“Also, you wouldn’t have that scar on your rear end from when you fell from the trapeze hoop and landed smack on someone’s tiara,” Sequoyah said, laughing. “Saying no to Della and meaning it would be worth learning, though.”
“Wait, that’s what happened to Edi’s tiara? Your arse?” Mabel sounded downright appalled.
“Don’t even start with me. That damn elephant’s headdress has been the bane of my existence for months now. Maybe if you didn’t leave things lying around, I wouldn’t land on them as I’m falling from the sky,” he huffed. “Now, about Christmas.”
“Yes,” Annis said. “I want to know about Christmas. Though I think we’ll all want to hear more about the flying-and-falling-on-tiaras story later.”
“Not happening,” Sawyer said sternly, cutting the air with the back of his hand.
“I’ll tell you when he’s not around,” Sequoyah whispered in Annis’s ear, but Sawyer must have caught him leaning in closer to her.
“Is that how` it’s going to be then?” he said. “Are none of our stories sacred anymore?”
“What’s sacred about stabbing your rear end on a dainty little crown?” Homer asked, barely able to maintain his serious expression.
“Never mind the bit about my rear end,” Sawyer snapped. “I’m talking about confidentiality between two friends,” he snarled under his breath. “You wouldn’t understand. You’re married,” he sneered.
“I think he meant that to be an insult,” Caroline chirped, hardly seeming offended.
“I think someone would be a lot less fussy if we gave him some chocolate,” Mabel said, digging around in one of her pockets and retrieving half a cookie she must have saved after lunch. “Here. I was going to have it later tonight, but I think for the sake of our overall well-being you should eat it.” She pressed it into Sawyer’s hand. “Now.”
He looked furious, but he ate the cookie in silence.
“Can I tell it?” Goldilocks asked, looking himself like a child on Christmas morning. “It’s my first year not being the new kid, let me tell it. Let me pass on the tradition.”
“You have to do it right,” Maude said, sounding very serious.
“Yes,” Homer agreed, “poem and all.”
“Poem?” Annis asked, growing more excited with every passing second. “There’s a poem?”
“Of course there’s a poem,” Mabel assured her, as though it were common knowledge that every Christmas tradition was passed down in the form of poetry.
“Is there an Easter poem?” Annis asked, nearly coming up from where she sat. Her feet jittered around from the anticipation.
“One holiday at a time, kid,” Homer chided. “But, yes. There is.”
“Oh, Lord,” Caroline sighed with a laugh. “Look what you’ve done. The poor girl is coming out of her skin with excitement. She’ll never be able to focus now.”
“Yes,” Annis insisted, forcing her knees back to the ground. “Yes, I can.” She took a breath and calmed herself, nodding at Goldilocks to gesture for him to begin. “Go ahead. You have my undivided attention.”
“Alright, here goes,” he started, but Maude’s quiet coughing stopped him before he got any further.
“He’s not standing on one foot, is he?” Homer asked.
“He’s not,” his wife said, confirming his suspicions. She cast a warning look in Goldilocks’s direction. “Go on, you’re the one who wanted the job.”
He sighed, and Annis wondered if perhaps there were aspects of the task he’d neglected to remember. “Alright, alright,” he grumbled, scrambling to his feet. To ensure Homer was aware, he said, “I’m standing, okay? On one foot.”
“Hands in a peak over your head?” Homer asked.
Annis watched as Goldilocks, who already had his knee drawn up and foot laid flat against the inside of his thigh, rolled his eyes and lifted his arms over his head to create a sort of triangle top.
“Oh!” Annis called out. “You’re a Christmas tree!”
“Obviously,” Sawyer mumbled under his breath, but from the sideways glance he cast in Annis’s direction she knew he had wanted her to hear him.
“Listen, I’m only doing this once. I’m starting to remember there’s a reason I’m not in the show. My balance is lousy and I’m terribly uncoordinated, so this tree bit here, it’s not easy,” Goldilocks said.
