Spider, page 2
Elizabeth fought against the urge to retch, but she turned her face away. “Tame?”
“Relatively,” he conceded. The wet sound that followed told her he’d slid the other one in.
“Don’t you know you can lobotomize yourself like that?” Sharona said, fascinated in spite of herself.
“Gross! Cool!” Of course Todd would think this was the greatest thing since the spitball.
“I’m a professional,” the sword swallower assured Sharona. “But don’t try this at home, little man. Took magic and a bucket of luck for me to learn this without sending the tip into my gray matter, as the lady says, or piercing through the eye itself. Not a body horror fan, ma’am?”
“Not as a rule.” Elizabeth still wasn’t looking. She had no idea where he was putting the other four nails—and she didn’t want to know.
“Nanny doesn’t know how to have fun,” Sharona replied. “Anything she’s not afraid of, her religion forbids her from doing it.”
“Well, we accept all ages in Arcanium until eight, as long as they’re accompanied by an adult. Some of our oddities get a little frisky, so if I were you, I’d concentrate on the fringes rather than the juicy center of the circus. We have animal rides, performances, a carousel, food booths, midway games… Oops, looks like the little one likes shiny nails.”
Elizabeth forced herself to look back at the sword swallower to make sure Maggie wasn’t taking up swallowing sharp things herself. She couldn’t resist a shudder as he unhooked himself.
“I told you I’d take care of her.” Sharona shifted Maggie to her other shoulder, farther away from the nails in the sword swallower’s hands.
“The haunted house might be a bit much for your youngers,” the man continued. He bowed to the rest of the passing audience. “I’d recommend the midway. The prizes are eldritch, but nothing too questionable. Be sure to show them these.” He put his hands behind his back, then whipped them back in front less than a second later. When he unclutched his fists, six gold dollar coins rested in his palms. Elizabeth hadn’t even known they were still in circulation. “Well, would you look at that? You’re quite the lucrative family. These ought to get you started.”
With that, the sword swallower tipped the coins into Todd’s eager hands then retrieved his nails again. One by one, he tossed them into his mouth and made a big show of swallowing them down.
Elizabeth turned away. This time she tasted bile at the back of her throat.
“Awesome!” Todd was at the age when everything was an exclamation. With her headache, Elizabeth was just glad they were outside so she didn’t have to tell him to use his inside voice every five seconds. Sweet kid—needed work on his modulation.
“Hope I could settle your mind, if not your stomach, ma’am,” the sword swallower said. “Welcome to Arcanium.”
“Let’s try that midway.” Elizabeth didn’t know whether she’d be able to handle the food court any time soon.
“Yay, scam artists and cheap toys,” Sharona said in a cheery voice that had Maggie raising her arms in her own little cheer.
“I’m sorry. Who’s the one who begged for us to stay?” Elizabeth maneuvered the stroller around to follow Todd as he sprang for the line of booths that seemed most promising as a midway.
They passed the woman in latex and the burned man in the collar on the way.
Maggie stretched out her little fingers for the leash. “I want doggie.”
“You and me both, sister.” Sharona spared another appreciative glance at the burned man’s trousers.
They passed by the fortune teller’s tent, which was verboten as far as Elizabeth was concerned. Jacob’s son Joseph could divine all he wanted, but divination was still a form of witchcraft, and Elizabeth was no blessed son of Israel.
The midway was as the sword swallower had promised—with skulls, skeletons, tentacles and other such things as prizes instead of stuffed bears or cheap erasers, but no more extreme than one might see on a pirate ship. Despite the fact that the one-dollar coins were real currency, the attendants surprised Elizabeth by treating them as tokens instead—one coin per game, even though each game was three dollars a turn. Neither she nor Sharona nor Todd decided to look a gift horse in the mouth, and it saved some of the Bishops’ money allotted for the trip.
The midway could only entertain them for so long, however, as expensive and difficult to master as the games were and with other things closer to the freak show to catch the kids’ eyes.
Clowns, for instance. And not the clowns Elizabeth had been expecting.
