by Amy Ephron
~ CHAPTER FIFTEEN ~
an encounter with lorenzo
Tess’s cheeks were flushed, her heart still racing, overexcited, slightly enthused when she walked out of the blue tent back onto the grounds of the carnival. She’d actually performed in an aerial ballet show. In the back of her mind, though, she realized that if there had been a crowd, there was a crowd, and she’d actually performed, it must be after two. She didn’t mention this to Max. Not yet anyway. She realized she couldn’t see, from any angle, the brontosaurus anywhere. Was Aunt Evie waiting for them somewhere else? Had the carnival actually moved? She couldn’t remember if she’d seen the brontosaurus after they’d first left the psychic wagon.
Max, meanwhile, noticed that the sun was starting to go down in the sky. Not setting yet. But it was getting late in the day. The carnival seemed less crowded. He wondered what time it really was. He realized Aunt Evie, by now, must be hysterical. It was later than one thirty. He couldn’t see the brontosaurus ride. Max didn’t tell this to Tess because he didn’t want to scare her, either. Max realized he needed a minute to think. Logically. Sort this all out so that it sort of made sense. He felt as if it was all his fault. He’d pulled the levers and played with the steering wheel, if there’d been a steering wheel. He was sure there was and that it had started to spin . . . He tried to remember his dad’s advice: Take a moment to assess the situation.
He didn’t realize the situation might move so fast there might not be time to assess it.
Tess announced that she was thirsty. Tatiana and Alexei walked them over to the meat pie stand so Tess could get a glass of water, but their way was blocked by a tall, muscular man wearing a white T-shirt. The man who’d tossed the roses to Tess. The sleeves of his T-shirt had been purposefully ripped to expose his built-up biceps and a tattoo on his right arm that said THRILL RIDERS in an elaborate cursive scroll. There was a symbol underneath that was like a musical clef turned on its side. His name, they learned, was Lorenzo Leone, and he was the owner of the carnival.
“Oh,” he said, “it’s the girl who can fly through the stars.”
He had a faint Italian accent. His tone was menacing (although Tess couldn’t quite explain why) and complimentary at the same time. It felt like an encounter with the Vice Principal in the hallway at your school when you were definitely the person she was looking for and you didn’t know yet if you’d done something bad or something good—like, kind of, it could go either way.
There was no getting around him. Alexei and Tatiana didn’t even try, and neither did Tess or Max. He had another man with him, who was also scary but in a different way. His name was Isaac, but everyone called him Izzy. He was shorter than Lorenzo, red-faced, bald, also tattooed, a slinky large green lizard right up his right arm. He looked like he could throw a mean punch if he was given even the slightest opportunity.
“Hi, I’m Max,” said Max, sticking his hand out politely to Lorenzo, “and this is my sister, Tess,” he added, so at least Lorenzo would know that they were polite and didn’t mean to do anyone any harm or interfere in any way. In fact, all they really wanted was to go home. Home in this case would be Aunt Evie’s beach cottage, which Max hoped was just a little ways away, down the mountain, by the sea, where they’d started out to begin with . . .
Lorenzo just nodded to him. Max felt somewhat foolish holding his hand out to someone who wouldn’t take it. But Max wisely understood that that might have more to do with Lorenzo’s character than his own.
This wasn’t something their dad had ever said, but it would be something Max would say to their dad if he ever had a chance: Never trust anyone who won’t shake your hand.
~ CHAPTER SIXTEEN ~
welcome to the carnival
Excellent performance, my dear,” Lorenzo said to Tess.
Tess looked at him somewhat suspiciously before she answered, “Thanks.”
“I’ve been looking for someone exactly like you,” said Lorenzo. “Welcome aboard.”
It sounded like something a pirate would say: “Welcome aboard.” Lorenzo smiled, and that was sort of reminiscent of a cartoon version of a pirate, too, as when he smiled he revealed a silver tooth just to the left of his bottom front teeth, which seemed to glisten in a somewhat menacing way.
