Protecting Emma

by ML Michaels

  “So, Jana. What do you want to know?”

  “Well, first I’d like to know how you even know Winifred in the first place.”

  “Well, I only met her once. I stopped at the local square where she was performing, and I actually saw you there too. I watched your act. Afterwards, I left and headed to a local pub. Winifred followed me. We had a drink, got to talking, and she came home with me. We didn’t sleep together, but she spent the night. She told me things that night that I just couldn’t ignore. And in the morning, she was just gone. Not a trace she’d even been there with me.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Well, that’s the interesting part. She didn’t actually tell me much, but she alluded to a lot. She said she was in danger and that you were in danger. She said she got caught witnessing something she was not supposed to see. She said she had a bad feeling something terrible was going to happen.”

  “She told me something similar, but I never found out was it was,” Jana added.

  “So we don’t actually have any information on what she meant. We just know that she saw something she wasn’t supposed to, and now she’s dead.”

  Jana nodded her head slowly. “I guess so.”

  The stream trickled by underneath their feet. The sun shining on her back and the tops of her knees was hot and welcome. Summer was on the way. Summer always brought good things. Darby watched Jana out of the corner of his eye hoping for some kind of signal that it was okay for him to scoot closer to her. She seemed at ease, but he didn’t want to make a move at the wrong time. He had a feeling that with her, he would have to play his cards just right. Winifred was right; she was special.

  “Do you have any idea what she could have been talking about? What she could have seen?” he continued.

  “I’m not sure,” Jana began. “We are a traveling circus troupe. There are some of us who have shady pasts. I won’t deny that, but I can’t see anyone doing anything outright wrong. I can’t see anyone going as far as murder.” She paused for a moment and adjusted the straps of her shirt. “What about the legend of the purple ladies. You’ve heard it, right?”

  “Sure I have.”

  “Right, you’ve been spying on me.”

  For a moment Darby thought she was serious, but then he saw the smile on her face and realized she said it lightheartedly. “I have been tracking you,” he admitted. “I made a promise that I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you, and I plan to keep it.”

  “You don’t have anything else you should be doing?” Jana inquired, curious as to what he’d be doing if he weren’t here.

  “Well, back in my town, Sheridan. I run a leather shop. I sell handmade satchels, shoes, and coats. Whatever you can make out of leather, I make it.”

  “Shouldn’t you be getting back to it?”

  “Yeah, I should, eventually. But I’ve come this far. For Winifred’s sake, for your sake, and because I gave my word, I’ve got to finish what I started.”

  Jana lifted her head and looked Darby straight in the eye. He could have sworn her eyes were made of flecks of gold. They were beautiful, and he got lost in them.

  “That’s a very brave thing to do,” she said.

  “I don’t know about brave, but it’s where my path has led me.”

  Jana leaned in until her lips connected with Darby’s, ever so gently. His heart skipped a beat as he realized what was happening. He had dreamed of this but never thought it would happen. He’d dreamed of sweeping her off her feet, but right now, all he could do was sit there and let her kiss him. He was frozen in time, lost in the sensation of being kissed by such a beautiful woman. She puckered her lips and pulled away. His lips tingled where hers had just been. And just as he was about to open his eyes, she kissed him again. This time her sweet lips where slightly parted, urging his open. Her tongue met his tongue, and they twirled around each other, slowly at first and then with more fervor. The sound of the stream flowing beneath them sounded like a beautiful, natural melody, and they danced. Time fell away, and all that was left was a kiss.

  Finally, Jana sat back. She looked at him with her gorgeous, golden eyes shyly. He didn’t know what to say, but knew he better come up with something, and fast.

  “Jana…you are so beautiful. I’ve thought so since the moment I laid eyes on you, and then when I saw you again, sitting in the field, the sun shining on you, you looked liked some kind of angel. Winifred said you were special. I can see why.”

  Jana blushed. “I’ve never kissed someone like that before.”

  “No?”

  “No,” she said, looking up at him from beneath long, black eyelashes. “I feel like I’ve been saving it just for you.”

