A Storm of Paper Starlings

19. Hostile Neighbours

After dinner, we bundle up and head to the fair. Archer's wearing wellies like he promised, and I can't keep the smile off my face.

The night is dark when we arrive, but the fairground is bright and noisy, bombarding my senses from every direction. We weave through the crowds, through fire breathers on stilts, wandering jugglers, Morris dancers, fortune tellers, jesters, costumed flyer wavers, and adults being dragged around by excited children with sugar-stuffed faces and candyfloss-laced hair.

The waft of hot spun sugar mingles with the scent of warm doughnuts, mud, and machine oil. Lights twinkle and pulse, fairground rides hiss and hurl, and twist and twirl. People scream high above us, the sound almost drowned out by the cacophony of competing pipe organs from the old fairground rides.

Archer and the twins run off to the waltzer while Seth and I play it safe at the sideshows where the light is softer. He tries to teach me to shoot straight, but I'm a lost cause. Seth's a great shot, winning an enormous cuddly rabbit, which he hands to me with a grimace. I laugh because it's hideously ugly. I don't really do soft toys, but I don't tell him. When I get back to Pandora's, I'll just quietly hand it over to Leia.

By the time we're halfway round the fair, we've amassed a huge haul of plastic tat and cuddly toys. Seth tries to palm it off onto some of the little kids, but the parents grow wise to his tricks and swerve to avoid us, eyes wild with panic. In the end, we keep the rabbit and a pair of crappy plastic lightsabers, and give the rest back to the stall holders.

The twins rush over, cheeks flushed, bubbling with laughter.

Ben pulls off his ear defenders, leaving them around his neck. "How did you get over here so fast?"

"What? We've been here the whole time," I say.

"We saw you on the merry-go-round, didn't we, Ez?"

"Yeah, while we were on the skyrockets."

I frown. "But I wasn't on the merry-go-round."

The twins look at each other sceptically.

"She really wasn't." Seth holds up the lightsabers. "We've been winning stuff."

They snatch them from Seth's hands and make humming noises while they fight like they've been handling swords their whole lives.

"Vi, you have to see this," Archer says from behind me. "There's a girl who looks just like you. I thought it was you... until I saw she wasn't wearing wellies. And that her braids had beads in. And her eyes were sort of green. But I was talking to her before I realised it wasn't you."

He drags me across the fairground.

My breath falters. Amethyst is here. "What did she say?"

"Nothing. She just looked at me like I was drunk, then this man came along and pulled her away."

"What man?"

"I don't know. He didn't seem all that friendly."

"What did he look like?"

He shrugs. "About my height, but thinner. Red hair."

Archer stops suddenly, and I slam into his back, grabbing his arms to stop myself from falling over.

I scan the area frantically. "Where are they?"

"There." Archer points at the mouth of a far-off tent. "I can't see the girl, but that's the man there. Talking to the redhead."

The redhead looks directly at me, her entire frame pulling up like someone tugged on her strings. She's tall and striking with waist length dreadlocks covered in wraps and beads. She looks familiar, but I can't figure out why.