The First Fall Page 2

  “There’s two things you can do, Johnny Healy, and if you’re not willing to do the both of them without questioning me, you’d better be prepared to help me pack my bags, because I can’t stay here anymore.” Fran’s voice was barely above a broken whisper, but it was loud enough. Compared to her silence, it bordered on a scream.

  “Anything,” said Jonathan.

  Fran raised her head. Not all the way, but enough to let him see her hollow, hurting eyes. “I want to find the carnival. I want to talk to Junie. Ghosts…she’s always had trouble with ghosts. They won’t leave her be. I need to know if Danny’s resting quiet. I need to know if he’s looking for me.”

  Jonathan swallowed hard before forcing himself to nod. “All right. We can leave tomorrow. I have some idea of their circuit, from when we brought them here for the wedding. We’ll find them.”

  “That’s not all,” said Fran.

  “I know. You said there was a second thing…?”

  “Promise me.”

  Jonathan frowned. “Promise you what, sweetheart? I already promised to take you to find the carnival. What else can I do?”

  “Promise me that this is the last child I bury. Promise me that you will not let this happen again, to any child of ours.” Fran’s eyes were filling with slow tears. “Promise me that Danny’s the only one we’re going to lose this way, because Johnny, this is like to kill me, and I don’t think I could survive it again.”

  “Oh, Fran.” Jonathan enfolded her in his arms, pressing her face to his shoulder. “Shh. I promise. If we have any more children, I will do everything I possibly can to keep them safe. You have my word.”

  “He was so little, Johnny, he was so little,” Fran whimpered, and clutched at his shirtfront, and cried.

  They didn’t make it downstairs to lunch.

  “Now you’re sure about this, son,” said Alexander, frowning as he watched Jonathan saddle Railroad, the aging bay he’d come home with after the trip that first brought Fran into their family. Fran was faster than he was when it came to tack; she’d be down to saddle her own Rabbit in a little while. “I’d be a lot more comfortable if you’d take the truck. Something more secure than a pair of horses. This is a motorist’s world these days.”

  “Fran prefers horseback when it’s an option, and right now, if she’s willing to have an opinion, I’m more than willing to go along with it,” said Jonathan. “Ohio’s not that far.”

  “Ohio’s not that close either, and if something happens to one of you…”

  “She’s dying inside, Dad.” Jonathan kept working as he spoke, focusing on the patient horse in front of him rather than the heartsick father beside him. “This is killing her inside, and if I can make it even a little bit better by letting her ride her horse to Ohio, then I’m going to do it. I can’t…I can’t…” He stopped, resting his forehead against Railroad’s warm, faintly heaving side.

  Alexander put his hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. “You can’t lose them both,” he said quietly. “I know, son. I know.”

  “He was so little,” said Jonathan, without lifting his head. “Fran keeps saying that, and she’s right. He was still so little. He never had a chance to grow up. All the world he knew was inside our house.”

  “That gives him a lot more world than many people will ever see,” said Alexander fiercely. “Now you listen to me, Johnny Healy, and you listen good. You were a good father to that boy. You are a good husband to Fran. You do whatever you need to do to make her feel like she can come all the way home to us, and we’ll be here when you get back. We’ll keep the home fires burning. But you have to take care of yourself, too, because as much as you’re afraid of losing your wife and son in a single autumn, I’m even more afraid of losing my son and daughter and grandson in that same amount of time. Do you understand what I’m trying to say to you?”

  “I do.” Jonathan turned, looking at his father with the sort of unguarded hurt that he hadn’t really shown to anyone since he hit puberty, and puberty started hitting back. “Does it ever stop hurting this much?”

  And Alexander—who knew more than he had ever cared to about how it felt to lose a child, either by settling them in the cold, hard ground or by watching them stay behind while you moved into a new life—shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry, and I wish I had a better answer, but no. It never stops hurting this much. It just gets a little further behind you, and ghosts don’t always keep up with the living so well, even when those ghosts are only memories, and not actually the spirits of the restless dead.”

