When the Circus Comes to Town

Ignatia is nine when she attends her father’s funeral. The circus is a tightly knit group, and almost all of the carnies attend. Copperhead is cold this time of year, with sleet slamming down on the mourners, all wearing their circus best in the most muted colors they can find. Mr. Sonder and Mr. Campbell have arranged for a pine box, almost too narrow for their purposes but they make do. They always make do.

And Ignatia’s mother, the Astounding Florencia, is weeping openly. She wears shabby blacks and dusty puces, a simple floor-length peasant dress and a moth-eaten veil, her porcelain half mask painted in black slap borrowed from the Black Clown for the occasion. Ignatia watches her weep dispassionately, and the back of her mind watches her watching her mother weep. The back of her mind, what she would eventually learn to call her second thoughts, grows restive. Anger, she realizes dully, brews there, festers like an ignored blister.

They say she has her father’s temper. And he has—had—a wicked temper, short and explosive. He is—was—an ace knife thrower, the best Mr. Campbell ever saw. Ignatia got in the habit of hiding his favorite knife set when a killing mood swept over him, or when the paycheck was good and the drink even better, or when the paycheck was bad and the drink was sour. The very back of her mind, what she would eventually learn to call her third thoughts, watches her second thoughts boil as they watch her mother weeping and say, in the placid way of third thoughts everywhere, A wicked temper and where did it get him? He gave you a wicked temper, and where will it get you?

Ignatia does not cry. She generally doesn’t, seeing as how crying has gotten her nowhere so far, but she especially doesn’t cry now. The sleet bites through her damask dress; the garment, borrowed from Miss Betty the Bearded Lady for the occasion and hastily hemmed with pins to make up for her (lack of) height, is too thin for this weather. She is wet, soaked to the bone, and staring into the shallow grave with its soggy pine box where her father’s body is being laid to rest. And her mother is crying her eyes out, a soaked hanky clutched to her ruined face. She is crying for the man with a wicked temper, the man responsible for the scars all the world can see, and the scars the world cannot.

A wicked temper, and where did it get him? He gave Ignatia her wicked temper, and where will it get her?

Ignatia is nine when the circus buries her father. That night her mother goes through her father’s things, gives most of the useable items away to other members of the circus, but leaves the throwing knives and her father’s best work outfit to Ignatia. “He started as a juggler, you know,” the Astounding Florencia says, with a watery smile. Ignatia opens the smooth cedar box and looks along the steel blades. “Not much money in juggling, though. Anyone can juggle; it’s hardly a skill. But knife throwing!” She gives a weak laugh. “Knife throwing has just enough danger to draw the crowds in, and you can give ‘em a patter to keep them in their seats. And vary your shows so they keep coming back, season after season.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to join the ring?” You don’t want this life for me, she didn’t say.

“No, but you never know when a set of really good throwing knives is going to come in handy, my child.”

Ignatia is eleven when Mr. Campbell hits her for the last time.

Ignatia is hopping mad, and there is shouting on both parts, and so often she cringes and looks down when a man shouts at her but not today because her anger runs hotter than her fear.

She feels hard all over. For as long as she can remember she has watched her mother and thinks of her as a hard woman, not like stone is hard but like steel is hard. The Astounding Florencia is hard all over, except for her soft heart, which is not soft like rising dough is soft, but like gold is soft. You can leave your fingerprints on her heart, but you really need to dig in your nails to leave a lasting mark. Ignatia feels hard all over, hard like steel is hard, only it started in her heart and spiraled out.

Ignatia is hopping mad and hard from the inside out and she is shouting to be heard and Mr. Campbell’s open palm slaps the words from her mouth. Startled silence falls over the two of them like a pall. Her tongue explores the new split in her lip, and her red hot anger has gone cold, not cold like forgotten tea is cold, but like a steel pole in subzero temperatures is cold. It burns.

She tastes iron on her tongue. She feels she must be made of steel, but that means she must have been iron first, and the body remembers. The slap hurts, icy pain radiating in dull waves from her cheek, and she knows (though she doesn’t know how she knows) that that side of her face will be bone white from the blow. It hurts but she is still standing, and her Third Thoughts are watching the proceedings from somewhere too far for the anger to touch.

A short temper, and where did it get her?

“You hit me,” she says, and the cold steel of her heart is the cold steel in her voice, the transformation complete. “This time, I’ll let it slide. You will not hit me again.” She intends it as a threat but the steel in her voice makes it a promise. And for just a moment, Mr. Campbell is afraid.

Ignatia is eleven when she leaves the circus. A caravan of travelling teachers crosses the circus’ path and she kisses her mother goodbye and follows the teachers on foot to their next encampment. The Ramtops are chilly in the spring, with ice still choking the smaller streams and rivers, but green dominates the foothills and tight green buds line the tree branches.

Ignatia does not know what she is looking for exactly—what does a witch in disguise look like?—but she pauses at an unremarkable caravan and regards the old teacher woman with her lumpy black hat and popping knees. “Are you Miss Tick?”

