The Circus Rose

by Betsy Cornwell

They’re going to steal her from us, I thought. And even though Rosie and I have never read each other’s minds in the way people always expect twins to do—our minds work far too differently, hers following some kind of pattern I could never decipher if I tried—I suddenly had the feeling that she was thinking the same thing.

  That the whole troupe was thinking it too.

  Tam walked up, clutching a bowl of the communal stew. Fe straightened fer shoulders and smiled.

  Rosie and I both looked up at fer expectantly. I felt my sister’s excitement on my behalf rising inside of her—I didn’t even have to look, just knew that it was there—and I gingerly pressed my foot down on top of hers, just in case she was planning to say anything unsubtle.

  “Hi, Tam,” she chorused with me instead.

  Our voices are identical, even if the rest of us aren’t. It usually startles people when we speak in unison.

  Tam, though, seemed unruffled, as fe always did. I wondered if part of fer beauty was simply serenity—then thought, No, fe would be beautiful even racked with anxiety. But fer calmness was beguiling when my own mind—and the minds of most people I knew—seemed always to be frantically spinning, always thinking too much. Tam’s gaze was a circle of quiet.

  “Hello,” fe said. “I don’t mean to interrupt, and I’ll go away if you like, but . . . I thought you might want company. Everyone’s watching you.”

  I chanced a look around. It was true; all of the dozens of performers and stagehands at their fires or around the large circle of the central campfire were glancing and murmuring—in the case of the hands—or, if they were performers, outright pointing and staring as they gossiped.

  It was easy to tell, just from that, who made their living backstage and who in front of it. When you’re performing for the back row, you quickly let go of any inborn subtlety—and anyone who likes to perform doesn’t have much of that to begin with.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “It’s the best gossip the family’s had in months,” Rosie said. “Probably years.”

  “Probably ever,” I agreed, pushing down the slight twinge I felt whenever Rosie called the circus troupe family. “There’s never been gossip about Mama before.”

  Tam looked down at fer bowl, and an unbidden, uncomfortable thought crossed my mind: None that we’ve heard.

  “Anyway, no one could have imagined such a thing,” I said quickly. “Everyone knows the story of our fathers and Mama, and everyone knows—”

  My voice hitched so slightly it was impossible that Tam would notice, but Rosie took over for me smoothly, brushing my hand with hers before sweeping it into a dramatic storytelling gesture.

  I smiled gratefully, instructing myself not to paint all performers with such a broad brush—some did know how to be subtle.

  Not that Rosie, of course, was like any other performer I’d ever seen. Or any other person.

  I didn’t always understand her, but I loved her. So much.

  “We’ve never even seen them in the same room before. Mama always said they couldn’t stand each other. It was going to be pistols at dawn for the favor of her hand . . .”

  “So she saved both their lives, and her freedom, and stayed single,” I finished, finding my voice again from listening to Rosie’s. “She started her own circus and told our fathers she’d never marry anyone. And when she found out we were on the way—”

  “Although she only thought she was having one right up until I followed Ivory out—”

  “When the both of us came, and the circus grew up as we did, she became more and more sure every day that this was exactly what was meant for her.”

  Tam smiled. “I like a happy ending. Only . . .” Fe faltered. “Pardon me if this is rude, but something you said seems strange to me. Angela said that if she didn’t marry, she would ‘save her freedom’. What does that mean?”

  Rosie and I looked at each other. “Oh, you know,” she said. “Once you’re married you can’t be with anyone else.”

  “Tam’s Fey,” I reminded her. “Fe’s used to the big friend-families in Faerie, not to couples.” I glanced at the beautiful magician next to me, glad of the excuse to look. “It’s not just that, though. When you marry someone your lives are tied together forever.”

  Tam frowned. “So married people must live together always? They can’t live apart?”

  I looked down at my bowl. I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t feel hungry anymore. “It’s not the way it’s done. Even the king of Esting, with his so unconventional family, shares his table and bed with his two best friends. If it’s not forever, what’s the point of being married at all?”

