The Nightingale Circus

By Ioana Visan

Don’t be shy and come inside! The Nightingale is waiting to take flight!

Welcome to The Nightingale Circus! Listen to the singer with an enchanting voice. Watch the knife throwers who are also prosthetic builders. Here is a telecharger on the run and a ballerina with no lungs. There is a broken pole dancer and an Asian bot. You’ll be amazed by a regular girl who becomes exquisite and frightening at the same time.

They’re better known as the famous Nightingale, the Blade Masters, the Magician, the Swan, the Firebird, the Rocket Girl, and the Golden Lady.

They are all waiting to tell you their story about how they came to the circus and why they stayed.

This is a companion short story collection to Broken People.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ioana Visan
• Release date: Dec 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311866707

Ioana Visan

Award-winning writer Ioana Visan has always dreamed about reaching the stars, but since she can't, she writes about it.After fighting the apocalypse aftermath in "Human Instincts", she played with shapeshifters in “Blue Moon Café Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks”, she dealt with vampires in “The Impaler Legacy” series, and then she designed prosthetics in “Broken People” before tackling longer works like a fantasy trilogy and a science fiction series.Aside from publishing short stories in various Romanian magazines and anthologies, she published a Romanian short story collection “Efectul de nautil” and the Romanian edition of “Human Instincts”.She received the Encouragement Award from The European Science Fiction Society at Eurocon 2013.For more information, please visit http://www.ioanavisan.tk

Book preview

Broken People:

The Nightingale Circus

IOANA VISAN

Copyright © 2014 Ioana Visan

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Broken People:

The Nightingale Circus

Copyright © 2014 by Ioana Visan

All rights reserved.

Cover Art by Cristina Birtea

http://adorael.deviantart.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

First eBook Edition: December 2014

Don’t be shy and come inside! The Nightingale is waiting to take flight!

Welcome to The Nightingale Circus! Listen to the singer with an enchanting voice. Watch the knife throwers who are also prosthetic builders. Here is a telecharger on the run and a ballerina with no lungs. There is a broken pole dancer and an Asian bot. You’ll be amazed by a regular girl who becomes exquisite and frightening at the same time.

They’re better known as the famous Nightingale, the Blade Masters, the Magician, the Swan, the Firebird, the Rocket Girl, and the Golden Lady.

They are all waiting to tell you their story about how they came to the circus and why they stayed.

This is a companion short story collection to Broken People.

Table of Contents

The Nightingale

The Blade Masters

The Magician

The Swan

The Firebird

The Rocket Girl

The Golden Lady

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Books by Ioana Visan

The Nightingale

Each morning, Cielo faced the new day with dread. Would they come for her today? Days passed, and the circus moved to another town, but she never forgot about the danger she was in, even if she sometimes foolishly dared to hope. After all, some people still considered her a child, though she had stopped being one a long time ago. After the first abduction.

She went on with her day, doing the morning chores, only to become completely occupied in the afternoon when the fair opened. In the evening, the circus came to life, and she got to sing and feel powerful for a couple of hours until the lights went off and the night surrounded her. She didn’t fear the darkness; she feared the voices echoing in the night when the entire circus slept. And then, if she were lucky, another day came.

Cielo! Rake’s voice startled her, bringing her back to the present. They need you at the candy apple stand!

She nodded at the tall knife thrower and dashed in the direction of the stand. She didn’t mind helping, and she liked candy apples. Rake probably knew that and had sent her there on purpose, so she turned and waved back, granting him the smile he was lacking.

Selling things was easy, though a little mind numbing. She needed something more demanding to keep her thoughts occupied. Whenever the line was slow, she studied the faces of strangers, wondering about their reason for being there. That man with a straw hat had stared at her too long, hadn’t he? She couldn’t be sure. Too many times she had panicked in vain. She wished she could read people’s minds, but that wasn’t a skill anyone in the circus possessed.

In the evening, Cielo wore her best costume when she headed to the stage. Wrapped in silk and glitter, she added an extra edge to her singing, just in case the man from the line was up to something. The notes sang about peace and contentment, with enough excitement appropriated for each act she accompanied. And of course, as always, she increased the audience’s awe at what they had witnessed and their desire to come back again.

After she’d earned her keep and the last visitor left, she retired to the train car she shared with the dancers. The girls were busy checking their prosthetics the way they did at the end of each show, and their cheerful chatter covered the sounds of hammering coming from the other car. Rake and Spinner worked in the forge on their latest project. Not something for the circus, a new kind of prosthetic most likely.

