by Trudi Jaye
Missy frowned. “You’ve just had a huge blow, Rilla. You can’t expect to keep going as if you haven’t just lost your dad. Some days, I feel completely lost when I stop and realize he’s gone forever. I can only begin to imagine how you feel.” Missy leaned forward and put her hand on Rilla’s arm. “You have to cut yourself some slack.”
A lump formed in Rilla’s throat and tears threatened. She shook her head. “We don’t have time for me to cut myself some slack,” she whispered raggedly. “The dragon Gift has to succeed or we’re all lost. Jack and Viktor are right about that, at least.” A tear leaked down her face, and she rubbed at it with her palm.
Missy frowned. “You could do a Gift with one arm tied behind your back. This idiot Jack doesn’t know a silk ribbon from a tent pole. How’s he the better option?” She shook her head. “Viktor’s crazy to put all his faith in this new guy.”
A part of Rilla warmed at Missy’s description, but she sighed. “It doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day, they were right. I failed in my responsibilities to the Carnival. Jack might not be a particularly good candidate, but at least he doesn’t have a proven track record of failure.” The expression on Viktor’s face when he looked at the glowing words had said it all. He thought it was all her fault. How many of the Nine agreed with him?
“That’s not fair, and you know it!” Missy sat up straighter, ready to defend Rilla, even to herself. “The sabotage has been going on for a lot longer than you’ve been Ringmaster.”
Rilla smiled crookedly. “Thanks,” she whispered. She looked up to where Kara turned and twisted through the silken ropes, not really taking in what she was seeing.
Missy followed her gaze up to where her mother and Kara were practicing. “She’s doing all right, Mom said. At least she has good muscle tone from gymnastics and yoga. That helps.”
Rilla nodded and watched as Kara leaned in, listening to Barb instruct her on some new aspect of silk dancing. Up in the air, her half leg became part of the dance, rather than a hindrance. Barb had worked on routines Kara could do easily, and her training was well under way. “Most of the Nine are convinced that training Kara is going to end badly,” she said.
“Mom trusts your judgment, and so do I,” said Missy staunchly.
Tears came to Rilla’s eyes again and she swallowed. There were still some people who believed in her.
Her mind skirted around what was happening at the meeting of the Nine. There were people at that meeting who didn’t trust her abilities. “What do you think of Jack?” she asked suddenly. “Do you like him, as well?” She tried not to let her hurt show on her face.
Missy glanced quickly at Rilla. “He’s okay—for an outsider. He’s been helping out, making himself useful.” She hesitated. “People like him.”
Rilla winced. “Somehow, without me noticing, the battle for Ringmaster has slipped through my fingers. A complete outsider has come in and charmed everyone.” She gestured outside of the tent in the general direction of the rest of the Carnival. “He wouldn’t have won against my dad.”
“There’s no point comparing yourself to Abba. He had forty years of experience doing this.”
Rilla thumped her fist against the wooden bleacher. “I should have made sure I knew how to be a real Ringmaster instead of sitting comfortably in Dad’s shadow all those years.” Wiping at the tears trying to spill down her face, Rilla scowled and stiffened her spine.
“You couldn’t know,” said Missy softly. “None of us could have known. You thought you had time.”
“Do you think his car crash was an accident?” she asked Missy abruptly.
Missy’s eyes softened and she leaned closer to Rilla. “I don’t know, honey. All I know is that even if we can’t bring him back, we can make him proud of us.”
Rilla nodded. Missy was right. She would make her father proud and keep the Carnival together if it was the last thing she did. That meant continuing to work with Kara, despite the disapproval from people like Viktor.
“Kara deserves to have her wish granted,” Rilla said quietly. She tipped her head, covering her eyes against the lights, and gazed at Kara as she worked the silks. She had taken to it amazingly well, given that she was working with only one full leg. Luckily, Kara was strong and had good balance—probably because she’d been trying to hide the fact she had a prosthetic all these years.
Missy nodded. “She’s a fighter,” she agreed. “Like you.”
“Maybe I’m fighting the wrong battles.” Rilla looked at Missy, feeling like her fears were blazing out of her eyes.
“You’re strong and smart, Rilla. You know the right thing to do.”
“But what if Blago is right? Is this really the fastest way to get thrown out on my ears?” She gestured up at Kara and Barb. Blago, behind his bluster and charm, had a pool of sadness in his eyes. “I don’t know if I could bear it, having the Carnival taken away from me.”
They were disappointed in her at the moment, but they were still the only family she had, and the Carnival was the only life she knew. Rilla tried to imagine a world that didn’t involve the Carnival. Her mind drew a blank. There was nothing else for her.
But Missy shook her head. “If it was the wrong way to go, you’d be gone by now. Your dad always used to say, No one does a Gift like Rilla. Blago, he might think he was pretty good, but you’re the real deal. Don’t forget that.”
“The others don’t see it that way.”
“The others are scared. The dragon Gift is do or die. They see the bad things happening around us and start to panic and dig their heels in.” Missy shrugged and let her expression convey what she thought of that. “You’re doing things they’ve never seen before.”
