The Circus Comes to Town

“The lights have gone out,” Thelene whispered as she peeked through the drapes and out the window. Her hands curled tightly around the heavy, velvet cloth and she closed her eyes.

Thelene’s room looked down upon the valley. Four days ago a circus had come to the village. Thelene did not care for circuses. All the ones she remembered from her childhood were filled with the dregs of society; people for whom bathing appeared to be a monthly luxury. Then, there were the inevitable sideshows that came with the circus; the freaks, the misfits, the aberrations of Mother Nature’s crueler side.

Deep within the house, a draft blew a door shut. Thelene jumped as she felt the vibrations rattling her bones. Her eyes flew open and that’s when she saw the light. Yanking the drapes shut, she spun away from the window, stumbled upon the lace of her long gown, and fell to the floor.

“No!” she cried, curling up protectively against the shadows that danced at the edge of the candlelight.

“Thelene,” the voice purred deeply as though it came through the low growl of a pather.

“Please go away,” she begged softly.

“Thelene,” the voice caressed her and she shivered. “I’m waiting.”

Thelene burst from her protective crouch and in an adrenalated bravado, she ran to the window and ripped the curtains down. The velvet fabric fell heavily at her feet. The light she’d seen was now upon her balcony. Bathed in the light’s eerie chemical glow, he stood. He was thin, much too tall for a normal man, and his features had been sharply carved from cold marble. His eyes were a solid black, deep, hypnotic. She could not look away. He had raised his slim hand and his fingers wrapped around the knob of the door and opened it.

The breeze brought another presence. Laughter. “Quiet!” he spoke firmly, but not loud enough to startle Thelene. The laughter faded. “They will not come near you, Thelene. I’ll not allow it.”

“No!” she recoiled from his fingertips. They’d just been about to brush at her long, black curls. The sound of her voice appeared to give her courage. “You cannot be here. I never called you. Never.”

The tall man stepped into her room. His motion caused the flame of her candle to burn brighter and then it abruptly faded with a wave of his hand. “Oh but you did, Thelene. In your nightmares your voice was very clear.”

Her knees buckled as she realized she’d backed up against the edge of her bed. “My nightmares,” she whispered.

He swept up closely to her and placed his lamp next to her candle. Thelene couldn’t back any further away and she didn’t dare fall onto the bed. His fingers took a curl of her hair and spun it slowly around. Before she could stop him, his pale face was very close to hers. His other hand stroked her arm, but briefly. Her body gave in to the bed, but only long enough to scramble across it and to the other side.

“Madame Sivrona foretold that I would call you willingly. Nightmares are the demon of an unconscious mind. Whatever I may have said. . .” she drew her body behind one of the thick, carved oak posts that were at each corner of her bed and that held the ornate canopy. “You cannot hold me to the frightened utterances of a nightmare. Go away. Take the circus with you.”

He sighed heavily and glided along the floor, nearer to where she stood, most of her hidden; her arms wrapped around the post. “You know that I cannot leave without you, Thelene. Our fates were woven together thirteen years ago. Dreams or no, you awakened me and here I am. Say my name, Thelene. Embrace your destiny instead of hiding from it.”

“Destiny? A world of darkness? A place where angels hide their faces for fear of what they might witness. Is that to be my destiny? I’ll not say your name.”

He seated himself delicately upon the edge of the bed and ran his hand over the smooth silk of the bedding. “Thirteen years, Thelene, and you would keep me imprisoned longer?”

“Yes!” she rasped. “If it must be. I’ll not give up sunlight and the warmth of others for your cold heart, your death.”

He laughed and his laugh was joined by many other voices. A slight wave of his hand silenced the others. “Your sun is but one, Thelene. Look out your window and gaze upon the millions of stars that I can offer to you.” He caught her looking surreptitiously toward the open door. “Go on, Thelene. Go and look upon the stars.”

Thelene felt her arms releasing the post and gently she padded across the floor. The night sky was clear and the stars were out, sparkling like a thousand jewels within a pirate’s treasure box. Suddenly his hands were upon her arms. She struggled, but he held her tightly. “No, Thelene,” he spoke softly. “Turn your eyes to the stars again. Think upon them. I know you’ve dreamt of their beauty often.”

He felt her relax slightly as she once more raised her eyes toward the sky. “I hear something,” she said.

“What do you hear, Thelene?” His lips brushed lightly against her hair.

“The sound of a drum, steady. . . I can feel it.”

“It is my heart, Thelene. Although it was carved from the hardest ice, it began beating for you those thirteen years ago when the gypsy told your fortune at the circus.” He drew Thelene against himself and his arms crossed over her breasts. “It has not missed a single beat. My blood travels through my veins like a river, but the water is not cold.”

His hand rested against her cheek and Thelene felt the warmth against her own heat. “I did not know.” Fascinated, she allowed her hands to rest upon his. A sigh escaped her as his lips grazed her neck.

“Is the darkness that alien, Thelene, that it must also be ugly? Just as the world beneath the rays of the sun hold both beauty and ugliness, it is the same with darkness. You have had thirty years to be part of the daylight, now it is time to step into the darkness, travel its many roads. Come with me and we shall see the beautiful, and yes, even that which is not.”

She turned within his embrace, but did not pull away from it. Keeping a hand against his chest, she looked up into his dark eyes and saw now how much they were like the sky at night. “Tell me, then, would my bones ever find rest amongst the bones of my family? Or shall we be in the shadows until Time itself decides to stop his wandering?”

“Not even we will live forever, Thelene. All beings must return to the earth. Many do not get to choose that time, but we will.”

“We?” Thelene raised her hand to touch his face, and though his features were sharp, they weren’t to the touch. “If I choose. . .”

“If you choose, then it shall be my choice as well. My destiny is yours. When you decide that we shall finally send our souls away from this world, I shall be beside you.” Taking her face gently in his hands, he kissed her, softly, inviting her to take more. Thelene responded, rising upon tiptoe to become closer. “Thelene. . .” his voice was an ardent sigh as he sought the control he did not want. “Please, Thelene, say my name.”

Thelene laid her ear against his chest as the last vestiges of fear welled up inside her like a dozen fluttering butterflies. “Will it hurt?” she asked.

Taking her chin in his hand, he settled his eyes on hers. “The pain is brief, but not unpleasant. My name. . .”

Thelene spoke. Her voice was so soft that the breeze coming in from the window carried the sound away as soon as she had uttered it. He was no normal man, though, and to him the sound was as loud as the bells of the church. He brushed her long curls aside and slid the neck of her gown over her shoulder. A gentle kiss upon her lips, first, then to the pulse of her throat. There was pain, sharp, quick, sweet and Thelene drew him tightly to her. Ice roared through her veins, but with it was a fire; a fire that had not been known in a creature of darkness until the night Thelene had run away from home to visit the circus. That night a gypsy had read her fortune and Thelene had made a promise. In her promise was part of her own life, given to him. He had awakened, and that night on her way home, Thelene had gone to sleep.

It was only in her dreams and nightmares that she was alive. The physicians could never find a cause, but there was something within her heart that was colder than any snow that had been known to fall in their village. Thelene slept for thirteen years while for her, reality wavered somewhere beyond where she could reach it. Dreams were all that she had, and so, in the midst of her most terrifying nightmares she had called to him. From the darkness of her trapped mind, Thelene had called for this man of the darkness, called out to him to re-awaken her, to give her life once more.

Originally posted: April 3rd, 2007