Fading, Like the Stars

One would think that things are easier under the cover of darkness. Or, at least, that things that require a certain amount of discretion are eased by the absence of bright lights around. But from the way things went, that evening, I think it safe to say that darkness doesn’t ease anything.

Rufus had a plan, or so he had said, to reach the circus without encountering anything or anyone unpleasant. I wasn’t in the least convinced by what he proposed that we did, especially since we couldn’t even be sure that the circus would still be there. I protested strongly, my main argument being that Rufus wasn’t in a state that allowed him to go wandering around. But then Oliver thought it fit to join the discussion, and proposed a vote, vote in which he of course chose Rufus’ side. I didn’t take that vote very seriously, continued to protest, but in vain. After a while, I had to recognize defeat.

And thus a little later we found ourselves embarked on a journey through the city which was, for the most parts, nearly entirely covered in darkness. Oliver insisted upon accompanying until we had reached the circus, even though the situation might prove to be dangerous. Rufus tried to persuade him, more than once, to stay safe and hidden, but the boy refused to listen. He argued, with a cheeky smile, that he knew the city better than both of us combined, and that without him we might get lost or in trouble. And even though he was probably right on that, I didn’t like the idea that because of us something might happen to him. There was something endearing about his character, he carried himself with such a confidence, always a smile on his face despite the circumstances, and the idea that I might be partially responsible if some harm happened to him was a particularly unpleasant one.

It would be lying to say that the journey was easy and smooth. Every little sound made us jump in surprise, and we were constantly on our guards, worried that something was going to happen that we hadn’t anticipated. We avoided a patrol twice, and the second time only by a few seconds. I could hardly see where we were going, and had absolutely no idea whether we were close to our destination or not. Rufus was putting on a brave face, but I could see that he was still suffering from what had happened to him. He was slower than before, when he walked, and nearly not as agile. And, added to the fact that it was a torture to see him in pain, I had to admit that he was slowing us down, and that it was making things dangerous for us.

Oliver proved to be right, in the end. Without him, we wouldn’t have gotten where we needed to be. Rufus was in no state to be counted on, and after a moment, I recognize nothing of the part of the city where we had ended up and had absolutely no idea of the direction to take. So Oliver served both as a guide and as a scout, and I mostly as a crutch for Rufus. The two patrols that we had encountered were the only trouble that we had to face for the night, though both times my heart nearly gave out, and that without Oliver’s swiftness, we wouldn’t have had the time to hide.

We reached the place where the circus was after what seemed an eternity to me. Everything was absolutely silent, and the fires were not burning like they usually were. For a moment I was afraid that we were too late and that the circus had left already, but I eventually distinguished the dark, massive shapes of the caravans. Rufus insisted that we should go to Félix first thing, but before we got to his caravan, Oliver announced his intention to leave us. At first, I thought that I had kind of misunderstood what he had to say, but he stopped and repeated his goodbyes. I stared at the boy for a moment, unable to process the thought. Since he had insisted upon coming with us, and had shown a great interest in the story of my arrival at the circus – he had asked me to repeat two or three times over the course of the afternoon, as we waited for the night to fall – I had sort of assumed that he would ask to leave with the circus. He didn’t seem to have any parents, and he heard every story that I could tell him about the circus with such a great pleasure that I had thought that he would come live with the circus. And yet shortly before we had reached Félix’s caravan, Oliver announced very seriously that he had brought us here safely and that now he was going to return home and sleep. I turned to look at Rufus, thinking that he was going to say something. After all, the boy would be safer with the circus than alone in the city. But Rufus said nothing, or rather, he nodded and shook the hand that Oliver was very seriously extending in his direction.

“See you next year, boss,” he said, “and good luck.” And Rufus wished him good luck too, and told him to be careful.

By the time Oliver turned to tell me goodbye, I had overcome my surprise. “Oliver,” I said slowly, looking at the boy who had been of such an immense help to Rufus and I, “don’t you want to-” I shot Rufus a quick look, and since he didn’t seem to disagree with what I wanted to offer, continued to speak, “to come with us, with the circus?”