Rilla took a deep breath. “I hope I’m right,” she said. “For all our sakes.”
Since getting to know Kara, her desire to make sure the Gift succeeded was much stronger—she cared about what happened to her new friend. Asking Kara to participate in the show had been spur of the moment, but it felt right, like it was the only way they could finish the Gift. If it worked, performing in front of a large audience like that would give Kara a new confidence, a rare chance to see she was more than ‘the one who survived’. It would show her she was capable of so much more than the life she was currently living.
“Just as long as you keep Garth safe, the rest will follow,” said Missy.
Rilla didn’t miss the warning in Missy’s voice. She nodded. “I care about Garth as much as you do, Missy. I’ll be careful.” She shifted her legs around, trying to find a comfortable spot on the seat. There really was a lot more riding on all this than the battle for Ringmaster or whether she was going to get thrown out. People’s lives were at stake.
She comforted herself with the knowledge that if she was wrong, at least Viktor was still working on the new prosthetic, adding his own interpretations into the design. Viktor and his sons were geniuses with engineering, so whatever they came up with would be amazing. Kara would still get something out of spending time with the Carnival, even if it wasn’t the exact fulfillment of her wish.
Missy grabbed Rilla’s hand and squeezed. “Just don’t give up on the Carnival, Rilla. We need you.”
***
Rilla crouched down and considered the car. It belonged to Viktor’s oldest son, Henry. A Dodge Charger—red with black stripes—it was what Viktor’s boys used to impress the local girls.
Nothing. No scratch marks, no missing glass, no nothing. She sighed and moved around to the other side. This was slow work, especially as people kept interrupting them.
“Rilla.” The urgent whisper came from over by the nearest caravan. “Someone’s coming.” Kara was on watch, in case they were caught poking suspiciously around the cars and trucks.
Rilla stepped away from the car and walked back over to Kara. “Remember, I’m just showing you around the Carnival.”
Kara nodded, glancing behind her nervously.
“This is the back of the Boneyard, where we k
eep our vehicles,” she said loudly. “Not everyone needs a car, and they have to be someone who isn’t needed to drive the trucks.” Rilla swept her arm around, taking in the cars in the parking lot.
“How many people are part of the Carnival?” asked Kara, looking over the cars, her eyes twitching toward the figure looming behind them.
“It varies. People come and go in the general jobs, but there’s usually a core of about seventy to eighty people.”
“Wow, I didn’t realize it was so many.”
Rilla nodded. “Many of them are behind the scenes. The big guys who put up and down the tents and the sideshows, people to cook our food, that kind of thing.”
“I suppose I’m just thinking about the people I can see,” said Kara, nodding.
Rilla glanced behind them to see who was heading in their direction. Her shoulders stiffened when she recognized Jack’s long stride. “It’s just Jack. He knows what we’re doing,” she said, squinting her eyes to see the expression on his face.
Kara relaxed, a smile replacing her nervous expression. “We should never become spies,” she said. “We’re terrible.”
“Ha. Speak for yourself,” said Rilla, flicking a smile in Kara’s direction.
They watched as Jack approached—Kara with a friendly grin, Rilla with a scowl. She hadn’t been able to tell Kara about the fractures in the Carnival, but she wasn’t planning to be nice to Jack.
“Hi, Kara, Rilla. How are you both?” He looked behind them into the car lot. “Checking cars?” He smiled at Rilla, but his eyes were guarded.
“Can we help you?” Rilla kept her voice cold.
“I thought I might come and see if you needed any help.”
“That’s very nice—” said Kara.
“But not necessary,” interrupted Rilla.
“It would all go faster with an extra set of hands and eyes,” Jack said carefully.
“We don’t need your help. You’ve got more important things to do than help us.”
“More important things?”
“It’s only three hours until this evening’s performance.”
Jack frowned. “And?”
Rilla turned to Kara, who was watching their conversation closely. “I don’t know if you realized, Kara, but Jack has just taken over as the acting Ringmaster of the Carnival.” She turned back to look at Jack. “Which means he’ll be leading the show tonight and every night until a formal decision is made.”
“What?” Jack looked startled. “I can’t do that. I don’t know how.”
“Well, you better find out real fast. Meanwhile, we have work to do.” Rilla grabbed Kara’s arm and dragged her away from Jack, who stood in the same spot, looking like he’d been hit by a train.
Rilla stalked along the row of cars until they reached the very end. In front of them, Alfie’s old beat-up truck seemed to have been abandoned rather than parked.
“Does it still go, then?” asked Kara.
Rilla pursed her lips, trying to restrain the urge to turn around and see if Jack was still behind them.
“He’s gone,” said Kara with a smile in her voice.
“Don’t you be on his side, because I’m telling you now, it’s the wrong side to be on.” Rilla’s voice was fierce. She turned to frown at where Jack had been standing.
“What on Earth did he do? Last time I saw you, you two were a box of fluffies.”
“He lied to me and went behind my back, just to become Ringmaster.”
“Ouch.” Kara made a face.
“The worst thing is I was about to give it to him anyway, so he didn’t need to be underhanded. He could have just talked to me about it, and I would have let him do what he wanted.”
“But he lied?”
