by Sarah Noffke
“I know. It’s pretty impressive,” Dave said, cutting Titus off.
Jasmine was still laughing when Zuma pushed Finley’s arm off her. “Get some manners, would you,” she said, hiding her surprise and covering it with revulsion. Again she thought he was too bold.
“What just happened down here?” Jack asked, strolling urgently from where he had just dismounted the net. He shot a protective stare at Zuma, who was wiping Finley’s sweat off her shoulder where he’d left it.
Finley stared at Zuma with a mischievous expression. “Some people are easily offended.”
“And some people need to learn boundaries,” she said, shooting an angry look at the new member of Vagabond Circus.
“Jack!” Jasmine said, still howling with laugher. “This guy just teleported.”
Jack halted and gauged Finley. “That’s how you closed the distance to complete the quadruple then,” he stated rather than asked, seeming to piece the past events together in his mind. “I had thought I missed something, but it was all too fast.”
“That’s exactly how,” Finley said.
“Wow, that would come in handy for acrobatic skills,” Jack said, seeming to allow himself a moment to marvel in this new member’s skill.
“And he also has super speed,” Dave announced proudly. “That’s another reason he could make those rotations fast enough to complete the quadruple.”
Finley, who always seemed to be only half present even when the conversation concerned him, gazed impassively at the ground. Zuma was grateful that his eyes weren’t focused on her. They did something to her. Affected her, although she wasn’t sure how just yet.
“I want him to be my partner,” Jasmine declared at once, taking the spot next to Finley and looping her arm through his.
He met her gaze with cool eyes and then shook his head at her. “No offense, but I don’t work with anyone as a partner who could break my neck with the same effort it takes to snap their fingers.”
She cinched him in closer. “I see you’ve watched the show.”
“I have,” he said, and swiveled his gaze on Zuma, a heat in his eyes that made her feel suddenly vulnerable. “It’s already been decided who I’ll partner with.”
Zuma shivered, unsure why this guy had this chilling effect on her.
“I promise not to hurt you,” Jasmine said, almost sounding to be begging. “And just imagine the act we could put together, your speed and my strength.”
Dave seemed to be considering this, Zuma could see.
“But Jaz, I thought you were leaving the circus. You won’t have time to put together a new act,” Zuma said and quickly admonished herself for the announcement.
“Z!” Jasmine said in a hiss. “Would you be quiet?”
“Jasmine,” Titus said in surprise. “I didn’t know you were planning to leave.”
“No one knew but my dear friend the blabbermouth,” Jasmine said, glaring at Zuma.
Zuma wasn’t sure why she’d divulged the secret. Is it because I actually want to work with Finley? she thought, the idea sending strange prickles down her spine. He was an amazing flier and the idea of pairing his skills with hers was inspiring. She understood Jasmine’s excitement, although she would never be showing it for Finley.
“Jasmine, you’re not serious? You’re not really thinking of leaving, are you?” the ringmaster asked, his tone filling the young girl’s face with disappointment. No one wanted to disappoint Dave and usually no one ever wanted to leave him.
“I’ve just been throwing around the idea,” she admitted.
No one said a word, they just stared between the ringmaster and Jasmine. Finally she said, “I’m wondering if I’ve outgrown the circus, that’s all. I want more.”
“Are you sure?” Dave said, staring at her, studying her.
“No, I’m not sure, which is why I’m still here,” Jasmine said.
“My little Minnie,” he said, using his sweet nickname for the girl, “stay the season through, will you? Give me that at least.”
She nodded. “I’m not really ready anyway, just toying with the idea.”
“Which is allowed,” Dave said and then spun his gaze back to Finley, who still had his arm locked in Jasmine’s.
“But my newest performer, I really feel is best suited as a partner with Zuma. And it’s the deal Finley and I made,” Dave said.
“You made a deal about who he’d perform with?” Jack asked incredulously.
“I did,” Dave said casually. “He wanted to work with Zuma and I agreed because I think they will make a brilliant act. I can already see the chemistry.”
Zuma dropped her eyes, her chest buzzing suddenly with anxiety. Dave hadn’t just said what she thought she heard? Chemistry? Beside her she felt Jack tense. Zuma couldn’t bear to witness the look of loathing she knew Jack wore right then.
“What about Zuma? Doesn’t she get any say in this?” Jack asked, his voice growing unsteady.
All eyes turned to Zuma. She tried to make her face look like she was considering this ridiculous situation, rather than feeling confused by it. She wouldn’t look weak, especially in front of Finley.
“Zuma,” Dave called to her and she brought her calculating eyes up to meet his. “Are you, after seeing Finley’s skill, amenable to be his partner? It’s your choice, and I won’t force you. You can have the job or I’ll give it to Jasmine.”
If Zuma declined working with Finley then she’d be assigned Jack as a partner. She knew that. Jack knew that. Zuma didn’t need to be in Jack’s head to know what he thought or wanted. She knew what most people in the ring were thinking right now. However, she didn’t know what Finley actually thought. He was as much a mystery to her as she was to him. Nevertheless, his expression seemed to tell her enough. She didn’t look back at Jack but instead allowed her eyes to lock on Finley’s. They did something to her just then. Made her feel stronger than she was, although few were stronger than Zuma, even in Vagabond Circus. “I’m willing to give him a shot,” she said, her voice even, stripped of emotion.
