The girl in the gilded cage *Completed*

At the circus

*Joshua*

“Are you excited to see the circus, Stellybear?” I ask my little nephew, who is currently lodged on my right arm. I don't really expect much of an answer, besides a pair of happy sounds maybe, as he doesn't speak much yet. But he is looking around wide-eyed at the hustle and bustle, the people and the bright colors, so I assume he likes it.

I am taking him and my sister to the circus this afternoon for the premiere show. Her husband is away with work, and I wanted to spoil them a bit.

I had called the owner, using my status as a rather well-known actor with a very well know last name, due to my fathers business empire, to ask if it was possible for Sterling to come see the animals. He had gracefully promised that if we arrived early, someone would be waiting to show us around. We are going to see the artists train and visit the animals.

To be completely honest, I am probably more excited than Sterling.

“Josh, how often do I need to tell you not to call him Stellybear? His name is Sterling. S..T..E..R..L..I..N..G no bear,” my sister Sharon says, looking fed up with me.

I just smile and shrug. Probably a million, but I better not say that out loud. But for real, if she doesn't want me to call him Stellybear, then she shouldn’t have named him Sterling, it is way too serious for him.

A very plump man wearing a shiny blue suit, a lavender shirt, and a sparkly bright red tie comes walking toward us. He has a matching soft felt hat on his head and is waving a foul-smelling cigar around like it is a magic wand. “Mr. Mitchell, I presume... welcome to Circus Arly. I am Joe Herlihy, the ringmaster of this establishment... at your service.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Herlihy, and please call me Josh,” I say with a friendly smile. He definitely seems like quite a character, and I like characters.

He smiles back, then looks at Sterling on my arm, making the little guy hide his face against my shoulder. “Only if you call me Joe. So is this wee one yours?”

“No... unfortunately.. this is my nephew Sterling. And this lovely lady is my sister Sharon.” I present them, being nice to my sister and giving his real name. Joe shakes my sister’s hand, telling her how adorable a kid she has, before leading us deeper into the magic of the circus.

Sterling is giggling and clapping his hands, and I share his joy looking around. It is like a whole little village, a weird and utterly wonderful village, filled with magic and people of every color yelling to each other in several languages.

Nearby, someone walks by leading an elephant and Sterling points. “Ephant.. an ephant.. look, Unke Josh.”

“Yeah Stellybear, you are right, that is an elephant.. it’s really big, huh?” I say, and he nods happily.

Joe smiles and says, "We got 4 elephants in the circus, 3 tigers, 10 horses, 15 dogs, and a chimpanzee."

As we walk on, Joe tells us about the different things and people we see. He also tells us about the history of the circus. It is clear to hear that it is his job to talk and that he knows his stuff.

Then he says apologetically, "Sorry for the whispering by the way, but I had a lump removed in my throat last week, so I am not allowed to raise my voice. I’ll be having kind of a forced vacation the next couple of months."

"Oh, so sorry to hear, Joe. I hope you are okay now? What does the circus do then, without you to present everything?" I know a big part of the whole circus experience is the ringmaster. He does more than present the acts; he entertains and gets the crowd going.

He smiles widely and pats my shoulder. "I am just fine, thank you for asking. Well, one of our young artists, Ioan Balan, is covering for me.. but between you and me, I am quite nervous that he isn't up for the job."

"I am sure he will do great, and you'll be back in no time," I say, and Joe smiles even wider, moving on to show us into the grand circus tent. Inside, it smells like sawdust, with a hint of the animals, sweat, and popcorn. This is the circus.

It is a huge tent, with two grand rings for the artists. Right now, there is a group of Chinese artists in one of them, practicing a human pyramid, calling out, “Hep, hep, hep,” as they go.

In the other ring, a man is throwing knives at a dummy tied to a spinning plate of wood. A thumping sound rings through the tent with each hit, followed by a low curse from the man.

