Chapter 8 Lady Cameron and The Obvious

Now, professor Voltari seemed to construe this gossamer web of rationality, or poise and calm, over the entire situation.

As we travelled further from the inn, cascaded through the green doorway, out the egress where he had handed me the bronze key (with no explanation as to why he had done so, now I assumed was for me to use in an emergency, should Voltari not be present at the time of need) it was likely that we were to traverse the central common area of the town square and arrive at the front stoop to my apartment building in no time flat.

And this is what happened - sans explanation for the copper key, and with little regalia as to why Voltari had even handed it to me in the first place, we arrived at the apartment front, it’s slanted roof hanging over us as a quirky frown on the building’s face might.

My mind was flat and smooth: a clean slate of onyx tumbling through space at the whim of men who didn’t know my position on any of this.

“Why oh why?” Did I rescue the tiger. “Why?” Did I embiggen my role in this fiasco of theft and capricious intrigue the likes of men still both mysterious and powerful to me. At both times I felt I enjoyed the ride and equally unappreciated my lack of control in the situation.

This time. It was the two of us that appeared out of the darkness.

——

And now I was in my room. Alone.

The tiger was gone. Behind me - the doorknob twisted causing a squeaking sound. I prayed it wasn’t my roommates returning - a moment of divine intervention by in which the tiger had scampered off. Oh, What a meeting that would have been. My roommates and the tiger. Oh well.

But no, it wasn’t Rocket, or Nemo, or even Luke who entered into my bedroom. It was the large hulking figure of Voltari.

The roommates were vacant.

He had heard my whistle and come to help.

Voltari entered my room.

“Where is the little bloke?” He proffered, peering around the room at the simplicity of my dwelling and he eyeballed the disheveled posters on the wall, he seemed soothed, preoccupied with John Denver.

I mustered what I could say at that moment that wouldn’t complicate the plan too much.

“Well, where is it?” He asked.

“I left the window open,” I responded turning and raising my right arm with an index finger pointing out straight towards the window, its billowing curtains adrift in the breeze.

“Over there.”

I turned to look back at Voltari whose eye’s widened like opening clam shells revealing pearls of his countenance hidden within their shell.

“Oh dear…” he spoke softly without much oomph.

Then he rejoined.

“Then we must go to my place of business.”

“You mean the school?!” I asked repeatedly.

“No.” Voltari mustered.

“To the Circus…”

Instantaneously he became more rushed than j had ever seen him. He bellowed a loud “follow me!” And before long we were down the stairs out the door, running, knees high in a direction I had known to be towards the school.

“Back to the where it all began!” He clambered.

We passed by local haunts I knew well.

After a jaunt we came to a stop just outside of the campus. I knew this place. It was the old gym.

My lungs burned and I was surprised Voltari was the sort of fellow to welcome such a springy exercise through the town.

“Here it is…” he said. With little exhaustion in his voice.

I looked to what he was gesturing. It was a large brick wall that composed the side of the old gymnasium which wasn’t in use much anymore.

“Alright, Andy, give her here.”

I didn’t know what he was referring to.

Then it hit me. The key!

“I didn’t give it to you for no odd reason. You’d keep it safe if I ever got blown aside.”

I reached into my pocket and producing the key, felt an immediate relief. I had done something successfully without much guidance.

Voltari knocked on the door like a post man may knock on one, and as some dust shuffled; what appeared was a tiny keyhole.

“There we go!” He said, with some satisfaction.

He took the key in his hand, it’s old brass rustiness making it seem dusty and useless, and plunged it into the keyhole.

“This is why I chose your school! Who knew there was a whole different dimension just waiting for us to build a doorway to it.”

I sat back nonplussed and excited.

“We built the circus. You happened to build your school on a spot that leads to it!”

Voltari turned the key with voluminous force and it clicked and suddenly a light illuminated what looked like a door way.

“Not another door,” I whimpered.

“Oh come one now…”said Voltari, slowly reeling back to push open the behemoth of an entryway.

“You’ll be wanting some inspiration for your book, I imagine!”

He pushed and the outline of the doorway became a real door and opened slowly revealing a bright light. The sound of trumpets could be heard, like the ones from

My bedroom.

“In or out?” Voltari said.

