I love seeing her do house magic like that, but I’m also super envious. I can’t wait to simply flick a finger to brush my hair or make my bed.

I pull up my chair beside her. ‘So you already knew Peter Potts, did you?’

‘Yes.’ She fiddles with a loose thread on her pants. ‘He grew up in this circus, too.’ Her face is sad. She once said that when she and Vince were kids they wished Mr Potts could be their dad. Her own father left the family when she was three and she doesn’t remember him.

‘Were you friends?’ I ask.

She nods. ‘We were as close as you and Kit. Pete – Peter – was a juggler for a while but he just wasn’t good enough.’

In the distance, Zanni’s warbling away. She sings opera when she’s upset.

Mum says, ‘I see now that he didn’t just stop believing in circus, he began to hate it, because there was no place for him here.’

She takes the glass Dad hands her and closes her eyes for a moment. She’s saying thanks to nature for the water and plants that went into making the cordial.

‘Does Peter Potts know about big magic?’ I ask as Dad passes me a drink.

‘Well ...’ she says, ‘he knew a tiny bit.’

Is that right? I think as she gives me a funny sideways glance. I wonder if she told Peter Potts as much as I tell Kit. It’s not a law as such, but she’s made it perfectly clear that you’re not meant to tell non-magicians about big magic.

‘What did your mother do to the circus?’ I ask. ‘What did Peter Potts mean when he said our money problems are to do with her?’

Mum stands up and gives my shoulder a quick rub. ‘I have to work on this new trick.’ As usual, she doesn’t want to answer questions about her mother. ‘We can’t let him close the circus, Tulsi.’ Her voice breaks a little. ‘We just can’t.’

I don’t want her to cry. If Mum cries, that will mean things are truly hopeless.

Dad calls, ‘Teeth, Tulsi.’

Inside the van, I dig around in a drawer for my toothbrush until Mum steps inside and points at the bench. My toothbrush slides out from under a handtowel. She says that when she pulls things to her, she feels an invisible, energetic string between the tip of her finger and the object.

‘Thanks,’ I say. One day, I’ll be able to do that.

Mum sits at the table and carefully opens her Book of Spells. It’s where she’s written all the magic spells her mother taught her, and where she writes new spells as she figures them out. When I am finally apprenticed to magic, I will be given my own Book. In the meantime, I’m forbidden to look at Mum’s.