Skyborn Read online

  The audience’s applause was thunderous, given how few of them were left, as a young woman in a sparkling red costume bounded into the centre of the ring. Her hair was piled in chestnut curls on top of her head, her lips and cheeks were painted scarlet, and as she took a bow to acknowledge the crowd, a large silver hoop was lowered until it hovered right behind her. Without looking, she hopped backwards into it, landing with practised precision just as the cymbals crashed, and the applause grew as the hoop began to rise.

  The boy closed his eyes, not sure he could watch any more. His excitement faded and he let the sounds of the circus drift into the back of his mind. Annabella Sicorina, he thought, chewing on the inside of his lip. This must be the fifth one we’ve ’ad now. They never lasted long, these young women the ringmaster booked to perform not under their own name, but under the assumed persona of an aerialist he’d invented years before, an aerialist with an incredible talent – the Flying Girl.

  Ain’t none of ’em a patch on my mum, he thought, blinking away his sudden tears. She had been the first Annabella, the one who had made their circus a success. His mum was gone now, but Annabella lived on. None of the performers who assumed the name had ever quite reached the heights of the original, and the circus’s fortunes had begun to slide too.

  Eventually, the boy looked up. The act was progressing well, he thought – tonight’s Annabella was better than some he’d seen. She was graceful in her movements, the hoop swinging smoothly as she spun around inside it, hanging from one leg as she reached out to her audience. Applause sputtered, here and there, but the boy was dismayed to see several people getting to their feet.

  Walkouts, he thought, his lip curling. They’ll be lookin’ fer their money back, no doubt. The act they were getting wasn’t the one they might have been expecting, the one his mother had made famous. The death-defying, headline-grabbing Dance of the Snowflakes. It wasn’t performed any more and the boy doubted it ever would be again.

  The boy felt sorry for the woman in the hoop. She had to be able to see what was going on beneath her, but still she controlled her movements perfectly, the suspended ring spinning gently as she flowed from pose to pose. Finally, the ring was slowly lowered as the music crashed to an end. With one last perfect tumble, ‘Annabella’ dropped from her hoop to land in the sawdust of the circus ring, and she took her final bow to thin, disinterested applause.

  He could see the smile fixed on her face as she looked around. Then he spotted the ringmaster. Quinn strode across the ring to stand beside her, raising her arm in the air as they bowed together – but the boy’s attention was held by something the ringmaster had in his other arm. Something small and wrapped in a sparkling silver shawl. At the sight of it his face began to itch and his scratching fingernails came away clotted with the thick green face paint of his own act, the all-tumbling, all-bouncing Runner Beans. His stomach rolled, as though he were spinning in mid-air.

  The circus music grew louder, the tune changing to one every performer knew – the melody which signalled the end of the show. Tonight, a weight seemed to keep the boy tethered to the dusty floor, and even as he watched the curtain to the backstage area twitch aside as his fellow performers streamed through it and out into the ring to take their final bows, still he couldn’t move.

  That silver shawl. The boy’s heart raced as he looked at it and he swallowed back sudden fear. He can’t be goin’ to ask her to do the Dance, he thought, even though he knew the shawl, and its contents, could mean nothing else.

  The performers bowed, each in their turn. The music surged. Luella, the oldest and most placid lioness, was led around the ring, licking her chops, and Mammoth – the circus’s only elephant – was brought out for a final trumpet. The applause died away, the last of the crowd trickled out into the rain and finally the tent was empty but for Quinn and ‘Annabella’. The boy held his breath and listened, afraid to move in case he gave himself away.

  “What’s the problem, eh?” the woman said, trying to break Quinn’s grip around her wrist. “You can’t tell me that act wasn’t perfect.”

  “It was perfect – but it wasn’t enough,” Quinn replied. He shook free the silver-wrapped thing with his other hand and the boy saw her body stiffen. He watched, trembling, as the ringmaster held up something that looked like a baby, but wasn’t. It was a doll, frighteningly lifelike, which had been made years before to replace him in his mother’s act once he’d grown too big and she could no longer be sure that when she threw him, high above the circus ring, that she could catch him again.

  “What is that?” the woman said, her voice tinged with disgust.

