by A. G. Howard
“Godspeed, little mouse.” Julian nuzzled his warm forehead, tasting the basil-honey soap he’d washed the boy’s face with last night. As soon as the rain let up, Julian sent Newton down the trail, biting his tongue to the point of cutting just to keep from calling him back. Then Julian settled beneath the caged contraption to wait.
The soggy petticoat sagged and touched his head. Reaching beneath the skirt he wore, he nudged the Fontianna brooch within his trouser’s pocket. It was his backup plan. If anything went wrong and he had to bargain for both Willow and Newton, he hoped Sala would be greedy enough to give them over in exchange for the brooch. He doubted the stolen costume would be worth anything to the man unless it were complete. Why else would Sala have gone to such measures to steal back the shoes despite his fear of them?
Julian’s mind muddled. He hadn’t slept any over the past two nights, tortured by images of Willow and where she was, what she was being exposed to. Now the dripping sounds mesmerized him, and he fought against the heavy pull of his eyelids, trying to stay awake.
A cacophony of nervous voices and screams startled him from nearly falling into a doze. Shoving the crinoline off, Julian leapt to his feet. He hesitated, unable to see anything for the hill. He wound the skirt’s long train around his left arm and followed the muddy path around to get a glimpse of what caused the uproar.
He leapt behind a cluster of tall plants with fernlike leaves as a crowd of over thirty actresses in outrageous costumes—poke bonnets with tall feathers pinned in place over bouncing curls, absurdly buoyant bustles and long trains being dragged through the mud, leg-o’-mutton sleeves flapping on the breeze—shuffled across the footbridge. They were all jabbering, even the mimes, some to the point of hysteria as they headed in one universal direction: toward the Ferris wheel.
Lightning flashed to highlight the form of a woman in a pelisse coat and large brimmed hat hanging on the uppermost tension spokes of the wheel, as if she had slipped from the top car. She was at least a good two-hundred feet in the air; one arm flailed—waving for help. Her face couldn’t be seen for the hat, but one thing Julian did see … Nadia’s shoes peeking out just beneath the coat’s hem. The latchets sparkled with each erratic crackle of light across the angry sky.
Two guards rushed by Julian’s leafy hiding place. He stepped out after they cleared the path and glanced numbly over his shoulder at the abandoned Observation Cottage they’d just exited.
A sharp breath pierced his chest upon a dire realization. That was Willow on the wheel—causing a distraction to lure all the guards and guests to the spectacle, so Sala’s troupe could perform their theft. That was why Sala had wanted her, for her acrobatic abilities. Julian tried to contain his terror and rage. Under the best of circumstances, Willow could do this without batting an eye. But there was the weather to contend with. And the lightning…
The rain started up again, cold and pelting on his hair, neck, and the exposed sleeves of his shirt. Forgetting Sala and the theft about to take place at the Japanese Pavilion, Julian sprinted over the bridge, tripping twice on the tangled skirt before he finally tucked the skirt’s hem into its waist to free his feet. At last, he plunged into the midst of the panicked crowd.
Looking up to the heights, he felt as if he’d swallowed a knife. The screams of the surrounding actresses escalated as a smaller form was revealed by lightning: A child had clambered up the spokes toward the trapped woman—progressing slowly but already past the axle’s halfway point, at least one hundred-and-twenty feet high.
“Newton …” Julian choked on the mumbled name.
The mouse’s devotion for both Willow and Nadia’s shoes was so strong he was battling his fear of heights just to get to them. Now both of the people Julian loved and had sworn to protect were in danger. Just behind the boy, another climber moved upward. The sky darkened again and Julian couldn’t make out the third party’s identity through the curtain of rain. But he’d seen enough.
He shouldered his way through the perfume-scented throng.
One of the mimes caught him by his sleeve and regarded his costume. “Wait there! That dress belongs to Iris!”
“And she’ll bloody get it back when I’m done.” Julian broke the woman’s hold, then rushed up the boarding ramp where the guards held one of their cloaks over the engine case to protect it from the rain. They tinkered with the gears, both obviously befuddled.
