I was still thinking about Sloan and her duke when Emma came rushing into the dressing tent. I knew she was up to something by the wild look in her eyes. I’d just finished changing back into my sparkly costume. Red sequin cut-offs and my infamous purple, gold-beaded bra with the long fringe. Red slippers. I added a pink tutu and a red yarn wig with trick pigtails to do Sloan’s clown spot. All of us—me, Katee, Savannah, and Finley—would dress up as clowns for the comic bit, along with the famous Monterran acrobats and clowns to back us up.
I was still reeling from Sloan’s sudden departure. That girl was really hurt and I prayed she’d find her happy ending someday.
Meanwhile, I had a show to finish.
And a little sister to deal with. Emma was breathing hard and I swore she looked positively happy. Not like earlier when she was fretting and feeling sad about leaving Monterra. I’d swear she was trying to speak, her lips forming words, but it wasn’t there. Not yet.
More surprising, she was alone. I asked her where Marianna was.
She’s talking to my new friend.
“Friend?” I had to ask, curious. I noticed she was hiding something behind her back.
The lady I gave the scarf to.
I didn’t like the sound of that. “What’s going on here, Emma? Who is that woman?”
She’s really nice, Afton. She wants to meet you after the show.
“I don’t want to meet her.” I didn’t. That funny, scary feeling came to visit me again. The one that crept up my spine and grabbed my heart so hard, I wanted to cry. No, I wasn’t going there. Ever.
Please. Emma lowered her eyes and then showed me what she was hiding behind her back. She asked me to give you this for good luck.
A pink camellia.
I nearly died.
My whole body went numb.
Not a good thing. Not when I was about to climb up sixty feet to a perch and then swing over to a metal ring and gyrate around like a top doing one arm flip-overs. Every muscle in my body tightened into a hard knot. Memories I’d tossed out of my head years ago came back all at once, infusing me with anger and hurt. Like someone ripped open a door to my past that I’d slammed shut years ago.
Someone I never wanted to see again.
I closed my eyes. One especially tough memory gripped me. Still raw, still filled with anger. When I was eleven, after my mother left us, I wouldn’t go to school. I’d hide in the cellar until my dad went to work and then I’d go sit in the garden all day. Sit among the flowers.
Her flowers.
Pink camellias.
The flower she wore behind her left ear when she performed on the trapeze.
Then I’d pull off the petals, one by one. Angry and scared, I cried for hours, praying she’d come home. She never did.
Now I crushed the flower to my chest. Hot tears backed up behind my eyes, but refused to fall.
Why now, Mama?
* * * * *
I adjusted my pink tutu and red yarn wig and then ran out into the ring for the clown run-around.
Laughing, cutting up.
I wasn’t laughing inside. A deep heaviness weighed upon my shoulders. I felt like the clown with the painted-on smile who is crying inside. Yes. Me. Giving the performance of my life on the silks, now knowing my mother was out there watching me. And now she wants to see me.
Does she think I can forget how she left us?
I see what she’s up to. First, getting Emma on her side. My little sister doesn’t remember much about her. Making her an easy target. A surefire way to get to me.
As if she thinks that will work.
I don’t need her. I’ve gotten along very well without her, thank you.
Now to make matters worse, I’m doing her specialty—one arm swing-overs—and I’m a nervous wreck. It’s a dangerous act and I need to focus, not deal with a woman who has her own agenda, though God knows what it is.
I can do it. I had to go on when Dad died. Though I was hurting inside, I did it. Funny, that was different somehow. Hurt is not the same as anger. You pull up a strength you didn’t know you had when you’re hurting inside. When you’re angry, that emotion blocks your strength and you feel like you’re sliding into a deep, dark hole.
I won’t let that happen. I wish I could talk to Ricco, but I don’t know where he is. Tell him what’s going on inside me. I hardly know him, but I feel a closeness to him that goes beyond boy-girl attraction. You don’t do magic with someone and not feel a bond. It’s special. I don’t want to lose that.
I joined in with the gang. Clowns tumbling and doing somersaults and slapping each other with rubber chickens. My eyes widened in mock surprise and my hand flew to my mouth, then I pulled the cord on my waist and my bright red pigtails shot straight out.
