by Sarah Fine
“Ben would never rape me!”
“He violated your body. Not only did he not get your permission—he did it while you begged him not to. If that’s not rape, it’s a close cousin.”
I blinked fast as a strange, heavy pressure made it hard to breathe. “I can’t think about this right now,” I said hoarsely.
“When will you think about it?”
“When I’m ready.” I took a step backward.
“In other words, never?” He stepped in front of me as I turned to run. “That’s kinda your thing, isn’t it? Not thinking?”
“I’m not an idiot, Asa!”
“No shit, Mattie. But your head is so deep in the sand that I’m surprised you haven’t struck oil.”
“Just because I don’t constantly mull over every little thing that bothers me—”
“You do, though. That’s why you need Eve. You’re all in the mix with things you can’t control, but when it comes to stuff you might have to make a decision about? The things that might require hard, painful choices? You don’t think at all. You just pretend they don’t exist.”
“And you’re still arrogant enough to believe you couldn’t possibly be wrong after being completely wrong about almost everything about this situation!”
“Look me in the face and tell me I’m wrong about this, then. Go ahead.”
“Well, I’ll give you this—I certainly wasn’t thinking a few minutes ago when I kissed you!” I sidestepped him and nearly tripped over Gracie, who had planted herself right next to him.
Asa chuckled, dry and hard. “Right. And my guess is that it came after nine months of trying so hard not to think of kissing me that you probably blamed that for the damn chest pains.” His eyes widened a bit when he saw my face. “Oh, fuck me, I’m right.”
“I hate you, Asa.” I pushed past Gracie and headed up the midway lane.
“You gonna go curl up with Ben?” he called after me. “Dream about your minivan and your two-point-five kids and the man who doesn’t deserve to fucking say your name, let alone marry you?”
I just kept walking. A moment later, I heard the van door slam, and when I looked over my shoulder, Asa and Gracie were gone. Shaking with sobs I refused to let out, I ducked into one of the little shacks along the midway—the one marked “The Woman Who Ate Baltimore.” Inside was an oversized chaise set on a square patch of peeling linoleum laid over the dirt. I shined my flashlight on the chaise. It was made of faded pink velvet that smelled like cheap, flowery perfume, but it looked clean enough, and I was so grateful that I collapsed on it without hesitation.
No way was I crawling back to Asa’s van.
And no way was I crawling back to Ben.
So I laid my mud-flecked, tangled head of hair across a gold-tasseled pillow and curled around the shard of pain inside me. I trembled with the bruises Asa had left with his words. I ached with their brutal truth. I flinched at how stupid and childish I felt. I shriveled with the shame of how I could have faced all of this earlier, and yet I hadn’t. I was just like my mom, a happy face on all the time, pretending the bad stuff didn’t even exist.
Now I had no choice but to take a cold, hard look at it in the light.
“Tomorrow,” I whispered. Then I switched off the flashlight and plunged myself into darkness.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I awoke with a start and found myself staring into the face of the woman with superlong black hair who had told the redheaded teenager to get Ben some ice. “Good morning,” she said.
I peered over her shoulder to see a gray dawn. “Is it?”
“We rise early here. Got to get ready for visitors.” She set an honest-to-God tea tray next to me as I sat up, complete with a little pitcher of cream and a plate of toasted english muffins.
“You sure know how to treat them,” I murmured.
She grinned, revealing straight white teeth. “I’m Roberta.”
“Mattie.”
“I know. You’re the talk of the camp.”
“Already?” I rubbed at my temples. My head was still pounding, and I’d spent the night in a restless doze jam-packed with dreams of Asa and Ben beating the crap out of each other as I lay tied to my grandpa’s hospital bed. “I guess we did make quite an entrance.”
She snorted and began to butter half of an english muffin. “Not to mention that most of us heard your little lovers’ quarrel.”
I frowned. “But Ben and I didn’t—oh.” My cheeks bloomed with heat. “Asa and I aren’t involved that way.” The kiss in the woods had been a crazy release in the aftermath of an intense transaction, and it was ridiculous to give it more importance or thought than that.