  “Look, Rosie. You saw the audience tonight,” Quinn began, his voice tight and urgent. “It doesn’t matter how much you bring to your act, you ain’t going to hold the whole tent unless you give ’em what they want.” He brandished the doll. It was dressed in a tiny silver leotard, a sparkling band around its head. “And what they want is this.”

  “I told you,” the woman replied. Rosie, the boy thought, barely committing the name to memory. Next week, there would probably be a new performer in her place. “I ain’t doin’ that act. Not only is it the worst luck, tryin’ to recreate another performer’s trick, but you know I can’t do it. I can’t pull it off, Mr Quinn! And then where’ll we be?”

  Cyrus Quinn’s face grew grim. He released Rosie’s hand and stroked his beard, which fell almost to his waistband. “The Dance of the Snowflakes is the only thing that’s going to save this circus,” he said. “I implore you. Please. Give it a try.” He placed the doll into Rosie’s arms, but she held it away from herself, staring down at the lifeless face with horror.

  “Your wife –” Rosie began, looking back up at the ringmaster – “was crazy to even try this act. It’s no wonder she fell, Mr Quinn. It’s no wonder she’s dead. I ain’t havin’ no part of it, sir. No part. An’ you can take this back.” Rosie flung the doll to the floor, its loosely articulated limbs flopping wildly as it landed. “Next thing you’ll be askin’ me to take your son up with me too, just like your wife did when he was nothin’ bigger than that puppet there on the ground.”

  The boy’s heart thudded painfully hard at these words and he screwed his eyes shut.

  “That boy is not my son,” Quinn growled, “as you well know. And if you’re refusing my offer, you can consider your employment here terminated.”

  “You can consider my wagon empty as of an hour from now, in that case,” Rosie retorted. “There’s nothin’ that could convince me to stay another night here, Mr Quinn. I’ll take my leave of you an’ I’ll expect my wages in my hand before I go. Good luck finding another headline act to match the one I just gave you.”

  The boy opened his eyes again. Cyrus Quinn stood alone in the centre of the circus ring, rubbing his forehead with one hand. Rosie had disappeared. As the boy watched, Quinn dropped into a crouch, picking up the discarded doll. With a sigh, he retrieved the shawl and got to his feet. Then he strode out of the ring into the darkness beyond the reach of the spotlights. Faintly, the boy heard the ringmaster shout an order at someone unseen and the sound sent a jolt through him.

  Quickly and quietly, the boy crept out of his hiding place and made his way to the side of the circus tent, where he’d loosened one of the ropes just enough to make space for him to come and go as he pleased. He ducked beneath the canvas and vanished out into the night, hoping he’d make it back to his wagon before anyone could summon him to face the wrath of Cyrus Quinn.

  The boy had just finished scrubbing off the last of his green face paint when the door to his wagon was pulled open and a very irritable, and preposterously large, man made his way up the steps. Cornelius Crake was so heavy that the wagon dipped as he clambered inside, pulling the door closed behind him. Then he used one thick finger to flip the latch and lock it.

  The boy watched as the strongman trod past him and up the wagon’s central aisle, his width filling the gap. Crake sat on his creaking bed, tucked lengthways acr
oss the end of the wagon beneath the only window. He hung his lantern on its hook and, without a word, lifted one foot to the other knee and began to unlace his hobnailed boots.

  The boy threw his washcloth into the basin, letting it soak for a moment before starting to wring it out. He could just about see Crake reflected in the mirror, his thick beard still in two large braids, the way he wore it for performances. The strongman had begun muttering to himself as he pulled ferociously at his bootlaces.

  “Not bothered about inspections tonight then, eh?” the boy said mildly, jerking his head towards the door. Performers were always supposed to leave their wagons unlocked and flouting this rule was likely to get your wages docked.

  The strongman looked up and met his eyes in the mirror. “Cyrus Quinn can go and take a runnin’ jump,” he said. “If there’s to be an inspection this evenin’, after all that’s been said to us, then he won’t have to worry about lettin’ people go. We’ll be walkin’ out in droves all by ourselves, mark my words.”

