by Lan Chan
Aurora Gray: Wind Dancer
I swivel anxiously, hoping to see a familiar face even though I know everyone who was once part of my circus family is long gone. Long dead, if what Felicity told me on the night of Papa and Portia’s wedding is true. I have no reason to doubt it. The only person who catches my eye is Gloria. Her white coat is so out of place in this multicoloured theatre, but the smile she gives me is warm, and she’s so beautiful it probably never matters what she’s wearing.
I think I see her mouth “Good luck,” but then the stagehand dumps the white box in my arms and pushes me into the dressing room. “Two minutes,” he says. Then he shuts the door and I’m alone. The room is small, much smaller than my old changing room, but I guess they can’t waste the best room on a recently unproven performer. In an intricate crystal vase on the dressing table are a dozen crisp grey roses the Seeders named Wind Dancer in my honour. They permeate a sickly sweet scent into the already mouldy air. I don’t need to read the card sticking out from the vase to know it was Harlan who sent them.
The drum of applause filters through the wall. I catch sight of myself in the mirror of the dressing table. My eyes are white rimmed and my lips drawn into a pucker. I know the routine well enough to know if I’m not ready in two minutes, they will open the door and drag me out half naked without even a blink of an eye.
I undo the grey satin bow and pause for a second to let my hands steady themselves. Then I lift the lid and push back the layers of tissue paper to reveal my costume. A thrill runs up my spine even as a weight settles in my stomach. I get an urge to go to the bathroom, but I know is just my gut reaction to the spike in my anxiety levels.
I undress in record time and squeeze myself into the costume of sheer tights and silver leotard with a sky-blue skirt. Two pieces of sky-blue silk have been attached to the straps at my shoulders, and they flap and dance in the wind as I move. This costume leaves nothing to the imagination and there is nowhere for me to hide a weapon. I glance again at the mirror, and though I’m now dressed, I don’t feel the same sense of giddy anticipation I used to. As a child, I could still bury the Seeder threat behind the joy of flying through the air. Now I know too much.
As promised, when two minutes have passed, the door opens and the same stagehand bustles me from the dressing rooms to have my hair and makeup done. Gloria and Vargas are nowhere in sight, but I doubt I would see them in this chaos of mirrors, stagehands, and artists. The girl who does my hair and makeup is playing with a tablet when I sit down in front of her. It’s only when she sets it down in its dock on the dressing table and my picture flashes on the screen that I see what she’s been doing. She’s brought up a picture of me from six years ago. They want me to look exactly like I did then.
Halfway through preparation, a waspish man in a multicoloured striped coat approaches. “Hair all down, I think,” he says. He pulls on his handlebar moustache, and I know I’m looking at the ringmaster before he introduces himself.
“Crispin Dash at your service, my dear. Lovely to meet you. It’s not every day one gets to meet such a star”—he pauses for effect—“unless you’re me!” He bursts into cheesy laughter. The girl who does my makeup rolls her eyes. She scoops up a wad of foam and lathers it through my wavy hair to create the illusion of volume.
“All right, that’s enough,” Crispin says. “No time to spare.” Just as he says the words, a voice on the loudspeaker fills the centre.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. The show is about to begin.”
Twenty-Six
I’m going to faint. There’s not enough air backstage. Crispin dumps me in the wings amongst a gaggle of other performers with just one piece of advice.
“Be yourself,” he says.
What’s that supposed to mean? What do I do? Normally the circus puts on a show once a week during the summer social season, but only after months of gruelling practice. How can they expect me to perform with no notice? I think to ask some of the girls around me, but they’re more interested in themselves, and one of them shushes me.
A stagehand slips a cordless earpiece around my right ear. All I can do is stand there peeling the skin on my cuticles raw and wait for some cue that will tell me I should go onstage.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Circus of the Earth and Sky! And now, without further ado, the Citadel is proud to present a preview of what will be our most spectacular show ever!” The crowd breaks out into raucous applause, and Crispin runs on stage, bowing profusely. I have no idea what Crispin says because my ears are filled with the thunderous drumming of my pulse. The lights are hotter than I remember, and they make it impossible to see anyone in the audience.
