House of Mirrors (20 page)

* * *

The showfolk dressed in their Sunday best, except for Charlie the trumpeter, who wanted to play the military lights-extinguished music, “Taps.” He wore his old Spanish-American army uniform.

They made a long, slow procession through the mid-July heat. It felt strange to have such a march through a town without a show to present at the end of it. People on the main street stopped to watch, so obviously the word had gone out that one of the carnival folk had died. There was some pointing and gawking, but most of the townsfolk of Craggy Peak bowed their heads or removed their hats as if Sam was an ordinary man instead of a freak. That eased Rafe’s sorrow, but the worry for Jonah still ran through him, a constant whisper of fear. Where was he?

Some of the people joined the funeral cortege on the slow walk to the cemetery. They gathered at the gravesite, and the local pastor made a fairly good speech about the innocent joys of pleasure and how the carnival was a lasting legacy for Mr. Nolan. He only forgot Sam’s name once.

Rafe couldn’t help scanning the crowds of strangers and showfolk, looking over their heads to the single muddy road leading into the cemetery.

Pete, wearing a rusty black suit that smelled of exotic animal dung and camphor, sidled close. “I don’t reckon Talbot took off with Jester,” Pete muttered. “He’ll be back.”

“It would be a pity if Sam’s family missed the whole service,” Rafe responded. That was a real concern, though he’d thrown out that remark to keep himself safe from the rumors that had started up. A spasm of self-disgust joined the fear digging into the pit of his stomach.

Just as the pastor led them in what he’d called the final prayer, a farm wagon came creaking along the trail—old, battered, and crowded with gray figures. One of the two horses drawing the wagon was Jester, a fine figure of a horse harnessed alongside a skeletal creature.

Rafe could breathe again. His heart thumped easily once more. For the first time since he’d heard of Sam’s death, he felt his gut ease. “Pastor,” he said as the reverend paused to watch the approaching wagon. “This is Mr. Nolan’s family. Would you consider repeating your words for them after this prayer?”

The pastor agreed, but his broad face was wrinkled with concern as he watched the bony figures of a man and a woman climb down and approach the grave. Several ragged kids trailed after them. Jonah was the last to jump from the wagon, and he strode up behind the figures.

The man—Sam’s father, Rafe guessed—stopped far from the crowd gathered on one side of the grave. Jonah joined him and stood with the family rather than walking around to meet Rafe and the others, but when he saw Rafe watching, he gave a small nod, and the hint of a smile crossed his face. A discreet greeting, because Jonah was learning to stay hidden at last.

Rafe wondered if he wore his sheer relief on his face; perhaps now he was the one who had to train his response.

The pastor recovered himself and gestured to the family to move closer. They didn’t seem to notice him. Instead they looked around at the crowd as if they’d never seen anything like it.

“You say all these folks come for Sam?” the man said to Jonah in a gravelly voice. He had a more fine-boned copy of Sam’s face, though he was almost as cadaverously thin and had no teeth.

“Yes, sir.”

“They knew him?”

“Many did, yes.”

“I never,” the man said. He took off his battered felt hat and for a moment looked like the other men, bareheaded in mourning. But after turning the hat in his hand a few times, he jammed it back on his head. “I never. So many people.”

When two of the Nolan kids darted out in front to peer down into the grave, Jonah’s voice rang out, sharp and clear. “Ratchet, Feeny, behave. Recall what I told you. This is a funeral, and we have come to pay our respects.”

The kids retreated to behind their parents again. “Yessir, Mr. Talbot, sir.”

Rafe felt a sudden urge to laugh. Rev. Talbot would have been proud of his son at this moment.

The pastor cleared his throat and began the prayer again.

After the service ended, the pastor went to talk to Sam’s family. Jonah at last joined Rafe and the others. The rest of the Craggy Peak crowd melted away.

Pete and others shook hands with Jonah, who looked tired and more than a little disheveled. His three-days’ growth of beard gave his innocent face a dangerous look. Rafe realized he was staring and quickly looked away to shift his attention to the two men who were shoveling dirt into Sam’s grave.

“How far’d you have to go?” Parinsky asked Jonah.

“Only about twenty miles, but another world away.” He shook his head. “I thought I’d seen some funny sights on the road with this show, but that farm…” He scratched his head as his voice trailed off. Jonah’s hands were none too clean, but even as he noticed Jonah’s dirty fingers, Rafe felt a surge of lust and wanted to feel those hands touching him again.

