With the midsummer heat, night in the wagon was tortuous. The sheets twisted around his useless left arm, clung to his skin, damp with sweat. He tried to remind himself that this was still better than sleeping outside like the handlers did. Now that he was a clown, he had a bed of his own. He had half a wagon, shared with his new mentor. He even had more than one set of clothes, and a closet to hang the extras in.

But why did the sheets have to cling so much?

"Can't sleep again?" The wagon was dark, but the voice was so familiar he felt like he could see the speaker anyway.

"…no."

"Would you like it if I told you a story, then?"

"…okay."

The voice chuckled, and he heard a match strike on the other side of the wagon. A small flame blazed to life, and he watched as it bobbed its way into a lantern hanging from the ceiling of the wagon. The lantern lit, and gradually, his eyes adjusted.

Mana snuffed out the match and returned to his bed. Allen's mentor looked so different without the clown makeup on. Where Mana the clown was almost as wide as he was tall, Mana the man was thin and lanky, like a crane whose wings had been clipped.

"What should I tell you about tonight," Mana mused. "'The Pirates of Denmark'? No, I told you about them last week, didn't I? How about 'A Rooster in the Hen Yard'? Or maybe you're a little too young for that one, I suppose. Do you know 'Three Fish for Farmer Brown'?"

Allen nodded. "You told me that one on Monday."

"Well, then, Allen, you've just about cleaned me out. I don't know if I have any new stories I can tell you. Maybe I should just tell one of the old ones again. Or…."

Allen propped himself up on his elbow. "Or?"

Mana was muttering softly, as if debating with himself. He shook his head sharply, and then his eyes pinched shut. Allen couldn't tell in the faint glow of the single lamp, but he almost thought he saw a tear on Mana's cheek.

"I suppose I've never told you about the two brothers, have I?"

Allen shook his head silently.

"Well then. I don't know if I've ever told anyone about the two brothers. I met them, once. A long time ago, a long way from here. It was a different time, then. The world was a different place.

"The brothers were, oh, maybe twice as old as you are know, when one of them got sick. Almost died, truth be told. He was in bed for more than a week. Almost a fortnight. And every night, he screamed like a banshee, like Hell was coming at his heels and it was all he could do to outrun it for a couple more steps.

"The older brother, he did everything he could to help the sick one. He brought cold towels. He fed his brother three times a day. Helped him force down thin gruel, the only think he could eat, so sick as he was. He was sure, the older brother was, that the younger one would die. It was just a matter of time. But until that time came, the older brother would do everything he could to help the younger.

"And then a curious thing happened. In the course of one night, the sickness vanished. But it left the younger brother changed. Not like he was before. He was darker, now. Crueler, in a way – but not to his brother. Not to the one who nursed him through the sickness. And pretty soon after, a man came to see the younger brother.

"Now Allen, you ain't never seen anything like this man. He was round as a ball, and he had a smile wider 'n a barnhouse door. He wore himself a top hat as tall as your waist, and little beady glasses that he kept perched on his nose. The smiling man, he came and he took the younger brother away. But he didn't understand what the two brothers meant to each other.

"For a little while, the younger brother forgot his older brother. He found a new family, of a sort, with the smiling man. The younger brother met other people like him, people who were mean and cruel. So, they were all mean and cruel together. They went around hurting people, sometimes even killing them, and they never thought twice about any of it.

"But although the younger brother might have forgotten his old family, the older brother never forgot about him. The older one, he came looking. At first, he didn't know where to look. Then, once he found out where, the older brother was too scared at first. But eventually, he conquered his fear and the older one set out to find his brother.

"The younger brother's new family didn't take kindly to this intrusion. They caught the older brother, and they tried to hurt him. But when he saw his older brother being hurt, the younger one came back to himself. He abandoned the new family he'd found with the smiling man, and he and his brother escaped.

"'cept the thing is, the smiling man, he never lets go of something once he's got it. He and his family didn't take it kindly when the two brothers escaped, and they set AK… set dogs on 'em, trying to hunt the two brothers down. So the two brothers ran, and they hid, for as long as they could."

Mana fell silent, and when Allen looked at him, the older man had his eyes closed. Allen glared at him. No way. Had Mana really fallen asleep in the middle of a story?

"So," Allen said waspishly. "What happened to them, then?"

Mana sighed, hanging his head. "They died."

Allen felt like a hammer had hit him in the stomach. That wasn't how Mana's stories were supposed to end. What was wrong with him tonight?

"But… but you said you met them, right?" Allen didn't really believe Mana had met them. He didn't really believe any such people existed. It was just another one of Mana's tall tales, like when he said he'd caught a fish the size of Rickard, the strongman. But Allen wanted Mana to make the story end happy, like he always did. "You can't have met them if they died, right? So maybe they're still out there somewhere?"

"No." Mana's voice was flat and cold. "I met them when they were on the run. But they're long dead now. I know. …I saw them die."

Allen pushed himself further beneath the covers, no longer minding the heat. Somehow, he felt suddenly cold. "I don't like this story, Mana."

"We don't always get to choose our stories, Allen. Not every story has a happy ending. I'm sorry." For a moment, Allen had the nagging feeling that Mana's apology was meant for someone else.

"Well… no more stories tonight. I'm going back to bed." Allen tugged the sheet up to his neck with his left hand. It was still damp from his sweat, but Allen found the feel of it oddly comforting.

Mana smiled at him. "Okay, Kiddo. Sorry for the story. Maybe tomorrow I'll tell you the one about 'The Secret Alphabet'?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever. But not tonight."

Mana ran a gentle hand through Allen's hair. Then, quietly, he blew out the candle and returned to bed.