All The Little Bones: Circus Hearts, #1

By Ellie Marney

Carnival glamour and swoon-worthy romance in Book 1 of the latest dark YA contemp series from the author of Every Breath.

A teenage trapeze artist and an apprentice strongman on the run from a terrible crime…

Seventeen-year-old Sorsha Neary's life is changed in one night when she defends herself behind the vans of her family circus troupe. Now Sorsha and apprentice strongman Colm Mackay are travelling south, to evade the fallout and escape the long arm of the law. All they have in their favour is talent, an old promise, and slim acquaintance with the crew members and performers of their new home, Klatsch's Karnival. But the question for Sorsha and Colm isn't if the police will catch up with them, but when…

Circus Hearts - Step. Right. Up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bearded Lady Press
• Release date: Sep 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780648088523

Ellie Marney

AUTHOR BIO Ellie Marney is a teacher and author of Australian YA fiction. Every Breath (Allen & Unwin), the first novel in her YA romantic crime trilogy, the Every series, was listed in 2015 as one of the most-borrowed YA books in Australian libraries, and the two sequels, Every Word and Every Move, have won or been shortlisted for a bunch of other amazing awards. In 2017, her story Missing Persons was featured in Begin End Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology (HarperCollins), and she published her Every series spin-off, No Limits. Her next book, White Night, will be released in 2018. Ellie advocates for the #LoveOzYA movement, runs #LoveOzYAbookclub online, and is an ambassador for the Stella Prize Schools Program in Australia. She lives in a little wooden house on ten acres near Castlemaine, in north-central Victoria. Her partner and four sons still love her, even though she often forgets things and lets the housework go.

Book preview

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CIRCUS HEARTS 1: All The Little Bones

Copyright © 2018 by Ellie Marney

Cover Design by Debra Billson

Cover illustrations by Marisha, Marta Leo

and amid999/Shutterstock.com

ISBN-13: 978-0-6480885-2-3

ISBN-10: 0-6480885-2-9

All rights reserved.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication mat be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Bearded Lady Press

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Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Circus Hearts 2: Chapter One

One

‘Hey, birdy babe…You got nice feathers, birdy…’

‘Sorsha.’

My head jerks back from the window as I come out of the dark dream.

A warm callused hand pushes my shoulder. ‘Sorsha, wake up, we’re coming into town.’

‘M’kay, I’m up.’ I press my knuckle into my cheek, which is sore from where it was lying on the door edge. I scrub my face with both hands and push back my hair.

‘There’s coffee in the thermos,’ Colm says.

White-walled houses flash by out the car window. Neat weathered gardens and salty red sand line the road shoulder. ‘We’ve made the coast?’

Colm nods, both his hands back on the wheel.

‘Coast. Okay.’ My throat is still muddy. I fumble the pannikins, get the thermos lid unscrewed. ‘How far have we come?’

Colm waits until we’re past the bend before taking his mug. ‘Not far enough,’ he says.

Steam condenses on his upper lip as he blows on his coffee. It looks just like nervous sweat.

The first night after fleeing, we sleep in the car.

We’ve locked the car from the inside, so it’s safe. Colm reclines the front passenger seat and worms deeper into his sleeping bag. I cocoon myself in blankets in the back. The upholstery doesn’t retain heat, though. Mosquitoes hum in the confined space, and we’re too aware of each other, squeezed in like pickles in a jar.

Colm keeps turning, trying to find a position that works. I jerk awake three or four times, shivering, but that’s not just from physical discomfort. By morning, I wake up exhausted, and Colm hasn’t had enough sleep to drive.

‘You’ll just have to crack out the tent tonight,’ Morry says. She sounds younger over the phone, when I can’t see her wrinkles. ‘Just pick a spot and camp. You’ll have to go hard today, though. Get a bit of distance.’

I feel maudlin all of a sudden. ‘Do you miss me?’

‘It’s only been a day and a half, love.’ Morry’s grinning, by the sounds of it. ‘Of course I miss you. We all miss you. Oona and Rionach send their love. Alby and Ceilidh, too. Niamh was whinging about being over-worked last night, which is her way of sending love, I suppose.’

‘Who’s gonna do trapeze aerials in March? Ceilidh’s on light work already…’

‘Let us worry about that.’ Morry’s tone is firm. ‘You just worry about getting south.’

Homesickness slaps me with sticky hands. Suddenly I want organ music, sawdust, a confusion of fire, audience noise…I want these things more than I ever have before. I want my own bed, in the van Aunt Morrighan and I share.

My voice wobbles. ‘Morry, am I doing the right thing?’

‘Yes, Sorsha,’ she says, firmer this time. Rock solid. ‘You did the right thing. Don’t you believe otherwise. Don’t you believe it for one second.’

