Behind the covered wagon there are people. A redheaded girl, her great mane of hair wrestled into a white ribboned ponytail, croons over a ragged doll. A boy grabs at a frog, hooting for the redhead to join the chase, but she ignores him. An older girl-woman leans against the wagon, fiddling with a knot in her hands, staring darkly at the sky. Her face is covered in bright red leisons, frighteningly white against her flat crow-black hair, and flakes like snow fall from her face every time she moves her head.
Lizzy, the girl who found me first, plunges ahead and grabs the girl-woman’s arm.
“I found someone,” she says.
“She’s a ghost!” the boy says, abandoning the frog and running toward me.
“She’s not,” Lizzy says, sticking out her tongue.
“Of course she isn’t a ghost, Jimmy,” the girl-woman says reproachfully, her eyes never leaving me. She steps forward, Lizzy still hanging from her arm. “Hey,” she says. “I’m Marion.”
Jimmy stops and stands motionlessly, watching me.
“Hey,” I say hesitantly. I take a deep breath. I’m not scared, but there are so many people… they are not touching me, but I feel like they’re crawling all over me.
I look over at the redheaded girl, still playing with the doll. She looks over her shoulder and smiles. Her face is completely red, open and oozing. I’m startled. She goes back to her play, unconcerned.
“You have the Disease?” Marion asks.
I do not understand her.
She steps even closer and taps the cloth wrapped around my face. I flinch. “We all have it. You don’t have to hide your face if you stick with us.”
“I’m not sick,” I say.
Marion looks at me sympathetically.
“What’s wrong – ” I pause.
She watches me for a second, then gets a hard look on her face. “What’s wrong with us? Is that what you’re asking?” Her voice is angry.
I nod slowly.
“Yeah, well, some babies are kissed by angels at birth, and they get good luck and good looks. We were kissed by demons.”
Lizzy drops Marion’s arm and looks up at her with big eyes.
Marion softens and shakes her head gently, patting the top of Lizzy’s head. “No. We just got a hard lot. We have the Disease, only we’re not rich and we don’t got parents, so there’s no way for us to get the cure. So the Home for Orphans kicked us out of their building, and the city officials kicked us out of the city, so we get to make do on the outskirts.”
“I’m near the city?” I ask, suddenly hopeful.
“Yeah,” Marion says. “Right outside.”
I’m thrilled, but with a rush of memory I am left empty. What is left for me in the city? The man left me, and Rawnie is sick. She is probably glad not to have to keep a freak with her buisness. I would have kept customers out with my face. My hands go up to the cloth around my face.
“What’s it like there?” I ask.
“You’ve never been?” Marion asks, incredulous.
“No.”
“It’s clean,” she says. “And prissy.” She stares at me curiously. “What’s your name?”
“Tambourine,” I say. “I’m from the other side.”
“Just passing through, then, Tambourine?” she asks.
“Maybe,” I say.
Instantly she’s wary. “We don’t have much food. Water, but that’s it.”
“I have food,” I say. “And a little water.”
“You have food?” Lizzy chirps, tired of being ignored. “What kind of food?”
“Lizzy,” Marion hisses, but she looks up at me hopefully.
I walk behind Jasper and rummage in the cart. I take out the half-full basket of cactus leaves. Lizzy makes a face. The little boy – Jimmy – walks up, too, and hovers hopefully beside Marion. I look in another bag, and find nuts. They smell a little musty, but when I look up, I know I’ve found a treasure.
“Oh,” Marion gasps.
I am glad. I hand her the bag.
“Ours? All of them?” she asks, surprised, her eyes suddenly looking scared and young and wondering.
I feel shy and pleased. I drop my head.
“This will taste good with rat,” Marion says.
I nod, peeking back up at her. Her in-control face is back. She smiles.
I search the cart for any more unexpected treats. I find only the water jars, the tent matierals, a few blankets, two trunks of Rawnie’s dresses that Marion eyes longingly but I don’t let her have, a bag of Christoph’s clothes, and Rawnie’s colorful bags. I don’t open them. I feel like it would be wrong to touch her carvings and tools without her there.
I unharness Jasper and let him roam.
Marion leans against the covered wagon again and says, “You can stick with us for a while, if you want.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I – I will. For a while.”
She smiles faintly at me, pulls a knotted string from her pocket, and starts trying to unravel it. “It’s an impossible knot,” she says softly. “My father is the only one who can tie them.”
I would have watched her longer, but Lizzy runs up to me and tugs at my arm.
“Do you know how to play jumprope?” she asks. She looks behind her at Jimmy, who is drawing something on the ground with a stick. “Jimmy is setting it up.”
“No,” I say.
“I’ll show you.” She drags me over to him. Her hand is warm on my arm, but in a moment her touch is gone and she throws herself down to sit beside Jimmy. Jimmy scowls at her.
“Can she play?”
Lizzy tosses her head. “Of course. I told you she could.”
I watch them, my hands hanging awkwardly at my sides. “I don’t – ”
“I’ll go first,” Jimmy interupts me. He grabs a rope from the ground and grabs onto either side. As he spins it around, hopping over it, he counts. He gets to twenty-three before Lizzy shouts:
“You jumped out of the circle!”
He drops the rope. “I did not!”
“Yes you did! I saw! Your foot went out! She saw it too, didn’t she? Tam-bor-een, didn’t you see his foot go out of the circle?”
I look down and see that he had been jumping in the middle of a wobbly circle drawn in the dirt.
“Oh, I didn’t see – “
“See? You’re a cheater!” the boy shouts.
I start to back away.
“I am not!”
“Wait,” the boy says suddenly, seeing me leave. “Don’t leave. Do you want a turn?” His voice is suddenly kind.
“I don’t know how – “
“I’ll show you,” he says firmly.
He hands me the rope, and I try to hold it with both of my hands. But my crippled hand loses its grip again and again before I can try to twirl the rope over me.
“I am not a cheater, Jimothy Brown,” Lizzy hisses under her breath.