But Oliver quietly shook his head, with still that very serious look on his thin face. “No, ma’am, I must go back home now,” he said.

“Do you really? Are you sure that you don’t want to come with us? You’re welcome, you know…”

He nodded. “Thanks, but I gotta stay.”

I was more disappointed than I would have thought. I had wanted to help Oliver like I had been helped when I had been allowed to stay here. But apparently the boy didn’t want my help. “Well, then,” I sighed, “you must promise me to be careful on your way back, and to take care of yourself.”

“I promise.” Oliver seemed to hesitate, then, with seemingly much less confidence, asked me if he could talk to me for a second.

“Is there something you need?” I asked, following him a few meters away from Rufus, “something I can do?”

Oliver stopped and looked at his shoes for a few seconds, silently kicking small holes in the ground. He then looked at me hesitantly. “I…” he begun, speaking in a small voice, “can I ask you something?” he seemed a little embarrassed, finding it hard to talk.

“Yes, of course,” I replied, growing more curious to discover what this was all about. Away from us, Rufus seemed to be getting a little impatient.

“I – no one’s hugged me since my mother’s gone,” he said very quickly, looking back at his feet, “could you…”

I was taken aback by his request. I could see a little of myself in him, suddenly. How could life be so hard on so many people? I knelt on the ground in front of him, not caring if the grass was wet under my knees, and opened my arms. Oliver’s confident behavior made it easy to forget that he was, in the end, only just a small child. If Oliver’s eyes were a bit too bright when he broke the hug and ran away with a quick “I’ll see you next year, ma’am”, I was close to tears when I walked back to Rufus.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Do you think he’ll be fine?” I questioned, “he’s so young still.”

“He’ll be alright.”

“Couldn’t he come with the circus? Wouldn’t it have been better for him? At least he wouldn’t have had to worry about food, or shelter… I should have insisted more.”

Rufus shook his head. “Oliver’s parents were shipped to the country to years ago, to work in a factory. He’s still persuaded that they’ll come and get him, someday. You won’t manage to make him leave the city. Not when he’s convinced that they’ll come back for him.”

“And what happened to them?” I asked, fearing the worst.

Rufus tried to shrug his shoulders, but with a wince had to renounce to the idea. “I don’t know. Maybe an accident happened, or they were arrested, for some reason. Or… it’s ugly to say, but lots of parents can’t afford the mouths to feed. Maybe they just thought that they were better off without him, that they had a better chance of becoming rich when they didn’t have to care about him.”

“I can’t believe it,” I said, though in truth I could believe it. But Rufus was right, it was ugly, and I preferred not to consider the possibility.

“We must go to see Félix,” Rufus said, closing the conversation. “There’s no time to lose.”

I followed him, but I couldn’t help thinking about Oliver, who was alone in that huge city and who had no one he could count on.

Félix seemed genuinely surprised to see Rufus. He tried not to show it, but from the way his eyebrows arched and his eyes widened, we could see that he hadn’t really expected this visit. There was a moment of silence between Rufus and Félix, then Félix sighed.

“Well,” he said, “we sure have been waiting for you. You got everyone worried. I was about to give everyone the order to leave.”

He didn’t say anything about what had happened to Rufus, and was obvious from the injuries that he had sustained. It was impossible that he had not seen it, but he seemed willing to ignore it.

“Yeah, sorry,” Rufus muttered, though he didn’t really seem that sorry.

I wasn’t sure why Félix did not tell him how pleased he was that Rufus was there. I had seen how worried he had been. I did not really understand why he was hiding his relief. He had been so upset when Rufus did not come back that I had expected him to welcome him a little more warmly.

“So, what news?” Félix asked, sitting down. Rufus sat down in front of him, looking quite serious. It was pretty much obvious now that they were not going to congratulate each other for still being alive. This seemed very business-like, suddenly.

