Chapter 1
Anne and WD had been rehearsing their new routine for the past two hours, twirling elegantly through the air. The show tomorrow was supposed to be the first time this particular routine was going to be shown and everyone was in awe at the new stunts the two aerials had come up with. WD gripped Anne's hands for one last swing, and both of them twirled to the floor in a perfect back flip. As soon as Anne's feet touched the ground, she slightly stumbled to the side, catching herself at the last moment. Nobody else had notices the slight misstep, but WD pulled his eyebrows into his distinctive frown that he reserved for the times he was worried about his sister. He quickly made his way over to Anne, who was now smiling and deeply involved in a conversation with Lettie.
"Anne, let's practice that landing again. You stumbled. I don't want you to miss the steps tomorrow and fall."
His sister sighed deeply "I didn't stumble, WD. The ground was just uneven. It won't happen again. Come on… we have been practising for the past two hours. We should take a break. You'll see, we'll be fine tomorrow." With that she gave her brother a look that dared him to disagree and started walking away.
"Fine! We'll have a break. But we will run through it a last time this afternoon!" he yelled after her.
Anne shrugged her shoulders and gave her brother a teasing smile over her shoulder, walking out of the ring. WD sighed… his sister was just too stubborn sometimes. Though, he had to admit that he was looking forward to taking a break and watch the other performers practise their routines. While watching his friends perform, he had a nagging feeling that something was going to go wrong that day. He just couldn't quite put his finger on it. His mind was racing to find anything that had been different that day. The only thing he could think of was that Anne had looked a bit tired, but that wasn't all too unusual with their packed schedule. He would just have to keep an extra eye out for anything unusual and hope that everything would be ok.
Anne walked towards the dressing rooms, running a hand over her face. She had woken up particularly tired that morning and had a slight headache that was not feeling like anything serious, but was yet very annoyingly at the back of her mind. She had been fine during practise but was feeling exhausted now that her body had slowed down. The young woman was longing for a relaxing bath and an early night but, seeing that it was only 11 o'clock in the morning and WD wanted to do another practise run in the afternoon, settled for splashing some water onto her face and catching some fresh air before lunch. 'I'm fine… I'll rest as soon as we finish practise this afternoon' she told herself, walking past the animal tents.
She hoped that the headache was going to go away very soon, and was not going to escalate into anything more serious. She had not yet told any of her friends about her health problems that had started after an accident when she was a child. She had only known everyone for about a year and it had just not come up yet. WD knew, but none of the siblings had found the opportunity to raise the topic with Barnum, Philip or any of their friends. They had talked about it and both decided to leave the rest of their family in the unknown a little longer, worrying that if they did tell everyone the truth Barnum would not let Anne perform anymore.
Is Anne sick? What will happen? Next chapter will be up soon. To be continued…