“Who’s asking?” the old teacher, possibly a witch, demands.

“I want to be a witch,” Ignatia says, because she is nervous and that seems more important than her name. Miss Tick gives her a thorough once over. Ignatia doesn’t fidget.

“And why would you want to be a witch? You’ve seen them flying through the sky about their business, and you think it’s just a broomstick and some tinkly little spells?” Miss Tick wiggles her fingers in the air.

“I’d rather just the pointy hat, but I think some knowing to put underneath it would be important, too,” Ignatia says, and it is the truth. A young girl can only do so much for the circus. “I found clerical errors in the books at my parents’, erm, business but it doesn’t matter, because what do I know? I’m just a girl. But if I had a pointy hat I could tell Mr. Taft to keep his pudgy little fingers out of the cash box. And he would listen!”

“Look, a pointy hat isn’t going to solve your problems.” Miss Tick pauses as a glazed look overtakes the girl’s face. “You’re imagining a hat bossing around people, aren’t you?”

Ignatia’s eyes slide back into focus. “Maaaaaaybe.”

“Listen to me, witching isn’t easy and it’s not going to solve your problems for you. Can you even do magic?”

“Well, not as yet. I can read books, and some authors are dead so that’s a kind of necromancy, isn’t it?” Ignatia scrabbles.

Miss Tick frowns, and wonders what kind of eleven-year-old knows about necromancy. “Can you even make a shamble? Here, turn out your pockets. I’m afraid if you can’t manage a shamble you won’t make for a very good witch.” This is, of course, a quick and loose rule. Some of the greatest witches on the Disc were terrible at making shambles.

Ignatia takes a frayed shoelace from her pocket, a few ticket stubs, some sequins, a borrowed pen, a smooth river stone she was thinking of painting and a handful of salted pumpkin seeds. “Now what?”

“Keeping some interesting things about your person is a good start. Now you put them together, like so, and you read it to gauge some of the vibrations in the air.” Miss Tick demonstrates a shamble and something in Ignatia’s face falls. Her eyes dim. Her brow furrows as she takes her items and carefully strings them together. “And you’ll need a living thing,” Miss Tick adds, and hands her a small matchbox with a ladybug inside.

Ignatia’s “shamble” looks like a mess. It’s not right, and it certainly isn’t magical. “I’m sorry dear, but it looks like a wash. You’re just not witch material.”

A flash of anger passes behind Ignatia’s eyes, but it’s gone so quickly Miss Tick almost thinks she imagined it. Ignatia tucks her mess of a shamble into her pocket. “Maybe there’s some other witching I could do,” she flounders, and a desperate wheedle sneaks into her voice. “Aren’t there black dogs involved? I’m good at petting dogs!”

“You’re thinking of black cats, my dear, and no, that’s not a major part of witchcraft.” The girl looks so crestfallen Miss Tick finds herself making tea just to keep from having to look at those big, gray eyes. “It’s not all magic, either,” she continues, slipping into her teacher voice. “It’s lots of hard work, you know. There’s herbs to grow, and of course you have to know about herbs and how to use them. Then there’s going ‘round the houses, healing the sick, listening to sob stories or gossip or regular drivel. It can be right dangerous, too.”

Ignatia nods as she takes a saucer and a cup of steaming tea. “I know there’s doctoring involved.”

“Clipping toenails, checking on some older folks what live on the edges just to make sure they’re still breathing.”

Ignatia hums, sips her tea and stares out at the rolling Ramtop foothills. “And I suppose you would have to set broken bones, dress and redress wounds, that sort of thing?”

“Of course.”

“Miss Tick?”

“Yes?”

“Last year I saw a man gored to death by an angry bull.” The words come evenly, matter-of-factly, but her eyes are faraway. The Ramtop foothills are very green. “He lived for almost three days after the incident, but my company hasn’t an Igor, and our doctor has something of a fascination with poo, and so the man died. A preventable death, and not one day goes by that I don’t feel responsible.

“The year before that some of my company brought in elephants for the show, and they trained them using whips and switches and cussing and fear. And I saw the way the elephants were afraid, even of people they never met. But I also saw the way the men looked, with their whips and switches, wild and terrible and they were so glad they were doing the whipping and weren’t the ones being whipped. And I remember being helpless—what do I know? I’m just some girl!—but I feel responsible that I couldn’t stop it. I failed both those men and their elephants, and there’s nothing I can do for them now but do better in the future.

“And four years ago my mother got badly burned, and now half her face is all scars. And maybe it was unavoidable, but I was there. And I didn’t know what to do. I know nothing of herbs, or medicine, or bandaging wounds.” She tears her eyes away from the foothills and spears Miss Tick with her hard gaze. “But I know about people, and I know my sums, and I know how to read and write, and maybe I haven’t an ounce of magic in me but I also haven’t anywhere else to be. I can’t go back home until I’m better than how I am, and if that means camping on your doorstep until you teach me the squishy parts of witching then I will do it. I can’t stand to sit around while people, my people, hurt and are hurting.”

