Ringmaster

“Exactly,” says Ryah, pinching her lower lip and staring hard into the middle distance.

I decide to put her out of her misery. “Pamela, the contortionist who opens the show, drops an armload of straw just after I throw my knives in the air. The lights go out, I step back, and no one sees the straw cover them up.”

Ryah presses her fists to her temples. “Oh, my god! I can’t believe I forgot about Pamela.”

I grin down at her, not because of what we’re talking about, but because she seems happy at last.

The change in Ryah’s manner after that night is heartening. She’s atop Dandelion at dawn every morning when I emerge from my wagon, but even if she gets something wrong, it doesn’t bother her. She and the girls start practicing short routines together, and I watch them all twisting, turning and scissoring across their horses’ backs as I drink my morning coffee. Elke and Anouk have always been pleasant to watch, but now that Ryah has joined them, I can’t tear my eyes away.

Ryah works hard backstage as well, and I find myself searching her out with my eyes whenever I step back through the curtains. It matters to me that she finds her place here, more than it has with anyone else who’s joined the circus.

Like me, she can’t go back. I won’t let her go back to him.

When the circus moves, it becomes a habit for the two of us to ride together at the rear of the wagons, Jareth and Dandelion walking alongside each other while Ryah and I chat or look out over the fields together in comfortable silence.

One warm and pleasant afternoon we’re on horseback, and Ryah’s just finished telling me about how much more confident she’s become with her routine, and how Elke is even talking about her making her debut with them soon.

“Nothing complicated. Just a few simple moves from me to get used to being under the lights and in front of a real audience. I don’t know if I’m ready, though.”

“You are. You’re as surefooted on Dandelion as you are on dry land.”

She looks up at me, her face shining with pleasure, and I can’t help but feel my own happiness multiplied by her own.

Chapter Seven

Ryah

Cale watches me, smiling. He’s such a handsome man, but more than that, he has a gentle soul. I can see it in his warm, brown eyes.

“I hope I will be just as surefooted under the lights. I feel nervous already.”

“A few nerves are a good thing.” Cale scratches Jareth’s neck absentmindedly. He’s silent a moment, and then asks, “Do you think you can be happy here?”

I take a deep breath of the clear, country air. “I think so. I like it here so much already, and whatever happens, I’m not going home.” I recall the dark, damp, unhappy house I fled. “It’s feels wrong to even call it a home. You can probably tell that I wasn’t happy there.”

“No. I can believe that.” Cale hesitates a moment, and then he says, “Your father was drunk when I got there the other night. There were a lot of empty whisky bottles in the house.”

I can sense he wants to ask me about my life before, but that he also doesn’t want to pry. “Yeah. He used to drink a lot. Usually not until the afternoon, but the day you found me he started early, and I knew there was going to be trouble.”

“Was that when he hit you?” Cale asks quietly.

I hesitate, remembering Dad threatening to break my arms if I ever, ever told anyone about what happens within the walls of our home.

Cale’s here. Dad can’t hurt me now.

I nod slowly.

“Did he hit you often?”

“Yeah,” I whisper. “He used to hit Mum, but she got sick of it when I was twelve and left. I got it after that. He made me leave school so I could look after the house. He’d breed horses for a little bit of money, but he’d drink most of it. He was always threatening to sell Dandelion.”

I was terrified I’d come home one day and she’d be gone, so I agreed. I couldn’t lose her. I could put up with things as long as I had Dandelion. I was always scared, and usually hungry. Winters were the worst. I don’t mind the cold, but I hated the dark. Scared and hungry in the dark is the most pitiful feeling in the world. Scared and hungry with no escape.

“Your mother left you there with him?” Cale asks.

I can hear the outrage in his voice. “Her leaving meant less shouting in the house, so that was a relief, in a way. And he didn’t hit me as bad as he hit Mum.” Not at first, anyway.