When Lana's eyes opened, she could still hear ringing. At first she thought someone was ringing an alarm bell. Then she realized it was coming from inside her head. She could barely hear the commotion around her.

She was lying on Mitch's cot in the horse train car. Outside the open doors, she could see that the big top was down, and the crew was working to pack everything up. She started to sit up, but laid back down when her head swam and bile rose up in her throat.

Shortly, Mitch came in leading two of the white show horses. He smiled when he saw that she was awake, and hurried to put the horses in their stalls before rushing to her side and taking up her hand.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"A little dizzy," she admitted. "How long does it usually take to heal?"

"It depends on the injury. Your head was smashed in completely. Extremities heal faster."

She sat up when he said that. "How is Felix?"

Mitch shrugged. "Haven't seen him."

"I saw him... he was decapitated."

"Oh." Mitch winced. "That's rough. He'll be out for a while. Actually, a lot of the performers will be out for a while; which is probably why we're packing up and moving."

"But he'll still heal? From decapitation?"

"Sure. Why not?"

Lana thought about those horror movies Freddy would bring her to. It was the first time she'd thought about Freddy in what felt like a long time. In those movies, decapitation was often the best way to kill a supernatural creature so that they wouldn't come back to life.

Lana lay back down. "Last night was the scariest thing I've ever experienced."

Mitch rubbed her hand. "You were lucky."

"I was so afraid that something truly awful was going to happen to me. I can't imagine... I can't imagine living through some of the things I saw."

"It's all part of the show. All part of being here."

She looked at him. "Do you want to leave here?"

"You give me a reason to stay."

"You would want to stay someplace where these awful things happen?" Lana pressed. "You would want to stay where those things could happen to me?"

Mitch sighed. "I don't want them to happen to you. But see, you're fine now. And we're together." He squeezed her hand.

"What if there's someplace better? Someplace where we don't get lit on fire or eaten by wild animals or decapitated every night?"

Instead of answering, Mitch ran his thumb over her knuckles, then turned her hand over and traced the lines on her palm. She watched him, admired the way the early morning light hit the planes of his face and set his skin glowing. His fingers moved up, traced the inside of her arm along the sensitive skin there. At the top he leaned forward and kissed her shoulder. Then he looked up at her.

"I love you," he said.

She wasn't sure what to say. Her feelings for Mitch were intense, but it had only been a matter of days. How could she say she loved him back?

He leaned forward suddenly and kissed her mouth, hard, grabbing her face in his hands. His fingers twined into her hair. He pulled back. His eyes were warm and passionate. "I love you," he repeated. "And if that means I have to stay here together to be with you, I will. I will endure any torture just to see your face every morning."

It was a romantic notion to be sure, and she wanted to respond in kind. But her brain wouldn't stop. Perhaps it was the fact that she had just endured a kind of torture, and wasn't sure she wanted to keep enduring it if there was a chance for heaven. Her brain told her that Mitch's love wouldn't stop the pain when her head was inevitably crushed again.

"What's the worst thing you've experienced since you've been here?" she asked.

He nudged her until she moved over in the bed, and only after he had her in his arms and the length of his body pressed against hers did he speak again. "I have been here a long time," he began. "I have experienced every form of death you could imagine. Once, a tiger ripped off my arm and I bled to death. Once, Rooney held my face in a tub of water until I drowned. Countless times I have been kicked in the head by a horse, and burned to death." He gazed at her. "Burning is the worst. All of your nerve endings on fire, and you can't breathe, and it goes on and on and on."

"And you could endure that for me," she said without a question mark.

"I could."

Lana looked down at the fraying collar of his shirt. "Yesterday you didn't even want to be involved with me."

"It's a new day," he said. "And just to remind you, yesterday you were the one convincing me to be with you. We have forever here, you said."

She remembered like it was so far away. Maybe it was. Time here seemed funny. Charly thought barely a year had passed, when it was actually almost fifty years. Who knew how many years had passed since her own death.

"After last night, I'm not sure I want to stay here forever."

