A Circus of Ink

by Lauren Palphreyman

  I sigh, trying to get rid of some of the tension. It doesn’t work. I’m sweating, and I feel like shit. There are noises outside: clanging metal, voices, footsteps. It aggravates my headache. Today is going to be a bad fucking day.

  I kick off the sleeping bag and sit up, rubbing my face with both hands.

  ‘Go get my clothes, little Twist,’ I say loud enough to wake her. ‘I need a piss.’

  Nothing. I glance over my shoulder. Her covers are in a ball on the floor behind me.

  What the fuck? Where is she? Has she left me?

  The weight that’s been building on my chest since I didn’t do what was written gets heavier. None of this is right. I don’t belong here. I need to go. Yeah, I’m naked, and they’ll see that I’m a Blotter. But if anyone has an issue with that, I’ll kill them. That’s what I do.

  Blotters don’t wait around for little Twists. Blotters don’t take orders from little Twists. They don’t sleep beside them, or think about kissing them, or roll on top of them and offer to fuck them.

  Blood pounds through my body as I imagine what I would have done next; how I would have explored every inch of her with my hands, and my tongue. How I would have taken my time with her. How I would have made her writhe beneath me. I would have made her beg for it.

  I want to agitate her. I want to frustrate her as much as she’s frustrating me.

  I want to make her cry out with pleasure.

  And now I’m sinning again by imagining things. Heat floods my body, and I don’t know if it’s shame or if I’m turned on.

  All I know is that I’m still here, waiting for her instead of leaving. All my life, I’ve done what the ink has told me; now it seems as if my cock is calling the shots.

  You fucking moron, Jay.

  Footsteps approach, and the door slides up. Elle ducks under, turning to pull it back down again. She’s dressed now, in jeans and a battered leather jacket that’s too big for her. Her hair has dried weird, and it’s all tangled and wild down her back.

  Something stills inside of me at the sight of her. She didn’t leave.

  ‘Where the fuck have you been?’ I ask.

  She’s got my clothes under her arm and is carrying a metal flask, so the answer to my question is pretty fucking obvious. And the look she gives me shows she thinks I’m an idiot. What was I expecting? That if I gave her a hard time, she’d climb on top of me and take me up on my offer?

  ‘Jay. You’re up.’ Her gaze drops.

  ‘Hey, my eyes are up here, little Twist.’

  ‘I . . . uh . . . coffee.’ Her cheeks are pink, and there’s a ghost of a smile on her lips. ‘I got us coffee. And food. I thought you might be hungry.’

  ‘And you didn’t think about telling me?’

  ‘I thought about it. But then I remembered I wasn’t supposed to disturb you unless I wanted you to fuck me, so . . .’

  I bring my forearms back to my knees and raise an eyebrow. ‘Funny. You going to give me my clothes or what?’

  She smells like rain and leather when she walks over. And honey. A memory surprises me, flashing unbidden behind my eyes. I never think about the past. It is written, unchangeable, just like the future. But I see myself as a boy, sneaking into the larder in the Citadel Barracks and sticking my finger into that pot of honey—so rare and expensive, even within the Final City.

  I shouldn’t have eaten the honey. I shouldn’t be thinking about tasting her.

  I take the clothes, and our fingers brush. Then I get up. She’s no longer smiling. I think she’s going to touch me, but then she turns to her rucksack. I pull on my clothes.

  The Twist takes a weirdly long time to wrap a lathered bar of soap into a rag before putting it into her rucksack. I feel awkward again, like I did when we arrived here. I don’t know what to do, what to say. Does she feel like that too? Doubtful. I’m guessing the little Twist always knows what to say. And yet the air in here feels charged and heavy.

  ‘You seem tense,’ she says finally.

  ‘I am tense.’

  ‘It’s going to be okay, you know?’ She meets my eye.

  ‘I’m not telling a story.’

  ‘I told you, you don’t need to worry,’ she says. ‘You are the story.’

