Circus of Silence

Back In Business

~*~

Something in her voice changes with that last request,

and it makes you want to do your best

Staying here for a while isn't something you'd mind

and your old life isn't something you'd miss

Or, at least you don't think it is.

You'd remember it if it was.

~*~

              It was back, and it was loud: the telltale rumble of a crowd. Whisper could hear them. She could hear everything. She listened to them crunch and munch and chat and walk and cheer and scream and everything in between. Things had gone back to the way they'd been before. It was like possibility had closed its door.

Noon was quickly approaching- and with it: their first show. Her brother was wearing that collar again, the one with the bells and the big, red bow. Whisper hated it. She hated it because she knew that the little boy whose neck she'd tied it 'round would have hated it. He would have had an absolute fit.

She wished she could tell him not to worry. That Rosalind Maybrush would fix him soon- that she, his nameless sister, would make sure of that. She wished she could say the same to Rosalind.

She wished she wasn't  preoccupied with Harrison.

The mind-reader was still hacking up black sludge wherever he went, and people sometimes came to Whisper to vent. People thought that if she couldn't respond, she couldn't judge, but Whisper didn't mind nearly as much as she let on. For her, people were always there, and then they were gone. "It's even worse than before!" he moaned, clutching at his ribs on the floor of Whisper's dressing room. She was amazed at how someone so stoic could be such a drama queen when pushed hard enough. Harrison shot her a look and told her he'd heard that- but his attention was ripped away rather quickly.

The black sludge formed worms on the ground and started slinking away from him, squirming across the floor. The sight of it had Harrison running for the door. "I mean, what is this? Have you seen this before?"

Whisper shrugged. She didn't know. She may have seen it once or twice, but if she ever had, she didn't remember it. The black worms ran south. It was as if they could as if they were worried Harrison would suck them back up with his nose and his mouth. Her brother pounced, paws pressing into the worms and producing a moist, squishing sound. The worms thrashed, on the ground.

Harrison, miserable Harrison, just ignored him, coughing into another one of Rosalind's handkerchiefs.

             As if thinking her name had sealed Whisper's doom, the old crone wearing Rosalind's soul came hobbling into the room. "I've solved it!" she cried in a voice that was timeless. She used a false accent that made her words rhymeless. "Lord, the mystery of your malady was giving me fits!"

"Then should you all be wearing mits?" Harrison frowned at nothing, and Whisper recognized the reader reading Rosalind's realizations. His dark eyes grew wide. "Good heavens, you're not serious!"

"I swear to God I'm not delirious."

Harrison hacked horribly, then eavesdropped in on Whisper's annoyance at being left out of their mental conversation. "Sorry," he said, blowing out a bit of black bile. "Rosalind was investigating, asking the Marquee about what this might be. She determined that her Grandmother, the old Witch, put them to work as soon as they were cursed. It's been a long, long time since she cursed me, and to make things worse, I'm sitting idle while the Circus Everlasting is open."

That horrible, twisted version of Rosalind's face twisted up into a hideous sneer and Harrison continued to hork. "So to cure him, we must put him to work."

~*~

              "You've got to be kidding me," said Harrison, frowning down at himself and the clothes Rosalind Maybrush had conjured onto him. He wore a mismatch of different fabrics, all of different lengths and different colours, most of them gossamer with thin patterns that shone in the correct lighting. Rosalind's voice alone had stopped his fighting.

The sharpshooter Annie adjusted his hat, giving his back a too-rough pat. "You look fine," she said, nodding her head.

"For a circus freak," grumbled Harrison, picking the dust and the fuzz off his vest. His hat slid forward on his forehead and Annie reached over to adjust it again. Harrison pulled away, scowling. Whisper, who had become accustomed over the years to picking up on nonverbal cues, noticed the blush that crept into his cheeks and wondered what he saw in the sharpshooter's mind. It must have been quite a find.

"Oh, wee lamb," cooed the crone carrying Rosalind's soul in her crazy, fabricated accent. She took to shooing Annie away and adjusting his sashes herself. "I commend your pains, And every one shall share i' th' gains."

"Hag," Harrison hissed, coughing up a little more sludge. Rosalind cackled, her tongue peeking through broken teeth like a snake crawling out of a hole. Disgusting. She'd made herself disgusting. And she'd thought Whisper was unsettling. The Silent Girl rolled her eyes.

The Witch hobbled over to the other side of the tent, like she did not like to be so pent. Try staying here another century, thought Whisper. Like her brother in his cage. Rosalind had proved to be laxer than her predecessor had been, and Whisper had started leaving the brass key that she used to free him in the mornings behind. Rosalind allowed her brother to roam free. Like she knew what freedom really meant.

Freedom to Whisper was walking hand in hand, singing songs that weren't sinister and laughing out loud as she passed under the sign that read 'WELCOME HOME'. Never again visiting fine places like Rome.

Curing her brother, Rosalind still refused to try. She answered every silent request with a sigh. Harrison had hardly helped convince her. Not ready, she kept saying, not ready. And despite the Forever Song, Whisper's heart would not stay steady. Her brother rubbed his whiskers on her knee, bumping his head against her skin. Patience. She'd been patient long enough. Rosalind Maybrush needed to stop giving them guff.

"Shouldn't you be out greeting people?" Harrison huffed at Rosalind. He shot Whisper a look as he did it- a warning.

"Oui," said Rosalind, sweet as could be. She spoke like the youth that no one could see. Did she forget that she'd wrinkled her skin and her hair had gone grey? That her behaviour, paired with her looks, would make people bray? "But first, I shall announce the Circus Everlasting's newest exhibit!" She patted the boy on the back, on the ridiculous costume that cut him no slack.

That night, Whisper's starlight skirt sparkled for far fewer fanatics. All were gathered in the outskirts of the Circus, watching the psychic's perfect pavilion spring up from the soil like a tree growing far too fast. His tent was full until daybreak.

He didn't cough again.

~*~

'Okay' you start to say,

but Hecate beats you to it.

She smiles and laughs, her beauty in place,

as your ticket flutters up in the direction of space.

~*~