by Leanne Leeds
“Do we knock?” I asked. Fortuna raised her eyebrow. “Everyone always visited me in my quarters. Fiona said my room was much more private. I’ve never been in anyone else’s quarters other than mine and my uncle’s.”
“Well, you are in for a treat, then,” Fortuna said as she held open the canvas.
While I had seen my uncle’s room and it’s incomprehensible size, and the kelpies row of rooms within their own tent, nothing could have prepared me for what the centaurs did with their living area.
Though there were only six centaurs at the Magical Midway, the interior was enormous. It didn’t even look as if we were inside anything. The sky twinkled as if the ceiling was the image of a clear night in the desert, and a warm wind blew. The center was a expansive dirt road lined with three log cabins on either side.
“How is this even here?” I asked, stunned. “I mean, are we here? Or did we just go somewhere else?”
“We are definitely here,” Fortuna laughed. “This will go with us wherever we moved to. And it’s here because of your magic, Charlotte.”
The seer is correct, Samson told me. When needed your uncle or I will help you learn to change these interiors. Most groups have things the way they wish them to be, so you are unlikely to need to create an interior entirely.
“Wow,” I breathed as I gaped at the intricate centaur living space. I gazed down toward the end of the dirt road and saw a small seventh building with bars on the windows. “Is that, like, a centaur jail?”
“It is the containment room,” Ningul said as he and Fiona came in behind us. “We don’t like to call it jail. It is used to hold a centaur safely until he can sober up.”
“He or she,” a female centaur called as she came out of the first house on the left side of the street. “Let’s not be sexist when it comes to which centaurs can and can’t hold their liquor, Ningul.”
“Ringmaster, this is Femeg,” Ningul introduced her as she walked up to us.
“Please, just call me Meg. Nice to meet you,” she said as she stuck out her hand. I nodded and shook it. “I have to tell you, I’m really excited that there’s a female ringmaster. I’ve never been around for a female ringmaster.”
“Please, call me Charlotte,” I told her. I wondered if it wouldn’t be easier just to tattoo Call Me Charlotte across my forehead. It was a phrase I seemed to repeat it on an hourly basis.
“How is Dergal doing?” Ningul asked Meg.
“I visited him about an hour ago,” she told him as we all ambled toward the containment cabin. “Once he sobered up his attitude went down at least a few notches. Not enough to completely alleviate his sexist pigdom, but enough that we were able to have a normal conversation with an epithet every other sentence instead of every sentence.”
“Were you able to get any answers out of him?”
“A few,” Meg told him as we continued walking toward the building. “He was the one that put henbane in the ringmasters’ drink today. He said his intention was simply to, and I quote, ‘get that witch off my case for a while.’ He didn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation.”
“He never does.”
“He also didn’t realize that too much henbane could disconnect a witch from their body,” she added. “Once I informed him of that fundamental magical fact, he turned as pale as a ghost.”
We walked up to the small, barred cabin and Ningul climbed the small step to enter a code in a very fancy electronic system on the old wooden door. As he swung the door open, he turned to Meg. “There’s no one in here.”
“That’s impossible, I checked on him just an hour ago. He was right here!” The five of us scrambled into the tiny cabin to check it for ourselves. As we jostled and pushed against one another, we each confirmed that the cabin was empty and Dergal was gone.
“Who knows the code?” I asked Ningul.
“Well, all the centaurs know the code,” Ningul said as he continued looking around the cabin as if willing himself to find Dergal tucked in a darkened corner. “This is not a jail, Charlotte. This is simply a way for us to contain a centaur that may be in the grips of temporary madness. All of us have the code, and the ability to place someone here.”
“The person contained cannot reach the keypad to enter the code, so there is no reason to keep the code secret,” Meg said. Ningul and Meg seemed to be so sure of themselves that I could not believe one of them hadn’t thought of the loophole glaring them in the face.
