The Wild in her Eyes Read online

  The thunder of hooves drew Annis’s attention back to the ring. The herd was now galloping toward her as they exited to roaring applause, with Sequoyah bringing up the rear and standing on Shilah’s back. Annis was about to follow them out to the animal tent when Hugh caught her, hooking one arm around her shoulders and turning her abruptly to the left, leading her away from Sequoyah and the horses.

  “Day two,” he buzzed, clearly still feeling the energy of having recently performed. “Tell me, then, what did you think?”

  He’d asked her that very question the night before. A small eternity seemed to have transpired over twenty-four hours. Last night felt like a different lifetime. She sucked in a sharp breath of air. She’d been going through a lot of those lately, lifetimes. How many more would there be for her?

  “Honest opinion?” she asked, repeating his words from last night back to him to be sure he knew that she had taken in every detail of her first day with Brooks and Bennet. And there’d been much to learn. Most of it, unexpected gems she knew she never would have found elsewhere, like the way the spotlights of a circus tent had impressed upon her the beauty of diversity and adversity.

  “Yes. Honest opinion,” he confirmed. “Come on, love. I can take it.”

  “Brace yourself,” she teased. “I don’t think you’ll see this coming.”

  He laughed. “Maybe I better sit for this, then.”

  “Yes. Perhaps you should, if for no other reason than I wouldn’t mind being eye-to-eye with you when I tell you what I have to say.”

  He chuckled some more but obliged, pulling over a stack of empty crates and taking a seat across from her. “Go on, then. I’m ready.”

  “Alright.” She took a deep inhale, and then exhaled her words in one breath. “I think you’re the smartest man I’ve ever known, Hugh Brooks.”

  “And why would you think something foolish like that?” he asked. She could see his mouth twitch with delight at her statement, but he held the smile at bay.

  “Because,” she shrugged, failing to conjure the words to describe what she felt. Maybe there were no words for it. Maybe that was all part of his magic—to transcend past people’s innate need for thought and reach them straight at their core, in their hearts, where they could understand the things their minds didn’t yet have a language for. It’s what he was doing for her. Even as she understood this, she also knew the words would come if only she let them, because her heart already knew what they were.

  “You’re changing people, making them better,” she said softly. “Healing our broken thoughts and mending our broken spirits. And you let us all believe we’re doing it ourselves.”

  “You are doing it yourselves,” he said, tipping his head toward the ring behind her, glowing in gold from the dim light of the lanterns. “All I do is give you all a place to do it.”

  She shook her head. “You’re being modest.” She grinned. “Humble Hugh. That’s what I should call you. Forget Poppy. Definitely forget sir.” She giggled, remembering how dumbfounded she had been when he refused the title. She understood now. It did seem silly to call him that. It was far too formal for a man who didn’t know the first thing about maintaining any sort of hierarchies for himself or others.

  “You will call me no such thing. It’ll only confuse people who think I enjoy being the center of attention, seeing as I’m the ringleader and all,” he said with a chuckle as he got back to his feet.

  “Yeah,” Annis said thoughtfully, remembering another thing she’d observed during the show tonight. “How do you do that, anyway? It’s like you show up in flashes, just for a second to redirect the audience where you want them to look, preparing them for the next act, and then, just like that, you’re gone again. Even when I intentionally tried to focus only on you, I couldn’t keep track of you.”

  “Magic,” he said with a wink. Annis got the distinct feeling that would always be the extent of his explanation, no matter how many times she asked.

  “I see. Magic Hugh, then,” she mused, picking up her pace to keep even with his long strides.

  “Unless you want me to start adding adjectives to Annis, I suggest you put a cork in it,” he teased in return. “Now then, on to our next business. I have a pretty good idea who to pair you up with next. But before I make my final decision, why don’t you tell me what you learned today, love?”