“Are too, Lizzy Nobody,” he hisses back. Then they notice me watching and stop fighting.
I try again, harder. My crippled hand trembles with the effort, but does not hold. I drop the rope to the ground and stare silently back at them.
“What’s wrong?” Jimmy asks.
“My hand – “ I say, my face burning with shame. I am glad they can’t see my reddening skin under my turban.
“What’s wrong with your hand?” Lizzy asks. Jimmy glares at her. “What?” she asks defensively.
“It’s crippled,” I say.
Lizzy stares at it. “Does it hurt?” she asks.
“No.”
“Oh, good,” she says. “If we find a longer rope, me and Jimmy can swing it while you jump.” She runs to Marion and Jimmy follows her. I stay behind, standing in the circle with the rope, feeling useless.
Marion looks at me while they explain, then climbs into the covered wagon to hunt for another rope.
I sprint across the camp to Jasper’s side, throwing my arms around his bristly neck. He brays in protest, but I am kneeling with my arms around him and I can’t let go. I do not know how to play. And if they saw my face under my pretty blue turban, they wouldn’t want me to play with them, anyway. I close my eyes.
“It’s alright,” an airy voice says quietly beside me. My eyelids snap open and I look over to see the redhead girl with her oozing face standing beside me. She holds out her doll. I watch her warily.
“You can hold her,” she says.
I look into its gray face and blue cracked buttons for eyes. I let go of Jasper and gingerly take it in my good hand, cradling its head against my arm.
“Her name is Beauty,” the girl says softly. “She’s my sister.”
I look up at the girl. Our eyes meet.
“Why do you hide your face?” she asks.
“To protect me from the sun,” I say.
“That’s not the only reason,” she says. I hand her back Beauty and she smiles.
I pull out my wood elephant and hand it to her. “She reminds me of Princess. She was a baby elephant at the circus, with little tiny tusks. They would dress her up in beads around her neck and feathers tied to her ears and scarlet paint around her eyes and little gold suns painted all over her back. Sometimes they would paint her whole trunk gold. Those days she didn’t even look like an elephant, she looked like a demon.”
Jo brought out the angels in people. I hear Mia’s voice and it stabs me with guilt. I do not even know why.
“Did she like that?” the girl asked with wide eyes.
“Never,” I say.
“I wouldn’t,” she says. She hands me back my elephant. “Do you want to play?”
“I don’t know how,” I whisper, blushing. I search and find Marion emerging from the wagon, triumphantly waving a long rope in her hand. My stomach twists.
“Not with them,” she says gently. “Beauty and your elephant.”
I look at her. Her face is like an open wound, bleeding and gummy with pus. Scabs are caked around her eyelids, and her eyelashes are stuck together with pus. They’re puffy, I can barely make out the green-gray of her irises. But I see a softness in her eyes.
“Alright,” I say.
She sits down. We are standing in a patch of scrabbly grass. I sit beside her and self-conciously place my elephant between us.
The girl holds Beauty in her lap and leans over her. “I have a new friend for you to meet, Beauty,” she says. “You must be very nice.” Then she looks up at me expectantly.
I reach for my elephant and place her in my own lap. She is much smaller than Beauty, so I have to balance her carefully on my leg and try hard not to move. “I have a new friend for you to meet, elephant,” I say.
“She needs a name,” the girl says.
“Why?”
“Everyone needs a name,” the girl says. “Mine is Nona.”
“Mine is Tambourine,” I say.
“Name her something special. Like the name of someone you miss.”
“Mia,” I say without thinking.
“Hello, Mia,” she says, waving Beauty in the air like Beauty is the one talking.
“Hello,” I mumble, touching Elephant Mia’s back.
“We’re going to the moon today, to make the moon children jealous of our wings,” Nona says.
“We are?” I stare at her.
“In the story,” she says.
“Oh.”
“Come on, Mia,” she says, and lifts Beauty up in the air like she’s flying.
I lift Elephant Mia up and twirl her in the air.
“Wow, you are incredible at flying,” Nona makes Beauty say.
I blush. “Thank you,” I have Elephant Mia say. “Are we really going to fly to the moon?”
“Yes,” Nona says with wide eyes.
“What’s it like on the moon?” I ask, looking up. But it’s too bright for me to stare for long, I drop my gaze back to Playing.
“White. And all the moon children wear silver gowns and they sing instead of talk, but none of them have wings because they aren’t angels.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Nona says, suddenly Nona and not Beauty. “Sometimes I look up and I see them shimmering there on the white. They wait for wishes there, and when a good wish comes, one of them catches it and turns into an angel. Angels have wings, so the new angel can fly down to earth and make the wish come true. After that, they are the wisher’s guardian angel.”
“What’s a guardian angel?”
“An angel who protects you and gives you invisible gifts,” she says seriously. “And even,” she leans in close to whisper. “Makes you a little more beautiful every day.”
I stare at her, my mind tossing in the spell of her breezy voice.
“Why are you over here?” Jimmy is back, now holding a new rope. I blink, looking up at him and Lizzy who runs up behind him.
“I’m playing,” I say. A swell of pride rolls in my chest at my words. Playing.
“I thought you were playing with us,” Jimmy says.
“I don’t know how,” I say, anxious. I do not want to make them angry, but I love playing with Nona.
Jimmy shrugs. “Come on, Lizzy,” he says loudly, patting her on her shoulder. “She’s Nona’s friend, not ours.” Something in Lizzy’s face broke as she looked at me.
“No!” I say, up on my feet hurriedly, dropping Elephant Mia on the dirt. “I don’t mind, I mean, I want – ”
Nona looks up at me, her face unreadable. Lizzy watches me with an expression that looks like she wants to swallow my words whole and keep them forever. Jimmy looks annoyed.
I feel miserable.
“Can’t we all play?” I ask. “Together?”
They all stare at me.
“She’s odd,” Lizzy whispers. We all hear her.
