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

Audrey wasn’t manipulative. For her mother to keep something from her this long, and to protest this much, meant that Audrey was frightened. And for Audrey to be frightened, it had to be something big. Combining this hunch with what Shane Speer had said to her at the circus and what the man had confirmed last night, Lara thought she’d try to bluff. “I know that she’s trying to kill me.” She stared confidently into her mother’s eyes, not blinking.

Audrey nearly yelped, causing the dogs to lift their heads instantly. “Who told you?”

Lara’s knees went weak. While she thought she was being clever, she really hadn’t anticipated being correct. “The man at the circus.”

“What man at the circus?” Audrey’s eyes widened.

“The fortune-teller.” In exchange for information, Lara had promised Althacazur that she would not tell her mother about him. She thought it wise to keep that promise.

Her mother visibly relaxed. “Oh, my dear, you cannot possibly think that poor teenaged boy was correct about anything. Hell, he wasn’t even through puberty yet.”

But Lara’s bluff had worked. Someone was trying to kill her, and the comment about “the man” had upset her mother terribly. Lara just hadn’t mentioned the right man: Althacazur.

“Of course he was correct. That’s why you’re here telling me not to go to Paris. Cut the bullshit, Mother, and start talking. You’ve never told me the truth about Todd. We both know it.” Lara shrugged.

“Like what?”

Lara shrugged again, noncommittally, but didn’t answer.

Audrey slid onto the counter stool, placing her hands down in front of her, as if steeling herself for what she was about to say next: “There is a spell that we must maintain to keep us safe.”

“A spell?” Lara cocked her head. And then it occurred to her: All the unnatural perfection of the town. It’s a spell. That made sense. It was the only thing, frankly, that made sense, and she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t realized it before.

“The women in our family have been enchanting a protective spell since 1935. When she was nine years old, my mother, Margot, was the first to cast it.”

“Margot? Not Cecile?”

Audrey shook her head. “Apparently not, although I don’t know why. After Mother was gone, I needed to keep it going. Cecile taught me how to do it. She’d seen Margot chant it enough times.”

“I don’t understand. Why does the town need a spell?”

“The town doesn’t need a spell. We do. Kerrigan Falls simply benefits from the protective cloak we place over it. Cecile said that what she’d run away from in Paris would always hunt us without this spell. I have to reaffirm it every year.”

Lara recalled what Althacazur had said to her last night: The fabric of this quaint little community your family has built for you is beginning to tear apart. Without my help, I fear it could be the end for you. This was the fabric he’d been talking about. “Let me guess. You do the spell on October ninth?”

She nodded gravely. “And it goes along fine, except one night every thirty years when the spell seems to come down for one night. Cecile stressed that the spell had to be done at eleven fifty-nine on October ninth… the words must cross over to the tenth, and you must be finished by twelve oh one.”

“That’s why you didn’t want us getting married on that day.”

Audrey closed her eyes, like she was thinking of something painful. “I simply wanted you to move the wedding to the spring. That is a dreadful date and I couldn’t believe you chose it, but I swear that I don’t know what happened to Todd, my dear. You need to believe me. I just know that whatever happened to him, happened on that date, so it may have something to do with us, but I can’t be sure. Cecile wasn’t specific. Ever.” Audrey seemed annoyed at the thought of Cecile. “I always thought she was hiding something, so I guess I can understand your frustration with me.”

Lara remembered how stubborn and secretive Cecile could be, but she knew there was more that Audrey was hiding from her. And it was about Althacazur. “Can I ask what drove grandmother Margot mad?”

Audrey took a sip of her coffee. “It was around the time her magic came in. Cecile said she was turning on radios, lighting the stove. My mother always wanted attention, so she’d often go out of her way with mischief to scare people. Then she announced that she’d seen a man standing in the field. He spoke to her. Mother was never the same after that.”

Lara leaned back on the counter. “Have you seen him, too?”

“Have you?” Her mother’s voice was pointed. She locked eyes with Lara.

Lara wasn’t about to start confessing first, so she bent over the counter toward her mother, waiting for Audrey to reply. She’d endured a lifetime of her mother’s secrets.

When Audrey realized that Lara was waiting for her, she began to speak. “I saw him the first time when I was seven years old. My magic had just come in, and Cecile was terrified that he’d come looking for me. He did, but I told him to go away,” said Audrey with the sad, faraway smile that a distant memory brought her. “Cecile said magic had killed my mother, driven her mad. I saw the anguish on both Cecile’s and my father’s faces when they spoke of my mother, so when it began to happen to me, I wanted nothing to do with this legacy of madness, of magic. Althacazur visited me twice. Both times, I refused to speak to him. On the second visit he even brought my mother along with him.”

“Margot?” Lara realized how cruel this must have been.

“She wasn’t right, even then. Talking crazy.” Audrey wiped her eyes with her hands and tried to clear off her mascara. “I was a child, Lara. I saw my mother—the woman I most wanted to see—and I ignored her. Do you