Dimly, I register Crispin calling out a name. The crowd claps and a little girl, about six years old, jogs from stage left into the spotlight. She is adorable in every sense of the word, from her tightly wound black ringlets to the two bulging apples of her cheeks. Her costume is a green leotard with a pair of fairy wings strapped to her back. The green is a nice contrast to her chocolate-brown skin, and though she smiles brightly, I can see her lips quiver. I think of myself at her age and imagine that I was exactly the same during my first performance.
Crispin continues to call out names, and one by one, the performers around me and the ones waiting in the other wing make their entrances on stage. There are about twelve of them. Most I’ve never seen before, but some I recognise from years ago. They all line up against the curtain, concealing the rest of the stage once their moment in the spotlight is over. It strikes me how uniform their physiques are despite the myriad of colours and costumes they’re wearing. Their ages range from about six to nineteen, and all are similar in height, depending on how old they are. The younger ones still carry small traces of baby fat, but I have no doubt when they get older their bodies will set into the gamine grace of the older performers.
I look down at my own body and cringe. Thanks to my mother, I’m slightly shorter than the girls my age, and not being on the right diet for the last six years has given me definition in some of the wrong places. I push the insecurities aside. Nothing I can do about them now. I’m the last one in the right wing and expect Crispin to call on me next, but then he says a name that sends a spike of anger through my rapidly beating heart.
“Skylar Devereux!”
The crowd roars as a girl in a black leotard and yellow skirt pirouettes across the stage. When she reaches my wing, she twists and does a series of back flips onto centre stage. Then she throws her arms up into the air.
“Skylark! Skylark! Skylark!” The crowd chants her stage name with the same fervour they used to chant mine. Skylar blows kisses to them. How did I forget about her? Watching her prance on stage for much longer than she should drives away my nerves and replaces them with revulsion. Would they cheer for her if they knew how she gets to be the star of every show? Does she still play the same tricks she used to on her fellow performers? The wide berth she gets when she finally decides to line up tells me she does.
Then suddenly, I’m blinded as the spotlight illuminates the wing. I throw up a hand to shield my eyes. All other lights in the arena turn off except for a small one aimed at Crispin. A drum beats and builds momentum into a steady roll.
“And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. She captured our hearts with her gravity-defying feats of flight. After six years’ absence, let’s welcome back to the Citadel, the one and only Aurora Gray!”
You can hear a pin drop. I exhale deeply and plaster a smile onto my face as waves of anxiety slam back into place. How am I going to top Skylar’s entrance without anything planned? I’ve waited too long and am just about to walk on stage when a steady wind whips through the stadium. The audience begins to murmur in excitement. A ring trapeze that’s big enough for me to stand in lowers from the ceiling. I don’t hesitate and step on, using my arms and bare feet for balance.
The ring carries me all the way to the ceiling and the spotlight follows. Hundreds of twinkling stars
in the audience tell me I’m being recorded live. In the upper tiers of the stadium are two big jumbo screens that project my face to the crowd farthest away. It’s a full house tonight.
I’m unsure what to do, but I know not to let on to the audience. How am I going to get down from here? They can’t expect me to jump from this height without a net and nothing else to cling to? I’ll die for sure. And then the wind picks up so it’s more of a gale. My costume blows around to full effect. The other performers fall to their knees and hold on to each other so they won’t be blasted away.
Now I see what they want me to do. They want me to jump into the wind. I look to Crispin, who has retreated to the wing, and he makes two upwards motions with his arms. The universal performers’ code for play it up for the crowd. I nod and cling to the ring as though I’m afraid. It’s not all an act. I put one hand to my heart as the trapeze starts to swing from one side of the stage to the other. The earpiece crackles and Crispin’s voice rings over the powerful wind.