Roberta poured steaming tea into a chipped mug and handed it to me. “None of my business, kiddo. You’ve obviously been through a lot.” She looked over my frizzy hair, my dirty, bur-spangled clothes, the mud-caked shoes I’d slipped off last night. “I’ve got some extra clothes you can wear if you want to change. Might be a little big, but they’re clean.”
She was wearing work boots, a long skirt with some kind of kooky parrot print, and a SpongeBob SquarePants T-shirt. And yet, she looked a hell of a lot better than I did. “I’d be grateful.”
“Eat up first.”
I sipped at the tea and sighed at its warmth, then happily accepted a buttered english muffin. “So, this is a kind of carnival?”
“Yep. We pick up and move every few weeks in the spring, summer, and fall, and in the winter we find a place to bed down. We’ve been here since December, but we’ll be moving on soon.”
“And people actually come?”
She gave me a sly smile. “People flock to us. We show them things they could never see anywhere else. We give them an experience. Of course, their memories of it are only a haze afterward. It’s a way to make a living without working within the system.”
“The regular system, or the magical world?”
“Both. The former is easier than the latter—a bit of Knedas juice works every time we get a nosy sheriff or journalist—but we’ve managed the latter pretty well. Headsmen more or less leave us alone so long as we don’t get too big or loud, and we stick together, which keeps the bosses away. We’re stronger than any of us would be out on our own.”
“How long have you all been doing this?”
“Oh.” She chuckled. “I joined in ’86, and it had been going strong for decades before that. We come from all different places, all walks of life.” She smiled. “I walked away from a teaching job because this just felt more fulfilling, more fun, more free. Others need to escape whatever hell they’ve been living. People come and go, but the carnival keeps rolling. Must be nearly two hundred of us right now, but it’ll grow through the summer. Shrinks in the winter, of course.”
“I was in too much pain last night to see what it looks like, but my fiancé was in awe. It must be a pretty spectacular sight.”
“A glamour like no other,” she said with a full mouth. “Everyone contributes in their own way. All of us Knedas keep it strong, and we also run the freak show.” She gestured at the booth. “I’m the Fat Lady.”
I eyed her very ordinary physique. “The one who ate Baltimore?”
“The very same. I’m a luscious eight hundred pounds in custom-made lingerie.” She did a little shimmy with her shoulders. “I never get tired of the attention. Or the spending money.” She reached under the chaise and pulled out a big urn with the word “Tips” painted on its surface.
“And it really works on people?”
“Every once in a while a little kid’ll see through to the real me. But no one believes them when they try to tell Mommy and Daddy that the Fat Lady isn’t fat. And besides me, we’ve got Tom—he’s the Three-Headed Man—and Nora, the Lady with Living Tattoos. Doesn’t have a single tattoo in reality, but you should see people scream when she makes them see her bird tattoos flapping their wings! Letisha’s a fortune-teller—she’s not a Knedas, mind you. She’s an intention sensor, and you have to se
e her in action. She’s so good at reading a person that anyone with anything to hide in this camp knows better than to pass within twenty feet of her.”
I suppressed the urge to ask what Letisha looked like so I could avoid her, too.
“There’s also Burt, another Knedas. I’m the Woman Who Ate Baltimore, but he’s the Man Who’ll Eat Anything—he gets people to toss their goods at him, thinking he won’t swallow them.” She bowed her head to stifle a snicker. “Boy, they howl when they see him eating their iPhones and earrings and wallets!”
“But he doesn’t actually?”
“Nah. That’s what he makes them see, though.”
“I bet people aren’t too happy about that. How does he not get beaten up?”
“He warns ’em ahead of time, so they know they’ve handed over their stuff in spite of that. But we’ve also got sensors like Terrence and Adrian to pick up when someone’s too upset about it, and Ekstazos like Jimmy and Quentin to soothe hurt and angry feelings. Jimmy’s head of this camp. General manager, you could say. And with one handshake from him, you’d forgive anyone anything.”
