Carnival Magic

by Amy Ephron

  At the very top of the hill, Julian stopped. Beneath them, there was a path through the woods partly covered with heath and brush that was so wild it was difficult to see where it led or how to find your way through it.

  “Don’t worry,” said Julian, “she knows the rest of the path. I let her run free sometimes—sometimes there’s a silver layer of sand she leaves in the dirt when she returns. Isn’t there?” he said to the horse, as if the horse could understand him. “And salt water in your mane. You’ve run in the sand and been swimming in this sea before.” He patted her nose again, but this time like he was saying farewell, not good-bye, certainly not good-bye, but good journey. “Travel safely,” he said, looking into the horse’s eyes as he said it.

  “It’s just straight there,” he said to Tess, pointing to a road barely visible in the overgrown field, running the opposite way from the carnival, across and down the hill, and presumably on to the sea. “No turns,” he said insistently, “even if one appears to you. If you take it straight, it leads directly to the sea.”

  Tess and Max looked at Anna, but neither of them knew exactly what to say. Anna started speaking first, though. “I want to tell you how much I admire you,” said Anna. “I don’t often get to say that to people. I don’t often feel that.”

  Max was almost blushing, as he thought Anna’s achievements (and he hadn’t even see her do any aerial ballet, just wing walking) were quite astonishing. And it was clear she’d risked her life for the twins.

  But then Max realized that Anna was speaking to Tess, almost like they were sisters or shared a secret bond. Tess answered with just one word. “Ditto,” she said. She held her pinkie up and Anna held up hers and they did a pinkie swear.

  “You, too,” said Anna, looking at Max. And both Anna and Tess nodded to Max, and he put his pinkie up, too, and joined in as if it were a three-way oath, held up righteously toward the sky.

  Julian interrupted gruffly, “We all have that in common. Get on with it. We’re trying to beat a sunrise, remember.” But when Tess looked at him, she saw that it seemed as if he had a couple of tears in his eyes.

  Anna began to speak hurriedly. “Tell them, Tatiana and Alexei, that I’m fine,” she said. “Tell them that. And don’t tell them anything else. Tell them that Julian’s with me and he’s taking quite good care of me, sort of.” She couldn’t help this last bit, but Julian smiled. “Don’t—do not—tell them about the wing walking, even though I know both Alexei and Tatiana would be jealous, it would worry them all the same. Six months, they’ve promised, and then we’ll be together again.”

  Tess wondered who had promised this. If Anna was counting on Alberto or Lorenzo?

  “I’m sure of it,” said Anna. “They promised. So give this,” she said, “to each of them. To Tatiana and Alexei.” And she kissed both Tess and Max gently on their foreheads. “And tell them that I send them love and I can’t wait until we’re together again and we can touch the sky.”

  Tess nodded and held a pinkie up to Anna again and did a version of a pinkie swear without linking fingers, just a symbolic one, a brave one, a triumphant one, held up in the air. Then Max did the same, a symbolic solid pinkie swear, onward, a link between them that signified their bond would last forever.

  “Thank you,” Tess said to Julian. And then she said to Anna, “Don’t worry, together we will touch the sky.”

  Tess mounted first. She felt secure, at ease, almost at one with the horse. That was a relief. The horse was totally attuned to her. Tess leaned down and whispered in the horse’s ear, and the horse turned slyly, tossing her mane, and locked her eye for a moment with Tess, as if to let her know she understood.

  Julian helped Max onto the saddle behind Tess. “Hold on tight, Max,” said Tess. “Hold on very tight.” Max put his arms around his sister’s waist. Max turned and looked back at Anna and put his left hand up in the air.

  “Her name’s Coco, by the way,” said Julian to Tess, “in case you didn’t figure that out yet.” Julian gave Coco a light pat on her hind leg, and before Tess could even answer him, Coco took off on a path that strangely only did become visible as you ran through it, which Coco did at breakneck speed.