“Know anything about these?” the skinny one asked Julian before looking up from poking at the mechanism. The man did a double take upon noticing Julian’s effeminate attire and makeup.
Julian brushed him aside. “I do.”
The stocky guard raised his lantern, giving Julian’s appearance a disconcerted once over. “Um … someone’s tampered with it. We can’t get those people down unless—”
Trying to steel his nerves, Julian forced himself to look away from Willow and Newton and squinted in the soft light provided by the lantern. He swept strands of dripping hair off his forehead and leaned over the motor. The end of a wrench stuck out from the interlocked gears—wedged in place. Whoever had arranged this knew what they were doing.
Before Julian could even assess the damage, he caught movement in his peripheral. Several actresses wrestled to detain a scantily-clad woman in pantalets and a corset trying to climb onto the car closest to them. Her gown and stockings lay at her feet in a puddle of silver lace to facilitate her ascent. Julian couldn’t see her face for all of the gaudy hats and plumes blocking his view.
“I must get up there!” she screamed. “This is my fault!”
Recognizing the voice, Julian caught the man’s wrist beside him and directed the light toward the parting actresses. A guard lurched forward to grab the half-naked woman’s bared elbow. “Oh no, there’s already enough people in dire straits. You stay put.”
Julian balked at the sight of her rain-streaked face—beautiful yet frenzied like some wild, caged animal.
“Willomena!” Relief hedged within him. It wasn’t her at the top of the Ferris wheel. He glanced up into the murky sky, baffled now as to who the trapped woman was. “Willow, what in hell is going on?”
Twenty-Four
“Julian?” Willow gasped, honing in on the familiar baritone. She craned her neck to see over the guard wrenching her arm. “Julian!”
She’d finally found him. But too late. It had all went to rot so quickly. “Step off, you codswallop!” She tugged her elbow free from the guard and flung herself into Julian’s embrace as he wove his way through the crowd, burying her face in his clothes. His wet shirt sleeves pleated in her fists. “Why are you here?”
The crowd around them stared, their petty eavesdropping taking precedence over the life and death situation unraveling overhead.
“Where else would I be?” His fingers wove into her hair, holding her against his heartbeat, his touch both rough and tender in the same stroke. “Lord, Willow … I thought that was you up there! We have to get Newton—” His voice broke.
Willow sobbed then pushed away. “You should never have brought him here!” She wiped the blur of rain and tears from her eyes, noticing Julian’s appearance for the first time. “Is - is that makeup on your face?”
His expression cleared, as if he’d been in a daze and had water splashed in his face. Embarrassment reddened his ears as he smoothed the skirt at his waist. His gaze met hers, then their eyes simultaneously lifted again to the dangers overhead. “I never meant for this to happen. Any of it …”
Willow had forgotten she’d taken off her gown to ease her climb until Julian slipped off his basque and covered her drenched corset, lacing the ties in place over her breasts. Next, he took off his trousers from beneath his skirt and helped her into them, one foot at a time, cinching the waist with a long scarf offered by one of the actresses. His body heat transferred with the clothes and warmed her.
“I was just trying to get to you,” he said, an apology grating his voice as he knelt to roll the trousers’ hems into ti
ght cuffs at Willow’s ankles while she tightened the scarf at her waist. “It was the only way I knew to do it. I haven’t eaten or slept for days. I’ve not been thinking straight. I even lost the judge’s investment to come here.” Upon standing, his expression was bewildered; his hair hung in dripping waves around his shoulders making him favor a repentant puppy. The dark circles under his lower lashes went deeper than the makeup painted there, picking up the color of the black skirt around his waist and exacerbating his forlorn image.
In spite of a surge of tenderness, Willow’s temper flared. She pressed toward the Ferris Wheel, intent on finding a way past the guards to Newton’s tiny silhouette. “It was too risky, Julian. If anything happens to him—”
A collective gasp from the actresses joined her own as Newton’s small, dark shadow clung by one hand to the upper middle spokes, only a few dozen feet from Vadette’s shoes.
Willow’s breath coiled like a frightened snake in her lungs, wrapping her screams within it.
