The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers (the little red hen ebook TXT) 📕

felt wrong not to tell him the real reason. “We can’t.” I thought about my response for a moment and how lacking it was. I tried a different approach. “Hadley tells me that you could paint an exact replica of an arm or a leg, but you don’t. Is that correct?”

He smiled. “I have the skill to do an exact replica. I could give you an Auguste Marchant painting if that is what you prefer.”

While I had never seen a painting by Auguste Marchant, I think I understood the point he was making. “Like you, I see the world differently, but I cannot discuss it because you wouldn’t understand how I see it.”

“You’re a surrealist, then. Your mind is unknowable?”

I considered his question. “Not all of me, but yes. What I do is unknowable and mysterious, not unlike you.”

As I said this, I knew it was a lie. We were not producing art—although many people have accused us of being performance artists, like Kiki or Bricktop with their songs and dances, or illusionists, given to elaborate trickery like carnival fortune-tellers or mesmerists.

The performers of Le Cirque Secret were more than that of course, but I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—say what we were.

We both reached for the last bread and our fingers bumped into each other. I took in his muddy-green eyes, like the Seine when it hadn’t rained in weeks. I was frozen. After a moment, he insisted I take the last bit of bread.

At the end of the night, I told Émile that I could get myself home. Despite the intimacy, the evening with him made me feel as though I could never be anything other than alone. Once in the cab, the driver took me back to the empty space. “Are you sure?” The driver looked puzzled; they all do when we ask to be left off in abandoned spaces. “This part is not so safe.”

“It’s fine,” I said. I waited for the cab to leave and found myself standing at the edge of the woods at Bois de Boulogne. The breeze across the trees felt good against my skin and I closed my eyes and thought of the circus door. The door came first, followed by the grand stone steeds that guarded it; finally the round building appeared. I waited for a moment for everything to assemble, and then I walked through the doors that shut tightly behind me.

May 11, 1925

This morning, Sylvie and I went to the markets on the Rue Mouffetard. I saw Émile Giroux there buying tomatoes and my heart leapt. He looked different in the daytime—or perhaps I had just constructed the image of him in my head all wrong. But my heart beat faster and I found myself at a loss for words.

He smiled when he saw me, but he kept his eyes on the produce. “So you can appear in the daylight.”

“Dracula?” This statement hurt me. Was he comparing me to Bram Stoker’s undead count? I considered that it was closer to the truth than he knew.

“I was thinking Cinderella.”

I blushed and looked down at my shoes.

“Picasso was in quite a state the other morning over your sister.”

“Really?” I feigned surprise. The painters always showed up at the last known address of Le Cirque Secret, expecting it to still be there, holding their blank canvases, claiming it was witchcraft. But by then we’d moved on to another part of the city—north to Saint-Denis or nestled in the trees or the Rue Réaumur.

As he handed me an apple, I could see that his hands were stained with aqua and brown paint. I bit into it and felt some of the errant juice drip down my chin. I wiped it.

“After seeing your face, Cecile Cabot, I believe I am done with landscapes forever.”

It now made sense—the weathered look of him—painting hills and lavender and sunflowers. I was about to respond when Sylvie came to show me something: this morning’s edition of Le Figaro.

“Look.” She pointed to the article. “The reporter Jacques Mourier has written an entire article about you.”

“Me?”

Émile scanned the article. “I know Jacques,” he said. “He’s quite influential.”

Sylvie read and summarized: “He’s never seen more artistry displayed than the smooth way you take to the air and slide down the Spanish Web like a silk snake.” She raised her eyebrow.

“That’s some endorsement,” said Émile, his voice almost musical with excitement.

“Any mention of the cats?” I was afraid to look at it.

“One line, at the very end. He says they’re lovely, but every circus has cats.” Her voice fell and she folded the paper.

I winced. This would infuriate Esmé.

With Sylvie’s arrival, however, the spell between Émile and me had been broken. He gathered two more apples and paid for all three.

“Monsieur Giroux,” I called out.

“Please, call me Émile.”

I paused before saying his name. His glorious name. “Émile, where do you live?”

“Why? Are you coming for a visit?” His hair glinted in the morning sun. No one had ever looked at me with such desire.

I blushed and I heard Sylvie snicker. She was observing me flirt—something I had never done before. “Your ticket.”

“Rue Delambre.” He began to tell me about floors and numbers and I waved him away.

I do not need house numbers or floors. The tickets to Le Cirque Secret don’t work that way. The admission is enchanted. The circus thrives on the energy of people who desire it. The surest way to get a ticket to Le Cirque Secret is to wish for it—blowing on birthday candles, wishing on stars, or tossing pennies—those devotions work well.

And the tickets have minds of their own. They’re wicked little things, preferring patrons who barter their soul for admission—say, someone who says or thinks “I’d sell my soul for a ticket” will most surely find one on their doorstep, if for no other reason than to tempt them.

As one of the mortal residents of the circus, I possessed a certain amount of sway with the tickets, but they were moody little