Текст книги "Conjured"

Автор книги: Sarah Beth Durst

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Chapter Nineteen

Patti raised the shade in her library office and then opened the window. Outside, the parking lot was half-full. A woman in a rose-colored raincoat yanked a toddler onto the sidewalk. A man tossed books into the backseat of his car. Another man pulled out of his parking spot.

The black car with the tinted windows was in its familiar spot under a tree.

“I’ll try to buy you time,” Patti whispered. “Good luck. Be safe. And if you can’t be safe … be yourself.” She squeezed my shoulder as I climbed out the window and dropped down to the ground behind a bush. Zach followed after me.

Above us, Patti closed the window and shut the shade.

“Fly?” Zach suggested.

I shook my head. “They’ll expect that.” Through the branches, I studied the black car. I didn’t see any movement, but from here, I couldn’t even tell if the engine was on or off, much less if anyone was inside.

“But they don’t know …” His eyes bulged as he realized what I’d implied. “You think Patti will tell them we’re here?” His voice was incredulous, as if such a betrayal were inconceivable instead of logical.

“I know she will,” I said.

“But …”

“Her safety depends on cooperating with them,” I said. “She’ll tell them everything. But I have an idea. See that car?” I pointed toward the black car. “I think we should use it.”

His cheek next to my cheek, he peeked out at the parking lot in the direction that I’d pointed. “You mean, steal a car?”

“Stealing isn’t the same as lying.”

“True, but …”

“It’s an agency car. We can drive it to the agency.”

“Oh. Then that’s not even stealing,” Zach said. “That’s returning it.”

Grabbing his face, I brought his lips to mine. I breathed into him as his arms wrapped around my waist. We broke away, and I felt slightly dizzy.

“Ready?” I said.

“Uh, yeah. That was … wow.”

“On three? One, two, three …” Hand in hand, we burst out of the bushes and ran across the parking lot toward the car. The car door flung open, and an agent stepped out. He had his gun in his hand.

And then the gun transformed into a flower. Petals fell from the agent’s hand, and the stem drooped. Zach stole another quick breath of magic, and the agent was swept forward—up, up, up onto the roof of the library.

We ran to the car. Zach dove into the driver’s seat, and I hopped into the passenger seat. The key was still in the ignition, and the radio was playing. Zach shifted the car into reverse and then stepped on the gas. The car lurched backward, and we careened out of the parking lot. I clutched the glove compartment and wondered if this one had a gun in it like Malcolm’s did.

“Left,” I told him. I continued to give him directions until a block from the agency. I pointed to the parking lot of a convenience store. “Stop there.”

He swung into one of the parking spots, facing the Dumpsters. “Now what?”

Twisting in my seat to face him, I said, “Last chance to change your mind. You can go home, be with your parents, and live your normal life, and I won’t blame you.”

He was quiet for a moment. “You saw my home. You met my parents. You saw my normal life. Just tell me how to leave this world. Please.”

I nodded. And he exhaled, his face relaxing into an almost-smile. “The offices are level three, the hospital is level four, and the silver room—the way out—is level five.”

“What about one and two?” Zach asked.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It might matter. I bet it matters to the people on one and two. You know it’s going to bother me, not knowing what’s on one and two. I like to know things.”

“Zach, focus. We need level five. I thought we could transform—”

“Cats?” He sounded eager, as if he were about to start bouncing like a puppy. “Birds? Or mice. Mice could work. Mice can drop twelve feet without injury and can jump twelve inches straight up.”

“Zach. You know this isn’t a game.”

He calmed instantly, and in his eyes I saw a hint of … fear? “I know. But if I think of only the magic, it makes the rest of it less terrifying. Leaving home? Stealing a car? Breaking into a government facility? Searching for a potential serial killer? Let me focus on the flying and the shapeshifting and kissing you.”

