Bacchanal Read online

  “You the lady that talks to animals?” Uly appraised Liza, all skeptical, narrowed eyes. His accent was one she hadn’t heard before; “animals” became “ah-nee-mals.”

  “More or less.” Liza hadn’t finished the cup of coffee she’d had with breakfast, but that question was so full of expectation, all at once, that her bladder became uncomfortably full. She squirmed past the man into the tent, where the animals sat in their cages: two large metal contraptions lined up side by side. Straw littered the bottom of each cage but had been spread around the tent too. A trough of fresh water sat in one corner of the tent, but each cage also had a smaller bowl of water. One cage was large enough for a few feet of walking space and contained a shallow pool that looked like an overlarge bucket. The animals eyed her warily, and Mico emerged from her pocket, climbed up her arm, and took his usual spot on her shoulder.

  Uly tossed a thumb at the first cage. “This is Ikaki—”

  “Yes, the tortoise.”

  “The expert is not so expert after all. It’s a turtle.” Uly beamed.

  Liza resisted the urge to correct the man for all of a few seconds. “I communicate with animals. How you make the leap that I can identify every species on sight is apparently outside my range of understanding.”

  Uly stiffened, the smug smile falling from his face. Clay chuckled but managed to keep his features stony—an impressive feat.

  Liza tilted her head in disbelief. People would spend money on the silliest things. Even Mico chuckled in his own weird series of chirps. They moved down the line.

  “And next here, we have our star. From what I hear, one of the last on earth: the Tasmanian tiger. A high-strung, temperamental little thing, if you ask me.”

  Liza bent down and stared at the animal. She wondered if it was a fake. But the long snout, the stripes, the tail, the size—it was all right. She’d only read about the legend, but to see one in person . . .

  “Sabina,” Uly said.

  “Huh?” Liza straightened.

  “Her name. It’s Sabina.”

  “I need some time alone.” Liza dismissed the handler. “That’ll be all.”

  Uly fumed. Probably thinking, How dare this girl wave me off like I’m a nobody? Who does she think she is? But when Liza turned to settle her impassive gaze on him, he turned and stormed out. Clay, though, stayed put.

  “Well, go on.” He made a spinning motion with his hand. “Let’s see a little demonstration.”

  Liza fidgeted under his expectant gaze—hair smoothed, shirt adjusted at the waist, where it all of a sudden chafed.

  Clay only stared harder. “You waitin’ on a special invite?”

  Liza knelt in front of the cages and formed an image, something she could send to them both. An introduction. An offering. Sabina and Ikaki watched her as if in anticipation. Ikaki crept forward while Sabina stayed put, unblinking.

  The image in her mind dissolved, unsent. “I’m . . . they’re not ready yet.”

  Liza managed not to bolt from the tent, which would have made her look even more incompetent. “I’ll know when the time is right.” She turned to the animals. “They’ll let me know.”

  She left Clay where he stood gaping at her and strolled outside, the picture of composure. She wilted as soon as she was out of sight and steeled herself for what she had to do.

  All she could find and trap easily was a grasshopper, which was actually fine with her because if things went badly again, the guilt wouldn’t consume her so. The casual glance over her shoulder was forced, but anyone watching wouldn’t have taken special note of what she was doing. She crossed her fingers and began.

  Minutes later, the grasshopper lay on its side, unmoving.

  When Liza was a child, she believed that her tears held a power that might bring dead creatures back to life. But it had never worked, and this time was no different.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ISHE’S STORY

  Ishe Okoye was one of the special ones, one of hers. Ahiku had recruited him for her carnival personally. He had been little more than a wandering ghost, driven by a heavy, grieving sadness. His firstborn, Achan, was a girl who, the first day she smiled a toothless grin at her father, had won his heart in such a way that even the sun no longer held sway over him.

  His daughter had lain dying on a pallet, his wife, Talia, fretting over her, when he’d made the fateful decision to seek out the help of the witch doctor. The healer in his own community had been unable to help their daughter. The illness, marked by fever and, judging from the child’s soul-searing shrieks, racking pain, remained unaffected by his herbs and mumbled prayers. Talia had pleaded with Ishe not to go; his father had called him a fool. Told him that if he lost this child, she would be duly mourned, but another would soon take her place. The witch doctor’s aid came with a cost too great.

