We stopped at a water fountain, and Zach rinsed his mouth and splashed water on his face and neck. The water sparkled as if flecks of jewels had been mixed in it. When he finished, the fountain rose up on four legs and scuttled away.

“Now what?” Zach asked.

“Our wagon should be in the back corner.” I pointed in a direction blocked by a tent … a tent of tattered red. I slowly lowered my arm.

That was it, the tent.

I took a step backward.

“You can do this,” Zach said. “That is, if you want to do this. If you don’t want to, I’m with you too.” His eyes widened, bug-like. “Is that a mermaid?”

In a rusty tank, a mermaid swam in lackluster circles. Her pale-orange tail flopped against the glass walls. Algae had grown on the glass, and the water was so murky that when she swam away, she vanished into mist. Circling, she suddenly appeared again, distorted and blurry, against the front glass. She was an older mermaid with thin seaweed-green hair, wrinkled skin, and sagging breasts. Her eyes were bloodshot red. As she circled through her tank, her eyes fixed on me. My skin prickled as she vanished and reappeared, each time looking directly at me. I looked away, wondering if the mermaid would remember that the girl from the Magician’s wagon had green eyes.

A line of boys and girls waited at the game booth to chuck balls at the algae-coated plastic treasure chest at the bottom of her tank. She caught the balls without altering her lazy circles and without looking at anyone but me.

I didn’t know her name. Maybe I never knew it. I remembered she’d tried to leave the carnival once. She’d returned when she’d learned her family had died.

Tugging on Zach’s sleeve, I led him away. His neck swiveled as he tried to look everywhere at once. In one tent, the wild boys were conducting their show. Riderless motorcycles shook the canvas walls as they roared past, racing upside down onto the ceiling. Six boys in loincloths and war paint chased after them with whips and nets, herding the cycles into more and more elaborate tricks. In another tent, an eyeless woman guided her audience into a dreamstate. She’d let them talk to their lost loved ones while she emptied their wallets. I’d never seen her perform, but I’d heard the Magician and the Storyteller say once that no one ever objected. As we passed by, I saw that her patrons were all levitating prone in the air. She walked beneath them in a tattered shawl and a dozen crystal necklaces.

Soon, the Magician’s tent was directly in front of us. A gold sash tied the curtain doorway open, but it only revealed dark shadows. I knew candles lit the foot of the stage, but from here, I only saw the silhouette of the back of the audience—the backs of heads and the curve of empty chairs. I half wanted to step inside, to see how closely it matched my visions, and I half wanted to run as fast and far away as I could.

Zach held my hand as we passed by the tent, close enough that I could hear the applause from the audience inside. The Magician was performing. I stepped softly, as if he could hear me, as if he had any way to know I was here. I clung to Zach’s hand as if it were a lifeline, as if he were a rope that could pull me out of a hole if I needed him to.

As I circled the tent, I saw the wagon.

Carved from wood, the wagon was as ornate and colorful as a gingerbread house. The walls were covered in swirls and curls, painted green with gold trim. The window shutters, all sealed closed, were blue. The wheels were gold with metal leaves and vines. Cherry-red steps led to the round door, and talismans of feathers and bones hung on it. A lantern was beside the door, lit with the broken wings of a will-o’-the-wisp.

It looked exactly like I remembered.

The Storyteller should be here. She used to sit on a woven blanket beside a table covered in a velvet cloth. Tarot cards would lie on the table, spread facedown, waiting for a customer. Silk pillows with tassels would be strewn on the grass around the table for listeners to sit on, and a tip jar would be on the corner of a blanket. But she wasn’t—and the Magician was performing. It was the perfect opportunity.

Slowly, I walked up the cherry-red steps. I reached forward to open the door. The handle rattled in my hands—or maybe my hands were shaking. The door didn’t open.

Leaning toward me, Zach breathed in more magic, refreshing his supply, which had most likely faded by now. “We could walk through …”

I shook my head. “I remember how to unlock it.” Rose, leaf, stem … I pushed on the carvings on the door, and they sank in, a hidden combination lock. Click, click, click—the door swung open. The smell of sage and cinnamon and copper rolled out and over me, and I swayed on the top step, surrounded by the taste of the air—the taste of home.

Breathing deeply, I stepped inside.

Inside was brightly painted with hundreds of tiny mirrors embedded in the walls. Feathers, talons, and bird skeletons hung from rafters, broad beams that curved like whale bones. Bottles lined the shelves on the wall—green, blue, and purple glittering glass bottles with labels written in swooping black ink. He sold those bottles, I remembered. Ointments and potions that he’d gathered from the worlds we’d traveled to. Some worked, and some didn’t. They were strapped to the shelves with leather belts to keep them from falling as the wagon lurched down a road.

And then of course there were the boxes. They were strung on a colored ribbon that stretched across the wagon. Silk scarves hung between them. Gathering my courage, I stepped closer to the first one and peered into it. Empty. All of them were empty.

“Do you remember this?” Zach asked.

“Yes.” Except that sometimes the boxes weren’t empty. But I didn’t say that. Instead I pointed to the dolls that filled the cots and benches: life-size with porcelain faces and cotton arms. Some were unfinished, their faces unpainted or their limbs not yet attached. Others were dressed in lace and jewels. “Except them. I don’t remember so many of them.”

In one vision that I’d had, a doll had been strapped beside me on the Ferris wheel. The Storyteller had made her out of stray bits of fabric and a porcelain masquerade mask. Clearly, she’d made more after I’d gone.

“Listen,” Zach whispered.

I held still.

There was breathing, soft and steady. It was so faint that I thought I was imagining it. It sounded as if it was coming from all around us. I scanned the wagon, looking for the source of the breathing. There weren’t any places to hide—

“It’s the dolls,” Zach said. “They’re breathing.”

He was right. Motionless, the dolls were breathing in unison. Now that I focused on the sound, it was all I could hear. The dolls stared sightlessly at us.

“Are they … alive?” Zach asked.

One of the dolls held a box, a match to the ones that hung from the string. I crossed to it. Inside the box, through the slats, an eye blinked. It was a filmy white-red eye, edged in wrinkles. I knew that eye. “She’s inside.”

“Who?” Zach asked.

Carefully, I lifted the box out of the doll’s hands. The doll’s fingers were rigid, posed to hold it. The doll stared glassily through me and didn’t move. Her lips were painted red and parted slightly. Her cheeks had been painted white with three black drops on each side, like a sad clown. Her eyes had painted eyelashes that curled an inch below and above her eyes, over her eyebrows. Her hair was black yarn. This close, I could hear her breathing, distinct from the others.

I held the box up to one of the lanterns. Inside, shrunken, the Storyteller was knitting a gray scarf. Her knees were jammed into her chest, and her feet were curled awkwardly under her, but she held her gnarled hands with her needles up by her face. I couldn’t hear the click-click of the needles, but I could imagine the sound. Kneeling, I placed the box on the floor and pulled at the clasp. It was rusted shut, as if it had been out in the rain. The Storyteller must have been inside for a long time. I chipped at the rust with my fingernails. “Help me,” I ordered. Zach’s hand closed over mine, and together we pulled at the clasp. It creaked and screamed as the metal bent and scraped against itself. “He’s punishing her. Maybe because of me. Maybe because she set me free.”