“We can’t all meet our boyfriends in the sideshow,” I reminded Luka as I stood up, and it only made him grin wider. He’d been dating Tim—one of the Flying Phoenixes—for the past three months.
“But you didn’t see Blossom anywhere in town last night?” Roxie asked, and Luka’s smile instantly fell away.
A sour feeling stirred in my stomach, and I looked out around camp through the bars of the cage, as if Blossom would suddenly appear standing beside a trailer. As I’d been doing my chores all morning, I kept scanning the campsite for her, expecting her to return at any moment with a funny story about how she’d gotten lost in town.
But so far, she hadn’t. And the longer she went without coming back, the worse the feeling in my stomach got.
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t see her at all last night.”
“She’s gotta turn up, though, right?” Luka asked. “I mean, it’s not like there are really that many places she could’ve gone considering she has no money or car and she’s in a small town.”
The tigers were still down in the run, so I opened the side gate and hopped down out of the cage. Roxie got out behind me, then we closed the door.
“I should talk to Gideon,” I decided as Roxie locked the cage up behind me. “It’s not like Blossom to do this.”
“It’s not totally unlike her, though,” Roxie pointed out. “When we were in Toledo six months ago, she disappeared for a few days with that weird commune, and came back just before we were leaving, totally baked out of her mind.”
Blossom had grown up with parents who pretended to be hippies but were really just a couple of drug addicts. That—along with her unexplainable telekinesis—led to her dabbling with drugs and alcohol at a young age, before the state intervened and shipped her off to a group home.
My mom tried to keep her clean of her bad habits, but sometimes Blossom just liked to run off and do her own thing. That wasn’t that unusual for people who lived in the carnival.
“But if you’re worried, you should talk to Gideon,” Roxie suggested. “Luka’s right in that Blossom really couldn’t have gone far. Maybe you can scope out Caudry.”
“Since that sounds like a mission that may take a bit of time, can you help me and Hutch with the museum before you talk to Gideon?” Luka asked. “The exit door is jammed, and we can’t get it open, and Seth is busy helping set up the tents.”
“Sure. Between me and Mara, I’m sure the two of us can get the door unstuck,” Roxie said.
I dropped off the bucket with the other tiger supplies, and then followed Roxie and Luka away from our campsite to the fairgrounds on the other side of a chain-link fence. We always stayed close to the rides, the midway, and the circus tent, but we didn’t actually sleep there. It was much better for everyone if we kept our private lives separate from the crowds.
Many of the games were already set up, and the Ferris wheel was in the process of being erected as we passed. Near the end of the midway was a long black trailer painted with all kinds of frightening images of werewolves and specters, along with happier pictures of mermaids and unicorns, and the sign was written in bloodred:
Beneath that were several smaller signs warning “Enter at your own risk. The creatures inside can be DISTURBING and cause NIGHTMARES.”
The entrance to the left was open, but the exit door at the other end was still shut. Wearing a pair of workman’s gloves, Hutch was pulling at the door with all his might. His neon green tank showed that his muscles were flexed and straining in effort. The bandana kept his dark brown hair off his face, but sweat was dripping down his brow.
“Let me have a try, Hutch,” Roxie said.
“What?” He turned to look back at her. “Door’s stuck.”
“I can see that. That’s why I said let me have a try.”
“Okay.” Hutch shrugged and stepped back.
Hutch’s real name was Donald Hutchence, but nobody ever called him anything but Hutch. He didn’t have any special powers, unless you considered being really agreeable and easygoing a super power, so, like me, he was left doing whatever else needed to be done.
Roxie grabbed the door and started pulling on it, and when it didn’t budge, I joined her.
“Luka, go and push from the inside,” Roxie commanded through gritted teeth.
Both Luka and Hutch went inside, pushing as Roxie and I pulled. And then all at once, the door gave way, and we all fell back on the gravel. I landed on my back, scraping my elbow on the rocks.
Roxie made it out unscathed, and Hutch fell painfully on top of me, so he’d avoided injury. Luka crashed right on the gravel, though, and the rocks tore through his jeans and ripped up his knees and the palms of his hands pretty badly.
“Do you need me to get a Band-Aid or anything?” Hutch asked as he helped me to my feet.
“No, I’ll be okay.” I glanced over at Luka and the blood dripping down his knees. “What about you? Do you want anything?”
“Nah. Just give it a few minutes.” Luka waved it off and sat down on the steps leading up to the museum door.
No matter how many times I saw it, I couldn’t help but watch. His knee was shredded, with bits of gravel sticking in the skin. Right before my eyes, the bleeding stopped, and the rocks started falling out, as if pushed by his flesh, and the skin grew back, reattaching itself where it had been little mangled flaps.
Within a few minutes, Luka’s knee was healed completely.