  It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to him. “Come here,” he said. He brought her in against his chest and just held her. They breathed together in unison and got lost listening to all the forest sounds. Darby didn’t know what was happening to him. He’d never felt this way about a woman—protective, in awe, irresistibly drawn to, and like there was nothing he could do, but surrender into how he felt. He sighed and nuzzled his face in her neck. His sandy-colored dreadlocks and her dark, thick hair blended together in a stream of hair.

  There was a rustling in the bushes on the side of the stream. The foliage wiggled as if something that had been hiding in them had just gotten up. Darby sniffed the air and was suddenly on alert. Jana hadn’t noticed anything and was surprised to have Darby sit up so quickly.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  He put a finger to her lips, implying she should be silent. He stood up and crept along until he was on the other side of the log. From there, he could leap to the bank and surprise whatever was behind the bush. And then, just as Darby was about to leap, Ronan shot out from behind the bush and began sprinting in the opposite direction. Darby was racing after him in less than a second. He was right on his heels, but Ronan had long legs and the added benefit of knowing this forest well. He knew where the roots grew up high and could be hazardous, he knew what branches to duck under, he knew where to turn to lose Darby in seconds flat. Darby stopped, giving up hope of catching Ronan, and put his hands on his knees, bent over, breathing hard. Suddenly, Jana was right there, skidding to a halt right beside him.

  “He got away?” she asked, trying to catch her breath.

  “Yes, he was too fast, and he knows this forest too damn well.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “I’m not sure. Listening in on our conversation, watching us.”

  “That makes me nervous.”

  “It’s definitely odd,” Darby agreed. “Come on. Let’s head back. You’re probably exhausted and hungry.”

  “Yeah, let’s go,” Jana said as she looked back over her shoulder one last time. She could have sworn she saw Ronan’s face peeking out from behind a tree, but she shook her head and grabbed Darby’s hand, and they made their way back towards camp.

  Ragul’s snakes were growing restless. He hadn’t let them out to dance in days. Sitting by the fire, he was whittling a small, new whistle in the shape of a snake. The villagers of Lancaster were not keen on his act. Some people had even yelled at him, “Go back to the desert.” Ragul was not welcome in Lancaster. The circus was not welcome in Lancaster. He wondered why they stayed. Celeste and her boys, Josef’s woman, Roxanna, Tomas, and a few others stirred around the fire, restless and hungry. Josef slogged to prepare food for dinner, but their rations were getting smaller and smaller. If they didn’t move on to the next town within a few days, Ragul predicted trouble.

  Josef pulled a big pot of beans off the fire and dragged it to the kitchen. Roxanna skipped after him, her ruffled dress bobbing up and down. Ragul wondered what kept them here. It couldn’t be the enthusiastic crowds that Lancaster offered because Lancaster’s enthusiastic crowds where enthusiastic for the wrong reason. They didn’t want the circus to stay just as much as the circus didn’t want to stay. Ragul looked over
to Homer’s large tent and wondered what went on inside of it. As the days went on, they saw less and less of Homer, as he spent more and more time inside. No one had been paid in weeks. Something was going on, and Ragul decided he would find out what it was. Homer usually came out late at night, when most people had gone to bed, to drink with Josef. Ragul would stay up late tonight and listen in on their conversation, or perhaps sneak into Homer’s tent and see what he could find.

  Ragul’s blade slipped off the piece of wood and sliced his pointer finger.

  “Ahh!” he yelled, pain searing into the wound.

  “Look at the blood!” Celeste’s eldest boy exclaimed.

  “Let me see! Let me see!” the youngest shrieked.

  Ragul frowned and put his thumb in his mouth, sucking up the blood.

  “Eww!” the youngest squealed. “He’s sucking his own blood.”

  “Come here boys,” Celeste cooed. “Leave Ragul alone.”

  Ragul turned his back to the three screaming boys and tore off a piece of cloth from his tunic. He looked down at his thumb, and thought he saw bone, but he wrapped the piece of fabric around it before he could tell for sure. Ragul could handle a lot of things, but blood was not one of them. He tied the cloth tightly and put his knife, as well as his half-finished whistle, away in his pocket.

