The Harvesting (29 page)

Jeff’s head rolled across the beach,
his agape mouth and wide eyes staring at me.

Katya grabbed Gary. Twisting his neck,
she sank her fangs into him.

Jamie and Buddie emerged from the
water. We all turned toward the bankside.

“
Don’t look, just go,” I
said.

“
Ah, Ms. Katana, you
forgot someone, no?” Rumor called to me.

I turned back. Out of nowhere, Ian was
standing beside Rumor.

Jamie stopped. He turned and took two
steps back toward the water.

The HarpWind was completely engulfed
in flame. Orange light began to fill the night’s sky.

Rumor then took Ian by the waist and
they hovered across the water coming to land just inches off
shore.

“
What is this place?” Ian
asked her.

“
Sun island. Don’t take
another step ashore. It will burn you alive,” Rumor replied. She,
however, was much bolder. “You come here and burn my house, do
you,” she said to me as she took a step toward the
island.

I drew my sword.

She looked at it and then at me. “And
you lie as well,” she added, switching to dialect.

“
If I must,” I replied in
Russian, “but I didn’t come looking for trouble. You
did.”

“
Eh,” she said with a
shrug, “one must eat.”

She was just out of my reach, and she
knew it. She was baiting me, and I knew it.

I looked at Ian. He stood in the water
watching us. I could not read his expression.

Realizing at last that I would not
take the bait, she lunged at me.

I stepped back deeper onto the
shoreline. It did not seem to faze her. She crashed hard into me,
knocking my sword from my hand. I saw it shine just once in the
moonlight and then fall into the water.

She was unbelievably strong. I fell.
She grabbed me by the boot and pulled me back into the
water.

Jamie lunged at her. She let go of me,
moving to defend herself, and knocked him back. He flew several
feet and crashed onto the rocks. Dusty rushed forward and pulled
him back toward the bank. It looked like he was unconscious. I
heard an arrow whoosh overhead. It caught Rumor in the
shoulder.

She paused. In that moment I bounced
back onto my feet and pulled the poyasni doe- and wolf-headed
daggers from my boots. The guns were soaked. She pulled the arrow
from her shoulder and lunged at me. I dodged her advance and took a
swipe at her. It connected; I slashed a long line across her face.
Blood dripped from the wound for a moment and then healed itself.
She smiled at me and lunged again. I bounced back closer toward the
shore. Rumor pursued me but her feet had begun to smolder. She
jumped, pushing me sideways, knocking me into the waves, knocking
us both away from the island.

I rebalanced myself and lunged again,
this time cutting a thin line across her throat. It was a close
cut, but I had not hit home. Enraged, she came at me. She crashed
into me. I fell backward. The water rushed over my face. My head
hit a rock on the lake bottom. I struggled but could not move. I
opened my eyes but saw only black waves. I could feel the weight of
her hands on my neck, her knee on my chest. I tried to push her off
but could not.

I heard the sound of gunfire, but she
seemed unfazed.

My eyes fluttered closed. In a
fragment of a second, I saw my grandmother smile at me. The next
second, I felt Rumor’s hands release from my neck, and I was pulled
from the water. Someone lifted me and carried me back to the shore,
setting me down gently. I coughed hard, spitting out the lake
water, and sat up, opening my eyes.

Ian stood over me, my shashka in his
hand. Rumor’s body, her red dress fanning all around her, floated,
decapitated, in the water. Her head lay on the shoreline. It
flickered then burnt into a pile of ash.

Katya shrieked and fled.

Ian handed my sword to me. He looked
back at Jamie who lay unconscious and then turned again to me. He
smiled softly. For a moment, I saw the old Ian in his eyes. Then he
burst into flame. I reached toward him, but within seconds Ian was
gone.

Moments later, Buddie and Dusty pulled
me, half-drowned and in a state of shock, onto the bank. Jamie was
just coming around to consciousness; he was leaning between Will
and Larry. At the inferno that was now the HarpWind above us, we
heard the shrieking sounds of the remaining vampires. I pulled
myself together and went to the front of the group.

