by Gwenda Bond
The crowd sealed off behind us, separating us from the mayhem. “They’ll break it up in a minute,” Remy said. “You’ll be safe back here.”
He stopped, and we stood there, glaring at each other through our masks.
“You should have stayed out of it, butterfly. Look at the carnage, already happening.”
And then the tent began to go dark. The lights died in a progressive swoop of spots going out, section by section. When the black descended, I couldn’t see Remy or his devil mask anymore. He lifted his hands from my shoulders and said, “Stay put.” I tried not to feel unmoored without the anchoring touch as the crowd jostled and shouts of confusion rose around me. In the crush, someone got close enough that I felt the heat of breath. I sensed that it wasn’t Remy, and stepped back.
“Stay away from my daughter,” my father called, from nearby.
“Turn them back on!” A voice boomed out. Thurston’s.
The lights popped on again, brighter than before. Thurston stalked through the mass of performers to the middle of the ring. “What a lovely welcome for our newest members,” he said, soaked with sarcasm.
Behind him, my father clutched Sam’s bicep. My cousin’s face had a long gash across the right cheek that oozed a thick line of deep red. One of his eyes was pinched shut. He wore a cocky smile that must have been painful.
Remy was several feet away, pressing his shoulder into Novio’s chest. Staying between him and Thurston. And, more importantly, between him and Sam. Novio’s face was also going Technicolor with bruises.
“I see the rumors about how well the Maroni and Garcia clans get along are true,” Thurston said. “And since we have members of both right here, I may as well say this. As it currently stands, the finale belongs to the Garcias. But now I have Emil Maroni to fit into the order.” I resisted checking Dad’s reaction. “And it’s hard for me to imagine where else to put him. There’s the matter of Jules to decide too.”
Our wire act was rare in that it wasn’t a large-scale family affair, but just the two of us, and typically each walking solo at different spots in the show. Thurston hadn’t mentioned Mom because horse acts never got the grand finale.
Novio said, “You can’t be serious. You wouldn’t end the show with a rope walker.”
We did not walk on ropes.
Thurston ignored his outburst. “The day after tomorrow, our wire walkers and our trapeze artists will perform before the final dress rehearsal. Whoever impresses me most will get the finale, the runner-up will get the plum placement right beforehand, and last place closes the first act. Everyone wins, so no more fighting. Figure out how to get along.”
My father nodded, regally. “Maronis have never minded proving ourselves.”
Novio shrugged off Remy. Thurston took their silence as agreement, smiling as he headed back to the dais. I was about to start toward Dad when I glanced down and spotted it.
There, at my feet, lay a red rose, with a stem clipped to the length of a finger.
I bent and picked it up. The thorns were covered by some kind of rough gray string or cord wound around the stem. Odd. An even odder feeling passed through me when I touched it . . . like a shiver, but on the inside. I straightened and looked around for a secret admirer—or any kind of admirer—but all I found was Remy shaking his head at me.
“Julieta,” my father called, “let’s go home.”
I kept the mystery rose with me as we left the big top, but it hardly made me feel better about the disastrous evening. Neither did my final look back, where Remy was still watching me. He raised his hand in a wave good-bye, and I couldn’t read his expression. All I could tell was that it lingered on the flower.
I was sure it wasn’t from him.
three
* * *
Sam and I followed a couple steps behind my mom and dad on the journey from the big top back to the RV. We passed the long trailers that housed the men and women of the work crew, and the shouts of laughter ringing from doors open to admit cool air made me even more aware of our outsider status. Would we ever be at home here? I wasn’t so sure anymore. After the fight and blackout, the night felt unfamiliar and alive with threats.
“What did he say to you?” I asked Sam.
Sam said, “That we shouldn’t be here. And that we’d better not be here to try and steal his family’s spotlight, since that’s what the Maroni voodoo is all about. I hope we do take the finale. Jackass.”
“What Maroni voodoo? They’re crazy,” I said.
