by Mav Skye
“Where did you see him?”
She nodded her head. “He was hiding behind that big cedar there.”
They both gazed into the shadows of the forest. A car whizzed by, swishing Chloe’s pony tail behind her. It tickled the skin on the back of her neck. She shivered.
He said, “Would you like me to go out there and check?”
She said, “No, no there’s nothing there now.”
He said, “I’m going to check it out. Stay here.”
“No, no, don’t go out there, Joey, please.” Chloe grabbed at his hand, but he gave her the disk of her pop can instead. She reached for his shirt, but he was already walking into the woods. He picked up a large broken tree branch, then turned to her and put his fingers to his lips. Shhh…
She bit her lip as Joey trudged deeper and deeper into the woods, the trees shading him from the sunlight. Ivy draped the cedar like a serpent. She swore she could make out glowing eyes, even a forked tongue.
A rattle shook in the back of her mind.
The clown’s face would pop out any moment now. He’d leap out from behind the tree swinging the hatchet, and he’d hack Joey to pieces.
Joey neared the tree, turned to her again and put his fingers to his lips. Chloe waved her arms. No! She mouthed the words, come back.
But, of course, Joey didn’t listen. Instead, he leaped behind the tree.
A bloodcurdling howl echoed again and again through the forest. Chloe just about peed her pants. “Joey!”
She stormed into the woods, running as fast as she could. Chloe imagined Joey lying on the forest floor with a hatchet in his forehead, blood squirting out all over the place like ketchup in a corny horror movie. As she approached the cedar, the snake tail rattled in her mind. It warned her to not look, to turn back, to race to the road where she could wave someone down and get help… but she kept on running, slowing to a full halt when she reached the cedar.
Chloe took a deep breath, then pounced to the other side of the tree—and screamed when the clown’s long white nails bit into her shoulders. The hatchet would go straight into her heart right there and then, and for just a second, an instant, she felt relief, because that would mean Mr. Jingles had been real all this time. She wasn’t crazy.
Its rough hands swept to her upper arms, squeezed them like plump chicken thighs and whirled her around. Chloe braced to meet the murderous, stalking clown eye to eye. She let out her breath in a full blown scream, then screamed again when she recognized the face of the one who gripped her.
Chloe was so angry, so furious, that when her captor ducked his face to hers and kissed her all she could do was bite his lip like a beast and yell once more, “Dang it, Joey Parker!”
He let go of her shoulders, and she shoved him against the tree, then marched back to the road.
Joey sprang after her. “Come on, it was funny.”
“It was not funny.”
“Sure it was. It was a joke. A little scare.”
She spun on her heel and pointed at him. “This is serious. What I saw yesterday was real. It wasn’t a joke. You think I’m crazy, and I’m going to prove to you that I’m not.”
He stared at her with wide eyes, blinking like an innocent lamb. Blood dribbled from his lip down his chin. How hard had she bitten him?
His tongue dashed out and licked at the ruby dribble. “That’s some love bite you gave me.”
Chloe let out a wail of frustration and stomped her foot simultaneously.
“You’re cute when you’re mad.”
“I’m not mad, and I’m not crazy!” Chloe turned her back on him and steamrolled over the sidewalk.
Joey followed behind like a rejected puppy. “You’re not crazy, Ayita Sevenstars.”
“Shut up, Joey Parker!”
“Okay.” Joey quieted and tagged along behind her. And by the time they’d made it to Spindler Public Library, Chloe had cooled off a little.
When she opened the door, they were greeted by air-conditioning. Joey made for the comic books, and Chloe went in the opposite direction toward the non-fiction. A few mothers quieted their children down at the children’s end, and there was the tap-tap-tap of fingers on keyboards over at the computers. The quiet and order relaxed Chloe. She walked down the first aisle she saw and started reading titles. How to Learn French in a Day… she realized she didn’t know exactly what she was looking for. She turned the corner almost bumping into Joey. “I thought you were looking at the comic books?”
