Arturo’s Abode of Atypical Acts

July 23, 1812

One month after the day France invaded Russia, Gisèle Villiers gazed upon Arturo’s for the first time. Her cramped carriage bobbed and swerved up the steep incline of the bridge, bouncing Gisèle against the walls on occasion. The explosive roar of rushing rapids bludgeoned her ears as she stepped from the cab.

The estate was half castle design, half victorian and was settled precariously on the edge of a cliff, a river running right through the foundation. A few of the corridors and stairwells traveled outside, and she could see people in bright, flamboyant clothing rushing through.  

Doyle, her family’s long time servant, jumped down from his perch by the mules. He straightened stiffly, no doubt feeling the ache of long healed war wounds. “Welcome to Wales, Mademoiselle.” 

She helped him remove her bags, though he waved her away multiple times, insisting he could do it himself.

A rail thin woman wearing a sickening plum color greeted them at the gigantic front door. Though perhaps greeted was too warm a word. “You’re the French girl, are you?” She stared down at Gisèle as if she scented something foul. The way she said girl made Gisèle think she wanted to proclaim her something far less innocuous.

“I am Gisèle Villiers,” she said simply in English heavily burdened with a French tongue. She pretended she had not heard the woman’s tone. She was becoming used to selective deafness.

The unpleasant woman set off into the house, clearing expecting Gisèle to run after her. “You will refer to me as Mistress Blevins or not at all.” She could have kept pace with Blevins without difficulty, but Doyle was not as fortunate.

“You’ll no doubt be wanting an in depth tour, but I’m a busy woman, and I haven’t the time to entertain the French.”

Belvins weaved around statues and suit of armor littered around the mansion. The walls were covered with art: acrobats soaring through the air, burly men throwing knives, clowns with pale and disconcerting faces, and a woman staring mysteriously down at her, tarot cards displayed in her hands.

“Mistress Ble--”

“Yes, what is it?” She finally came to a halt in front a balcony. The wood beneath their feet was damp from the spraying tides, and had quite a bit of sand and seashells encrusted on it.

“I was wondering if we could slow down.” Gisèle didn’t want to miss a moment of this place. She waved back at Doyle, signaling him to begin the long trek home, leaving her to her new home.

“Tired already? What’s your specialty?”

“Acrobatics, Mistress.”

“Ha! You’ll never fly with no stamina. But it is your funeral, child.” Blevins pointed above them at a rope ladder leading up the side of the house. It continued upward for a story or two and then vanished into a man sized hole in the wall. “That is where the young charges stay. You’ll find a boy there who’ll show you around.”

Gisèle was left alone in this strange house with aggressive people and not one person she could rely on. Her loneliness consumed her for a second, and then she shook off her blues. Mother had sent her to start fresh, away from the chaos of Napoleon, doing what she loved most: performing.

 She eyed her heavy bag and the worn rope ladder. She held the luggage in one hand, and the rope in the other, hauling herself up to the cache with quick, money like movements.

The hole in the wall looked as if some ill tempered giant had come along and punched through the drywall. The edges of the crater were uneven and dirty. A thin and shiny material was laid over the opening, probably to keep some measure of the chill and ocean water out.

On the inside, there were a couple of misshapen cots crowded into a corner. A small boned boy no older than her twelve years was in the middle of the room. He stood with his feet shoulder width apart, donning only a loose fitting pair of pants. His bare chest and feet were covered in old bruises and scars.

He turned towards her, and a zing echoed off the walls of the room, followed by a sharp thud beside her head. She glanced at the throwing dagger, plain in its deadliness, embedded in the wall a bare inch from her head.

The boy pointed another one at Gisèle. “That was a warning. I have no need to miss, trespasser.” His English was stiff and awkward, like her own, but flavored with a thick Russian accent.  

“I believe you. Mistress Blevin sent me here to drop off my things and requisition a tour.”

He threw the next knife, this time only a millimeter away from her on the opposite side of her head. Gisèle’s heart stuttered in her chest and her fingers spasmed nervously, but she forced herself to control her facial features, not letting on that she was afraid.

“You are French,” the violent boy said this as he might proclaim that someone was a murderer or rapist.

“For awhile now, yes. Are you going to show me around or attempt to scare me some more?”

A sly smile graced the boy’s face. “I’d be honored to give you a tour.”

She knew then that he planned on doing something terrible to her once they ventured from these quarters. What an unpleasant boy, she thought tiredly.

The estate had over three stories, not including the basement or the attic. Dmitri-- she’d gleaned his name after a few minutes of pestering-- walked quickly for having such short legs. He motioned in the direction of the girls’ bathroom, but said he had no time to show her them. It seemed that everyone in this house was in a hurry.

They walked past intricate statues and glorious indoor gardens filled with strange, exotic plants she’d never laid eyes upon before. There were floors filled with plush carpeting and elite furnishings, while other rooms were as modest as a Monk’s. It was if someone had taken their favorite things from every walk of life imaginable and squished them into this house. The effect was overwhelming.

By the time they got to the bottom floor, Gisèle was trembling with excitement. Finally, she would see what she’d four hundred miles to see. Dimitri smirked at her unrestrained animation but led her towards the “tent” without comment.

