Maybe Oskar’s gone there. If they let him free and he wandered, he’d have gone to the first village he’d seen. A little spark of hope flickered.

  He crossed a wheel rut in the grass and frowned as he looked down. There were tracks here, and as he glanced left and right, he saw there were the tracks of multiple wagons. The circus had passed through—they had dumped him here as if he meant nothing to them at all, and he supposed that must be true.

  Hugo only hoped Oskar meant just as little.

  Again he shouted his brother’s name, receiving only an echo, his voice driving a conspiracy of ravens from the branches of the nearby trees. He had to get to the village and ask for help. Someone would help him track the circus. The performers would be forced to answer questions, to tell him what had become of Oskar.

  But the stink of blood remained strong in his nostrils and Hugo looked down at his clothing for the first time. His shirt was streaked with dried blood that he hoped had come from the bump on his scalp.

  Again he looked at the steeple down in the valley, imagining the village there. How much time would he lose in his pursuit of Le Circus Furneaux if he lingered? Yet what choice did he have? He had to find a change of clothes, and he had to discover where the circus might be heading next.

  He strode down the hill toward the village, telling himself that Oskar would be all right, that they had run afoul of heartless men, but heartless was better than black-hearted. Oskar, he reassured himself yet again, would be all right.

  The pain throbbing in Hugo’s skull only worsened, but it did not slow him down. His brother needed him.

  5

  Yvette had slept the night in the forest, in the dark space beneath a fallen tree. She had brushed off her clothes and smoothed the wrinkles as best she could, but as she walked through the village that morning she could not help feeling self-conscious, as though everyone must be staring at her. It had been a calculated risk—a girl traveling alone, her bag slung across her shoulder, hair unkempt—but entering the village by daylight would still involve far less risk than walking its streets alone at night.

  A narrow river ran through the center of the village. A row of buildings backed up to the river, beautiful stone structures with shops on the first floor. A tailor, a cobbler, a banking office. At the end of the block was an inn, beside which a bridge spanned the little river. Beyond the bridge she could see the signs for a butcher’s and a wine merchant. Flowers grew in little window boxes of small cottages across the river. A church steeple cast its shadow over the water.

  The church bells rang as Yvette passed the inn. Around the side of the place, an older woman wearing a gray headscarf swept the stone steps. It was quiet, there by the little bridge, with the river rushing past.

  The woman sensed that someone had stopped to watch her, and raised her head. “You want something, girl?”

  “No, Madame. Or, I mean—”

  The sweeping became brisk, irritated. “You do or you don’t.”

  “I do. I’m sorry. My brother performs with Le Circus Furneaux—”

  The woman’s nose wrinkled in disapproval.

  “—and I hoped to find him, and the circus, here. I’d heard they had camped nearby, but I saw no sign of their tents in the hills, nor any glimpse of circus folk in the village thus far.”

  As she swept, the woman turned her back on Yvette. “Go home, girl. Circus is no place for the likes of you. Nor should you be wandering the countryside on your own.”

  “I won’t be on my own if I can find my brother,” she pleaded, hoping that her irritation did not bleed through her words.

  “Go home.”

  “Please, I—”

  The broom stopped its motion with a scratch. The woman sighed and turned to face her. “The circus has moved on from here. Next you’ll ask me where it’s gone and I’ll tell you that I wouldn’t know, as I had nothing to do with those people when they were camped in the hills and I’d like less to do with them now that they’re gone.”

  Yvette stared at the woman, at the broom, at the way she tilted her head, as if she waited for this stranger to depart.

  “Someone must know,” Yvette insisted.

  The broom began its work again. The steps were as clean as weathered stone could be, but still the woman swept its bristles back and forth.

  “The butcher’s boy and his friends were there, of course,” she sneered. “Go and ask him, young Gerhardt. But stay in the doorway.”

