by Gwenda Bond
“Bellissima,” my dad and Nan answered in stereo.
Nan wasn’t quite as glam as she would have been before the truth came out, but she wasn’t entirely plain either. A polka-dot scarf was knotted at her neck, and she wore a little lipstick. Her new look suited her.
A knock sounded at the door. Dita came in first, in a white tux, smiling sweetly. We’d invited her to join us, rather than go on her own. But my breath caught when I saw Remy in his suit—and how he looked at me. I was wearing a vavoom-y ensemble I’d picked up in Atlanta. Red like my costume, but with a slinky shape.
“You look amazing,” Remy said.
“Of course she does,” my father said, clearing his throat. “She’s a Maroni.”
Remy dropped into a gallant bow in front of my parents. “I’m sorry. I just—”
“Stop before I rethink this whole date-night thing,” my father said. My mom swatted his arm affectionately.
And then the third Garcia entered. Novio wore a polo shirt and jeans. He was banned from the party, and this was going to be the night when Nan set the ground rules for her plan to try to save him from his own darkness. His inherited darkness, the poison Roman had given him. He ducked his head. “Hello,” he said, and slung himself into the first open chair—a kitchen one, facing the living room.
Nan was examining him like she couldn’t wait to get started. I noticed her tarot deck lay on the table, and suspected he was about to get a reading. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
I still missed Sam too much to forgive him. Maybe someday.
“Home by eleven,” Dad said, as we made our way toward the door.
“Ish,” I said, and shut it firmly behind me before he could object.
The party had already started when we reached the big top. I had a momentary déjà vu, thinking back to that first night and our masks. Remy must have sensed it. My arm was tucked into his, and he said, “Nervous, First of May? Don’t be. I hear you’re a good dancer.”
Things were good between us. It turned out that almost plummeting to my doom off a forty-foot wire and being rescued clarified a lot of feelings. If Novio deserved another chance, so did we.
Thurston was in the middle of an announcement when we made our way into the crowd. People smiled at us indulgently and a little cynically, the way older people do when young people pair off.
Think what you want. This is going to last—or if it doesn’t, it won’t be for the reason you think.
“I’ve decided I’m going to give us five years to turn a profit,” Thurston said, and, over the cheers, “I’m having too much fun not to.” He punctuated the news by opening a bottle of champagne. He added, “Plus, someone keeps telling me that one day everything will make sense. After enough years, I’ll wake up and it’ll be like I’ve always been circus.”
The finale had bewildered Thurston, but Dad had assured him it was a momentary problem on my part and wouldn’t happen again. Thurston wasn’t as bothered as I expected by the TV thing falling through. “Always a long shot,” he’d said. “But I’m beginning to rethink my stance on the idea of magic being illusion only.” I hadn’t responded, and he didn’t force the issue. Thurston was full of surprises.
I wasn’t disappointed about it either. I had more than I’d ever realized I wanted. My family had found our place. And now that I knew for certain we’d be coming back next year, it was all the sweeter. I only wished Sam could be here to see it all.
“He meant me when he said someone,” I said, gloating. “I keep telling him that.”
Remy said, “Not surprised.”
We had this one night here left, before we went our separate familial ways for a few months. That stupid cell phone was going to come in handy. I’d have to keep it.
“Dance?” Remy asked.
“Or we could go make out.”
The music started, and, in answer, Remy spun me into his arms and around the ring.
“Do you still have the coin?” I asked, leaning close to his ear.
“I don’t know any safe way to get rid of it.” Remy had finally become a reluctant believer in the power of the coin. What happened during our finale night in Atlanta had convinced him.
“We could ask Nan, I suppose. Explain that you were lying when you told Novio you’d gotten rid of it.” I smiled. “But I’ve been thinking. And I have an even better idea.”
“Oh no,” he said, but there was no sting in the comment. “What’s this idea?”
“You’ll see. It involves sneaking out later.”
He grinned. “Just like old times.”
I checked over my shoulder to see where Dita had gotten to. She was dancing near the edge of the ring, smiling shyly at a girl in a plaid dress. I approved.
We all carried our grief about the night we lost Sam, but we had to move forward. Our losses, our wins, they were what bound us together. The circus was a family.
And that was what had given me the idea.
Remy hissed. “Hey, pretty lady, you by yourself?”
I nodded cartoonishly. It was quiet, the middle of the night, the party cleared out at last. He emerged from the side of the big top where he’d been waiting. We both wore practice clothes.
“You ready?”
He gave me an I was born ready face.
“Fine, but do you know how to get us into the rigging?” I clarified.
“Yes.”
“And you have it?”
“Yes.” He put a hand in his pocket, and I rushed to say, “No, you keep it. I have the needle and thread in mine.”
The tent was dark inside, and Remy had turned on the lights only right in the center spire. He lowered a ladder, and we had to climb and climb and climb. I wasn’t used to it, but he was from all those nights practicing. “Tired?” he asked.
