Commotion
Brick, Clara learned, was a luxury. Pulling herself out of the coupe, she brushed the wrinkles from her skirt and marched to her brother to extend a hand for a cigarette. He pursed his lips for a moment before he dug out his pack and lit one for her.
She raised it to her lips and leaned against a tree, watching as Harry, now undressed down to the waist, struggled to ease a patched rubber tube back onto the wheel. He huffed and shot a look back toward the twins.
“A bit of help would be nice. As you can see, this is a very manual process.”
“Don’t arch your back too much,” Edward helpfully offered. “We’re at that age where one wrong move’ll knock it out.”
“I meant I could use a hand,” Harry grumbled as he turned back to the wheel.
With smoke trailing from her lips, Clara stepped forward. His blue eyes took in her cigarette curiously before he attached a line to the tire and nodded to it. “You mind holding this? I’ll have to pump to inflate it the rest of the way. Ten more minutes or so.”
With her cigarette clutched between her lips, Clara knelt beside the tire and held the hose in place. With a deep breath, Harry began working the handpump up and down. She watched him for a minute or two before boredom took over. Scanning over the wooded stretches beyond the road, she almost thought she saw shadows dancing about in the darkness. Perhaps she had – everything between Philadelphia and Gettysburg was decently rural, and animals wouldn’t be an unfamiliar sight.
“Where’s Walter?” she finally asked, breaking the silence.
“Taking a piss,” Harry stated briefly before he went back to breathing heavily. Clara studied his sweat-beaded face before she looked back at the tire and watched as it took on more of a shape.
“I’ve never seen anyone change a tire,” she admitted, but before she could elaborate on how the men had kept her, Alice, and Helen away from any maintenance during their travels, a screech tore through the silence.
Edward straightened his back and lowered his cigarette as he turned to scan the woods. Beside Clara, Harry straightened so quickly that a few locks of brown hair slipped out of his updo and caught in the sweat gathered on his forehead.
The trio studied the deathly-still forest until footfall approached, and they each jumped when Walter tore back into the group.
“There’s something out there!” he exclaimed, not waiting a single moment for their reaction. “Something watched me. Stalked me.”
“Could be a bear,” Harry reasoned. “The Pennsylvania Game Commission has been working on conservation stuff, from what I’ve heard. You know, now that it’s getting dark and these roads have us leaning on the spare, we might want to look for a place to stay for the evening.”
“How much further do we have to go?” Clara asked.
“Twenty miles, I’d reckon,” Harry said. “Another hour or two of travel, but these roads are worse than anticipated. And if there are bears in the area, we shouldn’t risk the rest of the drive until the sun is up.”
After another few minutes spent getting the tire inflated followed by a short drive, they found a friendly yellow farmhouse silhouetted against the setting sun. A sign out front read “INN” in bold letters, so Harry found an appropriate place to park and led the group inside. With his suitcase and Clara’s in hand, he gestured with his chin from Edward to the front door. The carnie obediently scrambled to open it, holding it for the entirety of their group as they walked past him.
When they stepped inside, a woman in a short white dress flitted down the stairs. She lit up when her eyes settled on Harry’s crumpled but fine clothing. “Well, I’ll be damned! I thought I heard an engine pull up. A few rooms, I assume?”
“Three. What’s your rate?”
“Three?” Clara immediately protested.
Harry turned his eyes from the hostess to her. “Come on, Claire, we don’t know this community. You don’t need to stay on your own.”
“Excuse you?” she demanded.
“It’s safer to have you bunk with your brother.”
“I’d rather bunk with the devil.”
“Well, I suppose there’ll be plenty of room in my quarters. You prefer cash or check?”
Ignoring his lude suggestion, she rammed her elbow into his ribs, producing an instantaneous pained wince. “The terms of our agreement were room and board.”
“I never agreed to cover room and board for each of you, just that I’d cover it for you.”
“Oh, give the girl her own space,” Edward said impatiently, his gaze locked on their hostess. “She’ll manage just fine.”
Clara shot an enthusiastic smirk at Harry as he studied Edward and their host with a frown. Finally, he conceded with a defeated, “Four it is. What’s the rate?”