  Jonathan sighed. “I was afraid that was what you were going to say,” he said, and turned back to getting his horse ready for the journey.

  They rode for the first day in silence. Not the comfortable sort of silence that had grown between them in the years since they first met: this was a strained silence, heavy with the weight of the things that weren’t being said, and haunted by the blue-eyed ghost of a little boy who died so many years before his time. They made camp in a clearing a short distance from the road, falling into their respective patterns without conversation or thought. Jonathan built the fire, erected the tent, and drew the circle of salt and ball bearings around the place where they and their mounts would be effectively unguarded; Fran took her pistols and vanished into the wood, returning an hour later with two large buck jackalopes and blood on the knees of her jeans.

  Dinner was a strained affair, half-burnt pseudo-rabbit meat stewed over the campfire with carrots and potatoes brought along from Enid’s kitchen. When they finished eating, Jonathan covered the pot and crawled into their bedroll, motioning for Fran to do the same. She came, but not willingly, and lay against him as stiff as a board. It wasn’t until he finally managed to drift off into restless slumber that she allowed herself to soften, and to cry.

  The next morning, they woke uncomfortable and unrested, climbed back onto their horses, and began the whole process again.

  The Campbell Family Carnival was a strange, outdated beast in this rapidly-changing modern world, still owned by a single self-made family—although so far as Fran knew, there were no actual blood members of the Campbell family left with the show—and still peddling its old-fashioned mix of sideshows, “wonders of the world,” and midway games to the willing public. They didn’t move fast, but they moved true, following the patterns of the crowd.

  “I wonder if the elephants are still there,” said Fran, about noon on the third day.

  Jonathan started in his saddle. It had been so long since he’d heard her speak unprompted that for a moment, he thought that he was daydreaming. But when he glanced her way her expression was thoughtful, not empty, and she was watching the horizon with that old familiar focus, like she expected the sky itself to start offering up its secrets at any minute. “Elephants are remarkably long-lived in captivity,” he said. “They seemed to be young and in excellent health when I saw them last, so I can’t think of any reason they wouldn’t still be with the show. Unless the carnival sold them again, of course.”

  He realized the error of his words when Fran’s expression shifted, freezing over once more. By then, it was too late; he couldn’t have taken them back if he’d tried. “Daniel was young and in good health,” she said. Digging her heels into Rabbit’s flanks, she urged her horse forward at a trot, leaving Jonathan and Railroad behind.

  “Damn,” he whispered, and rode after her.

  They made it from Michigan into Ohio without incident. If the people passing them on the roads thought that it was strange to see two figures riding through the fields and along the roadside, they didn’t stop to say anything. It helped that much of what they passed through was farm country, where horses were still considered a more standard form of conveyance. It wasn’t the fastest way to travel, but sometimes speed was less important than the nature of the journey.

  Jonathan saw the poster on the morning of the fourth day. It was a small thing, almost unnoticeable against the wide red expanse of the barn that it had be
en plastered against, but something about it caught his eye and then his full attention, until he tugged on Railroad’s reins to move him closer.

  “Fran, stop,” he called. “Come have a look at this.”

  At first, he didn’t think that she was going to listen to him; that this was going to be the moment where she struck off on her own, leaving him to ride back to his parents without her. Then she sighed—audible even from where he was sitting astride his horse—and turned Rabbit around, riding back to her husband’s side.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Look.” He pointed to the poster.

  It was green, with hand-painted streaks of silver paint that seemed like an extravagance for something that was going to be posted in the middle of nowhere. “See! The Fabulous Campbell Family Circus,” it read. “One Night Only—Open to the Public—Be Dazzled and Amazed by the Wonders of the Natural World.” An arrow was painted at the very bottom, above a legend that read “Three Miles East, Impossible to Miss.”

  “We found them,” breathed Fran. “Three miles East—Johnny, we found them!”