Annis opened her eyes as wide as they would go and stared straight at him, letting him know in no uncertain terms that he had her fully captivated with his impending, possibly once-in-a-lifetime, performance.
With all the attention square on him, Goldilocks took a deep breath, and began to recite,
“Hear ye, oh, hear ye,
‘tis my time to be the Christmas tree
To tell you all a tale so true
Of the Circus Christmas big to-do
As the year goes by we come and go
And still they’re there at every show
They fill our hearts each single day
They lift our spirits in every way
And though perhaps to them it seems
It’s they who get the best of dreams
It’s we who get to dream awake
And live the circus life we make
So as December rolls around
And we start coming to new towns
Those of us who have always received
Prepare to give back to those in need
For as it goes with every year
The best of Christmas is the cheer
So we spread it around with a swirl and a swish
Until we’ve fulfilled each and every Christmas wish.”
Then, still in tree form, he took a splendid bow. Annis, still rapt with attention, gave a loud, solo round of applause.
“That was amazing!” she insisted, still utterly confused about what any of it meant, but not daring to admit it in front of Sawyer. “Really splendid!”
“The fun in Circus Christmas, Annis,” Homer began to explain, “is that we all get to be Santa Claus.” Of course the blind man could see her confusion. He saw everything.
“Though no one dresses up,” Sawyer clarified before anyone could suggest otherwise.
“No,” Caroline said, supporting his statement, sad as it made Annis. “In fact, we don’t do anything to draw attention to ourselves at all. We’re more like secret elves in the dark of night. We wait until right before we’re ready to leave and then we make a hasty run through town, leaving little surprises everywhere we can before we jump on the train and disappear.”
“On Christmas Eve?” Annis asked, enthralled with the idea.
“No, the whole month of December,” Sequoyah explained. “So, starting tonight.”
“And you’re only just now telling me?” Annis stared around the circle in disbelief. “Was I not going to be included in Circus Christmas?”
Mabel reached an arm out and hooked it around Annis’s shoulders, pulling her in tight for a dramatic hug against her side. “Don’t go getting yourself all worked up now. No one gets invited. You either stumble upon it on your own and thus become a member of the Circus Christmas crew, or you go on living your life with normal Christmas. No harm, no foul. Just no Circus Christmas either.”
“It’s the rules,” Sequoyah said with a shrug when Annis turned to him next.
“It’s not in the poem,” Annis pointed out indignantly, as though this were a major error on their part and should somehow negate their silly don’t-tell-Annis rule.
“No need to put it in the poem. Once you hear it, you’re already in,” Maude said haughtily. Annis suspected she’d had a hand in writing it. “And, more importantly,” Maude continued, “do you really think we would have a had our meeting right here, knowing you were coming any second, if we weren’t intending for you to find out and be included?”
“Oh,” Annis sat back, somewhat stumped and unexpectedly humbled. “Right. Thanks.”
“Now that she’s all clued in, can we get back to what we
were doing?” Sawyer asked. He’d finished his cookie and was no longer mollified into silence. “It’s not like we have all night, here.”
“Yes,” Homer agreed, though Annis found he lacked the flair Sawyer had for obnoxious rudeness. “Where were we? Right, we finished drawing for those absent from the circle. That means Maude and Mabel, you’re next to draw.”
“Draw what?” Annis whispered to Sequoyah, afraid to derail the meeting again but certain she wanted to know.
“You’ll see,” he said, nodding at the twins who were leaning forward and reaching into a large tin cup Homer was holding out in their direction.
A second later, they’d retrieved two small pieces of paper and were looking them over. “We got stockings and sweet treats!” Mabel announced half a second later, looking absolutely pleased.
“Who’s next?” Homer asked, shaking the cup. Its contents made a dull rattling sound.
