Black Magic Circus (tentative)
an excerpt

Nyx had decided, or had been informed, that she was going to die. No one knew what day she had picked, nor why the time had come. There was no announcement, except to Wren, who would be the one to find the body.
The others spent a long time wondering how she would die. Nyx's flare for the dramatic would not let her go quietly. A bird would swoop down and take her away. Lightning would strike on a clear afternoon. And when you got in that vein: they were pitched in an old airfield, now, so a plane could crash into the tent, but that would kill everyone else. Or perhaps not: they might walk away from the flames, to the astonishment of the next day's headlines.
The news had spread itself while they were still on the road to Albuquerque. It had passed, telephone-style, from one car to the next converted bus to the next smoke-coughing trailer. Speculation was rife, but the tent had to be pitched and the show that night prepared for, and the buzz died down almost as fast as it came up. They would see, sooner or later.
Patience sat on the counter of the ticket booth, smoking a cigarette. The sun was goldening the sky, and the black tent's stars slowly caught the fire. Behind Patience, the tent crouched like a bird of prey, talons sunk into the cracked pavement. Nyx had already broken it in: the whole crew waiting outside while she paced her slow circle around the perimeter of the tent, sometimes pausing to mutter, or stoop, or prod at the ground with the toe of her shoe. When it was done, she hung the bell over the doorway-- Maxim gave her a leg up, he was always happy to-- and everyone went in to get ready for the show.
The circus was the most significant thing to arrive at this airport in twenty years; as soon as it was gone, crews would arrive to tear down the hangers full of pigeons, implode the command tower that sent its shadow over the ticket booth. The great wasteland of pitted concrete, which spread before Patience as far as the freeway, would be torn up and replaced with smooth, rank, black asphalt.
It was a quiet afternoon, but Patience heard the footsteps coming from the tent long before they should have been audible: Nyx making herself known. And there she was, in a red and gold dress like a sunset, her hair curled; she might have stepped out of a 1950s advertisement for Woman. She flashed her crimson lips at Patience. "You're too young to start smoking, sugar." Although sometimes it wasn't clear that Nyx was very old, herself.
The cigarette promptly went out. "You're the one who got me started," Patience replied, in a quiet, husky voice.
Nyx was moving on. "Keep the lights on for me."
Patience watched her until she became a bright speck beneath the faded green signs above the road: the sackcloth had torn away in banshee strips to reveal the faded orders, "Arrivals" and "Departures."
Patience looked at the cigarette and watched the ember come back into the tip. Nyx was a charlatan.
But that was all you needed to be.
Two figures came over the pavement toward the tent, gliding as fast over the terrain as they could. Two youths, a boy and a girl, who were only months from knowledge and the end of their sorties to survey the old airport. They stared at the circus, wheeling their bikes close and slow. They stood up on the pedals, bodies bent over the handles like animals with hackles raised. Finally they stopped in front of Patience.
Doubtless, they had passed Nyx on their way out, so it was no surprise that the girl said, "This is a magic circus, isn't it?"
Patience tapped ash off the cigarette. "Yes it is."
"There's no such thing," said the boy.
"Only one way to find out," Patience replied.
"Are there animals?" the girl asked.
"Of a sort."
"Are you in the show?" said the boy.
Patience nodded.
"What do you do?" he asked.
"You'd have to come to see."
The girl was watching Patience thoughtfully. "Are you a man or a woman?"
The boy, who perhaps was a little older, looked at her sharply to say that it was a rude question, but it caught him, too, and he slowly looked back at Patience.
Patience looked up at the sky, not exhasperated so much as thoughtful, as if this were a question that one had to consider. Finally, the answer: "A woman." She took one last lungful of caustic smoke and dropped the cigarette on the concrete. The spark lingered.
"Oh." Neither of the children seemed convinced, nor should they have been. In the tent's shadow, everything was uncertain. But even when Patience left its sphere of influence, she had to make an effort, one way or another-- with Nyx's pearls and blouses, or with boots, slacks, a particular way of walking. She had to concentrate on it. She had been here entirely too long.
"Come see the show," Patience said, dropping down from the counter. The children backed up a little. "You'll find out plenty more."