Last night I overheard Cale listing for Gorran all the repair work he wants to get done on the wagons and tent. Plus, there’ll be the day-to-day tending of the horses and staying fit and limber ourselves. Cale’s family run a farm and I’m sure we’ll all be pitching in to help with the upkeep and all the extra cooking and laundry that we’ll generate.
Anouk grins, her eyes following Elke’s now distant figure. “I do. But by tonight when they’re on their second mince pie and third glass of wine in front of the fire with their families, all that lot are going to be feeling sorry for us.”
I grin at her. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”
Everyone packed the wagons up last night, so there’s not much to do after we finish breakfast. Anouk and I collect any rubbish that’s lying around and stomp out the fire, while Cale and Gorran finish hitching up the horses.
A whole month not performing. I’ve only been with the circus for six months but these wagons and people already feel more like my home than my so-called real home ever did. It will be strange not to have our daily routine.
Anouk drives our wagon, and for a while I walk Dandelion beside her and we chat. Then the road narrows and I have to pull aside and head all the way to the back of the train. Cale’s bringing up the rear, and he nods to me as he pulls past.
With the wagon to follow there’s not much for me to do atop Dandelion, and I fall into a soporific daydream, listening to the steady rhythm of the horses’ hooves and the rumble of the wagon wheels.
Then it starts to rain. I sigh and pull my hood up and resign myself to getting cold and wet. I always feel like I should stay on Dandelion in wet weather, to spare the horses pulling the wagons. I think longingly of my warm bed in my wagon, and everyone else sitting up in the drivers’ seats. I’m the only rider today.
I hear my name being called over the drum of the rain and see that Cale is leaning out of the last wagon, calling back to me. Squinting through the downpour, I cup my hand around my ear, letting him know I didn’t catch what he said the first time.
“Hitch Dandelion up to the wagon and get up here,” he shouts over a rumble of thunder.
I don’t need to be told twice in weather like this. I jump off my horse and tie her up. The wagon’s still moving, and I hurry to the front. Cale leans down, his other on the reins, and he hauls me up.
“Thank you,” I gasp, shaking water from my coat into the road and fluffing my fingers through my damp hair. Under the awning, it’s blessedly dry. “I didn’t mind being out there, though.” Much.
“You can’t be the only one out in it. Here.” He hands me a dry cloth, and I blot my face and hair.
It’s a novelty to be up here and moving along, the rain falling all around us. I watch Cale’s large hands on the reins and study the thin scars that decorate his flesh.
“Want to try?” he asks, holding out the reins to me.
“Oh—I don’t have a license and I barely took any driving lessons. And I’m not eighteen yet.”
Cale grins. “You don’t need to be eighteen or have a license for a horse and wagon. We’re only traveling four miles an hour.”
I look at him skeptically. “Is that you saying that, or is that the law?”
“The law.” He puts the reins into my hands. “There’s not much you need to do when we’re in a long train like this. The horses will follow the wagon in front.”
After a few minutes, I realize he’s right. I don’t have to steer or click my tongue to make them go faster or slow them down. The horses keep pace all by themselves. Relaxing back a bit, I admire the landscape.
Then I realize Cale’s watching me as I grin stupidly at the trees and the clouds and the puddles in the road.
“Happy?” he asks me.
“I am, actually. I’m looking forward to Christmas.” I can’t remember feeling this way since I was small. In November when the nights were bitter, I started sewing with Elke and Anouk in our wagon. I made two little figures, one of me and one of Cale in our circus costumes. They were meant to be for myself, but now I think I’ll give them to him.
“You really don’t mind being out here in this filthy weather when you could be living a warm and dry existence instead?”
“Being warm and dry is nice, but it can’t compare to how it makes me feel to be here.”
“How does it make you feel?”
I look around at the dripping water and the ivy covering the trunks of the bare trees. At the horses snorting vapor on the air in the rain. The wagon up ahead. The feeling of belonging to these strange and wonderful people.
“Free.” There’s nowhere we need to be other than here. Nothing that anyone expects of us that we don’t expect of ourselves. No concerns about whether we’re popular or if we’re invited to the best parties or wearing the right clothes. “I love feeling free.”
“Same here.”
We watch the rain falling together, just him and me, safe and dry atop this wagon. We never get many opportunities to talk alone, and there are things I want to tell him.
“I started doing tricks with Dandelion because they helped me escape, but just being with her made me feel good again. Made me feel powerful, and I needed that. I felt so powerless in that house.”
I stare down at the reins in my hands, remembering the constant fear of my father’s temper and his fists that would lash out without a moment’s warning. Looking back, I don’t know how I got through the days.
“Now I don’t feel powerless at all. I feel strong. I feel safe.” I glance up at him.
Thanks to you.
Cale is watching me, warmth burnishing his face.
“Why did you start doing knife tricks?” I remember I asked him that once before and he didn’t want to tell me. “Oh, never mind. You don’t have to answer that.”
He looks at me for a long time while the rain patters around us. It’s almost like we’re in a private little cocoon. “I had a sister. She died.”
I breathe in sharply. “I’m so sorry.”
The rain continues to fall, making the tree trunks gleam wetly. It seems like he’s not going to reveal any more about it, and I don’t want to press him. I remember he said that it was a story which would ruin a nice day.
Maybe because it’s wet and gray, he feels like he can’t ruin it anymore.
“I was twelve when she died. I’d never felt pain like it and none of us knew how to handle it. I started knife-throwing, and it was the only thing that could clear my mind.”
He reaches out and covers one of my hands on the reins with his. I let my fingers twine through his scarred ones, each mark silvery white against his flesh. Each one a moment of grief. Each one healing his hurt.
“When I was fifteen, the circus came to town. The circus left and I left with them.”
An escape from an unhappy home. He needed it as much as I did.
Under the awning, we sit close to each other. His hand in mine, both of us guiding the horses. I don’t say anything or ask any questions. I don’t need to know the details of what happened. What’s important is that he was able to confide in me, and I understand him better now.
In the afternoon, just as night is drawing in, we turn off the lane down a long gravel drive, and Cale sits up. “We’re here.”