“Three a room,” she offered. “Come on up. I’ll get each of ya settled. My name is Hazel, if you need anything.”
With that, she made her way back up the steps, and the foursome happily trailed after her. One by one, she introduced each to their own cozy room. When Harry set Clara’s suitcase down and bid her goodnight, she waved to him and Hazel before she shut the door.
Once it was closed, she squealed and rushed to the bed. With an enthusiastic exhale, she plopped down against the mattress. Unlike her bed back in the wagon, this one was full, and it was surprisingly nice for a countryside inn. Here, she had a room to herself that felt nearly as big as her whole wagon. Here, she had a feather mattress and windows that let in the beautiful oranges and pinks of the setting sun.
It was nice. So nice, in fact, that she was able to ignore the ominous shadow that kept fidgeting in the corner of her eye.
***
A knock tore Clara out of her book, so she quietly slinked off the bed and made her way to the door. When she opened it, Harry grinned and lifted a medicinal whiskey. Pursing her lips as she considered his offer, she finally stepped aside to let him in.
The moment the door shut, he let a relieved exhale slip through his lips. “Thanks. I unfortunately share a wall with Eddy across the hall, and he’s sharing his gonorrhea with Hazel at the moment. Quite loudly.”
“Good God,” Clara muttered. She nodded toward the bottle. “Good thing you’ve got some giggle water there to drown it out.”
When he brushed past her, a shadow in her peripherals once again drew her attention. She trailed it curiously, watching as it grew into a heavier mist that, slowly, took on the shape of a woman. Before she could point it out, she blinked and it was gone.
Harry was pulling an armchair to the bedside table, where he’d already placed the whiskey and two bottles of Coca-Cola. He plopped down and gestured toward the bed, so she curiously made her way closer. As his gaze lingered on her, she finally took a seat.
“I saw you staring,” he stated. “By the door. You see something I don’t?”
Clara shrugged a shoulder, and when the silk shifted on her shoulder, she had the presence of mind to realize she was in a nightgown. Trying to ignore the heat that crept into her cheeks, she cleared her throat and said, “It’s nothing, really. A shadow I keep seeing. Disappeared when I blinked.”
He dug in his pocket to produce a lighter, which he then used to pop the crown corks off the Cokes. Nudging one toward her, he encouraged, “Tell me about your mother – Eddy said she taught you. She didn’t believe in her gifts?”
Clara claimed a bottle and lifted it to her lips, taking a moment to savor its sticky sweetness before she reached for the liquor. Playfully, Harry smacked her hand away.
“Hey now,” he said. He dug in his jacket pocket to produce two thin-walled glasses. Clara watched as he uncorked the whiskey and poured two small drinks. Carefully, he nudged one toward her as he lifted his. “Cheers.”
After clinking their glasses together, each took a drink. Unaccustomed to the bitter liquor, Clara scrunched her nose and scrambled to grab her Coke. After downing a drink, she took a deep breath.
“My mother believed, to some degree,” she said quietly. “She always said there was more to this world, that she could sense long-gone loved ones. But it ended at sensing them. Everything we do, we fake. And we upcharge well-dressed saps like you.”
“Saps?” he asked amusedly. He scooted closer to kick his feet up onto the mattress, but he grumbled when she pushed his shoes away. “How on earth did you see through my ruse then, Claire? No other ‘medium’ has noticed that my dearly departed brother doesn’t even exist.”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. She fidgeted nervously when that shadow once again twitched near the door. Harry turned to study it for a moment, but his gaze quickly returned to her.
“You’re seeing something – one of those spirits your mom claimed to sense, right? I saw through your tricks, remember? I’m seeing you clearly. I think you should, too.”
“What if we can’t find your fortune?” she blurted impatiently.
Harry took a slow drink and set his glass down. For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer, but he moved to sit beside her on the mattress. He brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Then I waste a few days getting to know an absolute doll away from the circus she’s wasting her time with.”
Her lips parted in surprise. Averting her eyes, she reached for her glass and downed the rest of the whiskey, which she quickly chased with a sip of soda.
Outside, however, a violent commotion broke out – hollers, a scream, and a few expletives floated up. Harry moved to the window, trailed closely by Clara, and rushed to the door.
