Leonid smiled broadly at the minor compliment, his mouth spreading so wide it looked like his face might split apart, and he sat back in the chair.
“That other thing, that’s why I invited you here,” Leonid said, gesturing to the paper below the flier. “I got that letter a couple weeks after I did my show.”
I leaned closer to Gideon, reading over his arm.
Dear Leonid Murphy:
Thank you for the wonderful performance last week. It was so amazing to see you, and I know that everyone got a real thrill out of meeting you. You’re a very special man, Leonid, and I hope that you can appreciate all the talent that you have.
While you were performing, I heard you mention that you’d traveled with a carnival where there were all kinds of people like you, each with unique talents of their own. I was wondering if you could put me in contact with them, or perhaps extend an invitation yourself? I know that if we could get something like that here, we could get the entire parish to turn out!
I would love to have the carnival here to signal the coming spring, perhaps around the week of March the thirteenth?
If your friends in the carnival can make it then, I can promise them a hefty payday, along with a bonus for yourself. As a gesture of good faith, I’ve enclosed a check for $500 as a finder’s fee.
Thank you again for your wonderful show, and I’m so happy that you’ve decided to make Caudry your home.
Sincerely,
Della Jane
I didn’t even have to read the name. I already recognized the loopy scrawl from the woman who’d given me her number yesterday.
“I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t tell you about the finder’s fee.” Leonid shifted in his seat. “Since she promised you a payday, I didn’t think it would matter either way.”
“No, it’s fine,” Gideon assured him.
From what I understood, Gideon had spoken to someone at the mayor’s office after he’d received Leonid’s postcard. They’d agreed upon the dates and promised Gideon a flat rate of several thousand dollars if we performed nine days, plus everything we earned from the concessions.
So far, it promised to be a larger wage than we’d earned in years.
“We really appreciate you sending the work our way, Leonid,” Gideon said. “You know how work can dry up, especially in the winter, so it was very kind of you to think of us.”
“Of course, of course. You know you guys are always family to me.” His eyes flitted away then, staring at some distant point on the wall.
“This isn’t purely a social visit, though.” Gideon set aside the letter and flier on a pile of records stacked beside the couch, and Leonid looked sharply at him. “There is something I wanted to ask you about.”
“Oh?” Leonid’s eyebrow arched so high, it looked like it might spring off his forehead.
Gideon took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to explain it exactly, but we’ve all felt it.” He looked to Luka and me, and we both nodded our confirmation. “There’s just something … strange in the air. Something playing with our senses.”
“No, I know exactly what you’re talking about.” Leonid nodded feverishly and scratched at his protruding collarbone. “Something around here plays with the senses.”
Gideon leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “Do you know what it is?”
“I don’t know what it is, but I know that it is. It exists.” He swung his long arm back, pointing at the swamp through the cracked windows at the back of his apartment. “Do you know what the swamp is called?”
“Um, Mystic Swamp?” Luka guessed lamely, causing us all to give him an odd look.
“No.” Leonid shook his head. “It’s called the Nukoabok Swamp. Nukoabok means ‘mad river,’ according to the Choctaw Nation.”
“Wait. Wait.” Luka held up his hands. “Are you saying that’s like an old Indian burial ground?”
Leonid snorted—a rather mucus-y sound that traveled through his long nose. “No, of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve been watching too many scary movies.”
“Well, what exactly are you saying?” Gideon asked.
“The Choctaw Nation were the first people to live here, centuries ago.” He stood up and began pacing as he spoke. “But when they lived here, all that time ago, it was a river flowing fast and strong. Even then, though, they felt it. They sensed it the way any person senses it. I bet the animals feel it too.”
“What’s ‘it’?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Leonid gestured wildly. “Whatever it is that you’re feeling, that I feel.” He pointed at that swamp again. “It comes from there. I guarantee it.”
“Then why do you live so close to it?” Gideon asked. “Wouldn’t you at least want to live on the other side of town?”
“The rent’s cheap here, for one thing,” Leonid explained. “And for another, the water’s harmless. I mean, yeah, I believe it has a power of its own, but so do we.” He motioned to us. “We all have some kind of power that everyone else would claim is supernatural. But that doesn’t make us bad or dangerous, right?”
When none of us replied, he asked again, more insistently this time, “Right?”
“Right, of course not,” Gideon said, his tone soothing to help quiet Leonid’s agitation. He looked to Luka and me, and we both smiled. “We’re not dangerous.”