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

Lara stared blankly, rarely blinking.

“I came as soon as I heard. You’ve been missing three days now. Do you know where you are? You’re in Paris.”

The catatonic woman in front of him was a like a shell.

A hand touched him. It was Gaston, who had now two ambulance attendants behind him. Had he really been sitting here with her for several minutes? Ben and Gaston stepped out of the way to let them attend to Lara.

“She’s in shock,” said Gaston, translating the conversation between the two paramedics. They administered an IV and placed her on a stretcher, pulling it up to wheel it out. The trio followed the ambulance to the Hôpital Hôtel-Dieu in a taxi.

It was as though time had stopped. In the empty waiting room next to him, a French game show blared, its laugh track grating until Ben finally went and turned it off with the remote. But the absence of the television only made him notice the hospital announcements that he couldn’t understand. He’d read Lara’s translations of Cecile Cabot’s journals twice now and was bleary-eyed, nodding off several times, but catching himself and forcing himself to stay awake to find out what happened next. Yet nothing happened next. They just sat around in silence. He guessed this qualified as a damsel-in-distress situation. And he had to admit, flying to Paris to rescue Lara had made him feel alive again. After what seemed like hours, with the three of them sitting on plastic chairs, a doctor finally emerged. Gaston and Barrow were engaged with the man, nodding gravely. Ben cursed himself for not studying French in high school. The doctor nodded and walked off.

“That didn’t sound good.” Ben put his hands in his pockets and steeled himself for the worst.

“It isn’t.” Gaston looked defeated.

“She has a raging fever,” explained Barrow. “They aren’t sure if it’s an infection, but right now she isn’t responding to antibiotics or anything they’re giving her. She’s on IVs and is dehydrated terribly, plus she’s in shock.”

“I want to see her,” said Ben.

Barrow shook his head. “They’re trying to limit her guests right now. They are afraid it could be sepsis.”

Gaston walked off, looking for a pay phone.

He was probably calling Audrey, Ben thought. Poor bastard. That was a call no one should have to make.

Barrow sat down on the chair. They’d taken over an entire family waiting area where the scholar pored over the composition books, particularly the passages about coming and going from the circus and Cecile not feeling well. Ben had draped himself heavily in the chair across from him.

They’d all memorized the story told within the three composition books, looking for some clue as to what might have happened to Lara in Le Cirque Secret, not that anyone in the hospital would have believed them if the answer had been spelled out in its pages.

In fact, Ben could hardly believe it himself. While the journals were fantastic tales of another dimension, part of him still had to consider that this was entirely fiction. The Ouija board that had led him to Desmond “Dez” Bennett was something he couldn’t explain away, though; nor did he have a rational answer for the ritual killings in Kerrigan Falls. At heart, Ben Archer was a rational man, so buying into this whole otherworldly answer was challenging, and without talking to Lara he couldn’t make that leap. There was a distinct possibility that Lara had been kidnapped by the same person who had chased her—a human person. Only Lara could clear this up, and the only way she could do that was to wake up.

“She said it was hard on the body, traveling back and forth.” Barrow pointed to the line in the notes.

Gaston was back and slid into the seat beside him. “Yeah, but while that circus operated for two years, hundreds of people traveled to and fro without harm.”

“Not for three days they didn’t,” said Ben, interrupting the theory-building going on between the two.

“Do we think he would come if we called him?” said Barrow. He turned to the men, and it was clear from the steady gaze that met their eyes that he was serious. “When Giroux was dying, Cecile called him. We could try to call him.”

“And Giroux died anyway, and all Cecile got was a fucking carousel.” Gaston put his head back and studied the ceiling.

“I hate waiting.” Though exhausted, Ben couldn’t relax and was in and out of his chair, pacing.

“That won’t help, you know,” said Gaston. “Unless you want to polish the floor with your shoes.”

Ben Archer felt powerless. He was a man who needed control over his environment. Now here he was, in Paris of all places, waiting for Lara to wake up and considering that, as time went on, the possibility of her recovering was becoming smaller and smaller. Over the PA system, a woman’s voice called for doctors and the occasional code bleu in French. He hated the fact that he didn’t even understand the fucking language in this country. He rubbed his neck, which was aching. His entire body felt sick, flu-like. He hadn’t slept for more than forty-eight hours.

“I’m going to go to the hotel and get a shower, maybe a nap,” said Gaston. The man had deep lines on his face and dark circles under his eyes. Though he consumed a steady diet of espresso and Toblerone, Gaston’s clothing hung on him. “You should consider doing the same thing. You look terrible.”

Ben’s bag was still packed, and he hoped he still had a hotel room to check into. “I’ll catch the next shift,” said Ben. “You go.”

After Gaston went back to the hotel, Ben settled into the chair, watching a French-language dub of Blow-Up. Soon he was fast asleep.

The elevator dinged and the cleaning crew moved through, mopping and scrubbing chairs, waking Ben. He checked his watch. It was six in the morning. He’d been asleep for five