The three exchange a glance, and the chill in my bones deepens.
“Bad idea, Em,” Sidney says. “So there was this one time, outside of what, Tempe? Somewhere. Point is, I was feeling rebellious. So rebellious that I let everyone believe I was with the caravan, when in actuality, I had stayed behind. I think they got maybe a mile or two away when it happened. Everything seized up on me, and I collapsed. I couldn’t move, couldn’t talk. The only thing I could do was stare at the passing clouds. I had to watch as the sun moved across the sky and the moon came up. I had no idea what I was going to do. Even if someone found me, what could I do? Stare into their soul until they figured out what happened to me? Pray that I had an ‘If Lost, Return to Le Grande’s Carnival’ printed across my back that I didn’t know about? Sit in an antique shop for all of eternity? Finally, someone figured out I was missing, and Leslie came back for me. The closer we got to the carnival, the more I could move. It wasn’t until I was back among the trailers and the machines and the people that I was myself again. Well, as much as you can be yourself while cursed.”
I stare at Sidney, at the way his skin looks so flushed against the white face paint and the way his eyes glint and sparkle. How could I have possibly thought he was alive before? How could I have been so stupid? “So you’re telling me I’m trapped?”
“Not trapped, not quite,” Leslie says, at the exact same time Sidney says, “Pretty much.”
Leslie glares at Sidney but says, “We can’t let you leave.”
“Watch me.” My chest heaves, like there’s something in my lungs clawing up my throat to escape, and I realize this is what sobbing feels like in my new, alien body.
Sidney and Lars melt out of the way as I clumsily escape the trailer. The door slams behind me, a loud bang in the still night. It’s colder out here under the silver stars. Slowly, so slowly I might not have noticed if it wasn’t for the fact that I can barely feel anything at all, and what I can feel is amplified, the twitching worsens. I’m in the middle of a row of trailers, campers, two tents that have seen better days, and one old but brightly painted wagon.
Remembering how hard the simple task of walking had been earlier, I put each foot forward slowly, making sure my stiff legs are solidly planted beneath me before I take a step. Between two trailers I find a huge tin bucket; I flip it over with clumsy hands and sit with a dull thunk.
I splay my fingers over my knees. Under the glow of the moon, they’re white like bone, like shell, like things that have had all the life leeched out of them. A shudder trembles at the base of my spine, but a quiet animal snuffling keeps me from giving in to my breakdown. Peeking out from beneath the shiny trailer is a little black nose bracketed by tufts of dirty white fur.
The rest of the dog emerges from the shadows, a wriggling mass of terrier-shaped happiness. I’m not sure if this dog is particularly friendly or maybe I just smell appealing (though what on earth do I smell like anymore?), but the dog immediately props its front paws onto my leg, leaving little muddy paw prints.
And oh, but he’s warm.
Even that little bit of contact feels heavenly, warmth radiating out from where he’s touching me. I heft him onto my lap, and it’s more like I’m holding a small fire on my legs instead of a dog. Though a fire wouldn’t nuzzle at my hands, slyly positioning them in the perfect place for a scratch behind the ears. Happy to keep this relationship beneficial for the both of us, I oblige, and scritch at the spot that makes his back leg go berserk.
I’m not sure how long the dog and I sit there—me happy to soak up all the warmth he has to offer, him ecstatic for the unending scratches and pets—but eventually I hear footsteps. Lars rounds the corner, and he sags against one of the trailers, an olive-green monstrosity that groans beneath his weight.
“Is this where you tell me that everything is going to be okay?” I ask, searching for the glitter of his dark eyes in the shadows that surround him.
“No,” he says solemnly. The honesty hurts, but not as much as a lie would, I think. “There’s a lot more about this curse that you’ll need to know and that I can’t tell you. And before you ask, I know I played a part in this, and I am sorry. And I’d do it again, because I’ve been here helping Leslie run this show for longer than you can imagine. But—” He pauses here, and the word is heavy, loaded. Something inside me clenches tight, like my rock-hard lungs are compressing into diamonds. “Leslie will tell you the technical bits. But here’s what she isn’t going to tell you.”
My hands go still, mid-scratch. The dog in my lap gives a long, high-pitched whine.
“The curse changes you. It changes everyone it touches, really, because I hate having a part in it, but damn if I don’t love the perks that come with it. Did you learn about the Korean War in school, Emma?”
He shifts over into a beam of moonlight, like he wants me to get a better look at him. Every detail is crisp. Laugh lines arc out from his eyes, but there aren’t many and they aren’t deep. Two furrows sit between his eyebrows, like they’re permanently pinched together in mild frustration. His mustache covers most of his mouth, so I can’t see if any lines have made their mark there. In this light, his orangey hair has been bleached to some sort of indiscriminate gray, but I don’t remember seeing any silver in his hair earlier. He doesn’t look to be any older than forty-five, though I know that if he’s talking about the Korean War he must be older. “Are you trying to tell me that you’d be old as balls without the curse?” I ask, finding it hard to be excited for his relatively youthful appearance.
“I am old as balls, but only because of this place. Before I got here, I was dying from lung cancer. Docs said it was thanks to exposure to chemical agents in the war.”
“Don’t bullshit me.” The anger I felt before, the stuff bubbling just under the surface, threatens to roil again, and my arms tighten around the dog, though I’m not sure if I mean to protect him or if I want him to protect me. My grandfather had lung cancer, died of it, and Lars could probably model for some sort of mountain man, outdoor living magazine.