Circus of the Grand Design (25 page)

"This is better," Miss Linda said.

She pushed on the rod where the hangers had been. One end came free of its mount, then the other.

"It's metal," she said, and swung it like a baseball bat.

"Help me up. I need to see if I can walk."

She put down the rod and took his hands. He tried to keep most of his weight on his good leg, but the pain made him groan. Once he was standing, dizziness shook him; he leaned against the wall until it passed, then took a few limping steps around the room. Miss Linda stayed close, ready to catch him.

"It's getting better. I'm going to walk around a bit, sit, then get up again. I don't want it to get too stiff."

"Quiet," Miss Linda said, her voice a hiss. She leaned toward his ear and whispered. "I heard something out there."

She handed him the rod. Outside, a light must have snapped on; its glow framed their door.

"Wait behind the door," she said. "I need to make my bag look like your body. When they...now, I hear them." She slid to the floor and hunched forward. The door opened toward him.

"What do you want with us?" Miss Linda's voice quivered.

He knew that tone. Now was not the time—he wished he could see around the door. One of their captors muttered something. Lewis heard at least two people moving into the room.

Miss Linda cried out, louder: "Don't hurt me! I haven't done anything."

He could see someone's shoulder through the crack between the jamb and door's edge. It looked like the shorter of the two who worked for the smocked one.

"Calm thyself. We bear victuals." One of them pushed the door back; it stopped just short of Lewis's nose

"Keep it closed, Squire, others may overhear."

Miss Linda began to moan, a tearing sound that erupted from deep in her throat. What could he do? She was useless. He would have to attack the men on his own. One of them shut the door most of the way, leaving it cracked an inch or so, allowing a band of light to penetrate. They stood a few feet away from him, holding bowls but no weapon he could see. Their attention remained on Miss Linda, whose moans grew louder and more intense. They sounded like "eyes eyes eyes..."

It hurt him to see her suffering. She hunched forward, shaking and moaning, "eyes eyes." He would have to do something soon, while her cries distracted—that was what...she threw herself into a backflip and pulled the release on her lycopodium. He shut his eyes before the flash went off. He reopened them and swung the rod at the men, hitting one. Both yelled, a panicky sound, dazed as they were by the flash and fire. Lewis struck the closest on the back of his head, knocking him to the floor. Miss Linda picked up the metal bucket and swung it down on the top of the shorter man's head. He fell. Lewis hit each again and stood over them, panting. His injured leg buckled, but Miss Linda caught him.

"You're beautiful," he said, gasping.

Miss Linda pulled the door open, illuminating the room. "Sit for a minute," she said, and helped him down to the upended bucket. She went through the men's pockets. "Take this."

She handed him a pistol and slipped another one into her bag. He cradled it in both hands. The barrel felt cold against his skin. The gun weighed a pound or so, with a curved, plastic-wood grip and a flintlock hammer. He peered more closely and tried to pull it back with his thumb. Not a real flintlock—a piece of flint set in place, but the actual firing mechanism appeared to be internal.

One of the men groaned.

"We need to do something with them," Lewis said.

"My knotted scarves." She reached into her bag and pulled out a scarf. And pulled. And pulled. Lewis couldn't help laughing at the growing pile of multicolored scarves.

"What's funny?"

He pointed to her feet.

"Oh. Clown things, you know?" She glanced at the men. "Hold their hands. I'll tie."

They trussed the two and gagged them. Miss Linda sighed and sat on the floor, leaving the bucket for him. "Let's eat the food they brought before we get out of here. We need nourishment. We have to stay calm." She handed him a plastic container.

Sitting brought back the pain in his hip and shoulder, a deep throb he had forgotten during the excitement of the scuffle. He tried to concentrate on the pain, a natural rhythm of his body. It flowed in and out, and he moved with it, slow train, a roller coaster traveling up and down low hills and shallow valleys. His knuckles cramped from gripping the safety bar. His companion laughed as they swung down into the next trough. Who was she? He couldn't make out her face in the moonlight. Odd that the carnival had such poor lighting. Her laugh reminded him of someone. Not Martha, not Miss Linda, nor any of the circus women.

