Chapter Text
“Gather ‘round, gather ‘round! Got tomorrow’s assignments in hand!”
Charles shot his partner a look at the shouted command. Edwin gave him a grim smile in return. Jogging a bit closer to him as they walked toward the main tent, Charles leaned in so they couldn’t be overheard by the other workers heading in the same direction as them. “I got this,” he said in a low murmur. “See if I can charm them so they don’t split us up.” He shoved cheer instead of fear into his tone, and it must have worked, because Edwin didn’t look the least bit worried.
Or maybe that was just Edwin, who had been watching everything warily since they’d arrived. It was hard to tell if he’d gotten more tense or not.
“Do not do anything too uncouth,” Edwin murmured back under his breath. He didn’t even need to lean to make his voice low; his mouth barely moved as he spoke.
Uncouth was one of those words Charles had to look up, after meeting Edwin. Technically it meant lacking manners, or lacking sophistication. But what Edwin was really telling him was to be careful. He cracked a quick grin at his partner, even though the place gave him the proper creeps. It was weird to be among so many ghosts. Charles probably shouldn’t have been so weirded out by a place because it was haunted—especially since he was one of the ghosts doing the haunting—but he was.
There was a somber air over the whole fairgrounds, now that the crowds from the evening show were gone. Nobody was smiling.
The fear wormed its way further down his spine, wrapping around his bones like a snake that had his nerves tightly in its grip. This place was proper creepy. Hopefully they’d finish up the case quickly, and maybe shut the place down in the meantime.
He and Edwin hurried into the tent side by side, but Charles left Edwin milling about with the other employees as he hurried to the ringmaster in the center of the tent.
“Hey,” he said, stepping up to the man. He kept himself low, didn’t straighten his spine, didn’t speak too loudly. “Charles? Me and my mate Edwin, we were hired yesterday?”
It’d been a lucky break at that, them having the spots for more than one new hire at the same time. (Or maybe not so lucky, given the employee turnover at this place. But that was what they were here to investigate.)
“Yes, yes,” the ringmaster said, “you’re on the list, but you’ll have to work here for a lot longer than a day if you expect to step in front of everyone else who’s been waiting—”
“No, no,” Charles said quickly, pitching his voice so he didn’t sound too much like he was interrupting, or trying to correct the man. He and Edwin weren’t interested in the perks that had been the main draw for everyone else this place hired. (Everyone but the main crew, it seemed, but they’d barely been able to pick out who fell under that category yet.) He wrang his hands together, kept himself a step back and shorter than the other man.
“We just—wondering if we could have assignments together?” he asked. “We’ll go wherever you put us, promise, we’re not afraid of hard work, just, he’s my best mate, yeah?” He gave a sheepish smile, like a stupid kid asking for a favor because he was a little scared. It helped that Charles had real fear to put into it, worry for what happened to the ghosts this place swallowed up. Edwin could handle himself, but Charles didn’t want him to have to.
The ringmaster rolled his eyes. “You’ll get what you get. Now scram.”
Charles hid a wince. “Right, sir,” he said, and hurried back to Edwin’s side. He pulled himself up a little as he did so, though he kept his head still relatively low in the crowd. “No luck,” he murmured.
Edwin’s lips were pursed already. He nodded tightly at the news.
“Trying to get on the boss’ good side already?”
Charles whipped around at the wry tone, searching out it’s speaker. The ghost who’d approached him and Edwin had been young to middle-aged when she’d died, and Charles didn’t know what had killed her, but it seemed to have taken her complexion with it. She was all grey: grey skin tone, light grey dress, darker grey apron over that, like a fifties housewife. Her feet were bare and as she stood there she curled her toes into the dirt, over and over, like a reflexive action.
“Won’t work,” she said as their gazes met. Her expression was half derision, half pity. “Whoever you’re hoping to see.”
They needed to make friends to solve this case, Charles knew that, but he also didn’t know what kind of pull this woman had. Was she was one of the people he’d need to kowtow to to see that he and Edwin got the kind of assignments that would put them where they needed to be to investigate?
He gave a nervous smile in response, eyes flickering up and down her form. “Sorry?” he asked, playing it safe.
She laughed. It was a cruel, biting thing that Charles had to stiffen himself against to prevent himself from flinching.
“Oh, kid, this place is going to eat you up alive.” She strolled away from them, message delivered.
Charles grimaced and watched her go.
“That was decidedly unpleasant,” Edwin announced, though he had the presence of mind to keep his tone low.