I thought very little about very much, and walked myself through the doorway.

“What was this circus?” Became pretty obvious to answer once we were inside.

What stirred me most was not the immediacy of the scene: a crowd of jacketed onlookers breaking way in the middle to reveal a large, unmistakable circus ring.

Inside the ring was a large, grey elephant on its hind legs reaching upward, it’s trunk extended toward the roof of a large circus tent of which were on the outskirts.

Around the ring and its numerous other animals, zebras, were also clowns and jugglers on unicycles and some others simply ambling around while pervading their acts.

The ring itself was surrounded by a grandstand bedecked with onlookers.

The whole sight was bright, chaotic and beautiful.

Voltari pulled at my coat, intent on joining in on my disbelief.

“Those are mine,” he said staring down at me and all at once looking up at a pair of large golden colored lions preparing to jump through a large hoop.

“Why….I,” I stammered, incapable of dispelling how amazed I was at the existence of anything like this in these parts.

“Now you know why we had to keep it a secret,” he responded.

“Who in their right age wouldn’t want to witness this spectacle,” he said, his eyes glassy with wonder. He was on his tip toes peering over the crowd of onlookers not in their seats in the small alley way between the grandstands.

“I trained them. Aren’t they beautiful?” He said, his furrowed brow gesturing to the lions.

“I…,” I said. My words failed.

Now the simple reality of a lost tiger cub made much more sense.

Not only was Voltari masquerading as a professor of the arts, he was also quite seemingly a very accomplished trainer of big cats.

“Now let’s go see where that cat has gone,” he said and he nodded in the direction which seemed to go under the grand stand.

He lead. I followed. It only seemed right - this being his area of expertise and me an astonished interloper with the simple task of returning a tiger which wasn’t even mine.

We walked under the bleachers where it was very dark and musty for some time before exiting out the other side of what must have been about half the way round the circus’s ring.

Under the dusty bleachers we ran.

We became exposed once again to the bright lights of the show as we exited the low hanging area and to our side was an area where a curtain had parted. This must be the entrance from which the animals enter the ring. It must lead “backstage” so to speak.

“In we go!” Said Voltari still leading the way.

He parted the curtain further and we plunged inside into a chaos I was beginning to appreciate more and more.

Acrobats in bright green and blue bejeweled outfits sauntered by as we continued on past a woman with a snake dangled around her shoulders. It was an entire circus in a staging area - readying for the show.

A man in a black wrestlers outfit stretched his sinewy muscles beside a set of dumbbells - the strong man.

More jugglers in purple - much like Aflaq’s from earlier waltzed by maintaining focus and eye contact on the items they tossed in to the air - their eyes fixed like telescopes on their flights.

Breaking from within the crowd came a woman in a long sequined black ball gown.

“So…he returns from his auditions,” she said to Voltari with some disdain.

“Oh!” He returned.

“Lady Cameron! I’ve missed you so!”

“Save it, is this our new act?” She said, with less disdain.

Voltari crumpled his hands together.

“This is Andy. He’s helping me…well…”

Lady Cameron’s eyes became black and piercing with a twinkle of light in the middle of each which glistened like night stars.

The jig was up.

Voltari continued. “We…I…well…I’ve misplaced a tiger cub. Have you heard anything of its where abouts?”

Lady Cameron’s mouth wrinkled at the ends into a smile.

“First day on the job, Andy, and you’re already misplacing stars?”

Her eyes twinkled more.

Voltari rejoined.

“I assume it came back here when the portal opened up for public entry. Andy and I took the doorway. We’re going to have a look around.”

“Oh that old doorway?”” Andy, did he give you a key? What is this the 16th century? That doorway hasn’t been used in ages. Sure, have a look around. Did you see Afleq? He must not be too happy.”

Voltari regained a composure I had only seen in him one time during the art show where he debuted the sculpture of the kneeled man.

“The doorway is ancient magic which I hoped you would respect! We also saw Afleq and I assured him it would be all right. It’s only now and again that he loans me his tigers and this will not botch it for me. For this circus!”

Voltari stood straight up as he said this. And then peered at me a little and laughed.

“We’ll be going now. I have an idea.”

He ushered me past the woman in black and through another curtain.