by Amy Ephron
The poster had been changed overnight.
THE BREATHTAKING BARANOVAS
starring
Tatiana, Alexei, and introducing Tessa
That’s what it said. He’d changed her name even. Added an a at the end.
And there was her picture painted where Tatiana and Alexei’s sister Anna had been the day before.
Tess wondered who could have painted it. It was a startling likeness of her. Her hair in an updo, like the one Tara had fashioned for her the day before, and wearing the costume she’d had on with the silver stars sewn onto it.
Tess wondered if someone had taken a photograph and used it as a model and painted it last night.
Wasn’t Lorenzo supposed to ask her if this was what she wanted to do?
She looked down. She was still wearing the jeans she’d put on that morning.
But instead of her T-shirt, she was now wearing the leotard with the silver stars sewn onto it—the leotard she was wearing in the poster.
Was it like a magic mirror or something? If she looked at it long enough was the rest of her outfit going to transform, and would her hair suddenly turn into an updo? And she would be a carnival worker? Sort of the way Max was wearing the carnival worker’s uniform at breakfast, even though that wasn’t what he’d put on, at all. She was suddenly very frightened. And somehow she couldn’t pull her glance away from her image on the poster. She shut her eyes. She put her hands over her eyes so that she couldn’t see it.
When she opened her eyes, there was already a line for tickets to the show, a long line. The carnival was open.
Tess darted as quickly as she could into the blue tent before Lorenzo could see her or someone else could find her or catch her, but she wasn’t sure where she could hide.
She ran backstage instinctively, to where the dressing room was, hoping she would find Tatiana or even Tara. But there was no one there. She wondered where Tatiana was and how much time there was before the show actually was scheduled to begin.
She heard footsteps in the tent, someone with a long stride walking.
“Tess-a.” His voice was sort of sing-song. “Tess-a,” he said again. “I know you’re in here.” That faint Italian accent that was so recognizable. “You cannot hide from me,” he said, frightening her all the more. “Tess-a . . .” The can not was almost like two words, which made it all the more menacing.
She felt a hand on her arm. Tess turned around defiantly, prepared to face her opponent with no fear at all. She was enormously relieved to see it was Alexei.
“I can’t do it,” Tess said to Alexei.
Tess didn’t usually question her ability to do anything. But in this case, she knew her own limitations. It was just too risky. She was not an expert in aerial ballet!
“I’m not trained the way you are,” she said. “What if I was to fall again?”
“I know,” he said, “and Lorenzo doesn’t have the right to ask you or force you. But we have to hurry. We have to figure out how to get you away . . . before it’s too late for you to get away.”
Tess wasn’t sure what he meant by this. But she had a feeling Alexei knew that at some point she and Max might never be able to leave. She pushed that thought away. Whatever they had to do, they would do it. There was no way she wasn’t going to see her parents again. Or Aunt Evie. She and Max would figure out a way to get away. She was certain of it. She also knew she had to get as far away as possible from the aerial ballet trapeze before she was forced (or compelled) to perform again.
“Tess-a.” They heard Lorenzo calling her. He sounded as if he was very near. “Tess-a. Don’t think that you can get a-way . . .”
“Shh.” Alexei put his finger to his mouth and took her hand. He guided her through the backstage, a labyrinthian obstacle course that he knew by heart, avoiding strange doorframes that led to nowhere but were used onstage as props by a magician; large tubs from years ago, when they had dancing seals; elaborate scaffolding for acrobatic acts and for the tech guys, none of whom seemed to be on-site, to run the backstage wires, and spotlights, and special effects for the shows. Hammers, oversized screwdrivers, and nails littered the floor, and there were at least four ladders that a person could have run into and knocked over, making an enormous amount of noise . . . But Alexei led her silently and brilliantly to the very back of the tent.
He put his index finger up again, the way he’d done the first time he’d let them in, and as if it was a magic X-acto knife, made a slit down the silk and revealed, for a moment, a door, a curtain, that he held open for her.
