Chapter 1: Unimaginable
A date. A date. Raz was going on a date.
Why was this so strange to him? He'd been on dates before. And they'd all been with Lili, so it wasn't like he had to make a lasting first impression. What about this particular date was making him so...tense?
He looked at himself in the mirror. He tried to smooth out the twist in his bangs, but they stuck up, refusing to quite lay even with the rest of his chin-length hair in the front. He tried to sneakily downplay this by wearing his goggles everywhere. Could he wear goggles on a date? Raz felt like a girl, but none of his clothes seemed right. Did he need to look nice, because it was a date? Was it better to be casual because they were going to the circus?
The circus. That was probably part of why Raz was freaking out so bad. He saw Lili off and on throughout the year. He saw his father off and on throughout the year. He saw them at the same time...never. They'd met once, but that was four years ago; he'd been stressed, and she'd been, well, ten. Neither one of them had probably made a lasting first impression on each other. And almost immediately, all three of them had set off again.
Raz scowled, and the mirror scowled with him. The clock on his dresser indicated that he was running out of time to make a decision, so grabbing at his backpack, he just stuck with what he was wearing: his thick, dark green Psychonauts turtleneck (outrageously baggy on him - he'd gotten a good bit taller but no less scrawny, and he had to get a size too big just so it came down far enough on his torso), a beat-up pair of jeans with sizeable holes in the knees, his regular boots, and yes, the goggles. You never knew when you were going to need goggles for more than just stylish headgear. Lili would probably get a little snippy with the sweater, and make some jab about him continuing to rub his Psychonaut status in her face, but his dad always liked to see him wear it. Raz liked to think it made him proud, just a little.
He locked the door to his tiny two-room apartment in the RMPH facility behind him as he left, shouldered his backpack, and levitated up into the air, heading off in the general direction of the circus grounds that his father had pointed him toward, where he was going to meet up with Lili for his date.
Raz Aquato was going on a date.
But he was a psychic, and he had a really bad feeling about this.
-xxx-
As Raz descended back to the ground from over the spread of three vast, brightly-colored tents, he had to admit that there were less cool things his family could do for a living.
The main tent was red, white, and yellow stripes, a beacon of circusiness that couldn't be ignored, even in the early-summer-evening light that was almost dusk, but not quite. The smaller sky blue tent for the pony rides and dark green one for the refreshments and carnival games sat on either side of it. Raz could smell popcorn, snow cones, and elephants. He could hear the shouts of kids and the whining of an accordion. The closer he got to the ground, the more details he could pick out among the crowds: the huge pens for the elephants and tigers, the messy train of caravan wagons that hid themselves neatly behind the tents, the cotton-candy vendor who'd given him his first comic book - and there, standing by the entrance to the main tent, as much a contradiction as always in a floppy pink dress and black-and-white striped tights, trying not to fidget, was Lili.
He landed behind her and clapped his hands over her eyes, grinning.
"You big dork, you act like I'd actually have to guess. I am a psychic you know."
"I know," he teased. "But now I've totally messed up your makeup."
She gasped, then growled a little in irritation, and he circled around to face her, laughing. "That's not funny, Raz!"
"Sure it is," he said. "Now you'll just have to take it off. And that is exactly how I like you." He smiled again, genuinely this time, and tried not to laugh again as he felt the gears in her mind struggle with whether or not she could stay mad at him.
"I'm gonna wipe it on your dumb sweater," she said finally, but she didn't. She just pulled a tissue and a small mirror out of her purse and tried to make the best of it.
Rummaging in her bag made Raz notice it. "Hey, lemme see!" He put a hand on her shoulder, tugging the strap of her purse away from her body a little, and he ran his finger down each and every Whispering Rock merit badge, all in a neat row. Once he got to the bottom, he traced back up to the bluish-green one for invisibility, lingering there.
"Yeah, finally," Lili said after a minute. "Milla said she thinks the reason it took me so long is that I'm so 'confident' or 'bold' or whatever. And that that makes it harder for me to...disappear."