“Newton!” Sala yelled from just beneath his son, managing to slide across his spoke to grapple the child around the waist and ease him back into place.
“The third climber is Sala?” Julian delivered the revelation in awed disbelief.
Willow couldn’t answer. Newton had broken away from Sala. Swinging to the next spoke like a practiced monkey, her brother started toward Vadette’s shoes again. Sala followed, robotic and cautious, crying out a prayer in Italian.
“Newton, stop!” Willow screamed—triggering a soul-deep chill that rattled her bones. Sprinkles of rain coated her lips and face. “Stay where you are! I’ll get the shoes and help you down!” Her brother paused. She thrust against the guard closest to her and managed to clasp the car’s cold metal frame and lift herself. The metal chilled her bared feet as she started her climb up the spokes.
The guard tried to force her to the ground but Julian shoved him aside.
“Willow…”
She licked raindrops from her quivering lips, unwilling to lose this family the same way she’d lost the one of her childhood. “I have to save them. That’s my father and brother up there.”
“Your … your what?” Julian’s face grew pale as lighting cracked the sky.
The bolt came close to striking the giant metal wheel and terror burbled up within Willow’s chest. Julian was going to try to stop her. She could feel it. “I have to get to them before the storm does. This is my chance … my one chance to right the mistakes of my past.”
Julian now knew how she’d always felt responsible for her parents’ deaths. But what he didn’t know is how responsible she felt for Newton’s present situation, for she had snuck Vadette’s shoes into the fair. She had tied the pelisse overcoat and hat in place on the spokes along with the Fontianna shoes and dress so the ghostly girl could animate the costume and wave her arm to attract attention once Willow raised the wheel into position. All so Willow could be free to find Newton. She had never, in her wildest imaginings, expected the widget to find Vadette first. Or for Sala to abandon his theft and fear of heights in an effort to save his resurrected son.
Both guards came up behind Julian wielding pistols now. “No you don’t, little miss. You’re staying here. Bad enough if we have three corpses to explain to the boss.”
Willow tightened her grip on the car. Though her teeth chattered from the wet chill of her underclothes and her knees grew weak at the sight of the pistols, she stayed on her perch.
Julian stared up at her; protectiveness, confusion, and sympathy battled within in the depths of his gaze. “Let me go with you.”
Willow shook her head. “You’ll make no headway in that skirt.”
His face fell.
“I go alone,” she murmured. “Don’t worry. I was born to do this.”
Lips tightening, Julian turned to the guards, holding up his hands in submission. “Let her go, damnit. She’s an aerialist. The engine can’t be fixed quickly enough … the chains have come loose due to the wrench in the gears. They weigh a ton. We are the only three able-bodied men here.”
Both men swept their gazes across Julian’s effeminate attire and makeup.
“Able-bodied, you say?” The skinny one asked.
Growling, Julian gestured to the shivering and hunched group of elderly chaperones accompanying the troupes. “More so than them. It would take at least seven stalwart men to heft those chains into place.”
The guards conferred in whispers. The one with the lantern turned and hung it on a post, then aimed his pistol at Julian. “We will send someone to gather horses from the carriages. They can pull the chains into place.”
Willow’s stomach clenched as two chaperones volunteered and slipped from the crowd. She glared upward at Sala and Newton, blinking back tears.
Julian’s hands fisted. “Time is of the essence,” he ground out between gritted teeth. Willow climbed another two spokes, taking advantage of the distraction. “It will take them a half hour to get the horses unhitched and brought here. Then another fifteen minutes to harness them to the chains. Not to mention it takes a full ten minutes for a wheel of that size to make a revolution once the motor is fixed. The lightning is getting worse. Those people are in immediate danger. She”— he glanced at Willow over his shoulder and to his credit, didn’t even bat an eye when he saw her marked progress—“is their only hope.”
The stocky guard stepped forward. “No. It’s our job at stake.” He jerked his wrist, gesturing with the pistol’s barrel for Willow to get down.
