Conjured

He walked forward. His eyes were fixed on the box. He doesn’t recognize me, I thought, and I was surprised at how much that thought hurt. Approaching me, he held out his hands. My grip on the box tightened, and the fabric of my fingers strained. I didn’t know what the agency planned to do with him—or what I wanted them to do with him. One twist, the Magician had said, and you could crush a box in one hand. One twist, and he would never hurt anyone ever again. As if this thought were visible in my eyes, Malcolm stopped. He didn’t touch the box. He looked down at me. As a doll, I was much shorter than he was. “Eve.”

He knew me! Even like this …

“He’ll stand trial,” Malcolm said quietly. “He will be held accountable for what he has done. Your testimony will make it possible.”

“Did you let me escape?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Because you needed more evidence? Because you needed me to stop him? Because you couldn’t find him without me?”

“Yes,” he said again.

“I could have died.”

He nodded.

“Zach could have died. Aidan almost did.”

He looked down at his feet.

“You were supposed to keep me safe,” I said. “And Aidan too. You were supposed to keep everyone safe. It’s your job. It’s who you are, who your past made you.”

Malcolm half smiled. It was a sad smile. “I can’t keep you safe from yourself. It’s true we let you escape, but stopping you would have required deadly force. Lou … tried to salvage the situation.”

“How did you find me?”

“Pieced together clues from our notes about your visions, plus you and the boy were spotted several times by our contacts as you passed through their worlds. But finding the carnival took longer than we wanted. There are many worlds.” He looked up at me, met my green marble eyes. “I wanted to keep you safe, if that counts for anything.”

I didn’t know if it did or not, but I handed him the box.

“Thank you,” he said. “We will talk more back at the agency. I am … glad you’re alive.” He looked as if he wanted to say more, but he didn’t.

I watched him carry the box to a steel briefcase. It was lined with foam inside, cut to fit the box. They were prepared for this, I thought. I was a pawn who had been moved across the chessboard. Malcolm’s strong hands were trembling as he laid the box inside. He closed the lid. The snap of the clasps echoed in my ears.

“Now what happens?” Zach asked softly in my ear.

I shook my head. I didn’t know.

Behind us, other agents swept into and over the wagon. It was photographed, and then the items inside were carefully collected, each sealed into its own plastic bag or jar and labeled. Yellow tape was stretched around the site, and the carnival workers and patrons were pushed back behind the tape. Outside the tape, the agents began to interview the contortionists and the acrobats and others. A few tried to drift away but were corralled back for their turn. I saw several of them point to me as they were interrogated.

Aidan joined a cluster of agents around a computer—they’d set up a makeshift workstation under a white tent, a command center. Lou took Malcolm aside and spoke in low tones that I couldn’t hear. When Lou finished, Malcolm nodded and looked over at Aidan as if something had been decided. For the first time, I couldn’t read Malcolm’s expression. I gripped Zach’s hand with my cloth fingers. His hand felt damp with sweat that seeped into the fabric of my palm.

Lou strode toward us. “Zachary, our medics would like to check you out.” He nodded to a woman in a doctor’s uniform. She beckoned three assistants to join her. “Afterward, we’d like to ask you some questions.”

“He stays with me,” I said.

The doctor spoke calmly, as if I were a wild horse that needed soothing. “He’s been hurt. He may have internal bleeding. We need to be certain that his injuries are superficial.”

I hadn’t thought about his injuries. Of course they should check him. “You’ll bring him back to me?”

“You should check her too,” Zach said at the same time.

The doctor looked at Lou and then at me—my cloth skin, my marble eyes, my thread mouth. Carefully, she said to Zach, “She doesn’t need human medicine.”

“Don’t change,” Lou said quickly to me. “You as a doll will be more effective at the trial. No one will doubt your story with you as living evidence.”

“She isn’t just a doll,” Zach said.

“Of course,” Lou said.

“She’s become more.”

“So Agent Harrington has said, time and time again.”

Zach turned to me. “Who you were … who you became … You were wrong before, when you said it was a lie. You have changed, in all the ways that matter.”

I didn’t know if I believed him, but I smiled as if I did. He loosened his grip on my hand, and the doctor and her assistants efficiently separated us. Zach was escorted away from me. The instant he wasn’t touching me, I felt panic rise up into my throat. I pushed forward, and Lou held out his arm, blocking me.