She was so distracted by the sight of Harry pulling a gun from a hidden holster that she almost overlooked the din of her half-dressed brother and a very flustered Hazel spilling into the hallway. Hazel stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Harry’s gun, then shot a concerned look at Eddy.
A gun? Hazel mouthed at him in confusion. Falling into step beside her, Eddy shrugged.
By the time they were at the stairs, Walter had joined their ranks, too, reeking of cigar smoke.
The group spilled outside, where a car and a horse and buggy were surrounded by several bearded men and well-dressed city folks. A few members of the group were exchanging punches, so Harry shouted, “Hey!”
When nobody responded, he turned his firearm toward the street and fired a shot. The commotion immediately eased, giving the barefooted Hazel a chance to step between a bearded Amish man and a cleancut blonde man. Putting a hand against each chest to push them apart, she demanded, “What the hell is going on?”
“These out-of-towners harassed our horse,” spat the Amish man. “Threw shit at her as they drove past.”
Hazel turned her eyes on the blonde expectantly. He stammered and shrugged before adding, “I’m drunk. I made a bad decision.”
With a huff, she turned back to the Amish man. “Sorry for the hassle. I’ll board them tonight, but on the condition that they leave town first thing in the morning.”
“Hey,” Walter said, stepping forward with his eyes locked on the blonde man. “James?”
James turned his eyes on the older carnie with recognition. “Walter? What are you doing at an inn? Where’s the circus?”
“We’re traveling,” he explained, pausing to study the group of Amish men as they piled into their buggy and happily took off.
“Likewise,” James said. “Long story, but… We’re on a mission. We want to find the Gates of Hell. Shut ’em down, do our part to combat the secularism rising in the country.”
Ah, Clara thought as she ran her eyes over his white outfit. That perspective explained the almost preacher-like cadence.
“The Gates of Hell?” Edward asked, but a glare from Harry silenced him before he could elaborate.
James turned his attention to the firebreather and nodded. “I know how it sounds, but locals out here can tell you just how real they are. Look at her reaction.”
Hazel snapped her jaw shut and recoiled when eyes crawled to her. The three others with James – two women and a man – began muttering as she said, “While I wouldn’t advise you go there, I will house you for the evening. It’s just two dollars a night.”
“You charged me three,” Harry said in disbelief as Clara giggled and elbowed him.
“I told you. You’re scam bait, Harry.”
They started walking back to the hotel, trailed by Walter and the topless Edward. Clara’s brother brushed past Walter to fall into step with her.
“What were you two doing alone in there?”
Walter’s eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t say anything as Clara quipped, “Unlike you, Eddy, we were keeping our clothes on.”
“And plotting for the journey,” Harry added as he opened the door. Once the group brushed past him and it slammed behind them, he added, “Seems we’ve got competition. Fundamentalists – go fuckin’ figure.”
Walter was the first to the staircase, and he paused on it to glance back at Harry before he kept climbing. “They’re harmless. Politically motivated and misguided, but harmless. I dissuaded them years ago when they tried to protest the circus. Showed them that it’s just an act, not a threat to piousness.”
“So you’ve been to the Gates, Harry?” Edward pressed curiously when they came to the landing at the upper story.
Harry fumbled with the front of his jacket and cleared his throat. “I’ve been to them. Never gone all the way through. Going to be interesting tomorrow. Hope you all get a restful night from here on out.”
Walter was happy enough with that farewell, so he headed into his room. The remaining trio ventured down the hallway, but Edward stopped at his door to suspiciously glare at his sister.
“What?” she demanded.
“Don’t take any wooden nickels, Lari,” he muttered before he opened the door.
Offended, she huffed and headed toward her room. Harry followed her to the door, and when she side-eyed him, he quickly said, “We’ve still got the Cokes to finish. What do you say?”
“I’d say it’d be nifty. Just for tonight.”
When he grinned and opened the door, a shiver ran down her back. Even as she followed him, she didn’t quite believe her words. Just for tonight. Ha. There was something roguishly fascinating about him, like she couldn’t quite make sense of what he was about. Polished, but carrying a gun. A steadfast believer in something more, but a skeptic. Strange. As she closed the door behind her, she wondered if she even needed to venture to the Gates of Hell to meet a devil.
