"What do you know about Missus Carson?" I raised prior to going on for the show.
Within the tent, the lights were already low and acrobats were performing their high-flying and death-defying act in the eaves: hanging from the trapeze as aptly as primates.
Jacques eloquence escaped him for a couple seconds and he grappled with a poker face. "Elsie?" He polished the blade of his sword, drawing the slender silver length of it through a cloth now stained with grime and dust.
"I didn't know her name..." I shrugged, aligning the feathers in the shaft of the arrows.
Experimentally swishing the weapon and limbering his wrist. "Why the..." He gestured to me with the sword, the blade flexing as the tip jutted into my clavicle. "Sudden interest?"
I gulped, trying not to look culpable. "I just noticed she isn't around..." I stepped away from the point of Jacques foil aloofly.
Jacques twiddled with his moustache, shaping his dishevelled facial hair. "They found her dead..." He said, unfazed. "Mister Carson and Marcella."
I played along, looking startled. "How?" I loaded my quiver with all the tools of my trade, double checking my inventory before I went on.
Sheathing his blade, "Stabbed," he uttered.
I nodded mutely. "Anything particular about that stabbing?" I investigated, realising how unsubtle my probing was only once the words had blundered out of my mouth.
Jacques stepped closer to me, his lean and gnarly frame casting a shadow over me. "What have you heard?" His French accent had somewhat enriched as his demeanour had become colder.
"What? Nothing," I blabbed, eyes darting about his face. "Just curious..."
"Just curiosity."
"Curiosity killed the cat, mon cherie," Jacques threatened, hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
That's when a wave of applause rumbled in the auditorium as the acrobats reached their finale, somersaulting from the heavens and landing light-footedly back down to the ring. I could see the trio in their harlequin jumpsuits bowing and waving before doing gymnastics out of the arena.
"Looks like you're on Hawkeye..." My mentor gestured towards the parting in the fabric of the tent. "Stun them stupid..."
I collected my bow and arrows in a hurry, eager to get away from my imposing teacher and at hearing my name announced, marched into the ring, arms outstretched as I let the welcome wash over me.
~
"What d'you want, kid?" One of the stagehands - Peter - asked me as I hung back as the carnival was being packed away.
"Nothin', I'm just thinking..." I muttered, standing by as Peter worked to dismantle the set bit by bit.
"Why don't y'get y'head outta the clouds and pull your weight, son?" Peter admonished, his hands blackened by the oil and grit coating the metal struts that held up the carnival stalls and tent. "Shame on you watchin' an old dog like me work when you're still so young..."
"I'd rather sit here y'know..." I retorted and I had a mucky cloth tossed at me that hit me smack in the face.
"Do y'value your place at the carnival 'ere, Hawkeye? Because I suggest y'get off y'fat ass if y'do," Peter grumbled, deadpan.
Peter is an endorser of tough love; a jab to the shoulder, a clip on the ear, a step on the heels. But in reality, he's like the grandpa of the carnival; he'd knock out the first outsider to insult his family. The old dog is seventy, with grey whiskers on his chin and a thinning thatch of hair, but he's still the most capable manual-labourer on the crew. Rumour had it he had been employed by the Carsons since the nineteen-forties, when he got out of jail.
The fact that he was a convict didn't bother me, most of the carnies were crooks; but redeemed, on a new lease of life. They cohabited quite peacefully, their only offence being petty theft. But that came from a good place: financial security for family.
"You're a damn good archer, kid..." Peter sighed, ruffling me on the head with a yellow-stained smile. "And you're earnin' us all a livin', I wouldn't want y'to go..." He wiped the greasy stains off my face with the corner of his cuff.
"Thanks, Peter..." I breathed, helping him cram away the poles into a bag.
"Glad to see you're settlin' in good, too, 'specially after Jacques and I hadda haul you outta that hay when we first met..." Peter smiled fondly.
Feeling and opportunity presenting itself, I continued my search for justice. "Hey, Peter..?"
"Yeah, kid?" He grunted gruffly, giving a coarse cough.
"What was Elsie Carson like?" I slipped the question in casually.
Peter gave a dirty old chuckle. "Jailbait if I ever did see any," he hissed. "Carson's trophy wife. He married 'er tellin' a pack'a lies; 'bout how he was gonna be rich, the carnival was gonna earn him a fortune, and he blew all his money on keeping his sugar-baby happy. And she certainly liked to live the champagne lifestyle..." He snorted and shook his head. "Demandin' flash cars, ridiculous jewellery, fine wines..." He gave a rough laugh again. "Though you ain't s'posed to speak ill of the dead; it was a hard time to work when she was alive. None'a us gotta see any of our pay. And Jacques was the only one who called her out on her treachery. We owe him one."
The one thing I could depend upon from Peter was candour. He didn't believe in sugar-coating or backstabbing. He dealt in harsh realities and sometimes that's what you need.
"So people didn't really like her?"
Peter chortled. "People hated her. 'S no wonder she got stabbed really. But she looked down on us carnies, just 'cause some of us done some stuff we ain't so proud of..." He crossed his arms defensively over his chest. "Thought 'cause she had the boss wrapped 'round her pinkie she could say an' do whatever she wanted." He chucked down the wrench he was using to take apart the set, fuming at the very memory of the woman. "Calls us washed up and useless when I doubt she could put up a tent, let alone do gymnastics, eat fire and use a sword..."
I nodded quietly along, listening to the old man vent some of his repressed hatred.
