Chapter Thirteen

Emma

The carnival creeps across Texas, and I’ve spent the last month doing the only thing that makes the carnival bearable—watching Benjamin build and paint. The painting in particular is fascinating. On one gray November morning, I watch him from my perch on a nearby sawhorse.

“Do you want to paint?” he asks.

I shrug, and he looks from me to the spindly brush in his hand.

“You seem like you want to. Don’t you?”

Neat dots of color sit on his plywood palette. They’re fresh, barely muddled. His strokes are sure and steady. A smudge of bright sky blue mars the back of his hand, and now that it’s dry, it cracks and peels as his skin moves beneath it. “I used to paint a little. Before. But these aren’t exactly the hands of a painter.”

I hold out one pale hand. My fingers flex and jerk, and there’s a fine tremor that runs down the length of my arm. Sometimes it scares me when I realize I’m almost used to it. If I tried to paint a straight line, I’d fail. If I tried to mix the colors, I’d drag the brush through three colors accidentally and mar the pristine circles.

These are the hands of a disaster.

He takes my extended hand and instead of just passing over the brush, he pulls me down to sit beside him. Curling one arm around me, his warm fingers flex over mine, helping me to hold the brush steady. “Try.”

He’s already sketched out the lettering for the sign—Happy Birthday, Whiskey—so all we have to do is fill it in with her favorite colors—two different shades of bright blue on a field of pale orange. I want to sink into his warmth, to let it melt over me. The sun cracks through the downy clouds, warming our backs. I work slowly, not trusting my own hands, but, with Ben helping, the brushstrokes become more confident, and for short stretches of time the shaking actually stops.

I almost feel normal again.

I dare a glance at Ben, admiring the way his dark-gold lashes lie against his cheek, how his glasses are slipping down the bridge of his nose and he doesn’t even notice that he’s smearing orange paint across his face as he pushes them back into place. I could watch him for ages.

“Thank you,” I say, though there’s no way I could possibly voice everything I’m thankful for if he should ask. For his patience and his thoughtfulness, for the time he’s given me and how he doesn’t seem to fear me like the other carnies. Luckily, I don’t have to say a word.

He turns toward me, so close that his breath ghosts over my cheek. “You’re welcome.”

But not everything is quiet afternoons spent painting.

Subtle changes are happening within the supposed perfect confines of the carnival. I don’t quite know what the big deal is, but based on the reactions of my new friends, it is a big deal. A stubbed toe. A ride stuck on the tracks. A slight stumble during an otherwise flawless show. I’m told that these things do not happen in the carnival. They just don’t.

But now they do.

Theories are whispered among the carnies. Most of them are bunk. But there’s one that’s growing traction. I think the Morettis are behind it, though I’ve never actually heard the accusations come out of their mouths. There are different variations, some more specific than others. But it all boils down to me.

One version of the rumor is that I’m not spending enough time in the box, though I put in a good four to five hours a night in there. Another version going around is that I do put my time in, but I don’t care enough, and the charm can tell. Sidney tells me to ignore it, that our fellow carnies are suspicious by nature. It’s hard to ignore the angry looks thrown my way by people who are not as subtle as they seem to think they are. Yet none of them approach me or try to tell me how to do my job to my face. Apparently having a mouth that can condemn someone with a kiss comes with benefits.

Tonight is our second to last night outside Austin, in a small town called Round Rock. It seems as though we’ve seen all four seasons in our one week here, but Gin was quick to inform me that this is Texas, and I should never by surprised by what Texas weather does. Tonight a cold breeze sends brittle oak leaves and pine needles skittering down the alleys. As the last patrons are chased out of our gates, Ben waits for me while I close up the box. My pockets jangle with clinking coins. I’ve had a good night, but I’m still the Girl in the Box, so it’s not truly a good night.

“Ready?” Benjamin asks. He smiles when I turn to face him, a quick secret thing that he folds back in on itself before it truly blooms. For a brief second, I don’t feel the cold.

The beads on my dress catch the carnival lights in a hundred different ways as I shift my weight. “Is this a good idea?”

He runs a hand smudged with paint through his hair. “Well, considering the last time, the worst that might happen is we’d start calling you Grenadine instead of Emmaline.”

Most of the acts are winding down, but a few patrons still linger in the aisles, playing one last game or getting a bag of treats to take home. Ben and I pick our way through the carnival, grabbing things as we go, per Gin’s instruction. I nab some balloons that weren’t sold earlier in the day. There’s a small plate of fudge samples one of the vendors gives Ben when he tells her our plans for the evening. The whole time, I feel a nagging itch between my shoulder blades, as though we're being watched. But no matter how I twist and turn, regardless of if I’m sneaky or sly, I never see anything to suggest someone is paying the two of us particular attention.