Dave erupted with applause. “Bravo! Then it’s official. You two start practice after lunch. Let’s convene now to discuss logistics, issues, and planning.”
Zuma shifted her gaze to catch the dark expression in Jack’s eyes before he turned and marched away.
Chapter Seventeen
Outside the big top, the circus was buzzing with commotion. Everyone was busy discussing the newbie acrobat. Dave recruited throughout the year, but new performers had to wait until the off-season to be incorporated into the show. Never had an act been added mid-season. The boy had to have an incredible talent to have changed protocol so radically.
The triplets stood in a line, each only a foot from the other. They were practicing outside their trailer, trying their best to ignore the various conversations about Finley. Their act commanded full concentration and without that, fatal injury was the result. Each had six long daggers they were independently juggling from their handles. The rotations sped up until it was a stream of blurs. Then they began walking with measured steps until their line turned into a triangle, each facing one another, still juggling. Before each act, they always had an audience member authenticate that the blades were real and deathly sharp.
The triplets were fifteen. Haady was the oldest by two minutes according to their birth certificate and his brother, Nabhi, was the youngest. Padmal, the middle sister, was only a minute older than him. They knew this information because they broke into the orphanage’s main office and stole their file before they ran away at the age of ten. Padmal cried for a whole day when she read that their mother gave them up, unable to afford three babies. The file also said that their mother confessed that splitting them up by only keeping one would be heartless. So she had the orphanage take all three infants two days after their birth. Moreover, their mother had been adamant that the triplets stay together, which in actuality made it even more difficult for them to ever be adopted.
Padm
al hadn’t thought that it would have been heartless for her mother to keep only one of them. She selfishly wanted to have been that one baby her mother kept. Her brothers took care of her, but she had always wanted a mother. Always. Wanted to have a connection to someone who wasn’t her sibling. Or a boy.
The triplets only made it an hour outside the orphanage before a police officer brought them back. Three Indian children running through the streets of Sacramento at two in the morning were pretty easy to track down once the orphanage reported their disappearance. But a week later a man with a bushy mustache came to the orphanage and adopted them. He and his wife, Fanny, appeared to fall in love with the triplets at first sight. Of course, Dave and Fanny weren’t married but pretended for such occasions. And the pair had quite the knack for convincing busy administrators that they were the perfect family for the children they wanted to adopt. The triplets were then raised under Fanny’s care until at the age of twelve, when they all came into their dream travel gifts. Not only did they all share a birthday, but also the skill of telekinesis.
On cue the triplets widened their triangle and then began passing the daggers among each other. That was the part of the act that always earned gasps from the audience. The act didn’t just depend on their telekinesis but also their unique connection to each other. They knew what one another thought without having Zuma’s gift of telepathy. From that point in the act the handles of the knives didn’t touch any of the six hands of the jugglers. That would have been insane since the blades were traveling at over forty miles per hour. However, that speed granted the illusion that the blades were being juggled from their hands when telekinesis was really the powerhouse of this act. Without a word, each of the triplets slowed the speed of the blades and caught them one at a time. During a show they would hold the blades high above their heads while receiving deafening applause.
The triplets wanted to do that part of the act with sharp, melting icicles, but Dave hadn’t allowed it. Like most acts in the Vagabond Circus, they had to dial it down so it was mostly believable. Too much of the unexplainable earned the Vagabond Circus the wrong kind of attention. Dave didn’t mind his performers being called freaks, but he didn’t want them to be called fraudsters, which is a moniker all too often assigned unbelievable tricks and feats of grandeur.
“Let’s move on to the second act,” Nabhi said, gathering the daggers and putting them in their case.
Padmal consented, trudging over to the case of props, moving reluctantly, as she normally did. She wasn’t just mad that Dave had disallowed them from using icicles in the act, but she was also still resentful that Dave had adopted her in the first place. To everyone’s surprise she had protested the adoption. She wanted to stay at the orphanage, so sure that one day her mother would come for her, when she could afford her only daughter. Her brothers, the administrator, and Dave and Fanny were shocked. Everyone wanted a home.
Finally her brothers convinced Padmal to consent and all these years she’d stayed at Vagabond Circus for them. But there wasn’t one day that she didn’t plot her escape. She didn’t enjoy performing and she made every excuse in her head for why what Dave did to create his circus was wrong. It was child labor. Enslavement. Exploitation. Some saw that he rescued the talented and brought out their potential, but she saw it as preying on the weak and manipulating them.
Chapter Eighteen
Sebastian and Benjamin, two of Fanny’s kids, watched from the sidelines as the triplets practiced. They kept their voices down, knowing that the jugglers needed to concentrate to avoid injury.
“So what do you think the new guy’s gift is?” Benjamin asked, his eyes trained on the knives spinning through the air, the shiny metal of the blades catching the sunlight as they flew.
“Probably mind control,” Sebastian said, blowing out a long breath. “That’s the only way I can imagine Dr. Raydon allowing him in the act.”
