She’ll do.
By my blood and all the heavens, she’ll do.
8.
WE’RE TANGLED up on the chaise under a filmy curtain, breathing in time together. Merissa’s slender, calloused fingers trace up and down my forearm, alternately tickling and arousing. Her lovemaking is full of playful torture mixed with ferocity, and I have bruises and bite marks and absolutely no desire to move again. Ever.
“Do you love me?” she asks in a teasing voice, and I consider.
“I don’t know you,” I say, “But I want to.”
“That’s a more honest answer than most men would give, I suppose.” Her wandering fingers slither over the inside of my elbow, up my bicep, over my chest. “Have you ever really loved someone before?”
I shift uncomfortably under her hands and her scrutiny. “I don’t think so.”
“That means no.”
“Have you ever loved someone, then?”
She chuckles softly but sadly, sadly but sweetly. “Oh, I have.”
“What happened to him?”
She sighs and lays her cheek against my heartbeat. “He died.”
My arm curls around her, and I stroke her tumbled hair. “I’m sorry,” I say, and I am.
“I’m not a brooder. I don’t brood. I look to the future. I choose hope.”
“That’s a compelling sentiment, my girl. Choosing hope.” I kiss her forehead and nuzzle her hair and wish I knew at what point infatuation became love, what sort of tender feeling made a maybe into a yes and one day into now. “But tell me. How did you know when it was love? Truly love?”
She sighs and stretches out her lithe, muscled legs, her fine-boned feet poking out the open wagon door. “I have this saying, you see. From my grandmother. Not my circus, not my monkeys. She would say it whenever someone brought her a problem that wasn’t hers, one she didn’t intend to own. If my brother pulled my pigtails or if I accidentally knocked over an inkwell, I would run to her, crying, and she would frown and shrug and say it. And so I started saying it, too, whenever a boy would court me, whenever a man would beg for my attentions. Why won’t you kiss me? Why won’t you accept my proposal?” She sighs. “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
“And so...?”
“And so, one day, with this man, I didn’t say that. Not ever.”
I chuckle, but I don’t feel anything. “So, you found your circus and your monkeys. That’s rather sweet.”
“Oh, it was. But nothing stays the same, does it?”
“Change isn’t always bad, love. Wouldn’t you like some new monkeys?”
She turns in my arms, and her eyes dance with mischief, and she runs a claw over my lips. “Maybe I could do with one monkey. A dancing monkey. Do you dance, Stain?”
I exhale and let all my masks fall away. “I’ll waltz but I’ll never jig or kneel, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Her laugh is light and lying, and I begin to wonder if every moment with Merissa is playing some sort of game, and if that’s an intriguing proposition or a long, slow suicide. I want to hold her, dig my thumbs into her heart and pry it loose and hold it up to the light to see if it’s made of muscle or stone or diamond. But I can’t do those things, and I don’t know if she would do them to me, so I do the only thing I can do.
Ever so gently, I cup her cheek and turn her face to mine and kiss us both into a stupid, lovely oblivion.
THE TRAIN stops at dusk, and Merissa hops down first and scurries away, muttering about seeing to the horses. I’m gratified to note that her usual, practiced, swaying walk is more than a little bow-legged. Whoever her last monkey was, he clearly didn’t have my skills and stamina.
When I leave, I take the box with me. A few whispered words and a dash of powder sprinkled on my head and the eyes of the milling, laughing carnivalleros skitter over me like a crack in fine porcelain. I don’t want to talk to anyone. As pleasant a diversion and as intriguing a future as Merissa might present, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how I had my fortune told by a ghost in a caravan with no fortune-teller. The answers, I know, are under the orange cloth in this box.
My wagon is still dark, but something is off. Someone has been here since I left. I can’t smell their mark or see anything missing, but the back of my neck prickles and I can’t rest until I’ve checked every hiding place. Once the new lanterns are spread about, the entire space takes on an eerie, honey-warm glow. The pierced lantern is the last one I light, and I place it in the center of the room, on a spindly table, and rotate it so that the girl and the wolf are on opposite walls. I think I might smell the faintest, nutty hint of cheese, and I follow the scent to a corner where the wallpaper is peeling. I tug down the hideous purple, a lower layer of flowers, a layer of sepia-toned newspaper, and reveal...warm orange.
