Turnstile Entrance -

She was ten, small for her age, with a pocket full of saved-up quarters and a knot in her stomach. The fair was the same every year: the same cotton-candy machine that whirred too loud, the same tilt-a-whirl that made her dizzy, the same goldfish in plastic bags floating in a tub by the ring toss. But this year, her mother wasn’t beside her. This year, her mother was in a hospital bed three towns over, and Clara had walked two miles alone.

Clara pushed harder. The fairgrounds stretched like taffy. A carousel’s music drifted, slowed, then stopped entirely. The lights began to flicker one by one. Her mother’s image rippled, like a reflection in a pond someone had dropped a stone into. turnstile entrance

On the other side, the world was the same—but different. The same booths, the same Ferris wheel rising against the dusk. But the people… they moved slowly, smiling at her like old friends she’d never met. A woman in a feathered hat nodded. A boy with a balloon tipped his cap. She was ten, small for her age, with