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

saying goodbye to him, it was at this precise moment that I knew for certain my decision was the correct one. Though I’d longed to be, I would never be the woman for him. I could see clearly that, as the years passed, I would become a shell, measuring myself against each model. Without malice, his talent and passion along with their consequences would chisel away at me.

He was wiping brushes, his clothes spotted with errant paint strokes, but he placed them on the table and took my head in his hands, kissing me deeply.

I pulled back. “It’s Esmé.” I found that I could not take my eyes off the painting, the woman’s eyes staring at me in pity.

“What about her?” He believed that he had won me again, making her irrelevant.

“She loves you.” My breath was shallow. As I spoke the words, I knew that I was doing the right thing, yet in my heart, I had never wanted anything more than this man.

“That is ridiculous,” he said, laughing, and yet there was a flicker across his face, perhaps some part of him flattered. To be adored by a beautiful woman such as Esmé was a conquest, whether he loved her or not.

“It’s not possible for us to be together, Émile.”

Starting in his eyes, which dimmed like the chandeliers in the circus just before the performance begins, I watched the light leave him. The fade of his normally bright smile came next, once my words had fully reached him.

“But I only love you, Cecile. I don’t love her.”

“I won’t destroy my sister, Émile. I do love you, but I love her more.” A flush came over my body, causing me to become sick again in one swift wave. Searching for something, I ran to the window, reaching for the washbasin and throwing up in it.

Émile led me to the bed, where I gripped the bedsheets with my fists in anticipation of the next wave that I could feel forming. He touched my cheek lightly. “You don’t have a fever.”

He slid next to me and placed his arms around me. “Cecile.”

“Yes,” I said, briefly allowing myself one last moment to fully embrace the warmth and weight of him as he pressed against my body.

“Are you pregnant?”

July 1, 1925

I visited a doctor. Everything was strange to me, from the small office where Sylvie and I waited to the entire process of discovering that I was, indeed, pregnant. For me nothing has changed. I have decided to raise this child in the circus world. It would be the little piece of Émile that I could keep.

I found Esmé in her dressing room. She was about to bar the door with her arm again, but I would not be begging her to talk to me anymore.

“What do you want?”

“He is yours,” I said, spitting the words out. “I have told him that I will not see him again.” Pulling my sweater around my neck, I turned to leave. As I walked down the hallway, I knew that I’d left her standing in her doorway both speechless—and elated.

True to my word, I refused to see Émile, despite his pleas. If my sister wanted him, then I would step aside. I was sure it would only take a modest bit of coaxing on her part to change his devotions from me to her.

August 8, 1925

Before tonight’s performance, I was sick again and went to the animals’ stalls where I wouldn’t be discovered vomiting. I was near His Majesty’s stable—an elaborate, lavish corral with a velvet curtain fit for a king—when I spied Esmé, covered in blood, scrubbing herself in a nearby empty stall.

I had always suspected there was a pattern to our circus. Tomorrow, Father was planning to return, and we would likely move our location again, finding ourselves back at the Bois de Boulogne for the month. As she dried herself with a towel, I could see bloodstains on it. She stood there shivering in the hallway, her silk slip illuminating the outlines of her nipples and the tops of her thighs.

Later, Sylvie and I were at Le Select, where no one made room for us at the bar. I heard whispering about two men who went missing near the last known location of our circus. Hemingway looked up from the table and asked me if I knew anything about it. All eyes turned to Sylvie and me, cigarettes puffing wildly.

“She doesn’t know anything,” said Émile from a corner seat at the bar. Even Sylvie was touched that he defended us. Seeing him sent a charge of pain through my body like an errant current.

When I returned to the circus, Father asked me to accompany him on the Ferris wheel ride that Curio had completed. I was hesitant because I knew that this ride led to the White Forest. I climbed into the car, and with a swipe of his hand, we began to descend.

“They’re saying that our circus is responsible for several men’s disappearances.”

He looked far away tonight. I knew what he was—a great general in the Army of the Underworld—yet he has been the only parent I have ever known. Although I have seen his cruelty, I felt the tug of sadness and love for him.

“Who has said this?” He was preoccupied, looking down at the River Styx to the right of us. “Giroux?”

“No,” I said. “It is all the gossip in Montparnasse. It’s in the newspaper as well.”

“It isn’t your concern, Cecile.” Father’s response was firm.

“Why?” Leaning forward, I touched his leg. “Earlier tonight before the performance, I caught Esmé in the animal stalls washing blood off herself. Then I heard of men going missing, and now you are here and I know what that means. The circus will move. There is a pattern here.”

He gazed over at me, like I was a much-loved doll. “You look so much like her… Juno.” He closed his eyes at the memory