Contrary to popular belief, Elizabeth liked clowns—friendly clowns with cute patched outfits, clowns who made balloon animals and emerged from tiny cars.
These were not those kinds of clowns.
At first glance from behind, they looked like some kind of punk rock fans lost from an outdoor concert. There wasn’t anything intrinsically menacing about bustiers, hardcore leather boots and orange mohawks. But after a series of intricate tumbling moves in the miniature ring off the midway, they turned around and flourished for applause, and Elizabeth jerked the stroller to a stop.
“They could do Halloween makeup tutorials.” Sharona looked back at where Elizabeth had frozen with the baby. “Oh, come on. Where are killer clowns on the list? Seven? Three? Do you know the odds any of them are serial killers?”
“The fear of killers is completely rational, no matter how statistically improbable.” The cold sweat on Elizabeth’s palms made her grip on the stroller handle too slippery to hold on to it with conviction. “And they’ve done studies. People are afraid of clowns because exaggerated, unnatural facial features unsettle the mind.”
Sharona shrugged. “Not mine. I mostly just want the chick’s outfit.”
“You have your own phobias. It wouldn’t be prudent to start on mine.”
“Sure, I’m afraid of a massive storm destroying Metropolis, but I know mine is never going to happen. You, however, decided to fall into the arms of every clichéd phobia in the book. How do you even function?”
“Believe it or not, I’m unafraid of more things than I’m afraid of.” Elizabeth managed to turn the stroller around. Unfortunately, that meant the creepy clowns with their creepy lantern eyes and creepy mouths painted to look creepily wide and—in the case of the older man with curly tufts of orange hair like a more classic clown—full of creepy teeth were now behind her where she couldn’t see them.
“Name one,” Sharona said.
“Schoolwork. I can look over that all day, while you sometimes seem to have a pathological fear of it.”
That, at least, earned Elizabeth a genuine grin. “You want to move on?”
“Please.”
“Great. The haunted house is next.”
“You must be joking.” Elizabeth closed her eyes and counted down from ten. It didn’t help much, but it forced her to breathe with the count.
“Nope. Right there between us and the family-friendly carousel and circus animals.” Sharona laughed with delight. “You want to go into the haunted house, don’t you, Todd?”
“Yeah! I want to stick my hands in eyeballs and watch blood dripping out of someone’s stomach,” Todd said, as though describing a birthday party instead of carnage.
“Sounds like a blast.” And by ‘blast’, Elizabeth meant ‘nauseating image’. “I don’t know about this place, kids. It looks like a strong breeze would blow it away.”
“So do you,” Sharona retorted. “But this place might actually have a spine.”
The haunted house didn’t look much sturdier than the midway booths, although it appeared more ambitious. It was composed of a collection of temporary structures—the sort that seemed to sprout up in construction sites or outside renovated buildings—clustered together to form a more substantial building. The vinyl siding had been covered with wood that wouldn’t be fit for anything other than atmosphere. Any windows around the buildings had been painted over with ghoulish vignettes—a woman screaming, a bogeyman peering from behind curtains, a man attempting to run with partially amputated limbs, heads on pikes in the midst of hellish flames.
The style was sufficiently cartoonish to deemphasize the horror, but the bloodstain next to the stairway to the entrance seemed entirely too real, with a gleam that made it appear fresh. Real-looking cobwebs Elizabeth prayed were fake stretched across another length of wood. And a monster that looked like a cross between a Lon Chaney werewolf and a vampire bat loomed above the entrance. He rested on his stomach on the flat roof, clutching the wood on the side with his claws and staring unblinking at whoever dared ascend the stairs. Elizabeth could almost swear the monster breathed, that the pronounced muscles of his arms twitched. That it stared right at her.
She forced herself to tear her gaze away and apply her attention to the warning sign above the bloodstain. “Uh-oh, looks like there’s an age advisory, Todd.”
“‘Some images and experiences within the haunted funhouse are too graphic or intense for children. No one under thirteen unless accompanied by a teenager or adult,’” Todd read. “And they use strobe lights. And it’s our fault if we’re traumatized. What is ‘traumatized’?”
