No one at Circus Mirandus knew the part of Ephraim’s story that he revealed to Micah that night in the tree house. How could anyone have suspected such an astounding coincidence? The day Victoria fell, the day she left the circus forever—on that very same day, Ephraim Tuttle was trying to find it.

His father had survived the war, and the Tuttles had spent a few blissful years getting on with their lives. Gertrudis had been born a happy, squalling baby, and the family had moved into a larger house in a better part of town. Ephraim had gone back to school and had even managed to stay long enough to graduate.

But life can be unkind. When he was nineteen, Ephraim’s mother died of a sudden illness, and after his father fell into grief, Ephraim found himself responsible for his seven-year-old sister. He handled the situation with a great deal of fortitude for his age. He didn’t let it derail his plans. He was finally ready to ask the Lightbender for his miracle.

Ephraim had been searching for news of the circus for several months, and the investigation had become something of a personal quest. He spent a great deal of time listening to the gossip of children at the local park and visiting every traveling carnival and fair that he could find. It never occurred to him that something as simple as a letter might gain anyone’s attention.

Eventually, he heard a rumor that the circus had been seen near Chicago. He packed his sister up and made his way there, certain that he had finally tracked them down. He was right to be confident. He was only a few miles away from his goal.

Ephraim pulled his sister up onto his back to jump across a dirty stream that ran right down the center of the wood-block street. The day was miserably hot, and Gertie stuck to Ephraim’s sweaty back like she’d been glued there. He didn’t mind. Finally, after so long, he could hear the music.

“And you’re going to be a magician?” Gertie asked for the third time that afternoon. “You’ll do tricks with your knots in front of hundreds of people?”

“I will,” said Ephraim. “If they’ll have me. I’m going to ask the Lightbender to teach me magic properly.”

“I bet he doesn’t have to teach you anything at all. Your knots are the best magic there is.”

“You only think that because you haven’t seen any other kind yet.” Ephraim had an inkling, just the faintest idea, of what he could be with proper training. Knots were such a versatile thing really, especially once you started thinking beyond string. They were everywhere you looked and in many places that you didn’t, and then there were knots that were completely invisible, like the ones that held families together.

He shifted her on his back. “We’re almost there,” he said. “I can feel it.”

Then he turned a corner and found himself face-to-face with the Amazing Amazonian Bird Woman.

Ephraim had no way of knowing that Victoria had just left Circus Mirandus for good. He had no way of knowing how angry she was with the Lightbender.

“Good gracious!” Ephraim exclaimed. “You’re the Amazing Amazonian Bird Woman.”

She stopped dead. “I prefer Victoria.” She looked him up and down. “Who are you?”

“Ephraim Tuttle,” he said. “And this is Gertie.”

Gertie peeked over the top of her brother’s shoulder. “We’re going to a magic circus,” she chirped. “My brother’s going to be a magician.”

To Ephraim, the hot day suddenly felt twenty degrees warmer. The Bird Woman, who he had once thought was the most beautiful woman in the world, was twice as pretty as he remembered.

“I’m just going to ask if they can help me learn,” he said. “I know a few things. Tricks. But the Lightbender, I mean the Man Who Bends Light of course, offered me a miracle.”

“Oh did he?” said Victoria. Her eyes narrowed. “He doesn’t do that often.”

“I’m hoping instead of a regular miracle, so to speak, he might agree to teach me,” Ephraim babbled.

“He must have seen a lot of potential in you.” Her voice was contemplative. “He must have thought you had something special to contribute.”

“Well, I’m not sure I would call what I do special—”

“Nonsense.” Victoria smiled then, and to Ephraim it was like the sunrise. “So you’re going to Circus Mirandus to meet the Man Who Bends Light. You’re going to learn to be a . . . what is it you do exactly?”

Ephraim carried his old bootlace with him everywhere. He showed Victoria the knot he had tied for the Lightbender years before.

“How wonderful!” she said when he was finished. “That is just the kind of magic we’re looking for at Circus Mirandus.”

“Really?” Ephraim asked. “I’ve always worried that it was too little a thing.”

“Really,” said Victoria. She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Surely you’re not going right now, though?”

Ephraim was still staring at her eyelashes.

“We are,” Gertie said.

“Oh dear!” Victoria shook her head. “I’m taking a short vacation from it all, myself. It would have been nice to have some company.” She bit her lower lip. “I don’t suppose you want to come with me.”

“We don’t,” Gertie told her.

“You can always join Circus Mirandus later.” Victoria laughed merrily. “Why, it’s been around for thousands of years! I doubt we have to worry about it disbanding.”

Ephraim was sure he hadn’t been so lucky since Fish swam into his boot. “Of course,” he said.

Victoria held her arm out, and Ephraim shook off his stupor. He set his sister on the ground and took Victoria’s arm to help her across the street.

“But, Ephi!”

