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Modern Art

The street was tightly packed, despite the low-slung clouds that threatened to produce London’s trademark rain any moment. It was supposed to hold off until evening, but they loomed, breathing down the back of Crystal’s neck. She didn’t know if she necessarily cared whether it rained or not. A few months ago, she probably would’ve taken great satisfaction in the last minute bustle to get everyone inside to view her mother’s latest performance art piece. Now, she could not help but think that watching it in the cramped atrium of the museum would probably not be any more enjoyable than watching outside.

“When does it start?” Niko asked quietly. Crystal hadn’t asked her to come, but hadn’t been as quick as hiding the flier as she could have been. It was nice having her here –
having them

all

here, even if the boys were a few paces away because onlookers and journalists kept walking through them – but it felt a bit too much like tempting fate. Bringing her two worlds within the event horizon, making it impossible for them to not clash together.

“I think it already has.”

A few feet in front of them, haloed in blue spotlights on a flat tarp, Maddie Surname sat on a fold out plastic lawn chair, feet dipped into two metal buckets of paint. Splashes of orange and yellow haloed her calves, a white T-shirt with the words ‘What is Modern Art?’ scribbled on it in sharpie.

“Oh.” Niko tilted her head. “Is it about, like, who gets to decide what art is? Elitism and exclusivity in the art world and stuff?”

“Not sure.”

On the chair, her mother picked up a cloth blindfold off the ground and tied it around her eyes, holding out two hands, palms facing up to the sky. A short whistle in the background prompted two attendants – each clad in all black with ski masks pulled in front of their faces – to emerge from the back, carrying two more buckets of paint. The one on the right, Crystal was fairly sure was her father. On the left, a blonde ponytail was visibly tucked down the back of the girls’ shirt. That could’ve been her. It might’ve been

designed

to be her, swapped out when she wasn’t in the hotel room to practice pouring the bucketful of paint over her mother’s outstretched hand while she peacocked like blind justice in front of dozens of photographers.

There was a brief moment of silence, as the buckets emptied and were set down on the tarp. Crystal’s father and the blonde girl were barefoot, the splashes leaving footprints on the tarp as they walked away. After a beat of silence, the crowd burst into applause.

“Is that it?”

“Yeah,” Crystal said, clapping slowly in time with the people around her. “That’s it.”

“Oh. That was… interesting.” Niko paused, and Crystal almost laughed at how hard she was having to search for something kind to say. “It’s a lot to think about.”

Crystal hated to admit it, but she was looking forward to Edwin’s scathing criticism.

That was completely nonsensical, Crystal,

he’d say.

When you said your parents were artists, I expected painters. Musicians. Poets. Even

actors.

There was paint involved,

she’d point out, and he’s bristle like a street pigeon, and they’d all go back to the flat and order pizza and play enough games of Clue that Crystal would stop wondering how long it had taken them to find a third person for the act, and if they’d even tried to call her first.

That was how it should have gone, the best version of events she could imagine. One where she could be selfish and duck away before the reporters noticed her and slip from the back of the crowd without her parents ever having realized she’d attended. That was what the old Crystal would’ve done. But new Crystal was

trying.

She was trying with her friends, who made up excuses not to meet her for coffee and made snide comments on her Instagram. She was trying for the people who’d never been her friends who didn’t want anything to do with her, and had noticed her being gone only enough to think whatever it was,

she deserved what she got

. And she was trying for her parents, because Fuck It. She might as well, it wasn’t like they were going to make an effort.

Crystal fiddled with the lace collar on her blouse and wiped her hands down the front of her pants.

“There’s a reception inside. I should go in and say hi.” She bit her lip. “I’m glad you’re here, but I think I should probably do this alone.”

“Okay.” Niko squeezed her hand. “If you’re sure.”

Crystal wasn’t, but she nodded, and departed, engulfed by the flush of camera lights as she ascended the museum steps, her name pinging through the mouths of reporters like eager seagulls. She hadn’t realized how peaceful it was not to be recognized. Back in Port Townsend, tucked in the Agency offices. She could almost pretend that her life wasn’t at least partially

this.

“Crystal, what do you think of your mother’s latest performance?”

“My mother sees things in such a unique way,” she said. “It’s amazing getting to see a glimpse of her world.”

A flutter of disappointment. Crystal Palace Surname van Hoverkraft had a reputation and it was not for showing up on time to events. It was not for making polite comments. It was not for smiling graciously to reporters and ducking inside before she could be interrogated into snapping. She was a spectacle, she’d been

raised

to be a spectacle, and she’d made herself into such a perfect one a demon had seen her and thought she looked fun.

Crystal leaned against the wall, took a slow breath.

“I’m afraid I did not quite follow the meaning of that piece.”

“Hi, Edwin.” She smiled a bit, glanced to the side. “I told Niko to wait outside.”

“You did. But she was concerned about you.” Leather gloved hands folded neatly in front of his chest. “As was I. I do not understand what you are trying to prove with this endeavor.”

He wouldn’t. Crystal turned forwards again, pushed off the wall and headed into the gallery. There were dozens of frames propped up around the room, each with newspaper articles, photos from her mother’s previous shows. A waiter with a tray of champagne glasses approached.

“For you, madam?”

“No, thank you. You don’t have water by any chance?”

“Of course.”

Crystal picked at her nails, glanced around the room. Reporters, art critics, fellow artists. People she must’ve known her whole life whose names she’d never learned. She smiled thinly to them and went to stand behind one of the display tables.

“Good Heavens, is that you?”

Crystal waved slightly across the room, tried to ignore the primly dressed Edwardian boy next to her. It served a dual purpose: the first, it prevented the questions that would follow overtly conversing with the space beside her, the second, she did not have to see whatever facial expression he was making at the exhibit.

“Yes. Guess you could call it my debut.”

If she’d bothered to look, she wouldn’t have stood here. The photograph had been controversial when it was released: screaming, red-faced baby Crystal, half-swaddled in a white blanket, ‘Created by Maddie Surname’ written in neat black letters across her scrunched forehead.

“It wasn’t permanent.” The headline was back from when her mother had temporarily convinced the world it was a tattoo. “It was just marker. Apparently kept coming off so much they had to do touchups between public appearances.”

“Even still. It seems a bit…”

“Egotistical?”

The interview was below it, Maddie Surname bouncing baby Crystal on her hip.

I have put more into this girl than anything I’ve worked on previously. I’ve given her free reign of my body, and I’m so proud to share her with the world. She’s a masterpiece. Why shouldn’t I sign off on her?

It was a rather good speech. Crystal suspected she’d been workshopping it since the pregnancy test came back positive.

“Polmecizing.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Crystal said, though she could guess.

“Controversial for it’s own sake.”

She glanced over, sweeping curls from her forehead. “Think I could still pull it off?”

“I’m not certain you pulled it off then.”

Crystal glanced at the image, shook her head. “I hate that that’s the one they went with. I was a fucking cute baby.”

If Edwin had a snide comment in response to that – and he certainly did – it was cut off by the chime of a spoon against a champagne glass. The room hushed and turned, a smattering of applause as the Surname van Hoverkraft’s entered, still decked in performance gear, paint smears leaving colored ghosts against their skin from where they’d been wiped off. The blonde girl was nowhere to be seen.

Crystal adjusted her clothes again, wished she’d taken the champagne because the waiter hadn’t returned with water yet, and her throat was suddenly dry.

“Crystal!” Seth van Hoverkraft said. “I’m so glad you made it!”

He looped an arm around her shoulders, squeezed gently and shot a megawatt smile to the nearest camera, in case they wanted to record the moment.

“Hi, Dad. Hi, Mom. Great show.”

“Well,” Maddie Surname said. “I don’t know if I’d use the term

show.

More of an

event.

A

conversation starter,

really.”

“Right. Well, it was great.”

“Thank you, dear. I didn’t realize you were in the audience.” The implication being she usually announced her presence a bit more. Crystal bit her tongue, shook her head.

“I didn’t want to step on your moment.”

She felt a flash of disappointment from her father’s hand on her shoulder, the sense that a daughter who started fights, who disappeared for weeks at a time, who shrieked at reporters and wrote vicious things on social media, was a bit better for their publicity than one who showed up in appropriate attire and clapped quietly on cue. Crystal ignored it.

“I don’t think you’ve been at the hotel for a while.”

“I’m staying with some friends.” In a cramped one-bedroom apartment with Niko, with half a dozen pizza boxes on the counter and a veritable mountain of stuffed animals on the couch. She hoped she’d never stay in another five-star hotel again.

“That’s nice. Oh – Seth, look it’s the

Gazette

. We must give a quote.”

And they were gone. No hand on her shoulder, no fake smiles for the cameras, no questioning the half a dozen international flights that had popped up on her credit card in the past few months. Crystal blinked, tried to swallow the hard knot in her throat.

The waiter returned with her water. She handed him a fifty dollar tip before remembering she’d meant to go convert her cash to pounds a few days ago, and left it dripping condensation on the glass table.

“Crystal–”

“Fuck. Not now, Edwin. Okay?” She was fighting to keep her voice even. “Not right now.”

She didn’t mean to run into anyone on her way out, but made such a direct beeline for the door, she ended up brushing harder than intended across a few shoulders, hands stuffed in the pockets of her slacks, head down. She couldn’t hear Edwin beside her anymore; he’d probably sensed her intentions and had sought out a mirror back to the office. Which was great.

Perfect

, really. What were friends, family, loved ones for, if not to make a break as soon as it seemed convenient? She held up a hand to shield herself from the camera flashes, and raised a hand to signal a cab.

And thus ended the very brief return to public appearances for Crystal Palace Surname van Hoverkraft.

Punctuality

The Dead Boy Detective Agency had made a few changes in the past few months, the most significant of which was holding official business hours. Ghosts still came at all times of night, of course – the supernatural community of London was slow to break a habit – but those that arrived between the hours of 6:00 pm and 8:00 am who were not in immediate states of catastrophe had their case details taken with a follow-up appointment time set for the following morning.

The limit to their hours of official operation was a concession for their new living associates, who needed to be off for periods of time to sleep, eat, shower, and take what Edwin considered an unnecessary amount of photographs of themselves in different notable places in London. But they had other benefits, too. For one, it made potential clients consider whether their cases were truly worth the agency’s time. For another, the empty nights allowed for more time to actually investigate the cases they’d already taken on. And, even Edwin had to admit, the free evenings with the four of them playing Cluedo, watching television, or simply huddled in the same place, each occupied with their own tasks, were an unexpectedly pleasant addition to the routine.

That said, the concession was contingent on the girls making the 8:00 am opening time, which they did with less frequency than could be considered strictly professional. Edwin paced in front of the door.

“Give them a minute, mate,” Charles said.

“I have already given them,” Edwin checked his watch. “Seven.”

“We haven’t exactly got a line.” It was true, enough. Stack of mail-delivered cases aside.

“It’s the principal of the thing.”

“They’re probably getting a slow start.” Charles reclined on the couch, boots on one of the armrests, hair mussed against the pillows. “Think Crystal probably had a rough night last night. You know she was anxious about seeing her folks.”

“Yes.” Edwin frowned. “They were less than welcoming. Not unkind, exactly.” He said, noting the slight tilt to Charles’ head. They were still on a slow orbit approaching the details of his childhood, and Edwin did not think it appropriate to push him. He hoped, in his own time, Charles would feel as if he could talk about it, but did not imagine his friend would appreciate being poked and prodded like one of their stubborn cases. “They were simply…distant. A bit performative in their affection.”

“Ah.”

“I’m sure Crystal will discuss it with you if she wishes.”

She had rather patently

not

wanted to discuss it with Edwin.

Before Charles could reply, there was a musical pattern of seven knocks against the door, before Niko twisted it open.

“We’re here!”

“Right on time,” Charles said, swinging his legs down. Edwin scowled disapprovingly but said nothing.

“We stopped to get coffee,” Crystal said, collapsing onto the couch beside Charles with a styrofoam cup. “Anything new since last night?”

“Finished up the notes on the missing gargoyle case for Charlie.”

“Did she like the stickers?” Niko asked, settling into the armchair near the bookcase, blowing on the surface of her tea.

“Very much so,” Edwin said, before Charles could respond. The Night Nurse had made her usual tutting about the completeness of the report, admonishments about the eclectic nature of their cases, complaints regarding neatness of Charles’ penmanship. She had not commented on the shiny ocean creature stickers at all, but Edwin thought the

lack

of snide commentary was as close to approval as she got.

Niko beamed.

“Now that you’re both here, we should start sorting through the mail.” He picked up the pile of letters from the desk, and was partially through moving to hand them out when there was a soft knocking on the door.

“Oi. Client.” Charles stood up. The door opened and in walked a pale ghost in a gray jumper, bone-white blonde hair fell against her shoulders. Her face had a wide-eyed, sunken quality, and she appeared nervous, half-buried in oversized clothing.

“Hello? Is this the Dead Boy Detectives?”

“We are indeed. I am Edwin Paine, this is Charles Rowland. The two ladies beside you are our associates, Crystal and Niko. And you are?”

The woman looked between Crystal and Niko.

“They’re alive.”

“Yes.” Edwin settled behind the desk.

“Crystal’s a psychic,” Charles said, notching into his position to Edwin’s right. “One of the best in the game. And Niko’s a researcher. Got a knack for picking up what most people miss. They’ve gotten us out of loads of scrapes.”

“Whatever you’ve come to us with, I assure you, you can trust them with it. Miss?”

“Oh, uh, Brook. Sarah Brook.”

“Miss Brook,” Edwin folded his hands on the table. “What can we help you with?”

Sarah Brook’s Unfinished Business

“I had a good life, I think,” she began. “I mean, I didn’t want to die, of course, but I knew it was coming for a while. I’ve had a heart condition since I was little. The doctors said it was a miracle I made it as long as I did.”

She paused.

“The issue is, I could never be at peace without knowing what happened to my brother. You see, he disappeared a few years ago. Everyone said he’d run away and invented a new identity or something, but that wasn’t like him. Mark and I were close. He would’ve told me where he was going.”

Crystal glanced over at Charles and Edwin.

“What do you think happened to him?” she asked.

Sarah frowned. “I don’t know. That’s why I came

here

. I can’t move on without knowing where he’s gone, and the police have long since given up doing anything about it. I’d thought about hiring a private investigator when I was alive, but…” Her voice trailed off. “He wouldn’t just

run away.

”

“Even if that is the case,” Edwin said, with a bit more skepticism than Crystal thought was strictly necessary. “We specialize in supernatural mysteries. I’m afraid a run of the mill disappearance does not fall within our perview.”

The woman’s face collapsed, lip trembling.

Crystal moved forwards on the couch. “What happened when you last saw your brother? Was there anything strange about his behavior before he disappeared?” She could feel Edwin giving her a look of warning, but could not be bothered to care. “Anything that might be a clue as to where he’d gone?”

“I knew

where

he went. Where he said he was going, at least. And it was so strange. We lived in America when we were little. Our father worked in agriculture, and moved us to this small town in the middle of nowhere. Oregon. Barret Valley, I think it was called. There was a hospital nearby that they took me to for my heart. I hardly remember it. Mark was twelve years older than me, though. He was in high school.”

Sarah frowned. “It was so odd. I barely remembered it. But I found it amongst his things after he disappeared. Someone had sent him this old postcard from that town. From some old carnival they had, before we’d even lived there. There wasn’t a message on it, no return address. It was just addressed to him.”

“Do you have this postcard, by any chance?” Edwin asked, sounding intrigued in a way that Crystal would feel smug about later. For now, she focused on Sarah.

She nodded, and reached into the pocket of her sweater and held it out.

Barrett Valley Fall Carnival! A 100 year tradition!

A sign said on the front near a grainy image of a carousel and cotton candy stand, sugar whipped into clouds. The back was blank, save for an address Crystal assumed was Mark’s.

“Crystal, could you–” Charles started.

“May I?” she reached out for it. Sarah nodded, and passed it over.

The paper disappeared beneath her fingers and she was in a forest. It was dark, cool, the ground packed hard and bare branches scraped against her shoulders. There was a group of kids around her. Teenagers. In sweatshirts and fleeces, cheeks red from the cold. They were running, gasping for air. There was something behind them. They wanted to go back but they were too scared to.

It was cold in the forest but not quiet. Heavy breathing, and the bright plinking of carousel music. It was like something from a music box, a music box Mark’s sister had, that she kept her plastic jewelry in. But instead of slowing down as the music box wound down it only got faster, faster, faster.

Behind them, the red glow of the carousel lights whipped in circles, horses rising and falling. And screaming. Someone was screaming and the air smelled like something was burning. They wanted to go back but there was something else there. Something other than the carousel and the screaming and the smoke. The carousel was spinning faster, faster, faster. She was getting dizzy.

“Crystal!”

Niko’s hand was on her arm, easing away the postcard. She didn’t remember having stood up, but she was standing in the center of the room, Charles at her other side, brows drawn with concern.

“What is it?”

“There was something in the woods.” Crystal tried to grab Niko’s arm to calm her, but stumbled, her head still spinning. “Kids running. There was a carousel and… something else.”

“The carousel was never on when we lived there,” Sarah said. “It was closed years before.”

“Did your brother had brown hair? And a birthmark on his cheek? Here.” She pressed a finger to the spot on her own face. Sarah nodded, face stricken.

Crystal looked to Edwin, Charles, and Niko.

“I think something happened to Mark at that carnival. And this postcard – he must’ve gone back.”

“Whatever it was wasn’t done with him.”

She nodded.

“Something supernatural.” She looked to Edwin.

“Yes, I gathered. Miss Brook, would you mind waiting outside for a moment while we discuss?”

The ghost nodded, paused at the door, her hand resting above the knob, before stepping through it. Charles set the postcard down on the desk and studied it.

“Carnivals and circuses, fairgrounds in general, do tend to be a hotspot for supernatural activity,” Edwin said. “If this one was celebrating its centennial, there may be a host of disgruntled spirits occupying the space. But if that is the case, it’s likely this town is the center of the activity, which puts it a good deal outside our general range of operations.”

“Sarah looked so sad,” Niko said, wistfully staring at the door.

“And there were kids besides Mark in my vision. If there’s something at the carnival after him, whose to say it won’t go for the rest of them next?”

“That’s a bit of speculation.”

“It’s a natural conclusion,” Crystal crossed her arms. “This girl’s brother went missing and she’s so desperate to find him she’s unable to pass on. That means something, Edwin.”

There was a pause. She looked down at the postcard, careful to ignore the hot sensation of eyes on the back of her neck. Oregon was far. Blissfully far away from London and modern art performances, and people who couldn’t be bothered to ask her to get dinner with them after not seeing her for months.

“I know it does. Nor was I implying anything to the contrary. I was only laying out the facts of the situation. We have a number of cases on our roster a fair bit closer to home. And I do not expect the Night Nurse would appreciate us galavanting across the globe.”

They lapsed into silence.

“We could get her more stickers?”

Edwin looked up at her, expression softening. It always did, with Niko.

“Perhaps we put it to a vote?”

“I vote yes,” Crystal said.

“Me too.” Niko looked behind them at the door. “She seems really nice.”

“That’s two for. Charles?”

“Could be fun, don’t you think? Haunted carnival? Mysterious disappearances? Sounds right up our alley. Besides, think we could all use a bit of a roadtrip, right Eds? Last time turned out pretty well.” He grinned at Niko. “And there won’t be nearly as much snow.”

Edwin sighed. “In which case there’s no point in my casting a vote. It seems we are in favor?”

Crystal had left fingerprints on the postcard, swirls against the carousel in the foreground, a stampede of wooden horses prepared to enter into an endless loop.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Estate Sale

The house at the end of the block looked aggressively ordinary: flowers in the window boxes pruned to stems, well-tread welcome mat on the porch, windows drawn and shuttered with a deep mistrust of anyone approaching. It was perhaps a justified mistrust: the line of eager thrifters snaked down the pavement, a verifiable hoard of tote bag wielding twenty somethings, collectors, and secondhand store patrons, eager to loot anything even remotely valuable from the shelves and cupboards of the late Miss Sarah Brook’s home.

“It’s a bit morbid, isn’t it?” Crystal asked.

“I think it’s kind of nice. Giving things a new home.” Niko folded her sunglasses into the front pocket of her blouse. “Better than throwing everything away.”

“I guess.” They wound to the front of the trail of visitors. A woman with a clipboard stood at the front, a gold laminate nametag pinned to her shirt, though with the morning light reflecting off every available surface, it was impossible to read.

“Um, excuse me,” someone called from behind them. “There’s a line.”

“Oh, sorry!” Niko said.

“We’re friends of Sarah’s,” Crystal told the attendant. “We need to get inside.”

The woman looked up, eyes squinting through half-moon glasses. With skepticism, or from the light, Crystal wasn’t sure. She got the sense they were being surveyed. Niko’s heart-shaped sunglasses and floral embroidery on her collar, Crystal’s designer boots with the brand scuffed off. Whatever impression they made, it did not seem to be particularly favorable.

“There was a viewing yesterday for close friends of the deceased. But you’re welcome to get in line with everyone else.”

There was a box in the attic with everything of Mark’s their client had been able to gather. Crystal wasn’t sure any of the people in line would have a particular interest in musty photographs and childhood memorabilia, but she wasn’t interested in betting the case on it. The boys had taken off for a preliminary look around the town, while she and Niko gathered intel and attempted to schedule flights. Sarah had insisted everything was there, but hadn’t thought to warn them that it might not be for long.

She swallowed her irritation, felt the back of her throat strain.

“This is important.”

“We’ll be really fast,” Niko smiled. “And we won’t take anything.”

“Yeah, we just need to look.”

“That’s still not allowed. Like I said, the line started forming a few hours ago. We can’t just let you cut in front. We’re letting people in in groups of ten for half hour slots. If you’d like to sign up instead of waiting in line, you can come back in –” a pause as she glanced at the clipboard. “– four and a half hours.”

“Yeah, that’s

not

gonna happen.” And

God

, did it sound that bitchy outside of her head? Crystal tried not to look at Niko, with her big doe eyes and warm smile for anyone and everyone. “We need to get in

now

.”

“And I’ve just explained to you, that won’t be possible.”

“Crystal–” Niko’s voice was soft.

“

Look,

” she said, and there was more than her behind the words. More voices than hers, more power than she alone could hold. “

We need to be let in now. There is something important we need to find.

”

The attendant’s face went slack, glasses flashing white with the sun.

“A few minutes,” she said slowly, like the words were still being shaped with putty.

“In and out,” Crystal nodded. She tried for a friendly smile. “Thank you so much. We really appreciate it.”

She didn’t look at Niko as they walked in, did not fully realize her hands were shaking until the two of them were standing behind the closed door and her breath came out in a weak gasp.

“Oh

God

.” Crystal covered her mouth with her hands, forcing herself to swallow the stale air that passed between her fingers. “I didn’t plan – I wasn’t going to do that.”

“Are you okay?”

“It just happened. I swear.”

“I didn’t know you could do that.” Niko frowned. “Could you always do that?”

Crystal shook her head numbly. “I don’t think so. At least, not when we first met. I think I could before I lost my memories. But I don’t want to. I don’t like it. That felt… wrong.”

She wished her friend’s expression was a touch less understanding, a touch less kind. It would make it easier, she thought. Niko had only ever gotten the best parts of her. The parts she’d taken out and polished, the vulnerabilities she’d held out like fireflies in a jar. The girl she’d been before she remembered who she was. It felt sometimes like she was clinging to that Crystal, digging nails like claws into her arms because she was proof that she wasn’t rotted to the core. That she was not so deep she couldn’t crawl her way out.

You used to be so much fun.

“Well, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. Next time we’ll find another way, okay?”

Crystal nodded, forced herself to smile.

“We should head upstairs. See what Mark’s stuff can tell us.”

The Bassett Creek Fall Carnival

A blonde woman in a smart pantsuit and a graying man with glasses entered the library in Bassett Creek, Oregon. The woman studied the colored paper shapes lining the walls, each with the name of a child who’d made it through the summer reading program written in sharpie, with varying degrees of clarity of penmanship. The man looked at the notice board near the door.

“Look at this. They’ve got an upcoming summer festival. With baby goats.”

“Not the seasonal event we came for,” Edwin said.

“But there’s baby goats. Remember the Case of the Country Vet in ‘92?” Charles grinned through the man’s face. “They were all sweet on you.”

“They all wanted to eat my Codex of Cryptids. That’s hardly the same thing.”

“Mmmhmm. That’s why you ran into the burning farmhouse to protect them from the Beast of Exmoor.”

The woman’s lips puckered. “I said they did not care for me particularly, not that I did not find their antics…endearing. Besides, our client would’ve hardly been pleased to discover his animals had been taken out by the same creatures he’d hired us to connect to his death.” She straightened her blazer. “We should inquire about a newspaper archive; Miss Brook said her family lived here from 1996 to 1999. That gives us a fairly broad amount of time to cover.”

In truth, it would be a bit of a blessing if the library had records going back that long. Most of the equipment looked old by modern standards – though certainly more technically advanced than what had populated libraries in Edwin’s day – and the carpeting was worn to fringe near the doorway. The colorful posters, while charmingly designed, were entirely handmade. Underfunded and held afloat by passionate, exhausted people, Edwin guessed, who very likely would not have the time or energy to either keep several decades worth of town newspapers or to scan them individually into some sort of database.

“That is supposing they have them.”

“Uh-huh.”

Edwin glanced over. Charles was walking towards a nearby bookcase, crouching down in a manner bit too young for his disguise and tracing a finger down the back of dozens of dime-store horror novels.

“Charles, this is the fiction section.”

“Got an idea, give me a minute.” His hand stopped moving, tapping a spine. “Here. Anyone watching us?”

A quick glance confirmed the only people in the library were the two of them and the teenage library volunteer, who seemed far more absorbed in her book on the counter than monitoring either of them.

“No.”

“Brills. Gonna switch gears.” He shifted behind the bookcase, shedding the old man disguise, for a moment appearing as himself before he clad another, this one an adolescent boy in an unassuming red sweater. Charles picked up the book he’d selected and tucked it under his arm.

“For what purpose?”

“Trust me on this, yeah? If it doesn’t work, we’ll do it your way. Look through as many dusty newspapers as you want.”

The woman shot one look back at the desk attendant, who had not looked up since they’d entered, before siding beside him, shifting first into himself, and next into a similarly young boy, blonde with freckles speckling his cheeks. Charles beamed at him.

“Follow my lead alright?”

And Edwin did. They approached the front desk just as the librarian blew a large bubble of pink chewing gum. She looked up at them as it popped, eyes tracing their pre-teen disguises.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

It was a halfhearted, and far delayed attempt at customer service, but Charles in the young boy’s form nodded enthusiastically.

“We did! Can I use my Aunt’s card? We’re visiting for the summer.”

“Sure,” the girl said, sounding deeply bored.

He slid the book across the desk, and Edwin for the first time got a good look at the cover. It was an illustrated image of a roller coaster emerging from some sort of tunnel, vines and weeds strewn over the sides like it had just driven through a swamp. The riders were a combination of distressed looking children and sneering pirates, their faces and bodies white and transluscent.

The Dead End Carnival,

was written in dripping letters, embossed with some kind of red film to make them glisten like blood. Dime store horror shlock. Edwin much preferred detective stories.

The girl at the counter arched an eyebrow as she studied the title, something in her expression shifting.

“You guys are horror fans?”

“Huge ones,” Charles said. “You’ve got a bunch our library back home doesn’t have.”

“No kidding.” The girl slid the book under the scanner as it beeped. “You said you’re visiting?”

“Yep.” He nudged Edwin. “Brought my best friend from school. He’s never been to America before.”

“Hello,” Edwin said, the blonde boy’s voice higher than his own. “This town is…”

“Not super impressive, right?” the girl shook her head. “Seriously, you should’ve gone to New York or something. At least LA. You’re in the middle of fucking nowhere here.” She glanced side to side, looking for a supervisor whose existence Edwin was dubious of. “But if you’re horror fans, might not be the most boring place ever. We’ve actually got a pretty good town ghost story. Way scarier than this,” she shook the book Charles had picked out. “But it

does

involve a carnival.”

Charles Rowland, you’re a genius.

Remembering Annie Weekes

Crystal and Niko sat cross-legged on the floor, the gutted husk of a cardboard moving box seated between them. There were stacks of photo albums dating back to Mark Brooks in diapers, folded soccer jerseys, yearbooks, a small placard celebrating ten years at his job. Nothing in it suggested a man who was in the mood to flee his life and disappear across the globe.

“I want to find the other kids from my vision,” Crystal said. “I feel like they’re important, somehow. Whatever happened to Mark, I think they’re tied to it.”

Niko nodded, hefting one of the albums onto her lap to flip through. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for – Crystal’s description of the others kids was helpful, but only based on a glimpse of them in the dark – but she hoped she’d know it when she saw it. She turned a few pages, and stopped on a picture of five teenagers, arms linked around each other. They seemed to have been caught after they’d assumed the photo was taken, faces falling back to normal from staged picture-grins.

She’d taken a lot of photos with Crystal over the past few weeks, printed them out and sent to her Mom, writing short explanations on the back.

Buckingham palace!! Getting pizza!! This is us after we got chased by a Hellhound - not nearly as friendly as Webber!!

(The last a reference to their neighbors cuddly golden retriever, whom she’d used to conspire for excuses to dogsit). She wished she could get pictures of the boys, too, but every time she tried, there just ended up being weird balls of golden light blotting the images. She’d labeled them “Charles” and “Edwin” on the ones she sent her mother, but didn’t always remember who had been standing where when the picture was taken, so some of them were probably wrong.

Niko tugged the picture out of the photo album.

Summer ‘98

, was written on the back.

“Is this them?”

