“You were right, though,” she admitted, the gravity of what he’d said before creeping up on her. “I’m more than I thought I was.”
He nodded. “You are.” He leaned in until his shoulder bumped hers. “Tell you a secret?”
“Alright.”
“You’re only just getting started.”
She laughed. “I’ve got an act of my own, a wonderful new world filled with a family I adore, and the most wonderful man who’s waiting for me on the other side of growing up. I think I’m far past started, Poppy. I feel like I’m in the homestretch. Just one last curve in the road before I complete a journey I never dreamed I’d take, before I find a happily ever after I hope will last a lifetime.”
He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I want all that for you, love. All that and so much more. And you’ll have it. And then you’ll see.”
“See what?”
He shrugged. “That you were wrong. And I was right.” He gazed wistfully out at the horizon. “Only the beginning, love. Only the beginning.” Then, his strides grew longer, and he moved out ahead of her, leaving her alone to ponder his parting words.
Annis felt conflicted as she considered what he’d said. On the one hand, she’d been pushing boundaries from the moment she ran out of her family home six months ago. She’d pushed herself, forced herself to face fears, discomforts, and soul-crushing heartaches, never once allowing a challenge to get the best of her. Now that she’d arrived in a place where all of it was beginning to make sense, where the end of all her struggles seemed so near, she wasn’t prepared to accept that she was only just starting to unravel the string that would unwind to be her lifeline. On the other hand, nothing she’d done in the last six months leading up to this moment had been physically hard. Painful, terrifying, and at times paralyzing, yes, but the tasks themselves, the lessons, the chores, Finian and performing, those things, had come naturally to her. In time, it had all taken her from just surviving to soaring. Maybe, just maybe, it was reason enough to believe, she had more in her yet.
“You seem vexed about something,” Maude said when Annis joined the twins a few minutes later.
“Can’t be,” Mabel insisted before Annis could get a word out. “Not possible. Not after tonight’s show. There’s no room for vexed.” She lifted her hand and began counting on her fingers. “There’s excited. Giddy. Elated. Let’s see, what else? Grateful. There’s room for that.”
Annis sighed, her face softening. “There certainly is.” She plopped herself down onto her bed and pulled a pillow in toward her, hugging it to her chest. “Tonight was incredible. And I have everyone to thank. I may be the new magician in the Brooks and Bennet Circus, but it’s you lot who make the real magic happen.”
Maude turned to Mabel, frowning. “Told you holding her breath that long under water would make her nutty.”
Annis had to resist the temptation to toss her pillow at Maude. Experience had taught her that targets were often missed on a moving train. Maude also had a habit of confiscating items when used as weapons against her, even if she fully deserved the pillow assault.
“I’ll have you know, I’ve never been more clearheaded,” she informed them. “But, as you two tend to be displeased with too much ado and appreciation, I’ll save it for those who relish it. Like Sawyer.”
“There’s a person who is never tired of hearing just how wonderful he is,” Mabel said. “Probably because his sour attitude makes him less likely to be at the receiving end of such statements very often.”
“Yes,” Maude agreed. “Save the gushing for Smalls. And bestow some on Goldilocks while you’re at it. He needs it more than the rest of us.”
“Have you noticed he’s been exceptionally pouty as of late?” Mabel asked.
“You know,” Annis said, “now that you mention it, I have noticed. I thought it was just around me. He’s been a bit short with me ever since that bit about my former life came out.”
“He’s just cross because you got to decide your new name for yourself and he got saddled with a ridiculous moniker like Goldilocks,” Maude said. She chuckled to herself as she undid the ties in her hair and let her long waves drape down her shoulders.
“It is a pretty unfortunate name,” Annis agreed, making her bed in preparation for the host of crew members who would soon start piling in. Her bed was usually the first seating space to fill up.
“I think it’s a perfectly fine name,” Mabel huffed. Annis suspected she’d played a fairly large part in assigning it to him.
“Regardless,” Annis said, intent on staying on topic. “Do you think we should talk to him? Find out what’s bothering him?”
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Maude replied, her head stuck in her nightdress while she waited for Mabel to get caught up with putting her half on. “Let us know what he says when you do.” Even muttering through the material, Maude was too easy to understand for Annis to feign confusion or having misheard her.
“Why’s it I always land the jobs no one else wants around here? You two have double the mouths, double the comfort—”
“But half the brains,” Maude interjected.
“You know that one was insulting to you too,” Mabel pointed out, proving that the thinking portion of their twin power wasn’t solely provided by Maude after all.
“Still worth it,” Maude said with a carefree shrug. Her nightgown was fully in place now, which allowed both women to move their heads and arms with ease again.
“So,” Mabel said in a hushed tone. “Have you heard?”
Annis hadn’t. “Heard what?”
“Poppy’s having posters made,” Maude said, much to Mabel’s disappointment.
“It was my news, Maude! I asked if she’d heard—obviously if she hadn’t, I wanted to tell her,” she whined.
“Maybe you could tell me what the posters are of?” Annis offered, hoping to avoid an argument while getting an answer.
