magic. Up there, that high, there are no rules!”
I was still giddy that night at the dinner table, bursting with it. I was so desperate to share my news and excitement that I actually looked around the table—at my mother’s worn face, my brothers’ smirking mouths, Geraldine’s hulk on the other side of the table. I imagined telling them all about Mary and the circus, releasing the words and letting them explode over that table like fireworks. For a minute I imagined that we would all laugh together. Then my father glanced up and met my eyes, and the words died in my throat.
Later, in the quiet of the bedroom, I looked over at Geraldine. Her bed was parallel to mine, on the other side of the room. A faint bit of moonlight streamed in the window, illuminating the squares on the quilt that covered her. Her dull brown hair spread over her pillow.
“Guess what?” I whispered.
“What?” I heard, a second later.
“I know a secret.”
Geraldine threw off her quilt and sat up. She glared at me. “Tell me.”
“You have to promise you won’t tell Mom and Dad,” I said. I wanted so badly to tell someone. The words were bubbling out of me; I could practically see them floating in the air.
“I don’t have to do anything, munchkin. Tell me now!”
I sat back on the bed and crossed my arms. After a moment, she sighed loudly. “Fine,” she said.
“Okay,” I said, my pulse racing, my heart in my stomach. I lowered my voice. “Did you know that Mary Finn was in the circus?”
“What are you talking about?”
I squinted in the dim light, focusing on her face. “No, really,” I said. “She flew on the trapeze. She said she knew people who could eat fire!”
She looked at me suspiciously. “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
“No, no,” I said. “She knew boys covered in fish scales, girls with wings! She said she knew men with bodies as tall as skyscrapers or as short as daffodils.” The words spilled out on top of each other.
“How do you know?”
“I met her!” I said. “I went to her library.”
Geraldine sat still for a minute, then said, “What’s she like?” She looked at me with wide eyes, waiting. For a second, she seemed almost shy.
“Oh, she’s wonderful,” I breathed. “She’s so beautiful and she smells like cinnamon and she tells the best stories and can tell fortunes, too.”
“And she was really in the circus?”
“The Velasquez Circus, the famous one from Mexico.”
“I know them!” she said. “They came to Kansas City last year.”
I spent the next half hour talking about Mary—the library and jars of herbs, the men who lined up to check out books from her. Geraldine listened, rapt.
“I know Mom and Dad don’t like her,” she said, hugging her knees, “but I think she looks like a princess.”
“Me too,” I whispered. “I want to be just like her.”
At that, Geraldine let out a huge guffaw. “You? You could never be like her! You’re too ugly,” she said, the old smile creeping over her face. “And a freak!”
She turned her back to me then and collapsed onto her bed, snorting.
Shame shot through me, into every part of my body. I lay back in my bed and pulled the covers over me.
CHAPTER THREE
The next morning, I woke up dreaming of the circus. Mary and I on the flying trapeze, soaring over everyone, while men breathed out fire on all sides. We took off into the air and just kept on going, past the fire and through the circus tent, up into the sky above. I looked down and saw my family, no longer gigantic but tiny specks, down below. Good-bye, I waved, grasping Mary’s hand.
I woke up with a pounding heart, and felt disappointment wash over me as I looked around the dusty, wood-filled room, and at Geraldine’s body slumped on the bed across from me. I glared at her, wished I could will her away completely.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. It was only a matter of time before she told on me, I thought, but there was no use in punishing myself. I slipped out of bed and stepped into my clothes.
“Where are you going?” Geraldine asked, sitting up.
I ignored her, couldn’t wait to get away from her and from all of them. Today I would not even bother to wait until after lunch. I ran down the stairs and into the front yard as if a ghost were chasing me.
Mary looked up as I burst through the door of Mercy Library. I almost stopped in my tracks, she was so dazzling. “I was about to close up for an hour and head into town for a few things,” she said. “You want to come?”
She stood by the front desk, dropping her keys and some letters into her purse and then swooping it up and over her shoulder. I nodded and watched, fascinated, as she slipped a pair of wing-shaped sunglasses over her face and rubbed her forefinger into a small pot that was open on her desk, then spread a dark coral color over her lips, the same color as her toenails in her open sandals.
“Let’s go,” she said, brushing past me and reaching for my hand behind her. She locked the door and we ran down the steps and into the grass, her skirt swishing around her ankles.
I had to walk fast to keep up. “A beautiful day, isn’t it, Tessa?” She grinned down at me and gestured to the trees and sky. It was late summer and the air was filled with the scents of grass and flowers, the faint traces of hay and manure. The sky was bright blue and the leaves dripped and trembled against it. I could hardly believe it was the same world I had lived in before, that I’d just run through to get to the library, to her.
Our feet crunched in the gravel as we passed the lumberyard. I was so proud. I’m not a freak, I wanted to say to everyone we passed. Look. I wished Geraldine could see me right then, see that I didn’t need her, or any of them.
“So what do you want to do when you grow up?” Mary asked, reaching down and flipping up a lock of my hair.
“I don’t know,” I mumbled, embarrassed.
“Oh, come on. Surely you must love something, right? Maybe dancing? I can see you as a dancer, something like that.” She spun around.
“I would like to work in the library someday, too,” I said. I looked at her shyly. It seemed like a bold thing to say, but she didn’t look surprised.
“You can do that now,” she said. “I was thinking maybe I could pay you a bit to stay in the afternoons. You can help me sort the books, keep up with the paperwork. You can look after the desk while I’m talking to the folks who come in wanting fortunes and spells.” She opened her eyes wide and made a witchy face as we stepped into the street that led to the square.
I laughed. “Can you really tell fortunes?”
“I can see that you’re about to get chased!” She shrieked and howled and I ran right into the center of the square. We collapsed on the ground, under one of the huge oaks that shaded the little park. From there, if you craned your head around in a circle, you could see every shop and restaurant and bar in Oakley, lining the square. In the distance you could see the green of the hills, the cut-up lines of the fields and crops.
“Can you see my fortune?”
“You,” she said, “will be something special. I can see that much. Does that make me a witch?” She tapped my nose, then pushed herself up into a sitting position.
I just lay there on the grass, staring at the sky, then at the people rushing past on the roads surrounding