by Leanne Leeds
“You know her, Anya. I don’t. You tell me. Why do you think she came back here?”
“To bring her sisters with her to Impty,” Fiona told me as she sailed into the melodrama unfolding in my bedroom. My blond friend walked passed Anya and Fortuna to hand me an extra large WakeyWakey drink from Brownie’s Brownies. It was so strong it didn’t even have an innovative or flowery name. I grabbed the warm container and gulped. “Avalon told me about all the havering.”
“All the what?”
“Havering,” Fiona told me. “Havering, foolishness, silly talk.”
“Is that a carnie term?”
“You know, you have some Scottish ancestry, witch. Would benefit ye to learn a thing or two.”
“Weren’t you born in New Jersey?” Fiona glared at me. “Never mind.” Kelpies maintained a light Scottish accent and used slang and jargon none of us were familiar with. For what specific reason I did not understand. Some things it was better not to ask about.
“At least I wasn’t born in Impty,” Fiona scoffed. Turning away from me, she confronted Anya. “What did your hag of a sister do to get a fancy condo overlooking the Castle Sapience?”
Anya’s biceps flexed as she glared at Fiona.
“Stop it, both of you. This isn’t helping anyone—”
We need you, Samson broke into my mind mid-speech. I held up my hand to the two women and focused on my familiar.
I’m kind of busy at the moment. Fiona and Anya are about to come to blows here in my yurt.
Let them. We need you. Mark Botsworth is missing. Come to the Lion’s Den at once before Serena eats me.
A quick check of my inner mental Magical Midway inhabitant roster confirmed that Mark Botsworth was no longer anywhere on the grounds. His tethered connection stretched far from this place.
Farther than a mortal being could have gotten alone.
“Everybody step off,” I pointed at Anya. “Go get your sister, and meet us back here. If I’m not here, wait for me.” Her faced flashed and mine hardened just as quickly as I stepped toward her. She nodded and stomped out of my yurt twice as hastily as she walked in.
I exhaled and turned to Fiona and Fortuna. “Fiona, you help Anya. Fortuna, come with me. Mark Botsworth is missing.”
Serena was in lioness form.
And she was huge.
When Serena and her clan performed in the circus, they were African lions. Beautiful, regal, and massive, but pretty much just an average sized lion. If an averagely sized lion could ever be just anything.
In her current form, Serena was a rare Asiatic lion—and not just Asiatic, one of the exceptionally huge and stocky and powerful ones. She had to be at least five hundred pounds, and her head was even with my shoulder. I didn’t know whether her form was a choice or her natural form, but it was striking to behold.
Her stomach flexed as she repeatedly roared, pacing. The roar was unlike anything I had ever heard before, a ga-urrrrr that sounded almost like a demand or plea. Various citizens of the Magical Midway milled around well away from her, nevertheless they snuck fascinated, sympathetic glances.
“Serena,” I said as I stepped into the unofficial circle that hemmed in the big angry cat. “Serena, I need to talk to you.” The lioness turned and lowered her head to stare up at me with golden eyes.
I wouldn’t step toward her if I were you, Samson sent me. I remind you again that we are dreadfully short of ringmaster choices should you become lunch.
She won’t hurt me.
She will hurt everyone in this circus if she’s angry enough, Sampson disagreed. Someone has taken away her life-size cat toy, and she is decidedly put out about it. I wouldn’t get within leaping distance if I were you.
The big cat paced in a figure eight in front of me, her eyes never leaving my face. The thoughts I could read from her were nothing more than a jumbled haze of bright red anger and pain. Serena’s head was remarkably snakelike as it laser-focused on me regardless of what position her body was in.
For once, could you listen? I know you need to push the boundaries of what everyone tells you is possible, but I am a cat. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up, and she’s not even looking at me. Do not get closer!