“What do you think, kids?” he asked, looking at Alexei and Tatiana. “The Breathtaking Baranovas were a better act when there were three of you!” He held up three fingers cheerfully.
“That’s not our doing,” said Tatiana brazenly, with just a hint of sadness underneath the anger. She pointed at him. “You’re the one who sent our sister away.”
“That I did,” Lorenzo said, as if he was almost proud of it. “One of the best deals I’ve ever made.”
“But you said, Lorenzo,” Alexei said firmly, “that it was only for a little while. That you were just loaning her out for a little while, to that other carnival, to star in their show! And . . .”
Tatiana weighed in, too, the way she and Alexei had of finishing sentences for each other. “You promised,” she said, “you promised, you promised . . .”
“We miss her,” they both said together. “It isn’t the same without our sister Anna. We miss her every minute of every day.”
“I miss her, too,” said Lorenzo, laughing again as if he had a secret. “Apparently, she’s a box-office sensation.” He said this last word almost as if it had spaces between the syllables: “sen-sa-tion.” “Absolutely miraculous,” he said. “They’ve just extended her contract and offered me, I mean her, a big raise.”
Max wondered whether this was just a slip of the tongue. How much money was Lorenzo making off Tatiana and Alexei’s sister Anna?
“But isn’t it a miracle, too,” asked Lorenzo, looking Tess up and down in a way she really didn’t like, as if she was a prize-winning thoroughbred racehorse or something. “Isn’t it a miracle,” he repeated, “that Tess has come to the carnival? And, now there are going to be three of you again! And everyone would agree, her first performance was sen-sa-tional. Do you think you can do that again, dear?” Lorenzo asked, laughing. “Of course you can.”
Tess wasn’t sure she could do that again, at all.
There was something about the whole encounter that made Tess afraid to respond. Her normal response would have been: Isn’t this something you’re supposed to ask me if I want to do? But she had a feeling the answer to that was going to be “No,” and if that was the case, it was probably better just to be quiet. It was one of the things her dad had taught her. “It’s always best to choose your battles,” he’d said to Tess, and then he’d added, “and try not to pick the ones you can’t win.”
“I have a job for you, too, Sonny,” Lorenzo said, laughing, looking at Max, his silver tooth even more visible when he laughed.
But before either Tess or Max could even respond to him, Lorenzo disappeared into The House of Mirrors that they hadn’t even noticed they were standing next to before.
But Lorenzo didn’t disappear into the entrance. It was almost as if he’d walked straight through one of the mirrored walls of glass itself and simply disappeared, leaving behind a somewhat ghostly laugh that seemed to reverberate through the air.
~ CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ~
they start to understand there might not really be a way to get away
You’ll stay with us tonight,” said Tatiana, who had been quietly watching the whole thing.
“What do you mean?” said Max. “We want to go home.”
Max couldn’t imagine what Aunt Evie would think if they didn’t go home. He pushed the thought away.
But Tess said it out loud. “What do you think Aunt Evie will think if we don’t come home tonight? What do you think she would do? She has to be half hysterical by now. And . . . and . . .” Tess was close to tears, which was very much unlike her. “We want to go home. Why can’t we go home?”
“We’d like yo
u to go home, too,” said Alexei, who was standing behind her. “Not because we don’t want you here. Don’t think that. But because we know that’s what you and Max want to do. But you can’t go home,” said Alexei. “Not yet, anyway. There isn’t really a way to go home.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Max. Even though the logical part of his brain was tending to believe Alexei. “We can just walk out the gate and . . .”
“No,” said Tatiana. “The carnival’s closed, and there isn’t really a gate to walk out of . . . not in the sense that you mean . . . Not for us anyway, not once you become one of the carnival workers.”
“But I’m not a carnival worker,” said Max.
“Yes, you are,” said Tatiana. She said each word distinctly, as if there was a beat between. As if something had happened and he had been transformed.
