Up in Flames

Colette descended from the rigging backstage, having double checked that her trapeze artists were secured in their costumes and ready to fly. She dusted a bit of chalk off her hands, addressing the crowd as she burst through the black curtains behind the rings.

"Have you ever wondered what it would be like to fly? You've seen my daring Arab vaulters, you've marveled at my feathered friends, but you've never seen anything like this before--I present to you a family of high-flying sisters, to whom the air is but a second home."

A lone trapeze dropped slowly behind her, and she backed up a pace, sitting on it delicately, kicking her feet lightly so she swung gently back and forth. It began to rise, and two matching trapezes began to descend on either side of her. Soon, the three of them were in an even line, and on both sides she was flanked by a young woman with equally dazzling outfit and smiles.

"Ladies?" Colette held out a hand first to one, and then the other, both of whom giggled lightly. Colette grinned at the crowd, balancing delicately with her hands outstretched.

The girls tugged back and forth lightly, and her trapeze swung from side to side, at first with a gentle motion, and then more raggedly.

"Now, now, girls, is this any way to treat your employer?"

The girls laughed again, and with a little wink at the audience, pulled her entirely off the swing.

She tipped backwards, falling back until she was nearly diving at the ground, and then the thin line that ran down her back snagged in the riggings above, brought her horizontal to the ground, and brought her whizzing back above the crowd almost faster than the eye could follow. Within a few seconds, she had disappeared entirely into the dark.

The two girls continued swinging like they were in a park rather than hanging at the top of the tent, leaning back and letting go first with one hand and then with the other, dropping down to hang from their knees. Colette's middle trapeze returned, absent the ringleader, and one of the girls reached for it, releasing her knees from the first trapeze so that there was a moment of holding nothing in mid-air before she snatched the bar and pulled herself gently back to sit on it. Alisa and Lin went back and forth for a few passes in gentle competition - one letting go just a moment sooner and grabbing just a moment later, the next adding an extra flip. Marie knew that it was all choreographed, and that who would outdo who had been planned in advance, but Lin's usual intensity was still there regardless and she was almost loath to drop into it. Rolling her eyes, she slid down onto the third, empty bar, sitting on it for a moment like a swing and getting it moving back and forth while the other two struck a pose before dropping down to hang by her knees. She flung herself off it and was snatched out of the air by Lin, who whispered something to Marie before tossing her back to Alisa. The music - a cheerful tune, tinny like something on a toy piano - was picking up its pace and volume, and Marie decided to assume from the pinched look on Lin's face that it was some uninteresting criticism of her hair or posture or entrance, and thus could be ignored. Alisa caught her wrists and gently lobbed her back to the middle trapeze, and she pulled herself back up as a fourth trapeze descended, holding Lottie, who smiled broadly. The four girls now made four corners above the center of the tent, close enough together that anyone dropped would land well away from the edge of the net, so that the routine they transitioned into - with girls swinging in leaps and flips from their own trapeze to be caught by the girl adjacent, one or two at a time - was impressive but not overly dangerous.

In the middle of this routine, the ceiling mechanism began to move again, this time starting to rotating slowly so that the four trapezes circled the top of the tent, forcing the acrobats to adjust their throws and leaps, for the spot they were aiming for was not where the trapeze was when they first took off. With some more gentle creaking, another object began descending from the ceiling in the middle of the circle: A large metal ring, in which Abigale was lounging, her back resting against the curve, with one leg dangling down. One of the little mechanical birds from earlier perched on her knees and sang, its amplified, tinny voice mixing with the music from the orchestra below. It took off, flying around the tent a bit before landing on Marie's trapeze bar.

The ladies on the edges stopped throwing each other while Abigale repositioned herself in the ring. She dropped her other leg and for a moment just sat, holding nothing, leaning back a bit further than comfortable and swinging her legs in ballerina-like movements so the ring swung a bit with her. A few more more birds flew into the tent and added their voices to the music as Abigale began to climb into the ring, bracing her legs on the inside or wrapping them around the top in a series of gravity-defying poses, her back arched to match the curve of the ring. On the edges of the tent, the ladies started moving again, mimicking Abigale's slower, more stationary moves - Lin slid slowly from her seated position to dangle from the bar by one leg, and Marie hung below her bar by her arms and pulled her legs up into the splits, smiling so as not to betray to the audience how much she truly loathed this part - gracefully holding difficult poses was much less exciting than flying through the air. One of the birds landed on her outstretched leg and she mentally peppered it with profanities.

