I can see the man now, mounted on a bay horse and fighting his way through the underbrush to get to us. The girl wraps her arms around her shaking body and starts to cry. She doesn’t even try to run. It’s like she’s got nowhere to run to.
I put my foot into a stirrup and swing up onto Jareth. I reach down my hand for her. “Come on.”
The despair in the girl’s eyes changes to elation. Gasping in relief, she clutches my hand and I pull her up behind me.
The man sees us, and roars and raises his shotgun, but we’re out of range. I watch him for a moment, committing his face to memory. Letting him see me, too, the man who’s taking his daughter.
I want him to see me.
Then I wheel Jareth around. We canter though the woods, my horse finding natural paths through the trees. Friesians were bred to be warhorses, and while they’re big and strong enough to carry
a knight in full armor, they’re also swift and sure-footed.
“I thought you were going to leave me behind,” the girl gasps, wrapping her arms around my waist and holding on. We emerge from the trees onto a laneway, and I turn Jareth southwards and urge him into a gallop.
“What’s your name?” I call over the sound of Jareth’s thundering hooves. That clumsy bastard will still be fighting his way through the bracken.
“Ryah.”
Ryah. What a pretty name. I look down at her small hands encircling my waist.
“What’s your name?” she asks.
“Cale. Cale Hearn of Meriful’s Traveling Circus.” Cale Hearn who’s just snatched a teenage girl right from under her father’s nose. I wonder if this is kidnapping. I wonder if he’ll send the police after me or arrive to take her back himself. He’s welcome to fucking try.
Ryah nestles closer and rests her cheek against my back. “Pleased to meet you, Cale Hearn of Meriful’s Traveling Circus. Thank you for helping me run away.”
I find myself smiling as we thunder down the road. “My pleasure, Ryah.”
Chapter Three
Ryah
After we’ve galloped about three miles, Cale slows his horse to a trot. My arms are locked so tightly around him that I don’t think I can let go. His torso is firm and muscular and he smells like fresh straw and sunshine.
“We’ll be with the circus in about two hours,” he tells me. He’s got a lovely voice, deep and easy with a northern accent, maybe Lancashire or Yorkshire. I feel a buzz of excitement. The wagons I watched so longingly as they trundled past, we’re riding to meet them. I remember what I thought to myself this morning. Those wagons mean freedom. Everything I’ve been craving for so long.
Only, Dandelion isn’t here with me. A pang of loss goes through me and I turn and look over my shoulder. We’re only a few miles from home and yet I don’t recognize anything around me.
“Don’t you need a map?” I ask. “How will we find them?”
Cale nods at the sun, which is high in the sky. “If the sun’s there, and the time is, what, two o’clock?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have a watch.”
“Neither do I. Let’s say it’s two. If two is where the sun is on the clock face, and twelve is there—” he indicates a little left of where the sun is “—then the line that runs between them points north to south.”
I crane my neck around, squinting at the sun and imagining the clock face in my mind. “You get around the country without a watch or a map?”
He shrugs comfortably. “It’s easy enough. There are road signs, and we come more or less the same way every year.”
“How long have you been traveling with the circus?”
“Oh, a dozen seasons. Maybe a bit more.”
“So many! How old are you, thirty-five?” He’s got crinkles by his eyes when he smiles and his face and hands are deeply tanned.
He laughs. “I’ve seen too much sun, then. I’m thirty-one.”