“Is that one of the things on your list, too? Terrifying flashing lights?” Sharona said.
“Still not funny. Even if I could get the stroller up those stairs, Todd, I don’t want to go into a haunted house unless the name is preceded by Abbott and Costello.”
“Who are they?” Todd asked.
“Oh, children of the cell phone generation, you have been grossly deprived. I’ll have to rectify that. Shall we go home now so I can introduce you to comedy genius? Comedy, as in not terrifying.” Elizabeth glanced up at the monster again. Had his claws been in that position before?
“But I want to go in,” Todd said. “I don’t mind blood and guts. I look at the roadkill on the side of the road. Dad lets me watch Bruce Willis with him.”
“What a brave, cultured little gentleman,” a man said from behind Elizabeth.
Sharona raised her eyebrows in appreciation, but she also thinned her lips to keep from smiling as Elizabeth looked over her shoulder.
Even though she anticipated something from her extensive list, nothing could have prepared her for a woman draped in a large albino boa constrictor, whose face was right in front of Elizabeth’s.
She brought her hand to her mouth, bit down hard to keep unholy words from passing her lips, but that did nothing to muffle the undignified shriek. Only the sturdy stroller prevented Elizabeth from falling.
The man who had spoken rested his hand on her shoulder to steady her. Elizabeth automatically ducked from his touch.
He took her avoidance with alacrity. His calm, slightly amused expression didn’t change. “I know it’s sometimes pointless to say, but Raphael is quite harmless. He’s accustomed to women handling him, which is why my snake charmer allows him out of her sight and why my assistant willingly wears him around the circus.”
Only in a circus could an assistant’s dress code include a red leather dress with corset laces up the sides, black bracelet cuffs that were made for chains and a literal boa as an accessory.
“Wow, his name is Raphael?” Todd exclaimed. “Like the Ninja Turtle?”
“I don’t think the Ninja Turtle is who he was named after,” the assistant replied. “Would you like to touch him? Really, he’s as friendly as a cold-blooded creature can be.”
“I’m sorry. I just can’t,” Elizabeth finally said. She forced the baby’s stroller back with her, away from the man in the black leather pants and the girl with the serpent.
“Think he’s the devil?” Sharona asked, joining Todd to marvel over the scales.
“I think he’s a snake.” Elizabeth rubbed at the gooseflesh that crawled all over her at the sight of the Bishop children touching the thing. “Look. I understand they’re important, that they’re fascinating and probably beautiful animals, but I can’t—”
“There’s no need to apologize,” the man said. “Arcanium was made for shock and awe. I would be remiss to take offense when it is so successful.’
“You can hold him if you like,” the assistant offered—to Todd and Sharona rather than Elizabeth. “I’m sure your sister can take the picture from a safe distance.”
“Sister?” Sharona snorted. “I assume you’re talking about the woman in black trying to blend into the wall. Do we look even slightly related? Here.” Sharona hesitated before handing Elizabeth her phone. Kicking up a fuss if Elizabeth didn’t give it back would be more embarrassing in front of circus folk. “Take a picture of us with the snake and the circus lady. Mom and Dad won’t be upset by that, so we’ll have something inoffensive to show them when they ask.”
Elizabeth weighed her options—including tossing Sharona’s phone to the monster on top of the haunted house and herding the children back to the car for their own protection, a survivalist combination of maternal and fight-or-flight instincts.
Sharona sighed. “It’ll be more suspicious if we don’t have any pictures at all. Come on. As funny as it is when your mother and my mother tag team for the scolding, I’d get grounded, too, you know.”
“Sometimes, interacting with my client’s teenager is like managing hostage negotiations,” Elizabeth said by way of apology to the thoroughly amused, very bare-chested man. She carefully stretched her free hand out to take Sharona’s phone without getting too close to the snake. She didn’t like cell phones either, but any potential carcinogenic properties couldn’t compare with an immediate reptilian threat.
“Managing a circus sometimes feels the same way,” he replied. “I can hold the young one there if you want both hands.”
Elizabeth’s heightened awareness caught the way the man’s assistant briefly tensed.
