Girl in the Shadows (5 page)

six

Opening day dawned thick with a tension that had begun to build the night before. The mess tent was swimming with it at breakfast—the excitement of the season kicking off and whatever Thurston and Jules’s rumored surprise was.

At our long breakfast table in the catered tent, I’d wolfed down banana-blueberry pancakes beside Dita, who inhaled a stack of bacon and toast. The back wall featured a projection of Jules walking above a bridge high over the river here last year. I admired the daring of it. But that was apparently not the plan for this season—Jules would be doing something else, and we wouldn’t know until it happened.

For me, the excitement was coupled with the anxiety that my magical powers continued to refuse to show up whenever I snuck off into a corner to attempt to test them out. I was increasingly afraid they would come without warning, making it impossible for me to ever practice controlling them.

Less than two hours after breakfast, the season was officially about to get its start.

“Step right up,” Thurston called out over a bullhorn. He was wearing his full ringmaster tux and tails. He waved the midway and Cirque performers—we’d neatly segregated ourselves—toward a trio of large buses to head into town.

From chattered explanations, I’d learned we were doing the reverse of what the Cirque had done last year. Instead of parading from here into town over the bridge, we’d be traveling to the city on these buses, then leading a parade back over the bridge to where we were staged. The hope was that excited fans and city people would follow us, showing up for whatever was the cap-off surprise at the tent, then stick around the midway and stay for the first show. Buses would take people back to town later, and then after a quick meal break we’d be on again for the evening performances.

Everyone was decked out in their costumes. Which meant it was like a massive chorus line of showgirls on the loose, except with fewer feathers and not so scantily clad. My outfit was pretty tame as these things went, of course—black jacket and pants with the supplies I needed stashed in the pockets. I made a mental note to ask Raleigh for some costuming help.

I boarded the third bus after most of the people were already on, not wanting to get trapped at the back surrounded by strangers. That enabled me to slip into a seat near the front. Dita was the only one I could describe as a semi-friend here at this point, and so it was fine that no one took the spot beside me.

Well, until Dez peeked onto the bus. He grinned when he caught sight of me. His grin felt . . . honest. Like legitimate happiness at seeing me.

That amplified when he said, “Finally. I checked the others for you first.”

His friend appeared behind him. “He did. It was cray annoying.”

“You know who else is cray annoying?” Dez asked. “You, Brandon. You are cray annoying.”

Brandon laughed, highly amused. I would never understand why so many boys related to each other through mockery.

The two of them boarded, and Dez—unshockingly—swung into the seat next to me. He wore an outfit not dissimilar from my own, though his shirt was black instead of white and unbuttoned to a degree that should have been tacky but managed to look reckless and hot. He had a few knives strapped onto his legs and arms for appearances.

I tried to come up with a flippant response to his having searched me out, but a good comeback eluded me. There was an unwelcome fluttering instead. Particularly when Raleigh climbed on last, carrying his top hat in his hand, an opera cape over his suit for effect. He looked over at me and took in Dez, then swung into the row in front of and across the aisle from us. We were dressed like barbarians next to his elegant Phantom of the Opera.

Dez tilted his head closer to me, his face so near mine I worried I’d feel his breath if he spoke. Or vice versa.

“I don’t think he likes me,” he said.

And I was right. He’d pitched it for my ears only, which meant I felt the words against my neck. It was practically like he’d touched me.

I resisted the urge to shift nervously. The problem was, the breathy not-quite-touch had felt nice. “I can’t imagine why,” I said, at normal volume.

Dez threw his head back against the headrest of his seat and put a hand over his heart. “Once you get to know me, really know me, you’ll feel different, Moira. I know I seem cocky, but I’m a puppy at heart.” He turned those brown-penny puppy eyes toward me.

I sighed. “Let’s not talk about you. Let’s talk about—”

“You?” Dez grinned again, wolfish instead of rakish.

