Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top by Ekaterina Sedia

are too kind, but I cannot leave ! I am not an employee but an attraction! And where would I go? How would I go? The pipe that binds me to the boiler is as strong a shackle as you will find in any prison, sir.”
    I looked again to her skirts, at the floor, imagining the pipe running underneath the floorboards and out to the stoked boiler attached to the rear of the carriage.
    “But steam-horses,” I said, “ they carry their own boiler and furnace around with them. You could have a smaller engine developed, maybe contained in a wheeled palanquin so you could move around?”
    The very idea excited me, but again she laughed and played, and sang a piece from The Beggar’s Opera :
    “The Modes of the Court so common are grown,
    That a true Friend can hardly be met;
    Friendship for Interest is but a Loan,
    Which they let out for what they can get.
    ‘Tis true, you find
    Some Friends so kind,
    Who will give you good Counsel themselves to defend.
    In sorrowful Ditty,
    They promise, they pity,
    But shift you for Money, from Friend to Friend.”
    “Are you saying my words mean nothing?” I asked, offended, feeling a sudden anger arise. “That I should be putting my money where my mouth is? Is that all this is? A ruse to empty my pocket? If that is the case then I . . . ”
    “No, no, not at all,” she said demurely. “You take my song too literally, sir. I meant only that your Counsel is sage, but the ideas contained therein would cost more money than I can ever hope to lay claim.”
    She turned to face me then, her entire torso swivelling smoothly on well-oiled bearings. In the flickering light of the gas-lamp her shadow writhed across the carriage curtain, wreathing her in a halo of darkness.
    “I have thought on this long, dear sir, do not think I have not,” she said. “I have little time for mental reckoning—my steam supply is cut off almost immediately after a performance—but even while I play I am able to spare a small portion of my thoughts to the dream of leaving this mobile cell, this endless parading before the world, this life of performance but nothing else. Ten years. For ten years I have had these thoughts.”
    She stopped and her head cocked slightly to one side, as if she were listening carefully. When she next spoke it was in the tiniest whisper, like a flute played softly somewhere far away.
    “I’ve made the acquaintance of an engineer, in Belgium,” she said and I had to strain forward to hear. “He has been very kind to me, dear indeed, and has promised to help me if he can. He assures me he is near to perfecting a suitable engine, just as you described but . . . our funds are lacking. He is a most wondrous man, so generous and gallant to help, but it will take time. It will take time and I have only the thought of him to keep me hoping . . . it might be years before we return to the Continent though, years!”
    My heart seemed to shrivel in my chest. Who was this Belgian engineer? How long had they been acquainted? Irrationally, I disliked the man instantly. Jealousy welled up in me, bitter and confusing. I was a married man. I’d only known Kally for a few minutes; had not known of her at all a day ago. She was not even a real woman! An automaton, a machine! And yet, I could not deny the way her music, her voice, made me feel. Could not deny the beauty of her face, nor the travesty of the life-line that bound her to that circus as a slave.
    “I want to help you, Kally,” I said, using her name aloud for the first time, tasting the sweetness of it in my mouth. “I am not a man of wealth but I will find a way. I have some funds—not much, but some. I will give it all to you. I don’t want you trapped in this carriage and I don’t want you waiting for some chap in Belgium to get you out. There are engineers here, in Australia, who can help. I know many of them. I’ll introduce you. I’ll fund the research. I’ll get you out of here.”
    It all came out in a rush with no thought for