Skycircus

by Peter Bunzl

  “It’s like learning the tightrope,” Deedee added. “Don’t look back and don’t look down. If you fall, pick yourself up and try again. But the most important thing is not to give up, to keep moving forward.”

  “So,” Lily said, “Icarus had learned from his father how to make wings and fly, and he’d learned from his own mistake not to swoop too close to the sun. He’d everything he needed. He built his own wings, took off into the sky and didn’t fly too close to the sun this time – instead, he flew home to find his father.”

  Angelique smiled. “And that’s the end of the story?”

  “It is,” Lily said. “Or maybe just the beginning?”

  She sighed. “I wish…Madame had the Lunk’s winding key as well; if I could’ve stolen it, we might’ve been able to force a stop on him, or at least make him malfunction somehow, but I just couldn’t get it.”

  “Which pocket did she put it in?” Robert asked.

  “What?” Lily said. “I don’t know…the left.”

  “Her left or your left?”

  “Her left. Why?”

  “No reason.” Robert clutched the pair of teaspoons in his fist. “I’ve had an idea that just might work.”

  He sounded hopeful. Lily was relieved. Telling the story to the hybrids and having them tell it back to her had somehow lifted all their spirits. It had pulled Lily from the ocean of despair she’d been falling into, deep inside herself, and brought her back to the here and now.

  She hoped Papa had got the message Robert had sent in the telegram and was coming for them, but she knew that it was just as likely he had not, especially if the police had been to check the Skycircus site and found no evidence of her there. She thought of what Angelique had said about how people could change their own story while they lived it, and how even failure made you stronger. And she thought about what Deedee had said about not giving up and moving forward.

  The X-ray machine was so dangerous there was a strong chance it might kill her in the very first performance. But maybe, just maybe, the circus ring would provide an opportunity for her to speak out, to prove to everyone that humans and hybrids were really no different from each other…

  As she looked at Angelique, Robert, Malkin, Deedee, Dimitri, Silva and Luca, she knew that they would help her. She might not be able to rely on the police, or Papa, but she and the other children here had worked together, and she knew they could do it again.

  “We need to get away during the show tonight,” she said. “Before they bring me onstage to start my performance. We’ll need to use your wings, Angelique, Robert’s inventiveness, my heart, Malkin’s speed and agility.” She looked to the others. “And the skills of each one of you combined to help make this escape happen. I think we can do it if we join forces, and if we can persuade the others to as well – we didn’t try that before. But we need to succeed, because I mightn’t live to tell the tale if I get put in that machine, and you all deserve a better life than this. I don’t want this to be my very last chance to prove that we hybrids are just the same as everyone else. I need to tell Papa how I feel and I…I mean we…we need to make a stand.”

  The wait was interminable. Lily had barely slept through the night and was hungry and tired. She, Robert, Malkin and the other children spent the whole morning held captive in the abandoned pharmacy with nothing at all to eat or drink and no news of what was happening.

  Then, late in the afternoon, Madame, Auggie and Joey finally returned and unlocked the door, escorting them out of the hospital.

  As Lily was thrust back into the hearse with the others, she caught a terrifying glimpse of the X-ray machine already tied to its roof. Then they set off.

  Through the window of the vehicle’s passenger compartment, she could see the back of Droz’s head. She was coming to witness the show that evening. Lily’s mind flashed nervously forward to it, and all that could go wrong, and she dragged her eyes away from the doctor and out to the streets instead.

  The people of Paris gave them puzzled looks as they drove past in the hearse. As they approached the Bois de Boulogne, Lily felt a deepening trepidation. She watched the city recede and the woodlands get closer. Through the dust-spattered glass she glimpsed bill posters pinned to the trees that advertised the evening’s show. A terrible sense of dread leached into her bones. She felt as if she was being transported to her execution alongside her own unique guillotine.

  They approached the high, spiked wooden fence of the Skycircus site, and pulled past the ticket kiosk through the open gate, which was shut behind them by roustabouts.