“You?” I countered.
“Not with this view.”
“Nice,” I said, looking down to where he was, below me on the ladder. But we finally made it up above the rigging, to the beams and railings and poles that supported it. We climbed like monkeys, and when we got to the last section, I rose to my feet on a flat beam several inches across. I extended my arms out for balance.
Remy had gone a little ahead of me, so he could pull me up into the last section at the top of the tent. Over his shoulder, he said, “Are you sure?”
I nodded. I needed this. The last time I’d walked, I fell.
So I let the beam beneath my feet feel like a wire. I kept my spine straight and I called on every ounce of my talent. There was no packed house to applaud, only Remy watching in the dark, but I’d remember this performance for the rest of my life.
“I can still do this,” I said, when I made it to him.
He lifted a hand and brushed it along my cheek. “Of course you can. Coin or no coin, it was you doing it all along.” There we sat, high above the ring, and just below the stripes of the big top. Together. What a difference a few days made.
“We’d better do this.” I got to my feet using one of the bars, and he joined me. I climbed one more step until the very top of the tent was inches away. I took out my sewing kit.
He didn’t ask how I knew how to sew. Everyone who is circus knows how to mend small tears and rips in costumes. I sewed the piece of fabric I’d brought into the lining of the tent, and said, “You do the honors.”
“You’re sure this is a good idea?” he asked.
“The coin is good luck, but it shouldn’t belong to one person. This way, it’ll belong to all of us. Or it’ll do nothing. Either way, it will do no more harm. Besides, this feels right, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” he said.
He placed the coin inside the pocket in the lining, and I sewed it closed. We pulled the tent fabric back over it. Concealed as if nothing was there.
He put his hand at the back of my neck and I took a step toward him, getting so close there was only space around us, and none left between us. His lips met mine and we kissed in the empty air. That felt right too.<
br />
When we separated, he clambered down to the next level and waited for me to join him. I paused for just a moment, reaching up to put my hand over the fabric where the coin was hidden and to admire the grand sprawl below my feet. In not that many months, we’d fill this tent again.
I couldn’t wait for next season.
acknowledgments
* * *
My eternal gratitude is due to everyone at the inaugural Bat Cave Retreat in 2012 for reading parts of this book in first draft—shout-outs to Alan Gratz (organizer extraordinaire), Megan Miranda, Carrie Ryan, Megan Shepherd, Tiffany Trent, Kristin Tubb; to Wendi Gratz for providing sustenance and cheesecake; and most especially to the divine Beth Revis and Laurel Snyder for reading the whole messy thing and helping me figure out how to make it better. A tip of the top hat to writer friends who let me bend their ears along the way: Kelly, Karen, Gavin, Holly, Cassie, Josh, Delia, Sarah, Kim, and Chuck. And to Clint Hadden for serving as my man on the ground in Chicago, and finding me the perfect location for a special walk there. I’m sure I’m forgetting someone, but I’ll make it up to you: promise. I also owe many thanks to Tim Ditlow for his excitement about the manuscript, and to the magnificent team at Skyscape for their support in making this book a reality, particularly Amy Hosford and my genius editors Courtney Miller and Kate Chynoweth. Many thanks to fabulous copyeditor Kyra Freestar too. Thanks are due, as always, to Jenn Laughran, my fabulous agent, whose enthusiasm when I showed her the first chunk of this kept me moving (and who is circus folk), and to my wonderful husband, Christopher Rowe, who is always there to hold a net for me.
As you might guess, I have long been obsessed with circuses and wire walkers. Some resources that turned out to be helpful when I discovered I was going to write a circus of my own were Bruce Feiler’s Under the Big Top; Taschen’s gorgeous, glorious The Circus: 1870s–1950s; the great Philippe Petit’s On the High Wire; and the PBS documentary series Circus. Like Thurston, I was not born circus, and so any errors or flights of fancy here are entirely my own.
And, last but never least, my biggest thanks go to you for reading.
about the author
* * *
PHOTO © BY SARAH JANE SANDERS
Gwenda Bond is the author of the young adult novels The Woken Gods and Blackwood, and she just might have escaped from a classic screwball movie. She has also written for Publishers Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, Locus Magazine, and the Washington Post, among others. She has an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband, author Christopher Rowe, and their menagerie. Visit her online at www.gwendabond.com or @gwenda on Twitter.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Contents
prologue
preseason
one
two
three
four
five
six
act one
seven
eight
nine
ten
eleven
twelve
thirteen
fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
twenty
twenty-one
twenty-two
twenty-three
twenty-four
act two
twenty-five
twenty-six
twenty-seven
twenty-eight
twenty-nine
thirty
thirty-one
thirty-two
thirty-three
thirty-four
thirty-five
thirty-six
thirty-seven
thirty-eight
acknowledgments
about the author