“Oh, come on, man,” Benjamin said, throwing a punch into the older boy’s arm. “No one has the skill of mind control.”
“If you know what’s good for you, then you won’t touch me again,” Sebastian said, scowling at the younger boy before fixing his long-sleeved shirt.
Benjamin wasn’t just afraid of Sebastian because he was older than him by a year. Benjamin was afraid of Sebastian because of the cold look the boy wore in his eyes. He’d noticed it when Sebastian arrived a few months ago. But since the girls Fanny also cared for were so much younger than him, he had no one to really play with. So he’d decided to befriend Sebastian. And since then he had been happy to have someone closer to his age in Fanny’s trailer.
Sebastian was mostly all right as far as Benjamin thought. Everyone at Vagabond Circus was hard in their own way and Benjamin would probably have had that hostile look in his eyes too if he grew up on the streets like Sebastian. Benjamin was one of the fortunate ones who Dave found at an orphanage when he was just a toddler. He’d been under Fanny’s care since he could remember and he firmly believed that no one could ever love her like he did. He loved Fanny more than the circus, which was an astronomical amount. Benjamin, unlike Padmal, was truly grateful Dave had adopted him. The circus was his life and one day he’d be like Jack, the star of the circus.
“What do you think your skill will be when you get it?” Benjamin asked.
“I have no idea,” Sebastian said, sounding almost disinterested in the conversation. He watched the triplets as they brought out their props for their second act, bowling balls.
“Well, when do you think you’ll get it? You’ll be twelve sometime soon, eh?” Benjamin said.
“Beats me,” Sebastian said, his eyes focused elsewhere. “I don’t know when my birthday is really. I think it’s in the winter, and I might not even get it when I turn twelve.”
“True,” Benjamin said, chewing on his lip for a second. “Ms. Fanny told me that boys mature slower than girls and sometimes don’t hit puberty until they’re fourteen.”
“Yeah,” Sebastian said, sounding as though he hadn’t really been listening.
“Well, I hope that I don’t have to wait that long. I hope I hit puberty on the early side.”
“Huh?” Sebastian said, looking at Benjamin blankly.
“My gift,” he said, looking at the other boy in surprise. “I hope I get it soon.”
“Oh, dude, stop obsessing over that, would you? Just be a kid,” he said and then walked off back toward the trailer they shared.
Benjamin blinked in surprise. Sebastian always said stuff like that, acting burdened like he had the weight of adult responsibilities on his shoulders. He was always lecturing Benjamin. After a moment, the boy shrugged the thought off and focused back on the triplets juggling bowling balls high above their heads.
Chapter Nineteen
Zuma spent all of lunch trying and failing to locate Jack. She wanted to explain. Explain her decision to him for choosing Finley over him as a partner. Zuma had been afraid to be Jack’s partner in the act. And to avoid her fears she’d consented to be some strange guy’s partner. And yet there was something so persuasive about Finley. She’d noticed it from the first moment she saw him. Little did she know then that she’d be seeing him again or that she would be his partner. And the more she thought about it, as she banged on Jack’s trailer door and searched his usual spots, the more she was strangely excited to see what kind of act she and Finley could put together. His speed and teleporting were astonishing on their own, but paired with her skills they could do something incredible. It was when she started in the direction of the big top that she realized how brilliant Dave had been to pair them up. Their skills would completely complement each other’s. But she was going to have to get past his challenging personality first.
Finley spent all of lunch trying to locate Fanny. He had the perfect way to gain her trust and he wouldn’t even have to scheme to do it. Actually the situation might prove to be a win-win. However, she and her kids weren’t anywhere he knew to look. He watched from the shadow
of Fanny’s trailer as Zuma pounded on Jack’s door. Finley smiled to himself. He had hoped she’d choose him, but had his doubts about it. So when Zuma agreed to be his partner he realized he was finally in the right place and time in his life. For once things were looking up.
Neither Zuma nor Finley had eaten lunch by the time they were scheduled to meet in the big top. During this meeting, Titus had asked that they spend the time alone together getting to know each other’s abilities before he joined them with ideas for their act. Knowing Titus, he already had a dozen ideas which were all good.
Zuma was lying on the practice mat, stretching, when Finley strolled into the tent. He walked by her without even acknowledging her presence. Zuma’s head clouded with both frustration and disbelief. He hadn’t even glanced in her direction. Behind her she could hear him taking off his warm-up suit. Maybe he’s just trying to get ready before talking to me. Maybe he’s actually nervous, she thought. There was no place with more ego and intimidation than the circus on your first day.
She leaned over her straddled legs to deepen the stretch as she focused on his thoughts. Zuma could feel thoughts like people did the wind. She could direct her mind to hone in on a particular person’s thoughts and pull them to her, but she was hitting a wall with Finley. Nothing. Not a hint of a thought.
Most people at Vagabond Circus knew how to keep her out, as Dave taught Dream Travelers multiple shielding techniques for various reasons. He told them that there were people with the same skills as Zuma, but who shouldn’t be trusted with private thoughts and that although he tried to protect them from leeches like that he couldn’t ensure that he’d always be able to.