"Y'know, that makes a lot of sense," said Raz, using the strap to tug her closer. He hooked a skinny arm around her shoulders and guided her along with him, toward the entrance to the red, white and yellow tent. "Now c'mon, I hear the drums, and that means it's about to start!"
The two of them walked side by side across the circus grounds, getting swept into the stream of people that were all trying to funnel into the opening in the tent. When they reached the entrance a tall, heavy woman scowled down at them, asking for tickets, but Raz just smiled up at her from underneath his goggles, and once she recognized him she waved them through. He and Lili squirmed through the crowded aisles until they reached the edge of the stage, then headed around the ring to the right until they found a couple of empty seats in the front row.
"It's really loud!" Lili tried to shout, over the din of the crowd and the big top band.
Good thing I don't need to hear your voice, then, Raz thought at her, and she rolled her eyes, but she smiled.
Suddenly, the main lights went down in the tent, and the stage lights shone brighter, particularly one spot that pointed down at a short, round man in an insanely tall stovepipe hat. Raz assumed he was the ringmaster, but he didn't recognize him; he and his pinstripes must be new. Sure enough, a microphone dropped down from the darkened canopy of the tent, bounced off his tall hat, and landed right in his outstretched hand, and he began to introduce the performance in a reedy old-man voice that didn't match his rotund figure.
"Gentlemen, ladies, boys, girls, everyone," he began, gesturing grandly in a vague circle around himself, "please allow me to put before you, in yet another one of their remarkable performances of daring feats and fantastical displays, the F-Z-A Cirque Extraordinaire!"
"We're the 'A,'" Raz murmured to Lili. "The Fs are the clowns and the Zs are the animal act."
"Some of the things you will see here tonight are things that you have never seen before, and things that you may never see again! Prepare to be shocked, wowed, and amazed by the magnificent things that will occur in this ring!"
Raz rolled his eyes and slouched down into his seat a little further, gangly legs extending out into the empty space in front of them. "Yeah, yeah, we know," he said to himself. "All ringmaster babble sounds the same."
"Shh!" said Lili, not even looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on the man in front of them in rapt attention. Her legs had curled up under her chair a little and she wasn't blinking much.
That's when it hit him: Lili had never been to a circus before.
Smiling faintly to himself, Raz stopped making his little side comments, and tried to bring himself to care about everything the ringmaster was saying before the Farradays, the clown family, wheeled out in their tiny orange car and started going to town. Every time Raz came back to the circus, there seemed to be more of them, but their little car never got any bigger. Eight garishly dressed and face-painted clowns poured out of the vehicle, along with any crazed number of creme pies, squirting bottles and flowers, pogo sticks, colorful silk scarves, air horns, and absolutely anything you could juggle. The bowling ball was new. Raz gave into the infectious laughter and found himself giggling at things that weren't even funny any more after he'd seen them so many times. Lili, in the seat next to him, remained totally transfixed.
"Hey, Lili? They're clowns," he said, poking her in the side. "You're supposed to laugh."
"Oh my god, shut up!" said Lili, swatting his hand away. But at least he'd gotten her to say something, and hopefully she'd snap out of it soon.
By the time all eight Farradays were in a state of comical disarray, and the oldest daughter had managed to spin eighty-five hula hoops at once (not a world record, but pretty impressive nonetheless), the popcorn vendor - a handsome, if chubby gentleman by the name of Otto - had looped around past them. Raz waved him over and was handed a small box of it free of charge. Almost mechanically, Lili reached into it and withdrew a handful without a word. The acts in the ring still had her memorized - because by now, the Zotzkys and their parade of animals had come snaking into the tent. The women of the family were up front, guiding or riding on the huge African elephants. Some of them even spun around and danced on the animals' backs, sequined outfits shimmering in the spotlights. Behind them came the family's men and the four glossy tigers.
"Tigers?" Lili gasped, eyes going impossibly wider. "Real tigers?"
"This is a circus, Lili," Raz said, but if she heard him she didn't let on.
Carl and Remy Zotzky coached the tigers across beams and through hoops. They had them standing on their hind legs and doing somersaults. In Raz's slack hand, the popcorn box was almost empty, and he hadn't eaten much of it himself. But by then, even Raz was getting absorbed into the performance, no matter how many times he had seen it before.
