“Ryah,” Elke says patiently from atop Snowdrop the fourth time I’ve fallen from Dandelion. “You’re trying to do too much, too soon.”
“But I know I can do it,” I huff, clambering red-faced and sore-bottomed from the grass back onto my horse. Dandelion is as irritated by all this as I am. It’s a simple cartwheel I’m trying to master, but it’s not as easy doing it on the ground as it is on Dandelion’s cantering back.
The problem is that I never practiced showy things with Dandelion before. I never had anyone to perform for, so things like cartwheels atop her back never occurred to me, but if I want to be in the show I have to get up to speed with Elke and Anouk.
I click my tongue and urge Dandelion into a trot, then a canter, the sun beating down on the back of my neck.
Anouk calls after me, “Be careful! It won’t help any to break a bone.”
I stand up, point my toe, turn a cartwheel—
And go tumbling from Dandelion’s back onto the grass. I lay there, staring up at the clear blue sky, cursing through my gritted teeth.
Elke and Anouk dismount, and they lead Snowdrop and Patches over to me.
“That’s enough work with the horses today,” Elke says firmly. “Practice a few things on the grass if you feel you need to, but only for another hour. Okay?”
I sit up with a wince. “Okay.”
Anouk catches my eye and smiles sympathetically. “Do as wagon-mum says. And don’t worry. You’re going to be amazing.”
People keep saying that, but I don’t think I believe it.
I practice cartwheels, handstands, and then some pirouette-things that I saw the other two doing last night. My technique isn’t good, though, because I don’t really know what I’m doing. Over by the wagons, I can see the other performers watching me as they gather for lunch.
I head over to the fire to eat something, feeling sweaty and grumpy, and sit on the grass.
Aura notices my glum face and slides closer. “Don’t be discouraged. You only just got here.”
I nod, but there’s still a leaden feeling in my belly. I don’t want to fail at this. I’m suddenly faced with the possibility I might travel with the circus but never be able to perform.
Chapter Six
Cale
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. How’s Dad? Good. Uh-huh.”
It’s hot inside the phone booth, and I push the door open with my foot. It’s only ten in the morning but the sun is scorching. Tucking the phone against my cheek and shoulder, I roll my shirtsleeves back. Black might be a good color for not showing the dirt, but I’m goddamn roasting.
I call home at least once every two weeks, and I have since I left home at sixteen. The habit has always been bittersweet. Mum and Dad must have thought in the early years that once I got the worst of the anger and grief out of my system, I’d come home, but I never did. Not properly. Not to live. The circus became my home, especially after old Meriful passed away when I was twenty-two and left me everything.
The unspoken questions hang in the air when I talk to my mother, and they get me down. When are you coming home, Cale? When are you going to settle down?
We’ve gotten over it. Why haven’t you?
I run my hand over the back of my sweaty neck, listening to her talk about the drainage problem in the bottom field. All right, maybe they didn’t “get over” Mirrie being raped and murdered. More like got past it. I know Mum believes that I’m trying to escape my grief, rather than deal with it, but I am dealing with it. The loss of my sister isn’t the red-hot poker in my guts that it used to be, though every now and then I feel the old anger raging. Such as when I was stepping on Ryah’s father’s throat.
I’m back in that rundown cottage, pressing harder and harder, enjoying Vern choking and gagging, when I realize Mum’s asked where the circus is.
“Oh, somewhere outside Lincoln. Murton-by-Stow, or Burton-by-Stow?” I look through the dirty glass of the phone booth for a sign proclaiming the name of the village and see Ryah instead. She’s atop Dandelion in the adjacent field, performing scissors. Her toes are elegantly pointed and she’s moving nicely, but then she gets her right leg tangled in her horse’s mane and fumbles the move. She stops, and her head tips back as if she’s appealing to the sky to give her strength. I grin, remembering that feeling from when I was teaching myself knife tricks. Why can’t I just get it right? How many billion times have I practiced this? Damn it all to hell.
I realize Mum is still talking. “Hmm? Sorry, I got distracted by our new horse vaulter. No, she’s good, just not trained. It’s a long story, I’ll tell you another time. Yeah, okay. Goodbye. Love you both.”
I hang up the phone and step out into the fresh air. I should go over to the tent and check on the set-up, but my feet draw me toward Ryah and Dandelion instead. I stop beside Elke, who’s over by the horses and brushing down Snowdrop.
“How’s she going?” I ask her, nodding at Ryah.
We both look at the seventeen-year-old girl. The sunlight is bright in her golden hair, and she moves lithely in scissors. Then she fumbles it again and scowls.
“She’s going to be amazing as long as she gives herself a break,” Elke says. “I’m worried she’s going to quit because she couldn’t learn mine and Anouk’s whole routine in five minutes.”
Over in the field, Ryah braces her hands against Dandelion’s back, draws her body up into a perfectly arched elbow stand and executes the splits upside down. “She won’t quit.”
“How do you know?”
“Oh, just a feeling.”
“Ringmaster’s intuition?”
I start drawing away and cast one last look at Ryah. “Something like that. See you at the big top later.”
I don’t have the chance to talk to Ryah until we’re on the move again. The wagons are in a long train, wending their way along country lanes deep with shadows or slicked with sunshine. I walk Jareth slowly along the line from the first wagon to the last, chatting with each of the drivers. The other circus members are inside their wagons with the windows propped open, reading, napping or mending their costumes. At the back of the caravan, I find Ryah atop her horse, one bare foot tucked up against her thigh, the other dangling against Dandelion’s flank as she watches the birds overhead. She’s wearing a sundress, the delicate cotton fitted to her slender shoulders. She’s left the top button of the dress undone, giving a tempting glimpse of the soft cleft between her breasts. The sight of her makes my breath hitch.
She’s seventeen, I remind myself.
“Hey. Mind if I ride with you?” I say, drawing up beside her.
She smiles at me and runs a hand down her golden plait. “What a beautiful morning.”
Jareth matches Dandelion’s pace and I let go of the reins for a while and stretch out my arms and shoulders. “How are you finding everything? I hope all this slow travel is not too dull.”
“Oh, not at all,” she enthuses. “I love being out in the fresh air and watching the countryside.”
So much of England is rural countryside and twisting laneways. We can go months and months without even glimpsing a big city. Even longer. We’re not the sort of circus that can easily get around the motorways and traffic, so we stick to entertaining villages, and I’m perfectly happy missing out on the crowds and air pollution.