“No,” I said, and I saw the corner of Raleigh’s lips quirk. He was eavesdropping. “Let’s talk about your act. Where’d you learn how to juggle knives?”

“Where’d you learn magic?”

“I asked first.”

The bus driver got on and levered the lumbering vehicle into gear. I wondered why Raleigh’s lovely assistants weren’t riding next to him. A headlining magician couldn’t get by without at least one.

Dez leaned forward to block my view of Raleigh. “I taught myself.”

To juggle
knives
? Holy crap.

I’d taught myself too, obviously. Setting timers, reading tutorials, sneaking obscure books from Dad’s library. I was careful to always do the dangerous exercises, like submerging myself bound or in a mask, when someone was around and would hear if my safety alarm went off. But knife-throwing? How could that be safe to learn solo?

“So you started with regular objects?” I asked. “Apples? Balls?”

“Balls!” Across the aisle, Brandon brayed a laugh, and my cheeks went up in flames. We were surrounded by eavesdroppers. “He started on a bet. With butcher knives!”

“Shut up, moron,” Dez said, smooth as glass and with as sharp an edge.

Chastised, the other boy shrugged, but then gazed out the window. He must have only been Dez’s helper, because he had on casual jeans and a tank. A duffel rested at his feet.

“Yes,” Dez said. “I was dared to. It wasn’t a situation where I could say no.” He shrugged. “But I’d never have known I was capable of doing it if I hadn’t.”

I felt that way sometimes about having to be my own teacher. Dad would never have pushed me as hard as I pushed myself—he’d never have let me take so many risks.

“I wasn’t all that good,” he said. “I did cut myself.”

He pushed back the sleeve of his shirt, and I saw the raised line of a scar slashed across his forearm, still red, like it was angry. I touched it before I could stop myself.

He was smiling at me again when I looked up, and I yanked my hand away. “Ouch,” I said. “Sounds kind of stupid, if you ask me.”

“Oh, it was,” he said. “I’m full of bad decisions. And worse luck.”

“That’s the truth,” Brandon said.

“I’m having a private conversation with the lady,” Dez informed him.

“No, you’re not,” Raleigh said lazily.

Dez didn’t look mad. He shrugged again. “Another time, then. I’ll just have to be content to bask in your presence, beautiful Moira, sharing it with the undeserving who don’t appreciate you like I do.”

“Bask away,” I said with bone-dry irony. But I hadn’t liked thinking of Dez being so cavalier about tossing knives into the air and one coming down and slicing his arm deep enough to leave that scar. I also couldn’t conjure a mental image of anyone who would be callous enough to seriously dare someone to do that.

So Dez was a mystery too. Maybe we all were. Maybe being a mystery was what brought people to the Cirque in the first place.

“Why’d you make me do your act with you?” I asked when the silence stretched too long.

“I wanted to make you a heart,” Dez said.

“Uh-huh. How many of those have you made? Hundreds?”

“I told you—you inspired me.”

I looked away, out the window.
Don’t believe him. Pretty words.

“A penny for your secrets,” Dez said, nearly whisper-soft. His hand touched mine, and I turned back to him as he flipped my hand over. He pressed a penny into my palm.

I closed my fingers around it.

“It’s
thoughts
,” I said. “A penny for your thoughts.”

“I’d take those too, but I think they’re worth more.”

“More than secrets?” I asked.

“You do have some, then. Interesting . . . Care to share?”

He stared at me, waiting, and I forced myself to stillness. As long I didn’t move or react, I wouldn’t give away anything else.

The bus ground to a halt.

Dez smiled at me. “Another time.”

The driver opened the doors, and he stood up in the aisle, waiting for me to go out first and blocking Brandon from cutting in front of me. I walked off the bus behind Raleigh, and only when I stepped onto the pavement beside the same brilliant-blue giant of a bridge that Jules had been crossing in the video did I realize I still had the penny in my palm.