They could still hear Lorenzo calling her name: “Tess-a Tess-a.”
“You go ahead,” he said. “I’ll stay here and try to distract him. You have to try to get away. Tell Max you have to try to get away. And I’ll find you. I promise,” he said.
“No,” said Tess. “I promise, I’ll find you.”
Tess wondered if he knew how much she hoped that would be true. And how frightened she was that it might not be.
Alexei held her hand tightly for a moment as if he really didn’t want to let her go. And then pushed her, right out the silk curtain, onto the grounds of the carnival.
She heard that funny zipper-like sound again as the blue tent closed up behind her.
~ CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO ~
inside the house of mirrors
I don’t have time to explain, Max,” said Tess. She was almost out of breath, as she’d run so quickly to find her brother at the entrance to The House of Mirrors.
“We have to get out of here now.”
“Get out of here?” said Max. “You said we couldn’t leave.”
“He’s trying to make me be one of the Baranovas. He wants me to replace Anna. He’s changed the poster overnight. And now I’m there instead of Anna. My face on the poster. I’m not risking my neck to do aerial ballet. And look . . .” She gestured to the leotard she had on. Her jeans were still over it. “I didn’t put it on this morning. I put on a T-shirt. And now . . .” She gestured to the leotard again. “And he keeps calling my name. Well, not my name. He’s changed my name to Tessa.”
Tess didn’t have to explain who “he” was. Max knew she was referring to Lorenzo.
“We have to leave. Now, Max. I’m afraid if we don’t, we’ll never be able to. I’m afraid that I might . . .”
She didn’t have to finish that sentence.
“Alexei said we couldn’t leave last night, when the carnival was closed. But now he’s telling me we have to escape, as if somehow if we don’t, we may never be able to leave. I mean, what if the carnival moves again . . .” She didn’t have to finish that sentence, either.
“Let’s think logically,” said Max.
“There isn’t time,” said Tess.
“Sometimes if you take a beat, you save time,” said Max, sounding wiser than his years. “Take a deep breath. I think you might be right—I don’t think we can walk out of the gate. We don’t know what’s out there or if we could get back in. I’m not even sure we could make it to the gate without one of them finding us. Lorenzo’s sidekick Izzy.” He shivered at the thought of getting caught.
And then Max had an idea. What if they used the secret exit that Lorenzo had shown him and ducked out that way? Maybe. Just maybe that would work. At least they’d be trying a back way, not quite out in front of The House of Mirrors, but out the back door, when they might be able to blend in with the carnival-goers and make an escape—escape where, Max wasn’t sure—but escape was sounding promising.
He took her hand. “It’s okay,” he said, acting so much like her big brother instead of her little one that Tess was ashamed that she’d panicked. It wasn’t like her. But then again, it had totally freaked her out to see her face, her image, on the poster.
“Right this moment,” said Max, “we have to find somewhere to hide. Shh,” he said, and he meant
it.
They could hear Lorenzo in the distance, through the noise of the carnival, calling her name. Her new name. “Tess-a . . . Tess-a.”
Max led Tess quickly into The House of Mirrors, which it occurred to Tess was a completely ridiculous place to hide, as everywhere she turned she saw her reflection and Max’s and assumed anyone else could see them, too.
She also thought she heard the beginning of footsteps running after them, and turning back didn’t seem to be an option.
“It’s okay,” said Max, pulling her hand, compelling her to follow him even farther into The House of Mirrors. “Down one corridor. Take a left. Another corridor, take a right.” As if he knew it like the back of his hand.
“I might have a plan,” Max whispered. “I think I have a plan.”
Max’s plan was to run to the secret exit, although he realized Lorenzo knew where that was, too. But he had to try it. He needed more time to think. He followed the pattern he’d memorized: double fours. 44 steps in all. 14, then 12, then 10, then 8 . . .
But before they reached the secret exit, Max saw it out of the corner of his eye . . . He saw it. Exactly what Lorenzo had described.