I nodded. We sat in silence for a long moment. I spoke again, softly, calmly. “I think we need to change into people—specifically Malcolm and Aunt Nicki.” Unclipping my seat belt, I faced Zach. “You can do me first. She has an angular face with a chin that juts out farther than her lips. Her nose is narrower than mine, nearly to a point, with a prominent bridge. Her eyes … brown with thin eyebrows, dark brown and plucked.”

Zach held up both hands to stop me. “It’s okay. I’ve seen her before.”

“You have?”

“At the library. She dropped you off once.”

I didn’t remember that. It must have happened during the days I lost. But for the first time, my memory didn’t matter. Only his did. “Can you do this?” In response, he leaned forward and breathed in my magic, then furrowed his forehead and concentrated. I felt my face begin to itch, and then my skin bubbled and stretched. I described her typical all-black pantsuit with the fake knuckle-size pearls that Aunt Nicki liked. Sweat beaded on Zach’s forehead as he changed my clothes. When he finished, I flipped the visor down and looked at myself in the mirror.

For a brief instant, I expected to see the antlered girl.

Aunt Nicki stared back. Or almost Aunt Nicki.

“Shorten the hair.” I mimed where it should be cut. I watched it shrink and flatten. “And her skin has more olive in it. I think that’s … yes, that’s it.” He flopped back into his seat as I touched my face. Its shape felt wrong under my fingertips, and I had to suppress the urge to yank and tug my skin back into its familiar shape.

“I am going to have to close my eyes when I kiss you,” he said.

“Your turn. Do you remember Malcolm?”

“No one could ever forget Malcolm,” Zach said. His skin and bones shifted and moved as I watched. He then changed his height and the width of his shoulders, as well as his hair, skin, and eye color. Lastly, he added muscles and darkened his clothes to a black suit.

“Perfect.” Staring at him, I felt marginally better. Safer. As if Malcolm himself approved this insane plan. Opening the glove compartment, I found a pair of sunglasses and handed them to him. There wasn’t a gun, but there were insurance and registration cards for the car. “Can we change these into agency IDs?”

“Sure. Can you describe them?” His lungs, nose, and vocal cords were a different size, so his voice had deepened with the new body, but the inflections were pure Zach.

I’d seen the IDs, but I hadn’t memorized them. I tried to picture the position and size of the photo, the words and the logo. Zach transformed the cards to match my directions. “I wish I could remember them better,” I said.

“Just … wave them fast or something.”

I couldn’t remember if Aunt Nicki and Malcolm handed the IDs to the guard or just displayed them. I hoped the latter. I tucked the IDs into the cup holder between us and wondered if we’d be caught before we’d even begun. I wished there were time to make a better plan. But the longer we waited, the more likely we were to be found. And the more likely I was to lose my nerve. “Are you ready?” I asked.

“I think this is where I’m supposed to say I was born ready.” Zach flashed me a smile. “But I was born ordinary.”

“Don’t,” I said.

“Don’t what?”

“Disparage yourself.” I twisted in my seat to face him fully, and I tried to see Zach behind Malcolm’s face. “You think just anyone would come with me like this? You say you dream of the extraordinary, but you’re extraordinary. I say I’m broken, and you try to fix me. I say I’m lost, and you try to find me. I say I’m empty, and you fill me. You’re … like a knight in shining armor, but from one of the nice stories.” I took a deep breath. I hadn’t meant to make a speech. I felt my face, Aunt Nicki’s face, flush pink.

He stared at me for a moment, then blinked. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m awesome. Let’s go.” Driving out of the parking lot, he ran over the curb. The car jolted up and down. I braced myself on the glove compartment again.

“Look calm,” I instructed Zach. “Malcolm always looks calm.”

As we drove closer, I pointed to the agency’s garage doors. Gray and plain, the doors looked like they belonged to a nondescript office building. Zach hit the brakes too hard at the guard station—the car jerked as if we’d hit a pole. Taking a deep breath, he rolled down the window.

The guard leaned in. “Car trouble?”