“You wanted to come here,” my dad said, startling me. I hadn’t realized he’d been listening so closely to me and Sam. “And now we’re here.”
He was right. But things were turning out so much different than I’d expected. Before, I hadn’t cared about details from the distant past. Now I needed to know how the old hurts and bad feelings had come about. I had to, before I could fix things, and make this work the way it was supposed to.
“What happened back then? Why do the Garcias”—I hesitated, not wanting to say it and make it real, but there was no other word that fit—“hate us like this? Why does everyone else here seem to feel the same way?”
Dad didn’t answer, and Mom put a worried hand on his arm. “Emil?” she prompted. “What should we know?”
My stomach clenched as our little foursome came to a halt. If something was being kept secret from Mom too, it made me worry even more.
“We’ll talk when we’re in private,” Dad said, shooting a stern look at me and Sam. Then he zeroed in on the rose I held. “Where did that come from?”
Probably best not to tell him a mysterious someone had left it at my feet during the blackout. There was enough uncertainty swirling around us already. Besides, I planned to find out. I wanted to know the identity of my admirer way more than he did.
“I found it,” I answered, with a shrug.
He grunted acknowledgment, and we were walking again. When we reached our RV a few minutes later, the windows were dark. That and the front door being open didn’t strike me as strange right away. Nan would be inside, watching an old movie if I knew her. And I thought I did.
But Dad’s shoulders pinched together as he stood in front of the door. He put out his arm to block us from going around him and inside. “Wait,” he said. “Something’s wrong.”
I ducked under his arm, and up the stairs. He was right behind me.
There was no light inside except from the TV. Bringing Up Baby was playing on mute, turning Hepburn and Grant’s banter into a soundless, sinister flicker. My slipper crunched on something that shouldn’t have been there.
Dad hit the light switch, and the wreck came into sharp relief. I’d stepped on a broken glass, which had been knocked off the kitchen counter and crushed into a glimmering spiderweb. The curtains were torn down, the seat cushions tossed around. The cabinet doors hung open. The drawers had been yanked out and were spilling their contents.
“Nan?” I asked, half turning to Dad.
“Mama,” he called.
“I’ll check the back,” I said, too afraid to stand and do nothing. Nan was invincible. I thought of her as a glamorous tarot-reading force of nature, not fragile enough to be hurt. But in truth, she was increasingly frail with each passing year.
I picked my way through the debris and into the back. A glance into the first small sleeping berth—Nan’s—confirmed it had also been tossed. There was no sign of her there. In Mom and Dad’s larger space at the back, the mattress was ripped, the midnight-blue sheet torn to reveal a white seam of stuffing guts. Sam’s bunk was tiny and undisturbed. I left my own small room for last.
My things were strewn everywhere. The closet had been emptied, clothes heaped on the bed. I dropped the weird rose onto my dresser.
Above the mess, the framed photograph of my heroine, Bird, hung slanted on the wall. Beautiful Bird, smiling while she held a parasol and walked a wire between buildings in Chicago, making it look as easy as walking down a street. She was stylish in a cream sweater and kne
e-length skirt, the outfit topped off with a beautiful hat. Whoever had broken in had managed the impossible. They’d made Bird lose her balance. And also me.
“Nan’s not here!” I called, loud enough to be heard up front.
But it was Nan who answered. “I am, sweetie! I’m back!”
I hurried toward the kitchen, where she’d obviously just entered from outside. I was comforted by the sight of her, tall and stately and commanding enough that we never questioned her ban on being called granny or even nana, because only Nan, short for her full name, would do. She was dressed for going out in a white blouse, flowing pants, and heels, a black scarf knotted at her neck. She wore Monroe-red lipstick, like always.
There was no surprise on her face at the mess. “You wouldn’t listen until you saw proof you could recognize,” she said, directing her statement to me. “But now, now you will.”
The night officially had too many mysteries for me to disagree. I nodded, and let her take my hand. Hers was cold.