“But the person inside could tell someone else the code to let them out,” I pointed out to them both as kindly and patiently as I could. Ningul shook his head.
“But who would let them out?”
“Well, who can come in your quarters? Are they magically protected in any way?”
“Of course not, we’re centaurs. We can stomp on anyone. We also like to throw parties in our quarters a lot,” Meg said. “All our individual houses lock so there never seemed to be a reason to do anything like that.”
“So anyone could’ve walked in here, talked to Dergal through the bars, got the code, and let him out.”
“Well,” Ningul said slowly. “I suppose it’s possible—”
“Alessandra,” Fortuna interrupted. “No man could pass the waterfall, so she had to have left her area on her own. Anya said she keeps returning to him. It’s the only logical explanation, no one else would have let him out.”
“We need to find them,” I said, turning toward the entrance. “With the protection I put on him, he can’t physically hurt her, but if Anya finds them together, he can’t defend himself, either.”
“Do we really care?” Mark asked quietly as the group turned to stare at him. I stopped in mid-stride and turned back toward the group. While each face appeared slightly troubled, every expression seemed hesitant to disagree.
“I care,” I told them. “Despite never having wanted this job, it is mine now. And I’m not about to let vigilante justice rain down on any member of the Magical Midway. That’s not justice. That’s revenge. And it’s not right.”
“Of course, Ringmaster,” Mark said, and then sighed. “It’s hard not to want revenge against someone that I watched hurt someone else without any regret or concern. Especially someone as sweet and lovely as Alessandra.”
Oh, my goodness. Spring has sprung, and love is in the air. The moon has only risen twice on my reign as ringmaster, and this place is already a soap opera. “I understand, Mark,” I told him as I turned back toward the exit. “No offense taken, let’s just find them.”
The party for my ascension was in full swing under the Big Top when we all arrived. I scanned the crowd for Dergal or Alessandra, but I didn’t see either of them.
“Ringmaster!” Wendy Marmontel called as she clutched my hand. I had known the sylph since I was a young girl, and remembered her fondly for the balloon animals she always made for me. The fact that her long hair always had every appearance of blowing in a breeze that seemed to follow her, though, still freaked me out a little. “So glad to see you have finally joined us! Please accept my condolences for the loss of your uncle, and let him know that I say hi the next time you see him.”
“Of course. Have you seen Alessandra or Dergal by chance?”
“No, I do my best to avoid Dergal. If I do see him, I make sure the wind blows him just a few feet away from me,” Wendy smiled. “The wind is always happy to oblige. Alessandra, though, lovely girl. I could swear I saw her near the small diving pool earlier.”
“Thanks,” I nodded and continued to make my way through the crowd. “And please, call me Charlotte.”
Look up, Samson said sharply. As I raised my eyes, I pinpointed Dergal standing on the eastern tightrope platform just above the small diving pool used for shows. My eyes followed the taut rope stretched across the Big Top and I spotted Alessandra seated on the western platform. She casually dangled her legs in the air as she stared at her abusive love.
Oh, my gosh, what the heck is this? I asked Samson.
; Drama? Samson replied. The safety net has been taken down.
We have a safety net? We don’t have magic to keep people from falling?”
No, Samson replied. We used to until we lost The Flying Pandas in ‘36. Their own magic interfered with the safety net magic, and they all went splat during a practice.
Oh my gosh. That’s terrible!
In any case, there is no safety net, Samson repeated.
The pair were so high up that I couldn’t hear what they were saying to one another. Is there any way to make it so I can listen to what they’re saying?
Yes, Uncle Phil broke into the discussion. I watched him float brightly up to the pair. Though he could get close to them, he could do nothing in his ephemeral state. Think of their names and then broadcast. The entire Big Top will be able to hear what they’re saying. Perhaps exposing what’s going on up there will stop it.
Uncle Phil, they’re doing this in the middle of the Big Top in the middle of a party the entire Midway is attending. That’s not going to stop it.
