Psst… new to the circus? Why not start here at the beginning?
In our last chapter, our hero Christophe attempted to impersonate his grandfather, the late ringmaster of the circus, to try to convince the Gypsy to let him go. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite go as planned, and his favorite clown is on the way, carrying a bloody knife that seems familiar…
When I come back, I see the Gypsy’s eye. Just the one eye, not two. One. And it looks amused.
“You arrogant bastard,” she whispers, her lips curving into that smile I’ve come to know so well. “You still thought you could win?”
My lungs fill with air, and I scream again. It’s me. I’m the one screaming, because I’m going to die. Arthur is coming. My clown that I thought was on my side, or at least hadn’t hurt me yet, is going to kill me. He’s on his way.
There’s no way out, Christophe. My grandfather’s voice is tired. He’s fading again, back into the shadows and the memory of the Big Top. Just let it go. It’s so much easier that way.
“No!” The word rips out of my chest. My breath comes in gulping gasps, and there’s so much fear. I can’t control it. I can’t control anything. I’m lost in a panic attack, pulling at chains that lock me to a haunted throne, begging a one-eyed skeleton Gypsy to let me go. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of this.
I don’t deserve this. It wasn’t me. I didn’t brand Arthur. I didn’t betray Marionetta. I didn’t eat the Fat Lady’s intestines or slaughter the menagerie animals or hate the Tattooed Man or refuse to pay anybody. Those were my grandfather’s sins, not mine. I shouldn’t be here at all. It was just work, just a few photos, just a paycheck. Just the money. I just wanted to get paid.
The circus called us, Christophe, whispers my grandfather’s voice. It needs us. It needed you.
“Why?” I scream to the canvas ceiling. “Why me!?”
The Gypsy turns to me and smiles. Her teeth flash in the lights, the gold coins in her headscarf sparkling as they swing back and forth, waving at me.
“Because of you,” she says softly, “We will have peace.”
Around me, the circus laughs. The performers bow mockingly. The audience points and stares, their chortles of glee rising into my ears like I’m in the front row of a concert. They’re amused by my pain. They’ve been waiting for it. For fifty-six years, they’ve needed this moment. And now, thanks to me and my greed, it’s finally here.
I hear Arthur’s footsteps before he arrives. They thunder through the Big Top like an elephant trumpeting its displeasure. I can feel my heart hammering in time with each giant shoe as it slaps the dirt-covered floor.
He’s carrying the knife. I feel it already piercing my soul.
Beside me, the Gypsy waits. Her arms fold across her chest. She doesn’t look at me. Was she acting for me, just like I did for her? Did she really think I had turned back into my grandfather, or was she still putting on a show?
I don’t know. I’ll never know.
My hands turn into fists as Arthur steps into the Big Top. Immediately, the crowd goes wild, screaming at a volume I’ve never heard before. He carries the knife with one hand and waves with the other, stopping every now and then to do that stupid little hop-and-skip move from earlier. I used to like it. I thought it was funny. Now it makes my skin crawl to see him do it again, this time while he carries a bloody blade towards my throne.
I almost thought we were friends, once. I was wrong.
He turns a pair of one-handed cartwheels, and the whole place lights up like a Christmas tree, with cheers and applause. Then he bounces up the stairs to the throne, two at a time. His frizzy hair vibrates as he falls on one knee before me, bowing. Almost like he’s paying tribute to his king.
I see it in his eyes now. The pain. The anger. He hated my grandfather. And he hates me. He hates the coat, he hates the tents, he hates the circus. He hates his gold outfit. He hates his rubber nose and the giant shoes. Most of all, though, he hates me.
“Arthur,” I whisper.
He smiles, blood streaming from cracks in his face, painting rivers of red down his cheeks. He looks like he could’ve been crying, but I know better. We both do.
A smear of red appears on the throne’s platform as he pivots to face the Gypsy. His frizzy hair dips as he bows to her, holding the bejeweled knife out for her inspection. This close, it’s easy to see how sharp it is. Almost as sharp as the Gypsy’s smile.
My heart sinks. My grandfather was right.
