by Leanne Leeds
“No, until we’re sure somebody isn’t trying to kill me, too, I’d rather not have anything I’m going to eat or drink laying around for too long.” My mother’s image disappeared and a metal tumbler poked through. I grabbed it and pulled it on to the Midway. “What’s this?”
“That tumbler will change color if anything other than water is put into it. If the water isn’t pure, the silver metal will turn black. That should at least keep you hydrated while you figure this out.”
“Is it magic?”
“No, it’s a camping tumbler that I bought at Costco with an advanced water purification sensor. Pretty fancy, huh? Go eat your sandwich, Charlie. Your father and I will run to the store and get you that pie. It seems the least we can do.”
“I really appreciate this, Mom. We’ll figure it out soon.”
“I hope so, Charlie. You were always good at puzzles as a girl, so if anyone can figure it out, I’m sure you can.”
“Okay, Mom, I’m going to go. Talk to you tonight.”
As the thick steam shimmered away, I turned my full attention to the turkey sandwich. I glared at Fiona as I noticed half of the gherkin pickles were gone.
“What? I haven’t eaten, either!” she exclaimed with a mouth full of pickle.
I felt so much better after having a full meal. I placed my mother’s plate next to the cauldron and went back to my uncle’s residential yurt slice.
I still really wanted pie.
Once inside, Fiona and I sat on my uncle’s bed next to Sampson to talk about our next move. “This is such a man cave,” Fiona observed as she ran her eyes over the interior.
“Well, Uncle Phil was a bachelor. It is his yurt.”
“Actually, since you are the ringmaster now this is actually your yurt. The location is picked so that I can get to the back of the lot or the front or the middle without much walking,” Uncle Phil told me.
“Walking is good for you, Uncle Phil.”
“I doubt it would’ve made me immune to poison, so clearly I made the right decision not to exercise and to provide for my own comfort in life,” Uncle Phil pointed out as he peeked through the screen. “In any case, you can decorate this place any way you wish. It’s yours now, dear girl.”
“I don’t really have time to decorate, Uncle Phil.”
“Super crazy cosmic power, Charlotte,” Fiona singsonged. “You can blink and change this whole place from top to bottom.”
“Let’s just hold off on that for now. I don’t want to blink some important piece of evidence out of existence just to make the room look airier. Like the herbs. Is there any way we can figure out what the poison was? Like with my superpowers?”
You can do many things, Samson said. But you cannot know many things. Your power manifests action. You cannot manifest knowledge. Knowing must be learned or earned.
“That makes sense, though it’s a little disappointing,” I grumbled. Do we have, like, some paranormal FBI with a Crime Scene Investigation unit?”
“Of course,” Uncle Phil said. “The Witches’ Council. They have a Forensic Magic Department. Same thing.”
“Well, shoot. That’s not going to work.” Fiona held up her hands to remind me she had absolutely no clue what the heck I was talking about since she could only hear one side of the conversation.
“The Witches’ Council. We’d have to ask them for help. They have a Forensic Magic Department.”
“Right, but you don’t have to open up a case,” she pointed out. “You’re essentially a mayor and a sheriff all rolled into one, so you’re part of the government. Technically, anyway. You can just contact the nerds and pass a plant through the cauldron to the lab, and they’ll test it for you.”
“Fiona is correct, dear girl,” Uncle Phil agreed. “We don’t need to open a case or ask them to investigate.”
I went over to the dead black plants. Their dirt contained shards of the glass that had shattered, and the pottery that the plants had grown in was burned. It appeared the pottery had been scorched by fire, or chemically burned by acid.
“I don’t want to touch it,” I murmured. “It actually did damage to the pots. If it did damage to the pots what kind of damage is it going to do my skin if I handle it?” Fiona paused as we stared at the damage pots.
“Well, if you don’t want to touch it, we’re going to have to call the Witches’ Council police. They would be the ones to collect evidence.”
“But if the Witches Council is responsible, they’re going to know we’re looking into it.”
Just pick the pot up. It can’t hurt you unless you eat it, Samson said.
“No! I don’t want my skin to melt off,” I told the cat.
“What is he saying?” Fiona asked. My frustration at playing a near-constant game of telephone between the ghost, the cat, and my friend exploded.
“I wish you could hear that damn cat! This is such a pain!”
Well, she can’t, so learn to handle it, Samson answered haughtily.
“Ay, actually I can,” Fiona said in surprise as her eyes grew wide. She gaped at Samson. “I heard what you said clear as a bell.”
You can’t. You’re not even a witch, Samson warned as he stood up and his hair rose on his back.
“I can, ya cheeky bugger. I even heard your snotty tone of voice,” Fiona countered as she walked over to the little black cat. Samson’s eyes narrowed as he grew more agitated.
Now see what you did? I told you to get a hold of yourself, Samson spat angrily. Now you made it so horse face can hear what I think. In all my years of being the Astley familiar I don’t think I’ve ever been so insulted in my life.
“Hey now!” Fiona shouted. “No need to be insulted or insulting, ya kin?”