Making the crowd laugh.
I needed this break to get my breath on.
It also gave me a chance to peek at the audience to see if my mother was out there. Get a good look at her. Maybe it wasn’t her, but someone pretending to be her. My brain was still processing this madness and looking for excuses not to believe that my mother, Corrina Pova, had shown up after all these years. I’m thinking this is the part of the fairy tale where the wicked queen makes her entrance.
Can I re-write this fairy tale? Someone? Anybody?
The band struck up a brassy tune with Finley playing a fast fiddle. For once I saw her enjoying herself with two handsome acrobats lifting her up on their shoulders. Then I saw Katee in her white swan costume doing pirouettes on top of a giant music box, while a clown in a ragged tuxedo got down on one knee and swore his undying love to her.
And Savannah? She was having a ball, flirting with two big, gorgeous men dressed as clown cops while she cranked up the fake sausage machine and filled it with plastic wieners. A clown wearing a big bustle and a cone hat waited at the other end.
Until a bouncing dachshund jumped out and landed in his arms.
Whistles. Foot stomping.
The clown got on a tricycle and drove around the ring, holding up the cute dog for the kids in the audience to see.
I took a moment to look for Ricco. He wouldn’t miss my swing-overs, would he? I could hear the hard drumming of my heart above the chaos of clowns honking in the ring.
Where was he?
The head clown blasted his shrill police whistle and a barrage of clowns raced into the ring in a funny looking patrol wagon, siren blasting. They jumped out and pulled kids out of the audience and then took them for a ride around the ring. They continued going through their clown routine, dumping buckets of white confetti on each other’s heads and honking their orange horns. My signal to leave.
I was on in a few minutes.
Blowing kisses to the crowd, I kicked up my red slippers and ran toward the exit when a tall clown wearing a policeman’s hat and jacket grabbed me from behind.
I tried to run away, but he was too fast for me. He hoisted me up on his shoulder and carried me off, my tutu bouncing up and down.
“Put me down!”
“Not until you promise to stay in Monterra.”
Ricco.
In spite of his playful, jubilant mood, his voice was nonetheless serious, proof to me that he had something on his mind. He carried me around the ring and threatened to dunk me in a pile of straw. The crowd ate it up. I shook my head no, swinging my fake pigtails wildly.
“Promise you’ll stay?” he said.
I didn’t answer him. The woman in the floppy hat was sneaking into the high bleachers. Keeping her face hidden. What was she up to? It had to be her.
“Oh, my God, she’s here.”
“Who’s here?” Ricco said, putting me down on top of a stool in the center of the ring. He sensed something was wrong.
I stood on the stool, waving and blowing kisses to the crowd.
“My mother, Corrina Pova.”
* * * * *
My breath came faster as I tightened the leather guard on my wrist. I grabbed the flying bar and took a graceful swing across the big top. Kicking my legs out into space and performing a graceful ballet, swinging back and forth. It felt good. I swung back and forth a few more times and then flew back to the perch.
I was surprised when relief came over me. Down below was the circus ring. And the safety net. I trembled, curling my toes over the perch. It was higher up here than it looked from the ground, but I was used to it. I’ve done this circus trick a million times since I was a kid.
But for some reason, a bad case of nerves took hold of me.
My stomach lurched and bile rose up in my throat, hot and foul. I started shivering. Teeth chattering. High up in the big top, it was hot, really hot, but I couldn’t get warm. A deadly cold had possessed me. Sucked the fear out of me and replaced it with a numbing sensation so intense I couldn’t feel anything. Not the smooth wood under my feet. Nor the wiry rope biting into my palms.
Something changed in me in that moment, a sudden gloom that weighed upon my shoulders. As if that woman who professed to be my mother controlled my destiny by her presence. Inciting me to show off my skills.
It didn’t help when I heard thunder shake the tent. It sounded louder up here.
A late afternoon storm threatened to shatter the peace.
