& Lots of Marvels
“If it’s not a puzzle box, then what is it?” asked Ned.
“My suspicions will need a pinch or two of verification, but if I’m right, this may well be the second half –” the Ringmaster paused, eyeing Ned up and down – “of a very slim chance.”
“Chance of what?”
“Of keeping the world’s biggest secret a secret, boy. And of keeping your father alive. Come with me, there are some things you need to see.”
Ned’s chest tightened. “Keeping your father alive” were not words he wanted to hear. Was his dad really in that much trouble?
The Ringmaster stepped off the bus and beckoned Ned to follow. Outside, Ned realised they were nowhere near Grittlesby green. The sun was rising and he could see now that the circus had pitched its tents by the side of a motorway. In front of them was the abandoned building site of a half-constructed shopping mall. A single large sign across its fencing read ‘OUBLIER AND CO’. Beyond that, thick untameable forest.
“Where are we?”
“Across the Channel, southern France.”
“France! How did we get here so quickly? Did you get the entire circus on the ferry while I was asleep?” gasped Ned.
“Our presence was required to take care of a local disturbance. It’s what we do, my troupe and I.”
“Disturbance? I thought you like … juggled and stuff?”
“Juggled and stuff?” Benissimo sighed. “This is going to take longer than I thought … I’ll start at the beginning, shall I? You see, the circus, as you and the rest of the world know it, is a place of harmless fun, but its roots are of a more secretive nature. When the old Roman Empire used to rule, they would scour the world for its best fighters and train them in mortal combat. Back then we fought as gladiators, for money, and for fame. It was barbaric, they were barbaric times, but it was done for a reason – to ready us to manage certain borders, to keep what was in in. We’re descendants, Ned, of those very same circuses, those very same warriors, the gatekeepers of a border or borders that we collectively call ‘the Veil’, behind which certain things hide or are kept hidden.”
“I still don’t understand. What hides? And what’s it got to do with me and my dad?” Ned asked.
“What you need, young pup, is a little orientation, a little bit of knowing your up from your down,” said Benissimo. “Come with me.”
The Ringmaster turned abruptly and marched Ned over to the circus’s empty animal cages, then stopped by its smallest.
“Do you believe in fairies, boy?” he asked, without a hint of sarcasm.
“Course not, I’m thirteen.”
“That is a shame … but you did? When you were younger, yes?”
“Maybe.”
“And at that time, you were probably a little scared of the dark too? Saw things in it when nothing was there?”
Of all the people Ned had met, Benissimo was the very last he’d want to admit that to.
“I … erm …”
“Seeing things in the dark,” continued Benissimo, “we call that ‘sight’. The gift of it leaves us when we come of age. The less we believe, the less we see. The Veil takes away that sight completely. Do me a favour, pup, and look into that cage.”
Ned did not like being referred to as “pup” and he certainly wasn’t Benissimo’s “boy”, that privilege was his dad’s alone, though he was starting to wonder if he’d ever forgive his father for leaving him in the Ringmaster’s care. Nonetheless, the man had a way of asking that made you feel like you had to say yes. He stared through the bars.
“What do you see?”
“Just the cage, that and a little sunlight, I guess.”
“Dusk and dawn are the best times to see them, especially the Darklings that we have caged here. Your youth and Kitty’s tea should be enough to break the glamour. Look again.”
This time, as Ned stared through the bars, something began to form. In the dance of shadow and light, he saw a shape. Something small and sinewy, something with teeth.
“Wha … what?”
Before him stood a ferocious creature, which snarled and lashed at the cage bars. Its clothing might once have had some colour, but today the creature’s threadbare rags were reduced to a grimy mush. It had white clammy skin, orange slits for eyes and a pointy, evil face.
“That, my boy, is a hob-gor-balin, only a level three menace, but quite clearly on the wrong side of the Veil. The effects of Kitty’s tea at your age should be permanent, though breaking the strongest glamours needs more aggressive magic …”
Ned’s jaw dropped.
“Ned Waddlesworth, son of Terry. Feast your eyes on the truth. Drink it down like a warm cup of honey. This …” said Benissimo as he led him round the corner to where a large troupe of performers were having their lunch, “… is my circus, the real Circus of Marvels,” announced Benissimo, gesturing in a circle, his chest puffed up with pride.
Ned looked over the troupe and his already dropped jaw gaped wider still. The cook was an unshaven, gruff-looking man who had clearly never washed his apron. He also had tusks hanging down from his mouth, and the snout of a pig. Pretty dancing girls in sparkly make-up laughed, as a red-faced cheery-looking woman sewed sequins and bells on to a pink dress. One of the girls had scales for skin, another short fur and the spots of a leopard, and the third was covered in tiny blue feathers.
Beside them, an excited group was laying down wagers, as Rocky and what Ned could only assume was his wife, despite the beard, went head to head in a playful arm-wrestle. Except that Rocky wasn’t Rocky any more. His bulging muscular skin had turned a hard grey and had the texture of rock. Watching the two lovebirds wrestle were Julius, Nero and Caligula, but the breakfast-stealing monkeys were now in their blue-skinned, mischievous pixie form, and the elephant that had ruffled his hair only moments ago had the pretty white wings at the top of her back Ned had seen in his dreams, where there had previously only been cardboard.
Each and every one was different, from the enormous troll that was Rocky, to the dwarven unicyclists delivering food at the food truck’s trestle tables.
“The hidden. Marvellous, aren’t they? Every myth and legend, every obscure or forgotten tale, they are all, most wonderfully, most stupendously and on numerous occasions, rather dangerously … true.”
Ned turned around to take in the other Darklings in their cages. They weren’t like George or Rocky or even the clowns. They were monsters, of every possible size and shape.
“That there is a harpy,” said Benissimo indicating a brown-winged woman sat scowling in one of the cages, her mouth covered to stop her taunting screams. “Her voice can cause instant paralysis, or madness, or both. Very nasty indeed,” explained Benissimo.