Nona turns away and gently smoothes Beauty’s face.
“Why?” I say, something hot rising in my chest.
“Her stories,” Jimmy says awkwardly. “She believes them.”
“Why shouldn’t she?”
“Well,” he says. “They aren’t true.”
“They aren’t?” The heat in my chest twists and crawls into the root of my throat, simmering.
He stares at me. “Don’t you know anything?”
The heat leaps out of my throat and its name flashes across my eyes, Anger.
“Yes,” I say. “I do. I know that Nona tells beautiful stories. And Beauty is beautiful. I like her. She’s my friend, and you are like a circus,” I say. But this time, I do not want to run. I want to fight.
Jimmy’s eyes flash.
I throw myself back down on the ground beside Nona pick up Elephant Mia. “I’m flying to the moon!” I shout, and spin her through the air. Nona smiles incredulously at me, a wide crack in her bleeding face. I smile back.
“Beauty is ugly,” Jimmy spits.
I glare up at him.
“And so is Nona,” he says.
I leap up. The air rushing against my face as I move suddenly shocks me, and I wobble on my feet feeling small and scared. I want to curl up into a tight ball. I turn away.
Nona is hunched over Beauty, whispering, “It’s okay, I don’t mind. It’s true, after all. You’re the beautiful sister.”
I spin around and smash my good fist into Jimmy’s shoulder. He yelps and leaps back, then raises his own fists. I stare him square in the face, blazing.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Marion grabs Jimmy back and glares at me.
My bravado deflates. My knees are rubbery as I open my mouth. “I – ”
“Don’t even think about giving me excuses.”
“I hit him,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says. “Get out.”
I stand frozen.
“I said get out,” she says. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know how old you are. Under that blanket, who even knows what you are!”
“I – ”
“Take your mule and your nuts and walk,” Marion says. “You can’t attack the children.”
Suddenly I feel Nona’s hand take mine. It is small and cold, despite the heat of the desert sun. “I’m going with her.”
Marion takes a step backward. “What?”
“Tambourine is my guardian angel,” she says calmly.
Lizzy looks up at Marion. “Jimmy was being mean,” she says.
“You were being mean, too,” Jimmy hisses under his breath.Then he shrugs. “Don’t make her leave. I – we were teasting Nona. I don’t think she understood.”
“It wasn’t just teasing,” I say.
“Oh, grand,” Marion groans. “Come on, Jimmy. You know Lizzy follows you. Buck up and act like a man.”
Jimmy drops his head, scuffing the dirt with the toe of his boot.
“Tambourine – ” she says, looking at me. “We don’t fight here. We’ve got enough hot-headed judgement scowling at us. We don’t need it inside.”
I nod.
“Do you have the Disease?” Marion asks abruptly.
“I’m not sick,” I say.
“You’re going to get it now,” she says gruffly. “But if you don’t have it, why do you hide your face?”
“To protect it from the sun.”
“Right.”
I just stare somberly back at her.
“Listen,” she says, her hand resting on her hip. “There are no secrets in this family. If you want to be one of us, you’re going to have to take it off. None of us hide our faces, no matter how far the Disease has taken us.” She glances at Nona, who watches me placidly.
Panic rattles in my stomach.
She’s my guardian angel.
I’m not! I’m not I’m not I’m not. I’m the Origional Fruit of the Devil.
Jo! I call out with all my body, tears wobbling behind my eyes.
You can do whatever you want to do, I hear him saying, angry. You are a beautiful person in all the ways that matter.
I take a deep breath and drop my head to the ground as I reach up to my turban. I feel the roughened, sun cooked state of it as I slip my hands inside and begin to unravel it. I let it slip past my face and my body and to the ground, my eyes shut tight.
I am standing on my show box. The air smells like the almond perfume of the woman in front of me, her hair braided into a wrapped, elegant bun and veiled with a thin pink scarf. She is wearing a pink dress, and she looks beautiful. I stare at her, at her perfect skin and limbs, her gorgeous wholeness, until she steps back and grimaces.
“I swear,” she says in an ugly voice. “What kind of a zoo is it that oogles you right back?”
She walks away, thin chin propped up on the air, two fat, trussed children flouncing after her.
I gather all my strength and stand still, letting the eyes comb my face and belly and arms and legs, each of them taking me body with them as they walk away, and along with my body a little piece of my self. My skin aches with their glances, like every look gives me a tiny yellow-purple bruise.
A ruddy faced man jostles his son. “There’s a wife for you, boy!”
His son yelps with laughter, sticking his fingers in his mouth and spitting on my foot. I do not move. I must not move. “Incredible, the demons these circuses unearth. Where do they find them?”
“Smooching Hades, I assume,” the father says.
My sandal is wet with his bubbly saliva. I feel it soak through its thin make and dampen my skin.
“You can stay,” the son says. Suddenly he shrinks, then slims, then sprouts black hair. He becomes Marion looking at me anxiously. “You can stay,” she says again.
I stare at her.
She twiddles the knot in her hands. “You can stay with us, if you want. You’re only little, aren’t you? Eight?”
“Nine,” I say.
I feel Nona looking, but I ignore her, looking instead at Marion.
“I’m a Marvel,” I say.
She smiles queerly. “You are,” she says. “You’ll match up with us quite nicely. Welcome to the family. If you want.”
“Yes,” I say.
Marion nods and walks briskly back to the wagon.
I look over at Jimmy. He doesn’t meet my eyes, but I know he feels my gaze. “I’m sorry for hitting you,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. He looks up into my face and attempts a small smile. Then he takes Lizzy’s hand and walks away. I hear them start jumprope again.
I look at Nona hesitantly. She just grins at me.
“You’re not scared of me?” I ask.
“You’re not scared of me,” she says.
“I’m not a guardian angel.”
“Why not?” she says. “Maybe you are, and you just don’t know it.”
“Thank you,” I say.
She smiles.
I sit down, and she sits too.
We play.

