by Gwenda Bond
“You don’t need to apologize to me. Just explain.”
“It was Roman’s idea. He gathered the things and brought them to me. The peacock feather. The trunk and the green scarf. The elephant hair. He picked those things because they were part of circus lore. Our beloved superstitions. He could charm anyone into giving him anything. He could charm anyone into doing what he asked. He had me . . . make them more. He wanted to harness the power of good luck, of bad luck—and it was bad luck for those objects. Hexes. That’s the word my mother would have used. I went through the steps, but I wasn’t sure they’d work. And I didn’t ask him what he planned to do with them. I regret that now, but I was blindly infatuated. I wanted to trust him. He gave the peacock feather and the rose wrapped in elephant hair to other girls he kept on the side, like romantic presents. Told them there was nothing to the old superstitions. He dared the clowns to use the trunk after he moved it, gave them the green scarf for good measure, and told them it was silly to believe in bad luck. There were three terrible accidents in just a few weeks. I couldn’t tell anyone.”
Nan squared her shoulders. “What I’d done was wrong, but I did it for him. And, God help me, when he came back, empowered by the knowledge of what I could do, he demanded that I work the coin. And I did it. The luck it naturally possessed become more, as if it held all the goodness in his soul. But I gave it to him at a price. I made him swear those first objects would be destroyed. The coin was already something powerful. I could feel it during the working. But once I put it into his palm, he wouldn’t have anything to do with me. He started rumors, and they caught on. People who knew about my mother helped spread the idea that the accidents were my fault. What could I do? I told you already, the woman always takes the blame for an affair, for anything that goes wrong because of it. He didn’t deserve to keep that luck. Not after what he’d done. So I took it and I left.”
We were both quiet for the longest time.
Then, she said, “Now you know why I never used it. I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. Not until I had no choice. But those objects? He should have destroyed them. He told me he would. I never dreamed he would keep them.”
“Clearly he was very trustworthy.”
That earned a wry smile.
“And you really don’t have any idea who might have gotten their hands on the objects after Roman’s death? Could they have been lost and then found? Could he have given them away?”
She shook her head. “He wasn’t a good man. But he saw firsthand what the objects were capable of. I don’t think he would knowingly give them to anyone.”
The corkboard Remy had found floated back to my mind’s eye. Thurston was in the clear now. Remy wasn’t a suspect, and his mother had convinced me—and Nan—that she wasn’t behind it either. Novio had been busy fighting Sam that first night when the rose was laid at my feet and our place was broken into, which scratched him out. Dita wasn’t on any list. If her dad wanted to hurt me, he could have screwed up my wire at any point. It didn’t seem possible that the culprit was a Garcia. Though whoever was behind it must have known about the Garcia-Maroni connection, or Nan’s cards wouldn’t have ended up at their place.
Which basically meant that, even after her confession, we didn’t have an answer.
“You let him run you out of your own life.” What she’d done was wrong, and I wasn’t making excuses for it. But the thing that hit me hardest was that she hadn’t stood up. She’d run away. No wonder she was so threatened by returning. She’d given it all up. To come back must have made her see how much the family had lost because of her decision.
“I’ve been hiding,” she said. “All these years, hiding, pretending it was my choice to leave and never return. But it was the coward’s way out. I didn’t have the backbone to try to make things right. I watch these old movies because of the heroines . . . I wish I was more like them. Strong, singular, able to best any man. That’s the woman I wanted to be. If I’d been like that, I would have had the strength to say no to him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? When this started . . . why not just tell me?”
“I’d lived with the secret for so long. Your father never asked me, you know, why we had to work on our own, why we hated the Garcias so much. I think he suspected he might not want the full story. Sometimes the truth doesn’t set you free, Jules. Sometimes it cages you.”
I couldn’t imagine my father shrinking from anything. “I was caged, we all were,” I said, not that I meant to say it out loud. “We almost lost our place in the world.”
Her face was full not of sorrow, but regret. “I never wanted you to look at me like you’re looking at me now. You thought I hung the stars, you thought I was one of them. I’m not. I’m just a woman in the shadows, holding on to secrets so tightly I don’t know if there’ll be anything left, now that I’ve let them go.”
Nan’s confident persona had convinced me completely. The ways she’d changed in the time it took for us to have this conversation were unfathomable. I measured the woman I thought I knew versus who she said she was, and what the truth meant for both.
For her. For me. For us.
Finally I said, “I don’t love you any less, knowing the truth. You’re still here, no matter what mistakes you made. And so am I.”
“So we are,” she said. “So we are. What will you do now?”
thirty-five
* * *
Thurston had set up lots of press for me in Birmingham, wanting to ensure the upcoming last dates were sellouts. Between interviews and performances, I tried to decide what to do about Remy, about everything. On our last morning in Alabama, I entered the mess tent and spotted Remy eating a bowl of cereal. I decided to text him here, so I could gauge his reaction. The message told him I needed to see him after our first show in Atlanta. Talking in person was the only solution.