  Of course her name was Coco. Why hadn’t Tess figured that out before? And Julian really did look a lot like the gentleman they’d met in Devon when the carnival was first setting up, the gentleman with the traveller’s wagon and the horse named Coco, the gentleman who’d talked to them about the six-pointed star on the black airplane and said it might be an equation for an alternate universe. Of course, he’d told them that. Tess wanted to stop and talk to Max about this, but Coco wasn’t having any stopping, she was cantering. Something even faster than a canter, straight down the path, racing towards the beach.

  ~ CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE ~

  waiting for high tide

  The beach was breathtaking. They saw it from above at first as Coco led them down the beach path. And then they were on the sand. The sand was brown with bright flecks of silver and specks of white sparkling, as if hundreds of shells had shattered against the cliffs and shore.

  The tide was out now and, as described, out so far that you couldn’t even see the sea.

  They’d dismounted and were standing on the beach. Max picked up a seashell and put it to his ear to see if he could hear the sea from it, but even it was silent. Tess stroked Coco’s mane and gave her a slice of apple. Tess opened the canteen and allowed Max to have a sip, just one and one sip only, and did the same. They started to hear something, far away and then closer.

  Everything looked to Tess as if it was almost in black-and-white with tiny hints of brown and silver.

  She started to run different sequences through her mind.

  What if they were able to cross the sea? What if they were separated from Coco with the force of a wave or current? What if there were creatures or mudflats below them? And then when, if they reached the other side, could they make the trip to Devon, and try to find where the carnival was, where it had landed?

  It was still in Devon. She was sure of it.

  If they could get back in time. In time for what? What a funny expression that was. How long would the journey take?

  But Tess reasoned they had to get away. She and Max had to get away. She thought there was a danger they would be stuck there. Forever. She didn’t know what that meant. She didn’t know why she thought that, but she did. Well, it made sense. What if that carnival, Fun Fair as they called it, decided to move? Where would they be then? And what would they be wearing? They had to get back to Aunt Evie. To Devon-by-the-Sea. Their parents must be worried sick by now. And if they went back to try to rescue Anna, they might never get away . . . That was the first time that occurred to her—if they tried to rescue Anna . . .

  Tess helped Max lift his foot into the stirrup and stood by him as he threw his other leg over and reseated himself in the saddle. She jumped on herself almost in one continuous motion in front of him. She grabbed the reins securely.

  But the thing that was nagging at her now was, how could they go back to Alexei and Tatiana without Anna? They’d found her. That was the miracle in itself. But they had to get away, and time was not their friend here. Once they were back in Devon, they would figure it out. Their parents would help them figure it out.

  Tess leaned down and whispered to Coco. “You are my steed and I am your Knight and together we will succeed.” She held the reins firmly in her hands.

  “Hold on to me, Max. Hold on to me tight,” said Tess.

  The sound of the ocean was practically deafening. They still couldn’t see even the start of the sea, not even foam. Just a bare beach, as if there’d been a horrible accident.

  Still. No sign of the sea.

  But then the texture of the sand started to change as if there was water below the ground. Cracks and crevices opening. Mud, splatters of mud, reaching around the horse’s hoove
s and ankles.

  Max was mesmerized by the mud and was starting to see shapes form in it. Creatures. He had to be imagining it.

  The mouths of crocodiles. An eel-like thing that seemed to tie itself in ropes, black and slinky. Max wondered if it was the equivalent of a boa constrictor in the sea. Next up, the long neck and large mouth of a King cobra snake jutting up from the sand, the skin of which had crazy triangular patterns, which got smaller as they fluttered down to a mermaid-like tail, more frightening because of its antic swirl, enticing and dangerous. Its mouth open, emitting a high-pitched tone almost like a flute. He must be imagining it, he reasoned. He must just be seeing patterns in the sand. He was letting his imagination run away with itself. Or was he?

  “Don’t look down,” Tess said to Max. “Just don’t look down.” But Max ignored her and swatted at what he was sure was the singing snake-like thing, kicking it sharply with his heel, just as it was about to hiss and lock its mouth on Coco’s right hind leg. Direct hit. With a sound almost like a whimper and a quiet hiss, it disappeared under the dirtlike sand, where Max hoped it was going to stay for a while.