“This was your wagon, wasn’t it?” I whisper to the still air, and the lantern spins of its own accord as if held in a small girl’s hand, the stars whirling dizzily. I lift out the next layer of possessions in the old box. Dozens of dishes, porcelain and tin, each one lovingly clean but old enough to show the marks of an artisan’s hands, unlike today’s factory-produced rubbish. About fifty silver knives fall out when I unroll the flowered scarf. It reminds me of the one my mother used to keep her tarot cards in, and I hold it up to the light and trace the silk roses and vines with a sigh of nostalgia.
The box is almost empty now, just scraps of old newspaper and a mending kit for the tent. I marvel over the rolled, stitched leather, running my fingers over the bone needles and slubby thread and tiny thimbles. Did the little girl live alone? How did she set up such a large tent by herself? Where was her family? How did she come to be a—what had Merissa called it? A tyromancer.
At what point does one wake up and decide to seek the future in runny cheese?
There’s a lump in the mending kit, and I fish out a tarnished chain and locket. There’s a setting for a jewel on one side, but whatever paste frippery it once held is long gone. On the other side is a compass rose. When I flick open the clasp, I find a portrait inside. It’s a beautiful woman with riotous black hair, her chin up and her dark blue eyes firm. Something about her seems to challenge me in a way that makes one of my eyebrows raise automatically. Could it be the little girl as a grown woman? Not if Bailey murdered her young. Her mother, perhaps? But the woman’s clothing is modern, her hat of a style I haven’t seen before. So who is she? Under the woman’s portrait is the name Letitia, written in my own handwriting, and if I wasn’t unsettled before, I tell you I am now.
“The locket will draw her to you.”
It’s the little girl’s voice, coming from nowhere and everywhere. And I know that she’s dead, that old Bailey had her burned at the stake, but I feel like she’s here in the room with me, wrapped in the warm scent of beeswax and cheese and the comfort of an unforeseen future.
My head swims, and I could swear I hear her laughing. The lights flicker, and the pierced lantern spins in a wind that definitely isn’t there, sending stars and wolf teeth dancing across the dark walls, faster and faster. Something rustles in the far side of the wagon, and I hunch over, fingers curling into claws.
“Who’s there?” I growl.
No one answers, but I’m not alone, not really. The little girl’s words echo in my mind: Magic, time, tenacity, sacrifice. The locket will draw her to you. I have all five things but no idea how to apply them. Is this what will secure my future caravan? Because I have Merissa, my ruby beauty, and the lady from the portrait isn’t even a Bludwoman. She’s human.
It doesn’t matter now—I’m hunting. I drop the locket and chain in my breast pocket, pocket number one, and stand. As I stalk through the field of spinning stars,, I draw my claws over the wallpaper, not minding that I’m scoring it, hoping to reach the cozy orange at the bottom. Something rustles again, furtive, towards the back of the wagon, where the bed is. I can walk silently when I wish it, and so I do, because if whatever has intruded on my privacy is killable, I’m
going to kill it.
This corner of the room is silent and dark, untouched by the lanterns’ warmth. Tall armoires and knobby tables loom, cutting the space into a million shadows. I drop to hands and knees and sniff the ground for some sign of trespass. Silence builds, like the ghost is waiting, worried, like maybe I’m not the most dangerous thing in the room. There’s a scrape under the bed, and I dive for it, my talons raking the wooden boards and clutching...nothing.
Air from an open trapdoor.
I knock the bed over and hunt for clues, but there’s no odor, no hair, no nothing. Whoever has been here must use the same powder I do to mask their scent. I’m too smart to stick my head out; I’ll investigate from outside with weapons in hand once I’ve secured my home. Growling, I yank the door closed and latch it. For good measure, I right the bed, shove it to the other side of the room, and drag a heavy armoire over to completely cover the escape hatch cut into my floor. The only person in this caravan who should be able to budge it from below is the strong lady, and her shoulders wouldn’t even fit through the hole. But someone has been here, and I know neither why nor whom.
