Chapter 2

A soft rap came at his closed door. He jolted back, barely in the room when Mom let herself in.

Her gaze drifted to the window behind him. She knew. He didn’t have to say a word because she always knew, and that frightened him more than anything else. Some things should remain a secret. Some things had the power to hurt more than he would wish onto his greatest enemy, and the only way to make sure they didn’t was to lock them away from her omniscient eyes.

“Did you have plans tomorrow?” she asked.

Levi shrugged. Anything he’d hoped to do was built on fancies, as implausible as catching a cloud to make it rain when they most needed it at the height of summer. “Read, maybe.”

“Annie wants to go to the carnival. You should take her.”

The sudden lurch inside his chest made it hard to breathe, harder even when his heart took to racing like Scott Joslin’s best horse within the passage of the next moment. “What about Pap?”

She smiled. “I’m not telling you to take him.”

“What’ll you say?”

“You don’t worry about that. Just keep an eye on Annie, get back in time for supper, and if you manage to win me a new stove, well, that certainly wouldn’t hurt.”

She left him to spend the night too excited to sleep, hours lost to imaginings as he tossed and turned until dawn.

* * * *

Mr. Trumbull’s assessment had been dead on. When Levi and Annie left with all the reminders about how to behave and when to be back ringing in their ears, a steady stream of people already walked down Main Street, heading straight for the carnival and the music that somehow made its way into town across all that distance. They fell into step with Scott and Marnie Joslin, and while the girls chattered on about nonsense, Levi had to listen to Scott go on about all the freaks he’d heard were on display.

“They’ve got a six-legged horse, and fish with two heads, and I overheard Sue McKeegan telling Frances Hickle at Bible study the other night that there’s even a man who swallows fire. Can you imagine? I betcha he doesn’t have a tongue. He can’t. He’d have to…”

The excited words faded into the dull music that underscored Levi’s life, the sounds he blocked out when he disappeared into his own thoughts or got lost wandering in daydreams made real. Today, they were already dyed by the carnival, what he might see, who he might meet. In their world, boundaries didn’t exist. They could be anyone, do anything, go anywhere they wanted. Levi had yearned for those kinds of freedoms his entire life. But being the skinny son of a schoolteacher and a farmer in the middle of Nowhere, Indiana meant certain roles to play, rules to live by.

For the most part, he was obedient in deed, if not in thought.

A makeshift bridge had been constructed over the gulley, to better accommodate those who weren’t as capable of scrambling up and down the shallow sides. Some of the kids couldn’t wait. They broke free of their family packs to whoop and slide down the slippery grass, tumbling over each other, then laughing and clambering up the opposite side. The girls sniffed in haughty disapproval of such shenanigans, but as he followed them across the bridge, Levi cast a longing glance at those who weren’t walking the straight and narrow.

Some had already reached the carnival’s periphery. Shouts and cries filled the air, jubilant and carefree. A glitter appeared in more than one adult’s eye, that shine that came with rising hopes before reality set in, when they could forget how ill-prepared they’d be for the harsh winter ahead and instead focus on the sun beaming down from above. Even Mr. Trumbull was smiling as the throng gushed out the other side of the bridge.

“You think you know what this world is about? You think this is all there is? Well, I think you’re about to get your eyes opened, folks, because what you see out here is only the tip of the mysteries you have yet to discover!”

Though still unseen, the man who called out to the crowd, enticing them closer, had the clearest, strongest voice Levi had ever heard. It carried without a scrap of wind, whipping around the citizens of Brookburn to coax them more quickly to the tents, and he had to twist side to side in an attempt to see around the people blocking his line of sight. What he wouldn’t do to be a little bit taller, or a little bit stronger so he could push his way to the front.

But then they rounded the corner of one of the tents, and it didn’t matter that he couldn’t see over everyone’s heads. The man in question stood high enough for all to see.