Circus Summer (Circus of Curiosities Book 1) (18 page)

            “What do you mean?” Leela asks, carefully.

            “My grandfather and the people he was with figured out a long time ago that something strange was happening at the Center,” I explain. “People go there. They go there because they’re sick, or because they want a better life, or just because they’ve heard how good the Center is. But the people who go there… they change.”

            “Change as in…”

            “They’re completely different people.” There’s no other way to put it than that. They go there as one person, and they look the same when they come back, but it’s like there’s another person inside them when they do.”

            Leela understands what I’m saying instantly. “When Ellis was talking about the Invaders, you said that they could take over people’s bodies. Is that what’s happening? Are you saying…”

            “That the Invaders control most if not all of the people at the heart of our government,” I say. “That they’ve taken people over one by one, and we never even noticed.”

            Leela gasps at that. “They’ve been in power? I thought we were fighting them?”

            “Think, Leela,” I say. “They keep people ignorant about what happens at the Center. We hear about the Invaders stripping back technology, but the Center never tries to hand out any of the technology it has. Technology helps people communicate with each other, help societies advance forward, travel outside of their towns, yet somehow, the Center wants to keep it away, scarce. They want to keep it out of our hands. And then there’s the circus. Why have that? Why have something so dangerous as simple entertainment?”

            “To keep us in our place,” Leela says, obviously remembering what the two unseen figures back at the circus said. “To remind us that we need them. Is that why Dr. Dex won’t help anyone? Is he really that cruel? He’s working for the Invaders?”

            “That’s what it looks like,” I say. “I don’t know what’s going on. I do know… I’m at the Circus of Curiosities because I had a vision, one where I saw myself exposing the Invaders in the Center. One where I saw what happens if I don’t.”

            “What will happen?” Leela asks.

            “We lose the war. Not the war that they say we’re fighting, but the real war. The one in the shadows. We lose, and every human ends up as their slave.”

            Leela’s hand finds my arm then. “No wonder you were so serious about getting there. With all that… all that, and you still saved me.”

            “I’d do it again,” I  promise. “A hundred times.” I say that with such conviction, I don’t know if Leela would pick up on how I’ve come to feel about her.

            We’re close to my parents’ house now, pulling up into the driveway, but Leela is still talking.

            “You’re right. This is all kind of hard to believe, but with what I heard before, with everything that’s happened… I’m not sure what to believe now. My mother. I was going to take her to the Center. I was going to go there looking for answers about my father. If I had…”

            “They’d have taken her,” I say, stopping the car and getting out. I reach out for Leela’s hand. “I had to tell you so that you’d know what the stakes were, and so that you’d be able to make a real choice about staying in the circus.”

            “But if I don’t, my mother still doesn’t get better, right?” Leela says.

            I can hear the party going on inside. There’s music, food, and probably all my friends. I wait a moment or two longer though. “Leela, we’ll get her better, but not by taking her to the Center to be turned into one of those… things. There are still physicians left, in hiding. I can get you to them if you want. It has to be better than you trying to get to the Center.”

            “And these physicians can cure her?”

            “Maybe,” I say. I don’t want to make Leela a promise that might turn out to be a lie. “They’re better than anything around here, at least. The Invaders sent a lot of them off to the war to treat soldiers, or rather to get killed, but some of them know the truth. They’re in hiding, fighting the real war.”

            “Is that where my father went?” she asks.

            I shake my head. “I don’t know. He knew, I’m sure of that, so maybe. If I can help you find out what happened to him. I will. I promise.”

            Leela stands there, looking at me. “Thank you, Zachary. For that. For all of this. I…”

            I don’t get to find out what she’s going to say next, because the door opens at that point, revealing a few of the guys from the football team.

            “Zachary, there you are. What are you doing standing out there? Come on, this party is just getting good.”

            As they pull me inside, I find myself thinking that however good this party is, it won’t be as good as simply spending time around Leela. That’s when I know I’ve fallen in love with her.

Chapter
21

Leela

I
find myself alone, looking around the house as the party goes on around me. It’s a nice house, maybe not the largest in town but definitely the most expensively furnished. Because of their store, the Niles’ can afford better things than most people. Because of their truck, they can even simply fetch them from other towns.

            There are plenty of people in the house. Friends of Zachary’s I know from school, other people from around town… there’s music being provided on an old gramophone, wound by whoever happens to be closest. I guess even for the Niles a regular electricity supply is hard to find.

            I feel so alone in the middle of all that. Zachary is there somewhere, but his friends have taken him away for now, leaving me by myself in the party. I can see people looking at me. I didn’t get to go home and change after all, so I’m still dressed in the blue dress I wore to go to the circus. Do they recognize me from there? Of course they do.

            “There you are.”

            I look around to see a woman I recognize as Zachary’s mother. She looks a lot like him, with the same dark hair and steely grey blue eyes. She smiles, holding out a glass of punch that I take gratefully. “Thank you.”

            “I’m glad you did so well in the performances,” she says.

            “Even though I’m competing against your son?”

            She nods, although she looks like there are lots of emotions going on beneath the surface in that moment. She actually looks like she might cry. “You have such chemistry, the two of you. I’m glad… I’m happy Zachary can experience those feelings at least before…”

            I reach out to take her hand. “You don’t really want him to go through with the performance, do you?”

