Disclaimer: Tom and the world of Harry Potter belong to J. K. Rowling. Cora, Joseph and the Majestic belong to me. No money is being made from this story and no copyright infringements were intended in its creation.

Thanks: Sachita, I am so glad you are enjoying it! It is cathartic, just getting this story into words and out of my head. And it is just icing on the cake that people are actually reading it. Again, if this story is lacking in any area, please leave me a comment.

The Illusionist's Daughter

Chapter Nine

Balancing On The High Wire

London, June 1945

There it all lay, stretched out like a bejeweled robe. The whloe world. Or at least all the world she'd ever known. The Thames sparkled and glittered as it snaked away from the metropolis, all decked out in its evening splendor. Lights shone from nearly every window on this night. A night of joy and celebration. London was a grande dame, the belle of the ball, showing off for the dark countryside around her tonight.

Cora clutched Tom as if her very life depended on it. Indeed, he could not convice her otherwise, no matter how many ways he showed her he would never let her fall. The wind from this high up was a stout gale that buffeted her fine satin evening gown and threatened to pull her from his firm grip around her waist. She was terrified of heights. But the view!

Not even a pigeon had a better vantage point as it wheeled over the dome of St. Paul's. They stood atop the intricate stone work of Big Ben, the stately clock tower. The vibrations as the clock chimed the hour on this momentous night resonated in her bones. Tom had cast a charm protecting them from the the deafening toll of the bells, but she could still feel the rattle in her teeth. Fireworks boomed softly off in the distance.

Tom pulled her closer as she shivered in the night's damp chill. He lowered his lips to her ear and she shivered again. He smiled in satisfaction at her very physical reaction to his closeness. Letting his lips brush her soft skin just below her ear, he breathed in the scent of her. So warm and real.

He wrapped his arms closer around her, feeling the sudden heat of her. Resting his chin on her silky shoulder he looked out over the distance. "This could be all yours someday," he whispered to her. "I could give you the whole world."

The shimmer of the city's lights shone brightly in her dark eyes as she turned to face him. He met her eyes and saw in them the wonder even he felt at his words. Glancing back at the great realm sprawling below, he understood that it all meant absolutely nothing-power, victory over his enemies, over death-if he did not possess her as well.

"Marry me," he asked her with a simplicity that belied the storm raging inside him.

Glasgow, October 1943

The rain spattered the canvass as man and beast struggled to raise the tents in the torrent. Mud churned under hooves as the horses stamped and strained to pull the great pylons to their upright position. Cora tugged the reigns, leading Lightning and urging him on. The men gripped the thick ropes and heaved, fighting agains wind, water and mud. Even Ruby was out in the gale, huffing and swearing at Buttermilk.

Joseph was on the other end of the crew, encouraging Ellie to pull, the great elephant's feet sinking deeper and deeper into the slop beneath them. Joseph pulled along side of the beast, muscles straining as he pulled at his own rope, all the while speaking patient words to her. The elephant slipped and slid back a few paces, catching the eye of the Baron. He was on her in a flash, prodding stick in hand, giving her a mighty slash to the backside.

"Pull, you stupid animal!" he bellowed as the elephant trumpeted in distress. The Baron gave her a few more hard jabs with the metal-tipped prod. Ellie swayed back and forth, sending the huge pylon into a dangerous pedulum swing. The men swore and yelled, a few dropping their ropes to run for cover. Peter, hollering for the men to hold their positions, shouted to this end then that. Soon the pylon was righted and secured. Joseph had dropped his rope and rushed to Ellie's head, soothing her and petting her, speaking soft words of comfort to calm her.

The Baron stalked around to him, squelching in the thick mud. He swung the prod at Joseph, catching him in the shoulder. Joseph could have easily reached out and grabbed the stick before the blow landed, but was wise enough to take the beating. Marco had come up to stand just behind the Baron. Marco was nearly seven feet of pure brute and was very, very loyal.

"Idiot!" the Baron shouted, coming very close. "We could have all been killed!" His face was red with rage. He turned to face the crew, dripping and huffing with exertion. "I should know better," the Baron called as he stalked away from Joseph and Ellie, throwing his hands up in dismissal. "Never trust a foreigner!" This earned a few guffaws from the men, and a number of nasty names aimed cuttingly at Joseph.

When the laughter had died down and the Baron had found someone else to bully, Peter barked out further orders for the crew. Cora handed off the reigns that hung limply in her hands to Darla and headed toward the boy and the elephant. A slick hand on her arm stopped her. She looked up into the stern face of her father, his dark hair dripping in his face.

