HELL

HELL
SELLY ARQUENE

"There’s new flesh in the lot." I lift my face, seeing Charles standing in the cage, hands on his hips. "Heard about it?"

I nod to him, turning away to grab the empty buckets, my back to him as I walk to get more water for Donzela.

"Why didn’t you tell me?" His voice comes out loud, Charles jumping down from the cage to stare at me.

I fill the buckets at the barrel, turning to Charles and shrugging.

"Damn, I wish I had seen him!" He pulls a chocolate bar from his pants pocket, slowly shaking it to show me. "Look what I found..."

"Where did you find it?" I murmur.

I stop near him and tilt my head, sniffing him, catching the scent of roses that wafts from his clothes.

"Lady," I hiss, reproaching him.

"What? I just went to help fix some things in her trailer." He winks at me, stepping aside to let me pass, thinking he’s fooling me with his nonsense. "Don’t be mad, I brought chocolate for you..."

I shake my head, not wanting to eat chocolate from that woman. Lady is a contortionist who makes men whistle loudly at her every show because of her exaggerated moves. Baba often says she seduces men just to devour them and then discards them when she’s done. That’s none of my business, and I don’t care what she does with her life, but it became worrying when Charles confided he was visiting her bed.

That fact might not be important, and I wouldn’t even worry about Charles, who’s always liked flirting with the girls who come to the circus, if not for one small detail: Belmonte is Lady’s husband.

Baba also says some men prefer to play blind, even though deep down they know the woman they have, and Belmonte is one of those, because he knows the woman he owns but since he never caught her in the act, he doesn’t believe anyone who tells him she cheats. The man swears to high heaven that the day he catches her cheating, he’ll kill her along with the man with her.

And the idiot she’s been with lately is Charles, who has a kind heart but no sense. I’m afraid for him because Charles is my family, had become a part of me from the second we met. From the moment fate crossed our paths, we’ve always looked out for each other.

I don’t want anything bad to happen to him, and I promised not to tell Baba because he knows she’ll rip his ear off, just like Fredo would. Still, I admit sometimes I rethink that promise, thinking it’s better Baba rips his ear off than Belmonte ending his life.

"What’s he like?" Charles stretches out his arm, taking a bucket from my hand as he walks with me toward the cage.

I look at him lost, not understanding, seeing him blink confused as he watches me.

"The man," he says quickly. "What’s he like? You saw him, right..."

"Normal," I answer, lowering my face, remembering how I’d never felt my heart beat so fast as it did the moment I touched the hand of the circus’s new resident.

"That’s all?" He closes his eyes, shaking his head. "Come on, Selly, I need more details! He’s not normal, some say his face is horrible, one side disfigured, that’s why he’s going to stay in the house of horrors..."

"People at the circus talk too much," I whisper, not seeing the stranger as horrible.

Maybe because I don’t care about scars on his face, since I look at the ones on my own skin every day. Nothing could be more horrible than my own body, full of scars on my arms, legs, and belly, looking like I’d been stitched all over.

"And you don’t talk enough." Charles scoffs, shaking his head. "No wonder no one tells you anything..."

I shrug, listening to him laugh and tease me as his shoulder brushes softly against mine. I don’t mind people not talking to me; truth is, I’m thankful for it. I barely talk to anyone, since growing up on the streets, hungry and afraid of everything, the only sounds echoing in my mind were my mother’s, sister’s, and father’s screams. They echoed in my brain so long that all I could do was cry.

I don’t like talking; I get scared and afraid of anyone who comes near me, especially men. Even after leaving the streets, with Charles and me saved by Fredo and Mr. Crow, the young circus owner who died the day we arrived here, I’ve never been able to speak near anyone except Baba.

I don’t remember much about Mr. Crow; honestly, I always avoided looking at anyone, preferring to be as invisible as possible, drawing no attention. Over the years, speaking became irrelevant. I only communicate with Charles and Baba, who was the only person after Charles I wanted to talk to. She’s kind and never forced me to speak; she just said she’d be ready to hear my voice when I was ready to talk, and one day, I did, while helping her organize her wagon.

Back then, she offered me something, and I replied with a “thank you.” It wasn’t a conversation, just a word, but it was spontaneous. I felt safe near her, just like I do with Charles. I remember Baba standing still, her face slowly turning toward me, eyes filling with tears as she walked to me and hugged me.

The last time I’d been hugged with such love was by my mother, and I no longer knew what it meant to be loved maternally. That’s why I cried inside that wagon, my arms wrapped around Baba’s waist. After that, I felt safe with her and started talking to her.