  “To be a family. To vow your love for someone and to know that you are loved.” Tam nodded at me. “Did you not still have a family, Ivory, in the year you were away at school? And didn’t your mother say she wanted you to go?”

  I looked down at the ground.

  Tam’s hand reached for mine and then dropped.

  “Mama!” Rosie cried next to me, and I was saved from answering.

  Our mother appeared in the ring of light cast by the largest fire. Unnoticed until she wanted to be seen, as always, she nodded and smiled as everyone deluged her with questions.

  When she raised her hands, though, the troupe quieted as one.

  The ringmistress has that effect.

  “I’m glad you’re all so interested in me,” she said, teasing laughter behind every syllable. “For now, though, I’ll keep up my act and continue your suspense a little longer.” Her voice softened. “I’d like to speak to my girls, and then I’ll go to bed. To sleep,” she corrected herself quickly when Vera hooted. “Ivory, Rosie?”

  We stood.

  I walked quickly to Mama and took her hand; I’d heard the weariness and doubt behind the performative gaiety in her voice.

  Rosie had heard it too, but she helped in a different way. She turned and walked backward toward the row of caravans, giving an elegant little curtsey to the watching troupe. “We’ll get the news out of her, honeys, not to worry. And don’t think we don’t know what a party you’ll have once we good children are tucked up with our toy teddy!”

  That got a good laugh. It was true that the grown-up members of the troupe would get up to things once Rosie and I were asleep they didn’t even gossip about.

  But the better joke was what she’d said last.

  No one who’d ever seen Bear could mistake him for a toy.

  * * *

  Bear draped like a shadow over the whole narrow back end of the caravan. His hind legs were tucked against the dresser drawers, the top of his head squashed against the curved wall on the opposite side. In between, his great bulk rose halfway to the rounded ceiling. Dried herbs that kept the air fresh, a few wind chimes, and ribbon charms from Faerie dangled down.

  Bear stirred as we entered, not quite rousing. He opened one eye and saw us, then rumbled in pleasure and lifted a front paw.

  Rosie dove into him, burying herself between those gigantic furred limbs, each paw the size of her head. She acted as if they’d been apart for months instead of hours.

  Bear rested his long chin against her forehead. They both sighed in contentment. My sister looked like a small child again in Bear’s arms, like the children we’d been when Bear walked up to our troupe’s campfire as purposefully as if he’d come there to audition.

  I nestled into him too, leaning against his side, and Rosie draped her legs across my lap. I hadn’t realized I’d grown a bit cold at the campfires—nothing really seemed cold after the month we’d just spent in the air—but now Bear’s warmth radiated through me like a living furnace.

  This was just what I wanted—just us and Bear. Rosie and me and Mama, and Bear loving all of us, Bear keeping all of us warm. We didn’t need anyone else—we didn’t really need the circus even.

  We certainly didn’t need two fathers.

  I couldn’t look up at Mama, couldn’t stand to find out what her face would tell us. Seeing the ring our father
s held up, the matching hope and longing on their faces, had been painful enough.

  “Well, Mama?” Rosie asked, speaking for me, as always, when my voice was gone. “What’s going to happen now?”

  Mama took the ring out of her pocket and held it in her open palm. She turned it over, thoughtfully, and something strange happened.

  The band, which I had thought one solid piece of gold, split in two. The ring was hinged at each side of its stone’s setting—two bands, not just one.

  My inventor’s heart thrilled a little in spite of myself, and I leaned forward.

  “I thought you’d admire it, Ivory,” Mama said, handing the ring to me.

  I turned it over. The setting held a deep red cabochon ruby as smooth and shiny as a drop of blood. The bands were slim and dainty, but I could still see the tiny letters of my father’s initials carved into the inside of one, and Rosie’s father’s in the other.

  I rotated the bands, admiring the delicate work on their hinges. They moved all the way around the stone, and when I joined them together again, I saw that the setting was doubled too; on its other side was a filigree snowflake set with small, perfect diamonds.

  “It’s beautiful, Mama,” I admitted, handing it back.