"Trust me, that pain is a small price to pay," Mitch said. "You won't be killed every night. You won't suffer long even if you do."

Lana felt her face look at him doubtfully.

"Also, you don't exactly have a choice."

This made Lana giggle.

Mitch rose up on one elbow. "As much as I'd love to stay here with you, there's work to be done," he said. "How's your head now?"

"I don't know..." She sat up, and didn't feel any dizziness. Testing, she shook her head. "Good as new."

"Great," Mitch said, dropping a kiss on her forehead. "Then you can help."

***

Lana felt one hundred percent better after taking a bath and putting on her old jeans and flannel shirt. Amazingly, she felt like she had developed more muscle – she felt stronger, somehow. In a place where you couldn't die, didn't have to eat or sleep, and healed from fatal wounds overnight, could you become stronger? It didn't seem possible, but there it was. The newfound strength in her arms made her feel like she could arm wrestle the circus strongman and win.

She arrived at the horse car as Bettina was directing Mitch on the correct way to wrap a horse's legs for travel. The petite woman simply glared at her when she arrived on scene. "Oh, you're back," Bettina said.

"What still needs to be done?" Lana asked. She felt too good after her bath to rise to Bettina's bait. She was tired of all the drama.

"They're finishing up with the work horses now," Bettina said. "They'll need to be hosed off and dried and wrapped. Also, Mercury took a shit all over his horse blanket. Why don't you start by cleaning that off. It needs to be pristine. That's his show blanket."

She lifted an eyebrow as if daring Lana to complain. Lana didn't. She gathered up Mercury's blanket, found a brush, and brought it to the hose so she could start cleaning it.

Bettina returned to her trunk, where she was packing her costumes and riding gear.

Mitch brought Mercury over while he wrapped the black mare's legs. "Feeling better?"

"Much."

"You know, you still ought to work on your act," Mitch said.

"My act? I thought I was doing pretty good up on the web."

"That's not your act," Mitch said. "That's one of Rooney's acts, window dressing, basically. An act is a showstopper. You, alone, in the spotlight. You, alone, getting the applause."

"My trick riding, then, you mean."

"When you say 'trick riding', it sounds so... trivial."

"How about my equestrian act." Lana used a fake British accent. They both laughed.

"What your act is properly called is a voltige act."

"What? I've never heard that word before."

"I told you I've been around a long time. And I've been around horses even longer than that." Mitch stood and stretched his back. "What Bettina does, mostly, is what is called a liberty act. That means the horses are not ridden. They are loose in the ring and she signals them to move in patterns. She does do a little bareback riding as part of her act, but nothing like what you do."

"Voltige," Lana said, trying out the word.

"I'm sure if you can get a good set of clean tricks, a full act, and you approach Rooney, he'll add you in."

"Really? He could just add me in, just like that?"

"There's always room for one more act. Especially if someone else moves on."

Lana grinned. "Will Bettina spare old Snowflake for my act?"

"Probably not."

Shadows grew long and the sun was setting behind cotton candy pink clouds by the time the train was fully packed and ready to go. Lana hung off the door, looking out at the field. As always, the field was a bright circle, and beyond the edges was a dim area that faded into dark. She felt like she should have been able to see far beyond... nothing existed there now, not anymore. She swung into the train car.

The whistle blew, signaling departure.

Lana could have gone up to the car where the performers slept, passed the time with Charly, Olga, Mimi, and Grace, but Mitch was here.

All she had was the here and now.

"Tell me something about your life," she said lightly, sitting down beside him on his cot.

"My life," he repeated. Lana knew he was waiting for clarification – his life here in the circus, or his life before.

"I want to know... about your time."

"My time. Before."

"Yes."

"I told you, I ran away with the circus when I was fourteen."

"Yes, but..." She couldn't verbalize what she wanted to know. Specifically, she wanted to know how long ago he had died. But more than that, she just wanted to know what his life had been like.

"How about this," Mitch said. "How about you tell me about your life?"

Suddenly Lana saw why this was so difficult. How do you sum up your entire life?

In the intimate darkness of the train car hurtling through time and space, she tried.