  “Assuming this is for tonight,” he said, hating to quash her enthusiasm, but unwilling to let her hoist her hopes too high.

  Fran waved his concern off with a flap of her hand, saying, “It’s fresh paint—you see that silver? It marks the poster’s age, that’s what makes it worth it. You put these ones out where you might find workers, or new recruits, and they can tell by how faded the piece is whether it’s worth their while. If we’ve missed them, it’s not by more than two, maybe three days, and we can catch up with that. They’ll leave a trail, oh, Johnny.” Her joy was a raw, aching need that filled her voice from top to bottom. “We’ve found them.”

  This time, wisely, Jonathan Healy didn’t say anything.

  Three miles east brought them to a low hill, which they urged the horses up without comment. When they reached the top they stopped, side by side, and looked down at their destination.

  The Campbell Family Circus was either extremely good or extremely lucky when it came to site selection. They were settled on a wide, flat piece of land, with open fields on three sides and a well-paved road on the fourth. Rides and attractions covered the open ground, all built around the long, gaily-colored serpent of the midway. A thin line of trees stood between the carnival and the caravan that had carried it to the heart of Ohio.

  “The boneyard,” whispered Fran, looking at that motley collection of trucks and trailers with open longing in her face.

  Not for the first time, Jonathan wondered whether he’d be going home alone. “Shall we go down to see your family, darling?” he asked.

  Fran didn’t answer. Fran just rode on.

  Together, they made their way down the low rise and toward the back end of the carnival. It was open enough, with wide pedestrian walks letting out onto the open field. Jonathan couldn’t shake the feeling that they were intruders here, but that did nothing to slow Fran, who made for the nearest opening like a bullet shot from a marksman’s gun. Nothing seemed to dissuade her, not even the distant shout of a carnival worker catching sight of what had to look like a pair of strangers getting ready to ride their horses straight onto the midway.

  “Fran—”

  “Ain’t no nevermind,” she said, without turning to look at him. “We’re coming home here, Johnny, and coming home means coming as you are, not coming as someone else wants you to be.”

  I’m not coming home, he thought desperately. I’m following you into foreign territory, and I’m feeling a little more lost with every step you make me take. But he couldn’t leave her here, not even if this little patch of mobile wonderland was her true home country. She was his wife and his life’s greatest love, and he owed her this, no matter how much it frightened him.

  So they rode past the boundary of the carnival, past the sad little weight lifter’s stall and the outermost popcorn vendor, two lanky figures on horseback mingling with, if not blending into, the slow but growing crowd.

  They were almost to the main stretch when a black-haired woman wearing too much eyeliner and a skirt that was more patch than original fabric stepped out from between two booths and directly into Fran’s path. She placed her hands on her hips, cocking her head to the side, and frowned at the woman on the spotted horse.

  “If you wanted tickets, you could have asked,” she said.

  “I didn’t want tickets,” said Fran, and her voice was small and lost and very nearly broken. “I wanted to come home.”

  Juniper nodded. “Well, then, why don’t you get off that horse and give me a proper hug before we get you settled in the bone yard? Welcome home, Frannie. Welcome home.”

  Fran was crying before her feet hit the ground. Jonathan slid off his own horse to catch Rabbit’s reins, and watched in silence as Juniper folded her arms around his wife, and drew her close, and held her.

  Juniper led them through the maze of the bone yard, her arm around Fran’s shoulders, Jonathan walking behind with the two horses, until they reached a small, battered trailer that looked like it would blow away with the first stiff wind to come along.

  “I knew I had to get this ready for visitors, although I wasn’t sure who,” said Juniper, letting go of Fran in order to open the door. “It’ll sleep two if you’re cozy, and two even if you’re not, although it may be less comfortable that way. There’s no running water, but there’s a little range, so you can do some of your own cooking, and we have camp showers set up over by the bears. I’ll get your horses stabled with the rest of them. Rabbit still perform?”

  “Hasn’t in years,” said Fran.

