by Ioana Visan
Sometimes, a random move misfired and pain shot up her arm, making her scream. No one came running to check on her. She had to remind herself this wasn’t a hospital with a flock of nurses waiting at her beck and call. It was a train car parked at the end of a railway track, and it had soundproofed walls. She could scream as much as she liked without anyone bothering her. But even the pain was good if it kept her from thinking about Mom and Dad. She only wished they had removed the sheet that hid her limbs from sight, firmly convinced she would be more successful if she saw what she was doing.
“You’re not doing it right.”
Aurore’s head snapped up and turned in the direction where the voice had come from. Focused on the activity on the screens, she hadn’t paid attention to the door.
A skinny little girl, not older than eight perhaps, stood in the doorway. Green eyes watched her from a tanned face surrounded by unruly, sandy-blonde hair.
“What are you doing here?” Aurore asked, recognizing her from the show footage playing in the corner of a screen. She sang each night, though Aurore had never heard her voice due to the audio being muted. “Shouldn’t you be on the stage?”
“I have a sore throat. They’re playing a recording today. It’s not the same, but it will do.” She walked into the room and looked at the monitors. “I’m Cielo.”
“Aurore…”
“I know.” Cielo walked around the room, humming quietly to herself. A sea of calm spread through Aurore’s veins. “Your family is paying for a new car.”
Aurore hadn’t known that, though she imagined some kind of payment had to be made. The effort Uncle Tem put into helping her was hard to ignore, but there were moments when she still hated him for what they had done to her. Brief moments, like late at night when she lay alone in bed with only the images on the screens for company. Aunt Olivia never visited her because she was scared of clowns, but Aurore forgave her.
“Careful with that—” she said when Cielo approached a spine prototype resting on a table. She’d witnessed a lab assistant knocking it over by mistake then cursing for two whole hours while putting the vertebrae back together.
“Don’t worry,” Cielo said, holding her hands to herself. “I’ve been here before. I know my way around the factory.”
Aurore was getting tired of being told not to worry, but if Cielo broke something, it wouldn’t be her fault. She could certainly not stop her since she was so numbed from the neck down she could barely breathe.
“Everyone’s talking about you, you know?” Cielo turned to face her, her hands clasped behind her back. “They think you’re very brave.”
Or stupid. But it was out of her hands, literally since she didn’t have any. Under the cover, her fingers twitched as if trying to prove her wrong.
“May I…?” Before finishing the sentence, Cielo lifted a corner of the sheet and peeked underneath. “Wow. Where’s the skin?”
“I assume they’ll add it later. Will you—”
“No. Big Dino said you don’t need to see this.” Cielo shook her head. “You don’t want to upset Big Dino.”
“Why? What can he do?” Aurore huffed, frustrated.
“He can take them away,” Cielo said matter-of-factly and dropped the sheet. She turned her attention back to the screens. “Are you doing your exercises?”
“I’m trying.” Aurore let out a strangled laugh. It wasn’t the same as succeeding.
“Show me.”
Aurore arched an eyebrow at the commanding tone, but amusing her helped kill time, and it was exercising. She moved her index then her middle finger. The wrist of her left hand did a clumsy rotation but failed to make a fist.
“Hmm. I told you you’re doing it wrong.”
“How so?” Aurore asked.
“You’re trying to move that hand.” Cielo pointed at the screen. “You should be moving that one.” Her chin turned to the sheet.
“But I need to see what I’m doing,” Aurore said. “The sensitivity isn’t working that great yet. If I don’t see them, I can’t be sure they moved at all.”
“Can you see your lungs?”
“No…?”
“And still you’re breathing just fine, even when you sleep,” Cielo said. “They’re part of you. It’s the same with the prosthetics. They’ll do what they’re told because that’s their job. So, forget seeing. Trust that the prosthetics are good and tell them what to do.”
Aurore rolled her eyes at the lecture but turned her gaze from the screens. Without putting much hope into it, she began playing Fur Elise.
Soon, Cielo was humming along and only stopped to say, “You missed a note.”
“It’s been a while,” Aurore said. On the screen, her fingers tapped on the armrests like a virtuoso. “How did you know?”
“Music is what I do.”
“No, I meant how did you know it would work on me?”
“I’ve coached people before.” Cielo shrugged. “It’s not much different from what I do every day.”
Aurore wanted to ask her what that was, but a flash of pain made her clench her jaw to prevent the scream from scaring Cielo.
“Does it hurt?” Cielo asked.
“Some … times,” Aurore said between gritted teeth.
“Do you want me to sing for you?” Cielo brought a stool next to her chair.
“I thought your throat hurt.”
“Not that much.” Cielo grinned. “It’s hard to sing for so many people every night, especially when we stay so long in one town, but singing for one person … it’s like singing to myself.”