Abigale continued to manipulate the ring, with more and more impressive maneuvers, until she was hanging from the top by her arms, legs bent above her and back arched in a modified, mid-air version of a yoga pose she'd stolen from one of the contortionists. The ladies on the bars pulled themselves in slow, graceful motions to stand on to of their bars; the birds, who had been flitting around the acrobats, swooped back towards the middle of the ring.

It was a prettily put together pose, accented by a change of lighting and swell of music, and the audience clapped politely, and then were cut off with a gasp as the girls all suddenly dropped in concert; Abigale catching herself with her bent knees on the bottom of the ring, not changing her position at all except to move her arms, and the rest of the girls likewise falling back off their bars to catch themselves with their legs. Hardly a breath later, the mechanical birds exploded abruptly, and the lights darkened so that the audience could clearly see the net below, now apparently quickly catching fire.

In reality, there were two nets: what the audience saw, which was the edges of a net which burned continually through a clever trick of pyrotechnics, and the smaller net hidden below, perfectly safe (or as safe as circus things went) and not at all on fire, but tucked out of audience view. So that when the trapeze machinery began to lower, dropping the swinging and twisting acrobats closer to the flames, the audience began to shift with concern. Marie climbed back up onto her bar and jumped, apparently diving into the flames, only to be snatched out of the air by Lin, who caught her ankles and tossed her back towards the center of the tent, where Abigale, still hanging from the bottom of the ring, caught her by one arm. They held the dramatic pose for a moment - Marie dangling, limbs spread dramatically, above the fire, held precariously by the suspended Abigale. Then Abigale grabbed Marie's other arm and the act continued, with Marie flying first to Lottie while Abigale's ring lowered and she dropped herself in it, holding herself in by her arms and shoulder blades and twisting her legs so that the ring spun. When it was low enough, Marie could fly over top of it to Alisa, who caught her and tossed her - into the middle of the net. She seemed to disappear into the flames, below the wildly spinning Abigale, who was pulling herself back up to sit in the ring. Marie bounced up briefly on the net, reaching an arm out - Abigale leaned precariously forward in the ring, stretching out her hands to catch her, but Marie fell back down, vanishing beneath the stage. Lin went next, swinging back and releasing into an incredible flip with ended with a dive into the net. Lottie followed, and then Alisa. The entire time, Abigale's ring was ascending back towards the ceiling; for a moment, she stood in it, lit by the flame and smoke below, before swinging back down to hang by her knees. The ring dropped suddenly and Abigale tumbled off of it, into the net. Abruptly, the music stopped, and the little flames licking at the edges of the net flared into a column of fire that stretched nearly to the top of the tent, throwing the previously dim corners into yellow light. As quickly as it had come, it vanished; the lights came up again slightly, to reveal that the trapezes and net were gone, and the acrobats nowhere to be seen. Indeed, the circus's rings were entirely empty.

Colette's voice, amplified mechanically, drifted through the tent: "Ladies and gentlemen, we deeply appreciate your patronage this evening. Our talents are our greatest gifts, but sharing them with cities so fine as Orleans is our greatest joy. We look forward to performing here all week; return if you dare, or simply spread the word that the greatest Cirque ever to grace the Western World has come to France--Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages... La Cirque de la Vapeur!"

In a crawl space beneath the stage, stage manager Tom Sry was helping the acrobats wiggle out of the secondary net without being spotted by the crowd leaving the tent above. "Well done ladies, well done," he whispered, ushering them into the performer's area behind the tent. The circus was alive with performers, hugging each other, jostling around looking for clothing and props, breaking into celebratory alcohol while still half in their costumes. "Yes, yes, you all did marvelously," Tom Sry said in his drawling voice, his accent an odd mix of Arabic and Spanish and French. "Be sure to put all the costumes back on their hangers or Alexandra shall turn you into a newt. Lads," he called to some of the stage hands nearby, "see that the nets get packed up properly. Check for weak points, the fire might've caught the edges."

"That could have gone worse," Lottie said cheerfully to no one in particular, straightening her skirt. "We smell repulsive."

"Keep it down, ladies and gents!" Tom Sry called above the din. "The audience is still out there!" But the performers could hear them dispersing, the sound of footsteps on the seats in the big top lessening and the sound of chatter in the space beyond swelling as the audience trickled out into the night.