  Homer waddled up to the fire and bellowed, “Dinner ready yet?”

  “Five more minutes,” Josef’s woman hollered from the outdoor kitchen.

  “Boy, am I hungry.”

  Ragul watched him sway back and forth. Obviously drunk, he looked around the fire as if he was hoping to see someone, but when his eyes didn’t land on who or what he was hoping to find, he closed them and wiped the sweat off his brow. Ragul had never liked Homer with his oversized belly and his bulging eyes and that he always wore a red shirt to proclaim that he was head of the circus, as if the name Homer’s Theatrical Circus Troupe wasn’t enough. He suddenly wondered how Homer had come to lead this small circus. Had he inherited it from his father? Had he started it up himself? Ragul couldn’t be sure, but he didn’t believe Homer to have the intelligence to start a circus of his own accord. If there was one thing he was sure of, however, was that people could surprise you.

  “Wine?” Tomas asked, handing Homer a bottle of red wine that had no label.

  “Oh why not?” Homer said as if he hadn’t already been drinking.

  Ragul wondered why no one confronted Homer about getting paid, when behind his back it was all the troupe could talk about. It was almost as if finding out who murdered Winifred was second in importance to getting paid. Ragul was sorry for that. He was still on the hunt for the killer. Unlike everyone else, he was now sure that it was someone in the troupe who had killed her. Who else would have known where the rope was, known how to sneak up on Winifred, how to set the scene so perfectly to intimidate everyone? Ragul had a couple of suspicions, but he kept quiet, not wanting to draw attention to himself.

  His thumb began the throb. He looked down at it and realized his blood had seeped through the fabric. With one hand, he tore off another piece and prepared to change the bandage.

  “What did you do there?” Homer nearly yelled into his ear, surprising him.

  “Oh, I sliced my thumb. Want to see?” Ragul said, half joking, lifting up his thumb, which was still oozing blood.

  Homer grimaced and looked away. “Oh, Ragul. Why’d you have to show me that. You know I don’t like blood.”

  “Neither do I, but it is part of life.”

  “Not all parts of life are worth looking at.”

  “I would beg to differ,” Ragul said, wrapping up his thumb and securing the bandage in place.

  “Well, I suppose that’s one of the many differences between you and I, Ragul.”

  “Yes I suppose it is.”

  The two men glared at each other. Ragul was surprised to feel the animosity burning out of Homer towards him. He wasn’t quite sure what he had done to merit such hatred, but he was used to it. He wasn’t well liked because he was different, but he was usually at least respected.

  “Dinner!” Josef’s voice boomed throughout camp.

  Everyone stood up, and kids ran over to the kitchen carrying their bowls. The adults followed behind in clumps of twos and threes. Homer stumbled off without saying another word to Ragul, who shrugged and looked into the fire. All he could think about was home. I just want to go home, he said to himself. Realizing it had almost been a decade since he had seen his mother, his sisters. It is time, he decided. It is time.

  Jana didn’t want to bring another outsider to camp, so Darby waited in his makeshift camp by the field. She said she would bring food, and they could eat together looking up at the stars. Darby beamed at the thought as he headed towards the field. He had a feeling she was on her way. Just as the moon was popping over the trees, Jana emerged from the forest with two bowls in her hands, a tapestry slung over her shoulders, and a goofy smile slapped across her face.

  “You came!”

  “Yes, and you waited for me.”

  “Of course I did. I would wait a very long time for you, Jana.”

  He slipped the tapestry off her shoulders and laid it out over the grass. Jana knelt down and handed one bowl to Darby and kept the other for herself. It was a sad dinner of rice and beans, but food is food—at least that’s what she always told herself. She apologized to Darby for the small portions and explained that the kitchen was running low on supplies.

  “I wonder why that is,” Darby mused.

