The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers (ebook reader with internet browser TXT) 📗

Later the group gathered at a little restaurant, Drouant, near the Paris Opera House for a final dinner. The night was warm but a thunderstorm was threatening, so they chose a table under the beige awning and hoped for the best. Gaston ordered a bottle of Meursault and a northern Rhône Syrah to get them started.

In the span of a week, Lara had grown fond of Gaston and Barrow. She felt a profound sense of accomplishment for what they’d discovered together. Althacazur had promised her answers. He’d been true to his word, but an undeniable sadness had begun to settle in her. She’d gotten her answers. Todd was dead. After all these years, she now understood her magic, and the gravity of its origins hung heavily. She and her mother were part daemon. She would return home and either succeed in bringing Esmé back to Le Cirque Secret or die trying. In the unlikely event that she succeeded, she’d agreed, however reluctantly, to become the patron of Le Cirque Secret, likely located in the eighth level of Hell for eternity. She’d been the one, all right.

Looking around the table, she decided that she was going to savor everything about this evening. She’d positioned herself next to Barrow, telling him every detail of the circus. He was animated, hardly even stopping to place his order of stuffed lamb with Vadouvan herb salad.

Across the table from her sat Ben Archer. He was her biggest regret. She wanted more time with him.

Finally, Barrow held up his wineglass. “To the Ladies of the Secret Circus.” Everyone clinked their glasses.

Later, Audrey fell asleep, snoring lightly. Lara lay wide awake.

“Will he change his mind?” She asked the question softly for Cecile. “Will I have to spend eternity in the circus?”

He doesn’t change his mind, Lara. I’m sorry.

“Can you go to sleep or something? There is something I have to do.”

Of course.

Lara crept out of the room and down the hall and found room 504. She knocked on it and Ben Archer opened it. He didn’t seem surprised.

Lara held out two hotel wineglasses and a mini bottle of champagne. “This tiny bottle of champagne is fifty dollars and I’m going to drink it.”

“Didn’t anyone tell you not to drink the wine?”

“This is France, Ben,” she said in a whisper. “You do drink the wine here.”

“For someone who is in danger, you sure do run around unaccompanied a lot. Does your mother know you’re here?” He opened the door wide.

“You did not just say that to me?”

He hadn’t closed his drapes, and the Opéra-Comique’s courtyard was lit up. Skateboarders and lovers made use of the steps near the ticket window. The view was magnificent. She heard the cork pop and the sound of bubbles meeting glass.

“I can’t seem to make myself shut the drapes.” He walked up and stood behind her but did not touch her.

“Did I ever tell you where my love of a man in uniform came from?”

“I didn’t know you had a love for a man in uniform.”

“Chief Brody in Jaws.” She chuckled.

“His sleeves were not nearly as well starched as mine.”

“No.” She turned to face him. “They weren’t.”

He held out her champagne glass. “I thought you were dead. As I watched your mother walk down the hallway, crying, I had a minute where I imagined my life without you.”

Lara kissed him, hard, hiding the dreadful secret that he would, indeed, be without her soon enough. She belonged to Le Cirque Secret now.

Finally she pulled away. There was something pressing that he needed to know. Both now and for the future. “In whatever state I was in, Todd came to me. He was sitting on his car and asked me to come with him. I knew it was a choice.” Her eyes filled with tears. “But I told him I couldn’t go with him.”

With the lights of Paris shining on his face, Lara looked up. “I know now that I came back for you.”

Back in her old bed at the farm in Kerrigan Falls, Lara had slept soundly. The absorption of Cecile was still taxing her body. Yet the voice inside her had remained quiet ever since they’d left Paris. “Are you still there?”

Nothing.

There was a temptation to think it had all been a dream, except the desire to go to Montparnasse and the market at Rue Mouffetard that last day had not been hers. There were small signs that she wasn’t alone in her body and that Cecile was observing the world, having been gone from it for over seventy-five years.

This time, there was no question that she would be staying at the farm. Since she’d gotten back last week, Audrey had been fussing over her. Her mother was out getting groceries. Lara had no doubt that she’d be picking up chocolate chips, pierogies, and turkey pastrami—all her favorite comfort foods. Caren would join them and they’d watch old Hitchcock films and eat popcorn. She could tell that Cecile’s heart had quickened at seeing Audrey and Lara together. Her granddaughter and great-granddaughter—her legacy.

Like a tour guide, Lara had visited the old Kerrigan Falls Cemetery to show Cecile Margot’s grave as well as the one marked CECILE CABOT that was actually Sylvie’s final resting place. Lara thought Cecile would like that. “She wanted you to live on,” said Lara out loud to the voice inside her. Sylvie had been the one living connection between them. They’d both known and loved her.

“What happened to her?” asked Lara finally. “I saw Margot and you at Le Cirque Secret, but not Sylvie.”

Finally, the voice inside her head spoke: Because she was human, she passed on normally. She wasn’t bound to the circus like we were. We’re half daemon, so we return to him. You will return to him as well, in the circus.

“So I’ll end up in Le Cirque Secret one way or another,” said Lara to the voice, reassured that she wasn’t