Chapter 18 Ignacio
Ignacio
As he raced through the panicking crowd, their screams morphed and reshaped into the cries of the terrified farmers he’d failed to protect in Dos Palos.
His ears began to ring. His insides burned with remorse.
He’d failed them. He’d let them die. He’d done nothing but stand there like a terrified child.
That would never happen again.
He wouldn’t fail the contortionist. He couldn’t. He had to stop the suffering before it was too late. Had to stop the screams.
He wedged his body between two finely dressed onlookers pointing up at the glass box that was situated on top of the carousel. An elderly man covered a small child’s eyes.
“Let me through!” he barked to a gaggle of ladies who were too busy giggling to notice they were blocking the staircase that led to the float.
He scrambled onto the main platform, which was a smaller replica of the carnival’s carousel.
He’d seen the original while shoving the ostrich cage through the grounds with Esmeralda.
This version even had the ornate carvings of the menagerie animals and the mirrored ceiling.
But the contortionist and the box she was trapped inside were positioned on the rooftop.
Ignacio clambered up the ladder and made it to the ridge in seconds. Three carnival hands were trying their best to open the bolt sealing her inside with a master key, but the lock wouldn’t disengage.
Anella banged ferociously on the glass. The panic in her eyes, the fear, set Ignacio into frantic action. He ran back to the edge of the rooftop, reached down, and snapped the top ladder rung clean off.
“Watch out!” he ordered.
The carnival hands jumped aside.
Ignacio bashed the lock once. Twice. Three times.
It should have broken already. But it held strong as if the bolt had been welded shut.
He reared back and smashed the metal pole onto it again and again and again.
Snap.
The bolt fell away with a heavy thud. He shoved the glass lid open and pulled Anella out.
She gasped and sucked in greedy breaths of air.
“Thank you,” she panted. Tears streamed down her freckled face.
“It was nothing,” he said. “I’m glad you’re—”
She flung her arms around his neck. “You saved my life.”
The audience who had gathered around the float cheered uncontrollably.
“You’re my hero,” she whispered.
“Please, it was—”
She popped onto her tiptoes and kissed him hard on the lips. Whistles rang out. The spectators applauded.
Ignacio’s cheeks warmed. Not because of Anella’s kiss but because Anella wasn’t the one he longed to be kissed by.
He eased back and offered a tight smile so as not to be rude. “You should see a physician to make sure you’re all right.”
She shook her head. “I can’t stop my act, or I’ll be out of the Running.”
But her body began to tremble against his. He knew this feeling. He’d experienced the tremors that ravaged the muscles after terror subsided.
“You should sit,” he said. “Take a moment to breathe.”
“The show must go on no matter what. Those are the rules.” She released him and stepped back, but her knees gave out. He caught her before she fell. More gasps echoed throughout the onlookers below. Their exuberant grins had started to fade. The whistles and cheers were quieting.
“No,” Anella whispered. “They aren’t smiling.”
A woman in the crowd yawned dramatically into her silk gloves. A few others joined her.
Anella gaped at them. “How can they be so cold?”
The parade started to move suddenly. The bells at the front of the procession clanged louder than ever, and the performers on the floats ahead of them carried on. Anella clung tight to his forearms as the crowd’s attention shifted away from her.
“No,” she cried.
Her chin wobbled and then she buried her face, sobbing into his bare chest.
Ignacio chanced a glance back at Esmeralda.
She paid him no mind. He didn’t know why that hurt but it did.
Esmeralda was swinging on the ostrich’s perch.
Singing and calling out made-up fortunes like nothing had happened.
Showing off that charismatic smile she seemed to reserve for everyone but him.
Bitterness churned in his gut, and he glared at the floor. The broken lock snagged his attention. He gently pried himself from Anella’s hold and knelt beside it. Something glistened where the arm of the lock entered the mechanism. It had that same kaleidoscopic shimmer that was within the ink.
He swiped his finger over the substance and rubbed it between his pointer and thumb.
His fingers instantly stuck together. Wincing, he pried them apart.
Someone had glued Anella’s lock shut. The pads of his fingers started to burn.
He quickly wiped off the excess on his pants, but sparkling fragments remained, reminding him of the ink.
Had the glue been enchanted too? It’d explain why he had a hard time busting the lock.
But why? Did someone want the contortionist dead?
“Who fastened the bolt?” he asked.
Anella wiped at her tears. “There should never have even been a bolt. This was my first time using the box in the act. I wanted to impress ángel during the challenge. I told Gabriel to simply shut the lid once I shoved myself inside.”
Gabriel? Did he do this?
Esmeralda had said her cards had the enchanted ink on them. She and Gabriel were clearly close. He could have been the one to place the cards inside her wagon. He might very well have access to whatever magic this was.
A gasp came from Anella. Her finger shook as she pointed to the glass box. Ignacio blinked with confusion as his eyes caught on what lay inside.
A black envelope stamped with bell-shaped flowers surrounding a hand mirror.
“How did that get in there?” he wondered out loud.
He plucked it up and handed it to her, but she shook her head. “I can’t look. Please, open it.”
He broke the seal and pulled out the obsidian-colored card.
Dearest darling Anella,
It brings me sorrow to inform you that you are henceforth disqualified from the Running.
You broke rule number 7: The show must always go on.
I’m sorry, but you stopped my parade, and thus, the show cannot go on for you.
I can only let the right sort of showstopper continue at my most fantastical carnival.
You have twenty minutes to pack your bags once we return to camp.
Please see the treasurer for your severance pay.
With love and a shattered heart,
ángel Veracruz
“This can’t be happening,” Anella sobbed. “I’m supposed to be a star! I can’t go back home to my wet blanket of a husband.”
She cried harder, draping her arms around Ignacio’s shoulders once more. He sighed and patted her back, trying not to flinch as her hot tears slid down his skin.