Conjured

I am strapped to the seat of a Ferris wheel. Ropes made of the Storyteller’s yarn are wound around my arms and legs and the metal bar in front of me. My hands are tied to the bar. I look out over the carnival. Below, I see floating wisps of light that drift between the tents, and the people milling between them. Their laughter and delighted shrieks rise up, up, up to reach me in the Ferris wheel seat high above.

I wonder if I should be afraid.

The moon is fat in the sky. I see the craters, as crisp as if they were drawn with a fine pencil. The wind is tinged with cold, and it carries the smell of popcorn and fries and, more faintly, the ocean.

Around me, the landscape looks like quiltwork with patches of pale and dark. Strings of light, like the wisps in the carnival, lace through the fields and over the hills like luminescent embroidery. As one strand floats closer, I see that the strings are composed of beads of light and that each bead is moving in a complex dance, always touching the other beads. I think that maybe the light on the fields and in the carnival is alive.

This high, I can only see the tops of the tents: the acrobats’ tent, the wild boys’, the fortune-teller’s, the headless woman’s, the cages of wonders, the dreamland, the contortionists’ … and the tattered red tent, the Magician’s. Our wagon is behind it.

The tents stretch on for up to a mile, and I realize I have never seen it all. This is the closest I have come, high above, and I don’t know why I have been allowed this sight. As the Ferris wheel turns, lowering, I see a crowd has gathered.

Twisting to see the wheel, I glimpse birds tied to each of the spokes. They spin as the wheel turns, their wings changing color as they frantically flap, until at last they burst into flame. The crowd below gasps, and I imagine they are seeing the wheel light up like a sparkler. A few children point. Others applaud. Others are transfixed. And some look frightened.

As more birds catch fire, they brighten the wheel, and I notice that I am not alone in the seat. Tied beside me is a silent shadow. It looks to be a girl, roughly the same height as me. Her face is shadowed, and she doesn’t move.

As the Ferris wheel lowers, lights from the tents spill into our chair.