She sat on the stool, hands folded in her lap. When she sang, Cielo used no words. The notes coursed through Aurore’s brain, easing the pain and strengthening her confidence in herself while she did her exercises.
“Tomorrow, I’ll bring a deck of cards so we can play,” Cielo said before leaving that night.
Aurore had no idea how that was going to work out, but for once, she looked forward to the challenge.
* * *
“What is it? I got your message. What happened?” Uncle Tem rushed into the factory half an hour after a clown had been sent to deliver a handwritten note.
Aurore pictured Jacko the clown strolling in his brightly colorful jacket through the corridors of City Hall, looking for the mayor, but it couldn’t be helped. The circus was shielded against any type of phone access, and Aurore hadn’t dared to ask Big Dino for access to his private line. In fact, she had worked behind his back on this one, and while she was a little worried, she didn’t regret it. It had to be done. People didn’t let their friends suffer if they could prevent it, or at least they shouldn’t.
“I want to go home.” Aurore stepped away from the monitor where she watched the activity from outside and walked gracefully across the lacquered floor. Since it was early morning, her strength wasn’t affected by the use of prosthetics. Uncle Tem rarely saw her at the end of the day when she could barely move because of exhaustion.
“They’re still working on a smaller power source,” Uncle Tem said. “You’re not ready to leave yet.”
“Yes, I am. I can move, and it doesn’t hurt anymore. I’ll work on it, and in time, I’ll get stronger. The weight will quit bothering me. It will be fine.”
Uncle Tem’s furrowed eyebrows disagreed. “Sweetheart, what happened? Why do you want to leave?”
“Because it’s time. These—” Aurore held up both hands. While inside, she wasn’t wearing any gloves. “—won’t go away. It’s time for me to stop hiding and face the world.”
She didn’t believe any of it, but these were all words Uncle Tem needed to hear. It didn’t cost her anything to say them, and it wouldn’t be the first time she lied. She hadn’t wanted to lose her arms and legs, she hadn’t wanted the prosthetics, and she had most definitely hadn’t wanted to live after her parents’ death. But time had passed, and things had changed. She needed to stop being selfish.
“Oh, sweetheart … of course, Olivia and I would
be happy to have you home, but…” Uncle Tem rubbed his face, clearly overwhelmed by the situation. He knew nothing about raising a child, especially one burdened with the emotional and physical problems she had. “I don’t know…”
“I’ll go to the stupid party!” Aurore snapped.
Uncle Tem stared at her, taken aback by her outburst. Aurore’s sweet sixteen party had never been officially canceled, but no one in their right mind still expected her to attend.
“Is this because of last night?” Big Dino’s voice coming from the corridor startled both of them.
Uncle Tem’s eyes narrowed. “What happened last night?”
“Nothing to concern you with, Mr. Mayor,” Big Dino said, eyeing Aurore.
She held her chin up. “It is time for me to go.”
“Yes. It is,” Big Dino said pensively, stressing every word. “We should have left long ago. But…” He turned to Uncle Tem. “Just like you wanted her to be perfect, so did I. This is my best work so far, and it will remain so for quite some time. Unfortunately, it’s not finished yet. You understand my reluctance to part ways. However, Miss Aurore is right. It’s time.” Big Dino’s heavy head lowered as much as his short neck allowed then it rose back up. “So, to make everyone happy, I will provide you with a different power source. It’s not portable, not in the way she needs it, and you won’t find anything like it on the market, legit or not, so you need to keep it hidden. Can you do that?”
“If it’s hidden, how does it work then?” Uncle Tem asked.
“You don’t need to bother yourself with the mechanics.” Big Dino waved a hand. “It’s foreign technology. All you need to know is it will power the prosthetics from a distance, within a hundred-kilometer radius, and it won’t run out of juice, not in her lifetime.”
Uncle Tem needed a moment to absorb all that before nodding. “In that case, I know just the place for it.”
“Good. I’ll need a couple of hours to make the adjustments, but after that, you can go. You can use the time to finish the payment. It just increased by half.”
Aurore winced but didn’t cower. The memories of Cielo being abducted in the middle of the night by those thugs and her sobs when she returned hours later, all because the circus had stayed in one place for too long and people got greedy, were too much to bear.
“Leave us to do our job now,” Big Dino ordered.
* * *
Three months had passed since the attack, but to Aurore, they felt like years. She was a different person. She’d cut her hair to below shoulder level and lightened it up even more to match the golden glow of her prosthetics. Whenever possible, she refused to wear gloves, though she’d grown fonder of pants rather than dresses for convenience. But these changes were only on the outside. On the inside, she’d become harder, like a rock.
Aurore touched the leaf-shaped pendant lying at the base of her neck—a present from Aunt Olivia to wear for her sweet sixteen party. The stone was colder than her hands. She held them up in front of her, still not used to the new look. The golden skin glowed faintly through the sheer fabric of the gloves. She was making a concession for Aunt Olivia’s sake. The long, white dress hid her legs, though golden toes peeped through the sandals when she walked, and the gloves covered her arms, especially the parts where the prosthetics came in contact with the flesh. A simple touch would not reveal any difference. She wasn’t planning on touching anyone, and dancing was out of the question.
