Muerte's Circus

Chapter 2

In my room I was furiously trying to pack a bag when a shaky Josie dawdled in next to me. She mumbled something.

"What Josie?" I asked, quite a bit meaner than I wanted it to sound like.

"I'm sorry!" Josie squeaked. I looked at her.

"But why did you do it?"

"Do what?" I looked at her like she was a complete idiot. But I kept my cool.

"Play with the snow when I specifically told to you wait until I came home, and those actions led to breaking the vase, leading to me being chucked out on the streets," I paused, looking at her big eyes welling up with tears, "Josie you need to promise me something."

"Anything Ariah!" she replied.

"Don't be an idiot!" Josie's eyes overflowed as she laughed.

"I promise Ariah," she promised, hand on chest.

"Good." I tickled her and she laughed more.

Suddenly Lucy appeared at my door and grabbed me by the arm, pulling me away from Josie, who was now crying genuinely. I was crying partly because of leaving Josie, but mostly because I couldn't retrieve my bag, or my nametag my mother gave me. The only thing I have of her.

I yell to Josie, "Ego V!" She knows what I mean and grabs it right away.

While I am being pulled down the stairs, forced to smell Lucy's vile breath, Josie runs down and slips the tag around my wrist. (We put new string on it to make it bigger). I mouth her a ‘thank you’ as I get thrown out the door. Okay, maybe Lucy spat at me a few times too, but did you really have to know that?

Sitting on the doorstep of my old orphanage who has just rejected me, is not a pleasant feeling. I'm surprised I even paired the word 'orphanage' with 'pleasant.' They just don't belong together. Obviously.

I was twiddling my thumbs wondering what to do next, when I saw a flash of pink on my nametag. Had Josie bejewelled it? No, she had written a message of her own on it. It said:

I don’t speak Latin Ariah, but I am going to miss you so much.

-Love from Josephine Amelia Tate

I smiled as I stood out on the curb. I saw her staring out of her bedroom window with a forlorn look on her tearstained face. My smile fell, but I started dancing crazily beside the road, hoping to get her attention. A guy walking past chucked a dollar at my feet and smiled. I got a driver to honk at me before Josie saw me.

As soon as that driver honked the car horn, Josie looked and saw me. She smiled and waved before putting her face in her hands and walking away from the window.

“Fine then, be that way!” I yelled jokingly, before Lucy came out with a broom and threatened to ‘Make my intestines into the most amazing broom bristles ever used.” I thanked her for the compliment, and then it looked as though she might throw the broom, so I left. I ran actually. Don’t ask me where.

*

It’s only about 7pm, and I already feel like I’ve been rejected. Well technically I have. Rejected by my orphanage, and sadly by my own mother. Why would she do that to me? What did I ever do to her? Did I scream so loud that she couldn’t hear herself think about how to cope for the night? Did I kick when she tried to bed me down? Did I bite her, disabling her to earn money for food? I could have done all those things, maybe all at the same time, but it wasn’t really my fault, was it? I was only a child. I still am, and to be honest, I’m scared. I’m scared that I will turn out to be like my mother. I’m sure she was wonderful, and beautiful – like me obviously – but she didn’t have a home, or a steady flow of income. A  husband. If she had those things, she wouldn’t have had to give me up. Maybe she had those things, and just didn’t like me.

I sighed. There is so much I don’t know about her, its depressing. But then again, not many orphans know anything about their parents.

*

It was raining heavily when I walked into town, but I needed a place to sleep. A dark, quiet and dry place. If I slept anywhere else, people would ask questions, report me to social welfare, and into another orphanage I’d go. I saw the perfect alleyway. It was long and dirty. Perfect! I decided to go down it. I was searching every nook and cranny for a place to sleep, until a little way down it I saw this magnificent woman, standing right in front of me, staring at me with piercing blue eyes.

She was so tall, she must have been about 6 foot 4 inches. Her hair was down to her waist, wet and dark blonde. Though something about her eyes made me feel uncomfortable. They were alluring. Pulling me to agree with whatever she said. She wore a white sports bra covered with a sheer blue scarf with gold coins around the edges, so they jingled when she moved even slightly. Her stomach was bare, besides a gold belly ring set with blue gems. Her blue pants were like the ones Princess Jasmine wears from Aladdin, you know, the Disney movie? Her wrists had a minimum of 10 gold bangles each. Her neck was the most interesting though. She had a single necklace, the pendant hanging just above her naval. It was an hour glass. Not actually an hour glass, because those are huge. The pendant probably is a 30 second one. But I wonder why she wears it as a pendant.

“You’re in my alleyway, rat,” the stunning woman spat.

“Excuse me?” I replied, with disbelief.

“That’s what I should say to you. Though since it is my alleyway, you must leave,” she spat again.

“What makes it your alleyway, huh?” I asked, trying to be brave. This alleyway is, after all, the best one I have found so far.

“I was here first,” she said quite snobbily. I opened my mouth to say something but she got in there first. “You don’t have to say anything. You offend me by just being in the area.” Well that was mean.

“If I said anything or done anything to upset you, it was purely intentional.” This is easy. I insulted everyone except Josie, back at the orphanage.

The woman looked slightly taken aback. She kept her cool.

“You smell absolutely horrific.” She sniffed.

“It’s soap, though I suppose you’ve never heard of it before,” I smirked at her. Strangely enough, the woman looked pleased.

“My name is Cordelia Allura DeRosa,” she said, “Hope to see you in the future.” With that she walked past me, going out of the alley where I came in. I watched her until she left. What the hell just happened?