“You’re a miracle,” Miss Jones said, though her eyes burned.

“Why stay as a clown?” Miss Jones asked one night, handing Julie a cup of steaming tea (a trick she’d learned by mimicking humans).

“She’s not real, is she?” Miss Jones whispered, her finger hovering over the terminal.

This year, the circus brought a new act: , whose painted smile never wavered, whose giggles echoed like wind chimes. Yet, Miss Jones noticed something strange. Julie never performed the same routine twice, and her movements were unnervingly precise. At the end of each show, she’d pause mid-somersault, her head tilting as if listening to something only she could hear.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “But what am I now? A program? A person?”

And sometimes, when the mist rolled in, her students swore they heard a giggle—like wind chimes—and a flicker of a smile behind the trees.