Jonah met Rafe’s eyes. “I’m afraid I offered them a horse in exchange for coming here. Not Jester,” he added hastily. “But they’ll need one anyway, or they’ll never make it back to their farmstead.”

“We have to bribe ’em?” Mindy sounded disgusted. She tapped the end of her black parasol on the ground and glared over at the Nolans, who were gathered around the pastor.

“No,” Jonah said. “It wasn’t really a bribe. They wanted to say good-bye to Sam. Turns out they’re proud of him; he is the big success in their family. Sent them back his money, every spare dime, his father said.”

Parinsky gave a triumphant little grunt, and Rafe knew he’d been caught in the lie that Sam had paid for his own funeral.

“I’ll pay you back for the horse, eventually,” Jonah said quickly, probably misinterpreting Parinksy’s disgust. “I’m sure there’s one available here in town.”

“We better get back to the lot,” Parinsky said in a loud voice. “We got a show in two hours.”

The carnival crowd walked slowly away from the gravesite. Only Mindy stayed, staring at the sweating diggers as they filled the hole. Rafe didn’t want to leave her alone but didn’t dare move too close to her. He jammed his hands into his trouser pockets and waited.

Jonah walked over to him.

Rafe said, “I’ll wait for her. You go get cleaned up.”

“Yes, I know I smell dreadful.” Jonah wrinkled his nose and looked down on his stained, rumpled clothes. “But I’d best go to the stable right away so we can send the Nolans home.”

Rafe put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, wishing he could haul him close, kiss him, yell at him for disappearing for too long. “Good.” Rafe pulled his thick wallet from a pocket inside his jacket and peeled off several bills. “Buy the animal with this.”

“I’ll pay you back,” Jonah said.

Rafe narrowed his eyes. “Just go buy the bloody thing. God only knows how much the show owes you.”

“Behind on your books, Mr. Grimstone?”

“I shall figure the sums once we’re on the road again, if you’ll drive for me.”

A flash of a grin passed over Jonah’s face, and Rafe couldn’t help smiling back or stop himself from watching Jonah as he went to Mindy, who didn’t look up.

He squeezed her shoulder, just as Rafe had touched him, then trotted to the Nolans. The family piled into the cart, and Jonah joined them.

He’d changed so much since that night he’d appeared in front of Rafe, beaten and defeated, another lost soul stumbling toward the lights of the carnival. Rafe had known Jonah was a fine actor, but realized he could probably pursue any profession and succeed in any path he cared to tread. Jonah would do better than survive outside the carnival. He’d flourish.

The Nolans’ wagon groaned and lurched toward the cemetery gates, and Rafe turned back to stand vigil near Mindy. They would have to walk swiftly—run even—to get back to the lot for the show, but he didn’t feel impatience, only sorrow. And when at last the diggers shouldered their shovels and moved away, he still didn’t rush Mindy. She shouldered her parasol, perhaps an unconscious imitation of the gravediggers. Mindy nodded to Rafe, and they slowly made their way back to the carnival in silence broken only by Mindy’s occasional muffled sob.

Chapter Nineteen

Someone—probably Pete, who had a genius for that sort of thing—had found a stream. Frigid water trickled from a hose he’d immersed in the flow. Jonah could lift the hose nearly three feet off the ground before the water stopped. He washed himself, thinking of how he’d once considered this primitive. The clean water was sweet, and he was grateful to scrub away the grime and to drink as he washed.

He had only a few minutes before he took his place in front of the freak tent, which now meant only Claudia and a few anomalies in glass jars. For a moment Jonah forgot to breathe, then drew in a long shuddering sigh. No more Sam. There were friends Jonah had had his whole life who didn’t know him a fraction as much as Sam had. The man had met him, taken his measure, and liked him all the same, with no judgment in his big, kind heart.

But as Henry Fisher had said earlier, “The show must go on.” It was the credo they lived by, and right now, Jonah must concentrate on finding a replacement for Sam on the lights and curtain for the show that evening. He would mourn later. And eventually he would write a note to his mother. The time he’d spent with the peculiar Nolans had reminded him of his bonds to his family, and he had to try to reach out to her. He knew his father well enough and expected the pastor would never forgive him. But he supposed he had to try to write to them both.

