The first merman hoisted himself out of the water. Seaweed dripped from his arms, and his tail split into two legs. On scaly feet, he jogged toward us. Behind him, others pulled themselves out of the water.
Hand in hand, we ran around the fence and back to the silver mirror. They ran after us. We heard their footsteps sloshing on the sidewalk. But we were faster. We plunged into the silver … and found the carnival.
Banners and flags were strung between brightly painted poles. An elaborate archway marked the entrance. It was carved to look like clowns dancing, but the paint was chipped and peeling, so only the clowns’ eyes were left in bright blue and green.
On the archway, a sign proclaimed, BE AMAZED AND ASTOUNDED BY THE FINEST FEATS OF MAGIC, STRENGTH, AND WONDERMENT FROM SEVENTY-SEVEN WORLDS! The banner fluttered in the wind and then hung limp and twisted.
“I think I’m home.” The words tasted like cardboard in my mouth, and I had the nearly overwhelming urge to dive back into the mirror.
Beside me, Zach squeezed my hand. “Remember the plan? Kiss me?”
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I kissed him as if I were drinking him in. I tasted his breath in mine, and I gave him my magic in return.
Stepping away, I took a deep, shaky breath of air that tasted like stale cotton candy, and we walked up the hill toward the entrance. I’d been on this hill before. The antlered girl had run over it to visit the carnival.
Beyond the banner, the carousel turned slowly, the hundred bits of mirror in its top flashing in the sun. Music drifted down the hill, a complex melody of flute and fiddle that twisted and wove in on itself.
A woman was perched on top of the closest tent. She wore a billowing red dress and a hat with multiple feathers. She blew into a silent brass horn, and clouds shaped like horses, dragons, and rabbits ran, flew, and crawled from the mouth of the instrument. The clouds drifted across a bleached-blue sky and then dissipated. On the ground, a few kids ate cotton candy and watched. I remembered watching those clouds.
“Should we disguise ourselves?” Zach asked.
“I am disguised. That’s what the surgery was for.”
He stared at me. “What did you look like before?”
“I don’t know.”
“Huh.”
“Do you mind? Not knowing?”
He considered the question for a moment, and I waited. “No. But then, I liked you as a dragonfly too.”
Despite where we were and what we were about to do, I smiled.
We passed through the archway and entered the carnival. There were seven tents with a ring of wagons beyond them. Game booths were to our left. An outdoor stage was to our right. On the stage, the contortionists were performing.
One of the female contortionists bent backward and placed both hands on her ankles. Another stepped onto the first woman’s raised stomach and lifted her own leg over her head and wrapped it around her neck. One of the men then stood on his hands in front of them and wrapped his feet around the second woman’s neck.
Her head snapped off from her neck. She caught it in one hand and rolled it up her arm and then down her other arm. She then continued to stretch her leg around her body until it popped out of its socket and detached.
The other performers then silently removed their heads and rolled them up and down their arms. They traded heads once, twice, three times, and then they rolled the heads back to the necks of their original owners. The heads fused seamlessly back onto their necks.
Behind me, I heard Zach make a retching noise, and I turned to see him bent over a trash can. He raised his head and wiped his mouth. “Sorry,” he said. The crowd applauded as the contortionists bowed, and I led Zach away from the stage.
We stopped at a water fountain, and Zach rinsed his mouth and splashed water on his face and neck. The water sparkled as if flecks of jewels had been mixed in it. When he finished, the fountain rose up on four legs and scuttled away.
“Now what?” Zach asked.
“Our wagon should be in the back corner.” I pointed in a direction blocked by a tent … a tent of tattered red. I slowly lowered my arm.
That was it, the tent.
I took a step backward.
“You can do this,” Zach said. “That is, if you want to do this. If you don’t want to, I’m with you too.” His eyes widened, bug-like. “Is that a mermaid?”
In a rusty tank, a mermaid swam in lackluster circles. Her pale-orange tail flopped against the glass walls. Algae had grown on the glass, and the water was so murky that when she swam away, she vanished into mist. Circling, she suddenly appeared again, distorted and blurry, against the front glass. She was an older mermaid with thin seaweed-green hair, wrinkled skin, and sagging breasts. Her eyes were bloodshot red. As she circled through her tank, her eyes fixed on me. My skin prickled as she vanished and reappeared, each time looking directly at me. I looked away, wondering if the mermaid would remember that the girl from the Magician’s wagon had green eyes.
A line of boys and girls waited at the game booth to chuck balls at the algae-coated plastic treasure chest at the bottom of her tank. She caught the balls without altering her lazy circles and without looking at anyone but me.
I didn’t know her name. Maybe I never knew it. I remembered she’d tried to leave the carnival once. She’d returned when she’d learned her family had died.
Tugging on Zach’s sleeve, I led him away. His neck swiveled as he tried to look everywhere at once. In one tent, the wild boys were conducting their show. Riderless motorcycles shook the canvas walls as they roared past, racing upside down onto the ceiling. Six boys in loincloths and war paint chased after them with whips and nets, herding the cycles into more and more elaborate tricks. In another tent, an eyeless woman guided her audience into a dreamstate. She’d let them talk to their lost loved ones while she emptied their wallets. I’d never seen her perform, but I’d heard the Magician and the Storyteller say once that no one ever objected. As we passed by, I saw that her patrons were all levitating prone in the air. She walked beneath them in a tattered shawl and a dozen crystal necklaces.
Soon, the Magician’s tent was directly in front of us. A gold sash tied the curtain doorway open, but it only revealed dark shadows. I knew candles lit the foot of the stage, but from here, I only saw the silhouette of the back of the audience—the backs of heads and the curve of empty chairs. I half wanted to step inside, to see how closely it matched my visions, and I half wanted to run as fast and far away as I could.
Zach held my hand as we passed by the tent, close enough that I could hear the applause from the audience inside. The Magician was performing. I stepped softly, as if he could hear me, as if he had any way to know I was here. I clung to Zach’s hand as if it were a lifeline, as if he were a rope that could pull me out of a hole if I needed him to.
As I circled the tent, I saw the wagon.
Carved from wood, the wagon was as ornate and colorful as a gingerbread house. The walls were covered in swirls and curls, painted green with gold trim. The window shutters, all sealed closed, were blue. The wheels were gold with metal leaves and vines. Cherry-red steps led to the round door, and talismans of feathers and bones hung on it. A lantern was beside the door, lit with the broken wings of a will-o’-the-wisp.
It looked exactly like I remembered.
The Storyteller should be here. She used to sit on a woven blanket beside a table covered in a velvet cloth. Tarot cards would lie on the table, spread facedown, waiting for a customer. Silk pillows with tassels would be strewn on the grass around the table for listeners to sit on, and a tip jar would be on the corner of a blanket. But she wasn’t—and the Magician was performing. It was the perfect opportunity.
Slowly, I walked up the cherry-red steps. I reached forward to open the door. The handle rattled in my hands—or maybe my hands were shaking. The door didn’t open.
Leaning toward me, Zach breathed in more magic, refreshing his supply, which had most likely faded by now. “We could walk through …”