Can’t shake that itch, though.

When we get back to my wagon, Gin is waiting for us, sitting on the steps. She hasn’t changed out of her performance costume either, so she seems brighter and sparklier than in real life. Ben should seem as dull as a newsprint photo compared to her, in his worn flannel shirt and paint-speckled jeans. Except he’s not. His eyes light up behind his old man glasses when he talks, and there’s a dimple that flashes every now and then. He seems too big to be in my small wagon, but there he is anyway. The sight makes me happier than it should, and I busy myself by cutting crepe paper into crooked streamers.

Ben anchors the balloons into a corner and then helps Gin string the fringe I just made back and forth under the ceiling. Finally, the Happy Birthday, Whiskey banner is strung up at the far end of the wagon. In my new tiny home, already stuffed to brimming with just three people in it, I feel calm, and almost warm. The only way I could feel cozier is if my family were here with us.

Marcel barely makes it inside before the birthday girl, and Gin pulls him over to her side of the wagon quickly, tucking herself beneath his arm. Whiskey careens up the steps of the wagon and throws her arms wide, already expecting our chorus of “Surprise!” Duncan, who was in charge of bringing her over, must have spilled the secret, but she’s loud and happy, and her cheeks are flushed pink. The wagon is full to bursting with people. Pia arrives late, and she and Duncan wind up sipping drinks and chatting on the steps as there just isn’t enough room for everyone.

“So what do you want for your birthday, Whiskey?” Marcel asks. He’s passing around a half-empty bottle of champagne. I reach for it automatically, but when my fingers clink against the glass, reality comes crashing down. I shake my head, and Marcel’s dark eyes go wide with embarrassment over forgetting, but he covers it quickly.

Whiskey stands, her face lost in the strips of teal and yellow dangling from the roof. They flutter prettily in the breeze from the open skylight. “I,” she says, pausing dramatically as she swipes the green bottle away from Marcel, “want a pony. And a racecar. And a sea otter. And something sparkly. Someone make that happen.” She plops back down onto the pillows, almost knocking me into Ben.

Instead of pushing me away, Benjamin moves an arm until I’m nestled into his side, my torso in line with his. I stiffen. I don’t want him to feel that my body doesn’t mold to his, to have the cold that fills me seep through his clothes to touch his skin. I start to pull away.

But then, in a movement that feels natural, he moves to the side in such a way that I have to fall back against him. He’s so warm. I shouldn’t be able to feel it, but I swear every pulse of blood that rushes through him beats against me. I close my eyes and melt into him.

“What about Spots McGee?” Duncan asks as he sprawls backward into the wagon. Half his body is in the wagon and half is outside with Pia, who ducks her head in to see what we’re talking about.

“Spots is a seventeen-hand Clydesdale, Duncan,” Whiskey says. “I want one of those tiny ponies, the ones that never get big, what are they called?”

“They’re just called miniature horses, aren’t they?” Gin asks. She reaches across Marcel to take the bottle back, and as she does, surprising everyone in the wagon, Marcel darts out and kisses her.

Everyone is still for half a heartbeat. Duncan lets out a wolf whistle as they break apart, and I can’t help but notice the dazed smile Gin’s wearing and the pleased grin on Marcel.

“Oh my God,” Whiskey says. “Oh my God!” She flops backward and grabs a pillow to bury her face in. Her voice muffled, she screams, “I did not need to see that! Never! I could go a lifetime without seeing my sister kiss a boy! Cities could crumble! Oceans could dry up! And that would still! Not! Be long enough!”

She yanks the bottle away from Marcel. “I have a new birthday wish—therapy!”

“My birthday wish is to see more,” Duncan says. He waggles his finger between the two of them. “Do it again.”

After Whiskey pummels Duncan with a pillow until his hair skews to the right like a comb-over that met a hurricane, and the laughter dies down, it’s a much quieter affair. Whiskey is both too sleepy and too tipsy to walk on her own, so Duncan and Pia each take an arm and help her back to her trailer. Marcel and Gin slip out, too, but head in the opposite direction, into the sea of oaks bordering our camp. Which just leaves Benjamin and me.

I slump back against the wall of pillows, hating the fact that the dropping temperatures are more pronounced now that most of the warm bodies have left. A shudder tremors through me even though I try my hardest to repress it. But Ben, ever observant, notices. This time when he draws nearer, I let him line his body up with mine.

I am in completely uncharted territory.

Never mind the fact that I’ve never, ever been with a boy who charms me as much as Benjamin does. Never mind the fact that I am some weird, cursed puppet girl. Never mind the fact that having him so close makes me feel ridiculously happy. I have no idea what I’m doing.