  Confused, Yvette stared at her. “What does that mean, ‘stay in—’”

  The woman clucked her tongue, lifted her broom as if she carried some army’s banner, and pulled open the tavern’s side door. As Yvette tried again to speak, the woman vanished within and the door clacked shut.

  She wanted to shout, or to weep, but instead she only sighed and turned toward the butcher’s shop. A breeze carried along the river. She could see the branches of the trees swaying on the other side. A pair of skiffs glided along the water, men fishing from those boats. Behind her, a small boy erupted with laughter, and when Yvette turned she saw a well-dressed man and wife, arm in arm, walking through the town while a pair of dark-haired toddlers gamboled around them, dancing and sometimes falling on the cobblestones.

  A smile touched her lips and Yvette felt immediately better. The sun had warmed her this morning but she had felt so out of place, so unwelcome. Now this little family with the raucous boys made her feel at home.

  Until the mother glanced up and narrowed her eyes, arm tightening so she held her husband a bit more closely. Yvette was perhaps a decade her junior, pretty and wild-looking, unescorted and unknown to any of them. When one of the little boys saw her, he went quiet and glanced at his parents to see how he ought to react to the presence of a stranger.

  Yvette hurried her footsteps and soon found herself at the butcher’s shop. The door hinges squealed as she stepped inside. Behind the counter, a man stood with his head down, busy tying string around a paper-wrapped package of meat. When he glanced up, she saw that he was young, not much older than she, and she knew he must be the butcher’s boy—as the woman at the tavern had called him—rather than the butcher himself.

  She didn’t like the way his gaze traveled over her, lingered, and began its route again.

  “Good morning,” he said, cinching the knot of string around the package. “I’ve never seen you before.”

  “Is...Is your father here?”

  “Only me,” he said. “He won’t be back for another hour or so, but I’m sure I can help you.”

  “You’re...” Yvette frowned, trying to remember the name the tavern woman had mentioned. “Gerhardt?”

  His smile blossomed wider and he stepped out from behind the counter. “That’s right.”

  “I’m told you spent a lot of time at the circus,” Yvette said, wanting the words out quickly now. “My brother performs with them and I hoped to find him, but they’ve moved on. I wondered if you had any idea where they were headed next.”

  “I do!” he said happily. Then he snapped his fingers and turned, gesturing toward a narrow doorway with a bow and a flourish. “In fact, my father’s got a map back here. I can show you precisely where.”

  Yvette’s stomach dropped. She hesitated, feeling the icy certainty in her gut that going through that narrow doorway would be a terrible idea. But perhaps Gerhardt only shared the same salacious eye as so many men, young and old, and would not dishonor his father. Perhaps, she told herself, he was a familiar sort of man, but not the sort she’d heard so much about.

  He had a map.

  “Just the name of the village would be...” she began.

  Gerhardt gave her a queer sort of look, as if bemused by her reluctance, and Yvette exhaled quietly. Harmless, she told herself. He had offered precisely the help she sought, and now she would let an overabundance of caution get in her way?

  “It’s just back here,” he said. “I could...I suppose I could bring it out front if you’d prefer, although we’ll have to spread it out on the floor. But I’m happy to—”

  “No, no. Of course it’s all right. And deeply appreciated.”

  Gerhardt opened the door into the back room. The space had a gray gloom, as if dusk had already visited that part of the shop. She knew he must see the worry on her face, but she started forward regardless, and it was in that moment that she saw the predatory glimmer in his eyes. Even the corners of his mouth turned up, not in a smile but a silent snarl. She imagined Gerhardt as a slavering wolf, and the image froze her, so that she stopped and then began to back away from him.

  “Are you feeling unwell?” he asked, without an iota of sympathy. He started toward her.

  Yvette waved at the otherwise empty shop. “I’m all right. Just need some air, I think. If I could come back later on, perhaps I could see the map, but for the moment—”

  Little shop bells tinkled above the doorway. Relief surged through her and she turned, but instead of the aging couple she’d imagined or a matron with child in tow, the person who stepped into the shop was another young man about Gerhardt’s age, with the straggling overture of a beard and a hat that made him appear to be playing the role of gentleman.