Elizabeth hitched Maggie up on her hip and offered the toddler the wooden cross pendant on her necklace to play with. “I can multitask. Thanks, though.”
She found the camera on the phone and waited with minimal trembling for the assistant to drape the snake over Todd’s and Sharona’s necks then pose on the other side of Todd with a beautiful smile. There was only so much to be done about the prominent cleavage in the keyhole window of the dress, but a certain amount of sexiness was expected among circus women.
“You sure you don’t want to try Raphael yourself?” the man asked Elizabeth. “I promise, no biting. If our snake charmer were here, you wouldn’t even have to fear the dangerous ones.”
“No,” Elizabeth said quickly. Then she corrected herself. “No, thank you.” She was familiar enough with the Bishop children to let some snark sneak into her interaction with them, but she’d been trained to be unfailingly polite with strangers.
“Thanks. That’s so cool! I want to meet the snake lady now,” Todd said as the assistant lifted Raphael back to her own shoulders.
Elizabeth and Sharona shared a glance as Elizabeth returned the phone.
“Hey, twerp, how about we go through the haunted house before Nanny Elizabeth decides to steal someone’s Taser to rescue us from the circus in a blaze of electrified glory? Come on… Inside’s the best escape.”
“Inside is where we trap you for all eternity,” the man said, still with that amused expression that crinkled the corners of his startlingly amber-hazel eyes. “But do go in and enjoy yourselves, if you dare.”
Sharona appeared caught between the man’s charm and the menace of his words, but she put an arm around her little brother’s shoulder to lead him up the stairs to the entrance.
“See you on the other side,” she said to Elizabeth.
“No photography, please,” the man said before the kids entered. “I would hate to have to confiscate your phone.”
“I wasn’t going to take pictures,” Sharona said.
“Yes, you were. Arcanium lets you take pictures of all our wonderfully weird displays outside of the haunted funhouse, but I would appreciate it if you would refrain from revealing all of a humble circus’ secrets. The clowns won’t eat you for disobeying, but you’d piss off the owner, and that’s never a good idea, young lady.”
“Do I need to take your phone again while you go through?” Elizabeth asked.
Sharona’s competing feelings about the man seemed to deepen. After a moment to consider, she tossed her phone down to Elizabeth.
“Good girl,” Elizabeth said quietly.
She couldn’t help the twinge of disquiet when as the kids entered the screaming darkness, which cut off as soon as they closed the door behind them.
“What made you think she was going to take pictures?” Elizabeth asked.
“Teenagers are our biggest offenders,” the man replied. “When I’m not here, there’s not much to be done, but I’m here now. And I’m the circus’ fortune teller. I’m exceptional at divining the future.”
“Or at being observant, I suppose.” Even knowing that most fortune tellers weren’t actually psychic, Elizabeth edged away from him just in case.
“Oh, don’t worry. I don’t read people who haven’t paid for the pleasure—unless they intend to break my rules. I take such trespass very seriously. Maya, love, I’ll meet you in the tent.”
Maya stroked the serpent’s golden-white scales, visibly wary, but she allowed the man to lift her hand, with the snake’s head resting upon it. He kissed the serpent’s head. The snake accepted such unsnakely affection without resistance. Then the man wrapped his arm around Maya’s waist, pulled her close with the snake still between them and kissed her.
Elizabeth recognized the intensity behind an otherwise chaste kiss. Yet, though all her upbringing told her to look away, she couldn’t. Her pale cheeks were probably bright red.
At that moment, the toddler became entranced by the gold bracelet coiled around the man’s upper arm, and the baby decided now was the time to get properly fussy.
“Be good,” Maya whispered to the man. She stepped away from him and turned to Elizabeth. “If you pass by Oddity Row, our Bearded Lady, Kitty, does really well with kids. Have a good visit.”
“Thank you.” Elizabeth struggled to keep the squirming toddler from mauling the man in the pursuit of sparkly things—the very picture of human temptation, Maggie was. “I’m sorry. She has a thing for jewelry. We thought she’d grow out of it by the time she started talking.”
