A Cirque world swirled around her. She was inside a dark tent, lit by spinning neon colors. Glitter and sparkles and strobe lights confused her. All around, Cirque performers twisted and flipped, coming close to Sasha to wave their hands near her head and make grotesque faces, before dissolving into the shadows again. Above, hoops and tightrope lines were packed with skeletal figures; every few seconds one of them crashed to the ground and disappeared. Just like her dad. Everywhere, there was tin-can music and hideous laughter.
Sasha closed her eyes and swallowed back sobs. She wanted to go home.
“Go, then. You don’t belong here. But do you belong anywhere? Why should Cirque Magnifique take you back when you said you hated them?”
A finger tucked under Sasha’s chin and tipped her face up. She opened her eyes. Before her, a tall figure encased in sweeping robes gazed down at her. His eyes were like Toddy’s: full of the universe. But where Toddy’s were beautiful and wondrous, the Magician’s were full of the fear of endlessness, of being lost and never found, of being forgotten. Of being able to see into every shadow and corner of her feelings.
He looked exactly like the drawing she’d seen in Mr. Ticklefar’s book of Cirque lore.
He terrified her.
The neon colors faded, and all movement stopped. Smoke rose from the ground, obscuring Sasha’s feet and ankles.
“Or you can stay here.” The Magician dropped her chin and turned in a slow circle. “All the wonders of eternity can be yours. Spend your days in the most beautiful garden you’ve ever seen and your nights blowing plumes of Smoke across the earth. Marvel at wonders no other humans know of. Abandon fear and be in peace forever.”
It sounded too good to be true. Too lovely, too easy. Sasha wanted to fall into the Magician’s world and never have to worry again. Never be bullied again, never have her heart broken again.
“We could be happy here . . . ,” she began. The Magician cut her off.
“We?”
“Me and Toddy and Mom and Dad and Pirate.”
“Little girl, there is no Toddy and Mom and Dad and Pirate. You came in here alone. Refusing help, as you always do. You want to leave everything behind, don’t you? Stay here forever.”
Sasha looked over her shoulder, as though Toddy would be there. He was always there. But not this time. It felt awful to be alone.
Her legs still ached from all the walking she’d done; her hands were still scratched from the Grandelion; her hair still smelled like salt water from battling King Crab. And always, always, her heart ached with the way the Islanders called her names.
But when she was with her family at the Cirque, surrounded by her friends . . .
“The garden is lovely . . .”
“Yes. Very lovely.” The Magician beckoned with his hands. “You want to stay.”
“But it’s loveliest at home. When the sky is clear and the air smells like the sea and the cedars whisper. Even when the sky is gray and the waves slam the shore and the winds howl.” Sasha tilted her head, understanding why the Magician wanted her to stay at the Edge of the World. She spoke softly. “The only time the Cirque isn’t beautiful is when the Smoke covers everything and makes us afraid. You want me to stay so that I can’t defeat you. So you can keep bullying the Cirque forever. Well . . . I won’t let you.”
The Magician floated and twirled above her, his face dark with anger.
“Nonsense. That island is dark and dreary. The Islanders despise you, and the Cirque blames you for bringing back the Smoke. It is not the loveliest. It cannot be the loveliest. There is no such thing as love. It is an illusion.”
“That’s not true!” Sasha dug her fists into her hips. “There is love. And the Cirque doesn’t blame me. No, they blame you, you dastardly, devilish Magician, for creating the Smoke in the first place!”
The Magician waved his arms. The room filled with Smoke until Sasha couldn’t see through it. Then, with one great blow of his breath, the Magician cleared the Smoke away again.
“The Smoke is always there. Only you decide if you want it or not.” The Magician lowered to the ground. His face, still so young-looking, went as cold as ice. “If you don’t take my offer, I will destroy you.” The Magician said the terrible words matter-of-factly.
“Destroy me? That’s awful!”
“Didn’t you come here to destroy me? Turnabout is fair play.”
“Yes—I mean . . . no, actually. I don’t want to destroy you, though I feel terribly sorry for you. I came to destroy the Smoke. I came to find my parents, to keep Toddy with me, to rescue Cirque Magnifique!”
“You are too scared and alone to rescue anyone.”
Sasha wanted to scream No! but she didn’t. She held her tongue. Fear, after all, was something she’d struggled with on this entire journey: fear of sailing out to sea, fear of not being able to save Toddy from King Crab or the Sharp-Beaked Weasel. Fear of never seeing her parents again. Pushing through that fear had been one of the most wonderful things Sasha had ever done in her life. Even now, the chance to leave the world behind was like a wrapped gift in her hands, and all she had to do was pull the ribbon off.
She thought of all the things on the island that made her fearful.
Then she thought of all the things that made her happy. And all the bravery she’d seen. Her mom and dad soaring through the air when they performed at the Cirque. Toddy following her to the Edge of the World. Even Pirate, learning to trust Toddy after the other kids treated the kitten so badly. The Cirque was a community; it was family.
“I’m not scared and I’m not alone,” Sasha said. “I never have been.”
“Your fear shines like light off a mirror. You want to hurt the people who have hurt you.”
Sasha knew the Magician didn’t speak the truth. And that’s when the truth found Sasha, like a bird calling out to her across a dense forest. It was something her dad had said to her:
Love always makes us better than we were before. It makes Lights of us all.
In that moment Sasha’s emotions shone like a light off a mirror, which meant . . .
Cirque lore had been wrong about the Light. It wasn’t some special magic that kept the Smoke at bay. Something that only one person at a time could carry. The magic, Light, was something they all had, if only they were brave enough to love mightily. It was they, themselves. Not Lights, in fact. . . . They were Mirrors, and all the good of their hearts could be reflected into the world. If only they knew they had the power. If only they didn’t always shrink from the Magician and his Smoke, and instead gathered their strength and fought it off, like Griffin had always said they should.
Sasha took a deep breath. She searched her mind and her heart and gathered all the love, all the bravery, all the power she held there. She remembered every game of hide-and-seek played around the Cirque tents. She thought about all the smiles the performers sent her way as they walked past, dazzling her with their flamboyant costumes. She recalled every storytelling night in the cottage, when her dad told the story about when Mom walked into the Cirque.
The Cirque was a wonderful place to be. They were strong, together. And now she would show the Magician how tough she was, how her magic was, indeed, enough. How she was enough—good enough—no matter what anyone said or did to her. With her eyes closed she pushed all those good memories toward the Magician. She became a Mirror.
She never saw the way her light blasted the neon and the strange performers, or how the Smoke dissipated forever, or how the Magician curled his lip and tried to hide from all that beamed from Sasha. She only listened to his wail fade into nothingness as the dark thoughts in her soul were replaced with a sweet longing for her family. And when that sound was gone, Sasha crumpled to the ground, spent.