“I am,” Goldilocks said, standing to draw from the cup. He then read his note aloud. “I’ve got a Christmas task. It’s good. I like those.” He grinned and wiggled his brows, looking silly and making Annis giggle into her arm where she was careful to muffle the sound.
Annis watched with quiet anticipation as everyone around the fire took a turn pulling a note from the cup. When her turn came, she held her breath and closed her eyes. Her hand dangled out in the air aimlessly, trying by sheer miracle to meet the cup Homer blindly held out in her direction.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sawyer grunted as several others began to laugh.
Then, sensing her inability to open her eyes and feel with full awareness her excitement, Sequoyah took her hand and gently lead it to its intended destination.
Fumbling inside, Annis felt only two small sheets of paper. Hers and Homer’s.
Her fingers felt hot, as though she might singe the paper, from the pressure to pick a Christmas mission she could complete successfully. Deciding there really were no parts of Christmas she didn’t enjoy, she gulped down her nerves and grasped a sheet of paper with her fingertips.
She stared at the swirly writing upon the scrap of paper for several seconds, calming her mind long enough to read what was written. “An act of love.” She looked to the others. “What does that mean?”
“Means you got the best one,” Homer said, smiling. “You get to choose. Only requirement is that it comes from the heart, whatever it is you give or do, and for whomever you choose to be your recipient.” He pulled out the last little piece of paper. “Of course, that means that I got the second best.”
“What’s that?” Annis asked, clearly the only one who didn’t already know.
“The gift of believing,” he said, carefully placing the empty cup down on the ground beside him. “I get to find a nonbeliever and turn them around. The only reason it’s not the very best task is because it can be maddeningly difficult.” He chuckled.
“How do you do it? All of this in one day?” Annis asked, slowly grappling with the enormity of the gestures they’d all volunteered to make. “And do we choose a new task every day?”
“No,” Caroline explained,” what you chose tonight is yours until Christmas.” She smiled, stretching her arm down Homer’s until she could anchor her hand in his, now that it was free again. “We usually start small. Takes a bit of practice when you haven’t done it all year long, but you’ll see, once you get going, it gets easier. Your ideas get loftier and the fun only gets grander.”
Maude nodded. “Don’t get us wrong. It’s no simple undertaking. But that’s what makes it worth doing.”
“Keep in mind, you won’t know who you’re gifting any more than they’ll know who it came from,” Mabel went on. “Tonight, after the show, we’ll head into town and spread out. Have your gift ready so you can just drop and run. There’s never much time and the less you linger, the less likely you are to get caught.”
“But how do you choose where to leave your gift?” Annis asked, still not sure it was as easy as they were making it sound.
“It’s a lot more random than you might imagine,” Mabel answered.
“Once you’re in town, some place will call to you more than any other,” Caroline assured her. “You’ll see. And the more we do it, the more you’ll know what to look for. The door missing the wreath. The windows left dark and empty. Homes that seem dreary, broken, or hopeless. Those are the ones you choose.”
“So, we just have our show, and then what? Follow the audience home?” Annis was joking, of course.
“Essentially, yes.” Sawyer was not. “Usually the easiest way to find town without getting lost our first time out.”
“Oh.” She frowned, having suddenly very mixed feelings about this. “And Poppy and Babe? They won’t have a nervous breakdown between now and Christmas wondering if we’ll be shot or arrested for following strangers home in the dark of night?”
“They’ll be fine,” Sequoyah said.
“Because they don’t know,” Sawyer added.
“That’s part of why we plot in secret,” Maude said, pointing out what was now obvious.
“And what makes Circus Christmas a proper shenanigan,” Mabel finished.
It did little to appease Annis’s internal conundrum. “Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever been shot or arrested?”
“No,” Homer answered, a little too quickly. “Well, shot at, perhaps, but never shot and hit.”
“And nearly arrested,” Sawyer said, raising a hand to indicate himself. “But the coppers never think to look in places they deem too small for hiding.” He grinned. “You’re pretty tiny yourself. You’ll be fine.”