Miss Tick doesn’t see the way Ignatia’s face twists at the last syllable because her eyes are drawn to the tea cup chattering on Ignatia’s knee. “You need to hold very still just now, child,” she warns.

Ignatia glances down and sighs. “Sometimes that happens.” Her tea is boiling. Not hot, but a rolling boil—it’s a miracle the little ceramic cup hasn’t shattered. She blows on her tea and all at once the bubbling comes to a halt.

Miss Tick is staring now. “My girl, if your house were on fire, what would you take out?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“What would you take out then?”

“The fire. Wouldn’t you?” Ignatia sounds truly bewildered, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. Dawning horror seizes her face. “Is that not how everyone deals with fire? What, you all just let your houses burn to the ground and hope for the best?”

Morbid curiosity is the devil in Miss Tick. “And how do you go about taking out the fire, my girl?”

“Carefully.”

Ignatia is eleven when Miss Tick deposits her on Mrs. Earwig’s doorstep.

Ignatia is eleven when, two weeks later, Mrs. Earwig deposits her on Geoffrey Swivel’s doorstep. There is something almost desperate about the girl. She jumps when startled, and flinches when Geoffrey gently corrects her mistakes as if she expects a beating, and something about her simmers. She simmers when she learns about gardening, and she simmers when she cleans, and she simmers in general. Sometimes he finds her in the wood, throwing knives at a mostly dead tree. She is very good at it. He doesn’t comment.

Geoffrey is gentle with her. She wants to learn everything right now immediately, but witching takes patience. “I’m patient!” she promises him. She stands just this side of uncomfortably far away, so that he would have to lean to touch her. To hit her. His heart hurts. “I’m extremely patient!” she wails. “Especially when I got something to be patient at.”

“Trying to outstare Mephistopheles doesn’t count.”

Geoffrey has to assure her multiple times that she is allowed to read, but she still does her reading in secret. “You don’t come from a family of readers, I take it,” he says when he finds her in the woods with a book for the fourth time. She still clutches the thing to her chest, like he might take it from her.

“My father taught me to read. And write.”

Geoffrey tries to imagine a father reading to his little girl every night, but he cannot fathom that little girl being Ignatia. “How did he teach you?”

“Mostly by shouting ‘Learn the words’ at me and hoping for the best.” Her tone is tinder dry, her face blank, and Geoffrey gets the feeling that she is plucking the words out of the air without any need to remember her literary lessons from childhood.

“Just a wild guess here, but your family isn’t big on reading in general.”

“Reading is being idle,” she admits. “And idle hands will be put to work.”

“But reading isn’t the same as being idle.”

Ignatia blinks up at him, her face totally blank but something behind her eyes simmers. “Yes, Geoffrey.”

Ignatia has a mind like a steel trap, and Geoffrey finds himself getting caught up in it a time or two. “Why are there small children following you when you go around the houses?”

His pupil takes the clothes pins from her mouth as she drapes damp sheets over the clothesline. “Because I give them hard sweets.”

“And why do you give them hard sweets?”

Ignatia picks up a pair of well-darned socks while she picks her words with care. “I find one of the problems parents run into is they’re rearing children when they should be rearing adults. We already have an abundance of goofy young’uns, what we need are competent, compassionate, vivacious grownups.” The socks dangle damply from the clothesline. “One of the ways to do this is to give the kids some responsibility.”

“So you delegate some of your workload to the children too young to work in the fields, and in exchange you give them candy.”

“Also the warm glowing feeling of a job well done.” She gives him a winsome smile, and it is winsome. Her face is pale with sharp cheekbones, vaguely equine, but her smile makes her appear almost handsome. Geoffrey leaves the child situation alone; there are too few witches in Lancre and the Chalk, and far too much to do. And he trusts Ignatia’s judgement.

“You’ve rearranged my bookcase,” he says later that evening. He keeps his tone neutral and watches what Ignatia does.

She sits by the window to catch the last drops of daylight as she sews a few buttons for the hopelessly arthritic. “I took some liberties; I thought the new arrangement was more visually pleasing.”

Truly it is. Geoffrey originally had his books in alphabetical order, and now they are arranged by height, with the tallest ones in the centers of the shelves and using the shorter ones on either side to remain upright. It looks good. It also looks like a book at a time going missing and then being replaced would go unnoticed. Reading is being idle, he thinks. And Ignatia is never idle. But then, she delegates to younger people and is out and about, how would he know if she were idle? What must it be like in your brain, miss? he wonders. Cold and shiny and always on the move. You’ve been a witch-in-training for five minutes and already I can see you think like a corkscrew. And you always simmer.