He grabbed Tess’s arm to get her to stop, too.
There it was. There was the image of another carnival. Directly at the spot where sometimes people screamed as they looked into the mirror, mesmerized, as if they couldn’t help themselves from looking. It was almost ghostly, and the pane of glass didn’t have their reflection in it, at all. It seemed to be a porthole, a view, to another carnival on the other side of the glass.
Max was still holding Tess’s hand. He had to be careful not to lose her in The House of Mirrors. A wrong turn and—he couldn’t imagine what it would be like if he lost Tess.
He put his finger up in another gesture of “shh.”
They could hear harsh footsteps, from all directions, Lorenzo running after them, his voice calling, “Tess-a Tess-a.” There was more than one set of footsteps. As if Lorenzo had enlisted help. And they seemed to be coming directly to them from all sides. Lorenzo knew where the secret exit was, too. What if they were trapped?
Max pointed to the mirror.
The image was clear, well, not completely clear, as the color was sort of monotone. But it was as if there was another carnival there, just on the other side of the glass. Or was it a reflection?
Max turned around to try to see if that could possibly be true. Could the mirrors reflect that way, one off the other, off the other, off the other, so that what they were really seeing was a reflection of the carnival outside?
No, it wasn’t true. It was an image of another carnival, an old-fashioned version in some ways, the women wearing long skirts, with fancy buttoned blouses, and hairstyles from another time. The little boys were wearing shorts and short-sleeved button-down shirts, not T-shirts. The men were wearing old-fashioned suits, no ties.
“No one’s wearing sneakers,” said Max, as if that one sentence summed it up.
A clown passed by on the other side of the glass.
He wasn’t a bit like the nice clown who’d given Tess a rose earlier that morning. This clown was as white as a mummy, with theatrical black brows, and dark black eyeliner, and the scariest frown, also in black, painted around his lips. He turned his face toward them for a minute and opened his mouth wide in an almost terrifying smile, if a smile could be meant to be terrifying.
The footsteps were getting closer.
They heard Lorenzo call out loudly, “Tess-a . . .”
The word reverberated through The House of Mirrors. It was as if the sound was reflected off every pane of glass, echoing itself, “Tess-a, Tess-a, Tess-a, Tess-a, Tess-a.” The echoed sound of the word started almost before the first one stopped, so that the words, the syllables, doubled on themselves, the second “Tess” starting before the first “a” had even been pronounced, which somehow made it even more frightening, as if there was a symphony of Lorenzos after them. Or a frightening number of people calling Tess’s new name. Tess-a, Tess-a, Tess-a. Was there one set of footsteps or three or were there more? It was as if the footsteps, too, seemed to echo, bounce, reverberate off the panes of glass, and it was almost impossible to tell where they were coming from.
The clown was staring them down again from the other side of the glass. A scary theatrical work of art, he was, almost demonic as he stared directly at Tess and Max. Tess screamed, which Max anticipated, and he put his hand over her mouth to stop her scream. But it started to echo, too, bouncing off the mirrors, so that even though she stopped screaming, the scream continued on and caused her to understandably scream again.
The clock started to tick. The telltale sign, as the seconds on the seven-minute clock started to wind down.
Max wondered what happened when it got to seven. Lorenzo had never told him that.
The footsteps sounded lighter now, steady, intent, tiptoe-y, coming closer and closer. Tess felt someone touch her arm. She screamed again and turned to see him . . . and was relieved that it was Alexei.
“I thought you might need some help,” said Alexei to Max, completely ignoring Tess in this moment.
Tess tried to calm herself. She stuck her hands into her pockets and took a deep breath. As her left hand touched the needle, it was almost like an electric current, a tiny jolt to her hand. There was a bright glint of light. Tess pulled the needle out of her pocket and held it up. It was as if it was quietly vibrating.
Both Max and Alexei stepped away from her, as if they were giving her space or were somewhat surprised at what was occurring.