“Wait. Yes,” Crystal took the photo from her and turned it over. “1998. Sarah said they moved out Spring of 1999. Mark would’ve been a senior then.” She reached over and pulled a yearbook onto her chest, flipping through to the section on the senior class. “Okay, so it looks like that is Mark. And the other kids from my vision are Violet, Paul, and Shawn. I don’t remember the other one.”

Crystal shifted, pulling out her phone. “I’m going to try Googling them. Good find, Niko.”

“Thanks!” she took the yearbook and pulled it onto her lap, flipping through the pages. Homecoming, Sadie Hawkins, Relay for Life, Prom. All of it seemed to have been lifted from a John Hughes movie. Everything, except. “Crystal, wait.”

She looked over, and Niko held up the page.

Remembering Annie Weekes

was written across the top of a two page-spread, covered with dozens of photos of a girl with curly brown hair, and an endearing gap tooth. Niko looked back at the photo in Crystal’s hand.

“That’s the fifth person from the picture.”

“Who wasn’t in my vision,” Crystal’s voice trailed off. “Maybe because she

died

.”

It was a long time ago. Not, like, super long ago, though. Recent enough that people still remember it, but long enough ago that no one ever talks about it. Your aunt probably knows about it, if she’s lived here a while.

But basically, back 60s and, like, before, Bassett Creek would hold this yearly fall carnival. Rides, fortune tellers, games, and like, this huge corn maze. Remember the corn maze. It’ll be important. So this carnival runs for years, it’s a big tradition, people come from other towns to visit. Only one year, there’s this huge accident with one of the rides. It’s not set up properly or something, and a bunch of people get hurt. Supposedly someone even

died

. So they shut it down. Point blank, they don’t even dismantle all the stuff that’s left over because no one wants to think about it. So there’s all this carnival stuff on the other side of the woods near town. Left to rot.

“Creepy,” said Charles. The girl shook her head.

“No, that’s not the –
that’s just like, place setting. It’s like an old-timey carnival. No one cared about safety then, so stuff like that just happened sometimes.”

Edwin gave a startled cough, but found he did not have a good counterpoint.

But there’s this huge, creepy, like – half-decayed carnival in the woods and so people do what people do. Teenagers sneak in there all the time to make out and drink and stuff. It’s this whole thing. People even dare each other to try and, like, walk into the corn maze. When it was operating, it was kind of like a haunted house, so there’s a bunch of like, plastic skeletons and rubber feet and shit scattered around and it’s not that scary, but when you’re dark and lost… well, it’s kinda freaky. So that’s the game.

Only, one day this group of kids take it way too far.

And oh.

Oh

. Edwin resists the urge to look at Charles. They both know this story too well.

It’s late October, everything has started to die out, so the grass and the leaves are super brittle and dry. And there’s this group of teenagers from the local high school that are hanging out, and they come up with this idea. There’s this girl they’re kinda friends with who is easily spooked by everything. You know, the kind of jumpy, nervous type. So they decide to play this prank on her. They all meet up on the edge of town just after dark. We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere, so there’s no streetlights. The darkness is complete, except they’ve all got flashlights, so it’s just the beams cutting through the darkness.

And the one girl is like, “guys this is kinda freaky, right?” but they all keep going anyways, and they get to the decrypted husk of this weird old carnival and everything at night just looks worse. The horses on the carousel – their shadows are all stretched out like phantoms in the night. And so the kids tell the girl they’re going to play a game, and she’s kinda nervous, but they’re her friends, right? And they want her to play with them. Maybe this is the game that’ll get her in the group for real. So she says yeah, she’ll go first. They take out a blindfold and cover her eyes.

“It’s a trust exercise,” one of the boys says, and they share smiles in the dark, but the girl can’t see them behind the blindfold. And they walk her into the maze, going this way and that until she has no idea where they are. They tell her to count to ten, but by the time she gets to ten, they’ve all gone. Disappeared into the night, taking all the flashlights with them.

So this girl is lost. She’s scared, alone, in the dark in the middle of this huge maze with no idea how to get out and a bunch of creepy dolls and old animatronics stationed to surprise her at corners. At first, she tries to play it cool. I mean, she doesn’t want to seem like a total loser. She stands still and quiet, listening, and it’s like, totally silent. The other kids aren’t watching her from a distance. They’ve totally left, probably already gone home, or maybe snuck back out to the main thoroughfare to smoke or some shit.

And so she panics, she’s running, trying to get out, screaming for them to come and help her because she’s lost, and it’s spooky and it’s dark. And then, SNAP.

The library assistant thunked the book on the desk, and they both flinched. She grinned wickedly, clearly enjoying the thrall she’d gotten them under. The privilege of being a storyteller, Edwin supposed, if only the story did not feel like something slithering and cold in his stomach. Charles had eased closer to him, and though he was leaning in, the tension in his shoulders was unmistakable.

She leaned back, grinning.

“They left all the old shit at the carnival, had barely taken it down, remember? Including all the creepy lights and sound effects in the maze. The girl stumbles into a live wire and

bzzz –

” here, she jerked her head to the side, eyes wide, shuddering for dramatic effect as if a current were running through her body. “Electrocuted. Never left the carnival. Her ghost didn’t, either. She’s still stuck in that fucking maze, and

man

is she pissed.”

Her elbows rested on the table as she leaned over them.

“They say, people who go there now never come back.”

“Get a look at this,” Crystal said, passing her phone to Niko. “Sarah said her brother went missing five years ago. It looks like he wasn’t the only one. Here’s Violet Harker. Also missing. Same time period. And Shawn and Paul.”

Niko scrolled through the procured tabs. “Whatever got Mark got them, too.”

“And I bet it’s the same fucking thing that got Annie. It went to finish them all off.”

Charles swallowed. Edwin stood stiffly beside him, an unnatural pallor settling over his child disguise. Ghost stories were well and good until you yourself were the subject of one, they’d both learned the hard way. A prank gone wrong, some poor girl lost and stumbling in the dark. Was she really the character they were supposed to be afraid of?

“And the other kids? What happened to them?”

The library volunteer shrugged, leaning back into her seat.

“Depends on who you ask. Some people say they just left, frolicked off to who knows where. Other people, though, supposedly she drew them back in, one by one. Left them to wander the maze and disappeared all the exits and once they ran out of strength, keeled over and died, she put them to work. They’re still there, too, shallow husks of themselves, working the carnival.”

Good,

the thought popped into his head before he could properly shush it. Charles glanced over at Edwin, who did not appear to recognize the story had completed. Charles nudged his shoulder, and he simply swayed.

“Anyways, that’s the story. Town legend and all that shit. Your friend okay?”

“He’s fine,” Charles said. “Loves local history. We’re gonna take a walk.”

“Want your book?”

He shook his head, grabbed Edwin by the arm and lead him to the front stoop of the library, where he seemed to recover himself, flexing his fingers as he dropped the child-guise and glancing around the abandoned street.

“That was certainly a story.”

“You okay, mate?”

“Yes. Fine.” Edwin steepled his hands together. “We’ll need to confirm the timelines, but if there is any truth to it, I suspect it’ll line up with when the Brooks lived here.”

“So we’re looking for one of the asshole kids that pranked a girl to death.” The sentence came out harder than intended, and Edwin glanced over sharply, though when he spoke his tone was soft.

“We are looking to provide closure for a girl with a missing brother. Are you sure you’re alright, Charles? I’m certain Crystal would understand–”

“Nah. I’m aces.” He smiled, a bit too wide. “Seemed she took Sarah’s request a bit personal. Only makes sense, what with her folks. I can see it through. Like you said, girl with a missing brother.” He hefted his backpack a bit higher on his shoulder. “I say we check out this carnival before we share notes with the girls?”

Edwin nodded. He opened his mouth to say something else, but seemed to think better of it. Instead he began down the street towards the woods.

The Circle Game

They found their client seated on a bench, staring at a dwindling flock of pigeons, pecking at the ground on the opposite side of the footpath. Crystal sat down on one side of her, Niko on the other. They’d learned passers-by tended to find two girls seated oddly apart from each other less noteworthy than if the pair of them sat together on one side, seemingly talking to no one.

They’d broken their promise to the attendant at the estate sale and taken one of the photos. Crystal hoped it wouldn’t be missed. She held it out to Sarah.

“Do you recognize any of these kids, besides Mark?”

She shook her head. “Not personally. But he didn’t really keep in touch with his friends from America after we came back here.”

“Did he ever tell you anything about them? Or your parents?”

“You think they had something to do with his disappearance?”

Crystal moved her thumb to rest on Annie Weekes’ chest. “These are all the kids from the vision I got looking at the postcard; all of them except her. Her name was Annie. She was in your brother’s grade, and she died their senior year of high school. It looks like they were friends.”

Sarah’s face contorted. “That’s awful. But it also explains a lot.”

“Explains what?”

“My parents always said Mark was a different person in high school. That he didn’t care as much, got into trouble sometimes. Nothing bad, of course. Dumb kids stuff.” She took the photo, frowning thoughtfully. “They said he changed that year, got a lot more serious. Losing a friend that young…”

For a flash of an instant, Crystal was back in Esther Finch’s house, cradling her best friend’s head in her arms, a shard of ice making her feel cold inside and out. Everything that had seemed important half an hour ago – her absent parents, her checkered past, the body of her ex refusing to rot in the back of her head – suddenly seemed so trivial.

Everything is fine, Niko is here. We got her back, and she’s fine and she’s literally across from you on this bench, get it together Crystal.

For some reason, looking at her friend didn’t help the sense of being unmoored. If anything, the oblivious look of sympathy on Niko’s face as she rested a comforting hand on Sarah’s shoulder made the ache even stronger.

“Yeah,” the word came out ragged. “Puts things in perspective.”

“He never told me. I mean, I suppose I never asked, we didn’t really get closer until recently. He really was so much older, but God. I can’t even imagine.” Sarah shook her head. “That’s why he went back, right? Some sort of anniversary?”

“Maybe,” Crystal said. “We think… we think what happened to Annie was maybe supernatural in origin. In my vision, there was this carousel music, all the other kids in this picture were running away from it.”

“Something supernatural?”

“We don’t know what.”

“Edwin and Charles are looking there now,” Niko said. “They’ll figure out what it is. They’re really good at this stuff.” She reached down and squeezed Sarah’s hand. Crystal nodded.

“They escaped it when they were kids, but it might have come back,” she held out a hand to take the photograph back, but Sarah did not seem to want to part with it. She held it tightly, as if afraid they might rip it from her hands. “Do you remember anything from when you were there? I know you were young, but, anything? Something your parents said? Or Mark said? Any kind of local story?”

A small head shake. “I’m sorry. I wish I could help.”

“It’s okay.” Niko smiled.

“You’ve been a huge help. Thank you for talking to us.” Crystal smiled. “Do you want to keep the photo? I can take a picture on my phone in case we need it for reference.”

Sarah wiped a hand across her eyes, snuffling loudly in a way Crystal had to force herself not to react to. “Yes, please. Thank you. I’m sorry. This is hard, but, you’re very sweet girls.”

One of us is.

Crystal focused on getting as clear a shot of the photo as possible. Edwin wouldn’t like it, he hated squinting at the tiny bright screens, was forever complaining about the comparative lack of supernatural sensitivity of digital photography when compared to film. He could deal, she decided.

It would have been impossible to mistake the trail that lead to the carnival in the woods. Framed by bulbous, knotted oak trees, it was well tread, and densely littered with fast food receipts, bits of broken glass, and sour candy wrappers. A few paces in from the entrance, one tree had been selected as a kind of memorial, with a few candles, stuffed animals, and notes packed around and held down with rocks.

Annie Weekes.

“Must be the girl from the story,” Charles said, resting a hand against the bark. “People didn’t want to get closer than this.” Edwin nodded. He tilted his head at the tree; amidst the natural curvature of the strips of bark there was something broader, hacked, it appeared, with a pocketknife, the shape disappearing into a cloud of moss. “What is it?”

“There’s something carved here. Just above your thumb. There.”

He turned to look, tracing the curve. “Good eye.”

“I can’t quite tell what it’s supposed to be. Maybe nothing.”

“Here.” Charles reached over, picking at the moss, dropping chunks to the forest floor, taking care they did not fall upon any of the objects left behind.

There was no memorial at St. Hilarions. He hadn’t needed to ask; the look of shock his friend displayed when Edwin had confessed the circumstances around his death early into their acquaintance had confirmed that much. There was no record of

one

student from the school disappearing in the night under mysterious circumstances, much less

six.

Edwin did not know how to feel about it. He supposed he ought to feel neglected, but given the alternative, perhaps it was preferable to be forgotten than to share a plaque somewhere in a darkened corner with the peers who’d condemned him to Hell.

There were no memorials for Charles, either. A grave, somewhere, of course, for both of them, but nowhere for people to leave things. Friendship bracelets, notes, keepsakes. Maybe it was a silly thing to be thinking about

now.

Everyone who’d known Edwin when he was alive had long since died.

He focused back on the tree. The shape that emerged was some sort of pattern composed of lines and x’s, intersecting a circle.

“Recognize it?”

Edwin shook his head. “Unfortunately, circular sigilry lacks standardization. There’s no official texts, outside the grimoires of practitioners. I have a few witch’s grimoires in the office. It couldn’t hurt to cross reference, but I am not optimistic.”

Crystal had once suggested he get the phrase

it couldn’t hurt to cross-reference

printed on a shirt. Edwin had declined. He did not quite understand the appeal of having slogan emblazoned across one’s chest, and told her as much. She’d rolled her eyes with a look of exasperation that, he’d pointed out, was far more effective in communicating a sentiment than words on an article of clothing.

Optimistic or not, he opened his notebook and sketched an approximation of the sigil, careful to leave space between a few of the edges. Most sigils required a sacrifice to activate, but he was not inclined to take any chances copying things down, especially following an unfortunate incident back in 2013 involving a series of runic symbols they had realized a bit belatedly started bleeding when transcribed.

“We ought to reconvene,” he folded the notebook. “See what Crystal and Niko have discovered. If the details line up, I suspect we are dealing with some sort of poltergeist, in which case we’ll need to acquire a vessel to hold whatever object it’s latched on to.”

“Think we might’ve used the last of the silver snuffboxes during that mess with the were-geese in ‘17, yeah?”

“Unfortunately. Perhaps a detour would be beneficial. Port Townsend is not far from here.”

It wasn’t

ever

far for them traveling by mirror but Edwin suspected Niko would be saddened to discover they’d checked in with Tragic Mick without her. Charles nodded.

“Aces. Head back then?”

Edwin shot one last glance into the forest. It was difficult to determine what shapes the silhouettes cutting through the trees in the distance were, but there was a discontented

wrongness

over the whole area.

Left to rot,

the girl at the library had said. He could not help but agree. Rot that had been left long enough to fester, until it dug straight to the core.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Comparing Notes

One of the newer additions to the office of the Dead Boy Detective Agency was a whiteboard stand, equipped with a set of rainbow markers. The former had been lifted from the backroom of the Tongue and Tail Butcher Shop back in their Port Townsend days, the latter a gift Niko’s mother had sent from Osaka after her first visit, with a sticky note attached reading ‘

for your dead boys

.’ According to Niko, she’d felt bad they could not partake in the gift box of candies she’d sent for her and Crystal. It was one of the few times in recent memory Charles remembered Edwin being actually speechless. Neither of them could remember the last time they’d gotten a gift from somebody’s Mum.

Crystal was curled on the couch beside the whiteboard, a crooked vertical line tracing downwards, awaiting the formation of a timeline.

“Okay, so the carnival opens in…like the late 1860s?” She made a slash near the top of the board with the pink marker.

Carnival Opens.

“1867, based on the centennial,” Edwin said.

Niko was seated cross-legged on the couch beside Crystal, heart-covered bathrobe draped over her shoulders. She’d perched her laptop on her lap. “According to the town website, the original carnival had lions and snakes and games. There’s also a stand called ‘House of Osiris Fortunes.’ The woman running it does not look Egyptian. And something called

The Spectacle of Light.

” She tilted her head. “They mention some shows, too, but there aren’t many details.”

“Probably because they were really racist. Or ableist. Or both.” Crystal guessed. “1867 for the carnival opens. The photo was taken in 1967, and it looks like the carnival closed in 1971. Some sort of mechanical issue.” She made two more marks lower on the board, then erased one to move it higher, realizing they’d covered over half of it already.

“It appears we are throwing any sort of proportionality out the window, then?”

“Call it artistic interpretation.” She smiled at him, then, all teeth and no eyes. Charles eased himself off the desk and between them.

“

Oi.

Not the time.”

“Something happens to Annie Weekes in 1998. That’s the fall before Mark and Sarah’s family moves back to London.” Crystal added another slashmark on the board. “Which we’re hoping you got details on. Shockingly the

in memorium

in the yearbook did not have any gorey details.”

“Right, yeah.” Charles stuffed his hands into the pocket of his coat. “Word around town is, group of her friends played a nasty joke on her. Blindfolded, left her in the center of the maze. Stumbled over faulty wiring on her way out.”

He didn’t

like

this scene, but it was familiar. Raucous laughter in the distance, everything dark and shivering, making it impossible to place the hollering, to know if it was close or far, from which side, if it was getting closer. He could picture the girl, clutching whatever piece of fabric they’d bound over her eyes in one hand like it’d lead her to safety, calling out tentatively in the dark because if she refused to believe her friends had done it long enough, perhaps she could slip through the seams to a time and place where they hadn’t.

“

Jesus

.” Crystal frowned, hand at the whiteboard. “Are you sure?”

He blinked. “Am I

sure

?”

“No, I mean.” She held up a hand. “Fuck. Sorry. It’s just, in my vision it seemed, it

felt

like they were really worried about her.”

“Perhaps they were. It’s likely they did not mean to kill her.”

Edwin’s fists were folded near the base of his sternum, pressing, tightening. Charles wanted to take them aside, to lower them to his sides, holding his wrists until the tension seeped out of them.

We’re all victims of boys who went too far,

Crystal had once commented. There were a lot of things that could happen to a person whom no one was meaning to kill.

“Yeah, but,” Crystal chewed her lip. “It was like there was something else. Remember, I told you there was this carousel music? And, like, something else in the distance? Some kind of…thing.”

“A poltergeist.”

Niko shifted on the couch. “Like the movie?”

Edwin had settled into his conclusion, then.

“A poltergeist is a spirit whose death was so distressing, it becomes entangled with a physical object in space. They cannot move from place to place like regular ghosts, and tend to become overwhelmed with negative emotions, eventually losing sense of whomever the original person was entirely. Many of what the uninformed populace consider ‘haunted’ places are actually the grounds wherein a poltergeist has formed.”

“And you think Annie

became

one of those?” Niko’s voice was soft. “Can we help her?”

“It is possible to seal the object a poltergeist has attached to in a protective vessel that will allow the ghost to separate from the negative energy that caused it to form, long enough to allow them to pass on.”

“And we might be able to get answers about what happened to the rest of the kids who disappeared?”

“You want to ask her about them? The kids who killed her?”

“We have to, don’t we?” Crystal folded her arms around her chest, shoulders slightly hunched. “Sarah needs to know what happened to her brother. Even if he was an asshole. She cares about him.”

Girl with a missing brother,

Charles swallowed.

We’re helping a girl with a missing brother. And getting the chance to put a lost spirit to rest. God knows she deserves it.

“No. You’re right.” He focused back on the timeline. “So that’s ‘98.”

“Right. And in 2019, Mark and the others get postcards asking them to come back.”

“Violet, Shawn, and Paul,” Niko supplied. She’d drawn up her bathrobe around her shoulders, cocooning into the couch like an extremely comfortable snapping turtle. When she caught him looking, she smiled
and moved to the side, opening up a sliver of space beside her. Charles took it, wished he could feel the warmth she’d left behind.

“Do we think Annie sent them?”

Edwin tilted his head. “It would be… unusual behavior for a poltergeist, but it’s possible.”

“Maybe she was trying to pass on? And they were her unfinished business?”

“A promising theory.”

Edwin’s hands were still in fists, but they’d lowered to his sides. When the girls went home, it’d be a music night, Charles decided. They’d rifle through their record collection and play something loud enough to startle the coalition of pigeons that made a home on their balcony.

“Just to check my understanding: you all recently returned from the

literal afterlife

that one of you got stuck in while trapped in a shitty town in the pacific northwest, only to less than two months later, go back to another, smaller and likely shittier town

also

in the pacific northwest that people have been getting trapped in?”

Crystal and Niko exchanged a glance.

“Technically, the Neitherlands isn’t the afterlife. It’s a separate dimension where the concepts of life and death don’t really exist. But otherwise, yes.”

“There’s also maybe an evil carnival,” Niko added. It did not help much, given the slightly unnecessary force with which Jenny returned to pounding a chicken breast with a meat tenderizer. She shook her head, glaring at the pinkish piece of meat.

“Evil carnival. Of fucking course.”

“We shouldn’t be gone for more than a few days,” Crystal continued. “If you really can’t make it over, I’m sure the plants will be fine.”

Niko had insisted on propagating a tiny patch of dandelions in their new apartment, despite neither of them having a particular penchant for gardening. There were not many resources online for

deliberately

growing dandelions, and her friend’s explanation that she’d made a promise to Litty and Kingham made her a bit wary, even if the spot of color at the kitchen table was charming. It would be just her luck, Crystal thought, that a plant people went to great lengths to kill off on purpose could somehow die unintentionally if left unattended. Die unintentionally or take over their apartment with cottony spores that induced hallucinations.

She should probably start sleeping with the door closed.

“Yeah, not so much worried about the plants as the

maybe evil carnival

. Run that by me again?”

“It’s for a case.”

Jenny scoffed, magnimaniously holding back an

obviously.

There wasn’t really any other reason for it.

The new butcher shop was in walking distance from their current apartment, which was supposedly coincidential, but statistically unlikely given the size of London. It felt the same, though Crystal had not been to enough to know if that was specific to Jenny, or that that was the energy of butcher shops in general. The artisan freezers in the back were new, though, and made their breath fog in the air.

“Weren’t you going to go to your parents’ art thing?”

Next to Crystal, Niko shook her head furiously, stopping abruptly when she looked over, as if the motion were not obvious in her peripheral. She winced when she caught Crystal noticing and mouthed a

sorry.

Jenny took in the exchange.

“That bad, huh?”

“It was fine.”

“Crystal’s mom had paint dumped over her hands while blindfolded. It was very artistic.”

“Uh-huh.” Jenny frowned at Crystal. “You okay?”

“I said it was fine. Just… you know, they were busy. Doing art stuff. We didn’t really talk.” Why would they have? It wasn’t like she’d been missing for a month, living somewhere else for another.

“And that has nothing to do with your sudden impulse to get stuck in a carnival in small town America?”

“No.” She grit her teeth. “It’s for a case. And the goal is

not

to get stuck.”

The meat tenderizer hit the counter with another

thwack.

“Okay. Fine. None of my business.”

Niko opened her mouth.

“Yes, I will come water your dandelions. For some fucking reason. Just… be careful. Okay?”

Both girls nodded.

“Thanks, Jenny!”

“Yeah. Sure. And, Crystal?”

She hesitated at the door. Jenny’s head dipped behind the counter, the fogged-over glass protecting the meat reducing her face to a formless cloud threaded with black. She sighed, and looked back up.

“I know trying to revive old connections is a thing you’re doing right now. But as someone who wasted years of their life to get on the good side of a parent who categorically did not have one…sometimes you have to cut your losses. Or at least figure out who is worth making the effort for.”

Crystal studied her boots on the polished linoleum. She thought of the faceless blonde girl from the art exhibition, her father’s hand on her shoulder projecting

absolutely nothing,

the stomach plummeting phone call from Port Townsend when she’d realized they hadn’t even noticed she was missing. And then she pictured fistfights on the red carpet, the disappointed looks from reporters as they realized she was behaving herself, ornate glassware thrown over the banister until it shattered into fragments so small they disappeared into the rug, the woman from the estate sale, narrowed expression going slack and pliant.

“Thanks. Noted.” She smiled as convincingly as she could muster – which, from Jenny’s arched eyebrow, was not especially convincing – and let the door slide shut. As she turned to face, Niko, Crystal could not help but wonder not so much if, but when, her parents had decided

she

wasn’t worth making the effort for.

One Extremely Long Flight Later

Charles and Edwin were waiting in the Seattle airport when the girls arrived, in different states of bleary-eyed dishevelment. The dull heat of summer had settled and was sharpening to a point, the cusp of fall already upon them, though the leaves had only started to pale from green to yellow. It was not an especially long trip to Port Townsend, though the last leg of the trip required switching between two ferries.

Crystal spent both with her eyes behind a sleep mask, half burrowed into her coat, attempting to stave off jet lag. Niko had not planned on becoming a makeshift pillow, but with her friends’ head heavy on her lap, she thought it would be a bit rude to move.

“How did the talk with the Night Nurse go?”

“She was not especially pleased we were leaving the country.”

“I don’t think she’s been

especially pleased

since we’ve known her,” Charles said.

Crystal shifted a bit, rolling away from the tickling fibers of Niko’s scarf with a half-asleep sniff, a few stray curls caught in her mouth. Niko patted her head gently. “I thought she was happy when we helped all the kids in that fancy bed and breakfast that used to be an orphanage. That was like, ten lost children.”

“Yes. She does have a preference for certain types of cases.” Edwin tapped the end of his pen against the cover of his notebook.

“Maybe she’s homesick? She must’ve worked in the Lost and Found Department for a long time. It’s hard when you’re in a new place and don’t know many people.” Harder still, when people thought you were strange and sad, and did not want to be your friend.

The Night Nurse did not seem to particularly like them, but they’d thought that about Litty and Kingham, too. And they had proved to be… well, not helpful exactly, but not

unhelpful

in the moments where it had counted. She patted the front pocket of her coat, the shape of the wooden bear statue familiar against her chest.

“I suppose it must be.” Edwin’s expression was thoughtful.

“In any case, she signed off on it,” Charles said.

The boat’s foghorn droned, causing Crystal to startle awake, jerking up so quickly she nearly knocked into Niko. She brushed the sleep mask up on her forehead, wincing.

“Sorry.”

“All good,” Niko smiled. “You feeling any better?”

“I will after coffee.” She grimaced. “And brushing my teeth. Ugh. Did I miss anything important?”

“Yes,” Edwin said. “We solved the case in the twenty minutes you spent drooling on Niko’s lap.”

Crystal glared. “Wow. That is

so funny

.” She looked nervously over. “I didn’t actually drool on you, right?”

“No. You were chewing your hair. It was very cute.”

“Oh. Um, thanks.” She brushed her hair back over her shoulder and picked up her travel bag. “I guess I’ll wash up.”

“You do that.”

She flashed a bit of choice sign language in Edwin’s direction and descended the stairs, gripping the metal railing while the ferry swayed beneath them.

Niko leaned back and glanced out the window, the outcropping of the island slowly taking shape into a familiar rocky coast. The lighthouse, the sting of salt in the air, the offshore winds that made everything not tied down shiver and flutter. She considered taking a picture to send to her mother, but decided against it. She’d told her she’d be unable to call for a few days for case-related reasons, but hadn’t clarified how far they’d be traveling. It would only make her worry and besides, she’d keep trying to pay Crystal back for the flights, despite both girls’ insistence that it wasn’t important. Not telling her mother where they’d gone wasn’t lying. It was just… not telling.

It was late afternoon when they climbed out onto the dock, the boards groaning in acknowledgment of their presence.

“Alright. Next ferry leaves in 45 minutes. That should give us just enough time to nip around to Tragic Mick’s, yeah?”

“We should also get road trip snacks,” Niko said.

“And caffeine.” The neckline of Crystal’s shirt was damp from where she’d splashed water on her face.

“Perhaps we split up temporarily and regroup?”

They nodded in assent and went their separate ways.

Hansel and Gretel

“Poltergeists, like all spiritual entities, have a physical response to iron.” Edwin and Charles phased through the door of

Tragic Mick’s Magic Tricks,

the former flipping through his notebook.

“We aren’t using iron vessels, mate. Even if the girls hold it. Too risky.”

“I wasn’t making a

suggestion

. I was merely

reading.

It also notes a natural aversion to silver, strong salts, and…” He turned the page. “Running water.”

“Maybe we can get one of those little garden fountains?” It was not an earnest suggestion, but Edwin looked up, eyebrows arched.

“I would have thought you’d had quite enough of water fixtures after the Case of the Fountain of Youth in ‘07.”

“We agreed never bring that up again.”

“I was only

referencing.

”

“Good.”

“Though you made a precocious toddler, I must say.”

“Oi!” He spun around to face Edwin, pleased to catch the tail end of a mischievous expression fading from his face. He’d been a bit on edge during their solo trip to Barrett Creek, but it seemed to be gradually wearing away; the smugness of being able to mirror travel whilst the girls spent the better portion of the day in an airplane had helped a bit, even if they’d had to make use of that time convincing the Night Nurse to approve of a mission they’d already decided to do.

“Can I help you?”

“Cheers, Tragic Mick!” Charles grinned and turned to face him. The old walrus was seated behind the counter, eyeing them with watchful suspicion, which Charles suspected was his version of fondness. His shop assistant was perched beside him, a large book of star charts resting open on his knees, smiling tentatively at them in greeting. “And Monty. How’s things?”

“We’re looking for a vessel that might be used to hold a poltergeist,” Edwin said. “I don’t suppose you have anything of the sort?”

“Got a few that might work. Size?”

Monty closed his book and slipped off the counter, dipping into the shelves behind them.

“We aren’t sure of the source, so larger would be preferable.”

“Got a glass case from a vanity, silver accents.” Mick pointed to a shelf behind Charles. It took him a moment to spot it, tucked between a collapsed puppet and what appeared to be either a fantastic replica, or a genuine human skull encased in resin. It was roughly the size of a shoebox, and the silver made his fingertips feel strange, a not unpleasant numbness settling over them.

“What do you think?”

Edwin studied the box pensively, tapping an experimental finger against the glass.

