Our story begins not with an explosion or tears like many of its type, but with a soft humming inside a darkened room, where the only source of light came through the muffled canvas of the tent next door. Riley Mercedi, known as Rae to her clients and Rae Rae to her friends, was having a very hard time while doing a job which in concept isn't hard at all.

Isabelle, her first and only assistant, had left ten minutes ago and had not returned. To her, ten minutes is just the blink of an eye, but to Rae those minutes were the difference between a meal and eating a bag of old popcorn. People were paying to see her little sideshow act, and she wasn't delivering.

The circus she oh-so-lovingly called home wasn't called that just because of the greasy food and ex-heroin addicts turned into clowns. It was used more as an adjective by the cast than anything else. From an emerging divorce in the acrobat family, a potty-talking chimp, and a drunkard who couldn't get a driver's license, let alone the authorization to control a fair ride, the word fit. Of course, that was all out of
view of the normal people, who only joke about running away to the circus instead of actually doing it.

It wasn't without its appeal though, and for the exact same reasons people hated it. Rae loved it, and the people loved her. It wasn't just the show that they came for. They came to see a woman who was more mystical than any spirit she pulled words out of from beyond the veil. She would look unkempt and ratty to most who didn't know her: with bright platinum white hair pulled up into a bun that seemed to put off a surreal glow of its own, and the jars of spices and other substances littered around the tent. The lack of organization was dizzying, and yet, if you were to ask her if she had any hazel to spare she could find the bottle blindfolded. There was a method to her madness, as some would say. There was a method to everything she did.

Something soft brushed against her, causing her breath to hitch. The man looked at her from across the table curiously.

"Sorry," she hastily said, which only gained an eye roll in response. She'd given the man a stack of tarot cards to sort through when Isabelle had first left, but their promise of foretelling events lost its value to him everytime he restacked them. It was obvious that he did not want his fortune told, and if he did, not have to do it himself.

"What took you so long?" With her eyes closed, Rae used Latin to talk to Isabelle. They both spoke English, though not without their fair share of accents, but when you have a job like this, Latin is the best way to entice people. It sounds cool. "His granny refused to talk unless I paid her five dollars. Pretty demanding for someone who died by choking on a piece of lettuce." Isabelle's breath was warm against her ear. "Anyways, she wanted to know if Slipper is alive. I'm not sure what that is though."

However, it's not their job to think about that stuff, only pass it on.

"Is Slipper still alive?" She asked it in English, but his reaction said he'd recognize the name no matter the language.

"Yes!" he exclaimed, any doubt in the authenticity of the sideshow suddenly gone. "That was the name of her cat!"

Smiling, she made a mental note to take payment upfront next time, so in the customer' happiness (or occasionally sadness) they can't run out of the tent without paying.

Thankfully, that was not the case with this man, who eventually called himself down to pull out his wallet and pay for her services, along with the promise that Rae would tell his Grandmother that Slipper was still, in fact, alive.

As he passed the next customer, a one-sided conversation began with compliments to Rae's abilities, and cut off as the rippling, colored cloth slid over the entrance. Another day, another skeptic; another person who can't see the hovering spirit whispering to Riley; whose name is Isabelle.

The next day a man walked into the tent. He held his ticket between two wrinkled fingers as he limped forwards, propelled on a leg that bent no more than a walking stick. Business had been quiet that
day for it was a weekday, but it seemed to deafen even further when Isabelle noticed the man and floated away from Rae mid-sentence. It was all very particular.

“What’s wrong?” Rae asked the pale woman, who was younger than her by two decades at least yet was born nearly fifty years before. Hating her own wrinkles while Isabelle loved them, it was often a joke between them how they both wished they aged like each other, though one solemn night she added she just wished to age at all. They try to stay positive together, both experiences tramas but only Rae
remembering, but when the room goes as quiet as this the mind goes places. Dark places.

“The man who just entered…” Isabelle began, voice like a haunting echo as it passed through her non-coperal lips. “He’s dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Rae looked back at the man, searching for the bulge of a gun or the glint of a knife under the glow of the lanterns. She found none.

“I can’t work for him.” The woman said suddenly, and Rae looked at her with a raised brow. She had never denied service to anyone, and wth Isabelle by her side there was no needing to since she could take any job, and talk to anyone. Except to the spirit herself.

Then suddenly, the soft glow surrounding her blossomed into a bright red, like a leak of dye spreading across the surface of a blank page. She remained silent, staring at the man with eyes he shouldn't have been able to see, yet met with a wavering gaze as if he too felt the color. In a similar
silence, he backed out of the tent and into the outer fairgrounds, where he disappeared behind the drawn curtain.

Rae was at a loss for words, and could only say the ones that were currently swarming her mind. “What was that?”

