Chapter 2

“Polly?” the little boy called her again, this time sounding a bit impatient. “You’re spacing out again.”
“Sorry.” Bo Li snapped back to herself and, without a flicker of guilt, slipped the gold pocket watch back where it had been. “I’m just…tired.”
The boy shrugged. “You’re never not tired. What, is Eric still stalking you?”
That was a key piece of information.
Bo Li answered carefully. “…What do you think?”
“What do I think?” The boy pulled a plug of tobacco from his pocket and stuffed it into his mouth to chew. “I think—there’s no way he’s stalking you. It’s all in your head.”
He turned and spat to the side. “Sweetheart, if Eric were capable of sneaking after you, slipping into your tent in the middle of the night to stand behind you and scare you, would Mike have been able to mess him up that bad?”
“Anyway, I’m off,” the boy said, waving. “After everything that happened today, we’re definitely getting a beating tomorrow morning. It’s all Eric’s fault—may his wounds rot and fill with maggots!”
After he left, Bo Li let the tent flap fall and was about to carefully check the gold pocket watch tucked in her binding.
But then she saw that the canvas walls of the tent were covered in writing.
Thick black capitals, packed together like swarms of flies. One glance at that crawling mass of letters was almost enough to make her skin crawl.
When she understood what they said, her scalp prickled and a chill shot straight up the back of her neck.
He will follow you.
He will watch you.
He will kill you, he will kill you, he will kill you… He will kill you he will kill you he will kill you he will kill you he will kill you he will kill you…
Some of the words were obscured by greasy stains.
Holding her breath, Bo Li stared until she made them out—
He is standing behind you.
The hair on her arms stood on end. She whipped around.
Nothing there.
What the hell?
Who had written that?
And who was “he”?
Bo Li thought of what the boy had said, and her heart thudded hard.
Could it be…Eric?
But how?
While talking to the boy, she’d been quickly analyzing her situation.
She seemed to be in a circus.
Here, the manager played the role of judge, keeping order and deciding who lived and died.
Mike was his relative. Because he was “worth” five thousand francs, the manager allowed him to bully Eric—as long as he didn’t cripple him.
Eric was the circus’s golden goose. He could do magic, perform ventriloquism, sing.
Which raised a question.
If Eric was really as terrifying as the tent claimed, how would Mike and the manager dare treat him like that?
Bo Li’s thoughts tangled. She turned and began rummaging through the tent. It was small—half wagon, half waterproof canvas, its surface speckled with mildew.
The floor was covered with a blanket so filthy its original color was impossible to guess. The sleeping bag was relatively clean, but it reeked of damp sweat, thick enough to make her gag.
She searched for a long time but didn’t find anything useful.
Like: whose body this was. Why they were binding their chest and dressing as a boy. Why they’d stolen Mike’s gold pocket watch.
What was the original Polly’s relationship to Eric?
Bo Li took a deep breath and focused on the sleeping bag.
There was an opening at the top for someone to crawl into. Along the edge, a name had been embroidered in crooked stitching: Polly Clément.
Good. At least she knew her name now.
It was a start.
Bo Li closed her eyes for a moment, then reached into the sleeping bag and felt a notebook.
She pulled it out. It was a thin booklet sewn together with coarse hemp thread, the pages rough and yellowed, faint fibers raised on the surface.
She opened to the first page.
September 3rd, 1888
I lost my diary. Maybe Mike and the others threw it away. Who knows? They can’t read, and they hate people who can.
They hate Eric too, but they never dare lay a hand on him.
I don’t want to be beaten anymore. Why don’t they beat Eric instead?
September 8th, 1888
Nanny hit me many times. Over and over. She says my hands aren’t fast enough. She told me to watch Eric.
He didn’t even touch the man, but he still took his wallet. How is that possible?
It must be witchcraft. Why else would he always wear a mask?
He’s the only one here who wears a mask.
September 9th, 1888
I got beaten again. Why is it always me?
September 10th, 1888
Beaten, beaten, beaten. I’m always the one who gets beaten. I can’t take it anymore. Why is it always me? Why why why.
Nanny praised Eric again. Mike hates him, but he rarely bullies him. I really hate him.
I hate Eric.
September 20th, 1888
Mike’s watch is gone. Only Eric could steal it without anyone noticing. We want Eric to hand over the gold pocket watch. Eric didn’t say anything.
Maybe I imagined it, but at dinner, he looked at me.
What was he looking at me for? He’s the best thief here.
October 5th, 1888
Why does he keep looking at me?