  “Well, what’s this?” the newcomer asked, gaze shifting from Yvette to Gerhardt.

  “The young lady needs our help, Willi,” said the butcher’s boy, his voice full of the darkest insinuations.

  Gerhardt took one more step. Willi grabbed hold of her arm, but Yvette had already made up her mind. She dropped her shoulder and smashed against his chest, knocking him off-balance. Gerhardt shouted and lunged for her, but Willi tried to do the same and the two men collided. She grabbed hold of the door latch and burst out into the street, feeling as if the whole village had suddenly fallen into the same gray gloom as the little room at the back of the butcher’s shop. It remained morning, but without the reassurance that daylight usually offered.

  Yvette spun around, took note of the church steeple now too far off. The butcher’s banged open and both young men emerged, distracted a bit as they decided who would go first.

  From far up the street, a man shouted to Gerhardt and Willi, and Yvette turned to see him striding along the cobblestones. She trusted no one now, least of all anyone who would call these men his friends. She darted off to the left, headed back toward the tavern, thinking she could bang on the door, that the woman there would help her. Clouds hung low overhead but the sun shone through and there were patches of blue. It was an ordinary day, and things like this did not happen on ordinary days in ordinary towns, with people in their homes and shops all about.

  Except that they did.

  God help her, they did.

  Yvette ran toward the tavern, and the men laughed and gave chase, as if they were on a foxhunt. The front door of the tavern opened and yet another man stepped out. Disheveled and grim-eyed, he looked barely old enough to be called a man, but Yvette moved on instinct now, heart pounding in her chest. Driven purely by fear, she thought she truly must know what the fox felt when the hunters gave chase, when the hoof beats of their horses pounded the earth in pursuit.

  She darted left, racing across the bridge that spanned the little river. The disheveled young man spotted her and let out a grunt of surprise. She cast a glance over her shoulder and saw confusion on his face, but then she saw Gerhardt and Willi and their unnamed friend laughing and shoving one another as they raced after her, as though they regarded her as the prize in some contest between them.

  Down on the river, a fisherman called to her. Or to them. Encouraging her to flee or them to catch her, or all of them to calm down and stop frightening the fish.

  “Here, now!” a voice called behind her. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She ran on half a dozen steps before she realized the sounds behind her had changed. The laughter had ceased. She heard a wordless shout and the slap of flesh on flesh, and Yvette stopped and turned to see the disheveled man who’d come from the tavern standing over Gerhardt on the bridge.

  Willi ran at him. The young man tried and failed to dodge the blow, but as Willi’s fist hit his jaw, the young man grappled with him, used their shared momentum to turn and carry them both to the low stone wall of the bridge. He twisted, gave a shove, and Willi went careening over the wall, letting out a shout of alarm and fury before he splashed into the water below.

  The third man, Gerhardt’s unnamed friend, looked at Gerhardt on the ground and then at the newcomer, and he fled back the way he’d come.

  As Yvette strode back toward them, Gerhardt began to rise. On his hands and knees, he looked up at his attacker as if he planned to spring back to his feet and renew the scuffle. Yvette took three long strides and then kicked him in the crotch from behind. She felt his testes mash against the toe of her shoe, and he cried out like a wounded beast and crumpled again, rolling on the bridge with his hands between his legs, all malice forgotten.

  The disheveled young man smiled. “Remind me never to make you angry.”

  Yvette inhaled deeply and crossed her arms, chin up, back straight. “I should think this is reminder enough.”

  He laughed and executed a small bow, not like a gentleman but like someone who’d seen it done plenty of times. “I’ll not soon forget it. Well done, miss.”

  “Yvette Comtois,” she said.

  “And I am Hugo,” he replied.

  “You have my thanks.”

  “You’re quite welcome. I’m only glad I came upon you at the right time. Do you know these men?”