“Samson, you told me that you are here to prevent me from making mistakes so if I just made one, it’s pretty much your fault, isn’t it? Because I sure as heck don’t know what I’m doing and you haven’t been all that much help, either. While I’ve been traipsing around this fairground trying not to get killed you were napping. You don’t like it? Pay more attention.”
Red electricity snapped around the cat as he stared at me like I was a mouse he caught in a corner. A tiny voice in the back of my head warned me I was going too far, but Uncle Phil remained silent, and so I pushed the cat further. “You don’t like it? Undo it.”
I can’t, Samson growled. I could feel waves of hostility coming from him.
“Why not? I thought you could do anything I could do and more?”
Samson set up on the bed in his eyes flashed in my direction. The cat's ears were forward, and his tail swished back and forth in jerky, angry motions.
I cannot undo what the ringmaster has done. I can prevent a mistake, I can help you undo a mistake, but you are the ringmaster. What you want to be done may not be destroyed by your familiar. What you want to be done may not be stopped by your familiar if it causes no harm. The power is yours, and the choices are yours. Now undo what you have done!
Despite Samson’s anger, I felt like I had won a power struggle with the little cat, and Samson knew it. It was a power struggle I had barely become aware of before I won it, and part of me was ecstatic. Take that, you stubborn cat.
“No. I also wish that Fiona could hear Uncle Phil.”
“Can you hear me, Fiona?” Uncle Phil asked hopefully.
“Ya, I can hear you,” she said as she looked around for the origin of the disembodied voice now echoing in her head. “I can’t see you, though. It’s good to hear your voice again, old friend.” Fiona’s eyes filled with tears.
“Now, none of that. This will certainly be easier, at least while I’m here.” Uncle Phil seemed as if he wanted to say something else, and then he stopped. Glancing with concern at the cat sitting stiffly on the bed, he swallowed. “Samson will no doubt get over it.”
Don’t count on it, Samson hissed resentfully.
7
So.
Samson was furious.
An hour later, the
cat still glowed with a thick red aura as he sat alert on the bed forcefully telegraphing his fury into my brain. It hadn’t been my intent to infuriate the cat to this extent… Ugh. Even when I think I’m winning, I somehow wind up mucking things up.
I had usually done well with learning by doing. Often that was my preferred way to learn new skills, really.
There was a nagging suspicion in the back of my mind as I stared at the volcano-colored feline, though, that learning to be something close to an omnipotent being by blundering into magic I hadn’t thought through was perhaps not the best way to become an excellent ringmaster.
I thought I was taking charge. I was even proud of myself for just making sure Fiona could hear Samson and Uncle Phil without waiting for anyone to approve. I sent the Witches’ Council back, I made communication easier.
Go me, right?
Now, though, I felt queasy watching my new familiar stew in a deadly quiet cat rage on the bed as his eyes followed me aggressively. He appeared to be plotting something if the thwacks of his tail were any indication. For sure.
I needed to set aside the hunt for the murderer and find out a bit more from Uncle Phil. From the looks of it, I was in mortal danger from Samson right now while the hypothetical murderer was just a maybe.
“Uncle Phil, now that we’ve got the food and drink situation worked out, for now, can you maybe sit down with me for a little bit and explain some of this stuff? Can Samson, like, punish me because he’s angry at me? I feel like I should know things like this before I put my foot in it.” I glanced at Samson nervously. “Again.”
Uncle Phil nodded and sat down in a chair next to the bed. “That’s a good idea, dear girl,” he told me. “We certainly wouldn’t want you to put your foot in a magical pile of poo, now would we?” Uncle Phil turned to Fiona and asked if she would mind giving us some privacy for a while. My friend smiled at me and left the tent letting me know she’d be back in a couple of hours.
“Now, do you have any specific questions before I get started?”
“Is there anything I can’t do?”
“Well, of course, there is,” Uncle Phil laughed. “Bullet-pointing those things will fly in one ear and right out the other. Let’s go back to the beginning, hundreds of years ago when the first ringmaster crafted the magic to protect this place.”
The air shimmered between us, and with a ghostly glow, a square appeared on the floor with many ghostly figures walking upon it. They were the size of small toys, a miniaturized version of a scene that took place in a time long past. “These are our ancestors,” Uncle Phil explained. “This is a re-creation of the moment that the Magical Midway power coalesced within my great-grandmother many times removed.”
“How many generations does this go back?”
“Twelve generations back. You are the thirteenth generation of Astleys to bear the title ringmaster.”
“Ugh. Really? That seems ominous. Isn’t thirteen bad luck?”
“Not in our world, dear girl. In our world, thirteen is a number of immense power and significance.” My uncle gestured downward and my gaze returned to the tiny ghostly figures on the little ghostly field as they gathered themselves into a circle and raised their arms.
With a bright flash, fog and lightning bolts surrounded one figure in the center of the circle. After what seemed like several minutes, the chaotic storm around her dissipated and she fell to her hands and knees to the ground. “And so it is done. That was the moment that the Astleys agreed to host the magic of the Midway.
“Host the magic? So we didn’t create it?”
“No, we joined with it.”
“Oh, I see.”
I didn’t.
