Spectacle of Souls

2:2 - The Siren's Sting

"Candace Livigin, do you know why you're here?"

The woman's blade-sharp eyes pierced through her and Candace wriggled further into her armchair. The itchy gauze material scraped against the back of her neck like a taunt. "I did something bad."

"Not necessarily bad. Thoughtless is the word I'd use." The woman's Irish accent echoed through the drably-furnished office. "Bad's a fair bit stronger than it looks."

"What?"

The woman leaned back in her seat confidently, taking a swig of tea. Candace's mug lay untouched on the coffee table. "Well, you'd think with only three letters a word wouldn't have a lot of meaning. But Bad, oh, bad's an interesting thing. It's so ambiguous."

"I don't understand."

"Well, mean suggests something wasn't done with kindness, whereas evil, on the other hand, might be a word you'd use to describe the unthinkable. But Bad is anything from a lie to a murder."

That last word hung in the air like a conviction, and Candace's eyes latched yearningly onto the door.

"So," The psychiatrist leaned towards the girl, eyes wide with polished sympathy, "which was yours? A lie or a murder?"

Candace fidgeted in her seat again. "Good's an ambiguous word, too, then. A lie can save someone."

Heart racing, she tried to gauge the woman's expression before she continued. "As can a murder."

***

Why had that acidic little memory surfaced now?

Dace hardly needed the distraction as she tried to dodge round after round of foam bullets.

"Come on, Siren!" Barked one of the young acrobats, as he fired another with disturbing enthusiasm. "You can do better than that! Pretend each bullet is a teeny, tiny elephant."

News of her actions seemed to have spread like smoke through the train—she'd made her way to the crummy shower block that morning leaving a trail of stares and whispers. Even as she stood shivering in the cubicle, pouring water over her head from a tin bucket a woman with abnormally flexible joints had stretched her head over, to ask how it felt to beat a monster both the Ringleader and Miss Wisely struggled with.

"Okay, stop!" Dace said, out of boredom rather than the breathlessness she would have expected from running about for fifteen minutes straight, "What's this achieving, anyway?"

Lowering the plastic gun the boy shoved a hand in the pocket of his chinos and shrugged. "It is excellent target practice."

"Stop being an arse, Cog." Violent swung from the carriage's doorway and slumped onto one of the steps, a disinterested spectator. "If it's target practice you want you should have asked me for advice."

The acrobat, Cog, turned to look up at her with a wry smile and a shake of the head. "That's never going to happen."

He was plain faced, pale featured, but his light-hearted smirk and slick way of moving made Dace wonder if he was a flirt. Somehow, he seemed the type—it took confidence to prance about shirtless on a mild winter morning. The train was now halted in the middle of a village's field—they needed to stock up on supplies—so a few of the younger circus members had spread across the green, either running through the grass with weaponry or enjoying the feeble sunlight.

Dace had no interest in establishing her skill-set. A red-haired clown was waiting for her outside carriage 12. They were going to try and break in.

"So, um, are we done here?"

"You'll have to be," Violent muttered, nudging at a pile of dirt with her leather boot, "The Ringleader wants to speak with you immediately."