“It may be a bit fragile.”

“Glass is usually the thing for it,” Mick said. “But we’ve got some in silver, too. Nothing that big, though.”

“It won’t break if I keep it in the backpack.”

“True,” Edwin turned back to Mick. “How much for it?”

“Depends. You got anything to trade with?”

Charles set the box down on the counter, swinging the backpack off his shoulder. “Been waiting for you to ask, old chap. Do we

ever.

”

Monty traced a finger over the shelves, the dust shimmering silver. He shook the vial of herbs once, before returning. Charles was leaning on the counter beside Mick, retrieving a variety of odd and enthralling objects from his backpack. Edwin stood a few paces back, expression clouded with amused fondness. He’d planned on waiting for a clear moment to interrupt, but Edwin must’ve noticed him emerging from the shelves, because the soft look slipped from his face, replaced with something cordial, but painfully guarded.

It was to be expected, and should not feel like being cleaved down the center.

“Here,” Monty said, thrusting the vial in his direction, perhaps too forwardly. “Lavender.”

Edwin’s expression shifted from cordial to suspicious, and he took a slight step backwards.

“I beg your pardon?”

Monty reexamined the bottle, suddenly unsure. Edwin looked as if he’d shoved a handful of squirming, live worms in his direction.

“It’s, um, dried lavender. For your poltergeist?” Monty was not an expert on all supernatural entities, but Esther had vengeful enemies, and had put a bit of effort into planting an unruly garden to keep any that refused to pass on from darkening her door.

Edwin expression relaxed a touch. “Oh. Yes. Of course.

Lavender.

” He smiled, though it did not reach his eyes, and took the bottle, holding it gingerly between two fingers.

Monty let both his hand and eyes drop to the floor.

“I – apologies. I misheard you. That was a good instinct.”

At the counter, Charles made a triumphant sound, and reached into the backpack, pulling out what first appeared to be a wheel, but was actually connected to a long stick with pedals and a curved seat on the end.

“What am I going to do with a unicycle?” It was the voice Mick used when he was trying to sound exasperated, but was in actuality a bit curious. He’d taken to using it whenever Monty attempted to explain star charts, or dream interpretation, or palmistry.

“It’s not just a unicycle. It’s a

cursed

unicycle.”

“I do hope you’re well.”

Edwin said it so softly, Monty had to do a double take to realize he was being addressed.

“Oh. Yeah. Things are good with the shop. I, um, hope you’re well, too.”

Across the store, Mick and Charles seemed to have come to some sort of agreement that was being sealed with a handshake, and an extremely awkward exchange of a single-wheeled vehicle that must’ve been a few inches taller than Monty.

“And this as well,” Edwin said, stepping forward to set the bottle of lavender on the counter.

“Had to wait until I was done negotiating, huh?”

Mick grunted, but waved it off with a hand. The bell above the door rang, properly this time, as the entering customers bothered to open it. Niko waved excitedly, plastic bag full of many other, brightly colored plastic bags tucked under her arm.

“Hi Tragic Mick!” She turned to Charles. “Wait, are you trading the unicycle?”

“

Thank God

,” Crystal muttered into her coffee cup.

“Oi. It was a

great

find. Good thought with the lavender.”

“It was Monty’s, actually.”

Monty took a small step backwards, as if he might disappear into the shelves if he held still enough. Niko grinned and waved.

“Hi Monty!”

Crystal raised her cup in acknowledgement, before taking a long sip, squinting slightly in the daylight.

“Good thought Monty, then.” Charles had an easy grin. Monty suspected he’d never had to practice in a mirror, test holding it for as long as possible. He was still struggling with schooling his expressions, but had gotten rather good at smiling through interactions with disagreeable customers. Decidedly better than Mick, actually. “Hey, wait. You know witchy stuff, yeah? Did you show him the circle thing, Edwin?

“I did not,” Edwin said. He pursed his lips for a moment. “But it is not a terrible idea. Monty, are you at all familiar with circular sigilry?” He withdrew his small, brown notebook from his pocket and rifled through the pages, before presenting it to Monty. “We found this drawn on a tree near where the poltergeist is located.”

Tentatively, Monty took it. For a moment the lines seemed foreign, then he turned the book so the page was upside down.

That

he’d seen some time ago.

He’d been viewing the world through slots between gold bars then, the kettle on Esther’s stove puffing steam into the air. On the counter, a small, white rabbit sat, nibbling on a piece of lettuce, entirely oblivious to the fate that would soon befall it. Esther had carved the sketch onto a small slab of concrete that could easily be lost in the garden.

When she picked up the rabbit, she cooed at it, voice high and babying, and Monty did not think about how she spoke to him the same way. She rolled it onto it’s back, soothing with soft murmurs as she spread it’s forelimbs away from it’s stomach, picking up a pair of sewing shears from the counter with her free hand. It was not difficult to tell the exact moment the rabbit realized what was coming. Tiny paws struggling against her fingers, soft cooing rising it pitch right up until the first stab, where it became much more clearly whimpering. When she’d turned to look at him, fingers scooping blood from the corpse as if it were an inkwell, she’d smiled. He’d chirped.

Monty looked up.

“You recognize it.”

“Not this exactly. I’ve seen it inverted.”

The

Hansel and Gretel

rune

,

was what she’d called it. It set people at ease, evoked curiosity, in the milkweed and butterflies in the garden, in the hazy glass of the windows, in the caged bird on the counter. Monty suspected that was not it’s proper name.

“When it’s upside down, it has the opposite effect,” Monty looked at the page. “I’ve seen it used for – uh, a calming effect. So this would cause, like dread. Wariness. It’s some kind of ward.”

“You’re certain?” He perhaps should’ve taken some pleasure in the fact Edwin questioned his memory before his honesty, but he might’ve just been being polite. Monty nodded. “This

is

a rough sketch.”

“And we had to clear, like, a ton of moss off the tree,” Charles admitted. “Could’ve missed something.”

It took him a moment, for which he blamed the high trills of the whimpering rabbit which was not in the room with them, or even truly relevant, but insisted upon remaining in his thoughts anyways. Human brains were not particularly adept at filtering out unnecessary information.

“Wait… moss?”

Edwin looked confused for a moment before the realization set in.

“Of course. I’m an

idiot

.”

“Sorry, what was that?” Crystal leaned over.

“A sigil like this would feed off whatever was around it. There shouldn’t have been moss on the tree unless the moss

itself

was the sigil, the tree should’ve been

dead.

Which means the sigil was inactive. Whoever drew it did not complete the process of casting the spell.

Why

?”

“Maybe they forgot?” Niko asked.

“Perhaps. It’s just…odd.”

Edwin held out his hand, and Monty returned the notebook to him.

“Worth following up on?” Charles had picked up the jar of lavender from the counter, and was shaking it, the curled petals rustling lightly. Edwin turned to face him, and there was a heavy beat of silence during which Monty could only determine that

some

form of communication was occurring.

Crystal sighed. “Okay,

Jesus.

You guys can’t keep doing your whole silent conversation thing. There’s other people here.”

“Right, sorry.”

Edwin, for his part, did not look especially sorry.

“Don’t suppose you’d have time to pop over for a tick to check it out in person?” Charles asked.

Monty glanced over at Mick, who shrugged, the seat of the unicycle raising and nearly knocking into the top of the desk.

“Up to you.”

He tugged at the string of paperclips he’d hung around his neck. “I’d like to help if I can.”

“Aces.”

Mick gruffly surveyed the group of them. “You bring him back, alright?” Charles saluted dutifully.

“Oh my God,

yes.

” Niko beamed, bouncing up on her toes. “We have

so many

road trip snacks.”

“We have approximately 12 minutes before the next ferry,” Edwin said crisply. “Is that enough time to get your affairs in order?”

Monty had practically no affairs to get in order, with the sum total of his social circle already in the room, but decided it was better to simply nod. If Edwin was disappointed, he did not show it, but he did not look especially excited by the prospect, either.

America’s Pastime

The bus from the ferry station to Barrett Valley was two hours, which according to Crystal was incredibly short for what could be considered a road trip stateside. This only added evidence to Edwin’s slowly growing conviction that America’s

true

pastime was spending hours waiting in traffic. The bus stopped and started through throngs of cars as it made it’s way out of the city, with the five of them clustered in the back. He had been worried that discussing the case would be impossible with so many other passengers only a short distance away, but the vast majority of them appeared impassioned in their commitment to not acknowledge or speak to anyone else. Many had, in fact, disappeared entirely into noise cancelling headphones, one of the few modern inventions Edwin found himself wishing he could’ve tried when he was alive.

“Have you ever been to Oregon before?” Niko asked Monty, offering an open bag of pretzels. He shook his head.

“I’ve never actually left Port Townsend before.”

A comment made months ago about the world feeling incredibly small suddenly made a bit more sense. Edwin returned to his notes on poltergeists. He did not resent the addition as much as he’d expected; the fairgrounds were very large, and the source of the poltergeist could be very small. An extra pair of eyes would be useful, especially if they were attempting to bind the spirit before it grew in strength at sundown. He would have perhaps preferred a different, more trustworthy, set of eyes, but could not puzzle out what ulterior motive Monty would have for joining them. Besides, whatever words he and Charles had exchanged in the latter’s short solo-trip back to Port Townsend had been enough to gain his confidence. While Edwin reserved his right to not trust Monty, he trusted Charles’ judgement completely.

“Any good tips on what this source might be?”

Crystal had regained herself considerably between the nap on the ferry and large cup of coffee – sweetened beyond recognition – from Port Townsend. She slid into the space beside him, glancing at the book, nose wrinkling slightly at an illustration of ectoplasm slugs.

“Unfortunately not. It would need to be something of emotional significance for the deceased. Your psychic skills may prove useful. The tree with the sigil appeared to be some sort of memorial, perhaps one of the items there could help us glean what might’ve been important to her.”

“Yeah. Sure.” She turned around in the seat and held out her palm. “Wait did you open the peanut M&Ms?”

“Yes! Monty, you’ll like these.” Niko leaned forwards, shaking some colorful chocolates into Crystal’s outstretched palm. The bus rumbled and one or two spilled out, rolling beneath the seats in the back, which were inhabited with a small jungle of dust creatures.

“Shit.”

“Nicely done.”

She did not respond verbally, but leveled a look of exasperation at him while stuffing the entire handful of chocolates into her mouth, chewing slightly noisier than Edwin suspected was necessary. With neither he nor Charles having to – or in fact, being capable of – eating, it seemed he had missed the gradual degradation of table manners. Edwin’s nanny would not have liked Crystal. Then again, she hadn’t much liked him, either.

Always asking questions, that one. Thinks he’s in one of his mystery novels.

He’d never learned what had become of her. Despite her complaints, she had never refused to supply him

with

said mystery novels. Edwin hoped whatever pupil she’d taken on after him had been less of a nuisance.

“

So good,

right?” Niko said. “Sorry, Charles.”

Edwin glanced over, to see his partner draped over the seat beside them, looking a bit forlornly on the brightly colored collection of snacks splayed across the backseat. Next to him, Crystal shook her head, swallowing.

“It’s all good. I just miss crisps

so much

.”

“Hey, Charles, want to switch places?” She glanced back at the book and shook her head. “Could use less flesh golems watching me eat.” The multitude of eyes protruding from the beehive shaped head of the creature on the upward facing page of his book were, in fact, angled slightly in her direction.

“Yeah, sure.” It was not until after they did switch places that Charles looked down at the book and grimaced. “

Christ

, mate. You need to have that one out?”

“I am trying to determine by what means a poltergeist may influence electronic devices.” He frowned, tapping a finger against the page. “Crystal mentioned carousel music in her vision, but based on the timeline, it would not have been operational the night Annie Weekes was killed.”

“The girl at the library mentioned an electric accident. Maybe something got turned on somehow?”

“Perhaps.”

“Or,” Charles snapped his fingers. “What if the carousel

is

the source?”

“I certainly hope not. I do not think it would fit in our containment vessel.”

“Oh. Right,” he turned to lean back against the bus seat, before lowering his voice slightly. “Look - are you sure you’re okay with

you know who

being here?”

“I’m certain. It makes sense.” He felt foolish to have missed the inactive sigil. Perhaps the story at the library had unsettled him a bit more than he’d first assumed. “Especially given the size of the area we need to investigate. We should aim to locate and contain the source prior to sundown.”

Charles nodded. “Remember the poltergeist we found in that pub in Cheswick? You know, I thought the whole ‘breaking the glass by screaming’ bit was something they made up on the telly. But no.”

“Such lovely stained glass, too,” Edwin agreed. “Though I suppose it’s understandable. Being bricked up in a wall cannot be a pleasant way to go. It was very

Cask of Amontillado

.”

Charles grinned so bright Edwin nearly looked away.

“And here I thought you’d never get into American writers.”

“I found the Detective Dupin stories rather charming -

if

far fetched.”

“Hmm.” Charles bumped his shoulder against Edwin’s. He looked down at the grimly illustrated images in his book, and closed it, smiling a bit to himself. Outside, brown, wilted corn stretched from the roadside to the horizon. Civilization gave way into rows and rows of maize, slowly overtaking the world.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Run Rabbit Run

It had rained the previous night in Barrett Creek; not heavily enough to draw mud beneath their feet but enough that the leaves were plastered to the walkway and the smell of wet earth permeated the air. Crystal closed her eyes, took it in. She’d lived in cities most of her life, in ornately decorated high rise apartments, in sprawling hotel rooms her parents overtook and made their own like artistic cuckoos, in half a dozen advanced preparatory academies, some of which she’d been oh-so tactfully asked not to return to, some of which she’d been unceremoniously yanked from under the pretenses that her ‘

creative spark

’ was being smothered.

If she had a few less negative memories associated with them, Crystal thought she could learn to love the woods. Maybe there was something in them that the glowing tree in the recluse of her mind found kinship with.

“Here we are.” Edwin gestured to a tree beside the path, with a number of personal objects nestled around it in a halo.

The dampness made the stuffed animals appear to sag and droop, something about the enormity of the tree behind them making the display feel very small and very sad. Crystal pictured the girl from the photo she’d given Sarah. She was around Crystal’s age. Not old enough to even be formed as a person, really. Just a few abstract concepts, waiting to be woven together.

“Is that the rune you recognized, Monty?”

He popped up on his toes to get a better view – the boys and Niko tended to forget the significant height they held over her, and Crystal felt cheered to have a similarly-short companion, even if they did not seem to have anything else in common – and squinted.

“Yeah. It’s a reverse of the Hansel Gretel, so it

should

be causing some kind of dread. But it’s inactive.”

“Hansel Gretel?” Charles asked, and Monty’s dark eyes widened and dropped to his sneakers on the foliate. Crystal pictured a witch in a candy cottage, luring in children to bake into cakes and pies. It was apt, she supposed, given how he’d likely seen it used before.

“The, uh, calming rune.” He took a step forward, tracing the arc of the carving in the wood. “It doesn’t look like it was ever active.”

“Why bother to draw a sigil and not activate it?” Edwin frowned.

“Maybe they couldn’t find a rabbit?”

Niko’s head tilted. “What’s the rabbit for?” She’d just finish the question when she seemed to realized the answer, and winced, lips puckering in a sympathetic pout. “Oh. Poor bunny.”

“One way to find out,” Crystal said, and took a step forward, placing a hand on the carving.

The wet bark was prone to breakage, smushing pulpily beneath her hand.

A girl with dark hair stood at the tree, holding a Swiss Army knife in one hand, a crossbody purse balancing on her hip. She wore a navy dress with black tights. It had looked black in her closet, she couldn’t sworn it was black and it was not until she’d stepped into the sunlit cemetery that she’d realized it wasn’t. By then it was too late. And everyone knew, everyone knew it was wrong and they were staring, staring. The girl shot a nervous look up the path.

Then she pulled a folded magazine page from her purse. The paper was pink and yellow, one side a quiz to test which element most closely aligned with the reader’s ‘spiritual aura.’ The other had an advertisement for sterling silver charms, the effect of each written in two or three words. Second from the right, third row. Protection, shielding.

The girl had used to believe this kind of stuff was stupid. That it was for gullible people with nothing better to do. She didn’t know what she believed now.

“God, Annie. I’m so sorry.”

She sliced her finger accidentally opening the knife. Her fingers were shaking. She pressed it to the tree, began to carve.

Crystal’s dropped her hand from the tree, grabbing the corresponding finger, though of course it wasn’t injured. Nothing was wrong. She blinked, steadying herself in the present. Niko reached out to grab her shoulder comfortingly, smiling warmly.

“What is it?”

“It was Violet. The other girl. Annie’s…friend.” Crystal frowned.

“She’s a witch?”

“I don’t think so. She had this magazine. Some kind of connect with your feminine energy astrology bullshit. I think she was just trying to do something to help. She thought it was for shielding. I don’t think she knew about the…rabbit thing.”

“It does not necessarily

need

to be a rabbit,” Edwin said. “Any kind of animal sacrifice would work.”

“Well, she didn’t know that.”

Charles frowned. “She did this

after

Annie died?”

“Yeah. Right after the funeral, I think. She said… she said she was sorry.”

“Bit late for that.”

It shouldn’t have surprised her, the curtness in his response. She knew what had happened to him, and she swore to God, that if they ever ran into any of those assholes who’d left him to die she’d strangle them herself. People got away with being terrible all the time. They both knew it, had learned the hard way that sometimes people would pelt you with rocks or ravage your mind, would wean you away from the world until everything felt far away and the people who you hoped would notice, would step in to stop it, would be nowhere to be seen. It was easy to be angry, then.

But Crystal had gotten away with being terrible, too. That cache of anger she held in her chest for David, that she wasn’t sure would ever dissipate – well, people had that for her. New Crystal was different, had to be different, which meant it had to be possible for people to change.

“Anything from any of the…offerings?” Edwin asked. Crystal shook herself, looked down at the stuffed animals, blurred and water-damaged photos. Tiny candles swimming in rainwater.

“I think they’re just gifts. She’s not a deity.”

She placed a hand on the head of one of the bears, grimacing at the texture of wet fur.

High school friend, didn’t know her well. They were in yearbook club together.

She tried a candle.

Fifth grade teacher, she’d read all the Junie B Jones books in his library.

Polaroid smeared beyond recognition.

Mark Brook, taken after sophomore homecoming. She’d been the group’s designated driver, not his date. She’s smacked him trying to get him to sober up enough before they snuck back in the house.

Crystal lowered her hand.

“That one’s from Mark. Nothing else about the night she died, though.” She brushed her hands off on her jeans. “Think we’re on our own for the source.”

“Unfortunate.” Edwin folded his arms behind. “I don’t suppose you have any… training regiment for your psychic talents?”

“I could practice reading all your most embarrassing moments.”

“That’s plenty, you two.” Charles held up his hands, angling between them. “Let’s check out the carnival, yeah? We’re losing daylight.”

They set off again, the woods beginning to thin out into a clearing.

One of the gnarled roots of the nearby trees whipped across the front of the path, and while Crystal stepped over it easily enough, Monty appeared to be concentrated on the foliage and tripped, stumbling forwards a few steps. She turned and offered her arm.

“You okay?”

“Fine

.

” His shoes had small constellations doodled in sharpie on the toes and safety pins clipped through the laces.

Some kind of astrology bullshit.

Crystal mentally slapped her forehead.

“Hey, uh, about the astrology dig–”

“No, it’s fine,” he smiled thinly. “I mean, you’re a psychic investigating a haunted carnival with two ghosts and a crow but…yeah, star signs are far fetched.”

She opened her mouth and closed it.

“Fair point,” she said. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

The sourness in his expression drained suddenly, and he looked both a bit confused and a bit flushed. “Oh. Uh – sorry. I didn’t mean to–”

“No, I get it.” She stuffed her hands into her pockets. “It sucks when people shit on stuff that’s important to you.” Narrowing her eyes at Edwin a few feet in front of her then was coincidental, but admittedly well timed.

Monty was quiet for a moment. “For what it’s worth, I think your psychic powers are really cool.”

She could tell he meant it. Monty did not layer his meaning, double up the sentiments behind each sentance. It was a bit refreshing, actually. Reminded her a bit of Niko, if Niko had recently discovered her capacity to feel annoyance. “Thanks.”

When she smiled, he smiled back, a bit shyly.

You’re doing fine,

she wanted to tell him.

You don’t have to be the servant of an evil witch who lures in children like something in a fairy tale forever. Just like I don’t have to be a narcissistic bitch whose parents are better off without her forever.

People were capable of change.

The Barrett Valley Fall Carnival must’ve been an event once upon a time, the remains sat like a half-preserved mummy left on the hard packed earth. There were bones: a huge carousel, the metal underside so deeply rusted gashes of orange crept up the poles holding the horses, many of which had been graffitied over, splotches of blue, red, and black covering their muzzles, bits of sheer plastic wound around a few of them like sheet ghosts in a haunted mansion. Beyond the carousel, a few slumping stands and tents, the tarps worn to gossamer, grit making red stripes look coppery. There were a few picnic tables, a banquet of broken glass bottles and fast food wrappers spread out over the top, a ticket booth, a few games, with bits of cotton fluff on prongs behind, as if the stuffed animals that had hung there had been partially gutted while being dislodged.

In front of the entrance, stood a wooden game, a plank of metal stretching upwards from a flat plate. A large mallet was affixed to the side, as up the plank various comments
– ranging from disparaging to glowing – on the striker’s physical prowess.

Feather of Truth

read the sign at the top.

“Jesus,” Crystal glanced around. “This is…deader than I expected.”

“Oh, wow. Living people, look out for broken glass.” Niko bounced lightly, staring at the ground.

“You’d think they would’ve at least dismantled some of this.” A game of whack-a-mole was not far from the entrance, though the foam mallet and a number of the plastic moles must’ve been lifted in the interim. Charles did not like the look of it. There was something

off,

even beyond the general state of decay.

“They must’ve left it

really fast.

”

“Indeed.” Edwin glanced around. “It appears the maze is that way.”

The group made their way up the curved path, between a few more tents, a wooden sign hosting a mustachioed magician holding a white rabbit. Nothing nefarious in the image, but suddenly all Charles could picture was the rune outside, imagining the small, vulnerable thing quivering out of reach of a knife. He looked forward, held out an arm to Crystal to help her over the shards of a beer bottle.

“Be real careful where you’re stepping. Story goes there’s some kind of electrical discharge around here.” Crystal’s hand in his tightened a bit, but she did not make eye contact as she let go.

Edwin paused near a large circular basin with a hole at the base, peering in. From the center emerged two fat cockroaches.

“I cannot fathom what would entice local youths to frequent here.”

Crystal shrugged. “It’s dangerous and creepy.”

“That was precisely what I meant.”

Charles caught her drift, however, moving over to the basin, which he suspected was what remained of a defunct cotton candy maker. “You saw the town, mate. People who live their probably bored out of their minds. Dangerous and creepy’s probably the draw.”

“Even still.” He tugged at the cuffs of his sleeves. Niko maneuvered beside them and looked down into the basin, shuddering, her nose crinkling.

“Gross.”

“My sentiments exactly.” Edwin slid his arm around hers, wearing his ‘

finally a sensible person’

expression. A few paces away, Monty had dropped to a crouch, studying the ground. He set a hand tentatively on something, as if it may have burned him, before picking it up.

“Find anything?”

“Oh. No.” The orientation of the object shifted, catching the light and glowing gold. Just broken glass, then. Monty set it down quickly, standing back up and brushing off his legs. “Just looking.”

He was wearing a string of paperclips as a sort of necklace, bits of buttons, clips, and feathers spearing into the wire. It reminded Charles a bit of the punks at his school, fashioning their own chains out of safety pins and decorating jackets with fabric paint. He hadn’t shared their tastes entirely, but ska and punk had enough overlap that they’d exchange lopsided grins when they crossed paths. He suspected in this case the motivation was more corvid than subculture, but the overall effect was familiar, if somewhat tempered.

If he wanted to collect bits of broken glass, Charles figured it was his business. He smiled, but wasn’t fully sure the sentiment came across. Edwin cleared his throat.

“Perhaps we proceed then?”

“I think I found the corn maze!” Niko called, from around the corner. The first thing Charles noticed was that unlike the surrounding foliage, much less the wet brown grass packed to clay beneath them, the corn was fully alive, an almost startling green against all the grime-faded colors. The next thing he noticed was the sign propped up beside it.

Haunted Corn Maze, Enter…if you DARE.

These letters dripped, though it seemed more deliberate than the peeling paint on the signs before them, like they’d been drawn with syrupy thick blood in mind. On top of the sign sat a row of metal spikes, each with the speared head of a victorian-style doll, bits of paint monstrifying them in various ways. Charles felt Edwin tense next to him and shit,

shit.

He reached out, grabbed Edwin’s hand gingerly, almost letting go when he flinched until leather-gloved fingers entwined with his and squeezed gently.

“Oh,” Edwin said softly, in that voice of his that was meant to signal ‘I have recovered’ but did not always do so convincingly. “I suppose this is one of the more likely hunting grounds for our poltergeist.”

“One of.

Oi

,” he called to the group. Edwin released his hand quickly as the others turned to face them. “Crystal, you mentioned carousel music in your vision, right?”

She nodded. “When the kids were running away, yeah.”

“Thinking it might be good to divide and conquer. You and Edwin take the carousel, I’ll do the maze with, uh, Monty. Do you have a preference, Niko?”

“Um,” she said, looking confused for a moment before smiling apologetically at Charles. “Carousel kinda beats creepy maze for me.”

“Aces,” he clapped his hands together, turning back to Edwin. “You think you can see what might’ve caused it to turn the night Annie died?”

Edwin nodded once. “I – yes. That sounds excellent. If you are certain you can handle things here?” Charles did not know what to do with the look he was getting now, a kind of deep gratefulness that rattled him to his core because it shouldn’t be a matter of being grateful, it should be

expected.

They were a team, and Charles was ready to pick up whatever Edwin couldn’t carry, to beg him to set a few more things

down.

“I’m sure.”

Crystal shot him a questioning look, but shrugged in agreement, turning to head back. Niko walked over to Edwin’s side, more than willing to warm the space beside him. Charles thanked his lucky stars for the both of them and turned to Monty.

“How’s your sense of direction?”

“Um, Mick’s been teaching me how sailors use the stars to navigate at sea?”

Which was in no way going to be useful in this scenario, since it was day, they were on land, and in a confined space, but Charles smiled anyways.

“Brills. We’ve got this, then.”

Charles and Monty Get Lost Immediately

Edwin had gotten ahead of them, not having to be nearly as careful about where he stepped. When they turned the corner, he was standing in front of the carousel, arms folded neatly behind his back. To his right, the high striker game sat facing them; Crystal had thought it was angled at the entrance when they’d come in. As they got closer to him, Edwin dropped to a crouch, squinting at the underside.

“It appears the base of this has rusted through. Whatever mechanism it used to turn originally is no longer functional.”

Crystal took a step forward and put a hand on one of the poles, pushing. With a shriek of metallic resistance, the carousel turned slightly. Niko winced, clapping her hands over her ears.

“It’s not stuck.”

“Not stuck and not operational are different.”

“I

know.

” She dropped her arm, looking up the pole to the vaulted roof of the carousel. Gold-gilded mirrors looked down, the reflections of the horses twisted bonelessly around their mounts. “Could the poltergeist have turned it, though?”

“Likely,” Edwin admitted. “But you mentioned

music

.”

His voice was closer than she expected; she hadn’t heard him approaching and startled a bit before glaring. It lacked bite, she noticed his fists had balled at his sides.

“Everything okay?”

“Certainly.” His hands unclenched, not so much relaxing as straining in a new direction. “I am simply looking for clues. As is customary for a detective.”

Niko walked over, taking a step onto the base of the carousel. The boards groaned, but it remained still otherwise. She patted the head of one of the nearby horses, the paint of whose eyes had been water-worn down so they dripped ink down its face like running mascara. She smiled a bit before turning back to them.

“So, we’re looking for a thing that we don’t know what it is, but it might be here, and we need to find it before it gets dark otherwise an angry poltergeist might attack us.”

“Yeah.”

“That is the sum of it, yes. It would likely have an averse reaction to lavender,” Edwin said, pulling a cork-stoppered bottle from the folds of his coat. Niko cupped her hands as he shook a small portion of the dried curls into them. Crystal did the same. “Try to use this sparingly. We have a lot of ground to cover.”

They didn’t talk much as they entered the maze, which began straightforwardly enough, a curve around the edge of what appeared to be a roughly circular pattern before branching off into interlocking paths. There were a few large, rubber spiders – or else extremely sedentary

actual

spiders – tossed along placed at the edges of where the corn flattened into

maze.

It was not until the first intersection that they paused. Monty had been following a few paces behind, eyes trained on the ground for something that could be a source for a poltergeist. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking for, could only hope whatever it was triggered the twisting-stomach feeling he’d come to associate with nefarious magic. Cursed items at the store, shoppers with dark auras, skeptical library patrons who sniffed dismissively at his astrology books.

Admittedly, the twisting-stomach magic sensing was unreliable. It tended to appear whenever things reminded him of Esther.

“Don’t know about you, but I’m not to keen to wander off alone. Let’s stick together, yeah?”

Monty nodded. He’d never been this far from home before, and could not shake the persistent thought that if they got separated, he did not think he could find the way back to Port Townsend on his own and that regardless, it would be a very long way to fly.

One of the drooping green leaves brushed against his shoulder. Monty pinched it, feeling the stripes of xylem on the underside.

“Is corn supposed to be in season right now?”

“Asking the wrong ghost, mate. I’m not one for botany.” Charles nodded to the two paths. “Which one are you thinking?”

“Um…” Monty wondered if this was another test, like with Edwin and the book. He studied the ground. Probably for too long.

“It’s not a trick question. Figure we try and see as much of it as we can. If you’re not particular, say we go right?”

“Okay.”

