Right then a memory came to my mind, a strange one, and painful, and I knew it was mine to Orate.

The memory was of a time when a carnival came to town. Maybe “carnival” makes it sound bigger than it was. Really a few horse-drawn wagons with a handful of clowns showed up. Still, it was a pretty big deal in Collardsville, and everybody flocked out into the streets to see them. Me and Mom were working in the bakery (she had me sweeping and dusting at the time, because at least I could sweep up okay without ruining everything) when Mom grabbed me by the hand and yanked me outside.

“But I’m not finished yet,” I said. “You told me I have to be done before dinner, and at this rate, I won’t ever eat.”

And she said, “Are you kidding me, Buddy? We got us a carnival in town.”

I don’t know why, but I was feeling pretty crummy that day. I didn’t want to see any two-bit carnival, with no fire-breathers or elephants or sword-swallowers or tigers or even a big tent to its name. But Mom seemed so excited about the whole thing, so thrilled at the prospect of something new, that I let her yank me right out the door and into the streets of Collardsville.

The carnival wagons were something else, I’ll tell you. They were big canvas things with strange symbols painted on them—a cardinal and an eyeball, a giant fishhook, a candle burning at both ends. The clowns had a darkness to them too, a strangeness to their makeup—all drawn-on right angles and jagged lines and gray colors—and they slunk around all seedy and dangerous-looking, not a bit funny.

Needless to say, I liked them already.

They began stumbling around in a circle, spinning slowly at first, then faster, and faster. It was like watching a whirlpool open up in the empty field in front of us, like any moment we would all spiral down into blackness.

Suddenly they all stopped at once, and they stood so still it was like time itself stopped, like the sand had frozen in every hourglass in the village. One of the clowns—the tallest one, with sloped shoulders and long gangly legs—cupped a hand to his ear, and leaned into the wind, like he was listening real close for something. After a moment he began to sing.

It was a high and mournful song, something that could be belted out across the Long Lonely Prairie, or would echo down from the tallest tower of the Old Crumbly Castle. It was a magic song, full of longing for things long gone, for a home abandoned. It was an exile’s song, it was, a wish for escape, for adventure, for any life but the life you were living.

The clown finished and all was still and quiet, not even a dog barked in the street. The clown opened his hand and in his palm was a rose, a long thorny one, so bloodred it seemed to be dripping. He offered the rose to my mom. I looked in her eyes, and I saw something I hadn’t seen in ages. It was like the furnaces of the bakery were burning bright in them, like in that moment my mom was capable of anything. There was possibility in her eyes.