AN: Tambourine will be written in a notebook from now on. I’ll type it up at the end and email it to whoever wants it. Sorry – but I think this is going to work best for who Tam is and who I am.

We go to the tent. Rawnie and the man fall asleep. I don’t.

Instead, I walk out of the tent and stand at the donkey’s side.

“I like you, Jasper,” I say, patting him awake.

I climb up onto him. He grunts, but I scratch behind his ears.  “I stayed so long at the circus before I learned to run away,” I say.

I push my heel into his side. He starts to move. The grinding of wheels behind me startles me. The man forgot to unhitch the donkey the night before. A wave of anger washes through me. They left him all night, chained painfully to their big, bulky cart full of their things that don’t benefit him at all.

I stumble to the ground and try to unhitch it, but I can’t. Instead, I drag out most of the water, the tinkering tools, the pots and pans, Rawnie’s colorful cloth bags, and leave them on the dirt. I keep some water and the food. They will be able to find more food, and I will need my share of the water.

I climb again on again, and we travel under the moon, the desert welmish under its strange glow.

It is hard to stay on the donkey, I have to grip him with my legs and hold his neck with my arms. He knows I cannot ride, but obeys me anyway. He likes me, too.

I climb again on again, and he begins to walk.

It is hard to stay on, I have to grip him with my legs and hold his neck with my arms. He knows I cannot ride, but obeys me anyway. He likes me, too.

I hear a rustling, and look behind me. Rawnie is running, her sandals untied and flapping, her turban lost on the ground behind her, her hair flying out behind her like a living thing. The moon shines on her face, pale on her chocolate skin.

“Jasper!” she calls, her mouth open wide.

Jasper stops. I dig my knees into his side. He takes half a step forward, then stops, looking back at Rawnie. I can hear her footsteps now.

“You have to run!” I say to him.

“Stop!” Rawnie cries.

She is right up against Jasper’s side, breathing hard, patting his neck and staring up at me with anger.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

I look away.

“You’re stealing my donkey and my cart,” she says.

“I couldn’t get the cart off,” I say quietly.

“Oh, so that makes it perfectly fine. You couldn’t get my cart off of my donkey, so you took them both.”

“Yes,” I say.

“Why?”

“I need to find a good place,” I say. “With good people.”

She looks into my eyes. She is crying.

She is crying. It doesn’t make sense, but there they are, tears, brushed with moon and quivering on the soft skin just under her eye.

“Did I hurt you, Tambourine?” she asks.

“No!” I say.

“I did something,” she says.

I climb off Jasper and stand beside her. “I’m sorry,” I say, but I’m not sure what I’m sorry for.

She kneels down eye to eye with me. Her loose white tunic blows in the dry wind. “I want to help you.”

I flinch. Mr. Cutts’ face smiles in my head, teeth pure white, eyes cold. Rawnie sees the fear in my eyes, and backtracks.

“I want to be your friend.”

