The Butterfly Circus Read online

  “Can’t sell it now,” I tell him as I kneel down on the damp ground and push the bag into his hands.

  He stares at me, open-mouthed, his eyes widening. He slowly reaches out with one finger and very gently prods my cheek.

  “Are you Snow White?” he whispers in awe.

  Hair as black as night, lips as red as rubies and skin as white as snow.

  I laugh and pull back my hood a little so he can see.

  “Wrong colour hair.” I smile and open the bag of butterscotch for him. The little boy smiles back and stuffs a lump in his mouth, then I pop the bit he offers me into my mouth. His parents are too busy squabbling above our heads to notice us chatting.

  “Well, we’re here now,” the mum says, nipping her lips together and staring ahead, as if not looking at her husband will stop him complaining. I brush my knees and stand up.

  “So expensive,” he grumbles. “Could’ve seen the freaks for half the price!”

  “The Butterfly Circus is a proper circus!” she hisses back. “They’d never have stuff like that. Looking at those … those … poor deformed creatures. It’s disgusting!”

  “Human nature to gawp,” the husband mumbles before suddenly noticing me. “Got any freaks here?” he asks under his breath, nudging me in the side. “Apart from you, I mean.”

  He grins at his wife to see if she thinks he’s funny, but her back stiffens with embarrassment. The other punters have heard though and turn to see what he’s laughing at.

  Belle says I’m remarkable and I love the colour of my skin, the constellation of freckles across my forehead, my forget-me-not eyes. The only thing I get fed up with is not being able to be in the sun much and losing my glasses all the time. But I hate moments like this, when people stare. That’s why I always wear a hood. It’s not just to keep the sun off my skin; it helps me hide.

  But there’s no hiding from this one and he fixes his gaze on me again. I wish the ground would swallow me up.

  “So what are you, then? An albino or— Ow! What d’you do that for?”

  The woman pretends she hasn’t just elbowed him in the ribs and I act like I didn’t hear him anyway. Slipping away through the canvas door, I work my way along the first-class seats, selling the penny licks so I can collect the empties on the way back. In fifteen minutes I’ve sold the lot, just in time to see Belle before she goes onstage. When I reach her tent, I feel a twinge of disappointment that she’s already in her costume. She knows I like helping her to get ready, but recently she’s stopped waiting. I miss tying the ribbons of her satin shoes around her legs or dusting tiny tin-foil stars into the inky night-time of her hair. She’s wearing a leotard embroidered with thousands of seed pearls that took me weeks to sew on; I still have the needle scratches on my fingertips. She’s sitting hunched over, doing her breathing exercises. From deep in her chest comes a rattle, like when Spinnet shakes the butterscotch. She glances at me but doesn’t get up. I cast my eye over her and notice that one of the sequins on the shoulder strap is dangling. Instinctively I reach for the little tin sewing kit I always keep with me, pull out a needle and cotton and tack the sequin back in place.

  “Have you taken your medicine?” I ask as I put the needle away. I’ve made it my job to remind her; it makes me feel closer to her.

  Belle shakes her head, still holding her breath. She does this every night, tentatively inflating her lungs as much as she can so she won’t start coughing mid-flight. Being the star of the show has its downsides: she never gets a day off. I uncork a small green bottle and tip some oil onto a square of muslin. It smells sharp and sweet at once and an old lost memory stirs.

  “Will you be all right?” I know it’s a pointless question.

  “I have to be, don’t I?” she snaps.

  Guilt washes over me and I wish I hadn’t even asked. What Belle can’t say, but we both know, is if she didn’t fly, neither of us would have a place here and no one stays on Gala if they’re not with one of the shows. I might survive Scoria, but Belle wouldn’t. She has to stay where the air is clean and hot, and the sun shines all day.

  She breathes in and out through the muslin, turning the air pepperminty. Then she lays her hand beneath her ribs and cautiously coughs, like she’s trying it out for the first time. She has to be careful not to cough too hard, or she’ll wake the dragon sleeping deep inside; the bronchitis clogging her lungs.

  “Belle!” comes a voice from outside.