But there would be music, and dancing, and people partying inside the Hrad tonight. The guests had already arrived and were waiting for her to come down the stairs leading to the main hall of the castle. Then the gossip would start. They most likely wondered where she had been all summer and who had fixed her. Aurore couldn’t have answered if asked. Her memories regarding her stay with the circus were hazy at best. Despite the lack of focus, she remembered agreeing when Big Dino told her it was better this way. He’d also said he left her a present to make up for the loss of memories, one that she could unwrap in a few years if she wanted to.
Aurore glanced nervously along the corridor. He’d left it inside the Hrad, for safekeeping, along with the power source. But now, it wasn’t the right time for discoveries. It was too soon, and she had to face the wolves first.
She drew in a deep breath, and with a royal walk, she stepped on the top landing. Someone announced her name. The murmurs died down, and people stared. When Uncle Tem came to the bottom of the stairs and held out his hand for her to come and join him, Aurore walked serenely down the steps. Nothing could hurt her now. But she’d never be whole again.
Not ready to part with The Nightingale Circus yet?
Check out Broken People!
You don’t always get what you want, but if you’re lucky, you might get what you need.
For one week only, an impenetrable castle is open to the public, and Dale Armstrong has come to Bratislava to rob it. When he finds his partner’s arms mangled, he desperately searches for a way to fix him before time runs out.
Because the war in the Far East is sapping all the allied nation’s resources, only The Nightingale Circus has the spare parts, the power, and the expertise to fix prosthetics and help the injured, but nothing is free.
Unfortunately, Dale doesn't know about The Nightingale Circus’s side job, but a forced encounter with the most dangerous woman in the city, the Golden Lady, sends him their way. On this roller coaster of crazy twists and flips, schemes and deceit, wishes and dreams, no one can foresee how the aerialist will land.
Anything is possible in a world of Broken People.
Acknowledgements
I was in the middle of writing Broken People, but the winter holidays got in the way, and when they ended, it was hard to get back to writing. The novel had taken an unexpected turn, so I started to think about my characters, who they were and what they wanted for real. I had the first three short stories written in no time.
After that, I returned to the novel and finished it, but I kept adding one short story per month just for fun. I guess I had a hard time letting go of the characters, too. And so I ended up with a short story collection aside from the novel.
If you read The Nightingale Circus first, know that all these characters return in Broken People and work together on a big heist.
As usual, many thanks go to my critique partners, Ardyth, Cam, Ek89027, Jkang, Larrue, Pranabow, Rellrod, Sarahbeth, and Xc0000005, my proofreader, Wendy Chan, and my illustrator, Cristina Birtea.
Thank you to my readers and reviewers, too.
And let’s not forget Mom, Dad, little brother, grandma, and the cat!
All right, see you in the next book!
About the Author
Award-winning writer Ioana Visan has always dreamed about reaching the stars, but since she can't, she writes about it.
After fighting the apocalypse aftermath in "Human Instincts", she played with shapeshifters in “Blue Moon Café Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks”, she dealt with vampires in “The Impaler Legacy” series, and then she designed prosthetics in “Broken People” before tackling longer works like a fantasy trilogy and a science fiction series.
Aside from publishing short stories in various Romanian magazines and anthologies, she published a Romanian short story collection “Efectul de nautil” and the Romanian edition of “Human Instincts”.
She received the Encouragement Award from The European Science Fiction Society at Eurocon 2013.
For more information, go to
http://www.ioanavisan.tk
Connect with Ioana online
Blog:
http://weirdvision2001.blogspot.com
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorIoanaVisan
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/weirdvision
Books by Ioana Visan
ENGLISH BOOKS
Human Instincts
Blue Moon Café Series:
Where Shifters Meet for Drinks
T
he Impaler Legacy Series:
The Impaler’s Revenge
Sweet Surrender
A Victory that Counts
Casualties of War
Order Restored
The Third Wheel
The Impaler Legacy Omnibus
Broken People Series:
The Nightingale Circus
Broken People
ROMANIAN BOOKS
Efectul de nautil
Instincte umane
ROMANIAN ANTHOLOGIES
Dansînd pe Marte şi alte povestiri fantastice
Steampunk: A doua revoluţie
Venus – povestiri erotice science fiction
Cele 1001 de scorneli ale Moşului SF
Zombii: Cartea morţilor vii
Călătorii în timp. Antologie de povestiri SF
Ferestrele timpului. Antologie de ficţiuni speculative
Bumerangul lui Zeeler. Antologie Gazeta SF 2014
Best of Mystery & Horror #1 - Revista de suspans