In the kitchen, my dad sank into a chair at the table as Mom moved to clear the mess from it—crumpled napkins dumped from their holder, the calendar that usually hung on the wall above, Nan’s latest tabloid. I closed the front door and replaced a couple of couch cushions, so Nan and injured Sam would have a place to sit for the emergency family meeting.
Mom rummaged in the freezer and made an ice pack for Sam, then extended the lumpy cloth to him. “On for fifteen minutes, then off,” she said, and before he could protest, “I don’t care if it hurts. Now, let’s everyone tell me why my house is a disaster area.”
Nan crossed her hands one over the other, manicure perfect and red. “First, what happened to Sammy?”
“I fell into a doorknob,” Sam said.
Mom clucked her tongue, annoyed, and motioned for Sam to put the cold pack to his eye. Which he did, wincing.
“A doorknob that looked exactly like Novio Garcia’s fist,” I said.
“Oh,” Nan said, but, again, without surprise. “Only to be expected. That’s one of the children?”
“Yes,” Dad said. “Where were you?”
“I went to see Maria Garcia,” Nan said, “to pay my respects for Roman’s passing last year and try to smooth the waters, now that we’re here. He was her father, after all. It was the least I could do. I wasn’t gone half an hour. Maria’s husband was with us. So if that’s what you’re thinking, Emil, the answer is no, they didn’t do this. And it sounds like their kids were otherwise occupied.”
I was afraid to breathe, afraid to miss something. Nan had paid a visit to Remy’s parents while we were at the party meeting the rest of the Garcias. That much was clear. Why she’d felt compelled to pay respects to Roman, I had no idea. Sure, he’d been a famous flyer in her day, but I’d never heard his name pass her lips before.
Nan focused on me again. “You see now, don’t you? The bad blood I tried to warn you about.”
“But why,” I said. “I don’t understand. What’s the problem?”
“There were . . . accidents. Tragedies, long ago, when I was still a flyer,” Nan said. “Roman told everyone I was responsible, and there was no way to defend myself.”
“You were on a show with the Garcias?” I asked, shocked as much by that revelation as the one about Roman. Though, now that it was confirmed, things made slightly more sense. Slightly.
“Yes. The Greatest. Touring all over the country,” she said. “It was the biggest show I was ever on, and the worst summer of my life. When Roman told people I was behind the accidents, there was no way to make anyone believe different, because everyone knew I could do magic. Like my mother before me. You know my cards originally belonged to her.”
My eyes gravitated to Sam, but I couldn’t tell if what she’d said had registered with him. This side of his face was too swollen to reveal much.
“Magic?” I said, not trying to hide my skepticism. “I know you’re good with the cards, but . . .”
“I’m better than good. Think about every reading I’ve ever given you, Jules. You never believed them, but they were all true, weren’t they? Just last week, you asked me for that reading about what direction you should take your career, and I,” she smiled a brittle smile, “like a fool, didn’t look far or hard enough to see what you were up to.”
My head ticked down. Of course I remembered the reading. I’d taken what she’d told me as another sign it was time to take action—it had helped spark the idea of running away to make my point. I didn’t believe in the cards literally, though. I never had.
“That’s right, you should hang your head. I never imagined you might use my reading as an excuse to press the issue and prod us here.” Her eyes got a distant look as she went back over the details. “Remember? I told you that you were about to go on a journey, and that there would be danger. But there’s always danger on the wire. I wasn’t looking hard enough at the cards you received, so I didn’t see all the implications. You know how accurate my readings are, but you can’t know how powerful my warnings are. And I was right. You are in danger. We all are. We should not be here.”
Magic? So this was my explanation. Everyone hated us because they thought Nan did magic. I wished Sam was less out of it so he could appreciate the bizarre reality we’d just stepped into.
“But we are here,” I said. “And we can’t leave now. Dad, tell her.”
“She’s right. The papers are signed,” he said.