They climbed a steeper grade. Unafraid, she raised her hands in the air as they rushed downward. They fell and fell; he felt cut-off from his body, his mind floating separate. He began to panic—what if his body fell so far his mind lost it forever? Thick darkness held him, kept him from rejoining his body. They leveled off and coasted over a flat surface. Trees obscured the view on both sides; they rolled through a green tunnel. He couldn't see what lay ahead. The trees disappeared and he cried out. They were hurtling toward a giant door that appeared to grow as they drew closer. Its hinges were as tall as a person. He couldn't stop looking at them. The interlocking metal mesmerized him. But just before the lead car struck, he threw himself out, onto the concrete floor.

"Are you okay?"

He looked up at Miss Linda's concerned face, shiny in the glow from the hall light. She slipped her sweatshirt into her bag and slung it over her shoulder.

"We have to go," she said.

They walked out into a nondescript hallway and turned right. Lewis's leg hurt but he managed a limping walk. "This place must be deserted," he said. "All that noise would have brought someone," he said. "Or it's late. I wish I knew how long we'd been in there. Felt like days but couldn't have been that long. They were just bringing us our first meal."

They passed a few locked doors on both sides. After fifty yards or so the hall ended. They turned around. Miss Linda shivered when they reached their former prison. Lewis peered inside; the men remained where they had left them. A few yards on they found a narrow staircase that connected to a floor above them. They emerged at the beginning of a wider corridor.

"Only one way to go this time," she said.

"If we see people let's not say anything," he said. "I don't trust anyone around here. Let's wait till we get to someplace recognizable." All the doors along the hall were painted white. Lewis tried a few, all were locked. The doors were spaced twenty or thirty yards apart—he wondered what lay behind them. He found himself counting steps between them, but forced himself to stop. Were they above or below ground? He preferred to think above. The corridor kept going, no turns, no unlocked doors. At least his leg wasn't hurting as much. A muffled thumping seemed to be coming through the walls, but he attributed it to his nerves.

They walked on, and the sameness numbed him. They walked on, silent, staring ahead, pausing to try each door. The thumping grew louder. Rushing blood, nothing more; his imagination created too many variables. All these doors, all these white walls and doors. Like being on the train, on and on through the diminishing tunnel. He was tempted to scrape the walls with the barrel of the gun as he walked, or...

"Wait, I've got an idea," he said. He stopped, took out the odd-looking gun and pushed a button that he hoped was a safety catch, then pointed the gun at a doorknob. "Hope this thing works."

He turned his face away and pulled the trigger. The bullet tore a hole through the middle of the knob. He shot once more. The impact of the second round swung the door inward a few inches. Echoes of the shot faded, and the thumping, louder now, had been joined by a combination of clank and screech.

Miss Linda pushed the door open with her toe. They peered into the room.

Pipes filled the space, metal pipes wider than both of them, reaching from floor to distant ceiling like a mad industrialist's reconstruction of a forest. The pipes hissed, clanged, and thumped, a freakish symphony of despair. With all the pipes, determining the room's extent was impossible. It appeared endless.

"This is unbearable," he said.

"It's better than the hall," she said. "We'll have to go through and hope there's a door on the other side that leads somewhere."

No apparent path showed. Besides the forest of pipes reaching to the distant ceiling, horizontal pipes like fallen giants ran along the floor at seemingly random intervals. If they had to climb over each to pass through...

"Way up there," Miss Linda said, pointing to a catwalk near the ceiling. He leaned his ear close to her mouth to hear over the surrounding din. "It must be the way through, but how do we get there?"

"This stuff has to be serviced. There'll be ways to get around. Let's start walking."

The noise of the pipes made talking a strain; they continued without speaking. When they reached the nearest horizontal pipe, they found pegs to climb it, and once on top, its surface proved level enough for walking. The pipe's vibrations beneath his feet reminded him of the train, its never-changing hum. Thoughts of the train calmed him. He would be back there soon, back to his room and routine, back to Cybele's soft body.