The audience applauded loudly and started whistling as I grabbed the trapeze and pulled myself up into a sitting position and pumped it as high as I could. After a few swings, I let go and fell backward with a swoop, as if heading for the ground. Instead I hooked my feet and ankles around the ropes, my calves flush against the bar, then swung upside down back and forth across the big top.
Then I saw it.
Without warning, a gray-and-white bellied dove flew into the tent, fluttering its wings in confusion before sweeping low over the crowd and causing the audience to wonder if it was part of the show. It had to be the dove we used earlier for the magic act. Somehow it got out of its cage.
I panicked. A chill cut through me. Oh, God, no. It was okay when the bird was part of the magic act, but this was different. A bad omen. Every circus performer knew the story. How a bird flew into the ring and distracted a flier and he fell to his death.
Should I return to the perch?
I couldn’t fixate on the bird. Or listen to the heated murmurs drifting up to me. Everyone whispered and speculated. The acrobats blessed themselves, the clowns looked away, the other artists mumbled to each other, shaking their heads.
Even the audience stopped whispering, rattling their popcorn bags.
I looked down at Ricco, digging his boot heel into the ground in frustration. He didn’t take his eyes off me. He held the rope steady, ready for me if I decided to climb down. He waited, as did everyone else. I shook my head in defiance. I knew what I must do in spite of the bird messing up my act. I wouldn’t let down TRH and the audience.
And I wouldn’t give my mother the satisfaction of seeing me fail.
I stood on the trapeze and gave the cue for the tech guy to drop the ring from the ceiling for my one arm swing-overs. Then I swung over to the rope and slipped my hand and wrist into the padded rope loop. The loop was attached to the swivel and ring high up in the big top.
I glided through the air. My free arm extended in a graceful pose.
Toe pointed.
Drum roll.
I looked down at Ricco and Emma, their faces taut, concerned. The air was damp with human sweat as everyone held their breath. I’d waited all my life to show my mother what I could do, but her showing up at this time scratched at my psyche. I looked in the bleachers, but I didn’t see her. I kept looking.
There she was. In the first row. Even from here, I knew it was her.
I trembled, my confidence ebbing away.
Don’t let her do this to you. Don’t let her win.
Drum roll.
I threw my body over my head, halting the first swing in the middle as I zoomed up to the halfway point. I hesitated, causing the audience to gasp loudly, expecting me to fall. I didn’t. A moment later, I completed the arc and continued swinging around like a propeller, my courage inspiring to all who watched.
“…five, six, seven…” counted the audience in Italian.
I kept going, my body a glittery ball of sequins and fringe at the very top of the tent as I threw myself over my shoulder.
Again and again.
The audience couldn’t take their eyes off me, counting the many turns I made until they were out of breath. Popcorn spilled into their laps and soda straws sat idle as I twirled round and round, defying death at every turn.
Drum roll.
“Forty-eight, forty-nine…fif—” counted the audience in Italian.
Suddenly a flash of lightning lit up the canvas roof but I didn’t stop, then seconds later the sound of thunder rolled through the tent. Loud.
Then the lights went out.
The crowd gasped.
Screams.
My body came to a dead stop. A horrible dread rose up in me. I couldn’t see the rope or the perch. I could do nothing but hang on. Sixty feet up in the air.
But for how long? I’d be dead if I tried to swing over and I missed. I couldn’t see the net. If I dropped and didn’t tuck my head in and land on my back, I could break my neck.
The darkness became a forbidding realm to me, to everyone in the tent. I heard feet shuffling, crashing sounds, children crying. I lowered my chin so it rested against my chest. An overwhelming fear burned inside me. My mouth tasted foul. My eyes stung from the heavy mascara mixing with my tears.
My body was on fire, my skin becoming flushed and tight against the sudden rise of heat surging in me. My mind reeled, dizziness swirling around me like a mad merry-go-round ride. The fierce pain in my chest ripped through me, yet I refused to give up.
I shut my eyes and prayed.
Then I heard Ricco yell out in Italian. Emergency . . . power . . . lights.
Seconds later, not more than fifteen or twenty, a spotlight hit me in the face, nearly blinding me. I didn’t let go. I didn’t dare panic. I had to hold perfectly still and hang on. I swear I didn’t breathe until that spotlight hit me.