A harsh knock on the door startles me out of my furious befuddlement.
“What?” I roar.
“Thought you might like some dinner, but not if it gets my head bitten off,” Merissa calls through the door, but I can tell she’s at least vaguely amused.
We are predators, after all, and a predator defends its den to the death.
“Just a moment, love,” I yell, stepping before the mirror to clean off the dust I’m sure I accumulated poking around, literally and euphemistically, in the prop wagon.
The mirror is a heavy, old-fashioned thing in an ornate oval frame, set into the typical wagon faucet and ewer. We’re not tapped into the aquifer yet, most likely, but there’s enough water in the sink to wipe off the grime. When I look up, I see the little girl’s face as if through a clear pond.
“Whatever she gives you, don’t take it,” she whispers.
When I blink, she’s gone.
“Bloody ghosts,” I mutter, deeply troubled and with every hair on my body standing at attention. I whip out the locket, but the portrait is gone, the tarnished metal clips cradling nothing. “Bloody disappearing ghost women!”
“Stain? Who’re you talking to?”
I make a play of laughing as I swagger to the door, but I’m shaken to the core. Did I imagine the portrait? And the ghost? Am I going mad? No matter; I’ve known plenty of mad people, and they seem to get along fine. But still...the world is off kilter, and I’d like to find my footing.
I toss open the door and grin. “Just talking to myself, lass. Best company there is.”
She laughs with me, but it doesn’t reach her eyes as she peers around me into the darkness. “You’re leaving the lamps on?”
“Ah, no. Just a moment.” I hurry around the room, blowing out the lights until nothing is left but the buzzing of the electrics, and it reminds me of an animal almost dead that won’t quite die.
Once we’re outside, I let my handkerchief drop so I have reason to kneel and peer under the wagon, but there’s no sign of my intruder or any damage. When I stand, she takes my hand, our fingers laced together and swinging.
It’s a beautiful evening after a strange, beautiful day, and the caravan is drenched in the pink light of a lazy sunset. Laughter rides the breeze, leaking out the open door and windows of the dining car. We’ll set up the caravan tomorrow morning and perform until dawn tomorrow night, but for now, the carnivalleros can rest and relax after a long day of traveling. Two hungry bludbunnies lurk at the step, trying their damnedest to bypass biology and learn how to take the stairs. Merissa and I stoop in tandem, snatch them up by the ears, and knock them out against the corner before hanging them from the waiting meat hooks. It’s my first time adding meat to the human’s food supply in Bailey’s caravan, and Merissa writes my name in chalk on the blackboard next to my first hash mark.
STAIN, it says.
She’s never called me Criminy, and I long to hear it on her lush lips.
I’ve never known her last name, and I wish to whisper it into my pillow.
Up the stairs and into the wagon we go, and I’ve never seen it so crowded. Dozens of humans, daimons, freaks, and a precious few Bludmen crowd the space, jostling for their favorite tidbits and seats.
“Find us a bench, will you, Stain?” Merissa flaps a hand at me, and I give her a small bow and head for the black-painted corner. Catarrh and Quincy are there, as well as the hawkish old costumer, a beautiful blonde woman with red-painted lips, and a mournful sort of fellow with auburn hair.
I pause, unsure of the best way to make friends rather than enemies, and Merissa appears at my side and inclines her head towards a space on the bench.
“Folk, this is Mr. Stain, our new magician. Stain, this is Mrs. Cleavers, the costumer; Charlie Dregs, the puppet master, and Tabitha Scowl, occasional mermaid and part-time bearded lady.”
“Pretend bearded lady,” the blonde woman says, her eyes skimming me hungrily, and she does look rather nice without the fake beard.
I smile and shake hands and mutter politenesses, and as I settle my coattails and sit again, Merissa slides a teacup of blood in front of me. “And you know Catarrh and Quincy, naturally.”
“Naturally,” I say, swirling my blood around as I consider.
Because here is the question: When a ghost tells you not to drink something, do you drink it?
Merissa nudges my elbow. “Drink, silly,” she says, and I decide I damn well won’t.
“Pardon me just a moment, pet.” I scoot out of the bench like a greased weasel and head for the drink buffet, where Laraby is pouring himself a colorful daimon brew and laughing with Mademoiselle Caprice.
