A Circus of Ink

by Lauren Palphreyman

  I cross the space between us and put a palm on his chest even though I know I shouldn’t touch him. His eyes drop to my hand, his face unreadable.

  ‘Your name is Jay,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Jay.’ I drag my teeth on my bottom lip. I like the way his name feels. ‘Is what you said true? About the Final City?’

  ‘All Blotters start off there.’ If it’s possible, he seems to tense even more. ‘But yeah. I was there for most of my life.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m not the person you should be worrying about.’ His forehead creases. ‘I could kill every person in this place if I wanted to. You don’t seem to realise that.’

  I glance at his biceps, straining against the sodden fabric of his top. ‘There are things in this world that are stronger than muscle. You’ll learn that here.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He folds his arms. ‘And where are we, exactly?’

  ‘We’re at the Circus at the Edge of the World.’ I look at him in curiosity. ‘Have you heard of a Circus before?’

  ‘Course I fucking haven’t.’

  ‘I didn’t think so.’ My lip twitches. ‘You’re going to hate it.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Jay

  This whole night has been ridiculous. But everything has happened so quickly my mind hasn’t had a chance to catch up.

  Now, we’re alone, and the only sound is the water dripping off our clothes and hitting the metal floor between us. I can’t even hear rain drumming against the shipping container. There’s no weather here. It makes no sense.

  I never feel uncomfortable or awkward. No Blotter does. We always know what is coming. We always know what we’re supposed to do next.

  Right now, I have no fucking clue.

  All I know is that I’m in the middle of a terrorist camp with a Twist I was meant to kill, and none of my tattoos are telling me what to do anymore.

  Is this what normal people feel like all the time? As if they’re struggling for breath, not knowing which way is up or down? I’ve only felt like that once before, when I was drowning. But I was prepared for it. I knew my head would eventually breach the surface. I knew I was doing what had to be done. I’m not prepared for this though.

  I want to drag the Twist down into the depths with me. But I also want to keep her afloat. I want to kill her like I’m supposed to. But I want to protect her too. I want her to want me, and I want her to be afraid.

  I want a release, somehow. I want to stop feeling like this.

  ‘You going to tell me what a Circus is?’ I ask, because it’s all I can think of saying.

  ‘Soon.’ The Twist’s eyes bore into mine, and if she knew what was good for her, she wouldn’t be looking at me in that way. She wouldn’t be standing so close. She wouldn’t be antagonising me. If she knew the things I wanted to do to her, she would be running away.

  ‘Take off your clothes,’ she says.

  I laugh, surprising myself. It’s not the release I wanted, but it eases some of the pressure on my chest. I should be pissed off she thinks she can tell me what to do. But it’s so strange and weird and unexpected that I’m tempted to do it, just to see what she does next.

  I drag my teeth over my bottom lip. ‘I suppose I did say I’d show you any part of me you wanted to see.’

  She arches an eyebrow as I unzip my hoodie. ‘Your clothes are wet,’ she says. ‘We need to get dry.’

  She doesn’t look away though. When my top hits the floor, she frowns and tentatively puts her hand just above my heart, her shoulders tense as if she’s not sure how I’ll react. She smells like honey. Why does she smell like that? There are no bees and no flowers outside the Final City. Nothing about her makes sense. It makes me curious, and I hate that she’s making me sin. But I can’t stop.

  She traces one of my tattoos, and my breathing deepens.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I say, my voice low.

  ‘What does this mean? The dandelion seed?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I thought Blotters knew everything.’

  I grab her wrist. ‘I told you before, we don’t.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Some things are clear from the start; some of the smaller details reveal themselves when they need to.’

  ‘What was I?’

  I slide my hand over hers, pressing her palm into my chest. ‘Everything about you is unexpected, little Twist.’

  ‘But you knew you had to kill me?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  My heartbeat pounds against her fingers. This is wrong. A Blotter being here, amongst terrorists and rebels. A Blotter talking about the sacred marks on his skin. A Blotter letting a Twist touch him. Everything about this is wrong.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she says.

  ‘You’re not supposed to.’

  She looks unimpressed, and for some weird reason, I don’t want her to look at me like that.

  I exhale. ‘Most times when I deliver an Ending, the person runs. Even though they know their time is up. It’s instinct.’ I slide her hand over her death warrant. ‘That’s what this is like. Instinct.’

  ‘But you didn’t kill me.’

  ‘No.’

  Her eyes meet mine. ‘How does it feel?’

  ‘Wrong. But . . .’ I touch her cheek, my thumb grazing her lip, not sure how to explain it. Then I drop my hand. What am I doing? ‘I don’t know, little Twist.’

  She bites her lip as she studies the markings on my skin. ‘How did the Creators know where I was going to be? I didn’t even know I was going to be there.’

  ‘They’re gods. They created the world. And they bound us all to the One True Story. They know everything. They can do anything.’

  ‘They cannot kill me.’

  I tense. Because they can. I’ve seen their power. I’ve felt it. It runs in my veins.

  ‘They can, little Twist.’

  ‘I do not believe it.’

  ‘It’s the truth.’

  ‘I do not believe it is all inevitable.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘No.’