  Annis had to think back. Today had started a long time ago and she’d learned loads since then. “I learned about keeping Shilah separate from the herd. I learned what the horses eat, how often, and why it’s important to keep them on a steady diet. I learned how to brush and bathe them, how to care for their hooves. Oh, and I learned about their likes and dislikes. Fascinating, really. How animals have personalities, same as humans. And relationships. Oh, and how their judgement is far better than ours. Well, mine anyway.” She paused when they rounded a corner and she realized they were heading farther away from the tent and all the work left to be done tonight. “Shouldn’t I be doing something more to help? I could come find you when everything is loaded up and ready to go and give you a full report then. Probably a longer one than I could give you now, since I’ve only set up and not broke down before.”

  He shook his head, smiling as they moved onward toward the train cars. “No need. We’re staying another night. Big turnout today, sold out before everyone in town got their tickets. Doesn’t happen often, but when it does we make sure to run the show again.” He slowed down a bit, looking over his shoulder to see if she was keeping up.

  “Oh. Alright.” She still felt strange about leaving all the work to the others, so she sped up her account of the day in hopes of getting back before everything was finished. “Let’s see. When I wasn’t learning about horses, I learned about cheeky little monkeys and their fondness for shiny things. I learned that Sawyer has a mean streak and that Homer is blind. Might have mentioned that one, by the way. Felt pretty foolish not having been aware the entire time I’d spent with him and Caroline this morning, and then again at lunch.”

  Hugh shrugged. “I’m sure he felt pretty splendid realizing you never had a clue.”

  Annis thought this was a point well made.

  “Right. Well, even so, if it’s all the same to you, I wouldn’t mind knowing now if anyone else here is lacking one of their basic senses. For safety reasons, really. If I smell smoke, I might not so say if I think everyone else can smell it too. Or, if someone looks to be running backwards toward the edge of a cliff I’d like to know if they’ll hear me when I shout ‘stop.’ Or, if I’m backing toward the edge of a cliff I can’t see, I’d like to know the person watching can speak and tell me so. Or, what if someone starts running for it straight on? I’d like to know for certain whether they can see it or not. Actually, I’d probably simply assume that they couldn’t. That one’d be pretty clear. Though, maybe more for my safety’s sake, I’d rather not find myself volunteering to do something like have daggers thrown in my general direction by a man who can’t see where he’s throwing.”

  “Are you finished?”

  She took a second to consider her rant. “Yes, I think I am.”

  “Good. Now mind you, I stopped listening halfway through, so I don’t know what you carried on about with cliffs and such. But, in any event, let me assure you that you are perfectly safe, provided you do not volunteer to be part of Homer’s target practice.”

  It wasn’t as detailed a confirmation as she’d have liked, but it was sufficient enough to allow her to get back to the task of retelling of all she’d learned that day. “Alright then, where was I? Okay, Homer is blind. Sawyer is mean. Harris? Harris is royalty, and Goldilocks shares his name with a monkey. Not sure how helpful either of those lessons were. And, come to think of it, they came through Mabel and Maude, which in hindsight makes it perfectly clear to me why you chose to take me from the trajectory they had me on and move me onto another.”

  “I’m glad you can see reason even through all of your rambling,” he teased. “
Frankly, I’m finding it hard to keep up. Given I’ve spent many a morning chatting over coffee with Mabel, I think we both know what that means for you.”

  She felt her lips slip into a sheepish grin. She did indeed know what it meant. Hugh thought she was rambling more than even Mabel could after caffeine. “Sorry. Just feeling incredibly overwhelmed with it all. Letting it all pour out a bit seems to be helping.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I think that’s all. Horse care. Loads of horse care. That’s the most important stuff, the stuff I can use here, right?”

  Hugh stopped short. “No. What did you really learn?”

  Annis stumbled backward a few steps, both from his sudden stop as well as his unexpected refusal of her answer. She’d told him everything. And there’d been a lot. She’d been busy. Eyes and ears open, taking it all in, focusing on every detail, eager to get it all right. Her mind had been on fire all day, sorting through a million different tasks, observations, and conversations. So many things had happened and been said, especially between her and Sequoyah. He’d taught her more today than she ever could have anticipated.

