Jasper Grimaldi's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Jasper left his tent at dusk. The glowing mansion stood far across the park, its windows burning yellow. He had rebuilt his stage. He had a microphone and bright curtains. But a stage meant nothing without people in the seats, and his audience waited inside that house. Saturday was two days off. He needed to reach them tonight. He walked toward the mansion and found its gate locked. Garlic cloves hung from the bars. A man in a dark coat leaned against the fence, keeping clear of the metal. His eyes glowed faint red. "You want in," the man said. "Everyone does. No one gets past the garlic." This was Lucian Darkmore. Jasper knew him by sight. Lucian had worked the park since it opened, a hundred years back, and never aged a day. "My show opens Saturday," Jasper said. "The crowd I need is inside." Lucian studied the clown paint on Jasper's face. "The crowd inside isn't yours yet. The house holds them. It holds more than them." He stepped back from the fence. "I don't go in. Ask one who's trapped there. He's wanted out for two hundred years." Jasper found a tall shape near the porch. A ghost in a torn soldier's coat, see-through, stained with old blood. He drifted toward the front door, then stopped short, as if a wall he couldn't see held him back. "Silas Wainwright," Lucian called from the gate. "The house keeps him. Keeps all of them." Jasper faced the ghost. "I'm opening a show. I need the people inside this house to come. Can you bring them out?" Silas looked at the far tent. "I reached that door once. Something pulled me back. Took three days I can't remember." "Then help me," Jasper said. "If they walk out to my show, you walk out with them." Silas went quiet. A woman in bright skirts stepped from the shadows by the porch, bells ringing on her hems. Zara Moonweaver. Jasper had passed her fortune tent many times. She held a worn deck of cards and did not smile now. "A woman went into this house three nights ago," Zara said. "My reading sent her home first. I kept part of it back. She came here after." She fanned three cards against the rail. "The house wants a crowd drawn out. The cards agree. But it won't give them for nothing." "What does it want?" Jasper asked. Zara turned the last card. "A performer. On its stage. Not yours." She looked at the burning windows. "It wants the show inside. You bring your act here, the doors open. The crowd comes to you." Jasper's hands tightened. He had rebuilt his stage board by board. Now the house demanded he perform within its walls to free his audience. He looked at Silas, at the locked door, and nodded. "Saturday," Jasper said. "My show plays inside this house." The front doors swung open on their own.