It seemed that now that he’d started talking, Charles was in the mood to continue. Which was nice, Monty decided. He liked being talked to, even if he didn’t always know how to respond. Sometimes when Esther would go away on trips, it would be quiet so long the air felt like it was buzzing.

“I’ve never been in a corn maze before. A hedge maze once, near this posh hotel, but it’s not quite the same. Corn’s not that tall, you’ve still got the whole sky.”

Monty followed his gaze up, though the leaves, squinted in the sun. It was clear, but brisk. He was glad he’d brought his jacket.

“Think it’s more of an American thing, really. You have a lot of corn.”

They took another turn, this one to the left. A cracked plastic skeleton hung from a nearby post, spiderwebs weaving sheets through its ribcage. The legs and arms jostled like windchimes. Monty scuffed the toe of his shoe in the flat beds of leaves beneath them.

“I’ve never actually been to a circus before, either. Went to an amusement park as a kid.

Loved

roller coasters. I could still go on them now, I suppose, but it’s less fun alone and after The Case of the Decapitated Decathalon, there’s no way I get Edwin on one. Crystal, maybe. Hard to tell. What about you?”

They walked past another exit, breaking at a right angle to the side of them. From where they were standing, Monty could see fluttering gray fabric, that might’ve once belonged to a sheet ghost, but had been left to drift.

Charles had stopped speaking, and Monty realized he’d been asked a question.

“I don’t know. Never been on one.”

“Right. Of course,” Charles frowned, like he had somehow forgotten the multitude of things that Monty had never done, and why it was he’d never done them. That his personhood was calculated and

recent

, and had been gifted to him with stipulations he’d gotten them all hurt trying to meet. “Well. Suppose that’s one for the bucket list.”

“Bucket list?”

“Do you have one? Things you can do now that you’re, you know, on your own?”

“I have Mick,” Monty said, though he suspected that wasn’t what Charles had meant.

On your own

was a nice way of saying ‘no longer pacted in servitude to a witch who did not need to lock the cage she kept you in.’ “I never thought of that.”

“Really? Never?”

Charles turned around, walking backwards as he faced Monty. His long coat flapped in the wind, which he must have been allowing somehow, because Edwin’s clothes and hair never ruffled.

“No human things you’ve been wanting to try? Posh elaborate meals? Exciting locations?”

Monty adjusted one of his bracelets, shushing the first thing that popped in his head, because it was silly, and childish, and not the sort of activity Charles had been suggesting.

“There! You thought of something.”

“I – forget it. It’s stupid.” His eyes dropped to the ground, realizing he hadn’t been avoiding the glass as consciously for a bit. He supposed the carnival’s many visitors did not tend to venture this far in. Bits of hay from the walkway had begun to cling to the underside of his shoes.

“Bet it isn’t,” Charles was still smiling, a bit goading. It was almost like how he’d speak to a friend.

“It

is

.” There were so many more important things he could’ve chosen: he wanted to look through a telescope, he wanted to meet other crows and learn to understand them, he wanted to fall in love with someone

without

making them hate him in the process.

They passed another deviation from the trail.

“You don’t

have

to tell me. But I promise I won’t make fun. You get less time than you think, alright? Gotta do things you care about.” Charles paused as he came to a halt. “And this is a dead end.”

In front of them, the corn stood in a row of stern soldiers, rustling in the wind.

“Yeah.”

“Double back to the last turn?”

Monty nodded, then stuffed his hands in the pockets of his coat as he mumbled. Charles had gotten a few paces ahead of him and stopped, turning around.

“What was that?”

His face felt oddly warm. “It’s

roller skating

, okay? I’ve always wanted to try roller skating.”

As promised, Charles did not laugh, but Monty could not read the expression he

was

making.

“There were kids on the street, and I know it isn’t but they made it look

easy,

just gliding. And I always wondered what it felt like.”

Even stumbling, with their arms pinwheeling, plastic helmets clipped to their chins. He hadn’t been putting words to how he was feeling, then – it was a very human concept, and Esther hadn’t been keen to share the vocabulary – but he was pretty sure he’d envied them.

“Bit like flying?”

“Maybe. But flying is different. It’s how you get around.”

They crossed into the previously-ignored entrance, splitting off to an immediate left.

“Not what I would’ve guessed.” A pause. “I get it, though. Skating’s aces. I’ve done more skateboarding myself but it’s a good time. Especially if you’re on a hill, you get going downhill and woosh.” He arced his hand as if racing down a hill, then grinned at Monty, nodding approvingly. “Good choice.”
A knot he hadn’t noticed forming felt like it was coming untied. He smiled, for once, without meaning to.

On the far side of the carousel was a kind of station, that must’ve been where the operator had sat back when it had been functional. Crystal pushed the swinging gate that sat hip level at the entrance and stepped inside. There were a few buttons at the top of a tilted board, where they connected to hidden behind the metal exterior. She tapped her knuckles against the outside, listening to the hollow echo. There was a small, twistable handle near the center.

Her mother had done a performance once at Coney Island. Dressed a flock of adults in business suits and instructed them to sit motionless and blank faced on the carousel horses, holding brief cases in one hand, and gripping the poles with the other. She had hoped when it was over, they’d let her ride, notching herself into the line at the side. Maddie had spotted her, just on the edge of the camera flashes, and beamed. For a moment, Crystal had thought she was excited to see

her,

until the spotlights swung over. Inpatient children waiting in line added to the thematic resonance, apparently. They’d offered money to nearby parents willing to let their kids wait in a never-moving queue for an hour or so. One of whom had been a girl named Rosa. They’d gone together afterwards to go on rides and…

And Crystal hadn’t made any other

real

friends for almost a decade. She set her teeth. The friends she had

now

were in the throes of an investigation that she really ought to be contributing more to. She studied the twist handle at the center of the console.

Shaking all the lavender petals to one hand, Crystal took hold of it, digging.

Her heart was racing in dull, numb terror. She grabbed the handle, switching it off. On and off again. The music was loud, a familiar patter of piano keys, only it was

wrong

now, wrong because it was going too fast. It was going too fast and it was speeding up.

She looked up, the people on the carousel’s expressions had shifted from delight in the sudden increase and speed to alarm as it refused to

stop

increasing in speed. A little girl on one of the ponies near the front was crying, hugging the pole close to her chest. People were shouting.

One of the security guards ran over.

“What the Hell is going on here?”

“I don’t know,” she said, in a man’s voice. Her hands were sweaty, she wiped them on her trousers. “It won’t turn off.”

Someone screamed, she looked up. One of the people on the edge, a teenage girl she’d seen toss a crumpled cotton candy cone a few meters from the trashcan, had tried jumping off, but the speed had picked up so much she rolled, clutching one leg underneath her. It was bent strangely, the girl’s face had reddened, mouth quivering and she tried to breathe through tears.

“Turn it off!”

“I can’t.”

“We need to stop it.”

People’s voices were raising in panic. The music was going at a tempo she couldn’t stomach. Crystal ran forward, trying to grab one of the poles to slow it down, and her legs were yanked out from under her, feet skidding on the ground until they buckled, the metal on the side of the base slicing a gash down her calf. There were other people running, grabbing, trying to dismount. The music was eclipsed by screaming, crying, and what she prayed to God was not the crunching of bone as someone, somewhere howled. And then she was on it, spinning faster and faster, her stomach twisting and she looked up, could swear she saw in the corner of her eye a figure standing outside the fortune teller’s tent, a long shawl hiding her arms, taking shape only in brief flashes as she went around, around, until the strength in her arms gave out and she fell back –

“Crystal!”

She blinked, looking up dizzily. She must’ve fallen, because she was staring up at Niko’s concerned expression, and Edwin’s perplexed one. She tried to stand up, but the world hadn’t stopped spinning, and she stumbled into Niko, who grabbed her arm, easing her back into a seated position.

“What did you see?” Edwin asked. “Was it Annie?”

“No,” Crystal looked down at her empty hands, bits of lavender clinging to the edge of her sleeve. She’d dropped the petals at some point, but Edwin seemed too interested to chide her for it. “No, it was before. You said there was an incident that closed the carnival? I think I saw that.”

“What happened?”

“It was here,” she said, scooting out of the booth to get a cleaner look at the carousel. Her shoes slid, slick against wet leaves. “Something went wrong, and it started spinning fast. Way too fast. Like… people broke bones trying to jump off fast.

Fuck

. It was awful.”

“We were lead to believe there was some sort of malfunction,” Edwin said.

“A malfunction is a ride jolting or refusing to start. I mean,

God.

I think someone got

crushed.

” She swallowed, tried to stand up and found herself still a bit unsteady. Niko put a soft hand on her shoulder to balance her.

“Do you want to sit down?”

“And you believe this was not a mechanical accident?”

Crystal crossed her arms. “Last I checked, most carousels don’t have a

go so fast it’s actively dangerous

strength motor. So yeah. Fair to say not mechanical. There was someone else. A woman, I think. I didn’t get a good look at her, but it seemed like she might be important.”

Edwin pursed his lips.

“If there was something going on prior to the incident with Annie and the others, it may have played a role in her death. I am not as familiar as I’d like to be on the way poltergeists interact with residual hauntings, but I have a volume back at the office that may be of use. We simply need to locate a mirror.”

Her vision had steadied enough for her to look clearly past his head. She nodded to the nearby sign.

“I think I know where you might find one.”

Hanging slightly askew above the entrance, it read:

Dr. Glass’ Incredible Hall of Mirrors.

“This is another dead end.” Monty turned around.

“Let’s check going that way.”

“I thought we already went that way. It lead us to the gargoyle statue.”

Charles frowned. “Shit. You’re right.”

He spun in place, trying to orient himself. The entrance had been to the right of where they were now, he was fairly sure of it, and unlike the case with the hedge maze, there were no real consequences to losing their way. Monty could turn into a crow and fly back to the main entrance, he could walk incorporeally through the walls. It was just

irritating

.

He was also trying not to picture a girl wandering through this blindfolded in the dark, fingers brushing against the stalks nearby as she shouted for her friends to come get her. Shivering, trying to keep herself moving because the cold had the ability to sink, to settle layers deep so that it couldn’t be shaken, forming a block of ice like a fist in the center of his chest that made breathing

hurt.

“Alright,” he said, turning to Monty and smiled again. Charles wasn’t sure if it was a crow thing or not, but he appeared to have no reservations about staring at someone’s face, eyes narrowed slightly while he picked apart their facial expressions. Human features gave that sort of thing away more readily, he supposed.

And Charles got it. He did. Hell had been the first time Charles had seen his reflection since the night he died. It had taken a beat to reconcile himself with the boy in the mirror; the mental image he’d carried with him had distorted over time, gradually weaning from the truth. He hadn’t realized, how in his mind’s eye, he’d filled in the blanks with more of his mother’s features. He hadn’t recognized himself, but the fidgeting, the waiting-to-be-snapped-at-because-things-were-going-wrong look Monty had on now, he knew. A different boy who’d once worn it, he knew.

So he smiled, because being lost was neither of their fault; it was actually the whole

point

of the maze, and if they were lost, they were probably closer to where Annie had been the night she died. So everything was good. He was good, and Monty was good, and things were just

brills.

“Where haven’t we been, then?”

“Um,” Monty looked back out at the maze. “Maybe that way? Everything kind of looks the same.” He paused. “I don’t like mazes.”

That he could agree with. “Me neither.”

They took the suggested turn, crossing near what Charles thought was an unfamiliar rubber severed foot sitting on the ground. He kicked the foot experimentally, and a group of ants scurried beneath it. If Edwin was here, he would have picked it up and said something stupid like “

looks like the case is afoot, innit?

” just to trigger his exasperated ‘Edwardian poshness trying to convince him that he didn’t think dumb jokes were funny even though he clearly

did

’ look. It was one of his favorite Edwin looks.

Then Monty yelped, and Charles shot to his feet and grabbed the strap of his backpack lolling off his shoulder.

He’d gotten a bit ahead and turned a corner, and when Charles got around, he was standing against the corn, hand on his chest. Across from him was another one of the assortment of abandoned ghouls, but nothing hostile Charles could see.

“What is it? You alright?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Just got startled. There isn’t anything. Sorry.”

He relaxed his grip on his backpack strap and sighed.

“No worries. Got a bit distracted there.” Charles surveyed the patchwork decoration in front of them, the bits of hay spraying like cilia, pitchfork mounted with another rubber limb. He bit his lip. “That one got you?”

“I was watching the ground, wasn’t looking where I was going–”

“But this one?” He grinned at Monty, whose expression was a bit flushed, but appeared uncomprehending.

“I guess.” He must’ve been a bit too obvious, because Monty’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What is it?”

“It’s just…it’s a

scarecrow

.”

“Yes…”

“And it

scared

you…because you’re a

crow

.”

Monty crossed his arms and looked away, though it seemed superficial, a token objection. Maybe it was that they were lost, the unsettling nature of the place, the long car ride to the middle of nowhere, the general tension he’d felt mounting since they’d arrived but suddenly, Charles could not think of anything funnier that had ever happened.

“

Okay,

” Monty cut in. “I get it.”

“You just…it’s a scarecrow.”

Having no adequate rebuttal or excuse, Monty continued down the path. Charles glanced at the potato sack head, the noose fastened around its neck holding in loose bits of hay, grimly drawn on expression, and poked it in the chest.

“Oi. You leave my crow friend alone.”

The scarecrow slumped on its pole, limp and boneless.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Hall of Mirrors

Edwin had once attended a carnival with some of his schoolmates in grade school. He recalled few details, partially due to his age at the time, partially due to the multitude of other memories of greater significance that had eclipsed them in the following years, but did not think he’d enjoyed the affair as a whole. Sure, there had been sweets, music, and talented performers, but there was a calculated cruelty to the whole endeavor none of his compatriots seemed to pick up on.

If not for some accident of birth, you may have ended up in their sorry state

, announced the ringmaster, introducing his troop of performers. The guise of artistry was transparent: the point of this venture was to ogle, to look on a group of people no different than them in any of the ways that contributed to one’s humanity and

mock.

The type of show Crystal had termed “racist and ableist” because no matter how skillfully the woman played the harp with her toes, the fact that she did not have arms with which to play was the central conceit.

And Edwin had not enjoyed it, had not been interested in the mockery. Perhaps he had realized, even then, that there were things about himself that his peerage would find unnatural. That the ease with which his fellows could set aside their empathy for those different from them in some capacity was not a skill they lost when they abandoned the fair grounds, that it was something that was sharpened and kept close.

“I’ll keep looking at the horses,” Niko said, looking back at the parade of creatures around the carousel. “Nothing has reacted to the lavender so far.”

He withdrew the vial from his pocket and handed it to her.

“Try to use it sparingly,” he smiled. “And avoid dropping it if at all possible.”

“I was having a vision,” Crystal said tartly. “A

very helpful

vision.”

“That is yet to be determined.” It likely would be, but Edwin was not in the habit of counting his chickens before they proved relevant. She huffed, arms across her chest. She’d regained her balance, at least, and herself along with it. “I’d like to confirm some details from your vision, if you are alright on your lonesome for a moment, Niko?”

“We’ll be in shouting distance,” Crystal said. Niko nodded, and looked back up at the horses, frowning a bit in sympathy.

“I wish people didn’t paint on them. They look so sad.”

Niko Sasaki, your empathy could change the course of civilizations.

She patted Crystal’s shoulder and grinned at Edwin before meandering back. Crystal looked back at the sign for the hall of mirrors.

“I hope they aren’t all smashed.”

“That would very unlucky for the vandal.”

She looked over him, like she was trying to piece together whether or not he had made a joke. Edwin was not particularly interested in clarifying, and started walking towards the entrance. In truth, he would have preferred a secluded mirror to a collection. He had not quite pieced together what Despair had meant by her declaration of friendship when they’d spoken in her domain, but it felt like a large anvil preparing to drop any moment.

It had not been his proudest moment, that first encounter with Simon. Edwin had been angry before. He’d been angry at a great many people for a very long time, and had never considered that anger to be anything but a motivating factor in bringing justice to those victimized. He’d even

hated

people; he hated Esther Finch, certainly, for the ordeal she’d put them all through, hated the cruel figures who’d brought about the misfortunes of many of their clients, hated Charles’ father, for making him doubt the goodness at the core of his being, hated David, for the power he held over Crystal and how diminished she seemed when he was close. He would not have objected in the slightest to any of those people receiving their just desserts.

But it had not been until that moment, in the headmaster's office in Hell he’d found himself

enjoying

the suffering of another. That he’d been

pleased

to see someone hurting. It was a dark, ugly thing, and the fact it had taken Despair speaking to him to make him realize how he’d lost for a moment the person he strove to be…he did not know what to do with it. When she’d proclaimed them friends, he feared what it meant. That perhaps the dark sludge of cruelty had found its way into his heart despite how long he’d fought against it. That she looked at him and saw a kindred spirit.

“Edwin?”

Crystal had passed him, and was looking back.

“Coming.” He smiled thinly. “You mentioned a woman in your vision?”

“Yeah. I didn’t get a clear look at her. Everything was spinning. She was wearing a shawl, I think.”

He nodded and stepped through the entrance to the hall of mirrors. There was a scuffling behind, as Crystal wrestled with the door, which had fallen slightly askew over time and did not slide open smoothly. He reached to assist but it seemed to budge before he could grab hold.

Edwin turned and paused. The hall was just that, a long narrow room flanked on all sides by rows and rows of mirrors.

“Thanks for that,” Crystal muttered once she’d entered. In the nearest mirror, her reflection stretched, impossibly tall and narrow.

“We’ll need to locate a standard mirror. Traveling through distorted mirrors can be… messy.” Thankfully, neither he nor Charles had ever encountered that particular misfortune, but they’d had a client early in their careers left permanently

wobbled

after attempting to pass through a funhouse mirror.

Though he had not explained as much, Crystal winced with what was likely an unfortunately accurate picture of the after effects.

“Noted. Normal mirrors only.”

As she walked, her reflection took upon different shapes; widening, shrinking, stretching, twisting.

“That one looks accurate.”

She paused, staring at the bulbous, warped reflection of her face, nose wrinkling, before flicking a rude hand gesture in his direction.

The room was dim, only really lit by a series of small windows circling just below the ceiling. Afternoon light spilled in, bright enough to make the reflections clear, but everything else flanked in shadows. “Do you think what happened with the carousel relates to what happened with Annie?”

“I’m not certain,” he admitted. “It is possible. Though you’ll recall sites of fairs and circuses tend to be supernaturally charged.”

“I’m guessing because old timey circuses were super fucked up? No offense.”

“None taken. We are of one mind in that regard.”

Her eyes lingered on one of the reflections, this one scrunching, making her look oddly small.

“Did you ever go to one?”

“Once. It was…unpleasant. And you?”

Her eyes dropped. “Not old timey, but yeah. My Mom did a show once in New York.”

Which seemed to be the end of the conversation. Prior to recovering her memories, it had seemed like her missing parents were one of the only things Crystal wanted to talk about. Since she had recovered them, however, she’d been slow to part with details. If their behavior at the art exhibition was in any way typical, Edwin supposed he understood why.

“I will admit, the particulars of your mother’s performance art…eludes me.”

Niko had encouraged him to keep an open mind, where modern art was concerned, and there were certain elements he found compelling. A willingness to go beyond what was physically present and look into the abstract, for example. A flexibility with medium, for another.

“You hated it, didn’t you?” She did not seem particularly bothered by it.

“I found–”

The end of the thought, however, was cut off by the shrieking sound of wood against wood, followed by a dull thud that made the floor of the room shake.

Feather of Truth

Niko walked in a bit loop around the carousel, cradling the lavender petals in one hand. With the others split off, the whole place felt very silent and very still. The kind of edge-of-the-world place where a person could slip in and out of daydreams without even noticing.

She’d never minded being alone; it was different than being lonely. Here she could shout and Crystal and Edwin would come running. Here she could fish her phone from her strawberry coin purse and call her Mom, listen to her voicemail greeting because it was very late in Osaka, or else very early. Here she could look out into the long stretch of corn and know that if she walked far enough, she’d reach a road with drivers, or a cluster of crows, or squirming little field mice who’d eat hay from her palm. She could be alone and be okay with being alone, because being alone wasn’t a permanent state, it was a set of circumstances.

Being lonely was different. You couldn’t stop being lonely by running into other people. They had to be certain, specific people, who knocked at the doors you were trying to keep closed and sat next to you even when you didn’t know what to say. Niko had been lonely for a long time, but she wasn’t now, so it was okay if she was alone for a little bit. It gave her time to sit by the fake plastic horses and pat their fake plastic manes and saddles and tell them that they should not be lonely, either.

She was startled by a high-pitched giggle, coming from somewhere behind her.

“Hello?” Niko poked her head out from between the horses, looking around the space between the carousel and the nearby structures that framed it, hung sadly on poles, with rust growing like lichens on every metal surface. Abandoned amusement parks were more fun in Scooby-Doo, she decided. They had fewer safety hazards and more sandwich shops with surprisingly-not-out-of-date lunchmeat. “Crystal? Edwin?”

The laugh hadn’t sounded like Crystal’s, and Edwin was not much of a giggler.

“Someone else?” she asked, taking a step down onto the ground by the carousel. If there was someone else here, she should probably tell the others. “Hello?”

The giggle repeated, to the other side of her. Niko spun around to see a little girl in a bright yellow dress. Her hair was pulled in two thin braids, so tight they strained the skin on either side of her head.

“Oh. Hi.”

The girl blinked once in surprise, rocking back on one foot, mouth slightly agape.

Little ghost girl

. Then she turned heel and ran, hair and dress bouncing as she disappeared between the tents.

Niko had needed to get used to that; that not every ghost was used to being seen by living people, or even

wanted

to be seen by living people. Sometimes ghosts were perfectly content, alone but not lonely, and the fact that they did not want to talk had nothing to do with her and how friendly she was or was not being.

The grumpy conductor at the tube station was like that. She’d offered him a coin for his services, standing stonily at the platform watching the many travelers squeeze in and out of tiny metal carriages and he’d looked her up and down brusquely before looking away, pretending not to have seen her. The librarian with the cat-eye glasses was, too. She would shush all the patrons, but any time Niko tried to talk to her, she’d walk through her as if she had not spoken at all, making her feel all jello-y. And then the

living

librarians would shush her, because she was talking and shivering to no one in the middle of the library, and why did American tourists have to be so chatty? Even though she wasn’t American, and Crystal – who was usually scrolling through her phone and not really reading, but also not being particularly disruptive or chatty – was.

Niko thought the cat-eye librarian would get along with the Night Nurse. They could complain about modern teenagers, shush people, and dole out overdue fines together. It would be sweet, in a bitter-but-not-as-mean-as-they-liked-to-pretend kind of way. The Night Nurse did not come with them to the library, though, and Niko was not about to set another one of her friends up on a mystery date with a librarian. The last time it had ended very, very badly.

“Be careful of the glass!” she called to the little ghost girl, though it probably wouldn’t hurt her. Maybe she was one of the carousel riders from Crystal’s vision. Niko turned to the Hall of Mirrors and paused. In front of her was the same high-striker,

Feather of Truth

game. She was fairly certain it had been at the entrance, and there could’ve been two, she supposed, but she would’ve noticed this one before, if it had been there.

She picked a few of the lavender petals from her cupped palm and sprinkled them over the game. It did not seem to react. Then, she bent down and dropped a few more on the big foam mallet. It was sitting vertically, though, and when they hit it they just dropped off. Frowning, she reached over and unhooked the handle from the side of the game, which was the moment it came to life.

Up the scoring pole in the back, a bunch of red lights lit up in sequence, the glow moving up and down against the different scores from

“Dead Weight”

to “

Not Too Shabby!”

to

“Light as a Feather!”

It was accompanied by bright, chirping music from a weakened voicebox, announcing “Hiiiiiigh Striker!” in a tinny, mechanical voice. Niko yelped, dropping both the mallet and the lavender petals and she scrambled back, feeling oddly like she’d set off one of the toys in the children’s aisle at a department store.

She looked around, expecting Crystal and Edwin to emerge from the Hall of Mirrors in search of the source of the noise, which cut like a hot knife through the dull silence. Instead, she saw the girl with the yellow dress poking her head out from between the tents. Niko raised a hand in a quiet wave, not wanting to startle her. The girl looked her up and down, and then held out one hand and beckoned. Then she turned and darted back through the tents.

Niko looked at the game, the carousel, and the tiny lavender petals dotting the ground.

A natural curiosity is the sign of a great detective,

Edwin had told her. Niko wasn’t sure if she was a great detective, but she was getting better at being alone-but-not-lonely. Her friends were in shouting distance.

“Okay!” she called out to the little girl. “I’m coming!”

The pathway abruptly broke into a wide clearing, enough sunlight spilling down between the stalks to make Charles squint. There was a plastic skeleton seated on a plastic lawn chair, wires holding a pair of spectacles and a pipe to its face, though the hands lay limply to the sides. It was dwarfed, however, by the carnival game sitting next to it.

Monty followed a few paces behind, breathing heavily before shielding his face with one hand. He grimaced into the light, looking up.

“Made it to the center,” Charles said unnecessarily. He studied the area. There did not appear to be much in the way of left artifacts – no tell-tale charm bracelet catching the light, no sneaker tucked beneath a flattened leaf, no water logged notebook resting beneath the skeleton in its chair.

“Are those…normally in the center of mazes?”

Charles followed the question back to the high striker. “I don’t think so.”

He could not say for certain, but it seemed dubious. This was a section of the carnival it took getting lost to reach, and it’d be a waste to post an operator by a game this far from the thoroughfare. Not to mention the hassle of trying to get the thing through the winding and narrow path the two of them had needed to take to get there.

“Reckon it’s magic?”

Monty shrugged.

“Can’t you tell?”

“No.” Arms crossed defensively, he kicked at one of the felled corn stalks.

“Aren’t you, you know,” Charles wiggled his fingers expressively, though he was getting the sense he perhaps should’ve delved a bit deeper in Edwin’s collection of tomes and grimoires for information on familiars. “Magical?”

“Technically. Not like that.” Monty walked a few paces closer, tentatively tapping one of the bulbs that went up the side of the high striker with a silver-ringed finger. They’d frosted over with dust, but appeared otherwise intact.

Charles guessed there hadn’t been many visitors this far into the maze, otherwise the glass would’ve long since shattered. He tugged off one of his gloves. The machine stood a few feet higher than him, and when he placed his hand against the metal, it still felt cool, despite its position in the sun.

“It’s cold,” he said. “So either it hasn’t been here long, or something’s keeping the temperature down. Sounds pretty magic to me, yeah?”

Monty nodded once, expression for a moment unreadable.

“Edwin’s probably got a spell for it detecting it proper, but I’d say there’s a good chance.”

“Do you think it’s the source?”

Charles took a step back, looking up. “That would explain the temperature. It’s way too big for that glass box we brought. Not sure why Annie would’ve latched onto this thing, though.”

Except before that night in the attic, who would’ve guessed that a collection of beat-up detective comics would change his afterlife? That for a few hours they – and the even, but expressive voice who read them – would’ve held him more gently than anyone had dared to in years? Maybe they had been thinking about it all wrong, maybe whatever Annie the living person had cared about most was irrelevant if Annie the dying person had held tight to something else.

He looked down at the large foam mallet attached to the side. “You think it still works?”

“It doesn’t look rusted,” Monty said slowly, as Charles reached for the mallet, unhooking it from the side. As soon as it became disconnected, the lights began to flash, tinny music announcing life filling the space. Monty flinched at the noise.

“Hiiiiiiigh Striker! Are you ready to test your mettle?”

“What are you doing?”

Charles looked at the lights, dancing up and down. “I think it wants us to play. Or

she

wants us to play, maybe.”

“And you’re going to

do

it?” It was a very Edwin-ish objection, though Monty had not perfected the look of exasperated fondness Charles had come to associate with that tone. Instead, he just looked nervous.

“We’ve still got a bit of daylight before the poltergeist comes out,” he said. “And if she wants to communicate with us, I say we try to listen. Least we can do, really.”

He hefted the mallet back in one hand, looking up the pole. The tinny voice repeated, almost goading. Charles balanced the handle and stuck.

An A-maize-ing Adventure

“Shit.” Crystal turned around, jogging over to the now-closed door. Edwin followed, watching her silhouette grow, twist, and morph in the mirrors beside them. She grabbed the handle of the door and pulled hard once, planting a foot on the nearby wall for leverage and nearly stumbling back when the effort proved useless. “Shit.

Fuck.

”

She reached for the handle again.

“You’re very agitated.”

Perhaps a touch more agitated than the moment warranted, though Edwin did not appreciate being confined any more than she did.

“It’s stuck.”

“I can see that.”

“No,” she shook her head. “It’s

stuck

both ways. Which means something closed it on us. Niko’s

alone

, and she has the lavender. Charles has the box. So if the poltergeist shows up out of nowhere...”
Her voice faltered. “It’s bad. We’re fucked. Or I am. You can phase through.” She gestured at the wall.

“I’m not certain what we’re dealing with is a straightforward poltergeist,” Edwin said, which sounded distinctly

less

encouraging when he spoke out loud. “Besides, we’ve got quite a bit of daylight left. I’m certain Niko will question our absence before anything escalates, and if we get any indication she is in distress, I will of course attend to it. There is no reason to panic.”

Which was precisely the sort of

tempting fate

sentence Charles would’ve gotten flustered at him saying. Crystal’s reaction was more annoyed by half but did communicate a similar sentiment.

“I would not phase through the door and leave you.”

Her glare softened. “I know.” She shook her head, sighing. “Let’s just hurry up and get your books. There’s got to be at least one normal mirror in here.”

Edwin was less certain but followed her down the hallway. The mirrors traded the slivers of sunlight from the upper windows between them, reflections bouncing off each other until it seemed like an endless parade of not-quite-Crystals walking alone.

