He gestured angrily at the other clowns. “I apologize for my friends. I will make it up to you both...”

  “Hugo,” Yvette said. “His name is Hugo. He helped me find my way to you, Claude, and now you’ve got to help him. His little brother, Oskar, went missing during your Finale a few days ago—”

  “Oskar didn’t go ‘missing,’” Hugo snarled. “He was snatched away by the bloody strong man and his friends. I went after him and someone hit me in the head, knocked me out. As far as I know, any of you might have been wielding the club!”

  A ripple of anger passed across Claude’s features. Under that mime makeup, he was a master of using his face to express emotion, to tell stories. A clown was an actor, and Yvette knew her brother was an excellent actor, but in that moment she knew the steely glare in his eyes was not acting.

  “For my sister’s sake—” he began.

  The whiteface rushed at Hugo. The red-clad twins cheered him on. Hugo ducked a punch and struck back, slamming a fist into Whiteface’s gut. The clown grunted, bent double, but drove himself into Hugo. The two hit the ground hard and the scuffle began in earnest.

  Yvette shouted at her brother, but Claude was already in motion. He hauled Whiteface backward and gave him just enough of a kick to overbalance him.

  Claude turned and offered Hugo his hand. Eyes narrowed with suspicion, Hugo allowed the mime to help him to his feet.

  “For my sister’s sake,” Claude began again, “I will not thrash you for the accusation you’ve just made.”

  Hugo glared at him. “Do your worst. I’m here for my brother, and I know what I saw.”

  “Perhaps you do,” Claude said thoughtfully. He glanced around at the other clowns. “I can vouch for my brothers, but who can know the hearts of all those around them?”

  Yvette felt her spirits lift and a rush of love for her brother. Hugo had made her feel less alone, and she had grown very fond of him, but that was not the same as having family.

  “So you’ll help him?”

  As if in answer, the music inside the big tent began to swell. The whiteface swore angrily as he picked himself up off the ground again.

  “The Finale,” he said.

  Claude nodded toward him, gesturing for the other clowns to head back for the main tent. “We’ve got to finish this evening’s performance. Come and sit, watch the Finale. As soon as it’s over, we’ll help you talk to our little circus family and if anyone has seen your brother, we will discover it together.”

  Hugo thanked him, but coldly, still on edge. Claude raced toward the main tent, pursuing the other clowns, but as he ran to catch up, the whiteface looked back and grinned at Yvette. His eyes once more gleamed that harvest moon orange, and something about his teeth seemed wrong to her, as if suddenly there were too many of them.

  She shivered, but when Hugo took her hand and led her toward the tent, she went along with him. He had helped her find her lost brother. It seemed only right that she should help him do the same. But as she listened to the screeching clamor of the musicians inside the tent, and she thought about the whiteface and those gleaming eyes, a terrible dread seized her, a certainty that Oskar was not here, that whoever had taken him had dragged him away from the circus and killed him.

  Then she remembered the winged serpent in the tent and the sick feeling returned to her guts. Just the thought made her feel unclean and full of revulsion.

  “Are we going in?” Hugo asked, pausing outside the main tent.

  Yvette took a deep breath and then led the way through the performers’ entrance. Cheers and laughter and clanging music enveloped them. Yvette had never been in a space with so many people, and yet she had never felt so exposed...so alone.

  Hugo led her to the stands. The music grew more discordant, and she knew something was about to happen. Something terrible.

  11

  Hugo tasted blood in his mouth. His hands and clothes were smeared with dirt and covered in grass stains from his encounter with the clowns, and both he and Yvette smelled like tiger piss. As the music rose and the Finale’s choreography continued to build to its crescendo, the grinning men, clapping women, and delighted children noticed him not at all. Emotions collided within him—embarrassment and fear and anger, but most of all the desperate yearning to find Oskar. The naïve hope of finding him unharmed.

  The acrobats flew through the shifting play of light and shadow in the eaves of the massive tent. People gazed upward, mouths open in utter enchantment at the naked risk, thirsting for danger as long as it threatened someone else. Human nature, he knew, until something you loved was in peril. Something or someone.