I stood by the door of Félix’s caravan, completely forgotten by the two men.

“Didn’t say anything,” Rufus said. “There’s no way any of them would be able to link me to the circus. But I couldn’t contact our friends, they fell on me before I could reach them. So the plays will have to be forgotten, this year. Too dangerous to send anyone there.”

Félix nodded knowingly. “Of course,” he muttered, “we’ll have to drop them. You sure you haven’t said anything about us?”

Rufus sighed in annoyance. “Of course not. Who do you take me for?”

“So we can stay.”

“Yes. I’d even say that you have to. If you left tomorrow after having you would be here for a month, they’d suspect you…”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too. So we’ll stay and just pretend that nothing happened. You can’t stay though. They might send a search party as soon as day breaks, since you escaped them. They’d recognize you if they come here. Even if just from the state of your face.”

I stared at Félix for a moment when he said that, but Rufus didn’t even protest. “I wasn’t planning on staying anyway,” he said quietly. “I’ll go and see our friend from out of town for a couple of days, until I’m fully healed.”

Félix nodded in approval. “You’ll go to the library, then. Good idea.”

“Yes. I was planning to go anyway.”

“Take Daniel with you. If the military learned that someone broke curfew last night and start investigating round here, there’s a small chance that someone recognizes him. Take him with you for more safety.”

“Won’t be too pleased by having to leave his tigers until everything calms down.”

“Well then, tell him that he has no other choice.” For the first time since we had arrived, Félix seemed to notice my presence in the room. He looked at me for a moment, apparently thinking about something. “You’ll go with them, of course,” he told me, in a way that made it clear that, like Daniel, I didn’t have much choice, “someone needs to reason those two. I wouldn’t send them alone on the road. Who knows in what trouble they’d end up otherwise?”

I couldn’t do anything but agreeing, but it wasn’t as if I would have wanted to do anything else, anyway. I had gone through the ordeal of wondering what could possibly have happened to Rufus once and I wouldn’t endure anything like that again. If I let him leave again, so soon after what had just happened, without knowing where he went, or what could possibly happen to him, I would go insane from worrying.

“You better be off, then,” Félix said, dismissing us with a wave of his hand. “Go on, off you go. I must start working on redistributing the caravans for the time being…”

Doing as we were told, we left Félix to his work. It was still night outside, and we were supposed to be gone before morning, though I had absolutely no idea how we were supposed to do it, or where we would be going. The silence that had reigned when we had arrived had fooled me into thinking that everyone else was asleep, but it was far from true. As soon as we got out of Félix’s caravan, there were people around, pressing Rufus to tell them what had happened. When they learned that there was nothing to fear and that they wouldn’t be leaving the city, after all, most of them returned to their sleep. We were left with Merry, who was the first one who seemed to worry about what had truly happened to Rufus.

“Come with me,” she ordered him. “I’ll give you something for the pain.”

Rufus began by refusing, but she cast him such a look that he quickly gave in and followed her.

“I’ll tell Dan that he has to get ready,” I said, spotting him near his caravan, holding onto Émilie’s arm as she told him what was going on.

“I see you found Rufus,” Émilie said with a bright smile when I reached them. “I knew everything would be alright. I just knew it.”

I shook my head. “Not really,” I grumbled. “I’d say he found me, rather than the opposite.”

“How’s he doing?” Daniel asked.

“He’s alright. Hurt, but at least he’s alive.” I frowned. “We… Félix says we’ve got to leave the circus until Rufus is healed.”

“Of course,” Émilie said, “so that no one knows he was with us. It makes perfect sense. I bet you’ll go to the librarian. He’ll be more than willing to hide you. You’ll see, you’ll love it there.”

I didn’t have the time to question myself about the librarian. I guessed I would find out soon enough, anyway.

