“We haven’t practiced the new routine enough,” he said, his words vibrating against the edges of the dream and causing the whole scene to ripple. “We can’t do it without the net.”
Violet took a second to consider what Emil was saying, and as she let his words sink in, she felt the softest tingle along her spine, like the first tap of an icy finger. But before the sensation could rise to the front of her awareness, Violet’s attention was quickly caught by the abrupt applause of the crowd.
Instantly, her body began to vibrate in anticipation of soaring across the top of the tent and causing an even stronger reaction to ripple through the stands, one that would make her heart beat faster and propel her from one twist of the bar to the next.
Instead of stepping toward Emil, Violet flashed him a wide grin and flung herself off the side of the platform, daring him to follow her.
She didn’t need to look back to know that he was already jumping into the air, just a beat behind as they twirled above the performers in the ring, capturing the gaze of the crowd and pulling everyone’s attention upward. Ever since the night they’d first soared above the stands, Violet had known he’d follow her anywhere.
And as she had expected, the gasps of amazement that radiated from the crowd made her feel just like a falling star, burning so bright that nothing could stand in her way.
It wasn’t until the middle of the routine that Violet noticed she and Emil hadn’t managed to quite match one another’s rhythm. She’d leapt toward the first bar a moment before their cue, and Emil seemed to be scrambling to catch up, his movements tinged with a tension that was normally absent from his graceful and seemingly effortless swings between the bars.
Time, which had been moving forward in a rush, slowed to the pace of honey dripping down the jar, as it often does when you reach the part of a dream that you hope to wake up from.
Though Violet couldn’t remember exactly what would happen next, she felt the thrill of her performance quickly shift into a sense of unease that made her shudder, as if her body had relived this moment so many times that it didn’t matter if her memory couldn’t quite find the source of the trouble to come.
And then she saw Emil swinging toward her, his arm extended so that he could grasp her hand and gain just enough momentum to make it to the open bar that dangled a few feet beside her.
But his hand seemed just the barest whisper of an inch farther than it had been when they’d practiced, and though Violet stretched as far as she was able, in the moment they were supposed to lock together, her fingers brushed cold air instead of the warmth of Emil’s palm.
As Violet shot awake and gripped the icy sheets beneath her skin, she could still hear the screams of the crowd, so sharp and shrill that it felt like they were going to rip her apart.
The house heard the cry that she managed to stifle just before it became loud enough to wake her sisters. It instantly kindled the fire in the room, frightened by the frost that had managed to coat the inner pane of the window and looking glass of the vanity while Violet tossed and turned in her sleep.
She was shaking uncontrollably now, trying to orient herself in the present so that the tethers of the past wouldn’t pull her beneath the weight of her guilt and sorrow, as they always did when she didn’t have something else to focus on.
The crazy quilts that had fallen to the edge of the bed shifted closer, tucking Violet within the comforting chaos of their colorful calico patches, and she could smell frankincense infusing the room from a vial of perfume that the house hadfound in the drawer of the vanity and remembered Clara Quigley pulling out whenever one of the girls awoke from a nightmare.
The fragrance warmed Violet in places that the flames in the hearth could never touch, and gradually, she was able to lean back against the pillow and into the sound of the logs crackling a few feet from the bed.
In an instant, she was a child again, waiting for the next brush of her mother’s hand through her curls as she whispered words that were too soft to understand but somehow still had the strength to loosen the strain in her chest.
That’s all Violet wanted at the moment, anyway—to drift so far back into the past that she’d forget what it had felt like to realize Emil’s hand was going to miss hers.
“He’s okay. He’s okay. He’s okay,” she murmured over and over again, trying to make herself remember that Emil had survived the fall. That his body was healing, so quickly that he’d soon be back in the ring. It had only been a few months since the accident, and already he’d started practicing on the bars again, seeing how much of his strength he could depend upon before moving away the ropes and swinging about in the open air once more.
His spirits hadn’t been permanently fractured by the fall, either, and when Violet conjured up the last time she’d seen his face, leaning forward to kiss her goodbye before she left on the last train to Chicago, she saw only the steady love that had grown between them since that very first night by the lakeshore.
The trouble was that Violet hadn’t found a way to forgive herself.
Suddenly, the frost that had melted along the windowsill began to freeze again as Violet thought about when she’d need to return to the ring.
The circus would move north as soon as the snow that coated the city streets began to melt and the harsh bite of winter gaveway to spring. Violet had promised Emil that once the troupe arrived in Chicago, she would join him for his first performance since the fall, giving him the support he needed to fly between the bars again.
But though Emil’s trust in Violet hadn’t wavered, she couldn’t say the same. How could she when it had been her impulses and refusal to look beyond the present moment that had led to disaster?
She had almost lost him.
The thought sent a fresh shock through Violet’s body, and the weight that had eased somewhat from her heart began to press down once more, threatening to push her through the bed and into the dark depths of those memories she couldn’t manage to leave behind.
Noticing the ice that was starting to creep along the intricate woodwork, the house stoked the fire before Violet could start shaking again, determined to keep her safe from the burdens that were trying to pull her away from the comfort of home.
And eventually, Violet did succumb to the spell of the Crescent Moon, her heartbeat slowing to the rhythm of the smoldering embers in the hearth and into a slumber laced with frankincense that warded off unpleasant dreams.
For now, she could take refuge in the haven that she’d hoped to find when her hand had grasped the garden gate the day before and lose her worries in the spicy scent of citrus and the steady comfort of knowing that she didn’t need to move forward, not yet.
CHAPTER 8