Victoria bent down to her. “It’s not such a tragedy, darling,” she whispered. “You would have been terribly disappointed in the end.”

By the time Ephraim realized that Victoria had misled him, he was already very much in love with her. When she begged him to forgive her, he did.

“But I want you to understand that I’m going to keep looking for it,” he told her. “I belong at Circus Mirandus. Sometimes I think I always have.”

“Of course,” she said. “I’m so sorry. Really, I am. I do love you. We could be a great team, you and I.”

He believed her, and they were married soon after.

Ephraim found a job as a shoe salesman. It was supposed to be a temporary position, but money was in short supply. Gertie was growing up so quickly. She always seemed to need new stockings or shirts or skirts. Ephraim looked up one day to discover that his sister was eleven years old, and he was farther away from Circus Mirandus than he ever had been.

He could hardly let his wife and his little sister starve while he chased the circus all over the world. So, he stacked boxes of shoes and measured feet and dreamed of pipes and drums.

For her part, Victoria seemed content enough. She kept the house in order and directed Sunday choir, and if she was difficult to get along with now and then . . . well, at least Gertie had come to adore her. Once or twice, Ephraim caught his wife looking out the window at the birds with a calculating expression on her face, but he dismissed it as something he had imagined.

Then came the day when he spotted her hovering a few inches above the living room carpet. Victoria was staring out the window again, but this time she looked pleased.

“Your magic is back!” Ephraim was delighted. She had told him that she had lost her magic because of an accident. She didn’t like to talk about it, and he didn’t blame her. He couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for her. “This changes everything.”

“Yes,” said Victoria. “It certainly does.”

She ran a slender finger down the glass pane. “Ephraim,” she said, “have I ever told you about the other magicians? The ones who don’t work for Mirandus Head, I mean. They might be very interested in meeting us, you know.”

“That’s good, I guess,” Ephraim said.

“It is good, Ephraim. I’m talented. You’re talented enough, though of course you need some training to reach your full potential. It’s a thought, isn’t it?”

“But Victoria—Circus Mirandus. It’s waiting out there for both of us now. For all of us.”

“Mmm, yes,” Victoria said. “Gertie’s still eager for the place, isn’t she? It won’t be easy to take her along if she’s outgrown the idea, though, will it? The manager does tend to be selective.”

“You know she’s still dying to see it! And I can’t wait to tell her about your magic.”

Victoria stepped over to kiss him on the cheek. She smiled. “I can’t wait either.”

One Saturday not long after that, while her brother was at work, Gertrudis Tuttle was lying on the front porch of the house when Victoria came out to sweep. Gertie had her tongue between her teeth, and she was staring intently at something in her hands.

“What have you got there, darling?” Victoria asked.

“It’s the bootlace. I don’t know why it won’t work for me. Ephraim does it like it’s nothing.”

Victoria laughed. “Oh, Gertie, that’s a good one! I didn’t know you still believed your brother’s old stories.”

“Of course I do.”

Victoria rolled her eyes. “Do you really think his silly knot hobby is magic?”

“Yes. I’ve seen him do it. He’s going to be a great magician one day.”

“Honestly, sweetie, you’re smarter than that. He says I can fly!”

Gertie looked up at her calmly. “You can. I don’t know why you never do it, but Ephi wouldn’t lie to me.”

There was a strange glint in Victoria’s eye. “He did,” she said. “Think about it. If I could fly, I wouldn’t be sweeping this porch. I would be doing, oh I don’t know, a hundred other things.”

“But—”

“Think,” said Victoria. “If I could do magic, if anyone with any sense could do magic, would they really squander their time putting on shows for children?”

“Ephraim says they do. It sounds nice.”

Victoria leaned against the railing. “It sounds foolish. Real magicians would be powerful people. They would be rich and famous. They would control entire countries. If Circus Mirandus existed, it wouldn’t be a good thing. It would be a huge waste of talent. That’s not the sort of place you should believe in.”

“Ephi wouldn’t lie,” Gertie repeated.

Victoria set down her broom. She spread her arms wide. “If magic is real,” she said, “prove it.”

Gertie squinted at her. “How would I do that?”

Victoria shrugged. “I’m sure I have no idea. If Ephraim’s stories were real, I suppose you could jump off something tall, and I could fly up to catch you before you hit the ground.”

It wasn’t that Gertrudis was stupid. She just had an inordinate amount of faith in her brother to tell the truth and in Victoria to keep her safe.

She coiled the bootlace neatly and put it aside. She used the porch’s banister to climb up onto the roof.

“You’re going to be sorry,” said Victoria.

Gertie stood on the sharp edge of the tin roof and stared down. “I don’t know why you’re testing me like this. I really do believe in magic. I know you’ll catch me.”

Ephraim came home just in time to see his sister leap.

Victoria didn’t catch her.

She didn’t even try.