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Chapter Six
The autumn night grew colder, the first harbinger that winter was coming a bit earlier than usual.
Thankfully, the tents that comprised our sleeping quarters were cozy and warm. All around me hung posters of past circus events, but one especially caught my eye. It was a drawing of Valida, her hands grabbing the hem of her skirt and hiking it up just high enough to view her garter belt!
“Ah, yez!” Valida clapped her hands excitedly as she popped up from her cot which was just across from mine. “Zees is zee portrait I spoke of! Isn’t eet lovely?”
I nodded and smiled at her. “You really look spectacular, Valida.”
“Aw, she’s just fishin’ fer compliments, love,” Halfrieda groaned from her cot, next to mine.
I slipped between the stiff white sheets and settled underneath the thin brown blanket. After fluffing the flat pillow a few times, it felt comfortable enough. It wasn’t my soft mattress at home, but was better than sleeping on the ground certainly.
At that thought, I tried to recall my soft mattress at home and, strangely, found I couldn’t. Even recalling the details of my bedroom was proving near impossible. It was almost as if joining the Cirque du Noir had completely unraveled my previous life, had rendered it obsolete and now even recalling visuals from my life before was near impossible.
Strange.
“Long day, huh?” Halfrieda asked.
“You could say that.” I rolled onto my side, restyling my hair into a ponytail on top of my head. “I just… I have this strange feeling.”
“Strange feelin’?” Halfrieda repeated.
I breathed in deeply and sighed, feeling the sudden urge, the sudden need, to get my thoughts off my chest. And so I did. “Everything is new and exciting here, maybe odd and a little scary sometimes, but at the same time, I have this very odd feeling as though I’ve been here all my life. Like I’ve known all of you before and I belong here in a way I’ve never quite experienced before.”
Halfrieda yawned. “Yeah, the Cirque’s got a funny way o’ doin’ that ta folks—I think they call it the deeja-vuu. If you aren’t careful, ye’ll git gobbled up.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of that statement, but was also too tired to dissect it. Instead, I snuggled under the covers and closed my eyes, hoping I’d fall asleep quickly. Then something occurred to me. “Halfrieda?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know anything about that old fortune teller in the booth by the entrance gate?” I figured it was worth a shot. If the old woman had actually been real, I was more than sure Halfrieda would know who she was.
“What fortune teller?”
“The woman with the crystal ball with the caravan… she sold all sorts of colorful shawls.”
“Ain’t no one ringin’ a bell.”
I breathed in deeply as my heart started to beat faster. “She had white hair and crooked, yellow teeth? Oh, and a hairy mole on her chin.” I kept offering more details, but Halfrieda raised an eyebrow at me, and it was obvious she had no clue to whom I was referring. “She had the caravan nearest the entrance to the circus?”
“Honey, we ain’t got a fortune teller in this troupe.” Then she looked at Valida and laughed. “Seems our die is already cast.”
My stomach dropped, because that could only mean one thing—I was hallucinating the woman. That or she really was a spirit—a ghost come to haunt me. “Are you sure?”
“Sure as my name’s Halfrieda.”
A cold knot formed in my stomach. God, what is wrong with me? First, I get lost on my way to the sleeping quarters, then I completely imagine a person into being? Not to mention all the faces of the passersby I couldn’t see. There had to be some sort of explanation…
“Don’t look so pale,” Halfrieda reassured me. “Your old fortune teller’s prolly just some grifter. They like ta tail us sometimes ta make an extra buck. I’m sure that old lady was jist one o’ them, but tell Rex ‘bout it tomorrow so he can scout the perimeter.”
“Okay.” That was somewhat reassuring to hear—the woman might have been a grifter. At least it made sense, which was better than thinking I’d just imagined her or she was a ghost. But that still didn’t explain everything. For example, it didn’t explain how I’d gotten so turned around on my way to the sleeping quarters? It also didn’t explain how the old woman had known my name? I didn’t mention those things to Halfrieda though. No, some things were better left unsaid, lest people wonder if you’ve lost all your marbles.
A good night’s sleep would clear it all up. At least, I hoped that would be the case.
“Halfrieda?” I began to ask, but my new friend had already rolled over and was snoring softly. I flopped onto my back and stared up at the tent canopy, trying to remember what I wanted to ask her. It was a question about someone… Someone’s name, perhaps? But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember whose name. And what did Halfrieda mean when she said our die was already cast? The questions buzzed inside my head like a beehive.
So many questions and no answers.