Ignatia is twelve when she meets Mistress Aching. She knows her herbs and she is an adequate gardener. She can doctor and go ‘round the houses and a small crowd of teary children wave her goodbye as she borrows Geoffrey’s broom to visit the Chalk. The witches of the Disc have no hierarchy, and they certainly have no leader, and the leader they haven’t got is Mistress Aching, who lives in a shepherding hut and smells faintly of sheep and Feegles.

Mistress Aching stares at Ignatia hard for a long moment when the girl touches down, and Ignatia doesn’t fidget. She would be a poor carny indeed if simple staring made her fidget. In the safety of her head Tiffany Aching is thinking Doesn’t she look familiar? With that beak of a nose and the dark clothing, a kind of horsey face? From behind she would look like a carnivorous flamingo.

“I heard from Miss Tick that you were a circus girl and you wanted to be a witch.”

“That is correct, Mistress Aching.”

“Please, call me Miss Tiffany. Was it a happy childhood, Ignatia?”

“I don’t know, Miss Tiffany. On account of I’m not done cookin’ yet. And I don’t know what a happy childhood looks like.”

Tiffany files that bit of information away to think on later. “Can you make a shamble?”

“Oh yes. As long as it’s not too rainy and the ladybug hasn’t executed a daring escape.”

“And being on the Chalk doesn’t bother you?” At the girl’s blank stare, Tiffany adds, “Witches are generally sensitive to geography.”

“Ah. I don’t know much about geography, I’m afraid.” Ignatia says nothing more.

Tiffany taps some loose tobacco into her pipe, taking her time with the task to give her some room to think. “Our Geoffrey says you are good with children.”

“That is kind of him.”

Tiffany watches her and realizes she hasn’t lit her pipe yet. She does so. “Are you from good people, Ignatia?”

“No, Miss.”

“Bad people, then.”

“No, Miss.” Ignatia watches the sheep for a moment, hands folded demurely in her lap. She sits very still, but something under the surface simmers, low and slow. “People is people. They do good things and they do bad things and what’s important is telling the things apart.”

“That was very profound.”

“I have been told I am a profane individual.”

Tiffany coughs as delicately as she can behind her fist. “Those are two very different things, my girl.”

“Are they?” But underneath Tiffany can see the words, They really aren’t, Mistress Aching. Profound is just what happens when the grubbiness has been wiped off.

“Tell me about your roots, Ignatia. Do you have a last name?” I’ll eat my hat if it’s Vetinari, she promises herself.

“I haven’t a last name, Miss. My father didn’t have one, as he was just plain old Ignacio the Magnificent, and my mother used to be Florencia Magillacuddy, only she left off her last name when she married. Mrs. Earwig said I should have a proper last name, if only for publishing purposes, so under duress I might sign my name as Ignatia Wrathine.

“As for roots, I haven’t many of those, either. The circus, it moves, Miss. It always moves, all across the Disc if it can. I got no culture but circus culture, no cuisine but circus cuisine, no language but what we speak now, save some cusses what my mama doesn’t know I know.”

“A good witch should know her roots.”

A small smile tugs at Ignatia’s mouth. “Then I shall have to settle for being an extraordinary witch, Miss.”

Tiffany puffs on her pipe for a long moment and lets the silence drag out until she feels ready for the next question. “Why do you want to be a witch, Miss Wrathine?”

“Pointy hats have a wide brim to keep the rain off my neck,” Ignatia replies. “But also I feel witches are better suited to…” she trails off, eyes pensive. “I saw some bad things in the circus, I don’t mind telling you. People doing bad things to other people, or to animals, or to themselves. My mama entertains hundreds of people a night, and that’s a kind of magic, but it’s not the right magic for me. I don’t want to make people do better. I know magic can’t make things right. But it can keep things from being worse, and that’s right up my alley. Geoffrey says that witches stand on the edges of things, and the circus sits on the edge of everything. The edge of society, the edge of decency, the edge of danger. Right now the circus is on the edge all by its lonesome, and soon I would like to be right there with it.”

“You love the circus, don’t you.”

“I don’t know. Does the sheep love the field? Does the bird love the sky?”

“Then let’s get started.”

Ignatia Wrathine is fourteen when the circus comes to town, the town being Two Shirts. She has a sack of dried herbs wrapped in brown paper parcels, a secondhand broomstick gifted to her by the duchess of Keepsake, a pair of boots that have been walking for longer than she has and are very good at it, and an assortment of interesting odds and ends in her pockets that she will probably never use for a shamble.

She also has a black pointy hat. Its brim is wide and, yes, waterproof. Somewhere during her training she also acquired several more inches in height; she towers over Mistress Aching and is in the habit of ducking when she enters most homes. Between the hat, her preference for shabby black clothing, and her newfound height, Mr. Sonder doesn’t recognize her when he fields her. “Oh, uh-uh! No witches! We don’t want any trouble.”

“What a coincidence, I don’t want any trouble either, Mr. Sonder.”