October 8th, 1888
Why? Why does it keep coming back to my bed even after I bury it? Why why why why!
I’m going to go crazy.
He’s still looking at me. He’s always looking at me.
His eyes glow in the dark.
He’s a monster.
October 9th, 1888
He wants to kill me.
He will definitely kill me. Those are eyes that kill.
What should I do?
I have to fight back. How do I fight back?
Mike? The manager? Nanny?
No. No. None of them.
October 11th, 1888
How long did he stand behind me—one minute? Two minutes? Half an hour?
Or has he been there all along?
He’s a madman, a madman, a madman!
October 12th, 1888
I clearly threw it into the swamp. There are crocodiles everywhere. So why is it back in my hand?
What does he want? What does he want? What does he want?
…
That was the last page. The handwriting grew more and more jagged and thick, the ink bleeding through several sheets.
Reading it sent a cold draft through Bo Li’s chest.
The original Polly was clearly not well educated; her wording and sentence structures were simple.
But those very simple, blunt lines still made Bo Li shiver. A tightness climbed from her spine to her scalp, as if someone really were standing right behind her.
Should she believe what was written?
Bo Li went through the diary again.
Both Polly and Eric were at the very bottom of the circus hierarchy.
The only difference was that Eric was more talented—quicker with his hands, skilled at more things. Polly had sunk to the bottom of the bottom. Nanny and Mike both disliked her.
Over time, she came to hate Eric, even wishing he’d be punished in her place.
So she stole Mike’s gold pocket watch and framed Eric for it.
Polly had been cautious enough not to keep the watch on her. She buried it in the ground. But after some time, the watch somehow turned up on her again.
That was when her mental state began to slip. She became convinced Eric was watching her, that he meant to kill her.
Terrified, she threw the watch into a swamp—only for it to reappear the next day.
After that, the diary ended. Either Polly had broken down completely, or that was when Bo Li crossed over.
Anyone who read that diary would think Eric was a patient hunter.
Calmly, almost like a cat toying with a mouse, he’d been playing with Polly.
What Bo Li couldn’t figure out was this: if Eric had the power to drive someone mad with fear, how had Mike managed to tie him behind a horse and drag him?
And if he didn’t have that kind of power, how were the diary and the words on the tent supposed to be explained?
What good did it do Polly to paint Eric as something so terrifying?
Most importantly, why had the gold pocket watch returned to its original place?
Or maybe what she had “buried” in the diary hadn’t been the watch at all.
Bo Li couldn’t reach a conclusion.
At least she knew now what era she was in—1888, the end of the nineteenth century, already in the midst of the Second Industrial Revolution.
No wonder Polly could keep a diary—paper mills clearly existed by now.
Bo Li set the diary down, feeling a bit lost.
So what was she supposed to do now?
Polly had stolen Mike’s gold pocket watch and pinned the crime on Eric. Eric had then been tortured to a wreck by Mike.
And most importantly, the pocket watch was still on her.
She was cornered, nowhere to turn.
If she ran to Mike, the watch would be a ticking time bomb.
If she tried to win Eric over…
Bo Li lowered her lashes.
Every line, every word of Polly’s diary warned her not to trust Eric.
Eric could kill her at any time.
Yet watching from the outside, Bo Li felt that Eric was more valuable than Mike—more valuable than anyone in the circus. More worth the effort to win over.
The only question was how.
Just then, a wave of noise snapped her out of her thoughts.
She jumped, quickly hid the diary, and moved to the tent flap to peek outside.
A crowd was shoving its way over, the air thick with the stink of alcohol, sweat, and cheap tobacco.
“You’re sure this really fell from the sky?”
“You think there’s magic on it?”
“If it were magic, you think it’d let you pick it up?”
“I mean city magic. Ever been to Fifth Avenue? There’s a man there who stuffed lightning into a glass ball… At night it’s bright as day!”
“Stuffed lightning into a glass ball—that’s just a gas lamp, isn’t it?”
“Idiot, I’m talking about electric lights. Way fancier than those crappy gas lamps!”
Electric lighting really had started spreading around 1888.
So she truly was in the late nineteenth century.
Good. Bo Li let out a silent breath of relief. If she’d landed in the Middle Ages, with arsenic face powder and leeches for “whitening,” she might have chosen death on the spot.
The next moment, she caught a clear look at what they were holding, and her eyes flew wide.
Wait—that was her hiking backpack.
What?
She’d crossed over into the body of this girl in boys’ clothing, and her backpack had crossed with her.
Did that mean…she might still be able to go back?
In the darkness, the crowd clustered around the campfire, carefully examining her pack.