I can see the man now, mounted on a bay horse and fighting his way through the underbrush to get to us. The girl wraps her arms around her shaking body and starts to cry. She doesn’t even try to run. It’s like she’s got nowhere to run to.
I put my foot into a stirrup and swing up onto Jareth. I reach down my hand for her. “Come on.”
The despair in the girl’s eyes changes to elation. Gasping in relief, she clutches my hand and I pull her up behind me.
The man sees us, and roars and raises his shotgun, but we’re out of range. I watch him for a moment, committing his face to memory. Letting him see me, too, the man who’s taking his daughter.
I want him to see me.
Then I wheel Jareth around. We canter though the woods, my horse finding natural paths through the trees. Friesians were bred to be warhorses, and while they’re big and strong enough to carry a knight in full armor, they’re also swift and sure-footed.
“I thought you were going to leave me behind,” the girl gasps, wrapping her arms around my waist and holding on. We emerge from the trees onto a laneway, and I turn Jareth southwards and urge him into a gallop.
“What’s your name?” I call over the sound of Jareth’s thundering hooves. That clumsy bastard will still be fighting his way through the bracken.
“Ryah.”
Ryah. What a pretty name. I look down at her small hands encircling my waist.
“What’s your name?” she asks.
“Cale. Cale Hearn of Meriful’s Traveling Circus.” Cale Hearn who’s just snatched a teenage girl right from under her father’s nose. I wonder if this is kidnapping. I wonder if he’ll send the police after me or arrive to take her back himself. He’s welcome to fucking try.
Ryah nestles closer and rests her cheek against my back. “Pleased to meet you, Cale Hearn of Meriful’s Traveling Circus. Thank you for helping me run away.”
I find myself smiling as we thunder down the road. “My pleasure, Ryah.”
Chapter Three
Ryah
After we’ve galloped about three miles, Cale slows his horse to a trot. My arms are locked so tightly around him that I don’t think I can let go. His torso is firm and muscular and he smells like fresh straw and sunshine.
“We’ll be with the circus in about two hours,” he tells me. He’s got a lovely voice, deep and easy with a northern accent, maybe Lancashire or Yorkshire. I feel a buzz of excitement. The wagons I watched so longingly as they trundled past, we’re riding to meet them. I remember what I thought to myself this morning. Those wagons mean freedom. Everything I’ve been craving for so long.
Only, Dandelion isn’t here with me. A pang of loss goes through me and I turn and look over my shoulder. We’re only a few miles from home and yet I don’t recognize anything around me.
“Don’t you need a map?” I ask. “How will we find them?”
Cale nods at the sun, which is high in the sky. “If the sun’s there, and the time is, what, two o’clock?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have a watch.”
“Neither do I. Let’s say it’s two. If two is where the sun is on the clock face, and twelve is there—” he indicates a little left of where the sun is “—then the line that runs between them points north to south.”
I crane my neck around, squinting at the sun and imagining the clock face in my mind. “You get around the country without a watch or a map?”
He shrugs comfortably. “It’s easy enough. There are road signs, and we come more or less the same way every year.”
“How long have you been traveling with the circus?”
“Oh, a dozen seasons. Maybe a bit more.”
“So many! How old are you, thirty-five?” He’s got crinkles by his eyes when he smiles and his face and hands are deeply tanned.
He laughs. “I’ve seen too much sun, then. I’m thirty-one.”
Thirty-one. Then he must have been a teenager like me when he joined the circus. I wonder what made him leave home and never go back. Maybe his father beat him, too. I feel sad for him, because he seems too nice for anyone to ever do anything horrible to him.
“How’s your eye? Does it hurt?”
A little, but I don’t care. I wrap my arms tighter around Cale. “I’m fine.”
We amble on through the afternoon, and I watch the world slip by at an easy pace. We move through hills and rolling farmland. The laneways are overflowing with pink, white and yellow wildflowers. Barely any cars pass us. Occasionally there’s a tractor, or we have to pause for a flood of sheep which cascade across the road from one field into the next. I feel safe up here. Cale’s horse is much bigger than Dandelion, and I can sense the strength in his muscles beneath the glossy black coat.
I reach behind me to pat the horse’s flank. “What’s his name?”
“Jareth.”
“He’s a lovely horse. I wish I had my horse.” Poor Dandelion. I hope she was able to get far away, otherwise Dad will catch her and probably whip her to get out his anger at me. Tears fill my eyes. She’s as afraid of him as I am. I open my mouth to ask Cale if we can go back and search for her, but what if he does take me back and Dad catches me? Worse, what if Cale leaves me there because he discovers I’m too much bother? If I make some friends at the circus maybe they can help me get her back. I don’t think I can face Dad on my own.
When the sun is sinking over the distant hills, we join a sealed road running down into a village. I spy the dozen circus wagons and even more horses in the field on the far side of the village green, the grassy field by the pub and the church. As we pass the pub, half a dozen pairs of eyes watch us with idle curiosity, the girl with muddy feet and bare legs and the man in black on the beautiful horse. My cheek rests against Cale’s back. I feel safe up here with him.
As we approach the green and I see the faces of the performers, my courage suddenly evaporates. I’m going to have to get down from this high perch and meet people. They’re going to hate me or think I’m stupid, like everyone does.
Feeling me tense up behind him, Cale murmurs, “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Everyone here arrived just like you, once.”
Just like me? Does he mean that everyone arrives at the circus out of nowhere on the back of his horse? Or maybe he means that everyone was new and scared once.
We pass three men in shorts and tank tops who are tumbling on the grass and throwing each other in the air. Their moves are slick and fearless and so fast that I can barely follow what’s happening. A young woman has folded herself in half backwards, her head touching her toes. By her side, a beanpole of a man is squeezing himself through a tennis racket that doesn’t have its strings and chatting away to her as if it’s nothing. What must it be like doing tricks for an audience who gasp with surprise and pleasure? I’m quite good with Dandelion and we can do all sorts of things together. Most of them involve going fast because we’ve had to run away from Dad so often. I imagine performing some of these tricks for an audience.
Then my heart sinks. I don’t have Dandelion, so now I’m nothing. It would have been wonderful to perform, but I could still be happy mucking out the horses and things like that. If people here are nice to me, I could be happy doing anything at all.