BNZG

“Mimi?” The small voice startled her, making her head swirl away from her little jenga-domino line on the wooden part of her floor, brown eyes immediately landing on the small toddler in green and white undone overalls, wringing the hem of his pudding-stained white shirt. His big brown eyes that matched her own hue were glistening with unshed tears as he sniffled wetly; the chubby cherubic face looking at her turning pink. “Zach? Wha-oop!” She stumbled a bit when the toe of her polka-dotted socked foot accidentally brushed against one of the jenga blocks, sending the whole, unfinished domino line careening forward; all her work knocked down from one careless nudge. She sucked her teeth in irritation at witnessing her entire creative line go down just when she was only twenty more pieces away but upon seeing the wet streaks upon her brother’s face, her effort suddenly didn’t matter as much anymore as she walked up to her two-and-a-half year old brother. She let out an

Chapter 2: Never Liked Change Minnie could probably count on one hand all the things truly belonged to her and her alone. And of those things, only two of them truly held sentimental value. One of them was her little plush and worn out owl, Booker. Her fifth birthday had fallen on a rainy school day, so her father picked her up early from school and took her to Safari Land out of the blue. Despite neither having some of her school friends with her nor her mother who was too heavily pregnant to join in on the main fun, she had nothing but fun riding the little, looping roller coaster, chowing down on a disgusting amount of pizza, and going around and around in circles in the tilt-a-whirl, laughing all the way as she crashed into her dad’s side when the ride went backwards. She had been mildly disappointed that there hadn’t been any teacups; her father knew how to turn the dial really hard to get it spinning fast. At some point before they would leave, her father took her

Chapter 1: Simple Matters Minerva, or “Minnie” as she had been called for as long as she could remember, had been eight years old for all of three weeks when it had happened. And yet, she remembered it so vividly, it might as well have been yesterday. She had been dreaming of riding a unicycle to school. As far as her dreams normally went, it was fairly mundane and believable. After all, only a week before, her parents had taken her and her brother to the circus after she had practically begged them all week, promising to keep her grades up if she did. And when she kept her part of the bargain, they happily delivered. The carnival was in town, and it would only be there for a week give or take, so her parents took her on a windy, April day on the cusp of noon. It would be the first time she’d witness a spectacle. Riding upon her father’s broad shoulders, she had been entranced the moment she stepped into the red and white striped Big Top, the billowing tent filled with

Prologue: Small Victories “Down at the English Fair, one evening I was there… When I heard a showman shouting underneath the flair…” The song her father used to sing to her back when she was just a gaped-toothed child was now her sole anchor keeping the ever rising panic at bay, if just barely. A silly little diddley playing in her head that barely drowned out the loud churning of her heart. Minnie was finding it painfully difficult to hold her breath as long as she currently was, the smallest inhales and exhales let out in small puffs between the gaps of the hand clamped on her mouth as she tried to steady the trembling of her other arm against the crumbling, navy-blue wall what was left of what was probably a small clinic long ago, judging from the torn and tattered paintings and certificates that littered whatever was left of the floor. Her body was pushed to its extremities, adrenaline pumping through her veins and her vision tunneling as her eyes trained on the opening of