The Ninth Nightmare

‘How can that be? She didn’t go away or anything. She died, Kieran.’

‘How many times have you and I seen dead people? Dozens.’

‘Yes, but none of them was anybody we knew, were they? And we’ve never seen mom.’

Kieran took hold of Kiera’s hand. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘She’s up there and she needs us.’

Kiera looked up at the dark, billowing tents, and the strings of red lights that flickered in the wind like blood cells pouring through human arteries. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t like the look of those tents at all. And even if we do find Mom, what then? She’s dead. She won’t be able to come back with us.’

‘Let’s just see if she’s there first.’

‘I don’t know, Kieran. It’s really scary.’

‘Yes, but I’m sure mom knows that we’re here. What is she going to think of us if we turn our backs on her and leave her, just because we’re chickenshit?’

Kiera took a deep, shivery breath. ‘OK, then. But if we can’t find her we go back through my bedroom door and we close it and we keep it closed.’

Still holding hands, they struggled up the hill. In some places the grass was waist high, and Kiera felt as if she were wading through a stormy sea. In other places the ground underfoot was rocky and loose, like shale, and they found it difficult to keep their footing.

Several times Kiera turned back to make sure that her bedroom doorway was still there. It was standing in the middle of the wildly-waving grass, softly lit, an unearthly vision of the real world that they had left behind them. She felt like telling Kieran that they ought to go back. Their mother had been dead for seventeen-and-a-half years, and even if they found her, what could they do to help her? But Kieran kept on pulling her up the hill, and his urgency seemed to increase with every step.

At last they reached the encampment. More than a dozen tents and small canvas pavilions were clustered around a huge black marquee, as well as seven or eight trailers and old-style horse-drawn caravans, all of them painted in shiny black varnish and beaded with raindrops. The blood-red lights were strung up everywhere, from one tent to the next, and all around the top of the marquee.

The barrel-organ music was still playing but Kiera found it difficult to tell where it was coming from, because it faded and swelled in the wind. It was a discordant version of In The Good Old Summertime, which she and Kieran used to sing together when they were very little, and she couldn’t help herself from silently singing the words in her head.

‘In the good old summertime — in the good old summertime—’

Several of the tents or trailers were lit up inside, but all of the tent flaps were tightly secured and the trailers had black blinds drawn down at every window. It was raining even harder now and the rumble- slap! of wet canvas was almost deafening.

Kieran and Kiera made their way around to the front of the marquee. From this angle they could read the red illuminated letters on top of the archway, even though they were trembling in the wind. They said Albrecht’s Traveling Circus & Freak Show.

Kiera tugged anxiously at Kieran’s hand. ‘Kieran — she can’t be here. I think we’re making a mistake. Let’s go back.’

‘—strolling through the shady lanes with your baby mine—’

Kieran said, ‘No — I’m sure she’s here! It’s almost like I can hear her calling to us! Come on — let’s just take a quick scout around.’

He went through the archway but Kiera stayed where she was. She had such a bad feeling about this. ‘Kieran,’ she said. ‘Please don’t. I’m really frightened.’

Kieran went up to the front of the marquee and took hold of the flap. ‘Come on, sis… it’s only some old circus.’

‘Yes, but freak show? Who has freak shows these days?’

‘I don’t know. But there’s only one way to find out.’

‘—you hold her hand, and she holds yours, and that’s a very good sign—’

He drew back the flap and pushed his way inside. Kiera hesitated for a moment and then she followed him. The flap was heavy and wet and smelled of soil and diesel oil, and something else, too — something that brought back a strong childhood memory. Popcorn.

Once through the flap, the twins found themselves in a small, stuffy vestibule, not much larger than the inside of a wardrobe, and when the flap fell back it was totally dark inside. Kiera nearly panicked, because she hated confined spaces. But then Kieran pulled back the second flap, and they stepped into the main marquee.

The marquee appeared much larger on the inside than it had from the outside, with at least a dozen gasoliers suspended from the roof, and dark red drapes all around the walls, arranged in swags. Tiers of wooden seats were arranged around a low boarded stage. It was more like an old-time vaudeville theater than a circus tent.

‘—that she’s your tootsie-wootsie — in the good old summertime—’

Kieran walked out on to the stage and circled around. ‘Anybody here?’ he called out. ‘Hallo there! Anybody here?’

Kiera said, ‘For God’s sake, Kieran. Supposing there is somebody here? We’re trespassing!’

‘I know — but they’re not going to be mad at us, are they? Circus folk, they’re always real friendly.’

‘Oh, yes? And how do you know? You’ve never been to a circus in your life.’

‘I saw Toby Tyler.’

‘Oh, sure. And I saw Something Wicked This Way Comes.’

Kieran called out again. ‘Halloo! Anybody here?’ But again there was no reply.

‘Come on, let’s go,’ Kiera urged him. ‘This place really creeps me out. And don’t forget that we have a rehearsal first thing tomorrow. We have to get at least a couple hours’ sleep.’

‘OK, OK. But I want to take a quick look around outside.’ They were about to leave the marquee when they heard a sudden clattering of feet behind the tiers of seats. They turned around — just in time to see a diminutive figure in a yellow coat running across the other side of the marquee, a figure no taller than a six-year-old boy. It disappeared almost immediately behind a fold in the canvas.

Kieran seized Kiera’s hand and pulled her across the stage and up the aisle between the seats.

‘No!’ Kiera protested.

But Kieran said, ‘Think about it! He must know where Mom is!’

‘Kieran, Mom’s dead! This is crazy!’

‘Don’t tell me that you don’t feel her!’

They reached the far side of the marquee and Kieran ran along the canvas wall, pulling it and thumping at it with the flat of his hand, trying to find the fold into which the figure in the yellow coat had disappeared. Kiera stood watching him, exhausted and afraid, but she knew better than to try and persuade him to give it up and come back to her hotel room. Once Kieran had his mind set on doing something, he always pursued it to the bitter end.

‘Here!’ he called out, lifting up the canvas to reveal an opening.

‘Kieran—’

‘Come on! Hurry!’

He pushed his way into the opening and Kiera followed him. They had a brief moment of battling with the canvas, and then they were out in the open again, amongst the trailers and the caravans, with the wind and the rain in their faces.

‘Can you see him?’ Kieran shouted. ‘I can’t see him anywhere!’

They walked quickly between the lines of trailers, looking left and right — even ducking down now and again to see if the figure in the yellow coat was crouching underneath. They reached the last trailer, and they were about to turn back when a dazzling flash of lightning lit up the whole encampment, and in that bleached-out flash they saw the figure in the yellow coat running toward one of the caravans and scaling the ladder at the back of it. The figure knocked frantically at the stable door, and the lower half of the door was immediately opened up. Before the figure scuttled inside, however, it turned its head toward them for a split second so that Kieran and Kiera caught a glimpse of it.

‘Jesus,’ said Kieran, and Kiera felt a terrible thrill of shock.

Although he was dressed as a boy, in his yellow tweed coat, the figure looked more like a giant rodent. His face was covered in brindled hair, even his cheeks and his forehead, and he had a long pointed snout rather than a