“No kidding,” Charles agreed. He looked around the crowd, noting the sour faces, the unease and anxiety that gave the group of ghosts an undulating, frantic sort of movement, however slight. “So much for the happiest place on Earth.”
The corner of Edwin’s mouth quirked upward into a wry smile for a second before it vanished again. “The correct slogan is ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’,” he said. “And I believe you are thinking of another circus entirely.”
“Same thing, isn’t it?” Charles muttered sullenly under his breath.
Edwin blinked and looked down at him. “The sour mood must be truly infectious, if it is hitting you. Perhaps there’s something in the air?”
Right. Because Edwin wasn’t usually the optimist of their duo. Charles drew himself up a little taller, fitting on his familiar grin. “Sorry. Probably not actually an infection. Just, you know. Place gives me the creeps.” The ringmaster did too. And the guy who’d hired them.
“Does it?” Edwin asked the question with interest, not doubt. He looked around again. “It is… drearier, than I expected a circus to be. Not that I have ever been to one before.”
Oh God no, he hadn’t, had he? And Charles had spent so long during the planning sessions for this case hyping up the experience, talking about knife throwers and strong men and trapeze artists leaping through fire (as if he’d ever been to a circus either; at least he’d been able to see bits and pieces on TV, in movies and whatnot) that Edwin was probably disappointed. He elbowed his friend.
“Sure it’ll perk up tomorrow.”
“Perhaps.”
A loud whistle cut through the air. When Charles craned his head to see the center of the ring, the man who’d stepped up to talk to the ringmaster after him—the same man who’d hired him and Edwin—was stepping away again. He joined the spot behind the ringmaster, with two women who already stood there. Charles memorized their faces. Surely those four were the people in charge here.
Belting his voice over the crowd with a volume that Charles wasn’t much fond of, the ringmaster began to call out names and assigned tasks. Charles cast his gaze around the room again and started counting under his breath.
“Twenty-three,” Edwin muttered.
“What?”
“There are twenty-three of us, not counting those four.” He nodded toward the group in the center of the ring.
Charles’ gaze had stopped on a little girl ghost, younger than him and Edwin, probably in both respects. He tore his eyes from her at Edwin’s comment and nodded. “We’ll need to make sure it stays at twenty-three.”
“Indeed.”
Charles and Edwin’s names were called somewhere near the middle (no last names given, just in case their reputations had made it this far). Charles was assigned to cleanup duty, Edwin to ticket sales. Unease shivered down Charles’ spine, but he forced a grim smile onto his face anyway.
“Ugh, cleanup duty,” he muttered to Edwin. “Does that mean I’ve got to deal with living people’s garbage?”
“At least you do not have to speak to them,” Edwin muttered back.
A heavy hand clapping Charles on the shoulder startled him. He froze under the weight of the oppressive touch, nearly shrinking down again.
“Sucks to be the new kids,” a friendly voice said.
Charles looked up—and up—at a ghost who must have been nearly seven feet tall. He had big ears, a short haircut that wasn’t quite buzzed, and a smile that showed in his eyes.
“Don’t worry,” the man said, “you’ll get rotated through pretty quickly, once the boss finds out what you’re good at.”
Charles sent Edwin a sly look, then turned back to his new friend. “Any chance we could get a job together?”
“You’ll need to impress Mrs. Brady,” the giant said, pointing out one of the two women still standing in the center of the ring with the ringmaster. “She’s in charge of upkeep and sales and the like. Anything that doesn’t have anything to do with the actual acts.”
Mrs. Brady was the one dressed in a way that probably gave Edwin the willies: a black dress that accentuated her boobs with a hemline that hovered above her bare knees, a pink square of fabric over the chest area and a pink ribbon around her waist, two-inch bright pink heels, and enough makeup that Charles might as well have called it face paint at that point. She was attractive, Charles wasn’t afraid to admit in the recesses of his own mind, but his unease didn’t lighten up, looking her way. She didn’t look any friendlier than the ringmaster or hiring man had been.
“Are there any dual acts?” Edwin inquired.
The giant shrugged. “Trapeze artists. But I don’t think anyone’ll be replacing the wonder twins any time soon.” He pointed out two ghosts in the crowd who looked nothing alike—the crowd that was starting to disperse, at this point. The ringmaster had stopped shouting out names and finished up with the day’s announcements besides.