  I shake my head. ‘I’m going for a piss.’

  I head over to the door and slide it up. It bangs against the roof, and a couple of nearby Darlings carrying a metal keg turn their heads. I narrow my eyes at them, and they hurry towards the red-and-black tent in the centre of the camp.

  ‘Jay?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Be discreet, will you?’ The corner of her lip quirks. ‘I know how you like to expose yourself, but no one wants to watch you weeing. There are kids out there.’

  I grab the roof, stretching. ‘Hey, you were the one who told me to take my clothes off, little Twist.’

  She laughs as I step into the mist and veer away from the big tent. It’s early evening, but the air still carries the same drab grey light as it did when we arrived. Red-and-white lights blink around the trailers at the same irritating speed as a group of kids who are chasing each other through the pathways between them. They’re laughing like there’s nothing to worry about, nothing to fear.

  I shake my head.

  After I’ve finished pissing against the back of the shipping container, the Twist comes to join me outside, carrying the flask.

  ‘We have a couple of hours to spare,’ she says. ‘Do you want to see the Circus? I can show you the story we’ve been growing.’

  ‘No. Absolutely not.’

  ‘Edge of the World it is then.’

  ‘No. I don’t want to go there either.’

  ‘Well, where do you want to go then?’

  I fold my arms. There’s a girl nearby sharpening knives in the doorway of a trailer. Ahead, a couple of Darlings come into view, pulling a cart filled with firearms through the misty pathway to the tents. A group of kids scamper around making a nuisance of themselves, and a teenager paints on the side of a shipping container.

  I want to get away from all this.

  Elle touches my arm. ‘Come on.’

  I rub the back of my neck. Then I follow her away from the camp, pulling my hood over my head and stuffing my hands into my pockets. The mist that’s moving past our ankles speeds up as we get farther away from the Circus.

  Ten minutes later, I halt, overcome with the same sense of vertigo I get when I’m on the top floors of the tallest skyscrapers. Just ahead, the mist cascades off the edge of something, like a waterfall.

  ‘What the fuck . . .?’

  ‘This is the Edge,’ she says as she moves cautiously forwards.

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, little Twist.’

  She doesn’t listen to me.

  ‘Elle.’ I snatch her wrist. ‘What are you doing? Don’t stick your hand into that.’ I shake my head. ‘Fuck’s sake. You’re like a child!’

  ‘What? It’s fine. Look.’

  Before I can stop her, she plunges her other hand into the nothingness. As she does, her eyes widen and her lips part. I wrench her back, pulling her into my body.

  She tilts her head to grin up at me. ‘Just kidding.’

  She wiggles her fingers, and the mist curls around them. I have an urge to shove her over the edge. But although that would solve a lot of my problems, I drop my arms to my sides.

  ‘Great to see you’re in such a good fucking mood this evening.’

  She smiles as she sits down and dangles her feet over the edge like an actual maniac. ‘I am in a good mood. I’ve missed this place.’

  She pats the ground beside her, and even though I think this is a bad idea and I kind of want to vomit, I sit down.

  She untwists the cup off the top of her flask and pours black liquid into it. She passes it to me. It’s weak and watery, but it still has that smoky bitter coffee taste.

  ‘I’ve not had coffee since I was in the Final City,’ I say without thinking.

&n
bsp; ‘Sylvia—she’s kind of the leader here—says she can’t function without it. She gets it from one of the black markets.’ She takes a sip directly from the flask. ‘It’s not as good as the stuff they drink in the Final City, but it’s something.’ I feel her eyes boring into the side of my head. ‘The One True Story says the best Blotters are stationed there.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So, you are one of the best?’ She says it in a careful way, as if it’s occurring to her that being one of the best Blotters might not be a good thing.

  I exhale. ‘You know what I am, little Twist.’

  She bites her bottom lip. ‘If the best Blotters are in the Final City, it stands to reason that the worst would be stationed in Draft One. How did you end up here?’