  “It’s you two, see? The ruby and the diamonds . . . and their promise as good as gold, they said, that they’d never make me choose again. They want us all to be a family: Bram and Tobias and me and both of you. They’d come with us on tour if we wanted them, and when we’re in Esting, we can live at Bram’s estate.” She shook her head, looking down at the ring, her face exactly like someone in an audience who’s not sure if the show is using real magic or tricks.

  Bear grumbled, half growling.

  “What Bear said,” said Rosie.

  I took a deep breath. “I don’t know enough about them to know what I think. It’s—it’s strange. I used to dream . . .” I used to dream of having a father, a real father living with us and loving us, and a home, a place we could always come back to. We both did.

  But Rosie and I had put those dreams away a long time ago, put them so far away that I couldn’t even speak them out loud anymore. When Bear had come to us, I’d buried a lot of my wishes for a big, strong, gentle male presence in his thick, dark fur.

  I don’t know what Rosie did with her dreams. I’ve always known Bear meant something else to her than he did to me.

  “I know, darling,” Mama said, stroking my hair. “I haven’t decided anything, and I want to be very clear about that with you girls. I told them I need time to think before I’ll even know what questions I want to ask . . . I made them promise not to come to opening night, to give me a little space. We’ve all . . . changed, so much, in these many years. I’ll have to get to know your fathers again before I can make any decisions. They hurt me very much once, and I . . . I hurt them.”

  Rosie and I didn’t look at each other, didn’t even move, but I felt our matched surprise. Mama had never said before that she’d hurt them, the distant fathers we’d seen so few times in our lives. They had hurt her so much, we’d always known, that she couldn’t even bear to bring us to meet them when we were in Port’s End before. Vera or Toro or Apple had always taken us, and Mama had never asked a single question about our fathers when we returned—how they were doing, how they looked, what they said. It hurt us both in different ways, I think, Rosie and me. Not to be able to talk to the mother we loved about the fathers we barely knew. But as far back as I can remember, we both wanted to take care of Mama—and we had each other to talk to. So we didn’t press her about it.

  Mama shook her head as if trying to clear her mind. “But none of the ways we hurt each other matter as much as you do. You two are my family first and forever. We are what’s real.” She took a breath. “The circus is forever for me too. But if they’re only looking for third billing, well . . . I wonder.”

  “Can you even love them again, Mama?” Rosie asked, stealing the words from my own lips. I wanted to add: Can we? Can Rosie and I ever love these men we barely know?

  But I was too afraid of learning the answer to ask that question out loud.

  Mama moved the ring between her fingers, the stones sparkling white and red. She closed her eyes for a long moment and then looked at the two of us, at Bear, and around at our small caravan.

  “Never as much as I love you,” she said.

  Rosie

  The human heart

  is a resilient beast.

  Ivory

  I was awake in the cold, blue half-light before dawn the next day, swallowing coffee brewed in the ashy coals of last night’s campfire with the rest of the stage crew, starting work on all the innumerable tasks of an opening day. I was glad of the eye-wateringly early rise, the rush of hard physical work. They helped to keep fathers far from my mind.

  I was itching to start on the new props I was designing. Those would have to wait, though, until the tents and vending booths were set up, the sawdust laid down, the mirrors polished, the smoke machines cranked, and the footlights hooked up to the gas supply—not to mention the huge cauldrons of kettle corn popped, Fey floss spun, sausages roasted, and caramel apples dipped. I never got to do my own work on an opening day.

  Toro also wanted about a thousand posters distributed all over Port’s End. He’d been working through the night already; you could always tell that from the way the tattooed stars under his eyes drooped into dead leaves. Not that much of his face was visible at all behind his helmet of magically contained pipe smoke, but I could see enough to tell that he was in no mood for trifling.

  He managed to catch me in the one half moment—just half of one, I swear—in which I’d forgotten my duty and was standing, empty sawdust sack in hand, at the edge of the ring, watching Bonnie stretch and Tam practice fer opening illusion, a rose of white light blossoming between fer hands.

