Circus Summer (Circus of Curiosities Book 1) (15 page)

            A few people in the crowd don’t look quite so excited. Parents with children performing. Brothers and sisters. I look around and find my parents. They look scared, with Mom clinging onto my father’s hand. Scared, but somehow proud too, the way all the parents look. Thomas and Mason look the same way when I manage to pick them out of the crowd, looking down at Leela with that curious blend of emotions that says they don’t want her there, but now that she is, they’re determined to be happy for her. There’s no sign of Leela’s mom. I know I shouldn’t be surprised by that, but somehow, I am. I guess I thought that if she could make it to the restaurant, she’d be able to make it out to see her daughter perform.

            Whimsical circus music plays, pulsing, recorded beats put through speakers, the technology seeming almost magical to half the crowd there. The damage the Invaders have done has been so extensive that even such a simple thing seems impossible now. Clowns come out to the music, looking so different now that I’ve seen most of them around the circus without their make-up on. They perform their flips and turns, running along the edge of the hard plastic walls around the ring for the performance, seeming almost to run sideways along it sometimes before flipping off. They’re just a warm up though.

            Dr. Dex strides out into the ring in his iridescent clothes and long coat. It’s like there’s a transformation when he walks in there. He’s confident enough outside it, but in there, it’s like no one can take their eyes off him.

            “You should be proud!” Those are his first words, and he gets a cheer just with them. “You should be proud to have produced such a strong group of performers for us. Fine young men and women. Would you like to see what they can do?”

            Another roar.

            “Then let the show begin!”

            The first act is the knife throwing that we practiced just a few days ago, but I realize as we do it that the ones of us who stayed will have an advantage. Sandy, Leela, the thin guy Sandy fought with, Banford, me. We all had a session practicing just this act, throwing knives to pluck fruit from each other’s heads, or hitting targets thrown into the air. The others have to keep up the best way they can, relying on the sessions they did at the start. Yet somehow they manage it, and there are so many knives flying about, crisscrossing in the air, that it seems almost like it’s raining them.

            We get cheers for that, and I stand there, feeling the exhilaration of it while the crowd screams our names. We aren’t done though. Cecil the fire eating coach comes out with flaming torches, passing them to each of us. We know what we have to do by now, passing them back and forth so that the torches leave trails of sparks in the air and burn after images into the audience’s eyes as they travel.

            I hear the screams before I see what happens. I have the sense to catch my next torch, but then I look around. The guy Sandy fought with is on the ground, and he’s screaming. He’s screaming because he’s on fire. His hair. His clothes. Everything.

            For a second, I don’t know what to do, but then I realize I should be trying to douse the flames. I even take a step forward, but then I see Dr. Dex. He isn’t staring at the stricken boy. He’s staring at me. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he shakes his head. I don’t know what to do then. I want to help, but I know that I can’t. I can remember his instructions too well for that.

            I think that I’m going to have to stand there and watch him die, but Ellis and Banford have other ideas. Ellis moves first, and Banford follows him automatically, the way he does on the football field. They run to find water, and come back with buckets of it, throwing it on the burning boy. The flames go out.

            I sigh with relief, but then I see how bad the boy is burned and I think again. He’s alive thanks to Banford and Ellis. He might even stay that way if he’s very lucky and the town’s doctors can do anything for him, but he’s still burned. So badly burned that I know he’ll be scarred for the rest of his life. Just the thought of that makes me feel sick.

            I search out Leela with my eyes, and she’s looking straight at me. There’s a kind of clarity to the way she’s looking at me, like she can’t quite believe what has just happened. I hope she does believe it though, because the Circus of Curiosities is going to get a lot more dangerous than this before it’s done.

Chapter
17

Leela

A
fter what happens with the flaming torches, the only thing I want is to go to Zachary. To feel his arms around me as he tells me that it’s all right and that won’t happen to either of us. The thought of ending up burned like that, or worse, is a terrifying one. I want to spend my time with Zachary, just being close to him until everything I feel about the performance goes away. Yet I can’t. I know I can’t. We’re competing now, and if I don’t compete as hard as I can… it’s hard to keep images of burned flesh out of my mind, no matter how much I try to stop them.

            So I go home, and I spend the day there. Not really doing anything, even though it probably looks like I am. I tend the garden, and I make sure that Mason and Mom are okay, but really, I’m just killing time until the next performance, trying not to show how nervous I am.

            Mom is still better than she was, but she’s acting strangely now. The other night, when we were at the restaurant, she started talking to someone who wasn’t there, and when we got her home with the help of Thomas and his parents, she fell asleep almost immediately. Thomas’ mother has promised to look in on her while I’m at the circus tonight, but that can’t change how worried I am about her.

            I start to get ready for the circus, picking out a sapphire blue sun dress to wear. They’ll have a costume for me once I get there, but I want to look good as I show up. Why? In case Zachary sees me? I shake my head. Can’t I just want to look good? After all, there will be plenty of people there.

            Not the kid who was burned though. I wonder if he managed to survive, with the medical know how that’s available in Sea Cliff. Even if he does, the injuries he has now are horrendous. What will his life be like? All because he wanted to be in the Circus of Curiosities. I find myself thinking about Dr. Dex as I get ready. He’s told me that he always gives people a chance to back out, and I heard about the kids who didn’t come back from his tests, but seeing something like that live is a different thing completely. I find myself wondering if everyone will come back to the circus tonight. Will they all want to compete now that they’ve seen first-hand what will happen?

