The Circus Rose Read online

  What can I say? I thought, pushing Tam up against the nearest bookshelf. I love to learn.

  We spent, oh, the better part of an hour—the best part of any hour I’ve ever known—learning. Learning things about each other and putting them into practice. I learned things about Tam that I’d been longing to know for sure, and now, with hands and mouth and every part of fer body, Tam made sure that I knew.

  My clothes and Tam’s fluttered down around us like loose pages, some torn—that was almost definitely my fault—but even though I’d spent enough time mending costumes that I ought to have a care for my own and my performers’ clothes, I really, really didn’t.

  I didn’t care about anything except Tam’s body on mine. In mine.

  This—this—could shut off my mind, keep me from caring about anything else.

  * * *

  We dressed afterward in the quiet of the stacks, helping each other with buttons and ties, laughing a little as we went. There might not have been that much time to lose, but I felt as if I could breathe again, and think.

  Suddenly, there were strong, strangely cool hands on me, on Tam, forcing us away from each other.

  I didn’t think we’d done anything wrong—at least not the way the Brethren think that anything bodies can do besides building and praying is sinful—but I had to admit that the engineering student in me felt a little bit guilty about knocking over the books that I could see splayed on the floor, pages open in such a way that they seemed naked.

  I could only glare at the two Brethren who held us.

  The one who had Tam, a tall, thin man with shiny brown hair, smiled coolly at me.

  “The abbot has been looking for you two!” he said. “He put the word out for a dark-skinned, white-haired girl, and the speck from the circus posters. You’re not exactly inconspicuous, you know.”

  Tam flinched at “speck,” and even I was surprised to hear a priest use such crass language. It wasn’t a secret that the Brethren despised the Fey, of course, but weren’t they also supposed to look down on even small sins like swearing?

  Not what I needed to be worried about right then. I knew the abbot was Brother Carey, and we were going to be taken to him.

  As the two Brethren led us—and we let them lead, since it was clearly that or be dragged—I kept thinking that at least we had a better chance now of finding out where the others had gone.

  They took us to a corner of the library basement. A swath of the wood-paneled wall swung open, and Brother Carey smiled at us from a dark stone corridor. I’d heard rumors that every House of Light was connected by underground tunnels, and I wondered if that’s where we were being taken, if the tunnels ran underneath the libraries too. The priests pushed us inside and swung the heavy door back into place.

  “Leave,” he told them, and they obeyed immediately. He glared at the two of us as if we were insolent schoolchildren.

  “Who, exactly, did you think was hunting whom?” he said. “I don’t let my catches go once I have them.” He looked us up and down, as if analyzing something only he could see.

  “The Fey first, I think.” He raised his right hand, and Tam stepped slowly forward, almost as if the gesture had compelled fer to do so.

  Only magicians could compel people with a gesture, though.

  Brother Carey’s raised hand began to glow with white light.

  “Bless this sinner, O Lord, with Your second baptism.”

  Tam began to shake. Fe looked at me, and it seemed as if fe was struggling to reach toward me, but fer arms stayed at fer sides as if we’d been tied after all.

  I tried to reach back—or I thought I tried. But it was as if my body decided it didn’t want to do what my mind was urging.

  Tam’s blue-freckled skin turned shiny, as if only with sweat at first, and then with a metallic slickness like scales. Real scales pushed through fer skin like tiny knives, rising straight up and settling along fer skin in smooth layers. I felt heat on my wrist and at the edge of my vision I saw the light fe’d laid there turn from pink to blazing red, like an ember. But I couldn’t take my eyes away from Tam.

  Then fer legs drew tight together, and I heard a sickening snapping sound as fer knees bent backward. Fer legs snapped again and again, ugly bends appearing like extra sets of joints, above and below, and fe fell to the floor, fer whole body writhing, curving, curling.

  Tam’s face contorted in pain and scales erupted across fer face in concentric circles, and as they closed over fer mouth, I heard fer whisper something, and I felt a sharp sting at my wrist—

  And then Tam was a snake.

  A dark green snake, the same length as fe had been in life, hissing on the floor.

  I could suddenly reach toward fer as I’d been struggling to do through all the endless minutes as fe changed. But as soon as I did, I knew what Tam had whispered—and I looked at the band of light fe’d laid on my wrist, which had faded into a twisting, animate shadow, a darkness on my arm that spread cool energy all through my body, washing away the invisible binds the Brethren had laid on me.

  And I had only moments, I knew, before Brother Carey would baptize me too.

  I turned away and pushed through the door. I ran through the library, into the busy street. I don’t know how I managed not to be caught, only that, as a stagehand, I am very fast when I need to be—and even better at not being noticed.

  * * *

  When I arrived back at the park, I was past breathlessness, past pain. I collapsed onto the drop-down stairs leading up to our caravan door.

  I could hear Bear’s rumbling, even, sleeping breaths from outside.

  I knew Bear would not be resting unless Rosie was with him. I knew they were both still there, both still safe.