“Send them a little message,” he says. I know exactly what he wants me to say. I’ve said it hundreds of times before. Suddenly, everything else in the world falls away; all I can see is the drop before me, and all I can feel is the wind around me. My heart thuds, but this time with barely contained excitement. This is what I was born to do.
When the trapeze has gained enough momentum, I throw out both my arms as if pleading to the crowd. “Will you catch me if I fall?” I say. The earpiece must have a microphone, because my words are amplified throughout the stadium.
The crowd inhales as I jump.
The wind whips all around me and in circular motions. I realise there are powerful machines below the stage and on either side. I let the air carry me down, and then midway through, I flip backwards so I’m no longer falling headfirst. I throw my arms out to either side but keep my legs together, and the wind spins me in circular motions in the middle of the stage. I am levitating in midair. The smile I see on my face in the jumbo screen is genuine and infectious. The crowd loses their minds. They stomp and applaud and some of them rush the stage even against the wind.
Then slowly, the torrent of air dies down and shutters close over the stage floor one by one. I’m lowered to my feet in one piece. Even though the noise from the wind is gone, I can’t hear myself think over the crowd. They’ve gone insane with excitement, and it’s my name they’re chanting now.
“Wind Dancer! Wind Dancer!”
I take a bow and the curtain comes down. Crispin is there in an instant.
“Spectacular, my dear. Simply marvellous. Take a little break. We won’t need you again for a little while. Howie will get you anything you need.” He points to the stagehand that showed me to my dressing room. Over Crispin’s shoulder, I see Skylar exchange hushed whispers with some of the older performers. If looks were poison, I would be dead.
Then they head out a door marked “Exit.” I prefer to stay in the wing to observe the show. I sit with my back against the wall as Crispin introduces a number of the usual circus acts, from a strong man to a pair of redhead twins who swallow fiery swords. Halfway through, I notice someone is sitting beside me.
I turn my head and there’s the little girl with the green wings. I can’t recall her name. She appears so much younger offstage.
“I’m new too,” she says. Her lips pull into a lonely smile that breaks my heart. That one sentence speaks volumes. I remember the ever-present fear in the first weeks I joined the circus. Luckily for me, the other performers, then a much older group, took me in. I had Aiden and Gideon to temper my loneliness.
I reach out to pat her hand, but she takes it as an open invitation and scoots right up beside me so our sides are touching. I sigh and put my arm around her even though I know it’s not good for her to be associated with me in any way. The girl rests her head on my knee and closes her eyes. I go back to watching as a pretty blond girl in a glittery leotard and white knee-high boots throws knives at targets between the appendages of an audience member.
The other aerialists return just as the blonde is taking a bow. The little girl stirs, and when she realises what time it is, she jolts upright and starts to shake.
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
“It’s time,” she says. Then she dashes off.
“Making friends with riffraff again, Aurora?” I hear Skylar say behind me. Some of the others with her snicker.
“If I did, then we’d be friends, wouldn’t we?” I say automatically. I don’t hear if she responds because my attention is caught by the stage opening up again. A large circular section of the wooden stage retracts to reveal a black metal plate with a dozen silver discs like polka dots dispersed at equal distances inside it.
“Places, people,” Crispin’s voice says through the earpiece. The real Crispin sidles up to me and takes my elbow. He leads me out and settles me next to the middle disc. “Grab hold as soon as you can.”
“Grab hold of what?” I ask, but he’s already gone. All the other discs are now occupied by the other aerialists. Skylar is standing at a disc not far from mine, her features set in deadly concentration. I search for the little girl but can’t find her.
Suddenly, the black metal plate shudders and lifts a few inches off the stage. Not a single one of the performers loses their balance. Then slowly, the silver disc at my feet begins to spin and a metal pole rises from it. The pole rotates as it rises, and I see that it’s attached to a metal disc about the size of a bread plate. The pole continues to rise, and soon it’s taller than I am.