Because soon, his family was coming out.
As the tigers danced out of the ring, the round little ringmaster proudly announced the Aquato Family Flyers, and unless Raz was imagining it, Lili's hypnotized eyes started to shine a little bit brighter. Soon a lone figure was taking his place in the center of the ring: Raz's oldest brother, Finn.
Raz knew this act backwards and forwards. The theme of it was the hours in the day. Finn, to start off with, represented daybreak. His whole part of it was floor and trampoline stunts, lots of it just as slow and majestic as any sunrise. He moved with the rolling, lumbering grace of a bear, doing too many handsprings in a row to count, balancing perfectly on the tips of one hand's fingers, jumping higher off solid ground than a regular person should be able to. When he finally took to the trampoline, he got crazy amounts of air - and applause.
With one final trampoline leap, he was snatched up by the wrists and tossed off into the depths of the back of the tent (there was a net there, Raz knew, but it looked pretty impressive for him to just disappear like that) by Adrian, one of the twins that were the next youngest after Raz himself. Adrian, in his bright blue costume, and Dimitri in bright green, represented midday. They flew across the arena raucously on their trapezes, flipping and spinning in a way that looked almost careless, like they knew nothing would happen to them at all. Their mischievous natures were not at all concealed in their performance, and at least once they threw brightly colored confetti into the audience. (Raz couldn't help but notice that a yellow square of paper got stuck in Lili's hair in a way that was really cute.) They really did look like dragonflies flitting around in the bright sun on a hot summer's day.
Soon, though, they too vanished from the ring, and Raz's oldest sibling and only sister, Calliope, appeared on the tightrope to indicate dusk. Her dress was a soft, flowing twilight purple, swirled through with sunset pink and orange and speckled with little white beads that seemed to light up like stars. If they weren't so...genetically related, Raz would probably have been less hesitant to admit that Cal was pretty much gorgeous. She danced across the tightrope with almost frightening grace and ease - like any prima ballerina would on the ground, but almost fifty feet up instead, and on the thinnest of wires. Even some of the squalling children in the audience fell silent with awe, and Lili next to him was almost paralyzed.
As Cal danced, the lights in the big top started to dim, but she kept swirling across, even as it became harder and harder to see. When she finally dismounted she was just barely visible, and only by the light reflecting off her beaded outfit. Raz applauded with the rest of them, but inside, he was almost glad that her part of the act was over, because now that the ring was pitch-black, it was "midnight" - and time for his father's fire-wielding routine, back on the ground, where the flames of his torches and poi would be adequate to light everything up. He was positively grinning as Cal reached the ground again.
And then, right before Raz's eyes, the lights came back up, and the fat ringmaster was back on the stage, announcing the performance's end.
The crowd gave a standing ovation - not least of all Lili, who had leapt to her feet and was applauding furiously, shouting her amazement at absolutely everything. The only person who remained seated was Raz himself, utterly dumbfounded.
Where was his father?
He stayed frozen there even as people started to mill out of the tent.
"Oh my god, Raz, why didn't you tell me it was going to be so amazing?" Lili gushed, waving her arms for emphasis. "Those guys, with the tigers - and that one clown, the really tall one with the green nose? Oh my god. And your sister, she's beautiful! What kinda genes did she get, because - hey, what's up?"
"My dad," Raz finally croaked. "My dad wasn't there."
"Oh," said Lili. "Yeah, I was wondering if he was going to show up. I guess not, though, sorry. Maybe he just wasn't in this one."
"No," said Raz, regaining his voice. "My dad's in every show. It was really obvious that his part of the act was missing - well, to me anyway..."
"Huh. Well maybe he's not feeling good, or something."
"No," he said more forcefully. "You're not getting this, Lili. My dad is in every show. Even when he's sick, or if he pulls something doing his contortionist stuff, my dad pushes himself through the act. He's never missed a performance."
The severity was starting to sink in with Lili. "Never?"
"Never."
"...Something's going on, isn't it?" she asked him, but it wasn't really a question.
"Yeah," said Raz. "Something is seriously going on."