“Thanks for the advice,” Charles said, “but I think we’ll try and go have a chat with our new boss.” He nodded to Edwin.
The giant frowned. “I wouldn’t—”
But Charles and Edwin were already moving, having seen that their quarry was on the move too. “I’ve got this,” Charles said. He’d tried once and failed already; he wouldn’t fail a second time.
Edwin gave a small nod and let Charles take the lead, falling into place a step behind him as Charles angled himself just right to get Mrs. Brady’s attention without fully blocking her path.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Charles, this is my mate, Edwin. We wanted to talk to you about our assignments for tomorrow?” He tried to turn on the charm without letting his unease push through him too. It usually wasn’t this difficult, talking to people, but he usually wasn’t this unsettled either.
Mrs. Brady froze fully, mid-stride even, and made it look casual. She managed to look down at the both of them, somehow, never mind that she was shorter than them both.
“No,” she said, and turned away.
“Look, we don’t—”
“No.”
“Wait here,” Charles murmured to Edwin. He hurried after the woman’s long strides, practically chasing after her. He hunkered down a little as he did so, made himself smaller, a little quieter. “Ma’am,” he tried again. “We’re not, I’m not trying to get out of the work, we were just wondering if we could work together?”
She came to a stop again. They were at the edge of the tent now, and the breeze ruffled her dress a little. Charles didn’t know if that was an effect of this strange circus or if she was strong enough to mess with her corporeality that constantly.
She looked down her nose at him again. “Right now, boy,” she said, cutting into him with her tone, “I am not impressed in the slightest. Impress me tomorrow, or you and your little friend” —she cast a glance back at Edwin— “will never work together at all, if I have my way.”
Charles’ heart skipped a beat in his chest. It wasn’t—they weren’t planning on being here long, and they’d probably have to split up to investigate anyway here and there, but—
She was looking at him again, sneering.
He swallowed and ducked his head. “Yes, ma’am.” He stepped aside to let her pass and then stood there and watched her leave.
It was only because it was Edwin—because he was never not aware of Edwin—that he didn’t startle when his best friend stepped up to his side and spoke. “I take it that did not go well.”
Charles swallowed again, then turned to face his friend. He knew his grin was more wry than cheerful, but that was okay. “Not in the slightest,” he agreed, and didn’t tell Edwin about the ultimatum. “C’mon, let’s see where they have us bunking down for the night.”
“I do not see why we need to ‘bunk down’ at all,” Edwin argued, even as he followed Charles out of the tent. “We are all ghosts here, are we not?”
Ghosts though they all might have been, the strangeness of the circus extended into the nighttime. Curfew was strictly enforced, all the ghosts shepherded into smaller tents that held little but a row of bunk beds. There were four bunks in theirs, eight beds in total. Three spots were open, and they were all top bunks.
Charles turned on his charm and convinced the ghost on the far left to take one of the other open top beds so that he and Edwin could share, and then he clambered up to the top with Edwin anyway. The two of them settled cross-legged side by side, bowing their heads together to talk about the case, until the man on the bottom bunk next to theirs scolded them for skipping out on the curfew.
“Sorry about that,” Charles said, tossing him a grin as he clambered back down. “But they don’t expect us to actually sleep, do they?”
“’s not quite sleeping,” the man admitted. “But it’s near enough. We’re not quite used to working all day, are we?”
That wasn’t how ghosts worked at all, and Charles could hear Edwin make a quiet scornful sound from the bed above him. Sure, most ghosts didn’t have actual jobs—wasn’t like they needed to get paid on the regular or anything—but that didn’t mean none of them did. He and Edwin sure kept themselves busy, and nobody knew what the postman’s deal was.
He punched his pillow into shape, then laid down on his side, wondering if, above him, Edwin was laying down yet or not. If he did, he’d probably do it all formal-like. Stiff like a board on his back, hands clasped just so over his stomach.
“How long have you been dead, then?” he asked the man across from him.
Someone else in the room shushed him.
“Sorry,” Charles whispered, and turned over onto his own back to stare at the bottom of the bed above him, wishing he could still see Edwin.
Somehow, Charles slept. His neighbor had been right, that it wasn’t real sleep, but he drifted anyway, more than he usually did when trying to kip down. Charles could force himself into “sleeping” for an hour or two sometimes, especially after a long case, but any longer than that and he started to fidget, unable to keep still. This wasn’t like that at all. It was like a haze crept over Charles’ mind, dulling his thoughts, his impulses to keep moving. He blinked, and it was morning again, a bell ringing out in the background and rousing them from their “slumber”. He didn’t feel any more rested than he had before, but then, he hadn’t felt tired in the first place.