“Hop on now,” Crispin prompts in my ear. I’m about to ask what he expects me to hop on to when another disc appears. I step onto the disc and the pole keeps growing and growing, with more discs appearing from the plate at regular intervals. All around me the other acrobats do the same; each one must be told by Crispin when he wants them to get on. I finally spot the little girl hanging on to a pole on the outer circle of the plate. She looks up at me with such abject terror that I get the feeling this plate thing is a new part of the overall performance.
The pole I’m holding on to doesn’t stop rising until I am once again almost at the ceiling. The rest of the poles are staggered in height, with the other aerialists scattered at different intervals on each pole. The next highest pole to mine in the one Skylar is on. She turns her head upwards and smirks. I want to swoop on her and drag her to the floor. Which I get the feeling is what the Seeders have intended with this so-called performance.
“Smile now,” Crispin says in my ear. The lights are extinguished and the curtain starts to come up.
“Ladies and gentleman,” Crispin says. The spotlight falls on him. In the glow the spotlight casts on the audience, I see Aiden sitting in the front row. He catches my eye and I’m thrown back six years to another terrifying performance. Has he come to watch me fall once more? Then I notice that Skylar is looking his way as well. I hear Vargas in my head saying Aiden had been indisposed earlier tonight. Something insidious stirs inside me, and I have to focus on Crispin to stop myself from losing my grip.
“Our final act for you tonight has never been performed before and promises to be one you will never forget.”
A hushed silence falls over the crowd. I hate every single one of them. “I give you the end game. We call it The Cull!”
The lights on stage turn on again. The crowd bursts into applause at the sight of us suspended on our respective discs. We must appear to them like the plastic horses on a merry-go-round. Crispin turns his back to the audience and addresses us.
“The rules of the game are simple. The last one on the pole wins. Do whatever you can to uproot your fellow contestants. The winner will enjoy dinner with Warden Harlan Dempsey and a number of special guests.” To the performer’s ears alone he adds, “Anyone suspected of not really trying will face severe consequences.”
There it is. That’s the ringmaster bite I am so used to. Just when I think this game might be too easy, the base plate crunches and comes al
ive. It starts spinning slowly in a clockwise direction as the poles begin to move up and down. It actually is a merry-go-round! The only difference is that unlike the horses, we can move. The chance of getting speared through the stomach on the end of a shorter pole is all too real.
I search the bottom of the stage for any sign of the wind makers that might mean falling won’t be an issue, but all I can make out is the black plate and a series of levers and gears. Looks like we’re on our own.
A bell sounds, signalling the game has begun. The crowd is riotous, yelling encouragement and thirsting for action. I can hardly hear them because I’m concentrating on the half dozen acrobats deftly climbing their poles, intent on being the one to uproot the Wind Dancer. Leading their charge is none other than Skylar.
Twenty-Seven
Is this what they were planning while they were outside? That no matter what the last act would be they would collude to get rid of me? I stand on my perch as it bobs up and down to the specified rhythm of the human merry-go-round. One of my feet is on the disc and the other dangles in midair, testing the space between each pole. If I’m going to jump I’ll have to keep my arms and legs close to my body.
The others proceed slowly, unused to traipsing on moving beams. Still, I remind myself they’ve had the advantage of practicing with circus equipment, while I’ve only had trees to jump through. Thankfully, I’m as sure of my balance here as I would be in the forest.
One of my hunters, a boy of about fourteen with a smattering of freckles across his nose, happens to get too close to a weedy girl with rat features. While he’s distracted trying to climb up to reach me, she slips her foot between him and the next disc and, with a mighty shove, sends him flying over the edge of the poles. I wait for something to catch his fall, a gust of wind, a gaggle of ready stagehands, but nothing appears. A sickening crack echoes through the stadium, and then the crowd erupts into applause.