  It’s Matteo, Mrs Fratellini’s eldest boy. After my fall he became Belle’s catcher while Belle learned my tricks and took my part. I never watch though; I can’t bear to when there’s still no net to catch my sister and even if there were, the truth is it makes me so sad to see what I can never be again. Matteo pokes his head through the canvas flap.

  “Belle, you’re late!” He sees me and glowers from beneath his bushy eyebrows. “Oh … you’re here. Aren’t you meant to be helping Spinnet?”

  I turn away and roll my eyes. Matteo raises his eyebrows disapprovingly at Belle. “Only performers in here,” he says primly as he leaves.

  “She’s just going,” Belle says. “And I’m just coming.” She waits until he’s definitely out of earshot, then whips around to face me. “D’you want to get me in trouble?” she hisses.

  I feel like crying, but instead I start clearing her table for her, putting caps on eyeshadows, tipping hairpins back in jars, spooling up her ribbons.

  “Leave it!” she says, watching me in the mirror as she paints purple flicks on the outer corner of her eyes. “Spinnet will be waiting. You don’t need to hang around here when I’m getting ready…”

  I take my time screwing the lid back on her powder just so I can be near her for a few moments longer, then I hug her goodbye, breathing her in. She breaks free too soon and checks her reflection before rushing out to catch up with Matteo. I follow her to the edge of the ring. Matteo is already up on the platform and beckons her with an irritated flick of his wrist. As her foot touches the ladder I realise we haven’t done our good-luck charm. I always like to do it, not just for luck but for old times’ sake.

  “Belle!” I whisper.

  She glances back impatiently. I blow a kiss, but before it reaches her, Matteo calls again. She climbs up and disappears into the Hemisphere. She doesn’t even look back. My throat tightens and I swallow hard. I mustn’t let her see me cry; it’ll only annoy her more.

  Spinnet is waiting for me in her tent, surrounded by spirals of sugary steam. She looks like she swallowed a wasp.

  “Late again, Bug! I’m fed up with you! You’re twelve now – old enough to work as hard as the rest of us. If you don’t, I’m going to ask for someone else to help!” she threatens.

  “No!” I plead. “I sold the lot!” I waggle the empty tray. If she snitches on me, Mrs Fratellini will dock Belle’s wages.

  “Get rid of this lot and I won’t tell the boss,” she grumbles, making the tray-straps creak with the piles of butterscotch she’s loading on. Now I know how the circus mule feels.

  I run back inside the main tent. Boris and Doris are halfway through their act. It’s dark in the stalls but there’s enough light from all the twinkling Glowbells to see where I’m going. I weave through the aisles, stopping at every tier to sell and soon my pocket’s heavy with silver soldas and gold florins. I know by the music and applause when Belle’s act begins, and I whistle along; here comes the hiccupping trumpet for her caterpillar climb, then there’ll be a lilting piano solo as she spins into a cocoon. That’ll build to a peak with a harp joining in as she turns into a butterfly.

  Just as the harp begins, a lost florin winks up at me. I can’t believe my luck and quickly stoop to pick it up; it’ll go in our beer bottle with the rest of the florins we’ve got hidden in the wagon, along with Belle’s map of the islands she once traced from Mr Fratellini’s old atlas. Belle calls our stash the “Family Fund”. She’s only fourteen, but she’s got our whole lives planned out; we’re going to work here until we’re old en
ough to explore every last island of the archipelago, find our parents and be a proper family again. That’s our plan and I can’t wait to get on with it.

  There ought to be fluttering violins for Belle to start the trapeze, but instead the harpist strums the same chords over and over again; I know the sound of a harp ad-libbing. She should have hatched into a butterfly by now, but instead of rapturous applause there’s an odd silence. Maybe I’ve mistimed it, or maybe she hasn’t emerged yet. I slip the florin in my pocket and stand up.

  But then the audience begin to clap, uncertainly, like hailstones pattering on a roof. I know that clap too; embarrassed, as if the audience aren’t sure what they’ve just seen. The applause builds anyway until the benches are shaking. I can’t help myself; I turn to look.

  The silks flap emptily and Belle’s nowhere to be seen.

