The Wild in her Eyes

by Karina Giörtz

  “That’s why you took her name,” Mabel said softly. “So that a part of her would always stay with you. So that she could live on through you.”

  Annis sniffed, reaching for what she thought had to be the hundredth tissue. “It was more than that. I needed her as much as I needed to be someone else. The girl I was, Emmeline, she died that night, right alongside everyone else.” Annis looked out the window, staring out into the black night. There was nothing to see but her own reflection mirrored back to her in the glass. “That girl was never going to make it on her own. I had to let her die.”

  Silence swept over the cabin, filling the space between what was thought and what was never to be spoken.

  Annis understood the quiet all too well. She’d given everyone too much to think about. Though she wished they’d worry more about their own well-being, she knew them well enough to know the only concern they had was about saving her from William.

  “Not quite the Circus Christmas you all had planned, huh?” she joked, desperate to clear the tension, which was so taut it could snap at the flick of a finger, just so she could breathe again.

  “Eh.” Sawyer shrugged. “We’ll have another go at it next year. Besides, Circus Christmas is nothing compared to Circus Chaos.”

  “What’s Circus Chaos?” Annis asked before she could determine she didn’t really want to know.

  “Circus Chaos is the bountiful hell we unleash on anyone who dares to threaten one of our own,” Caroline replied. Her icy tone sent a chill down Annis’s spine.

  “It’s not quite as lovely a notion as Circus Christmas,” Homer said, his crooked grin lightening the mood. “But it’s a hell of a lot more fun when it gets going.”

  “I don’t want any of you to get in trouble on my behalf,” Annis said.

  “Oh, we won’t,” Maude assured her.

  “We’re just going to start it,” Mabel added.

  “Stir it up real good,” Bess said.

  “Until we’ve got our mark in sight,” August growled.

  “Then we unleash it,” Sawyer said, popping his knuckles as though preparing for a fight.

  “Trouble likes us,” Homer said, still smirking. “Never comes back for us once it’s set free.”

  Annis wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to cry. “I’ll never forgive myself if any of you get hurt.”

  “We know,” Sequoyah said, speaking for the first time in ages. He had sat quietly at her side, listening to everything. “We’d never forgive ourselves either.”

  “I’ve only got one condition,” Goldilocks chimed in, drawing all eyes to where he sat in the far corner.

  “Name it,” Annis said, waving her hand for him to go on. Whatever he wanted from her to regain his trust she was willing to offer without question.

  “You give us your word that there will be no more secrets.”

  “I promise.” She placed her hand over her heart. “There’s nothing left of me you haven’t seen. This, it’s all I am now. But I’m willing to dig through the buried bones of my past anytime you like if there’s ever anything else you want to know. You have my word.”

  Gradually, a new wave of emotions moved through the group. The air felt peaceful and oddly content, given all they’d been through together over the course of the night.

  Annis took a deep breath in before allowing it to slip from her lungs along with the residual ache still anchored in her hollowed chest. Being there, surrounded by so much unexpected love, she held out hope the cavernous hole that had once housed her heart would someday mend and find new ways to fill itself.

  Resting her head on Sequoyah’s shoulder, she opened her mouth to ask the one question still burning on her mind. “What about Poppy and Babe?”

  “They’ll need to know,” Sequoyah said.

  “What will they say when they find out?” It was a foolish question she did not expect anyone to answer. How could they know how Poppy and Babe would react when no news quite like this had ever been brought to their front door?

  “I imagine they’ll say a lot,” he said, a touch of amusement in his voice. “You know Poppy. He’s never short on words.”

  Annis felt her mouth involuntarily stretch one corner up, but this was no laughing matter. “You know what I meant.”

  “They’ll say this William fellow had better watch his back,” Homer informed her, using a tone similar to Sequoyah’s. “Because no one messes with Hugh and Babe’s lot and lives to tell about it.”

  “Also, Babe will cry,” Momma T added dryly, from her spot beside the door. She’d been quiet for so long that Annis had assumed she’d drifted off to sleep by now, but it was clear she was as coherent as ever.

  “I’ll tell them.” Sequoyah held her closer as he spoke. “It’ll be easier coming from me. They’ll have time to digest it all and decide how to proceed before you talk to them.”

  Annis nodded, slipping deeper into his embrace. Now that everything had spilled out of her at last, she felt drained and exhausted. Sleep was coming for her and she had no fury left within to stop it.

  Come morning, she awoke alone in her bed with Finian lying at her feet and the cabin empty but for the twins. They were both still curled under their covers and sound asleep. The train was still moving. Annis remembered they weren’t set to stop until later that evening, when they would set up the basics of camp and wait until the following day to prepare for the next show.

  She wondered what time it was. She wondered more if Sequoyah had gone to see Poppy and Babe already. Would they seek her out once they knew? Or would they wait for her to come to them when she was ready? She’d never be ready. Whatever calm had held her captive last night had been fleeting and she was right back to feeling anxious today, though the weight of it all had shifted, at least for the time being, and perhaps even for good. She wasn’t alone in this anymore, and that felt as comforting as it did terrifying. She couldn’t live with any more regret. And she was out of lives if she didn’t make it through this one.