He blanches. “Cor, is it really Ignatia under that getup?”

“It is.”

He recoils, but only slightly. “We don’t hold with witches in this circus, you know that. Go back to where you come from. Go on, shoo!”

“Thank you.” She steps around him and keeps making for the center of camp using long strides so Sonder has to scurry to keep up.

The camp, as it is, should be in shambles. There should be animals about, chickens and dogs and the occasional pet goose. And there should be washing lines heavy with laundered clothing. There should be cooking fires with lushes warming their hands and gossip on their tongues. But there is not. “Where is everyone?” Ignatia demands. Where is the freak show? Where is the petting zoo? Where are the rest of the performers?

Sonder answers before his brain could catch up with his mouth. “Times is hard! Money is tight. We’ve been losing bits of the circus worse than a zombie loses body parts.”

Ignatia frowns and stops so abruptly Sonder runs into her. “Then I will need to see Mr. Campbell. I trust you will be able to locate him and have him somewhat coherent within the hour.”

“Wha—I’m not his keeper! You can’t tell me what to do you little ingrate.” He makes to grab her elbow but finds his wrist clamped in a grip like steel. Her knuckles are white, her face impassive, but something behind her eyes simmers.

“Do not touch me without my permission, Mr. Sonder, or it will go poorly for you. You will fish Mr. Campbell out of whatever whorehouse, drug den or gutter he may be occupying at the moment, you will put him in a pair of fresh trousers if the need should arise, and he will be in his tent at the same time I will be in his tent, do you understand?”

She lets go of his wrist and he holds it to his chest, biting back a whimper. “And if I don’t?” he sneers, because some concepts take a long time to take root in his brain.

Ignatia raises a single, thin eyebrow. “I assure you nothing untoward will happen to you, Mr. Sonder. I am a witch, but I am a carny first and foremost and we take care of our own.” She heaves a sigh. “And if I cannot meet with Mr. Campbell tonight, then I shall be very disappointed. And very bored. I might have to ask the Nac Mac Feegle for company.”

His face pales. “You wouldn’t. It would destroy the circus!”

Ignatia looks over the barren wasteland that should be lousy with circus detritus, people and animals. “We wouldn’t want that. Just some food for thought, Mr. Sonder. Now, I need to see to my mother and reacquaint myself with whoever is left at this godsdamned company. Thank you for your understanding, sir.”

The next hour is busy. There are sick children in the circus in need of feverfew, and sick carnies in need of cough sweets dipped in honey, and Ignatia goes ‘round the houses, only instead of houses there are some tents, a couple caravans, and a hastily made lean-to. All the while she fishes for gossip and learns about what she missed these past three years.

She would like to say that Sonder and Campbell have been busy, but that would be untrue. They have been very unbusy. Without her doing their sums and accountancy, they hired on a young man to do it for them, and he is probably to blame for the way the paychecks get leaner and leaner as the season goes by. Without her pushing for advertising, Mr. Campbell doesn’t bother with it at all, so their seats go largely unfilled. Cities change their ordinances and capacity laws all the time, and no one has been keeping track. Somewhere along the way, Mr. Campbell quit keeping up his correspondences with the secretaries in cities like Genua, Ankh-Morpork, and Bonk, meaning that the circus would likely be turned away at the gates as an unrecognized, unwanted, unlicensed company, so they quit going to those cities. To make matters worse, some of the ticket boys got it into their heads to turn away patrons of the dwarf, troll, undead and goblin persuasions; at best the circus was losing money, but at worst the circus was getting a reputation it shouldn’t be getting.

And that was just the big stuff.

Little everyday nuisances Ignatia saw to as an errand girl got ignored in her absence. Sure, there are errand boys, but they usually turn up their noses at women’s work, meaning ladders were not being properly greased, tents were not being properly darned, safety nets were not being mended as the need arose. And the carnies themselves, when faced with slim wages and an unsafe working environment, could choose to ply their talents elsewhere.

Ignatia stops by a leaky tent of one of the elderly hangers on, the mother or grandmother of the sword eater, who stepped on a nail and the circus physician patched her up with a bandage of leaf mold and animal droppings. She smiles through the charade, my yes, how I’ve grown, going on up in the world, ah-ha, the circus ain’t what it used to be, but underneath the surface she simmers. She makes a note to herself to meet with the physician when she isn’t in the mood to beat him with a crowbar.

Mr. Campbell is indeed in his tent and decent when Ignatia ducks inside. He is also tipsy and belligerent, but his pants are, thankfully, on the correct way around. “What is the meaning of this! No witches in the circus! I am firm on that!”

“Is that a new tie, Mr. Campbell? With a little gold tie clip, looks like.” Her eyes bore into him, pinning him to his little stool chair. “How is the circus?”

“Can’t complain! No one would listen,” he blusters.

“I hear money is rather tight at the moment.”

“We make do. I must ask you to leave now. And never come back. We don’t hold with witches, Ignatia, you know that.”