Other circus people aren’t bad, not all of them. Some find me strange, think I have some mental problem because I always seem distant, but I prefer it that way since at least they stop trying to talk to me. I don’t feel safe speaking to others, not even Fredo, who also saved me from the streets.

Amelia, Baba’s daughter, adopted me when I arrived at the circus. She gave me clothes, food, and protected me, just like she did with Charles, but I never managed to talk to her. Maybe Dior, her husband, is what holds me back, since I’m terrified of him.

Just being near him makes me shrink in fear. Dior is an evil, cruel man who makes me cry every time I see animals hurt because of his cruelty, using that damn whip on them. But it’s not just Dior’s cruelty that scares me to the point of tears—it’s the fact that he’s a man. I don’t feel safe around men.

I understand not all men hurt my family, but every time a man approaches me, all I feel is pain, with Maya’s screams falling on the ground, a man on top of her, abusing her, consuming me, just like the screams my mother let out when she was burned.

I’m afraid of them because every time I see men, all I see is the pain and cruelty they caused my mother and sister. I don’t trust men, and the only ones I’m not afraid to be near are Charles and Fredo. Even though I never talked to Fredo, I feel good around him. He protects us, and I see him as a grumpy older brother who looks after us.

"I heard Chester telling Belmonte that the new guy is Fredo’s friend..." Charles pours the bucket into Donzela’s barrel, turning to look at me. "Fredo never told me he had a friend with a deformed face..."

"His face isn’t deformed," I murmur, pouring water into Donzela’s barrel before taking the empty bucket from Charles’s hand.

"How not?!" Charles raises an eyebrow. "Chester even said the man’s face is scarred and looks like he just came out of hell..." Charles falls silent as my eyes drop and focus on my own scars on my wrist.

"Maybe he did come out..." I whisper, head down. "And the scars are just a reminder that he survived hell. But that doesn’t make him horrible, it just shows the fight he faced to live. I have my scars too, and I kn
ow hell better than anyone..."

"I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you."

I lift my head and look at him, seeing Charles smile warmly as he touches my shoulder.
"RETALCHOOO..." Dior shouts, making Charles raise his face and look at something over my head.
"I'm still going to sew that drunk’s mouth shut!" Charles growls, tightening his lips. "I hate that damn nickname he gave him."
"I don’t care." I smile, shaking my head. "After all, that’s what I am. Now, let me go to work, I still need to clean Amelia’s wagon..."
"Come stay with me tonight." Charles takes another step forward, smoothing my shoulder. "You know Fredo will be happy if you stay with us. It’ll be much better than staying with that damn drunk. And if you don’t want to stay with us, you can stay with Baba. She’ll definitely want you living with her..."
"No, I can’t." I shake my head.
I can’t leave, and it’s not because of Dior, but because of Amelia. She’s bedridden, so weak she can barely get out of bed. I’m the one who helps her clean and gives her food, and I know that if I go stay with Charles and Fredo, there won’t be anyone to care for her, because Dior won’t let Baba take her to her wagon and look after her there. Amelia took care of me when I arrived here, adopting me just like she did Charles, giving us food, clothes, and a warm bed to sleep in. It would be ungrateful of me to abandon her in the hands of that cruel man.
"RETALCHOOO! DAMN IT, STUPID GIRL, COME HERE!"
I turn my face at the sound of Dior’s louder screams.
"Go..." I turn back to Charles. "Let me go to work, and be careful, Charles."
I smile, seeing him blink at me as he turns and walks between the cages. I shrug as I turn around, lowering my head, my eyes stopping at my wrist, staring at the scar on my skin. I let out a slow sigh as I walk briskly.
And, without understanding why, I remember the silver eyes that looked almost black as they watched me in the center of the ring. The man had grotesque clown makeup in black and white, making his face look like a skull. I saw pain in his eyes, a pain so great it made me think it was the reflection of my own pain.
I didn’t lie to Charles because I didn’t see any deformity on his face. Even this morning, when Fredo came to introduce me to Mr. Clown, the only thing I saw were his eyes, which looked so clear, almost like silver in a cloudless blue sky. And thinking of him, my cheeks flush, since I’ve never felt anything like what hit me when I stared into his eyes.
Mr. Clown’s black hair is straight, falling a little below his ears. And his serious face, with his square jaw, watching me that morning made my heart race and become restless.
At the same time I was curious, not understanding why looking at him made my cheeks hot, I felt fear. Fear from the way he watched me so intensely, overwhelmingly. Yet it was a different kind of fear, one I had never felt for any other man and didn’t understand.