Micah reached the entrance to the menagerie, only to skid to a stop when he heard the sudden, stomach-churning sound of a tiger roaring. Bibi always helped keep the other animals in line on moving day, but Micah had hardly ever known her to roar. A second later, the two-headed camel scrambled out of the tent, both heads looking sorry for themselves.
Micah took a deep breath and headed in.
It was mayhem. Bibi was trying to round up the pangolins, who were rolling in twelve different directions like a bag of dropped marbles. And Mr. Head was gently prying a pair of bush babies off the wallaby, who was hiccuping with distress.
The mousebirds were zipping around in a complete frenzy, making everything worse by trying to steal tail hairs and tufts of fur from any animal that looked distracted. Two particularly bold ones came at Micah—one swooping down from above and the other scurrying along the ground. He dodged out of the way and smacked into the Inventor, who’d just strode into the tent.
Micah would have fallen flat on his face if the magician hadn’t caught him and set him back upright.
“Sorry!” he said.
“Don’t worry,” the Inventor replied, a little breathless. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “They are pests, aren’t they? Always trying to take my creations.”
As if to prove her point, a mousebird dove toward one of the pouches on her tool belt. She waved it away.
“Do you need help with Fish?” Micah asked.
“I can handle the Idea,” she said. “It is always agreeable, and the tank is easily managed.”
The Inventor waited for a pangolin to roll by, then she hurried on, her long skirt sweeping the sawdust. When she reached the aquarium, she began tapping certain places on the tank’s metal plaque. In a moment, Micah knew, the tank would shrink down to the size of a lunch box, Fish included, and when it was finished, the Inventor would hook it to her belt.
Bibi roared, and Micah jumped. He was pretty sure the tiger wasn’t giving him instructions, but he hurried toward Terpsichore’s paddock anyway.
The unicorn was chewing on a pink plastic flip-flop. Terp had found the shoe somewhere not long after the lightning strike, and the manager had decided she could keep it. It was an odd choice of toy to begin with, and she had stopped playing with it months ago. But Micah guessed she must be feeling a little nervous right now.
“Hey, Terp!” he said in his most upbeat voice. “Let’s get you ready to go!”
She chimed a hello and tossed the slimy flip-flop to him.
Micah caught the shoe out of the air. He considered it for a moment, then jammed it under one of his backpack straps in case he needed to bribe her later. “We’ll play when we’re through the Door, okay?”
The unicorn nuzzled his forehead. She never pretended to jab Micah with her horn anymore. It had grown wickedly sharp as she got larger, and now that she was nearing her adult weight, her blue-green coat was beginning to pale. She already had a few sparkling white hairs in her tail.
But she was still a total ham. She loved going on outings around the circus, and whenever kids cheered for her, she would start waggling her rump like a puppy.
“I’m going to put your halter on,” said Micah. “You can show those animals out there how they ought to be acting.”
Terpsichore had always had a rope halter and a lead for trips out of the paddock, but over the last couple of months, she had started breaking free whenever the Strongmen used it. No ordinary rope could hold her anymore, so Micah had devised something a little more suited to the unicorn’s tastes and strength. He had let Terp pick the materials herself, and though the unicorn preferred delicate silk ribbons, Micah had knotted them together until he’d fashioned something even the Strongmen couldn’t break.
Terpsichore let him put the halter on her and attach the lead. By the time Mr. Head appeared, the work was all done.
“Thank you, Micah,” the manager said, stroking Terpsichore’s nose. “It’s a relief to see at least one of our creatures behaving this morning.”
Terp nudged his hand.
“Where are we going, sir?” Micah asked.
“Far away,” said Mr. Head. “Farther than Porter usually tries, and over an ocean, which is extremely difficult for him. We will all need to move more quickly than normal when he opens the Door.”
Micah nodded his understanding.
“Take our friend here with you, and ask Bowler for help with her,” said the manager. “Geoffrey informs me that if we leave in the next seven minutes, we will beat our previous speed record.”
* * *
When Micah exited the menagerie, almost everything was ready. The tents were down and packed, and the magicians stood in loose marching lines in the meadow, waiting for Porter to open the Door. It was a set of heavy double gates this time, and Micah realized after a moment’s study that they were the same gates Porter and the Lightbender had been eyeing in his tent when the blizzard ended.
Porter stood before them, his face set in a serious, focused expression Micah recognized from past moving days.
Micah still didn’t know where they were going, but he knew they would be there quickly. People and animals would leave first, then the Strongmen would chuck the supplies through the Door as soon as everyone was on the other side and out of the way. They would follow the supplies out, then Mr. Head and Bibi would come. Finally, Porter himself would step through, closing the Door behind him.
It was something like a fast parade, but with nobody there to see it.
The only thing that made this moving day different was the timing and the fact that a few magicians had binoculars and spyglasses pressed to their eyes, keeping watch on the dark skies.
