A cow tried to kick me in the head before the sun was even up on the day the acrobats came to Wiston. It sort of set the tone.

I'm not saying they were bad acrobats. Far from it. I was struck as dumb watching them as I would have been if the cow had had better aim. I wanted nothing more as I gawped at the four of them climbing, dancing, leaping, flipping, contorting, whatever-ing -- nothing more than to someday be one of them.

Oops.

I should have looked at their ears before I started wanting things in front of them. Isn't hindsight the best ever?

I went back home after the show. It wasn't far; they had set up their giant blue and yellow striped tent right on top of the remains of our corn maze. From our porch, I watched the tent go down and the harvest moon come up.

They came for me after dark. Ma and Pa and the littles were all asleep. Not me, though. Out on the roof, counting stars. I have no idea what I could have been thinking.

Her footsteps were soft as spiderwebs. "Mind some company?" she said, in a voice like a tiny, silver bell. She was shorter than me (which is saying something), and her face was thin like a fox and her hair was golden-white and pulled back into a bun and I saw the points of her ears and the shape of her eyes and I knew I was doomed.

But all I said was, "Suit yourself." I might have tugged on my dress a little. It's a nervous thing. I want to cover my knees when I get anxious. No, I don't know why either.

She sat next to me. She smelled like starlight and broken promises and journeys of a thousand miles and more. How the hell does a person get to smell that way? Of course, she wasn't precisely a person. She didn't say anything, just sat with me and looked at the sky.

A huff and a grunt announced the second one, a round little man (well...) with a beard long enough to trip on. Exactly as I thought that, he tripped on it and went rolling down the shingles in a ball of hair and limbs. "Whoop!" he said, as he caught himself by the toes on the gutter. A moment later he had swung himself up and, with another huff and grunt, bounded to the top of our chimney. He sat there on -- or possibly just slightly above -- the squirrel-catcher, with his legs crossed and his hands on his knees, intoning some kind of mantra.

The third one brought a picnic. He laid it out across the peak of the roof. Pots of honey and jam, thick yellow butter, bread still crackling from the oven. Bottles of amber wine. A vase of flowers. He bowed to me with a simper and held me out a plate.

You would think I would know better than to eat. Right? Well. It smelled good. I was hungry. Same old story.

I was so busy with the bread that I didn't notice the last of them. A girl, like me. Maybe younger. She even looked like me, a little, except for the eyes and the ears. She was the first to speak, after we had all eaten our fill.

"Father misses you," she said.

"My father is asleep under your ass."

"You know what I mean," she said. The fellow with the beard poked a fork under her butt and tried to use it to lever her up. She snatched it away from him. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for daddy," he said, with a laugh.

"You aren't funny," said the one who had laid out the food. "And the hour grows late." He wrung his hands together. "We are expected. We ought to be going." He would not look at me. "If you will, my lords," he added, after a moment.

"And ladies," said the woman who smelled of starlight. He didn't look at her either.

"What if I don't want to?" I asked no-one in particular.

"The worlds turn as they will," said the woman.

"A debt, owed, must be paid," said the girl. "Think of the consequences if you were to refuse. You want to stay because you are happy here. You have grown to love them. Well, think of them first, rather than yourself."

She had a point. I ran anyway.

I think I surprised them, because I was off the roof and halfway across the lawn before I heard the sounds of pursuit. I danced away across the tips of the new-cut grass, even as I knew myself a fool for doing so.

They were so fast.

The picnic-bringer caught my arm as I came to the little white picket fence that divided the yard from the dirt drive. I raked my other hand across his wrist, letting my nails be claws because I wasn't thinking and I just wanted to hurt him. He jerked back and hissed at me, all sharp teeth and anger, all pretense of servility or even politeness vanished. He swiped again but I already had my foot on the cross-beam of the fence and I leapt into the sky and I let out my wings.

So, what is that now, three mistakes? Four? I have lost count.

I don't know where I was going. It was already too late to go back. I would never go home again. Not to this home. Ma and Pa would -- the littles would -- I couldn't bear to think of it. Never seeing them again. They would never understand. I could hope that Ma and Pa might at least remember, remember the bargain they had made all those childless years ago, and maybe they would not grieve as hard. But really, who was I kidding.

I turned around, banked long and slow through the cool of the night, and around again, and again. Just flying in circles, letting the wind dry the tears from my cheeks.

After a while, five circles, ten circles, a thousand circles, the woman joined me. I remembered her name. I didn't want to say it, or even think it. But I knew it and I knew I knew it. And I knew I knew I knew. You get the picture. All of my fooling-myself days were over.

I was myself again. I knew how far she must have come to find me. How long would be our journey home, to the courts of my father. How perilous the way.

How long I would there remain. Until I was content to dance the dances. Until I had forgotten this girl, this dress, these anxious knees. Until Wiston and Ma and Pa and the littles were lost to the mists of ancient memory.

Then I could come back. Just as soon as I didn't want to anymore. As soon as I had nothing to return to.

Just like now. Almost like now.

"Ready?" said the woman. My mother. All right? She's my mother. And her name is Selene. Ok?

"No," I said. But I went anyway.