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  But the night had worn on and as Hayden had drawn face after face, settling back into the familiar rhythm of the midway, his jealousy had subsided. In its place, though, crept the burning shame and the presentiment that although he had returned, he might have lost Ruby forever. Hayden had avoided her all day through the carnival setup, but the longer he was away from her, the more paralyzing the fear became. Once the midway had begun to thin out, he’d closed down his stand and headed toward the snake tent. He still wasn’t ready to talk to her, to try to explain himself, but he had to at least see her. Hayden’s cowardice had reduced him to peeping through the gaps of the tent for a glimpse, and when he finally set eyes on her, he found that his breath had been stolen away from him.

  Ruby. It made his bones ache to look at her. He could feel it in the marrow, piercing. The longing for her sucking out his pride and his disgrace simultaneously, leaving him hollow. Carved. A gutted shell. She looked the same as when he’d said goodbye to her, though then her face had been glowing with apprehension and hope, and now it was a mask of studied seduction and poise. She had never liked for him to see her performing. It wasn’t her, she claimed, but Hayden knew that this side of Ruby defined her just as much as her rebellion in wearing trousers and smoking cigarettes, or her laugh, or the odd way she had of looking at people as if she were weighing their hearts in her hands. All of it was Ruby and the parts of her that he knew stuck in him like shards of glass and the parts that he didn’t seemed to mock him cruelly from a distance. He wanted it all, to grasp every part of her, even if it tore him to ribbons, even if it ripped him asunder. It would be no less than he deserved.

  Let me tell you about carnivals. There was once a god named Cronus. He had a terrible bloodlust. He killed his own father, he married his own sister, he ate his own children. One of those types of gods. Always raging against something. Always having to bite the head off of something or send down thunder or start earthquakes. The priests later said that one of his children escaped and this child became the god Zeus, but this is not entirely true. No matter.

  What the gods do is one thing and what humans do with the gods’ stories is another. For some reason, the Greeks looked on the reign of Cronus as a time of idyllic delight. A golden age. And most of the people were stupid, so maybe it was a happy time. Apparently, all anyone did was drink and fornicate and eat fruit off of trees. They did have to offer themselves up occasionally, human sacrifices and all that, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. It was all very clean, very peaceful. Just slitting throats on altars, you understand.

  A thousand years later, once Cronus had grown tired and left for the West and Zeus had come along with all of his rules, all of his many god sisters and brothers and incestuous children, the people grew nostalgic for the times of the past, as people always do. So they started up the festival of the Cronia and decided to let themselves have a little fun. For a week or so at the end of the year they turned everything upside down. Slaves became masters. Masters became slaves. Men women and women men and so on. Lines blurred, all caution was thrown to the wind and everyone was happy again. Men of no stature, criminals even, were appointed the Kings of Cronia and could do whatever they liked for those few days. Anything at all. Though, in the end, they still had to have their throats cut.

  Of course, the Romans picked this up, though they added on yet more guidelines. Only one king was appointed, the Lord of Misrule, and so at the end of the gluttony, only one man had to die, which, I suppose, was a bit more humane. And since the Romans had been calling Cronus Saturn for some time, the Cronia became the Saturnalia. Do you see where this is going? Time passed, the calendar was moved around a little, empires rose and fell, the gods were given new names and the Saturnalia became the Italian Carnevale, later stolen by the French to become Mardi Gras, and next thing you know it’s the twelfth century and you’ve got Bartholomew’s Fair popping up in London like a toadstool. I’m sure you know where it leads from there. Dark ages be damned, people were going to have their fun and it just kept right on going. Different places, different names, until here you are, it’s three thousand years later and not much has changed. There are electric lights and motorcars, but it’s all still topsy-turvy. It’s a bit more spectacle than participation, the women take their clothes off behind a tent wall, it’s mostly children who gorge themselves on sweets, but the intoxication of revelry is still in the air. For a moment, on this path they call a midway, every man feels that he is a king. And while Cronus is not here, he is still slumbering in the West, I am biting the heads off of chickens to the screeches of a blood-spattered crowd. If Cronus does one day wake to discover that his legacy has been usurped by the occupation of the glomming geek, I am sure that he will not be pleased.

  “What is your opinion of the new geek?”

  Ruby looked over her shoulder at Samuel and groaned. She was right in the middle of sweeping out her wagon and he had a look on his face like he wanted something from her. Most people said they couldn’t read Samuel at all, that his face was a mask carved from stone, but Ruby knew him better than most. There were slight nuances in the arch of his eyebrows or the flare of his nostrils. The turned-down corners of his mouth. Samuel was standing at the base of the wagon, waiting, and she knew that he wasn’t going to go away. The small space that had been her home for the past twelve years, the place where she could sleep and read and think in peace, became coated in carnival detritus every time they made a jump. She’d gotten most everything clean again, except for the thin layer of sawdust shaken from the snake boxes that now resided underneath the stage in the tent. It was a losing battle, her wagon would be stuffed again when they moved on in the next few days, but she had to try. Ruby rested the straw broom against the doorframe and came down the steps to Samuel.

  “New geek? I didn’t know we had one.”