Edwin hopped down from the top bunk before Charles was even sitting upright, forgoing the ladder and landing on silent feet. Charles wondered if he’d been somewhat immune to the enforced rest, the same way he didn’t react as most ghosts did to pain, or spells, or the like. One of his many side effects from over seven decades in Hell. But he didn’t get the chance to ask. They barely got the chance to exchange glances before Mrs. Brady was standing in the aisle next to their bunk, sneering at him.
Charles hadn’t heard her approach, but then, that wasn’t unusual, for ghosts.
She pointed and snapped her fingers. “You, up, now.”
Charles jolted upright and scrambled to his feet.
“With me,” she snapped out, and Charles was forced to jog after her, trying to shrug off the aftereffects of the strange sleep. He cast a helpless look back at Edwin as he left, but Edwin only nodded, expression grim.
Charles consoled himself with the knowledge that Edwin could handle himself. Since fellow ghosts weren’t likely to have iron handy, any threat they posed to Edwin was likely minor for him, even if it wouldn’t have been for a normal ghost. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but it kept him from turning around.
“You wanted to impress me, didn’t you?” Mrs. Brady asked as she strode forward, not even bothering to turn around to see if he was following. “Here’s how this is going to go.” She came to a stop and whirled around so abruptly that Charles had to backpedal before he ran into her.
He winced on instinct and hunkered down again, keeping himself small and his hands pressed to his sides.
“I do not like people who take initiative,” Mrs. Brady said, sharp as a knife and twice as scary. “I do not like people who interrupt me. I especially do not like people who ask for privileges they have not earned. I like people who keep their heads down and do what they’re told. I like hard work, and I like quiet. Is that understood?”
Charles ducked his head at the question. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, firm but quiet. He didn’t understand why his hands felt clammy or his throat tight. Ghosts weren’t supposed to be able to sweat. Maybe it was just this place, this strange creepy circus of wraiths and phantoms. He looked up for the briefest of moments, making eye contact. “May I ask a question?”
Her lips thinned. She was in a different outfit from yesterday, unusual for a ghost, but her lips were the same plump cherry red. Disapproval on her looked nothing like it did on Edwin. On him, his pursed lips were usually under thoughtful eyes, or else he was rolling them in annoyance. Mrs. Brady just looked cruel.
“Quickly,” she snapped out.
“For cleanup duty,” he said. “Is there anything I need to do to do my job better? Anything else I can do to help the circus while I work?” He got the question out quickly, didn’t bother to hide the plaintive desire in his tone. He wanted to do as good a job as possible, wanted to impress her. It was just because of the case, of course, nothing more than that, but she didn’t need to know that.
“Do as you’re told,” she said, still sneering. “Keep this place spotless.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Charles agreed, but she was already walking away. He swallowed, straightening a little, and watched her leave. When she’d disappeared into one of the few trailers on site, he risked a glance back toward the cast and crew tents. People were still milling around outside of them, but he didn’t see Edwin anywhere. His jaw clenched, but he couldn’t risk upsetting his boss so early in the day.
For one thing, he’d put both his and Edwin’s positions in jeopardy by lumping them in together yesterday. But more importantly, they’d been hired because their client’s friend had worked for the circus for three weeks before disappearing. Looking into it, he hadn’t been the first ghost to accept a job and then never be seen again. Charles wasn’t interested in adding his and Edwin’s names to that list.
He scurried away from where he’d been abandoned, scouring the ground for even the barest hint of litter. He’d make sure this place was spotless. Then he and Edwin could solve the case.
He got the chance to talk to Edwin after the morning show. There were three shows a day, morning, afternoon, and evening. The main show ran for an hour in the middle, but the fairgrounds themselves were open for three hours each time, giving an hour before and after the main show where customers could mill around, visiting the smaller tents and snacking on the confections. (Charles had no idea how that worked, but he supposed that ghosts could still cook, even if they couldn’t eat.)
It was afternoon, then, if only barely, by the time the last living person trickled out of the grounds and the gates were properly shuttered. Almost instantly, the cheer and laughter that had infected the place seemed to have been sucked out; like Charles, the rest of the employees were running around looking haggard, cleaning up the evidence of the last show and getting ready for the next one in an hour.
