Five days later - or rather, on the night of the fifth day, which had been the carnival's first after its set-up in a new town - Libby sat in the Dreifusses' tent, struggling to mend one of her mother's costumes by the light of a less than adequate lamp. Her parents were performing, but she wasn't alone: a rejected "offering," a mongrel pup she'd named Runt, was doing his level best to distract her.
And it seemed she was about to have company. A voice at the tent flap said quietly, "Libby? Are you in there?" With his usual modest - but incorrect - assumption that his voice wouldn't be recognized, the caller added, "It's Ben."
"Ben! C'mon in!" Illogically, her heart skipped a beat.
She'd been seeing him daily, of course; the carnival's days were still given over entirely to his healing sessions. But every crowd had been as large and frenzied as the first, and Ben hadn't had time to exchange more than hellos with her since he'd given her that painful news about Jonesy.
When he stepped inside and she caught her first glimpse of him in the dim light, she jumped to her feet, dropping her mending on the floor. "Oh my God..."
"What?" He looked down at himself in bewilderment.
"N-nothin'." She gave a shaky laugh. "That thing on your shoulder -"
"Um, it's called a kitten. A calico. Ain't she pretty?" He reached up to stroke it as he perched on the edge of a chair.
Settling back into hers, Libby said, "Yeah. But just for a second - you havin' the beard an' all, an' that thing, er, kitten, on your shoulder - I thought I was seein' Jesus. With a lamb. Like he's shown in pictures an' stained-glass windows, y'know?"
Ben stared at her. "Huh." He transferred the kitten to his lap, muttering, "That sort o' gives me the creeps."
"Sorry." She knew her face was scarlet. "Is she an 'offering' you adopted, like Runt?"
"Not this one. Ruthie, Gabe, an' me each took a kitten, an' I aim to find a home for this one with someone else. Not here!" he added quickly, as Runt let out a yip and the frightened feline tried to scramble back up his arm.
They both laughed. Libby picked up her mending, and Ben said, "Hey, you sew? I never thought o' you doin' domestic stuff like that."
She made a face. "Mama's terrible at it, so a few years ago, I got Lila to teach me. I don't enjoy sewin', but it's handy now. A way I can help Mama an' Daddy without, you know, dancin' an' all."
Ben leaned forward and asked seriously, "Are they puttin' any pressure on you? Wantin' you to, uh, dance?"
"No," she assured him. "Since we lost Jonesy, they ain't pressed me at all."
She wondered if that was why he'd come, to make sure she wasn't being harassed.
He had to know Mama an' Daddy wouldn't be here. He wanted to talk to me alone.
Will he get up an' leave now?
She didn't want him to go, and she found herself groping for a way to prolong the conversation.
But it turned out not to be necessary. To her surprise, he said, "I gotta admit somethin'. Findin' a taker for the kitten was my excuse for wanderin' around tonight. I didn't tell Ruthie I was comin' to see you."
She gulped. "You didn't?"
She remembered the crazy idea she'd had a while back. Or maybe it wasn't so crazy? That Ben, shacked up with a woman in her fifties, might turn to her to give him a child...
He knows how bad I wanted to be pregnant by Jonesy. But I ain't. An' now we're sure Jonesy's dead, so we wouldn't be betrayin' him.
Could Ben betray Ruthie?
Hell, he just said he came here without tellin' her!
He continued, awkwardly, "You've helped me so much, Lib, I got to wonderin' if I could ask you for another favor. If you could do somethin' for me, that would hafta be our secret for now.
"It'd be awful hard for you, after what happened to Jonesy, an' I hate to ask. But I've seen what a strong person you are. An' you're the only one I can ask."
She gave him an encouraging smile. "Sure, go ahead."
"Don't feel you gotta say yes, 'cause I'm the new Management or whatever! It really is a godawful thing to ask o' you. If you can't bring yourself to do it, if you want to belt me for even suggestin' it, feel free."
"Okay, I'll feel free." At the moment, she felt ready to explode - trying not to get her hopes up, trying to deny the embarrassing fact that getting in the sack with him wouldn't be hard for her at all. "Come on, Ben, tell me. What is it you want?"
He looked into her eyes and asked gravely, "Could you bring yourself to get close to Sofie again?"
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When she found her voice - it took a while - she blurted out, " 'Get close to Sofie'? Why the hell would you want me to get close to that bitch?"
An' just how "close" do you mean? My God...how much do you know?
"I was afraid you'd get riled," Ben said glumly. "Here's the problem. I got a reason - a serious reason - for wantin' to learn more about what's goin' on with Sofie. I can't try to be friends with her again myself, 'cause she'd know I warn't sincere. I didn't try to hide how much I disapproved o' what she done with Jonesy. Same problem with Ruthie doin' it - Sofie knew I meant to tell her everythin'. An' they never had a close friendship to begin with.
