I am biologically impossible. Yes, you read that right. Impossible. Hi. I'm Paz Alisdair-Bowen. I am a figment of my parents' imagination.
It started- well, I started- on February 13th, 1912. We were in Cairo, posted in the sand between the city and the river. That is to say, we were on a boat. My parents, having successfully passed on the Circus to Poppet, Widget and Bailey, were monopolizing the Frame.
The space was their favorite. It was a small, not-quite tent. When you enter, it is pitch-black. You stand in the chill, waiting for something to happen, and then there's a flash of white light, and you find yourself in limbo. Exactly where you wanted to be most, frozen exactly as you remember. The effect is like walking through a picture.
It was Bailey's first tent. He made it for my parents on Celia's birthday. Their room is Celia's version of their first kiss. It is a soft orb of moss green flushed with streaks of fire, burning and warm. Marco's version is much more focused. An endless beach of green, with pink sand and fire along the horizon. Sunrise.
They were resting in the pool of moss velvet, Marco on his back and Celia with her head on his chest.
"Do you ever wonder what our children would be like?"
"No"
Marco said nothing.
"I know what our kids would be like. Our daughter, named Paz Alisdair-Bowen, has long brown hair. She has strong brows and blue eyes. Her favorite tent is the Menagerie, and she follows Widget around like a puppy. She's convinced herself she wants to be a writer."
Marco smiled. "Dear heart, you're right, she does quite like Widget, but her favorite tent is the Cloud Maze."
Oh, shut up, you two. My favorite is the Bell Tower and you know it.
It went on from there, snatches of ideas. They tell each other stories about me. The time I decided to run for American president, the time I invented a cocktail, the time I broke the Stargazer. Celia to Marco when he's sad. Marco to Celia when she's jealous or lonely. And now, eight years later, I am an imaginary ten-year-old, living in the middle of a magical circus.
They said I liked Widget, but not really. Uncle Widge is nice, but he's kind of goofy and he's nosy. I follow him around because he sees me. You know, like a proper, solid human being. I ask him questions and he answers, he relates my messages to my parents.
Uncle Widget's gift is to see stories. It makes sense that, of anyone, he sees me. But Widge doesn't think anyone will believe him if he tells them I'm real. In this wonderful, impossible place, I guess he knows where the line is. It's kind of a pain to have to send all of my messages through him. Especially hard when I see that my parents are sad, or angry with each other. I can't talk to them, not in real life. I try.
Hey, Uncle Widge!
"Yes, Paz?"
Tell them I love them. Tell them it wasn't their fault, that magic happens to everyone. Tell them I exist, please.
He groans. "Paz, you know I can't do that. As much as they love you, you're a story. I think, for today, at least, we should let them shape how you grow up."
I huff. Fine.
"Remember when she painted the Eiffel Tower? (by the way, they mean taking a paintbrush and ACTUALLY PUTTING PAINT ON THE EIFFEL TOWER. It didn't come off until the following January.)
"Oh, yes. Remember, she only told us when she asked us what color she preferred!"
"And the one about the neighbors baby in the fashion show?"
"Tell me that one, please."
(They do this a lot. Make up things they remember. I always sit in. They never see me.)
"Well, she was seven, I think."
"Yes. Just after her birthday."
"Where were we?"
"Istanbul."
"Thanks. Anyway, she was in Ethan's studio, with Claire. She kept insisting that her real name was Emmarie, and she belonged in Abuja."
Not true. I said Stockholm.
"Mm. She walked right in and said, 'Uncle Ethan, Auntie Tara, this is Emmarie. You didn't hold her baby shower right, so we're going to do it over. Expect your invitations.'"
"Oh, yes! With the headband and the imports!"
Some nights I keep the Frame. I walk through that first memory, over and over again. My beginning. The green velvet with fire on the horizon. No one really notices. The Frame is one of those tents that disappears, falling in and out of the circle in odd cycles.
Those nights, I walk through the party, their first kiss. I see the act. The mesh of his fingers in her hair, her slim arms around his hips. I watch the bleed of his moss green into her dark grey. This is the power of the Frame. I can walk through anything, any moment. I can live anything. I don't know why I visit their first kiss. All it does is hurt. I pretend to myself that I watch it to know that if I was a proper, flesh-bones-blood girl, I would be loved. Because I would be them. Half him, half her. I think I really watch it because I'm not half him, half her. I am the Circus. And they are part of it, so they are part of me. I can never be a flesh-bones-blood kind of girl. I'm just a story.
Like a book traded between writers, I am steadily shaped, but never quite real. But I control my pages, and I can write my story. I will. Promise.