"Leave it be," he cautioned her quietly.

She shook of his hand, but did not take another step. Turning to other tasks, Cora set her mind to finding her friend later. With an uneasy, sinking feeling she watched as Joseph labored on, eyes on the ground and everyone keeping their distance from him as if he had some disease that they could catch. It made her angry and sad. And ashamed. She too was keeping her distance.

When the big top had finally been raised and the storm had blown itself out, she trudged wearily back to her boxcar alone. Dripping and shivering, she tugged the sodden scarf from her slick, wet hair and hung it over the back of a rickety chair. Impatient to get cleaned up and find Joseph, she carelessly tugged a towel off of a shelf over her father's cot. The towel caught on a corner of an old cigar box, upending it on the threadbare blanket of the cot.

Cora blew out a sigh. The contents were scattered over the bed and the floor. She bent to pick them up. Letters, she noted. Though she hadn't even been reading for more than a month, she knew enough to pick out some words. These letters were from her mother. A huge lump stuck in her throat. She tucked those letters back into the box. Thinking of her mother was too painful and she had almost forgiven her for sending her off and then checking out of this world. More words, she doubted, wouldn't help to heal the wound. She had no desire to resurrect ghosts tonight.

There was another stack of letters all tied together with string that, curiously, tickled a memory. An owl delivering a letter. A letter to her. She tore the first letter off of the stack and read as much as she could. A school had wanted her. Tom's school, she guessed. Anger burned up any other feeling the letters stirred in her. He had lied to her. Her own father had lied to her!

Cora balled the letter and stuffed it into the pocket of her soaked overalls and stalked out the door. Her feet took her in the direction of the big top, the flags blowing happily in a gentle evening wind. The air was still thick with the rain of earlier and the mud still stuck to her boots, but there was a calmness to the scene now.

The giant striped hull of the tent was empty, she could tell before she took more than six steps. She turned in the other direction. If the work was done, they would all be drinking and celebrating. And where there was gin and cards, there she would find him.

She threw aside the flaps of the dirty canvas mess tent and the warm gaslight caused her to blink a few times, eyes adjusting from the dark of the night. The noise was defening and on any other night she would have found it cheery and pleasant after such a hard day of work. Peter, the gruff foreman, was singing a bawdy limmerick while Roger, the wizened old quartermaster of sorts and one of the first circus faces she'd seen the day she arrived, scratched away on his violin. Fat Mag was doing a raunchy jig with Phillipe, the tattooed man, and Darla and Daisy were twirling around like dirvishes. Everyone was having a good time.

"Cora," Daisy called as she danced with her sister. "Come and join us, darling!" They laughed their tinkling laughs. She smiled but shook her head.

Frank was sitting at the card table, shirtsleeves rolled up and all his wages from the week on the table. He was frowning into his hand and shuffling cards around.

"We're not getting any younger, you know," Tim harangued. 'Tiny' Tim was the only clown left. Only three feet high, he had a knack for training dogs to do just about anything. His scruffy mutt, Bob, could smoke a pipe while wearing a monocle and top hat. Bob could play a little toy piano. And Bob scared the bejesus out of Marco, probably the only reason Tim had lasted so long. "Call it, or fold, you cheep bastard!" he called gruffly to Frank, biting the end of a cigar stub.

Frank pressed his lips together hard before throwing his cards on the table. "Aw, take it!" he groused, upending his tumbler of gin down his throat. He shoved back from the table, preparing to leave the game. Cora stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Was that all of it?" she asked, disbelieving. It looked like a lot of money on the table. Their money.

Scowling, Frank shoved her hand aside. "I don't see how it's any of your business." He grabbed his coat off the chair and shoved in his arms, damp shirtsleeves still rolled up to his elbows. He was about to run away to the pub, maybe sell a few illusions for a pint or two, depending on the suckers in the bar.

Cora threw the letter on the table. "This is my business!" she yelled, feeling the irreverent thrill of it. She never raised her voice to her father.

Frank froze, arm halfway through his last sleeve. "Where did you get that?" he asked, his voice dangerous and low. The crew and performers had stopped their revelry and watched father and daughter as they squared off.

"You know where," she spat. "Why would you do something so, so... mean!"

He looked at her with forced patience. "I was protecting you." He tried to sound fatherly, but he had little practice.

"Protecting yourself, is more like it." Cora fisted her hands on her hips. "You don't care about anyone else."

Frank pulled himself up to his full height. "How dare you!" Red faced, he raged at her. "I gave you everything! You would be nothing without me! Nothing!"

