Blessed Virgin of the Circus- 24.

Mara knew better than to try to calm her. Instead, she responded with silence. This was the best when she was drinking or anything else. Don’t wake the troll.

“I hope we can do our number, Yana. I’m looking forward to it. I’m not as afraid as I used to be.”

“I was never afraid,” Yana whispered. The grief was genuine.

**

They began to rehearse three to five hours a day. LaShawn allowed them some time cut from their daytime shifts and paid them, knowing they were preparing to pick up most of the shows. The two sisters saw each other improving by leaps and bounds.Yana missed the old days but wouldn’t say anything to Mara about it. Mara stopped practicing the subdermal piercings. The show they were bringing back was less freakshow and more classic circus. The two knew what they were supposed to do.

**

That weekend, LaShawn dreamt that he was floating on a raft in the middle of a river. The landscape nearby looked like stories he’d heard of the Amazon, but it was hard to pinpoint with specificity. The area near him and the plants were dark, as if obscurity were taking over at dusk-time, but when he tipped his head skyward the sky was azure, clear, midday. For a long time, all that existed was the floating feeling. Then finally, a clearing on the shore where the midday sky broke through.

Twelve people were gathered on shore in a circle. Many wore the colors red and white together. They were singing. LaShawn’s eyes were drawn to the far background, past the dense jungle and towards the open sky. The silhouette of their show’s ferris wheel glimmered in the distance. He seemed to be flying up over jungle and what appeared to be dark water. He was standing in the Midway again, wearing casual clothes. After a few moments, he glimpsed Jerry, hobbling down the midway with a cane, though at a brisk hobble. Visually, Jerry’s skin and other features appeared the same. Jerry appeared to be wearing some type of button-front cloak that possessed a hood, though the hood was not up. Jerry stopped in front of LaShawn, like Willy Wonka coming down that carpet in the movie. But there was no showmanship this time. Only pain.

“M-m-m-m my sh-shame,” whispered Jerry. He feebly parted the curtain of the coat. His body looked elderly, feeble, not firm and active as LaShawn had remembered him. Though LaShawn had made a concerted effort not to look down, finally he felt compelled to.

He was not sure whether Jerry’s stomach and upper intestines had been gnawed by some animal, or by a flesh-eating decay. The next moment, there was only body cavity where internal organs should have been housed. Dried clean, no decay, no mucus, as if all had healed normally, like a surface scar. At that very moment, a raven flew out of the space, knocking LaShawn over and into waking.