“You hate the man.”

“Christoph?” She shifts positions, patting Jasper’s side, the bounce of her hand on his fur louder than her voice. “It’s just – I don’t hate him, Tambourine. I’m – “ she pauses.

“You’re making him take you across the desert.”

She sighs. “Yes.”

I am silent.

“I know,” she whispers.

Jasper looks at me with sad eyes. I look back.

“I needed to get out,” she says. Then she looks at me and Jasper and smiles bitterly. “Like you.”

I close my eyes. “No,” I say. “You’re like the circus. You need something, so you hurt people. And you get it.”

She stares at me, her eyes wild.

“I don’t stay at circuses,” I say.

I walk away, watching the ground carefully for snakes and scorpions. When I look back, Rawnie is right beside me. She puts her hand on my shoulder.

“You’d be killing yourself to run away into the desert,” she says softly. “We’re almost at the city. Why don’t you wait until then to leave? I promise I won’t hurt you. Christoph won’t either, he’s just… just…” she doesn’t look at me. “Sad.”

I consider. They have water. They have food. I can always leave if I have to. If I really have to.

“Please,” Rawnie says.

“I’ll stay,” I say.

She smiles at me, then looks down at my arm and takes my crippled hand. The sudden warmth shocks me, and I almost move away. But I don’t. My shriveled fingers slide between her firm, whole ones. She looks at me contentedly.

The warmth in my hand suddenly fills my whole body, tingling. She is holding my bad hand. She is touching my crippledness. She is not letting go.

We walk to Jasper, hand in hand. Rawnie puts her arm around his neck, and we walk.

The man – Christoph – is awake. He stares at us queerly as we enter the camp together. He is cooking more cactus over the fire.

“So she didn’t run off?” he asks.

“No,” Rawnie says. “Just went out for some air.” She smiles conspiratorially at me. I smile back.

“That was stupid of both of you,” he says. “Who knows what’s waiting in the ground? And you could’ve gotten lost.”

Rawnie shrugs. Then she looks at me, looks back at the man, and says, “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

The man nods jerkily.

“I have some fruit,” Rawnie says suddenly. She runs over to her saddlebags and pulls out a small sack. She opens it, taking out two pieces for herself and handing me three. “We’re almost to the city. Let’s celebrate.” She hands Christoph the rest of the sack.

He looks up at her, wary.

She sits beside me and bites into her apple, closing her eyes and smiling. “It’s been a long time since there was something sweet in my mouth.”

“Yes,” Cristoph says. “Since our wedding, wasn’t it? We did head out right about then.”

She drops her head, mouth stiff.

I bite into one of my dried apple strips, ripping off a little piece and chewing. The outside is rough and wrinkly, but the inside is gooey and clings to my teeth. I take another bite, then slide the whole piece into my mouth. These apples were warm bellied apples, absorbing juice of sky, of sun, of green grass growing and green leaves dancing.  I have their whole world in my mouth.

Cristoph looks into the bag of fruit, then puts it on the ground, untouched. He pulls a cactus pad off his stick and bites into it instead, his eyes dark.

Rawnie looks up, stares at the bag, and walks away to the tent. When she comes back out, her hair is wrapped up in its turban and she is wearing a light brown dress. She begins to undo the tent. I slide my last two strips of apple into my pocket and help her, folding the blankets as best I can.

“What are you doing?” Cristoph asks. “We haven’t slept!”

“None of us are going to sleep tonight,” she says. “There’s no use pretending we will. You never sleep, and Tambourine and I won’t be able to tonight, either. ”

We pack the tent into the cart after unhitching Jasper, then sit back at the fire with Cristoph.

I pull out my strips of apple and start eating again.  Rawnie begins carving a rough block of wood.

I watch her fingers pressing out small grooves and chopping corners with a little knife, fingers that see even in this dark.

“What are you making?” I ask.

She doesn’t look up. “That’s like telling a wish before it comes true,” she says.

I take the little elephant from my pocket and run my finger up and down her back. I pretend she is walking with me, right here by the fire, big like Princess. I smile and close my eyes. I am riding across the desert on her back, her trumpeting waking up the sunrise and coloring the sky. I see her trunk roll in and out like a great leathery scroll, sucking water from a lake and blowing it all over my face. Water runs down my face and neck and even down my legs to my toes and I laugh and laugh and laugh.

I open my eyes. I am sitting by the fire with a wooden elephant on my open palm.

Cristoph finishes eating. He licks his fingers, looks back to where the tent was, then stares sadly at the sack of dried apples.

“You should have some,” I say.

He looks away from the fruit quickly, his face guilty.

“They’re sweeter than cactus,” I say.

He shrugs.

I take another bite of my own dried apples, finishing my second strip. I have only one left. I hesitate before slipping it into my pocket for later.

My eyelids are suddenly stubborn, trying to stay closed every time I blink. The fire dances and weaves into shapes, faces and hands and elephants and tigers. I see the fire-eater and think, but I haven’t seen any snakes.

“Tambourine?”

I jump. I turn to look at Rawnie, but she’s still absorbed in carving.

“Tambourine?” Christoph’s voice. I look across the fire, and he is looking at me expectantly.