“Grand,” Annis said.
She felt Sequoyah bump her shoulder with his. “Welcome to Circus Christmas.”
Circus Christmas certainly had all the makings of turning Christmas into a circus. And, while she had no idea whatsoever how she was to find a stranger and bestow upon them a random act of love, sitting there, with those she adored most in the world, she could see that somehow it would be possible. And, just maybe, it would be completely lovely—provided no one was shot or arrested.
Chapter Sixteen
EMMELINE
The sky was already pitch-black by the time they all stood huddled together at the train’s caboose. The group had grown some since the fire, as Annis had suspected it would. August and Bess were rarely left out of anything they did. Francis was also among the Christmas Crew, as was Momma T. From where they stood, they had a clear view of camp, which was still full of workers breaking down and packing up their circus.
“It feels wrong to leave when the work isn’t done,” Annis mumbled.
“Our work will be done,” Maude reminded her. And she was right, they’d all seen to it that they could hurry out and hurry back, at which point they’d be getting everything loaded up in record time. But it was still different for Annis. Without an act, she had no clear-cut work and always bounced from place to place to help wherever she was needed. Her job was never finished until the train was moving along the tracks, headed out of town. So, even though she knew she’d be returning to do a fair share of tasks, she felt as though she were somehow cheating her way out of work.
“Come on,” Sawyer grunted. “We don’t get going, we won’t make it back in time. And I don’t know about you lot, but I didn’t see anything here that made me want to stay in town on a permanent basis.”
No one made any audible responses, but there was a general consensus that Sawyer was right. They all began to move around the back of the train to the other side, where they were officially free of any potential prying eyes.
From there, the road into town was easy to travel. The group kept a safe distance from the townspeople who were heading home for the night, though they’d hardly have noticed the strangers in their midst. They were too enthralled from the circus to be aware of much outside of recounting their favorite moments of the night’s show.
Before long, they were coming up on houses. Most were built acres a
part, but the little farms promised that town lie not far beyond.
“Are we getting close?” Homer asked, squeezing Caroline’s hand.
“I think so,” Caroline said.
“I can see the glow of lights ahead,” Annis said, still a bit unnerved at the thought of venturing off on her own in uncharted territory. It didn’t seem to matter how often she reminded herself of the days and nights she’d spent fending for herself prior to finding Hugh and the family. Somehow, those memories had become a separate life all together and they hardly felt real anymore.
“You’ll be fine,” Sequoyah promised, taking her hand as they walked. “We’ll all be close by. You’ll see.”
“Also,” Sawyer muttered, with a touch of aggravation in his tone, “the girl is traveling with a wolf. I find it highly unlikely she’ll be harmed.”
Annis knew her four-legged shadow was at her side with every step, though it did continue to escape her that she was no longer the caretaker in their partnership. He’d been so dependent on her in the beginning that some days she still saw him as the same little wolf pup who spent weeks curled up in a sling against her chest. But Fin was far from that helpless bundle now. And she was no longer the one looking after him. Somewhere along the way, their roles had reversed and Annis had missed it.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have brought him,” Annis whispered after considering how little Fin knew of the world beyond their traveling camp. “What if he gets frightened? Or runs off?”
“He won’t.” Sawyer’s voice was calmer and kinder than usual. “As long as you stay safe, he stays safe. So, see to it you stay out of trouble and all will be well.” He came closer to her and the wolf, patting the back of Fin’s head as they walked. “Besides, you couldn’t leave him behind even if you wanted to. He’d never allow it.”
Annis noticed that the road beneath her felt harder packed than it had closer to camp, and soon the group turned down the main street of what was a grander town square than Annis has expected.
“We meet back here in exactly fifteen minutes,” Homer said. No dawdling. No exceptions. If you’re delayed by unforeseen circumstances, stay put. We’ll come to you.”
The Wild in her Eyes Page 25