  The Big Top and the gondola of the sky-ship loomed outside the hearse’s window, as it drove right up to the edge of the tent and stopped outside the artists’ entrance. The Lunk lumbered over and opened the doors of the hearse.

  “We’ve only an hour till show time,” Madame said, appearing behind him with the two clowns. “Get in there, all of you, and put on your costumes.” Her gaze snapped to Robert. “You, boy, can help everyone else get ready.” And then to Malkin. “As for that clanking big-snouted mechanical rag rug, put him in a cage or something, but just keep him out of my sight.”

  She stepped aside as Auggie and Joey dragged Malkin and the children out. Robert was last. Lily saw how white he looked, dizzy and tired on his feet; as he was pulled from the back of the hearse, he stumbled into Madame.

  “Get away from me, you fool!” she cried, pushing him off.

  Lily grasped his arm to stop him falling, and he righted himself with a strange look.

  Joey and Auggie led them into the tent, while Madame disappeared to talk to Slimwood, who was waiting on the other side of the hearse steam-wagon.

  In the backstage area, Auggie and Joey locked Malkin in a large holding pen at the back of the tent that looked big enough for all of them and as if it had been specially set up to stop them escaping.

  “Get changed now,” they told Lily and the rest of the children, and they strode among them, along with the Lunk, keeping an eye to see that they didn’t try anything. The atmosphere was quiet and subdued, for the Lunk was monitoring everyone closely, and the rest of the roustabouts were lurking around at the edges of the backstage area. Droz was nowhere to be seen – Lily supposed she must’ve joined the crowds front of house.

  Robert set to helping Lily find her stage clothes. When no one was looking, he flashed her a grin, revealing something in his palm. It was the Lunk’s winding key.

  “How the tock did you get that?” Lily asked, quietly astounded.

  “Magic,” Robert said. “And a bit of sleight of hand – I picked it from Madame’s pocket when I fell against her as we got out of the hearse.”

  “Won’t she notice it’s missing?”

  “That’s the clever part. I put one of your teaspoons in its place. They’re about the same size and weight.” He gave her another smile. “With this key, we can force the Lunk to a stop,” he explained. “Then we can open him up and change his workings so he malfunctions during the show. Do you remember what part of his brain we need to move the cogs in?”

  “I think it’s the motor cortex?” Lily bit her nails. She was a little unsure.

  “Are you certain?” Robert asked.

  She brightened. “Yes. It was written in Mama’s notebook too. But how are we going to catch the Lunk and do all that with everyone watching?”

  Robert shrugged. “I don’t know, but we’ve got an hour now and nearly an hour of the show to work it out.”

  Lily felt nervous and uncertain about Robert’s plan – but it was the only one they had, and anyway, she’d no more time to discuss it, for she was supposed to be getting into her outfit for the show.

  She put on the sparkly white dress Madame had chosen for her, and a spare pair of ballet shoes that were almost the same as Angelique’s. She still had no idea exactly what she was supposed to be doing in her act, and she was filled with trepidation at the thought of going out there to face the X-ray machine and who knew what else. Even if h
ers and Robert’s plan succeeded, it would be a close run thing.

  She finished dressing and tied her hair with a length of ribbon she found at the dressing table. When she was done, she approached her friend at the mirror.

  Angelique had already changed into her leotard and ballet shoes with white ribbons. She had plaited her hair, and threaded it with glass beads from the drawer in the dressing table. She was using a palette of make-up to paint her eyelids in shimmering colours and another palette of red to rouge her cheeks.

  Finally she turned to Lily and took her hand.

  “Let’s do your eyelids too,” she said, laughing nervously.

  Lily shut her eyes, willing the soft touch of the brush to stroke away her worries. As Angelique applied make-up to her face, Lily could feel the winged girl’s hands shaking.

