Tile: When the Circus Lights Down
Author: Sarah Pinsker
Published: Uncanny Magazine #3, March 3, 2015
The circus was alien. The circus was magic. The circus only visited our city. The circus was a whole world of its own that overlapped with ours only once every few years. The circus was just the circus. What did people tell stories about in places without a circus?
Description, by Lois Tilton [Locus]: "Many people are called to the circus, but Haley more than most, because she is from a circus family, her grandparents are there and her father, and her daughter Annie’s father, from a one-night stand. But her mother hates the circus, though it’s not clear why. It may have something to do with Haley’s father. But all her life, Haley has been kept from the circus and fed a guilt trip, that her mother needs her, that she can’t go away. Now, for the first time in Annie’s life, the circus is back, and Annie clearly feels the call. ....."