It occurs to me – with a sickening jolt – that Mum’s disappearance could be a consequence for me trying that door-closing magic earlier. My mouth goes dry at the thought. What if I broke a law, and I am to blame for this?

At Vince’s van, Dad and Vince have a muttered, serious discussion and soon the whole circus is out, calling Mum’s name, their torches flickering through the branches of the fig trees.

Dad orders me to stay at Kit’s van. ‘I’m not risking you getting lost, too.’

Kit makes me toast, although I’m not hungry. Food is always his solution to trouble. The twins are still fast asleep, and I can’t help thinking that the way they’re sprawled on the bed makes them look like they have fallen from a great height. I want to shake them awake to check they’re okay.

I sink onto the end of the bed and pull my knees up. ‘Kit,’ I say. ‘She’s really disappeared.’

In the silence that follows, the toast pops up. ‘You mean big-magic type of disappear?’ he says.

‘Yep.’ I try to swallow down the aching lump in my throat. ‘You know that trick she’s been working on? Well, it’s a disappearing trick, but something’s gone wrong.’

‘So how do you get her back?’ Kit asks.

Anger surges through me and I force myself not to snap at him. ‘How would I know? She hasn’t taught me anything.’ I can’t tell him that it might be my fault. ‘We need another magician to help us,’ I say, and think of my mum’s aunt Thelma, who used to perform a world-famous magic show in Melbourne. Last time I saw her, at Christmas a few years ago, she wore a silver catsuit dotted with diamantes. Mum always says Thelma is the most powerful – and glamorous – magician in the family.

Kit scrapes butter and honey onto the toast and hands it to me just as Dad and Vince appear at the door of the van. Their gloomy faces tell me everything.

Dad beckons me outside. We’re not meant to talk magic in front of Kit.

‘We need to speak to Great Aunt Thelma,’ I say.

Vince nods. ‘I just tried to call her but her phone’s disconnected. And I don’t have Janet’s number.’ Janet is Thelma’s daughter. They live together in Rockhampton.

‘Let’s drive to Rockhampton right now,’ I say to Dad.

‘It’s a ten-hour drive.’ He rubs my shoulder. ‘Get some sleep and we’ll leave first thing in the morning.’

And so, the worst day of my life ends with me curled beside Kit’s sisters, my stomach in knots, listening to my circus family calling Mum’s name into the night.

CHAPTER 6

The fastest our old Land Rover will go is eighty kilometres an hour, so we have to stay in the slow lane.