2

Whatever that organ-grindy tune was, Mandy had heard it so many times that day that she could sing along, with some harmony—“Da da da daaahh, tada da da bup booda WAA!”—as she clasped the silver anklet around her ankle. It cost her fifteen bucks, her limit for the day not counting an upcoming chicken basket from the Spokane Junior League booth. She and Joanie and Angie were looking through the old Shoshone Indian’s wares when the wings of two silver doves glinted in the sun and caught her eye.

Doves. Her favorite. She raised them. Bonkers, Maybelle, Lily, and Carson were even now strutting their stuff in their cages over in the Poultry Barn, basking in the glory of two blue ribbons and a red.

Doves. In the Bible, a symbol of the Holy Spirit.

And Joanie, her best friend since first grade, loved it. “It’s perfect! I love it!” Of course, she was still hyped out of her mind from her third ride on the Chair-O-Plane. Right now she loved everything.

Mandy let the anklet hang with a gentle curve about her ankle, the doves on the outside, and straightened, clearing her blond hair from her face with a brush of her hand and flip of her head. She repositioned her headband, tresses properly in place, and looked down. All she could see were the flared bottoms of her faded jeans and the toes of her sneakers. “Well, guy, you can’t even see it.”

“That’s okay,” Joanie hinted.

She hitched up the leg of her jeans to expose the anklet—worn over her white crew sock. Yeah, it looked dumb.

“You should’ve worn a skirt and sandals,” said Joanie.

Mandy made a face at her. This was the county fair. She was helping her dad show his llamas, she was showing her doves, there was straw to pitch, feed to carry, poop to scoop—and ride the Chair-O-Plane in a skirt? Right!

“But doves,” said Angie, enraptured. Angie was a new friend from college, usually half on this planet and half not, depending on the moment. “It’s you, Mandy. Free-spirited, always flying somewhere.”

“Yeah?” said Mandy, admiring the doves once again. “Way cool.” Dumb she could do.

All around them was the carnival at the Spokane County Interstate Fair: the faithful, ever-turning merry-go-round putting out all that music; the ring toss, bag toss, ball toss, and dart toss booths making it look so easy; the crowds, kids, cotton candy, cheap prizes, stuffed toys, whistles, and windmills; one crying kid with one addled parent every hundred square feet; the rap-rap-revving of the gas engines that kept the rides spinning, lurching, tumbling, heaving; the screams—oh, Mandy and company had done their share of that already. What’s the carnival without screaming?

Like the screams coming from the Freak Out right now, getting louder with a touch of Doppler effect every time the huge pendulum swung through an arc and the eight kids riding it got another wave of adrenaline and nausea. The sights and sounds made Joanie unreasonable. “We gotta try that one!”

“Time check,” said Mandy, willing to consider it.

Joanie had a watch. “Oh, yeah! It’s, uh, ten to one.”

The Great Marvellini would be doing his amazing thing on the North Stage at two. Magic! Mandy did not want to miss that.

“I’m going for that chicken basket,” she said.

“Right on,” said Joanie.

“Where’d they get the chicken?” Angie asked.

Mandy broke into the County Fair Weave, a bent-kneed scurry she’d first developed as the After Church Weave and then the School Hallway Weave. It got her through crowds quicker—supposedly—and worked even better if she used her hot rod noise. “Brrrrrroooom!”

“Whoa, wait up!” came Angie’s voice.

Mandy checked over her shoulder. Joanie was in her slipstream, and Angie was catching up. The Spokane Junior League Chicken Basket booth was just across from the grandstand. Mandy made it into the line with Angie behind her and Joanie in third place, hopping, trying to get her sandal back on. Score two points for crew socks and sneakers.

Joanie secured her sandal and scanned the menu chalked on a blackboard. “I think I’ll take a look around.”

Angie was already scanning the booths for something grown without chemicals. “Where you wanna meet?”

Mandy wiggled her index finger toward the North Lawn, a grassy common with picnic tables under the trees. “I’ll grab us a table.”

Joanie and Angie turned and the crowd swallowed them up.

Mandy got her basket soon enough, the chicken still steaming, along with a diet soda in a Styrofoam cup, plasticware, and two paper napkins. Just like last year.

She made her way onto the North Lawn, looking for a table. The place was busy with late lunchers, so she opted for a grassy spot in the shade of a honey locust tree, a good place where she wouldn’t get stepped on. She sat, her back against the tree, her basket in her lap. A clock on the end of the Corn Dog booth said five after one. If she and her friends could cram their lunch down and get to the North Stage by quarter of two they could hopefully get a seat up close. She could take in the one-hour show and get back to the Sheep and Goat Barn to give Daddy a break with the llamas. Sounded like a plan.

The Great Marvellini.She smiled as she chewed, amused. With a name like that and a gig at a fair like this, he probably wouldn’t blow her away. But then again, a chance to watch a real magician didn’t come often, and if she could just keep up with him, see how he did his loads, switches, and misdirections, that would be so cool. Would he tear up a newspaper? She could tear up a newspaper and restore it whole, and do it so smoothly it still had Joanie and Angie guessing. Rope tricks she didn’t care that much about. The cutting the rope in half trick was fun, but ehhh … who didn’t do that one? But … oh! Back-palming cards! Now, that still had her frustrated. She could do one card in front of a mirror or a few friends, but twenty cards at once, in front of a big crowd? If he could do that one and do it well, now, that would blow her mind. She’d been practicing—

Oh!The tree moved, bumping her head, shoving her forward. She looked back; did something hit it, a car or a golf cart or something? Weird. She turned forward again—and saw white cloth with little blue flowers in her peripheral vision.

She stayed motionless, as if a bee had landed on her. She blinked. She rubbed her eyes, then opened them again.

Freaky. Very freaky.

Somebody’d thrown a cloth over her, something white with a pattern of tiny blue flowers. It covered her down to her knees, and with one movement of her arms she realized it had sleeves and she was wearing it.

Her chicken basket was gone. So was her drink, her paper napkins, her plasticware.

Her mouth was empty. She’d been chewing on chicken …

Bare feet. She looked about for her sneakers and her white socks, but nothing.

Not just bare feet. Bare legs. She raised her right foot: the anklet was gone. Her fingers shot to her earlobes. Empty.

But not just the anklet and earrings. She gasped with a little squeak as she distinctly felt the prickling of the grass against her bottom, the scratch of the tree’s bark against her back. Her hands shot down to secure the cloth, keep it down, keep it tight, don’t let it move …

She checked herself, one side, then the other, top to bottom, front to back, frantically finding out just how much of that cloth she had to cover herself.

“Augh!” she cried out, then stifled herself so no one would look. Unbelievable! She was wearing a hospital gown, those embarrassing things they make you wear for physicals and operations and stuff.

She squirmed and wormed, planting her feet on the ground and her back against the tree to elevate herself and make sure everything was closed up back there. Any extra she wrapped tightly around her, holding the outside layer. Now she was scanning the commons, her hair, with no headband, whipping about her face. Somebody had to be watching this, having a really dirty laugh. Did anyone else see what happened?