Sovereign Hope Read Online Free PDF

entry.”
    The woman gave
me a quizzical look but accepted the ten-dollar bill and stamped my
wrist with an ink-blue juggling clown. A sea of people swarmed
beyond the lit archway, smiling and laughing, all snaking their way
to the various stalls and rides that spread out inside the fair’s
compound. The air was rich with the smell of toffee and caramel,
salt and smoke. All around, food vendors touted a vast array of
saturated fats disguised as candy apples, hamburgers, giant
pretzels, and fried donuts.
    The rides at
the Monterey Fair had been the same since I was a kid. I tended to
get motion sick pretty quickly, so I steered clear of them. The
memory of throwing up on the Gravitron six years ago was still too
fresh. I preferred the games that tested your skill, like the
archery stands.
    The target
markers were in their usual spot at the other end of the field, and
a handful of other amusement stalls lined the way in between:
balloon darts, horse shoes, hoop games. I made my way down the
familiar walkway and paused by a stall covered in small glass jars.
The game was an old favorite, the premise a simple one: get the
rubber ball in the jar, win a goldfish. The goldfish in
question—the kind that only lived for three days after you took
them home—hung from hooks on the ceiling, glaring boggle-eyed out
of their water-filled bags. They looked kind of depressed. The
stall appeared unattended until a middle-aged, balding man emerged
from around the back, stubbing out a half-smoked cigarette.
    “ You wanna win a fish, missy?”
    “ No, no, I—”
    “ You don’t wanna play the game then move along. Gotta keep
this area free for people who do wanna play.”
    A steady
stream of people weaved back and forth in front of the stall, yet
no one seemed interested in winning a fish.
    “ Can you just give me a second? I’m waiting for
someone.”
    The fat man
re-lit his half-spent cigarette and spat on the ground. “Well,
you’ll have to meet them somewhere else, sweetheart. You’re
cluttering up my area.”
    “ Fine. I’ll just…hey, where would people usually arrange to
meet here?” The note just said to meet at the fair. I hadn’t really
considered how big the fair was before now, and the overwhelming
flood of people suddenly seemed all the larger. Finding this woman
was going to be impossible, given the fact that I had no idea what
she looked like.
    “ There’s a security tent where people pick up their kids when
they lose ’em. Could try there,” the attendant said.
    That was
probably the last place I would find Agatha. I huffed, “Fine,” and
pushed back into the flow of people. Suddenly every woman I saw
looked suspicious. It was maddening. Any one of them could be her,
this woman who had promised me answers, but each time I made eye
contact with one of them, I would only receive a curious frown or a
polite smile in return.
    Across the
fairground, the huge Ferris wheel that had been stationary since
I’d arrived squealed into action. The sound was grating and sharp,
too much metal grinding on rusted metal. More bulbs flashed on the
chairs that slowly rotated up into the night air, occupied by young
couples and children. It had to have been twenty years old and a
hundred years past rickety. My knees trembled just looking up at
it. It didn’t really go all that high, but the wheel’s dilapidated
condition sent a barrage of images tumbling through my head. Metal
struts snapping like elastic. Screaming. Falling. Falling…
    “ Farley?”
    Adrenalin shot
through my chest. It fizzled out when I spun around to find
Mitchell Hunter grinning sheepishly at me. Definitely not a
stranger named Agatha. Mitchell had been St. Jude’s ‘most likely to
attain sex symbol status’ the past three years running and would
probably earn the title again this year. His shaggy blond surfer
hair had grown during the break. He flashed his dimples in a way
that made most of the girls in my year go weak at the knees.
    “ Oh, hey,