  “Your thoughts are screaming,” Mabel murmured from across the cabin, her eyes still closed. “I can hear them all the way over here and I was sleeping.”

  “Sorry.” Annis pulled her covers up to her chin and rolled onto her side to face Mabel. Quirky as she was, she had a depth in her soul unmatched by anyone Annis had ever met.

  “It’s alright,” she whispered. “’Least now I know what they’re on about. Why you can’t ever quiet them. Be hard to shut down memories like yours.”

  “Do you think Poppy will be angry?” Annis hated the thought of disappointing him after all he’d done for her.

  “Absolutely,” Mabel said, brow scrunched into a stern line. “Murder and blackmail have a way of really getting under his skin.”

  “I meant with me,” Annis said.

  Mabel looked surprised. “Angry with you? I don’t see why he would be.”

  “Because I kept it from him.” For someone who could read her mind while asleep, Annis found it hard to follow how Mabel needed things spelled out for her while awake.

  “Oh, that.” Mabel tucked her head into her pillow and closed her eyes again. The corner of her mouth that Annis could still see curved slightly as she whispered, “It’s Poppy, Annis. No one keeps anything from him. Not really.”

  As if to confirm this, there was a quiet knock on the door, and then a crack just large enough for Poppy’s hand to reach through. He hooked his finger in Annis’s direction and motioned for her to follow him.

  Without saying a word to Mabel, who seemed to be well on her way to drifting back to sleep, Annis slipped out from under her covers, pulled on a dressing gown and headed for the door. Finian was at her heels, as always.

  Poppy said nothing as he led the way through two more cabins of sleeping crew members before reaching the one he shared with Babe.

  Only once they were inside, with the door shut behind them, did he begin to speak.

  “Tea, Annis?” he offered from the kettle still emitting steam at the c
enter of their small table. “Babe only just made it. She’s got a bit of toast and jam coming too,” he said, nodding toward Babe in her flowery dressing gown, moving about the back end of their cabin.

  “No, thank you.” Truth be told, she wasn’t sure she could stomach more tea after last night. Nor was there room for much else.

  “Perhaps you’ll change your mind,” he said, guiding her to have a seat in one of the three chairs, and then doing the same and pouring himself a cup. his, eyes twinkling with a hint of mischief, and whispered, “At least pretend to want the toast when it comes. You can always feed it to Fin when no one’s looking. Babe’s in a tizzy already. If she thinks you’re not eating, she may take us all to the brink of insanity.”

  At his words, Annis felt an internal battle between guilt and amusement—guilt because she hated to know she was causing Babe this sort of turmoil and amusement because it was hard not to laugh when Poppy had that look in his eyes.

  “Don’t do that,” she hissed back, forcing her face into a frown worthy of her current predicament. “This is serious!”

  “Which is precisely why we should all find ways to have a laugh when we can,” he said, stirring honey into his tea before placing his spoon neatly onto the saucer. He then took a sip.

  “Please,” Annis pleaded with him. “Don’t be all Poppy about this. Just come right out and say what you need to say to me. I can take it. What I can’t take is having to figure it all out for myself after you spend two hours dropping secret clues in an otherwise meaningless conversation.”

  Poppy didn’t seem to know whether to find her plea funny or insulting. “I shall have you know, love, I’ve never once in my life engaged in meaningless conversation. I value my words and my breath more than that.”

  Annis sighed, succumbing to the fact this conversation with Poppy was going to be slow-motion torture but also acknowledging that, in the long run, she would come to appreciate wherever it led. “Let’s have a cup of tea then,” she said, nodding at the kettle and lifting her cup for him to fill.

  He smiled and proceeded with the task of serving her. “I think it’s time, Annis.”

  “For what?” She could conjure a million different answers to that question and hoped with all her might that Poppy would still offer an alternative.

  “To talk about your act,” he said. “What else?”

  Annis nearly choked on her tea, causing Fin to jump up on all four paws and watch her with concern. “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s time you find your place in the show, love,” he reiterated, though she found it no less confusing after hearing it a second time.

  “Didn’t Sequoyah come and talk to you?” she asked, glancing around the cabin for any sort of sign that they were still having the same conversation.

  “First thing this morning,” Poppy said, still sipping his tea, calm as ever.

  “And there isn’t anything you find more pressing to discuss than my act?” She could feel her eyes grow wider with every word.

  “Not remotely,” he said, sounding more serious this time.

  “Poppy,” she said, gulping down the bouts of hysterics that seemed to unfurl from her on a moment’s notice these days. “Wanted posters with my face on them are currently spreading across the southern states and who knows how far beyond. Do you really think it’s wise to put me in the ring? In front of an audience?”

  “Best place to hide is always in plain sight, love.” He set down his tea cup, making it clink against the porcelain saucer. “Besides, if there are fools grand enough to seek you out for a battle, I think it’s high time we show them exactly who they’re calling out to war.”