Micah took a place in the back of the group, so that if Terpsichore decided to be contrary, they would hold up fewer people. The Inventor was just ahead of them, Fish’s miniaturized tank sloshing on her belt. She collapsed her spyglass and smiled over her shoulder at Micah.
“Nothing to be seen,” she said. “Not for miles.”
Micah nodded, relieved.
He spied Bowler a few yards away, sitting on top of a pile of bundled tents with two other Strongmen. When Micah waved, Bowler came over to stand with him.
“Hello, Terp,” he said, patting the unicorn gently on the flank. He took the silky lead rope from Micah and wrapped it several times around his thick wrist.
Terpsichore was too busy sniffing at the flip-flop tucked under Micah’s backpack strap to pay the Strongman any attention. “We’ll play catch with it later,” Micah reminded her. “If you’re good.”
Terp toot-tooted hopefully and licked his hair.
“Looks like it’s time to go,” Bowler said.
Micah couldn’t see the gates anymore because Big Jean was a few rows up, blocking his view. But he knew Porter must have been successful, because a few people applauded, and someone cheered. A moment later, they were all making their way toward the Door, much faster than they usually did. Some of the magicians were actually jogging.
“Get ready,” said Bowler.
“We’re ready, aren’t we, Terp?” said Micah.
The unicorn didn’t answer. She’d just gotten her teeth around the pink flip-flop and tugged it free of the strap.
“Hey!”
Bowler laughed.
Terp waved the shoe proudly over Micah’s head. He jumped up, and to his surprise, he managed to grab it. The unicorn had gone still.
“Terp?” said Micah. “What’s the—”
Terpsichore screamed.
LIGHT
A piece of the sky was falling.
At least, that was the last wild thought Micah had before Bowler picked him up and threw him out of harm’s way. Something he could barely distinguish from the gray light of predawn plummeted toward Terpsichore. It was huge and silent as a whisper, and the unicorn screamed. Th
en, Micah was flying backward.
Too fast. Everything was happening too fast for him to keep up.
Big arms wrapped around his chest, caught him out of the air like he was a football, swung him around and down safely onto the damp grass. One of the Strongmen, thought Micah. Deep voices were shouting instructions in languages Micah couldn’t understand, and when he looked up, he saw clouds forming.
They roiled overhead, the color of a bruise, and the wind was picking up speed. Micah tried to get up, but someone pushed him back down and told him to stay there.
He curled into a ball. He crossed his arms over his head and held still because that was what they had always told him to do during emergency drills at school.
He took a breath. Another.
Think, Micah. Think.
Shouts. A rumble of thunder. Bibi roaring. And Terpsichore . . . what was wrong with Terpsichore?
She was Micah’s responsibility. He forced himself onto his feet.
He stood amid the rolled tents and packed luggage. The magicians who hadn’t made it through the Door yet were scattered everywhere. The Inventor and Yuri crouched several yards away, protected by a familiar shield of blue light. Others huddled among the baggage, calling to one another and pointing toward a terrible scene unfolding in the distance.
Terpsichore looked more like a nightmare than the friendly unicorn Micah knew.
Blood poured down her flanks, and her mane tossed in the wind as she bucked and reared and stomped. The Strongmen had formed a circle to hem her in, and other magicians were running to help, but she just kept stomping the ground.
No, Micah realized. Not the ground.
Terpsichore was stomping someone on the ground. Someone who struggled to his feet only to lose them again as the unicorn broke through the circle of Strongmen, sweeping them aside so easily they might as well have been paper dolls.
Bowler, thought Micah. That’s Bowler.
With his arm wrapped in Terpsichore’s lead rope, Bowler couldn’t get away.
Or maybe he was trying to hold the unicorn, to wait for help . . . but Terpsichore needed to run. Something had hurt her, had made her afraid. Her screams were unlike anything Micah had ever heard—high enough to shatter glass and strong enough to pierce the storm that was building out of nowhere.
The rising wind stung Micah’s eyes, but he couldn’t look away.
Something terrible was going to happen. Micah could feel it coming. He remembered the Lightbender, saying unicorns could crush boulders into sand. He remembered tying the knots for Terpsichore’s halter and lead, perfect and tighter than tight.
Stronger than strong.
Terp wouldn’t be able to break free.
Bowler had to let go of the lead rope. He had to keep his feet for long enough to unwrap his arm.
“Let go!” screamed Micah, stumbling toward them, pushing through the wind. “Bowler, you have to let her go!”
But even as he shouted, it was too late.
Bowler pulled back on the rope with all his strength, his boots digging furrows in the earth, and Terp rounded on him. The unicorn reared and swung her powerful neck, snapping the lead tight, dragging the Strongman off balance and onto the ground once more.
Terp’s front hooves came down again and again. Harder and harder. And Bowler was trying to get up. Trying to free his arm at last. But one of Terp’s hooves connected with his forehead. A sound split the air, like the crack of a baseball bat, and Bowler stopped moving.
Micah’s heart stopped beating.
But Terpsichore didn’t even pause. She kept stomping, trying to break free of the Strongman she thought held her captive, trying to crush him into sand.