Zach nodded.

I waved our IDs from the passenger seat. The guard glanced briefly at them, but he frowned at me. I wondered if we’d gotten Aunt Nicki’s face wrong. Maybe her nose was flatter, or her eyes smaller, or her hair darker. “I could’ve sworn you’d … Never mind. Go ahead, Agent Gallo, Agent Harrington.” He hit a button, and the garage door rumbled up.

“Have a nice day!” Zach called out the window. He stepped on the gas before the guard could change his mind. We shot into the garage. “Probably shouldn’t have said that.”

I looked behind us, but the guard wasn’t following us. The garage door was closing. Daylight disappeared with it. “I think we’re all right.”

Pulling into a parking spot, Zach stopped the car. “At least he didn’t shoot us on sight. I’d call that a win.” He tried to smile, but it disappeared quickly.

“Zach … If things turn bad, I want you to take a breath of magic and run.”

Zach opened his mouth, and I knew he was going to say something flippant or brave.

“Please, Zach. I don’t want to have visions of your death haunting my memories. Promise me that you’ll run. Or I tell that guard who I am and let them capture me right now.”

“Fine,” he said. “But you run too.”

“Or fly.”

“Definitely fly.” He kissed me, and I wasn’t sure if it was for the magic or just to kiss me. It didn’t matter. I kissed him back, and his lips felt different, broader and softer. He tasted the same, though—like Zach, sweet and minty.

He broke off.

He looked like he wanted to say something but didn’t know what. I opened the car door and stepped out into the garage. He did too. “Eve …”

“Gallo,” I corrected. “He calls her by her last name.” I headed for the door. Taking the ID cards from Zach, I held them up to the scanner. Nothing happened.

“I doubt we accurately replicated the magnetic strip,” Zach said. “Is there another—”

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the surveillance camera trained on the door. If anyone was watching the feed … but we didn’t have much choice. “Quick. Walk us through the door.”

He hesitated.

“I walked through a wall before.”

He grinned suddenly, stretching Malcolm’s cheeks abnormally wide. His expressions weren’t the same as Malcolm’s, even using the same face. “You’re always full of surprises.”

Zach put his hand up, and it melted into the door. He drew it back, took my hand with his other hand, and then we walked forward. Using the magic from the kiss in the car, we passed through the door. The cool metal sank into my skin and deep into my bones. I felt myself shiver and then shudder as we emerged on the other side, inside the hallway.

There were cameras in this hallway too.

Releasing Zach’s hand—Aunt Nicki wouldn’t have held Malcolm’s—I strode toward the elevator. Zach kept pace beside me. He didn’t have the same walk as Malcolm. His movements were jerkier, and he picked his knees up higher like a stork. Malcolm had a glide to his gait. I hoped that no one else knew Malcolm’s walk the same way I did. Only a few steps to the elevator.

At the elevator, I pushed the button and we watched the numbers flicker down. The doors slid open. And Lou stood there.

I felt my bones harden into place. I couldn’t breathe.

“Up?” Lou asked.

I nodded. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Zach was nodding too. I wished there were a way to warn Zach … but he knew who Lou was, didn’t he? He’d mentioned that a bald man had interrogated him. We walked into the elevator.

My finger hovered over the numbers. With Lou here, I couldn’t push five. Instead, I pushed three. We’d have to lose him in the offices—and hope we didn’t see the real Malcolm and Aunt Nicki.

As the elevator lurched upward, the tinny music played. It sounded like the carousel.

“This time, we contain her,” Lou said. “No more of your touchy-feely nonsense. She stays on the hospital floor under guard. She is not to be treated like a refugee. Or even a pet. Do you understand me, Agent Harrington? I blame you for this.”

Zach cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.” He tried to pitch his voice lower. It came out close to a growl. Lou looked at him sharply.

The door slid open. For an instant, I thought we could stay in the elevator. But Lou slapped his hand on the elevator door to hold it open. We had to walk out.