  Even Yvette seemed mesmerized. She sat with her hands folded primly in her lap, smiling happily, warm and contented now that she had found her brother and knew she would not be cast aside by the world, not be left alone. Hugo felt no bitterness toward her. How could he blame her for the relief she felt? Wouldn’t he have felt the same? He appreciated that she had taken up for him with her brother and his circus family.

  Hugo did not laugh or cheer or applaud, but as the Finale unfolded, he began to wonder if Claude’s certainty had merit. Could it be that one or two of the circus workers had taken Oskar, or that they’d thought Hugo might be out to hurt the boy, and that they were somehow rescuing him? Nothing made sense to him anymore. All he could do was sit and wait until the Finale concluded.

  With the stink of sweating humans around him and the music clanging in his ears, he sat and watched the performers. He studied their smiles and a strange feeling came upon him. Did those smiles seem strained? Was the gleam in the eyes of the animal trainers one of joy or despair? His skin prickled and a damp sheen coated his forehead and neck. Something shifted in his peripheral vision and he turned to see motion in the shadows. The ebb and flow of the torchlight and the darkness, the droop of the tent walls, made the whole circus pulse and throb as if the main tent were a single atrium in the center of some vast, chaotic heart.

  Pressure clamped on his skull, the way it often did when the weather shifted suddenly. Hugo winced and lowered his gaze, massaging his temples. Nobody noticed, not even Yvette, who cheered even more loudly as a lithe, lovely woman rode into the tent on horseback, standing on the saddle without even holding onto the reins. Hugo groaned, tried to breathe through his nose. Darkness swam in at the edges of his vision as if he might pass out, but this was real. For a moment, as an acrobat swung, released the trapeze, and hurled herself into the shadows, he knew she had vanished into some other place. When she span out of the darkness, the crowd erupted in ecstasy, as if they too had sensed that she had passed through something impossible and emerged unscathed.

  A small parade of circus performers emerged and began to march around the ring. Among them was the strong man, but though venom seethed in Hugo at the sight of him, it was the young boy seated on the huge man’s right shoulder that made him catch his breath.

  Oskar.

  Hugo grabbed Yvette’s hand and squeezed. She gasped and he knew he must be hurting her, yet it took him a moment to lessen his grip. Yvette spoke to him but the words were just a buzzing in his ear as he watched the strong man and Oskar wave to the crowd. His little brother wore a smile so wide it seemed carved into his face and his eyes were wide and bright. Unlike the smiles of some of the other performers, Oskar’s shone with pure joy and wonder.

  “...Oskar,” Yvette said.

  Hugo glanced at her, saw the question in her eyes, and realized she’d followed his gaze and seen the boy. He nodded, unable to find the words, and then shot from his seat. A man behind him rapped him on the back and a little girl cried out for him to get down, but his thoughts were a maelstrom. Had Oskar chosen to be parted from him, to join the circus? Had he befriended people who had assaulted his older brother, gone along willingly? Hugo struggled to accept such an idea. He had been Oskar’s friend and protector, playmate and champion, all the boy’s life. He knew what love looked like because he had seen it in his little brother’s eyes from the moment of Oskar’s birth.

  Yet there he was, jubilant, with the damned strong man.

  Yvette took his wrist and hauled him back into his seat. He spun on her.

  “Wait,” she said sternly. “You can’t run down there now. He’s safe—you can see he’s safe. He looks as if he’s having the time of his life. Just wait until it’s over and we’ll go and find him. Claude will see to it.”

  A tremor went through Hugo. He thought of the breathing shadows around him and the sinister clowns and the sick, haunting dread that kept recurring in his heart, and he knew he could not wait.

  He glanced at Yvette. “We part ways here. I can’t sit here any longer.”

  Hugo got up and started down the steps. Someone hurled a fistful of peanuts at him. As the music rose and crashed, he remembered this melody and knew the Finale had nearly reached its end. He picked up his pace, rushing now, head ducked low as he reached the edge of the ring and hurried toward the gaping slash in the tent that served as the performers’ entrance. He needed to be out there when Oskar left the tent, so he would be sure to confront the strong man and to meet his little brother again. He could leave nothing to chance.