  “It’s because we’ve been in Lancaster so long. The villagers are tired of our presence here. They’ve seen our acts too many times. If I were a villager, I would want us gone too. We are usually only in a town for a few days, never more than a week.” Jana took a bite of rice and beans and glanced at Darby. He was staring at her, smiling like a fool. “You know, Homer keeps saying we’ve been here so long because he is going to find the murderer before we can move on, but I don’t think he’s doing anything to look.”

  “I was thinking the same thing. A little suspicious don’t you think?” he said.

  “More than a little suspicious. Winifred was right. Something bad is going on at the circus.”

  Darby ate his last spoon full of rice and beans and placed his bowl in the grass. “Are you done?” he asked Jana. She took two more big bites and handed him her bowl, which he stacked on top of his. “Come here,” he said, and Jana curled up in between his legs and rested her head on his chest. He felt like her protector—not that she needed protecting—but it felt good. It felt good to be safe in his arms.

  “I never could have predicted this, you know?” she said. “You came out of nowhere and changed the course of everything.”

  “I could say the same thing about you.”

  They both looked up at the moon, inching its way upwards on its arch, closer to the middle of the sky. The stars were bright, but shy around the light from the moon. Darby pointed out Orion and the Big Dipper, and Jana showed him Cassiopeia and The Seven Sisters. Darby couldn’t resist any longer, he kissed Jana on the forehead, then on the cheek, and then on the lips. Jana opened up to him, accepting his kisses and returning them. She felt his love all the way from the bottom of her spine to the top of her head. It was as if he was pouring his energy into her, and she was being transformed by it. He laid her down, and she arched her back as he gently removed her top. Her small breasts came free, and her nipples perked up in the cool night air. Darby kissed one and then the other, and then her bellybutton. He pulled her leggings off of her full, round hips and sighed at her beauty. He threw off his shirt, and pounced on top of her. She giggled, and he rolled her over. Straddling him, she slowing untied his pants, taking her time, teasing him. He grinned at her devilishly until she allowed him to kick off his pants. And then there they were, naked in the fresh spring night, new lovers in a field of wild flowers.

  “Oh, Jana,” Darby breathed, and she
bent forward and kissed his jaw, and his neck, and nibbled on his earlobe. “You are so beautiful. So beautiful…”

  His fingers found her curves and she undulated under his touch, making him moan without even touching his manhood. They played like this under the stars, getting to know one another’s body, the way they moved, what they responded to, what felt good, and what felt really good. Jana had never been with a man before, but her body seemed to have a mind of its own. Her thoughts were overcome by sensation. And the sensations overflowed until she felt nothing but energy dancing with his energy in an endless cycle. They played like this late into the night, loving each other, body, mind and soul. Finally, the energy between them calmed and they lay next to each other, breathless and blissful.

  “What was that?” Darby whispered, rolling over to look at Jana, who looked like a goddess in the morning light.

  “I have no idea,” she replied. She was lying on top of a few of Darby’s dreadlocks. She reached over her shoulder, grabbed them, and pulled. There was the sound of a flower stem snapping.

  “Jana, no,” Darby said, reaching for her hand.

  “What?” Jana asked, suddenly frightened.

  She had just pulled a dark lady out of the ground.

  Ronan’s grandfather stood by the window, biting his lip. Ronan had been missing for two days. The old man knew he was out in the forest. There’s nowhere else he could have gone or would have wanted to go. As he looked out the window, an unnerving feeling crept into the old man. He couldn’t let his only grandson run wild in the woods. It was blasphemous. Ronan hadn’t been to church since the circus had come to town, and that was weeks ago. Ronan was slowly slipping out of his grandfather’s grasp, and the man knew he must do something about it. And it was now or never.

  The old man tore at his bottom lip with his teeth, and without realizing it, drew blood. He was more nervous, more rattled by Ronan’s absence than he realized. When Ronan was twelve years old, he had run away to the forest for the same reason—he was not allowed to join the circus. Ronan was nearly twenty years old now. Running away to the forest was a childish thing to do. What was the boy thinking? Had he not an ounce of common sense?