“I need a wheelchair,” I say. “My grandmother is winded—thought she could make it, but—”
“On the side,” she says, pushing a key on a wooden stick toward me. She thumbs to her left; I peer around the building to see a small row of wheelchairs chained up beside two golf carts. I slink around, insert the key in the padlock, and wheel one out. The woman doesn’t look up when I slide the key back toward her.
The chair is hard to open and has PAVILION PROPERTY scrawled across the back in Sharpie, but it’ll work. I zip through the crowd, wheeling it in front of me, almost running over the same man who tried to help Naida earlier. When I reach her, she’s barely moved, like she’s afraid she’ll fall much farther than a few feet if she releases the railing.
“Here,” I say, setting the chair up behind her. I grab her shoulders and pull her down into the seat. She exhales, breathes heavily for a few minutes, then gives me a weak smile.
It isn’t packed by summer standards, but still—there are so many people. I wish I could see Naida’s face, or even that I had Jane’s power and knew what she was thinking. She grips the arms of the chair tightly, her head turns side to side so fast it’s like she’s watching a tennis match. There are a few stares, but they’re only in passing; we move mostly unnoticed through the masses. I pull the chair around several food carts, near the outskirts of the Pavilion. There’s a calliope on this side, and a bench meant for sitting and watching it play music—though, just like I suspected, no one is here. I wheel the chair to the bench and sit down. Naida listens to the haunting organ melody for a moment, stares at the paintings of trees and woodland creatures on the sides, before turning to me. She’s smiling, but she looks sick. Not just sick, but like she’s been sick for a long time—the sort where the person looks wasted away, broken.
“This is amazing,” she whispers. Her voice shakes. Light bounces off her cheeks, making the circles under her eyes look even darker.
“Most people don’t appreciate it,” I admit. “And I probably wouldn’t have ever realized it was here, except for the fact that it backs up to the parking lot. See that spot in the fencing? You can push it in. My sisters and I sometimes sneak in here during the off-season, when it’s all creepy and empty….” I drift off, grin at memories of us running through the park, free and boundless and happy. I look back over at Naida—she’s gazing at the calliope. No, staring, staring like she can’t force herself to look away—
“I remember….” she says shakily.
“What?” I ask when she’s silent for a long time.
Her gaze finally drops to the giant carriage wheels that hold the calliope up. Her lips curl into a smile. “I remember my sister,” she says breathlessly. “I remember how we used to fight, but I also remember how much I loved her. And I remember school, how I was terrible at it and how it made my father angry. And his face, I almost remember his face….” A few tears form in the corners of her eyes, escape, and slide down to her collarbone. “There was one of those traveling fairs that used to come to town. It set up in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot and had awful rides—I mean, they were all old and beaten up. But there was this calliope, this old calliope with brass pipes and carvings all around the edges. Every carving showed a different myth. You know, Psyche and Cupid, Odysseus and Penelope, that sort of thing. And every year when I was little, my dad would tell me the story behind one of the carvings, until I stopped thinking it was cool to go to the carnival with your dad and… there was one left. There was one he never got to tell me.”
“Did you know what it was?” I ask lowly, like any volume to my voice would shatter the memories she’s building.
“I looked it up,” she says, nodding. “After he died, I think—I remember crying when I found the story. It was Philomela and Procne. A story about these sisters who get turned into birds. Hardly anyone knows it. I asked at the carnival why it made it to the calliope, but none of them knew. Their great-grandfather carved it, and they couldn’t remember how he chose the myths.” She smiles a little. “Maybe you could’ve found that out for them.”
Naida sighs happily and slumps back in the chair, inhales deeply, like she’s drinking the scent of a nearby popcorn machine. The calliope finishes its song, making the area seem quiet for a moment; the relative silence is quickly filled up with the noise of rolling Skee-Balls in the arcade and a child throwing a tantrum over a snow cone.
Naida sighs, turns to look at me. “Why do you think it chose me? Whatever made me Lo, whatever changed me… why me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe there’s no reason.”
She looks away. “Maybe I was just unlucky.”
“But we can try to change it,” I say quickly. “Your luck, we can try to help you remember. Your future doesn’t have to be like your past.”
“How do you know?” she asks, turning to me, and I realize I have no answer because I don’t know, and yet, I firmly believe it’s true.
“Come on,” I say instead, rising. I grip the back of the chair and push her toward the midway, near the front of the Pavilion. Her breathing is raspy, heavy, the way I think it would sound if I tried to breathe underwater, but she doesn’t complain, so I keep going. There are rows and rows of booths with people trying to conquer silly tasks, like knocking over milk bottles or tossing balls into peach baskets. People are carrying around giant stuffed animals, balloons in the shape of swords, and wearing their new airbrushed beach T-shirts. Children have their faces painted with butterfly wings or tiger stripes, a few with images of dolphins leaping from their cheeks.
“Where do you want to go?” I ask, leaning forward so she can hear me.
“Anywhere,” she says. “Everywhere.”
So we keep walking. I want to take her into the café, but there’s no way she’d pass for human under the stark fluorescent lights. And we can’t exactly go on the rides… so we wander. Around and around till my arms hurt, but Naida doesn’t seem to be bored or tired. She nods at sights, looks up at me, and grins weakly, each time looking a little sicker, a little more tired.
I should suggest we go back. I should tell her she doesn’t look well.
But I don’t want to. I want her to get better, I want her to stand up without pain, I want her to be human and never go back to the water.