Edwin had been long enough without it that he did not miss his reflection, generally, but there were moments where he found himself looking at the space he occupied and growing frustrated by its vacancy.

I’m still here. Please don’t forget.

Which was a silly notion, but one that had grown stronger since their agency numbers had expanded to include more corporeal beings. Suddenly, the reflection was not simply an empty room where he and Charles were standing, but a room missing him and Charles

in particular

. It beckoned at something green and stubborn, a juvenile sort of petulance.

“None of these seem to be–”

“We’ll find one. Okay?” She turned to face him, a string of mirror-Crystal’s looking at empty air. Then her eyes narrowed, and the mirror-Crystal’s all leaned to the side. Edwin turned to follow their gaze. “What the

fuck

is that doing here?”

The high striker game from the entrance sat in the center of the hall of mirrors, and endless string of tall machines bouncing back and forth, distorting and stretching a dozen different ways.

A small metal bit jumped up as soon as Charles struck it, coming to rest about three-quarters up the length of the machine. The corresponding light lit up red and held for a beat, the words next to it cast in the halo:

Doin’ Good Work!

Then the light switched off, and the game returned to its goading, off-key, and slightly grating music filling the air.

Charles lowered the mallet and looked up for a moment.

“Kinda thought something would happen.”

Monty had, too.

“Maybe you have to get it to the top?”

For that, he got a lopsided grin. Charles held out the mallet, handle first.

“Think you can do better?”

It was doubtful. Charles was the self-described brawn of the Dead Boy Detective Agency, and Monty had seen the damage he could do with a cricket bat. There was a broken table smoldering in the back yard of Esther Finch’s house, a decapitated snake in the basement, a shattered bird bath he’d never been permitted to use in the front yard that could attest to it.

“I don’t think I’m supposed to be strong.” Charles’ eyebrows drew together, and Monty stuffed his fists into the pocket of his coat, toying with one of the loose paperclips he’d tucked inside. “When Esther, you know. Made me.”

She’d made him pretty, made him nonthreatening. Gave him wide eyes and straight teeth. Bones that were hardier than they had been when he was a bird, but only by a bit. He wasn’t sure if she’d

made

him to be a slow runner, or if it was just a side effect of his slight frame and difficulty remembering to breathe with the depth his human lungs required. Either way, he doubted she’d minded, though he hadn’t even thought of running away. He’d been relieved when the transfiguration pendant gave him the same physical body –
he didn’t think he’d enjoy getting used to another – but could not help but wonder how much had come from

him.

Was this always what he was supposed to look like, or had she superimposed her vision of him so heavily that nothing else had a chance?

“Right.” Charles’ look was difficult to read. Monty was still catching up on the nuances of human emotions. Perhaps this was a new one. “Betcha I’ve got this. Just need to get warmed up, yeah?”

He turned back to face the game, hefting the mallet behind him, striking again, this time with much more force. The metal bit shot up and hit precisely the same spot, the same red light flashing for a moment.

“Huh.”

Charles paced around the base of the game once, studying it, before trying again.

Doin’ Good Work!

the game told him.

Tilting his head to the side, Charles took a step back, and swung the mallet again, this time, tapping the metal plate lightly, with barely any force at all. Monty wasn’t sure the weight would even register, but instead, the bit jumped back up to precisely the same spot.

“

Huh.

” Charles said again. “You think it’s broken?”

“Maybe.”

“Sure you don’t want to give it a go?”

Technically, he had not said he didn’t

want

to play, only that he doubted he would do any better than Charles. Monty held out a hand for the mallet, taking it in both hands. There was some kind of tape wrapped around the handle for a grip, but the sticky portions had trapped a great bit of dirt, and the ends had begun to unfurl. He took a step forward and looked up the length of the machine.

Monty swung, forgetting a bit to compensate for the motion with his stance, and stumbling a bit as the mallet came into contact with the metal plate. For all the theatrics, the metal bit only jumped a few inches from the base to the light second the bottom.

Under Pressure.

The light glowed red.

Monty’s face suddenly felt hot. “I told you, I’m not really–”

“No worries, mate. Clearly, it’s finicky.” Charles shrugged. “Just wanted to test…”

His voice trailed off, and Monty looked back at the machine. It had not resumed its goading, the light bouncing up and down in time with the music. The red light second from the bottom remained on, and for some reason, Monty got the impression it was glowing brighter than it had before.

Niko followed the little ghost girl, stumbling a bit awkwardly over some of the frayed rope holding the tents up. The material was thick, and her arms brushing against it left gashes in the overcoat of dirt. She ducked her head slightly and slipped through the space.

“I’m Niko,” she called forwards. “What’s your name?”

When the clearing became visible, however, there was no little girl. Her footsteps made a strange tapping sound, and when Niko glanced down, she saw a tin sign lying flat on the ground. She crouched down and pulled the long sleeve of her sweater down over her hand to wipe a streak clear.

House of Osiris.

This was the old fortune teller. She squinted through the triangular flap of the nearest tent. There was a purple carpet spread out on the ground, but not much else was visible from her position.

“Little ghost girl?” She chewed her lip. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

Niko straightened and approached the tent slowly, taking a quick peek in before backing up.

“Hello?”

No one responded. Niko swallowed.

I’m being an excellent detective,

she reminded herself. In Scooby Doo, Scooby and Shaggy were always scared, but they were able to solve mysteries anyways.

She crept forward, ducking into the tent.

It was warmer inside, the tarp material keeping heat trapped. It was mostly empty, except for the carpet, and a strange boxy shape on the far side. Niko fished her phone out of her coinpurse and turned on the flashlight. In the box was the weathered, uncanny face of an old woman. One of those animatronic fortune tellers. Plastic skin stretched over a metal skeleton, dust fogging over the woman’s eyes, thick pink shadow painted over her lids, a culturally inappropriate headdress wrapped around her head. Near the base was a slot for a coin next to the name.

Miss Miranda’s Miraculous Fortunes.

“Hello, Miss Miranda. I’m sorry, I don’t have any coins right now.”

She’d exchanged all her change to British pounds for the summer, and they’d been using Crystal’s card for the trip stateside. She didn’t think any of her coinage would fit in the slot.

There was a soft rustling behind her, and when Niko turned around, she saw a single quarter had been set behind her on the carpet. She glanced from side to side, one hand creeping to where Tragic Mick’s bear statue sat close to her heart.

“Is that for me? Little ghost girl?”

With her free hand, she reached down to pick up the quarter, running her finger along the ridges. The year was 1971. The year the carnival closed down. Squeezing it in her fist, Niko turned back to Miss Miranda and slid the coin into the slot.

The animatronic came to life with jerky uncontrolled movements, hands sliding over a table with a fake crystal ball. The woman’s eyes flicked side to side, passing across in front of Niko, unseeing. When they lowered, there was a small whirring sound, before a tiny piece of paper dropped into the tray beneath the coin slot. It was aged and yellowing, but when Niko picked it up the edges were crisp.

“

Miss Miranda sees you have a gentle soul. Visit the Feather of Truth to test your mettle, and don’t forget to ride the carousel

,” she read. “

Your lucky numbers are 425, 20, and 24.

”

Niko looked back up at the fortune teller.

“Thank you, Miss Miranda. I’ll remember this.”

She shook the card once at the woman, smiled politely, and dipped out of the tent.

Monty was still holding the mallet when the carnival game started chiming. It was the only way Charles could describe the sound the machine suddenly produced, like a large, low bell being run on a clear day. Almost achingly deep, the kind that left his brain humming even after it had ceased, only it wasn’t ceasing, at all. If anything, it was growing louder, as the red light near the base of the high striker began to grow increasingly bright.

“Let’s take a step back, yeah?” He held out an arm, dividing the space between the machine and Monty. The color had drained from his face the moment the sound started, and as Charles moved, he dropped the mallet to the ground as if it had shocked him.

“What did I do?”

Then the corn around the edges of the clearing began to rustle, shaking like something was about to emerge from between the stalks. This was one of those situations Charles tended to dub: flee first, ask questions later.

“Run!” He grabbed Monty’s forearm and pulled him into spinning as the two of them dived back into the snaking path through the maze, the sound of rustling growing closer, but the droning of the game somehow not getting any quieter.

They stumbled over plastic skulls, plump rubber spiders, nearly colliding into the scarecrow dangling limply from its pole before skidding to a halt in front of a dead end. Charles’ grasp of the maze was not good enough to determine if it was shifting around them, or that they had simply misstepped somewhere. Monty was breathing heavily, as they backed up a few feet, turning to take the next nearest path.

There were a few things about running that Charles had not considered too deeply in the thirty years he and Edwin had been the sole members of the Dead Boy Detective agency.

The first was that they did a lot of it: chased up and down the streets of London by graveyard grims, angry ghosts following hot on their tails through winding sewers, running

after

sticky-fingered werewolves and minor deities, pressing into tiny hidden spaces whenever they suspected Death was near. He knew the cadence of Edwin’s run well, the way he hesitated slightly starting off and at turns, how he veered slightly to the left when they ran in a straight line, head on a swivel for a nearby mirror. Edwin knew his in turn, he suspected.

The second was that both he and Edwin had been cast in amber during a period of their lives in which they had been in reasonably good physical condition. Charles had played cricket for years, gotten a scholarship out of his parents’ house in the bargain. Edwin had – well, he certainly hadn’t been an

athlete –

but his experiences in Hell had unfortunately made him extremely familiar with running. They were both also reasonably tall and more significantly, approximately the same height.

The third, and perhaps most significant, was that they were

dead.

They could phase through physical objects unexpectedly thrust in their paths, and walk over less-than-sturdy bridges without worrying about falling. They got sore much slower than living people and never became out of breath because they didn’t

need

to breathe. This had been pointed out by an extremely disgruntled Crystal, after Edwin raised objections to her requesting a third break amidst uphill mountain climbing in the Neitherlands. (She’d also pointed out that neither of them perceived temperature, required food and water, or remembered that not everyone was a

six foot expert climber who did not have to worry about their footsteps breaking the thin sheen of ice atop seven feet of snow.

While not the most politely delivered reminder, featuring liberal uses of the word “fuck”, and they’d both felt appropriately chastened and – in Charles’ opinion – struck with a newfound respect for her commitment to accompanying them on the mission to locate Niko in a polar wasteland).

But muscle memory was a powerful thing, and it only took a moment of Charles forgetting he was running with Monty and not Edwin for him to sprint ahead significantly and lose track of his companion. He came to a screeching halt, head on a swivel, feeling something cold embed itself in his spine as he raced backward across the trail.

“Shit. Monty? Monty!”

He checked back the nearest path, brushing through the corn.

“Monty!”

He stopped, trying to catch the snatches of sound. Footsteps, heavy breathing, then someone cried out in surprise.

“Charles!”

“Where are you? Monty!” He followed the sound up the trail, down a separate path, looking side to side before delving back in the other direction, cursing the

stupid

maze that made directionality so difficult to determine.

He did not stop running until he’d exhausted every nearby twist and turn. He did not stop

shouting

until the third time he’d walked the space. The cold shard in the small of his back had spread, but denial gave him another two thorough searchings, even going back to the center, which was now thoroughly vacant of everything but the plastic skeleton sitting with its pipe.

The crow-turned-boy-turned-magic shop assistant was nowhere to be seen.

“That was not there before.”

No shit, Sherlock.

Crystal tilted her head at the carnival game, seated neatly in the entrance of the room. There was no break in the dust around it, save her footprints. She fumbled a bit with her phone, leveling the beam of the flashlight onto the metal. It swirled around the edge of the plate before reflecting back at her.

“There was one of these outside, at the entrance.”

It had changed its orientation, if she remembered correctly. Turned to face them when they’d walked back from the corn maze. Crystal took a step closer; her breath left clouds on the cool metal. There was something about it, a strange tugging sensation in her chest.

“I remember.” Edwin studied the high striker. “But is this the same machine?”

“Looks like it. I take it this is not a poltergeist thing?”

“A poltergeist would’ve broken the mirrors, perhaps thrown objects. To be honest, I haven’t seen anything like this before. There are eldrich locations, of course, but they generally give off an ambient energy. Usually, a curse would leave some sort of magical residue. It could be an illusion, I suppose.” Tentatively, Edwin places a leather-gloved hand on the side of the high striker. “No.”

“Looks solid to me,” she pushed off her knees and stood back up. “I think it wants us to play.”

“What gives you that impression?”

Her knee-jerk answer was sarcastic:

probably because followed us in here and locked the doors so we couldn’t leave, but maybe it just wanted to hang out.

In truth, it was far more nebulous. It was like being a little girl, head pressed to the floor to look beneath the door into the cavern of her mother’s art studio, like losing her memories and staring into the mirror at a person who was the sum of experiences she couldn’t piece together.

There’s something beyond what you can see,

it seemed to urge.

“I just do. It’s hard to explain.”

Edwin would’ve likely preferred the sarcasm to the vagueness.

“You’re drawn to it?”

“More like – I feel like there’s something behind it. Something trying to get out. What if it’s Annie? Or Mark?”

“You think they’re trapped in a … carnival game?” The tone Edwin used when he was attempting to refrain from sounding judgemental was so carefully neutral that it circled around to being judgemental again.

“I’m sorry, I must’ve misheard you a few seconds ago when you said you

didn’t know what the fuck this was.

” She folded her arms across her chest. Edwin frowned.

“That was not my phrasing. Besides, if you

are

correct, we have no way to determine what would happen if we played it. Perhaps playing was how Mark and the others became trapped in the first place. Can you read anything from it, psychically?”

She gripped one of the still light bulbs, closed her eyes, and felt the floor drop out from under her.

She was sitting in a bedroom with the shades drawn, sprawled on blue plaid bedsheets. There was a rattling in the closet, and when she looked over, a chair was leaning against the door, the back hooked under the knob. The rattling continued, hands pounding against the back.

“Mark, let me out it isn’t funny!” The voice was small, whiny. She wanted to protect it but was exhausted by its constant complaining.

“Oh my God,

shut up.

” She picked up a pair of headphones and pulled them over her ears, turning up the volume all the way.

She was driving down a dark road at night, phone balanced on the dashboard, scrolling through a string of text messages. Nothing important, just the group chat rambling as usual. There was movement in her peripheral. The car screeched to a halt too late and something large collided with a

thunk

against the front bumper. A deer. She swore. Inspected for damage, tried not to look at the keening animal on the ground.

She was at a sunlit lunch table, sliding her phone to the person next to her. The pictures she had would ruin someone’s life, but the grin her friend shot her seeing them eclipsed it all.

She smacked a girl across the face and stormed away as tears bubbled in her eyes.

She was seated in a fortune teller’s booth, leaning forward, whilst waxy hands grabbed her forearm.

She yelled at a little boy, yanking a stuffed bear from his tiny hands as he whimpered and screamed.

“Crystal.”

Edwin was grabbing her shoulders, having separated her from the machine by half a pace. Crystal blinked, the world coming back into focus.

“What did you see?”

“I –

fuck.

”

“Something to do with the carousel? With what happened to Annie or the others?”

His expression was concerned but his face was too close. She stumbled a few feet away, blinking. The urging from before had returned, no less powerful but swiftly turning sour. Crystal was back in Port Townsend, swallowing her memories like bitter pills. She was back in London, tentatively looking up friends she hadn’t spoken to in months only to find she’d been blocked. She was standing in an art gallery, as polished and polite as she knew how to be and her parents looked through her. She was in the wasteland of her own mind with David grinning.

You used to be so much

fun.

“Crystal?” She must’ve looked a wreck, to make Edwin’s tone soften like that.

“Shit,” she swiped a hand under her eyes, looking into the nearest mirror at a reflection of her that seemed to

wobble.

“It was just… people being awful. Like the worst things they did in some kind of fucked up tapestry.”

“You got that from the game?”

“Let’s just find you a normal mirror and get out of here.”

“Well–”

“Let’s

go,

Edwin.” She turned away from the mirror and took a few steps down the hall, watching her image ripple in her peripheral until she saw it again. The game, a few feet further down than it had been before, was still right at her side.

“It’s moved.”

“I noticed,” Crystal stuffed her hands into her pockets.

She took another step, the game followed. The sour feeling was beginning to curdle. The Crystal in the mirror was distorted, her face twisted in a half-moon like the flashlight beam on the metal plate. The high striker was behind her, the twisting effect causing the pole at the back to arc over her head like a reaper’s hook. She bit her lip, turned around.

“You know what? Fine.

Fine.

I’ll play.”

“Crystal,” Edwin hesitated.

She unhooked the foam mallet attached to the side of the device, causing the music and lights to come alive. Crystal swallowed, and hefted it into the air, imagining the impact shattering the thing, light pouring out and tasting the fresh air for the first time in years, perhaps decades. She imagined Mark and Violet, the other terrified teens from the photograph and Annie with her curly hair and wide smile. If this was what was needed from her to release them, she could stomach it. She

had

to be able to stomach it though she was feeling a bit lightheaded, dizzy as she did so.

The mallet came into contact with the plate, echo ringing. The metal bit jumped.

Not so good,

read the line next to the glowing red light.

She lowered the mallet to the floor.

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to happen. Certainly something.

“That was incredibly reckless,” Edwin said. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with here, it could be–” His voice trailed off at the precise moment a clear, low drone filled the entire room. The mirrors on the walls began to shake, the sound rattling the foundations of the room. Crystal barely had time to reach out to him, to try and get them both as far as possible by the time the mirror next to her shattered. Behind it, was almost abyssal darkness.

Something reached from the darkness, grabbed Crystal’s arm and dragged her through.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

High Striker

Niko had taken a seat on the carousel, massaging the paper note from the fortune teller between her fingers. Crystal might be able to tell them something about where it came from; she looked over at the Hall of Mirrors, frowning. It had been a while since she and Edwin had left to get books. Longer than it usually took to find anything in the office library, due to Edwin’s meticulous organization. She was about to go and check on them, when she heard a shout from behind her, and Charles came running around the corner.

“Niko!” He looked relieved to see her, but did not smile. Niko glanced at the empty space behind him. “Are you okay?”

“Oh. Yes. Are

you

okay?”

“Where are Edwin and Crystal?” Charles was holding his cricket bat in one hand, she noted, which was not a good sign. He had the cricket bat out, and no Monty which meant something bad had probably happened.

“They went to the Hall of Mirrors to get more information on poltergeists. I was going to go check on them.”

As she spoke, he turned to look down the thoroughfare, face knit with concentration. Niko swallowed, one hand creeping up to pat the bear statue in her pocket.

“Charles…where’s Monty?”

His jaw tightened, eyes dropping to the ground for a split second.

“Look, we need to find the others first. Something’s going on with those high stiker games. Don’t go anywhere near them, alright? I’ll grab Edwin and Crystal.”

Niko looked over to the machine, Feather of Truth in chipped lettering. She looked down at the paper from Miss Miranda.

Visit the Feather of Truth to test your mettle, and don’t forget to ride the carousel

.

“What’s wrong with them?”

“I’ll explain in a tick. Just give me a moment, yeah?” He

did

smile then, but it wasn’t a proper Charles smile; it came up short of his eyes. They were still clouded with concern, and up close she could see his grip white-knuckled on the handle of his bat. “Whatever you do, don’t play the high striker.”

She felt something in her chest squeeze as he stepped away.

What if I already did?

“Crystal!” Edwin ran, pressing his hands against the solid wall behind the shattered mirror. There was nothing in the space she had occupied only moments before, just scuff marks from her boots leading forward into canvas. He straightened his coat and stepped through, only to find himself standing on a patch of dried grass outside, with the rust-spattered ruins of an old hotdog cart swarming with flies. He looked from side to side. “Crystal?”

She hadn’t had time to yelp before she disappeared. He’d been startled by the glass – the mirrors shattering in succession, the only manifestation they’d seen that even attempted to resemble a poltergeist – and hadn’t realized until her sharp intake of breath. And then she was gone, and Edwin found his fists curling in, pressing hard against his sternum like he was back in school, attempting to soothe his knuckles from the sting of a ruler. He took a few steps in each direction, searching the area for anything. Crystal had a very distinctive look, the red tips to her corkscrew curls, the oversized jackets and eclectic earrings. He could not have missed her. She was simply gone.

And before she was gone, she’d been upset. He hadn’t quite understood what about, but the rumbling of tension he’d seen first at her parent’s art exhibit had reached a boil, and she’d grabbed the mallet against his – and likely her own – better instincts and

struck

and –

“Crystal!” he tried again, stepping back through the wall into the Hall of Shattered Mirrors, littering the floor in bits and sending up reflections of sunlight like fractured bits of neon. He pressed a hand against the space between each frame, felt nothing but wall. Edwin raked his fingers through his hair, pulling at the roots until the grounding burst of sensation made the world around him snap into focus.

“Edwin?”

Charles was standing past the doorway, looking at the broken shards of mirror littering the floor, no doubt noticing first the obvious lack of a certain psychic. Edwin blinked hard, shook his head.

“Charles.” He meant to take a step forward but found himself oddly transfixed. Charles closed the space between them, reaching forward to take his wrists, moving them away slightly, forcing the tension in his arms to momentarily lapse.

“You alright mate?” He looked around, frown carving a few layers deeper. “Where’s Crystal?”

“She–” Edwin shook his head, pulling his hands back from Charles’, letting them drop to rest at his sides. “The doors sealed themselves shut, and then this

game

appeared.”

“Bloody high striker?” Charles rocked back on his heels, swallowing. “Shit.”

“It was only moments ago, she can’t be far. She was pulled through a mirror–”

“A

mirror

?” The dread in Charles’ voice ticked up a few notches. Edwin shook his head quickly.

“

No

. No, not

that

sort of mirror. She was – she is – all the glass burst and something dragged her through the space beyond it. I tried to cross through but there isn’t anything on the other side. Some sort of teleportation magic, I suspect. The game is the cause, somehow, or at least the focal point.”

“Alright.” Charles looked around the room. “Niko’s outside, yeah. Think we need to regroup. Something is off here, and I don’t think it’s a simple poltergeist.”

“We got that impression as well.” Edwin looked back at the empty space where his friend had stood only moments before, her comforting blend of dry attitude and righteousness. It was not until he felt the Charles tug at the end of his sleeve that he followed.

Niko was pacing when they returned to her, brightening first, before her face fell. Charles was deliberately not paying attention to the pink blush that had begun to spread across the horizon. A blackbird – too small to be a crow – settled on the top of one of the nearby tents. They were losing daylight.

“Where’s Crystal?”

Edwin looked gutted for a moment, a hollow edge to his voice when he spoke.

“We need to find out. There is something amiss here, and much stronger than we first suspected. I do not know – Annie and the others might be connected to something much older.”

“Like with the carousel?” Niko said.

“Perhaps.”

“And the high striker is part of it, somehow,” Charles said. Niko’s face tightened, and one of her hands crept up to her right breast pocket. She had bits of lavender caught in her silver hair, and, he now noticed, a shred of yellowed paper pinched between her index finger and thumb. He paused. “What is it, Niko?”

“I know you said not to play, but I didn’t

know

then, and Miss Miranda told me to.”

“Who?” Edwin blinked.

“The fortune teller lady in the

House of Osiris.

She’s just a machine, though. And

definitely

not Egyptian.” While his partner clearly attempted to turn that statement over in his head, Charles took the paper from her outstretched hand.

“You played the game?”

Niko nodded. “Nothing happened. It said I was

Light as a Feather.

Whatever that means. And then it told me to ride the carousel so I was sitting on it but… nothing.

“Didn’t do anything when I played, either. But then when Monty–”

That appeared to arouse Edwin from his stupor.

“Where’s Monty?”

Charles swallowed. “When we got to the center of the maze there was one of those things there. Then it started making this awful droning noise and lighting up. We tried to run out of there but… we got separated.”

“It made a noise when Crystal played as well, right before she went missing.”

“It didn’t make a noise when I played,” Niko frowned.

“Me neither.”

They both turned to Edwin, who looked a bit ruffled. “I didn’t play. I told Crystal not to, either.”

Charles shook himself. “Right, well, like I said. We got split up. I tried to go and find him, but there was nothing. Maybe he’s off with Crystal?”

“Perhaps,” Edwin crossed his arms. “If the teleportation is linked to performance in this high striker game, it could have pulled them to a communal location.”

Charles opened his mouth to follow up with a question, but paused, leaning slightly to the side to peer around Edwin. A

Feather of Truth

machine sat a few feet behind. He reached out, pulling Edwin further away.

“Shit.”

“It probably wants Edwin to play,” Niko said. “Since he’s the only one who hasn’t.”

Charles turned the paper over in his hands before passing it back to her. She folded it neatly and slid it into the front pocket of her jacket.

“Likely.” Edwin frowned. “Though I suspect that won’t end well. Crystal struck it quite hard, and it scarcely had an impact.”

“I didn’t hit it that hard,” Niko said.

“That was the odd thing,” Charles said. “I tried it a couple of times. Went up the same amount every time, regardless of how hard I hit it. Thought it was broken.”

“More likely enchanted than broken,” Edwin dropped to a crouch, removing his magnifying glass from her upper breast pocket, examining the surface of it. “Though whatever enchantment was cast on it is old enough for the residue to have been cleared off.”

Then, with a screech of metal, the game jerked a few feet forward, closing on Edwin, causing him to lose his balance and fall back on the mud-packed leaves. Charles held out a hand to help him up, which he took wordlessly, dusting off the front of his jacket.

“I agree with Niko. It wants you to play,” Charles said, easing himself into the space between Edwin and the device. Edwin looked up the length of the high striker, gaze settling on the name written across the top.

“Niko,” he said. “Where did you say you encountered the fortune teller?”

“There was a tent, over that way. I met a little ghost girl, she showed me.” She pointed past the carousel, through the overgrown tangles of crabgrass.

“Yes, but you said it was called something?”

“

The House of Osiris

?” she tilted her head. “That means something, doesn’t it?”

Edwin turned around, thumb pressing against the knuckle of his right hand, rubbing tensely.

“Osiris was an Egyptian deity, who passed judgment on souls as they entered the afterlife.” He gestured to the machine. “Now, this is far too crude to be the work of such a deity, but symbols have power, and they can be evoked by humans skilled in magic.” Niko and Charles shared a glance.

“You mean witches?” Niko’s voice was light, too much air in the words. Charles nodded reassuringly at her.

“No witch’s gonna get within ten feet of you, alright?”

She smiled tensely. Edwin pursed his lips.

“Osiris was the judge of the afterlife, who tried the dead by weighing their hearts against

ma’at

, or harmony, symbolized by a white feather. Covetousness weighed the soul down, and so those who had sinned against ma’at had hearts that weighed more.”

“That’s the feather of truth,” Charles said. “You think this carnival game is measuring our

souls

?”

“Hardly. But it wants to give the impression that it is,” Edwin turned. “Crystal said when she tried to read the machine it presented her with a kaleidoscope of images of people in their worst moments. Being selfish or petty or cruel. It’s weighing them against some sort of scale. Charles, you said no matter how hard you tried, your result was always the same. Because it isn’t

measuring

how hard you’re hitting it.”

Charles crossed his arms. “Who sets the scale, then?”

“I’d presume the caster.”

“Annie.”

“Not necessarily.”

“No, but it makes sense. Think about it. She’s stuck here somewhere because her friends played a nasty trick on her. If this thing was calibrated to snatch her schoolmates, then it makes sense it lashed out at Monty.” He paused. “Extenuating circumstances and all that, but he

did

lead us into a trap back in Port Townsend.”

“And Crystal?” Edwin frowned. “She’s not betrayed anyone. She’s the whole reason we’re here trying to sort this out.”

Oh God, I’m an awful person.

Charles remembered her sprawling on the floor as her memories caused her to writhe, eyes ghostlit blue. He’d wanted to shake her, pull her back to consciousness and crush the marbles underfoot because that could not possibly be true. Another one of David’s tricks, maybe This was

Crystal

. He knew Crystal. She was stubborn, combative, but with her memory wiped clean, she’d bullied them into crossing the ocean to save a little girl she’d never met.

And then she tried to leave. To

protect

them. From herself. He’d been there, looked at empty mirrors and wondered if he’d started to take after his Dad. Clung to two strangers, desperate to find goodness in them he’d given up trying to find in himself. But Charles also

knew

bad people who pretended to be good, knew what it felt like to have his hair tousled by someone who’d just as soon smack him across the face, had sat in meetings and endured faux warm smiles directed across the room while the rage simmering beneath the surface raised like an executioner's ax. He knew them, and he saw nothing of them in Crystal.

“She did say she did some pretty messed up stuff when she was possessed by David,” Niko said.

“That must be it,” he cut in. Whatever the

Feather of Truth,

Annie, David, or the bloody Surname Von Hoverkrafts

thought

they saw in her memories, Charles knew Crystal Palace.

“Regardless, we don’t know what it

does

when it passes this judgment. Crystal and Monty aren’t dead.”

“It was at the entrance to the carnival,” Niko said. “Maybe it’s supposed to be what lets you in. That’s why it’s following us around until we all play.”

“But we

are

inside.”

“Unless the real carnival is somewhere else,” Edwin said. “Good thought, Niko.”

She smiled a bit.

“So maybe Edwin needs to step out?” Charles asked. “Niko and I both played so whatever’s going on should kick off, we grab Crystal and Monty and regroup.”

“Don’t be preposterous,” Edwin said. He looked at the high striker, and Charles could see the muscles in his throat go taut. He stuffed his shaking hands into the pockets of his coat. “I need to play.”

“You don’t have to do that, mate.”

While he had no doubts whatsoever a just system would find no fault with Edwin, asking his friend to submit his soul for categorization after everything he’d had to endure felt insurmountable. They didn’t know what came next.

“Crystal was willing to go to

Hell

, for me, Charles. The least I can do is play a silly carnival game on her behalf.”