Micah ran.
He had to do something. He had to get to the rope. If he could just touch it . . . all he needed was to brush a finger against it. He could do it.
But someone grabbed his shoulders from behind.
“Micah!” said a voice with a strong Russian accent.
Yuri. The chef’s voice was firm, and his hands held Micah like vises.
“I have to help Bowler!” Micah cried, struggling against the grip. “It’s my fault! I tied it.”
Bibi had joined the fray, her teeth long as knives. And there were magicians, so many of them, and nothing was working. The Strongmen were piling onto the unicorn, grabbing for the lead rope. But Terpsichore threw them off again and again.
“I can do it,” Micah sobbed, stretching his arms out toward Terpsichore. Toward Bowler. Micah had never seen one of the Strongmen so still. “I just have to touch it. She just wants to get away.”
Lightning crackled overhead, and in the sudden brightness, Terpsichore’s hooves glistened, dark and shiny and wet. Why were they wet?
Micah cried out again, reaching and reaching and feeling . . . something new. Just in front of him.
The rope that locked the unicorn into battle with the unconscious Strongman was so far away, but Micah could sense it. Like a word on the tip of your tongue, like a dream you half forgot upon waking, it was faint. But it was there.
A tiny vibration so small Micah had never known to look for it before.
He tried to grab it, but his hands clutched at the air, and there was nothing to hold on to.
He stretched himself, all of himself, pulling so hard against Yuri’s grasp that the magician’s fingers would leave bruises. He flung his heart into the battle and his brain and whatever else there was inside of him, and he didn’t care anymore about what he might be able to do with his magic one day.
As long as he could untie this knot right now.
“Come loose!” Even Micah’s voice seemed to be reaching for Terpsichore’s rope, sinking invisible claws into the ribbons, tearing at the halter knots. Pulling and tugging, ordering them to snap.
“Come loose NOW!” he screamed at the knots.
And they did.
And so did everything else.
* * *
For Micah, the real world went dim.
He was vaguely aware of the magicians around him, but they were only startled shadows, running here and there, so much less interesting than the shining new universe he’d found underneath the old one.
It was a golden place made of webs and strands of light.
Some of the strands wound around and around one another to form points of light no bigger than pinpricks. These tiny sparks were knots, Micah saw. Just ordinary knots. Tied into ropes or scarves or shoelaces.
These twinkles here were the knots that held the crates together in the Lost and Found. And those glimmers over there were the knots the Strongmen had used to secure the circus’s luggage.
How interesting, Micah thought. How nice to see you all like this.
But even as he thought it, the small lights were winking out.
They faded one by one, the minuscule strands that formed them falling away from one another and going dark, as if they were candles someone had snuffed.
Did I do that?
Micah thought he might have.
But it was all right. There were so many other things to see in this place.
Strands of light as thick as rivers. Webs of it that stretched to the horizon. A knot was just a sort of connection, Micah realized. The smallest and least important kind.
Here, in this universe, were so many others.
The rivers of light were the connections between people, ties made not of string but of friendship. Of love. They burned strong and bright, and Micah thought it wouldn’t be right to touch them. They were so perfect on their own.
But what’s that? Up there? That’s not right.
Overhead was a hideous snarl of knots that writhed like a pit of snakes. Just looking at them made Micah feel sick to his stomach.
I’ve seen something like this before.
All those m
onths ago in Terp’s paddock. A twisting, tortured vine of light.
As if the memory had called it into being, Micah saw it suddenly. That same light, less a knot and more a hideously stretched and tangled rope. It was on the edge of the writhing mass, and Micah reached up for it, intending to straighten out the mess.
But as soon as he brushed against the rope of light, it splintered and went dark.
Ow. He drew back, shrinking from the pain.
The snarl was smaller now. It writhed a little less. But it had hurt him.
Micah stumbled away from it, aching and unnerved. He passed gleaming rivers and glittering streams, careful not to touch, until he came across a huge tapestry of light, so magnificent he had to stop and admire it.
What are you? he thought, staring at it.
It certainly didn’t writhe in that awful, nauseating way. In fact, it was beautiful. Not as grand as the rivers, not as bright as the streams, but fascinating in its own way. A big, powerful lacework of knots that connected . . . what?
Micah traced the pattern of light with his eyes, trying to figure it out. It was a funny thing, a golden connection that somehow joined here to there. It was like someone had used a tremendous net to bridge two places that didn’t belong side by side.
Oh, that’s very good! Micah thought admiringly. I could never tie something like that.
Too curious to resist, he reached for it, wanting to understand how it worked. But as soon as he made contact, the light began to dim.
That’s not what I meant to do.
Micah was sorry, but the big connection was fading fast and he had no idea how to fix it. It dissolved into darkness.
And Micah felt utterly drained. The lights around him began to dim.
He’d been in this new world too long. And in the real world, something was going wrong. The shadowy magicians were upset. Someone was shouting.
At me? Micah wondered.
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