  Ishe ignored the warnings and set off to find the one person whom people had told him not to seek. He walked the well-worn path out of his village, blanketed on both sides by tall grasses, followed by the eyes of the animals that lurked there. His target, a mountainous outcropping, lay ahead. It was a path known by everyone but sought by few. He didn’t know what he’d need, but he’d taken a lock of his daughter’s hair, a piece of her clothing, and the sweat-soaked cloth that he used to mop at her smooth, round little face.

  The sun was beginning to crest over the mountain, bathing the savanna in henna and gold. At the base of the mountain, Ishe used his walking stick to balance himself as he climbed. The way was steep but not treacherous. At a rise, a full hour later, he came to the cave, but whether it was natural or unnatural, he did not know. A figure stood at the opening and beckoned him inside.

  The man he met looked like a skeleton wrapped in the ashen skin of a human being who had seen too many years. Dressed in a flowing, long robe the color of dried grass, a satchel tied in a rope at his hip. Eyes that were covered in a white film but still somehow able to see. His hair was knotted in gigantic roped tangles that swept down his back and brushed at the earth. The hair looked to weigh more than the man’s collection of bones.

  As soon as Ishe stepped into the cave mouth, it was as though all light from outside was blocked. He blinked, his eyes struggling to adjust. Candles, some tilted in melting wax, dominated a space that was no more than three arm lengths wide. Thin trickles of water flowed down the sparkling stone walls to form depressions in the otherwise smooth surface of the rock, a trail of acidic tears.

  He dared another step, wincing at a crunching sound beneath his feet, and he looked down to discover that the cave floor was littered with bones, human and animal alike. Ishe barely maintained control of his bowels at the sight. The doctor’s art was a dark one—a witch, he was called by some, an instrument of the afterlife by others.

  The witch doctor laughed at the things Ishe had brought with him. “The spirits don’t need these trinkets; save them for that fool in your village. The spirits know all. They are with us every day. You, Ishe Okoye, come seeking relief for your mewling infant. Sit, I will consult with my spirit-god.”

  “I would give my life for hers,” Ishe said.

  “You may have to give more than that.” The witch doctor pulled a pinch of powder from his pouch and tossed it into the circle of rocks that sat between them, and a small fire erupted. Blue-orange flames sparked high and settled into a low roll. The man began to chant, swaying to and fro. The name “Ahiku” was sprinkled throughout the chant. And from the fire, a dark vapor emerged. One slender tendril wafted up, grew, expanded. A smoky head formed atop a neck; arms stretched out from what was a thin torso. Stumps became legs as the figure drifted away from the fire.

  Ishe’s eyes bulged, his mouth hung open, and he battled the urge to bolt back down the mountain. A cold sweat trickled down his back. A sick smile spread across the witch doctor’s face as his chanting ended.

  A woman in traditional Nigerian dress stood before him. A multicolored wrap draped her body, most of her hair hidden beneath a matching gele
. Her face was perfectly round, her eyes bright above sculpted ebony cheekbones. Ishe admonished himself for noticing that she was a shapely woman—spirit. When she smiled, a dark cloud seemed to smother the candlelight.

  The witch doctor lay prostrate at the woman’s feet. She spared him a cursory glance and turned to Ishe.

  “You know what I am?” The demon’s voice was like clear marbles tumbling down a pristine waterfall.

  Ishe’s insides turned to pounded yam. Could he get up and run? Could he thank the demon spirit for her time and say that he’d changed his mind, that he had climbed the wrong mountain and was looking for another spirit instead?

  “Ah, you do.” The demon smiled when Ishe couldn’t bring himself to answer. “The white people and their strange religion make some of our people forget me, forget all the spirits. This . . . is a mistake. Don’t you think?”

  Ishe could only blink.