  The boy hung the damp cloth on its nail and turned to his wagon-mate. “That bad, was it?”

  Crake’s expression brightened. “You skipped it, then,” he said, a note of admiration in his voice.

  The boy grinned. “Nothin’ I ain’t heard before.”

  The big man’s face darkened again. “Not like this, son,” he harrumphed, pulling off his boot. He wiggled his toes and the largest one popped out through his stocking. Crake sighed with relief before swapping one foot for the other. “He was like a rat in a bag tonight. Told us we’ll all get our marchin’ orders unless we can find a new showstopper. Half rations for the next month, no extras, no nothin’. Some o’ the crew are already makin’ plans to hit the road. We’ll be lucky if we have enough to put on our next show.” He looked up. “An’ he gave Rosie the sack,” the strongman said, in a quieter voice.

  The boy sighed, glancing over at the wall above his bunk. The boards were covered with pictures, carefully snipped from newspapers and circus handbills, which he had pasted there over the years. Some were faded and yellowing and others were still bright, but each of them showed Annabella Sicorina, the Flying Girl. In no two did ‘Annabella’ have the same face.

  His gaze drifted to the pictures closest to his pillow. These were the oldest, drawn while his mother was playing the role of Annabella, and the closest he had to an image of her. They showed a beautiful young woman, her hair dark, flying on a trapeze, and her tiny baby – a tiny baby that was pinwheeling through the air, free-falling with a wide grin on its chubby face, waiting to drop into its mother’s outstretched arms. He didn’t remember it, but he knew this had been the original Dance of the Snowflakes – his very first act in the circus which had been his home since he was six months old.

  He looked back at Crake. The strongman regarded him with cool, patient curiosity as he yanked on his bootlaces. “She wouldn’t do Mum’s act,” the boy said, and Crake’s eyes widened. “He showed ’er the doll, but she wasn’t ’avin’ any of it.”

  “Can’t say I blame her.” Crake grunted as the knot finally came undone. A moment later the second boot fell free, hitting the floor with a thump, and the strongman bent to line them up neatly and tuck them beneath his bunk, military-fashion. Crake’s legend in the circus was that, once upon a time, he’d been a soldier in a foreign, far-off army. There was even talk that he had a metal plate in his chest where he’d been grievously wounded, years before. Sometimes the boy could believe it was all true, though Crake was famed for his gentleness.

  The wagon door began to rattle, as though someone was trying to open it. After a few seconds, when it became clear that it was locked, there was an indignant knock. “Hey!” called a voice. “C’mon. It’s only me.”

  “Jericho,” sighed Crake, leaning forwards to reach into a cupboard. He pulled out a heavy iron kettle, setting it on the gas-flame hob. “Let him in, will you?”

  As Crake busied himself filling the kettle from their water jug and lighting the hob, the boy opened the door outwards into the night. There, as Crake had said, loomed Jericho, the circus’s chief tumbler. His perfectly smooth head shone in the light of the lantern he held in his hand, and he smiled at the boy.

  “Bastjan,” he greeted him, and the boy gave the tumbler a grin. His mother had named him after her brother, long lost to the sea – or so the story went. The ringmaster usually chose to refer to Bastjan, when he spoke to him at all, as ‘that boy’ or ‘that thing’, so he liked hearing the sound of his name when it was spoken with kindness. Every time, it was like an echo of his mother’s voice.

  “Jericho,” Bastjan replied, standing to one side to let the tall man enter the wagon. He pulled the door closed and, without needing to be told, took up a seat on the floor. Jericho settled himself on Bastjan’s bunk. The tumbler set down his lantern, looking awkwardly between Crake and Bastjan as though he had a thistle in his mouth.

  “Spit it out, will you,” Crake grumbled, the gas jet hissing beside him.

  “It’s the boss,” Jericho said, glancing apologetically at Bastjan. “He wants to see the boy.”

  Bastjan felt something settle in his stomach like cold lead. His mouth dropped open. “Me? But – what’ve I done?”

  “Nothin’, little man, nothin’ that I know of. He jus’ wants to talk, is all.” Jericho’s words were like music and he smiled at Bastjan in a comforting way.

  Bastjan turned to Crake. “He can’t get rid of me. Can ’e?”

