fashioned of shining golden bars was winched smoothly into the spotlight. Three girls appeared, dressed in silk kimonos painted with bats: the Asian girl, the dark-haired contortionist, and finally, finally, Lenka, almost unrecognizable in a Dutch-boy bob, heavy eye shadow, and circles of rouge on her cheekbones.
The girls backflipped down the ramp, shedding their kimonos, posed a moment under the cube to show off their coy ribboned bloomers and white silk corsets. Lenka stepped lightly onto her partners’ linked hands and vaulted into the cube as if she were flying, then caught the Asian girl, creating a human chain up which the contortionist swarmed.
It was a breathtaking act. The three girls wound through all the cube’s dimensions, hanging from its bars and one another, folding and unfolding their bodies through a complex geometry. Their last trick was a subtle slip-off, Lenka seeming to slide through the contortionist’s hands headfirst in an uncontrolled fall. The audience gasped. Even Lenka’s mother, who knew how the trick was done, covered her mouth with her hands, then laughed with relief when the contortionist caught Lenka and swung her, impossibly, up and out and back into the cube again, where she seemed to float for a heartbeat in midair, hovering, trapped, like a white bird in a glittering cage.
The show was over. The audience had departed, drunk on alcohol and circus magic. Lenka’s parents sat in their booth behind their empty glasses and waited for their daughter to come to them.
“I’m not going to cry,” Mama announced.
“There is no reason for crying,” Papa agreed.
Lenka appeared on the other side of the table. She’d changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, but her face was still masked with the garish doll paint.
“Mama,” she said. “Papa. I’m glad you came.”
She sounded less glad than polite. Her father hesitated a moment, then slid out of the booth and hugged her hugely. “Princess mine,” he said. “
Lenka looked at him gravely. “I can’t, Papa. I’m sorry. I’m on a special diet — it wouldn’t be any fun for any of us.”
Mama joined them. She opened her mouth to scold, to question, her arms half raised to gather her daughter to her. But when Lenka turned to her, smoke eyed, solemn, self-contained, she dropped her arms and said crossly, “We were
“I know, Mama. I’m sorry.”
“And your health?”
A smile flitted over the painted lips. “I’m stronger than I’ve ever been.”
“And happy?” Papa asked.
“Yes,” she said evenly. “Very happy.”
A calico cat leapt up onto the table and meowed.
“I’m sorry,” Lenka repeated.
Her mother nodded once, shortly. “You have duties. Go. We will come again tomorrow.”
“It’s the same show,” Lenka said.
“Even so,” her father said.
The calico meowed again, flowed through the air to her shoulder, and settled around her neck like a furry scarf. Girl and cat looked at the Kubatovs, amber eyes and dark equally calm and disinterested. Then Lenka smiled, a bright performer’s smile, turned, walked through the stage curtain, and was gone.
Vampire Weather
by GARTH NIX
“You be home by five, Amos,” said his mother. “I saw Theodore on my way back, and he says it’s going to be vampire weather.”
Amos nodded and fingered the chain of crosses he wore around his neck. Eleven small silver-washed iron crosses, spread two finger widths apart on a leather thong, so they went all the way around. His great-uncle told him once that they’d used to only wear crosses at the front, till a vampire took to biting the backs of people’s necks, like a dog worrying at a rat.
He took his hat from the stand near the door. It was made of heavy black felt, and the rim was wound with silver thread. He looked at his coat and thought about not wearing it, because the day was still warm, even if Theodore said there was going to be a fog later, and Theodore always knew.
“And wear your bracers and coat!” shouted his mother from the kitchen, even though she couldn’t see him.
Amos sighed and slipped on the heavy leather wrist bracers, pulling the straps tight with his teeth. Then he put on his coat. It was even heavier than it looked, because there were silver dollars sewn into the cuffs and shoulders. It was all right in winter, but any other time all that weight of wool and silver was just too hot.
Amos had never even seen a vampire. But he knew they were out there. His own father had narrowly escaped one, before Amos was born. His great-uncle Old Franz had a terrible tangle of white scars across his hand, the mark of the burning pitch that he had desperately flung at a vampire in a vain attempt to save his first wife and oldest daughter.
The minister often spoke of the dangers of vampires, as well as the more insidious spiritual threat of things like the internet, television, and any books that weren’t on the approved list. Apart from the vampires, Amos was quite interested in seeing the dangers the minister talked about, but he didn’t suppose he ever would. Even when he finished school next year, his life wouldn’t change much. He’d just spend more time helping out at the sawmill, though there would also be the prospect of building his own house and taking a wife. He hoped his wife would come from some other community of the faith. He didn’t like the idea of marrying one of the half dozen girls he’d grown up with. But, as with everything, his parents would choose for him, in consultation with the minister and the elders of the chapel.
Amos felt the heat as he stepped off the porch and into the sun. But as he looked up the mountainside, a great white, wet cloud was already beginning to descend. Theodore was right, as usual. Within an hour the village would be blanketed in fog.
But an hour left Amos plenty of time to complete his task. He set off down the road, tipping his hat to Young Franz, who was fixing the shingles on his father’s roof.
“Off to the mailbox?” called out Young Franz, pausing in his hammer strokes, speaking with the ease of long practice past the three nails he held in the corner of his mouth.
“Yes, brother,” answered Amos. Of course he was — it was one of his duties, and he did it every day at almost the same time.
“Get back before the fog closes in,” warned Young Franz. “Theodore says it’s — ”
“Vampire weather,” interrupted Amos. He regretted doing so immediately, even before Young Franz paused and deliberately took the nails out of his mouth and set down his hammer.
“I’m sorry, brother,” blurted out Amos. “Please forgive my incivility.”
Young Franz, who was not only twice as old as Amos but close to twice as heavy, and all of it muscle, looked down at the young man and nodded slowly.
“You be careful, Amos. You sass me again and I’ll birch your backside from here to the hall, with everyone looking on.”
“Yes, brother, I apologize,” said Amos. He kept his head down and eyes downcast. What had he been thinking, to interrupt the toughest and most short-tempered brother in the village?
“Get on with you then,” instructed Young Franz. He kept his eye on Amos but picked up the nails and put them back in his mouth. Every second nail had a silver washer, to stop a vampire breaking in through the roof, just as every chimney was meshed with silver-washed steel.
Amos nodded with relief and started back down the road, faster now. The fog was closer, one arm of it already extending down the ridge, stretching out to curl back around toward the village like it usually did, to