“Yes?” I say.

“Why did you try to run away?”

I do not want to answer him.  “Why did you go with Rawnie even though you knew she didn’t love you?” I ask.

He stares at me, affronted. He glances at Rawnie. Her cheeks are pink, but she does not look up from her carving.

“I hoped,” he says gravely, telling her bent head instead of me.

She looks up, and their eyes meet. Chrisoph’s face is utterly frozen; Rawnie’s flushes redder and redder all the way up to her ears. Then she drops her head back to her carving. Her hands do not move, she just watches the wood. Cristoph sits back and watches the fire.

My blinks grow longer and longer, until I do not open my eyes at all. I just listen to the fire, smell the smoke, and eventually hear the gentle carving of wood.

I fall asleep.

I open my eyes to Cristoph kicking sand over the fire. I have a warm blanket wrapped around me. Too warm. I push it off as I sit.

Rawnie sits up next to me, her eyes bleary.

“I fell asleep,” she says, surprised.

“Guess so,” Cristoph grunts, finishing and walking to his horse. “Let’s go. The sooner we get to the city the happier we’ll all be.”

Rawnie stands. She smiles weakly at me, and I stand too. We walk to Chicka and climb on her back. Then we ride.

I fall asleep again leaning back against Rawnie’s chest. I wake up to her fixing my turban to cover my head and face from the sun. She smiles down at me.

We ride and ride and ride and ride and ride and ride. I am sick of riding. My legs ache, my head is swollen with heat, and my eyes feel scrubbed raw from looking so long for the end of the desert.

There are trees again, ugly knobby dwarfs. The earth starts rolling smoothly instead of throwing up choppy structures. There is more grass, rough and sandy and dry. I see a prarie dog’s head pop above the dirt, then vanish. But the sun is just as hot, and the sky just as starched.

We start to see a track emerge.  It is rough like an animal track, a line sketched sloppily toward the city. It is hard to see, but when Rawnie points it out to me, it is like an arrow, pointing vigorously toward a brand new life.

I am glad I did not run away. I am glad to be moving fast.

There is no Mr. Cutts. No Ringmaster. No Tiger Man or fire-eaters or dancers or handymen. There is just me. And when I live a life in the city, it is going to be my life.

I take a breath, and it fills me with rattling wings. When I breathe out, they do not leave. They stay inside, daring me to learn to fly. I feel huge enough to fill the world with my heartbeat, important enough for people to listen to it.

We stop to refill our water skin in the jars. Rawnie hands me the skin as I sit on Chicka, but stays on the ground.

“What are you doing?” Christoph asks.

“Teaching her how to ride,” she says, her voice determined.

“Bareback?”

“It’s how I learned.”

“Wild gypsy woman,” he growls.

I look down at Rawnie. “You’re a gypsy?”

She shoots a glare at Christoph.

“Jo told me stories about gypsies. They were families, always moving, always growing.”

Rawnie smiles ruefully. “Yes. That’s how it used to be. But my family settled down, and that’s not good for our blood. We splintered off, lost touch, and died tired. Now push your heels into Chicka’s side.”

I did, wondering at her. A gypsy!

Chicka walks forward. She is so much bigger than Jasper. I feel my knees slipping and lean forward and grab her neck, gripping as tight as I can.

“No,” Rawnie says, laughing. “Hold on with your legs.”

I try.

“Feel her,” Rawnie says. “Close your eyes.”

I do. I feel her fur against my ankles, feel her body under me. I feel her legs moving. Every step is connected through her whole body, her neck moving under my hands, her muscles tightening and releasing, her legs bending and straightening. I feel her strength. And I feel myself, the way I move with her shifting muscles, when my knees grip and relax.

I feel the space we are moving in and the trust I have for Chicka that she sees and will take me safely through it.

Then I see myself slouched loosely on Chicka’s huge back so far from the ground, and my eyes fly open and my knees let go, and I fall with a thump to the ground. Rawnie helps me up.

“She’s not a gypsy,” Christoph says.

“Again,” Rawnie says, ignoring him. She helps me on and I sit tensely, bruised and anxious.

I squeeze Chicka’s side with my knees and she moves forward. This time, I stay on.

Rawnie is very proud, Cristoph is frustrated.

“What are you going to do at the city, Tambourine?” Rawnie asks, avoiding Christoph’s glare.  She walks beside me as I ride, the donkey and his cart lumbering slowly behind us.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“You’ll have to find a job,” she says.

“Yes,” I say.  I remember trying to pluck the cacti leaves and feel a little sick.

“I’m need to find someone to work with me,” Rawnie continues nonchalantly. “Someone to keep me company, to help keep up my shop. I hope I can find someone trustworthy enough.”

I nod.

“If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll find someone like you,” she says.

“A freak?” I ask without thinking. I blush.

“A girl,” she says firmly.

I twist around and look at her.

She looks at me expectantly.  When I say nothing, she says, “Would you want to work with me, Tambourine? I’d love to hire you. I’d pay room and board, and maybe a little extra.”

I do not understand.

“I walk slow,” I say. “I can’t even pick spines from a cactus.”

“I need you,” she says. Then she looks confused. “Unless you still want to run away, and that’s why – ”

“I’ll stay with you,” I say. “You’re my friend.”

