Chapter 10 Ignacio #2
Father scooped her up and then stomped out of the house.
Ignacio followed, cupping his bloody nose.
Meddlesome neighbors had already formed outside and had to part for the jailer cart pulling up to the gate.
Father had flung her into the wagon. Alone.
This little girl was all alone, but she did not cry.
Ignacio was in awe. Surely, even he, the stoic son of the comandante, would shed a fretful tear.
“Who does this child belong to?!” Father roared to the onlookers. “Come forward right now and you can take her place!”
Ignacio watched as her eyes quickly found a man standing in the back of the crowd. He had her same full lips. Same sharp nose. His gaze fell to the ground as the silence grew.
Ignacio’s fingers balled into fists. This coward was going to remain quiet. He was going to let her take the fall.
“Fine,” Father snarled. He turned to the driver. “Take her to the king’s dungeons.”
“Wait!”
Everything went silent.
All eyes flicked to Ignacio.
He gulped. Had he just said that?
Yes. He had.
He started to point toward the man in the crowd, but the man was already gone.
In the span of a heartbeat, Ignacio had decided his new fate. He would protect this girl for the rest of his days. He would stand by her side when no one else would. And he would start at that very moment.
He stuck his chin up and marched toward his father, pretending to be the soldier he was being raised to be. “You said you needed a new errand page. What of her? Let her pay off her debts to you here.”
Father’s eyes narrowed. He looked behind Ignacio, speaking to the head of his house staff. “What do you think, Senora Sevilla?”
The white-haired woman scrutinized Esmeralda. “We could use some youth to help with the running of things.”
“Fine,” Father had said.
From that day forward, Esmeralda had stayed in the servant’s quarters and paid off her debts. From that day forward, Ignacio had watched her from afar. Always making certain she was okay. Always making sure she had the things he thought a kid would need.
His mother would leave him chocolates on his pillow whenever she was called to the palace for more than a few days. And she would bring him back little treasures like silly colored socks. Ignacio did the same for Esmeralda.
But after months of silently observing, he saw her struggling to fold a slip of parchment into the shape of a bird.
He couldn’t sit back and let her continue to fail.
So, he folded up a scrap of paper into a dove and sent it down the vent shaft between their rooms, hoping to soften the scowl that was always on her face.
He didn’t know it was love until years later. They were fifteen, and he couldn’t think of anything but her. So, he asked her to meet him on the rooftop one summer night.
And after he turned eighteen, and his father told him it was time to start his training, his first thought was of her. Of the fact that he would be leaving her behind for who knew how long. Like her family had done years before.
He had told her he had to leave. She begged him to run away with her instead. He told her that he couldn’t just turn his back on his father. She’d given him until midnight to change his mind. But when he went to meet her, she was already gone.
The girl he longed for most in the universe didn’t even say goodbye. All she left behind was his mother’s ring that he’d given to her the night before, a broken statue they’d earned at their one trip to the boardwalk, and an angry letter written in iridescent ink.
His gaze flicked to the ringmaster on the caboose of a magical train. He was still waiting for an answer. Ignacio thought of the words she’d written him that day.
“She stopped loving me because I wasn’t enough,” he admitted.
“And you would like to find out why?”
More than anything. “I suppose I would.”
Veracruz grinned excitedly. “Pray tell, who is the little birdie who hurt you so?”
“Her name is Esmeralda.”
The ringmaster’s mustache twitched. Humor danced in his eyes.
“Ignacio, you said your name was?”
Ignacio nodded.
After a moment, the ringmaster spoke. “I normally make anyone who joins up with my most precious carnival sign a strict contract, but I will make an exception this one time. You may enter this train but on two conditions.” He held up a finger.
“One, so long as you are here, you will work. No dillydalliers allowed in my zoo. Everyone earns their keep.”
“Of course.” Ignacio had no intention of staying long. He’d get the answers he needed from Esmeralda, find out who was blackmailing his father and why, then send everything he learned to the Defiant and be on his way.
The ringmaster lifted another finger. “My second condition is this.” He fluttered his hand in the air.
From seemingly out of nowhere, an intricate pocket mirror appeared in his grasp.
It was a strange thing, made of dark glass, with bell-shaped flowers etched into the sides like a frame.
Just like the symbol that had been stamped onto the back of one of the discarded flyers.
A chill ran through Ignacio even though his body was still warm from his sprint.