  “The underworld tells me you have a sick daughter. She is infected with the spirit of one of your ancestors taken across the ocean. A most angry soul. I can make this spirit go away, if you are willing to provide a gift to another spirit in exchange.”

  The mention of his daughter both frightened and emboldened Ishe. “Name your price, demon.”

  The demon woman’s eyes flashed.

  “A man of courage,” she said, gliding forward and forcing Ishe to crane his neck to look up to her. “One of my spirit brothers has succumbed to the call to walk the earth again; his time of rest is over. You must willingly accept this spirit, to live alongside your own. I will call on you and this spirit one day. You must heed this call, or your daughter’s life will be forfeit. You will be released from this contract at the time of your death. When that death is, is wholly dependent upon you.”

  Ishe didn’t hesitate. “So be it.”

  Ahiku drifted close, an incantation in the language of the dead flowing from her lips. A wisp, translucent in the candlelight, quivered into being less than a pace away from him. She held out her hand and blew what looked like dried clay toward the being, and it surged forward and into Ishe’s body.

  It was as if his body had shed a dead outer layer of skin. Every slack muscle, the unhearing right ear, the spot at the crown of his head where his hair thinned—it all tingled with new life. Fresh blood rippled through his veins; his heart beat faster, stronger. He smelled food cooking from what must have been miles away. Adrenaline surged as he pictured himself, a man, running through his land as if hunting unseen prey. An endless hunger drove him on.

  Ishe was a desperate father. He had no idea what he had agreed to, nor the nature of the spirit that was settling in with his own. And much later, when the female demon did call on him, a resigned Ishe bade his wife, daughter, and the son who had completed their family goodbye and joined her minstrel show across the ocean.

  “There is no natural reason a place should still be this hot at this time of year,” Hope said as she and Liza strolled around the bustling midway. “I don’t know how you can be used to it.”

  Liza blew at the cup of coffee in her hands, trying to cool it off. “Who says I am?”

  “I don’t suppose Pensacola was any better?”

  “Why do you northerners take that haughty tone about the south all the time?” Liza asked. She sipped at her coffee, burned her lip, and winced. “I believe Baltimore also knows a summer season.”

  Hope looked over at her. “What tone? I didn’t take no tone. Askin’ questions is all. And why do you take that educated tone when somebody gets your hackles up?”

  It was Liza’s turn to look at Hope. “I do not.”

  “You sure as cotton do.”

  “What did you say?” Liza put her hands on her hips.

  “I . . . I said . . . Don’t you try to twist my words, Eliza Meeks. And yeah, us poor colored folk did get our hands on a book or two up north, but we don’t have to go waving it around in folks’ face to prove something don’t need provin’, ’specially”—Hope gestured at their surroundings, dragging a finger through the air—“in this—this goddamned traveling freak show.”

  Before Liza could form a response, Clay approached, the picture of calm chaos. “Ms. Child.” He tipped his hat at Hope. “Animal tamer, I need—”

  “You call me by my given name,” Liza broke in. “Or I’ll figure you ain’t talking to me.”

  Hope grinned, did a mock curtsy, and walked off. Clay turned bright red.

  “Go help the game runners get set up,” Clay said, not calling her by any name. “Start out with Ishe. He runs the milk-bottle game near the front gate. And I want to see what progress you’ve made with your animal show tomorrow.”

  He didn’t stay for an answer, and Liza shot daggers at his retreating back.

  “I’ve been here all of five minutes, and he wants progress,” Liza muttered. Mico stuck his head out of her pocket to join in with his own chitter. She wove through the crowd, stumbled upon Jamey hauling tent poles for one of the shows. They met eyes for a moment, lingered, then looked away.

  She wound her way around the horseshoe-shaped midway to the coveted third spot on the right side of the entrance. The milk-bottle game had a square tent set up with one pole in the middle and smaller posts in each corner. The tent flaps were pulled back with rope. A long table covered in a white cloth sat at the front of the tent. Another table behind the first held milk-bottle pyramids. A man stood in front of the set, turning this way and that, reshaping the bottles in a pattern that Liza couldn’t understand. It was the man she’d seen that first day, the one she’d tossed the stuffed animal to.

