Girl in the Shadows Read online

  Jules had her arm tucked through his. “I don’t like it either. But he’s right, they won’t find anything.”

  “Because there’s nothing to find?” Thurston asked.

  The Garcias’ mother spoke now. “An old man’s folly is all there would be to find. We have moved past this now. Let us not speak of it anymore.”

  Novio looked like he might throw up.

  Thurston took in the room, everyone in various states of worry, and gave a thoughtful nod. “I’ll have extra security added, particularly to keep an eye on everyone’s trailers during performances. I won’t have the rumor mill disrupting our season and putting anyone at risk. Not this year.”

  “Thank you,” Jules said.

  The next words were Dita’s, soft. “Yes. I think I’m ready to call it a night.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I said, more than ready to flee.

  No one was very talkative the rest of the night or the next morning. The Flying Garcias had yet another rehearsal after breakfast, which Dita had just trudged off to, looking murderous and martyr-like at the same time.

  The midway would be on again in just a few hours, then the first Cirque show, then dinner, then more midway, then more Cirque. Then on to our next stop. These days would fly. Suddenly twelve weeks seemed like no time at all.

  I pulled the sliding door to our bedroom closed and turned the lock. Then I sat with the heart-shaped penny in my hand. The metal felt slightly warm to the touch, and my own heart beat harder.

  I held on tight, and thought, Change back.

  I thought my palm was getting warmer, but I couldn’t be sure.

  I focused all my attention on the piece of metal, willing it. Change back.

  Heat roared through me, and black stars pricked at the edges of my vision.

  Somehow, I called on strength enough to unfold my fingers and fling the coin away.

  And then there was nothing but darkness, and I fell back and back into its embrace.

  I woke with Dita’s hand shaking my shoulder. “Moira? Why are you sleeping half on your suitcase?”

  I was alive. I blinked at her.

  My mouth was dry. I forced out a response anyway. “Just not used to circus hours, I guess. How, um, embarrassing.”

  Dita held up the heart-shaped coin. “This was by the door. Is it yours?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “What is it? It’s like a gross little heart.”

  “A . . . charm.”

  She extended it to me. I trembled at the thought of touching it again, but I didn’t have a choice. She’d want to know why, and I was already being weird, passed out in the middle of our teeny room.

  I took it, and nothing happened. There was a slight heat to it as I pushed it into my pocket.

  This entire experiment gave me a new data point. It reminded me of the first time I tried to hold my breath longer than I was capable of it. That had told me to train harder. This told me never try to change anything back. Yay me for figuring out my first limit?

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Time for work for you,” she said. “If you’re up to it.”

  “I am.” I forced myself to my feet, looking down at my phone. She was right. I was almost late, in fact.

  “I’m going to dinner—you’re sure you don’t need anything?”

  I shook my head, and she grabbed her wallet and headed back out.

  I started to gather my sleight kit. My phone made the little whistle that indicated a new e-mail message. I knew I should get going, but I clicked the in-box. The words Birth Certificate appeared.

  Not a moment too soon.

  My heart beat-beat-beat as I clicked to open the message and then again as I pulled up the PDF copy of my birth certificate. It loaded huge, so I had to adjust the size and pull the image around to get a good look at it.

  There was Dad’s name listed above Father, as it should have been (and a comfort to see, not that I’d considered the possibility that it wouldn’t be him). Then I zoomed in on the mother’s name.

  Regina A. Ghost.

  “That can’t be a real name,” I murmured. Thanks for making it clear you didn’t intend to be found, Mom.

  I shut the PDF and almost closed out my e-mail without seeing the new message.

  The sender echoed that same weird name: Regina A. Ghost.

  Holding my breath instinctively, I clicked to open it.

  My daughter,

  You are not where your father believes you to be or I would have had this message delivered in person. I have kept watch over you, in case this day came, but you managed to leave without your father knowing where you were headed. I will say it plainly so you can make no mistake: You cannot keep looking for me. Stop trying to find me. You only risk endangering yourself. I chose that name then because it is how you should treat me—like a ghost. Or you’ll become one too.

  My first communication from my mother, the loveliest assistant, part of the reason I’d ever wanted to do magic in the first place. And it was a brush-off.

  Her message stung.

  But I had made my decision on what to do. I wasn’t the type to follow orders that came without logic. Witness my being here.

  I tapped back a reply to Regina A. Ghost:

  Dear Ghost Mom Regina,

  I’m sorry you don’t want to be found, because I really need to find you. Why would you keep watching if you didn’t want to connect in some way? Anyway, I’m already in danger. I blacked out trying to use magic today. I need answers from you. I need to understand how to control it. So I’ll tell you exactly where I am, I’m on the road with the Cirque American. Please get in touch for real.

  I hesitated, deciding how to sign off.

  Sincerely,

  Your daughter (whether you like it or not)

  twelve

  The Atlanta grounds were near a nice neighborhood with tall trees and generous sidewalks. I was on the latest of many walks around them, my next move eluding me. I felt stuck in neutral—my magic and my mother had refused to show up again for the past few days. After what happened when I tried to change the penny back, I half wondered if it was still within me.