Colm comes back from the roadside kazi block, his face damp. He dries his fingers in his hair, tugs his tank back on. ‘What’d Morry say?’

My eyes are prickling; they feel burnt dry. God, I’m so tired. Colm looks worse–drawn out, stubbled, pure grey-blonde. In his jeans, with his boots on, he looks like a six-foot-five farm boy after a late night on the sauce.

I put the phone back in the glove box. ‘She said we need to make more distance.’

‘You feel that, birdy? Got me all razzed up…’

His beery slobber, his squeezing hands.

My head gasps up so fast I knock it on the headrest. Colm grips the steering wheel grimly; he looks as if he’s only staying awake by force of will. Outside the car windows is a monotonous view of green hills, with the occasional cow.

‘You all right?’ Colm asks.

I check the clock on the dashboard–it reads two forty-one–and rub crap out of my eyes. I shouldn’t be snoozing while he’s driving. ‘You want to let me have a go?’

‘Of driving?’ He looks at me. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘I can drive.’

‘Illegally. You can drive illegally.’

‘I drove the van last time we broke camp, when Morry had the flu.’

‘Yeah, thanks, but the last thing we need is to be pulled over by the mingers.’

‘We won’t get pulled over, Colm.’

‘Put money on that, would you? Why didn’t you just get your learner’s permit last year? You’re seventeen already.’

‘Oh, shut up.’

We travel in companionable irritation for a moment.

Colm eases the car through the road bends. ‘Anyway. Makes me a bit useless, doesn’t it, if you can drive yourself.’

‘I guess.’ I look out the window. ‘But you needed to get away as much as me.’

‘Yeah.’ He sighs out deeply. ‘So am I a witness or an accessory? I keep mixing them up.’

My whole body tenses in an instant. ‘Witness. You’re a witness. An accessory is someone who helps commit the crime.’

‘Right.’

There’s a long silence. Green hills and cows blur equally in my vision.

Colm clears his throat, changes down a gear as the road starts climbing. ‘It’s not gonna be forever, Sorsha. Six months. Twelve, tops. You know that, right? You know we can still go home.’

I close my eyes, wishing I was asleep again.

We find a place to camp in a public culvert. It’s grassy, dotted with trees and coastal greenery and a few other tents, their owner’s cars parked a little off-side. Everyone seems to be over-stocked with camping stuff: tarpaulins, and beer coolers, and folding chairs from fishing supplies shops. We’ve got a tent, which is canvas and looks like it was sewn from old wailings, and two sleeping bags and the billycan. Oh, and a few eating things–frypan, cutlery, tin plates, pannikins. Our food is in recyclable shopping bags.

I’ve got my pillow from home. Colm uses his sleeping bag cover stuffed with his spare clothes as a pillow. We’re both used to tough conditions, but this is thin. And we’re already feeling thin.

As I set up the tent, Colm stands to one side near the sleeping bags. ‘This is your tent?’

‘Aunt Morry’s.’ I spread the flattened tent out on the ground, shaking it like I’m laying out a picnic blanket. ‘That’s why it’s so old.’

‘Right.’ He shifts from foot to foot. ‘I’ll sleep in the car, then.’

‘What?’

‘The car.’ He jerks his head towards it. ‘I’ll sleep in the back. You can have the tent.’

‘Why?’

‘Bit small.’

‘It’s a three-man.’

‘Still.’

I snap the canvas, grab the nearest big rock to beat in the tent pegs. ‘Don’t be stupid. Your eyes have been hanging out of your head the last two days of driving. Get some proper sleep.’

Colm’s shoulders twitch. ‘People around.’

‘So?’

He looks really uncomfortable. ‘People get the wrong idea.’

I grimace. ‘Then stuff ‘em. We can pretend to be brother and sister or something.’

We’re only two years apart. He’s corn-fair and my skin is pale, my hair spun red-gold, like fairy floss. We could pull it off.

‘But we’re not brother and sister,’ he points out.

I’m too tired to care. ‘Colm, would you please chill? I’m not gonna snuggle up in the night or anything. We’re in our sleeping bags. I don’t sleep in the nude.’

‘You sleep in your clothes?’

‘T-shirt and underwear.’ I roll my eyes. ‘Besides, you’ve seen me in the wings, changing costumes for shows. Nothing you haven’t seen before, is it?’

He sucks on his lip, scuffs holes in the dirt with his boot.

I don’t have enough energy for this. I zip, I clip. There’s another reason I don’t want to be on my own in the tent, but I don’t want to say it.

Colm says it. ‘You get bad dreams, yeah?’

I shrug. Bad dreams, yes. Check. Big tick for that one.

He looks at me. ‘All right, then. I’ll sleep in the tent.’