“Poe’s Horrifying Tales” proved as big a draw as usual. Jonah was glad to be busy, first seducing gawkers to come in and see the freak show and later narrating the tableaux. It distracted him from his sadness about Sam and from his exhaustion. The ride along precarious switchback roads over the mountain to the Nolans’ shack and back again had worn him out. By the time he’d doused the lights in the freak tent and turned the cashbox in to Mindy, Jonah was nearly asleep on his feet.

“Might as well sleep in Sam’s wagon,” Mindy said as she took the box from him. “Sleeping on the ground is for the rousties. You’re a performer now. You’ve earned a proper bed. He’d want you to have his place.”

Jonah smiled at her, but when he took her hand to squeeze it, Mindy pulled away. She was wearing her armor of prickliness again to protect her poor, battered heart.

Although the idea of sleeping in the bed Sam had just expired in was not at all to Jonah’s liking, he wouldn’t mind bedding down on a pallet on the floor. He walked out of the freak tent and plodded past the darkened tents and wagons toward Sam’s trailer.

He spared one long look for the lighted windows of Rafe’s wagon and considered knocking on the door. He fantasized a warm reunion, an embrace and kisses and more. But since Jonah’s return, Rafe hadn’t hinted they should meet; in fact, he’d seemed more remote than usual.

Tonight, as exhausted as Jonah was, he didn’t think he could take knocking on that door and possibly being rejected. He didn’t want to have to argue his way in as he had the last time. He hadn’t the energy for his hot-cold entanglement with Rafe. Not tonight. If the man truly wanted him, let him come find Jonah in his new lodgings.

Jonah entered Sam’s trailer, which someone had aired although the smell of sickness lingered. He unrolled his own bedding onto the floor and curled up to sleep. In the darkness, he gazed at the shape of Sam’s bed and remembered how his friend had looked the last time he’d seen him.

He lay, waiting for Rafe. If he cared enough for Jonah, he would find his way to him. Jonah was tired of being the one to push for more of a relationship.

But Rafe never came that night.

* * *

It took Jonah almost a week to get used to sleeping in Sam’s room. He took to talking to the man as if he were there, and that banished the feeling that he was an interloper. And it helped ease his longing for Sam’s company. An even sharper longing hit him when he thought of Rafe, and he wished he could turn to Rafe for comfort, but something had changed in the man. Not just Sam’s death had created an impenetrable sorrow in Rafe; it was as if he was drifting away, staring at something the rest of them couldn’t see. That news from home, Jonah supposed. Rafe still had a home, after all.

But once the lights were all extinguished and only the sound of nightbirds would fill the air, Jonah would wander the tiny village of tents and wagons, hoping to meet up with Rafe. Their silent, passionate trysts kept him from howling from loneliness.

As he passed the House of Mirrors, the shatter of breaking glass startled him from his stupor. He raced toward the wagon to throw open the unlocked door.

Inside the darkened chamber someone was thrashing around like a literal bull in a china shop. Jonah glimpsed the figure of a person bashing away at the glass with a baseball bat or perhaps a club.

“Hey!” he yelled and leaped into the wagon, forgetting his own safety in his eagerness to save whatever was left of the fragile display.

Jonah grabbed at the shadowy figure, which was very solid. The vandal shoved and knocked him to the floor, where Jonah sprawled on broken glass. The person raced past him and jumped from the doorway to the ground, bypassing the steps entirely.

By the time Jonah rose to chase after him, the destroyer had disappeared into the night. Drawn by the noise, people were running toward the House of Mirrors. The person who’d broken the mirrors might even be among them—not an outsider at all, but a member of their company. Who would want to wreck the display? All the instances of accidents and lost items took on a sinister quality. Was it possible someone was undermining the show on purpose, and if so, for what reason?

“What happened? What’d you do, Talbot?” Jack Treanor demanded as he reached the wagon. Traces of clown-face greasepaint still lingered on his jaw and neck. He carried a lantern in his hand, which lit all the approaching carnival folk: Mindy, the Fishers, Jamie, Claudia, and Dimitri.

“Someone destroyed the mirrors. I tried to stop him, but he ran away. See for yourself.” Jonah gestured toward the wagon.

Henry Fisher grabbed the lantern from Jack and went to take a look.