I finished my tea and held out my cup for another pour—I was so thirsty. “So people just go home without their wallets and phones?”
She shrugs. “We usually give back the wallets, minus the cash. Can’t really use the credit cards and such unless we want to draw attention to ourselves. Phones are a good business, though.”
So they were all thieves. I didn’t point this out to her—she seemed well aware and pretty at peace with it, plus it felt good to have someone be nice to me. “If it’s so lucrative, why do you guys . . .” I took a sizable gulp of searing tea to avoid completing the sentence.
Roberta chuckled. “Why do we live like this? Lots of reasons. Some I already told you.”
“To avoid calling too much attention to yourselves.”
She nodded. “But also, it means freedom. Who says we have to own a lot of things? Who says we have to live in one place? Those of us who stay—we don’t care about that stuff. Who needs a lawn when I’ve got a whole field of wildflowers to look out on every morning? Who needs a whole house when all I need is a bed and a square of kitchen counter? Who needs running water when I’ve got a stream that runs crystal clear? Not me, I’ll tell you that.”
“I guess it does sound kind of freeing.”
“Freedom, kiddo, comes in all kinds of forms. We all have to choose which kind is worth fighting for.”
I choked down the last of my english muffin. “I never really thought about that.”
“Never too late to start.” She stood up with the tray, but left a plate behind, complete with a few Smucker’s grape jellies and another whole toasted muffin. “My trailer’s the one with the herb garden. Come find me when you’re ready for a change of clothes.”
I took a long time to eat that last english muffin, savoring every bite and the quiet that came with it. My vault door must have been mostly closed, because I could barely feel the splinter of relentlessly powerful Strikon magic buried somewhere in my chest.
Last night, Asa had told me I was dying. That I had been dying since last summer.
And somehow, that felt like the least threatening and disturbing thing he’d said. This was a solvable problem. All we had to do was wait until Vernon recovered from last night, and then we could pull the splinter out. I’d be magic-free by midnight, and I could head home and get back to normal.
I bowed my head and squeezed my eyes shut as the knife turned. “Can’t be soon enough for me,” I whispered through clenched teeth. I picked up my plate and slid my feet into my damp, muddy shoes.
The midway lane was still relatively quiet. A few people were in their booths, setting up, but the rest of the camp was bustling. People were outside their trailers, many grilling breakfast under tattered, sun-faded awnings, others lounging in flimsy lawn chairs and sipping coffee. Laughter and conversation buzzed merrily, and I knew it as soon as I heard it—this was the sound of people living their chosen lifestyles, banded together and free of the judgment of the rest of society.
I scanned the trailers for the one with the herb garden. A long row of at least twenty porta-potties marked the edge of camp. I bit my lip—I’d need a stop there once I had some acceptable clothes on. I was already drawing curious stares as I squished my way past Betsy and Vernon’s silk tent. I hoped Ben was still sleeping inside. I wasn’t ready to face him.
But because fate seems to hate me sometimes, just as I thought I was in the clear, I heard Ben call, “Mattie” as he stepped out of the tent. His unbuttoned shirt was dotted and smeared with dried blood, as were his khakis. His face was horribly bruised and swollen, and he sported a few butterfly bandages over cuts on his cheeks and just above his left eye.
I stopped walking and turned around with my empty plate. “Oh, hey.”
“Hey,” he said as he approached. “I was worried about you last night.” He looked back at the tent. “I tried to wait up, but I was pretty thrashed.”
“I needed to be alone.”
“I was actually stupid enough to wonder if you . . . never mind.”
I sighed. “You wondered if I was with Asa.”
He glanced at my ring finger. “Can you blame me?”
I turned around and kept walking.
He took a few long steps to catch up with me. “Mattie, please. You have no idea how awful I feel about putting you through all this. You have every right to hate me.”
“I don’t hate you. But I wonder if I should.”
