Prologue - Everyone Must Die Eventually
Aurora Sicily will die for the first time today. Seven hours from now, she will fall forty knocks from a double trapeze bar and snap her neck clean. There will be an audience of five thousand men, women, and children crowded into the stands of Mr. Moseley’s Big Top Circus to witness her death. And perhaps the worst part? Aurora Sicily does not deserve to die.
Of course, most people do not deserve to die. I would like to assert that most people are good. However, seven hours from now, Aurora will perform the first half of her show perfectly. Still, Her Lady Misfortunate will still strike. Her life will be cut short at the solemn age of twenty four.
But for now, Aurora is in her dressing room, pretending not to be annoyed by the very annoying and very young Cordelia Lancaster.
“Today’s the day!” The girl squeals. Her voice reminds Aurora of a half baked whistle. Perhaps, it could sound correct if given a few more years to form. However, as of right now, it’s a screeching sort of breathy noise that is truly an assault to the ears.
“Every day is the day,” Aurora replies bitterly as she wraps bandages around her elbows and knees. It’s an odd habit she developed as a little girl. In theory, it’s supposed to give her good luck for tonight’s show. In reality, it provides support for joints far overused for her young age.
“No, every day is your day. Today is my day.” Cordelia declares proudly.
She reaches up and musses Aurora’s chalky curls–a habit Aurora truly despises.
“Hey, stop that!” The older girl scowls. Even though it’s early in the day, her face is already caked in dark red makeup that washes out her muddy eyes. She looks almost vampiric, considering that she looks as if she’s trying to force color into her too pale skin.
“Oh, you’re being dramatic. Your hair always looks perfect, no matter what I do with it. Unlike my stupid frizz,” Cordelia crosses her arms over her chest. Her hair is pin straight and the most offensive shade of neon red that Aurora has ever seen. She’s often asked the younger girl if it is dyed, but she never gets a straight answer. Aurora does not consider Cordelia ugly. In fact, the girl is beautiful, even with the strands of hair that always refuse to remain in line with the rest.
However, she is seventeen. Her youth is evident in her bony elbows and too large ears. Even her smile is lopsided with adolescent charm–as if she cannot tame it into a presentable feature. She is so thin that her ribs stick through every piece of silk and spandex that they tape her into. Unlike Aurora, her body has not yet learned to be curvy. And yet, Aurora envies Cordelia. She desperately wishes she could crawl back into a body that feels young and untainted.
“Are you ignoring me?” Cordelia pipes up after several minutes pass. Aurora blinks before pursing her lips.
“I apologize. I was distracted.” She replies, reaching to fix the white curls pinned to her scalp. The younger girl giggles. Once again, it’d probably sound right in a few years. But for now, the noise is like a cheese grater against Aurora’s ears.
“When are you ever distracted?! For a showman, I’ve never seen someone so serious and uptight as you!” Giggles continue to bubble up and out of her lips. Each one feels like another check in Aurora’s list of every reason why she wishes to shrink into her skin.
“I’m not uptight. I’m practical,” She argues. Cordelia rolls her eyes.
“Same thing.”
“Decidely not!” Aurora huffs. A bit of pink lipstick smudges onto her teeth as she does this, but Cordelia does not tell her so.
“When was the last time you scaled the ladder for the fun of it? You look miserable all of the time,” Cordelia has gotten serious now. But this is a conversation that Aurora will never be ready for. The mere thought makes her so uncomfortable that she might as well be covered in hundreds of ants. She shudders.
“It’s not the performance that I take issue with,” She grinds out. Her teeth feel too tight–as if they have been jammed into a mouth too small for their multitude.
Cordelia crosses her arms, “It’s not fair, you know. That you complain so much when your life is so perfect. Everybody loves you.”
Aurora swallows, “That’s not true. Everyone loves the idea of me.” Half-truths often burn worse than what is real. And yet, our entire society would collapse without them.
Cordelia sinks her nails into the dressing table, “People wouldn’t be lined up outside of the tent already if they didn’t love you. You’re the star of his show.”
“Mr. Moseley doesn’t know any-” she’s cut off by the man in question walking in. She sputters, coughing terribly. Her cheeks redden.