  Ruby wiped her palms down the front of her trousers and sat on the bottom step. She took a package of cigarettes out of the front pocket of her shirt and tapped one out. Samuel waited patiently for her to light it.

  “Yes. We have a new geek. We took him on right before we left Sulphur.”

  “You mean, right after Jacob died.”

  Samuel crossed his arms and frowned.

  “That’s correct. Apparently, he was very convincing in his application to Pontilliar. I wasn’t privy to the conversation. And so, yes, we now have a new geek.”

  “All right. So who is he? I guess I haven’t seen him.”

  “If you had, you would remember. He does not resemble any geek you’ve ever encountered before.”

  Ruby blew a stream of smoke out of the side of her mouth.

  “Wait a minute. Tall? Wearing a suit like he just stepped off Wall Street? The sun reflecting off his hair and teeth like to put your eyes out?”

  Samuel nodded.

  “So you’ve seen him.”

  She studied the ash on the end of her cigarette. Ruby had seen the man in the suit a few times now, always from a distance, and nothing had happened to her like what had occurred the first time. No swirling lights, no darkness, no burning in her chest. He still made her uneasy, but it couldn’t be his fault she had seen stars and collapsed. Ruby had gone through the incident over and over in her head, though each time the details faded further into something that more resembled just a feeling. That could definitely have been brought on by the heat. And the exhaustion. A few years back, the Star Light had done a double jump across South Carolina, seventy-two hours straight with a show in the middle, and by the time they reached Charleston, half the freaks and most of the rousties were hallucinating. Seeing mirages and talking nonsense. Somewhere inside of her, in a tiny, chipped part that she kept locked away, Ruby knew she hadn’t just been hallucinating. But as she had no other explanation, she kept that thought buried deep. Besides, she had one too many other things taking up space in her mind.

  Ruby nodded back.

  “I’ve seen him. The guy practically twinkles. How could I not? I guess it makes sens
e now. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he was doing on the midway yesterday morning.”

  Samuel tilted his head slightly.

  “Do you know how much that suit costs?”

  Ruby flicked the ash off her cigarette and gestured with it toward Samuel’s bow tie. In this heat, every man working the show, even Pontilliar, had hung up his tie and at least popped the top button of his collar. But here was Samuel, with his pressed white shirt, the sleeves down and the cuffs fastened. Not since he’d left his show days behind as Mutumbo, the Wild Man of Borneo, had he been seen in anything less. Ruby cracked a half-smile.

  “No. But I’m sure you do.”

  Samuel’s eyebrows came down in a scowl.

  “And the price of that suit doesn’t bother you? The fact that a man wearing such a suit is now in our midst, as a geek no less. That doesn’t concern you?”

  Ruby swung her legs and looked down at the dirt below her boots.

  “Look, I’m busy. What do you want?”

  She glanced back up at Samuel’s dispassionate face and sighed.

  “All right, so the guy’s a fruitcake. So what? You remember that banker man Pontilliar picked up in Nashville? A few years back. Caught his wife with her skirt up over her head with the milkman or something and went a little crackers.”

  “Paperboy.”

  “What?”

  “Mr. Brates. He caught his wife with the paperboy. Fourteen years old.”

  The sweat was pooling on the backs of Ruby’s thighs. She slid off the step and pulled at her trousers.

  “Of course you remember. You remember everything. You’ve probably still got his vitals written down on an index card somewhere.”

  Samuel dipped his head slightly.

  “So you’re making a comparison.”

  Ruby tossed her cigarette into the dirt and ground it out with her heel.

  “I’m just saying. That guy was nuts, too. Left all his money to his cheating wife and ran off to join the circus. As a candy butcher, no less. He was out on the midway selling cotton candy in a three-piece suit and brand new homburg. He looked like more of a freak than the Rabbit Girl we had on loan that year.”

  “Daniel Revont is not selling candy.”

  “Is that the new geek’s name?”

  Ruby walked over to the side of the wagon and dunked her hands in a bucket of water that had been sitting out in the sun. She raised a palmful of water to her face.

  “Listen, you know where we work. People join up for all sorts of bizarre reasons.”

  She splashed the water on her face and then wiped her face on the shoulder of her shirt. The tepid water did little to cool her off.

  “Come on, Samuel, let it go. I don’t like the look of the geek either, but what’s that got to do with me?”

  Samuel came around the steps to her. He looked disdainfully down into the bucket of water.

  “I just want you to keep an eye on him. Pay attention when I can’t. See things like you do. And let me know what’s going on.”

  Ruby shook her head.

  “No, thank you. You got it in for this guy because his fashion sense is better than yours, fine. But I’ve got better things to do.”

  “Such as hide from Mr. Morrow?”

  Ruby’s face flushed and she stepped closer to Samuel.

  “Don’t talk to me about Hayden.”

  Samuel finally uncrossed his arms.

  “Fine. We won’t talk about Hayden. But what if I told you that our new geek, Mr. Revont, has been seen in the company of January?”

  Ruby stepped back from Samuel and narrowed her eyes.

  “What kind of company? January cut all that out when Tom came along. And she never rolled with trade. Not that it’s any of your business to begin with.”