“That,” Isabelle said, emotionlessly putting her hands over the bleeding light. “Was the man that killed me.”

It came like a wave: the slow, quiet drawback of the tide as Rae repeated the words to herself, then the frightening return of the water when she realized what they meant. She felt her breathe quicken painfully in her weak lungs, and Isabelle gave her a concerned look as she snapped out of her gaze. It takes longer to accept things when you’re still alive, it seems.

“We have to tell someone. The police, the ringmaster- we have to tell-” She forced the sentence out on a single shaking breath, mind still churning.

“No. We can’t tell anyone.” Isabelle said quietly, as if someone else was listening in. But the only people who could possibly hear her was the poor medium and the man who killed her, and he seems to have run away at the sight.

“What-”

“This is my chance, Rae.” For the first time in decades, the spirit didn’t call her by her nickname.

Why did she find that so upsetting? “When I first met you, when you were just beginning at the circus and still used ouija boards, I told you I was stuck here because I had unfinished business.” Rae nodded, remembering the memory fondly, along with the heaviness in her chest at hearing the story of her death for the first time. She was a middle-class elite in the heart of her town, carrying the weight of her estranged younger brother’s charges to the family inheritance as she tried to keep her life simple to compensate, but it was not common knowledge to a young man who had no money and a gun. What happened next need not to be repeated.

Again, she nodded. A murderer at the circus. Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. “What will happen if you finish it?” Rae asked softly, tongue numb as her mouth formed the syllables.

“Then I’ll-” The apparition’s colorless lips turned up in a small smile, seemingly forgetting the stain on her dress, which she’d worn for over fifty years because of him. “I’ll move on. To whatever comes after.”

Rae tried to imagine what that’d be like– stuck between the real world and the spirit world, then to suddenly get the chance to leave after such a long time of limbo… her breath shook. “We need to find him then.” She said in a voice uncharacteristically monotone as she thought. “He couldn’t have gotten far.”

“Rae-Rae…” Isabelle seemed to share the dilemma. The medium felt a soft pressure around her, just on the edge of freezing. The hug was as if a draft had come in and brushed against her. It was cold, and yet her cheeks felt warm.

“We need to hurry.” Rae said as she pulled away, smiling to herself. She wasn’t sure the choice she was making, but felt whichever it was was the right one as she followed the floating apparition.

Ghosts, having no physical interaction with the land under them, were naturally faster, but over the years Isabelle had learned to brace herself in just a way the other could follow without old joints causing pain. It was one of the many things the two learned about each other.

The outside air was cool, and autumn leaves stirred nearby with a breeze. Out in the main fairground, the soft sound of music could be heard drifting on the wind, and the scent of popcorn butter permeated everything around it. It was wonderfully whimsical.

“I don’t see him.” Isabelle said, looking around at the circus tents, each filled with people crazier than the personalities they played to the children. She only knew of one man saner than herself, and even then he had his vices.

“Mike.” She rapped her knuckles against the boarded up booth, a remnant of a fair ride that didn’t survive the changing times. There were more of those here than she’d like to admit. From inside the box came the creaking of an old scrapped stool, and she knocked on the outer wall again.

“What?” An annoyed voice came, and the hinges of the window doors screeched as they turned outwards for the first time in years. Inside, a 60-year old man hid, his inappropriately aged face was covered by the shadow of the roof, deepening his wrinkles as he played with a cigarette in his hands.

“Can’t a man smoke in his own circus anymore?”

“Not around attendees you can’t.” She reminded him, but the statement was useless. She’d say it, then an hour later come back to find him in the same old shed, where the walls had darkened with tar.

“What damn attendees?” Mike gestured with a snarl that showed off his teeth. He, surprisingly and unlike many others here, still had all of them. Just not in the right places.

She wanted to lecture him, and felt her voice rising in her throat, but a cool hand around hers reminded her why she was there. “Did you see a guy come past here? Running, with a limp. Kinda of old.”

“I can’t see people outside when I'm in here.”

“The whole crew knows you watch through the crack. Just tell me if you saw him and I’ll leave you alone.” And then, when all is done, then she’ll lecture him.

The man considered this, twirling the stick between his fingers. “I saw ‘em. He wasn’t that old though.”

She didn’t have time to talk to him about accepting his mortality now. She has to help someone who already has. “Which way did he go?”

“Towards the main tent.” He sniffled, wiping his nose on his brightly patterned sleeve. “Now you know, so you go on. Leave me in piece, fortune woman.”
Rae nodded, thanking him before taking off again, this time for the main tent. The spirit followed close behind her as they weaved through the crowd of an ending show, both natural and supernatural eyes scanned every face, every leg as they looked for the man.

When a father of two walked through Isabelle, he paused, face scrunching up as he looked at the empty space curiously before continuing on without a word.