  There was what looked like a large clamshell, peaceful, serene, but when it opened its top, something like an evil-black seahawk’s head popped out, its beak open and ready to strike.

  Tess screamed. Max instinctively put his hand over her mouth to stop her scream. And she took a deep breath and held it. But it was as if the scream had done its just job, frightened the evil-black seahawk, and the clamshell’s top flipped down again and remained peaceful and serene. For the moment, anyway.

  Max remembered that he still had in his pocket the curious stopwatch—the one that counted down (or up) to seven minutes. He was relieved to know it wasn’t ticking now.

  Max looked behind him and saw, perhaps the scariest of all, a tortoise that seemed to be resting in the sand, so benign and wise, and gentle, its brown-and-white shell shiny and almost sparkly. But then it lifted itself on its front legs, flipped over, seeming to grow to three feet tall, and revealed that it was actually a giant tarantula, legs waving menacingly, waiting to unleash its venom. Coco seemed to sense that it was there even though it was behind her and kicked her back hooves into the sand, again and again, covering it, dousing it, completely burying it from sight. Coco then ground down the sand with her back hoof as if to secure it, compact it, hold the sand in place, pounding her hoof over and over to permanently keep the terrible gigantic spider, if it was a spider or something even more sinister, underneath the ground.

  The sun began to rise at the horizon line in the distance, still no hint of the sea, just flat rays reflecting across the land and bright light reflecting across the glittery sand. It was the crack of dawn. And even though the sun was rising, everything still looked as if it was in black-and-white . . . with added shades of brown.

  Tess remembered the way her bedroom looked that first morning in the attic at the cottage in Devon-by-the-Sea, almost as if it was in black-and-white. And wondered now if that was a foretelling of the future, but she pushed the thought away. Tess reasoned, there wasn’t actually any color on the beach, the dark sand with its flecks of white, the cliffs hovering over the beach creating their own form of darkness, white shells, even the bits of seaweed left behind looked brown instead of green.

  Still, despite the mud and the water bubbling up from crevices, there was still no sign of the coming sea or any body of land on the other side.

  How far away was the coast of England? Her mind was racing now. What if they did cross the sea? Then they had to make the journey across the land to South Devon . . . and hope that the carnival was still there and that they could find it . . .

  And then, it was as if she was seeing Alexei and Tatiana’s faces in front of her. Not really their faces, more like the dance they did in the sky.

  Then Tess had a vision of Anna grabbing the ring, flying to reach her brother’s arms, as Tatiana sat in the moon, smiling, and watched them. It was as if Tess was seeing an image or imagining a movie. But she couldn’t shake the image. Anna. Anna grabbing the ring. Was that why they’d been sent here? Was there a reason, after all?

  The sand was quickly turning to layers of mud that were so thick it was like quicksand below them. It occurred to Tess they could sink in it at any moment and never be seen again.

  Strange dark tentacles of mud, or were they creatures, seeming to reach out for them.

  The sound of the coming wave was almost deafening. And still they couldn’t see it.

  What was it they said? Comes in like a galloping horse.

  Tess wondered, what if the wave came in and they hit it at the wrong angle or tried to ride the wrong crest or couldn’t connect to the flow of the tide? They could be crashed against the rocks themselves. The cliff was foreboding. And so was the sight of the beachscape without any sign of the sea.

  The sound was growing now, like the sound of a wave in a seashell blasting through an amplifier, deafeningly reverberating against the cliffs, echoing, as the white tops of the waves racing toward them were suddenly frighteningly evident far off in the beginning waters of the sea.

  Coco was ready, poised, tense, as if she knew exactly what she was to do. A show horse, showing all her colors, her neck held high, tapping a little with her right hoof as if she couldn’t wait to take off.

  But then Tess knew with certainty the reason why they couldn’t cross. They couldn’t leave Anna here. If there was a reason they’d been sent here. Their mom believed that sometimes there was a reason for everything. But how would they get Anna back?

