Chapter 29 Esmeralda
Esmeralda
Her heart thundered like the drums rumbling inside the Big Top.
She’d never performed in front of so many people, and she had never actually executed the act she planned to show off.
Sure, she was a great climber, and the aerialists had shown her a thing or two in her time with the carnival, but messing around and performing in front of thousands were completely different things.
And then there was the young man standing to her right.
She peeked at him through her lashes. Let her eyes roam over his tall form, every beautiful angle of his face illuminated by the Big Top lights bleeding through the backstage curtains.
He’d always been the most handsome boy in every room.
These days? He was too striking for words, currently sporting a perfectly cut suit in colors that complemented her dove costume, wearing a mask made of pearly-white feathers that popped against his coppery-brown skin.
His shorn hair had grown out ever so slightly, only making him more appealing to her.
“What’s your plan?” he whispered. They stood behind the other competitors in the Running.
She knew he’d hate her plan, so she said, “I will do everything. All you need to do is hold on.”
“To what?”
The drums quieted to a hum. Audience members joined in, patting their hands against their laps.
The ringmaster’s voice blared through a loud-hailer. “And now, friends, fans, and fiends, it is my honor to announce the final six acts in the Running to become my next lead!”
Cheers rang out.
“We have Paco the Fire Breather!” he bellowed.
The audience applauded as Paco ran out, waving his glistening arms to the crowd.
“The Flying Córdovas—the only family to perform triple somersaults on a single tightrope.”
The trapeze artists ran out. Two of the siblings still limped from their run-in with Estefan.
ángel listed the three other performers—Benicio the Bear Trainer, David the Knife Thrower, and Nicola the Escape Artist—but Esmeralda hardly paid them any attention. Everything in her body had gone numb and fuzzy. Her pulse pounded in her ears. Her fingers tingled with anticipation.
You can’t do this, a sour voice in her mind said. You will fail. You aren’t good enough. You aren’t worthy enough to move to the final challenge. And then you’ll be thrown out and left to the wolves.
“Hey,” Ignacio said calmly. Her head shot up. “I’ve got you. You got you too.”
“Allow me to introduce to the Big Top for the very first time, La Paloma Blanca and her starry-eyed companion, Paloma Amor!”
The crowd went wild. That was her cue, but her knees wouldn’t move.
She thought she might be sick. Ignacio took her hand in his and squeezed it tight.
The act nearly brought her to tears. He’d done that sometimes when they sat on his rooftop.
Whenever her thoughts would roam to her family and the scars they’d left on her heart.
He sneered. “The ringmaster just called me your love dove.”
Esmeralda snorted, and her tension eased a bit.
“Come on.” He tugged her out of the backstage area. “I believe in you, Dovie.”
“You do?”
He seemed startled by her question. “There’s no one I believe in more.”
She balked, caught completely off guard.
The spotlight swiveled toward them and burned into her already flush skin. The heat of thousands of eyes seared into her soul.
“Paloma! Paloma! Paloma!”
All these people were rooting for her. They wanted to see her.
She beamed and waved the hand that wasn’t still holding on to Ignacio.
The audience roared. The sound rushed through every empty and broken part of her.
She once thought Ignacio’s presence was all she needed to feel whole.
But she’d been wrong. This. This noise. The screams. The people calling her name.
This was what she needed to fill the void.
To quiet all the wretched thoughts and memories swirling inside her mind.
She waved harder as they walked toward the center ring. The hanging hoop she planned to use was slowly rotating beyond Paco’s podium. She led Ignacio to the hoop and released him. With a flick of her wrist, she brushed her feather bustle out of the way and took a seat.
“What do you want me to do?” Ignacio asked.
“I’ll let you know when the time comes.”
“And what about right now?”
She chewed on her lip. “I was told earlier today that I should use whatever we have—or had—to excite the audience. I need you to play the part of longing lover. Gaze at me as if I am the only girl in the world.”
He scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Please.”
After a moment, he sighed. He gripped the ring on either side of her and frowned down at her. “How’s this?” he asked.
“You look like I poured salt in your tea. Try harder,” she ordered.
Ignacio pressed closer to her. His eyes roamed over her face like soft kisses. “Better?”
Her pulse quickened. “Not quite.”
He brushed a knuckle down her cheek.
“Will this do?” he asked.
Her insides turned to mush.
“Yes. You…um…you play the part well.”