  Her chin is sharp as she tilts her head back to meet my gaze. It provokes something hot inside me. Irritation. Anger. Frustration. Why can’t she get this into her head?

  ‘Yes,’ I say deliberately.

  ‘You didn’t kill me,’ she says.

  ‘I fucked up.’

  She narrows her eyes. ‘Is that really what you think?’

  We stand like this for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then she shakes her head and bends down to undo the laces of her boots. When she kicks them off, they clang angrily onto the metal floor. She peels off her sodden socks.

  ‘Just . . . take your clothes off,’ she says.

  Some of the tension in my stomach unknots. It’s as if I’ve finally managed to piss her off. And it’s about time. I’ve been frustrated all fucking night, while she’s been taking this all in her stride.

  ‘Fine,’ I say. I take off my boots. Then I unbutton my jeans and step out of them. I should probably cover myself up. This is getting dangerous. But I want her to look at me. I want to see what she’ll do.

  She’s trying not to look, but then her eyes hit mine and her cheeks flush. Her gaze drops, and her lips part. She takes a deep breath.

  Her hand twitches by her side, and she balls it into a fist as if to stop herself from reaching out. Or maybe she wants to punch me. I’d take either at this point.

  I tense, forcing myself to stay where I am.

  ‘Get under the covers.’ She’s trying to sound commanding, but her voice quivers.

  My lip twitches despite the building frustration. She wants me. It’s fucking obvious. It’s the only reason I do it, the metal floor cold on the soles of my feet as I get inside the grey sleeping bag.

  After what she’s put me through tonight, I want her frustrated. I want her to feel a fraction of the storm that’s been building up inside me since I didn’t do what was w
ritten. The fact I’m about ready to explode is a small price to pay.

  I sit down, stretching out my legs and leaning against the wall. When I turn my attention back to her, she’s shed the factory overalls I’m convinced never belonged to her, and she’s peeling the black vest over her head.

  Something like the instinct that drives me to do what is written hits me, and I have to fight it to stop myself from crossing the room. My jaw clenches. Her pants are cotton and black, and they are all that stand between me and what I really want right now. Does she not realise that?

  I’m scrunching the sleeping bag in my fist, and I force myself to look at the floor. There’s a black shape on the inside of her left ankle.

  ‘You have a tattoo.’ My voice sounds too rough, and I clear my throat.

  ‘Not as many as you.’ She grabs a white vest from her rucksack and pulls it on. Grabbing our clothes, she walks to the door of the container and slides it up, letting in grey light, the sound of people talking, and the mist.

  I lean forwards. ‘Where are you going?’

  She looks over her shoulder at me. ‘I’m going to hang these up to dry. You’ll need them for the performance.’

  I frown. ‘Performance? What do you—?’

  A couple of minutes later, she hurries back inside. She’s shivering as she pulls the door back down.

  ‘Elle, what the fuck do you mean, performance?’

  ‘We’re at a Circus,’ she says as though that explains it. She grabs the other sleeping bag, bringing with her the scent of outside and sweat and that weird note of honey. There’s not even a hint of fear coming off her. I can’t remember a time when someone hasn’t smelled like fear when they were around me.

  I want to touch her. I want to grab her legs and hold her in front of me. I want to look at her forbidden tattoo and see what the curious girl would have inked on her own skin.

  But I also want to know what the fuck she’s talking about. That’s why I don’t do it. It’s nothing to do with the fact she’s shivering. It’s nothing to do with the fact I don’t want to make her smell like fear. I’m a Blotter. Blotters don’t care.

  I force my hands to my sides as she climbs inside the sleeping bag and pulls it up to her waist before sitting against the wall beside me.

  I turn my head to her, rubbing the back of my neck. ‘You going to tell me what the fuck that means? What is this place?’

  A half-smile plays on her lips. ‘Do you want to hear a story?’ she says.

  Chapter Twelve

  Elle

  Jay’s eyes bore into mine, and again, my attention flickers to the black smudge in his left iris. It is beautiful. An imperfection. A flaw. Just like me, and the Twists, and the Darlings. Why would the Creators create something imperfect? It gives me hope. Because perhaps they didn’t mean to do it.

  There are cracks in everything.

  He swallows, his brow furrowing. ‘A story?’

  He is a Blotter. Blotters do not tell stories. They do not listen to stories. There is only one story that they know, and it belongs to the Creators. It is the story told by the Tellers in the Houses of Truth. The story written on their skin. The story they are duty-bound to enforce.

  His shoulder is almost touching mine, and he’s like a furnace. His heat washes over me, comforting somehow in the chilled air. It’s because I’m cold that I want to get closer. That is the only explanation. My gaze drops to the V of his hips where he’s pulled the sleeping bag, barely concealing himself.

  When I meet his eyes again, there’s a trace of amusement alongside his blatant conflict at my question. It’s as if he knows what I’m thinking about doing. I wonder what would happen if I slipped my hand into his covers. I wonder if he would make a sound when I touched him. I wonder if he would stop me.

  I shouldn’t be thinking about things like that. I need to remember what he is. Someone like him killed my father. He is my enemy.

