Nobody knows when the circus showed up at Eerie Acres Farm. There’s no record of a truck pulling up the gravel drive. No tent stakes driven into the dirt. No posters nailed to fence posts. One night the big top just… appeared inside the barn, and so did they.
C.C. was the first one anyone noticed. Bubbly. Bouncing. A grin painted ear to ear and eyes that tracked you a little too closely. She’d pop out from behind corners, tilt her head like a curious dog, and giggle at things that weren’t funny. The kind of clown who’d be adorable if it weren’t for the way she stood perfectly still when she thought no one was watching. Something about C.C. sits right on the edge. Simultaneously cute and deeply, deeply wrong. You’d laugh at first. Then you’d notice she hadn’t blinked. Then you’d stop laughing.
Psycho Sid was a different kind of problem. Where C.C. was all energy and mischief, Sid was physicality and menace. Swinging from ropes in the rafters, dropping down from places no person should be able to reach, blocking doorways with that slow, happy grin that said he had all the time in the world and you had none. He moved like he owned the space. Like the circus was built around him and everything inside it, including you, was part of his act.
Together, they ran the big top like a funhouse with no exit. Horns honking. Rubber chickens flying. Music blaring. And somewhere between the laughter and the chaos, you’d realize you’d taken a wrong turn and the way back led right past Sid, who was already waiting.
Some of the actors at Eerie Acres say the clowns never leave the barn. That after the lights go out and the last group stumbles through the pallet maze, C.C. and Sid are still in there. Still performing, still giggling, still swinging from the rafters in the dark.
The show never stops at Eerie Acres. You just stop watching.
Think you can keep a straight face in C.C.'s circus? Eerie Acres Farm opens this fall, tickets here.