I watched him glance down at the screen of his phone beside him as the alert popped up. I held my breath while he read it, but he did read it. That was a good sign, maybe? He looked up, and I met his eyes. He didn’t nod yes, but he didn’t shake his head no either. I grabbed a pastry and took off.
The whole Cirque caravan was hitting the road to head to Georgia after lunch, and I had a big outdoor walk scheduled for the next day. I was fine with postponing my and Remy’s inevitable conversation until after our first performance there. Never one to rush in front of a firing squad, I still needed a little more time to figure out exactly what I was going to say to him when I gave him the coin. Because that was what I had to do.
Hours and hours later, as we got off the interstate and drove into Atlanta, I was sitting at the kitchen table with my cheek against the cool glass of the window. We passed a bus shelter with a large poster hanging inside, well lit, that had the Cirque’s name and—
I sat up. Beneath the name was a painting of me, gleaming smile and glimmering red costume, balancing on a wire over skyscrapers. It advertised the Princess of the Air’s final outdoor walk of the year.
That walk would also be my last one with the aid of magic. Would this be the last poster I ever graced too?
I wasn’t going to say anything about the poster, but Mom was across from me. She had a short glass filled with clear liquor in front of her, but even mellowed by a drink she must have noticed my change in posture. We passed another bus shelter, and she spotted an identical poster.
“Look at that,” Mom said. “You’re more famous than all of us now.”
“No,” I said.
I’d never wanted that.
Our exchange drew Nan over from the couch, yawning as she joined us. The advance team sure hadn’t taken any chances. We passed yet another poster, this one smaller and pasted to a light pole.
“You’re a headliner now,” Nan said. “All eyes are on you, and what you’ll do next.”
“I can’t wait to find out either,” I said, and waved as I went to my room. I stayed there until we stopped for good at the edge of a giant parking lot.
If all eyes were on me, I had to try not to disappoint anyone. Including myself.
That well-advertised final walk arrived before I felt anything like ready for it. Already, looking down from my high vantage, I never wanted to give up this view. From so far above, I wouldn’t see anyone’s expressions of disappointment even if they were aimed right at me.
Sprawled below me was Atlanta, city of sultry summer days and our closing weekend, a mix of glittering towers and people having a lazy afternoon. It was fitting that a city famous for once having been set on fire was going to host my own personal conflagration. But if I was going down, better to be in flames, casting a bright glow.
I watched as the circus paraded up Peachtree far below, crawling along the broad street.
I was at the top of the fifty-story Peachtree Tower. The building had two crowns, which was what caused me to select it immediately from several photos of potential sites for this walk. I was the Princess of the Air, after all. I’d be too high for the people below to see the details of my performance. But there was a network TV crew positioned on the roof to get footage. The sidewalks below were clogged with red tutus and T-shirts worn by the Valentines, my fan base that had somehow just continued to grow.
This was one of the highest walks I’d done, but deceptively so. I was only walking a sixty-foot gap between the two points at the top of the golden-brown-toned building, the flat portion of roof below not nearly so far off as usual. It was still far enough to shatter every bone in my body, but not so distant compared to some of my previous stunts. There was a slight breeze, but it wouldn’t be a problem. Not with the coin safely in the side of my slipper.
I bent and rubbed it, tracing the rough circle through the thin fabric.
“It’s time,” one of the rigging crew said. He was new, his first time doing support for a building walk. “Now or never.”
I flicked open my parasol, tested it against the breeze.
“I’ve seen the footage, but you really just use that? Up here?” he asked, and waved to indicate the sky around us.
“Magic,” I said.
I went slowly to the side of the wire, took a breath, and climbed on. This was too high to expect the sound of cheers to reach me, or to risk looking down. There was something majestic and, in fact, regal about the building.
I stepped out, twirling the parasol. I danced forward on the wire, then back. I waited until the middle before executing the trio of pirouettes, feeling the wind catch in my parasol and root me in place. I high-stepped back to the side, and when the rigging crewman stepped forward to help me off, I turned and went across again.
There would be cheering down there now, but the people on the street might as well have been a dream. It was only me up here. The city and me and the air. I wanted to stay right where I was.
I pirouetted again, and knew I should be smiling, but my face refused to move. I tried to hold on to the seductive sense of certainty, the knowledge that I couldn’t fall.
You don’t have to give it up. Ever. No one will make you.
The wind sang against my ear, twisted my hair into itself, and I never faltered. I twirled the parasol into it. And I forced my feet forward. One step, then another. And another.
Easy, faultless steps that were the hardest I’d ever taken.
I climbed off, folded down the parasol, and took a bow, sinking low to the buildings, to the sky, to the world. The wind sang to me: Don’t give this up.
I suddenly understood the myth about the sirens. I was a sailor on a ship passing by the most beautiful place on earth, and the wind, the sirens’ voices, beckoned me. I could stay here forever. Protected. I’d run no risk of disillusioning anyone.
