Chapter 5 Wren
Wren
The winter sun shone down on me, muted, pale-yellow rays without any warmth.
I closed the door of the motorhome behind me, lifting my face to the cool breeze that swirled through our camp.
But even the fresh sea air couldn’t clear the fog in my mind.
It couldn’t dispel the nightmares that had been haunting me since I’d learned we were going to Dover.
Steadily breathing in and out as I headed towards the big top, I reminded myself of the facts. The facts I’d repeated in my head every day in the almost-two years I’d been a part of the cirque.
My former guardian couldn’t reach me here.
Even when we arrived in Dover, I was safe. Protected.
I had a home and a family.
My breath stuttered when I considered my last fact. Whatever society might think, the fact was that the cirque was my home, and every single member of the cirque was just as important. We looked out for each other. If an outsider tried to harm one of us, we’d all take action.
I was safe. I had a home. I was stronger now. He could never get to me again.
Ducking inside the tent, the canvas flapping behind me, I blinked, letting my eyes adjust to the more muted light.
The ring spotlights were lowered for our early morning rehearsals, allowing us to see the areas that were normally thrown into shadow during our performance.
Vivienne handed me a travel mug of coffee and I sipped it gratefully as I took a seat off to the side, watching the motorbikes circling the ring, Amélie right in the centre, spinning on a hoop high above their heads.
On either side of her, two of the trapeze artists hung upside down from their own hoops, the backs of their knees hooked over the rings, holding them in place.
My chest ached as I watched Amélie spin, an ache that had been there ever since the mirror maze.
What would she think if she knew the truth about me?
About what he’d done? About the tiny, sick part of me that whispered that maybe I deserved it?
Logically, I knew that none of it had been my fault, and he’d been entirely to blame.
He was sick, twisted, a monster… But knowing that didn’t drown out the poisonous whispers inside me.
We’d ordinarily have moved on by now, heading for our next stop, but we were in a prime location on the south coast, and so we’d added an extra date to our show.
I was grateful for the opportunity to stay an additional day, because after this, we’d be heading for our next destination. Dover. My former town.
Where he was.
He would have no idea I was there, of course, but I’d know. I’d breathe the same air. Walk the same streets. Exist in the same space as the man who’d—
No.
Reflecting on it, I knew that was exactly why I’d reacted the way I had in the mirror maze. The news had come as a shock, a reminder of my worst nightmare right before I entered the maze, when I hadn’t even had a minute to process it.
And now, the closer we got to arriving in my former town, the more the memories crowded me.
They came at night, in my dreams. They came during the day, triggered by the smallest things—the thud of footsteps or the sound of a belt buckle, the sudden appearance of a man in the corner of my eye.
I’d done my best to push them from my mind, throwing myself into my work, practicing for hours until I was too exhausted to continue, but I knew I couldn’t escape from them forever.
“Wren? Wren!”
A voice snapped me back to the present, and I blinked to see Vivienne eyeing me with concern.
“Sorry. I—”
“You’re sitting out of today’s show. Trick will take your place.”
“No.” My eyes filled with sudden, hot tears. If I didn’t have the performance to distract myself, then the memories would come, and they’d swallow me whole. “Please. Please let me perform.”
She stepped closer, tilting her head to the side, her waves of shimmering red hair falling over her shoulder as she studied me.
“Wren. I’m worried about you. You haven’t been yourself lately.
My duty is to the performers, and that includes you.
I can see that something is on your mind, and I can’t afford for you to lose focus when you’re out there.
” Sweeping her arm out to indicate the ring, she continued.
“I don’t want to do this, but it’s for your own safety, and for the safety of my other performers. Do you understand?”
Biting down on my lip to stop it from trembling, I nodded, because what else could I do? It was her decision to make.
Vivienne sighed, placing her hand on my shoulder and rubbing gently over my skin with her thumb.
“Wren, I want you to know you can talk to me about anything. Anything at all. I want you to know that whatever you say will remain confidential—not even Judge will know, should you wish for me to keep it to myself.”
I stared at her. “You—you’d keep it from Judge?” Judge was Vivienne’s husband and the ringmaster. He was our leader, the man everyone listened to, the person who made the final decisions about everything that happened within the Cirque des Masques.