  Crake snorted, shifting his bristly red moustache from side to side. “That fella would sell his own grandmother for the price of a saucepan,” he said, in a dark tone. “I’d put nothin’ past him.”

  Bastjan swallowed hard. “Thanks,” he croaked.

  “Arragh, you know what I mean,” Crake said irritably. “You’re his family, aren’t you? Or the closest thing to it? So I’m sure you’re probably the safest out of all of us.” He gave Bastjan a look that was unexpectedly soft. “If there’s anythin’ left here worth stayin’ for, after tonight,” he added quietly.

  “You’re the only family I got, here or anyplace else,” Bastjan said, meeting Crake’s eye. There was silence in the room for a moment or two, and then Crake coughed and looked away.

  “Will you get out of it now, and stop with your nonsense,” the strongman muttered, just as the kettle began to whistle.

  “You want me to walk with you, little man?” Jericho asked, but Bastjan knew what he’d really come to Crake’s wagon for: hot whiskey – or, in Jericho’s case, hot rum – and a game of cards. Jericho was already reaching into his jacket pocket for his well-thumbed deck and the hip-flask of what he called ‘Louisiana’s finest’, which reminded him of his home across the ocean, and Crake had pulled out the low table, ready for their game. The boy shook his head.

  “’Sall right. I know the way.” He gave Jericho a quick grin.

  “Don’t be there till you’re back,” Crake muttered, pouring hot water into two mugs. “And if I hear about you gallivantin’, you’ll have questions to answer in the mornin’.”

  “I’ll be quick as I can, Crake,” Bastjan sighed, pulling on his jumper. It was misshapen, holed around one elbow and an indeterminate colour, but it was warm. He opened the door and just as he was about to step out, Crake called his name. Bastjan turned to see the strongman lift a lantern down from the wall.

  “Take a light, lad,” he said, holding it out.

  Bastjan reached for it before slipping out into the night, leaving the warmth of the wagon behind. He breathed in, looking around at the encamped circus as his breath escaped again in a white cloud. Jericho’s faithful whippet, Biscuit, was curled up on the bottom step of the wagon stairs and Bastjan bent to give him a quick pat. The dog rewarded him with a gentle lick on the palm of his hand.

  To his left, the empty big top reared into the night, its lights extinguished and its flags flickering in the gentle breeze; to his right were the animal enclosures, the occasional muffled roar letting him know the
lions were, most likely, receiving their bedtime snack. All around, parked in a large, rough semicircle, were the performers’ wagons, all varying in size and shape and colour, but each as familiar to Bastjan as the one he lived in.

  The one belonging to Ana and Carmen, the sisters from Iberia who tumbled and did horse tricks alongside Jericho, had a light outside its door; beside it was the arch-roofed wagon where Magnus Ólafsson lived. Magnus was billed as ‘the Icelandic Giant’, despite, in reality, being merely a very tall Norwegian. But that was the way of it in circus life; very few people were what they seemed, and that was what drew most of them to perform beneath the big top. Once you were in the ring, you could be anyone.

  With a thoughtful sigh, Bastjan stepped down into the churned-up mud, pulling up the neck of his jumper against the drizzling rain. He knew which wagon was the ringmaster’s, but anyone with half a brain would have been able to work it out. Quinn’s wagon was the largest by far, the only wagon Bastjan had ever seen with two floors. The upper one had a large window with an ornate balcony in front of it. Directly below this was a decoratively carved door, complete with a bell.

  Bastjan gathered in a breath, put his lantern, along with his foot, on to the wagon’s lowest step, and jangled the long bell cord. Then he hopped back down into the mud, biting his lip nervously as he waited for the ringmaster to answer. It didn’t take long.

  “Come in, come on,” Quinn said, before he’d even finished opening the door. “Lots to talk about, you and me. Pull up a pew.” He stood back and Bastjan hopped up the steps, nodding a greeting as he passed his boss. An’ my stepdad, he reminded himself, hardly able to believe it. His mother hadn’t been married to Cyrus Quinn long before she’d had her accident, but it was a fact that they had exchanged vows. Bastjan found it difficult to imagine.