  “I hardly think they’ll be intimidated,” she scoffed. “I’m not exactly terrifying. No bulk or muscle to be found here. No flying, flaming daggers or a pride of lions at my command. I’m not even unusual or peculiar enough to be unnerving to look at. I’m just plain. And small, but not oddly small like Sawyer. Just...ordinary small.”

  Poppy said nothing in response. He just sat back in his chair and watched as Babe came around, placing on the table platters of mounting toast along with three different sorts of jam and a big block of butter.

  “I’m out of blueberry,” she mumbled. “I’ll go see if Momma has some.” A second later, she was out the door, her flowing robes billowing behind her as she disappeared in a whoosh.

  Alone with Poppy, Annis watched as he reached for a piece of toast, and then slathered it first in butter before adding a heaping dollop of raspberry jam. Her frustrations swelled when she saw him take a large bite and chew it meticulously before he swallowed, only to take another without saying a word. The toast was nearly three-quarters devoured when Annis was certain she couldn’t take another second of being steeped in this hellish limbo, where she had no idea which way the conversation was headed, when Poppy finally opened his mouth not to take another bite but to continue their conversation.

  “I wonder what it is you think people see, then, when they look at you.”

  There it was. The question she’d been told he’d ask all those months ago. Back then, she’d been convinced her answer would be different by now. And it was, though her answer had changed not for the better. Six months ago, she’d believed herself to be a survivor. She had no fight in her but at least she could persevere. She’d seen value in this. This morning, sitting here with Poppy, it was clear to her how little she truly had to offer. Her ability to outlive deadly situations were but a blessing to her. Those who got caught up in the net with her had perished.

  “Someone timid. Weak. Easily frightened. A lamb,” Annis answered, anger coiling at the pit of her stomach. “Someone the bad want to hunt and the good want to save.”

  Poppy’s eyes turned soft with such sadness that Annis knew he saw the lamb in her as well. “And what do you want them to see?”

  “Something wild.” The words came from her lips before her mind had fully formed them. It was the first time she’d been able to answer that question. As she heard herself say it, she knew she’d gotten it right.

  “A beast?”

  “No.” Her eyes dropped to her side where Finian lay, his attention wholly on her. “A wolf.”

  “Good girl.” He picked up his piece of toast as though that were the end of their talk. “Have a piece. You’re hungrier than you think. Trust me.”

  Brooding, she did as she was told and took a still-warm slice. It smelled divine as she brought it closer to her plate, setting it down to finish it with a proper layer of butter and jam. She decided on strawberry only because it was closest to her. She still couldn’t muster up an appetite. Until she took that first bite. Then the ravenous cavern inside her screamed for more. Within seconds she was reaching for her second slice, still chewing the last bite of her first. She gorged herself on toast until five whole slices had found their place inside her stomach. As she leaned back to stretch her core, the comforts of a full belly spread, and she could start to think more clearly again.

  “How will you do it?” she asked as Poppy poured more tea, topping off both their cups.

  “Do what?”

  “Turn me into a wolf.”

  “I’m not going to do that.” He placed the teapot back onto the table and picked up the honey. “You are.”

  “How?”

  “That is entirely up you, love,” he said, still sounding no more bothered than before. “You pitched, I approved. You have complete creative control. Go forth. Become a wolf.”

  “Become a wolf.”

  “Certainly.” He tipped his head toward Fin. “I should think that would be easy given that your source of inspiration is also your own shadow.”

  Annis bit her lip, holding back the slew of questions she had. She knew not a single one would garner the answers she needed, so she shifted course. “What about...the other thing?”

  “What other thing?”

  He really did have a knack for being infuriating, she thought.

  “The thing with my family
. The thing where I’m wanted for murder. That thing.”

  “I don’t think it’s a thing,” he said, dismissing the topic all together. “That’s part of the outside world. We’re here. In our own. Until the two do cross, it’s of no concern to us.”

  “But...”

  Poppy’s demeanor took a more comforting tone as he reached his hand out to cover hers where it lay on the table. “The two will cross, love. I know that. We all do. But fretting about it now won’t help us do what needs done to keep you safe.” He gave her hand a squeeze and released it. “Create your act. Take your part in the show. And I promise, your enemies will come to fear the wolf in you more than you fear the hate in them.”

  In the days that followed, Annis spent most of her free time studying Fin. She watched the way he moved, how he took in the world, what pleased him, and what made him cautious. He handled every encounter with such a heightened sense of awareness that Annis was certain he’d never felt the sense of surprise.

  By day five, she was starting to think there was no way she could ever find a way to embody all the things that made Fin so acutely tuned in to life and the world around him, least of all, in the form of entertainment.

  “You’re overthinking it,” Sawyer said over lunch on the sixth day. “You’re always overthinking everything.”

  “I’m sorry, I like to be thorough,” she snapped, in no mood for his insults.

  “You’re not being thorough. You’re stalling because you’re scared. And that’s stupid.” He jabbed his fork in the air, directly at her, prompting her to shut her mouth before the comebacks came flying out of it. “It’s stupid for someone so brilliant to be so scared.”