I just nod. I should say thanks, but I don’t want to. Colm’s doing all the driving, he’s done enough already–too much. I don’t like the feeling of owing someone.

But I can’t think like that. We’re in this together. I did what I did, and he did what he did. We’re just helping each other out–until we get to the southern troupe, anyway. The southern troupe is our ticket. We can get out of this mess.

Both of us.

After dinner, three little girls from the next site over all sit in a circle, brushing their hair by their campfire while their parents chat. I don’t think I’ve ever done that. I mean, sure, as a kid I used to sit and have my hair brushed by Morry, when she was trying to get rid of knots. Ouch. Since then, I’ve sat and chatted with Oona and Rionach hundreds of times, but it’s not the same. They’re both ten years older. I’ve never hung around other girls my own age. There were never any other girls my age in Desmond’s troupe.

I sit on a log by our campfire and brush out my own hair, just to borrow a bit of the feeling.

‘You look more like you when it’s tangled.’ Colm’s leaning back against his own log, holding his pannikin and staring into the fire. He seems half-comatose, so I’m surprised he even noticed.

‘Right. So much for that, then.’ I throw the brush down. ‘Maybe I should dye it. Like Morry said–it’s too distinctive.’

Colm frowns. ‘Don’t dye it.’

‘Then…I don’t know. Maybe I’ll let it grow. Give myself dreadlocks.’

‘Don’t do that either. Dreads are a pain. You have to keep fiddling with them so they don’t turn messy.’

‘When have you ever had dreadies?’

He pushes back against his log and sighs. ‘My mum. She had ‘em.’

‘Oh.’

‘She had to twist them every week to keep them neat. Took ages.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. It’s funny, cos for whities, dreads are like, the ultimate hippie hair-do. No muss, no fuss, natural and free, some shit like that. But they’re heaps of work. White folk gotta be kinda vain to have dreadies.’

‘Are you saying your mum was vain?’

‘Yeah.’ The side of his lip quirks. ‘Yeah, I guess I am.’

I only know the barest threads of this story. But I want to know more. Colm’s voice has an edge that makes me tread cautiously. ‘What was she like? Your mum?’

‘She was a carnie.’ He looks at me with a humourless grin. ‘You know how most show people you meet, they hate to be called carnies? Yeah, well, she really was a carnie.’

I’m not sure how to reply. I choose a stick and poke at the fire. ‘Sounds like you didn’t get on with her.’

‘I guess. She’s gone now, it doesn’t matter. Speaking ill of the dead and all that.’

‘I don’t know,’ I say, watching the flames. Sparks fly up like an offering to the sky. ‘My mum and dad died when I was little. I can’t speak ill of them, I didn’t know them well enough.’

Colm gives me a sideways glance. ‘How old were you, when Morry took you in?’

‘I was three. So I kind of have some memories, but they’re so faded now…’ I twirl the stick between my fingers. ‘It’s like looking through the bottom of a Coke bottle or something. Everything cloudy and distorted.’

‘I wish my memories of my mum were cloudy and distorted. That’d be all right, I reckon.’ Colm tosses the rest of the tea from his pannikin into the fire. ‘Come on, we should get some sleep.’

I’m still in my bird-of-paradise spangles from the tightwire act. When I step out of the kazi, he’s there. He pulls my tail feathers, yanks me into his beery breath.

‘Hey, birdy babe…’ His grip is insistent. ‘You got nice feathers, birdy.’

Doesn’t matter what I say, how I pull away. He pulls harder.

Harder.

When I scratch, when I squeal and bite, he punches me in the stomach. He frog-marches me to a dark place.

Babe, you’re gonna love it…Here we go - no, just turn around and shut up…Jesus, this fucking outfit glued on or what?

He rips my sleeve, and I only have one chance. I run.

He chases me.

I wake up running, smelling beer and my own fear-scent.

Colm’s voice sounds out in the dark. ‘Sorsha? You all right?’

I don’t answer, just rip the tent open, fight my way free of the canvas in time to throw up into a saltbush a few feet away. It’s blue outside, just on sunrise.

‘Sorsha?’

‘I’m fine.’ I gag, spit into the bush, trying to keep my voice down. I don’t want to disturb other campers. ‘I’m fine.’

Colm doesn’t say anything about how stupid that statement is. He hands me the water bottle so I can rinse my mouth.

‘It’s okay, Sorsha.’ He pats my back tentatively. ‘It’s okay. It’s normal.’

God, I hope not. I really hope not. That makes it sound like it lasts forever.

Colm’s still half in his sleeping bag, the bottom half. His top half is bare-chested, like a centaur in the dawn. I want to throw myself in there, just to feel some warmth. Just to hear his heart beat. To settle my own heart, which is thudding like a kettle drum.