I would suggest you at least try, he said.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Dergal, Alessandra, Broadcast.
“—and if you had just stayed home from the party like I told you to, none of this would’ve happened!” Dergal’s angry voice screeched through the enormous red and white striped tent. The chattering din of happy partygoers suddenly fell silent as they turned to each other in confusion.
“Did you give the cup of henbane to the ringmaster?” Alessandra asked in her soft voice. Her whispered tone echoed as if through speakers. The party attendees were pointing above their heads as they slowly realized what was going on.
“I don’t have to stand here and answer your questions,” Dergal snapped as he reached for the rung to climb down. Water from the diving pool shot forcefully against his hand causing him to release his grip. “Let me down from here!”
Dergal was sopping wet from head to toe, and I understood precisely how Alessandra had managed to get him up on the platform. She hadn’t broken Dergal out because, as Anya feared, she was still in love with him and wanted him back. She had broken him out of the containment cabin because there had been no water nearby that she could use to control him.
“You tried to drug me,” Alessandra said quietly. “You tried to make me drink the cup that you held in your hand. Did you then bring that cup full of henbane to our ringmaster’s tent? Did you kill our ringmaster?”
“You’re crazy,” Dergal spat at her. “You’re a crazy woman. Stupid nymph. I didn’t kill anyone. And none of it would’ve happened, anyway, if you had just done what I told you and stayed home!”
He was mean and dumb, apparently.
The crowd assembled below gasped in horror as Dergal unintentionally admitted his role in Uncle Phil’s death without realizing that he was doing so. Dergal’s eyes grew round as saucers as he took in the expressions of shock, horror, and anger in the crowd beneath him. His head snapped up and his face twisted with rage.
“Look at what you’ve done!” the angry centaur shouted at Alessandra. His eyes scanned over the crowd and found me as I stared up at him. “And you! How dare you broadcast our words! If your father had been chosen ringmaster, he wouldn’t have done such a thing! You never should have been chosen!”
“I never would’ve been chosen if you hadn’t killed my uncle, you moron!” I shouted angrily back at him. Despite my voice not being broadcast like Alessandra and Dergal’s, the Big Top was so quiet that every paranormal in the place could hear me. The crowd murmured in agreement. “It was your own actions that caused this tragic cascade of events that you are so unhappy with.”
“It wasn’t my actions! It was her! It was her! If she had just done what I told her, none of this would’ve happened!” Dergal screamed hysterically.
“Are you so sure?” Alessandra asked calmly as she pulled her legs back in and stood up. “Are you, Dergal? Are you willing to bet your life on the fact that none of this was your fault, and all of it was mine?”
This is not good, Samson said.
What’s happening? I asked him.
Alessandra is about to give him the Siren’s Call, Samson said. If he’s wrong, he’ll drown. If he’s right, he’ll survive. He’s not right, though. We all know he’s about as wrong as someone can be. He does not realize that, though. If I had to place bets, that boy is about to become a flotation device.
“Of course I’m right,” he shouted at her as he gripped the platform pole with his fists. “What have I been trying to tell you all this time? I’m right, you’re wrong. You just don’t know your place.”
Oh, man, this guy was getting under my skin.
Uncle Phil, what are my choices here? I thought to him.
He is guilty of manslaughter, so what I would do his hand him over to the Witches’ Council, Uncle Phil said. However, I must point out Alessandra is giving him a choice to bet his life. He doesn’t have to, and she is not forcing him to do so. If he does, in my mind, that’s his own choice to make.
The entire Big Top held its breath waiting for someone to say something. In that suspended moment, I had to make a choice. A step toward what type of ringmaster I wanted to be. Was I the type of ringmaster that would protect them from even their own terrible decisions? Or would I let people fall on their face and accept the consequences they asked for?
“Would you bet your life on it, Dergal?” Alessandra asked again.