“What about me?” He asks with a charming smile. Mr. Moseley is a year away from the age of forty, and he’s starting to grow into it. Perhaps, once, he had been handsome. But now, Aurora struggles to see the man who originally adopted her, with his strong jawline and charming eyes. Instead, her eyes trail from the balding patch on his head to the scruffy hair on the side of his face. She glances down his thick neck to his outfit, which tightly clings to every soft bit of skin he has.
“Nothing at all,” She pipes, suddenly feeling small compared to him. Cordelia giggles. She jumps up, her hair flipping over her shoulder in the process. Mr. Moseley’s beady eyes track the motion almost obsessively. The action sours something deep inside Aurora’s chest.
“I see. My girls are getting prepared for tonight, aren’t they? You both look beautiful so far,” he smiles at Aurora. She struggles to smile back, eventually peeling her lips into a half grimace. Cordelia doesn’t seem to notice because she begins to speak at such a rapid pace that the other two members of the room cannot track her.
“Mr. Moseley! I’m so excited for tonight. Thank you so much for this opportunity, and I promise that I won’t let you down! I’m just so incredibly excited to get to perform. I’ve been staring at my outfit all day. And Aurora said she’d do my makeup for me, and-” the young girl babbles. It’s a noise that the troupe has gotten used to over the past several months. Mr. Moseley laughs in response.
“Calm down, dearest. You’re going to run out of breaths. And,” he gives a pointed look towards Aurora, who is currently red in the face, “If I know my girl, she will go dotty if she doesn’t get her silence before the show.”
Aurora wants to protest that she does not belong to the older man, but she knows it is rather pointless. Besides, Cordelia doesn’t take the words with any ill intent. Instead, she blushes like a schoolgirl.
“Oh dear. I’m terribly sorry. I don’t mean to ramble off. I’ve just been practicing so hard. I’m so nervous.” It is here that I would like to note that in six and a half hours, Cordelia Lancaster is going to fall from forty knocks and break most of the bones in her body. It’s important that the details of this situation are not forgotten.
"I remember my first show. It’s a very exciting time. I understand,” Aurora says quietly as she tugs on the collar of her shirt. She knows that it isn’t proper to fidget, but the motion helps her avoid tracking her eyes sideways.
Mr. Moseley takes one step to his right until he is so near to Aurora that his cologne perforates her nostrils. His hand gently snakes down her shoulderblades towards her back. When he finds his target, his fingers stake their claim. Aurora cannot find her tongue to tell him that he has none on her.
“I remember that day like it was yesterday,” he muses. His voice is rough in the way a bag of charcoal might be. When he first adopted Aurora, his voice was still high and squeaky with youth. However, a lot can change in nineteen years. The weight of six thousand, nine hundred and thirty five days hangs heavy like a wild, unspoken thing in the room.
“Oh, a story! I’d love to hear it,” Cordelia smiles, and the action is so sweet that Aurora’s chest begins to physically ache. Every ounce of pure innocence in the younger girl is ruinous to her. She fears that if this continues much longer, she’ll keel over dead.
Mr. Moseley lights up. He adores stories. Anyone near him could inform you of that. His love for the fantastical is what has led him here, after all. “I’d love to share with you, pretty girl. Although, I cannot promise that it’s the most exciting story. Aurora was six when she performed for the first time.”
“Perform" is a strong word. I had a tutu on and I walked across a balance beam.” She grumbles. The older man’s hands tighten against her skin.
“Don’t sell yourself short. It was adorable. Everyone fell in love with you,” She cannot help but notice that the pad of his thumb rubs her skin raw.
“Oh, that sounds so lovely,” Cordelia sighs. She is too young to understand that no one speaks as if the world is sunshine and rainbows anymore. The older members of the show laugh at her behind her back, and she is clueless. Aurora envies her for that.
“Indeed. My Aurora has always been lovely,” he dips his head towards hers. For a moment, Aurora has a sickening feeling that she is going to be kissed right there in front of the other girl. Instead, after a few awkward seconds pass, Mr. Moseley finally straightens.
“Okay, I suppose I should get going. I just wanted to check on you both. If you need anything at all, please seek me out. I’ll always take care of my favorite girls.” His smile is just kind enough to not feel like a threat. But still, Aurora feels as if she is being suffocated. She manages out a shaky nod while Cordelia spills into a long winded goodbye.
No one in the room is aware that in six hours and twenty five minutes, one of the cables rigged to the girls’ trapeze bar will snap. Cordelia will try her best to hold on, but the piece of metal connecting the bar and her hand will slice her palm, and she and Aurora will plummet.