“We’ve alerted the airport terminals, bus terminals, and train stations—the usual cover story.” Lou aimed a fingers at me. “Gallo, bring in that Zachary boy. I want to know what he knows. I knew we should have kept him here. Remind me never to listen to you two bleeding hearts again.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He frowned at me, and for an instant, I thought he knew. But he pivoted and strode toward the lobby. We trailed after him. He halted at the receptionist’s desk and leaned over the desk to speak to her. I couldn’t hear what he said. She handed him a locked aluminum briefcase.

Maybe we should run now, while he’s distracted … Before I could move, Lou turned and shoved the briefcase at me. Automatically, I took it. “Um, what do you want me to do with this?” I asked before I thought. I then froze. Aunt Nicki might have known the answer.

Lou smiled at me. It was an unsettling expression on his face. His cheeks and eyes crinkled like a crunched paper bag. “I want you to do your job, Gallo, before I fire your ass.”

I looked at the briefcase. It had a combination lock.

He took the briefcase back and set it on the receptionist’s desk, and then he turned the numbers on the combination lock. The lock snapped open. He raised the lid. Inside was the Magician’s box. Instinctively, I shrank back. He lifted it out and then held it out toward me, his palm flat, not touching the clasp. “You might want this, when you find her. We’ve tested it—magic doesn’t penetrate it. It will keep her from turning you into shrubbery.”

Hands shaking, I took it. The metal felt chilled, as if the box had been recently stored in a freezer. I didn’t trust myself to speak. I shoved the box into my front pocket. It bulged, and I felt the corners press against my thigh.

Ahead, I heard voices. Malcolm’s office door swung open. We had to leave now. Smiling weakly at Lou, I pivoted and strode back toward the elevators. Zach walked fast beside me. My heart was beating so loudly that I was certain Lou could hear it.

“Gallo! Harrington!” Lou called after us.

From his office, Malcolm called, “Sir?”

I looked over my shoulder to see Malcolm, the real Malcolm, step into the hallway. I broke into a run as I heard him say, “What the hell—”

An alarm began to sound, and a red light flashed and spun in rhythm with the sirens. I looked back again. Oddly, Lou wasn’t chasing us. He merely watched from the hallway. With one hand, he blocked Malcolm from chasing us as well. I caught a glimpse of Malcolm’s expression: Fear, I thought. Of me? For me? But others were running toward us, and there was no time to puzzle it out.

Zach stabbed the elevator button.

It didn’t open.

Shoving the stairwell door open, I pulled Zach with me. The door slammed behind us and then was pulled open again an instant later. An agent burst into the stairwell.

Zach grabbed me and planted his lips on mine, inhaling my magic with my breath. As the agent lunged for my arm, Zach shot into the air with his arms tight around my waist. We rocketed up the open center of the stairwell. Below us, several agents pounded up the stairs, but we were faster.

At the top, at level five, I yanked the door handle—locked. Zach breathed in more magic, and we slid through the metal door. We turned left, then right … At the end of the hall, the two guards in front of the steel door shouted and drew their guns.

The guns dissolved into water and collapsed on the floor in droplets.

Turning to me, Zach swiftly inhaled magic again, and I felt myself shrink, plummeting toward the floor. The world skewed—the carpet fibers were as thick and high as underbrush in a forest, and the ceiling was impossibly high. I swiveled my head and saw a beetle, monstrously huge … He’d turned us into beetles. Clever boy, I thought. But what about the box? Looking around, I didn’t see it, and Zach was on the move.

Scurrying after him, I wove through the carpet.

Footsteps shook the floor. Looking like mountains in motion, the guards scoured the hallway. A boot landed near me, and I jerked back. The foot lifted, and the carpet fibers were mashed where he’d stepped. I darted forward as fast as my many legs could move.

