Chapter 1
Little Mirth
I look into the glass, but the girl staring back isn't me—she’s just the vessel Wonderhouse needs.
My brown, ordinary face drowns under the cool greasepaint until my freckles vanish and my mouth becomes a quiet red curve.
The white greasepaint is cool as wet clay, a mask of cloying powder and old wax that suffocates the girl beneath.
I dip my fingers into it and draw it over my skin in slow, practiced strokes.
A Pierrot should look like she has already heard the punchline, my Ringmaster once told me.
Just not the one she wanted. I tilt my head the way he taught me and study the girl in the mirror.
Black liner around my eyes, feathered up at the corners.
Little diamonds of shadow painted beneath each eye, like permanent tears that forgot how to fall.
Joy is gone. Little Mirth looks back.
Behind me, the dressing tent sighs and creaks.
Canvas snaps above, tugged by the night wind.
Someone argues in hushed tones at the far end, words blurred by the beats of practice drums. Metal clinks, glass knocks against glass, a trapeze bar swings and thuds lightly against its post. The circus warms up like a body waking.
"Two minutes, Little Mirth."
The call comes from outside the flap, the Ringmaster's voice smooth and bright. The title curls in the air like smoke.
"Two minutes," I echo softly, though he cannot hear me. My breath fogs the glass for a moment, blurring my painted eyes, and then fades.
It is almost time to go onstage. Which means it is almost time to steal.
I twist toward the little crate beside my stool.
The jar waits there, half hidden under a folded shawl.
Ordinary glass. Black ribbon knotted around the neck.
The ribbon is fraying; I like it better that way.
Things that fray feel honest. Inside, faint threads of light drift and turn, slow as dust in a sunbeam.
I can see them even with the lid on, even in the dim tent—gold, pink-white, soft blue, lavender, amber.
A quiet storm in a bottle. The jar hums under my fingertips when I touch it—a low note in my bones, not my ears.
"Behave," I whisper, thumb tracing the edge of the lid. The light stirs in answer, like I have said its name. Joy is what my mother called me when she handed me to the Ringmaster and never came back. Little Mirth is what Wonderhouse calls me when I make the crowd exhale.
But this is what I really am: a thief of small miracles.
"Joy," the Ringmaster says now, his voice closer. He never uses my stage name when we are alone. The flap twitches with his shadow. "Places, darling."
I tighten the black ribbon once—a small knot, a small prayer.
Then I leave the jar in the crate and stand.
I pad barefoot over the straw, each step a small crunch.
The scent of sawdust, sweat, and sugar wraps around me in layers: caramel from the popcorn stand, sharp vinegar from pickles, smoke from the torch jugglers.
Under it all, a faint metallic tang that never leaves—the taste of rusted tent stakes and old rain.
I press my palms together once to hear the soft slap of paint on paint, then push through the flap. Outside, Wonderhouse breathes.
I see the world is layered twice: once in dirt and canvas and sweat, once in color and light.
A father lifts his daughter, and a gold spark lifts with her like a crown.
Girls giggle near the cotton candy, and pink-white lights scatter like dizzy kites.
No one else notices. They bump through them and walk on.
"Little Mirth!" The barker near the main tent catches sight of me and grins. I see the thin line of lavender hanging above him, drifting from an argument he had earlier. He cried afterward, alone behind the ticket stand. I saw that, too. Now the lavender trails him like smoke from a snuffed candle.
"You ready to make them sigh, Little Ghost?" he asks, tipping his hat.
My red mouth pulls into a small, careful almost-smile.
I lift my hand and give a tiny, clumsy wave, letting my wrist flop like it has no bones.
The barker laughs, and a little spark jumps above his chest—pale, like coffee with too much milk.
I watch it and memorize its shape. I am not allowed to take before the show.
I step into the ring, and the honey glow of the lanterns flattens the world at the edges. My act is simple—a small thing in a small spotlight. I let my shoulders hunch and my head hang, a tiny Pierrot lost in a circle too big for her.
I stumble. I fall. I mime a suitcase that is too heavy until I drop on my backside with a soft poof of dust. The children roar, and gold sparks pop in bursts around them. I pretend not to notice, my painted eyes wide and wounded, surprised that anyone would find me funny.
Laughter makes the brightest sparks. They come in clusters.
.. I feel them brush against my arms—little whispers of warmth.
Not inside me; never that. Always just close enough that I can imagine.
The calliope slows, its wheezing breath turning into the opening notes of a waltz. It sings the words I know by heart:
“Every lantern knows your name
Every rope remembers how
You once laughed beneath the sky
You can laugh like that again now.”
I end the routine pulling an invisible rope from the air, hauling a line of soft blue and amber that is attached to nothing and everything.
I yank and fall backward in an exaggerated flop.
Applause follows—not thunder, but enough to lift dust from the floor.
Enough to make my chest ache in a way I will never call Joy.
"Little Mirth," the Ringmaster calls from the edge of the ring, his voice rich with approval. "Our delicate little shadow."
I step back behind the curtain, and the light drops off sharply. The sparks fade from my sight, slipping out of the air like birds leaving a branch. The circus will drink them in slowly, like a thirsty thing.
My hands shake. The jar is waiting. I press my palm flat to my chest, but no light jumps to my hand. It never does.
It is all right, I lie to myself. I do not need my own spark. The circus needs them more.