There’s no getting out of this one. Innocence is nothing against vengeance. Madness and insanity turn us all into monsters, whether we try to be human or not. It robs us of our reason, our logic, our temporary sanity. Once that delicate balance is upset, there is very little that could bring it back.
I thought he could. I thought if I could impersonate him, and bring him back, it might bring back the Marionetta he loved.
But it turns out, she’s dead, too. The only thing left here are the ghosts.
The Gypsy’s long, bony fingers close around the hilt, and she holds it high over her head. This is the presentation. Not to her, but to the audience. Asking them to stay with her, to keep their attention steady as she interrupts the performance.
They’ve waited fifty-six years for this, I want to say. Surely they can wait a bit longer.
But no. She turns to me, her smile sparkling and bright, her eyes shadowed beneath her headscarf and the bright lights. The perfect image of a villainess, readying for the kill.
The blade points at me.
“Christophe Fistarrow,” she intones, “You are here to bear witness to the sins passed down your family line. Through blood, you are one of us. You are part of this circus. You are a direct descendant of the man who caused us so much pain, and as such, it is your duty to bear his punishment.”
“Marionetta.” I try to say it clearly, but my voice cracks. I can feel myself wilting, succumbing to the fate written in the stars years before my birth.
“Your grandfather was an evil man. He wronged us in a number of ways, and his list of crimes is too long to mention. As such, we see no point in sharing them. Doing so would only delay the inevitable, and after the failure last time-” I see the fire’s blaze reflected in her eye- “We will not postpone your punishment any longer.”
“Please,” I whimper. “Please, no. Please, please, no. I’ll do anything.”
It’s too late, whispers my grandfather’s voice faintly as the Gypsy steps up to the throne. All you can do is wait.
I sink into the seat, pulling as hard as I can at the straps. My wrists and ankles burn, but they don’t move. All I can do is wallow, knowing that soon, I won’t be here any more.
“We have waited a long time for this, Christophe. Finally, after fifty-six years, we will be at peace.”
A collective sigh echoes around the arena. Any other time, it might have been heartwarming, knowing that all of these troubled spirits would soon be at rest. The perfect movie-style ending, prime real estate for rolling credits and awards. But this isn’t a movie. This is a terrible accident, documented by my own hand.
“I’m yours, too!” I yell. “You’re my grandmother! Doesn’t that mean anything?”
Something flickers in her eyes. It’s brief, and vanishes almost instantly, but it’s still there. Smothered by years of resentment and pain, it lives on, haunting her like her own personal phantom.
Uncertainty.
She recovers quickly, only pausing for a moment to frown at me. As if chiding an insolent child for an unwelcome retort.
“We have decided, in our mercy, to end this nightmare.”
A light of hope kindles in my chest. Does she mean letting me go? End this torture, the circus, the psychological torture, all of it? Release the ghosts of the past and let them lay in their graves, unbothered and finally at rest? Am I really about to be free?
Without another word, she plunges the knife into my chest and everything goes black.
Epilogue
“Almost there, sweetheart.” The cab driver flashes me a toothless smile over his shoulder. It’s not the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen, but it comes close. I force myself to grin back, then look out the window in time to see the sign:
KENSINGTON CIRCUS, TWO MILES
My stomach twists in excitement. I’m so close. I’ve spent my whole life hearing about this place, and all of its magical stories. Beautiful gypsies and bellowing ringmasters, sword-wielding jugglers and death-defying acrobats, colorful clowns and untamed animals. Its striped canvas tents, muddy walkways, behind-the-scenes drama, and painted smiles made it feel so alive, even though I’d never been there. For the longest time, I didn’t even know its name.
“Rough side o’ town here, ya know? You got business here?”
He says it like “hee-ya”, with a heavy accent. Not from around here, then. The folks I’ve met so far are softspoken, Southern types. The kind who would say “bless yer heart” and might actually mean it. This guy yells like he’s from Jersey, but says he’s been driving here for a while. I kind of believe him.
“How rough?”
He purses his lips and gives a short laugh. “Some guy got shot last week a few streets over. Rough enough for ya?”
