by Amy Ephron
The sky in Devon that morning had been paler, almost blue-gray, lighter, more tranquil.
This was almost ultralight, as if the colors had been computer altered, brightened. Not quite DayGlo but very bright. And they were definitely moving as the sky and the grassy landscape continued to sweep by them or they continued to sweep by it . . .
“I think it’s my fault,” said Max, his voice wavering. “I think I’ve done something terrible.” He ran back to the window and looked out, as if that was going to change anything.
“What do you mean?” asked Tess. “What could you have done?”
She stood up. She felt a little dizzy. She couldn’t tell if she felt dizzy from being “hypnotized” or it was just because the trailer was rocking back and forth as it was moving quickly forward.
Tess ran unsteadily to the window where Max was standing, his eyes almost as big as saucers.
Where were they? It didn’t look anything like Devon. Maybe she was still hypnotized.
Tess pinched herself. No, she was definitely awake . . . But where was Tara? They were alone in the trailer. Tess called out to her. “Tara?” But there wasn’t any answer. “Is there another room in here?” she asked Max.
“I don’t think so,” said Max.
“Where’s Tara?”
“I don’t know,” said Max. “I had my back turned to you and I was playing with the levers on the wall while she hypnotized you.”
“What levers?” asked Tess.
“The levers and the steering wheel,” he answered. “And the pulleys and the altitude lever . . .”
Tess gave him the oddest look. They both turned and looked at the front wall of the trailer, but it was absolutely flat. There weren’t any levers, nothing that looked like a steering wheel, or an altitude control, or even a pulley. There wasn’t anything like that. Just a plain, flat wall.
“Are you sure you weren’t hypnotized, too,” asked Tess, “and you might have imagined that?”
“Maybe,” said Max. “But I don’t think I’m imagining this . . .”
Max ran to the door and tried to open it. It wouldn’t budge. It was as if it was sealed shut, like a door on an airplane or a spaceship.
Max tried to calculate how fast they were travelling from the view of the changing landscape outside, but there was no way to calibrate it. It wasn’t as if they were moving from tree to tree or town to town, or were they? The images outside the window were almost a blur. Maybe he was just still dizzy from the Ferris wheel? Or Tess was right, maybe he’d been hypnotized, too. If that was true, he sort of hoped that he was going to wake up soon.
Then there was another giant noise, like the sound of a parking brake screeching to a halt on a hill or an anchor forcibly landing, as the trailer settled down with a thud.
Where were they?
There was something strange about the face of the hill they’d landed on: it wasn’t rocky, quite the opposite. It was like a soft grassy slope, a rolling hill, with a similar rolling hill next to it and behind it, well, all around, really. The color had backed off, so that the scenery was almost in watercolor now or fading.
There were a few evergreen trees in the distance and what looked like pine cones on the ground and an occasional patch of pale green moss. Max tried to remember his geography and whether there was an amazing mountain range in England. Was there? There were some rolling hills in Devon. Maybe they were still there.
There was no sign of Tara, who seemed to have completely disappeared. He didn’t remember the door opening or her leaving. He just remembered that sound he’d heard of wheels turning on dirt, on rocks, as if the circus wagon was running away.
He wanted to call Aunt Evie. He wanted to tell her that they might be late . . . might not be at the brontosaurus at one thirty. He wanted to call his mom in Spain; even though she might not answer, at least he’d get through and hear her voice on her voicemail, which might be comforting, and leave her and their dad a message about where they were.
But where exactly were they?
The ground beneath them felt stable, constant, as if they weren’t moving any more. Max frantically tried the door again. This time it opened.
~ CHAPTER ELEVEN ~
in which they wonder if they’re lost
They didn’t even speak. No comment from either of Max or Tess, just motion. Max was out the door first and Tess behind him, running headlong into the carnival, trying to make their way, or Max was anyway, to the outer gate.
Everything seemed to be going slower. Tess couldn’t quite explain that. The Ferris wheel didn’t seem as fast. On the other hand, it had recently broken. There was a pretzel stand where the cotton candy machine had been. Maybe they’d run the wrong direction and these were different food stands. The sign at the grill was advertising MEAT PIES instead of sausages. But the grill master looked a lot like Ben, the jolly fellow who’d sold Tess the candyfloss and called her “Missy” when she stepped off the Ferris wheel. MEAT PIES. Maybe that was something they sold later in the day, like a dinner entrée, Tess reasoned, trying to make sense of it. Well, at least they were probably still in England. Maybe. Meat Pies.
There was the blue tent. That was encouraging, and there was still the sign announcing the aerial ballet show with a painted poster. The poster had a picture of the three kids, a girl and boy who looked almost the same age, maybe twelve or thirteen years old and what must be their older sister, fourteen or fifteen. They were each hanging on to a bar, about to take off, in perfect position in the painting as if they were going to momentarily dance across the trapeze.
And there was still the sign that said:
THE BREATHTAKING BARANOVAS
Amazing Aerial Ballet Show!!
Starts promptly at 2:00 p.m.
Tess remembered that they’d promised Aunt Evie that they’d meet her at the brontosaurus at one thirty. She wondered what time it was. And that they’d bought tickets for the aerial ballet show. Everything was just the same, it was just the meat pies that had changed.