“You must gaze into the mirror of truth. Then I shall let you enter my train.”
Ignacio snorted. Of all the ridiculous things…But when he saw that the ringmaster’s expression held no humor within it, he straightened his shoulders and cleared his throat. “Um…erm…sure. I guess.”
“Spectaculous!” Veracruz fluttered his fingers. The mirror disappeared, then quickly reappeared in his other hand. “You’ll learn these fun tricks too if you stay in my world. It’s all very entertaining.”
“I’m sure.”
“Ready?” Veracruz asked.
The man acted as if looking into one’s reflection was a difficult task.
Ignacio took hold of the mirror.
“Do be careful with it,” the ringmaster said. “It’s a family heirloom, and the material used to make it is hard to come by nowadays.”
Gingerly, Ignacio held it up.
The ringmaster angled his body so he could see the reflection staring back at Ignacio.
But the reflection wasn’t of Ignacio exactly.
It was an older version of himself. He stood in the living room of his childhood home as a grown man.
An older version of Esmeralda was there too.
She was laughing as she played tug-of-war with a scruffy dog.
His father entered the room, a warm smile on his face as he carried a bowl of mints.
Ignacio’s heart thawed at the sight. At the vision of the two most important people he’d had in his life actually looking happy to be in his life.
A faint whisper came from within the mirror. It wasn’t the ringmaster’s voice. Nor his.
“Yes,” it sighed, low and thrumming through Ignacio’s core. “Yes.”
Ignacio frowned. He felt suddenly numb from his head to his toes.
The ringmaster plucked the mirror from his grasp. “That will most certainly do.”
“What was that?” Ignacio asked. He flexed his hand, noting the strange numbness was gone.
“What was what?” the ringmaster asked.
The mirror had disappeared. Vanished into thin air.
“I saw a most bizarre scene. And I heard—”
“It was magic. Enchantments to frazzle the mind. Just a crumb of fun, kid. This is a carnival, no?” He winked at Ignacio. “Now…” The ringmaster held up a fist. “Are you ready?”
“For?”
“For the time of your life, of course!” Veracruz knocked on the metal door. A window Ignacio was certain hadn’t been there moments ago slid open, revealing the ticket agent he’d seen last night.
“What’s the password?” she asked, chewing on her gum.
ángel faced Ignacio. “Tell her,” he urged.
“Tell her what?”
“That you’re ready to have the time of your life, kid.”
Ignacio scratched his head. “I…um…I’m ready to have the time of my life.”
The ticket agent slid the window shut. Then the door leading into the caboose opened. A cacophony of sounds and smells washed over Ignacio like a sudden storm. He stumbled back.
“Unbelievable,” he breathed.
He couldn’t quite understand what he was seeing.
From the outside, the caboose looked like any old boxcar.
But within rocked a speakeasy filled with flappers and sheiks, dancing and drinking and swinging from crystal chandeliers.
A woman strolled by, carrying a miniature giraffe with pink spots.
Ignacio thought it was a stuffed animal until the little creature stuck out its long tongue.
Two men whirled about, bopping to the bouncing jazz in heeled boots as tall as Ignacio.
He rubbed his eyes. How could all this fit inside such a small space?
Perhaps it was the adrenaline finally leaving his body or the shock of the entire day and previous night, or being clobbered by a golden egg, twice, but Ignacio suddenly felt quite ill.
“We’ve got a newbie!” a man with a tattooed face hollered.
People cheered. Arms wrapped around Ignacio’s shoulders and yanked him in. Drinks were pressed into his hand. Calls rang out, urging him to chug, chug, chug.
“What is it?” he asked a young man beside him.
“It’s giggle water,” the boy yelled. “Give it a try.”
Before Ignacio’s brain could argue, he guzzled the liquid down. He was very parched.
He gasped and coughed. Someone patted his back.
“That isn’t water,” he rasped, which caused an uproar of laughter.
The young man pointed at the cup Ignacio held limply. “Good stuff, right? I bought it from a bootlegger at our last stop. The guy said moonshine will put hair on your chest.”
“Alcohol is illegal in Costa Mayor,” Ignacio reminded him.
“But we are on the tracks. We are untouchable here.” The boy filled Ignacio’s cup with something from a silver flask. “Drink up, buddy boy. You’re officially part of the most fantastical menagerie of misfits the world has ever seen!”