Up ahead, I saw Zach squeeze beneath the door. I hurried after him, flattened, and slid on my smooth, slick stomach. At the end of the next hall was another door, but this one was flush to the floor. We’d never fit under it.

Zach bumped his head against mine. His legs clicked on the tile floor. And then I felt my body expand like a balloon. Soon I was human again—myself, not Aunt Nicki—and Zach was himself again too. My clothes were restored. I felt my pocket—the box was still there. The box and my clothes must have transformed with me, melding into my exoskeleton. He kissed me again and inhaled deeply. “Extra magic,” he said. “Just in case.”

This door had a palm reader but no guards. We ran through it. The next door required a combination code. We ran through it as well. The fourth door was guarded.

The guards already had their guns drawn.

“Shoot the male,” one instructed. “Don’t hit the female.”

Before I could react, before I could think, the other guard squeezed the trigger. Zach jerked backward, his hand torn out of mine. The sound echoed and continued to echo, reverberating through the hall and through my bones. And then the bullet clattered to the floor at Zach’s feet. “Bulletproof,” Zach said as he lunged toward me and brushed his lips against mine. An instant later, the guards’ jackets caught fire.

Startled, they dropped their guns. One began pounding the fire on his chest. The other shed his jacket as quickly as possible and stomped on the flames.

We ran forward and through the door into the silver room.

Chapter Twenty

Silver walls. Silver ceiling. Spotless white floor.

I still had no memory of this place, other than from my failed attempt to remember it before. But I’d had visions with silver mirrors and silver walls.

“Dead end,” Zach said. “Knew it was a trap. It was too easy.”

“They shot you.” I never, ever wanted to see that again.

“Lou should have stopped us before we even left the third floor. But he didn’t.”

Grabbing his hand, I walked straight toward one of the silver walls. In a vision, I’d walked through a silver wall into a meadow. The Storyteller had been there, knitting a red ribbon on the steps of the wagon. There, I thought, I want to go there. Behind us, the door burst open and slammed against the wall. Two armed agents ran into the room. But they were too late. Reaching the wall, we melted into it.

I felt coolness wrap around me, as if I were wrapped in chilled towels. It was hard to feel Zach’s hand. It felt swaddled in wool, distant. My body felt numb. And then I stepped with Zach out of a silver mirror that lay on the ground in the middle of a meadow.

The sky was a startling blue, and the air was light and warm.

“Whoa,” Zach said.

Birds called to each other—so many birds that their calls mashed together in a cacophony louder than screams. They flew in thick batches that looked like swooping clouds against the sky. Sparrows, I thought, watching the birds. This was where I’d learned about sparrows.

“‘Flock’ isn’t an adequate word for this many birds.” Zach strained to see them all. “Needs a special name, like bevy of quail, charm of finches, murder of crows, parliament of owls …”

“They’re sparrows.”

“Host of sparrows. I may have made that up, or—”

“Shh,” I said.

The meadow stretched endlessly in all directions. It was coated in delicate wildflowers that swayed and dipped in the breeze. After I’d walked through the silver mirror, I’d waited here by the wagon while the Magician and the Storyteller erected the tent for the show …

Spurred by the memory, I ran forward through the flowers. Only a few yards from where the silver mirror lay, the grass was matted in a broad circle. No flowers grew, and the grass was sickly and yellow, as if it had been blocked from the sun. My heart was thumping so hard it almost hurt. I knew this place! I’d been here with the Storyteller and the Magician. Our tent had been here, near the other tents, and our wagon had been beside it.

“You remember this place,” Zach said. It was more of a statement than a question.

I nodded.

“Do you remember other places?” Zach asked.

I nodded again.

“Then … we need some kind of plan. Maybe you, the Magician, and the Storyteller will have a nice reunion where you share childhood memories. But if the agency didn’t lie … I’d rather not end up chopped to pieces and stuffed in a box.”

I pulled the box out of my pocket and held it in the palm of my hand. The silver winked in the sunlight. “Lou gave me this to use against myself. We can use it trap the Magician.”