"And when she died-"
Peter waved a hand. "She was killed. More like dissected if we're truthful; the stab wounds were surgical, someone 'ad planned it meticulously, and carried it out almost theatrically..." Peter bowed his head quietly.
Helping him tidy up the carnival, I beguiled him, trying to prize more information out of him. "Any suspicions about who it would've been?"
Peter's face became like thunder and his eyes were host to a storm. his laughter lines looking like forked lightning. "Here at the carnival, Hawkeye, we watch out for our own. There ain't no finger pointin' or tippin' off the authorities. You understand?" He growled, like a hound ready to snap my neck in a dogfight. "I don't know what kinda messed up shit led you to endin' up at this dead-end carnival, frankly, I don't give two, but you shouldn't care neither..."
I shrunk down where I stood, the dynamic all too familiar and memories of my father coming rushing back to nip me. "I don't care, I was just asking-"
"Well don't! Whoever did what they did to her, it's a damn good job he did-" I couldn't help but note the pronoun. "Or none'a us would be as well off as we are. He did it so you can be paid. So we all could be. Be grateful," he gritted. "Now, you gonna help me pack this damn thing up? First thing tomorrow we're headin' to the Big Apple, and I ain't gonna be the one to tell Mister Carson that we ain't ready; that where we're gonna make the most money! Ticket prices soar, and the kinda people who live in New York City are the kind you can make a small fortune from pickpocketing! You'll see kid, you'll see!"
~
After packing up, rather than confining myself to the cluttered cubbyhole that was my trailer, I found my way to the Carson's caravan and threw a pebble at her window - knocking on the door was bound to get me fired for temerity and a punch to the nose for good measure.
It didn't require a word to get her to come to the window, and only the sight of me to encourage her to clamber out.
That late night meeting was just the first of many. There was a thrill about it: the forbidden nature of our relationship, rebelling against her father's wishes, the cloak-and-dagger, under-the-cover-of-night way we met.
"Does the moving about bother you? Y'know, living life on the road?" I asked her, sitting on the green, a stretch away from the blockade of caravans.
"I've always lived like this," she admitted with a nonchalant shrug. "I've no reason to question it. Does it bother you?" She asked, head resting on my shoulder, smiling up at the silver crescent moon.
I shook my head. "I don't have many possessions to worry about moving about; I have my bow, and my arrows and that ridiculous costume..." I managed to elicit a giggle. "I'm just happy to be far away from where I came from..." I snuggled into her embrace, her touch enough to muffle the troubles that lingered at the back of my mind.
She interlocked her fingers with mine. "Where was it that you came from?" Her voice was diluted with interest and she craned her neck to look up at me.
"Iowa. Waverly. A shanty town in the middle of nowhere. Where nothing much happened..." All truth told, too much happened for my liking; having an abusive alcoholic dad, going deaf, my parents dying in a freak car accident, running to an orphanage, my brother deserting me for the army.
"That's why you've run away with the circus like Nelly the Elephant?" Marcella teased, prodding me in the chest.
"To begin with, yeah..." I chuckled and rested my head on her shoulder. "But now I've found other reasons to stay..." I looked from the campus of lights where the caravans were congregated - my family - and then to Marcella, with her eyes brighter than the North Star and a smile more captivating than the landscape. "If your dad saw fit, I'd happily spend the rest of my days at this carnival. I've never felt more at home."
"Fuck what my pops says!" She declared, waving away such a politeness. "I'm gonna be the one inheriting the carnival when he gets too old and too infirm to run the place! I think I get to have my say in who we employ and who we don't. And you, Hawkeye, are staying right here!" She placed a cumbersome kiss on my cheek, leaving a brazen scarlet stamp of her lips on my face.
"Thank you, Marcy," I chuckled and tucked an auburn ribbon of hair behind her ear before pressing a kiss to her temple.
"Clint..?" She said meekly, with a lack of confidence I hardly recognised in her voice.
"Yeah?" I said back softly, soothing her with a squeeze to the hand.
"I love you."
Those three words were enough to freeze the universe for an infinitum. All was silent but the rattling chirp of the cicadas in the night-time humidity. My vocal chords stuck I my throat; I didn't have the ability in me
To say it back. Everyone I'd ever loved had turned out to be not what they seemed or deserted me. I wasn't about to add Marcella to that list.
"I gotta go..." I choked, a lump the size of a golf ball forming in my throat. "... Get some sleep..." I scrambled to my feet clumsily. "New York City tomorrow..." And I dashed back to the camp, scuttling back towards my caravan.
"And where have you been, my little hawk?" A deep French voice pierced the silence, close to my ear, and I stiffened, welded to the spot.
The lipstick mark still marring my cheek, I scrubbed at it with my sleeve. "None of your business, Jacques," I snapped hastily opening the door.
"Ooh-hoo-hoo!" He chuckled with derision. "Grown a spine have we?"
"Goodnight, Jacques," I grumbled, entering the space and slamming the door; clutching my makeup stained cheek.
"I have my eye on you, Hawkeye!" He goaded, walking away with a sinister laugh.
A/N - apologies for not adding an author's note immediately! my wifi was really playing up and wouldn't let me access the completed chapter, let alone edit it. Crete in Greece is stupendously hot, but the humidity is what's getting to me; even after holidaying to Mallorca in Spain a fortnight ago, have not acclimatised.
Dedication goes to ale_ferrer! x