Nan didn’t speak for a long moment, and then, “It will not get any easier. The Garcias remember too well. They’ve spread the stories too far. Everyone will be looking for bad luck to fall now that we’re here.”
Silence descended on us, here at the circus that should have been nothing but a golden ticket, with our home in shambles. I refused to accept it.
I cleared my throat. “Well, nobody at Cirque is going to find proof of any voodoo magic or bad luck curse. Because, I’m sorry, Nan, I trust you on most things, I really do, but this is crazy talk. They’ll see how good we are, and these rumors will fade away.”
“That might be true if they were only rumors,” Nan said. “But you have to listen. There are specks of truth that give them weight. It makes them impossible to dispel.”
“You want me to believe magic is real, and you can do it,” I said, shaking my head at her, “at the same time you’re telling me that ignoring lies is impossible?”
Nan gave me a cool stare. “Yes.”
That Nan appeared to buy into her own bad press was a problem, but I’d make her see reason. The Cirque could get over it. We were here to stay. My mother took my hand, and I read it as an indication that Nan’s claims troubled her too.
“That’s enough for tonight,” my father said. “Everything will be clearer in the morning. The children need their rest—especially you, Julieta. You’ll be rehearsing tomorrow.” From the look he and Mom exchanged, the two of them needed to have a long talk. She released my hand and went to lean against Dad in his chair, lending him support.
I wasn’t ready to be sent to my trashed room, not just yet. “We should call Thurston about this. Have whoever did this made an example of. I bet his security team’s the best.”
Mom started, “That’s a good idea—”
But Dad interrupted her. “We tell no one.”
“What?” I didn’t think I’d heard him right. “We have to tell someone.”
“No,” he said, “we don’t. No one was around because of the party. No one will know.”
“Whoever did this will know,” I pointed out.
“They’re not going to tell anyone about it,” Sam said.
True enough. But Mom put her hand on her hip. “How can we afford to replace these things if we don’t report it, Emil?”
They studied each other, but Dad had an answer. “I’ll ask Thurston for our signing bonus. We’ll take the RV into town tomorrow and replace what we need to replace. We cannot start this engagement from a place of weakness.” His tone softened. “We have
too many enemies, too many people with hard feelings toward us. This is not up for debate. You will all be careful. We will rely on each other. No one else.”
Nan nodded to my father, approving.
I wondered exactly how many enemies we had and what it was they wanted from us. And I wondered if one of them had left me that odd flower.
four
* * *
After a long day of replacement shopping, I found our practice space easily that night. Not only was the building numbered—lucky thirteen, which someone must have thought was funny—but the entrance was marked with a sign that said The Amazing Maronis. I unlocked the heavy padlock with a key from Thurston, who’d sheepishly admitted to Dad that he’d been so certain we would eventually sign on that he’d had the space designed especially for us.
I fumbled my way in and threw on the lights. They illuminated an interior triple the size of the barn back home—and, I noted with gratification, a little bigger than the warehouse where I’d caught Remy practicing. Actual spotlights lit the wires far above. Yes, wires. There were two. One a little lower, one higher. Thurston had set it up so we each had our own wires. Not that Dad needed to rehearse. He’d show up tomorrow and nail it.
There were nets beneath the wires, which Dad would order removed, but otherwise it was perfect. Jogging across the mats, I was more determined to stay with the Cirque than ever. When I stopped, my eyes drifted up again. The nets made a pattern like a see-through honeycomb, and far above them the thick cables of our wires stretched taut and perfectly level, waiting for someone to claim them.
“Now that’s magic,” I murmured, and touched the rose from the night before. I’d pinned it onto my practice top, letting the short stem dangle. A makeshift corsage. The bloom was as fresh as the night before. The cord must have kept it from wilting.
If someone thought to scare me with it, I figured wearing it would show I wasn’t bothered. And if it was flattery, then the admirer—possibly an unknown ally?—would see I’d kept it.