  ‘How am I supposed to know? It was written that I’d come here. So I came.’ I stare into the nothingness.

  Elle lets the silence hang between us as if she’s expecting me to fill it. And for some weird reason, I want to live up to her expectations. Even though I don’t like talking about this stuff.

  ‘I always thought . . . I thought I was being punished. Or tested. Or something. But now . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think I’m here for you. To kill you.’

  She nods. ‘I should be flattered they sent one of their best, I suppose.’

  ‘You should be afraid.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Blotters aren’t scared of anything.’

  ‘Except for telling stories.’

  I give her a hard look. ‘Except for defying the gods.’

  ‘The Creators aren’t gods. They’re just men.’

  ‘No, they’re not,’ I say. ‘They created the world we live in. They created the land and the seas. They erected the first skyscrapers from the dirt and put the coal in the mines to give us the light. They create the weather that feeds the crops in the farmlands and give us earthquakes to rid us of evil. They created us and set us on our path to stop us from falling to temptation like the First Twist. They’re gods. Do you have any idea—?’ I shake my head. ‘Are you trying to piss me off again?’

  ‘No.’ Her gaze is steady when it meets mine. ‘But they’re not the only ones who can create.’

  She shouldn’t be saying things like this. ‘Why do you have the Book of Truth in your bedsit if you have such blasphemous thoughts?’

  She shrugs. ‘I’m looking for something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A story. And they’re not blasphemous thoughts. They’re true. You saw the hurricane.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘I think you’re scared. But you’re safe with me.’

  I laugh, and it eases the tension. The funniest thing is, she actually believes what she’s saying. I lean back on my hands, shaking my head.

  ‘Crazy, little Twist.’

  A smile tickles her lips. ‘You’ll see soon enough.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Elle

  We share some stale bread and sit in silence for a while with our legs dangling over the Edge of the World.

  Raven was right before: the Edge is closer to the settlement than it was when I left. I wonder what that means. Are the Creators planning to get rid of the Outer Drafts in one big Cut, letting us fall away into oblivion? Or are the whispers true? Is the Ending of the One True Story upon us?

  I have read many versions of the Creators’ story, and all say that what begins must someday end. But if the world ends, what happens to the Creators? Why would they allow the Ending to happen? Is there a purpose to it, or is it a flaw in their design?

  I choose to believe they are flawed and their story is not as stable as they think. Like my father used to say, there are cracks in everything, and that is where the dandelions grow. Jay is tense beside me, his expression dark. I wish I could make him see that he is in the right place, that there is hope.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I ask.

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Do you want to hear a story?’

  He drags his teeth over his bottom lip. ‘Okay.’

  I stare into the billowing mist ahead.

  ‘Once, there was a man,’ I say. ‘He was a clockmaker, and he was so in tune with the mechanics of time that he made himself immortal. He had lived on this earth for a thousand years or more, and he believed he had gained much wisdom—because how could a man live for so long and not absorb the wisdom of time?

  ‘But there was a price to his immortality that he had not realised. As he aged, the world became more and more grey, until finally, it was drained of colour altogether . . .’

  Jay shifts beside me, leaning back on his palms.

  ‘So gradual was the transformation that soon, all had forgotten there had once been colour at all.

  ‘Until one fateful night, during a wild and deadly hurricane, the boundaries of time were temporarily shifted, and the man met a woman who lived half a clock-tick behind the world he knew. He glimpsed a darker place than he ever imagined could exist, but within it, he saw beauty too. And for a moment, he was sure he saw a flash of colour within the depths of her eyes.

  ‘He pleaded with her to come with him. He pleaded with her to obey the rules of time—to live within the realms of clockwork like him and everyone else he knew.

  ‘But either she could not or she would not. And instead of following him, she left him a gift.

  ‘It was a seed.’

