Dedication

To my ladies:

Barbara Guthrie Sayers

Goldie Sayers

Nessa Guthrie

and

Laura Beatty Fuller

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Epigraph

The circus is a jealous wench. Indeed, that is an understatement. She is a ravening hag who sucks your vitality as a vampire drinks blood… She is all of these things, and yet, I love her as I love nothing else on earth.

—Henry Ringling North

PROLOGUE

Kerrigan Falls, Virginia

October 9, 1974

The Buick was both half on and half off the road, its shiny body blending seamlessly with the pitch-black night. He slammed on his brakes, nearly hitting the car’s back quarter panel. Jesus. Who the hell would have left a car here of all places?

The vehicle was familiar. He racked his brain trying to remember where he’d seen it before.

Worried that someone might have been hurt, he stepped out onto the road, careful to leave his own car’s right turn signal blinking to catch the attention of anyone else traveling on this desolate stretch. Despite the full moon, the dense forest made the road appear to be nestled under a tent even in fall as the leaves began to thin; the clusters of birch trees with their straight white trunks resembled sticks of chalk. The moon shining through them reassured him for a moment.

He peered inside the car’s open window, revealing the empty front seat. An RC Cola can was turned over, dumping its contents on the leather upholstery as though the driver had been holding it when he’d come to a stop. The radio blared. Poor bastard was probably just relieving himself in the woods.

“Hello?” His voiced carried more than he thought it would, making him realize just how lonely this road was.

The stillness puzzled him. On an evening like this, the woods should be buzzing with nocturnal activity, yet the night was eerily calm. He turned to go back to his car. He’d call old Chief Archer as soon as he got home and tell him about the abandoned car.

“Hello? Anyone out here?”

He spied something moving at the edge of the tree line.

His pulse quickened and he hurried back to the safety of his own car, relieved when he placed his right foot on the floorboard with the intent of getting in and driving away. Instead he focused on something moving slowly, cat-like, weaving in and out of the trees. He knew there were cats in these parts, small, but nuisance enough to vex the farmers. His eye followed the movement of what appeared to be a shadow—until it stopped.

Where the thing had halted, there was now a heap of something by the roadside. Gingerly, he took a step around the trunk, the car still protecting him from what was over there. What was it? A pile of leaves? Dear Lord, not a body?

Inching, inching closer.