She nodded. “You have my word. And I believe you’ve been a part of our family long enough to know what our word means.”
Maybe...maybe I should speak to her. She had some knowledge of it, anyway, thanks to our previous conversations.
While I’d never given her the full details, she knew enough to have a picture of my nightmarish past. Keeping it all inside was doing nothing but hurting me.
The memories were like a poison spreading through my veins, and I needed to purge them.
“Okay. I...I’ll tell you. After rehearsal. Please, just let me rehearse. I give you my word that I’ll give it my full concentration. If you think I’m still unfit to perform tonight after rehearsal, then I’ll sit out without argument.”
She assessed me silently. Behind her, I noticed Amélie pause in her balance exercises, glancing over at us with concern. Biting down on my lip, I returned my attention to Vivienne, pleading with her with my gaze.
Eventually, Vivienne nodded. “Very well.”
The cirque had been set up on a green, next to a wild meadow.
At this time of year, the meadow was mostly barren, other than the fringes where clusters of thistles and green-stemmed weeds sprinkled with purple swayed in the breeze.
The meadow was where I found myself a few hours later, seated on a blanket Vivienne had thoughtfully provided.
One of the circus dogs, Brutus, lay at my feet with his heavy head in my lap.
I marvelled all over again at the fact that this huge dog had once ripped someone’s throat out right in front of me, and yet, here he was, happily lying in the winter sun and letting me scratch behind his ears.
A shadow fell over my legs, and I glanced up to find Amélie looking down at me with uncharacteristic hesitance. “Do you… Would you mind if I joined you both?”
“I think Wren would prefer—” Vivienne began, but I quickly shook my head.
“No, it’s okay.” I wanted and needed to give Amélie an explanation for my actions in the mirror maze, and now she was here, I’d only have to get through the whole fucked-up story once.
That night, it had been too fresh in my mind to even contemplate putting words to my feelings, but here in the winter sun with Vivienne’s warm presence, Amélie’s concern, and Brutus a solid weight tethering me to the ground, I finally felt strong enough to speak.
Amélie sank down onto the blanket next to me, her little finger brushing against mine with purpose, and that tiny contact was enough to both reassure me and send butterflies fluttering in my stomach. I swallowed hard. After my confession, would she still want to touch me?
Taking a deep breath, I met Vivienne’s gaze and began.
“I haven’t been completely honest with you.
You rescued me from that woman, and I let you think she was my guardian.
S-she was, but it was only temporary. My actual guardian was away on a trip, and I—I’d been sent to stay with her while he was gone.
” A shaky exhale fell from my lips as I fought to keep my composure.
“You saved me from him regardless, but he—he’s still around as far as I know, and he lives in the town where we’re scheduled to do our next show. ”
A gasp sounded next to me, and the pressure of Amélie’s finger returned, this time curling over mine. In front of me, Vivienne’s eyes filled with compassion, and she leaned forwards, placing a hand on my knee. “Is your former guardian a candidate? Could he be one of the Chosen?”
This was the question I knew she’d ask, and one I’d been wrestling with.
No matter what that evil man had done to me, could I sign his death warrant?
Did I have the right to ask for someone’s death, when the tiny, sick, poisoned part of me still thought that maybe I’d deserved what happened—even though I knew he was the only one to blame?
“Um. He…he was my guardian, like I said. He was married, but his wife…she turned a blind eye. I think he abused her, too. I used to hear shouting and screaming when I was hiding in my room…” Swallowing hard, I rubbed a trembling hand across my face.
Brutus raised his head, whining softly, and then pressed his cold, wet nose into my stomach.
It gave me the strength to continue. “There were others who came and went. Other kids like me. Ones who nobody wanted. But he…he took a liking to me. T-told me I was special.”
A tear ran down my cheek as bile rose in my throat, memories assaulting me. Rough hands. Whisky breath. Painful bruises mottling my skin. My throat raw from screams.
Amélie’s grip on my finger tightened, but she remained silent, as did Vivienne, letting me get my words out in my own time.