  Only when he had slipped out into the starlit night did he notice that Yvette had followed him.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” he said. “The last time—”

  “I know what happened the last time. But you’ve been there for me, and I’ll be here for you. Even if there are ruffians amongst them, they won’t harm me. Claude is part of their family.”

  Hugo would have argued with her, but the flaps of the tent parted and the performers began to stream out into the night. He took Yvette’s hand and together they ran to take cover behind the nearest wagon, watching in secret as, one after another, the acrobats, dancers, clowns, trainers, animals, and performers poured from the tent, exultant.

  Workers walked off around the tent, perhaps headed for the audience entrance to help see to the crowd’s exodus. Performers split off in small clusters, moving toward various tents and wagons. Animal trainers ushered their charges toward cages. Hugo watched the strong man step aside, just at the edge of the light cast by various torches. The huge man set Oskar down gently, as if afraid he might break, and the boy’s sweet smile struck at Hugo’s heart like a dagger. He’d been telling himself it simply could not be, that Oskar would never have abandoned him this way, but now he had no choice but to accept it.

  The strong man cupped a hand beneath the boy’s chin, turned, and walked off to join the human cannonball, the fire-eater, and several others who were beckoning to him. Oskar stood alone, beyond the reach of the torchlight, but after a moment he turned and began to walk assuredly through the circus grounds, vanishing around the side of a wagon.

  “Come,” Yvette said quietly. “We’ll speak with him before I go to Claude again.”

  Hugo’s heart ached with gratitude and he nodded. The two of them glanced around, then dashed through the shadows, moving from wagon to wagon, but when they came to the place where they’d last seen Oskar, they found themselves in a familiar spot. Looming ahead was the tent wherein stood the statue of the winged serpent. The flap rustled, and Hugo felt sure he spotted the bright yellow shirt Oskar had been wearing.

  “Did he go...” he began.

  “I think so.” Yvette glanced around. “Where else could he have vanished so quickly?”

  Hugo hesitated, remembering the wave of sickness that had overcome him in that tent and the despair that had gripped him, but he would do anything for Oskar. The boy needed him, whether he believed it or not, so Hugo steeled himself and hurried through the darkness and into the tent, with Yvette closely behind.

  Oskar stood in the gloom within, just to the left of the winged serpent, glancing up at the statue as if waiting for it to speak.

  “Thanks be to God,” Hugo whispered, and went to him.

  “Hello, Hugo,” the boy said, his lips a tight line, his eyes dull. “What are you doing here?”

  Mouth open in shock, Hugo blinked, and then he laughed out loud. “What am I doing...Oh, my brother, what have you gotten yourself into?”

  The old dread trickled down his spine and his stomach churned a bit, but the relief of being in the same place with Oskar countered the worst of it. The shadow of the statue loomed over them—a shadow within shadows.

  “Are you all right?” Yvette asked. “Has anyone hurt you?”

  Hugo went onto one knee and swept his brother into his arms, hugging him tightly. A sudden burst of shame came upon him as he thought about the way he had treated Yvette after her reunion with Claude. She had only been relieved, as he was now, and he had been envious.

  The rustle of the tent flaps made him look up. The strong man entered the tent with a torch in one hand, gaze downcast, and others followed in the same manner, as if afraid to lift their eyes. The whiteface came in behind the sword-swallower, then the acrobats, the lovely equestrian, and several other clowns, all of them with torches. The monkey scampered into the tent and raced across the grass, leaping up to swing itself onto the statue’s wing, perching there, chittering.

  Yvette stumbled into the center of the tent to stand beside Hugo, who held Oskar in an even tighter embrace.

  “You can’t keep him here,” he said, finding the steel in his spine, the snarl in his voice. Until this moment he had known he would give his life for his brother, but now he felt the truth of it.