Like he’d said, he was devilishly charming.
***
Clara, sporting a headache, had opted for a khaki-colored silk dress that hung loosely around her frame, cinching at just one side on her waist. She hadn’t even bothered pulling her hair back before she galumphed down to the breakfast table.
To her delight, Hazel had prepared an impressive spread. When Clara walked up, the hostess was explaining to the other guests that her grandfather and father ran the farm while she worked the inn, and she loved making their family home into a cozy space for travelers.
Clara claimed a seat near the two women, who side-eyed her curiously as Hazel served her coffee. After a grateful sip, she turned to the women. “Hi. I’m Clara.”
While one of the women just stared at her, the closer one lit up at the opportunity for conversation. “I’m Ruth! This is Millie. I think you’ve already met James, her husband, but this handsome fella – Isaac – is mine.”
Clara nodded politely at Isaac, who was a bookish man with little round glasses. He watched Clara select a few hotcakes and sausages from the spread, then helpfully passed her the pitcher of syrup. “What brings you to this remote part of Pennsylvania?”
She didn’t meet his gaze as she poured warm syrup across her plate. “Oh, the usual. A missing fortune treasure hunt.”
“Usual,” Isaac muttered, furrowing his brows behind his glasses. “So you’re a regular Percy Fawcett then?”
She chuckled. “Not quite. My brother and I were pulled into a quest for a friend, but we’re not particularly skilled in treasure hunting. James, I believe you know Walter? We work for him.”
James set down his fork and propped his elbows on the table. His eyes, dark and piercing, cut through her as if he could sense the sin that clung to her. “You work for him? Not many ladylike roles in a carnival. What do you do?”
“I work as a medium,” she muttered, not meeting his gaze.
“A medium!” Hazel exclaimed as she returned to the room and claimed a seat at the head of the table between James and Millie. Clara was surprised – she hadn’t even realized their host had stepped out. “So you speak to the dead, then? You notice anything during your stay? My mother died when I was a baby, and we always thought she hung around.”
Thinking back to the vaguely woman-shaped shadow she’d seen lurking in her peripherals, Clara shook her head.
“That’s comforting,” Millie added, breaking her studious silence. “I’m anxious enough about going to the Gates of Hell.”
“Ah, me too,” Edward declared as he walked in and claimed a seat across from his sister. At once, all eyes were on him.
James leaned forward to peer around Isaac. “You’re also going to the Gates?”
Edward, realizing his mistake, pursed his lips as he met the fundamentalist’s gaze. Then, he averted his eyes and started scooping scrambled eggs on his plate. While he collected a few links of sausage, Isaac lowered his coffee mug and said, “Having a medium in your group makes sense, then.”
“Are you striving to convene with the Devil himself?” James demanded, his tone shifting toward bitterness.
“Not at all,” Clara said. “We’re looking to connect with the poor souls who used to be institutionalized at the asylum there.”
“There was an asylum?” Ruth asked, shooting a brown-eyed gaze toward James. He curled a single lip into a snarl.
Clara almost didn’t expect him to respond, but he finally sighed and set his fork down again, this time to massage his temples. “There was, years ago. It burned down before 1900. Too remote to be saved. Its proximity to the Gates of Hell is likely what started the fire. All the more reason for us to close that hellmouth and fix the world.”
“Not a fan of Coolidge, eh?” Edward asked between open-mouthed chomps of eggs. “Can’t say I blame you. Wish he’d reduced taxes for us normal people. I’m sure we’ll have a better guy in office in ’29.”
“Not just Coolidge,” James said. “It’s this secularism. Science nonsense. Ever since the Scopes Trial determined schools need to teach that evolution bullshit, society has been weird. We just want to shut the devil out.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Edward said, lifting his coffee mug before realizing it was empty. Hazel quickly fluttered over to fill it for him. He shot her a flirtatious smile.
“I guess we’ll get to travel the rest of the way together,” Isaac said before he plucked his glasses off and cleaned them on his shirt. Grumbling, he added, “At least one of you has a gun.”