  When she’d finished, Lily opened her eyes and stared at herself in the mirror. It was a shock, for she looked somehow more grown-up. Angelique had used the same make-up colours on Lily as she had on herself, so that Lily’s eyes had the same shimmer as hers, and her cheeks the same blush. She’d even threaded Lily’s hair with the same bright crystals as her own. Side by side in the mirror, the pair of them looked like twins with their make-up and determined faces, just with different complexions. Lily felt as if someone else’s impression of her had been made real. Edgily, she pulled her eyes away and looked around at everyone else.

  They were all ajitter as they changed into their stage outfits: Dimitri in his high riding boots, Silva with her scarf knotted round her neck, and Deedee and Luca in their glad rags for the show. Only Robert remained in his rough work clothes, and Malkin in his usual scruffy red fur coat. Neither of them were in the performance.

  When they were finished, the Lunk gathered the hybrids and the other children together and locked them all in the holding pen with Malkin.

  A little while later, the rest of the acts were brought in from their cells and began making themselves up at the costume table. Their faces looked pale and nervous and they glanced every so often at the children in their cage, uncertain of what the ringmaster and mistress had planned.

  Finally, Slimwood and Madame arrived in their costumes. Madame leaned her parasol against the make-up table and began gluing her beard on at one of the mirrors. When it was attached she was barely recognizable, and Lily remembered she was a character for the show – the person she’d been when they’d first met her in the circus: Madame Lyons-Mane.

  Madame Lyons-Mane clapped her hands together and Slimwood blew his whistle. “GATHER ROUND, EVERYONE!” he shouted.

  The entire company stopped what they were doing and made their way to the centre of the dressing room, giving him and Madame their full attention.

  The Buttons and the other circus acts and show families were there. Robert watched them through the bars of their special enclosure. An all-consuming dread filled their eyes as they contemplated the caged children. It seemed as if they’d no idea what to do.

  Madame spoke loudly, although her mouth was barely visible beneath her fake beard. “I wanted to say how delighted I am that we managed to procure our new arrival, Miss Hartman, to be our petite surprise in the show tonight. I’ve decided her nom de scène will be Miss Cora Valentine, and she’ll be the most heart-stopping act anyone has ever seen!” She paused and stared around at the group, daring anyone to contradict her – but no one did.

  “The rest of you must be at your best, performing to the highest of your abilities to complement her star turn. I want this show to be le plus beau on earth, I want people to be talking about it in a hundred years’ time! We’re not going to achieve that unless everyone believes in my vision and listens to me.” She waved her hands at them. “Remember, I keep this house. I tell you what to do. And you do as you’re told.”

  There was a hushed murmur among the company. Robert remembered how his ma had told him that the time before a performance was for everyone to come together, but in the Skycircus it seemed this moment was reserved for threats and recrimination.

  “As for these children” – Madame indicated Silva and Dimitri and the hybrids – “who tried to steal away before our very important premiere… There will be no reprieve for them – not tonight, not ever. I’ve decided they will do the show, just as I command, as always. Then tomorrow, we’ll discuss their punishment.”

  “No, please!” Bruno and Gilda Buttons cried together, rushing up to Madame. “They’ve done no wrong. Let them go, they need to be with us, we can look after them, make them behave, we promise.”

  “They helped the hybrids,” Slimwood said. “Fraternizing with freaks is forbidden.”

  Tears streamed down Gilda Buttons’s face. She reached out to Silva and Dimitri in the cage, but Auggie and Joey grabbed her by the arms and pulled her away, pushing her back into the crowd.

  Madame turned to the rest of the performers. “This is what happens to those who don’t play by the rules. It’s not just you who gets hurt, but the ones you love. Remember that, the rest of you.” Madame pulled Lily’s watch from the pocket of her dress coat and checked it. “Ten minutes to show time. Now get out there and entertain the crowds, and let’s make it the best show ever. If it isn’t, then I swear something terrible will happen to everyone!”