  And then she remembered. She understood the question Hugh was asking her.

  He wanted to know what she understood now in words she hadn’t known before. Sequoyah and the horses lit up her mind in beautiful, wild, and awe-inspiring flashes. Memories of home and a face she would carry in her mind’s eye all her life laced their way through her present thoughts, mingling the old and new, reminding her of what mattered, what was true, and why she’d never seen it before now.

  She took a breath, slowed her mind, and let the dust and debris of trivial thoughts settle before she answered a second time. “I learned that most people see first what they fear. And that they’re usually wrong about what they think they see.”

  A satisfied smile swept over his thin lips and he nodded. “Good girl.” Then, as if that were all he’d been waiting to hear, he began walking again. “Caroline and Homer,” he said. “That’s who you’ll follow tomorrow. Tonight, you’ll stay with Maude and Mabel again, as terrifying a thought as that may be for me. But they offered and the three of you do seem to get on well together.”

  “Wonderful.” She’d missed the sisters today and, oddly enough, craved the comforts of their small cabin in a way she might have craved the four walls of her old bedroom, once upon a time. “Wait, you’re letting me spend the day with Caroline and Homer? Just this morning you thought it was the worst idea you’d ever heard.”

  “That was this morning.” He shrugged, picking up the pace even more. “Now it’s a brilliant idea.”

  “Because it’s yours?” Annis said, half joking, half certain it made all the difference.

  “Because now you’re ready to learn what only they can teach you.”

  “Oh. And what might that be?”

  “You’ll find that out when you learn it.”

  She dragged her eyes up from where they’d been glued to the ground, carefully tracking her path in the dark as she raced after Hugh. “Wait, where are we headed right now?” Because they’d passed the sisters ages ago, and their car was near the front of the train, but she and Hugh were nearing the end of it. And she wasn’t sure, but she thought Caroline and Homer had a cabin near theirs, given their visit that morning while the train had been in motion.

  “I’ve got something for you back here. Babe found it out on her stroll after dinner.” He turned back toward her just long enough for her to see him roll his eyes. “You know how she is. Anyway, she’s certain it’s yours, so I suppose it must be.”

  Annis hadn’t a clue what it might be. All she possessed when she arrived at Brooks and Bennet were the clothes she had traded for better ones after her bath in Babe’s tent.

  “Go ahead,” Hugh said when they reached the train car designed for animal transport. He held the door for her to go in first. Nerves and excitement furled at the pit of her stomach as she put one timid foot in front of the other. The cart was dark and quiet except for one small lantern hanging in the corner. Straw covered the ground as far as her eyes could see within the dimly lit wagon. And then something moved. And it made a noise. A sad, small whimper came from a little bundle of fur curled up in a nest of its own making in the straw and sawdust that covered the floor.

  “Oh,” Annis gasped, dropping to her knees right beside the creature. “It’s tiny.” She leaned her head sideways to try to get a better look. “A puppy?”

  “A wolf cub. Babe found the mama dead in the woods. Farmers must have shot her. Of course, soon as she noticed it was a mama, she went looking for the pups. Only found the one.” He pointed at the sad little lump of fur as he shook and whined in his sleep. “Babe declared you the keeper, so he’s your responsibility. You’ll find all you need to make up his bottles in the crates against the wall and Momma will see to it you get scraps every day for him when he gets old enough. The twins’ll know what to do if you have any questions but, truth be told, most things are best handled on instinct alone. Trust your heart, love. It’s done you well since you’ve been here. It’ll keep you on track.” And then, with a nod and a wink, he turned to leave again.

  “Wait,” she called. “What’s his name?”

  Hugh glanced down at the newest member of his ongoing collection of broken and lost things and smiled, hope dancing in his eyes. “You tell me.”

  And she would. Just as soon as she figured it out.

