The smile Juliet gives me is small but firm. The desire to slot me right back into her life is practically rolling over her head like the ticker constantly running at the bottom of a twenty-four-hour news station screen. But she reaches out to squeeze my arm, then turns to face the cluster of her friends nearby. Soon enough, she’s in the middle of them, and strains of their laughter drift my way.
The Boy in the Box has his hands folded neatly in front of him and is staring right at me, a quirky smile on his face. All the tension welling up inside after that weird conversation with Juliet melts away at the sight of him, and my belly gives a twist.
He springs to life, his fingers jerking and flexing over the cards. He waffles over two fortunes for the longest time before settling on the one in the bottom right corner. His fingertips graze the paper and then he freezes. I wait, staring at his long, white fingers, willing him to pick up the card. Then I look at him.
The smirk is back, and when my eyes meet his, his gaze slips down to the bowl of coins.
Oh!
I check my bag, searching for change. Nothing. Who the hell even carries around coins anymore? My fingers falter over a lump in my pocket—the coin this boy gave me earlier. I slip it into the machine and like magic my Boy in the Box starts moving again, like he’d never stopped in the first place. He picks up the tiny white card, touches it to his lips instead of his temple, and drops it into the tray.
My fortune is six words, surrounded by hand drawn, curling hearts. Hearts that were not on Jules’s card. Did he draw them when I was looking for that quarter? A faint line of red that mimics the shape of a kiss runs over the words. You will soon take a fall.
My gaze snaps up, but the curtains that run the perimeter of the booth have been drawn. A knot of disappointment sits heavily in my stomach, followed immediately by a wave of embarrassment. Stupid, Emma, you’re being stupid. You weren’t the first girl to get tricked out of a quarter tonight and you won’t be the last.
I turn away, only to bump into someone. A hand grips onto my arm to keep me from slipping.
The Boy in the Box stands in front of me. The black bowler hat covering his slicked-back hair makes him seem taller, and though a dark jacket covers his old-fashioned shirt and suspenders, below the waist he has on a very modern pair of jeans and scuffed black boots.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“No, I’m sorry,” he says. His voice is warm and sweet, like the caramels they’re selling two booths over. “I was standing too close, and I shouldn’t have been. Anyway…I’m due for a break,” he says. “Entertain me?”
I am close enough to see the line where his white face paint meets his true skin color, not that there’s much of a difference between the two. The red circles on his cheeks are garish under the flashing carnival lights, but his green-gold eyes seem brighter, more alive.
And even though every warning about strangers my parents ever gave me blares through my head, there’s something about the look he’s giving me—the pure, focused attention to the me in the here and now, not the me that could be—that makes it impossible to say no.
He shoves his hands into his pockets and starts to walk. The crowds are thinning, and vaguely I wonder what time it is and when Jules is supposed to be home and then whether or not my dad would notice what time I came home. I glance up at him and find that he’s already looking at me.
“Want to talk about that fight with your friend?” he asks, gently nudging my arm with his elbow.
I shrug, hoping that he chalks up my pink cheeks to the cold. “It wasn’t a fight. I just moved back to town and I’m having a hard time fitting back in. My friend has a life that doesn’t include me and it’s been…weird.”
“You’ve been gone awhile, how could it not be weird?” He peers down at me, and I feel my stomach squirm in a weird, happy sort of way. He gets it, really understands.
I want nothing more than for him to take my hand, but his are firmly tucked away in his pockets. I move closer, hoping that he’ll get the hint. He smells like pine and dust and wool, probably from being cooped up in that box all day.
“You don’t have a problem with heights, do you?” I ask. I nod toward the Ferris wheel that looms before us. I want more time with him, and all I can think of is sitting next to him in one of those little cars.
The boy follows my gaze to the ride and smiles at me, soft and inviting. “That would be perfect.”
Without warning he veers toward a tent. One of the flaps at the corner isn’t secured very well, and he reaches in. His hands are pale and elegant, and almost as white as the paint on his face. After a moment of fishing, he triumphantly withdraws a bottle of wine.
I vow to not let him know that I’ve only ever had beer that one time at my friend Andrew’s birthday party. Or that I hated it. Or that I threw up. Hell, or maybe I will. I’m practically buzzing just from having someone listen, actually listen, to me like he has.
We wend our way through the thinning crowd toward the ride. A broad and burly man operates the Ferris wheel. He’s covered in ginger curls, from the unruly mop on his head to the tiny springs of hair that poke over the V-neck of his black-and-white striped sweater. It matches his ruddy skin, making him look like a huge angry carrot. A giant mustache covers most of his mouth and it shifts, though I don’t know if it’s a smile or a frown.
“If it isn’t my favorite boy wonder,” he says. His voice is gruff and curt.
“Hello, Lars,” the boy says. Hearing him say someone else’s name makes me realize that I don’t know his. “May we go up?”
Lars glances at the wheel. There’s no one on the ride, and, as we’re nearing closing time, it seems unlikely that there will be. Lars sighs as he opens the tiny door to the car and gestures for me to get in. My Boy in the Box follows, and shortly after that, we’re off. The wheel swoops upward, leaving my stomach back on the ground, and when I glance at the boy to see him looking down at me, I realize the funny feeling in my belly won’t be going away anytime soon.
Lars lets us spin around twice before my companion yells over the side. “Mind letting us enjoy the view for a while?”
The only answer we get is the ride stopping at its apex, with the lights twinkling below us and the moon shining above. The wind is cleaner up here, free from the scents of the carnival, and stronger. The car rocks violently in a sudden gust, and I grip the sides. My self-preservation instincts kick in, and I realize that I am up here, alone, with a boy I don’t know.
“Oh, don’t worry,” he says, sensing my distress. He leans over the side, the car jerking as he shifts his weight over, and yells, “Lars! Tell the lady that your intentions are honorable, and you’ll let us down the moment she asks.”
Lars’s big, booming voice is half swallowed by the night. “It’s not my intentions you need to worry about, missy.”