“Yes.” Rilla turned back to Alfie’s tattered truck. It really was a heap.
“He’s got backing from the Nine to be the Ringmaster now, instead of you?” Kara asked tentatively.
Rilla’s gaze flicked to Kara’s face, surprised. How on Earth did she know all that?
Kara smiled. “I listen to what’s going on around me. You guys talk about the Nine all the time.”
Rilla shook her head. “You’re far too smart for your own good.”
“Not smart, just observant. I should have been a journalist,” she said in a light tone.
“Why don’t you? Become a journalist, I mean.” Rilla looked at Kara curiously. She didn’t even know what Kara did for a living.
Kara paused, her mocking expression slipping. “I’ve been stuck in place for so long I don’t know how to move ahead,” she whispered.
Rilla put her arms around Kara’s slim shoulders and hugged her tight. “You can do anything. I can help, if you really want to do something like that. We can look into classes.”
“Funny thing is I always wanted to do journalism. Write for a magazine or newspaper, find stories worth telling.”
“Maybe your first story could be about us? Here at the Carnival?”
“What about?” Kara appeared frightened and intrigued at the same time.
“Your silk ribbon experience?” It wasn’t quite what she had in mind for the show, but if it helped Kara, they could change it.
“I thought it was supposed to be a secret?”
Rilla shrugged. “I don’t think anyone ever believes that. But if we say we picked one lucky local to train with us for the week and then announce the performance will be on our last night, perhaps we can get a bit of publicity out of it.”
“In the local paper?”
“Exactly. Why not?”
Kara went pale. She nodded. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The caravan shuddered as Jack hammered on Rilla’s door. “You have to talk to me. You can’t ignore me forever.”
“Go away, Jack. You’ve done enough.” Rilla lay curled up on her bed, her face crushed into her pillow.
They’d finished systematically checking another three cars—Alfie, Tami, and another of Viktor’s sons were off the hook—and then she’d sent Kara off to talk to the local newspaper editor about their special interest story idea.
She’d arrived back at her lonely caravan to find the remains of the intimate coffee and toast she and Jack had eaten this morning. She couldn’t believe how much had changed since then. It seemed a lifetime ago.
Her father’s picture stared down at her from the wall, and she could swear his large eyes looked wounded. She’d let the family down. The Jolly name would come down off the sign, and the next generation of punters would know it as the Knight Carnival.
They’d probably have to start doing evening-only sessions to live up to the name. Maybe a glow-in-the-dark ride that only let punters see what they could make out from the glowing nightlights. The thought brought back memories of the vicious words that had been painted on the side of Viktor’s ride and sent Rilla crashing down even further.
Jack, the dirty rotten bastard, had duped her. Now here he was, knocking on her door, insisting on coming in.
“I need your help, Rilla. You’re the only one.”
She didn’t bother asking him what he was talking about. There was no one else up to the task of running the evening’s show. It was an oversight, one that should have been remedied long ago. But her father had always seemed larger than life. It had been like having two of another, smaller man around.
“You should have thought of that before you went behind my back.”
“I didn’t go behind your back! Viktor talked to me about it. I can’t help that.”
“You spent the night with me, and then you got out of bed and betrayed me. Just get the hell away from here.” She curled into an even tighter ball.
“Rilla, let me in. We have to talk.” Jack rattled the door. It sounded like he was trying to break the lock, pushing and bashing on the door. The entire caravan rattled and quaked under his frantic actions.
“For goodness sake, stop it.” Rilla sat up and peered out the side window. His expr
ession was grim and he was twitching in agitation. He rattled the door handle again.
She frowned. “Stop it. I’m coming.”
Scooting off her bed, Rilla went to the sink where she splashed cold water over her face. “You’ve got two minutes, and then you can crawl back under your rock,” she said to the closed door.
“Deal,” he replied, his voice bleak.
She opened the door and he tried to step up inside. Rilla stood in his way, barring the entrance and keeping him below her. “Tell me what you want from there,” she said, one arm holding the door firmly against her body.
Jack glanced left and right, looking at the busy thoroughfare. “It would be better to do this inside, Rilla.”
“It would have been even better if you hadn’t gone behind my back. But we don’t always get what we want, now do we?”
Jack sighed, pushing one hand through his hair. “I can’t be the Ringmaster in the ring. I just don’t know how. I need you to take over the performances until I’m at least proficient enough to lead an audience through it all.” He made a grab for her hand, but Rilla snatched it out of his reach in time.
As she scowled down at him, painful emotions made it hard to breathe properly. She’d known he would eventually come to her. There were no other options. She’d envisioned being able to seek a little bit of revenge on him for making her feel this way. She’d planned a nice long scene in which she would string him along until he was well and truly put in his place.
But now that he was here, standing on her doorstep, rumpled and unshaven, she didn’t have the stomach for it. She was tired, bruised, and battered. She just wanted to curl up and nurse her wounds.
“Fine, I’ll do it. Now go. Leave me the hell alone. I have to prepare.” She slammed the door in his face and returned to her bed, falling face-down in the sheets.
She would mope for another half hour and then she’d pick herself up and get on with it.