“That guy’s trouble,” Raleigh said, swooping around to face me, as much superhero as Phantom with his long cape.

“So are you,” I said, thinking of his endless slew of beautiful temporary girlfriends.

“True. But be careful.”

“Please. I’m not even tempted.” Hooking up with boys wasn’t why I was here. Besides, Dez’s show of interest probably didn’t mean anything. None of that explained why I put the penny in my pocket, like it was part of my precious sleight kit.

“Places, everyone!” Thurston again.

The herd continued to divide by hierarchy for the parade, though it wasn’t quite as pronounced from high to low as for the bus ride. Thurston in his ringmaster tux was up front with the band and its shiny brass instruments and red, white, and blue marching band uniforms. We miscreant midway performers followed them, saving the Cirque performers, the best, for last.

A massive crowd was waiting for us, overfilling the blocked-off streets that led into downtown Jacksonville and up to the edge of the bridge we would now cross. The bridge itself was all the more enormous when you pictured Jules walking above it. Speaking of which, I hadn’t seen her around all morning. Hmm . . .

As we were lining up, I tried not to gape. I failed.

“You act like you’ve never seen a show before,” Raleigh said.

Dez was talking away to a group of tattooed contortionists and aerial silks flyers a few feet from us, occasionally catching my eye.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” I said.

It was true. There were clowns in white face makeup painted with distinctive black or red triangles and classic harlequin patterns, their baggy white outfits billowing around tall stilts. The Garcias were in their tight, glimmery black trapeze outfits with red accents—Dita hardly looked like herself, though she’d pulled on a suit jacket over the tiny scraps of fabric that made up her costume, a touch of her own style. With her was a bulkier version of Remy, who I assumed was the brother I hadn’t met yet, Novio.

Yapping dogs in costume orbited around an older woman dressed in a sergeant uniform. A beautiful blonde woman on a tall stomping horse with a tricked-out saddle must’ve been Jules’s mom. Her father—a wire walker too, I’d gathered—wore plain black like me.

“You’re gawking again,” Raleigh said. “I think they want us over here.”

He steered me that way, and we were joined by a lovely assistant—I knew there would be one around here somewhere—in a black satin evening dress and white gloves that came to her elbows. She and Raleigh made a striking couple when he offered her his elbow and she hooked hers through his.

“Where’s your bird?” the assistant asked him.

“Bird?” I said.

“Shh,” Raleigh said to her, looking sheepish.

Okay, I didn’t need to know what that was about.

“Welcome, Jacksonville, to the second season of the great, the astounding, the amazing and best circus still going . . . the Cirque American!” Thurston boomed.

The pronouncement was met by cheers from the audience behind us, and from the performers at the back. Then Thurston gestured, and in front of us the band struck up its music, like something out a 1950s nightclub. Peppy, loud, with lots of horn and drums.

And we were moving.

The walk was on the long side, but it sped by. Various Cirque performers took the spotlight as we crossed the bridge, the procession pausing and making a small circle at the back so the followers behind could see. At least some of them could.

Jules’s mom’s tall horse bowed low and then reared high and danced in a circle. The tattooed contortionists contorted, twisting themselves into human pretzels, only to then be shown up by the Cirque’s actual acrobats in their silk costumes, building a tower of bodies that stretched high above the roadway.

The mood continued to build, tension turning to anticipation. I wanted one of those performing spots badly, and it must have showed. “This isn’t our scene,” Raleigh said. Then, correcting himself, “Not mine, anyway. In any case, there may be photos. You’d best stay out of the limelight today so your dad doesn’t see.”

The photo thing had never occurred to me, and put a slight chill on the rest of the parade. I considered getting a mask—it would help with my boring costume issue.

At the grounds, the band marched us all the way to the tent, then past it to the Ferris wheel. Thurston waited patiently beside it for the entire mass of people to arrive, conferring with a workman there. Jules’s father had joined them, I noticed.