The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers (the little red hen ebook TXT) 📕

Cecile went to protest, but he put his hand up.

“I know, I know,” he said, his eyes rolling. “Greatest love, blah, blah.”

Mr. Tisdale chirped.

“I know what I did to Esmé wasn’t fair, but this decades-long tantrum is frankly tiring. I’m getting a lot of grief about it. Lucifer has told me that I must get her under control. So now we come to you, Ms. Barnes. You come from a long line of my descendants. You aren’t entirely mortal—you’re also part cambion. Perhaps you’ve noticed that you live in a perfect town. With no crime. Zero. Well, that’s Cecile’s doing. She gave Margot a spell, but I hear your mother keeps it up quite well, the way one would take care of a lawn. Audrey is a general bore, but she knew how to protect you from Esmé. Sadly, that spell doesn’t work outside Kerrigan Falls, so my dear child nearly killed you the other day at the Père Lachaise.”

“The woman who chased me? It was Esmé?”

“That was my sister who tried to kill you,” said Cecile. “Audrey gave you a spell, but it didn’t work or you didn’t perform it correctly. I made Father intervene. Usually he won’t, but for some reason he’s taken with you.”

“Why is she trying to kill me?” Lara shifted her gaze from Cecile to Althacazur, irritated that no one seemed to be jumping to answer what she thought was a pressing question.

Cecile looked irritated, so she began the story. “After I fell from the trapeze and died, as she promised, Sylvie took Margot and fled to America—you knew her as Cecile Cabot, your great-grandmother. My sister also ran away from the circus, but it wasn’t so easy. With me dead and her gone, no enchantment was required at the circus anymore. She’s a great illusionist, so she took what she learned from Father and figured that if she wanted to keep up the illusion of being young, beautiful, and immortal, she needed to keep killing. Maintaining the spell on herself has been a lot easier than on a full circus, so instead of killing each time we move, she only has to do it every thirty years, on October ninth, our birthday. On that day she finds a man and sacrifices him. Like Émile, he needs to bleed. She’s a hundred years old now, but I bet she’s still stunning.” Cecile looked at Althacazur. “How was that?”

“Quite accurate,” said Althacazur. “The bitter flourish really does add a lot.”

Like a bored tour guide, Althacazur pointed at the next attraction. “We’re under the Styx right now, kind of like the Eurostar Hell Line.” They came up to a white sand beach with black trees and red leaves. Lara could see animals—more accurately, animal skeletons—grazing on the sand.

The trees shook themselves as they went past, and leaves pelted them. Althacazur plucked the leaves from Lara’s hair.

“Oh no,” said Cecile, grabbing at Lara and plucking frantically.

Lara suddenly felt woozy.

“They’re poisonous.” Althacazur sounded annoyed. “The tree is showing off for you. Don’t worry, if you stop breathing, Tisdale has the antidote in his pocket.”

The monkey looked more alarmed still and patted his pocket, shaking his head.

“We need to go back now,” said Cecile, leaping to her feet.

“And Todd? You told me you’d tell me what happened to him.” Suddenly her mouth felt dry.

Cecile nodded and patted her hand. “She could kill any man she wanted. It doesn’t matter, but killing Émile did something to her—she enjoyed it and I think it made her stronger. As I got weaker from delivering my child, she actually gained strength. In her mind, had I not been pregnant with Margot, he’d have chosen her, so she took revenge on Margot by killing Desmond Bennett. Poor Margot fell apart—she always had a wild streak, some cambions do—but the magic combined with Dez’s disappearance was her undoing. Esmé killed Émile, Dez, Peter, and Todd. Every man we’ve loved, she’s chosen for revenge.”

“I blame myself. I sent Esmé to the White Forest. Sadly, she didn’t come back the same,” said Althacazur with true sadness in his voice. “I had thought she was just like me and could endure it, but I was wrong. For that, I have extended her liberties, but it is becoming politically difficult to continue. She must come back to the circus.”

Lara wondered if anyone realized that she was fading, but they kept talking among themselves. “I don’t feel well.” Her head felt heavy and she had trouble getting the words out. The trio stared at her trying to understand what she was saying.

“We’re almost to the top,” said Althacazur.

But Lara had stopped listening to their argument, tuning it out like a radio frequency. Todd is dead.

She became aware of a silence. All this time, she’d realized that she’d been kidding herself that she was prepared for this news. Oh, she’d uttered grand words about wanting to know the truth, and she’d pursued the mystery of Todd’s disappearance with Ben Archer like some modern-day Nancy Drew, but Lara had never, never considered what this moment would feel like. All hope was now lost, and the cold reality of his death hit her. Sure, she’d waited for hunters to find his body in a patch of Wickelow Forest, or at least discover fabric from his shirt or a sneaker, some evidence of doom to slow-walk her to this moment. At times, she thought she’d felt his death and steeled herself for the news that would come one day. And Lara found she couldn’t cry. Even though she was poisoned and not concerned about herself, she refused to cry in front of these people. Audrey, Ben, Caren, yes, but these strangers… no.

“Lara.” It was Cecile who spoke.

She saw a chandelier, a lovely thing really. Had she been of better mind, she would have marveled at it. Were they in a cave? She’d forgotten. Above her a chandelier twirled—or was she twirling? She’d thought she’d been on a