I hadn’t been making any forward momentum, but out of an abundance of caution, I stepped back. A sense of smug satisfaction radiated from Samson’s hiding place. “Serena, if you simply pace and roar, I can’t talk to you about what happened. Can you please change back so I can talk to you? I need to find Mark. You need to help me do that.”
Clancy O’Blaze stood across from me on the other side of the informal circle whispering with Krog Kobald. The leprechaun and the goblin leaned into one another as their eyes darted here and there. Lucius, the Roman guard, stood a few steps behind them with his spear at the ready but taking no action to deal with anything he was observing.
“You will have to approach her,” Fortuna told me.
“Samson warned me against that.”
“Samson is 1/100 her size. I don’t think house cats and lions play around that much. She’ll bounce off you. Well, you may ricochet off her. Either way, though, your insides are safe.” Fortuna pushed me forward.
Your friend has a big mouth, Samson grumbled.
Clancy and Krog turned around and walked away toward the back of the haunted house. Their little legs were practically running away from the scene.
“Oomph!”
That was the sound I made as I landed on my back. In the dirt. With a 500-pound cat slapping at my face.
Fortuna had been right. Though laying in the dirt and being pawed at and gnawed on by a ferocious lioness was not the most comfortable and dignified thing I had ever endured, it didn’t hurt. Serena’s unsheathed claws clanged against my skin as she raked her razor sharp nails down my impenetrable body.
Well, you look ridiculous, Samson chimed in.
You’re not helping.
Many watched, I waited, and Serena pounded.
I don’t know why I went with the human option of letting Serena just get it out of her system. Despite all the magic-wand-waving, finger-snapping-powers I had at my disposal, it seemed like the big cat was merely a woman overwhelmed. If her mate was really gone, Serena appeared entitled to a meltdown.
I laid on the ground, and let her exhaust herself while attacking me.
It seemed like hours, but I think Serena batted me around like a cat toy for only twenty minutes. With a final half-hearted chuff, she shimmered and shifted into the elegant woman I knew. After the fury of her beat down, I expected to be confronted with a wailing, shrieking woman when she turned and prepared for calm down round two.
I was not.
Kneeling in the dirt, she was silent and tense. Her eyes downcast, she waited for me to get up with a quiet expectation. There was no apology for the beating she had subjected me to, nor any plea for help in finding Mark. Just silent, self-contained anger behind a mask of feline indifference.
Cats, I swear.
Hey, now, Samson said. What’s that human saying about keeping your head when all about you are losing theirs? That’s valuable expertise.
She beat me for twenty minutes, so she didn’t keep her head. Anyway, it’s not a saying, it’s part of a Rudyard Kipling poem. You know, the guy that wrote ‘The Cat Who Walks By Himself’? Surely you’ve heard of it.
Silence.
Didn’t like it?
The man and the dog were not smarter than the cat, Samson snapped. That’s a ridiculous fiction written by a man that knew his limitations and wanted to turn it into entertainment. He should have had more cats, like that Poe human. Or that Hemingway. Those were writers.
Right.
“Serena, are you feeling better now? Can we talk?” The golden woman nodded once and launched up from her kneeling position. Pivoting, she glowered at the bystanders gathered and narrowed her eyes to stare at each one. One by one, the assembled busybodies shifted on their feet, then stepped away mumbling to one another.<
br />
“My pain will not serve as entertainment for these creatures any further.” Once she was satisfied we were no longer serving as entertainment, she led me back to the tent behind the public lion enclosure. Fortuna and Samson followed.
Leo, the sole male werelion, sat on top of a crate in a cross-legged position at the back of the tent. “Tell her,” Serena told him with a dismissive wave. “Tell her what you told me.”
“Of course,” he replied with a bored nod. “I came into this area, and Mark was resting right where I am sitting now. I headed back to our yurt village to get my mane conditioner—my fur has been dry the past few days, and it needs a deep conditioning. The mane fur is—”
“Leo, I appreciate the hair update, but can we get back to Mark?”