Edwin took a step towards the machine, and unhooked the mallet from the side. The music was bright and cheery and painfully off, as it announced its presence with tinkling piano and flashing red lights. Edwin gripped the mallet tightly enough his knuckles went white and closed his eyes. They were so shut, in fact, Charles half expected him to miss the plate entirely. The amount of force didn’t matter, but he still seemed to put a great deal of effort into it.

The metal bit jumped, the light corresponding to the point blinking red. Same as Charles’,

Doin’ Good Work.

It was fitting, he supposed. They did good work together.

It took a moment for him to realize Edwin’s eyes were still closed.

“It’s alright,” Charles said, placing a hand lightly on his shoulder. “You got it.”

Edwin’s shoulders noticeably relaxed.

The high striker whirred, the light dropping down again to the beginning, but something had shifted. Charles was not entirely sure what until there was another sound of screeching metal behind them, that slowly was eclipsed by more, higher quality, piano music. Niko gasped. They turned around to see the carousel slowly beginning to turn, coming to life, the horses raising and falling, candles flickering to light in a halo around the top.

Charles looked down at the ground as the dull, dry packed mud grew spotted with patches of grass, tents shedding layers of grime like winter coats, the air saturated with the scent of cotton candy, popcorn, hotdogs. The games nearby suddenly regained their luster, balloons and darts, Jacob’s ladder hanging low. And then there were people, or something like people. Like shadows peeled up off of the ground, moving in his peripheral vision but growing less material whenever he tried to look at them properly. Echoes, of some kind. They lined up outside the attractions, sat on the carousel as the horses leapt up and down, held cones of kettle corn.

“Oh wow,” Niko said softly.

One of the echoes approached, the shape of it’s head bulging out oddly. It took a moment to recognize it as a clown’s wig, seeped of color and dimension. It held out a single long strip of unfolded orange balloon animal to her, the sharpness of the solid shape making the edges of the echo appear even more flickering by comparison.

“Thank you.” Niko took it, giving it a nervous smile. “I love it.”

She held the balloon between two hands, as if worried it might turn around and strike her. Charles was not entirely sure it

wouldn’t

.

“This is…creepy.”

“What are those guys?” Niko said.

Charles watched the clown echo continue down the path, unhooking another long strip from the end of what appeared to be a helium machine. It twisted the end and held it out to no one, the same way he’d held it to Niko. When the empty air did not take it, its hands dropped, letting the balloon drift listlessly across the floor, walking forward a few more feet before repeating the process.

“They’re on loops,” Edwin said. “And not terribly complex ones.”

Two more echoes crossed in front, one tall and short, that seemed attached at the wrist, the definition of their held hands reduced to a single arm shared between them. The smaller one pointed at the carousel. The taller one shook its head, and they moved on.

“I don’t like this,” Niko said, still cradling her unformed balloon animal. “Where do we think Crystal and Monty are?”

“I don’t–” Edwin’s response was interrupted by a sharp wail that went near them. It tapered off into weak, muffled crying. Charles turned to look. Sitting amongst the flock of flickering shadows on the carousel was a woman with dark hair, her hands tied to the pole with what looked like rough rope, her ankles bound to the footrests in the same way. Dark abrasions, most likely from attempts to wriggle free, were flush against her wrists.

“Oh my God.” Niko said. “I think that’s Violet.”

Violet

The carousel did not stop, and Niko braced herself before stepping up. It reminded her of the park by her elementary school with a merry-go-round, where she’d always begged her father to be the one to spin it. He’s get more momentum than any of her friends, and it had made the whole world feel like it was lifting off. She gripped the pole, stomach leaping until her balance had been fully regained. Edwin caught one of her arms and she gave him a small grin. His eyes had gone stormy, but he returned it. He was worried about Crystal – and probably Monty, too – and so was she.

The three of them approached one of the horses, having returned to its painted glory, though the red glint of the carousel lights made its expression look more malicious than lost. Violet’s horse rose up and down in circles, her head pressed into the poles that held it, limbs sagging in defeated acceptance. Her back was tense, curled a bit in on herself.

“Violet?” Niko said softly. To Charles and Edwin, she asked: “Can we untie her?”

Violet looked up from the pole, eyes puffy and red. She blinked at Niko, her eyebrows drawing together in suspicion. She was older than she’d been in Sarah’s photo, definitely an adult, with sensible brown shoes and a silver ring splint on the pointer finger of her left hand. Charles was studying the knot binding them, tugging experimentally at the strings.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Niko. This is Charles and Edwin. We’re the Dead Boy Detectives, we’re here to help.” She tried to smile in a comforting way, but Violet’s expression remained suspicious.”What happened to you?” She paused. “Did you play the high striker?”

“The what?”

“The

Feather of Truth,

” Edwin explained. “It’s one of the carnival games.”

Violet looked back at Niko.

“Yeah, I did. We all did. It was right at the entrance. It hadn’t been there when we were kids, we thought it was important. Maybe part of what she was trying to tell us.” Violet shook her head. “Sorry. Um, we is my friends Shawn, Paul, and Mark and I.

She

is our friend, Annie. She died here when we were kids.”

“How’d that happen?” Charles asked. He seemed to have given up on untangling the knot and retrieved a Swiss Army Knife from his bag to cut through the rope. Like Edwin, his expression was a bit stormy. He’d been upset about what happened to Annie.

“Electrical accident,” Violet said crisply. She’d picked up on the bitterness in his tone as well but said nothing else as he worked to undo the bindings holding her to the carousel. She turned back to Niko, her voice softening a bit. “It was years after the accident, we all got these postcards. I thought it was some kind of fucked-up joke, but Mark was seriously freaked. He thought it was Annie trying to reach us.”

“That’s what we thought, too, at first,” Niko admitted, which seemed to confuse Violet more.

“Why would you know – if you’re detectives, who hired you?”

“Sarah Brook,” Edwin said. “Mark’s sister. We solve cases for ghosts that cannot pass on. Not knowing what happened to Mark was her unfinished business.”

“Sarah’s

dead?

” Violet paled. Niko patted her arm comfortingly, which did not seem to register entirely. Violet’s arm was solid and warm. She wasn’t a ghost. Niko mouthed

she’s still alive

to Charles, feeling her heart buoy. That meant Crystal and Monty were probably still alive, too.

“Did playing the game immediately transport you

here

?” Edwin continued. “And do you recall any strange symbols or objects from the night Annie died? Anything that could have been part of a ritual?”

“I – yeah. It was like the ground opened up and I was here. I don’t know what happened to Mark, Paul, and Shawn. Have you seen them? Are they okay?”

“We haven’t seen anyone else yet,” Edwin said. “And the ritual?”

“No. Nothing I remember. I don’t know. It was dark.”

“Dark when you left her to wander the maze all on her lonesome, yeah? Blindfolded and disoriented.” Charles had cut through the rope, and pulled it away from Violet’s hands, dropping it to the ground.

“We didn’t know about the wires,” Violet said. “And Annie only had to wear the blindfold for five minutes.

She

wanted to do ten.”

Niko, Edwin, and Charles exchanged a look.

“What do you mean, she

wanted

to? You mean, Annie did?” There was an edge to Charles’ voice, but it was finer than before, like a blade twisted to rest on the side.

“The story in town is that the four of you played a joke on Annie that went horribly wrong,” Edwin said. He sounded solemn in a way Niko did not recognize. Violet shook her head.

“No. It was a game. A stupid, risky game, because we were bored, dumb kids. But Annie was in on it. You do it in cornfields. Walk someone to the center blindfolded and turn them around a few times, see how long it takes them to get out. You’ve all never…?”

They all shook their heads.

“People mostly just go on their phones now,” Niko said. “Which can be dangerous in a different way.”

“Right, well. That’s what happened. We didn’t

trick

Annie. Jesus, she was our

friend.

”

“That’s not what folks in town are saying.”

“Well, it doesn’t make as good of a ghost story, does it?” Violet said, bitterly. “It fucked us all up. For

years.

But it was an accident, I swear to God. Which is why we all got so freaked out by the postcards. The idea that Annie’s spirit or whatever was still stuck. We wanted to

help

her.” She shook her head. “And this isn’t her doing, I can tell you that.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well to start with, Annie wasn’t like this. She wasn’t a spiteful person. She wouldn’t

hurt

people in a personal way.”

“Personal, how?” Charles asked. He’d leveled out the knife, crouched down to the ropes tying Violet’s ankles. “Is this personal?”

Violet nodded. “I was always – as a kid I got motion sickness. It’s better now, but Annie knew. And she knew I had these recurring dreams –
nightmares – about being stuck on something moving that wouldn’t stop.”

“Like being bound to a carousel.” Edwin finished. He turned to Niko and Charles. “We have to think. If the mechanisms of this place are personal, what might have happened to Crystal and Monty? What are they afraid of?”

Niko swallowed. “Crystal is afraid of David.”

She’d never told Crystal or the boys, but the walls of their shared apartment were thin. She’d heard Crystal wake up in the middle of the night with his name like bile in her mouth. She’d seen her friend tend to their dandelion plant with uncharacteristic delicacy, muttering something about poison seeping from the roots.

“When we met in the forest, he did something to fuck with her with mirrors,” Charles said. He handed the Swiss Army Knife to Edwin. “I should check there. Can you finish untying her?” A nod to Violet.

“You want to go alone?” Edwin frowned.

“If it is about David, don’t think she’ll want to feel cornered. Especially not by two guys.” It was a true enough statement, but they both winced. Charles looked over to Violet. “If you’re telling the truth about Annie, that’s fucked. I’m sorry.”

He stepped backward off the carousel.

Edwin made quick work on the rest of the ropes, and Niko grabbed hold of Violet’s hand. She stumbled as they dismounted, dropping to her knees and heaving onto the grass. Niko knelt next to her, pulling the woman’s dark hair behind her shoulders and away from her mouth.

“Maybe not so over the motion sickness,” Violet muttered into the grass. Niko patted her back.

“Do you know where your friends might be trapped?” Edwin asked. Violet swallowed, staring into the grass. One of the echoes walked through the space they were occupying, oblivious to their presence.

“I don’t know. Um. Paul was scared of clowns?”

Niko shuddered. “Me too.”

“The sideshow attractions appear to be that way,” Edwin said. Niko stood up, looking to where he was pointing. His expression had gone strange. “Actually, I may have a new theory on Crystal. Niko, would you stay with Violet? I’ll only be gone a moment.”

“Go find Crystal,” Niko said. “Please. I’ll be here. Or maybe hunting for clowns.”

Edwin nodded crisply and set off.

The Illustrated Woman

The sign hung outside one of the tents near the sideshow,

The Incredible Illustrated Woman,

it read, the image below an hourglass silhouette with tiny black lettering arcing along the length of her body. He recalled a photograph of a squirming baby girl, swaddled in cloth, “Created by Maddie Surname” written across her forehead. He swallowed, approaching the edge of the tent.

“Crystal?”

There was no verbal response, but he heard a soft click. Edwin frowned, stepping through the canvas. The room was huge, a curved set of benches on risers like an amphitheater, each occupied by shifting echoes, intermittently accompanied by cameras. The source of the clicking, he surmised, as one flashed with a near blinding air of light.

“Crystal?” he called again, taking a small step away from the outside. At the center of the bleachers was a stage, upon which sat a large barred cage. He could not tell the dimensions of the person inside from this distance, but all of a sudden they jerked with a familiar wincing gasp. Edwin felt something cold in his gut. “Crystal!”

“Oh God – Edwin?”

They met at the edge of the cage, Crystal on the inside, not in the long coat and boots she’d been wearing last he’d seen her, but in short, fitted undergarments that left large sections of her legs and stomach exposed. She was barefoot, and though there were none of the tell-tale bloody footprints, Edwin was stuck with the sudden memory of running for decades without shoes, and how deeply vulnerable the simple lack of them had made him feel.

“Are you hurt?” He said, phasing through the bars, causing her to stumble back a bit, eyes wide. Up close, he could see the trademark of her mother’s work in dark lettering near her hairline, more letters curling up her forearms and ankles. She was breathing heavily, eyes catching the light with watery film. He was struck with the sudden urge to embrace her, the decorum he’d been raised to demonstrate around a scantily clad woman be damned.

“I’m fine,” she lied. “Where are the others?”

“Charles and Niko are fine. We’re still looking for Monty.”

“Shit,” she shook her head. “I haven’t been able to find a lock.”

Edwin turned to examine the edges of the cage; she was correct. There did not appear to be any kind of door, much less a locking mechanism. A camera flashed brightly, and behind him Crystal hissed. When he spun around, she was gripping the side of her ribcage, dark liquid bubbling between her closed fingers.

Blood,

he first thought, as black beads formed, then no,

ink.

“What is that?”

She’d hunched over and looked up at him through dark lashes, smiling ruefully.

“It’s a sports bra, Edwin. It’s what we wear in the twenty-first century instead of corsets.”

“Not that,” he said, though he could feel heat traveling to his ears. Not being attracted to women had not made him any less prudish about seeing them in their undergarments. Something Crystal had definitely picked up on, and in better circumstances would have teased him for. “The lettering. Are those tattoos?”

“Feels like it,” she removed her hand from her side to wipe a streak of ink down her thigh, grimacing. “Only all at once. Like, hundreds of tiny needles.” She winced, shaking her head. “Fuck.”

With the words now exposed, Edwin could read them.

Narcissistic bitch,

against her side.

Spoiled brat,

across her collar bone.

You used to be so much fun,

arced up her calf. He blinked.

“What is all this? Crystal–”

“Let’s just leave it, okay?” she said, swiping her arm across her nose, sniffing. “We need to get out of here.”

Edwin did not

want

to leave it, but he did not think it fair to deny her this. He knew the feeling of being stripped down, and for a moment tried to picture how he’d felt if it had been Crystal who’d found him in Hell, bleeding and broken and at his most hopeless. He did not know if he could bear to look at her afterwards. It was not that he doubted her empathy, or thought she’d have been unkind. But theirs was a relationship of dueling, of parrying wordplay and scraping lines in the sand, not one of tender embraces and soft encouragements. She’d tried to come for him all the same, and he’d come for her in turn. Best not to try to pin down the fluttering moth with words.

“Very well.” He dropped to a crouch on the floor, rapping once with his knuckles. “This is hollow. Perhaps there is some kind of trapdoor.”

“See if there’s a lever outside,” she suggested, kneeling beside him to trace the thin line around the edge. Edwin nodded, and went to check. As he stepped away, Crystal hissed again, hand flying up to the side of her neck.

If he were Charles, he’d have something reassuring to say. Edwin pursed his lips, tried to think of something to distract her.

“Do you have tattoos?” he said, walking around the length of the stage. “Normally, I mean.”

“Just one. A rose on my ankle,” she said. “I got it years ago, I –

shit.

”

He looked up to her. “What is it?”

“Nothing. It just hurts, okay? Keep looking.”

He completed his loop of the stage, tracing a hand against the wood. There did not appear to be any sort of lever.

“I’m not seeing any mechanism to drop the floor.”

The cameras continued to flash. Crystal was gripping the bars, a new tattoo leaking ink across the line of her hip.

Just tell me which card’s been declined.

He did not mean to gawk, but felt a bit chastened as she scowled, arms covering her chest.

“Can you not

fucking

stare?” Crystal glared.

“There isn’t a lever.” He said. “Perhaps I should get Charles–”

“

No

.” The blood seemed to drain from her face.

“He’ll have some kind of saw in his bag, to cut through the floor,” he explained.

“I said

no.

We can figure this out. You’re the genius fucking detective, right?”

Edwin wanted to point out that it was the team collectively that were the ‘genius fucking detectives’, and that without Charles’ input, a great deal of their cases would have remained unsolved, but he suspected she both knew that, and it was not her point. Edwin swallowed. He was not fully versed on the details of Crystal and Charles’ relationship – there had been no more intimacy between them since the kiss in Port Townsend, at least none he had witnessed, though they remained clear friends – but he could appreciate not wanting to appear half-naked and spotted with vulgar statements in front of the object of one’s affection. Even if it was

Charles

, who seemed incapable of seeing anything but the best in people.

“You could borrow my coat, if you’d like,” he offered. “To… cover up a bit.”

“That’s not going to –” she caught herself, shook her head and slumped down, her back to the bars. “

Thank you.

That’s a nice offer. But no.” Her knees tucked up in front of her chest, fingers threading together. “I’d rather it’s just you.”

Which caught him thoroughly off guard, as he had just been supposing she would rather

anyone

other than him be the one to find her.

“Why?”

He slipped through the bars, sliding into a seated position across from her. Crystal looked down at her hands. He could see now, the faded rose on her ankle, the words

you’re the reason she died

haloing her calf.

“Because you already know,” she said softly.

“Know what?”

“That I can be a

total bitch,

Edwin.” She looked up. “

Fuck.

I wanted to know who I was so badly, and everything I learn about her, about me –

God,

I was the worst.” She shifted, pressed the flat of her palms over her eyes. More words.

They’re better off without you. She deserved what she got. This is not a fucking game.

“Charles and Niko don’t see it. But you had me figured from the start. I’m trying

so hard

to be good. But there’s so much I can’t fix.”

No one’s ever going to love you.

“And I’m so scared I can’t change, and that they’re going to find out. You’re all such

good fucking people

. I want to be like that. I want to help. But I think if they really knew me, they’d hate me.” Crystal bit her lip, held out a hand, gesturing to the tapestry of phrases across her body. “Because this is what people think. The people I’ve known my whole life. This is how they see me.”

Edwin swallowed, scooting awkwardly across the ground to move closer to her. Because fuck it, he decided. He needed to pin the moth.

Edwin got closer, expression serious. He took her arm in his hand, holding it out, wrist facing up, and withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket, and began rubbing it against the dark inked words. After a moment with no success, he paused, wetting the cloth in his mouth – a procedure she had not realized was possible for a ghost – and continued rubbing the skin.

“Um, Edwin?” Crystal blinked. She’d gotten too honest and she knew it. The kind of honesty that usually made him uncomfortable.

“You said when you were an infant, your mother wrote on you with a marker,” he said, continuing to rub the cloth against her wrist. “It was not permanent.

This,

is not permanent.”

“They feel like tattoos. That’s pretty permanent.”

“That is the limited perspective of the living talking,” he looked up at her, lips pursed in that knowing, Edwin way that tended to grate on her nerves. She was in too much pain to be properly annoyed. “

Nothing

is permanent. Not tattoos, even real ones, and not people. Even in death, we are constantly evolving. I am not the same person I was yesterday, and I am a

better

person since I met you.” He held her eyes, much too frank and impartial. Edwin did not flatter. This was not how he spoke to her. “I am grateful for your continuous contributions to the agency, and I am grateful to count you among my friends.”

“Edwin–”

“

And

,” he cut in. “If you really want to know how people see you, I’d encourage you to look.”

She blinked, the spots of text across her skin still ringing with sensation, her mind slow to catch up to his words.

“What?”

“

Look,

Crystal.”

He notched his arm into her hands, and she looked.

Crystal was sitting on the floor of the London Underground, the taste of something fishy and dead in her mouth. She eyed her rescuers with skepticism and a bit of wariness. She was haughty and aloof, and she did not like the name of the agency.

Crystal was in the office, rifling through their mail without permission, and struck with a vision. There was a little girl hundreds of miles away and she needed help. They had to rescue her. It was a simple way to view the world, but sometimes things are simple because they are true: if you have the ability to help someone, it is what you must do.

Crystal had lied about David. She was secretive and dangerous and vulgar in her language. She gripped Edwin’s hand and told him their cases mattered.

Crystal was sitting beside Niko on the bed, softer with her than he wanted her to be. It was the correct instinct. She could summon gentleness with more ease than he’d expected.

Crystal was irritating and impulsive. She understood Charles’ pain better in days than he’d been able to in thirty years. Crystal was hungry for answers and spoke without thinking. She was tormented by her ex and easily annoyed. She shared glances with him across the room as clients brought in strange cases.

Crystal gave up her abilities to be rid of David. Crystal sought David out for passage to Hell to rescue Edwin without a second thought.

Crystal put her shoes on the desk in their office, and put books back in the wrong places on his shelves. She did it on purpose, with a smug grin, and made promises to clients without consulting the rest of the agency. She wanted to help so much it seemed to ooze from her like a wound.

Crystal was so cold in the Neitherlands her lips turned blue. Edwin was reminded of Charles in the attic, and wanted to bury her in blankets. Crystal hugged Niko for so long when she was found he’d began to get annoyed, wanted to cut in. Crystal was going to buy Niko a ticket to go home and away from them forever, if that was what Niko wanted.

She took pictures of unremarkable places in London and made snide comments about the more interesting ones. She laughed too loud and was often late and Edwin suspected she used her psychic abilities to beat them all at Cluedo because her streak was getting ridiculous. She listened to strange music and showed him videos on the internet that made no sense just to watch his expressions.

She stood in the art gallery looking like a lost child, staring at her parents’ retreating backs and Edwin had wanted to send the stack of champagne flutes toppling to regain their attention to force it back because how could they not

see

her?

Crystal blinked, coming back to her body, staring at Edwin.

“I–”

“It is not true,” he said. “That no one will ever love you. And I know this because

I

love you, Crystal Palace Surname Von Hoverkraft. Despite the fact that it is a

stupid fucking name.

”

She kept starting, and then after a beat made a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh, wiping a hand under her eyes and shaking her head.

“In a thoroughly platonic context, if that was not obvious,” he added.

“Yeah, no, it was.” Crystal bit her lip. “You’ve been sitting on that name thing for a bit.”

Since she’d regained her memories, actually, but that had not seemed to be an appropriate moment.

“For what it’s worth, I love you too. Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Edwin nodded, though he very much hoped it would not be necessary. After a beat, Crystal shifted, arms curling around his shoulders, and he returned the gesture. It was strange, he could almost feel the beat of her heart against his still one. Strange, but not unpleasant.

The floor dropped out beneath them. Edwin did not fall, as he had already come to the understanding that he would not fall through the air in the particular space he occupied, but Crystal dropped with a yelp into the space beneath the trapdoor. She grunted, shifting to the side and looked up.

“There’s a grate here. I think I can fit.”

“Excellent.”

He heard the clunks of movement as he stood up and crossed across the room to the underside of one of the risers of benches. With a thud, Crystal pushed open the door at the side, stumbling into the light with cobwebs threaded through the curls of her hair, but back in boots and her long coat. She nodded once when she saw him. A place that feeds on misery, he supposed, had no reason to keep those trapped who had found hope.

“So,” she said. “Um, we need to find Monty, right?”

“Yes. And Mark, and the others. It seems you may have been right about them. We found Violet, and she indicated that they were actually friends with Annie. The version of events going around town may have been…embellished.”

“So going back to where I was right?” her arms folded.

“In part.”

“Hmm.” Crystal paused, glancing down at her boots. “Any way we can not tell Charles and Niko about…that?”

“The part where you became literally imprisoned with self-loathing and I talked you out of it by lauding your many virtues and then we declared platonic love for each other?” Edwin said primly. “Yes, I think so. Charles would be entirely too pleased.”

“God,” she shook her head. “We’d never live it down.”

“Indeed.” He smiled a bit to himself. “You are alright, physically?”

Crystal nodded, brushing the hair from the side of her face; the writing had entirely disappeared.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Miss Miranda

The hall of mirrors was empty, save for the rustling of more of the gray, shadow people. With all the movement in the tight entrance, Charles was not sure if it was them phasing through him, or the other way around. He tested becoming corporeal for a moment, with no noticeable difference.

“Crystal?” He didn’t see her anywhere. The echoes did not appear in any of the warped mirrors, and neither did he. They only reflected the room back and forth, though when he leaned close, hairline fractures traced patterns across the surfaces. They’d all been shattered when he found Edwin, and though the pieces had been reassembled, they hadn’t fused together. He didn’t think it would take much to cause them to fall apart again.

Charles continued to the end of the hallway, calling out a few more times, before dipping through the canvas walls into the space outside. There was a cluster of echoes in line near a hot dog stand. Though the scent of cured meat hung heavy, the limited duration of their loops only enough for one of the shadowed figures to squeeze a strip of relish down the center of the bun. The same bun, the same relish jar, squeezing air as chunks of pickles oozed from either side, the hot dogs sitting on their rollers crisping, beginning to burn. He grimaced, and turned away. His mother would’ve disapproved of the food waste, but he was rather dubious that any of the carnival attractions were even

real.

“Crystal?” He tried again. “Monty?”

He heard neither’s voice in response, and did another hard lap around the hall, before deciding to return to the carousel. Perhaps Niko and Edwin had more luck parsing some answers from Violet once she was no longer bobbing seasick on a cursed merry-go-round. If she was telling the truth about what had happened with Annie, the still-warm embers of indignation in his chest had nowhere to go.

Niko was sitting with Violet in the grass when he returned, patting a comforting hand on the woman’s shoulder. She looked up when he approached, climbing to her feet and smiling, warm and tentative. He grimaced, shook his head.

“Where’s Edwin?”

“He had a theory,” she said. “About Crystal. He went that way–”

She only had time to thumb in the direction before Charles detected movement, two figures emerging from one of the tents, the first tall with impossibly perfect posture, the second curly-haired in a long jacket. He exhaled slowly.

“I think that’s them.”

Niko spun around. “OhmyGod, Crystal!”

Charles broke into a jog a few paces before her; Niko reached the two of them first, barely slowing to a stop before she enveloped Crystal in a tight hug that caused her to stumble a few paces back, burying her face in the shoulder of her coat beneath a canopy of silver hair.

“Are you okay?”

Crystal’s hands fluttered for a moment, before situating around Niko’s lower back.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

Charles recognized the tone of someone who was more ‘holding it together’ and ‘properly okay.’ Like the mirrors in the hall, notched back together but oh, so fragile. He looked over at Edwin, whose expression was uncharacteristically without reservation. He smiled fondly at the living girls, before signaling, with a slight incline of his head, that things were more alright than not, or at least as alright as they could have been, given the circumstances.

Crystal broke off for a moment, while Niko jumped to hug a startled Edwin next. Charles held up a hand in greeting, was relieved when she gave him an odd

who do you think you’re kidding?

look and closed the space between them to squeeze him quickly.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked quietly.

“Maybe later,” Crystal grimaced before tilting her head thoughtfully. “You know, Edwin is surprisingly good at pep talks.”

Charles could’ve told her that, but she doubted she’d have believed it. They made an interesting pair, and he could not help but suspect it was the fact that they had so much in common that it made it difficult for them to treat each other gently. The two most stubbornly and bluntly compassionate people he’d ever met, who would make the world rock for total strangers and each had told him, within moments of their meeting, that they were not good with people, that people did not

like

them.

Charles liked both of them just fine. More than fine, actually.

“You’re not hurt?”

“We’re okay.” She swallowed. “But that was

not

fun. We need to shut this shit down.”

His stomach clenched.

“We need to find Monty.” He never should’ve suggested they play the game, let him get separated from the group. Charles swallowed at the memory of dark, startled eyes as he pulled Monty back into the labyrinth. Evil witch’s familiar or no, Charles could not help but think of him as a kid. A kid like he was once, desperate to be useful because it was the only way he knew how to be wanted, and who wanted to use his newfound freedom to learn roller skating.

“It’s not your fault. It’s weird and manipulative. It was designed to suck you in.” She shook her head, shuddering a bit despite herself. He looked back over to Edwin, who had made no attempts to extricate himself from Niko’s embrace, but had gotten an arm free to pat the top of her head gently. “What are those things?”

Crystal looked past him, taking in the crowd of echoes, the music from the carousel making lethargic loops as the horses rose and fell, sprinkling of light and sound from all around them.

“You missed a bit. Apparently playing the high striker woke some things up.”

A frown creased her forehead. “What is fueling this? Because I’m pretty sure poltergeists don’t create personally tailored carnival mind games.”

“An excellent question,” Edwin said. Niko released him, rocking back so the four of them stood facing each other. He steepled his fingers. “Crystal, you mentioned a woman in your vision of the carousel incident? Someone on the periphery?”

She nodded. “I didn’t get a good look at her. She was wearing a shawl, and this long dress.”

“

Miss Miranda

.” Niko whispered.

“Who?”

“In the House of Osiris tent! There was this animatronic fortune teller lady, with a shawl and cards and stuff. Maybe she had real powers?”

“Perhaps Crystal could try and get a reading on the items in the tent?” Edwin suggested.

“If they’re the same.” Charles nodded to the tents. “Everything’s got a bit flipped around.”

Niko’s expression knitted with resolve.

“I’ll show you where it is.”

The tent was flush with purple when they entered, the carpeting thick and lush, clusters of yellowed lamps dangling from the poles that suspended the canvas tent. In the place where the animatronic fortune teller had sat, sat a table with a set of two wire chairs. The table was covered with a red velvet blanket, with a large crystal ball seated on a stand near the center. It reflected Niko’s face back to her, stretched with concern.

“This looks very different,” she admitted, tapping a finger against the glass surface. Her fingernails made a soft tinging. There was a small wooden chest in the corner, with a lock hanging unsealed from the entrance. Charles dropped to a crouch to unhook the lock and opened the trunk. There were a few books inside, and a collection of small jars.

“We’ve got dried flowers, looks like moth wings, chalk dust, and,” he paused, swallowing. “Uh, crow’s feet.”

Niko’s stomach dropped.

“Here,” Crystal held out a hand, taking the jar from him quickly, her eyes lighting for a moment, a purple hue that seemed out of place in the darkness here – in contrast to the carpeting and glass, it was a pure color, like light showing through a prism. A

crystal.

She blinked, eyes returning to normal, and shook her head. “It’s not – these are old. Really old.”

The process of acquiring them had not been pleasant, though, from the pinch to her lips, and the speed with which she set them back down. Charles continued looking through the trunk, removing a folded blanket that made a soft thud when it hit the ground. Edwin had removed his magnifying glass from his pocket and was studying the iconography of the tarot cards on the table.