Max looked down at his clothes and saw that inexplicably he was wearing old-fashioned overalls with a long-sleeved shirt underneath. The sneakers he’d had on had been replaced by black lace-up work boots that were comfortable but didn’t look at all familiar. He had a funny scarf tied at his neck that was red-and-white checked. He didn’t own a scarf like that. In fact, he didn’t own any cotton or silk scarves at all, just woolen ones for winter.
“Yes, you are,” said Tatiana and Alexei, quite definitively and frighteningly in tandem. “You already are.”
Tess wondered if this was somehow her fault. If when she’d agreed to take the aerial ballet lesson, she’d somehow signed them up.
Max wondered whether it was his fault. When he’d played with the levers and the steering wheel—he was certain there’d been a steering wheel there—that somehow they’d gone on a ride of some kind that they couldn’t get off.
Lorenzo suddenly appeared again, out of The House of Mirrors, almost like a ghost himself, since his face was reflected in the mirror and another mirror and another mirror and so on. “You,” he said.
Max looked behind him to see who Lorenzo was talking to. “No, you,” said Lorenzo.
“Me?” asked Max a little sheepishly.
“What’d you say your name was, kid, ‘Martin’?”
“No, Max,” said Max.
“Oh, Max. That’s easier. It’s shorter. Sorta like you, kid. Ha ha.” Lorenzo laughed out loud. “Max, or should I call you ‘Shorty’? You come with me. Lemme show you the entrance to The House of Mirrors. I have just the job for you.”
Max didn’t understand what he could do that would be helpful at The House of Mirrors. He didn’t look scary. Wasn’t The House of Mirrors supposed to be a little scary? And isn’t there always that funny mirror where you look very strange? He wondered if there was that mirror at the end that distorts the way a person’s reflection looks in the mirror, very tall, at first and then you look round and very short. All mooshed out, so to speak.
Max thought the only part of this that applied to him was, he was pretty short. At least an inch shorter than Tess. And Tess was barely five foot one.
Max’s dad had been promising him he’d have a growth spurt. He told Max he was short, too, when he was his age—now, he was six foot one—but Max didn’t believe it. He’d accustomed himself to being a little short.
His mom had told him to use it as an advantage. He was complaining to her about his soccer playing and that a lot of the other kids were taller than he was and his mom had said, “That’s your advantage, Max. You’re a surprise.” Max took that advice to heart in more than one way. That was his advantage. He was a surprise. He wondered if he’d have the opportunity to ever show Lorenzo what a surprise he could be.
“Okay, cone of silence, kid,” said Lorenzo when they got to the front entrance of The House of Mirrors. “Promise. Not a word to anyone. Got it?” His voice was pretty menacing.
“Got it,” said Max, although he didn’t know what he “got” yet.
“There’s this thing that happens, see,” said Lorenzo. “Sometimes, sometimes, well, people get a little bit freaked out in The House of Mirrors, especially if they turn the wrong way, hit a dead end, you know. And then they just see a reflection of themselves over and over and over again, and, like, they get kind of nervous, frightened, panicky . . . I don’t know why that would freak anyone out. I like seeing myself in multiples,” Lorenzo said. “I think it’s, umm, y’know, powerful.” He stretched out the word “power-ful” so it definitely had three syllables and lasted a long time when he said it. Max knew better than to respond to this. He just nodded.
“Anyway,” said Lorenzo, “sometimes this other thing happens . . . I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe it’s too hot in there or something. Too many reflecting lights.” The word “toooo” was pronounced as if the os were three syllables long.
“Sometimes,” Lorenzo said, “people see something else in The House of Mirrors. Something that they think is scary. Sorta like a”—he hesitated—“ghost sighting. But it’s an image of another . . . I can’t even explain it. I think they ate too much chocolate or something.” His voice deepened, and the words seemed to echo as if it scared him, too. He spoke this next part slowly and clearly and quite definitively. “They see an image,” he said, “of another carnival reflected on the other side of the glass. It’s always in black-and-white and there’s a feeling when you see it, like maybe you could step into the mirror and never return.” His voice got really spooky at this point. “It’s old-fashioned and frightening . . . Of course I’ve never seen it,” said Lorenzo, speaking quite quickly again.
