Jasper Grimaldi's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

The doors stood open, but Jasper did not step through. Silas drifted close, his torn soldier's coat still wet with two-hundred-year-old blood. He had been trapped in this house since the night he died, and he wanted out more than Jasper wanted his show. The ghost looked past the threshold into the dark hall. "They won't march," Silas said. "The house starves them. Years. A weak, scared crowd can't walk to any stage." Jasper looked inside. Shapes huddled against the walls. Thin arms. Hollow faces. He saw a woman clutch her knees. These were his people, the audience he needed Saturday. But they could barely stand. A crowd this weak would never last through his act, let alone the walk across the park. "Then I don't march them," Jasper said. "I feed them." He turned and ran back across the park. The popcorn stand sat dark, four black barrels still full. Plain, chocolate, cheddar, green. He dumped every barrel into sacks. He raided the meat pie stand next, loading pies into a cart until the wheels groaned. Zara found him there, barefoot, her bells quiet. "You're loading the whole park," she said. She had kept part of a reading back three nights ago, and a woman had vanished into this house because of it. She blamed herself. "The one I lost. She's inside." "Then help me carry," Jasper said. They hauled the cart to the open doors. Silas could not lift the food, but he pointed Jasper to the weakest first. Jasper knelt by the huddled woman. He shook green powder over a handful of popcorn and held it out. "It tastes like nothing you'd expect," he said. She ate. Then she ate more. Jasper moved down the hall, pressing pies into shaking hands, filling bags, shaking the green powder because it was part of him and part of the act. Zara worked the far side. She found a face she knew and stopped cold, then kept feeding. Color crept back into the captives. A man sat up. A child chewed a cheddar piece and asked for another. The hall filled with the sound of eating, of people remembering they were alive. Silas watched from the center of the room. "They can stand now," he said. "They couldn't an hour ago." Jasper looked over the crowd. Fed. Awake. Strong enough to watch a show. But the house had not released them. They were still inside its walls, and the doors behind him had quietly swung shut. "The crowd's ready," Jasper said. "The house still holds them." Zara turned a card against the dark. "It wants what it wants. You feed them, you keep them alive. You don't free them." She looked at Jasper. "Only the show does that. Saturday. In here." Jasper wiped green powder from his hands. His audience lived. Now the walls that held them were locked tight, and Saturday was one day closer.