  He turned suddenly. “What you standing there gaping at me for?”

  She froze. That pair of wide-set, dark eyes was as deep as a thousand-line poem. Eyes that seemed to size up the whole world between blinks.

  She inhaled and exhaled, annoyed at his tone and enchanted by a facial constitution that was downright unfair. “A big difference between gaping and looking. I’d think somebody who worked in a carnival would know that.”

  Mico had scurried down her arm and now sat on the table eyeing Ishe, turning his head at an inquisitive angle. Ishe looked from the little monkey to its owner. Mico sent Liza an image of a howling dog. What is he going on about?

  “I’m not one of these sideshow freaks, and best mind your manners,” Ishe said.

  “Well, I guess I am one of the said ‘sideshow freaks.’” Liza couldn’t stop herself. “Look, let’s start over. I’m Liza, and Clay says you need some help.”

  Ishe stared at her a moment, but Liza never blinked. “Get that thing off my table before he soils it, and come on around back.”

  Mico wasn’t quite sure what the human had said but seemed to sense it was directed at him, and the man was none too flattering. He screeched his outrage, and despite herself, Liza laughed, scooped him up, and dropped him in her pocket.

  With that settled, Liza’s curiosity took over. “Show me how this game works.”

  “You see.” Ishe held a milk bottle in his large hands. “The pyramid is simple. Two bottles on bottom, one on the top. You need to slide one of the ones on the bottom forward a little bit, like this.” He took the bottle in his hand and set it next to the one on the table, but he moved it forward ever so slightly. “And put the last one on top. This way, the mark may knock off one, two if he’s real lucky—but no way, almost never, gets all three.”

  “But that’s cheating.” Liza looked up at Ishe with no accusation in her eye, only stating a fact, while trying to ignore how beautiful he was.

  “So it is.” Ishe moved over to set up the next pyramid. “Let me tell you something about the carnival business. There ain’t no business if the marks win too much. We’d go broke inside a month. You, me, everybody here that need this job in one way or another, we all back on the street, jail . . .” He paused, looking introspective. “Or worse. Every now and again, you let somebody win. But we got to make the profit. That way, everybody happy. Get it?”

  Liza was no
fool. She herself would be running around doing Mrs. Shippen’s bidding right now if not for the carnival. She winced, remembering her landlady’s disappearance back in Baton Rouge. “I get it.”

  Ishe finished setting up another two pyramids and gestured to the last spot at the end of the table. “Now, you do that one.”

  That night, the carnival opened in Lake Charles. Clay had paid off the local sheriff, and luckily there was no mayor with his hand out this time. Not only had the right to perform for a week been secured, but also a good helping of supplies from the general store.

  Though Liza was still supposed to help out and be a runner when needed, she resolved to check in with Ishe. Not that he’d asked for her help outright, but just in case. Later, she wanted to observe Sabina and Ikaki, how the customers treated the animals and, more importantly, how the animals felt about the people coming through. Hopefully she’d pick up something that would help her put together a show that didn’t risk their lives.

  For such a small town, the turnout was huge. Liza found herself unexpectedly wound up, for in every child’s face, her hopes of finding Twiggy were briskly raised and dashed. A swampy-tinged tide of revelers swarmed the midway. Pulsating swing music escorted the impenetrable stream, drawn as if on an invisible string between them and the trail of prancing and preening carnival performers. Castoffs gained and lost at each moneymaking stop along the way: games, rides, aromatic concession stands.

  In the animal tent, a white family of three muddled through. The man, sour faced and short, wore a pair of glasses that looked like they were barely able to rest on such a tiny nose. The woman was a few inches taller than him but had the demeanor of a mouse; she wouldn’t raise her eyes and said nothing to the boy constantly yanking and pulling at her hand.

  “What do we have here?” the man said, even though he’d seen the banner out front proclaiming the “World’s Last Remaining Tasmanian Tiger,” alongside the African turtle. He turned to Liza and, obviously unsatisfied, looked at Uly, who was standing behind her.