  “Pity,” said Juniper. “That’d be a grand way for you to earn your keep while you’re here. We’ve never had a trick rider as good as you.”

  “Never will, either,” said Fran, and for a moment, there was a ghost of sass and swagger in her voice, the phantom remains of a woman who had run off with a man who hunted monsters, just because it seemed more interesting than the life she had waiting for her with the carnival. Jonathan felt hope uncurling inside him, like a flower reaching toward the sun.

  Maybe being with the carnival would be good for them after all.

  “That’s probably true,” Juniper agreed. “The carnival’s open, but the main tent hasn’t closed down. If you need feeding or watering, head over there. You remember the rules of the establishment?”

  “Don’t start fights, don’t be afraid to finish fights if someone else starts them, don’t take more than you think you can eat, everyone clears up after themselves except the jugglers, and they aren’t allowed to have more than a single place setting at a time,” Fran recited, without hesitation.

  “And everyone gets their turn at the dishes, but we can talk about that later,” said Juniper, with an easy smile. “For tonight, you’re my guests, and every door we have is open to you.”

  “Every door?” asked Fran.

  Juniper paused, looking at the other woman sadly. “Yes, sweetheart,” she said. “Every door. Now you two get settled in; I’ll send someone around to show you to the main tent in a little bit. For right now, I have wrangling to do, and miles to go before I sleep.”

  “Thank you, Junie,” said Fran.

  “Don’t thank me.” Juniper shook her head. Her eyes were shadowed. “I don’t think thanking me is the right thing to do at all.” Then she turned, before Fran could recover enough from her surprise to ask what Juniper meant by that, and walked away, returning to the safety of the carnival’s midway lights.

  The trailer lived up to its description, containing a bed that was large enough for two people, if those two people were very fond of one another’s company, a small dresser with three shallow drawers, and a “kitchen” that consisted of a camp range and a pantry half the size of the dresser. Jonathan estimated that they could keep a loaf of bread and a piece of cheese in there, at best, and that was assuming that the mice kicked up by the carnival didn’t find their way inside.

  He didn
’t say anything. Fran was too happy, and he didn’t want to risk chasing her back into the shell where she’d been living for these past few days. Instead, he stood next to the range and watched as she unpacked their things, stacking what wouldn’t fit in the dresser against the walls, and whistling to herself the whole time. There was color in her cheeks, and while he knew enough about grief to know that it was stolen color, borrowed from herself through sheer force of will, it still did him good to see it.

  “Should I know what this ‘main tent’ place is before we go there, or is it best if I can be horribly surprised?” he asked.

  “Sometimes I forget that you’re a townie,” said Fran. There was an insincerity in her tone that made Jonathan’s eyes widen briefly. She had never forgotten that they came from different worlds; not once, not for a single day. She kept talking as if she hadn’t just lied to him, explaining, “The main tent is sort of a mess hall, sort of a social gathering space for folks who’re between jobs at any given minute. It’s dangerous to sit around there too long—someone will find something for you to be doing if it looks like you’re loafin’, instead of getting a well-deserved rest or a proper meal—but it’s a good way to keep your finger on what’s going on in the spaces where you don’t usually work. It’s a circus tradition more’n a carnival one.”

  “But the Campbell Family Carnival started out as a circus,” said Jonathan.

  Fran turned toward him as she nodded, and her smile was almost bright enough to make up for the shadows underneath it. “Got it in one, city boy,” she said. “They’ll feed us supper, maybe hand over some gossip that explains the lay of the land, and then they’ll turn us loose. We have tonight to be idle at the carnival. That’s not a small gift to get when you’re with a working show.”

  “I shall take it for the treasure that it is,” said Jonathan gravely, forcing back the host of questions that threatened to overwhelm him. Chief among them was the one that he knew he was least free to ask: How long were they going to stay? Fran referred to being “with a working show” so carelessly, but that could mean anything, from hope to habit. It was better to keep his peace, for now, and let her be happy while she could.