“Max!” she called out, but he kept running. Tess could definitely outrun him. “Max!” she exclaimed as she grabbed him by the arm. “Max! We promised Aunt Evie we’d meet her at one thirty. Wait. We’re at the carnival. It’s okay. See . . .” She made him turn around. “There’s the picture of the aerial ballet. Just like there was before. See, at the blue tent. Calm down. I don’t know what happened. But you know what Dad says about thinking before we act.”
“Actually, that’s what Dad says about you, not me,” said Max.
“Well, in this case,” said Tess sort of softly, trying to calm her brother down, not wanting him to get angry at her for saying it, “that probably apples to both of us. I mean, applies to both of us.”
Max started laughing. “I kind of like ‘apples to both of us,’” he said.
For some reason Tess couldn’t explain, she thought it was funny, too. “Apples to both of us, then,” she said. And they both started laughing.
After a minute, Tess said, “I think that we’re supposed to take a beat here. Look at me, Max. We—we don’t understand what happened and see,” she said, “see that bench over there? We sat there. An hour ago? Was it an hour ago? Right when we got off the Ferris wheel and you had a lemonade and . . . and . . .” She couldn’t explain what she was frightened of.
Rushing out of the carnival and not really knowing where they were? Not being able to get back in? Why did she think that was even a possibility? Getting lost and not being able to get found?
“You know what Dad says we should always remember,” said Tess. “And you’re better at this than me. Dad would say, ‘Take a moment to assess the situation.’ That’s what he’d say.”
She didn’t say this next bit out loud. But their dad also said, “If you get lost, go back to where you started so that somebody could find you again.” And they were p
resently surrounded by what seemed to Tess as significant markers.
The Ferris wheel was still there. They could see that. And off to the right, that funny roller coaster with biplanes as passenger vehicles. Each with the funny name.
“What time is it, Max?” asked Tess.
“I don’t know,” he answered.
He pulled his iPhone out of his pocket, but the screen had gone to black. Max pressed the power button . . . but nothing happened. He pressed it again. Still nothing. “I think it must’ve run out of battery. I knew I was supposed to charge it this morning.”
“Let’s use mine,” said Tess. She pulled her phone out of her backpack, but it was turned off, too. Or was it? The screen was dark, really dark. She pushed the power button on her phone, but it didn’t boot up, either.
“Did—you charge yours?” asked Max.
“I thought I did,” said Tess. “But I don’t know. The plug in the attic’s kind of”—she searched for a word—“antique.”
All Tess wanted in that moment was to be back in the attic room, the sound of the ocean outside, a soft, comforting rhythmic swell in the background, and Aunt Evie downstairs with seven kinds of yogurt in the fridge and . . .
She couldn’t let Max know that she was afraid.
“Hey.”
Tess turned to see who had spoken to her. She recognized him instantly. It was the boy in the poster, one of the Breathtaking Baranovas, who was standing in front of the poster, so that there couldn’t be any mistaking who he was.
“Alexei,” he said, before she’d even asked his name. “That was pretty impressive what you did,” he said.
Tess had no idea what he was talking about. She was worried about Max, who had started running again toward the front gate.
“Max, hold up.”
Max turned and looked at her and saw she was talking to that boy.
“Max, we have to stay together,” Tess yelled out. Max turned around and walked back to her.
“My sister and I were watching you in horror,” Alexei said, “when you saved that little boy.”
That seemed so long ago—the Ferris wheel ride.
“Oh,” said Tess, somewhat modestly. She thought it was a good sign that Alexei had seen that happen.
“We were,” he almost stammered, “we were kind of worried about you,” he said.
“I guess I didn’t think much before I jumped,” said Tess. “And then I didn’t breathe much until I caught him, and eased him back in his seat, and shut the chariot door. And then,” she confessed, looking a little pale when she said this, “I looked—down for a minute.”
“You’re never supposed to look down,” said Alexei.
“I know that,” said Tess. “That’s what I always tell Max because he gets motion sickness and I’m always scared he’s going to get dizzy. Don’t look down. But there I was, up in the air, and I could hear people screaming at me from below . . .”
“Applauding, you mean. Everyone was clapping,” said Alexei. “And cheering!”
“It just sounded like screaming,” said Tess.
“It was pretty impressive,” said Tatiana. She was Alexei’s sister, actually his twin, and she’d joined him outside the tent. “It was jaw-droppingly impressive,” she said. “I mean, we could have done it, but we’re trained.” She had a funny attitude when she said this. And Tess wondered what the girl really thought of her.
“I’m Tess,” said Tess.
The girl answered, “I’m Tatiana.”
Of course she would have a name like Tatiana, thought Tess, an over-the-top, theatrical name. But she was ashamed that she’d thought that. They were both Russian and those were perfectly reasonable names for two children who were from Russia: Tatiana and Alexei.
“We’re twins,” Tatiana said.
“I thought you might be,” said Max. “I’m Max, Tess’s brother.” He reached his hand out politely to take hers.
