Chapter Text
“‘Til next time, creepy girl!” had been the last thing the ringmistress said to her before disappearing in a cloud of smoke.
As time passed by, she had watched her across the room at the wedding of the mayor and the reverend. All the evening she had longed to approach her, knowing better than to do so. Those nights grew to become her biggest regrets, often she chastised herself for having been so foolish. She had left the island for a while searching for new performances, her return was met with great fanfare. Returning with sword swallowers, fire breathers, rogue jugglers, human blockheads and the like; no clown she had come across could have ever replaced the ones she had lost.
The new world of wonders showcased the finest talents Marlene Magdalena had gathered. It was true that her prices had risen, but possessing such talents required some compensation for their genius. Each night she hoped that the new performances would draw in her creepy girl, she scanned the rows of seats, each time disappointed and fearful that she may never see her face again.
A campaign of shock and awe drew the crowd in for the final act of fire breathers. The trio stood front and center wearing glittering costumes adorned red and orange, the tallest one seemed more closed in on himself than the other two. Their fires burst and danced, the audience gasped in great shock at the blowing heat. The tallest one shook, hesitating and unable to execute his performance as he had done before. Marlene shot him a glare, cracking her whip, she nodded to the crowd. He ran from the tent, the performance only saved by the two remaining fire breathers.
As they all stood in front of the crowd and bowed, they were thanked with a grand applause. Marlene raised her arms and executed a final bow. She leaned to one of the fire breathers, commanding her to find their cowardly friend.
Marlene sat slumped in the first row of the main tent, her face propped in her hands. She glared disinterested at the trio. The tallest one, a thin man with a handlebar mustache and wire rimmed glasses stepped to the front. The plume of fire blown from his mist of fuel was pathetic, the ringmistress’s matches could have done a better job and she told him so. Embarrassed, the man tried again. The flames that burst forward were pitiful excuses, he apologized to the increasingly irritated ringmistress; upon his third failure she pounced from her chair with a loud crack of her whip. She shouted at him that he was pathetic, that his performance was worthless, adding nothing to the other two performers. She made it clear that he was obstructing the beauty that could be their performance. The trio fell speechless, not used to such harsh leadership. The ringmistress turned on her heels without another word, absently cracking her whip as she left the tent.
Talk of the incident spread quickly around the performers’ caravans. As they gathered for dinner, they whispered and chattered among each other, each story more fabricated than the other. The jugglers told the aerialists that she whipped him directly, the contortionists heard that she threatened to set him on fire herself if he did not improve. Patrick, known around the grounds as Marlene’s favourite, dismissed the preposterous stories. Silence fell over the tables as quickly as the gossip had risen, for fear was the colour of all that they wore as the ringmistress arrived to dinner.
The sun fell like a guillotine, the performers dispersed back to their caravans.
All except one.
Standing by himself in the tent, the tallest fire breather figured all he needed to do was more fuel to make a bigger fire, and then the ringmistress would like him again like she did when she first invited them to her circus.
Tragedy struck when he tried to take on the flamed plume. For scorching his throat, he fell to the ground as a small fire miserably burned him away.