Charles didn’t seek Edwin out; he didn’t feel like he could. Living people left litter everywhere, and he was the only one sweeping up the stands in the main tent, let alone the rest of the fairgrounds. He didn’t even have his bag to toss the trash into to save time; he and Edwin had left it behind, thinking it might rouse suspicion. But Edwin found him, joining Charles in the stands and holding the garbage bag open for him as Charles dumped trash into it.
“Anything?” Edwin asked sourly. His expression was screwed up in distaste, even though he couldn’t smell the trash, and couldn’t really touch it either unless he purposefully tried to. Charles got the impression that he hadn’t had a pleasant morning.
He tossed another empty popcorn bag into the garbage and used the broom and dustpan to swipe up the kernels left behind. “There’s definitely something wrong with this place,” he muttered. It almost wasn’t even purposeful, keeping his voice low. The feeling of being watched had invaded his mind ever since Mrs. Brady had stalked away from him that morning and he wasn’t sure if he was imagining it completely or if it had something to do with what they were there to investigate.
“Anything we did not already know?” Edwin retorted, snippy.
Charles grimaced. Definitely had a bad morning then. Edwin had been assigned to the ticket booths—talking to the living. He hoped the influx of guests had been limited mostly to the start of the show, and that Edwin had at least gotten a small break from having to be social. For three hours. God, no wonder Edwin was in a bad mood.
He looked up from his sweeping. “I’m exhausted, aren’t you?”
“Really, Charles? A few hours of manual labor and—”
“No,” Charles cut in. “Seriously. Think about it. I’m exhausted.”
Edwin paused and Charles could see him take stock of himself. “Hmm,” he said thoughtfully, looking down at his own hands, and then up again, peering into Charles’ eyes. Charles held himself still obediently, a little bemused as Edwin studied him like a specimen under a microscope. “You do look tired,” he agreed.
Which meant that, if Edwin was feeling anything himself, he wasn’t feeling it as strongly as he suspected Charles was. Typical, but it was a clue. Something was sucking at Charles’ energy—and Edwin’s too, he just had more of it to spare.
“Probably has to do with that weird sleep last night,” he said, once Edwin had pulled away again. They shuffled a little further down the stands and Charles grabbed at a paper wristband that must have fallen off someone.
“And no doubt the mechanism that renders us visible.”
That too. Charles grimaced. It had been weird, being seen by so many people, and he’d just been the janitor, overlooked by most of the guests. True, it wasn’t like this was a big name circus, and the main tent wasn’t that big. There had probably only been a couple hundred people in the circus at it’s maximum. But it was still more people than could usually see Charles in a whole year.
“I don’t get it,” he murmured. “They’ve got something that makes us bloody visible, and they use it to put on a circus act?”
“Curious, isn’t it?” Edwin agreed, but absentmindedly. It wasn’t anything they didn’t already know.
“I think it’s in one of the trailers, whatever it is. Only place they didn’t let me in to clean.” He’d seen everything else—even ducked his head in the cast and crew bunks, though he’d only found a single stray piece of litter there that must have blown in on the wind. It had only been when he’d gone toward the three trailers at the back of the fairgrounds that he’d been turned away.
“Hmm. Assuming it is a physical object causing this.”
And not a localized spell, or maybe even the tents themselves. “Or it’s something they’ve got on them,” Charles agreed, meaning the ghosts in charge. “You find anything?”
Edwin grimaced. “I …interacted… with a few guests. They could see and hear me as if I was living, and they did not react unduly to my touch. I did not feel any warmth, of course, but they did not react as if I was a ghost.”
Edwin, touching people—living people—willingly. The things they did for cases. Charles felt a burst of warmth for his best friend in his chest. Edwin was so brave Charles could barely stand it sometimes.
“Nice one,” he said, grinning. Edwin only nodded, not even smiling at the compliment. “Maybe it’s a spell on them, then, not us?”
“I will have to consider that,” Edwin said, which was more or less shining endorsement for the idea. “Pity we could not bring any books with us.”
“You get a chance to slip back to the office?”
“Unfortunately, I believe this is the one circus which does not contain a hall of mirrors.”
Huh. Charles hadn’t noticed that. He’d have to keep an eye out. “Curious,” he pointed out.
“Indeed. I was also warned away from going too far from the ticket booth.”
So they didn’t want anyone to leave, regardless of the way out.