“If you did, I would understand. You have to know, though, how much I love you. I’ll do anything to make this up to you.”
“Then I need you to give me time, because I have a lot to think about.” And I can’t think about it yet. The splinter pricked at my chest wall.
“You can have all the time you want. Once we get back to Sheboygan, I’ll move out if you want to, or you can move back to your parents’—”
Just the thought of the mess I’d be facing when I got back was enough to nearly drive me to my knees. “Stop it,” I said hoarsely. “I can’t deal with this now.”
“Mattie, you’re going to have to deal with it. If we get an early start, we’ll be home by midnight.” Ben paused and looked across the field. Unlike last night, he seemed to be seeing it for what it was, maybe because of the lingering pain of his wounds. “This isn’t really our kind of scene, is it?”
“They’re happier than we are,” I murmured, watching Betsy grin as she accepted a heaping plate of bacon from a portly dude sporting the bushiest beard I’d ever seen.
“We were happy, Mattie. Have you forgotten that?”
“Was it real, Ben? Or was it a glamour, like the one that covers this camp?”
“Are you really suggesting our whole relationship was fake?”
I shook my head. “It was real for me.”
“I get it. I screwed up so badly that I deserve your worst. We’ll have to think of something to tell your parents if we postpone or cancel the wedding, though.”
My parents had already sunk thousands into this wedding. Dad had invited all his business associates. It was going to be totally embarrassing to call it all off. It would affect more than just me and Ben. Suddenly I felt as if I were on a speeding train that would be hard to stop. “Ben, I have something I need to take care of here first, and I can’t leave until it’s done.”
“With Asa?” His tone had turned hard.
“Yeah, but . . .”
“No, I trust you, Mattie. And I’m going to earn yours back.” He drew himself up and squared his shoulders. “I’m going to prove myself to you.” Before I could move away, he planted a firm kiss on my forehead. “Love you.”
He walked toward the tent and I hustled over to the trailers, fighting the urge to childishly wipe my forehead. After a quick detour to the porta-potty, I spotted Roberta’s trailer almost immediately. It was positioned along the outer ring farthest from the midway, and an overflowing windo
w garden jutted from its side. The camper itself was covered with blue tarps that were strapped to its undercarriage, maybe to shield a leaky roof. Sparing me the effort of knocking, Roberta opened the door and held it wide, allowing me to step inside. She took the dish from me and pointed toward a neatly made bed, upon which sat a pair of denim capris, a belt, and a gray T-shirt that said, “‘I saw that.’—Karma.”
“Figured you might not want my underwear,” she said with the raspy chuckle of a recovering smoker.
“I’ve actually got a few pairs in the van.” As soon as I said it, I realized that fetching them would involve dealing with Asa, and decided to go commando.
“I’ll give you some privacy,” she said. “We’re opening at eleven, so I’m going to help set up.” She headed down a set of rickety portable wooden steps, letting the metal screen door swing shut behind her.
I shed my muddy sweats and donned the capris, which were about three sizes too big. The belt was a lifesaver, or else I would have been clutching at my waist all day. After I’d stripped off my muddy T-shirt, I looked down at my scrawny torso, frowning as I ran my fingers along the bumps of my ribs. The magic had been eating me alive for months. Once it was gone, would I be healthy again? I’d forgotten what that even felt like. I had vague memories, sure—I’d always loved my body and what it could do. I’d loved the way Ben had made it feel when we were together. I’d loved pleasure. But when I tried to summon the memory of what it had actually felt like, I couldn’t.
I pulled the T-shirt on. Feeling too raw to emerge just yet, I sat on the bed and stared out a window on the other side of the camper, which had an unobstructed view of the vast field beyond the camp.
A tall, lean form was slowly walking across it, a gray dog cavorting beside him. Asa and Gracie. He had probably found a solitary space in which to do his tai chi. I wondered how long he’d been up, and whether the alone time had helped. He was too far away for me to see whether the circles under his eyes were any lighter.
“I shouldn’t care,” I whispered.