“I’m not really a good friend,” Rawnie says quietly. “But I like you, Tambourine. I want to help you.”

“You don’t have to,” I say.

“I want to,” she says.

I can feel the wings inside me rustling, and know that this is right. I can belong with Rawnie as my friend. She will let me be free.

“Yes,” I say.

Rawnie looks at Cristoph. He had been watching us, now he meets Rawnie’s eyes, sad. She stops walking. Cristoph and I keep riding, and after a moment she jogs to catch up with us.

“Stop Chicka, Tam,” Rawnie says. Then she screams.

I fall off Chicka,. A rasping rattle is loud in my ears, then fades quickly away.

“Oh,” Rawnie says. “Oh. Cristoph. Cristoph, I just got bit.”

Christoph is running. I sit up. Rawnie crouches by the ground, her eyes wide. Christoph bends over her, ripping off his turban and tying it around her calf.

“How big was it?” he asks, bringing out a knife.

“Big,” she gasps.

Cristoph slices the bite, red and purple on her ankle. Rawnie curses in a language I don’t understand. He leans down, puts his lips to it, and sucks. Then he turns away and spits red on the ground. He sucks again. He lets her ankle bleed as he spits again and again on the dirt, trying to get the taste of her blood out of his mouth.

I crawl over to them. Rawnie reaches out and grabs my hand. Her fingers are hot.

Cristoph grabs Rawnie and pushes her in front of her saddle. She grabs his horse’s neck as he swings up behind her.

“Get Tam,” she says, and closes her eyes.

He jumps off his horse, picks me up, and throws me on Chicka. Then he gets on his horse again, gripping Rawnie with his elbows as he holds the reins, and rides so fast.

Chicka follows him, galloping. I squeeze my knees into her side as hard as I can, trying to stay on. Then I look back and see Jasper, trying so hard to keep up, his neck out, but falling farther and farther behind.

“Stop!” I say. Christoph doesn’t, but Chicka slows down, confused. I lean back, squeezing her even harder. “Stop!” She speeds up again, and I look back at Jasper, terrified that we are leaving him to die alone.

I fall. I smack the ground on my shoulder, my head cracking down next to it. My skull rings.

Christoph glances back, but does not stop. Chicka follows him.

“Wait!” I cry.

He doesn’t stop.

“I fell,” I say.

The donkey walks up and nuzzles my hair, his tongue wet. I reach up and rub between his old, ragged ears. He pants, drooling on my ears. I stand, a little dizzy, and pat his neck.

“You and I are friends,” I say. He brays loudly. I smile.

My hand goes into my pocket, brushing the little wooden elephant. My body feels suddenly wooden, too. I look at the desert, stretched out big and thirsty ahead of us.

“He isn’t going to come back,” I say.

Jasper takes a wobbly step forward. I stumble ahead with him, and we are walking walking walking, each of us just as slow as the other.

Seven

We are riding again. I have stopped watching the ground, the horses’ sides caving in and out, Rawnie’s foot pressing into Chicka’s side, then relaxing. I only see the sky. Blue, seamless. Unchanging no matter how far we ride. To the sky, none of us ever move.

When the day ends, we set up camp quickly. The man does not speak to me, does not touch me, does not look at me except when he thinks I can’t see. Rawnie is careful, but keeps up conversation. Conversation that passes through my mind like the sky in my eyes, unchanging.

We sleep. The night is cold, but Rawnie draws me close enough for us to warm each other. The ground is hard, but the blankets are thick and soft.

I wake before the others with restlessness in my limbs. I walk outside, feeling small in the quivering, dark morning.

The donkey raises his old head, ears twitching. His legs are tucked up under his warm body as he curled up beside the tent. I kneel beside him on the dirt, stroking his warm, wiry fur.

“Hello,” I say.

He looks at me with black eyes. I run my hand along his wide face, giggling as he ducks his head up and down.

I notice the blanket draped over his back.

“Rawnie’s your friend, too,” I say. “The man wants to be nice, but he doesn’t know how. And he’s so big.”  I rub his back through the blanket, his bony spine sticking out.

“At the circus, all the horses were Immortal, Fearless, Magnifico! Nothing could just be a donkey.”

He opens his mouth and licks his teeth with a fleshy pink tongue. I laugh, and lick my own teeth, my own mouth wide open. He brays, a hoarse rattle from the bottom of his throat.

“I like you better. You are a very old donkey, aren’t you?” I ask.

He watches me with tired eyes.

“I feel old, too,” I say.

The man walks out of the tent. He hesitates when he sees me. Then he comes and kneels beside me, patting the donkey’s side.

“Rawnie was determined we drag this thing through the whole desert,” he says. “Poor ass.”

“His feet must be tired,” I say.

He nods.

“Why doesn’t Rawnie like you?” I ask.

He looks at me quickly, then back at the donkey.  “Well,” he says, “I’m her sister’s widower. Things got sticky. Rawnie thinks I recovered too fast.”

“Oh,” I say.

“But she needed a guide to trek her business out of town,” he says, his voice tight. “She knew I would.”

We pat the donkey quietly.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“It’s not your fault,” he says.