“These appear hand-painted,” he said. “But there’s something else. Niko, Crystal, could one of you turn your telephone into a torch?”

“Sure,” Niko fished hers out of her pocket, sharing a small smile with Crystal as she flipped on the flashlight feature, and held it out to Edwin.

He took it from her, pinching it between his fingers gingerly like he always did, like the phone was going to release sparks into his palm. He held it to the back of the nearest card, the Devil. Through the light, emerged a few clear, golden lines, forming a circle, inscribed with intersecting lines and small pictograms.

“More circular sigilry,” he said. “Though this I suspect is the real deal.” A pause. “Crystal, would you mind?”

“Let me see.” She took the card from him and with it a slow, shaky breath. Niko took a step forward to put a steadying hand on her shoulder, as her roommate’s eyes went white.

“You wanted to see me?” the woman stood near the outside of the manager’s trailer. His beard was short, his glasses fogged from the heat, sweat bubbling around his temples. She smiled prettily, wrapped herself in her shawl, like there was any cold to protect herself from. They were still in the thrall of summer, and sweat left tears in her makeup.

“Miranda,” he said. The ringmaster lead huddles with the cast and crew, beamed to the audiences that filtered in. But he was not in charge. They all knew who was in charge, because he held the purse strings that kept them all in business. The man’s face was sour and pinched, and she’d long fantasized about killing him. “I think you know what this is about.”

“I don’t,” she said, eyes wide, and innocent.

“We’ve received some complaints about you.”

“I do not design the future. I simply read it. If it isn’t to their liking, it’s hardly my fault.”

He grimaced. “You are selling a

product.

It is your job to tell people what they want to hear, actual futures be damned. And the fortunes aren’t the problem. We’ve had numerous customers complain that they’re missing items they’ve brought into the carnival. Watches. Jewelry. Cash. All of whom came to visit

your

tent?”

Miranda pursed her lips. Her first instinct had been poison, something that look slow effect, she could see the life slowly drain from him like bathwater. But on further consideration, poison felt too distant. Too mundane. Perhaps she could snag something personal from his office, make up a doll and drive a pin through it’s forehead. He gave her enough of a headache daily. Perhaps she could give him one to split his skull.

“It’s a crowded place, and people are forgetful. Perhaps they fell off on one of the rides. Or they spent more than they meant to.”

“Miranda.” His voice was cold, hard.

“You don’t have anything on me.”

“We found these in your tent.” The manager reached under his desk, set out a bundle of purple velvet, unfolded it with the end of his pencil. A silver brooch glinted back at her, an ornate fountain pen, a silver watch. Truly, what kind of fool brought valuables to a

carnival?

But the humor was eclipsed by bitterness. Those had been in a safe place. A hidden place. She’d charmed her rooms to drive out anyone but her friends, people she trusted. One of them had handed this over. The room seemed to shake around her.

“Those are mine.”

“No, they aren’t, Miranda.” The manager scowled, fingers steepled. “You’ve worked with us for years, I don’t want to turn you over to the police. If you give us the opportunity to return all the items, we can let you go quietly.”

Not a headache, she decided. Something far more gruesome. She pictured the whirring, clanking of the carousel, imagined the gears twisting, pulling, gutting and then dragging his intestines out of his chest like a never ending string of scarves. Her face curled in a demure smile.

“Fine.” She had never done anything quietly in her life.

“Oh my God,” Crystal blinked, setting down the cards. “It was her. Miranda. She was the fortune teller, but she got caught stealing. She used these cards to

pick.

All the people who exposed her, or were rude to her, or she didn’t like – she told them to ride the carousel that day and then enchanted it to go haywire. It wasn’t an accident at all.”

She shook herself. “She was exposed by someone she trusted. She felt betrayed. Maybe her spirit felt some sort of kinship with Annie? Wanted to get justice for her? Only, it was this same fucked up version of justice.”

“Annie didn’t want to hurt her friends,” Niko said. “Violet said she wasn’t like that. That she’d probably be horrified by what was happening in her name.”

“It makes sense,” Charles said. “Only why wait for Annie at all? If she was that powerful? When did she put the curse on the carnival? And how do we break it?”

Crystal looked down, shook her head.

“I don’t know.”

Edwin tilted his head at the cards. “A spell this powerful would have to have a source of some kind. Somewhere on the premises, most likely. We need to find the sigil and destroy it. That should right everything to do with the spell.”

Niko looked at the cards on the table.

“So we’re back to where we started? Looking for a source of some kind?”

“More or less,” Edwin nodded. “But at least now we know what we’re looking for.”

Scavenger Hunt, Part II

“Crystal, Edwin,” Charles said. “You two know the most about the circles and spells. I’ll head back to the corn maze. Try and find Monty and the rest. I’ll keep an eye out for any circular runes.” Crystal and Edwin shared a look before the latter nodded.

“I’ll go with you.”

He turned to look at Niko, who was still holding her phone in flashlight mode, the untied balloon animal stuck in one of the belt loops of her corduroys, like a sword in a sheath. Before anyone could question, she straightened.

“I’m sure.”

Crystal reached out, squeezed her wrist gently. “Be careful.”

She nodded to Charles afterward, looping him into the sentiment.

They stepped out into the twilight, the smokey forms of the echoes making the area outside the tent feel foggy. Charles turned, orienting himself to where they were. With all the new tents, people, and chimes, it was not as intuitive where things had been.

Niko kept close to his side as they maneuvered around the figures clustering the hotdog stand, the hall of mirrors, the spinning carousel. Though the music was still playing, Charles swore he could hear the groaning of the old, rusted machinery beneath it. The circus was a veneer, a thin coat of paint on a decaying husk to hide the rot beneath. They were walking through the same ground they had been before – littered with shattered glass and crushed cans. He watched the ground, holding Niko’s arm to maneuver her around anything that could cut through the soles of her shoes.

The front of the corn maze loomed, the bright, leafy greens under the flickering signage. The row of doll heads looked somehow less intimidating fresh with paint than they had ghosted over with dust and time. Niko walked up to the sign, moving her flashlight across the surface to pick up any more hidden runes.

“It would have to be something that was around when Miranda worked here, right?” she asked, turning to Charles. “I can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t.”

He swiped his index finger against the sign and turned the dirt-coated tip to face her.

“It looks like it’s real. Just hidden. I wonder if–”

The question was interrupted by a shuffling amongst the corn stalks. Niko and Charles exchanged looks and approached the front entrance side by side.

“Monty?” Niko asked the rows of corn. “Is that you?”

The rows continued to rustle like someone was tracing their hand down the side as they walked, causing them to shake. Charles angled himself between Niko and the edge of the maze and took a step past the entrance.

“Monty?” he looked around the corner.

The figure that stumbled into his view was not Monty, but he recognized it. The girl had on jeans and a jean jacket, a few shades different in color, with mousy brown hair that fluffed on either side of a strip of white cloth tied over her eyes. She moved her hand away from the corn stalks she’d been using for guidance, and tilted her head in something approximating their direction.

“Annie?” Niko asked, peering around Charles.

They ran into Violet on their way out. She still looked a bit unsettled, but then again, their current situation was not particularly conducive to

settling.

Edwin glanced between the two of them.

“Right. Crystal, this is Violet. One of Mark’s compatriots. Violet, this is Crystal Palace. She’s our resident psychic, and the reason we’re here.”

It was a purely factual statement, but Crystal looked at him surprised, the corners of her mouth softening. Edwin turned back to Violet. One of her hands was clasped around the other wrist, rubbing the red abrasions left by the ropes gingerly with her thumb.

“Um, thanks?” she said to Crystal. “Listen, you said Sarah hired you. So you must be looking for Mark, right? I wanted to see if you needed help. Finding my friends. And, uh, your pet? The girl with white hair mentioned you had lost a crow?”

Crystal and Edwin exchanged glances. Despite many reminders and sticky notes affixed to the bathroom mirror, Niko had never quite grasped which details were and were not worth disclosing to strangers on cases. Though, Edwin mused, at least in this scenario, the things around them were strange enough that familiars and ghosts would not stick out as particularly unusual.

“She meant Monty. He’s only a crow sometimes,” Crystal said. “Or, he is a crow, but he has a human body. Or he used to be a crow, but now he’s a human.” She frowned. “I actually don’t know how that works.”

“He’s our friend. And it appears he may have befallen a similar fate to yours. We are currently in the process of identifying the source of this manifestation.”

“We can help find your friends,” Crystal cut in.

“We are looking for a

sigil

.”

“We can do both at once,” her eyebrows lifted, and Edwin supposed he should have felt annoyed, but the annoyance was eclipsed by relief, because

this

was the Crystal who had wormed her way into becoming an integral part of their agency. The lost, scared girl, with horrific insults seeping from her skin had startled him, and he’d been afraid she’d backed from their constant battle of wills entirely. But even with her eyes still rimmed with red, coat collar zipped up high to cover the skin of her neck, she met his gaze.

Edwin sighed. “Very well. But locating the sigil should stop this altogether. So it ought to be our priority.”

“What’s a sigil?” Violet asked.

“Like a circle with symbols in it.”

Edwin was about to protest the vagueness in the description but found he could not compose a more specific one. They’d thoroughly stripped the old fortuneteller’s tent, with no new discoveries save a collection of jewelry hidden in the bundle of fabric from the trunk. More evidence of a light-fingered tarot reader.

He instead pulled out his notebook and held the page with the warding rune open for both of them to see.

“It may look something like this. Not this precisely, but with similar iconography.”

“I haven’t seen anything like that,” Violet said. “But I think I know where Paul might be. I saw it while I was walking here. He’s always been freaked out by clowns.”

“Oh. Great,” Crystal said, with the tone of someone who was also not particularly fond of clowns. Given she seemed to have regained herself well enough to push at him, Edwin supposed it was only fair to respond in kind.

“That sounds like an excellent place to start.”

Annie looked the same as she had in the picture the girls had found in the yearbook. Endearingly gap-toothed, slightly mussed hair, and clothing choices that ached with the era she’d died in. Charles stepped forward.

“You’re Annie Weekes, right?”

“Who’s asking?”

“We are!” Niko said. “We’re the Dead Boy Detectives. I’m Niko, and this is Charles.”

It was hard to discern Annie’s expression with her eyes hidden behind the blindfold.

“Do you want help with your, um–” he gestured before realizing she probably couldn’t see.

“With the blindfold? No,” Annie shook her head, and held out her wrist towards them. Affixed to it was a plastic, analog watch, displaying the numbers 2:47 on a screen bearing a hairline fracture. It did not appear to be functional. “I’ve still got some time left. This’ll beep when it’s been five minutes, and then I can take it off.”

Charles swallowed. They’d dealt with ghosts with fixations before, women haunting bus stations waiting for the 8:00 that never came, men at slot machines, turning the dial over and over again, hoping for a win. It was one of his least favorite parts of the job, being the person that had to tell someone they were dead. That they had

been

dead for over a decade.

“I think your watch is broken,” Niko said gently. “It’s not ticking down.”

Annie withdrew her arm, tapping the screen with her finger.

“It’s gonna beep. Then I can take the blindfold off. I barely need to, though. I know this maze really well.” She grinned. “It’s up here. I’ve got a perfect mental map of it.”

After all this time, Charles suspected she did.

“Then do you know… the way out?” Niko’s voice was soft. Annie nodded.

“Sure. It’s that way.” She pointed behind them to the entrance.

“Doesn’t the game end when you leave? Even if it hasn’t been five minutes?”

Annie frowned slightly, shook her head. “Yeah. It does. So I don’t go there. I don’t like to go there. It’s better for me here.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I’m out there I remember. And I don’t really like to remember. I tried once to get out, and it didn’t end super well. So I’m better in here.”

Niko’s eyes had gone wide and sad. She looked like she wanted to envelop Annie in a hug. Charles could understand the sentiment, but did not think it would be particularly helpful. Ghosts with fixations tended to lash out when someone tried to break them.

“What do you mean you tried to get out?”

“I was standing at the edge. Right there,” she pointed. “And I looked out, and my friends weren’t there. I thought I could write to them, and suddenly this…weird guy showed up and said he would deliver postcards for me? Which I hadn’t even written. I’d just thought about writing them. And then he disappeared? It was honestly a bit freaky.”

“That’d be ghost postman,” Charles said quietly to Niko. “He does that.”

Niko copied the movement, speaking slightly less quietly. “Does she know she’s D-E-A-D?”

Charles opened his mouth to respond.

“She does,” Annie cut in. “And she’s also not a toddler. I can spell

dead.

”

Niko flushed, wincing a bit. “Oh. Right.”

“Hold on,” Charles said. “If you know you’re dead, and you know the way out, why

don’t

you leave? Ghosts can travel anywhere.”

“Oh wow, I never tried that.” Her arms folded across her chest. “Look, you might be able to go anywhere, but

there

is as far as I go.” She pointed to the ground near Niko’s feet. “And it’s either look longingly out at a bunch of broken beer bottles or keep playing the game. So I’m playing, okay? It’s better like this.” Her shoulders raised, back arching in. “Look, I thought after the postcards maybe someone would come. But no one did. So I’m still here. This is it.”

Niko took a step out from behind Charles.

“But your friends

did

come. They got trapped outside and couldn’t find you.”

She got close enough to Annie to grip her hands.

“We’re trying to help them now, but they

did

come. I promise. I was lost once, too, and my friends came for me. And yours came for you, okay?”

There was a desperation in her tone that made Charles’ gut twist. He remembered when they’d first found her, standing outside an igloo buried in a parka. At first just a silhouette, but then Edwin had spotted a shock of white hair and they’d all broken out in a run, whooping and yelling her name. She’d hugged them each tight, and told them she’d known they would come.

God,

he hoped she hadn’t been lying when she’d said that.

“I – what do you mean trapped? Are they okay?” Annie shook her head, gripping Niko’s hands back.

“There’s something scary going on here. But it never was you, was it?” she looked back at Charles. “Violet was right. You didn’t want them to get hurt.” She turned back to Annie. “One of our friends was in here and we can’t find him now. Have you seen – or, er, heard – anyone recently? Other than us?”

Annie shook her head slowly. “I haven’t heard anyone for a long time. But, I did find something.” She reached into the pocket of her jean jacket and pulled out a glass pendant on a chain. “This was on the ground on the second loop from the end. Does it look like it could have belonged to your friend?”

Niko took the necklace gingerly. “Oh my God.”

Charles thought he recognized the feather pattern on the surface. “That’s Monty’s, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “It’s not just his necklace though. This is his transformation amulet.” At Charles’ look of confusion, she continued. “He showed me it once. Monty isn’t a shapeshifter like the Cat King. He wears this to be a human, it’s magic. If he doesn’t have it with him, he must’ve turned back into a crow.”

Charles raked his fingers through his hair. Monty as a human was fairly recognizable, but he was not confident in his ability to recognize the familiar out of a group of other crows. Not to mention, a crow was a lot smaller and easier to hide away than a human.

“That would explain why there were a bunch of clothes with it,” Annie said, nodding to the pendant.

“Can you show me where it was?” Niko asked. “Do you remember the way?”

Annie nodded. “Like I said, I know this maze really well.”

Niko turned back to Charles.

“I’ll be okay here with Annie. You should go tell Crystal and Edwin that we’re looking for a crow, and not a person.”

Charles nodded. “Right. I’ll be back in just a tick.”

He stepped out of the maze, glancing side to side down the midway as he walked, before coming to a faltering stop. Half covered by the shadow of the corn maze stood a large tent with posters of elephants and lions dangling intermittently against the outside. The sign read:

Exotic Animals! Come and See!

A step closer, and he could hear the chattering of monkeys, the screeching of elephant trunks, and the growling of something large, furred, and deeply displeased. He had a sinking feeling he knew what had happened to Monty.

What Happened To Monty

One moment, he was a few paces behind Charles, weaving through the arcs of the corn maze, jumping over discarded rubber limbs and shriveled pumpkin husks, only to turn a corner and find himself completely alone. The stalks behind him rustled, with the sound of something approaching, and Monty took a gasping swallow of air, trying to keep an eye on the movement. There was something to be said, for the prey instinct. He’d always known how to freeze, when puffed feathers and human glares did nothing to keep him from harm.

It’ll hurt less if you hold still,

Esther would chide, petting his soft, down feathers, never giving a warning before she plucked them from his skin, her other hand pinching his beak closed. It broke her concentration, she’d told him, when he cried out, and a lot of old spells were very specific about which parts needed to be harvested. She was telling the truth, though. It did hurt less, and when she was done, she’d scratch her fingers against the top of his head, like a mother preening her hatchling, and he would

brrp

contentedly, while she murmured, words soft but sharp,

was that

really

so difficult?

The plants continued to rustle, the sense of something moving closer. Monty took a step back, trying to keep the sounds of his labored breathing to a minimum. There was no Charles in sight. He looked down at the crushed hay beneath his shoes, that looked so

dead

when compared to the fronds nearby, which is when he saw two dark hands like night solidified reach from amongst the corn and grab his ankles.

Monty yelped, trying to step forward, only the hands held tight, gripping so tightly they seemed to leave an impression on the bone, and he fell to his knees, kicking back once, wildly.

“Charles!” he screamed out into the air above him.

The hands yanked back, and Monty was pulled down further, the thud of the packed earth on his stomach knocking the air from his lungs, kicking as hard as he could and grasping at the hay, the corn, the

nothing held down

in front of him. He clawed at the ground, but it was hard, and cold, and mostly mud, and he only succeeded in leaving finger impressions in the clay.

He tried to scream again, shriek in a way he’d never attempted with his human lungs, but another hand, cold like starless space, clamped over his mouth, holding his jaw shut, pulling back further until he was gripped on all sides with no way of getting purchase on the ground. The sensation of coldness seemed to bleed from the hands gripping him into his skin, his ankles, his face, and he blinked, shaking his head to try and writhe out.

You’re making this more difficult than it has to be,

Esther would have told him. Monty tried to crawl forward, to bite the hand holding his mouth shut, but only succeeded in temporarily keeping himself from being dragged back into the corn. His pendant had slipped from the neckline of his sweater, thumped against his chest. And with the familiar thrumming of it, Monty had a split-second impulse. The same one he’d had in Esther’s house, after Lilith had come to drag her away, the same one he’d had in the woods when the Cat King exposed his secret with a kiss that burned his mouth, that he’d had so many times before but never dared to act on.

Fly away.

Monty grabbed the end of the amulet and threw it back over his head, grabbing at his thoughts like many marbles slipping through his fingers because as a bird he’d never been able to hold them all at once. He twisted, croaking, and the grip around his limbs loosened, or perhaps stayed the same only

he

had gotten smaller, and for a moment it seemed to be working. The rings slipped from his fingers and the colors of the world grew sharper, until the edges of his vision were stunted by green wool, and he found himself struggling, half tied in his own sweater, clawing as he tried to get his wings free only for more and more marbles to slip away, until the only things in his brain when hands pinned them to his side, were simply:

let go, stop, scared.

Charles entered the tent, ducking beneath a slanted metal support pole. The sounds of animals shrieking made him wince. He remembered being a kid, on a class trip to the zoo, when some of his schoolmates had started tossing small stones through the bars at one of the sedentary zebras; the guide had told them he was old, that his knees were weak and that he didn’t move well. Charles told them to stop it, to leave it alone, because what had the zebra done? When that hadn’t done anything, he’d grabbed at one of the rocks, accidentally knocked it into his own face when the other boy let go and driven his tooth into his lip in the process. He remembered that once it started bleeding it had taken forever to stop, but at least the other kids were so startled by the blood they’d stopped harassing the zebra. He’d spit red phlegm out on the sidewalk, and apparently, that was

gnarly-in-a-good-way.

He’d told his teachers he’d tripped into one of the metal railings.

He’d gotten a lot of mileage out of that one.

“Monty?” he cried out, walking past an open caravan, bars lining the front that housed a sad-looking donkey, its head bent over a trough, its chin dripping with water. He continued through the rows of cages, searching for the small wooden signs attached to the cages, arrows pointing in different directions.

Butterfly Garden, Lions of the Sahara,

one called

The Wilds of India

accompanied by a crude painting that made his skin crawl. Charles turned the other way, searching until he saw a sign pointing down a row past the petting zoo – which was occupied with three surly goats who looked like they’d kick his face before they’d let him pet them,

where was Edwin’s inexplicable animal charming when he needed it?

– the letters green and gold: This Way to the Aviary.

He broke out into a light jog.

“Monty!” he called, stepping into the entrance to the attached tent. “It’s Charles! I’m here!”

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. Twin peacocks in cages on either side of the door looked upon him skeptically. Charles gripped the shoulder-strap of his bag. He was grateful for the ghosts’ ability to refrain from senses; there was a sweaty, nervous, uncleanness to the whole place, and he found himself very glad on behalf of all animals that this type of circus was no longer commonplace.

“If we find out you’re real, I’m staging a prison break,” he told the peacocks.

It was then he heard a mournful quork and startled forwards.

“Monty!”

At the end of the hall, wedged between two stacks of wooden crates, sat a large cage, within which was a much smaller birdcage attached to the ceiling. Inside the smaller cage sat a crow, the feathers around his neck puffed, an ambient

shaking

of his tiny body causing the suspended cage to shudder.

“Monty?” he said. “That you?”

The bird made a deeply pitiful-sounding croak in what Charles assumed was the affirmative.

“I’m so sorry I lost you, mate,” he said. “Gotta work on matching pace. Just give me a second, I’ll get you out.”

He reached for the bars of the outer cage when Monty suddenly made a startled caw of warning. The body of a large, speckled, python slammed against them, its head and fangs mere inches from where Charles’ hand had been moments ago. He jerked back on instinct, holding both hands up in surrender.

“

Woah there

.” He looked up at Monty. “You’re not fond of snakes, I take it?”

Which he supposed made sense, all things considered. The python looked big enough to swallow a bird whole, and the snake he’d fought in Esther’s basement had been much,

much

bigger. They’d been in different spheres when Charles and Edwin had been there – the snake in a pocket dimension behind the cupboard, Monty in a metal birdcage in the kitchen –
but he couldn’t imagine being fully at ease knowing something that could and

would

eat you given the change wasn’t far away.

Charles dropped to a squat, studying the snake.

“Doesn’t look magic, though, so I reckon I’ll be alright. I step in and grab you, then we dip out real quick?” The python hissed, as if sensing it was being discussed. Charles nodded to it. “Don’t eat my friend, and you can be part of the prison break.”

He stood back up, dusting off his knees.

“Here goes nothing.” Only something

did

happen, his step cut short by a burning hiss that left ugly red lines across his palm. Charles sucked in a breath, holding his hand to his chest. “

Bloody Hell

. Who makes these things out of iron?”

Monty cawed again, and Charles realized he had perhaps not just been trying to warn him about the snake.

“Okay. Shit.

Shit.

New plan,” he looked up and down at the cage, eyes narrowing. Near the top was a small hatch that looked big enough for a bird to fit through. If, he noted, said bird was willing to fly a few feet in snake territory to get there. He looked back at the black bird, sitting in the smaller cage, with no visible locking mechanism holding it closed.

They’d had a conversation like this once, about the birdcage in the kitchen of Esther Finch’s house. About how she’d never kept it locked. About how she hadn’t needed to. About how Monty always came back to it. He’d remembered the school holidays he’d boarded the bus home for,

knowing

that he’d have to answer for a slipping Latin grade, a disappointing cricket season, a uniform demerit. He would pack his bags, slag off his teammates, and climb aboard the tiniest voice in his head telling him he didn’t

have

to go home. No one was forcing him. But where else was he supposed to go? He climbed on the bus, and hated himself for climbing on the bus, and then hated himself for

that

because his Mom was at home, and she’d make paneer biryani and tell him what she’d been reading for book club and he’d wonder if her long sleeves were for the cold or to hide bruises.

“Monty,” Charles said softly. “If I prop open that door, you think you can fly out?”

He reached into his bag, withdrew a heavy wrench, and held it up, eyeing how he’d fit it under the door to the hatch to hold it open. In the cage, Monty took a few nervous steps in a circle, not making much of a sound.

“I know, it’s scary, alright? But you aren’t really any safer in there. You know that.”

Monty took a step towards the door, but retreated a second later, the feathers around his neck puffing in a way that in any other situation Charles would’ve noted looked

incredibly soft.

“It’s not that far. And once you get to the edge, I’ve got you. I’ll catch you.”

Brrp,

Monty fluttered his wings, brought them back to his side.

“Look, I don’t understand crow, mate. Don’t actually know how well you understand me, right now.” He nodded. “But it’s sorta like with dogs, innit? You just talk real gentle.” Monty’s head twitched. “Or you can understand entirely and did

not

like that comparison. Nothing like a dog. Got it.”

He swallowed. “We get out of here, I’ll take you roller skating, alright? We’ll make a thing of it. The five of us. They’re all worried about you. Edwin, too.” Because he

got it,

what it was like to fall into the orbit of Edwin Paine when you’d come to expect the worst of people. Even as a human, Monty had a bit of a duckling-like quality, an unsubtle desperation to get into his good graces. “That’s a Dead Boy Detective promise, alright? You fly out of there, and I’ll catch you.”

Charles tried to make at least some approximation of eye contact with the crow, shifted, lifting the exterior hatch with the far end of the wrench, pushing it open as much as possible. Tentatively, the bird tapped his beak against the door of the smaller cage and it swung open. Beneath it, the python began to shift, its mass looking almost like the swirl of a sinkhole.

“Remember what I said, yeah? Prison break.”

And then Monty took a leap, black wings beating the air. The snake’s head rose, missed him by an inch as he passed through the hatch. Charles dropped the wrench, and made good on his promise, catching the crow and tucking him into the front of his jacket, wings pressed to his sides. He could feel a tiny, jackrabbit heartbeat, racing a mile a minute and the bird in his arms shaking. He swallowed, tentatively putting a hand on Monty’s head and stroking.

“That’s good. I’ve got you. You’re safe,” he hesitating. “Er, is the petting okay?”

Brrrrp,

Monty said, and made no move to wriggle from the inside of Charles’s coat.

“Alright then. Niko’s got your amulet, and I think we’ve had a break in the case.”

Remember the Corn Maze. It’ll be Important.

Monty stayed quiet as Charles jogged out of the aviary, and it was unclear which was more eager to get the

Exotic Animals! Come and See!

sign in their rearview. As the swirling lights of the carnival, and clusters of echoes came into view, Charles felt two talons dig into his wrist.

“Yeah. Missed a bit. We found Annie, though. Nice girl, it turns out, not a poltergeist.”

The echoes clustered near the cotton candy stand nearby, so close to each other their individual forms lost definition, a restless fog with loose appendages visible throughout, like something from a B-horror movie, all fused together at irregular intervals. Charles turned to the maze, a crow tucked under one arm, the shoulder-strap of his backpack in the other.

“Gotta find Niko now,” he said.

As it turned out, Niko was not especially difficult to find. She stood near the front of the maze, hands fluttering nervously, a halo of silver-white hair that almost seemed to glow in the dusk. She waved when she saw him, reaching out to pat the girl beside her on the shoulder to signal his arrival. Annie turned, too, though looking a few feet to Charles’ right, the strap of fabric still binding her eyes closed.

“Charles! What did Edwin and Crystal say -

Oh. My. God.

” Her voice changed when she noticed Monty burrowed in the fold of his coat. She took a step forward, eyes wide. “Monty?”

The little feathered head bobbed in a nod. Niko clasped her hands over her mouth.

“I’m sorry. I’m sure this is traumatic but you are

so cute

. Can I hold him?” she caught herself, looked down at the crow again. “Sorry. Can I hold you?”
Monty’s heart no longer seemed to be trying to dislodge itself from his chest, which Charles took to be a good sign, but he wasn’t sure they’d quite reached the cuddling stage yet - though if Monty would allow it from anyone, he suspected it would be Niko. Or Edwin. - he gave the crow’s head a reassuring pat, at which Niko puckered her lips the same way she had when they’d discovered the ‘rival haunting’ of one of their clients was actually a litter of newborn kittens.
“Do you still have the amulet?”

“I do,” she said, dropping to a crouch near what Charles now noticed was a folded set of clothes, a pair of sneakers with doodled constellations, and a small pile of silver knicknacks, including a necklace made of paperclips strung together. “Have Edwin and Crystal had any luck with the sigil?”

“Didn’t ask. Had a hunch on my way over that panned out.”

“Sigil?” Annie asked, tilting her head.

“What we think is powering all this,” Charles nodded behind him, where blue and red lights were arcing above the corn. “Apparently the old fortune teller was a bit light figured, a bit magic, and

very

pissed. We think she left a sigil somewhere that somehow got activated, drawing you and your friends in.”

Monty began to shift in his arm, with an indignant

squawk.

“Oi, give it a tick. We’re looking for your necklace.”

He did not seem to appreciate the sentiment, instead digging his claws a bit deeper into Charles’ wrist - thankfully, crow talons did not have the same effect as cat claws, making the sensation more

odd

than

painful

- extending his wings a bit.

When Charles’ hand shot out on instinct, Monty took off, dark wings flapping.

“Hey! Monty!”

“Wait, we’ve got your stuff,” Niko said, looking up. Despite not having a particularly graceful take off, the bird arced smoothly around them, going higher and higher. Maybe he’d just grown tired of being held; watching him in flight, Charles could see why being stuck in a cage would be so difficult to stomach. But he seemed to have a purpose, and though he dipped forward from view for a few second when he returned, he came to rest on the ground a foot or so from where Niko was standing.

He took a step forward, moving aside a bit of green wool sweater, and tapped his beak once against the glass pendant. Niko dropped to a crouch to pick it up, holding out the chain between her hands.

“Here you go,” she smiled, and Monty dipped his head to allow it to be placed. The effect was instantaneous and did not look particularly pleasant, his head jerked up, wings flapped, and with a sound somewhere between a squawk and a cry, bird turned to boy in a cloud of dark feathers, sitting on the corn, pale legs tucked protectively in front of his chest, hands clasped in front of them.