“Very poetically appropriate,” Zach said. “How does it work?”

“Open the lid, touch someone with the clasp, and they’re sucked inside. They can’t call for help; sound can’t penetrate it. They can’t use magic to escape; magic can’t penetrate either.”

“And Lou gave it to you. That’s a stroke of luck that tips right over into massively suspicious.”

I slid it back in my pocket. “He also didn’t let Malcolm chase us.”

“He wanted us to escape—or, more accurately, you,” Zach said, and I nodded unhappily. He could be right. They didn’t try to shoot me, only him. “On the plus side, maybe it means no one will try to stop you.”

“Or maybe it means the carnival is a trap.” I scanned the meadow. As far as I could tell, we were alone, except for the sparrows.

“But is it a trap for you, or for him?”

I walked around the outer edge of the matted grass. Suddenly, finding this place didn’t feel so wonderful. “Lou, Malcolm, Aidan … they’re playing a game, but no one ever told me the rules or even let me see the board.”

“Then don’t play,” Zach said. “We can go anywhere. Any world. No one would ever find us. We could invent new lives. Leave our pasts behind.”

Overhead, the birds dipped and swirled in clouds of feathers that cast shadows on the meadow. “You’d be living a lie. I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not asking; I’m offering.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because …” He trailed off, staring at me. “Wait. You’re not quite yourself yet. I was too rushed.” He kissed me lightly, and I felt pressure in my face as my features shifted. My cheekbones subtly rose. My body lengthened minutely. My painted fingernails reverted to my plain unpainted half moons. I ran my fingers over my cheeks and nose. Zach, I realized, had memorized me the way I had memorized Malcolm. “Because when I’m with you, I feel whole,” he said. “Because with you, life doesn’t feel brutish and short. It feels beautiful … and short.”

“I think that makes the most sense of anything I’ve ever heard you say.”

He grinned at me. “So, run away with me? Explore the multiverse?”

The way he said it … I felt the possibilities open in front of me, like morning sun illuminating hidden paths. But I couldn’t. There was too much emptiness still inside me. I shook my head. “I can’t feel whole, even with you. I need answers.” As I said it, I realized how true it was. I’d spent enough time hiding. Before I could run again, I had to know more.

His grin faded, and I wished I’d said a simple yes instead. Above, the sparrows switched directions again, their cries filling the air. The wind blew the grasses and wildflowers sideways, and it blew my hair across my face. I wiped my hair from my eyes.

Zach took a deep breath. “Okay, then, how’s this for a plan: you give me magic before we enter the carnival. I should be able to hold it for a little while, maybe up to half an hour, before I lose it. We find the Magician as quickly as we can, you distract him and I throw magic at him—toss him at you? You touch him with the box, and bam, it’s over.”

“And what if the agency lied, and he isn’t a killer?”

“Then we open the box.”

I considered the plan. “Simple. But effective.”

“Simple plans are best,” Zach said. “Supervillains always have complex plans and end up eaten by their own laser-toting sharks. Come on, let’s do it before I utterly chicken out.” He held out his hand. I took it, and we walked back to where the silver mirror lay, embedded in the earth and surrounded by tall grass and pink-and-white flowers. I thought of another memory: when I’d fled to Zach’s house, I’d remembered a church with a graveyard. I fixed that image firmly in my head.

Together, we stepped onto the mirror, and we fell straight down into it.

A second later, we crashed onto bare dirt inside a circle of pillars. Six pillars were encased in mirrorlike silver and had been polished to reflect the blazing sun. I stood. Dusting off his knees, Zach stood beside me. On the other side of the pillars were marble statues and granite headstones silhouetted against the bleached-out sky. A church with red doors sat on a hill. Beyond the church and the graveyard was a vast expanse of dusty land.

Yes, this was the place I’d remembered. The carnival came here often. We used to set up our tents in the field of dust by the church.