Leo stared at me, blinked, and then tossed his golden brown hair back with a huff. “Of course, ringmaster. I forget that your kind has no appreciation for the significance of those things important to the rest of us.”
What the heck was that about?
A male werelion’s mane is very important. The darker and more abundant and healthier it is, the more attractive a male lion is to a mate, the more feared he is as an opponent, Samson explained. It’s like telling one of your males you don’t care about the size of his—
Got it! I cut Samson off, choosing to believe he was about to say hands.
“In any case, when I returned, he was gone,” Leo said. “Serena could not find her plaything.”
“I object to your denigration of my mate, Leo,” Serena told the male werelion.
“I object to your plaything, but that seems to have not troubled you in any meaningful capacity, Serena,” Leo responded coolly.
Serena stared at him but said nothing.
I looked around the tent, and nothing seemed out of place. The werelions were like all cats, scrupulously clean, and their private area lived up to their natures. The hay covering the dirt floor was clean, and not disturbed. The crates, cages, and hay bales were stacked neatly along the sides. There was little in the area to indicate any kind of scuffle.
In fact, there was almost nothing back here at all. No sink, no shower. I glanced over at Leo, and the bottle of fancy French conditioner sitting next to him on the crate. “Leo, where would you condition your mane?”
“We have a soaking pool behind this tent for the pride and the streak.”
“Streak?” Leo stared at me and grimaced at my question. Then he rolled his eyes.
“A group of tigers. They’re called a streak or an ambush. We don’t allow the bears in our pool.”
“Can you show me?”
Long pause as his golden eyes stared at me.
“If you insist,” Leo sighed and hopped down from the crate. Walking across the tent, he snapped his fingers at Fortuna and me as if we were trained pets he wanted to follow. This guy was getting on my last nerve with his haughty demeanor. “Surely you have seen it before. You are, after all, the ringmaster. Are you not?”
“Humor me.”
“If you require,” Leo mumbled. Serena followed us out of the exit, and as we stepped back into the sunlight, my jaw dropped.
The soaking pool was the size of a regulation basketball court. Rectangular in shape, it jutted up against the shimmering back wall of the Magical Midway itself. I stared off into the distance but saw nothing beyond the barrier other than trees.
“Did you come here the front way by the petting zoo or the back way around the roller coaster?”
“Why?” Leo asked me sharply.
“I want to know whether you saw the front or the back of the lion area as you approached,” I told him, and he nodded. “If you came around the front, Mark likely left out of the back, and vice versa. Since you didn’t see him, I mean.”
“I came around the back way,” Leo said and pointed toward the roller coaster.
Leo returning through the back way would mean he walked directly up to the soaking pool. I squinted in the sunlight and looked around. There was a sitting area next to the water for relaxing in humanoid form. Next to that, a cabana I assumed held towels and things needed for a dip. I walked toward the cabana.
“Do you have any more need of me?” Leo asked as he refused to follow. “I have other things that I need to do, and this has already postponed my schedule considerably this morning.”
“Is there anything else you can think of?”
“I can think of many things,” Leo said. “None that I wish to speak of. Serena has heard all of my conclusions before.”
“And dismissed them,” Serena replied.
“I have done my duty,” Leo bowed. “Both to the midway, and to my pride. I will not wish you well in your search for the human. Wherever he is, it is better for Serena that he remains there. It is assuredly better for the Magical Midway that he never return.”
“You are a miserable, arrogant pride leader,” Serena hissed. Fortuna moved to stand next to Serena and placed her arm around the indignant woman for comfort.
“Be that as it may,” Leo shrugged. “No rule against that. Leadership bars seem to be set lower and lower these days, do they not?” The handsome man looked me up and down, then rolled his eyes. With another condescending bow, he strolled away without glancing back.
