I smiled back despite my sadness at him leaving.
Aenea returned to her cart and I changed in mine – turning away from Arik and leaving my undershirt on – and walked toward the big top for practice. Arik stayed to "rest his leg" and finish packing, but he promised to say a final farewell before he made his way to his little room in Sicion.
Boldly, I clasped Aenea's hand and we walked into the circus together. There were a couple of raised eyebrows in our direction at this – Drystan's among them – but no one said a word or looked particularly astonished.
Bil was red in the face, which meant that he was drunk and angry, but not at anyone in particular. It was when his face went purple that someone was going to be in trouble.
"As you all have probably heard by now, you useless bunch of gossips," he said, pointing his cane accusingly at his audience, "there's a major hiccup in tonight's plans. The last circus in a city is meant to be the best. But now half of our final act cannot perform."
Eyes fell on Aenea and me. "I can perform just fine on my own," Aenea said. "I've done solo acts before."
"The poster says that there are two performers! Two performers flying over my head in the illustration! There must, therefore, be two bloody performers!"
He sounded like a child in a tantrum, but a very large, very hairy child. I half-expected him to stamp his foot and start wailing.
"These things happen in circuses," Aenea said, keeping her voice even.
"Not in my circus! I let you take on this whelp and train him up because I knew Arik was wearing at the seams."
"Micah's only been with us two months," Aenea protested.
"I saw you both the other day. He's learned quickly."
"Not quickly enough that I would trust him to catch me sixty feet off the ground!"
I felt a little hurt at this. I would not drop her.
"This seems unwise," Drystan said, standing up from the gaggle of clowns. "Micah has made amazing progress in so few months, but it would be bad form if we ended our last circus with an… accident." He let the words hang in the air.
Bil's face reddened, dangerously close to purple.
Drystan endeavored to salvage the situation. "Why don't we have Aenea and Micah perform the final act this afternoon in practice, on the trapeze and with nets? If they perform without mishap, then they perform tonight. Without nets."
Bil's face lightened a bit, and he brought a hand up to his chin. He liked a wager. Mentally, I applauded how well Drystan was able to manipulate Bil to his own desires. I smiled at him gratefully, and the white clown stuck his tongue out at me in response.
"Aye, I like this bet," Bil said. "Do you both agree with the stakes?"
"Yes," I said immediately. "Yes, yes, yes."
Aenea hesitated, and I looked at her, pleadingly. "Aenea, I can do this."
In her eyes, I saw a flicker of doubt. "Let's see how you do at practice," she said, and she gave me her hand. "Holding my hand here in the bleachers is one thing, but sixty feet above the circus floor is another."
The platform at the top of the trapeze felt twice as high and the platform under my feet felt like it had shrunk in half. It had only been two months ago that I had been so foolish, to jump and catch a trapeze with no training.
Aenea was tiny on her platform at the far side of the big tent, a small, pale face and a smudge of brown hair. The nets spread out below us like a web. I had practiced until my muscles ached and trembled and withstood the circus ignoring me, all for this. For another chance to fly.
"Combination one," Aenea called across to me.
"On three!" I called back, clutching the trapeze bar.
"I'll count!"
"If you wish!"
"One… two… three!"
We jumped.
It was better than I had remembered. The warm, stale air of the circus tent whooshed past my face. My legs held rigid and my toes pointed down toward the tiny circus performers below. I swung.
I kicked and pulled myself into a sitting position on the bar. I had grown much stronger over the past few months. I had not turned bulky, but my muscles were well-defined and the little bit of fat I had around my stomach and thighs was long gone.
Aenea and I swept past each other, both of us balancing on one leg. I flipped backward so that I hung inverted by the crook of my knees. I reached the peak of my arc, held there weightless in the air for a glorious moment, and swung down, picking up speed with the wind whistling in my ears. Aenea swung down from the far side. I reached out–
This was a test of trust. If Aenea hesitated, if she was not sure I could catch her, then our act would not work if there was ever a shred of doubt. We had practiced this routine plenty of times, ten to fifteen feet off of the floor on lowered trapezes. At this point, I could almost do it blindfolded. But she needed to trust me, not at ten feet, but at sixty feet.
