AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Is also alive.” She nods. Suddenly, she throws the cards up. I sit back with a gasp at the abruptness and then again as they hover in the air for long seconds before they fall once more. “Here, Queen, we are not the masters. We simply answer the call as you have. We all have. We are its conduit. Pure magic flows through us. We do its bidding. The sooner you realize you can’t control it, the sooner you will understand it.” The cards arrange themselves on the table, lying face down in a random pattern as she taps them. “The past and the future are all linked, and I, and now you, are the key to keeping it all together, but to understand the future, you must first understand the past. Pick a card.” She waits patiently, and with a shaking hand, I reach across the table, tapping a card at random.
When I retract my hand, she flips the card to show me a spade. “It’s interesting you would pick this.”
“Why?” I ask, frowning. She speaks in riddles, but part of me seems to understand them and why they are important.
“It is interesting that you, who was held captive in your marriage, would pick the card of a man who was held captive as well. You have wondered why there are no cages here, correct? It is his doing. He was held in a cage most of his life, tied to the wants and needs of people posing as parents. He was the second of our suits to be called to the circus, but his strengths were born with him, not grown here. Animals have always answered his call, and the cirque saw that and called him home where he could be free, as well as his animal.” Before I can ask questions, she flips the cards and waits with an arched brow. I tap another at random, desperate for the information she is giving me on the men who have consumed my thoughts. They are as mysterious as the cards before me.
This time, it flips over to reveal a red heart, and she smiles. “Heart, despite his name, is often called heartless. It’s ironic that he chose that name, though I think that’s probably why he did so. He is all about confronting his fears head-on. He was a slave when the cirque found him, forced to sleep within the trees of his master’s traveling shops. He was left to nature, and many think that’s what drove him mad, or the many beatings he endured in the name of the heart.” I must look confused because she smiles. “Only love can bore such madness, Queen, and Heart loved deeper than most, until it was taken.”
She flips it once more, and I tap another. This time the black club flips over, and she rubs her thumb over it. “Club was born as an entertainer. We aren’t the only circus, of course. He was born into the life, but unlike us, he had no family. He learned to respect the sharp edge of the blade, making it his own after it was used against him. His beauty was his greatest weapon and also his darkest sin. He was wanted by all, and they used that. He was not chained like you, Ember, but you know all too well how easily one can be trapped even without restraints.”
I swallow as the card flips, and this time, she flips another—diamond. “Our ringmaster, but you know that. You saw him here when you were a child. Unlike the others, he was born into the service of cirque.” She flips the card back over. “All of them were destined to join cirque, but they still chose the oath, chose to bind themselves to this fate. Their pasts and futures collide. It’s woven together. Everything is born as it should be, but choices can change everything. That is one thing magic has no control over—free will. Here, we learn to read it and offer the truth without bias. Here, we are the historians, the readers, and the keepers. We are the soul of cirque. Without us, there is no home or family.” She levels her pale white eyes on me, her expression solemn. “We answer the cards, Ember, but you will control them.”
Chapter
Fifteen
Ilearn her name is Hilda and that she’s been with the cirque for three decades, traveling from town to town and reading the cards for those brave enough to enter her tent.
The day after she showed me her cards, everyone is in a whirlwind of activity, packing up the cirque and preparing to move to the next stop. I haven’t asked how they know where to go. There seems to be a nonexistent map, as if they simply follow a feeling and stop whenever it’s right. I don’t even know how they know when it’s time to leave, since we’ve been at this location for a couple of weeks now. I honestly wouldn’t put it past the cirque to instruct when and where to go. It has a mind of its own.
The old cars and trucks are all loaded up with people and supplies, the cirque tents, and stalls. One large livestock trailer is loaded with the elephant and horses, the other animals all placed into cars with the people. Even Freedom hops in the back seat of an Oldsmobile that Spade drives. No one else gets in that car with him, so that’s where I find myself for the duration of the move.
“Where are we going?” I ask as I slide into the front of the car and arrange my crutches. Dr. Louie says I’ll be on them for a while longer, but as soon as the bone is better, I can walk on a boot instead of the crutches. Within three months, I’ll hopefully be back to normal. At least my ribs seem to have healed faster than my leg.
“I don’t know,” Spade answers honestly, checking the mirrors at all times. Not only does he check on Freedom where she sleeps in the back seat, but he also checks to make sure the trailers behind him are doing okay. We make up a long line of vehicles, and though we could be going faster if we just drove and met everyone, we move as a single unit.
A family.
“Then how do we know we’re going in the right direction?” I ask, frowning.
He shrugs. “We just do. We’ll know it when we see it, but it usually isn’t far. We travel as needed between towns.”
I’m not sure what his definition of far is, but it does end up taking five hours to get to our next location with our slow-moving convoy. At some point, Diamond stops and pulls us into a large, empty field. A sign welcomed us to New Lockland on the way in. It seems to be a quaint little town, and the moment all the trailers arrive, work begins.
Still on crutches, I’m not nearly as much help as I’d like to be, so I mostly stay out of the way. Every now and then, I’m able to help, but after stumbling and falling onto the grass a few times, Spade instructs me to keep Freedom company. That’s how I end up sitting in the grass on the outskirts of the setup, Freedom lying behind me and allowing me to lean against her as we watch the smoothness with which Cirque Obscurum is re-erected. It’s beautiful, like a choreographed dance, every person knowing their place. Diamond runs around and helps where he’s required, making sure everyone has what they need. Heart is the one who climbs the beams and attaches ropes and lights without any support. Spade and Club both work on putting up tents and unpacking everything we previously packed away. I watch each of them as they work, salivating when they remove their shirts as the sun rises higher in the sky.
“I could get used to this,” I tell the tiger at my back.
She makes a small growl of agreement and nuzzles my elbow until I pet her. For a tiger, she’s incredibly domestic. How strange for everyone to be so afraid of her. She’s no different than a house cat.
The cirque is raised by the time the sun goes down, and a few of the crew members run into town to hang flyers everywhere. To the small town of New Lockland, it’ll be as if we simply appeared from thin air. Come to the cirque and enjoy a thrill. Dive into the mystery, and before anyone can ask any questions, we’ll be gone again. I like the enigma of it all. How easy it is to make it a secret. How easy it is to fool people. No real magic is even required.
I find my way to my tent once everything is done and lie down on my bed, my underarms hurting because of the crutches. I’m getting stronger while using them, but I’m going to have to wrap the handles with something softer soon. The bruises they are starting to leave behind are troublesome.
It’s late, but I can’t sleep. No one else seems to have that trouble as I hear them all retreat to their tents and not come back out. Across the way, I even hear Dr. Louie snoring. He’s so loud, he might as well be sawing wood, but at least he’s far enough away that it doesn’t penetrate too deeply into my tent.
No, what I end up hearing is the shuffling of the tents beside me. First Diamond, then Club, and then Spade and Heart. They quietly get up from their beds and begin whispering outside my tent, words I can’t hear.
Curious, I move as silently as I can to my tent flap and peer out, only to find them walking away. They wear all black to blend in with the darkness. They also have on those terrible, horrifying masks they wore on the night they found me. They are quiet as they go, clearly intending not to wake anyone.
My curiosity has me following them, but I am far less graceful on my crutches than they are on foot. They move toward a Dodge and begin climbing in, until Heart sees me coming over the hill and grins.
“It appears we have a stalker, boys,” he comments, watching me carefully pick my way over the grass. None of them try to help me, just watching, and it reminds me of the night they came for me.
“Where are you going?” I ask, coming to a stop before them.
“Don’t you feel it?” Diamond asks, glancing over at me as he opens the driver’s door.
