By a Charm and a Curse(8)

Then I shatter.

Something hot trickles down the back of my throat and pools underneath me. Every time I try to breathe I hear a strange bubbling noise, and there’s a stabbing somewhere in my chest like my bones are attacking my insides. Red, red like the box, red like Sidney’s mouth, red fills my vision and threatens to burn me to ash.

The lights of the Ferris wheel are spinning, then slowing. Next thing I know, Lars and Sidney are standing over me. Lars’s pity is a terrible thing to see. I start to cry, and, thankfully, my tears muddle the sight of their faces.

A woman’s voice cuts through the night. “Did she drink it all?”

My breath comes in sharp, hiccup-y gasps, not enough to fill my lungs let alone answer or ask what’s going on.

Sidney’s voice is grim but calm. “She drank it all.”

Of course I did. That’s why I didn’t taste it on his lips. He fooled me, just another carnival sleight of hand.

The woman comes into my view at the same time I start to lose feeling in the tips of my fingers and toes, and I will forever associate her beauty with panic. She’s all loose platinum curls and big blue eyes. I am suddenly, painfully reminded of Jules, and a sob escapes me.

“Finally got one, huh? You picked a pretty little thing for your replacement, Sidney,” the woman drawls, and there’s a thread of disapproval in her voice. “They always miss the pretty ones.”

Her mockery is one more hurt to add to the pile.

“She and her friend had a fight,” Sidney says. “Should be easy to pass off as a runaway.”

I want to argue, to tell him that I didn’t fight with Jules, we just don’t remember how to be friends yet, not like we used to. But I can’t move my tongue. I can’t feel my arms or my legs. The fire in my arms dulls down to nothing as I lose control of my limbs, but I’d rather be in pain ten times worse than this if it meant that I’d be able to wiggle my fingers. What the hell is happening to me?

“Why’s it got to be like this?” Lars asks. The realization that he must have known Sidney’s intent all along makes my stomach churn.

“It is what it is,” the woman answers. The tips of her boots knock into my side as the creeping sensation crawls up my neck, and I barely feel it. “What’s her name?”

I want to scream at her, to beg her to make it stop, but my tongue won’t work, I can’t even make my eyes blink. Tears roll down my cheeks unhindered, and they burn against my skin.

“Emmaline,” Sidney says, resignation clear in his voice.

“That’s her true name?” she asks. Sidney answers with a tiny nod.

She crouches down beside me, and my vision is filled with her and her curls. “Emmaline,” she croons. “The transition is hard, but it’s almost over. Right now, I need you to give Sidney a kiss before we can set him free. You can do that, can’t you, Emmaline?”

I couldn’t argue even if I wanted to. Sidney kneels down in the dirt beside me. Sweat beads on his forehead, and a line of it trickles down the side of his face, taking a trace of the black powder from his brow with it. Feverishly hot fingers cradle the back of my neck as he leans in, and as his lips mold around mine, my fingers begin to twitch.





Chapter Four


Benjamin


I am plotting my way toward freedom across a weathered old map when I hear the screaming.

I roll off the couches that make up my bed, ready to see what’s going on, ready to help. The icy linoleum shocks my bare feet as I grab for the jacket I wore earlier. The accordion door at the other end of the Airstream camper trailer rattles, and my mother swears, so I know that she’s heard the yelling, too. Just to be safe, I cram my map into the crack between the benches and the wall; if my mother had any idea I was thinking of leaving, she’d have a meltdown.

We reach the narrow door at the same time, and she doesn’t seem fazed at all, as if there’s a disturbance like this every night.

We step into the crisp air, ready to do something. Our carnival is so small, so self-sufficient, that the urge to help is hardwired into all of us. The source of the yelling—a pale girl between the more familiar figures of Leslie and Lars—comes into view. A dozen or so others rush in from between the parked campers, likely drawn from cleaning up the day’s detritus and shuttering the booths.

Whiskey sidles up next to me. She must have grabbed her dad’s boots as she ran out because the ones she has on are so big that they almost hit her knees. She’s pulled a pair of jeans on over her glittering riding costume, the frilly ruffles tufting over the waistband, and her hair is pulled into a messy knot on top of her head. She’s small and slight for fourteen, but she’s a stunner on a horse, and she has an exceptionally foul mouth.

“Now that—” Whiskey pauses as we watch them get closer, and I don’t know if it’s for drama or to make a better assessment—“is fucked up.”

Lars and Leslie are helping a girl who can’t seem to walk on her own down the alley. It’s like the packed dirt beneath her feet is ice, and her legs twist and jerk out from under her. Without warning, her arm convulses in Lars’s grip, and it seems as though her shoulder should be jerked out of the socket, but it isn’t. Her black hair falls into her eyes, and she tries to shake it out of the way, but this only elicits an angry shriek and another stream of curses.