I thought about what Uncle Phil said, how his father had demanded that he do things his way which robbed him of the ability to learn. In the end, it was Uncle Phil’s decision to let me trip and fall a little bit, to feel my way through that decided it for me.
“Dergal, do you need my help?” I called to him. “I can stop this if what is happening is not something you consent to. You have only to ask.”
I felt someone squeeze my arm and glanced to my right to find Anya standing beside me looking up at her sister proudly.
Dergal stood straight and glowered down at me.
“Hell no, I don’t need your help. I would bet my life on the fact that I am right and you are wrong. Especially you,” he spat with as much disgust as he could muster as he shoved his finger in my direction.
Alessandra extended her arms and glowed as her lips parted. The most beautiful note I have ever heard flowed from her. A white haze raced like an ocean wave from her to Dergal.
As it gathered around him, his eyes snapped open, and his face turned white. The nymph’s note hit a crescendo, and Dergal tumbled forward off the platform to the gasps of the gathered crowd.
He landed with a splash into the tiny diving pool below.
The energy of the Magical Midway felt lighter as I opened my eyes to the bright morning. My second conscious day as the carnival’s ringmaster was the first one I looked forward to.
“Flag’s up, lazybones! You can actually eat Hildegaard’s French Toast this morning!” Fiona said as she breezed in.
“Do you have some kind of psychic awareness of when a witch wakes up? I swear, I’ve barely opened my eyes, and you’re bouncing into my tent,” I asked her as I pulled the covers back over my head to block out the light and her cheerfulness.
“It’s not my fault you don’t zip your door closed when you go to sleep. That, and you groan every morning when you wake up,” Fiona told me as she flopped down on a chair next to my bed. “You groan loudly. I suspect the lares at the security station can hear you when you wake up. And they must know when you groan that you’re waking, or they would rush in here to see who was killing you.”
“How are you this cheerful before your coffee?” I asked as I threw the covers off and scooted toward the edge of the bed.
“I love life, your highness.”
“Stop calling me that,” I told her as I brushed my hair. “You’re cheerful because you spent the night consoling Ningul.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fiona scoffed while blushing.
“That’s okay. I know what I’m talking about. How’s he doing, by the way? Even if he didn’t like Dergal, I can’t believe what happened last night didn’t bother him a bit.”
“I think he was bothered by the fact that he didn’t see it was getting as bad as it was. He feels terribly guilty that one of his own centaurs was responsible for your Uncle Phil’s death.”
“He shouldn’t,” Uncle Phil said as he shimmered into view. “I think many of us overlooked Dergal’s behavior far more than we should have. Myself included. Morning, girls.”
“Morning, Uncle Phil,” I told him. “Hey, Fiona, can you grab me some coffee from Hildegaard’s? I need to talk to my uncle.”
“You just don’t want to change out of your pajamas,” Fiona teased as she hopped up. “Peppermint Pride?”
“How about Caramel Competence this morning?” Fiona rolled her eyes. “What?”
“I’ll pretend it’s for me. I am not going into the food tent and telling anyone that I’m getting Caramel Competence for the ringmaster. People have been freaked out enough as it is,” she said as she walked out.
“So how are you this morning?” Uncle Phil asked.
“I’m… I don’t know how I am,” I told him as I sat back down on the bed. “Somebody died last night, Uncle Phil. And I let it happen. I know what I thought when I let Dergal make a choice to refuse my help. But I can’t shake the fact that I stood by and let it happen.”
“You did,” Uncle Phil agreed. “The fact that you’re questioning yourself and whether you should have is a good sign, Charlotte. I’d be more concerned if you woke up this morning and didn’t have second thoughts.”
“Was what I did right?”
“I can’t answer that. Only you can answer that.”
Paranormal deaths at the Midway were strange affairs. Paranormals knew that death was not the end but only a transition to another realm.
When people grieved, they grieved for what they lost when the deceased disappeared from their life. They did not, though, grieve for what the dead lost. No one felt sorry for someone who died. They knew that person was all right.
