Wonder Show by Hannah Barnaby

already?” Gideon asked.
    “I guess so. For today. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be learning from him. All he told me was a story about—”
    “Lord Mountebank?”
    “Yes. I thought you said people here didn’t like to talk about themselves.”
    “Well, for one thing, Jackal’s not quite like everybody else. And for another, that story’s not really about Jackal. That story’s been bumping around since the talker before the talker before Jackal. According to Doula.”
    “I figured,” Portia said. “Still, it was interesting.”
    Gideon wiped at his forehead with the back of one hand, then shaded his eyes and looked toward the circus again. “First o’Mays think everything’s interesting around here. Especially the sideshow.”
    “First of what?”
    “First o’May. Somebody who signs on with the circus because they’re curious. Or in trouble. Running away from something, usually.”
    “Is that what you think I am?”
    “Aren’t you? Nothing wrong with it.”
    But it sounded wrong to Portia, like an insult or a bad joke, to be so easily identified with other strangers. People who had come and gone and left no mark. People who had simply disappeared into the past and never been seen again.
    “You don’t know anything about me,” she snapped. “You don’t know why I’m here or where I’ve come from, and you don’t want to know. You want me to keep my secrets? Fine. But don’t accuse me of hiding something when you’re the one who told me to mind my own business.”
    “I didn’t—” Gideon started, but Portia was already striding away.
    “Wait!” he shouted, and then she heard his feet thumping the dry ground as he ran up behind her and grabbed her shoulder. His hold was firm, but careful, and Portia willed herself to stand still, to feel her own bones beneath his hand, before turning to face him.
    “I didn’t mean—” he stammered. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve seen a lot of folks come through here, acting like they care about the show and then running off again. Couple of ’em turned out to be reporters. Just wanted to take pictures of the freaks and put them in the newspaper.” He scuffed his shoe in the dirt. “There aren’t that many good reasons for normals wanting to join up with the sideshow, y’know. Mostly they’re after something.”
    He looked at her.
    “That’s not why I’m here,” Portia said quietly.
    “Then why?”
    “I—” The words, again, pushed at her from the inside, wanting to get out. “I’m looking for my father.”
    Gideon seemed relieved, as if he’d been afraid that Portia’s reason was something insidious, something much worse than a lost parent. “Does he work for the circus?”
    It was a simple question, one that Portia had tried not to ask herself too directly. Because the truth was that she did not know whether Max really had joined up with a circus, much less this circus. She did not know if he was here, or within a thousand miles of here, or even if he was alive. Her throat burned, and she swallowed hard.
    “I don’t know where he is,” she whispered. “I just . . . I had to find a place to look for him. And he loved the circus, once.”
    “It’s as good a place as any,” Gideon said, “to look for someone. You’ll see, tonight. It’s empty now, but pretty soon there’ll be people everywhere, more than you can count. I can help you, if you want.”
    She shook her head, but smiled. “Jackal wants me by the stage, so I can keep an eye out.”
    “Well, I’m working the ticket wagon tonight, so I’ll see everyone except the folks who sneak in. If you change your mind—”
    “Thank you,” Portia said. She couldn’t say why, but she felt that this was her work to do, that if anyone was going to find Max in the crowd, it should be her. It must be her. Besides, how could she describe him to Gideon, tell him who to look for, when she didn’t have a picture to show? Even the picture in her head was more than