It’s behind him that Rae saw the man. The murderer. The story.

His face was covered in a nervous sweat, and his lips trembled where they’d formed into a worried frown. He didn’t spot them, but looked around the crowd. Then he turned back into the big top.

“He’s in the tent.” Isbelle floated over to her, temperature around them decreasing the closer she got until it’s barely standable. She grabbed Rae’s hand, intertwining her ice cold fingers with hers that shook as if they could feel their own temperature.

“Are you ready?” Rae asked.

Her voice was hauntingly distant as she stared at the drawn curtain. “Are you?”

She wanted to shake her head, to say no, but that would be to deny the spirit of the chance to move on to a place that could only be better than there. Peace is all anyone could want in life, in the
afterlife is that not the same? The red light cast a colored glow over their hands, a jarring color against the
rest of the semi-translucent spirit as they stood silently, both watching. Both waiting.

“Yes.” She said softly, and Isabelle nodded. The light force against her hand became a pressure as the fingers tightened, and together the two of them walked into the manin tent.

“Get away!” The man shouted upon the sight of them, he stumbled back, tripping on the empty
ring master’s podium. His hands hit the sawdust floor and a gust of the material was sent into the air around him. Isabelle watched it, and waited to speak again until it was all settled on the floor again.

“Do you recognize me?” Was all she asked, and the man, too terrified to think rationally, nodded his head in an admittance of guilt. “Do you remember what you did to me?” Again, the response was a panicked nod of his head.

“I robbed you.” He said, almost reminding himself of the event.

“You killed me.” She corrected, and at the word the red light seemed to pulse. Rae bit her lip, feeling uneasy.

The man swallowed hard, adam’s apple bobbing as he tried to force out words. “I didn’t mean to.” He said, voice meak. “I just needed the money.”

“Did the money make you feel better about it?” She asked. There was a hint of anger in her voice that Rae had never heard before, and she could feel her heart breaking as she tried to understand what it was like; to be killed, yet be unable to die.

“Yes.”

Isabelle moved back, shocked at the answer, the almost complete lack of regret the man carried despite his terror of her. “How is money above a human life?”

“Nothing is.” He said, “Which is why when my brother was dying I did what I had to to save his.”

“...brother?” Isabelle frowned, and Rae mouthed the word back to herself in disbelief.

“Yes, my little brother.” The man said, pushing himself up onto his knees with what little strength that had been left by the decades. “He was sick, so very sick. Six years and already staring death in the face because of a curable disease that the doctors said needed dollar bills to cure.” He bowed his head and squeezed his eyes tightly until the crows-feet around them stretched back to his ears. “We had no money, charity ran out fast, but you- you had nice house and wore a pearl necklace to every Sunday mass. As a
big brother, I had no choice. And as nearly a child myself, I was terrified when I entered your house, and when you saw me and reached in the drawer…” Trailing off, he opened his eyes, hands clasped tightly around each other like he was remembering every answered prayer he said for the boy. “I thought you were grabbing a weapon and fear turned into action.”

She was silent, the hand not holding Rae’s went to her side, touching the glowing impression of blood. It stained her shining fingertips.

“I was in the wrong, I knew it from the beginning, but when the only thing you’ve got left is your family-”

“I understand.” Isabelle said suddenly, and the medium next to her grew confused as the murderer and the victim shared a moment of familiarity that she watched like a palpable tie between the two. And when she smiled, even slightly, it was like the whole world froze inside her. “I was a big sister, once.”

Tears brimmed at the man’s eyes as her soft voice carried on the wind, the high notes of a far-off song just barely audible as it leaked through the open tent entrance. The chill of autumn nipped at their skin once again, but Rae felt a warmth forming against her hand.
Isabelle was brightening.

“Tell me,” She said in a kind voice, “Did he live?”

He nodded, not moving from his kneeling position as he looked up at the ghost with wide eyes.

“We came to the circus together.”

“So it wasn’t for nothing.” She grinned, eyes scrunching together. “I’m glad.”
She grew too bright to stand next to, and Rae moved away reluctantly on shaking legs. A sob threatened to rip through her, tear her apart from the inside out, but she forced it down so she could watch the spirit go off with a smile on her face. She had gotten closure, and with it their adventures were coming to an end in a beautiful array of light. Even against the daylight, it made their shadows stretch across the tent.

“Rae,” The ascending figure spoke, voice like an echo. As she came closer, the medium had to squeeze her eyes shut to shield herself from the blinding rays. Warm lips moved against hers, mouthing words only they could hear, alone together in the light. “To whatever comes after.”

Isabella laughed softly, and suddenly the warmth Rae had felt against her lips faded away, the feeling growing into a memory she’d find herself looking back on for the rest of her life.

It was seventy years until she felt it again.