Thank you, God.
My skin cooled as if I were bathed in moonlight, hanging from the rope loop by one hand. A gentle rain beat against the canvas, soothing music to my ears.
When without warning, I heard wild, thunderous applause fill the big tent. The crowd was clapping their hands and getting to their feet in a standing ovation. Chills raced through me, but I wasn’t out of danger yet.
Guide me down the rope, God, please.
I swung over to the rope and began a slow descent with Ricco keeping it steady. The backup generator kicked in and the houselights went back on, giving everyone the opportunity to watch me make my way down the rope.
It was a magical, sacred journey that I would never forget, but I’d gone through a shock and my arm muscles were stretched to the limit. My shoulder was in pain from hanging with one arm. When I was still several feet from the ground, a sudden dizziness gripped me. I stopped, breathing hard, my confidence shaken.
I put my hand to my forehead as I shook my head, trying to get my bearings, but my shoulder hurt so bad I couldn’t hold on, my body momentarily off-balance. Before I could catch myself, my other hand slid down the rope and oh, God, I lost my grip!
I let go and flew wildly—every which way—through the air.
I screamed. I couldn’t stop twirling round and round. I’d hit the ground in five . . . four . . . three . . . I couldn’t see anything. I was so out of control, I’d miss the safety net.
I don’t know what made him do it, but Ricco didn’t hesitate to drop the rope and race forward, his arms open. It was all a blur, but I couldn’t believe it when he caught me, though the impact nearly toppled us both to the ground. My chest bursting, my body slamming against his, he was nearly on his knees. But he didn’t let me go. I was safe. In his arms.
Can I add another thank you, God?
I sucked air into my lungs, disbelieving I was alive. No other man would have had the reflexes or strength to pull it off. I put my arms around his neck and stared at him.
“How . . . why . . . you could have been killed,” I whispered, laying my head on his shoulder. I could hear his heart pounding in his chest. His strong arms never trembled.
“I’d do anything for you, bella.” He didn’t say anything more. He didn’t have to. We both knew what could have happened. I would always remember that on this hot summer night when this wonderful man saved my life, I had the uncanny feeling it changed both our destinies.
Ricco put me down and grabbed my white satin cape, and then placed it over my shoulders. I told him I was good and insisted on walking unaided out of the ring, blowing kisses to the crowd. I couldn’t hear anything above the whistling and cheering. I’d never felt so much love from an audience. I was in such a happy mood. Grateful to be alive. I put everything else aside but that.
And Ricco.
He risked his life to save me. I had an absolute belief that fate played a part in all this, that my life had taken a turning point. And everything would work out exactly as it should.
I should have known every fairy tale has a dark moment.
That hold-your-breath scene when the evil dragon swoops down with his fiery breath and carries off the princess, or the red-lipped queen goes ballistic.
Or in this case, my mother.
“Afton, my baby!”
The spotlight shifted over to her, standing there with one arm outstretched, her other arm limp at her side. Her floppy hat was gone, her dark hair tousled. Her eyes wide with shock, she was visibly trembling. She looked like she was going to faint.
Meeting her gaze, I saw a glow light up her face when she realized all eyes were on her. She shifted gears in an instant. Lifted her chin, raised her chest.
Corrina Pova loved the spotlight.
No. No. No.
A fury rose up in me. I didn’t need her barging into my life. Not now, not ever. I turned my back on her and looked around for Ricco, but he was talking to Prince Nico and festival officials, trying to figure out what happened. We’d talk later. I wanted out of here. Now.
“Don’t shut her out, Afton.”
Emma rushed up to me and grabbed my arm. I spun around. My sister speaks? I could imagine the look on my face. Shock. Joy. Then frustration. I couldn’t believe that after all these months of silence, I heard her whisper, “Please, Afton. She’s sorry.”
“Sorry?” I shot back, not believing I was hearing these words from my own sister. “She should be sorry for leaving me. Leaving us. How can you forgive her?”
“Talk to her. For me.”
“No, Emma, I can’t,” I said in a flat, dead voice. My hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t fasten the clasp on my cape. “Not even for you.”