He opened a pair of oak doors by a river that appeared to go right through the house. This sight captured her attention for a bare moment, but its chains fell promptly away in the face of the biggest indoor circus in the world.

The room was circular, like the colosseum in Rome, and featured the same dome shaped seating. High above their heads was the trapeze and a myriad of hoops and bars attached to terrifyingly gossamer threads. One woman swung from them now, flipping and twirling midair with flawless beauty. The purple of her costume blending against the indigo of the draping fabric that hung from the ceiling, like the late afternoon sky right before everything became pitch black .

Dmitri noticed the gleam in Giséle’s eyes and said, “They pretend to be birds, like gravity has no hold on them.”

She shook her head, not taking her eyes off the performer. “No, they pretend to be human.”

The woman executed a particularly intricate flip, and her fingers slipped by the neighboring bar by mere millimeters. She seemed to hang there, suspended, for a moment more. Like she was really defying gravity as Dmitri said. Then she fell.

The world seemed to pause in that moment, and she was the only thing moving. She’s really flying, Gisèle thought right before she hit the ground. Then the world exploded into movement. Performers were screaming, running towards the crumpled fledgling. Props were left abandoned on the floor.

Gisèle stood frozen, until Dmitri tugged on her arm, pulling her away from the scene. “Don’t gawk. They’ll need us in the infirmary.”

_____

A few hours later, Mistress Blevin and a lone old man were the only one left at the performers bedside. Gisèle could hardly keep her eyes open, having spent the last few hours running around like a chicken with its head cut off for medical supplies the nurse had needed.

The man laid a wrinkled hand on the woman’s forehead. “Dear Bell.”

Blevin passed the room impatiently. “Artie, there is no time for this! We’ve just lost our star attraction, and the show is tonight!”

“There is always time for compassion, Anna.”

“There are no other acrobats small enough to fit through our flaming hoop,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “It’s the beginning of the season, after all, and some of them have a long way to travel.”

“Perhaps, we should postpone the show.”

“That’s not helpful,” she snapped as if it were a ludicrous notion.

Gisèle, trying to leave the room with Dmitri without attracting attention to their eavesdropping, knocked a vase off the nearby table, sending it crashing to the ground. The pair of adult whipped around like puppets on a string.

“French girl, come here,” Mistress Blevin said.

Certain she was about to get cuffed, Gisèle approached with caution, standing in front of the furious woman with her head tilted down at her shoes. Blevin put her hand on the top of the girl’s head, measuring her height against her own, remembering where Bell hit on her body. It was a perfect match, and she smiled.

“Artie, I’ve found a solution.” The man watched her with wary eyes. “The girl will take Bell’s place tonight in the show.”

“The girl hasn’t had any formal training, Anna. It would be a death sentence,” he said this casually, as someone might discuss the weather over tea.  

“I’ve seen her climb, and her mother said she studied under an acrobat for a few months. She’ll survive it.”

Neither of them glanced  at Gisèle while discussing her future. She stood there, a mix of emotions swirling through her: anxiety, eagerness, and fear. The man was silent, so Blevin went on, “The girl will perform tonight. We have no other options.”

He nodded reluctantly. “The girl will perform tonight.”

_____

As night approached, she was passed around like a favored doll among children. Her makeup was done with a heavy hand so they could see it from the stands. They dressed her in a bright purple costume with feathers on it. Smoothing her fingers over the lush material. she hopped it hadn’t belonged to Bell.

People from all over England, and occasionally farther, piled into the seats. The people from far off lands wore colorful clothes that rivaled the performers’. Londoners were easy to pick out with their pronounced accents and fashionably impractical dress.

One by one the announcer called out the acts: dagger throwing, clowns, and the human spectacles. With each performer’s impeccable performance she became more and more tense on the side lines. By the time it was her turn to emerge with the other acrobats, she was carved of stone.

Gisèle climbed in small, jerky movements to the top of the pedestal.She could feel the weight of every eye in the stadium on her, and she trembled under the pressure. Launching off from the platform, she felt her heart leap into her throat. She gripped the adjacent bar firmly with terrifying damp hands, knowing it was all that stood between her and a fall from grace.

Gisèle used her core muscles to lift her legs above her head while flipping from bar to bar across the perilous, fifty foot drop to the twin pedestal. She landed in a crouched position, then straightened to the roar of the audience's’ second hand exhilaration.

She turned back towards the aerial obstacle field as they raised the flaming hoop. At this distance it appeared to be the size of her fist, impossible to squeeze through. The longer she gazed upon it, the smaller it became. Within seconds it was comparable to a needle head.

The blaze swallowed up the wooden hoop, growing with a ferocity that made the hair on the back of Gisèle’s neck stand up. She couldn’t move. Visions of burns and pulverized bones assaulted her mind.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm the shaking in her body. If she waited any longer the fire would compromise the hoop and she would get burned anyway. She swung into the flaming hoop. The heat brushed against her skin like a lover’s caress instead of the bludgeoning she was expecting. Gisèle landed beside her fellow acrobats, receiving a slap on the back.

“I can fly,” she said, dumbstruck, but her words were stolen by the deafening cacophony of the crowd.