But I’d learned that was a false promise. There are some things none of us can control, some consequences that must be faced. By finally understanding that, I discovered what I was going to say to Remy.
We met at the time I’d set, after the first show here had ended. Remy stayed backstage until everyone else was gone, and so did I.
We drifted into the main tent, and sat on the second row of the stands. The lights were off, the center ring completely empty.
“This is weird, being here when it’s like this,” I said.
Remy didn’t dispute it, so he must have understood. It felt more deserted than it had for his midnight practices. Back then, the night had folded around us, and we’d been hidden in the tent like it was a pocket and we were safe inside. Now, it felt cold. It was no longer a place I wanted to linger. This conversation was a bandage that needed to be ripped off. I should just do it.
“What do you have to tell me? Is it what you found out from Nan?” he asked.
“I need to give you something.”
“What?” His eyes were nearly black in the shadowed tent. The angles of his face were familiar, but we might as well have been strangers. I couldn’t reach out and touch him. I could barely believe I’d ever been able to.
I slid my finger into my slipper and wiggled the coin free of the lining. It warmed against my skin. “Open your hand.”
His palm unfolded before me.
I placed the coin in the center of it, and he bent forward to examine its ancient contours.
“Jules, why?”
I didn’t answer. My fingers itched to grab it back, but I forced my hands onto the bench seat on either side. His palm did close then. He held the coin in a loose fist. “Explain.”
“When the accidents happened and people died all those years ago, our grandparents were . . . together. You already know that. And my grandmother can do things. She can make objects powerful. Make them stronger. When your grandfather found out, they worked together. It was both of them. They caused those tragedies.”
“On purpose. You’re saying it was on purpose, that they weren’t accidents?”
“I know it sounds crazy. Maybe neither of them really believed the objects would work. Who would? It makes no sense. But they tried anyway.” Your grandfather talked people into taking the hexed objects. They were gifts. But I didn’t say it. What he knew already was bad enough.
“Why are you giving this to me then? I know you believe it works.” He raised the fist with the coin.
“Your grandfather wasn’t lying in the letter, when he said she stole his luck. You should have the coin back. It belongs to you.”
He was quiet for too long.
“I didn’t mean to lie to you forever. I don’t think I realized what I was doing at first. I was just so angry about Sam’s death, and about getting nowhere when we tried to find answers,” I said. “Then the shows were selling out. And everyone here was nice to me. Like they never were. They accepted me.”
Remy’s expression turned to disbelief. “When your family showed up at the Cirque, the only thing anyone here knew about the Maronis was the old stories about your grandmother. But we saw how you were. Your dad acted like he was better than everyone else. You did too. But then, when Sam died, you all lost something. And despite that, you went on. That made you one of us. Part of this circus. That’s why people are nice to you. But you betrayed them using this.”
“I’m telling you I screwed up. I know that.”
“Everything that happened, I was right there with you for so long. But then you shut me out. You knew I wouldn’t go along with you trusting in this coin, so you didn’t tell me.”
I banged a palm on the bleacher between us. “Nan said it was too dangerous for you to know. I wanted to tell you.”
“Jules, you don’t follow orders. Nan’s instructions are not why you kept it a secret.”
“I know it was wrong. I was heartsick over Sam. It got out of control.”
“Jules, do you know how many quads I’ve made in the last month?”
“Four,” I said, not needing to stop and think.
“And you’re telling me I could make every one from here on out. That it wouldn’t ever be a problem again, because of this? That I could use this?”
“Yes.”
He said, “I don’t want this. I won’t take it. You keep it. Your secret’s safe with me.”
“Remy, no! I don’t want it anymore.”
“The green scarf’s out there somewhere, and the end of the season is here. Keep it for now. If you’re right, it’ll keep you safe.”
My pulse quickened, but I didn’t dare hope. “How can you care about that?”
One corner of his mouth tilted up. “You think I want you falling on my conscience? Knowing I sent you out there—never mind. But, know, like I thought you already would, that I would never use that thing. Do you even know what you’re really capable of?”
“I’m capable of using this.” I hefted my hand. “Says it all, doesn’t it? Do you think I don’t know what a fraud I am? Do you think I ever wanted you to know? I know you wouldn’t use it. I never thought you would. But I don’t want it anymore.”
He stared at me with an expression I didn’t have the decoder ring for. And I drank in the sight of him, ridiculous as that sounds. The darker separations in his irises, the way his black hair was longer than usual and messy from raking his hand through it. That little scar over his eyebrow. We might never be this close again. We probably never would be.
“Remy . . .” I started, though I had no further defense to make for myself. What I’d realized on the wire above Atlanta was that I didn’t want this magic, even if giving it up made me vulnerable. Telling the truth was one step. But playing this game, using the coin—whoever was behind the sabotage was winning as long as I kept on participating.
I wasn’t about to let that happen.