He huffed bitterly. “When have you ever known me to be an actor?”
“What are you trying to say?” she asked.
“I could never fake how I look at you. I’m not like you in that way.”
Her lips parted with surprise. “What does that mean?”
“I saw your reaction in the wagon when Keara mentioned my love for you. You looked…repulsed.”
That wasn’t what she had been reacting to.
General Keara had almost made it sound as if she had known Esmeralda was within the carnival all along.
The thought had rattled her to her very core.
It made her feel as if she hadn’t actually escaped.
Like the comandante was toying with her, just waiting for her term to end so he could strike.
“Had it always been a lie, Dovie? Did you ever want me? Or were you…were you using me to…I don’t know…to help pass the time? Before you went on to bigger and better?”
“How could you say such a thing? Besides, I wasn’t even the one to start our friendship. You did.”
“You’re right. It was always me. Always me pursuing you. Fighting for you. Coming to you. But it was never enough. I wasn’t—” He clamped his lips shut. But she’d already understood what he was going to say.
He thought he wasn’t enough for her.
She barked a laugh, and his face fell. She hadn’t meant to. But of all the absurd things for him to say, that had not been on her list. He was Ignacio Olivera! The kindest, smartest, most genuine boy she’d ever known.
“You’re laughing at me,” he said quietly. “Why are you always so cruel?”
She recoiled. “I’m not. Maybe you need to toughen up.”
“Maybe you should learn to have a heart.” He gripped the hoop tighter. “What did I do to you to make you so—”
The ringmaster’s voice cut through their exchange. “The performers have two minutes to wow you, dear audience. And I need to hear your screams. I need to know which act you want to see more of!”
“Get behind me,” she snapped.
“I’m so tired of being interrupted by everyone and everything.” Ignacio grumbled but shoved off the hoop and stomped around to the back of her. He grasped the ring on either side, just above her own hands. “Now what?”
She sucked in a breath. “I nearly forgot the biggest part of my plan.”
She released her hold on the hoop and dug into her bodice, pulling out the gloves she’d been gifted. Soft fabric slid over her skin as she put them on. That buzzing sensation she’d felt when she first wore the gloves fizzled up her arms.
“Take those off,” Ignacio hissed, his lips next to her ear. Chills pricked over her skin like raindrops.
“Fat chance.” She held her arms before her with a flourish, knowing the audience might be watching. The stitching of doves in flight glinted like magic. “These are my only hope of getting to the final challenge.”
“Camila wore cuffs with that very same stitching the night of the accident,” he said.
“Don’t talk about accidents right now. That’s bad luck.”
“You have to take those off,” he urged. “That thing I saw in the mirror. It smiled and then Camila’s cuffs started to sparkle.”
“Because they’re made from glistening thread, genius.”
“Dovie, please. Trust me.”
“Like you trusted me when I told you your father was a fiend a year ago?”
The music began. She only had two minutes to impress ángel.
“Quickly, stand on the hoop,” she ordered. “Put your feet on either side of me, but don’t step on my costume. I couldn’t bear it if it got dirty.”
Cursing, Ignacio did as he was asked, the hoop shifting under his weight.
Esmeralda’s nerves dipped to her knees as the ring started to rise from the ground. Once the tips of her toes left the floor, they began to spin in slow rotations.
“What did you get me into?” he growled.
“Just smile,” she said through her teeth. “Always smile.”
When they were halfway between the ground and the peak of the Big Top, she said, “I want you to slowly lower yourself to a seated position.”
“How? Your tail feathers are taking up all the room.”
Shakily, she slid one of her arms up so she could clutch the top of the ring. She held on tight and released the other hand so she could take hold of the feathers draped from the back of her costume and place them over the front of her thighs.
“Better?” she asked.
He made a noncommittal sound. “Where do you want me to sit?”
The aerialists had made this look so much easier than what it really was.
“Put your legs on either side of me. I’ll lift myself up and then sit on your lap.”
“That isn’t a good idea.” His tone was stiff. Perhaps the heights were rattling his nerves. But they had both climbed up trees when they were young. The rooftop they’d always sit on was not as high as they were now, but it was close.
“Just do it, please. I only have two minutes to perform.”
She raised her other arm and gripped the top of the hoop. She pulled herself up as much as her muscles would allow as he lowered himself down. When he was seated, she eased her bottom onto his lap.