Mabel looked at her sister probingly, daring her to spill her news a second time. When Maude remained silent, Mabel’s excitement rose again, and her voice dropped back down to a whisper. “Posters of you! New adverts for the show. Our fabulous new act—Annis the Alchemist! That’s what they say! Even got a picture of you on it.”
Annis remembered posing for it, though Poppy hadn’t been specific about what they were to be used for. Posters sounded like a terrible idea.
“Posters with my face on it? Grand,” she said. “Aren’t there enough of those already up around these parts?”
“I suppose that’s the point,” Maude said, sounding more serious than usual. “I think he’s going to try and speed things up. Cross lines between worlds. Bring the battle to us.”
“But why?” The thought made Annis queasy.
“Our territory. Our rules,” Mabel said.
“But...” Annis wasn’t sure she wanted an answer to the question she was burning to ask next. “What do you think will happen when he finds me here? To him?” William’s safety was of little concern to her, but the thought of anyone here staining their souls with the dark mark of murder was enough to make her want to put a bullet in him herself. He was her burden and no one else’s.
“No one here’s looking to have a poster matching yours, Annis,” Maude said dryly, her usual tone of sarcasm returning. “Tempting as it would to be let him fall in with the lions, I don’t think it will come to that.”
“You’re the illusionist, Annis,” Mabel said. “Decide the ending you want to have, and then create it. Whether it’s real or not will hardly be the issue. Making him believe it, that’ll be the only thing that counts. And you, dear girl, had hundreds of people believing at least ten different impossible—no, unbelievable—things tonight. Convincing one man of one thing will hardly even be a challenge for you.”
“But make him believe what?”
“That’s the fun of it, isn’t it?” Maude said. “You get to decide.”
Annis wasn’t convinced there was fun in a
ny of what they were saying. As she pondered what sort of illusion she might conjure up to free herself of her father’s murderous best friend, a quick knock on the door gave way to several people bearing with food and drinks, spilling into the cabin. They brought everything from hot tea to cocktails, the latter of which the likes of Bess and Maude were always happy to partake in when the following morning promised to be a late one, as was the case tonight.
“You were amazing out there,” Sequoyah whispered when everyone around them settled into their usual banter-filled conversations, none of which had to do with them. Annis suspected they did this intentionally to allow the two young lovebirds a bit of privacy even amid the madness of a full cabin.
“Because you all made me that way,” Annis countered, turning away so he wouldn’t see her blush. “Besides, it was all illusion, remember?”
“There was no trickery in the magic I witnessed,” he said softly, moving a curl of her hair from her face and tenderly tucking it behind her ear. “You were born for this, Annis.”
There was a bittersweet truth in what he’d said. She had been born for this, but only after she’d died to release all that came before. The old her, the Emmeline part of her, would’ve never found her way to the center of a circus ring, let alone to the side of a native man whose gentle hand held so much more now than the curl of her hair.
“How long do you think we’ll have until he turns up?” she asked, hoping Sequoyah would know exactly what and who she was talking about.
“Next stop we’ll be just two states out from where we found you,” he answered without hesitation. “You tell me. How long’d it take you to stumble from your back door into our camp?”
“Days.” Annis bit her bottom lip. “And I was on foot, literally stumbling. He’ll have far more efficient ways of travel to choose from once he gets word I’m with the circus.”
Sequoyah nodded grimly. “I think this could all be over by week’s end.”
Annis glanced over her shoulder at the wreath the twins had hung on the door. “Sunday is Christmas Eve,” she said, trying to hide the sigh that swept through her chest. “First, I screwed up our secret outings my first night out, and now I may be bringing the enemy home for the holidays. If you’re right, I’ll have properly ruined every last part of Circus Christmas. No one will ever let me join any secret plotting around here ever again.”
“I wouldn’t count yourself out just yet,” he said, his lips quirking. “Takes a special sort of plotter to bring a murder mystery into our midst and leave it here for us to solve.”
“Right.” She smirked. “Forgot about that.” She straightened herself up a bit taller. “I am a master plotter of circus shenanigans if there ever was one.”
“Would you stop filling her head with nonsense?” Sawyer had apparently caught the tail end of their conversation. “She gets any more full of herself, she won’t fit into the tent.”
“Be still, small man-child, or Annis the Alchemist shall make you disappear,” Annis boomed dramatically before curling over in giggles. As Sawyer considered a proper retort the cabin’s noise rose with the sounds of laughter.
Their fun sustained itself well through the dark blue skies of night and slowly began to dissipate with the orange glow of morning, which sent everyone to bed at last. When the train arrived at its destination later that evening, there was little need to hurry. Nearly all the attention was placed on getting Momma set up for the sake of a proper supper. The animals were cared for and brought out to stretch their legs even as the sun was sliding down the far end of the valley, signaling another night to come. With little to do but wait until morning, the crew busied themselves with building fires, playing music, and dancing, lots of dancing.
The crisp chill in the air, the hot glow of the fire, and a million twinkling stars overhead made for a magical night and, for the first time since their outing to deliver secret Christmas Cheer, it felt like the holidays were truly upon them.
