Le Cirque Navire

by Chele Cooke

  Hadley pulled her hand back, staring at Annalise. Her lips pressed into a tight line and she looked so much more like her brother in that moment than at first glance. Her eyes narrowed, her jaw set, and Annalise knew that while the elder child had been gifted with his parents’ looks, his deep, black-ringed eyes that shone with the same dark ferocity as the father, it was the younger who had gained the truth of their spirits. Whatever fire the brother, Lachlan, had inherited, he had bottled up tight to be used for his own needs where Hadley had let it run free through her life, no care for how the flames may burn her.

  Annalise brought her hands back and gently grasped the edge of the table, easing herself to her feet. The girl jumped up as if unwilling to be the last to stand. She pushed the chair out of her way and moved to the velvet. Turning back, she eyed Annalise with a wary gaze.

  “Thank you for the reading,” she muttered.

  As the girl slipped past the velvets and left them swinging in the warm breeze, Annalise thought that at least Hadley Tack had learned courtesy from her brother, even if she had not learned the caution he had spent his life trying to instil in her.

  Pushing her way through the crowd heading into the big top, Hadley wrestled her way towards the lemonade stall just inside the loading dock ramp. Lachlan had said he would be waiting and now she thought about it, she could do with a drink herself. She felt queer, like something unwelcome had wriggled into her stomach and churned her insides. Why would the woman give her a bad reading? She wondered if Lachlan had been right after all, that they were all charlatans. The woman had known Hadley would catch on to the falsehood of a normal reading that offered a handsome husband and loving children. Lachlan had already pointed out that they’d had a bad reading on the midway. No, that wasn’t right. The woman had been the one to say it. She knew it all before Hadley had even stepped through those soft velvet hangings into the warm, close room. Yet there had been a distance to her gaze that Hadley could not fight or argue with, like she was seeing past her face and truly gazing into her future. That distance in the woman gave Hadley the shivers.

  Gulping back the rising lump in her throat, Hadley turned full circle and searched desperately for Lachlan. The lemonade stall had a line of a dozen waiting customers in front of the two mammoth glass vats but her brother was nowhere to be seen. She pushed herself up onto her toes, trying to see over the heads of the crowd, but it was too thick with patrons waiting to get into the main events. Straight ahead a large group waited for the end of the performance in the big top so that they could go in and watch the next run. All around the walkways people bustled in and out of rooms built into the side of the ship, chattering about the wonders they had just seen. It made her feel dizzy, or perhaps it was the churning in her stomach that made her eyes water and swim.

  Hadley turned away from the entrance to the big top and scrambled her way through the throngs of people. Some protested her swiping efforts to get past, but others laughed and looked around as if they didn’t know what had hit them. Lachlan had been right, something was off here. She stumbled at the sudden decline of the ramp, tripping into a tall man. His broad shoulders were solid and strong as she caught herself against him.

  “Sorry,” she murmured.

  His hand found her waist and he helped to right her on the slope.

  “That’s quite alright.”

  She saw his smile first. Dark pink lips spread into a bright smile that made her think of danger and safety all in one. He was missing one of his molars, that was how wide and charming the grin was. His jaw was covered in stubble, but it was light and neat as if he’d planned it that way. Hadley raised her gaze and found a set of chestnut-brown eyes. They were scrunched up with his smile, wrinkles fanning from their corners and running shallow rivets between his brow.

  He moved his hands to her elbows, making sure that she was steady in the bustle around them.

  “I was just heading outside,” she said quickly, taking a step back from him.

  “A disappointing direction,” he said, giving a sage shake of his head. “More to be found within the walls.”

  She recognised him, she realised. He was the man who had been in the tavern, seated alone at the end of the bar. Dinah hadn’t known who he was despite the fact she knew everyone in the quadrant. Lachlan said she knew them through dishonest and immoral means but Hadley had never paid his opinions much mind. Dinah was the person to speak to if you wanted gossip, but for the first time since Hadley had known her, the barmaid had come up blank on even the name of the stranger.

  “I wanted air,” Hadley told him.

  “Ah,” he nodded. “Well that, yes, there is more of outside. Fresher too.”

  He watched her for a moment and she stared back at him, unsure what to say but unable to bring herself to look away. When she’d seen him in the tavern, it hadn’t been that he was handsome that made her ask Dinah who he was, it was that he had a face she had never seen before. She’d suspected, or perhaps hoped, that the handsome blonde man was a visitor from the cirque, coming to tempt them.

  “Trust me, I have experience.”

  Hadley looked up at him, questioning his answer. A shoulder bumped against hers, but before she could move an inch, his hand was back on her shoulder.

  “Do you work here?” she asked.

  The man looked over her shoulder for a moment and scanned the crowd before his smile returned.

  “Come on, let’s get you that air,” he offered, leaving her question hanging in the stale air he was taking her away from.

  He took hold of her elbow in a gentle and commanding grip, so unlike her brother’s tight grasp when he wanted to lead her somewhere. She followed obediently, letting him weave them both through the crowds. The moment she stepped back onto the compacted, sun-baked earth she took a deep breath, lifting her face towards the sky. He watched her in amusement and she could feel his gaze on her even with her eyes closed. She grinned.