My stomach rolls again, and I clench my hands together in my lap tight enough to turn my knuckles white. Maybe Mom was right. When I said I was going to hunt down Uncle Jack’s circus, she crossed herself and told me to leave well enough alone, that I’d go to hell if I found that place. That it took his soul, and it would take mine, too.
I ignored her, of course. She overreacts to everything, so I have plenty of practice ignoring her. Then I packed a bag, took the first flight out to North Carolina, and here I am. In the back seat of a cab that’s headed for the middle of nowhere on the wrong side of town.
On second thought, maybe this wasn’t my smartest move after all.
“Sure.” I give him my best smile, the one reserved for cops giving me a ticket and professors who know my homework’s late. “It’ll do.”
He roars with laughter, tipping his head back as he chortles. “Nice, nice.”
Noice, noice.
I glance out the window again, waiting for the next sign. It feels like we’ve driven far enough to get the one-mile warning, but I haven’t seen it yet. As I watch the blue mountains pass slowly in the distance, I remember Uncle Jack saying they made the world feel smaller. Everywhere he looked, there were mountains blocking the view. Sometimes you had to drive through them, or under them, just to get out. Like a fishbowl, he said once around the cigarette that dangled out of his mouth. It tries to keep you in. Sometimes, though, you gotta swim free.
I knew. After being raised with my overprotective, diligent mother, I knew. And from the first moment I heard his stories, I wanted to swim away and find that magical place, too.
The car slows and veers to the left, the tires crunching on a gravel drive. Unable to keep my patience any longer, I roll down the window and poke my head outside, itching for my first glimpse of the striped tents and the scent of popcorn on the breeze.
I don’t get it yet. But it’s coming.
My cabbie makes a few noises of surprise as we pull into the packed parking lot. “Lotta people here,” he comments as I open my door. “You be careful, yeah?”
I pause, one hand on the handle, and glance at him in the mirror. For the first time in the whole drive, his tone seems serious, and he didn’t follow it up with a noice. He stares back at me, his expression carefully blank, and I get the sense he has something else to say, but doesn’t want to shove his foot into his mouth.
I almost ask what he knows, but I’ve come this far. I defied my mother’s wishes, dragged myself onto a plane, and white-knuckled my way through the drive to get here. I can’t let him scare me now.
“Thanks for the ride.” My shoes crunch on the gravel as I pull myself out and slam the door behind me.
The cab sits there for a second or two, as if waiting to see if I’ll change my mind. When I don’t move or grab for the door again, it rumbles to life, idling forward until it vanishes into the parking lot.
Trying to ignore my wildly beating heart - What did he want? What was he going to say? Was it important? - I screw up my courage and start walking towards the Big Top.
It looks even better than I’d hoped. People swarm the place, their shoes squishing in the mountain mud, their outfits making them look like colorful birds pecking here and there for a treat. On one side, a barker yells something about a show starting soon. On the other, a tattooed man flexes, and a particularly brave teenage girl feels his arm, her cheeks flushed ruby red. Small children troop alongside their parents, periodically darting ahead and running back when they see something interesting. A camel and its rider stand beside the walkway, posing for photos and smiling at the curious guests.
For a second, my spirits lift. It’s exactly like Uncle Jack said it would be. This is where he found his home. I think it might be where I might find mine, too.
I find the ticket booth and pay a few dollars for a little pink piece of paper, handed to me by a lady clown with purple hair. She winks at me, then points over her shoulder, gesturing for me to head inside. I navigate past a family with two kids who are jumping up and down, clapping along with a trained monkey playing the tambourine, and stop just outside the Big Top’s shadowy gate.
A chill wafts through the air. It wraps around my neck, swirls down my arms, hugs my waist. I shiver as it caresses my cheek, then dodges through my legs and finally disappears into the sunlight.
Something doesn’t feel right.
I turn slowly in a circle, noting the cymbal-playing monkey, the banners for each featured act, the whimsical way that people wander from here to there, and - there it is! - the popcorn scent on the breeze. Lemonade vendors bark about cooling off, a toddler screams with delight, and somewhere, a horse whinnies as it saddles up for the show.
Everything is normal, for a circus. Completely, totally normal. I’m getting freaked out over nothing.
