The Tenth Circle Read online

She stared at the wooden door, wondering what was on the other side. Was he trying to show her how tough he was, by taking the real heat? What did he mean when he said that he hadn’t been with a girl in the steam before? Did he take them other places, or was that an invitation for her to follow? She felt like she had fallen into one of her father’s comic book universes, where what you said was not what you meant, and vice versa.

  Hesitantly, Trixie pulled off her shirt. The action-and Willie’s proximity-immediately made her think about playing strip poker the night of Zephyr’s party. But nobody was watching this time; there were no rules to the game; no one was telling her what she had to do. It was entirely different, she realized, when the choice was up to her.

  If she went in there in her bra and panties, that was just like wearing a bikini, wasn’t it?

  She shivered only a moment before she opened the stunted door and crawled inside.

  The heat slammed into her, a solid wall. It wasn’t just heat. It was a sauna and a steam room and a bonfire all rolled together, and then ratcheted up a notch. The floor beneath her bare feet was slick plywood. She couldn’t see, because of all the steam.

  As the clouds drifted, she could make out a fifty-five-gallon oil drum on its side with a fire burning hot in its belly. Rocks were nestled in birdcage wire on top, and a metal container of water sat beside it. Willie was hunkered down on the plywood, his knees drawn up to his chest, his skin red and blotched.

  He didn’t say anything when he saw her, and Trixie understood why-if she opened her mouth, surely her throat would burst into flame. He wasn’t wearing anything, but the region between his thighs was only a shadow, and somehow, she was the one who felt overdressed. She sat down beside him-in that small a space there wasn’t much choice-and felt him wrapping something around her head. A rag, she realized, that had been dipped in water, to cover her ears and keep them from burning. When he knotted it, the skin of his upper arm stuck to hers.

  The orange light that spilled through the cracks in the stove door illuminated Willie. His silhouette glowed, lean and feline; at that moment, Trixie wouldn’t have been surprised to see him turn into a panther. Willie reached for a ladle, a wooden stick wired to a soup can. He dipped it into the bucket of water, pouring more over the rocks and causing a fresh cloud of steam to fill the chamber. When he settled down beside Trixie, his hand was so close to hers on the plywood that their pinkies touched.

  It hurt, almost past the point of pain. The room had a pulse, and breathing was nearly impossible. Heat rose off Trixie’s skin in the shape of her soul. Perspiration ran down her back and between her legs: her entire body, crying.

  When Trixie’s lungs were about to explode, she ran through the door into the cold room again. She sat down on the floor, warmth rolling off her in waves, just as Willie burst in with a towel wrapped around his waist. He sank down beside her and passed her a jug.

  Trixie drank it without even knowing what was inside. The water cooled the lining of her throat. She passed the jug to Willie, who tipped his head back against the wall and drank deeply, the knot of his Adam’s apple following each swallow. He turned to her, grinning. “Crazy, huh?”

  She found herself laughing, too. “Totally.”

  Willie leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. “I always kind of figured that’s what Florida’s like.”

  “Florida? It’s nothing like this.”

  “You’ve been to Florida?” Willie asked, intrigued.

  “Yeah. It’s just, you know, another state.”

  “I’d like to see an orange growing on a tree. I’d pretty much like to see anything that’s somewhere other than here.” He turned to her. “What did you do when you went to Florida?”

  It was so long ago, Trixie had to think for a moment. “We went to Cape Canaveral. And Disney World.”

  Willie started picking at the wooden floor. “I bet you fit in there.”

  “Because it’s so tacky?”

  “Because you’re like that fairy. The one who hangs out with Peter Pan.”

  Trixie burst out laughing. “Tinker Bell?”

  “Yeah. My sister had that book.”

  She was about to tell him he was crazy, but then she remembered that Peter Pan was about a boy who didn’t want to grow up, and she decided she didn’t mind the comparison.

  “She was so pretty,” Willie said. “She had a light inside her.”

  Trixie stared at him. “You think I’m pretty?”

  Instead of answering, Willie got up and crawled back into the hot room. By the time she followed, he’d already poured water over the rocks. Blinded by steam, she had to find her way by touch. She drew her fingers over the rough run of the wooden floor, up the joints of the walls, and then she brushed the smooth curve of Willie’s shoulder. Before she could pull away, Willie’s hand came up to capture hers. He tugged her closer, until they were facing each other on their knees, in the heart of a cloud. “Yeah, you’re pretty,” Willie said.

  Trixie felt like she was falling. She had ugly chopped black hair and scars up and down her arms, and it was like he didn’t even notice. She looked down at their interlaced fingers-a weave of dark and pale skin-and she let herself pretend that maybe there could be a light inside of her.

  “When the first white folks came to the tundra,” Willie said, “the people here thought they were ghosts.”

  “Sometimes that’s what I think I am, too,” Trixie murmured.

  They leaned toward each other, or maybe the steam pushed them closer. And just as Trixie was certain that there wasn’t any air left in the room, Willie’s mouth closed over hers and breathed for her.

  Willie tasted like smoke and sugar. His hands settled on her shoulders, respectfully staying there even when she itched to have him touch her. When they drew back from each other, Willie looked down at the ground. “I’ve never done that before,” he confessed, and Trixie realized that when he’d said he’d never been with a girl in a steam, he’d meant that he’d never been with a girl.

  Trixie had lost her virginity a lifetime ago, back when she thought it was a prize to give to someone like Jason. They’d had sex countless times-in the backseat of his car, in his bedroom when his parents were out, in the locker room at the hockey rink after hours. But what she had done with him compared in no way to the kiss she had just experienced with Willie; it was impossible to draw a line to connect the two. She couldn’t even say that her own participation was the common denominator, because the girl she was back then was completely different from the one here now.

  Trixie leaned toward Willie, and this time, she kissed him. “Me neither,” she said, and she knew she wasn’t lying.

  When Daniel was eleven, the circus had come for the first and only time to the tundra. Bethel was the last stop for the Ford Brothers Circus, on an unprecedented tour of bush Alaska. Cane and Daniel weren’t going to miss it for the world. They worked odd jobs-painting an elder’s house, putting a new roof on Cane’s uncle’s steam bath-until they each had fifteen dollars. The flyers, which had been put up in all the village schools, including Akiak, said that admission would be eight bucks, and that left plenty of money for popcorn and souvenirs.

  Most of the village was planning to go. Daniel’s mother was going to hitch a ride with the principal, but at the last minute, Cane invited Daniel to go in his family’s boat. They sat in its belly, the aluminum sides cold against their backs and bottoms, and told each other elephant jokes on the way down.

  Why is an elephant gray, large, and wrinkled?

  Because if he was small, white, and round, he’d be an aspirin.

  Why does an elephant have a trunk?

  Because he’d look stupid with a glove compartment.

  Six thousand people from all over the delta showed up, many coming just after midnight so that they could see the MarkAir Herc fly in at dawn with the performers and the animals. The circus was going to take place at the National Guard Armory gym, with the bathrooms converted to costume changing areas. Cane and Daniel, running ragged around the edges of the activity, even got to hold a rope as the big top