“Thing is,” I muttered, “Félix says that Daniel has to come with us, just in case…”

The news didn’t seem to surprise any of them. Émilie nodded understandingly, and Daniel sighed.

“You bet he would say that,” he groaned, “but who’ll take care of Sasha and Pavlov if I’m gone, huh?”

Émilie chuckled. “You know we wouldn’t let them starve,” she replied, “let’s get you a few things. If you see no objection, I’ll settle in your caravan when you’re away,” she added, “I’m tired of having to share mine. As soon as you’re gone, I’ll go to Félix and tell him that it’s settled before he gives it to anyone else.”

“Félix said something about redistributing caravans,” I remembered. “What’s that thing about the caravans?”

“It’s one more precaution, in case they come search for Rufus here. If they see that we have several caravans that are unoccupied, they’ll think it’s suspicious, and they’ll guess that some of us are hiding somewhere else. Every time someone has to go for a short time, whatever the reason, Félix always gives their caravan to people who usually have to share one. No one would travel with empty caravans. Even they know that.”

I met Rufus back at the caravan. He seemed ready to leave. “Do you have everything?” he asked.

I nodded. I’d gotten all my things back when I had decided to search for him. And as I, at that point, wasn’t sure I would ever come back to the circus again, I had left absolutely nothing behind. “I’m ready. You?”

“Same thing.” He picked up a small bag that was lying at his feet. “Here,” he said, tossing it in my direction. “Merry said to give you this.”

I caught it and looked at him questioningly. “What is it?” It didn’t seem very heavy, though it was rather full.

“Medicine and stuff for every kind of situation we might encounter on the way.”

“Oh, right. I’ll have a look at it later, then. I’m sure we can find something for your bruises. Uh, when you say way… how long is it going to take for us to reach our destination, exactly?”

“Two, three days walking at a reasonable pace…”

“Two or three days? Is there nowhere closer we can go? Rufus, two or three days walking will hurt for you. I thought you needed to rest and heal. You’re not going to get better, if you tire yourself. Goodness, you might have broken ribs or-”

“I’ll be fine. Two days is nothing. And it’s worth the walk.”

“If you say so,” I grumbled. I sat down on the steps of the caravan while we waited for Daniel. Everything around us was silent again. Reassured by the situation, everyone had returned to their own caravans, probably fallen asleep, and neither Rufus nor I talked again for a moment.

“I’m sorry that you had to worry about me,” he said eventually, very quietly.

“Yeah, well, it’s alright.”

“No, really, I’m sorry.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” I mumbled, happy to see that Daniel was approaching, accompanied by Émilie.

“Off again, then,” Émilie said as she stopped in front of Rufus’ caravan. “It seems I never stop saying goodbye to you. Only that this time, luckily, I know where you’re going. And I know it’s safe.”

“But we’ll see each other soon,” Daniel said immediately.

Émilie nodded. “Yes, it’s true,” she said when I looked at them both, not sure if they meant that we would not have to stay away for more than a few days, or if it was something else that they were talking about. “I’ll come to see you in a few days,” she explained, “when everything around here is quieter and it’s safe for you to return. Someone has to tell you how things went over here. And you can’t risk coming back if they start to increase the controls. So you’ll have to wait for me to come and fetch you. It’s all arranged with Félix already. Until then, you have to take care of yourselves… The whole lot of you…”

We promised we would take care of ourselves, and then she wished us good luck, and a nice trip, and then she quickly left.

“I’ll go first,” Rufus said, picking up his things with a wince, “to show us the way and see that it’s safe.”

I muttered an unenthusiastic yes, and offered Daniel an arm before we followed Rufus, whose walk was still slow, and whose face still betrayed pain.

“What a glorious little troop we make,” Daniel whispered darkly to my ear. “It’s going to take us ages to get there. One injured and one blind, I don’t think you could have gotten worse for company…”

“Actually, I think I’m quite lucky with the company,” I replied, forcing myself to adopt a joyous tone. But he was right of course. It was going to take us ages to get there.