“For when I screamed,” I say.

He shifts, uncomfortable. “It’s fine.”

Rawnie walks out of the tent. The man stands and pulls the donkey to his feet, hitching him to the cart.

“I see you’ve met Jasper, my hairy donkey,” she smiles lightly to me as I stand and step back.

“He’s an ugly thing,” she says.

I think he is beautiful.

“Had him since I was seven. He was young thing back then, leggy with a bite and an impressive set of lungs. So impressive, even the town five miles from us was impressed.” She laughs. “But then, I was exactly the same way.”

The man chuckles. Rawnie walks to the tent and starts taking it down. I help her.

Why they did they take  Jasper when neither of them like him?

We ride.

Halfway through a day of dizzy hot sun the man leans back and says, “We may run into a few caravans or nomads. I’ve seen signs of people.”

My heart freezes. A glittering circus tent fills my head, dancers spinning spinning spinning with torches, the fire-eater spitting fire, and today Mr. Cutts burning Jo’s letter in the flames.  Rawnie pats my shoulder.

Now I see everything. Every rat, every lizard with their skinny tongues, every wasp flying past my cheek. I look at them as if the circus could be hiding in their stomachs, waiting to leap out their throats to steal me back.

At night, we make camp again.

When we are sitting around a fire, the man says, “The day after tomorrow we’ll walk into civilization.”

Rawnie nods curtly. Then she stands and walks away, mumbling about finding food. The man watches her leave.

“What is it like? In the city?” I ask.

“Busy. Clean. We’ll make ourselves pretty again.” Then he looks at me nervously, remembering that I can’t. “It’s ugly here, isn’t it?” he says, changing the subject.

“No,” I say. I reach down to carefully point out a rich green plant with thick, twisted barbs. “This place protects itself because it’s worth protecting.”

The man looks at me queerly.

“Why do you watch Rawnie?” I ask.

“I don’t.”

“You watch her like you want to say something to her, but then you don’t.”

“Do you watch me, too, little Tambourine?” he asks, suspicious.

“I watch everyone.”

“I see.”

The man stretches his neck, but his eyes never leave my face.

“Did you know that yellow isn’t just yellow?” I ask. “It’s lemon and blond and corn, too.”

“Only if you waste your god-given time with poetry,” he says.

I nod slowly.

His face softens. “That’s why I don’t see anything in the desert that’s worth protecting. I’m sorry. The world is prettier through your eyes, eyes that see lemons and corn where I just see a blanket.”

I smile. “Jo taught me.”

“Jo?”

My stomach twists. “My friend,” I say. “He was at the circus. He showed me how to see beautiful things. He told me stories. Then he left.”

“The devil,” he says bitterly.

“No!” I say. “He had to leave. He was my friend. He liked me.”

The man is uncomfortable because he thinks he knows something I don’t. But he’s wrong. Jo left because of Mia, because of Mr. Cutts, but not because of me and never because it was easier to just leave the circus where the people rot without a word of goodbye. He wouldn’t do that to me. He liked me. He was my friend.

Rawnie comes back and sits by me. The man looks at me quickly, remembering what I said about watching.

“Welcome back,” he says. “Did you find any food?”

“Light fare out here,” she says. “No.”

“So, like I said, we’re almost into the city,” he says.

Rawnie nods stiffly.

He looks at me again, then says, “So what’s going to happen between us there, Rawnie?”

She watches him anxiously. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” he says. “You married me to get across the desert. So when we’re across it, what’s going to happen?”

“Don’t accuse me of that,” she says.

“Is that denial, or just a lie to my face?”

“Excuse me?” Rawnie glances at me.

“Don’t do this to me, Rawnie,” he says. “I shouldn’t have come. I should have known it would be like this.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, please. Your sister didn’t spend the month after our marriage ignoring me and spitting little’yessirs’ in my face.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” Rawnie says quietly. “Maybe you think I’m my sister, and I’m not.”

“Never!” he says, laughing wildly. “It’s completely impossible to confuse the two of you!”

“I see you looking for her in me,” she says.

“No.”

“I know what I see.”

There is a silence.

“Well, then, that answers my question. We’ll go our separate ways.”

“Yes,” Rawnie says.

I sit and do not move.

This is why Jo left. Love. Mia loved Jo.

This camp is just another circus. Small, with no performances or glitter or big wild strong animals. But this is people choosing things that hurt people. This is love breaking things. This is a different kind of not moving. This is hearts too angry to grow together, so they stay in straight lines.

We go to the tent. Rawnie and the man fall asleep. I don’t.

The bench itself was unimportant to itself, really, it was the people who passed over it who mattered. A rosy cheeked daughter clutching a purple balloon in her left hand and gripping a chocolate ice cream cone in her right, grinning up at her father to make sure she has him, too. A homeless man with a frayed beard sleeping with a newspaper from August 15, 1945 over his face.  A gold-chained gangster in pants three sizes two big and boxers three times too bright sitting quietly, looking lost as he watches the city spin by him. The bench loved all its people, even the ones who stuck gray gum under its corners, and even the animals like the pigeons who pecked at the crumbs left on its lap and left lumpy white smears behind. But that, after all, was the way of the bench.