By a Charm and a Curse(14)
Leslie’s hands reach across the table again, though far more tentatively than before. When I don’t yank my fingers out of the way, she rests hers on mine so gently that I’m only able to register the touch because of the heat that radiates from her hand into mine. “You might not have agreed, but you kissed him, and the curse isn’t all that discriminating. I know this is not how you expected your evening to end. But we’re here for you, and we’ll do everything we can to make you as comfortable as we can while you’re with us, however long that may be.”
My stiff fingers curl into fists. “Then take it back.”
Leslie draws in a sharp breath and Sidney carefully puts his spoon into his bowl.
“No,” he says.
Sidney stands in one fluid motion, graceful, like a dancer. “I got rid of it. It’s a hard thing to manage, but I did it. You can, too.”
Lars clearly wants to say something to him, but Sidney is out the door before he can. The heaving, shuddering feeling hits me again, and I feel like I might shatter into a hundred pieces. But then Leslie’s there, wrapping her arms around me and pulling me close. Nonsense words meant to soothe and comfort fill my ears, but I don’t really hear them. All I hear are the shuddering screams that pour out of my mouth.
I want my home. I want my bed and the four walls I’ve made mine. And if I can’t have that, then I want the room in my dad’s house with its shitty garage-sale bed and the water stain on the ceiling. I want to hear Dad and Thomas argue about which college team does or doesn’t deserve a spot in the playoffs. Hell, right now, I’d walk across a fire pit of Jonah’s Legos and smile like a pageant queen when I got to the other side if it meant I could wake up from this nightmare tomorrow.
But I don’t have that. None of it. All I’ve got is Leslie, who holds me so tight her heat feels like it belongs to me, and Lars, who glares daggers at the door as though he might be able to strike Sidney dead with a look.
I search for stillness. For calm. Slowly, the shuddering, shaking explosion of emotions calms to a slight twitch here and there. If I want to go home, I need to know how to do it. I need to learn about the curse.
As my trembling becomes less violent, Leslie releases her grip and returns to the other side of the table. “If you want to talk about this tomorrow…”
“No!” My response is loud enough to startle Lars from his attempt to psychically throttle Sidney. “I mean, no. Let’s get it out tonight.”
Leslie’s gaze darts to Lars, then back to me, and when she talks, her voice is gentle. “Okay. As I said, there’s a curse, and right now, it’s living in you. And there’s a charm, one that protects the carnival so we, in turn, can take care of you.”
I roll my eyes at that bit but don’t argue. From what Lars said, it sounds like they benefit from the charm far more than I do.
“But what most people who work here don’t know is that the charm and the curse are codependent. When Sidney was stuck in that field after we had driven away, we had a string of accidents. Small things at first. Sprained wrist, twisted ankle. Then our fire-eater got a nasty burn, covered half her body. Of course, we didn’t realize what was going on right away, but afterward, when we had Sidney back safe and sound and the accidents stopped, Lars and I put it together.”
She presses her mouth into a firm line, and right then, I can see how she, like Lars, must be far older than she appears. Every year of her life is in the small tight frown and the hard glint in her eyes. My fingers clench around the fabric of my shirt.
“From right now until the minute you pass on the curse, we are linked,” Leslie says. “The carnival thrives when you thrive. It suffers when you suffer. We need you and you need us, and there is nothing that will change that fact.”
Chapter Six
Emma
I don’t sleep. Even though it’s way past midnight, my eyes never become heavy; my limbs aren’t tired. So with nothing but time on my hands, I worry. Leslie told me Sidney was saddled with the curse for fifty years. Fifty years of not breathing, not tasting, not feeling your heart pound in your chest. Fifty years of the cold. Fifty years of not being able to feel things beneath your fingertips. My parents might be dead and my brothers old men by the time I’m free.
Guilt over subjecting someone else to the same horrors I’m trying to escape keeps rising within me, but I can’t stay here. I have to get back home. It is what it is, I tell myself, even as a smaller part of my brain yells that no one should be subjected to this. But the need to let my family and Jules know that I’m all right is so great that it’s easy to not think about the poor sap that I’m going to swap places with. All I can think of is shaking off this curse like it’s a bad dream.
When I begin to hear people moving and chattering outside Leslie’s trailer, I sneak out, and after poking around a bit, I find the costume trailer. I’m hunting for some outfit that will bring people to my booth. The booth, I’ve been told, holds some of the charm, gifting the carnival with its preternatural luck. And because of this, people are drawn to the fiery red box. I could try my luck walking around the carnival, but supposedly, if I’m in the booth, the people will come to me.
The trailer is full to bursting with costumes of years past, an explosion of feathers and sequins and glitter. Taffetas and velvets and satins press against one another in two neat rows that line the walls of the trailer. And that’s to say nothing of the colors. Aquas, pinks, yellows, and oranges vie for my attention, punctuated here and there by a stark stripe of black or gold or silver.