A lesser person might be in a killing mood. Her home is the circus, and the circus is hungry, sick, weakly and wretched, all because the man in charge could not keep it together. Ignatia is not in a killing mood. She is livid, and she has a wicked temper—her father’s temper—but she knows how to keep it leashed, how to store it and unleash it and use it for fuel. She is livid, but her face is calm, her voice cool. She is hard all over, with a heart of steel and a brain to match. The man before her is unworthy of his position, but, perhaps, not completely worthless.

She smiles. And it is a winsome smile, transforming her face into something almost handsome. “Gosh, Mr. Campbell, I’m gone for five minutes and this place falls apart. I think I’ll stay on, and, you will agree, you want me to stay on.”

“And why would I?”

“Because I can make this circus work, Mr. Campbell. You don’t have to make do, because I can make the company do for you. Isn’t that better than scraping by?”

She watches his distaste for witches war with his love of money. “I’m listening.”

“Good man. All I need you to do is sign the documents I put in front of you, listen to any complaints about me with diplomacy, and stay the hell out of my way. And I will turn this circus around for you, Mr. Campbell.”

“Why should I believe you?” Like Sonder, Campbell sometimes needed time for a concept to take root in his brain, but the promise of greater income seemed to grease the way.

“The prodigal daughter returns home and you question my sincerity. I’m hurt, Mr. Campbell. I’m wounded. That sort of thing really cuts to the bone, you know.” Her eyes dance and she leans over his desk. “Witches are misunderstood, like us carnies. People think carnies steal their chickens when we got plenty of our own. They think we steal horses when we have more than enough of our own. Witches, like carnies, are mostly honest, upstanding people. We just want to do a little good in this world. I know you can sympathize.” Campbell nods, though he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. “So give me chance, Mr. Campbell. You’ve known me since I was in pigtails, and you know I won’t let you down.”

“You have one chance, my girl,” he grunts

Ignatia is fourteen when she pulls the circus together. She is a witch, but she feels like a necromancer, yanking her home from a slow, painful death.

She meets the accountant first. She plies him with strong, hot tea, and chocolate biscuits. They talk about sums, and he starts to sweat when she takes out the unofficial ledgers he though he hid so well. She runs a proprietary finger down the sloppy lines of numbers and lets him squirm and sweat.

At last she looks up and says brightly “This all seems in order.” His mouth falls open in shock. “You are rather good with numbers, Jason, I’ll give you that. You have an aunt in Pseudopolis, isn’t that right?”

“Uh, yes. Yes, miss, I do. How did you know?”

“Gift of the gab, you could say. How is she?”

“Poorly, miss. She’s due for a surgery in the fall, but money is tight and a good Igor ain’t cheap.”

Ignatia nods, sympathetic. “My condolences, but I am sure the circus will do everything it can to help her. We take care of our own, Jason. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Say it.” Her eyes bore into him, cold and ruthless. “I want to hear you say it, Jason.”

“We take care of our own!”

“Glad to hear. I would hate to have doubts about your intentions. Do you do what Mr. Campbell tells you?”

“Yes, miss,” he says loyally.

“And Mr. Campbell doesn’t look too hard at your books, does he? He hates to micromanage.”

“That he does, miss. He leaves me to it.”

Ignatia nods and takes a sip of her tea. “Some things never change, Jason. I think that’s all I needed from you. Do take your biscuit, dear. Waste not, want not.” He leaps out of his seat and scrambles for the tent door. “Oh, Jason!” He stops, so close to freedom, and yet so far. Slowly he turns back to face her. “There was one more thing. Let’s see, what was it…oh yes.” And then she is before him, towering in the small space, eyes like steel glaring into him. “I know who you are. I know where you sleep. I know where your aunt lives. I know where your cousins play. I know about the incident at Seaman’s Wharf last year, and where the bodies are buried, Jason. And if I have to choose between you and the circus, Jason, the choice is already made. We take care of our own, Jason. Do you understand?”

Jason walks stiffly out of the witch’s tent, trailing biscuit crumbs, and when he gets to his little caravan he takes out the tin washtub. It is a beautiful day for washing his trousers.

Next, Ignatia sees to the physician. There are, unfortunately, no crowbars involved. Instead she speaks in low, even tones until the good doctor decides that Quirm is lovely this time of year, yes, and he shall leave immediately. She smiles sweetly and helps him pack his bags. His hands shake.

There are three ticket boys in the circus. There should be one for the petting zoo, one for the freak show and one for the main tent, but seeing as there is no zoo or freaks, three seems redundant. “There is a change in policy, my dears,” she says, pushing a tin of biscuits in their direction. “It seems you might be a bit confused. You are supposed to take people’s money and give them tickets. As all money spends the same, this would include trolls, dwarves, goblins, werewolves, vampires, squinty women with little dogs in their purses, and on and on.” The boys stare at her woodenly. “I can understand the confusion. It is a terribly complicated job, what with the counting the money and the tearing the tickets and sometimes smiling because this is a jolly little circus we have.” They stare harder. “But seats are going unfilled, and the solution, Mr. Campbell agrees, is that for every empty seat the ticket boy on duty will lose a ha’penny.”

