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Chapter 1

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I once heard it said that time is a circus, always packing up and moving away.

That was true, in many ways, and I was more than qualified to comment—I'd experienced more packing up and moving away in seventeen years than most people would in their entire lives.

And yet, the saying was missing something. It failed to capture the whole story, left out the best part.

Because for there to be packing up and moving away, there first had to be pulling up and unloading. There had to be the pitching of trailers, the cranking of rusty metal, the hauling of ropes until the colors of the big top sailed among the clouds. Then came the clinking of change as coins exchanged hands, and the buzz of speculation that preceded the first show. It all came before.

And as someone who'd lived, breathed, and slept this cycle for as long as she could remember, that was always my favorite part.

At first, Sherwood, California, was just another brief stop on our never-ending road trip: another thumbtack on the giant map of the United States pinned to the wall of Aunt Shelby's trailer. The map had been there for as long as I could remember, and over its lifetime had collected such an abundance of pins that the entire American landscape had been severely butchered. I wasn't sure exactly how the ritual got started; all I knew was that each time we pulled up in a new field, the first job of the day was to stab a permanent hole in our new location, and the pin would sit there long after we'd gone.

The map proved we were no strangers to the area. The small town of Sherwood may have been new to us, but the dense collection of pins on the Northern California coastline told the stories of years past. We'd pretty much circled the area over and over. There was the whole country to choose from, but the crew could never resist the pull of the sun and the sea—and I guess I couldn't blame them.

Whenever we pitched up somewhere new, the events that followed were a strange yet predictable mix. Of course, there was the communal atmosphere: nervous energy fueling frantic conversation about openings and finales; the creaking of equipment in last-minute training sessions; long-awaited showers, now that we were finally hooked up to a water supply. On top of this, though, I had a ritual of my own.

In some sense, it was like the map on Aunt Shelby's wall. I couldn't pinpoint exactly when or how it had started, but it'd become a habit all the same. And so, hours after we'd piled into our home for the next few days, when the other guys realized I was nowhere to be found, they always knew where I'd gone.

I wasn't exactly superstitious, so I struggled to find an explanation for why the food in the first restaurant I came across always foreshadowed the fate of that evening's show. The theory wasn't strictly tried and tested, but it had yet to be proven wrong. Take for example Somerton, Idaho: after leaving the restaurant halfway through my nauseatingly undercooked meal, ticket sales for opening night hit an all-time low, and the evening was a total flop.

Good food, good show; bad food, bad show. And everything in the middle. It was just the way things worked.

Joe's was a small, fifties-themed diner that sat on a corner a few streets away from our pitch. Its blinking red sign looked close to giving out altogether, the J only illuminated in sporadic bursts, and the parking lot was almost empty. It neither attracted attention nor looked like it intended to. And since it was the first food outlet I'd come across—Rule Number One of my system—it would also be my first taste of Sherwood.

A bell tinkled overhead as I passed through the door, and my sneakers squeaked on polished tile. The counter was dotted with a long row of mismatched bar stools, while worn leather booths lined the opposite wall. A waitress in a long pink skirt and faded apron leaned against the counter. As I gave the diner the once over, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd stepped through a miniature window to the fifties, where everything had been compressed and condensed into a tiny space.

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