  That’s where Apple found me, there on the steps.

  Rosie

  Bear lurches up

  from sleep. My body

  carries up on hers,

  too sudden, waking

  me up too.

  She lifts her

  snout to the breeze.

  Nudges the gauze

  from Mama’s room

  toward me.

  The princess dreams

  are close enough that I

  can almost hear her voice;

  but her body speaks as well.

  The same smell, in the air

  and on the sheets.

  I look outside the caravan

  to see my sister, and

  Apple approaches.

  Ivory

  A few of the remaining stagehands trailed behind Apple. None of them seemed willing to look at me.

  “Hey there, Ives,” Apple said gently.

  I looked up at him, still struggling to catch my breath, feeling as if my lungs must be bleeding.

  But he kept standing, hands in his pockets. “Had a long day, huh?” Casual. Too calm.

  I was ringmistress now, like it or not. This was no time for me to give in to my body’s limits.

  I swallowed my gasps as best I could, tried to turn them into breaths. I forced myself up to standing.

  “What. Exactly.” My voice came out as a rasp, and I had to swallow twice before I was able to form the next words. “Is wrong, Apple?”

  “Don’t worry too much, but—”

  I glared at him, fit to kill.

  “—​there’s more gone.”

  I nodded quickly, just a little. Any more movement was like to make me collapse. “How many?”

  He shook his head. “Enough.”

  “Apple. How. Many.”

  He looked back toward the three small tents my wonderful Lampton classmates had managed to erect—and that I wasn’t sure they’d see ever again. “There’s me left, and three of the stagehands, and the dancing boys, and Bear and Rosie, and you and Tam. And the thing is, we’re thinking . . .” He trailed off, pushing his hands even deeper in his pockets. He looked up at the sky. “Nice sunset, ain’t it?”

  Oh, this was going to be bad. Apple was only at ease when
he was barking orders to the other stagehands. The more relaxed he appeared, the more he was making up for how uncomfortable he felt inside.

  “The other stagehands and me, we’re thinking maybe there’s something to it. To what Carey and his lot have been saying.”

  I felt sick all over again, tired in a way I’d never felt even during this endless week.

  “I mean, we have had the strangest and terriblest run of bad luck ever since we docked on these shores, and straight back from Faerie too. Maybe we brought back something that . . . Well, maybe the Brethren know something we don’t. Maybe they really do know their Lord doesn’t like us. Might serve us best to change with the times, slide along with what’s working here. The fire alone should have been enough of a message, but our friends keep leaving—”

  “The fire wasn’t a message. It was just a fire. And our friends didn’t leave, Apple. They were taken. Who would leave the Circus Rose? The—the family?” That word mattered to me in a way it never had before. “And leave us for the Brethren? For a life of bright light and silence and—and nothing?”

  Apple looked at me seriously, and his self-conscious casualness drifted away. “I would. I am. Ives, I’m converting. So’s a few others of us. The thing is, Ivory, I really feel that I’ve seen the light.”

  “Apple. The fire, the disappearances—Brother Carey is behind them.”

  “You don’t know that, Ives,” he said gently, like I was raving and he needed to mollify me.

  “I do! I saw Brother Carey turn Tam into a snake! He was going to get me next, but I ran!”

  “You’ve been under a lot of pressure, and your head’s not clear. Think about it, Ives. The Brethren don’t use magic.” He took a deep breath. “I’m leaving now. I hope you come around. Find me if you do.”

  Apple doffed his hat to me and then turned to the tents and did the same thing, as if he were paying his respects in a graveyard.

  One by one, the others followed.

  They left. They chose to leave because they’d listened to Brother Carey, and to people like him.

  And I couldn’t do anything about that. I could try to rescue someone if they’d been taken against their will . . . but I’d never try to keep anyone with me who wanted to leave.

  It had been so easy for the Brethren to make them decide they wanted to.

  We are what’s real, Mama had always said. No matter how much artifice, how much coming or going there was in circus life. We are what’s real.

  I hung my head and cried.

  Rosie

  Too many gone.

  Vanished. Everyone

  who loved us like Mama,

  every day. So

  few left.

  And what can I do?

  What gift can I give

  to those who gave me

  the love I felt all

  the days of my life?

  Ivory’s mind makes plans,

  builds roads, draws maps

  for how to reach

  some wiser end.

  What can I do?

  What have I ever done?

  Ivory

  I was alone, all alone. Only Rosie and Bear and I remained, but Rosie had started to get closed off when she’d realized how many people were gone, and she’d had to lean on Bear as he guided her back to their bed.

  Being alone wasn’t what I’d dreamed it would be like. It wasn’t freeing or peaceful. There is a kind of loneliness that can be precious—when you choose it.

  This kind of loneliness was only grief.

  I climbed the caravan steps slowly.

  And went inside.

  And shut the door.

  There were Rosie and Bear at the back of the caravan, resting together.

  I curled up with them. I didn’t want my hammock or anything but the warm animal closeness of two bodies I loved next to mine.

