Leslie’s eyes go wide, but she doesn’t say anything, as though she knows I’m not quite done. And I’m not. I want to tell her that they’re not the kind of people who belong here, that they don’t appreciate what the charm does for them, but it’s too hard to find the words to explain that don’t also make me seem petty. So I shrug and say, “That’s all. Thought you should know.”
Leslie blows out a breath as she steps away from the guardrail, gaze trained on the well-worn wood we’re standing on. When she looks at me, she’s as serious as I’ve ever seen her. “Thank you for telling me, Benjamin, and thank you for stopping Lorenzo from hurting that employee. You see or hear anything else, let me know, and I’m going to keep an eye on them, okay?”
I nod, even though I want more than that. I want them gone, even if I myself don’t plan to stay very much longer, because the brothers feel like a splotch, a tarnish on this place. “Thanks, Leslie,” I say as I collect my tool kit and leave.
Suddenly I feel tired, as though confessing to Leslie has physically drained me. The cut on my hand throbs, but I still have work to do, especially if I don’t want to catch heat from Mom. And in particular, I need to power through if I don’t want her to keep me from working on the box.
The fortune-teller’s box is the one task that has always fallen to me, ever since I was old enough to use the power saw unsupervised. When I was thirteen, I rebuilt the thing from scratch. I know it’s silly, but I’d almost be offended if Mom decided to take that away from me, and given how weird she’s been about the new girl, she just might. So I know that if she catches me slacking off even a little, she’ll have a reason. I wrap the bandage on my hand a little more tightly and get back to work.
After lunch, I find the box set up along the outer perimeter of attractions, near Lars’s Ferris wheel. I don’t know why the crew decides to change the setup every now and then—maybe just for the hell of it—but they do. I also know that some old superstition keeps most of the vendors from setting up close to the Ferris wheel, and in this spot, the little red booth sticks out like a blemish at the edge of the carnival.
They just dropped the box down, not caring about how it might look to passersby, so I wipe some dust from the base and pull the weeds poking from underneath. I check her out. She needs a good cleaning; fingerprints dot the glass, and dirt clings to the molding at the base. There are a couple of chips, and the gold paint has flaked off the glass in a few spots, but nothing too bad. I’ve just climbed in through the door at the back to test the bulbs when someone yells at me.
“Hey! What are you doing to my booth?”
My head crashes into the drawer under the shelf. As I rub the throbbing away, I take a look at the girl yelling at me.
It’s the new girl. Her eyes widen in recognition when she sees me but narrow again in righteous suspicion. Full lips tug downward to an almost frown, and I wonder what they look like when she’s smiling. She’s been raiding Gin’s closet; I’d always thought Gin was thin, but now that I see one of her sweaters swallowing this girl whole, I can tell Gin has muscles and strength to her. A twitch rattles her whole body to the left, and she hugs herself tightly.
“Just checking it,” I say. “For maintenance.”
“Oh,” she says, her shoulders easing back to a more relaxed position. She looks around, taking in the Ferris wheel and the other booths standing a short distance away. “Do, um… Do you think you could move it? I need to be by the midway, where there’s more people.”
“Yeah.” My mind is already in motion, trying to figure out the best place for the booth and where I last saw the dolly. Which is halfway across the yard. “I just have to get the dolly. But I swear I’ll have it in place before we open tonight. Want to show me where you’d like it?”
She smiles so quickly that I barely catch it, like a star blazing across the night sky. But then she says, “That’d be great.” Her gaze darts toward the ground, lingering on the random paintbrushes jutting out from my tool kit. “You aren’t the one who painted those big murals out front, are you?”
“Of the performers?” I ask, even though I can’t think of anything else she might be talking about.
“Yeah. You know, the fortune-tellers—I guess one is Duncan? And I’m pretty sure one is of Gin and another is of the tumbler brothers.”
The grin spreads across my face quickly, fully formed before I’m even aware I’m doing it. She saw my paintings. And it sounds like she liked them. “Those are mine.”
“They’re fabulous,” she says, eyes widening. “The way you used color in the one of the knife thrower was perfect, and you made Duncan and his sister seem so creepy. I tried to tell my friend Juliet how great they were, but she’s not into art. Do you get to paint often?”
“Carpentry comes first, but Leslie likes my work, so whenever she needs something painted, she comes to me.”
Her gaze goes soft, distant. “I miss painting. I hadn’t done it before I moved back to Oklahoma, and well, now…” As her voice drifts off, she lifts a hand. There’s a fine tremor in her fingers, interspersed with sharp jerks of her whole arm. She winces, and I don’t know if it’s because she’s in pain or embarrassed, but before she can pull her hand away I take it in my own.
“My name’s Ben, by the way,” I say as I shake her hand. I’m so focused on trying to make her feel more comfortable that I don’t notice right away. There’s a chill to her skin that’s off, and her fingers are unyielding, firm. It’s like I’m not shaking a hand at all but rather a carving of one. Then she smiles, and the cold radiating off her doesn’t even register anymore.
“Emma.”
Emma. Okay, fine.
Maybe Mom was right to worry a little.
Chapter Ten
Emma
I don’t care what Sidney said about the clothes I’ve chosen to wear—I like the dress and the jacket. But for some reason, I’ve kept his stupid hat. There’s something about it that feels important, like it’s a talisman or something.
Ben moved my booth earlier this afternoon, insisting I follow him as he did so to make sure I would be able to find it later. I’d offered to help, but let’s be honest—walking in a straight line these days is hard. Besides, from my vantage point beside him, I could watch the stretch and pull of the muscles in his arms and catch a peek at his flat stomach as he dabbed the sweat from his brow with his T-shirt.