I wipe my face and fingers on my T-shirt–it’s soaked with sweat anyway, I’ll have to wash it–and get myself back in order.

‘Gotta piss,’ Colm says, and clambers out properly to go to the kazi.

While he’s gone, I strip my T-shirt off and change into a dry one, pull on my jeans. When he returns, I go out to rekindle the fire.

I sit quietly, cross-legged, and watch the fat, grey-and-white native quail pock around in the grass nearby. Native quail are everywhere here. After the last two days of cheap takeaway, I can’t help but wonder what they’d taste like. Pretty good, I reckon, especially in a nice gravy, with buttered potatoes. Squab, they used to call it. Probably a pain to eat, with all those little bones.

Half an hour later, the sun on my face is warm enough to bring the blood to my cheeks. Colm crawls out of the tent when he hears the hiss of the billycan over the fire. Neither of us is in a fit state to talk until we’ve stretched and shaken ourselves loose.

I wish I had a pack of cards, something easy for first thing in the morning. But I’m not a fingersmith and neither is Colm–our bodies are our only instruments. I roll my wrists and shoulders, bend over one extended leg and then the other. Colm yawns and opens his muscled arms wide, unfolding like a big cat. He pulls his hands down behind himself, and I hear his joints pop.

‘Coffee’s ready.’ Our two pannikins sit in the dirt to one side as I pour.

Colm walks to the campsite faucet to sluice his head. When he comes back he looks more solid, less like the silk-pale boy of sleep I watched in the tent darkness last night.

‘So.’ He rubs his giant’s hand together. ‘We’ll hit town before we get to the highway. Pick up a few supplies and gas up the car.’

‘Toilet paper.’ I sip my coffee, sitting cross-legged again. ‘We need toilet paper. And fruit.’

‘Steak,’ Colm says wistfully.

‘We can’t afford steak. Sausages. Eggs. Tea.’

‘I’m losing condition.’ Colm grimaces. ‘I need protein.’

I reach over and pinch his cast-iron bicep. ‘You can’t lose condition on a diet of sausages and eggs.’

‘Fat,’ Colm says. ‘All this work, it’ll all go to fat.’

‘In about thirty years, yeah. You’ll look like that guy from the western troupe. Luigi Giovanni.’

Colm grins into his coffee. ‘That was his ring name. Stan–that was his real name. Stan Lewis.’

‘God, he had the biggest gut I’ve ever seen. You and Lorcan had these worried faces.’

‘Nah, Stan was a good bloke. Sat us down and gave us all these lifting tips. Over a drink or two, of course.’

‘Of course. A drink or two. Or three. Or four.’

‘He could drink like a fish, Stan. Good craftsman, though. Jesus.’ Colm scratches his chest through his T-shirt. ‘Christ, he was fat.’

I snort.

We sit for a minute until Colm looks over, cup half-raised. ‘You feeling a bit better now?’

I poke at the fire, and the pause gets too long.

‘Time to make breakfast,’ I say.

I pack up the tent while Colm picks up everything else. He chucks it all in the boot, except for my sleeping bag. The bag lies in the sun under the back window, my fear and sweat and panic drying into the fabric as we drive onward.

We’re passing through coastal areas, now. Sunny country, painted mackerel jumping on blue signage. We turned off the radio because we got bored of weather reports and pop songs.

‘So what’s this southern troupe like?’ I ask, looking for a distraction.

‘They’re okay.’ Colm’s left hand rests on his thigh while he’s driving the long stretches. ‘More commercial. It’s a bigger operation. They’ve got a proper permanent site on the edge of town, so they don’t need to follow the rural show days. The acts aren’t that different, though–bit of juggling, acrobatics, dancing ponies. Bouncy castle, that sort of shit.’

‘Aerials?’

‘Just the usual stuff. Nothing like you and Alby and Ceilidh. You’ll be a breath of fresh air.’

‘And no dog fights out the back of the Spiegeltent?’

‘Nope.’ He looks at me. ‘You’re not in the north anymore. No dogs.’

I consider this, looking out the passenger window. ‘What about strength work?’

He shrugs. ‘They’ve got a bloke, does lifts and muscle stuff. He’s got an apprentice–don’t know him. Actually it could be a her.’

‘A female strong act?’

‘Yeah, I think.’

That news distracts me from the subtext, but it registers now. ‘So if they’ve already got two strong acts, what are you gonna do?’

Colm looks at me, looks back to the road, shrugs.

I press harder. ‘Well you’ve gotta do something.’

He shrugs again. ‘Dunno. Guess they’ll put me to use.’

‘But you’ve been building up for lifting work.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Maybe this older guy is getting on, maybe he’s shifting into concessions.’

‘Maybe.’

‘But they’ll give you strength work, right?’

‘Like I said, I dunno. Three strong acts