  She pointed at Gerhardt. “This one is the butcher’s son, but I don’t know any of them. I’m a stranger here. I only sought to learn if anyone could tell me where Le Circus Furneaux would be traveling next.”

  Hugo’s face darkened, a veil of sadness falling over him.

  “It seems we share the same goal,” he said. “We have much to discuss, but perhaps not here, where we have both made friends so swiftly.”

  Yvette glanced down at the groaning Gerhardt, saw the fury and humiliation in his eyes, and nodded gently. “Agreed, though I’m not inclined to be very trusting at the moment.”

  “Good. Nor am I.”

  She smiled and fell into step beside him, and the two of them walked the rest of the way across the bridge.

  “In that case, I think we’ll get along just fine.”

  6

  They slept on the ground that night, deep in the woods with only the trees to shelter them from the wind. Hugo had managed to lay hands on a blanket and Yvette had a sweater in her bag, but in the hours before dawn they huddled close for warmth, eyes and hands averted from one another, and not a word exchanged. In the morning, they gathered themselves together as best they could and walked west, the awkward silence between them broken by even more awkward conversation, until at last they began to forget the long night and begin to know each other a little.

  They found the river and followed it, both sure that it would guide them to the next village, and to the village beyond that one, and so it did. Their second night together, they slept in a small stable behind a church whose faithful had neglected the house of God. Hugo whispered as they snuck into the stable that he hoped they were more conscientious about the upkeep of their souls, and Yvette managed a small laugh, the skin around her eyes and lips tightening in secret pain even as she did so.

  She grieved, even as he did. Hugo could see that.

  Late that night, tucked into a bed of hay, not quite so close as they’d been in the forest but perhaps not as far as propriety would suggest, she surprised him by asking about his own pain, and he told her more about Oskar, and that he knew he was responsible, and that he could not live with himself if he did not bring his brother home. He would do anything.

  “I seek my own brother,” she said, though that much he’d already learned. “Without him, I’m lost in the world. Cast adrift, I suppose. I don’t know what will become of me.”

  “That’s both of us,” Hugo assured her. He could never go home and face his mother without Oskar. They shifted a bit closer to one another, nearing but not crossing an invisible line both felt keenly.

  They fell asleep, together in the dark.

  Hugo woke with a gasp, pain searing his left side. His eyes shot open and he inhaled sharply, rolling over just in time for the priest’s second kick to strike him in the gut. He scrambled back, skidded to his knees, spreading hay all over the floor as he held up a hand in defense. No breath would come, and without it he had no words, but by then Yvette had scrambled forward on her knees, her hems around her calves as she held up both hands in supplication.

  “Father, please stop!” she cried. “We meant no harm. We’re on a mission of mercy and we had nowhere to sleep, nowhere to go. It was too late to find a tavern and we have so little money and...please forgive us.”

  The jowly, red-faced priest glowered at her, shot a withering glare at Hugo, and he shifted his weight from foot to foot as his legs itched to engage in further kicking.

  “I’m a man of God,” he said, “but I’m an imperfect soul, just like the two of you. One of my imperfections is that I have no love for heathens who’d slip into church property just for a little rutting. Shame on the both of you!”

  Hugo’s eyes went wide. He saw the blush flowering on Yvette’s cheeks and spoke up quickly.

  “You misunderstand, Father. I’m Hugo, and this is my sister, Yvette.” He had never been a skilled liar, but desperation had abruptly turned him into a master. “Our young brother has gone missing. We believe the boy has run off with the circus, in grief at the loss of our father. All we want is to find him and bring him home with us. Please, sir, we meant no harm.”

  The priest’s red face subsided to pink as he contemplated. He huffed a sigh and stood away from them, splashed with sunlight from a window with a broken shutter.

  “I won’t say I regret kicking you, as I’m not sure I believe a word of what you’ve said, but come inside anyway and get yourselves cleaned up. You stink worse than the horses, and the last of those beauties died when I still had two chins instead of three.”