  Carefully, she dropped down from her kneeling position until her bottom touched the hay. Crossing her legs, she sat there quietly, unsure of what to do next. After all this little guy had been through, the last thing she wanted to do was frighten him more.

  She watched him tighten his small body into a snugger curl, as though he were trying to hide within himself. She understood the feeling all too well. Annis knew the fear that came with the realization that you were all you had left in the world—a world in which you’d gone from feeling untouchable to being the prey of a hunter you had never seen coming. Sadness welled inside her, not for herself but for the pup.

  Suddenly, Babe flashed in her mind. Babe in her morning dress, calling Annis “Tulip” and wrapping her up in a hug that overtook all of her terror, if only for a moment. Babe loved harder than anyone she’d ever met and, even in moments when every part of the world seemed to hold only cold, dark, and horrifying disappointment, Babe’s embrace could somehow hold all of the world at bay.

  The girl Annis was before would never have thought herself capable of that sort of love. It would have been too overbearing, too messy, and far too intrusive. But now she was certain she could give this lost little wolf exactly what he needed because she’d gotten it from Babe first. Now it was simply a matter of paying it forward.

  Casting worry and self-doubt aside, Annis reached her hands for the sleeping pup and placed him in her lap. He couldn’t be older than a week or two. His eyes were still shut and, while he didn’t seem to react to sound, he definitely reacted to her warmth. He pressed himself into her as soon as his body touched hers.

  “You poor thing,” she whispered softly, bending down to form a cocoon around him with her body and letting her cheek rest against his soft fur. “You’re going to be alright now,” she promised. “I’m going to make sure of it.” She sat balled up with the small cub, rocking gently back and forth as she hummed lullabies she’d heard a lifetime ago, until the car door opened again. It was the twins.

  “We heard you got yourself a new baby,” Mabel said, her voice hushed as though there really were a sleeping baby in their midst.

  “He’s precious,” Annis sighed. “And I haven’t any idea how to take care of him.”

  “We figured as much,” Maude said, already headed for the crates Hugh had pointed to earlier to show Annis where the bottle-feeding supplies were. “Mabel and I have helped Babe raise a baby or two over the years.” She stopped short of lifting the lid to shake her head. “You wouldn’t believe some of the critters she’s come back with after some of her walks. Squirrels.
Hedgehogs. Even a skunk once. I thought for sure Hugh was done with her after that one,” she laughed. “But you know Hugh. He’s just as big of a sap as she is, even if he does have a pretty good bark at times. The bite is useless.”

  “As was the skunk,” Mabel said, scrunching up her nose.

  “What happened to it?” Annis asked, wondering if she needed to be on the lookout for skunks.

  “Wound up leaving with Pete when he retired a few years back,” Mabel answered, and then remembered Annis had no idea who Pete was. “Pete had a knack for swallowing things. Swords. Fireballs. Even the tail end of a snake for a while there. Incredibly talented, but this life just wasn’t for him. Only even wound up here because he’d had his heart broken beyond repair. Or so he thought. One stop in Colorado changed his mind pretty good. Next thing you know, he was done with the circus, though thankfully not done with Smelly Jelly the skunk. They had a strange bond, those two.” She shook her head. Mabel’s inability to comprehend Pete and Smelly Jelly’s unusual attachment while standing there, fused hip-to-hip with her sister, made it hard for Annis not to laugh out loud.

  “So, every critter Babe finds she pawns off on someone here?” Annis asked, hoping to move the conversation along and not succumb to her amusement, which would require an explanation the twins may not find as funny as she did.

  “Not every critter, but most.” Maude stood up, holding a bottle in one hand and screwing on the top with the other. “Some wild can’t be tamed. We care for them, love them as long as we can, and, when they’re strong enough again, we set them free.”

  Annis peered down at the wolf in her lap. It was hard to believe one day he’d grow to be a dangerous hunter, capable of ripping humans to shreds with his fangs and crushing their bones with his jaw, but it was true. He could grow to be the sort of wild that needed to be released. It was a possibility she had to consider even as she was falling utterly in love with him.