"Sure, Sofie knows you resent Jonesy's havin' got hisself killed rescuin' her. But old friends might be able to get past that. I told her I didn't intend to tell you about the sex in the shed, an' how Jonesy died. So less'n you've mentioned it to her yourself this week, she still thinks you don't know the part that's..."
"Unforgivable?" Libby suggested in a tight voice.
"I s'pose, for you, it is," he conceded. "I ain't askin' you to forgive her. Just to keep her thinkin' you don't know that part o' the story, so she'll believe you could warm up to her, both o' you lonely an' missin' him -"
Libby made a rude sound, and Ben hung his head, looking miserable.
After they'd sat in silence for a few seconds, she said, "You know her an' me was friends once, an' it ended bad?" How goddamn much do you know?
"Yeah. You seemed to be real close."
"Why do you think it ended?"
He sighed. "I reckon it had to do with the fire, Lib. Before the fire, you were her best friend, an' she an' Jonesy were stuck on each other, right? He pulled her out o' the fire, saved her life. But she was in a state o' shock an' didn't appreciate it. She wandered off, still in shock, an' when I found her an' brung her back, she latched onto me. Shut everyone else out o' her life." With a bemused shake of his head, he added, "An' when I found her that day, I warn't even lookin' for her. I was just about the only carny who wasn't lookin' for her!
"I got concerns about her now, real serious concerns. But I honestly don't think the way she dropped you back then was somethin' to be taken personally. She just started actin' strange toward everyone after the fire."
"Huh."
My God. He thought I was askin' his opinion 'cause I didn't know why she "dropped" me!
And if he was that ill-informed, he undoubtedly hadn't realized her "friendship" with Sofie had been anything more than that. She felt a little better, knowing he hadn't meant to ask her to resume a sexual relationship with someone she hated.
"These...concerns," she said slowly. "You're askin' me to spy on her, ain't you?"
He gave a reluctant nod. "Yeah, I guess so."
"I ain't sayin' I'll do it, but...why? What sort o' information do you want?"
"What I'm tryin' to find out," he explained, "is whether Sofie has powers. An' if she does, how she uses 'em."
" 'Powers'?" Stunned, she asked, "You mean, like yours?"
"Maybe, maybe not. It'd be helpful if you could even find out whether she has powers like her ma's. If she don't have them, it's a safe guess she don't have more.
"She always said it was Appy that read the cards, that saw things. An' I know Samson thinks Sofie's just doin' fake readings now, like most carnival psychics. She read for me twice, an' the readings told me things I needed to know. But Appy was there the first time - an' both times, my own powers coulda been at work.
"So if you could get chummy with her again, that's the sort o' thing you might be able to ask, casual-like. Whether her readings are real."
"Yeah," Libby persisted. "But you're thinkin' she may have more powers. Maybe like yours, maybe not...
"Ben, does that mean they may be like Crowe's?"
Eyes locked on hers, he said quietly, "Maybe."
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He waited patiently, stroking the now-sleeping kitten, while she thought that over.
At last she said, a bit unsteadily, "I think I may already know somethin' that could be important.
"Ben - I don't want you to get the notion Jonesy was a gossip, who told me everythin' he heard. This was somethin' special. An' he said he hadn't really been told it in confidence - hadn't promised to keep it to himself.
"The very last time we were together, in New Canaan, we made love. I'd been sort o' jealous 'cause he was worried about Sofie. An' he explained that he felt sorry for her.
"Sofie had told him her mother hated her. Hated her so much that Appy had started the fire in their bus herself, on purpose, tryin' to kill her!"
Ben's face went white. "God Almighty," he whispered.
After a beat, he said, "It could mean Appy knew Sofie is somethin' dark an' dangerous. But on the other hand, Appy coulda been crazy. Or Sofie coulda imagined it - or even made the whole thing up, to get Jonesy's sympathy."
"That's true. It don't prove nothin'."
"But it makes me all the more sure I need to find out what's goin' on." Gently, he said, "I wouldn't risk askin' you to spy on her, Lib, if you hadn't demanded the truth about New Canaan. If she guesses what you're up to, she'll prob'ly try to hurt you by tellin' you that she an' Jonesy made love."
Libby nodded, getting the point. "An' she won't be able to hurt me, 'cause I already know."
"Wanna think about it a while longer? There's no rush."
"No, I don't need more time. I'm in!"
How could I not be in? He's askin' me to do somethin' important. It may not be what I was dreamin' of. But he really needs my help...mine!
"One problem," she pointed out. "How can I walk up to her an' try to start a conversation, after all that's happened?"
Ben grinned. "That's what this little icebreaker is for." He carefully moved the kitten from his lap to hers. "Drop by her tent, say your job right now is findin' homes for the abandoned pets, an' offer her this one."
She grinned back at him. "Perfect. Every witch needs a familiar. It's just too bad the cat ain't black."