  “Hugo,” the boy whispered in his ear. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  For the first time, Hugo noticed how warm Oskar’s skin had become, as if he had a deadly fever. His arms felt hot, and an acrid stink began to fill the air around them, a miasma that seemed to rise from the boy himself.

  He held Oskar at arm’s length, and only then did he see the white mist that steamed from his brother’s eyes and the grin that split the boy’s face. He became too hot to hold, and Hugo pushed away from him, on his knees, staring in terrified incomprehension.

  Another figure entered the tent.

  Claude. Still in his mime makeup, the greasepaint smeared on his neck, streaked with sweat.

  Yvette let out a cry of relief and ran to him, throwing her arms around him, but her brother seemed barely to acknowledge her presence. Claude took her by the shoulders and shoved her away.

  “No,” she rasped.

  “Kneel!” Claude commanded. “Kneel before your master!”

  Already on his knees, Hugo watched as all those in the tent obeyed, falling to their knees and bowing their heads with a chorus of almost sensual sighs. But it wasn’t Claude they faced as they knelt, and it wasn’t the statue.

  It was Oskar.

  12

  Yvette felt her skin prickle with heat. All the sorrow she had ever felt seemed to envelop her at once, every broken-hearted moment, every wail of grief, every twinge of jealousy or shame. It might have crushed her if she had not seen the knowing, purposeful smile on Oskar’s face—that smile that could be mistaken for nothing other than evil.

  The circus folk bowed their heads more deeply as the boy laughed, and even in the midst of her own fear, Yvette wanted to weep for Hugo, and for the things this boy had lost.

  But Claude had been lost as well, and now, as he made his way toward the statue of the winged serpent, toward the little boy who stood beside it, Yvette allowed her tears to fall. She and Hugo had both lost their brothers.

  “Claude,” she said. “Please...”

  “Please?” he said without turning. He knelt before Oskar. “You don’t even know what you’re asking, sister.”

  Hugo shouted, his grief and fury erupting. He grabbed Oskar and tried to lift him off the ground, perhaps to carry him from the tent, but the boy would not be moved. Impossibly, his much larger brother could not shift him.

  “Whatever you are,” Hugo pleaded, “give me back my brother.”

  Yvette backed toward the tent flaps.

  Oskar grinned wider. The corners of his mouth split and bled. “Your brother is gone. Oh, he’s still inside, screaming, burning, but you cannot reach him. You and your lady have interrupted a performance tonight, and a ceremony.”

  The child nodded toward Claude, who stood and faced his sister.

  Yvette froze.

  “Please, stay,” Claude said, walking to her, hands held out as if in apology. The plea made her hesitate long enough for him to grab her, and now he twisted her around and held his arm against her throat, cutting off her air.

  Yvette gasped, choking. She struggled, but not much. Her grief at his betrayal had overcome her even before the strength in his arms.

  “Our master gifts us with long life, with strength and success, and we revel in its glory,” Claude said quietly, a whisper in her ear. Almost an apology, as if he still had a soul, as if he regretted what he did now. “But it cannot live inside stone, and so we procure shells for it to inhabit. The shells burn out quickly—”

  “Just as Oskar is burning out,” the thing smiled, tearing Oskar’s face further. The smoke coming from the boy’s eyes turned black. “I require new flesh. We’d have taken some other child tonight, but you’re heroes, in a way. The two of you.”

  Oskar smiled at Hugo, then looked again at Yvette. “You’ve saved a child simply by coming here tonight. I prefer children,” the boy said, walking amongst the kneeling circus folk. He gazed up at Yvette as she struggled in Claude’s arms. “But you’ll do.”

  The inside of the tent breathed around her, a sickly aura weighted with evil. It swamped the shadows within the tent like the air before a storm. The circus performers bent their heads further, torches raised in their hands, and they began to chant. Holding Hugo by the throat, the boy threw his head back as if in shuddering ecstasy. They chanted to him, and to the statue that revealed his true form. The demon had ascended through the boy’s flesh, but where, she wondered, was Oskar. Was there any of the boy left at all?