Tatiana didn’t quite shake it actually. It was more like the way a royal princess would take someone’s hand when it had been offered to her. Or were you never supposed to offer your hand to royalty? Tess couldn’t remember. And she was quite sure Max wasn’t aware if there was a rule or not.
“Have you ever trained in aerial ballet?” Tatiana asked Tess, quite seriously.
“No,” said Tess, laughing. “I dance a bit. I’ve always wanted to though, secretly, dance on a trapeze.” And she added, kind of wistfully, “I imagined I did once. I think that’s what it was. But I’ve always wanted to really fly, I mean try.”
“Fly,” said Tatiana, repeating Tess’s mistake. “That sounds like one of those mistakes you make, when you mean to say one thing and you actually say what you mean to say by mistake.”
“A Freudian slip,” said Max. “Is that what you mean?”
“We don’t like to use the word ‘slip,’” said Tatiana, “in aerial ballet,” showing that she, too, almost had a sense of humor.
“I’m glad we found you,” said Tess. “We thought we were lost.”
“Oh, yes,” said Alexei, sounding very serious when he said it. “We were wondering when you were going to get to that part . . .”
~ CHAPTER TWELVE ~
inside the blue tent
Tess looked at Alexei for the longest time. He hadn’t really answered her question. There was an awkward silence before he said, “It’s still an hour before the show,” said Alexei. “Do you want to see the stage and the aerial trapeze?”
Max interrupted him. “You know what time it is,” said Max.
“Of course,” said Alexei.
That was reassuring.
“We have to keep track of time when we have a show to do,” he explained. “There’s nothing scheduled before us and we always like to do a little warm-up before the show. Do you want to see it?” he asked.
“I do,” said Tess emphatically, looking at Max and hoping he would agree. Max nodded.
“Touch the sky,” said Alexei and then he did the strangest thing.
He put his hand up against the seemingly enclosed tent. The fabric of the tent practically looked as thin as a balloon except it was made of the finest parachute silk, blue and shimmery. And right where Alexei put his index finger, pointed it almost like a wand, it was as if a sharp knife came down and slit the tent and created an opening as if it had been a curtain all along.
Alexei held a side of it open for Tess, Max, and Tatiana to enter. Then he entered himself, and there was the funniest sound like a high-tech zipper, as the tent seemed to close itself up behind them as if there’d never been an entrance at all.
Tess did think that was sort of curious.
There were bleachers, tiered so that the back row was higher than the front row, the seats and rows all lined in a semicircle, almost like a theater in the round. There was a silvery white moon painted on the top of the tent and a brilliant splash of sparkling stars. Tess wondered how painted stars could sparkle. And then she remembered the sparkling stars on the ceiling of the psychic wagon.
“Special effect,” said Max as if he’d read her mind. “It’s probably electric.”
But Tess continued to look up. She was mesmerized by the elaborate array of swings, bars, multileveled platforms, and the bright-silver tightrope, taut as steel, strung in a strange geometric pattern, connecting all of the acrobatic equipment in the air emphasized by the backdrop of sparkling stars.
“Do you want to try it?” Tatiana asked Tess. There was something vaguely taunting in the way she said it, almost as if it was “a dare”!
“More than anything,” said Tess, completely forgetting in that moment that, especially in England, it was sometimes a good idea to be careful what you wish for.
If they were still in England, that is, since really nobody had quite answered that question yet.
Alexei was already halfway
up one of the silk rope ladders on the right of the stage, climbing to a top platform. Tatiana pointed Tess to a ladder on the other side.
“Don’t worry,” Tatiana said, “I’ll be right behind you.” Tess started to scramble up but looked down at her jeans and worried she might be at a disadvantage.
“Hold on,” said Tatiana, and ran to get a pair of tights and a leotard for Tess and a pair of silver ballet slippers that tied in a criss-cross up the leg.
She showed Tess a small dressing room, really just another curtain off to the side, and Tess slipped her clothes off and changed into the tights, the leotard, and the silver ballet slippers, which fit her perfectly, almost as if they’d been made for her.
Tess noticed that the leotard itself had silver stars sewn into it and they sparkled, sort of the way the stars did on the ceiling. Tess wasn’t sure what to make of that—maybe it was paint with glitter in it? She realized the stars were appliqué patches as one of them, the one right by her right hip, was coming loose. She started to play with it, to see if she could get it to stick, but it was actually sewn on.
“I think it becomes you,” a voice behind her said. Tess recognized it instantly, soft, almost hypnotic. The voice of Tara, the psychic. “Are you losing a star?” The word star was elongated, almost as if there was more than one rrr at the end of it. “I can help with that,” she said. “It’s never a good idea to lose a star,” said Tara, whispering, as if there was more meaning to it than just a piece of a ballet costume coming loose. “Let me sew it on for you,” she said. “There’s lots of silk thread here.”
Tess tried to see where Tara had appeared from, as she hadn’t seen anyone else in the tent when they entered . . . but then again Tess had been behind the curtain getting dressed . . .
“This looks like a perfect color,” said Tara, holding up a spool of silver thread. “But I don’t see a needle anywhere . . . That’s irritating, I don’t even see a sewing kit.”