quietly. My father nodded.
“Do you love him?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “I care about him so much. Whenever something happens, I look around for him. He makes me feel safe, you know? I mean, besides Uncle Phil, he’s really the first witch I’ve known well. And we faced a lot of the same things growing up, feeling different than everybody else.”
“He understands you,” Mom said.
“I think he does,” I told her. “If this were just me and Gunther in the human world I think I’d be drawing doodles of what my name looks like with his last name, you know? But we don’t live in the human world, and everything is so much more complicated with the Witches' Council, the circuses, the prophecies. It’s harder to know how I feel.”
“Charlotte, whether this is a prophecy or not a prophecy, whether the two of you are fated to be together or not fated to be together—none of that affects love. Magic can’t make someone love someone else. Love is the one thing no one can control,” Dad told me. “How you feel is simply how you feel, honey.”
“If you truly love this boy, you’ll know,” Mom added. “Love is unmistakable, and it’s the most powerful force in the world.”
“I swear, you both sound like a Valentine’s Day card,” I told them.
Mom and Dad laughed.
“I’ll try to call more when we’re on the road,” I promised. “I didn’t mean to leave you out, or not tell you about Gunther and me. It was just hectic and the Werebear Jamboree was kind of crazy.”
“No problem, honey, we are always here for you,” Mom told me warmly. She reached across the kitchen table and squeezed my hand. “I’d like to think on this a while and see if I can remember anything else about the two ringmaster heirs. For now, go with your dad to look at Tiffany’s court papers. Let’s see who this mystery lawyer was.”
“But that’s Anthony Drake’s attorney. Tiffany was insistent it wasn’t the same man, and she was represented by a different attorney,” I told my father as we flipped through the court papers. “That’s his signature, though. She must be mistaken.”
“Look, Charlotte,” Dad said as he laid two sets of legal papers next to one another. “The signatures aren’t the same. The one on the right signing off on the agreement looks completely different than the one on the left.”
“But weren’t these filed the same day?”
“No, look at the date,” Dad pointed. “This one was filed four days before the hearing. This one? It was signed after.”
“Did the police ask you for these?”
“No, but I assume that they have these papers already since they are on file with the court,” Dad said.
“Well, it’s helpful to establish that she’s telling the truth, but not very helpful in figuring out who this guy is,” I said as I flipped through the rest of the papers. “After spending some time with her, I have to admit I’m a little daunted by narrowing down who would want her dead. It only took me an hour.”
“Took you an hour for what?”
“To want her dead.”
“Be glad your mother didn’t hear you say that.”
“Oh, I don’t really mean it,” I told him with a sigh. “I just can’t believe anyone is that spoiled, or that lacking in human decency that an animal dying because of a prank she pulled doesn’t seem to bother Tiffany at all. Not to mention all the other entitled garbage she keeps spouting.”
“Tiffany’s had quite a hard life. Harder than you would think considering the way she talks about her father,” Dad told me. “Her father and mother were not married, and Anthony Drake didn’t even know about her until she was ten years old. She faced a great deal of struggle growing up with just her mother, not knowing who her father was. So says the county gossip, in any case.”
“So you knew who she was when she came? Didn’t you tell Mom?” I asked him while thinking back to my mom’s surprise when she realized who Tiffany was.
“Yes, and no. You know your mother. She hates gossip and I didn’t think it was that important,” Dad said. “Maybe I should have.”
“Is her mother still around?”
“Her mother was hit by a car when she was ten. Her grandparents on her mother’s side didn’t want her, and the state went looking for her father. I believe she spent a couple of weeks in foster care before they realized her father was Anthony Drake. A DNA test confirmed it. Even though I don’t like the man, he did take responsibility for the girl. At least that’s the story.”
“I honestly wonder if she wouldn’t have been better off in a foster home,” I told him. “She seems to have no empathy, no sense of compassion, no sense of responsibility at all. Considering what I know about her father, she sounds like a chip off the old block.”
“I doubt she would have fared any better in a foster home,” he disagreed. “She certainly has adopted some of the worst aspects of her father. She’s young yet, though. Had she had the chance to live out her adult life, perhaps she would’ve had the opportunity to change.”
“And maybe she would have become a lawyer and carried on the family business of squashing people with trucks for money.”
Dad looked as if he wanted to respond, but he shrugged instead.
“I guess it doesn’t matter now,” I told him, shrugging. “She’s dead, so the human world will never get to find out what is stellar human being young Tiffany may have had the ability to grow into.”
“Oh, it’s worse than that. She’s frozen in this moment until she decides to move past it. She is who she will be eternally unless she breaks free from the issues in her life.”
I knew a little about the ghosts, that change for them could be really challenging. I had never looked too deeply into it, but little Anna flashed through my mind. I wondered what issue the little girl could not break free of for five hundred years.
“Wow. That’s depressing.”
“It is. Which is why I tell you, Charlotte—have some compassion for the girl. You think her life was challenging? Her death will be much more so for her. And she doesn’t have her father as a
safety net anymore.”
I wandered back out toward the kennels where the police continued to take pictures and measurements of the crime scene. Detective Roberts glanced up as I approached and nodded. I nodded back, and he turned away.
“Charlotte?” a shocked voice called from behind me.
As I turned, I expected to see someone from the Magical Midway.
It was not someone from the Magical Midway.
It was my fake ex-boyfriend, Aidan Parker.
“Aidan? What on earth are you doing here?”
“Me? You’re the one that disappeared from the face of the earth!” he laughed as he ran over and embraced me. “When did you get back? I asked your parents how I could get a hold of you, and they said you were off running your family circus and didn’t have a cell phone.”
“Yeah, no, I never keep it charged,” I lied. “We use CB radios on the fairgrounds, so that’s what I usually carry.”
Or telepathy. A lot of times, we used telepathy.
Aidan looked fantastic. The last time I saw him, he was pale and shaken by the explosion that tore through our little friend’s circle. Aidan and I were one half of it two couple group. My best friend Tabitha and Aidan’s best friend Bobby were the other half. It was great, and we used to hang out almost every night.
Well, it was great except for one thing.
Aidan and I weren’t really a couple, Aidan was gay—but he and I didn’t tell Tabitha or Bobby.
When the truth came out, all four of us engaged in some spectacular drama and then went off in four directions never to speak again.
Now? The sadness and tension I saw on his face when we last parted had been replaced. My friend looked relaxed, healthy, and happy.
Good for him.
“I just came by to bring Kyle his lunch,” Aidan told me holding a bag up. “He and I have been dating a month or two. Okay, a month and a half. It’s pretty new, actually.”