  I scan the Hemisphere but she’s not tucked away up there either. The spotlights are dancing all over the place and I know that Luca, the stagehand, does it to create a distraction because he doesn’t know what’s happening either.

  Something’s not right. I feel a sharp pain, like my heart’s pinched itself into a tight ball, the way the woodlice do when I find them in the log pile.

  Where are you, Belle?

  I have to wriggle through the crowds, now giving a standing ovation, to get to the ring. Matteo is shouting frantically at someone unseen but when a spotlight settles on him, he immediately stands still and proud. A fanfare cues Matteo to start the trapeze and he jumps into his next act. The woman next to me elbows me excitedly, her eyes shining in wonder.

  “How did she do that, then? Just disappear into thin air?”

  I gape at the fluttering silks, my stomach knotted in fear.

  “Magic,” I whisper. The show must go on.

  3

  Lost

  We hunt high and low, but Belle has vanished. No one saw anything, not even Matteo. I don’t know why Belle hasn’t told me where she’s gone, but I know she must have a good reason. I know she’ll come back. She must come back.

  That night, I stay up long after the search is called off, after every other fire is damped down and the night air cools. Our wagon is tucked away near the animal pens, so close to the circus fence we can smell the forest, and at night we hear the baby elephants snuffling in their dreams. I sit on the wagon’s daisy-painted steps and stoke up the campfire, but I can’t stop shivering, despite wearing Belle’s cloak. By midnight I’m exhausted by doing nothing but waiting and decide to be practical instead. Belle’s going to be famished by the time she returns so I pull a pan from the belly box – the storage box under the wagon – and spend the next hour crying under the cover of slicing onions. I add carrots, tomatoes, basil and pasta to make her favourite, minestrone soup, with a pinch of sugar just in case I cried into the pan. While it simmers over the campfire I busy myself in the wagon, making things just the way she likes it. I shake out the rag-rugs, polish the stove and sort through the muddle of threads I use to mend her costumes. I finish a week’s chores in one night, but no amount of tidying brings her back.

  Dawn breaks, drenching the world with damp grey dew. I feel so lonely, I have to be near something living. I creep into the elephants’ enclosure where they are still fast asleep, gently swaying on their gnarled legs like great ships becalmed at sea. I always come here when I’m sad and it always makes me feel better.

  But not this time. Instead I sit down on a straw bale and burst into tears again.

  Nearly a week passes, with me waiting and hoping until each night I fall asleep on the wagon’s steps. But on the sixth night, long after I’ve crawled into bed, there’s a rap on the wagon door and I’m summoned to Mrs Fratellini’s caravan.

  It’s three times the size of the wagon that Belle and I have lived in all these years and much, much pinker. In the corner, there’s a huge glass bowl full of goldfish that are prizes for the coconut shy and, next to this, stands a dressing table littered with powder puffs and perfume and a mirror lit up by rose-coloured lights. Postcards of Sanctuary, Gala’s capital city, are stuck around the frame and, nesting along the top edge, are Mrs Fratellini’s hairpieces. Matteo and his brothers, Mica and Marcio, are already sitting squashed on her small velvet sofa, but as they’ve all got biceps as big as cobs of corn, they can’t sit neatly side by side. Instead whenever Mica, in the middle, leans back, the other two must sit forward and vice versa. Each time the little sofa creaks unhappily.

  Everywhere I look, their father Alfredo gazes back from faded photos. There’s Alfredo raising a glass or holding his boys aloft as babies, a surprised yet triumphant look in his eyes, like they were something he unexpectedly won in a raffle. In other pictures, he’s in a leotard doing some daring trapeze act, muscles bulging like melons. I don’t remember him very well, because he died in one such stunt shortly after he found us, but I can tell from his enormous moustache that he was brave, and from his crinkly eyes that he was kind. He was a catcher, not just in trapeze, but in life too. He saved people from falling; people with no one left to love them or who never found anyone to love at all, or who were lost in a forest, like Belle and me. I wish he were here now almost as much as I wish Belle were. I stare at his wristbands hanging on a hook between the floral teacups Mrs Fratellini collects. After the cups, the main thing I notice is Mrs Fratellini’s affection for tassels; they adorn every curtain, cushion and tablecloth.