“Each successive generation created rules and limitations within the magic,” he continued as the scene within the shimmering square changed. A new group of people, and a new tiny figure in the center. The scene flipped one after another after another as I watched each ancestor that came before me accept and receive and become infused by the Magical Midway power. Some were women, some were men, some were older, and some were younger. All were Astleys, and I was a direct descendant of the bloodline history I watched flip like a sparkler-infused PowerPoint.
“And we end with your own elevation to ringmaster.” I watched as my own little ghostly figure was surrounded by fog and lightning. She collapsed to the ground, and I winced.
“Each person you’ve seen here shaped and changed and limited and stretched the bounds of the power. They also limited and condensed and drew its boundaries. Much like a story that is added to and changed by each successive author that retells it, so, too, has the power been added to and changed by each one of us.”
“And no one kept, like, a rulebook or overview of what can be done and what can’t be done?”
“All of us are not beholden to those who have gone before. If someone who has gone before made a rule, the newest ringmaster would have the power to change that rule,” Uncle Phil explained. “Except when they find they don’t.”
“Well, that’s as clear as mud,” I mumbled.
“The power of the Magical Midway that now infuses you is not a thing, Charlotte. It is not inanimate energy without consciousness. As I’ve told you before, we do not know how the circuses came to be or how such power was invested in single-family bloodlines. We do know that the Midway’s power seems to have a will. It has a focus, perhaps even an agenda. It will allow you to act as its agent for the protection of those here and the service of those humans that visit here. But we have never truly understood what its ultimate goal is.”
“Wait a minute,” I stammered. “Are you telling me that I’m basically being possessed by some omnipotent spirit or whatever that lends me its power?”
“That would be a fairly accurate assessment, Charlotte.”
This would’ve been great information to have before I agreed to allow some omnipotent superpower hitch a ride on my person for this lifetime. For the first time since I had decided to do this, I was a little afraid.
“This power has never been anything other than benevolent to us and all those that come here,” Uncle Phil pointed out as he watched my face grow anxious. “In thirteen generations, no harm has ever befallen an Astley because of this power.”
“But if what you’re saying is true, this power or being or whatever probably knew that your food was poisoned. I mean, if it’s omnipotent. And it let you die! That seems like harm to me, Uncle Phil.”
“Perhaps it was my time, Charlotte,” my uncle pointed out gently. “Perhaps it was your time to take over. Life itself for paranormals and humans moves in mysterious ways. We share control with the universe, dear girl. There is free will within our fate. But never doubt we each have a fate. What matters is the choices we make as we face that fate.”
“OK, let’s get a little less college philosophy class for a sec,” I said. “Why are there no other witches at the Midway?”
“The energy that animates this place is… uncomfortable for them if they are not of our particular nature.” Uncle Phil leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. “We make them very insecure, and for powerful beings that is not a feeling they wish to willingly feel. The power that we hold is so far beyond what they are able to access that they give us a wide berth. Since you are new, you are at the weakest you will ever be in knowledge and skill, and so the Counsel came to test you.”
“What about the other circus?”
“The Makepeace Circus? What about them?”
“Do they have the same super spirit kind of thing that we do or are they something different?”
Uncle Phil sat back and smiled. “They have a super spirit, as you call it, too. It is not the same as ours, I don’t think. What I mean is, it’s the same type of spirit but not the same consciousness. At least I have never had any indication of a link.”
“So they are different people, basically?” Uncle Phil winced at my trivializing phrasing but nodded. “Do they like each other? I mean, do we ev
er take the circuses and put them next to each other so the two super spirits can talk or something?” He shook his head no.
“We’ve never been pulled to do that. I assume they can communicate with one another some other way, or they have no desire to.”
This was a lot to take in.
For a witch raised by lapsed witches in the human world, this all seemed like information I should have had years ago so I could adjust to it without the pressure of being responsible for it.
I could do nothing about it now, so I just tried to take a deep breath and think through my new reality.
“Have you ever tried to talk to it? This super spirit?”
“Of course,” Uncle Phil said with surprise. “Every day I was ringmaster.” He glanced over at the glowing red cat still sitting angrily on the bed. My stomach dropped to my ankles. Samson quietly but menacingly continued to stare with narrowed eyes. His tail whipped back and forth in his silence.
“Oh, come on. No way.”
“Well, he is not the actual super spirit, but he is your conduit to it.”
“So the super spirit is ticked off at me because he is?”
“No, but the super spirit’s conduit is ticked off at you, and that could pose a problem for you in the future.”
Samson hissed, and I buried my head in my hands.
Though I hadn’t technically been here a full day, I felt my life constricting down to the Magical Midway and its bizarre history and strange inhabitants. Even had I been raised with a paranormal education I wouldn’t be prepared for the ringmaster position. Nothing in this place ran by standard rules, paranormal or human.
I needed some air.
As I walked along the path toward the Big Top, people I vaguely knew smiled at me. Many tilted their head in acknowledgment and went on about their way. The Magical Midway had not been opened to human visitors since Uncle Phil’s death, and the usually frantic energy of work and preparation was much more subdued.