  He rubs his mouth, then he inclines his head slightly. ‘Go on then. Tell me a story, little Twist.’

  My heart beats fast, and I will it to slow down as I lean against the wall. I don’t usually feel this way about men. I don’t usually think about touching them. I don’t usually wonder what sounds they would make if I made them fall apart. My story has never been one about love or lust or longing.

  My story is one of vengeance.

  I cannot get distracted. Especially not by him.

  ‘Once, there was a man,’ I say, ‘and the man had a secret.

  ‘He lived in the Final City. And he was a powerful man, as men in the Final City are. Before the stories of him disappeared completely, some said he was a cruel man. Maybe the secret changed him. Or maybe he was never cruel to begin with. Maybe that was just a story.

  ‘But he thought things could be different than what they are. And he knew that when his secret was discovered, danger would follow.

  ‘And so he began to plant a story.

  ‘He spread it to the helpless: the Darlings, the Twists, the Secondaries who seemed doomed. He spoke of a place at the very Edge of the World, hidden by mist, barren of food, but so far from the Creators’ perfect city that they would not look for them there. He told them the Darlings had formed a settlement.

  ‘And some believed his story. Some travelled to find it.

  ‘The first people to travel to the Edge of the World did not all make it. Some were killed, some died of starvation, or wounds, or infection. And when those who did not die got there, they were disappointed.

  ‘For there was no settlement.’

  ‘So, he lied?’ The Blotter rubs the back of his neck. ‘Great story, little Twist.’

  ‘Not a lie. A story. And stories are true when we believe them.’

  ‘Right.’

  I arch an eyebrow. ‘Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?’

  He sighs. ‘Fine.’

  ‘There was no settlement when the first travellers arrived,’ I continue. ‘But there was mist. And it was untouched by the Creators. And so unwavering was their belief there would be something here for them that there became something here. They built it for themselves. The next part of the story starts with a girl,’ I say. ‘She lived in the Final City. And she was in danger.

  ‘And so she was smuggled out of the city. She was taken by a group of Secondaries who had just had their Final City citizenship revoked. They needed to flee from the Blotters before they were killed. And they had heard a story—a story about a settlement of Darlings at the Edge of the World.

  ‘They didn’t want to take her with them. She had a connection to something they feared. But that connection created an easier passage through the Drafts. And so they took her along.

  ‘The journey was bleak, and at times, they felt they would never make it to the end of the world. To help ease the suffering and to stop their descent into certain hopelessness, the girl told stories on the way—because that is what someone had once done for her. She knew, you see, that words could be powerful. Why else would stories have been forbidden?

  ‘She told stories of hope, and change. Of dragons, and hurricanes. Of ink, and parchment. And of a group of people who would one day rise to fight against the darkness; a group of people who would bring back the light.

  ‘They were not used to stories. And the stories started to grow within them, like seeds, and from them flowered hope. They saw the power of words, and they saw why they had been forbidden by the Creators. For a story in the wrong hands is a dangerous thing indeed.

  ‘Before long, they started to believe. They started to believe things could be different.

  ‘When they reached the end of the world, the settlers did not want the stories to stop. They wanted to learn how to tell them themselves. They wanted to be the wind that spread the dandelion seeds so they could grow in the cracks between the pavements.

  ‘And so, while they fought and scavenged and built on their settlement, the girl created a place where they could tell their stories.

&nbs
p; ‘The girl created the Circus.’

  Jay’s brow furrows. He looks uncertain. When I put my hand down on the floor, my little finger almost brushes against his, and he looks at it for a moment.

  ‘Is that true?’ says Jay.

  ‘It’s a story.’

  ‘Yeah. But is it true?’

  I smile. ‘There’s one last part to the story. And it’s the most important part. The girl and the Darlings told many stories in their Circus. And they started to notice little dandelion seeds floating through the tent. Soon, those seeds joined together in a big swirling mass of light. Every night, as they told their stories, it got bigger, stronger, more powerful. It fed off their stories, you see. And after a while, they realised what they had done.

  ‘They had grown their own story. A story that could rival the One True Story. A story that could change the world.’

  Jay’s breathing is audible, and his shoulders are stiff. He shakes his head, unable to look at me. ‘You shouldn’t be saying things like that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You know why.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of the Creators.’

  ‘You should be.’

  He sucks his bottom lip and then looks at me. ‘The girl . . . the girl in the story . . . Is she you?’

  ‘It’s a story.’

  ‘You said stories are true when we believe them.’

  ‘What do you believe, Jay?’

  The rise and fall of his chest deepen, and his breath tickles my face. Something passes between us, unspoken words, untold stories, and something deep and old and somehow familiar. He touches my face, just for a moment, as if he feels it too, before he frowns and rubs the back of his head.

  ‘Fuck. I don’t know. What you’re saying is impossible.’ He stares at the wall for a few minutes. ‘Wait a minute . . . what did you mean earlier when you were talking about a performance?’

  ‘Everyone here is part of the Circus,’ I say carefully. ‘To join their community, they need to know you can be trusted. They need to know you believe in what they believe—that you can help them with what they’re trying to achieve.’