  “You have a problem with ships or something?” he asked.

  Hadley shook her head.

  “I love them, actually,” she admitted. “I work on them. Just cleaning and small repairs at the moment, but one day I might be an engineer, travelling on the cargo shuttles.”

  The man groaned.

  “Gods, that sounds dull,” he said. “Nothing but crates and inventories.”

  “And machines,” she replied defensively. “And new planets and places. Open sky.”

  He led her towards a small wooden bench that had been placed by the side of the midway. Beside them, a stall selling old-fashioned cotton-candy and popped corn had three young children counting out change to see how much they could afford between them. Hadley took a deep breath of the sweet scent but as her stomach twisted she decided she preferred the smell of fresh, cool air.

  “Don’t suppose you’d see much of that down in the engines,” he suggested, slipping down onto the worn wood and patting the space next to him. “Open sky, I mean.”

  Hadley took a seat beside him and wrapped her fingers around the edge beneath her knees. The wood was warm and brittle under her fingers and she wondered how many more planets this bench had seen. If it had survived a single trip between planets, it had been further than she had. From the wear in it, she guessed it had seen dozens if not hundreds of worlds. More than she could have dreamed of.

  She looked around at the brightly coloured tents, watching people mingle and chatter about the different things they had seen. It seemed to her like she had only just arrived and yet people were mentioning dozens of acts she’d not even heard of. A man who made lions stand on their hind legs and roar when he commanded, women that danced in such a way that it could make the most devoted men stir in his trousers. Hadley turned back to the man beside her.

  “I don’t think you’d see much more than skies here,” she offered. He grinned and nodded.

  “I see a lot of skies,” he said. “Truth be told they all look the same. Occasionally they have a second moon, or no moon at all
, but they all have clouds and stars alike.”

  “Is it beautiful?”

  He looked at her for a long moment, an age that burned warm as the stars he said could be seen wherever you went. His gaze roamed over her face. It tangled in her hair and beat against her chest. Carefully, he nodded.

  “Yes, it is beautiful.”

  Hadley looked away from him with the warmth of a blush she couldn’t explain rising in her cheeks. A violet and lavender tent sent smoke billowing out of its entrance and a chorus of cheers rose into the sky, swirling and celebrating with the ash.

  “What do you do?” she asked.

  He turned away and clasped his hands in his lap. He glanced past the tents and up into the belly of the ship, a curious frown on his lips. His fingers twitched against each other.

  “This and that,” he said. “I’m an advance man, mostly. I let people know the ship is here.”

  “That’s why you were in the tavern.”

  He didn’t look at her but his chestnut eyes were so wide that she could see white rings around them, the same way black encircled her brother’s eyes. His blond lashes flickered under the firelight from a nearby torch and his lips twitched.

  “You saw me?” he asked slowly.

  Hadley nodded. He’d looked right at her. Did he not remember? She supposed that it would have been a leap to assume he would remember her. He must have seen scores of people to pass along the message, scores of people on scores of planets. There was no reason that she would have stood out to him. She wasn’t unattractive, she knew that. The parents on their street often offered to set her up, whether it was with a son who worked in the central quadrant, or a work colleague. Still, to this cirque man, she must have seemed plain, small time, and unimportant.

  “I came in to talk to Dinah. You were just finishing your drink,” she said. “I suppose it wasn’t nearly as nice as the ones you have here.”

  Her explanation didn’t wipe the confusion from his face the way she assumed it should. She could see the problem working itself away in his eyes. His brow furrowed in a way she had seen on Lachlan many times before when he was trying to figure out a particularly worrisome work issue. However, his expression was marked with something else, something she could not place.

  “I actually prefer the planet drinks,” he said, emotion detached from his voice. “Everyone gets so excited about the liquor because they don’t see it often, but I feel the same way about liquor as you probably do about wheat fields.”

  Hadley grinned at him and when he met her gaze, the confusion was gone.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “A bit better.”

  Getting to his feet, he brushed his hands off on the sides of his linen trousers and held one dusty palm out to her.

  “Well then, how about I show you the best attractions?” he suggested.

  The way he said it made it sound like a secret, something private only he could show her. Hadley felt a shudder go through her.

  “After all, my job is to let people know about the cirque,” he said. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I let you miss the best bits.”

  Hadley settled her fingers against his warm palm and let him pull her to her feet.

  “No, no job at all,” she agreed.

  It was only as they climbed the ramp back into the ship that Hadley turned to him, a warm smile on her lips, her dizziness quite forgotten.

  “I’m Hadley by the way. Hadley Tack.”

  His smile was thoughtful, amused, and surprised all in one. Hadley thought that she could spend an eternity just learning each one of his smiles. She wondered if this was the type of obsession the fortune teller had been talking about.

  He gave her hand the slightest of squeezes that clutched in her chest at the same time, wringing the air out of her.

  “I’m Jack.”