Well, at least he and Edwin had learned a few things about this blasted circus. Charles clambered over the bleachers, moving one row up. “You should probably scram,” he said, though he hated to send Edwin away. “Don’t want to get caught gossiping.” Mrs. Brady appreciated hard work. Charles had to show her that he could be a hard worker.
“I have no assigned duties at the moment.”
Charles tried not to be relieved that Edwin could stick around a little longer. “Fine then, help me get this place clean faster.” He wanted to do another sweep of the actual grounds before the next crowd showed up.
“Need I remind you that we are not actually employees of this circus?”
“Yeah, and if we don’t do our jobs, we definitely won’t be,” Charles cut back.
Edwin grimaced but didn’t argue, and stooped down to help Charles pick up more litter.
Edwin helped him again during the second break, between the afternoon and the evening shows, but there was precious little information to impart, and Edwin’s mood was even more sour than it had been before. The breaks in the crowd—Edwin, at his side again—had done wonderfully to improve Charles’ mood but had only seemed to help Edwin a little. He was more than upset, Charles figured, he was flustered and drained. Edwin could manage a conversation just fine. Talking to a hundred people, one after the other though… Hauntingly, Charles couldn’t help but wonder if the last time Edwin had been so visible to such a crowd had been before he’d died, and even then he had to wonder if St. Hilarion’s had even been that big, in Edwin’s day.
So they were both on edge when Mrs. Brady tracked them down after the last show, before the ringmaster called the whole troupe together to give out tomorrow’s assignments.
Mrs. Brady saw Edwin first and instantly her face soured. “You,” she said, harsh. “I expect better of you tomorrow. If you are manning the ticket booths you are expected to smile to the customers—” She began to lay into him, criticizing everything from the way he’d looked to the way he’d spoken to the way he’d physically handed out the tickets.
Charles froze at the critique, even if Edwin seemed mostly unphased by it. He hurried forward, placing himself just ever so slightly in front of Edwin, angling his body so that he was between Edwin and Mrs. Brady. She hated interruptions, he reminded himself, and then he swallowed and spoke anyway. “Yeah, but I did good, right? I did what you told me to, kept the place clean. Spotless.” His desperation leaked into his tone, but he didn’t even care. It helped, sometimes, showing a little weakness. “And Edwin’s even better than me, at keeping things neat. And I’m aces with people. So, so, if you just swap us, we can—”
The slap caught him off guard. He recoiled, more from the act itself than the force of the blow.
Edwin moved behind him, and it was only that that drew Charles back to himself. Edwin couldn’t. He couldn’t! Charles didn’t fully understand his own despair, but he knew he couldn’t let Edwin confront Mrs. Brady on his behalf. He reached out behind him, desperately, and grabbed at Edwin’s wrist. Encircling Edwin’s thin wrist with his fingers wasn’t a real hold, but it was enough to arrest Edwin’s movements.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, sorry, it’s just, we’re both trying our best, I promise.” He kept his head down, heard the whine in his voice, squeezed Edwin’s wrist once to stop him from interrupting. “It’s just, he’s been dead a lot longer than me, and he’s shy besides. He’s not used to interacting with so many people.” Edwin wasn’t shy in the least, but it was the first excuse Charles could think of.
Mrs. Brady stared at him for a long moment. Charles waited on tenterhooks for her pronouncement that he’d screwed up—waited for her to slap him again and readied himself for the blow.
“Convince me to buy a ticket.”
He swallowed, not understanding the statement for a moment. Then he straightened a little, startled. Convince her? Convince her? He could still feel the sting of her slap on his cheek, which was strange if he was thinking about it. (The part of his mind still thinking about the case, not desperately trying to appease this woman, wondered if that tied into the unnatural exhaustion that seemed to affect him and the other employees.)
He couldn’t convince her if he was all but cowering at her feet but straightening, facing her head on, seemed impossible in that moment.
Behind him, Edwin sucked in a breath. No. Abruptly, Charles sucked in a breath of his own and straightened and threw on a grin so bright it promised to be blinding. He stepped forward, away from Edwin. Drew her attention solely to him.
“Good evening, ma’am,” he said, easy, and warm, and effortless, because he had to be. His hands didn’t shake at his side and his heart didn’t flutter in his chest. (It couldn’t—Charles was dead, after all.) “Welcome to the circus, can I interest you in a ticket?”
Two minutes later, Mrs. Brady agreed to swap their duties tomorrow, promising it was the last straw. One more screw up, and they’d be gone.
Charles watched her go with his heart in his throat. He didn’t think she was talking about firing them.