Circus of Silence

Sandstorm Song

~*~

Laughter rings out from below

one so sweet and pure that it enhances the stars' pulsing glow

soon, it is joined by another

~*~

                     Stripes stared, sitting silently. Her brother's topaz eyes glinted in the light that the Carousel's mirrors reflected. Whisper's hand rested on the black pattern that crowned his head and shook as the horse glided through its circular course. Nothing happened for the longest time, and Whisper felt the false hope the new Witch had given her was but a cruel, vicious crime.

Rosalind rotated, radiating remorse. "Sorry," she sputtered. "I thought it would- I thought for sure it would-"

Hope was a fool's errand, which made the Circus Everlasting's Silent Girl the most foolish of them all. Fifty years. She'd held onto a glimmer of burning hope for fifty years that felt like nothing and everything at the same time. She'd held it in her palm, greedily guarding this golden light in her gown of mist and midnight. Now, she had to accept that it had dimmed to its last ember.

New Witch or not, they were never getting out of here.

Rejecting reality would only feed fear.

The old Witch and shady, side-shifting Shula had burned her Voice book, pages and pages of maybe-memories. Whisper watched the faces of her dreams go up in smoke, and had screamed, sobbed silently. Like she would forevermore. She couldn't believe Rosalind's lore. There was no one left that, on her brother's behalf, she could implore.

Harrison's straight shoulders slumped as his dark eyes met hers, sipping her secret, silent sentiments. "Whisper..."

Her hand slid down stripes, falling limp at her side. The skin on her slender arm was the same shade as her dress; wraith. And it was just as thin, just as cold. Cold as death, and just as old. Whisper turned to go.

A glowing star, into a well, she had to throw.

"Whisper!"

The Forever Song sang strong. Verse after verse with a chorus of wrong.

"Whisper, wait!" Harrison called helplessly, running after Whisper. She shoved his arm away, working hard to keep her over-eager tears at bay. It only took him a moment for his noise to recover. "Whisper!"

And though Harrison's hopes she could Silence and ignore, Rosalind's rhymes were harder not to heed. One sharp whistle had her turning around. Stopping her pace, freezing in place as that controlling malevolence filled Rosalind Maybrush's sweet face. She shifted Whisper's song to her knee, tapping her tune on the skirt of her dress. Her voice, she used on the Carousel.

Her song was high enough to touch the sky. It convinced the pigeons that topped the tent to fly. The notes beat at her heart like a pair of gloves fists.

The knock-out punch wrapped chains around her wrists.

Whisper the Silent Girl fell to her knees.

Rosalind had brought the painted pony to life, and he galloped around the Carousel's base. His hooves knocked against the wood as his pole clattered to the ground and crumbled to dust. It whinnied as it went, tipping its head back as it picked up speed. His mane turned to flame...

And the Beautiful Bengal began to disintegrate.

The wind passed right through him, freeing fur that turned to sand as it blew away.

She'd seen this before.

On Shula.

On the Witch.

Whisper knew what this meant- knew what Rosalind was doing without her consent.

Harrison saw it too, and he whirled around to face his malicious master. Her hold held her alone. Harrison Wallis was free as a member of the Marquee could possibly be. And he was the only thing keeping Rosalind from killing her brother.

"Rosalind..." he started, soft and slow. And when the Witch's lapis eyes flitted to his in dismissal, the boy's volume continued to grow. "ROSALIND! STOP!" Stripes' shape shrunk as the beam of sand grew in circumference, spinning swiftly until it was a tornado struggling to suck up the sun. The light caught each grain and set it ablaze. They, like her brother, glowed like fallen stars. "ROSALIND! NOW! STOP BEFORE YOU-" He rushed to restrain her, grabbing at her wrists, her waist, her shoulders. She brushed him off every time.

Her nameless brother had turned back into a little cub. Still, the sand kept spinning, soaring off his stripes. Whisper kept silently screaming. Gold kissed orange fur blew off like a layer of unwanted dust on a book.

"ROSALIND, LOOK!"

Rosalind scowled, bronze hair whipping wildly, wrapping round her wrists. It was like they had truly been caught up in a storm. Though the air in their dome that locked out the time... it was strangely, eerily warm. 'Stripes' shone like the sun. The horse with its mane of fire ran ever faster, coming to the defence of its master.

Whisper's itty-bitty brother laid down as he wasted away.

"STO-" With a shrill note worthy of a parakeet, the ground gave way beneath Harrison's feet. The starving sand pulled him down. Just like it had Whisper, so long ago. The last time Rosalind had tried to kill her brother.

Tears created a carpet of mud beneath Whisper as Rosalind turned to face her. The wicked Witch smiled. "Trust me," she said with Shula's sultry silver-tongue. The tone that compelled you to believe her no matter how absurd her claim. The one that her wild brother, she'd used to tame. She'd transformed his ferocity into something so lame. "Whisper, please, I know what I'm doing. Please-" The colt cried out at her side, and Rosalind stroked his fiery mane slowly, softly, and steadily. And 'Stripes'? ...He bowed his head readily.

Rosalind closed her eyes and finished the song.

Sand showered down from the sky all around, but the Witch stopped it before it could mound. The heat of the sun turned each grain to flawed glass, and she built a dome up from the lush, green mat of grass. The light it drew in was so bright that it broke Rosalind's hold and the four of them were floored.

Whisper felt like she'd been cut down with a sword.

She heard the glass crack and Whisper braced herself for another attack.

When she looked up, each and every shard was suspended in the air, twinkling like daytime stars-

Igniting a little boy's fiery hair as he took in their fearsome fair.

~*~

You catch up with the ticket

and still you haven't won

Hecate and her cat-faced friend excitedly squeal about how you're the one.

The one who will free them both.

~*~