  Samuel nodded slowly.

  “Of course. But January is perhaps too nice to everyone.”

  “January can take care of herself.”

  “I’m simply letting you know.”

  Ruby held Samuel’s eyes for a moment and then shook her head in disgust. She walked past him toward the snake tent, but then stopped and spoke over her shoulder to his back.

  “Let it go, Samuel. Just let it go. And leave me out of it. Christ, as if I didn’t have enough trouble already.”

  Hayden started with the lines of the center pole and the curve of the bale ring. The rest of the tent flared out from there, the red, blue and yellow panels swooping down to the quarter poles and then the side poles in a ripple of sun-bleached canvas. He was sketching out the high wire platform and didn’t have to worry about shading in the lengths of dusty canvas that tumbled down to the dirt, enclosing the big top. A few of the smaller side panels were tied back to the poles to let in a breeze, but for the most part, the air inside the tent was stagnant and reeked of dried sweat. The carnival smell.

  A whistle sang out through the stuffy air and Hayden turned his head to find it. Zena was standing on the other high wire platform and waved down to him. She was the tallest of the Russian acrobats, and standing thirty-five feet up in the air she somehow seemed even taller. The sun filtering down through the canvas panels bathed her in an ethereal light and made her long blond hair glow around her head in a luminous halo. Hayden waved back from his seat on the third tier of the grandstand benches and then glanced down at Niko, Zena’s uncle and trainer. He was standing in the middle of the ring, underneath the high wire net, with his hairy, beefy arms crossed and deep scowl lines between his eyes. Hayden waved to him, too, but Niko’s scowl only grew deeper.

  Hayden spent the next hour in the big top tent, sketching Zena and Sonja practicing first on the wire and then the trapeze. Their brother, Mikael, joined them, tossing the girls effortlessly through the air. They sailed from one end of the big top to the other like flying fish, skimming across the surface of the ocean. When the final two Russian acrobats and Tito the Strongman showed up in the ring for warm-up, Hayden knew it was time to leave. It was early afternoon and the Star Light would be opening soon.

  He closed his sketchbook and stood up. Even though none of the Russians were paying him any attention, he felt self-conscious now that they were all in the ring.Whereas years before, when he had been an almost permanent fixture in the big top before show hours, enjoying the quiet coolness where he could read or draw, Hayden now had the sense that he wasn’t quite as welcome. It was only the second day of their stop in Baton Rouge and no one had said anything yet, but he knew everyone was watching him. Trying to figure out what he was doing back. Wondering what was going to happen with Ruby. Hayden was extremely taciturn about his personal life, and Ruby was even more so, but carnival life allowed for little privacy.

  Hayden was starting down the grandstands when he saw her, standing in one of the tied-back tent openings, watching him. Ruby was backlit by the blinding sun, so it was hard to see her face, but it was obviously her. She was standing still, with her arms crossed tightly over her chest and her held high and erect as if she were judging him. Appraising him. Hayden froze and waited.

  Just as it was impossible to have any privacy, it was near impossible to avoid someone in the cramped quarters of a carnival, and he’d already seen Ruby that morning at the cookhouse. He had stood up from the table as soon as he saw her coming, but she had immediately turned in the opposite direction with her cup of coffee and headed back toward the wagons. They hadn’t made eye contact, and he hadn’t been sure whether to go after her or to let her be. The other gamesmen and rousties at the table had observed his movements carefully, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if there was money on how long it would take him to talk to Ruby. Finally, Franklin had jerked at his sleeve and told him to sit down already. Give her time. Let her come to him if she wanted.

  So now Hayden waited to see what Ruby was going to do. She stood there for a moment longer and then gave a slight shake of her head. She started to turn away, then stopped and looked at him again. Hayden didn’t know what to do. He wanted to talk to her, had to ta
lk to her, but he wasn’t going to beseech her. He wasn’t going to beg. Hayden forced himself not to reach out to her. He tucked his sketchbook under his arm and put his hands in his pockets, waiting.

  Ruby turned on her heel and disappeared out into the sunlight. Hayden cast his eyes down at his shoes. He supposed she wasn’t ready yet.

  January stood on the bally in front of the Girl Revue tent and pouted her lips. She swayed just slightly, with one hand perched on her slim hip and the other dangling languidly at her side, and surveyed the onlookers before her.

  “Yessiree, boys, you’ve never seen anything like our Cherry here. Other shows might promise you the wild, the exotic, but you’ll get none of that here. Cherry is one hundred percent homegrown American and as sweet as apple pie. ’Course, you’d have to find that out for yourself, gents.”

  Otis winked at the crowd and then pointed at January with his cane. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and pushed her silk robe back so she could rest her hand on the waist of her slip. It was a simple gesture, and one that didn’t display any more skin than she was already showing, but it always did the trick. The mothers in the crowd, who had tolerantly been standing behind their curious sons or daughters, now turned their children quickly by the shoulders and headed off across the midway. This gave the men a little more freedom to ogle, and January made sure to give each a slight, shy smile. Otis kept on beside her, banging his cane down on the wooden bally so hard that January could feel the vibrations beneath her high-heeled shoes.