“
This way,” I said and led
them to the far side of the island.

The moonlight barely illuminated our
path in the dark, but when we came to stand above the labyrinth, a
strange glow filled the place. The rocks which had seemed so
mundane in the light of day had an eerie blue hue. The labyrinth’s
snake effigy form glowed.

“
What is this place?”
Summer asked.

“
A doorway,” I
replied.

“
To where?” Frenchie
asked.

“
Anywhere but here,” I
said. I led them down the stairs and into the labyrinth. We turned
around and around the labyrinth until we reached the
middle.

“
Follow it to its end,” I
said. “The gateway should be open.”

Everyone looked scared. Buddie nodded
at me and took the lead. One by one, they traced the spiraling
stones. As each reached the middle, they disappeared. Jamie paused
before he passed through. I nodded to him, and he took the final
steps. Once they had all gone, I paused. Smoke billowed on the
horizon, fingers of fire trailing up into the night’s sky. It cast
a haze on the moon. I took a deep breathe. Following the serpent’s
tongue, I too passed through the gateway to a new world.

Chapter 33: The
Parallel

September

“
Tilt-a-whirl,
tilt-a-whirl, tilt-a-whirl! Come on ride my tilt-a-whirl! I’ll
whirl you round the world,” I barked to the mostly empty aisles at
the Bowling Green fairground.

Two young boys came up to my line.
They were the only two kids around. The older looked to be about
twelve. The younger, a good three inches under my height bar, had
pulled himself up to full height and tried not to meet my
eye.

“
Tickets,” I said to
them.

Confidently, the older boy handed me
his ticket and passed through. The younger boy hesitated. Guessing
he’d be alright, I let him through. I heard the older boy slap him
a high-five when they thought they were out of earshot.

I turned the key and started the ride.
The boys smiled back at me. I waved to them.

“
Hey Cricket,” Harv, the
balloon-pop agent across the aisle, called to me. “Where is
everyone? Bowling Green is usually packed. I’m gonna go
hungry.”

I leaned over the gate and twirled my
blonde braid, checking out the split ends. “I heard someone say
it’s the flu keepin’ people home. You know they closed LAX? I hear
it’s gettin’ real serious. You get a flu shot?”

“
Naa. You know, Bud’s got
it. He’s been laid up in his RV all day.”

“
Anyone been by to see
him?”

Harv shrugged. “He’s grouchy when he
feels good. I don’t imagine he’d be a barrel of laughs when he’s
sick.”

“
No man is. Even the
common cold has you all actin’ like a bunch of babies.”

“
This coming from a
blonde,” Harv replied with a laugh.

“
You better watch
yourself. I’ll come pop your balloons.”

“
Baby, a grenade couldn’t
pop those balloons,” he said with a laugh.

I turned back to the boys. They were
all smiles; round and round they spun. Since no one else was
around, I let it run until they signaled they’d had
enough.

Around nine o’clock that night the
owner, Mr. Marx, came by. I had not seen a soul on the fairway
since the boys left. “Sorry, Cricket. We’re going to tear down to
get ready for the jump to Cincinnati. We’re just burning juice and
not making a dime. This place is dead; not a soul here.”

“
Alright then,” I replied,
and Mr. Marx wandered off. I realized he hadn’t said a word about
when he would pay us for Bowling Green, dead or not.

I whistled for Puck, my mangy mixed
breed and the only male I swore I would ever truly love. The
hound-shepherd mix appeared; he looked dirty and happy. I’d found
him about a year ago. Just as we were about to leave Crawford
County fairgrounds, I saw a small bundle shaking in the grass.
There he was. A mischievous little devil, Vella, the Tarot reader,
gave me the idea for his name: Puck.