  The girl’s skin was lighter than Annalise’s. Her hair was lighter and her eyes were hazel where Annalise’s were dappled green. She was not as tall, nor as curved, and she was at least half a dozen years younger. Even so, there was something that made him think of the fortune teller he loved. Annalise had been here longer than him, much longer, though even she couldn’t remember when she first joined the ship to take up the newly vacated position of fortune teller. She remembered him. Where others passed him without recognition in those early days or they grabbed him for a stow-away, her gaze had always found him, smiling, warm, and beautiful.

  Hadley remembered him after nothing more than a brief glance in a backwater tavern. Perhaps that was why he could see Annalise in the way she talked and the smiles she passed him.

  He led her through the crowds, but instead of taking her to the big top in the cavernous centre of the ship, he led her up a twisted metal staircase onto a mezzanine walkway, dozens of draped doors leading into a wealth of little-found attractions. Those, he told her, were the best. Like outlying planets seen so rarely, they were given more time to perfect their acts. Unlike those on the midway who saw audiences from sunset to sunrise.

  “Why do you only open at sunset?” Hadley asked as he led her to a metal railing where heavy drapes were tied to the walkway with thick ropes. They sloped from all around to a single wooden beam in the centre of the ship and underneath them, the main ring was in full swing.

  “Men lose their senses at night,” Jack smirked. “Did you ever hear of a man betraying his wife and going to a whore house at noon?”

  Hadley looked aghast at his blunt honesty but she shook her head just the same. The shock was replaced with a conspiratorial grin all too quickly and he was glad for it. She looked like she was made for smiling.

  “My brother dislikes the tavern you were in,” she said. Jack laughed.

  “Yes, I was practically offered a woman to sit on my lap if I delivered them liquor.”

  He watched her face, wondering if he would see jealousy or hurt in her gaze. Her eyes narrowed and through the dimmer lights up here, he thought they looked like a forest through the trees, all bark and slivers of green leaves. She gave little away with too many places to hide between the trunks. She turned away.

  “So, what are we seeing next?” she asked.

  Jack placed his hand between her shoulder blades—a habit of his time with Annalise—and urged her closer to the railing. She drew her bottom lip between her teeth and he placed a finger to his lips.

  She grasped the railing as Jack slid his fingers between two swaths of silk and pulled one a few inches back. Light flew through the gap and fluttered around her face. He warmed at the enthralled gasp as it left her lips and she leaned closer, peering down into the ring below.

  Solaris the elephant was in the ring, stood on his front legs and presenting his mammoth backside in their direction. Hadley giggled and quickly covered her mouth. Jack wasn’t watching the elephant. He had seen the great beast every day for the last few years. He’d fed him greens and let him snort whiskey and water up his long trunk before spraying it into his mouth. He’d felt the entire ship shake when the animal was in a rage and thudded around his metal paddock in the bottom of the ship.

  No, Jack Western did not watch the elephant. He watched Hadley Tack, the way he had been watching her with every attraction they visited. He knew just how wide her eyes went when a swallower put the sword down their throat to the hilt. He heard the tones of her laugh, raucous and unladylike when something surprised her. It was the benefit of being invisible for so long, he’d learned how to watch and he had not seen as interesting a show in a long time.

  Annalise said she didn’t like it when he watched her, but her smile told him differently. The way she pulled him against her and enfolded him against warm skin and warmer kisses said the opposite of her words every time. Hadley had noticed a once or twice but she merely blushed and looked away. He warmed without the contact of her skin. Guilt flooded him with cold relief and each time he vowed to himself he wouldn’t watch her again.

  “I’ve never seen an elephant before,” Hadle
y whispered, drawing back from the gap. “Do you…”

  She stopped and Jack released the silk. It sprang back into place and rippled, throwing off the light in waves that crested and fell into shadow.

  “What?”

  “Do you think I could meet her?”

  Jack raised an eyebrow. He’d probably be in trouble if he took her down into the back decks, those were just for the cirque staff, but then again, he’d be in trouble already. He was supposed to be with the male Tack, not the younger sister. Plus, Solaris would be back in the menagerie between performances. He would be able to get her close.

  “Him,” he corrected. “And I’m sure we can sort something out.”

  Hadley beamed and bounced on the balls of her feet.

  “Okay!” she trilled. “Where next?”

  Jack thought about it. Some of the acts came up to the mezzanine between performances in the main ring, so there was no point in taking her to see them in his opinion. While being able to watch in a closer proximity was better, there were too many things to see, and he didn’t want her missing out.

  “I have just the thing,” he said.

  Leading her around the walkway, Jack quickened his step. This particular act was never in the main ring as it couldn’t be performed on the sand and straw. Pulling back the heavy drape, he held out his hand for Hadley to go first before he followed her in. They were the only two inside beside the performer, a slender Chinese man who sat in the corner, sipping a beer from the bottle. His arms were so muscled that they were almost as thick as his calves, which were on display where he propped his feet up.

  “Alright West,” the man greeted.

  “Yao,” Jack nodded. “Mind taking a break from your beer?”

  Yao looked them up and down with suspicion.

  “Performances are for customers.”

  Jack held his hand out towards Hadley.

  “And here we have one.”

  Yao rolled his eyes and put his beer right in the corner of the room, getting to his feet.