The boys snarl, raising a cacophony of temper. Ignatia sips her tea, impassive. “That’s nice. We were thinking of letting two of you go, but that seemed a hasty decision.” Angry red faces turn white. She breaks a chocolate biscuit in half. “I wouldn’t turn you boys out of the job like that,” she promises them softly. “Not as long as you are all doing your best.”

“You don’t have the authority!” the brightest of the bunch says.

“Rupert, isn’t it? Rupert, do you see the hat on my head? This hat means that I have a great deal of authority, including but not limited to making decisions for the circus. Now, as I said, I wouldn’t want to turn any of you boys out. It wouldn’t be right. But there is always room in the goat pens for underperforming ticket boys.” The last comes out warm, and she smiles winsomely enough that only Rupert pales at the thought, and the other two stare at her with slack-jawed confusion.

“You wouldn’t,” Rupert gasps.

She flicks an imaginary piece of lint off her hat brim, still smiling. “Wouldn’t I? The circus takes care of its own, lads. And you are my little lads, make no mistake. I have a boiled sweet for the one of you who sells the most tickets, and it’s the goat pens for the one who sells the least.”

The Astounding Florencia is sitting by the tent entrance when the three boys file out, and she pokes her head inside. “Aren’t you a bit heavy-handed with them, my dear?”

“I hope so, Mama. A heavy hand is what’s needed with this lot. Spare the rod, spoil the child, as they say.”

“You would do your old father proud,” Florencia says, only a little reproachfully. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some foul play in the next few days. Competition has a way of making a young man’s head go funny.”

“We shall see.” But in the privacy of her head, Ignatia hopes there are no untoward accidents; she had plans, plans within plans, and she would need every able pair of hands she could get.

Rupert goes to the boss man, and Mr. Campbell goes to raise his voice at Ignatia, but finds himself incapable in the face of her implacable calm. “Growing pains, my dear Campbell. They will pass.”

Ignatia is fourteen when Rupert drops in on her damp little tent. His arms are crossed and something in his expression tells her this is not going to be a pleasant exchange. “You talk a good talk,” he says without preamble, “but I never seen you actually do any magic. None of us have.”

“I believe your job includes picking up debris and garbage from your work area, but I’ve never seen you do that either. Consider us even.”

“You’re not even a real witch, are you? You’re just some bossy little girl in a pointy hat. I got your number.”

Ignatia steeples her fingers and touches them to her lips to help her keep from smiling. “Gosh. What are you going to do now that you know the terrible truth, Rupert?”

“I’ll tell them. I’ll tell everyone.”

“To what end? Because you dislike me?”

He huffs. “You boss people around and act like you own the place. It ain’t right.”

“I can see that being told to do your job is a very difficult thing to hear.” She stands up and sweeps forward, forcing Rupert to either back out of the entryway or be bowled over.  In the scramble she hooks her arm through his in a way that would have been companionable if not for her iron grip. She smiles into his face, all teeth. “Come along, Rupert. Time is money and I haven’t much to spare.”

“Where are we going?” he demands. He digs his heel into the mushy turf, leaving long, muddy gouges in their wake.

“Why, to tell all our friends that I am no witch after all. The ignominy will surely trail me all my days and you will be seen as a kind of local hero instead of a grubby, ill-tempered buffoon. Wouldn’t that be nice?” They walk into what passes as a town square in the carny community. Ignatia takes the nearest wooden spoon and frying pan and bangs them together, grinning like a loon. “Attention! Attention! I think Rupert has something to say!” Lushes wake from their stupor. Carnies from all over the encampment meander closer for a better look. “We all know Rupert, don’t we? Doesn’t wash his hands very often, or his clothes for that matter, and he turns away perfectly good money from our shows, bless his little heart. He has something he would like to tell us all.” She beams and turns to Rupert, who is trying to shrink into the nearest tent wall. “Go on, then. Don’t be bashful! Everyone, let’s give him a round of applause.”

They do. The carnies clap vigorously, enjoying the young man’s discomfiture. He rallies when the clapping fades away and points an accusatory finger at Ignatia. “We have been misled and lied to! By this little girl! She says she’s a witch, but she never does any magic. She just tells us what to do and how to do our jobs, like that’s any of her concern. Well no more, I say! I won’t stand for it! Who’s with me?”