Three hours from Aurora’s first death, she laces up the back of a leotard. It clings to the softest parts of her form. To be truthful, this outfit is from four seasons ago, but that’s the novelty of tonight's show. The chestpiece is a faden golden fabric stitched with pearls and gems. The bottom half of the leotard consists of red and white stripes meant to thin her figure. She always enjoyed this costume, but she wishes they had remade it for her instead of squeezing her into this one.
“Oh, that looks lovely on you,” Cordelia says quietly. Her eyes glimmer with tears. The older girl clears her throat.
“Ah. Thanks,” She replies dryly, “Why are you crying?” Aurora glares as she watches the tears on Cordelia’s cheeks turn dark with her ruining makeup.
“I-I’m sorry, I don’t mean to. It’s just so moving to see you wear that again. You came to Bristol four seasons ago. That’s where I saw you first. I wished that I could be as confident and beautiful as you looked up there. That’s why I ran to Mr. Moseley when I left home,” the young girl explains with a shaky voice. Aurora blinks. She feels as if somebody has wrung out her lungs.
“Really? You joined because of me?” Her voice sounds foreign to her. It’s as if she’s speaking with her tongue wrapped in twine.
“It was either this or a brothel,” the girl admits, glancing down at her feet, “I certainly didn’t wish to sell myself in that way. But I didn’t see another way forward.”
“You could have found another town. Joined a mine or a factory,” Aurora notes. Her arms chafe against each other as she crosses them. She’s coated her already pale skin in powder to aid in the performance later.
“A factory? That’s more dangerous than soaring in the air. The pay is terrible. The regulations are worse,” Cordelia grumbles. She sinks her top teeth into her bottom lip. The gesture looks silly on her face–like an animal trying to imitate a person.
“That’s what expansion does for you,” Aurora replies. She steps forwards and wipes the tears from the younger girl’s face. Her makeup is wrecked, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to fix. Not that it matters anyway. Not when the timer is clicking down.
“I’m nervous,” Cordelia finally admits. Her shoulders sag as she finally releases the weight from them.
“You’ll feel better when you put on your outfit. It’s absolutely spectacular,” the older girl muses. While it was obvious that Aurora’s outfit was several seasons old, the outfit prepared for the younger girl is simply magnificent. It appears to be inspired by the ancient Greeks. It’s more of a dress than a leotard–something that Aurora insisted for the younger girl. She’s been showing off skin since she was twelve. She doesn’t see it right that Cordelia must too.
She watches idly as the girl tugs on the dress. The gold detailing seems to light up her skin so beautifully it takes away Aurora’s breath. She grabs the golden headpiece and pulls it snugly onto Cordelia’s frizz.
“You look lovely,” she whispers. Cordelia’s smile brightens.
“Really?” she asks.
“Indeed. You will do wonderfully tonight. I swear it.” Aurora squeezes the younger girl’s hand for the first and last time since their mentorship began. In two hours and thirty minutes, Aurora will die. In two hours and forty five minutes, Mr. Moseley will call in a favor. In three hours, Aurora will breathe again.
The show always begins the same. Mr. Moseley comes out first, followed by the animals he’s bought for this purpose. The oddities of human nature perform next. Then the immigrant women who have been stolen off of ships and train cars and labeled as ‘exotics’ parade themselves around in corsets and frilly skirts. Of course, there are smaller shows as well, including the jesters, the artists, the strong men, and the other acrobatic performances. However, most are not interested in those performances.
None of those acts are plastered on every poster in England. Just one. Just her’s. And as she steps out across the dirt, everyone in the stands are entranced. She’s truly a beauty. Pale skin stretches across muscles and soft skin, highlighted by rosy cheeks and elbows. Her legs seem to take most of her body weight. They’re almost uncanny in their length, but the issue is in her too-short torso and not the length of her thighs. She tilts her head back, letting the white curls pinned to her scalp bounce. Aurora is perfectly aware of the eyes on the expanse of her neck.
Aurora has been performing long enough to learn not to care why the patrons are looking so long as they are looking. As long as they cannot stop. She doesn’t mind the leering eyes on the curves of her arms as she raises them above her head. Instead, she focuses on the movement. She’s always felt as if she goes somewhere else when she performs. People rarely note the abstract gaze in her irises, but it is there nonetheless.
