Her sister couldn’t go anywhere alone. Pin had to constantly watch that she didn’t eat herself sick with sweets. Abriana would mash her face against the window of the German bakery on Kingsbury Street, in hopes that the owner would give her a cruller. She smiled at Jack the shoeshine man, who gave her penny candy, and the old lady who ran Ionucci’s Grocery, who chased them away with a broom because she thought Abriana scared off customers.

Abriana, too, had been wearing a yellow dress, her Easter dress. Pin searched until she spotted the boat that held the girl from the movie studio. The man had slipped his arm around her and hugged her close to him, his hat tipped so Pin couldn’t see his face. She watched as the boat bobbed along the spiraling canal, pulled by the man-made current in ever-tightening circles as it moved toward the center, until at last it reached the chute that gave the ride its name, and plunged out of sight.

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

DON’T BE AFRAID, he murmured, moving his hand from her silky hair to the even-softer folds of her dress, a buttercup held to the sun. Don’t be afraid, none of it’s real, pretend they’re toys, that’s what I do. The fabric bunched between his fingers, nothing softer than that, not skin or hair or their mouths. Hush now, I mean it, be quiet, no one can hear you.

Yes, that one was scary.

There, now you’ve done it. What did I tell you?

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

SHE MIGHT HAVE dozed there on the knoll, lulled by heat and the strains of ragtime from the bandstand. The flicker of sun and shade on her eyelids made her think she was in the Comique, watching Charlie Chaplin and the girl with the big yellow bow. The girl was her sister, how had she forgotten that?

Abriana, she said, and her sister nodded. Where did you go?

I’m right here, said Abriana, and got very small. Chaplin started dancing, one hand held out to Pin. She reached for it and jolted awake.

She was sitting cross-legged on the grass. Overhead, leaves stirred in the hot breeze. She blinked, her mouth tasting of grit, rubbed her eyes, and stood. Where was she? A glance down the hillside and she remembered: Hell Gate.

A dust devil whipped along the sidewalk. Something moved at the far end of the pavilion, where the boats returned from their underground journey and the passengers disembarked. A skinny stray dog, one of the trained terriers from the dog-and-monkey show, cut loose because it bit someone.