Lara leapt off the perch, preparing to simply repeat her last swing. She could see Tisdale’s hands twisting and his lips moving. He was helping her, enchanting her movements. This time, it felt easier, her body lighter as she swung. She hooked up her legs on the bar, let her hands go, and shifted her gaze up for the man to catch her. Instead she found Cecile’s sure hands reaching out to catch her. They swung together and Lara went to catch the opposite bar. So preoccupied was she that Cecile had caught her, that in flight on the way back, she missed the next bar. Looking down at the net, she saw to her alarm that the gold net that had once been beneath her was gone.

Gone.

Tisdale squealed.

Althacazur laughed.

Niccolò stopped the music.

A cymbal crashed.

As she fell, Lara thought that this was the stupidest death she could have predicted for herself. She thought about Gaston having to tell her mother and father that she’d fallen to her death performing for a monkey while wearing a tutu. “No,” she screamed, then “fuck.” She had her arms splayed and her eyes closed, bracing for impact, then nothing. Then she opened her eyes to find that she was hovering like a freeze-frame on a TV about six feet from the ground.

“Oh, thank God,” said Althacazur, sitting upright in his seat. “I was getting so bored. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Shut up, Father,” said Cecile, sitting on the swing above them.

Lara held herself in place, not sure what to do. Recalling Cecile’s journals, Lara considered the corkscrew move. Completely confused how she could somersault from a frozen position, she rotated and found that her body held the altitude as she spun. Next, she gazed at the perch far above her, where she needed to land. In the back of her mind, she heard Althacazur tell her, Think of spinning this flower. Don’t think of the carousel. She imagined a flower being twirled at its stem. As she pictured it, her body began to rise and spin at the same time, mimicking the movement in her mind. Focusing on the perch, she picked up speed, like a figure skater, twisting vertically back up to the perch.

“In case you haven’t realized it, you don’t need a net.” Althacazur was slow-clapping.

Looking over at the other side of the trapeze, Lara let the bar drop and leapt again, somersaulting cleanly through the air in a tight vertical roll, like she was drilling her way to the other side. Her body was in a tight rotation, like a football spirals in the air. She landed on the opposite platform, next to Cecile.

“Did you do that?” Lara shouted to her.

Cecile shook her head. “No. You did.”