Aenea leapt, stretched, and reached. Her hands caught my wrists and mine hers. We flew through the air. I grinned down at her and she beamed just as widely. I could feel her pulse thumping in my palms.
We performed a simple routine, child's play compared to Aenea and Arik's former acts. A catch, a few twirls on the trapeze bar, and hanging from the arms and the knees. Nothing fancy. No mid-air twirls and somersaults by me on my trapeze.
It felt ten times better to be six times higher off the ground. We swung onto our respective platforms on either side of the tightrope and bowed. The performers applauded below. On a whim, I began to make my way across the tightrope, trying to walk as naturally as if I were on the ground.
Aenea shifted to make room for me as I joined her on her platform. "You have a flair for the dramatic, don't you?" she whispered.
I wasn't sure if she was angry at me or not. She relaxed and smiled at me. "Good job, Micah."
"I had good teachers."
She turned and began to climb down the ladder. I followed, my spirits as high as we had been as we flew together on the trapeze.
Bil slapped us on the backs when we reached the ground again.
"You've been busy, my little starlings!" he said. "Looks like we have a final act."
I looked ridiculous in my costume.
It was one of Arik's. We were of a similar height but his shoulders were wider than mine and his shirt hung on me like a cape. Frit helped take in the seams, but it still did not look quite right.
"What are these?" she said, touching the bandages around my chest, though she knew. The bandages were not visible, but she could feel them. I pulled away from her touch.
"Violet grazed me the other week," I said. "I didn't want anyone to think me clumsy, so I didn't tell anyone."
"Is that why you needed something for the pain?" she asked. Her eyes were as just as shrewd and calculating as they had been on that night when I caught her with her hand deep in the circus safe. She did not like that I knew her secret. I did not like that she knew mine, or a portion of it.
"Partly yes," I said. My heart was hammering beneath the bandages. Over the past two months, my breasts had grown enough that I could never get away without strapping them down. I had to wake up before Arik every morning, hunching in the darkest corner of the cart and hoping he would not wake as I adjusted the strips of cloth. They were uncomfortable, the skin beneath chafed and red.
"You should let me take a look at them. Cat scratches can become easily infected, and it must have gotten you badly to need so many bandages."
"It's almost healed now. I can probably take off the bandages within the next couple of days," I said. "Please don't worry about it. But thank you."
"Hmm," she said, and threaded the needle. She paused before stitching, as if she were about to ask me something else. But she did not. She left as soon as she had finished. I let out the breath I did not know I had been holding.
Aenea entered and looked me up and down. "You look the part. How do you feel?"
"I'm nervous. And excited. It feels the same. And I look like an idiot."
She took my hands in hers. "You don't have to do this if you don't feel ready. And you don't look like an idiot, either."
I squeezed her hands. "Aenea, I'm ready. I've been climbing high off the ground since I was ten. You've taught me well. We'll be fine."
She took a deep breath. "Let me paint your face."
"Why do you two do that? It's not like anyone can see your faces, that high up."
"They see our faces when we walk onto the stage and when we come down. It adds to the overall effect. Come now, it won't offend your manly sensibilities, will it?"
I watched her face as she applied the paint. She was so trusting and so open with me, and I had repaid her with lies. Nausea roiled in my stomach. My eyes focused on her lips. I wanted to kiss them. Desperately. But I was too frightened.
"Done," she said, setting the brush aside. "You have rather delicate features for a man."
The queasiness grew worse. To cover it, I stuck my tongue out at her. "So I look like a woman, you're saying?"
She stuck hers back at me. "No, but you're pretty rather than ruggedly handsome. I like it, don't fret."