  Instinct told me it was, though. And that it would surge again with no warning.

  For the remainder of our Jacksonville shows, the others had stayed quiet, not wanting to talk more about the break-ins when I’d made attempts to bring it up. The drive had been uneventful, and now I suspected Dez was avoiding me. There’d been no more private conversations, no more stolen kisses.

  I shouldn’t have cared, but that didn’t change the fact that I did. Still, I hadn’t sought Dez out. I was happy enough that his heart in his chest was beating.

  But I needed to do something, I decided, besides waiting around. I wrapped up my walk and returned to the Airstream. Jules and Remy were holed up in his room; I could hear their muffled voices as I passed it. When I got to ours, Dita wasn’t there yet. Tomorrow was our first day of shows here, but I had enough time before the midway began to squeeze in a visit to Nan. I wanted to tell her about the great mother-search setback and ask for advice. I could only hope she wouldn’t accuse me of being behind the break-ins or being here for the magic coin again. I sat down to take off my sneakers.

  Someone knocked at the front door. I assumed it wasn’t for me, but Remy called, “Moira, it’s Dez.”

  I jumped to my feet, then told myself to stop with the stupid surge of excitement. I hadn’t kept carrying the heart-shaped penny. I’d buried it among my socks. That was the sort of cool logic I needed to employ here. Be cautious. Be governed by head, not heart.

  I knew, knew, that it was a bad idea to get involved with him. I had hurt him, even if the effects hadn’t been permanent. Next time they might be. And seeing him make that second heart around the random audience person, well, that had hurt me.

  This was the last thing I needed.

  And yet . . .

  Anyway, he was probably here for nothing.

 
; All of these thoughts were apparently not sufficient to keep me from stopping to slick on some lip gloss and run my hands through my messy curls. It barely helped. As always, without product to tame it, my hair went everywhere. And there was nothing to be done about my pale freckled cheeks—along with my height, the source of my Pixie nickname—which made me seem younger than I was.

  Oh well. This was me. This was how I looked.

  The lovely assistants had taught me this lesson without meaning to. Listening to them critique their beautiful bodies and faces, I had long since decided there was no bigger waste of time than worrying about looking like anyone besides yourself.

  “Moira? You coming?” Jules asked, from right outside in the short hallway.

  “Be right there.”

  Noble philosophy about looks aside, I resisted the urge to pinch some color into my cheeks like one of my romance heroines. I had a feeling Dez would have me blushing in no time.

  I made my way into the hallway and past Jules and Remy. And then I stopped dead in the center of the living room. “Um, hi?”

  Dez was dressed to impress. He had on black pants and a collared shirt, white against the brown of his skin, the throat open a little at the top. No tie—let’s not go crazy; it was still Dez. But he’d gotten a haircut. And he was holding a bouquet of flowers.

  They were from a grocery store, the plastic around them a dead giveaway. I didn’t care. No one had ever brought me flowers.

  “You’re here for me?” I asked, though Remy had said he was.

  “Yes.” He was plainly struggling not to grin.

  “Did you text me about going somewhere?” I asked, looking down in a panic at my jeans and ancient gray T-shirt. “I didn’t get anything.”

  “No, I decided to stop waiting for you to text me,” he said.

  “You’re so dressed up, and I’m . . .” God, I was really bringing the awkward here.

  “You look perfect.” He extended the flowers, coming a few steps closer. They were a riot of colors and varieties. Not red roses, for love, but it felt like they might as well have been. “These are for you.”

  Jules sighed dreamily behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see Remy elbow her.

  As soon as I accepted the flowers, she rushed forward and snatched them away. “I’ll put them in water. You go. Go.”

  Dez offered me his arm. After a moment’s hesitation, I hooked mine through his. Though I had to let go again when we reached the narrow stairway out of the RV.

  I used the break to take a deep breath, like I was about to do a straitjacket escape.

  He stopped and picked up a small brown grocery bag he’d left on the grass outside.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “It’s a surprise,” he said.

  “I’ve never heard of a surprise date before. Don’t you usually ask?”

  “You might have said no.”

  “I probably should now.”

  So I surprised him by tucking my arm through his again. I inhaled, and he smelled good, a clean soap smell mixed with boy, like he’d taken a shower not long before.

  “Are you sniffing my manly smell?” he asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Then my evil plan is working.”

  He was leading me toward the darkened midway. Everything was ready for tomorrow. There was an eerie sort of quiet to wandering the open ground in the middle of the deserted tents and booths. A light wind caused the tent fabrics to sway and crack occasionally, snapping back into place. The hush encouraged more quiet. Neither of us spoke to interrupt it.

  As we neared the Ferris wheel, it flared to life, like a constellation come down to Earth right in front of us.

  “Dez, is this for us?” I dropped my arm and gathered my hands in front of my chest. The motion was a little girl’s, but I didn’t care. I didn’t feel like a little girl. I was on my own, eighteen, on a surprise date with a beautiful boy who had apparently arranged for us to have a private ride on the Ferris wheel.

  “All tonight is for you. Come on,” he said.

