The Seam Sorceress

Peter's Second Wife, part 2.

Anger simmered just beneath the surface of the carny's put-on smile as he turned to the schoolteacher. "These your kids, ma'am?"

"They're not, no." Peter's second wife shrank with the admission but as she stared him down she swelled with a new wave of courage. "But I feel as a shaper of young minds I should be responsible for them nonetheless."

The carny's smile widened like a jaws of a trap about to spring. "Well, then, if you feel responsible for them, you can be the one to pay for damages."

"Damages!" The eyes of the schoolteacher widened and she straightened as though she had been struck. "We shall see about that. What exactly happened here?"

"We just wanted that magic mirror." Tilly studied her boots, arms crossed. "But the game's rigged."

"I see." With the way the woman swayed from heel to toe, hands folded behind her back, Tilly thought she resembled a lawyer cross-examining at the stand. "Is that true, sir?"

"The deck is always stacked in favor of the house, ma'am. That's just business. These kids gotta learn they're not paying for the prize, but the experience." He waved an arm in the air with a demonstrative flourish. "The county fair is all about making memories."

The roll of Sprout's eyes behind her smoked goggles was almost palpable. "'All about making money' is more like it."

Tilly shushed her with a nudge.

"Oh, I agree, sir." Peter's second wife tapped a finger to her chin thoughtfully. "But memorable moments aside, there's certain expectations that must be met, otherwise it's false advertisement. What are the rules of the game?"

"Ring the bell and win a prize," he rattled off, second-nature.

"Quite, yes." She nodded. "And did the girl ring the bell?"

"Fairly sure people in the next county heard it." This time, Tilly was shushed by her younger sister. They both waited, hot and unimpressed, for the carny's official answer.

He seemed oddly reluctant, chewing on the inside of his cheek before finally coming to the truth of it: "She might have, sure enough, but she busted up in my game in the process. That's going to eat into profits."

"Profits? That's your primary concern?" The schoolteacher pinned a finger to the man's chest. "Have you not paused to consider the legal ramifications of this incident? If your ramshackle game had fallen on either of these poor, sweet children, lost profits would be the very least of your worries. It's gross negligence, that's what it is."

A frown put a wrinkle in the carny's forehead as he stared down at her pointed finger. "But the fact is my game didn't fall on them—"

"—But it could have! Why, the glass shrapnel from the lights could have easily put out an eye. And such a racket, too. Heaven forbid if one has a weak heart," she tsked. "And here you are trying to pin the damage on someone else. Sir, I ask you, if a bridge falls apart while someone is crossing it, who is the one who pays for repairs? The person who crossed or the person who built it?"

"Well, normally I'd say the person who built it—"

Peter's second wife smiled triumphantly. "Exactly."

"—But it depends on if the person crossing was using the bridge as intended," the carny finished with a shrug. "You don't bring an elephant across a rope bridge, ma'am. And that girl right there is an elephant in a denim jumper."

Both adults turned to look at Tilly. Heat rushed her face. The ensuing silence beckoned her to say something, anything, to defend her position, but she could only work her mouth like a fish flopping on the riverbank. Her grip on Sprout's hand tightened.