As Serena mumbled curses and growls, I held up my hand to Fortuna as she was about to get going, too. “Just wait,” I told them both as I walked again toward the cabana. Both followed me. “I want to check on something. I have a hunch. If I’m right, you may want to save your ire up and just spend it all at once.”
Pulling back the cabana curtain, I discovered the bright pink bottles as soon as I peered inside. At least six bottles of Leo’s particular fancy French conditioner were tucked into the rear shelf next to the locker.
“Why would he lie?” Serena asked, blinking in bewilderment.
“Maybe he’s not as tough as he thinks he is, and he saw Mark taken but got panicked. Maybe he saw something, and he chose not to get involved because he loathes you and Mark’s relationship,” I mused. “Maybe he’s just a dolt. I don’t know. I only know he lied about why he left. If he left at all. Everything else is speculation at this point.”
Fortuna fumed. “I will speculate my foot right up his—”
“No,” Serena interjected. Fortuna and I turned to the troubled lioness. “He is the official leader of our pride. I must talk to my sister, Selena, first. Leo must not learn that we believe he knows more. He could demand that the pride leave the Magical Midway, and all of us would be gone. I would never see Mark again… if there is even hope of that now.”
“You and Selena would be more than welcome to stay without that jerk,” I told her.
“We would not,” she told me sadly. “A suspicion is not enough to defy the pride leader. Our world has rules, ringmaster, as yours does. There is no other male lion here to fight for the honor of our pride. If Leo demands we leave, we must go or face banishment for defying our pride leader. It is the most dishonorable thing a werelion can do. We would be shamed. Forever.”
“That’s awful!” Fortuna told her.
“Even so,” Serena agreed.
“Okay, let’s go talk to Selena,” I told the two women. “And let’s not tell Anya about this latest development, okay? She’s got enough going on with her own sister, I don’t need to give her a sexist male that she can take her fury out on.”
“This is a deep enough pool,” Fortuna pointed out. I glared at her, and she shrugged. “I’m just saying…”
5
As Fortuna, Serena and I raced across the fairgrounds in search of Selena, I spotted my uncle chatting with Coston, the elfin leader. With a wave, he clapped his hands together and made a beeline toward the three of us. His usually smiling face was veiled by a frown.
“Did you tell your uncle that Mark was missing?” Fortuna asked me.
“I’ve been a little busy,” I told her.
“Maybe you should go talk to him. You know, without us around,” Fortuna s
aid as she clutched Serena’s arm. “I can go with Serena to find Selena. We'll all meet you back at your yurt when you’re done talking to Phil.”
“I’m sure getting my uncle up to speed won’t take that long,” I asserted. Fortuna glanced back at uncle Phil and examined him as he grew closer. Turning back, her right eyebrow raised nearly off her had.
“I think you may be wrong about that. I recognize that look. We’ll meet you back at the yurt,” Fortuna said hurrying Serena away. After putting a few steps of distance between us, she swung back for a moment and looked me in the eye. “Stay cool, and good luck.”
I thought about biting back a snide comment, but I didn’t have time. I loved my uncle, but I was becoming frustrated at being handled like the puppet ringmaster of the Magical Midway.
I had a lot of empathy for my uncle. I really did. I mean, it's difficult to die and then become a phantom and then come back to life when someone else was chosen for your job. I realized that.
The look on my uncle’s chubby face, though, made me feel like a little girl about to be given a chiding for not telling the adult in the room about an issue. The trouble was that I was supposed to be the adult in the room. I was assumed to be the Magical Midway’s ringmaster.
Not supposed to be.
I was the ringmaster.
I would like to point out that if you let your uncle run everything and run over you—which, I’m not precisely saying you are—but were you doing so, you would have no one to blame but yourself if he assumes that you should defer to him. Things we do without thinking and for good reasons sometimes wind up becoming entrenched.
Shut up, Samson.
Whatever you are about to say, I would suggest that you not say it out here in public. We have enough drama going on at this circus to add another three rings. No one here should see the two of you fighting openly. Not now.