“
Up to no good, were ya?”
I asked, scratching him on the head. He licked my hand and wagged
his tale. I closed up my till and headed to the bunk house to look
for some extra muscle to help with the tear down. As I passed
through the midway I saw most of the other joints and booths were
already closed. Mama Rosie was just closing up the snake show when
I came by.

“
Marx closed down everyone
up here already?” I asked her.

“
They’re all sick, Sug,”
she replied as she dropped one of her small snakes into her bra. I
shook just watching her. Everyone loved Mama Rosie, but no one
understood her relationship with her “babies.” She always had one
hanging out of her bra, hanging around her neck, or stuffed in her
clothes. Mama was a big woman who liked to wear baggy, loud colored
gowns. I hated sitting next to her at dinner. You never knew when
one of the “babies” might suddenly slither out of her
hibiscus-print dress.

I set my box down and helped her push
the trailer door closed. “How about you, Mama? You feelin’
alright?”

“
I think I got something
bad to eat at lunch, but I’ll be fine. You headed back to the
bunks?”

“
I guess. I was hopin’
Beau and the boys would come give me a hand.”

“
Sug, Beau would give you
a hand, arm, leg, or toe if you asked. Why don’t you give that boy
a chance?”

“
Oh, Mama Rosie, I don’t
feel nothin’ like that for him.”

“
But you run off with
townies often enough.”

“
Well, we all have
needs.”

Mama Rosie laughed. “You got that
right. I thought you were hoping someone would marry you out of the
life.”

“
And give up all
this?”

Mama Rosie laughed again, her
boisterous laughter filling the empty aisles.

While the smell of popcorn, Chinese
food, funnel cakes, and fried sausage still filled the air, there
was no one around. Power was still on, so the midway still sparkled
in a rainbow of light, but the place was like a ghost town. I had
never seen it like that, and since I’d practically grown up in the
carnival, that was saying something. Several game booth agents had
even left their plush still hanging—now that was odd.

As Mama and I passed by Iago’s
Traveling Torture show, I winced to see Mr. Iago coming out. After
three years of traveling with Great Explorations carnival, I had
yet to warm up to Mr. Iago. His show was creepy. I’d once had a
look inside. The place was hung with all kinds of pictures of
people being tortured, and he had old torture devices like the
rack, an iron maiden, a wheel of fortune, and other small harmful
contraptions. Mr. Iago was as creepy as his show. On the outside he
looked normal enough, just a funny-looking little bald man with too
big-ears and a pointed nose, but it was what I felt coming from
inside him that set me on edge. I never looked him in the
eye.

“
Mama Rosie, Cricket,” he
called politely.

“
You headed back too, Mr.
Iago?” Mama called cheerfully.

“
Yes, Ma’am, I am,” he
replied politely.

“
You make any scratch
today?” Mama asked him.

“
Well, I don’t like to
discuss finances,” he told her in his quiet manner.

“
He don’t like to discuss
finances,” Mama said mockingly to me. “Alright, Mr. Iago. You just
go on with yourself then.”

“
No offense, Mama Rosie,”
he replied quietly.

“
Of course not,” she
replied and rolled her eyes at me.

When we got back to the bunk houses
there were half a dozen people sitting outside at a picnic table
listening to the radio. I spotted Mr. and Mrs. Chapman. They owned
three of the grab joints; Mrs. Chapman waved to us. She was a
biblical woman whose savory homemade corn dog breading had won top
prize at a competition last year. If you didn’t mind hearing her
recite verse all day, she was fine to be around. Red and Neil, two
ride jockeys, were there as well. Red ran Big Eli; Neil ran the
swings. The resident lot lizard, Cici, was snuggled up to Ned. I
was surprised to also see Vella there. Vella, the Tarot reader, was
a Romanian immigrant who called herself the only authentic Roma,
which she said meant gypsy, in America. Even though she was just a
little older than me, Vella scared me. She’d never done anything to
me and was really nice, but she scared me all the same. The others
said she was dead-on accurate with her readings and often had bad
news to give. I didn’t want to be around anything like
that.