We walk over to the knife thrower just as he stops the plate, looking at the doll and hitting the plate hard in annoyance. Joe smiles at him. "Still not able to get the throw right, Ioan? It is a very difficult throw; not many can do it."

"I can do it, I know I can. I just need to find the right moment," he says, staring intently at the doll. The doll has knives impaled through both legs and in the lower stomach, making me swallow, feeling relieved that he's using a doll.

"Ioan here is trying to place a knife between the doll's legs while the plate is spinning. It’s a very, very difficult throw… the hardest there is," Joe tells us. "Ioan, this is Josh, Sterling, and Sharon."

Ioan turns to look at us. He is wearing jeans and a tank top, showing off his broad shoulders and the ropes of muscles down his arms, probably from the hard physical work in the circus. He is about four inches shorter than me and looks up at me with something that looks most like contempt before shaking my hand hard. "Welcome."

"Thank you," I say, watching him eye up Sharon before shaking her hand. I normally don't judge people this quickly, but there's something about this guy I just don't like, and he seems to feel the same way about me.

Joe seems to sense the tension and hurriedly says, "Ioan here is the one covering for me while I recover. He is also our knife thrower and tiger tamer."

"That sounds like some very dangerous acts to do," Sharon says. "Are you never afraid the tigers will get fed up and attack you?"

Ioan laughs, his eyes running over her again in a way that annoys me. I don't like him looking at my sister like that. He is blonde with a goatee and kind of handsome, I guess, but he looks like he likes himself a lot. So do a lot of women, probably. "Never, but it takes a real man to control big wild animals."

I almost choke on a laugh, trying to hide my amusement as Ioan glares at me. Joe hurriedly leads us away to look at a woman training some dogs, which makes Sterling bounce in my arms, calling, "Doggi, doggi!"

When she is done, the woman tells my nephew that he can pet the dogs, and Sharon takes him from my arms, sitting down with him. I turn to look at the other ring, where someone has put up a low rope, the kind tightrope walkers use, and I see someone at the platform.

She walks slowly and very gracefully out on the rope, performing what almost looks like ballet, while a man in a wheelchair watches her intently. He is correcting her and telling her what to do.

I walk closer, almost hypnotized by her movements, as she jumps high up in the air, landing safely and gracefully back on the line, not wavering for a moment. She is fully concentrated and never looks up. When I get closer, I can see she has the face of an angel, a very exotic angel, and the body of a fairy.

I have never seen anything so graceful before. She looks almost like a child up there, so small and fragile-looking, but she has a woman’s grace about her, and I am guessing her to be around 20 years old. Joe steps up beside me, and I whisper, "Pretty girl, she is good."

"She is a Lupei," he says with a shrug, as if I am supposed to know what that means. "The Lupei family, also known as the flying wolves of Constanza. They are crazy, the whole bunch of them. Tightrope walkers and trapeze artists. No nets. Her father is the guy in the wheelchair. He killed her mother forcing her to do that. She was such a beautiful woman. He will kill Malina too someday. She is just practicing on the low line so she can hear him. In the show, she works up there." He points to the top of the tent, my eyes following his finger. "The audience loves it. I think it is a horrible thing to do to such a young woman, but her father doesn't care," he goes on. "He does it to wow the audience. If she ends up in a wheelchair like him or dies like her mother, it is okay with him. It is part of the life. She has a brother and an older sister too; they all work on the trapeze. Honestly, I hate watching it. It makes me sick."

"So, Malina Lupei," I say mostly to myself, watching her leave with her father, mesmerized by her beauty and grace.

Joe nods. "She is the grand finale, to keep the audience in their seats to the end. They are waiting to see if she falls to her death."

"But she looks so young. She can't be much more than a teenager," I say, wondering what can make a father so careless with his children's lives.

Joe shakes his head lightly. "She is older than she looks. She must be 22 by now; she was born and raised in the circus. They are the oldest circus family here, one of the oldest in the whole country. Honestly, people like them are not like most people. They seem to live in the last century."