Teeth_ Vampire Tales - Ellen Datlow [31]
Which you can’t as long as you’re looking after me.
So I’m going away. Please don’t look for me. I’m eighteen. I’m in remission, I feel fine, I’ve got a little money to live on until I can find work. The only thing I’m tired of is resting. In a month or so, I’ll let you know how I’m doing. I’m going to call Radek’s cell phone, so you better be on the road.
Lenka
P.S. I know it’s stupid to say don’t worry, but really, you shouldn’t. You taught me how to take care of myself.
P.P.S. I love you.
Lenka knew her parents. No matter what her letter said, they’d look for her, and the first place they’d look was the Cirque des Chauve-souris. She spent a couple of days hiding out, mostly in the Cleveland Art Museum, on the theory that it was the last place on Earth they’d expect her to be.
After the Cirque des Chauve-souris’s last show, she gave herself a quick sponge bath in the museum john and headed downtown.
Lenka had been hoping to slip in under cover of the mob scene that was a circus breaking down. When she found the backyard deserted, she was a little freaked out, but she didn’t let it stop her from slipping through the stage door.
A voice spoke out of the darkness. “We wondered when you’d show up.”
Lenka froze.
“Don’t worry,” the voice said. “We won’t call the police.”
“The police?”
The contortionist stepped into the light. Close up, she looked smaller and paler. “They’ve been here twice, looking for Lenka Kubatov, age eighteen, five foot six, brown-brown, hundred fifteen, kind of fragile looking. That’s you, right?”
Fragile looking? Lenka shrugged. “That’s me.”
“You ran away from home? Why? Do your parents beat you?”
“No,” Lenka said. “My parents are great.”
“Then why . . . ?”
Lenka squared her shoulders. “I want to join the circus. This circus. I want to be a roustabout.”
The contortionist laughed. “That’s a new one,” she said. “Well, you’d better come talk to Battina.”
The ringmistress of the Chauve-souris was helping the strong man unbolt the booth partitions and banquettes from the walls. There wasn’t a roustabout in sight.
“The runaway,” she said when she saw Lenka. “Hector, I need a drink.”
The strong man laughed and slotted the partition into a padded wooden crate. “Later,” he said.
Battina settled herself on a banquette, for all the world as if she hadn’t been lifting part of it a moment before. “You must call your parents,” she said severely.
Lenka shook her head. “I’m eighteen.”
“The police said you are sick.”
“I was sick. I’m better now. I need to live my own life, let them live theirs. They’re flyers. They need to fly.”
“What was wrong with you?” Hector asked.
“Cancer,” Lenka said shortly. “Leukemia.”
Battina and Hector exchanged unreadable looks.
“What do you want?” Battina asked, as if she didn’t much care.
Lenka’s heart beat harder.
“I want to come with you,” she said. “I know I’m not up to performing, but you look like you could use some crew. I can put up rigs, I can clean cages, I can handle props. And I’m good at front-of-house stuff. You don’t even have to pay me—not right away.” She felt her eyes prickle with rising tears. “Without the circus, I’m not really alive. Please. Let me come with you.”
Her voice broke. Disgusted, she fished in her shoulder bag for a Kleenex and blew her nose. “Sorry,” she said hoarsely. “That was unprofessional.”
“That was truth.” Battina tapped her teeth with her thumbnail. “I can’t deny we could use help—someone who understands American chinovniks, who can talk on the telephone, who can make plans.” She cocked a dark eye at Lenka. “Are you such a one?”
“I’ve never done it,” Lenka said truthfully. “But I can try.”
“Our manager we lost in New York,” Battina said. “He left us with big mess—papers, engagements in cities I have never heard of. I am artist, not