On an afternoon in mid-October, Sasha’s mom picked her up from the bus stop.
“How was school?”
“Toddy’s teachers aren’t very nice.”
“And how was school for you?” Mom repeated.
Sasha squinted at her mom’s expression. If Sasha said she hated school, could she stay at the Cirque instead?
Sasha sighed. “I like the book I’m reading.” Mom’s expression didn’t change. “And I have lots of friends.” Sasha tacked on the lie, hoping it would make Mom’s eyes soften. It worked. Mom smiled.
They trekked across the Cirque grounds to the rows of cottages hidden behind a stand of tall, ancient pines. A sharp island wind rattled through the branches, dropping needles over her mother’s wild strawberry patch. The sky was a stern gray, with swathes of silver swirling through. The air smelled acidic.
“I know it’s taking a little while for you to settle in,” Mom said. “But your teacher says you do excellent work.”
“You talk to her?”
“Of course. I want to keep up on my girl’s progress.”
Sasha grunted. If that was true, how come Mom didn’t know how the other kids treated her? How come she ignored Sasha when she asked to stay at the Cirque instead of going to school?
Mom couldn’t care that much.
Sasha folded her arms across her chest and glared at the ground. At Sasha’s feet a bit of blue mist teased her ankles. She squinted. Mist, combined with something else. Something laced with a sinister charcoal color. Sasha’s heart gave one great thump, and she held her breath. Was that . . . Smoke? Mom walked on, not noticing the Smoke, but Sasha panicked, and kicked at the air around her feet before anyone else saw the strange gray color, not stopping until the Smoke blended with the fog enough to no longer be noticeable.
Where did the Smoke come from, and why? How could it appear so close to the Light? Sasha opened her mouth to call out to her mom, but closed it abruptly and narrowed her eyes. Mom was walking through the cottage door, humming music for the new show under her breath, leaving Sasha behind. All anyone at the Cirque cared about was the new show. They didn’t care that school was terrible and friends were hard to come by and that the Smoke had crept out of the shadowy forest corners where it usually lingered . . . waiting . . . watching . . . and now teased Sasha right in front of her own home.
Part of Sasha wanted to alert her mom so that the Smoke would be chased away by the power of the Light. The other part of her . . .
She wasn’t exactly sure what the other part of her wanted. But she almost liked the Smoke. It matched her mood: sullen and stormy. She knew it couldn’t stay. But here it was, teasing and taunting her, almost touching the tips of her shoes. She didn’t want anyone else to know about it. She stamped her feet until the Smoke disappeared again, then let the chill of the wind fill her nostrils and ran to catch up with her mom.
“We’re going to have a storm,” Sasha said, shutting the cottage door behind her. She loved the rain. The heavy wetness of it, the rumbling thunder of the sky meeting earth, the white-tipped churning of the waves against the pebble shore just over the dunes ahead. “People might not come this weekend.”
“It’s storm season,” Mom said, pulling Sasha close to her side. “There will be lots in the coming days. But we’ll keep the storms at bay. We always do.”
“What if one time . . . we don’t?” Sasha asked.
Mom squeezed Sasha’s shoulder. “It’s my job to make sure we do.”
Sasha nodded. The thrill of seeing Smoke for the first time faded, to be replaced by fear and uncertainty. Maybe it hadn’t been Smoke at all. Maybe someone was burning leaves on the other side of the island and the dark char had traveled to the Cirque on the back of the fog. Sasha snuck her hand into her mom’s and hoped she was wrong about what she’d seen.