Julian’s shoulders tensed, the wet fabric of his shirt showcasing every agitated ripple of muscle. “And here I thought your job was guarding the priceless silk screens that have now been left completely unattended.”
As if just remembering their post, the two men lowered their pistols. Their mouths gaped. They turned tail and sprinted off the ramp toward the Japanese exhibit. The actresses parted for them and the two men vanished into the cove of foliage surrounding the Observation Tower.
Julian turned back to Willow. “Go on.” The worried creases on his forehead filled with rain and reflected the lantern light. Her heart swelled with gratitude.
She glanced to the top of the wheel, dreading the utter blackness of the heights, only able to make out her father and brother in dangerous flashes of lightning. What she wouldn’t give for the gentle, consistent night skies of her childhood spent atop the manor’s starlit tower. Judging by their stiff silhouettes, both Sala and Newton were frozen in place on the bars. Neither one would make it down without her—not with their shared fear of heights. For the first time, she felt a pang of fear for herself. “I-I don’t have my pin-watch. I don’t have my luck.”
A rustle of skirts stirred beneath her as Julian climbed enough spokes to ease his hand into the right pocket of her trousers, fingers scraping across her thigh. Their eyes met, and she thought upon their stolen moments on the ship, hoping they wouldn’t be the final expressions of their love.
“Take this.” He offered what he’d dragged from her pocket: a brooch with a watch’s face.
She recognized it as Louisa’s. Turning it over to the back, she read the etching: Fontianna. It was the final piece to the stolen outfit—the one she ripped off of Louisa.
“Perhaps,” Julian said, “since it’s meant to be with the dress and shoes, it will guide you safely there.”
With a slight nod, Willow pinned it in place above her left breast.
“I love you,” Julian said—voice husky but no hesitation. He caught her lowered hand and kissed it. “I owe you two more recitations today, and three from yesterday. Come back for them.”
She sniffled and nodded.
Red rimmed his eyes, irritated by either the rain or an effort to contain his emotions. He reluctantly released her hand before easing down the spokes.
Taking a deep breath, Willow looked upward, squinting as the rain pelted her face. Then she started her ascent.
She used the flexible cross-spokes of the Ferris whee
l like the rungs of a rope ladder. Years of mastering heights while holding balance came into play, her honed abilities as natural as her lungs’ metered respirations. The muscles in her arms and legs contracted and expanded without strain, a remembered rhythm from a lifetime ago.
Making it past the midpoint’s axle, she heard the dead silence below as her audience stalled their breaths in morbid fascination. Their hushed awe carried her back to her childhood, when Mama would glide through the firmament of the big top—a glittering, glorious bird skimming the sky of an elliptical world—above a crowd of spectators as silent and un-breathing as leafless trees.
Mama had always had a net. Until the one time she didn’t …
Surrounded by the darkness, bleak fear crept up from Willow’s hummingbird tattoo, a flutter of emotion that burned on its journey to her chest. She felt tiny again—no more than a child—climbing head first into a dark bag where terror and confusion waited to shatter her identity.
But she wasn’t a child. She knew who she was, now more than ever before. So, casting the sensation aside, she honed in on the prize: her family—still living, here and now.
The rain started to soften to mist and she could better make out their silhouettes. Newton was perched close to the shoes, and Sala perched several spokes beneath, stalled in his effort to get to his son. His fear of heights had taken over. How Newton had kept going despite his own could be attributed to nothing more than his sheer obsession to get to Vadette … his Nadia. He had no idea that his true sister was below him, trying to make her way up in time. Trying to save his life, just as Vadette once had. Willow prayed for the chance to tell him one day.
She held one hand in place while swiping away the droplets from her lashes with the back of the other, then resumed her climb. Lightning streaked the sky, sending shivers through her spine.
A cold, wet glaze coated the spokes and caused her hands and bared feet to slip in intervals. Each time she grappled to steady herself, the steel cords sliced her skin—already tenderized by over-exposure to the wetness. She had a passing wish that she would’ve had time to wrap her palms with something. Her body continued its advance, gripping one line and then another as if she were a piano-playing automaton moving robotic fingers to the flowing pattern of a pre-programmed melody.