One return begets another, I suppose. And no memory is ever quite as you left it, no matter how carefully you lay it away.
I went to Lampton’s, followed my heart as long as I could stand it. But at the end of the school year, I got a letter that made me know I could stay no longer: the Circus Rose was going on a tour to Faerie, and they would be gone, a whole continent away, for two years. Guilt was still eating me up as hungrily as it had done when Mama dropped me off in September. I’d left my twin twinless and my mother with one child (two, she’d say, counting the circus—but even so).
It wasn’t as easy to leave school as I had hoped it would be—nearly as painful as leaving the circus had been, in fact. Dimity, Rachida, Constance, Felicity, and Faith tried to convince me not to leave, citing the projects we’d planned to tackle, as if all it would take was a sufficient amount of fun promised in the future for me to stay. I couldn’t make them understand exactly why I had to go home. They each had families they missed, but it wasn’t the same somehow. School was where they were supposed to be. The circus was where I was supposed to be.
I tried to tell myself that anyway.
I traded our cozy dorm room with its cluster of desks, the quiet evenings where we read and talked about what we wanted to build, and the orderly workroom where every tool had a home for the close-knit chaos of the circus.
I came back full of new skills to share with the stage crew, and we set off on our circuit again, up and down the three continents and then across the great wide sea, to the newly free nation of Faerie. It would be two years before we’d see our home country again.
I missed school and the friends I had made there. But I didn’t miss the gnawing heaviness I’d felt thinking of Mama and Rosie—of having left them behind, or of their having left me. After I came back, I made sure to tell both of them every day how much I loved them.
Yet not everything was the way it used to be. Rosie had left the caravan, for one. She slept in Bear’s cage, which she’d hung with old curtains and raggedy lace until it was closer to a tent than a pen, the inside strewn with frilly pillows and discarded girlish costumes, her overflowing trunk of cosmetics stashed in one corner and her dressing mirror hanging on the cage door. It had become a favorite joke among the crew that Bear was tidier than my sister.
The Tin Can had ample room for just me and Mama, but the shadows at night made the caravan seem too big and empty without Rosie sleeping next to me. The first few times Mama went out, I slipped away to the cage and slept cuddled with Rosie in the nest Bear made of his body around us. But they had grown toward each other while I was away, and I felt like the third with them. I despised myself a little for leaving Rosie lonely enough to replace me. After that, I went back to the caravan, but whether Mama was there or not, it never felt quite like the home that I’d left.
Mama always said our home is wherever the circus goes, but I’m not so sure.
Maybe Mama is more like Rosie than me. Of the three of us, I’m the only one who always wants my feet on solid ground.
Rosie
The first time I
stepped into the show,
I knew the light.
The air, applause.
I twirled and leapt
in spotlight gold.
The audience gasped
at a girl so bold.
I chased the bright,
faster and faster to
some white peak that—
as I reached
it burned
away my
balance,
my whole
way to
see—
Ivory saw me stumble
and somehow knew.
She rushed onstage,
straight into the light
she always avoided, for
my sake. She helped me
stagger backstage,
safe darkness,
soft touch. She
stayed with me there.
Our shushing,
matched breaths an ocean
buoying me up.
Ivory
King Finnian was crowned when Rosie and I were only small. He declared that Esting would no longer have an official religion. The new king was full of idealism, and in his first act as ruler, he also turned the magic-filled land of Faerie from an Estinger colony into an independent state. But neither liberating Faerie nor removing the Brethren from court had quite the intended effect. Esting’s laws no longer discriminated against Fey immigrants, but many of its people still did, and losing official power had radicalized some members of the Brethren Church. Priests appeared on street corners and standing in open carriages, preaching to the people to turn away from Fey magic and all forms of illusion and accept the truth of the Lord’s light. They opened Houses of Light all over Esting City, offering help to the poor and desperate—if they converted. And anything that the Brethren could call deception, from Fey magic to the illusions of the theater or the circus, they were quick to label as sin and to protest.
The Circus Rose weathered many protests over the years, but Mama rarely acknowledged the trouble outside the tent. She preferred to ignore the preaching and praying, the men who stood outside demanding we repent—as if she could will them out of existence.
Most of the time, she seemed to be able to. Their show couldn’t compete with ours.
Then, the night Rosie graduated from just dancing and debuted her high-wire act, one of the men got frustrated with yelling from outside and stormed into the tent. Just as Rosie landed, just as the thunder of applause that cushioned her to the ground faded, the man tore in, book in hand, walked right up to her, and demanded she consider her sins.
Rosie had never looked small to me before, not as she did then, the priest towering over her, his face scarlet, gesturing between her and the audience. She looked blank, unsteady on her feet, staggering as she took a step back to put distance between herself and the man. He closed the distance.
The other stagehands rushed out to drag him away, and Mama swanned out with a distraction for the audience, a joke that burned off the haze of his anger, but Rosie was still out there, frozen.
I ran to get her, though I hate being on that side of the spotlight. She leaned against me as I half carried her backstage, where it was dark and safe. Bear was sitting tamely behind the props, waiting for the finale, but he lumbered up when he saw us. I led her to him and tucked her against him, curling up around her too, and together we held her, waiting.
Rosie
And now,
back to the show.
4
Ivory
“Nothing brings the family together like tarot poker.” Mama grinned at us from across the circle, stroking her beard.
To my left, Vera laughed. “Just deal already.”
Mama shook her head and shuffled languorously. “I so rarely get to have everyone together, that’s all.”
“Rarely? We’ve been sailing for a month! I’ll be singing praises to my gods and yours when we disembark, just because I’ll get to see a little less of you. I’ll tell you what I’m looking forward to seeing: a glass of Port’s End porter.”
“And a porterhouse—a big, juicy steak. I’ve had enough of fish and hardtack to last me the rest of my blessed life.” Toro’s pipe sent smoke unfurling around him, like feathers in a showgirl headpiece. Our new Fey magician, Tam, had spelled the smoke so that it was contained in a tight radius around Toro’s head, or we’d all be hacking and coughing; the airship’s common room was cramped enough, and tonight all the vents were battened down to keep out the weather. We’d risen above an ominous-looking rainstorm just before sunset, but the air above the clouds, while clear, is always freezing cold.