She peeked through the shutters, and there they were. Shadows moved along the railway tracks. She hated the idea of anyone being hurt because of her, so when no one was looking, she slipped out of the car. The fresh air surrounded her, making goose bumps appear on her bare arms. It was one of those nights…

* * *

Big Dino paced the floor of the deserted circus arena, one lonely spotlight illuminating his way. The empty bleachers, partially hidden in the darkness, would have looked frightening to anyone else but not to him. He’d built this circus from the ground up, adding more cars to the train as the business grew and more people joined the crew. He didn’t like to see the arena empty. The dirty yellow and blue stripes of the tent looked sad without the vital force of an audience inside.

He grumbled under his breath and let his massive body flop down on an upturned crate abandoned in the middle of the floor. He knotted his fingers on his round belly and let out a sigh. He would have been able to join the hunting party not so long ago, but it seemed the weight added to his already big frame was in direct proportion to the expansion of the circus. He had a lot of things on his mind, and the new cook was that good.

The source of his biggest worry entered the tent, accompanied by Rake and Spinner, who both walked at a leisurely pace a few steps behind her. The knife throwers, covered in grime and sweat, towered over the scrawny kid who, except for a nasty bruise on her forehead, looked untouched. The way her jaw worked was a clear sign of how furious she was.

We found her, Spinner said, stating the obvious.

Found, not saved.

I can see that. Big Dino nodded and wished the well-being of the circus didn’t depend so much on their trophy, but it did.

Pushing the blonde wisps of hair away from her face with both hands, Cielo thrust her pointed chin up. I refuse to live like this any longer.

And here they went again. One day she would turn into a beautiful woman, but for now she was a skinny kid, only joints and bones, dressed in a too big shirt and faded shorts, and on the verge of a tantrum.

Rake’s chuckle didn’t help improve the situation.

You were told not to leave the train, Big Dino said in a reasonable voice. You are safe there, and we can’t run around chasing after you to protect you.

I wasn’t safe the last time. Cielo held his gaze without blinking. No one was.

We fixed that glitch, Spinner said, voiced subdued and head lowered between his shoulders. It had been his fault for not taking into consideration that particular scenario. The security system was new, and they still worked on figuring out all of its quirks.

Big Dino nodded in his direction. See?

They would have hurt people. A stubborn crease formed between the girl’s eyebrows. She was too young for wrinkles.

We would have gotten to them in time, Rake said, and Cielo glared at him. Not too young for holding a grudge.

Not good enough, Cielo said, her small fists clenching by her sides. I want this to stop. I can’t keep killing people.

So this was what the whole fuss was about. Big Dino often forgot to think of them as people. They were wrongdoers who tried to kidnap and enslave a child and deserved what they got for it. Unfortunately, Cielo didn’t see it that way.

We try our best, he said. The only way to be safer than this is to either leave the circus or stop singing. Those weren’t reasonable options as far as both of them were concerned.

I’m not leaving my home. Cielo drew a line on the ground with the tip of a dusted sneaker. And I won’t give up singing. Think of something else.

They stared at each other in a standoff. There was no alternate solution.

Erm… Spinner coughed into his fist. I might have an idea. He winced. It’s quite extreme but … it will take care of the problem.

Big Dino arched an eyebrow, inviting him to speak further. He liked extreme.

What’s the catch? Cielo asked.

You won’t have to leave the circus, and you won’t have to quit singing, Spinner said. But you will have to give up everything else.

Cielo’s nose wrinkled. She needed less than a second to decide. What do we have to do?

But she wasn’t the one in charge, so two pairs of eyes turned to Big Dino. He took his time, scratching his chin while avoiding the dark crusts spread over his greenish skin, long enough for Cielo to become impatient.

"Let’s do it!" She stomped her foot on the floor.

Big Dino narrowed his eyes as he watched Cielo starting for the exit. Faint, but she had used the voice. Rake and Spinner were already turning to follow her. This wasn’t right. They had a strict agreement that she wouldn’t use her voice on the circus’s employees. At the end of the day, she was still a kid. He couldn’t stop her since the voice worked on him too, but he could teach her a lesson.

No anesthetic this time, he said.

Rake’s eyes flared wider when he glanced back over his shoulder, but he didn’t protest. Big Dino was the boss.

* * *

Strapped to the surgery chair, Cielo fidgeted, anxious to have the procedure done as soon as possible. The testing machines covering the wall to her left blinked