her from sousednia, but she clung to the neighboring reality as Grandfather swung open the door. Two people stumbled inside, Aunt Benedikta shutting the door behind them with barely a sound. Metal creaked as Celka’s older cousin Demian lifted his dark lantern’s shutter, releasing the barest sliver of light, enough to make out the newcomers’ haggard faces.
Kicking up a breeze beneath sousednia’s big top to draw the newcomers’ scents toward her, Celka inhaled deeply through her nose. Sousednia was a space of needs and ideas, and Pa had taught her to use it to understand truths otherwise hidden. The newcomers carried the stink of unwashed bodies and a chill, earthy damp that made Celka want to curl in on herself. She managed not to react to their terror, instead leaving her true-life body behind and closing the distance between them in sousednia.
In the railcar, low voices spoke words that didn’t matter, innocuous enough to be code. The real code lay in hand signals. The gaunt newcomer rubbed their knuckles while the stockier one just doubled over their knees, wheezing. Grandfather straightened the collar of his nightshirt.
Close to the newcomers’ smoke-forms in sousednia, Celka inhaled the tang of turnips. The smell carried echoes of a dark cellar, jackboots stomping the floorboards overhead. Words could lie, appearances deceive, but mundanes didn’t control their sousedni-cues. Celka doubted even Pa could have faked their desperation.
She crushed the thought before worries about whether Pa was still alive could send her spinning. Her family wasn’t safe yet. The circus train should have moved again by now, its engineers breaking it into segments short enough to park in the railyard. The train remained motionless.
Gusting a sousedni-wind away from her, Celka drove away the newcomers’ terror. She gulped deep breaths tasting of sawdust and manure, grounding herself, then shifted her focus back to true-life. “It’s cold in here,” she said. The code would tell Grandfather that she believed these people resistance fighters—rezistyenti—same as them.
“They followed us!” the gaunt rezistyent said, voice reedy. “You have to hide us.”
As though ignited by their terror, a flare shattered the darkness outside. Celka spun to the window as soldiers swarmed the railyard, figures dark in the actinic glare. Red epaulettes slashed every shoulder like open wounds—the secret police, the Tayemstvoy. Dozens spread out to search the train.
Celka ducked down so they wouldn’t see her.
Her family spoke in frantic whispers, and steamer trunks scraped the floor. Wood clunked as her aunt and uncle removed the false wall panels beneath their bed, and Demian helped the gaunt rezistyent crawl inside.
Outside, gravel crunched close to their sleeper car. Too close.
Ela grabbed a broom and frantically swept away the newcomers’ muddy footprints. But the panels were still open, the wheezing rezistyent struggling to fit in the tight space. They weren’t going to make it.
They’d all be arrested. Interrogated. Tortured.
Clamping down on her panic, Celka plunged back into sousednia. She had to buy her family time.
Beneath her darkened big top, two smoke-forms approached. Celka twisted her illusory high wire towards them and ran, arms outstretched, feet landing in a perfect line. Manipulating sousednia, she placed the soldiers on her high wire platform, giving herself space to maneuver. With more time, she could catch one soldier’s foot and tumble them into the other, make it appear simple clumsiness. But mundanes appeared so faintly in sousednia that she couldn’t afford the long seconds of concentration to resolve their shapes.
In true-life, hobnailed boots clunked on the sleeper car’s stairs. She had to act now.
Focused on the leading smoke-form, willing the substance of their chest to solidify, Celka shoved them—hard.
It shouldn’t have done anything. Needs and ideas were not pushes and pulls. You couldn’t affect true-life from sousednia. But you could make someone believe you had.
Outside the sleeper car, boots scuffed the stair, and the leading soldier grunted.
The delay gave Celka time to resolve more of their amorphous shape. They were maybe twenty—about her cousin Demian’s age—but short and lean. She envisioned herself behind them, strength of will changing sousednia to match. She kicked them in the backs of their knees.
They dropped. “What in sleetstorms?” Their voice filtered into the sleeper car, angry and surprised.
“You all right?” a higher voice asked, confused, muffled by the wall—the other Tayemstvoy soldier.
A hand grabbed Celka’s arm, and she flinched into true-life—Grandfather. “Get into bed.”
Disoriented, Celka obeyed without thought, wriggling beneath her quilt. Grandfather climbed into his bunk across from hers, light from the dying flare outside silvering his white hair. Wood scraped as Aunt