  He directed me to the base of the wheel, stretching tall and bright above us. A wonder.

  “How?” I asked.

  “I’ve made some friends. I’m very charming, if you didn’t notice.”

  “Oh, I noticed.”

  One of the friends was apparently the beefy ride operator. He tipped an imaginary hat to us, and Dez slipped him a handful of cash.

  “Right this way,” the operator said, only a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

  He waved us to one of the enclosed metal cars, waiting with the door open. I entered first, and Dez slid in next to me. Close, so close, as the operator lowered the door into place, locking us into the car together. Like a very romantic cage.

  “This is some surprise,” I said.

  He still had the bag with him, and he set it on the floor of the car between our feet. “Just wait.” He failed to hide a small smile.

  This was too romantic. I couldn’t trust it.

  “Uh-oh,” he said as the ride began to spin, our car rising through the night air, giving us a view of the darkened midway and, beyond it, the Cirque camp spread out across the field. I saw a trailer door open, and a few lights switch on inside others. We were making a scene. A spectacle.

  “What?” I asked, registering his uh-oh.

  “A second ago you were biting your lip. You’re supposed to be thinking about me. About how wonderful I am.”

  “You’re almost too wonderful.” I narrowed my eyes. I meant it. “Why would you do something like this? So . . . big.”

  He drummed his fingers against the seat, seeming nervous for the first time ever. “I could tell you would keep running away unless I made it impossible.”

  “I did not run away. I . . .” Okay, I’d pushed him away and taken off. Fair, but he didn’t know the whole story. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re convinced I’m worth all of this.”

  The night wind wound around us, the car swaying as it traveled toward the top.

  “My dad’s nickname was Silver-Tongue, as in ‘silver-tongued devil.’ I get it from him,” he said. “He believed in grand gestures, in turning on the charm.”

  “Believed, past tense?”

  He nodded. “I don’t know why you would think you’re not worth this. You’re obviously too good for me.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  We reached the top, and the car dropped, looping around so we faced the other side of the grounds on the trip down. The big top loomed in our vision in this direction, the spires stark against the sky, and in the farther distance, the city’s skyline. The night presented an unbearably romantic scene, even for a girl who professed not to be swayed by such things, who swore to herself that she didn’t believe in them. Not really.

  And then he took my hand.

  There was this whole big world rushing up to meet us, and I had so many questions, but all I could focus on was Dez’s skin against mine. Such a simple contact. He rubbed his thumb across the top of my hand, and then he released it. I wanted to grab his back, not ready to let go.

  He raised his palms to the sides of my face and placed them lightly on my cheeks. “I’m going to kiss you now, if that’s okay?”

  I nodded, still stunned into silence.

  I remembered to close my eyes at the last second, and then his mouth met mine.

  We were kissing and spinning through the night, and it felt too good to worry about if I was doing the right or the wrong thing, the smart or the dumb one. His hands were still on my face, and this was not some gentle peck. This was what my romance novels described as “ravishing.”

  One of those kisses.

  There might have been an untoward cheer from the operator as we flew past him and back around to the top side, where the ride slowed, coming to a stop.

  I relaxed into the kiss until I felt heat surge within me, bright and burning, and had a momentary spike of panic—

  Which D
ez must have detected, because he eased back an inch or two and breathlessly asked, “You all right?”

  “I just . . .” But it wasn’t my magic. That wasn’t the heat I’d felt this time. It could have been, though. I had no way to be certain whether something like this could bring it out or not.

  I pressed back into the corner of the seat, as far away from him as I could get.

  “You’re running again. I think this calls for surprise number two,” he said. “Though I kind of want to just keep kissing you now.”

  My cheeks flamed. Danger, danger, my brain said. My heart beat faster.

  My heart didn’t care if it was stupid to respond this way. It just did.

  He bent to get the bag, and I looked out over the night. We were stopped at the very top of the wheel. The stars above were faint, because we were so near the city light. He extracted a cheap green bottle of champagne and two plastic glasses from the bag.

  “Look out,” he said.

  And popped the cork, which zoomed out into the night. He handed me two glasses and clumsily poured some champagne into them, a little bit bubbling over onto my hand.

  He blinked at me for a moment, serious. “To first dates,” he said, accepting and then raising his plastic glass. He set the bottle on the floor of the car.

  I lifted my glass, but my hand shied away when he went to tap his to it. “Dez, this can’t be a date.”

  “It can’t? You called it one first.”

  I opened my mouth to explain, but he cut me off.

  “You should know this is the first date I’ve ever been on,” he said, sheepish. “Ever taken someone on.” He eased onto the seat beside me, leaving a gap between us, scanning the horizon. Was that color in his cheeks?

  “I don’t believe it,” I said, sipping the champagne. I knew from comparing it to the few sips of champagne I’d had at special occasions with Dad that it was terrible, and yet, still, it somehow managed to instantly become my favorite champagne of all time, the best thing I’d ever had to drink. Ambrosia.

  This was dangerous.

  “I’ve had hookups, sure, but never a date.” He paused. “We moved around a lot. I never met anyone that made me take the risk.”