PROLOGUE — I Am Born to Catch Light
I never know what my mother sees in me when she named me Joy—perhaps it is a prayer she cannot keep.
She leaves me at the circus gates before I even learn how to hold a smile, before I know the weight of a paper hat or the sound of laughter when it doesn’t belong to me.
Wonderhouse takes me in and paints me white.
It shows me how to tilt my head just so, how to curl my mouth into a sad Pierrot line, and how to fall softly enough to make the crowd laugh without ever feeling the warmth myself.
But long before I learn the act, I see them: the little sparks.
They are tiny, iridescent flickers people shed like dander when something inside them brightens.
A warm hug glows gold, smelling of toasted sugar and sun-warmed hay.
A shared laugh flickers pink and white, sharp as shaved ice and wild strawberries.
Finding a forgotten hat shimmers soft blue, smelling of rainwater on cold stone.
The sigh after crying swirls lavender, cooling like a spring storm.
To everyone else, these moments vanish. To me, they hang in the air like floating fire waiting to be caught.
I catch them; I always have. It is the only thing I am good at.
I keep them in a glass jar tied with a black ribbon.
When a spark hits the glass, the jar vibrates with a low, thrumming note that only I can feel—a sound like a moth's wings beating against a lantern.
At night, the ribbon warms my wrist, as if the jar is trying to remind me that I am alive, even if I do not feel like I am.
My curse is simple and cruel. Beautiful in the way broken glass glitters.
I can gather Joy, I can hold it, and I can give it—but I cannot make my own.
Not one spark. Not even a whisper. I have tried.
I have smiled until my cheeks ache beneath the greasepaint.
I have danced my soft-silly dances, letting the crowd’s laughter fall over me like confetti I cannot touch.
Nothing ever blooms. I feel a literal hollow in my chest where my own sparks should be, a cold ache that never truly leaves.
Wonderhouse survives because I feed it. The rope lights made of fireflies, the lullaby carousel, the memory-stitched tents—they all glow because I empty myself so the circus can shine.
Some nights, the performers whisper about another carnival.
A red-and-black storm that eats more than applause.
A place where Joy doesn’t drift—it is taken.
We hear its distant whistles on the wind, a sound like a scream trying to be a song.
I hear the stories, fold them into the paper hat I still keep, and pretend I’m not afraid that the world might be hungrier than I am.
Then he arrives. The boy without light.
Milo walks into Wonderhouse like a shadow that forgot how to cast itself. No sparks. No color. The emptiness around him is so sharp I feel it in my ribs like a match struck inside me that will not burn. I should stay quiet. I should paint my smile and collect my sparks.
But his silence looks too much like mine.
I reach into my jar. I take a soft gold spark—one that smells of heavy blankets and home—and I press it to his chest, breaking every rule the Ringmaster ever gave me.
I break myself a little, too. The spark sinks into him like dawn remembering how to rise, and I dim.
I feel the cold spill through me, quiet and patient, the way winter takes a field.
He looks at me like he doesn’t understand what warmth is, but it finds him anyway. I gave it to him. I couldn't stop myself. Maybe I wanted proof that I am not just a jar with legs.
Standing here in the glow that isn't mine, I know the truth: some girls are born to gather light, and some are born to break open and become it.
I don’t know yet which one I am. But the jar in my hands trembles, and the lanterns lean toward me. This is the breath before rebirth. This is the last time I will ever be just a girl painted in sorrow.
The next time I fall, I think I might glow.