It's All Part Of The Show 'The Carnival Of Glass'

Chapter XVI 🎪A Gray Area

I breathed in deep.

Strongly inhaling like I was going to blow out the dancing flame of a lite match.

Now, about that 'gray area.'

"Both. Well, because I had nobody to save me when I was a child."

I wasn't sure if she had remembered, but I was orphaned after my mother Victoria passed hours within my birth and my Father William got sick- eventually passing away when I was 2 years of age.

I continued on.

"You know, my show wasn't always this way. Before, it was a normal circus-like Carnival with animals and twice the amount performers, food, and more stunts than you could ever imagine! Until I saw someone with their child. The image stuck with me, and I'll never forget the fact that they were smoking a cigarette. I have rules that prohibit videography, but it didn't occur to me till just now. I should have had rules against smoking. I'll have that with me for as long as I live because they purposely dropped their lit cigarettes by the black and white striped cloth of the Big Top. -They were the last ones out, everyone, including me, thought they were the last ones out of the tent that night... before it caught fire."

-There was so much, too much.

Madison's eyes were fixed on my feet as if trying to un-hear the words being fed into her ears.

"I'm sorry -I know this isn't what you want to hear, but it's the truth... and you deserve to hear it. All though I may not be the best person for you to hear it from, at least you know."

I wanted her to hear it from the one who had done the deed, but I knew that wasn't in the cards.

As I continued, I struggled to keep down the fiery uneasiness spiraling in the pit of my stomach. And with the lump in my throat and tightness in my chest, I could start to notice Madison's doubt.

"I was walking back from my show wagon -I couldn't bear to see all my hard work and labor gone just like that. While passing one of my performers leading the last two of the black horses -still with their red harnesses on, the feathers in their mains and tails as they went down the hill, I saw something. I saw that guy who had left his three young children inside the tent alone, along with one other child -Not his. And two of the three young kids unfortunately perished. The guy's smile haunts me because of the intention in his eyes of why he set the Big Top a blaze that dreadful night. He wanted his kids gone, he wanted them dead. It enraged me, and I used my anger from that night to vow if I ever suspected a child in a bad situation, ever again, that I would save them... And that's what I did with you."

She was trying to take it all in... But it would have been too much for anyone -It was too much for me, let alone Rainey.

"Mister TopHat, what would happen if a child you tried to save stays with their parents?"

She asked me, not knowing how I'd respond.

But I did... I responded, and with full honesty.

"Well, since you asked... Madison, unfortunately, I can't save every child. As much as I want to, I cannot. I wanted to find you, Madison because when your grandparents came here to my carnival with what were your parents, I tried to save your parents from their own parents. I failed. I failed and I never forgot it because if I would have gotten your parents, they wouldn't have done this to you. -Everything you've been through Madison. I'm sorry."

I said with a sincere heartfelt apology.

It was weird how I had said it though. It was like I had wanted her to ask me that.