He frowned at her, giving her the lost puppy dog look, and she scowled and turned in the opposite direction, away from him. After gazing over a few more titles, she went to the check-out desk.
“May I help you?” The librarian was tall and lean with gray hair piled into a loose bun on the top of her head. She wore a high collared blouse that reminded Chloe of the Victorian era.
“I’m doing research on old people illnesses. Could you point me in the right direction?” Chloe blushed when she realized she had said old people, because the librarian was older herself, at least on the way there.
The librarian didn’t seem to notice though. “Of course.”
Chloe followed her to the section that said, Psychiatric Illnesses.
The librarian said, “Here’s a book on dementia, another on Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s—”
“Okay. Great.” Chloe pulled down all the titles the librarian had pointed to.
The librarian smiled. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Chloe.
She grabbed a few more books, and was heading toward a table when another book caught her eye. It was called, the Psychology of Imaginary Friends.
She plucked that one up, too.
At a table, she made herself comfortable and started with the book on the top of the stack. Signs and Symptoms of Dementia: Do you have it?
Chloe frowned, she hoped not.
She opened up the book and began to read, then skipped through the thirty pages of introduction. The next section was called Ten Signs. She wished she’d brought her notebook along.
Joey sat down and rolled a pencil toward her along with a few pieces of paper. “I thought you’d like to write stuff down.”
How does he always know what I’m thinking? Chloe nodded at him. “Thanks.”
Joey noticed Chloe trying to read the title of the book he held in his hands, and he showed her the cover. 1001 Yo Mama Jokes.
She said, “Seriously?”
Joey leaned back in his chair and propped his sneakers on the table. He opened the book, glanced at it and said, “Yo Mama’s so fat that she stepped on a rainbow and made skittles.”
“Shut up.”
“Okay.”
Chloe went back to her book. First symptom, Difficulty completing tasks. She tapped the pencil against her lip. Mama Nola was tiring easily, sure, but she didn’t think she had any problems completing what she started. Of course, hadn’t she woken up with the intention of gardening, then decide to go back to sleep?
Hmmm… Chloe moved on to the next sign.
Confusion about the time of day or where one is. This one she wrote down. Mama Nola wasn’t confused about the time or where she was, but she had thought she had gone to the circus.
Problems with speaking words or writing. Chloe sighed, she didn’t think this described her Etsi either.
She shut the book and opened another. It was more of the same stuff. It didn’t describe her mother, but she couldn’t rule it out either. She wadded up the paper she had written on and dropped it on the table.
“Any luck?” Joey was halfway through 1001 Yo Mama Jokes.
“No.” She opened The Psychology of Imaginary Friends written by Doctor Richard Lambert.
This one did not have an introduction, but delved straight into the history of imaginary friends/creatures. Chloe found this interesting and she dove into the words, not even noticing when Joey left and came back with a few more books.
She picked up
the pencil and begin to scribble.
In the past, Dr. Lambert explained, people thought imaginary friends were angels or from a previous life. They would come to befriend one, protect, or in some cases haunt.
Chloe tapped the pencil against her chin, thinking. She remembered her dream from the night before, the wild west show.
She thought about her Cherokee heritage, which her mother never spoke specifically of, but frequently shared the old tales and legends of her people.
She stood, went and talked to the librarian, and brought another tall stack of books to the table.
Chloe immersed herself in history, learning of the booger dance ritual in which tribal members would don scary animal masks, then leap and bound about a fire. They believed when they wore the masks they became that animal. Sometimes they did this to keep bad spirits away, other times to bring a good crop; eventually the dance became a ward against the Europeans.
Chloe paused and thought about the similarities to the dream she had, where had it come from? Her mother would say that she was a Shaman, but Chloe didn’t much believe in that stuff…at least, she hadn’t until now.