Inhaling deeply, I imagined I could smell the carnival. Once, in this place, there had been a boy with diamonds knotted in his dreadlocks. He’d come to see the Magician, and he’d given flowers to the contortionist. I remembered they’d smelled sickly sweet, like one of the Magician’s potions. The boy hadn’t been interested in the animals, even the exotic ones from worlds without humans, but he had tried the games. He’d liked the archery test with the arrows that burst into flame and then dispersed as red-winged butterflies, as well as the ball toss into the mermaid’s tank. One hundred points if it landed in the treasure chest without the mermaid catching it. She always caught it. I’d watched the boy all afternoon, like I was supposed to, until I saw the woman wrapped in scarves watching me.

Like I was supposed to? I didn’t know where that thought had come from or what it meant. “I think … I want to leave.”

I looked again at the marble statues. One of them was looking back.

Barely breathing, I held out my hand, and Zach took it. Retreating, we walked through a silver pillar. This time, we emerged in the middle of an ancient forest. The silver portal was embedded in a tree trunk. The ground was littered in leaves and dry needles, and the canopy of leaves blocked all but thin tendrils of sun. It was the forest, the one from my memory.

I knew all these places.

My memories … the visions … they weren’t lies.

Zach’s breath hissed. “Look up. There’s … quite a view.” His voice was light, but it shook. He pointed toward the tops of the trees.

Houses were nestled in the treetops. Bird men and bird women soared between them, their lithe bodies twisting between the branches. I remembered that the acrobats had performed in those branches, or ones like them. And the boy in the golden shirt had watched them. Later, we had chased him through the woods—the Magician, the Storyteller, and me. The Magician had carried me. I hadn’t been fast enough on my own, and the boy had been fast. We caught him anyway.

“Keep going?” Zach asked.

“Yes,” I said.

Again, we walked through the silver—and we walked out into a city plaza made of gray paving stones. Skyscrapers towered around us. Again, I knew this place. I had been carried through here at night. That time, we had been the ones being chased. “We can’t stay here either,” I said.

A trio of people strode toward us. They wore matching blue uniforms. Their faces were streaked with fur and scales, and they had batons at their hips.

“But the carnival could be …” His voice died as he saw a woman with wings on her back. Another had antlers on his head. And still others … each a medley of human and animal. At last I saw him notice the trio of officials closing in on us. “Guess it’s moved on.”

Zach and I scrambled back into the silver. I grasped for another memory—and I thought of a pier, the Ferris wheel rising high above the water, kids laughing as loud as gulls.

The mirror melted around us, and we emerged beside an ocean. Or not an ocean. A harbor. Sailboats were parked in their slips, their white hulls gleaming. Fishing boats with crates and ropes and cranes with nets were tied to a dock. Between them, a woman with green skin hauled herself out of the water to bask on a buoy.

“This looks nicer,” Zach observed.

Several brick buildings jutted out onto piers. The wood pillars supporting them were coated in green threads and roughened with barnacles. A glass sculpture reflected the harbor on its surface. Above, the sky was brilliant blue.

“Eve, look.” Zach pointed behind me.

I turned and saw another dock. On it, tent posts without tents rose into the air, like skeletons without flesh. At its tip, a Ferris wheel was empty and motionless. A fence cut across the entrance to the dock. The fence was covered in photos and little pieces of paper, stuck into the links. Below the photos was a pile of wilted flowers, melted candles, and stacks of seashells.

I was walking toward the dock before I even decided to move, and then I was running. Skirting the fence, I entered the abandoned carnival. Gulls circled overhead, and water lapped at the pillars of the dock, but other than that, it was silent. I remembered this place flooded with people—cries of laughter, the call of the barkers, the music of the carousel.

A few of the rides remained, only the shell of a balloon ride that had lifted people to a floating roller coaster made out of clouds. The coaster was gone, swept away by the wind, but the balloon baskets and the ropes remained. The baskets were covered in graffiti.