The following day proved harder than Annis had expected. The weather turned, leaving them to do most of their work in the pouring rain and cold winter air. Everyone worked harder and faster than usual, doing all they could to warm up from the inside out. But it was useless. By lunch, Annis was wearing two blankets over her damp clothes. Her teeth chattered as she tried repeatedly to spoon hot soup into her mouth. Between the shivering of her body and the lock in her jaw, it became an increasingly frustrating effort, given how particularly hungry she was and how desperately she yearned to feel the heat of that soup burning its way down her throat into the pit of her being.
“Where have you been?” Annis heard Maude ask, and looked up to see who she was talking to.
“Poppy sent me into town,” Goldilocks said, an odd look of guilt on his face as he pulled his soup bowl nearer to him. “Wanted me to hand out those new flyers he made,” he said just as he lifted his spoon to his lips.
“Don’t suppose you found a matching wanted poster to tack it up next to?” Annis asked, forgetting all about the cold weather. She was too aware of the anxious chill running through her now.
“Thought that might be a bit too obvious,” he said dryly. “Though I saw some. Even had his name on them, Detective William Faber. Deems himself your concerned parent now, in case you’re wondering.”
“Isn’t that lovely?” Annis’s words dripped in dark sarcasm. “Talk about a lucky girl.”
“Parent and would-be killer, that’s quite the combination,” Sawyer mused. “Though I can’t say I’m surprised. Anyone forced to spend a great deal of time with the likes of you would eventually have to walk that very thin line between loving and wanting to kill you.” He shrugged. “You have a way about you, Annis. It’s grating on the nerves.” And then he grinned.
“Thankfully no one here will have that problem, being as they’ve all had their nerves grated down to numb nubs by you long before I ever came along,” she said. She was preparing, at long last, to sip her soup straight from the bowl, as though she were having a large, savory cup of tea.
Sawyer smirked. “Your wit is getting to be quite entertaining, Annis.”
“Glad you think so,” she replied, giving her bowl another tip. Truth was, she appreciated Sawyer always pushing her buttons. More often than not, he was doing it when she most needed the distraction. Like now, when she could have let her mind unravel at the thought of every possible outcome that could follow from trying to lead William straight to her. Instead, she wound up searching her thoughts for clever ways to insult Smalls. And they did have to be clever. Poor comebacks were frowned upon. He wanted high-quality battles of banter, an even exchange of offensive commentary. Otherwise, he quit bothering.
The day remained in nonstop motion, giving Annis little time to revisit her previous attempts at panic. Come night, and the beginning of a new show, her mind was only on one thing. The performance. And there it stayed in the days that followed. Her thoughts were busied with work, and then derailed by play before they sank into exhausted sleep that was deprived of even her most stubborn nightmares.
Until the third day.
Chapter Nineteen
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
“Coppers are here,” August hissed, passing through the back of the tent. “No one do anything crazy. Everyone knows the plan.”
“What plan?” Annis said.
“The plan to keep you safe, you dolt,” Sawyer said under his breath.
“Oh, right. That plan. It’s a good plan. Let’s go with that plan,” she rambled.
“Annis,” Poppy’s voice found her in the center of her mental undoing. His calm tone was always steady, even now. “Let’s walk, love.”
Her eyes cast down, she fell into step beside him, unable to think, and hardly even capable of drawing breath, but she moved one foot in front of the other nonetheless.
“What’s the one thing you always do to keep from falling, love?” Poppy whispered.
“Don’t look down.” She remembered the depth of those word
s as she heard herself say them. “Don’t look down, no matter what.”
“That’s a good girl.” Poppy walked them through the small area behind the curtain, snaking his way through all the performers preparing to go on, all scurrying about with the added anxiety of their impending collision with the local police and the possibility of William attempting to take Annis from their midst.
When he reached the far end of the small space, normally only used for the animals and their keepers, he stopped. Annis stopped along with him.
“Whatever happens tonight, I want you to know two things, love,” he began, sounding more serious than Annis had ever heard him. “One, everyone is responsible for their own choices. Everyone. Do not attempt to absolve anyone of that right.”
She nodded. Though it was hard to swallow, she understood his meaning. Whatever happened, whoever was hurt, she was not to blame herself.
“And two, I shall see you safe at the end. You have my word on this, love. Whatever you encounter along the way are but steps to get there. You take them. You survive them. You conquer them by any means necessary. You get to the other side of this. You get to the end of it.”
She swallowed down the words of doubt bubbling up within her. “I’m scared.”
“It’s just nerves,” he said, winking. “Perfectly normal.”
“You find this particular situation to be perfectly normal, do you?” she asked, hardly able to contain the fear threatening to overtake her.
“We’re about to open the show. The audience is alive with anticipation. The tent feels hot and sticky, and it smells of peanuts and toffee apples. Seems perfectly normal to me, love.” He bent down and kissed the top of her head. “You’re an illusionist now, Annis. Tonight, you don’t even have to convince them. You only have to plant a small seed of doubt. Everything else will grow from there.”
She wanted to ask him what he meant. She wanted to know more. She needed to understand the insight he had that gave him a constant peek into the future that no one else ever seemed privy to. But there was no time. He was being summoned by Harris, who needed assistance with Jacob, as always.
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