“How's she doing?” she asked the stage hand who was leaning against the door.
He shrugged. “The crashing's mostly stopped. The yelling comes and goes. What's going on?”
“The policeman says that if we leave there'll be no one to get in trouble, but that means we need to leave.”
The stage hand groaned. “Packing up already, really?” He paused, thinking of the huge amounts of work that entailed, then smiled. “Hey, if Colette still needs watchin', I could just stay here...”
“Lazy,” Marie said, privately thinking wishing she'd thought of it herself. “I'll just go in and tell her.”
“Your funeral,” the stage hand smiled broadly and stepped aside with a dramatic gesture.
Marie rolled her eyes. When they stayed with the circus long enough, even the roustabouts got to thinking they were performers. She brushed past him and opened the door.
“Colette? Asmodeus has spoken with the police, and they decided that we ought to leave tonight, so we're going to...” She didn't finish; a tea cup soared past her head, and she ducked to narrowly avoid it and quickly shut the door again. Colette seemed to have an endless arsenal of the things.
Marie smoothed her skirt. “Well then.” she said. The stage hand sniggered, and she shot him her best death glare. “I'll just go round everyone else up, then. I guess you can stay put.”
He took up his spot leaning against the door again and fished a cigarette out of his pocket, looking infinitely pleased with himself. Marie scowled and took off.
Tom Sry was easy enough to find – he was already supervising the collapsing of the big tent, having caught on that it was time to go. The noise was spectacular; he saw Marie from his perch on top of a ladder and gave a thumbs up, and Marie decided that it was safe to assume that Tom was on top of things. She whispered a private prayer to any listening supernatural forces that she wasn't stuck pulling up stakes and coiling ropes, and set off to inform the rest of the circus.
She headed back to Alexandra's cabin first, letting herself in without bothering to knock. Alexandra was seated at her little table with a tea cup sitting in front of her, ignored in favor of the glass of absinthe in her hand. She looked rather the worse for wear after the morning's drama, and so did her cabin – the cards were still scattered everywhere, and Marie had to side step little bits of broken china. She settled with her hands on her hips, glaring disapprovingly at the fortune teller and her drink.
“Is everyone getting drunk this morning?” she snapped. “We're leaving today. I'm going around to tell everyone, and then I guess I'll come back and help clean this up.” She pivoted and walked out in a huff before Alexandra could get in a word in.
She continued darting around the circus, waking some of the late-sleeping other acts to let them in on the news. Tom Sry seemed to be on top of things – the big tent was still creaking steadily down, and some of the stable kids were rounding up the horses. Once she'd told the story, the performers all seemed glad to rouse themselves enough to pack. By the time she'd made the lap of the campground, there was only one cabin Marie hadn't visited, and the place was buzzing with activity as everyone got ready for the unexpected departure with minimal grumbling – for much of the Cirque, avoiding the attention of the law was worth changing their afternoon plans. But Marie still wasn't convinced they'd be able to get off the ground with Colette out of commission; her ship usually lead, and she didn't really seem to be of the inclination to take off any time soon.
She bit her lip, pondering the problem, when she knocked on Marguerite's door, put off til last out of long habit of avoidance. Marguerite opened the door after far fewer knocks than some of the other acts – she, apparently was not one to oversleep, despite an equally long night of playing nurse after the fight.
“Um... sorry to bother you, but...” Marie began, fidgeting before she settled into the story. “See, Jacques wanted the police to get us in trouble because of the fight, but Asmodeus has fixed it so that we can just leave tonight and have no trouble at all, but Colette's had something of a fit and doesn't really seem all that eager to leave. So I was wondering if perhaps you could, um, fix it so that we can get off the ground without her minding.” She blurted all of this in a rush, and then put on her best charming smile and fidgeted some more. It was fun to get to boss the other performers around, but Marie would have preferred pulling up tent stakes to asking a terrifying mad scientist to maybe drug her intimidating employer.
No comments:
Post a Comment