They soon came to a place where an intersecting pipe-lane crossed theirs. A platform connected the two systems. Lewis turned right on this new path, and Miss Linda followed. Many steps farther, their pipe arched over another. They halted at the top, looking around them at a view no different than that from the door where they had entered the room. Lewis's leg ached. They sat for a time. Miss Linda closed her eyes. He watched her, wondering what lay behind her nervous face.

"I still don't understand why you go through with it," he said. His voice felt hoarse from having to talk over the infernal sounds that surrounded them. "You don't really seem to enjoy it."

She gave him a funny look.

"Your clowning, I mean. Why—?"

"We'll keep going this way," she said.

The pipe-scape gradually changed. A network of smaller pipes made from a dark material flared out beneath them. Every few yards, metal boxes rose from the floor to a height near their own.

"I had a husband," Miss Linda said, her voice difficult to hear over the surrounding clangor. "A good man, kind and gentle. It wasn't easy for us. For me. I've never been comfortable around people. He said he could see my true nature, and I learned to trust him. He was a clown. He loved it, loved the joy he gave to others. When he..." She stopped talking and looked at Lewis. "These are things I never discuss," she said.

"You can trust me," Lewis said. "I won't repeat anything." He touched her arm. "And we'll get out of this place soon."

She pulled her lips into a near smile and squeezed his hand. "When Lord Junius, my husband, died, I had to carry on for him. I went to the clown academy. They wouldn't have admitted me if not for his legacy. I felt awkward there, so out of place it terrified me, but part of me began to enjoy it. When I'm in make-up I'm anonymous. When I'm anonymous I can do anything."

Ahead, a metal bar extended upward, a ladder leading to the catwalk. "Might as well try it," he said. "Maybe it'll be quieter up there."

The warmth of the metal surprised him; its surface had the texture of fine-grit sandpaper, not so rough that it bothered his hands, but enough to make gripping easy, though about halfway up he wished he had stayed below. His right shoulder throbbed, and numbness spread through the arm. From below, the catwalk hadn't looked as far. He stopped and hugged the ladder with his left arm, letting his right dangle.

"You have to let your legs do the work," Miss Linda said. "I learned that kind of thing at the academy—push with your legs, guide with your hands."

He closed his eyes for a moment, forced himself to stop thinking of his position, partway up a ladder to the unknown. He pushed up one rung, then another, all the time thinking of the train, thinking of Cybele's spice-scented skin. Her belly waited to comfort his head. What would Cinteotl prepare on their return? A victory feast, a welcome home. He believed in the concept of hope, the vastness and complexity of being. When he left Martha, when he deserted the world he had inhabited pre-circus, he had left nothing of himself—this he comprehended now, with a finality that shocked him. A person always leaves pieces behind, but this time, this one time, he had transposed his completeness to a new life.

Gasping, he pulled himself onto the catwalk and crawled a few feet to give Miss Linda room, then flopped onto his back. The ceiling—so much closer now—hovered over him, wavering like the distant sea. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, the ceiling had solidified. Miss Linda lay with her head near his feet. The catwalk was about a foot wider than his body, with a cable railing and cables anchoring it to the ceiling. It was darker up here, a kind of twilight effect that made him sleepy. He sat up and touched Miss Linda's greasy hair.

"You need a bath," he said.

She rolled over and looked at him, smiling. He had rarely seen her smile, and he liked her smile, her even teeth, the way the lines formed around her eyes. She cocked her head, pointing her ear away. "Do you hear something?"

Over the clank and clash, which had receded with the distance, he did hear something, a keening, low but unmistakably that of a person, somewhere ahead.

The catwalk swayed as he stood, a gentle roll. He reached a hand to the rail. Miss Linda got up and did the same. As he walked he became accustomed to the movement of the walkway. The keening came and went, as though blown in different directions by the odd acoustics of the huge room.

"I see someone," Miss Linda said.

Lewis strained to see through the diffuse light. Ahead was a shape, indistinct, but he could hear its keening more clearly. They drew closer, and the shape became a woman sitting on the catwalk, hunched forward hugging her knees to her chest. Her cries tore out of her throat, sounding something like "ce-cee ce-cee ce-cee..."