            Do I want to compete? That question has been gnawing at me all day. I need to help Mom. I need to find out more about what is going on at the Center. Yet do I need it so much that I’m willing to risk that happening to me? Do I want to end up burned, or eaten by some kind of mutated creature, or worse?

            I’m still thinking about that when I hear Mom downstairs in the living room. She’s been so calm, so well, all day, but now I can hear her talking to people in a panicked tone, like she isn’t quite shouting but might start any second. I rush downstairs, trying to find out what’s going on. I make it into the living room, and I see her standing alone. She’s talking to people who aren’t there, the way she was in the restaurant. The way she was when Dr. Dex healed her.

            This is scary. If I didn’t know about Dr. Dex and Zachary, I’d think that she was going crazy. After all, that’s what it is when people start talking to people who aren’t there. That’s about as good a definition of crazy as most people get. But I know now that it isn’t that, and somehow, that just makes it worse.

            “No, you can’t. I won’t let you.” Mom looks past me to someone I can’t see. What is going on? What can she see that I can’t? Mason comes rushing into the room, looking from her to me and back again.

            “Leela,” he says. “What’s happening? Why is this happening to Mom?”

            I wish I could explain. I wish I had answers for him that he would understand. I wish I could tell him about Dr. Dex, but that would mean telling my brother about Zachary too, and for some reason I don’t want to do that. Maybe because it isn’t my secret to tell.

            Mom looks at me then. Not past me, but straight at me, her eyes boring into mine. When she speaks, her voice is stronger than I’ve heard it in years. “Leela, I worry about you so much. I worry about this dangerous, foolish circus. I worry about so much else. I wish I could keep you safe at home.”

            “I’m not going anywhere, Mom,” I promise. Anything, if it will keep her calm.

            “You are though,” Mom insists. “It’s your destiny. I know.
I
know. You have to get to the Center. I wish it were different, but it’s what you have to do. I’ve fought for you for so long… I’m fighting for you now. Against them. Always them. They want you, the way they took your father. They took him from me, and now they want to take you from me too.”

            There’s part of me that starts to think that maybe she is crazy, because none of this makes sense, but then she collapses, leaving me to catch her and move her onto the sofa. I look over at Mason.

            “Mason, get Thomas.”

            “But Mom…”

            “I know,” I say. “Mason, go get Thomas. He can help.”

            It doesn’t take long for Thomas to show up. His mother is with him, looking serious as Mason leads them into the house.

            “Leela, what’s going… oh,” Thomas says, seeing Mom passed out on the sofa. “It happened again?”

            I nod, and I try to explain. “She was talking to people who weren’t there. Then she passed out.”

            I don’t tell him what Mom said to me. That doesn’t even make sense to me. Even so, what I tell Thomas is enough to make him pale. His mother puts a hand on my shoulder.

            “It’s all right, Leela,” she says. “We can cope with Kinley. And with Mason, too. I know that you have to get over to the circus.”

            “I…” I think about what Mom said before she passed out. I nod. “I have to.”

            “I know,” Thomas’ mother says. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine here.”

            So I go. I have to hurry, too, because the time it has taken to look after Mom means that it’s later than I want it to be when I leave. I have to practically run to make it to the circus on time. Would they start without me? Would they assume that I had just run off? Decided not to take part after everything I’d seen? Maybe. Either way, I run a little faster to make sure. I think about Zachary while I’m running. Will he know what just happened to Mom? With his gifts, maybe he’ll understand. Maybe he’ll have sensed something about what’s going on.

            Except that I have to go through Zachary to get to the Center. I knew that before. I knew it, but I thought there might be a way around it. Now, with what Mom has said… I can’t take the risk. I have to get there, whatever it takes, and if only one of us can make it there… I’ll do whatever I have to.

            I rush to the circus, and I smile when I see that the show hasn’t started yet. I’m not too late. I rush towards the entrance, and I’m just stepping through it when I feel a hand on my shoulder, pulling me aside. I turn to see Zachary, standing there staring at me with an intent expression that reveals nothing behind it.

            “Leela. I wasn’t sure that you’d come.”

            “You didn’t think that I’d still need to get through this?”

            “I saw you last night,” he says. He shakes his head. “You were pretty shaken up. Are you sure you should be here tonight?”

            “You aren’t going to talk me out of this, Zachary,” I say, trying to sound more confident than I feel.

            “Maybe you should let me try,” he counters. “You sound… I don’t know, different tonight. And look at you, you’re shaking.”

            He runs his hands over the bare skin of my shoulders, and sure enough, it’s trembling. Though maybe that’s just at being touched like that by Zachary.

            “It’s the cold,” I lie, even though I know that Zachary will guess that I’m lying.

            “It’s more than that.” He shakes his head again. “You can’t go in there with something hanging over you like this, Leela. I’ve seen some of what we’re doing tonight.”

            “Seen it, or…”

            “I’ve
seen
it.” He doesn’t put it more directly than that, but he doesn’t need to. He’s seen some of what’s going to happen in a vision. “It’s dangerous. It’s the kind of thing that will take concentration. Get it wrong and… I didn’t see it, but I could feel it. Something bad happens tonight, Leela.”

            “Worse than last night?”

            Zachary hesitates, but then nods. “Yes. So if your head isn’t in the game, you should back out. I… I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

            “You should want me to get hurt,” I point out. “I’m competing with you, remember?”

            Zachary looks shocked. “That doesn’t mean… Leela, I could never hurt you. Are you saying that you want me to get hurt?”