Chloe also learned of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, how the Indians were bought and forced to act in the shows. Buffalo Bill paid wages to the Native American performers, but many of the smaller shows that attempted to imitate him did not. The courts eventually declared the shows inhumane. By 1915, Buffalo Bill had folded up his tents and moved on. More wild shows popped up after that, trying to make a buck off the curious and rowdy mining towns of the South. Authorities would follow and shut most down, but one particularly dark show managed to dodge the law by changing its name and traveling frequently.
Buckskin Henry’s Curious Traveling Circus lurked along the underbelly of society, feeding off those who were desperate for macabre entertainment. The show dodged the law for a full twenty years, raising and exploiting two generations of Cherokee children. Buckskin Henry was the ringleader, a tall, lean man with a long, angular face and eyes as dark as sin. He claimed that Cherokees had murdered his parents and siblings when he was eight years old. He had wandered for days before a hobo had found him and brought him to a town where he was raised in a Catholic orphanage by sadistic nuns.
Buckskin Henry had promised his revenge, and the traveling show provided an outlet for his every sadistic need. He mixed the macabre with humor, finding this mixture won over even the most delicate of souls.
Chloe wrote note after note. When she used up both sides of the paper, she wrote in small print on the sides, then continued reading.
Someone shook her shoulder. “You know you can check those out, don’t you?”
Chloe gazed up, dazed, her mind trying to make sense between the words she was reading and the words said to her. “Uh, of course.”
Joey tapped on his watch. “We’ve been here for four hours, Chloe. I’m bored and hungry.”
“What? Let me see.” She grabbed his wrist and looked at his watch. Sure enough, four hours had passed. “Oh, shoot. I promised Mama Nola I’d help her in the garden. Let me finish up here.” She turned back to the book and became engrossed once more.
Joey said, “Chloe, check out the books. I’ll carry them home for you. Chief must have sustenance or he will die.”
Chloe rolled her eyes at him. “Seriously?”
“Chief is always serious.”
Chloe used her notes as a book marker and closed the book. She decided to check out a few of the history ones and The Psychology of Imaginary Friends. They left, swinging by the city park where a youth group fed Joey and Chloe hotdogs and informed them that they would not know the time or day Jesus would come back. Joey avidly agreed, and they fed him two more hotdogs. Joey shared several of the Yo Mama jokes he’d read and had the youth group leaders laughing while Chloe gazed longingly at the city pool a few hundred feet away.
She spotted her girlfriend Kelly, and left the youth group crowd and her books behind, and met Kelly at the pool fence.
“How’s the water?”
“It’s amazing! I think I’m burning though.” Kelly was pale with blonde hair. Her skin did look a little red.
“I wish I was in there with you. It’s hot today.”
“I know. It’s supposed to be in the upper eighties for the next two weeks! Oh my dog, Chloe, what were you doing over there?”
Chloe smiled. “Free dogs. Hot dogs, I mean.”
“Good idea! I’m starved. Think they’ll feed me one, too?”
“Only if you let Jesus into your heart.”
Kelly laughed. “My boyfriend would get jealous.”
Chloe said, “Is Weasel here?”
Kelly rolled her eyes. “Do you mean is Donny here? Don’t try to fool me. I’m on to you, girl.”
Chloe grinned.
“But no, he’s not. They’ll be here later next week. Oh! That reminds me. Weasel’s having a BBQ weekend after next. I’m bringing you with me.”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order. I need someone to talk to. And Donny will be there. And I’ve heard Kara Leigh will be flying to Greece with her grandparents, so she’s gone.”
“Really?” That would be the perfect opportunity to be around Donny. “Okay, count me in.”
“Cool! We’ll be by to pick you up, I don’t know, five-ish?” Kelly twisted her blonde hair to the side, revealing sunburnt shoulders. “Seriously, I wish you had a phone like the rest of America.”
Chloe said, “Me, too. You’ve no idea.”
“Okay. So if I don’t see you between now and then, try to remember, ‘kay?”
“I know you two are talking about me, so you can just stop now.” Joey carried Chloe’s six books, and balanced a foil covered hotdog on the top.
Kelly giggled. “Joey! How many of those did you eat?”