“S-sometimes, he liked to take his time with me. To drag it out. Those were the worst times. I—I used to lie there and pray for it to be over. For the pain to stop. Sometimes I even prayed th-that I’d die. I thought that if I stopped existing, the pain would finally end.”
The poison was flowing from my veins now, unstoppable.
“If he was in an especially bad mood, he’d take it out on me, and I wouldn’t even be able to move the next day.
Once, he cracked my ribs. I had to— I had to hide it from everyone, to keep going to school like nothing was wrong, had to—” Spots danced in front of my eyes, my vision tunnelling as the memories assaulted me in a wave, dragging me down.
I couldn’t choke out the rest of the words, my breaths fast and shallow as I gasped, hunching over.
“Breathe with me, Wren.” A hand lifted mine, placing it against a chest, a heartbeat steady beneath my fingers.
“That’s it. In and out. With me.” The soft voice kept speaking, calmly instructing me, and finally, I managed to get some air into my lungs.
Raising my head, I found Amélie intently focused on me.
Tears trickled down her cheeks, but she held my gaze steadily.
“There you are,” she whispered. Gently releasing my hand, she slipped her arm around my waist, tugging me into her side, and I rested my head against her shoulder.
She was still touching me. After everything, she was still touching me.
Swallowing around the lump in my throat, I forced myself to continue, getting through the rest of my story as quickly as possible.
I tried so hard to keep to the facts, so I wouldn’t break down completely, but somehow, I found myself telling them about the way he made me feel.
The way he’d told me I was special at first, trying to get inside my head, and then he’d changed tactics.
The verbal abuse had piled on top of the physical.
He’d poisoned me inside and out, telling me over and over that I was worthless, that no one would ever want me, that I should be grateful he was willing to go near something as disgusting as me.
By the time I finished speaking, the sun had set, and both Amélie and Vivienne had tears in their eyes. The silence was deafening.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered shakily, pulling away from Amélie. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—you didn’t need to know all that. I’m—”
“No.” Vivienne’s voice was fierce, threaded with steel.
“No, Wren. You have nothing to apologise for. Nothing. Do you hear me? He’s never going to hurt you again.
Never. With your permission, I’d like Teeth to investigate him further as a potential Chosen.
Would you feel comfortable providing me with his details? ”
“Yes.” Reliving my worst memories had solidified something in me.
Somehow, my former guardian had to pay for what he’d done.
Not just to me, but to everyone unlucky enough to cross paths with him and experience his sickness.
And maybe—just maybe—watching him die would purge the remaining poison inside me.
“It’s settled. Leave it with me.” Vivienne stood. Brutus lumbered to his feet, pacing across the cracked earth to stand by her side.
When they left, and it was just me and Amélie remaining, she reached up, cupping my face and tilting my jaw so our eyes met again.
“Why are you still here?” I whispered. “Why aren’t you running? I’m—I’m ruined.”
“Wren. No.” Her thumbs wiped away my tears. “You are not ruined. You are a survivor. You’re fucking strong and brave and—”
“I’m not.” The words were torn from my throat, raw and jagged. “I’m not strong. I could have fought harder. I could have run away. I could have—”
Amélie pressed her finger to my lips, her eyes sparking with fire.
“No. You were a child. A child with nowhere to go and no one to protect you. Nothing that happened was your fault. Nothing. Even if you hadn’t been a child…
what he did was reprehensible. He deserves to pay for every single one of his crimes. And he will. I promise you.”
Her words soothed something inside of me. Leached some of the poison away. I breathed, a deep, steady breath, and reached for her hand.
“I want to do something for you,” she said softly, pressing her palm against mine. “Something that I think…that I hope you’ll like. Something new. After tonight’s show, will you come somewhere with me?”
I nodded, not trusting my voice, and a gorgeous, soft smile curved over her lips, chasing the last of my shadows away—even if it was only temporary.
For the first time since I’d learned we were going to Dover, a tiny spark flickered to life inside me.
Maybe it was a spark of hope. Of the potential between us, of the fact that this beautiful, amazing woman had learned the full extent of my dark past and had accepted me without judgement.
Or maybe it was more than that. Maybe it was also a spark of something darker.
A spark of vengeance.
Of the prospect of making him pay.