  Jay glances at me, and I think I catch an eye-roll. He seems too big and monstrous to roll his eyes like a teenager, and it makes me smile.

  ‘He cast it aside in anger and forgot all about it,’ I continue.

  ‘Until one day, he looked out of his window and saw a dandelion, bright yellow amongst the slates of grey. He had not seen colour in a thousand years or more, and so filled with joy was he that he wanted to show the world what they had forgotten.

  ‘But it was just one dandelion. And soon, it withered, taking the one burst of colour away. When he told people of it, no one believed him. Despite his years of wisdom, his words did not fit with what they knew, and they feared this. So they punished him.

  ‘On the day that the clockmaker died, something peculiar happened to the withered dandelion. It became a different kind of clock, a dandelion clock, sprouting seeds that were carried in the wind. And though he was gone and the world was still grey, the seeds began to spread. Soon after, dandelions started to grow—bursts of colour in the cracks between the pavement.

  ‘Every now and again, someone would stumble upon one, and those who saw them began to remember what they had forgotten. They began to wonder about a world filled with colour. And as they wondered, the seeds continued to spread, until one day, the cities were filled with them—great fields of vivid yellow that swayed amongst the skyscrapers.

  ‘And though the clockmaker and the woman who lived half a clock-tick behind were gone, their legacy lived on. The world was no longer grey.’

  I smile. ‘All because of that one small seed and the dandelions that grew in the cracks in the pavement.’

  Jay shakes his head, but there’s a softness behind his eyes. ‘You really like your dandelions, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose I do.’

  He runs a hand over his mouth. ‘When we were in the black market, you said you’d been planting some seeds. Dandelion seeds?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You make my head hurt.’

  I laugh. ‘You’ll see. It’ll help when we go to the Circus.’

  His thigh hardens against mine, and the softness disappears from his face. ‘I told you, I’m not doing that.’

  ‘It’s not as bad as you think.’

  ‘I can’t tell stories, little Twist.’

  ‘You can.’

  ‘You still don’t get it,’ he says. ‘I can’t make shit up like you. I can’t talk about dandelions and clockmakers and Circuses at the Edge of the World. It’s not who I am. I kill, I track, I destroy—that is my purpose. I strengthen the One True
Story. I don’t tell my own.’

  I take his cup and pour him another coffee. ‘Okay.’

  It’s cold now. We’ve been here a while, and we need to get to the Circus soon. If he doesn’t tell a story, he’ll be kicked out of camp. But he’s important to our cause—I feel it with every part of my being—and that’s why I don’t want him to go. It has nothing to do with his chiselled jawline and big muscles and the ludicrous offer he made me last night.

  He takes a sip, the cup dainty in his hand.

  ‘You said you hadn’t had coffee since you were in the Final City,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah. So?’

  ‘Where were you when you drank it?’

  ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘I’m just curious.’

  He exhales. ‘In the Citadel Barracks.’

  ‘Did you drink it alone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well? Who were you with?’

  His expression darkens. ‘One of the cooks.’

  ‘So, the last time you were in the Final City, you drank coffee with one of the cooks from the barracks,’ I say. ‘There. A story.’

  He turns his head slowly and gives me a withering look. ‘That’s not a story. It’s something that happened. It’s true.’

  ‘The best stories have a seed of truth at their core. The Creators have been burning books for hundreds of years, and yet still, we hear whispered stories of witches who used words to cast dark magic and threaten the gods.’

  ‘Witches don’t exist.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. But the truth at the heart of those stories isn’t the fact witches existed. It’s the idea that there were people who fought against the Creators. It’s the idea that people want to fight them still.’ I sigh. ‘You don’t have to make anything up, Jay. You don’t have to be something you’re not. Stories aren’t about making stuff up—not deep down anyway. They’re about telling your truth.’ He turns away, but I reach for his cheek, pulling his face back towards me. ‘For all this time, you’ve been a part of someone else’s story, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have your own. Your story belongs to you, Jay.’