  Mrs Fratellini pours the tea and offers me a cup. Her hair, normally coiffed and fluffy, is bedraggled and dull. She’s still in the same pink dressing gown she’s worn all week and she shuffles between the fire and the window, looking into one and out of the other, constantly sighing.

  “We ’ave to face facts, Bug,” she says, her eyebrows pinching together. “Belle’s moved on.”

  “All her things are still here,” I say, carefully placing my cup on a tasselled coaster. My hand is shaking.

  “A rival circus would give her everything she needs,” Marcio chimes in. “And pay fifty florins a week.”

  “Think it could be the Spitzers?” Mica adds.

  “More likely the Castellos. They’ve always been the best for flyers.”

  “I hear Pickingill’s starting up again…”

  “Hercules Pickingill was never a circus man,” Matteo snorts. “He’s a crook and a crackpot!”

  “Thought he was a zookeeper?”

  “He’s trouble…”

  “Boys!” Mrs Fratellini shrieks in exasperation, clasping her head. She yanks open her bureau drawer and pulls out a wodge of letters bound with string. She looks at me with soft, sad eyes. “Belle never told you about de offers?”

  I shake my head. The sofa creaks as Matteo, Marcio and Mica all crane in to see, frowns of confusion wrinkling their foreheads.

  “I didn’t want to be de one to tell you, but…” Mrs Fratellini says quietly, laying the letters in my lap. Each one is postmarked with the capital city’s emblem of a stripy blue-and-gold circus tent and the word SANCTUARY stamped in gold lettering beneath. All the letters are addressed in the same elegant sloping hand:

  The Butterfly Circus

  For the attention of Mademoiselle Belle

  I gingerly turn over the first envelope as if it’s poisonous. On the back of it is a wax seal the colour of a squashed grape. It’s broken, but I can still make out a horse with a feather plume fixed to the back of its head; the seal used by Circo Fanque, the biggest circus on the whole of Gala, famous for its Liberty horses. I take a sharp intake of breath, like I used to when I flew, and pull out the letter.

  Would you like to fly in the most beautiful circus you’ll ever see? A place where a star can shine properly, where you can have anything you want?

  I only manage to read the first few lines before I have to stuff the letter back in its envelope. No one speaks for a moment. At last, Mrs Fratellini gently tugs the letter out of my clenched fist and stows them all away.

  “Louis Fanque taught Alfredo everything he knew about trapez
e. Now he’s de greatest ringmaster on Gala. Only a fool would refuse an offer to work in ’is circus. Belle is no fool,” Mrs Fratellini says as she caresses a photo of Alfredo, her eyes misty. “My Amati always said you would leave me one day. But I ’ave to accept. I wanted my butterfly to be free. Dat’s dat!” She sniffs proudly but her top lip is trembling at Belle’s betrayal.

  “She would’ve taken me!” I say quietly. I feel a worrying prickling behind my nose.

  “Unless she didn’t want you hanging around,” Matteo mutters.

  The boys look at each other awkwardly.

  The prickling gets worse, so I turn away from them and fix my gaze on a picture of Alfredo. I cast my mind back to the night before Belle disappeared. I asked her how many florins we’d got and how long they’d last when we went exploring the islands. I wonder if she already knew then that she was leaving. When she tucked me into bed, was there something in her face I didn’t notice? I think about the letter. Anything you want. So does that include me? I don’t think it does, or else Belle would have told me about the offers.

  “You must understand,” Mrs Fratellini continues, cupping my cheeks gently between her perfumed hands, “eef we don’t blame ’er, nor should you.”

  “It’s just business, Bug,” Matteo says.

  “But we’re losing customers,” Mrs Fratellini adds. “And wiv Belle gone, dat’ll only get worse.” The boys nod in unison.

  “Mr and Mrs Wood and all the little Woods were in last night,” Marcio mumbles dejectedly, meaning they didn’t sell all the seats. I’d already noticed that the crowds have been getting thinner. It’s not just that they can go to other circuses; there’s the freak shows too. Mrs Fratellini always says the Butterfly Circus is the stuff of dreams, while the freak shows are the stuff of nightmares. But they are cheap.