The entire tent fades away. There is nothing but the light, the bar, and her skin. She feels every hair across her arms as she grabs onto the lowering trapeze bar. Cordelia is perched atop it, but the girl might as well not even exist. There is warmth on Aurora’s chest where the light hits it. She closes her eyes, raising her leg until her knee hooks around metal. She holds tightly onto Cordelia’s hand as she arches her back, preparing for liftoff.
Tension coils across her muscles as the bar begins to rise. The pull of gravity is such an odd thing. Aurora is constantly aware of it. She knows it better than she knows herself. The bar rises ten knocks. Then, twenty. Thirty. Forty. There is no net beneath them. In the height of the second Industrial Revolution in England, rules and regulations are still loose enough for businesses to get away with such things.
“Five, six, seven, eight,” Cordelia mumbles beneath her breath as she twists above the bar. It takes considerable strength to operate a double trapeze. Normally, since Aurora is the stronger of the two, she would be the one on top. However, not even Mr. Moseley in all of his persuasiveness could convince Cordelia to dangle from forty knocks in the air.
You see, death is a strange thing. Very specific circumstances must come together for it to occur. Two weeks ago, when the rigging system was packed up, an intern had to improperly handle the very bar the pair are perched on to rip one of the inner ropes.
That very bar would then travel three hundred and twenty one kilometers in its bag, the contraption straining with every bump of the rails. Of course, eight hours ago, the bar was tested at ten knocks in the air. It survived, but that too, contributes to the fraying cord inside the rope. Truly, death is a strange thing.
Aurora kicks her other leg back, tilting her body forward. Together, the positioning of the girls’s bodies forms an eight in the negative space. The crowd claps, amazed. It’s barely a move at all. Still, even Mr. Moseley, standing in the darkness at the edge of the net, gapes. Above Aurora, Cordelia shifts until she’s sitting atop the bar. Her legs dangle precariously over the edge. The pose itself is a mockery of girlhood that strikes the audience deep in the part of their minds that asks them why they are watching such a show in the first place.
With the help of the younger girl, Aurora shifts until she’s hooked to the bar by solely her ankle. The rest of her body hangs over the edge. She droops one arm down and pulls the pin from her hair. The entire room seems to quiet as her curls spill out. Cordelia continues counting, but Aurora basks in the attention as she hangs.
Seven seconds pass before anyone moves. When they finally do, Her Lady Misfortune strikes. Her presence sweeps through the tent like a swirling dark mist. The air chills. A baby begins to wail. And forty knocks in the air, the cord inside the left rope snaps with a resounding twang.
Instantly, the metal beneath Cordelia tilts. She begins to scream, scrambling to grab the right cord. Aurora claws at the girl’s waist with a hiss as the metal bar clangs against her thighs. Things move in slow motion. There is so much noise that the girls barely hear their ringmaster yelling.
“Hold on! Hold on! Don’t let go. Don’t let go!” The words fall onto ears that are not prepared to hear them. Aurora’s stomach pinches with something between fear and excitement. She’s not sure quite why, but dangling possesses a certain sort of thrill to it that reminds her of the first time she jumped from a pedestal board.
“Not helpful!” Aurora calls back. Even in danger, she cannot resist snapping at Mr. Moseley.
Cordelia bursts into tears, “We’re going to die.”
“Oh no, we are not!” Aurora replies. In her eighteen years of performances, nothing has ever gone wrong. Nothing.
Cordelia wails. Aurora squeezes her abdomen tighter in response. She can feel the wild jolting of the younger girl’s pulse through her thighs. Or perhaps that is her own facing heart. She cannot tell.
“You must calm down. You’re going to pass out,” the older girl begs. Cordelia nods, sniffling. Below them, several interns drag a several hundred kilogram mat across the dirt. However, the surface area that needs to be crossed to get to the girls is just too wide. The mat is just too heavy. And as Cordelia shifts her grasp to steady herself, the junction of the cord and the bar slices her palm. The girls soar towards the harsh ground.
Aurora has one final thought as she tilts to stare down at the approaching abyss that will swallow her whole: I will never fly again.
About the Author
My name is Anna Grace Lambert-Blinn, and I'm a pre-aerospace engineering student with a passion for the arts. I enjoy fantasy novels, taking walks, and spending time with my roommates!
Instagram: @anna_wwjd
Cover design made using Canva design tools