Two, Clara thought silently. Preferring to be safe, she’d also packed her own pistol, just in case.
***
Clara hadn’t expected the ride to feel like a race, but the moment James’s car pulled onto the dirt road ahead, Harry set his jaw and pressed his foot harder on the accelerator.
Dust churned in thick clouds behind them, forcing Edward to cover his mouth and gag. He banged against the back of the cab in complaint. The trees blurred by the windows in streaks of green and gray. Behind them, Walter and Edward whooped from the rumble seat, their voices carried forward on the wind, barely audible.
“Pass him!” Edward hollered. “You’ve got the faster machine, Harry!”
Harry’s grin flashed, quick and reckless. “Hold tight,” he told Clara, leaning forward as though his sheer weight could urge the car faster.
“Don’t you dare,” Clara snapped, gripping the edge of her seat as the car lurched over a rut. “It’s a dirt road. You’ll kill us.”
“Relax, Claire,” he said, though his knuckles were bone-white on the wheel. “I’ve been driving I was ten. Seen roads worse than this, too.”
Up ahead, James’s car fishtailed slightly as Ruth craned over the door of their convertible, coughing at the dust as she gazed at their challengers. Beside her, Isaac waved an arm in protest, a bookish fury that looked almost comical in the blur of grit and motion.
Walter’s voice floated up to them with some sort of command, but it was lost in the wind. Clara shot a curious glance at Harry, who sensed her gaze and briefly flicked his eyes toward her. “What?”
“We don’t have to race, daredevil. We’ve got maybe another hour of the trek left before we arrive at the Gates. Besides, this is a tiny township, right? We might be competing with them for the only inn in town, if we can even find one.”
Harry’s smile softened. He eased off just enough to let James keep the lead. But when the road forked – two narrow tracks splitting into the trees – Harry downshifted and veered left without hesitation. Clara braced as the car jolted over roots, making the men in the rumble seat holler like they were on a midway ride.
“Shortcut,” he mattered, half to her, mostly to himself.
Moments later, the forest thinned, and James’s car emerged from the opposite fork, rolling beside them in a choking haze of airborne dust. Both vehicles slowed as the drivers locked eyes, glaring across the narrow stretch.
The cars crept forward in parallel until the road narrowed to a single track. Clara’s pulse jumped when bark scraped the fenders on both sides. The cars squeezed through in grinding protest before the woods spat them out together into a narrow road.
Defeated, James fell behind them, obscured by a wall of dust. Clara released a relieved exhale, and, against her better judgment, threw her head back and laughed. Beside her, Harry grinned.
“That must have shaved at least ten minutes off our trek,” he said. “You’re right about needing to find an inn, though. We’ll go find the Gates now, just so we know where they are, but we should go snag some rooms before they do. Otherwise, you might have to consider bunking with me again.”
Clara scoffed. “I recall you suggesting I should be stuck with my brother.”
With a smirk, he kept his eyes locked on the road. “That was before I thought I had a chance.”
Clara didn’t respond, but she smiled to herself as she gazed out the windshield. With dust flying behind them and a group of cranky fundamentalists trailing close, they continued their journey in a thoughtful silence.
Finally, engines sputtering, both groups pulled to a stop at the edge of a mile-deep forest. The airborne dirt settled heavy and slow around them. Walter climbed out of the rumble seat coughing, Edward hacking beside him, as Clara opened her door. On the driver’s side, Ruth was slapping dust from her skirt while Isaac polished his glasses with tight, irritated swipes.
Though the groups came together to stare at the forest, no one spoke. The only sound was the tick of cooling engines and the rasp of the forest breathing around them as wind combed through its trees.
Harry finally cut the silence with a wry tilt of his head. “Well. Guess we made good time.”
“You’ve been to the Gates?” James asked, impaling him with judgmental eyes.
“Been to. Never through. I figure we’ll find them while daylight is on our side, then come back tonight.”
“Aligned,” James said, brushing dirt off his coat as he locked his eyes on the wooded expanse that stretched before them. “Lead the way, friend. I think it’s best we go together for the sake of safety.”
Harry glanced at the group around him before he linked arms with Clara and took a careful step toward a shaded game path.