            Mrs. Niles looks at me and smiles, though something about that smile doesn’t quite ring true. “But of course I do. Any parent would be proud that their child made it, and so am I.”

            Yet even as she says it, another set of words spring into my head. It’s like I’m hearing two versions of her. The one speaking, and the one I can hear in my mind.

            “I know you know,” she says in my head.

            I jump as I hear that, almost spilling my drink. Mrs. Niles keeps looking at me, saying something about how we’d best be careful that I don’t get punch on my pretty dress, but the words that matter are the ones that ring through my head.

            “Good, you can hear me. Zachary was right. You aren’t one of them. One of the Invaders. We have to be so careful these days. They’re everywhere. They could be anyone.”

            “How can you tell?” I ask that out loud. It must sound like an odd thing to say to anyone nearby, but I don’t care right then.

            Mrs. Niles continues talking in her mind’s voice, the words clear and calm, like she’s talking to me from just a short distance away.

            “In the years following the Apocalypse, so many things changed. Humans finally learned to unlock the talents that lay dormant within them. We learned to tap into our sixth sense and communicate with our thoughts. The strongest of us can communicate through visions and dreams, walk through them. But only humans can do it. The Invaders cannot. That’s how I know you’re human.”

            “Why can’t they…”

            Mrs. Niles shakes her head, cutting me off. “Don’t say it aloud,” she says in my thoughts. “Think about it before you speak. The Invaders don’t have the imagination or emotional capacity to do what we do. They’re… cut off from their emotions, I guess you could say. Or maybe they just don’t feel them the same way we do. They don’t
think
quite the same way we do.”

            “And Zachary…”

            “Shh,” Mrs. Niles says out loud. “Come with me, I want to show you something.”

            She takes my hand, leading me out of the room, away from the party. There’s a door at the back of the kitchen leading to a set of stairs heading down to the house’s basement level, and Mrs. Niles takes me down those stairs. I start to feel a little worried. What’s going on? Where exactly is Zachary’s mother taking me?

            There’s another door at the bottom, and Mrs. Niles knocks on it in a peculiar pattern before walking in, leading me through. The light there isn’t strong, from low oil lamps that don’t glow much, so that it takes my eyes a little while to adjust. When they do, I stand there staring.

            The room we’re in is huge; larger than the whole plan of the house above. There are maybe twenty people in here, most of whom I recognize from Sea Cliff. Mr. Niles is there, and Frank, and Mrs. Tattenbaum. And there’s one person there I’m really not expecting…

            Dr. Dex.

            I almost turn and run from the room at the sight of him. I look around, trying to work out the best way to get out of there. If he’s been talking to the Invaders who came to the circus, working with them…

            “There, there, Leela, don’t be so alarmed.” The words drift into my mind, the same way Mrs. Niles’ did. The same way Zachary’s did. “You are in no danger. All will be explained as soon as everyone’s here.”

            There’s another knock at the door just then. The same complicated pattern Mrs. Niles used. The door opens to reveal Zachary… and Thomas.

            “Thomas!” I say heading over. “I thought after everything, you’d be too mad at me to come to the party, but…”

            Thomas looks so serious then that I stop, not hugging him the way I was planning to. “Leela, I’m not here for the party. I’m here solely for this meeting. My mother told me to come.”

            Zachary moves up next to me, taking my hand. His words echo in my thoughts. “So, Mom thinks it’s time to pull you into all of this.”

            He looks over at Dr. Dex then. He looks as surprised as I am to see him there.

            “Now you’re here,” Dr. Dex says, and he says it aloud, “let’s get started. I don’t have much time. They’re expecting me to give them a full account of each performer… but as it is, they are here in town. The cruelest of the Invaders always come to the performances to see people hurt or killed by the acts, so we can’t take chances around them.” He looks over at me and Zachary then. “I’m sorry about Sandy and the others. I know you must think I’m as cruel as they are, but you’ll see that it’s for the greater good. If I don’t make the circus everything the Invaders would want it to be, then I can’t lure them out of the Center the way I want. And they would make the Circus much more brutal, believe me.”

            I think I understand then, and understanding hurts. “So this is all one big trick? They’re tricking us, and you’re tricking them? Is there even a performance at the Center at the end? All these rounds, all this pain, and there isn’t even that, is there?”

            “But there is,” Dr. Dex says. “That’s the point. There will be a spectacular one held at the largest stadium in the Center. The Invaders want it so that they can bet on kids like you. So that they can see you to pick out the best and the brightest of you…”

            “To take us over,” I say.

            Dr. Dex nods. “This circus has been around for years. I didn’t start it, and nor did the Invaders, but we’re both trying to use it for our own purposes. It’s a way in for me. It’s…”

            He tails off, and I know why, even though I don’t know how I know why. There’s someone at the door. Someone there who isn’t human. There’s a knock. Just an ordinary knock. Mrs. Niles goes to the door, which she opens a small crack. We’re all quiet while she talks.

            “Oh, I was just in the basement, trying to find something for the party. What do you want? Oh, extra napkins because someone spilled something? You can find them in the pantry. Okay, I’ll be up there in a few minutes.” She comes back, closing the door behind her.  “It was one of the servers who catered the party. She’s from the store, helping out tonight.” She says that like it’s nothing to have one of the Invaders working for them. “Alright, go on.”