  I nestled in behind Rosie, who had her limbs wrapped around Bear in a sleeping embrace. There were no open wounds left at all, and the scars that remained, although large, already looked pinkly faded, rather than angry and red, the way Mama’s scars had been at the hospital, before . . .

  Before she was gone.

  I’d failed her completely. Mama always said that I’d be more than able to keep the circus together if that was what I chose to do. And I’d chosen; I’d assumed her role when she couldn’t—and the circus had dissolved in my hands. And it had taken nothing more than slippery words to make people believe that the thing we’d always loved was evil. With the circus under my leadership, people had chosen to leave.

  No. I stopped myself. Mama, stolen from her hospital bed. Vera’s blood next to Bonnie’s dressing table. I had seen Tam change. Just because some had left with Apple didn’t mean they all were gone. Not the ones who truly loved us and who Mama loved. I hated that I’d ever wished to be apart from them.

  My circus family. I missed them so much, and I mourned them.

  And by heaven and earth, I was going to get them back.

  * * *

  I woke up Rosie and Bear, and as we sat together outside the caravan, I talked them through the plan that was just forming in my mind as I spoke.

  “Where’s Tam?” Rosie leaned against my shoulder, wincing a little from the pressure on her burned arm. Bear lay down on the step behind us.

  “We got caught in the library, taken to Brother Carey. He turned Tam into a snake! That must be what he’s doing to everyone he takes. He would have gotten me too, but Tam used fer magic to break his hold on me long enough for me to escape.”

  Every muscle in Bear’s body tensed up. I turned to look at his face, and it was a war zone of rage and despair. Rosie threw her arms around him, and he buried his face in her chest.

  “We have to get them back.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” said a deep voice behind me.

  I heard a chorus of agreement even as I turned toward the speaker. The speakers—a baker’s dozen of them.

  The dancing boys.

  “I thought you left,” I whispered.

  Thirteen pairs of beautiful eyes looked at each other, all in shades of sadness and dismay.

  “We listened to Apple,” Ciaran said. “He deserved that much from us. But . . . we knew soon enough that there was something strange going on with him. Didn’t we, boys?”

  Another chorus of deep voices, the kind that would have made my knees weak before my heart leapt whole into Tam’s hands.

  Even now, it made me feel a little better.

  Part of the family had come back. We wouldn’t have to face the Brethren and Brother Carey alone.

  We were never so alone as I’d wanted to be, or as I’d feared.

  “I know what we’re going to do,” I said.

  Rosie

  They think

  darkness

  is punishment.

  Is sin.

  Is separation

  from the Light

  of their Lord.

  But I have waited

  between spotlights,

  slept enough sweet

  nights to know

  the whole show

  happens backstage.

  Bear scents them at once:

  at the cathedral, the

  white spire in the very center

  of town. I can’t sense

  anything but incense,

  but it’s easy

  to trust my love.

  Ivory

  The dancing boys walked before us through Port’s End like the front guard of an army, laughing and hollering and swaying their hips and waving seductively at anyone we passed. And Ciaran led them, inviting worship with his body, drawing attention the way a butterfly draws nectar from a flower.

  There were plenty of buttoned-down, startled pedestrians who gave our group strange looks—surprised, disgusted, curious, enamored, openly lustful . . .

  The boys, though, they had seen it all before. They flirted madly with everyone who looked their way, and between them, they almost mana
ged to distract the public, in the gathering gloam, from the great bear who walked in their midst, and the injured girl astride him.

  Not quite. Of course not. But we looked like a traveling show, whereas with Bear alone we’d have looked like the kind of threat that could cause a panic.

  Bear took us right to the cathedral.

  “You’re sure, now?” I whispered up toward his long black ear as we approached the heavy double doors. It was too late to change our tactic—we’d made our gambit when we started the parade—but it comforted my cautious heart to ask.

  Rosie and Bear looked at each other, and Rosie nodded.

  Ciaran kicked open the church doors, and we burst inside.

  One of the boys had brought a flute, another castanets; they played a vibrant tune while Ciaran led the others in an exuberant dance, jumping onto the pews, twirling down the aisles, laughing and leaping up to spin around the pillars.

  “What in the name of the Lord is this?” A priest bustled out of one of the side vestibules, his face pale. “Stop this sacrilege at once!”

  Ciaran twirled by me, and as his handsome face passed close to mine, I saw him wink. “Go on, Ivory,” he said. “We’ll keep giving them a show.”

  Rosie and Bear had hung back near the vestibule door. As I turned to beckon them to come with me, I saw that Rosie had slipped off Bear’s shoulders and stood next to him, her face more hard-set and determined than I had ever seen.

  We slipped through the edges of the church, following the scent Bear caught. I couldn’t help continuing to watch the boys wreak joy and celebration all over the cold white building. I thought I’d never seen anything so sacred.

  Rosie

  The boys burst color

  and light and song

  through the near-empty church

  when we arrive.