I was safe. I had a home. I was stronger now. He could never get to me again.
Ducking inside the tent, the canvas flapping behind me, I blinked, letting my eyes adjust to the more muted light. Thering spotlights were lowered for our early morning rehearsals, allowing us to see the areas that were normally thrown into shadow during our performance. Vivienne handed me a travel mug of coffee and I sipped it gratefully as I took a seat off to the side, watching the motorbikes circling the ring, Amélie right in the centre, spinning on a hoop high above their heads. On either side of her, two of the trapeze artists hung upside down from their own hoops, the backs of their knees hooked over the rings, holding them in place.
My chest ached as I watched Amélie spin, an ache that had been there ever since the mirror maze. What would she think if she knew the truth about me? About what he’d done? About the tiny, sick part of me that whispered that maybe I deserved it? Logically, I knew that none of it had been my fault, and he’d beenentirelyto blame. He was sick, twisted, a monster… But knowing that didn’t drown out the poisonous whispers inside me.
We’d ordinarily have moved on by now, heading for our next stop, but we were in a prime location on the south coast, and so we’d added an extra date to our show. I was grateful for the opportunity to stay an additional day, because after this, we’d be heading for our next destination. Dover. My former town.
Wherehewas.
He would have no idea I was there, of course, butI’dknow. I’d breathe the same air. Walk the same streets. Exist in the same space as the man who’d?—
No.
Reflecting on it, I knew that was exactly why I’d reacted the way I had in the mirror maze. The news had come as a shock, a reminder of my worst nightmare right before I entered the maze, when I hadn’t even had a minute to process it.
And now, the closer we got to arriving in my former town, the more the memories crowded me. They came at night, in my dreams. They came during the day, triggered by the smallestthings—the thud of footsteps or the sound of a belt buckle, the sudden appearance of a man in the corner of my eye. I’d done my best to push them from my mind, throwing myself into my work, practicing for hours until I was too exhausted to continue, but I knew I couldn’t escape from them forever.
“Wren? Wren!”
A voice snapped me back to the present, and I blinked to see Vivienne eyeing me with concern.
“Sorry. I?—”
“You’re sitting out of today’s show. Trick will take your place.”
“No.” My eyes filled with sudden, hot tears. If I didn’t have the performance to distract myself, then the memories would come, and they’d swallow me whole. “Please. Please let me perform.”
She stepped closer, tilting her head to the side, her waves of shimmering red hair falling over her shoulder as she studied me. “Wren. I’m worried about you. You haven’t been yourself lately. My duty is to the performers, and that includes you. I can see that something is on your mind, and I can’t afford for you to lose focus when you’re out there.” Sweeping her arm out to indicate the ring, she continued. “I don’t want to do this, but it’s for your own safety, and for the safety of my other performers. Do you understand?”
Biting down on my lip to stop it from trembling, I nodded, because what else could I do? It was her decision to make.
Vivienne sighed, placing her hand on my shoulder and rubbing gently over my skin with her thumb. “Wren, I want you to know you can talk to me about anything. Anything at all. I want you to know that whatever you say will remain confidential—not even Judge will know, should you wish for me to keep it to myself.”
I stared at her. “You—you’d keep it from Judge?” Judge was Vivienne’s husband and the ringmaster. He was our leader, the man everyone listened to, the person who made the final decisions about everything that happened within the Cirque des Masques.
She nodded. “You have my word. And I believe you’ve been a part of our family long enough to know what our word means.”
Maybe...maybe I should speak to her. She had some knowledge of it, anyway, thanks to our previous conversations. While I’d never given her the full details, she knew enough to have a picture of my nightmarish past. Keeping it all inside was doing nothing but hurting me. The memories were like a poison spreading through my veins, and I needed to purge them.
“Okay. I...I’ll tell you. After rehearsal. Please, just let me rehearse. I give you my word that I’ll give it my full concentration. If you think I’m still unfit to perform tonight after rehearsal, then I’ll sit out without argument.”
She assessed me silently. Behind her, I noticed Amélie pause in her balance exercises, glancing over at us with concern. Biting down on my lip, I returned my attention to Vivienne, pleading with her with my gaze.
Eventually, Vivienne nodded. “Very well.”
The cirque had been set up on a green, next to a wild meadow. At this time of year, the meadow was mostly barren, other than the fringes where clusters of thistles and green-stemmed weeds sprinkled with purple swayed in the breeze. The meadow was where I found myself a few hours later, seated on a blanket Vivienne had thoughtfully provided. One of the circus dogs, Brutus, lay at my feet with his heavy head in my lap. I marvelledall over again at the fact that this huge dog had once ripped someone’s throat out right in front of me, and yet, here he was, happily lying in the winter sun and letting me scratch behind his ears.
A shadow fell over my legs, and I glanced up to find Amélie looking down at me with uncharacteristic hesitance. “Do you… Would you mind if I joined you both?”
“I think Wren would prefer—” Vivienne began, but I quickly shook my head.
“No, it’s okay.” I wanted and needed to give Amélie an explanation for my actions in the mirror maze, and now she was here, I’d only have to get through the whole fucked-up story once. That night, it had been too fresh in my mind to even contemplate putting words to my feelings, but here in the winter sun with Vivienne’s warm presence, Amélie’s concern, and Brutus a solid weight tethering me to the ground, I finally felt strong enough to speak.
Amélie sank down onto the blanket next to me, her little finger brushing against mine with purpose, and that tiny contact was enough to both reassure me and send butterflies fluttering in my stomach. I swallowed hard. After my confession, would she still want to touch me?
Taking a deep breath, I met Vivienne’s gaze and began. “I haven’t been completely honest with you. You rescued me from that woman, and I let you think she was my guardian. S-she was, but it was only temporary. My actual guardian was away on a trip, and I—I’d been sent to stay with her while he was gone.” A shaky exhale fell from my lips as I fought to keep my composure. “You saved me from him regardless, but he—he’s still around as far as I know, and he lives in the town where we’re scheduled to do our next show.”
A gasp sounded next to me, and the pressure of Amélie’s finger returned, this time curling over mine. In front of me,Vivienne’s eyes filled with compassion, and she leaned forwards, placing a hand on my knee. “Is your former guardian a candidate? Could he be one of the Chosen?”
