The Nightingale Circus Read Free

She didn’t
know much about it—people stared at first sight, they didn’t dare
to ask questions—but she was certain that while the baby wouldn’t
die, it was also incurable. Otherwise, Big Dino would have gotten
rid of it long ago and stopped being the big circus freak aside
from being the circus owner. But how could she explain that to them ?
    “Cursed,” the woman said.
    Yes, cursed, if he didn’t develop a
personality strong enough to carry the physical signs of the
disease with dignity. Had Big Dino also been a toddler with green
skin and the look of a toad? Cielo couldn’t help but wonder.
    “Please…” As limited as her vocabulary was,
the woman made herself clearly understood.
    Cielo shook her head. They hadn’t removed the
gag so she couldn’t speak, though she didn’t know what she could
have said.
    The man standing near the woman gave the
signal with a brisk wave of hand, and Cielo stared at the four gun
barrels aimed at her. Her eyes opened a little wider. Did they
think she could perform miracles only with the power of her mind?
Apparently they didn’t. The man who seemed to be the leader leaned
forward and pulled down the gag.
    “Sing.” The woman offered her a hopeful
smile.
    Cielo licked her lips. “I can’t … I can’t
heal him…”
    But they didn’t understand. Or they didn’t
want to. One of the hardest things was to give up hope because then
you had nothing left. Cielo perfectly understood that. She also
knew how this unfortunate meeting was going to end. Better finish
it sooner, before Rake and Spinner found her. Her punishment was
kinder than their knives and hammer-like fists.
    When the woman repeated her plea in a
whisper, Cielo nodded.
    She opened her mouth and sang. The rifles
trembled in the men’s hands. They didn’t notice. All their eyes
were on her. They also didn’t notice when the barrels rose, aiming
at each other. The singing went higher up a note.
    They fired.
    Left alone standing, the woman screamed,
cried, and cursed her, all this time cradling the baby against her
chest. Since she wasn’t armed, Cielo had planned on letting her go,
but things rarely worked as planned.
    The woman bent to pick up a rifle lying by
her foot.
    Later Cielo would tell herself she’d had no
choice. Of course, there was always a choice. She could die or …
She altered her tune.
    Before she could reach for the rifle, the
woman stumbled backward. Her arms waved, nearly dropping the baby,
horror painted on her face.
    She could have made the woman run for the
still-open door, but there was a chance she would alert someone.
Cielo didn’t want to be found there when the massacre was
discovered. It wouldn’t end well. She made the woman slam against a
distant wall, hidden in the darkness. A blow to the head would keep
her unconscious long enough for her to escape.
    The woman sagged against the wall, still
holding onto the baby who, woken up by the commotion, began to
cry.
    Cielo jumped to her feet in an instant. With
her hands and ankles still bound, she stumbled towards the
harvester, her eyes repeatedly darting towards the door. The
machine’s blades were hard to reach, but at the expense of several
shallow cuts, she managed to free herself.
    It was time to run. Being in the middle of
the night and away from the town, she had a long walk ahead of
her.
    On her way to the door, she stopped to check
on the woman. She hadn’t seen the tools that hung on the wall. Some
of them were sharp and twisted, a real hazard for those who didn’t
know they were there. Maybe the woman had known, but what good had
it done for her anyway? The metal had still pierced her back in at
least two places, and blood stained the front of her shirt. She
wasn’t breathing.
    Cielo picked up the baby from her arms and
laid him down on a bale of hay. She considered taking him with her,
rescuing him from the mad family, but only briefly. While he would
have found a good place at the circus, Cielo’s experience