I reached for her hand. She squeezed my palm, the calluses rough and hard. "I have to paint myself. I'll see you during the act."
"Do you trust me?" I asked. "On the trapeze?"
"Yes, of course," she said. She turned away and left, and I hoped she was not lying to put me at ease.
• • • •
It was such a strange feeling, to be behind the stage about to go on.
The other performers treated me differently now that I was one of them. They looked at me rather than through me. Some told me to "break a bone," and a Kymri tumbler even clapped me on the shoulder. It was a bit unnerving to so quickly become noticed again.
My unease grew as each act came on. Not only was I finally having the chance to perform on the trapeze, but Cyril was in the audience, watching. I peeked out of the tent flap and saw him sitting in the expensive seats. I stretched and tried to keep my breathing even.
I wish we could have talked on our own. There was so much I wanted to say. I had sent a few letters, but they were all in heavy code and signed as Euan Rowan. We'd have to find a better way to communicate. I had started countless other letters to him, both in code and not, but they were still half-finished in my pack. I kept putting off finishing them, telling myself I would finish the next day, afraid that he would judge me, or that Mother and Father would open his mail. What must he have thought happened to me, with only my infrequent, cryptic letters as clues?
I took a deep breath.
He knows well enough now
, I thought.
Focus on the present.
Aenea was next to me the entire time. We did not speak, but we had our arms around each other. Aenea ran her fingers along my arm when she noticed how badly I was shaking. Unfortunately, that only made me shiver more.
Finally, it was our turn. "Here we go," Aenea said as we dusted chalk onto our hands.
We walked onto the stage hand in hand. People cheered and I felt a heady rush. My mind seemed to float away, but my body knew what to do. Aenea and I climbed our respective ladders toward the platforms. The gramophone played its cheery, brassy tunes. I looked down toward Cyril, but he was merely another pale dot in the crowd. I grabbed my trapeze. Aenea nodded at me from across the big tent and we swung from our platforms.
The wooden bar of the trapeze was smooth beneath my chalked fingers. My eyes caught the glare of the bright glass globes. There was a rushing in my ears. I reached the peak of my swing, flipped upside down on my bar, and began the long swing down. It was the first time I had looked at the floor far below from the perch of my trapeze and not through a net. A touch of vertigo spun away in my chest. I reached for Aenea.
Aenea flipped off of her trapeze and I caught her. She climbed atop of me and we swung on the trapeze, back and forth, back and forth, before she jumped to her own swing, flipping around the wooden bar and distracting the audience from the fact that I could not do much except catch.
After the trapeze act was finished, Aenea crossed the tightrope. I hung from my trapeze from one knee, arms and leg posed. I still both hated and loved to watch her do it. She looked so delicate, like a strong gust of wind could blow her away. She met my gaze and lost her balance slightly, wavering on the rope. I gasped, powerless on my trapeze. She was right in the middle of the tightrope.
The parasol danced toward the ground. Aenea was flapping her arms, nowhere near graceful, desperately trying to keep her balance. She fell. I cried out. The audience below gasped.
But one strong hand caught the rope. She hung, feet dangling. Sweat had melted her makeup into white rivulets. Her other hand reached up and grasped the rope. She hung there, panting. Cheers erupted beneath her. Most of them probably thought it was part of the act.
"Aenea!" I swung onto one of the wooden platforms. "Do you need me to come help you?" My throat was tight.
"No, no, I'm all right," she said, her voice faint. She folded her body up and wrapped her legs around the rope and made her way awkwardly to my platform, much like I had made my way across the tightrope when I auditioned for the circus. When she was close enough I helped her off of the tightrope and hugged her close. More applause sounded from below. I cupped her face in my hands.
"Are you alright? What happened?" She was shaking, and so was I.
"I don't know. I just slipped. It's fine. It's happened from time to time. I always catch myself. It makes the show more interesting." Her smile quavered. "Let's get down from here."