  And then her father’s words came back to her. It was something that he always said. “If you get lost, go back to where you started if you can.” He always added that part, “If you can.” Go back to where you started, if you can.

  The force of the ocean was pulling the sand beneath them, and pulling them with it, starting to force them out to sea as the waves were about to reach them.

  The rivulets of mud were popping higher now, as if they were coils, like snakes wrapping around the horse’s legs and seeming to bake like concrete, holding her legs down. Coco, her pedigree showing bright, was kicking her heels to try to stay clear of it.

  Tess gripped the reins as the ocean started to race inevitably towards them and tried to pick them up in its wake.

  Tess gripped the reins tightly with her right hand and turned Coco’s neck as she did so, digging her knees into the horse’s side, nudging her to turn and at the same time, trying to hold on.

  “Hold on to me, Max. Hold on. There’s no way we can do this. We can’t leave Anna here.”

  Go back to where you started if you can.

  She yanked at the reins again, almost harder than she meant to, trying to turn Coco around. And Coco obediently turned and instantly sped into a run, a run away from the twenty-foot wave that looked as if it was thirty feet high that was galloping towards them.

  The mud pulled them in, deeper and deeper as she ran, and Coco fell, almost to her right knee, as the first wash of water swept over them. Tess knelt over the horse’s neck—she wasn’t sure where she got the strength—and pulled Coco’s leg from the mud. Tess held her breath as she looked up as the enormous wave crested and fell like an entire ocean around them.

  Tess never lost her grip. “You are my steed. And I am your Knight, and we will be victorious,” she whispered again into Coco’s ear as the wave rolled wildly over them, washing them under. And there was nothing to see but the sea.

  It was Coco who broke the water first. Her head, then her neck, her mane dripping water, gasping for air with a high-pitched whine that deepened finally into a neigh, a horse’s sigh of relief, as Coco, mouth open wide, took a huge breath of air into her lungs. Tess’s face was visible, just the side of her face, lying flat, her cheek up against Coco’s mane, lying flat on the horse, holding the reins, holding the saddle, as she tried to keep her
mount, and Max seated behind her, bravely holding on to Tess’s waist, his legs, too, firmly gripped to Coco.

  The horse was swimming, but it wasn’t really a swim. It was a thoroughbred canter through the waves, backward as the wave was going out now and they were trying to go in. Faster and faster she ran, Tess holding on and keeping clear sight between the horse’s ears, gently guiding her now and urging her to run on.

  It was a sight, if there had been anyone there to see. The race of a champion, a majestic feat, as Coco ran through the enormous wave and brought them back to the barely visible shore.

  But there was no stopping here. The sun was rising rapidly in the sky. The carnival would soon again begin. Tess imagined the biplanes were almost ready. A line of carnival-goers outside the gate.

  “Faster, Coco. Faster still,” Tess begged as she tapped the horse’s sides with her heels and they ran faster still. Onto the road, the almost hidden road, through the fields dotted with wildflowers and heather, so quickly that the purple heather was almost a blur of violet across the land. When they reached the top of the hill, Coco executed a jump as if there was a hedge. It sounded for a moment as if the ground was crackling. Max held on to Tess, and Coco gracefully landed back on flatter ground. And they were on the top of the hill where Julian and Anna had last left them.

  Coco never broke her pace, winding swiftly on the road as it zigged down the hill again to flat land and back to the traveller’s wagon . . . only to find that the wagon was gone and there was no one there at all.

  Tess dismounted. She looked around to see if she could see anything at all. But there was nothing, just heath and grass and wildflowers, still pale as if everything was in watercolor tones. Washed-out watercolor tones.

  She gave Coco a sip of water, awkwardly, from the canteen, much of it spilling down Coco’s long neck but much appreciated. Tess stroked Coco’s neck. She could feel the sweat beneath Coco’s mane. “Just a little longer,” she whispered in Coco’s ear, and as she said it, she hoped that it was true.