  The company dispersed in shocked dribs and drabs, whispering among themselves. No one dared approach the caged children, though their faces showed their concern.

  Time was running out. With a sickening lurch of terror, Lily realized they only had about sixty minutes to put their plan together before she would be taken out into the ring for the grand finale.

  She thought of Papa waiting for her at home in Brackenbridge, and Tolly and the friends who had been there on her birthday when she had disappeared, and how they had never had her birthday party and maybe now they never would. She thought of the torn pages of the notebook. She needed her mama’s courage now.

  There was only one page she hadn’t looked at, and she took it out now. It was, she realized, the last entry in the book, for it was written on the day her mama had died:

  Wednesday, 30th October 1889,

  Riverside Walk, Chelsea

  Tonight we are going to dinner together to celebrate leaving London. I will wear my red taffeta dress, the one Lily likes so much. She is coming with us.

  She insists on bringing the ammonite I gave her on the beach this summer. She carries it everywhere she goes. She likes to take it out and flip it between her fingers like a magic trick to make the fossil appear and disappear.

  I’m worried about John’s plan to relocate to Brackenbridge. He’s always running away from things. I think that’s why he wants us to move. He has kept our destination secret from everyone we know, and I wonder why. Is he in some sort of trouble? I know he and Simon have been quarrelling over business matters.

  I have glanced at the window, and it is snowing! It rarely snows in London. And in October – it seems a strange omen. To think two months ago we were at the beach, and the weather was fine.

  I have realized something John has not. He cannot run away from his problems. Wherever he goes, there they will be. Whatever road he takes to avoid them is the road they await upon. Tonight, at dinner, I intend to tell him as much. We shouldn’t be fleeing London, whatever issues he has with Simon – we should stay and see them through.

  A moment of conviction will be required on my part to say this. But I must. To speak the truth we carry deep inside us, within our hearts, no matter how difficult, is the only way we can be free.

  And if we cannot learn this for ourselves, how can we teach it to our daughter?

  I will write more later, when I get back.

  But she never had, for that was the last day she was alive. The day everything changed. The day Lily received the Cogheart and turned into a hybrid.

  Tenderly, she touched the scars from the accident that itched across her chest.

  Mama was right – whatever her troubles were, she couldn’t run from them any
more. She had to learn to live with them, learn to live with what made her different – the things she’d lost, as well as those she’d gained.

  Her ma’s few written words were like water in the desert and now they were over, finished, gone. But one phrase rang out from them: To speak the truth we carry deep inside us, within our hearts, no matter how difficult, is the only way we can be free.

  Robert couldn’t stand the waiting. He got up and began pacing around like a hungry lion himself. The far side of the cage was pushed against the curtain wall and he could hear voices filtering through from the other side – the excited babble of children and adults finding their seats. The familiar jaunty jig of the accordion, accompanied by flute and fiddle, drifted from the front of house.

  There was a small hole in the canvas wall that butted up against the edge of the cage. Robert put his eye to it and looked through.

  The Big Top was filling up. On the far side of the ring, Auggie was selling his wares from the sweetie cart to a long line of customers. Their happy faces in the coloured lamplight smiled at Joey’s clowning antics. More folk were filing in, and Robert wondered if he could cry out to them as they filtered through the tent, but then he realized they wouldn’t hear him over the music and their own excited chatter.

  The rest of the circus troupe stood in a line beside the backing cloth of the ring. They waved at the crowds, but their smiles were only pasted on, and every now and then they flicked worried glances to the backstage area, obviously thinking of Silva and Dimitri, the children of the whole circus, locked up in the cage. But Madame’s threats were enough to prevent them from doing anything to help.

  When everyone was seated, the performers drifted through the curtain to the backstage. As soon as they stepped out of view of the audience, their grins dropped and their eyes were full of concern.

  Meanwhile Auggie and Joey went into their routine; putting out the oil lamps that hung from the tent poles.