There are nods and a grumbling of agreement. But he looks at Ignatia and she is still grinning that terrible grin, like a cat playing with its meal just before it leaps for the kill. “Well said! Well said! Another round of applause, please!” And they do applaud, though some are hesitant and almost all are baffled. “Goodness me! I have been bested by a superior intellect! I have met my match! But consider my rebuttal.” She reaches down and lifts a stone from the ground and Rupert ducks, expecting to be brained by it. But Ignatia just holds it loosely in her palm. She holds it until the stone glows red, molten hot, and dribbles between her fingers. This close, Rupert can feel the heat of it, even as it dribbles on the damp grass and smoke curls up. The humor drains from her face when Rupert can bring his eyes up from the charred grass. “If it bothers you so much that a woman might tell you what to do, you had better make peace with yourself, because I will not leave, I will not stand idly by, and I will not be silent.”

The circus performs in Sto Lat for the first time since Ignatia left to learn witching. She is pleased to see her ticket boys hustling and jockeying, and after the show she tallies how many tickets the three sold. A pain in her ass he may be, but Rupert managed to best his competition by a satisfyingly large margin.

Martin, however, has not hustled as hard as Rupert or what’s-his-name (Tom? Tim?). She stops by the tent Martin shares with the sword eater, a very special boiled sweet in hand. “Congratulations, my lad!” she laughs when she sees him.

Martin nearly falls off his bedroll and raises his hands in front of him. “Miss Ignatia!”

She folds the sweet into his upraised palm. “Well done, I say!”

He stared at it dumbly. “What’s this?”

“Why, your prize! You outperformed Rupert and…and the squinty one.”

“Eric.”

“Eric? Are you sure? He looks like a Tom.”

“He’s Eric, ma’am.” Martin offers her a simpering smile and pops the sweet into his mouth, eager to please. “Did I really sell more tickets than Rupert?”

“Oh, by a mile,” she grins. “Keep up the good work. A few more full houses like we had today and see if you don’t get promoted to Grand Ticket Master.”

Rheumy eyes widen, previously unfound ambition blossoming. “Gosh! I didn’t know such a position existed!”

“The title was retired a long time ago, but I’m sure it could be brought back for the right individual. A few daring acts of ticket-taking heroism could show you whole new horizons.”

He sucks on his sweet, awed. “Is there a pay raise?”

“I’m sure you and Mr. Campbell can hash out the finer details should the happy opportunity arise. I would hate to be the one to put a price on glory.”

He crunches through the slivered remainder of his sweet. “This is really good, what is it?”

“Secret recipe.”

He frowns. “I…I don’t feel well.” Sweat sheens on his forehead and his eyes have a new glassy shine to them.

Ignatia nods and pushes him flat on his bedroll and, after a moment’s consideration, arranges him into the recovery position. “All that excitement has made you poorly, Martin. Sleep it off.” She plucks his favorite handkerchief from his breast pocket and by the time she steps out of his tent, her mother is waiting by the goat pens, a new goat tugging absently at its lead.

“This is unkind, child mine,” her mother murmurs, but her eyes glitter as Ignatia loosely ties Martin’s handkerchief around the goat’s neck. “Cooking poison candy and giving it to foolish boys.”

Ignatia regards the goat somberly. Its rheumy eyes are unfocused, its teeth protrude from its lips like mountains protrude from the plains, and a smell hangs about it, somehow more pungent than the smell of domesticated animals. The resemblance is uncanny. “Martin will only be sick for a few hours, a day at most.” She straightens up and plasters on her best smile, turning away from her mother because Rupert and the one supposedly named Eric plod up the beaten trail to meet her.

“What’s this all about, then?” Rupert demands, hands fisted at his sides.

“Congratulations are in order. You two sold more tickets than Martin,” she steps aside and runs an indulgent hand over the goat’s head. Rupert goes pale and turns on his heel, runs like a madman to the gods only know where.

Eric watches him fade into the distance, bewildered. “What’s gotten into him?”

“I suppose you win by default, Tom.”

“It’s Eric, actually.”

“What, are you sure? You look like a Tom.”

“Everyone says that, I don’t know why.”

Ignatia is fourteen when her mother can finally afford to put meat in their scubble. “I don’t know how you did it, my dear.” The Astounding Florencia beams at her daughter, as if Ignatia put the stars in the sky instead of putting a few carnies in their place.

“Mama I didn’t do much.” She thinks the meat might have come from a horse, maybe a donkey; it is unrecognizable, but it is in their pot, and she doesn’t know the last time her mother ate a meal with meat that didn’t come off an old boot.

“Nonsense, child mine. You’re a miracle worker; maybe you’ll be able to bring this old company back to its former glory, kicking and screaming if need be.”

Ignatia’s brow furrows. She really is just a child still—she seems so mature and confident when she deals with the other circus performers, but here she is still Florencia’s baby girl. “It shouldn’t have got this bad, Mama. Why don’t people just think? Everything I am doing is just common sense. But a little greed here and a little laziness or pettiness there and the whole circus comes crumbling down.”

“Great enterprises depend on small details, as they say.”

Ignatia sighs. “It oughtn’t be this way.”

“But it is.”

Something behind her daughter’s eyes simmers. “I know. But it oughtn’t be.”