Prince of Freaks (Morningstar Circus for Lost Souls #1)

Chapter One

The only way to get to Haven's Ward was by train.

There used to be a road, but it was destroyed years ago. Some freak twister. There was no other damage. Mom said that's how it was though—strange things just happened on the sizeable island not too far from Savannah.

We'd been standing outside the Crescent Marsh Station for over twenty minutes.

This was as far as Mom was taking me. Her flight to London left in four hours. She couldn't miss it. No, she wouldn't miss it. Not couldn't. She made her choices, and I was dragged along the way. Collateral damage.

"I love you, Flower. It's only a year. Maybe less." Mom tucked a rogue strand of ginger hair gently behind my ear. Her hand paused at my earlobe for a moment, fingers playing with the dangling daisy-shaped earring I was wearing. Daisies were my favorite flower. A parting gift.

My stomach hurt, and not for the first time. Mom kept saying she'd only be gone for a year, but everything she said and did felt like a longer goodbye. We'd been here before. Months of separation as she'd gone on a wild goose chase. A possible sighting of my dad and brother in China. A glimpse of a man in Africa with black hair accompanying a kid with a shock of orange pulled through a baseball cap. My little brother had always liked his hair long. He'd cried the one, and only, time my parents had tried to shear it shorter.

"But why can't I go with you?" I crossed my arms and leaned against the building behind us.

"We've been over this." Mom pulled away from me, her forehead crinkling as she frowned.

"No, you've been over it and I've listened. This is the fifth time you've left me behind, Mom." I knew I was making this harder for her, but I couldn't help myself. Maybe I wanted to go to Istanbul and Morocco, do a little sightseeing on the useless quest to find a man who'd abandoned me and taking my only sibling with him. "How many times are you going to run off to God-knows-where trying to find them? It's been three years."

"I can't give up on them, Flora." Mom used my real name, instead of the pet name, and I knew she didn't want to talk about it anymore.

"Dad left us." I pressed. "Dad left us and he kidnapped Micah. That's what the police said. Remember? Dad. Kidnapped. Micah. My brother. Your son." I jabbed my finger into my chest, and then pointed it at her. Anger and sadness were so close to the surface with me. It only took a moment. It made my skin tingle and my head ache and I had to shove it down and try to be happy.

"He wouldn't have done that." She shook her head, desperation creeping into her speech. "Your dad loves you. He loves me."

"And he always loved Micah the most." I sighed. I'd only been thirteen-years-old. I remembered waking up to people talking in our kitchen. It hadn't sounded like my mom and dad. I'd peeked out the window and seen the police cars. I'd known something was wrong.

I'd gone to Micah's room first. His bed looked slept-in, but he wasn't in it. Maybe he was already downstairs.

He wasn't downstairs.

Neither was Dad.

Mom had looked like she'd been crying for hours. She kept saying the same things back then too. "He wouldn't have left. He wouldn't take our son. He loves me. He loves Flora."

She'd been singing that song for three years. For me, the record had broken a long time ago.

The worst part was that it had almost made sense. If Dad was going to leave, of course he'd take Micah. He wouldn't take me. I'd always been a little odd. Micah was the golden child.

"If Dad wanted to be found, it wouldn't be this hard, Mom." I reached out and gripped her arm. Sixteen now, I often wondered who was the parent anymore.