Circus of Death - Candace Wondrak Page 0,43

her too much, acting as if her glaring meant nothing to me. And it didn’t. I wasn’t happy with her, and I would remind her as much as it took: she was mine. She belonged to this place now. Whoever she thought she was, whoever she was trying to be, it was all useless.

“Now, Dollie here has a remarkable talent,” I went on, stopping as I stood beside her. “She isn’t like you and me, you see. Her body is a bit different.” I made it out like I was going to continue, to try to explain to the audience just how Thana was different, but I pretended to catch myself, saying, “No, you know what? Instead of me trying to explain it to you, why don’t I simply show you, hmm?”

Reaching for Thana’s hand, my gloved fingers glided over her knuckles. Her eyes met with mine, and I knew what was probably running through her head. I didn’t stop, though, for how could I? Once you started something, you finished it. You never took anything back.

My fingers curled around her wrist, and with a yank of mine, I pulled her hand clean off, much to the amazement of everyone in the audience. A few shocked gasps rang out, mostly from the children. Now they paid attention, finally, after figuring out their phones didn’t work too well here.

There was no blood. It wasn’t as if I separated a limb from her, even though I did technically take off her hand. Right now, Thana was Dollie, the living, breathing doll of this circus. Quite fitting, I think, what her talent turned out to be.

She could not sing, she could not fling herself around a flaming hoop or walk a tightrope. The only thing Thana could do was be what everyone else wanted her to be. I did not choose this fate for her, but I rather enjoyed the way her eyes widened a bit as I held onto her separated hand and waved it at the audience.

The children were rapt, but the parents? They probably thought she was an amputee or something, that we had her painted up to look whole. It would take a few more demonstrations for the adults in the crowd to believe the wonders of this circus, to amaze them just as much as their children.

Grinning at the audience, I said, “Now, I know what some of you are thinking, but let me assure you, this is very much still Dollie’s hand.” No one said a thing, no one in the audience moved. “Don’t believe me?” I glanced toward Thana, saying, “Would you wiggle your fingers, my dear?”

Thana wiggled the ones on her other hand, the one still attached.

“Not those fingers,” I replied, and a few of the audience members chuckled. “These.” I waved the hand I held onto, holding it out to the crowd mere seconds before the fingers on it wiggled in turn.

That earned a few risen eyebrows and impressed looks from a number of the adults. Still, I knew it would take more.

I handed Thana her hand, which she took and reattached with a smile on her face. I let her make a big show of moving that arm, the hand, even the wrist. She made sure to let the audience know she had full control of the entire limb, although the skeptics would still say someone was behind the scenes, that perhaps it was a motorized limb, so I took something a little bigger off the next time.

Her entire left arm.

Thana made a big show about acting shocked that I would dare take her arm, but she never lost the smile on her face. Such a good girl she could be, when she was on the stage, putting on a show. Of course, she had no choice in the matter. It was put on a show or…

Or nothing, really. There were no other options here. There was no put on a show or die, because she was already dead. There were some choices that simply didn’t exist, no and, or to choose from.

We went on like this for a while. I eventually reattached her arm, moving to her other side. I mentioned how clumsy she was, and with a smile, she tripped on nothing on the stage, and one of her feet popped right off, causing a few of the children to laugh. Meanwhile, the parents were starting to see that this wasn’t your normal act. They were too weak-willed to believe anything