Max wondered if that was true. There was something dark and disturbing about Lorenzo’s description and the way his voice sounded when he got to the part about “stepping into the mirror” that made Max think Lorenzo might have seen it, too.
“Anyway, kid,” said Lorenzo, “sometimes when this thing happens, someone in The House of Mirrors will start to scream. I mean scream, scream, scream,” he said three times for emphasis, “without even stopping to catch a breath. We know it’s scary in there sometimes, but when this happens,” and he handed Max a very big pocket watch that wasn’t set up like a regular clock at all, “the clock’ll start ticking . . .”
“By itself,” asked Max, always practical, “or do I have to do something to it?”
“No, the clock just starts ticking by itself. I had it specially made.”
Max looked at the face of the clock and realized it only had seven minutes on it. That was curious.
“And when it gets to six and a half minutes . . .” said Lorenzo.
“That’s an awfully long time to let someone scream,” said Max.
“It’s a carnival, kid, no one really notices. But when it gets to six and a half minutes, a bell’s going to go off and you’re going to run as fast as you can into The House of Mirrors. I’m going to show you the way. And you’re going to find whoever’s screaming. There’s a secret exit, which I’m going to show you in the morning. And you, Max, are going to lead them out, as if nothing whatsoever has happened. It’s all in their head. You got it, kiddo, it’s all in their head. If they got a kid with them, you get a candyfloss on the house immediately and free iced tea for the grown-ups.
“You do what I tell you, kid,” said Lorenzo. “No one should be afraid at Lorenzo’s Fun Fair.”
Max didn’t say anything. He didn’t want Lorenzo to know that he and Tess might be scared. That was another lesson their dad had taught him. Never let anyone know if you’re scared.
“Knew you were a smart kid,” said Lorenzo. “I’m going to give you some advice. It’s a good idea to stay on my good side.” Max, who was a smart kid, had already figured that out.
~ CHAPTER EIGHTEEN ~
the first sleepover at the runaway carnival
They called it their “apartment” as a joke. Alexei and Tatiana lived in a tent. It was a mini-version of the big blue tent. Really mini—barely as big as a tent you might find on a roadside campsite. They ha
d offered to share it with Tess and Max.
“There’s room for four of us, almost. Three of us used to sleep there, anyway,” said Tatiana, making a reference to their sister, “and I’m sure we can squish in one more.”
Alexei added, “I don’t think you want to sleep by yourselves up here.”
“Up where?” said Max.
“Well, usually we go to France after England and do a tour of Provence, which is very beautiful,” said Tatiana, “but sometimes Lorenzo gets lonely for the Italian Alps, so this year that was the next stop. I think he was born here.”
“The Italian Alps?” said Tess, making it also sound like a question.
Max and Tess’s dad had talked to them a lot about how different a mountain or a desert can look, depending on where it’s located. He said, for example, that the desert in New Mexico was very pink sometimes and that the Sahara Desert was startlingly white.
“The Italian Alps,” Tess said again, but this time it sounded less like a question.
Tess tried to picture it in her mind. She and Max had gone to boarding school the year before in the Swiss Alps. She had to admit that the countryside around them, what they could see of it anyway, as they were still surrounded by carnival attractions, did look sort of like the Alps. There were some big pine trees visible in the distance and the soft slope of a mountain behind them, which Tess imagined in winter might be a perfect kids’ ski slope. She wondered if there was a chocolate store in the town, wherever the town might be, and if the ice cream was as splendid and extra creamy as it had been in Switzerland. But then she stopped herself.
What was she thinking? They were in Devon. In Devon-by-the-Sea. And Aunt Evie would be there at one thirty meeting them at the brontosaurus. That’s what they’d arranged. The brontosaurus at one thirty. The brontosaurus . . .