Inside the tent, the acrobats were performing. Rings dangled from the rafters of the tent, and three men and two women dangled from them by one hand or one foot or one knee. They spun in sync, five pinwheels in the wind. In unison, they unfurled ribbons from their sleeves. It looked as though their shirts were unraveling. The ribbons plummeted into the audience, and the acrobats shimmied onto the ribbons. Dancing in the air, they wrapped the ribbons around their bodies and swooped and soared with them. The ribbons twisted together in midair above the audience, and then they released from the rings and fluttered down on the crowd. The acrobats hung in midair, suspended by seemingly nothing, as the audience applauded, and then they somersaulted down, bowed, and exited.
“Come,” the Magician said to the doll. He hauled her through a silver mirror at the back of the tent. He kept a grip on her arm tight enough to bruise if she’d had human skin, and they stepped out of a second mirror onto the stage—a dramatic entrance. At his signal, a stagehand wheeled away the silver mirror.
The audience clapped politely. They had seen portals before. In most worlds, they were ubiquitous. A few patrons fidgeted and rustled their bags, gathering their belongings as if preparing the leave. But they quieted when she walked forward on her shaky cloth legs—a living doll. Somewhere in the tent, a baby cried.
“My beautiful assistant!” the Magician said.
The audience laughed at her thread face, her yarn hair, her wobbling legs.
And the Magician began the show.
He started with sleight of hand, magicless tricks with cards, balls, and scarves. But then he added real magic: he tossed the scarves into the air, and they didn’t fall. Over his head, the scarves twisted slowly as if they were underwater. And then the scarves burst into flame.
The audience gasped, their attention rapt.
Silent on the stage, the doll watched the audience through glass eyes. Children. Men. Women. Most had painted faces: leopard spots, zebra stripes, fish scales, feathers. Their clothes were fashioned out of fur, feathers, and scales to match their faces. A few held caramel popcorn in a red-and-white-striped bag, forgotten as the Magician performed. One child sucked endlessly on a lollipop.
Near the center of the audience, one face was unpainted: a perfect face with blond tousled hair and bright- blue eyes. He watched the Magician as intently as a hawk watches a mouse.
The doll watched this boy as she took the Magician’s cloak and waved it with a flourish, the perfect assistant. The Magician pretended to kiss her cheek in thanks and instead stole her breath. She kept watching as he tossed card after card into the air. Each card stopped in midair until at last he had a ladder of cards leading up to the scarves.
The Magician climbed the card ladder up to where the fiery scarves spun and sparked. On one foot, he stood on the top card, and he juggled the silken balls of fire. As the scarves dissolved into ash, the applause was thunderous.
The boy in the audience didn’t clap.
The doll knew his name. Aidan. She fought against the memories that rose inside her, and she fixed her eyes instead on the Magician.
Coming down from the ladder of cards, the Magician held his hand out toward the audience. A girl in the front row leaped to her feet and scrambled onto the stage.
The girl looked so innocent. Her face was painted like a swan. She wore white feathers in a skirt. She was smiling as if she’d won a prize. With broad gestures, the Magician invited her to climb the ladder. Laughing, the girl climbed, and he stood beneath her. On the tenth card, her foot slipped. She grabbed at the card above, but it slid out of her hand. Screaming, she fell.
He turned her into a bird before she hit the ground.
The Magician scooped his hat from the doll’s hands. He laid it over the bird that fluttered on the stage. Slowly, he raised the hat up, and the girl stood under it, wearing his hat. She laughed and clapped her hands. The Magician bowed. The girl curtsied before scurrying back to her seat, and her parents hugged her with proud smiles on their painted faces.
The girl wasn’t his next victim. The doll wished her cold, dry eyes could cry. She wished she were more than cotton inside so she could feel relief in her heart, her stomach, and her breath. Perhaps no one would die today.
The show continued. Soon, other carnival people gathered at the back of the tent. The Magician’s shows never went so long. But the Magician didn’t slow or tire. Between tricks, he’d kiss his doll assistant on the cheek, secretly filling his lungs each time. He drew a cloud into the tent and caused it to rain on the stage. He transformed the raindrops into butterflies, and then he forced the butterflies to fly in patterns against the roof of the tent—and then he changed them back into rain that fell toward the audience, transforming at the last second to paper confetti that melted into nothingness.
He then caused the seats to sprout, as if watered by the vanished confetti. Vines spread over the arms and legs of the audience. Roses blossomed on the vine, and then just as quickly, they wilted. The vines blackened and crumbled. Each audience member was left with a rose on his or her lap.
The applause was thunderous.
The Magician bowed. “And now for my final trick …”
Plucking the cards from the air, the Magician displayed them, showing that each card had a drawing of a figure: an old woman, a young girl, a harlequin, a queen, a reaper … He blew on the cards, tapped them, and the figures detached from the card faces. The paper figures lurched across the stage. He sent them into the audience. They crawled over the audience members, their eyes flat and their progress unslowed. They climbed onto the shoulders or heads of different audience members, whose smiles faltered as the paper feet and hands touched them.
“This time, the cards choose you,” the Magician said.
A few of the audience members tried to remove the paper creatures and people. They clung fast. Some pulled harder, and the paper bodies tore.
The Magician shuffled the blank Tarot cards.
As one, the paper figures turned their heads toward the center of the audience. They climbed over people faster with a single-minded determination, converging on the boy Aidan. They climbed up his legs and over his body, laying against his clothes as if glued to him.
“Remember him,” the Magician said softly to the doll. The boy Aidan didn’t move as the paper figures stuck to his shirt and hair and skin. “He has magic.”
The doll met Aidan’s eyes.
And Aidan vanished with a soft
Outside the wagon, after the performance, Aidan waited on the steps. He still had the paper figures from the Tarot cards on him. One sat on his shoulder, swinging his paper legs. Another clung to the pocket of Aidan’s shirt. Others were stuck to him like magnets.
“I believe these are yours.” Aidan flashed a dazzling smile at the Magician.
The doll felt unable to move, as if she were on strings but no one had tugged them to make her walk or talk. A part of her wanted to scream at Aidan to run. A part of her wanted to run to him. The rest of her did not move or speak.
The Magician smiled. “Did you like the performance?” He fanned the blank cards, and the paper figures clambered down Aidan’s body and crawled up the Magician and onto the cards.
“Very impressive.” Aidan stood up lazily, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He hadn’t looked at her yet, the doll noted. She stared at him with her green marble eyes that couldn’t blink. “But I am here on business.” Aidan drew a wallet from his back pocket and flipped it open. A badge with a ring of circles was inside.
The Magician’s smile did not waver. “Oh, it’s show and tell!” He drew out a box from the pocket of his robe. “Have you ever seen one of these?” He turned the box over in his hands, sliding it over the backs of his hands and around in a figure-eight. “Marvelous device. Impervious to strength or weapons or magic. Yet if you twist it in a particular way and squeeze, you can crush it and its contents with one hand. A trade secret.” He fixed his eyes on the doll as he said this. “Now, how can I help you, officer?”
“I’m looking for this girl.” Aidan held up a photograph. It was a photo she’d seen before—a girl with yellow