I take a deep breath. Calm down. Everything’s fine. You’re just tired from the trip, that’s all. I should’ve followed my gut and booked a hotel room for the night, but I got too excited. Now I’m regretting not getting a few Zs before tackling this life-changing event.
Oh, well. I’m here now. It’ll just have to wait until I get back.
Before I have a chance to change my mind, I duck into the darkness inside the tent. As my eyes adjust, I discover that it’s a bit chaotic with children everywhere and balloon animals and noisemakers and whatnot, but eventually I find a place to sit. Loud places aren’t usually my cup of tea, but Uncle Jack would’ve loved this. It must have been amazing to see it every day. Wake up in a new town, get some familiar food, and on with the show. Tear down that night and move right along. A life of wandering, always on the road. I think it called to him. Maybe it’s calling me, too.
The lights dim, and the families around me cheer as the show begins.
It’s easy to lose myself in the music and the lights. For a while I’m spellbound, watching acrobats swing over my head with no safety net, and roaring lions jump through flaming hoops, and the tattooed man and a ballerina lady riding a pair of trick elephants around the arena. There’s a reason that circuses were such an incredible part of history, and it makes me wonder why so many of them disappeared.
This one seems to be doing fine. Uncle Jack mentioned they had money problems when he left, but they must have found some sort of donor or raised the prices or something, because everything looks new. Bright, colorful, shiny. Just like it must’ve been when Uncle Jack performed.
The lights dim between acts, and I suddenly remember what must’ve made me so anxious. When I first started looking for the Kensington Circus, I found an article about a photographer who’d been investigating another circus. It said he disappeared without a trace, leaving only his camera lying in the field. It wasn’t until a few weeks later when they discovered his remains, all mangled and torn up and bloody. Apparently he’d been attacked by a bear, or so the neighbors said.
That circus wasn’t like this one, though. This one wasn’t abandoned, it was a bustling hive of activity. And I wasn’t a photographer. I was just looking for some information about my uncle. Not to mention there weren’t any bears around, so I’d be fine. No getting mangled or torn to bits today.
A drumroll sings out, and a strongman saunters into the middle ring. I clap so hard my hands hurt. This was Uncle Jack’s job: balancing the heavy stuff. At least, that’s what he pretended to do. He had so many stories about the tricks he used to play on people. Barbells made of styrofoam, phone books already sliced and put back together for easy ripping, a girl on a harness that lifted her up in the air. It was easy to see, he said, once you knew what to look for. Like seeing a magician, if you already know all the tricks.
And he was right. It’s easy to see the tricks this guy plays, too. At one point, he even pretends to pick up a baby elephant, making the crowd burst into applause. I’m guessing it’s a large puppet, somehow designed to house somebody inside it. Styrofoam and felt, just like the barbells. Nothing real about it - except the human inside.
I clapped along anyway, cheering with everyone beside me. Then, as if I called his name, the strongman turns and looks right at me.
My cheers die instantly, goosebumps spreading across my shoulders again as we stare each other down. The audience’s noise fades, like somebody turned down the volume, and the lights seem too bright somehow. Slowly, the strongman bows, and even from this far away, I can see a mocking smile on his face.
There must be a mistake, I think, over and over again. It’s just a show. There’s no way it could be real.
Uncle Jack is dead. So why does this strongman look so familiar?
Previous chapter | The End
Hello, you.
Look at that! We made it to the end of the circus! And you, you brave soul, were here to see the end. If that’s not dedication, I don’t know what is.
Thank you so much for spending your time on this project. It’s been a while in the making - the idea came over a year ago, and it’s taken almost a year to actually complete the thing. It means so much that you’ve taken time out of your week (well, every other week, but who’s counting) to keep up with this horrific tale. What do you think of the end? Were you surprised? I was, and I even wrote the thing.
Now, unfortunately, the real work editing begins. This story might eventually get put behind a paywall, but not in the near future, so read to your heart’s content. In fact, why not share it with someone you love really quick? Or an enemy, if you prefer. Especially if they’re scared of clowns.
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Thanks for being part of the journey, dear readers. I appreciate each and every one of you!
Until next time,
<3 Olivia