By a Charm and a Curse(60)



Ben falls into a deep sleep the moment he’s buried under every blanket I own. I lie beside him, unable to sleep thanks to the curse, but also unable to find the quiet place I usually fill my nights with. As the candle I keep in a hanging lantern sputters out and Ben’s breathing slips into a steady rhythm, I try to calm the strange feeling of discomfort in my chest. I watch the constellations Ben pointed out to me move across my tiny skylight, still haunted by the look Fabrizio gave me when I fought back.





Chapter Twenty-Nine


Benjamin

Emma sits beside me in the front seat of the Gran Torino, mesmerized by the long bridges and Cypress trees with exposed roots standing naked in algae-coated water. Marcel is asleep in the backseat. Every spare part imaginable rattles around in the trunk, and one of the other roustabouts—an engineer who burned out on his high-paying job and came on as a machinist—gave the Gran Torino a thorough check before we left, so I feel comfortable having Emma in the car again.

As we drive through the flats of Texas into Louisiana, I pretend everything is okay. That I’m headed home after a road trip with my best friend and the girl who’s slowly stealing more and more of my heart. That Gin is just fine. That our lives aren’t hinged on this carnival.

On one of those long bridges, an older truck throws one of the bolts keeping the starter in place. The engine of the Gran Torino ticks as it cools while we wait for word on how we’ll proceed. None of us say anything. Marcel hasn’t said a word since the accident; guilt has swept away all his charm and audacity, leaving him unsure and quiet. And Emma simply stares out the window, her fingers clumsily laced with mine on the seat between us, unable or unwilling to find anything to talk about. After a few moments, Lars bangs on the window.

“Leslie insists that we press on and send a tow for our stranded truck,” he says. “Get ready to move out.” I start the car and it rumbles to life immediately. Emma opens her mouth as though to say something, but closes it before a word can slip through. But I feel as though I know what she wants to say. Another downed vehicle. Another “accident.” The stranded truck sits in my rearview as we drive away, a bleak reminder of how time is running out.

We have to make camp at a rest stop while we secure permits and a location. Everyone mills about, aimless with no tents to pitch or acts to practice. While some people seemed to be supportive after Emma’s talk last night, things are different in the light of day. I don’t know if people have had time to let things sink in or if the Moretti brothers have been running their mouths, but it feels like there are more suspicious glances thrown our way, more barely audible mutterings.

If Emma notices, she doesn’t let it show that it bothers her. She simply gives me a peck on the cheek—a ghost of a touch—before perching on the steps of her wagon with one of Mrs. Potter’s true-crime paperbacks. I run off to tend to a few things—getting Marcel back to his trailer, checking in with Sidney to see if Mom is at least talking to him (she’s not). When I’m done, I find Emma still sitting on the steps, paperback abandoned, her eyes closed and chin tipped up to let the breeze skip over her face. It’s hard to ignore the enormity of what we’re doing, and I take a moment to watch her.

I don’t know what this muggy, damp air feels like to her. For me, the night air clings to me heavily, like a wet towel draped across my shoulders. It wants me to know it’s there, to acknowledge it. But I know that whatever I’m feeling, she’s only feeling a fraction of it. The thought spurs me on.

“Ready?” I ask.

She opens her eyes slowly, languidly. “Ready.”

“The first sign that we’re getting too far away, we’ll turn back, okay?” If there is one thing I hope to never again see in my life, it’s Emma paralyzed by the curse.

She doesn’t seem to share my fear. “Let’s go.”

According to the map we have, the twins’ grandmother lives just down the road, barely more than a quarter of a mile away. Considering the carnival sometimes spreads out over an area that big, we should be okay. I’m still leery.

I’ve opened the passenger door for her—the handle sticks and it has to be done just so—and am about to get in on the driver’s side when Pia and Duncan clamber into the backseat. “Let’s go break this curse!” Duncan yells.

I freeze. The twins weren’t supposed to know that we mean to break the curse. And while I don’t think they’d try to stop us, I still don’t know how anyone feels about losing the protection of the carnival. So as I sit behind the wheel, I turn to face them. “Um, I guess one of you had a vision about us?”

Pia raises her hand. Her smile is part guilty, part gleeful, as though she can’t believe she had the vision herself.

“This going to be a problem?” Emma asks.

“Come on,” Duncan says with a magnificent specimen of eye roll. “Do you really think we’d be here if we weren’t okay with your plan? Besides. If you pull this off we’ll have time with Grandmama to learn the family business. So I’m coming with.”

“Me, too,” Pia says. Her round cheeks are flushed and her eyes glimmer from beneath her perfect brows.

I glance at Emma, who just smiles a small smile and shrugs.

“I hope Grandmama baked sandies,” Duncan says.

“I would eat gum scraped off the underside of the picnic tables for one of her sandies,” Pia says. In the rearview, her eyes have closed and a soft, dreamy smile spreads her lips.

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