"No!" she challenged. Stepping closer, she matched him for all his indignant anger. "You," she shouted. "It is you who would be nothing without me!"

He raised a hand and slapped her hard across the face. Peter grabbed his hand as he swung back again. "Hey now," Peter called to Frank, his words gentle but his hand firm around his wrist. "Easy. No call for that, now."

Frank swayed a bit in the bigger man's grasp. "Ungrateful brat," he slurred.

Cora pressed her small hand over the spot where her father hit her. She tasted the coppery taste of blood. Through the sting of tears, she only saw red. Daisy and Darla rushed over to her and petted and stroked her, glaring at Frank in a show of solidarity. Cora pushed aside their hands. "I hate you," she hissed at her father and shoved her way out of the tent.

The hot tears overflowed and slid down her stinging cheek. That bastard, that bastard! was all she heard in her skull. He had stolen a whole life from her. But what hurt the most was that he had taken her choice. Her freedom. There was a time when she would have gladly stayed. She'd once loved the circus, called it home. And she had loved her father. Thought that, in his rough way, he loved her as well. As she walked toward the night-shrouded big top, she couldn't help but see the jolly red and white stripes as prison bars, holding her in. Keeping her hostage.

Flinging aside the closed flaps, she entered the cavernous space of the huge circus arena. Her boots squished down into the mud that still covered the ground. Running a hand over her eyes to rid herself of the bitter tears, she blinked into the dim light of the space. A few gas lanterns were hung here and there, mostly above her high up in the rigging, giving off a faint and flickering golden glow like an old moving picture. She looked up.

Climbing like a spider over a web, a lone figure still worked in the tent, checking the knots and connections of the trapeze rigging and the high wire. She watched the man from her hidden spot in the shadows as he nimbly swung across the space, so high above the ground. He flipped up and down over the swing, every now and again pausing to adjust it. Then he swung far out and, coming back, landed lightly on the platform. He untied a knot and tied it back again more securely. Then he dropped down to the high wire. He caught the wire and, balancing easily, he knelt to inspect some element where it attatched to the support.

Cora let out a gasp, then clapped a hand over her mouth. Still the sound was defening in the big empty space. She couldn't help it, though. He had yet to string the safety net.

The man's head snapped up sharply at the sound, but he did not otherwise move from his crouched position. "Hello," Joseph called to her unenthusiastically before bending to his work again.

"Hello," she answered. Shuffling her feet in the mud, she looked away feeling like an intruder. "I didn't realize anyone was still in here." Her words were so weak in her own ears, she couldn't imagine that he understood her from so far away.

He shrugged, his hands busy with something unseen. "Still work to be done." He didn't look up at her as he spoke.

"How's Ellie?" she asked, then regretted it the moment she saw him stiffen.

"Fine," he answered her and began climbing back up a wobbly rope ladder to the platform above.

She pushed her hands into her still damp pockets, taking a few steps forward. "Joseph, I..." she began.

"It's fine," he interrupted sharply.

She was surprised by how much his words stung. She'd never had a harsh word from him before. And she found that it hurt worse than the slap Frank had given her.

Pulling up easily on the platform, she saw his muscular arms flex, but the movement looked effortless. He was surprisingly graceful. "It's fine," he said again, more gently this time. "Forget it."

Her face pulled down into a frown and she strode forward, looking up at him fully. "It's not fair."

Looking down at her, he stared back for a good long moment. She couldn't read the war of feelings she saw there. It was too much. "No," he said finally with a bitter sadness to his words. "Not much in life is."

Taking the bar in his hands again, he swung out over the impossible emptiness. Her belly did a little flip flop as she watched him let go, reverse directions and catch the bar easily again. He began training with the twins almost from the day he'd arrived, even performing a couple of times when Daisy or Darla had not been well enough for the daring acts. She'd always chalked it up to the fact that he seemed to be naturally good at climbing and not a bit afraid of heights. The truth of the matter was, Joseph had to work twice as hard and take on twice as much as any other member of the circus. He never complained. Never.

She left Joseph to his work and headed back into the night. Walking sulkily back to her boxcar, she couldn't shake the sharp sting of injustice. If Joseph could bear it with quiet dignity, then he was the better man for it. She, however, could not. That night she packed up all her meager belongings and moved into the car Daisy, Darla and Fat Mag shared. She would not forgive what her father had done.

She felt the heady rush, like what she imagined she would feel standing on the high wire. The balance of her life had shifted. From what she understood, she had two options: she could take control of her life. Or fall.