Turns out I don’t have to. Ben lies back and tugs my hand till I sink down beside him. His right arm slips beneath me and curls me toward him, so that it’s easy for me to line up as much of my body with his as possible. We lie there, positioned beneath the tiny skylight, watching dark-gray clouds scud across the stars. One lantern is still lit, and as it sways, it sends panels of yellow-y light across the walls. There are no other lights inside or out, and the stars above are impossibly bright.

“I lived in a small town,” I say, “but there were still enough lights that I never saw the stars. I know how clichéd I’m going to sound, but there’s so many more out here, and they’re beautiful.”

There’s no response for a moment, but then Benjamin turns against me, hesitating, and lines me against his chest so that our view is the exact same out the small window. “That,” he says, pointing, “is Pisces. This star”—I see one bright spot at the edge of his fingernail—“connects the tails of the two fish.” His paint-flecked hands sketch out lines between more of the stars. “That’s Cassiopeia, forever chained to a throne because she said she was more beautiful than the Nereids. And that is the Phoenix, the bird who dies and is reborn in fire.”

His hand drifts down to rest on my arm, and I pick out the shapes he showed me again and again, to make sure I’ll remember them later. The soft rustling of leaves and Ben’s steady heartbeat are the only sounds in my world. “How do you know all that?”

He shifts again and pushes his glasses up his nose. “When you’re never in the same place for more than a week, you need a constant. Something that doesn’t change, ever. Stars are my constant.”

There’s something about this beautiful piece of honesty that fills me up, and I can almost pretend I’m warm.

“I think that’s why I want to leave so badly,” he says.

There goes that warm feeling, flying right out the door. What will this place be without Benjamin? But right on the heels of those thoughts comes the realization that nothing can be quite as bad as being transformed into this weird puppet girl. I’ll miss him–terribly–but I’d make it. And not only that, but I find that I want Ben to be happy.

“What do you want to do when you leave?” I ask. “Where do you want to go?”

For a brief second, the simple question has Ben silenced, making me wonder if this is the first time he’s ever been asked. The quiet stretches out around us, and he’s practically thinking so hard I can feel it. But finally he says, “I want to live on the coast.”

I laugh and give him a little jab with my elbow. “There’s a lot of coast in this country, you know. East or west?”

“West,” he says. The answer is quick, decisive, and I know he means it.

“Okay, West Coast.” I think for a moment, trying to imagine Ben without a tool kit in hand, driving to do something mundane like pick up groceries. “Well, you can’t go to California—”

“Why can’t I go to California?”

I roll to face him, careful to keep his arm around me. “I’m going to hazard a guess based off your relationship with the Moretti brothers and say that Cali is going to have a little too much ‘dude-bro’ culture for you to handle.” I squint at him, at the wool cap jammed on his head and the paint-smudged Henley stretching over his chest. “You’re more Washington state, or Oregon maybe.”

His arms curl around me as his gaze goes thoughtful. “Hmm. That could be nice.”

“Nice? You were pretty much made for the Pacific Northwest. You could wear flannel and build your own log cabin and paint window signs for all the hipster coffee shops.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all planned out. You going to come visit me in my log cabin?”

“Only if you have wifi.”

He laughs, the deep rumble of it vibrating through his chest. I love that I made him laugh like that. I want to do it as many times as he’ll let me. This night is a shining jewel in a box that I want to keep forever. But it still has to end.

So Ben gathers up the trash, and it seems like he doesn’t know what to do with it as he tries to climb down the steps of the wagon. I laugh a little before taking it from him, crouching to be closer to eye level before handing the torn streamers and empty bottles to him once he’s on the ground. His fingers linger over mine as he takes the crumpled paper back.

If it weren’t for the curse and this stranger’s body, I’d kiss him. I’d close the last few inches that separate us and shut my eyes and press my mouth to his. I’d run my fingers through his hair, to see if it was fine or coarse, relish in the way it shifts through many shades of gold in the light. Let his breath mingle with mine in a dizzy swirl between us. Find out what he tastes like. If it weren’t for the curse and Sidney, it would be my first kiss, and it would be a wonderful one.

But I don’t, because why kiss him, if I can’t feel it? If he’d just be pressing his soft mouth against my unyielding one? And somehow, my kiss feels more dangerous now, like it’s a trigger. Ben should be safe, if I kiss him, but even so, I don’t trust myself, trust my traitor lips. Slowly, reluctantly, we pull apart. I sit down on the edge of the wagon so I can watch him go, and, even more reluctantly than when we pulled apart, Ben turns to leave.

It’s then we notice his mother has been watching us from across the alley.