“You’re looking blue, my friend,” I say, smacking him on the back in the way of strong males being friendly.
“Had a bit of help there,” he says, grinning. His skin is at least four shades more brilliant than the last time I saw him, and he seems a far more cheerful fellow. “Well done with Phaedro, by the by. Quite a show there.”
“Just goes to prove I make a far better friend than an enemy.” With my back to the room, I select a vial from the cauldron, pop the cork, and guzzle it in a few gulps.
“My, my, monsieur. Impatient, are we?” Mademoiselle Caprice says.
I snatch another vial and down it, too. “A long day’s travel makes a fellow thirsty, ma chère.” But her knowing smile tells me her finely attuned daimon senses know exactly what I’ve been up to. She most likely feeds on lust in addition to the crowd’s applause. With a wink and a smile, I slip the empty vials into my coat and return to my table.
“What was that all about?” Merissa asks.
“I helped Laraby with his act and wanted to hear how he was getting along.”
“Daimons and Bludmen? Disgusting,” Catarrh says.
“Something tells me they think the same thing about you lads.”
Quincy hisses at me, and Catarrh knocks his head against his brother’s in warning.
“Drink your blood before it gets cold, dear,” Merissa says sweetly.
For possibly the first time in my life, a cup of blood strikes me as utterly unappetizing. It’s fresh enough, but that doesn’t matter. Whether it’s safe or not, whether it’s cold or warm, I’m not touching that teacup. Instead, I knock it over with my elbow while reaching for Merissa’s hand.
She squeals and surges out of the booth before the murky red gunk can splatter her green dress. “Never considered you clumsy,” she says, and she sounds like a scolding nursemaid.
“Yes, well, it’s been a rather challenging week, my love. Duels to the death and such.” My most devoted, eyelash-batting gaze only serves to infuriate her, but she reins it in and stuffs her frustration into a tight and brittle smile.
“Let me get you another cup then, darling.”
“Oh, but that wouldn’t be gentlemanly, poppet.” I stand, sideste
p the blood, and swing her around to sit beside Tabitha at the other, clean table. “Do allow me to tidy up my own mess. I’ll bring you another cup, shall I?” And before she can splutter an answer, I’m headed for the cook’s window for an old towel, wondering what the hell she’s about.
When I turn back holding two teacups, two vials, and a rag, she’s gone, and Tabitha is laughing so hard, she’s puce.
“Women,” Catarrh says with a disgusted shake of his head.
“You shouldn’t blame women for Merissa’s behavior any more than women should blame men in general for yours, you cheating, murdering sociopath,” I say, mopping up the blood.
Because this is not a lovers’ spat. This is me being strange because ghosts are ordering me about. And Merissa being strange because she’s up to no good.
9.
I SLEEP alone, wrapped in uncertainty. Whether or not she intends me harm, I would still prefer to be wrapped up in Merissa. What relationship ever bloomed without some secrets, without some dangerous games? We are, after all, Bludmen. Apex predators, tigers in tailcoats and cougars in corsets. I never asked for complete honesty, but I’m also not enthusiastic about having mysterious things dropped in my drink.
I don’t chase her, nor does she seek me out.
The ghost doesn’t make another appearance, but I find I’m very glad I overpaid her.
In short, nothing happens, and then it is morning.
Setup day around the caravan is both very similar and very different wherever one goes, and I cheerfully take part in the process. Casca, the strong lady, is glad for my help sinking the poles for the tightrope walker, considering the old man isn’t strong enough to heft his own timbers. His little granddaughters watch patiently, and the moment the wire rope is ready, they scamper straight up to practice their arabesques while he pretends to take his rest with a snifter of whisky.
The freaks are glad for both my magic and my muscles as they set up their tent, and I learn quickly how to pull the stage down from my own wagon’s wall. It’s hollow, and Phaedro had packed it to the gills with trapdoors, tricks, and traps. As I paw through his old trunks, an excitable child arrives to watch me, buzzing like a bumblebee in ill-fitting clothes and an aviator’s cap, and carrying a ladder and a tool bag large enough for him to sleep in.