Mist by Marta Palazzesi

Author:Marta Palazzesi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Red Comet Press

With the mounted watchmen patrolling and more or less everyone at the circus now knowing my face, it was pretty unlikely I’d go unnoticed if I climbed over the fence. So I met Ollie over by the elephant yard instead, which bordered an old brick wall. She was waiting for me, sitting on a full hay cart and holding an oil lamp.

“So how’s Mist?” I asked as soon as I saw her. “Is he still angry?”

Ollie shook her head and jumped down off the wagon. “Worse.”

“What could be worse?” I asked anxiously, as she led me past the elephants tied to poles. They were so big they could have crushed me with a foot, but they didn’t seem interested in us at all and just kept swinging their tails lazily to shoo away insects.

“You’ll see,” she replied grimly.

When we reached the menagerie, Ollie stood on lookout at the entrance, while I slipped through the flap, impatient to find out what was going on. I was ready for anything. I was ready for a furious animal. I was ready for an animal thirsting for revenge. I was ready for an animal full of hatred for people.

Instead, I found an animal that had decided to stop fighting. A defeated animal. Resigned to his fate. A shadow of what he’d been.

Mist lay on the bottom of the cage with his eyes open, but he didn’t seem to see what was around him. The burn on his side had been treated, but there was another wound, an invisible wound, which wouldn’t be so easy to heal.

When I got nearer, he just gave me a blank look.

Ollie, who’d hardly ever dared to leave the entrance to the menagerie, came and joined me with no fear. “He’s been like this for two days. He refuses to eat or leave his cage. Parson and Hiram drag him out, but then he just lies on the ground and doesn’t move.”

“Mist . . . ,” I whispered.

“Smith and Sparrow are getting nervous,” Ollie added. “It’s only five days until Mist’s debut, and if Parson and Hiram haven’t trained him—”

“I know,” I interrupted. “They’ll say Mist is a useless animal.” And we both knew what that meant.

“I told that good-for-nothing Parson that he has three days.”

Ollie spun around toward the entrance. “Smith!” she exclaimed.

“Three days is already too long. He’s been wasting time for weeks.”

Ollie turned pale. “Sparrow!” She took my hand. “Come on! We’ve got to hide!” She blew out the oil lamp and dragged me behind some crates. We crouched there for a moment before the two circus owners stepped into the tent.

Of all the horrible people I’d come across in my thirteen years of life (and I had met quite a few, believe me), Smith and Sparrow were definitely at the top of the list. They were both in their fifties and there was a gaudy look about them, with that combination of clothes and accessories typical of someone who’s made too much money too quickly.

Smith was short, stocky, and had greasy, combed-back red hair.

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