She bent down to fix his sheets, but he stopped her with a shake of his head.
“Leave it,” he said. “Turns out I like messy things.”
She barked a laugh. “Are you talking about me?”
He wiped a lingering tear from under her eye, then kissed her forehead. “I’m talking about us.”
Chapter 34
Ignacio
She didn’t write the letter.
She didn’t want to leave me behind.
He rubbed his eyes as he lay on the cot, listening to the other carnival hands softly snore as the train wheels bumped over the tracks toward their next destination. They had been chugging along for hours now but all he could do was think of her. That was nothing new, of course, but this time, for the first time in far too long, he felt a cautious sort of hope.
He had tried to find her before the train took off, but he’d missed her. He figured some sleep might do them both good, and yet, here he was, wide awake with a phantom Esmeralda plucking at his thoughts.
He turned onto his side. He should try to get some rest. But then he imagined what it would be like if she were lying beside him. If her hair were fanned out onto the pillow and she smiled at him sleepily before leaning in for a kiss.
Grumbling, he sat up. He needed to clear his mind.
Ignacio stuffed his hand under his pillow and pulled out the inkwell they’d snagged from the ringmaster.
Tiptoeing on bare feet, he quietly crossed the shared boxcar. He fumbled in the dark until he found a chair, then sat at the small desk. He looked over his shoulder at the people sleeping in cots as he lit a kerosine lantern. No one woke.
After a bit of scrounging through the desk drawer, he found a fountain pen and dipped the nib into what was left inside the jar. He lifted the inky tip to the lantern and watched as with each twist of his wrist, various sparks of color appeared in the warm yellow light.
The paintings on the posters hanging around the carnival could morph into something entirely new. Esmeralda said the sketches on her cards shifted to reveal a person’s deepest desires. And then there was the note left for him within the hollow of the dove tree. Written exactly in her hand, but clearly not.
He carefully penned four words onto a blank sheet of paper.
I am Ignacio Olivera.
Nothing strange happened.
Esmeralda had said the cards shifted when her customers touched them. He pressed the pad of his pointer finger onto the ink. That same buzzing sensation fizzled through his skin.
Shift this writing into something else, he thought.
Tiny sparks bubbled up from the ink like soda pop. He jerked back his hand and watched in awe as the letters fanned out and in, transforming into words that were an identical match to his own handwriting.
No. You are not.
His brows furrowed. He dipped the nib in the ink again and penned a response.
Who am I, then?
Tell me the truth, he commanded as he pressed his finger onto the ink.
The words reshaped once more.
You will learn soon enough.
Ridiculous. This ink was nothing more than another one of the ringmaster’s silly tricks.
He grabbed the parchment and started to tear it, but the ink shifted.