There was a sharp piercing sound, a crazy cracking could be heard, as the mirror started to shatter. So loudly anyone could hear it, a sure clue to their whereabouts, was the sound of the glass breaking. Then there was another burst of light that seemed to be coming from the mirror itself. Max, Alexei, and Tess just stared as the mirror seemed to get brighter and brighter.
Tess held the needle up to it, and a halo of light, all the colors of the rainbow, seemed to be reflected in the one pane of glass as it broke into pieces and reformed, the way a kaleidoscope geometrically reshapes, red, yellow, blue, purple. In triangles and flower-like patterns, in the center of which a round hole appeared with a clear view of what really seemed to be a carnival on the other side of the mirror.
Alexei nodded to both of them and put his index finger through the hole, and as he did, it widened. The other footsteps were accompanied by voices now. “This way. I hear them this way,” they heard someone say,
“Tess-a,” the unmistakable sound of Lorenzo calling her.
Alexei said, “There isn’t any other choice.” He pushed his arm in farther, and the space became almost big enough to step through. And held his arm there as if it was a way to hold a door open. “I’ll see you again, I promise,” said Alexei. And then he added the strangest thing, “After you touch the sky.”
Tess shut her eyes for a moment. When she opened them Alexei was still staring at her, and for a moment, she stared back. She didn’t cry. It wasn’t in Tess’s nature to cry.
“Go ahead, Max,” she said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Max stepped through. Tess stepped through the glass after him, still holding on to Alexei’s hand as if she needed to balance or have something to hold on to.
She pulled her hand back. Let go. From opposite sides, Tess and Alexei locked eyes in a look of determination and friendship, tinged a little bit with sadness, as the colored panes of glass faded and turned to the brightest silver. As the pane reformed back into a flawless mirror, the clock stopped ticking. All sight of Alexei disappeared. And she and Max were all alone now and definitely on the other side, wherever in the world that was.
~ CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE ~
the other side
They were out in an open field. That was what it seemed like at first. It was quite crowded with peo
ple in somewhat old-fashioned dress. The women were all wearing long skirts, at least below the knee. The little kids were dressed in, well, Tess, didn’t know quite how to describe it, baggy trousers, peasant dresses, short pants that didn’t really resemble shorts.
There was a tent in the distance. Something that looked like a Ferris wheel. They were somehow at the edge of the carnival standing in an open field. Well, it wasn’t exactly an open field.
It was a big dirt pad, definitely man-made, almost circular. All the greenery and rocks had been pulled or smoothed out of it. Around the perimeter, there were large patches of olive trees giving some shade from the hot afternoon sun.
Tess knew they were olives, as Aunt Evie had two in her orchard in Hampshire next to the fig tree, which she said she’d brought home as a souvenir from a trip she’d taken with Uncle John to Greece. Lots of people in England had done that, imported plants and tropicals. Tess had even seen some palms at the Paignton ZOO. Aunt Evie had promised that one day they would cure their own olives, marinate them in olive oil, garlic, and herbs. Max always thought it was funny that the word you used to pickle olives was cure, as if there was something wrong with them to begin with. This whole train of thought was making Tess homesick—well, more than homesick—she wondered when she would see Aunt Evie again and wished that they were at the zoo.
Tess realized she was the only girl wearing jeans. Max’s weird carnival uniform kind of fit in. What worried Tess most was the footwear. Lace-up boots. And nobody, nobody except her was wearing sneakers. A little girl was watching them.
“Remember that school trip I took, Max,” said Tess, “to Williamsburg, Virginia? All the people were wearing Colonial outfits. And they performed historical plays. Maybe this is like that,” she said, trying to make sense of it and calm Max at the same time. “Maybe at this carnival, they dress up in old-fashioned dress. Mom told us about that Renaissance Faire she went to in L.A. once. Remember?”
But Max wasn’t really paying attention to Tess any more. The sound above them was familiar and not, at the same time. It wasn’t a helicopter. But something was definitely going on in the sky.