I missed his touch and his voice.
I missed him.
But could I trust him? Could I trust anyone in here?
With a long sigh, I moved my gaze to Amira, who had made herself comfortable on a pile of some bags in the corner and already seemed fast asleep. Oddly, she had found a pillow and a blanket for Radax yet slept without either for herself.
In her impeccable obedience to Madame’s orders, she’d never once come close enough to Radax to touch him. However, she didn’t leave for the night, crashing near him instead.
One thing happened today, among many others—Amira spoke to me. We both saw the punishment Madame shelled out for speaking around here. Yet Amira, as timid and terrified of her own shadow as she appeared to be all the time, spoke a few full sentences to me, without being forced to do so.
Chapter 15
AFTER THE NIGHT OF Radax’s punishment, my presence in the menagerie was no longer questioned or concealed. Madame had decided to keep me alive, at least for now.
I wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or worried about that, as she did not appear to do anything simply out of the goodness of her heart. She must be intending to make me “useful,” and it worried me in what ways.
I was still kept in the same cage. Except that no one bothered covering it anymore while we were at the fair.
I tried to talk to Amira a few more times during the several days of travel but to no avail.
Speaking to me that night must have been the result of the emotional stress after having to watch Radax being whipped. Maybe she felt a little grateful to me for tending to his wounds, enough to forget about Madame’s orders of silence for that one moment.
The morning after his whipping, Radax’s wounds miraculously turned to scars that normally would take weeks to form. And Amira returned to her usual silent shadow of a person.
When the time came for Madame’s show to change locations, my cage was transported along with the animals, in a separate truck from Zeph, this time.
The disappointment when I discovered we had been separated for the trip was unsettling. I needed to feel that warm comfort and support from him, even if it might be fake. Without his tank in the truck, I felt the loneliness even more acutely.
According to my calculations, it was already October. We must be traveling north this time, as the weather was turning cooler, especially at night. I hoped we were heading back to Canada where I could possibly try to sneak out somehow.
“Where is Zeph?” I asked Amira at the first stop when she brought me my sandwich for lunch. “Is he coming with us?” The idea that he might be left behind for any reason increased my worry.
She silently placed the food and water inside the cage, then left without making eye contact.
One morning, she brought me a large black hoodie, identical to the one she always wore. She then took the rest of my clothes away, letting me know through gestures only that she would get them washed for me.
She brought them all back, along with my dinner when we stopped at night. Trez and Ulg came with her to escort me to the bathroom.
Stirring the porridge in my bowl back in my cage afterwards, I noticed a spark of pink shimmer in one spot. After a closer inspection, I realized that the food had a slightly different odor to it. The change was so subtle, I would have hardly noticed it at all had I been new to Madame’s menagerie. After the weeks spent here, however, I had seen enough to be suspicious.
Whatever was happening around here, a lot of it had to do with the things people inhaled or ingested, I’d learned.
The smoke that constantly filled the tents. I was still unsure about its purpose, but I believed there definitely must be one. No one bothered to air it out. On the contrary, in addition to the many incense burners placed all over the place, Madame also smoked incessantly, surrounding herself with a thick shimmering cloud at all times and adding it to every room she entered.
I wondered how the VIP clients would see nothing wrong with Madame keeping a man in a water tank. Back at the CNE, they ogled Zeph as an oddity, but no one questioned the legality of him being there in the first place or the Madame’s claim that he