  “Make yourself useful, missy, and stop gawping,” Toro said, poking me sharply in the leg. He reached up to hand me a heavy stack of posters. “We need these hung in every neighborhood in Port’s End before lunchtime, well before!”

  I shook myself. “No problem.” I draped the empty sack over my shoulder, took the colorful papers, and leafed through them, trying to hide my embarrassment that Toro had caught me “gawping.”

  Rosie took up the top half of the poster, arching through the air as she reached for her trapeze. Bear reared underneath her, jaws open, looking far more menacing in the drawing than he ever did in life, even during the show—it was obvious to anyone watching that Bear was a gentle beast who loved the limelight as much as Rosie did.

  But Mama always says you fill more seats with a little fear.

  THE ROSE OF THE CIRCUS ROSE, said curly letters above Rosie, AND HER TERRIFYING BEAR. SEE THEM NOW, BEFORE BEAST CONSUMES BEAUTY!

  Smaller portraits dotted the sides of the poster:

  VERA THE UNTAMED—here was Vera, barely dressed in a few scraps of tiger-striped satin, flexing her muscles and looking ferocious—

  ILLUSIONS FROM THE NEW WORLD—Tam holding a ball of light, gazing out from fer portrait with sweetly serious intensity—

  A NORDSK GIANT WHO COULD CRUSH YOU UNDER HIS FEET—Comically, just a drawing of a torso—

  ACROBATS, CONTORTIONISTS & CLOWNS BY THE DOZEN—Toro turning a cartwheel and lead contortionist Bonnie in a back bend, with the outlines of many more figures behind them—

  & THE WORLD’S MOST GORGEOUS DANCERS—a line of high-kicking, stockinged legs, cut off at the thigh, just so that they might seem to belong to women—

  I laughed out loud. “Toro, you’ve outdone yourself with this one. Every soul in Port’s End will find something to attract them here.”

  “Mm, won’t they just?” said Bonnie, grinning at me with her head upside down between her calves.

  Vera, who was spotting Bonnie as she stretched, winked. “Why don’t you take Tam with you? A little magic would help get those posters up lickety-split, I’d imagine.”

  I glared at
her, resenting her blatant matchmaking even as some tiny part of me squirmed with gratitude. “I’m sure Tam has plenty of rehearsing left to do—”

  “I’d love to come,” Tam said. I looked over as fe doused the glowing rose between fer palms. “I’ve seen hardly anything of Esting yet, and that’s half the reason I signed on for this season. Would it be all right, Ivory, if I came?”

  Fixed with Tam’s stunning gaze, there was nothing I could do but nod.

  * * *

  We covered the blocks surrounding Carter Park within an hour; Vera had been right about magic making it easy. Tam harnessed the breezes coming off the ocean, led them up the hot narrow streets, and used them to fly the papers to better vantage points than I, or even fe, could reach.

  As we ventured farther into the city, I was glad of the chance to show off Port’s End as well—at least, what I was able to remember from the scattering of times we’d lived here, in what Mama had called the “off-seasons,” between the circus’s tours. That had always been late fall and winter, though, bleak seasons for this coastal city.

  Now Port’s End was a riot of springtime; pale young ivy slithered up walls like snakes, hydrangeas and lilacs foamed over gates and gardens, and the air felt sweet and bright and wide open in a way it never had in the Port’s End winters I’d seen.

  “Even the sky looked smaller in the off-seasons . . . Mama called them the ‘off-seasons,’ anyway,” I said to Tam as we walked down one crowded lane. “They hardly came every year, though. A few weeks every three or four years, if that. Otherwise, we’ve always been on the road, ever since we were babies. Mama rarely feels secure enough to stop working.”

  “That must have been hard on you.”

  I shrugged. “Hunger would have been harder. And Mama never worked us hard. It’s just that Rosie and I both happened to grow up wanting to work in the circus too.”

  “Did you?” Fe looked at me, steady and serious. “It’s just sometimes, the way you talk about your year at school . . . well, it seems you’d rather be back there, studying, than working the stage.”