“Five. This one’s for dinner. I’ll share if you wanna come over later.”
Chloe put her hands on her hips and glared at Joey.
Kelly giggled again. “Maybe, I will—promise not to tell Weasel?”
Joey winked with a half-cocked grin on his face. “Your secret is safe with me, darlin’.”
Kelly laughed again. Chloe thought Kelly’s tiny blue bikini top was a little too… well, little.
“I was talking to Chloe, stud.” Kelly blew a kiss and holding the books in one hand, Joey pretended to catch it.
Chloe grabbed her books from Joey; the hotdog rolled off the top to the ground.
Kelly said, “Chloe! What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’ll see you the Saturday after next.” She turned and stomped away. She didn’t hear Joey behind her, and looked back. He leaned into the fence, his arms raised up over his head, clutching the twisted wire. Kelly laughed and twirled her hair.
Chloe stomped out of the park, feeling angry, not knowing why. By the time the sidewalk had ended, and the forest began, Joey had caught up with her.
She pretended she didn’t know he was there and kept walking.
He touched her shoulder, then grabbed it gently, stopping her. “You kissed me back.”
“What? Let go of me.” She kept walking, and he kept up.
“Earlier, behind the tree, you kissed me back.”
She said, “First, I didn’t kiss you. I bit you. And second, I don’t want to talk about it. I’m still mad at you, Joey Parker.”
“You kissed me before you bit me.”
She gave him a look. “Save your kisses for Kelly. I’m not interested.”
“Kelly?” He laughed. “You’re jealous.”
She turned to him, absolutely furious. “I am not!”
Joey grinned at her.
She scowled and kept walking.
He sighed and in a very serious voice said, “Okay. Okay. You’re right. I’m afraid that I have to tell you that—”
She looked at him, and her mind filled in the blanks of what he might say like…he really did invite Kelly over. Or that he hadn’
t meant to kiss her earlier.
Then the words came out of his mouth, and Chloe wished she was already dead.
“Yo Mama’s so fat she’s got to iron her pants on the driveway!” He cackled with laughter and started a new one. He proceeded to attempt to recite 1001 Yo Mama Jokes on the way home.
Chloe zoned him out, her mind taking refuge in evil spirits and past lives. She thought of the snake tail rattle and wondered if the clown was associated with the Horned Serpent of Cherokee folklore.
If the goal was to prove that the clown was real, this knowledge would hurt her case, not help it. She wondered if Mama Nola would believe her. It was worth a try.
Chloe dug in the dirt on her knees in the late afternoon sun. Mama Nola leaned on her cane, plucking blueberries and dropping them into a wicker basket.
Chloe plopped a small potato in a shallow hole, covered it, then moved onto the next hole. She’d come home to find Mama Nola sitting at the dining table, lipstick smeared across her face. She said she had gone to the circus again. She said they had danced and danced and danced.
When Chloe asked who she had danced with, her mother had gone quiet, lost in the memory. This made Chloe wonder if Mama Nola was merely having vivid dreams, but then she’d found her jewelry box in Mama Nola’s room, again. Chloe didn’t know what to make of it. She didn’t know what to make of anything anymore.
Chloe glanced around to make sure they were alone. “Mama, you keep telling me you’ve been to the circus. Did you ever go to one as a little girl?”
Mama Nola looked over at her sharply. “I have never been to the circus.”
“You told me earlier, that you were at one today.”
“I did not.”
“Yes, you did, you said—”
“Young lady, mind your mouth and stop calling your Etsi a liar.”
Chloe went quiet. Something was wrong, very wrong. She knew it. She touched Godzilla, who roared on her ear, and decided to press just a little further. “Mama, have you ever been to one?”
“No. Never.” A string of swear words in her Etsi’s native tongue poured out of her mouth.
Chloe said, “Okay, okay! I won’t ask you about it again.”
Mama Nola paused, and lifted the sunhat off her brow fanning herself. “Except, maybe…maybe when I was a little girl.
