They took his body away and burned the sheets; the landlady didn’t even wait until his body was removed before she began to strip the room in preparation for another artist who needed cheap lodging. In my haze, I’d forgotten to grab the paintings. I ran back upstairs but found them gone already. When I came back down, I found the canvases in the alley, neighbors picking through them. I spied the painting of Sylvie and grabbed it from the pile, snatching it out of another man’s hand with strength that surprised him. I pored through the other paintings, looking for the ones of Esmé and me, but they were gone.

When I got back to the circus, Doro was at the entrance. “There is a new ride,” said Doro’s puppet. Doro the clown looked excited until he saw my face. The puppet looked up at me. “What is it, dear?”

“Émile has died.”

Doro the clown took my hand. “You will want to see this ride, then.” Bloodstained and weary, I was about to protest, but he took me by the hand and led me down the Grand Promenade of the arcade to a carousel. “Your father just created it this this morning around dawn,” said the puppet.

I stopped dead in my tracks. “Doro, what does this carousel do?”

“I cannot explain it,” said the puppet. “You need to ride it. It’s glorious. It may be his greatest creation.” He helped me onto a horse. Doro pulled the lever and the horse stepped backward. Like it was waking up, the brightly painted carousel horse began to shift in front of me and a real mane sprouted down its neck. The horse put its head down and began an odd backward trot, then finally a gallop. The lion next to me was also waking and running backward. Around the carousel all the animals—the giraffe, the elephant, and the other horses—were running in a strange backward unison.

This was madness, I thought. And then I felt sleepy. My head was heavy and I nestled into the horse’s mane. He seemed to anticipate this.