Charles quickly turned around for the sake of his modesty, though the pose seemed more a result of the temperature than any sensitivity about being naked. Maybe it was different for crows. He heard behind him a rustling as Monty pulled the sweater back over his head, stumbled a bit into his socks and boots. He was breathing heavily, panting, a bit, from exertion, but there was a hitch to each breath, something a bit more vulnerable.

“Thank you.” His voice was small, a bit cracked.

“Are you okay?”

“What was that about?” Charles asked, mostly as an out, in case he did not want, or couldn’t, answer the previous question.

“You said this whole thing is powered by a sigil.” Monty stood up, grabbing at the nearby corn stalks with one hand for balance, though they merely swayed with him. “I found it. It’s the maze.
” He shook his head, a few dark feathers slipping from the dark curtain of hair. "The maze
is
the sigil."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Too Many Clowns

Crystal Palace would have preferred to avoid the clowns, though not for the reason people tended to expect. She’d always had a strong stomach for horror – thank you, childhood plagued by psychic visions – and when compared with witches, abusive demon exes, and embassaries from

actual hell,

regular people in white face paint didn’t really rattle her much.

The issue was more with an old art exhibit of her mother’s, which had involved replicating the clown egg registry with the faces of each of the clowns beneath the makeup being a likeness of a member of the museum board at the Met. She would’ve been twelve or thirteen at the time, and discovered, along with a large number of other patrons of the arts, that hard boiled eggs really weren’t supposed to be not-refrigerated for more than two hours, and they were

especially

not supposed to spend those more-than-two-hours under bright stage lights. The effect of which had been a lifelong, Pavlovian sense of nausea whenever she came into contact with anything vaguely clown-like.

There were

altogether

far too many clowns in the hall where they’d found Paul. Not just physical clowns, either. Pictures of clowns, small ceramic clowns, limp-limbed clown marrionettes, and stuffed clown dolls with embroidered faces.

“

Oh God,

” she muttered, swallowing hard. Edwin frowned a bit at one of the clown figurines, whose gaze seemed unnervingly fixed on the place where the two of them were standing. She considered making some dry commentary, but decided against it. If there was to be an endurance contest of which of them could spend the most time in

the room with a million clowns

, she suspected she’d lose, and had no real desire to go green attempting to fight him on it.

“Well. This is… a lot of clowns,” he said, in that mild, trying-to-be-neutral tone of his that almost made her cackle.

“Let’s just look for the sigil,” she said. Violet had dropped to a crouch, untying the restraints of the unhappy looking man on the ground, who began frantically scrubbing the white greasepaint from his face the moment his hands were free.

“Agreed.” Edwin poked one of the puppets with his finger, and it dropped to the side, its head knocking into one of the ceramic clowns, which slid off the shelf. It dropped to the ground and cracked. Edwin winced, and Crystal failed to suppress a snort.

He’d agreed not to say anything to Charles and Niko about the whole tattoo incident, but she could not help but feel strange. He was going on as if nothing had changed between them, as if she hadn’t broken down, as if he hadn’t caught her, and let her

into his head

, trusting her to only look the places he wanted her to see. As if the things he’d shown her hadn’t been the exact things she

needed

to see. Crystal Palace, as perceived by Edwin Paine, was not a saint. She wasn’t orderly or punctual or easy to get along with. She wasn’t always the best detective or the best friend, and she could be a bit of nuisance a lot of the time. But she wasn’t a monster, either. She was a lot of messy jumbled things that amounted to a person he was more fond of than he let on, and wanted to keep around. To someone trying her damndest to do the right thing. To someone who was worth making the effort for.

The stuffy Edwardian prick,

of course

he had to give great hugs, on top of it all.

She took a step forward to help Violet ease Paul to his feet.

“We still need to find Mark and Shawn,” he said. “Vi, do you know where they are?”

Crystal fought the urge to use her sleeve to clear the rest of the greaspaint off his face.

“Let’s leave the clown room,” Violet said, and Crystal could’ve kissed her.

When they stepped outside, she blinked into the haze of red and blue circus lights, taking slow breaths through her mouth to keep the smell of sugary, burnt popcorn from unsettling her stomach. When she trusted herself to speak again, Crystal noticed three figures emerging from the far side of the carousel.

“Look!” she said, grabbing Edwin’s arm. “They found Monty.”

The circus had come to life since Monty had last seen it, though the ground was no less hazardous, from Charles’ directing as the three of them walked over to meet Edwin and Crystal. Niko was attempting to catch him up on what he’d missed, but the details were strung together a bit haphazardly, and he felt as if he’d fallen a few paces behind, and would not be able to catch up.

“And it turns out Miss Miranda was a person before she was a robot and she got fired because stole things.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, trying out his

everything you’re saying makes complete sense

expression. He’d been working on it when dealing with customers at the Magic Trick. From the slight upward tick of the corner of Charles’ mouth, the expression still needed a bit of work.

“Oh look! It’s Crystal and Edwin!” Niko said.

They met Charles, Monty, and Niko a few moments later, with Crystal looking a bit greenish. She smiled when she saw Monty, which surprised him a bit. He smiled back.

“Hey,” Crystal said. “You okay?”

Monty nodded. It was not a total lie. He was not sure if he was okay or not. He was fine physically, the python had not gotten the chance to swallow him whole, and being once again out of a cage and with the option to take the form he liked were both good things. He

should

have been okay. But there was something tight and heavy in the back of his throat that made breathing feel strange, and he did not know what, if anything, he should say to Charles, and there was a not-insignificant part of his brain that was questioning why he was walking around at all – didn’t he know he’d be safer if he just

froze?

“Monty found the sigil!” Niko said, when Crystal looked like she might ask something else.

“Did you?” Edwin said. Charles had said he was worried, but Edwin was the sort of person who would worry about anyone if they were in trouble. It did not mean he had any feelings for Monty in particular.

“It’s the corn maze.”

“The maze

itself

,” he murmured, steepling his fingers in that thoughtful way of his.

“That’s why the corn’s not dead, mate,” Charles added. “Everything else is, but it’s part of the inscription, so it’s gotta stick around.”

“In that case,” Edwin said. “It would need something to active it.”

“It’s Annie.”

Niko’s hand was resting on a pouch in her jacket, just above her heart. She had taken the time to find all his rings and necklaces and put them with his clothes. Monty had resigned himself to never getting them back; they were not the sort of items humans tended to recognize as valuable. Things he’d rescued from the wastebasket, picked up off the side of the road, dug for in the bushes. They were funny and shiny and

his,

and no one had tried to take them from him since Esther, maybe because she had been right, and they weren’t worth anything. Niko had made sure to get them all for him. He’d tucked them all into his pockets while getting dressed.

“Annie’s the rabbit,” she said. “That’s why stuff started getting weird after she died. That’s why she

can’t leave

. The spell – it needs to hold her here to fuel itself. That makes sense, right? For sigil magic?”

It took Monty a moment to realize he was being addressed.

“It does, yeah,” He tugged at the hair behind his ear, accidentally drew out a fluffy black down feather, which he hastily dropped to the ground. “For most sigils, you need blood spilled on the inscription itself. So, if she died in the maze…”

“It would’ve been counted as a sacrifice,” Charles finished.

“If she bled on it.”

“She was electrocuted,” Niko said. “That makes someone bleed, right?”
“I think if you fuck up a body enough, it’ll bleed out of something eventually.” Crystal’s expression twisted. “Wish I hadn’t put that image in my head.”
“We all could’ve done without it,” Edwin said coolly. Crystal rolled her eyes, but she did not look truly annoyed. Instead, she looked at Monty.

“How do we shut it off, then?”

The group’s collective attention was like heavy, wet feathers. Monty swallowed. He’d seen Esther cast spells using all varieties of magic, mincing herbs and acorns and teeth and

talons

together on the counter with a mortar and pestle. Bits catalogued somewhere buried deep that his human brain could scrape fingernails against in the dark, like feelings he’d never been given the words for. He had not seen her

undo

any of the spells she’d cast.

“I – I, um,” he dropped his eyes, not wanting to see the interest drain from Edwin’s face, Niko’s soft expression bubble as she concealed disappointment, Charles questioning why he’d bothered to come back for Monty, because even when he wasn’t lying about everything he was useless and a liability and wasting all of their time. Making things more difficult than they needed to be.

“The grimoires I’ve read reference breaking sigils,” Edwin said. “Once it’s activated it becomes a conduit, a sort of semipermeable portal that allows a specific kind of magical energy to clow through. They are very precise. I would suspect disrupting the linework in any capacity would suffice. Does that sound correct, Monty?”

He pictured broken shared of concrete and cursing. Something had been knocked off the porch by local strays looking to pilfer the rabbit’s corpse, and Esther swearing to hex the next cat that crossed the property line. She’d let the broken pieces be slowly devoured by crabgrass in the garden.

“Yeah.”

“That should be easy enough then, yeah?” Charles said. “Just get hacking at the corn?”

“In theory.” Edwin frowned. “Have you got anything in your backpack that might work as a scythe?”

“On it.”

“A scythe?” Crystal repeated. “Wouldn’t we have better luck with, like, a flamethrower?”

“Charles does not

have

a flamethrower.”

“And whose fault is that?” Charles muttered, now shoulder deep in his backpack.

“You do recall how flammable our office is?”

“Wouldn’t’ve used it in the

office

now, would I?”

“As adorable as this is,” Crystal cut in, with a voice indicating strong skepticism surrounding the use of

adorable.

“I still think we torch this sucker. You have to have matches, right?”

“Matches, I do have.” Charles noted. “Let’s get to the maze.”

They set off in a jumbled formation. Monty hadn’t retied his shoes in his hurry to get them back on, and the laces snaked through the mud behind him. A few paces ahead Charles made a triumphant sound and pulled a slightly-rusted machete from the bag. He offered it to Niko who took it carefully, with two hands. Once he’d turned to resume his search, presumably for matches, Niko turned to Monty and held it out.

“Here, you take this.”

He stole a look in Edwin’s direction, waiting for the predictable ‘we do not need to furnish him with a weapon’, but it did not come. Instead, Edwin noticed him looking and frowned slightly before pausing.

“You should retie your shoes,” he said with a small nod.

He did, and jogged to catch up with the team. Wordlessly, Niko handed him the machete, but squeezed his hand slightly when theirs came in contact.

Echoes

Charles was still searching his backpack when they reached the edge of the maze. Annie was hovering at the edge, arms crossed, one foot twitching anxiously. Niko had promised they’d come back, but she’d still felt bad leaving her. She must’ve been alone for a very long time.

“Annie, we’re back!” she called.

Crystal turned to study the newcomer. “Annie?”

“Oh, right. Um, Annie these are our friends. Crystal and Edwin. They are also helping solve the case. Crystal and Edwin, meet Annie Weekes.”

“Pleasure,” Edwin said. “Charles?”

“Almost got ‘em, just give me a second.” His face was knit with concentration. Edwin had told Niko that the bag of tricks was deceptively complex, and that despite the casualness with which Charles treated his skills, navigating a pocket dimension was exceptionally difficult. Especially if said pocket dimension had been ordered with someone with Charles’ organizational habits (he’d sounded very, very fond as he said the last bit, righting a few of the books his partner had left askew on the coffee table).

“What are you looking for?”

“Something to break the sigil,” Edwin said. “If we disrupt the lines, it should be enough to dismantle the spell powering the circus, and release you. We believe the sigil is–”

“The corn maze,” Annie finished. “I know. Your naked friend said.”

Edwin stopped speaking, the cogs in his mind spinning visibly.

“She means Monty,” Niko said, helpfully.

“Whenever was

Monty

–”

“Got it!” Charles called out, perhaps to derail this particular train of thought. Monty, for his part, was not facing any of them, looking out of the maze into the middle distance. Niko followed his look and felt her chest tighten.

At first, she could not entirely determine what was different, but there was un unshakable feeling that something

was.

The sounds of the carnival, like a humming motor, had gone quiet, and all of the shadowed figures, the one’s slowly looping and moving inmaterrially through each other had stopped moving. They all stood, dark silhouettes turned, almost as if they had suddenly taken note of the intruders amongst them, and did not appreciate their presence

at all.

Niko’s hand crept back up to the bear statue resting in her jacket.

“Guys?”

Behind her, she heard Crystal take a forcefully slow breath, trying to steele her nerves.

“Oh shit.”

The cluster of echoes surged forward, at first individual silhouettes and then a solid block, a force, like a wave of darkness that rose, cutting off the flickering starlight. Niko took a nervous step back towards her friends, leaning forward slightly, bracing for impact. When it passed through her, she felt nothing but a slight rush of wind and

cold,

but the world around her was swallowed whole. It was black and dark, and she yelped, clawing to the side until she felt warm, scrambling hands find hers.

“I’ve got you,” Crystal said. “Shit. Edwin? Charles?”

“Here!” A voice that sounded like Edwin’s came from behind Niko.

“Has anyone got Monty?”

“I’m here.” Niko reached out, into the empty space, and laced her fingers around the fabric of his scarf, pulling him closer to her and Crystal. Edwin and Charles had also gathered, though she could not feel the solidness of their presence, the warm air of their breathing, in the same way. As if reading her mind, Edwin became more solid, knocking his shoulder into hers.

“Here,” Charles said, lowering a box into the center of their formation. Crystal took it in both hands, scraped one against the the side of the box. It lit for a moment, and Niko could see the shadow down the bridge of her nose, before the flame was pinched out between two fingers. Niko yelped, jumping back in surprise, though there was no arm attached to the hand the bore them. The hand was so dark it lacked dimension, like someone had cut the shape out of the fabric of the universe entirely.

“What the hell–” Charles muttered.

“Those are the things that grabbed me,” Monty spoke breathlessly, she could feel him shifting nervously beside him. Niko had picked up a book on corvids from a used bookstore in London; unlike some other birds, crows did not have night vision, and preferred to hunt during the day.

“Me too.”

“They must be some kind of self-defense mechanism to keep us from dismantling the sigil.”

“You think?” Crystal said. “Fuck.” She lit another match, the light from this one reflecting off the gloss in her eyes. She sounded angry, but she looked scared.

“What’s going on?” Annie asked.

“The echo things, they’ve made everything dark. We can’t see the maze, and we can’t light a fire,” Niko said.

“Suppose we jump back to plan A then, yeah?” Charles said. “Monty, you still got the slicer?”

“I do, but… we can’t just do the edge of the maze. The arc of the sigil is made out of the interlocking paths. We need to go in deeper to actually get into it.”

“Where is deeper?” Crystal asked.

“It’s, um, it’s

in

there.”

“He only saw it for like a second,” Charles said. “Hasn’t got the path memorized.

Not

your fault, by the way.”

“There’s a part where a v-shape splits off a circular edge. That’s probably the closest. But I don’t know how to get there. I’m sorry.”

“That’s

good

, mate.” Charles said. “Reckon we split up, feel around for it?”

“No,” Niko and Crystal said, at precisely the same moment.

Niko looked down, to where she was fairly certain her roommate was standing, wondering if they’d come to the same conclusion at the same moment. From the two quick squeezes against her palms, Niko guessed she had.

“We won’t need to. Annie,” Crystal said. “I have an idea. I’m going to need your help.”

Crystal let go of Niko’s hand, took small step back, closing her eyes.

She was walking across the cold-packed earth, autumn air nipping at the lobes of her ears, the tip of her nose. Shawn was complaining about his English teacher, a B- he’d recently received on a paper he felt deserved an A. Violet snuck a shared glance with her before rolling her eyes skyeward. Crystal – Annie – suppressed a laugh. She’d never liked her laugh, thought it was a bit giggly and annoying, but right now it didn’t matter. Annie Weekes was amongst friends. She threaded her arm around Violet’s and let her head rest on the brunette girls’ shoulder.

“Jesus. Watch the glass, watch the glass,” Mark called back.

“God. People are gross.” Annie toed an empty beer can on the ground. When she’d been little, her girl scout troop had cleaned up a highway as part of a community service project, and it had solidified a deep-seeded resentment for littering.

“Disgusting, disgusting trespassers,” Paul shook his head, clicking his tongue in mock disapproval. Violet snorted.

“This is like, barely trespassing.”

They reached the edge of the maze, formed a small circle, shining torches at each other, swatting away the beams as they drifted into each others’ eyes. Annie looked at the row of doll heads on the sign outside the maze, at the vulgar graffiti below it.

“You’re in boots, yeah?” Violet asked. “Can’t watch for glass if you can’t see.”

“Yes,

Mom.”

She held out her wrist, let Shawn hit the buttons to start the timer, when he did, she lifted the watch face and frowned.

“Thought we said 10 minutes.”

“It’s 10 minutes for corn

fields,

” he said. “Trust me. I know some guys that did this – five is more than long enough to get proper lost.”

“Maybe your friends just suck at corn mazes.”

“If you get out too quick we’ll boost the minutes,” Mark said, pulling a bandana from his pocket. “You ready?”

Annie nodded. She closed her eyes, let them tie it around her eyes. The bandana smelled like sweat and dust, the inside of a teenager’s jacket pocket. She wrinked her nose, resolved to shower when she got home, steal some of her mother’s shampoo that smelled like coconut. She’d been using the same anti-frizz shampoo since she was little, it was strawberry scented and the faux sweetness always made her feel like she was dressed as a child.

They bumped against each others’ shoulders, she felt two hands grabbing her wrists in the dark, leading her this way and that. It was kind of like riding the lazy river at an amusement park. Don’t think about where you are going, just let the current take you.

“Okay, now we’re gonna spin you three times.”

She was swaying, they were chatting, and it was a few spins in that she started stumbling. Violet caught her.

“Sorry. Apparently Mark can’t count to three.”

“You were supposed to stop her!”

“Oh God,” Annie shook her head. “Just go losers. I’ll see you in a few.”

“Count to ten,” Paul said. He took her hands and angled them so one finger was pressed against the button on her wrist watch. “Then press this.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you get too lost scream for us,” Shawn said. “We’ll come find you.”

“There are many ears listening –
ow, Vi! That was a good one!”

She began counting. At three, her friends’ voices were impossible to understand. At five, she could no longer hear footsteps. She swallowed, something small and panicked in the back of her throat. That’s the fun part, she reminded herself, for all of them. Get a little freaked out in time for Halloween. Let go of the stupid humdrum of this tedious small town, of dead end jobs, and dismissive teachers, of parents who didn’t listen, of Mark’s little sister’s heart condition like a grim reaper in the corner.

“Ten!” she said, pressed the button, and spread her arms out, feeling for the nearest stalks. The leaves were green but limp, though most of the stuff closer to her house had already died, the leaves packed like fossils into the grass.

Annie started forward, walking against the corn until her hand came up against nothing. A break in the wall – she reached out, turned. This was fine, she had this. She had no idea how much time had passed, how quickly it was passing. She went in a new direction, turning, picking up speed as she grew used to the odd sensation of walking blind. And then she heard a faint sound, like a bit of scratching. Some kind of small animal, maybe? She turned, paused, took a step.

And then she tasted iron, felt her every limb go hot. There were no concrete thoughts in her brain just shock of static. She stumbled, ripping off the blindfold as she fell to the ground in the maze, jerked one, twice, staring up into nothing but the stars and the silhouette of a scarecrow looming over her. She opened her mouth but the only noise she could make was a lost, pitiful squeak. Her body shuddered. Her mouth tasted like ash.

Something had changed. The air had changed, when she sat up it felt like stepping out of the water at the edge of a swimming pool, letting everything roll off. Annie Weekes stood up and she was dead, but that wasn’t the end of it. She heard a screeching of metal on metal, lights like orange ghosts leaping up at the edge of the corn maze. She blinked, staring at the spectacle of color and light taking over the horizon. She stumbled forwards, wondered if she could hear the rest of them over the sound of the carnival coming to life jerkily, like a zombie in a B-movie.

“Vi? Shawn?” she called, running forward, tracing the arc of the path this way and that. When she reached the edge of the maze, they were gone. She blinked, swallowed, took a step forward but then dizziness overtook her, and she felt herself being eased back inside. She tried again. The motion was less gentle the second time, something grabbing her hand and yanking her back.

“Paul?” She looked down at her watch. The time was 2:47. It kept being 2:47. Annie tapped a nail against the plastic screen. It tinged softly. Broken. She wasn’t surprised. The watch had been cheap, five bucks from a kiosk at the mall.

Feeling oddly numb, she turned, retracing steps through the corn, stepping over rubber spiders, around the cratered corpses of pumpkins left to rot. Her footsteps faltered. It was like seeing a photo she hadn’t realized was taken. The girl on the ground – her hair wasn’t as smooth as it was in her mind’s eye, flecks of loose mascara pooled around her eyes, her mouth open, her eyes wide. She was wearing Annie’s clothes. Her beat up sneakers. Her cheap mall-kiosk watch with the time stuck at 2:47 because shit.

Shit.

“No. nononononononono,” Annie dropped to a crouch, shaking the girl’s shoulder, only her fingers slipped through the denim fabric, through the skin and muscle itself. She drew her hand back sharply, expecting to feel the squelch of tissue but the sensation was more like running her hand in front of a humidifier. Cool, damp, like mist in the mornings. Her fingers crept to the girl with her face’s neck.

“Oh no. Oh God.”

She did not want to look at this. She did not want to see this. Annie looked up and spotted the blindfold she’d torn off lying on the bed of hay. She picked it up, closed her eyes, and fastened a knot.

Crystal gasped, eyes flying open, though the motion did nothing to relieve the oppressive weight of darkness around her. Her eyes prickled.

“You have a whole picture of the maze in your head,” she said quietly. “I know where to go.”

She could swear she felt fingers lapping at her ankles in the dark, tiny pads trying to find perchase is the laces of her shoes, the hems of her pants, the tresses of her hair. Crystal swatted at them with her free hand, like they were nothing but moths swarming her.

She pictured Miranda the fortune teller, standing at the edge of the carousel as it went haywire, harvesting a maze that loomed in the moonlight and swallowed a teenage Annie whole, denying her freedom, closure, the ability to move on. Who trapped Crystal with the words of people that hated her blooming like bruises for the world the see, the ugly aching parts of her psyche, who fastened Violet to an endless loop of nausea and the rest of them in mocking little rooms of their fears, their insecurities. Crystal had seen them in her vision. They were stupid, impulsive teenagers like she was, like almost everyone was at some point. But they hadn’t wanted to kill their friend and had dropped everything for the chance to make things right for her.

You didn’t know Violet or Mark or Annie. You don’t know me.

“Crystal?” Edwin asked. She turned to where she thought he was standing, raised her chin slightly.

“I have a plan.”

“And this plan of yours?”

“Monty?” she called. “Can I have the machete?”

He seemed eager to part with it.

You don’t know him, either.

Crystal tightened her grip around the end of the machete and stepped forward into the maze. She just needed to

feel,

to separate the still-fresh ache of Annie stumbling upon her own corpse and focus on the paths she’d walked so many times. She let them coalesce, to built into a two dimensional shape viewed from above.

Something was pulling on the machete, trying to ply it from her fingers. Crystal ignored it, turned once, walked deeper, and then struck. The corn rustled. She felt hands grip her shoulders and

oh God

, in the dark they were her father’s, performatively affectionate. He was waiting for her to cause a scene. To make a mess. To do something that would get the cameras flashing, the press murmuring. To let a demon take her body for a spin and grow like rot inside her. She grit her teeth.

“I’m not that person anymore. You don’t know me.”

She was in the hall of mirrors with Edwin again, hefting the mallet over head like a cleaver and hacking, hacking,

hacking.

Because it was all too much, and not enough. Because

she

was too much, and still not enough.

“You don’t know me,” she said again, slicing, ignoring the patter of fingers tugging her hair, pulling the machete in her hands, clamping around her ankles trying to pull her away. “You don’t fucking know me.”

My friends are out there and they know me. They know me and they are

still out there

.

“Crystal? Crystal!”

She blinked, paused. There was light. Not enough to be blinding, but the prickling of stars in the canopy above her. Crystal was standing in the middle of a cornfield, surrounded by felled stalks, hacked to bits and broken in pieces on the ground. She blinked.

There had been a scarecrow stuck in the ground near her, but it had fallen down to the ground, and beside it was Niko with her phone flashlight like a halo. Crystal looked down at the wooden handle, at the blisters starting to form around her fingers.

“It’s okay,” Charles said. “It’s done.”

She let it drop.

They walked out of the maze in a cluster, with Crystal in front. Charles wasn’t sure if she still was holding onto the image of the maze from Annie’s mind, or if her sense of direction was simply better than his and Monty’s. He was going to assume option A, mostly for his own sanity. He knocked shoulders with Edwin, smiling.

“Job officially jobbed, I’d say.”

“Hmm.” Edwin pursed his lips. “I suppose so.”

“You

suppose

? Mate, we just broke a decades long curse, freed the spirit being used to power it, and four other innocent people who got swept up in the lot of it. Plus, think that’s Sarah’s unfinished business well taken care of.”

A ghost of a smile settled on his lower face. “Yes. Well. It was a worthwhile venture. Despite the risk and complications. I am…pleased we took it on.”

“You ought to tell Crystal that. Seeing as it was her idea.”

“Hmph,” Edwin tugged the end of his gloves. “Crystal knows well enough what I think.”

Charles opened his mouth to respond, but thought better of it. If something had happened that either of them wanted to tell him about, he supposed they would, in their own time. Which, knowing Edwin and Crystal, would be at least a decade. If ever. He glanced back.

Monty had paused to crush the scarecrow’s flour-sack head underfoot as they left, and had hung near the back of the group since, still looking a bit disheveled.

“Give me a tick,” he told Edwin, before falling back for a moment. “You holding up alright?”

“Me? Yeah, I’m fine.”

Charles hesitated. “Look about before–”

“We don’t, uh, have to talk about it.”

“Noted.” He said. “But just so you know, I meant what I said.”

Monty twisted one of his rings. “I’m just sorry I held you all up. I really did try to help, you know?” He could’ve just been watching the ground for glass, bits of metal, live wires. But Charles got the impression he was avoiding eye contact.

“You

did

help. And just for the record–” He paused. In front of them, the girls and Edwin had abruptly stopped, with the edge of the maze just in view. “What is it?”

“Look,” Niko whispered.

Annie was standing at the entrance, placing a tentative hand just at where the corn began, pressing into the air like it might lash out and bite her. It didn’t, and after a moment, she straightened, rolled her shoulders back, and stepped forward.

“Oh my God? Annie? Annie!”

Less than a foot free of the maze, she was accosted by four, very begraggled looking adults, each looking like they’d just arison from a years long stupor. One of the boys – Shawn, Charles thought – reached down and untied the bandana from the back of her head. With her eyes free, Annie blinked, staring at the group of her friends, mouth frozen, slightly open.

“Oh my God,” she said.

“Annie,” Mark began. “We are so sorry. Christ. We were idiots. If we’d had any idea–”

“You all got fucking old.” Annie finished, blinked, and shook her head with a small grin. The other four enveloped her, with only slightly noises of protest, and the tension seemed to melt into the ground, swallowed up by the roots poking through the hay and corn stalks.

Crystal glanced back, grinning, and swiping a hand under her eye.

“Let’s give them some space,” she suggested.

“Yes,” Edwin agreed. “Though the living humans may require some assistance getting back to wherever they came form. Considering they’ve all been declared missing.”

“Oh shit. Forgot about that one. I’ll, uh, pay for their flights.”

“Who’s that?” Niko asked.

Charles felt his stomach plummet, reached instinctively for Edwin, only rather than making a move to run or disappear, his partner responded calmly.

“That is Death.” He paused. “She must be here for Annie.”

The woman stood watching, head tilted, a silver ankh dangling from her neck. They were too far away to discern her expression, but her posture seemed relaxed, at ease. She was not here for them, Charles reminded himself. They had the Night Nurse. Paperwork. Confirmation from the Lost and Found department that the two of them were

not

to be carted off to their respective afterlives. But thirty years of running built up a lot of inertia, and it was difficult to stop sometimes. From his stiff posture beside Charles, Edwin was likely also sorting through the same feelings.

Niko tilted her head thoughtfully.

“I guess we were right at the start. Seeing her friends again

was

Annie’s unfinished business.”

“Oh God, she’s looking at us,” Crystal said.

“Hi, Death,” Niko’s voice was quiet. She raised a hand in a wave. After a beat, the woman near the carousel returned the gesture. A reaper at the gates. Waving back at them. Charles glanced at Edwin, who shrugged, a bit mystified. Then he waved himself.

Hi, we’re the Dead Boy Detectives, you might have heard of us.

It almost made him laugh, and then it

did

make him laugh, and the rest of them were staring at him like he might’ve slipped off the edge. Then Edwin joined in, that pinched mostly-breathing laugh he was did when he was trying to stifle himself. Crystal smiled, but rolled her eyes. Monty looked slowly between Death and the four of them like he was not entirely certain how he’d ended up in this situation.

Case Closed

The earliest bus back to Port Townsend did not leave until the mid-morning, and Crystal was not inclined to wait at the bus station while the sky strained from black to blue to hazy orange. They checked into a roadside motel room that smelled strongly of orange cleaning spray and chlorine from the indoor pool. The boys popped through the bathroom mirror to update the Night Nurse while Niko and Crystal notched into bed. Monty climbed onto the pull-out couch, curling in on himself so that his knees tucked up to his chest, with his head resting upon them, one arm loped around his head shielding his eyes. While the position did not look particularly comfortable, he fell asleep only a few minutes after Niko did.

Crystal shifted on the pillows, so soft her every movement seemed to crush them entirely. Niko was hugging one to her chest. The room’s tiny heating unit snapped and popped every few minutes from the grit that had fallen through the grate. She closed her eyes but did not feel sleep settle. It was probably the adrenaline from the evening, the bits of hay and corn silk still caught against her clothes and hair, everything clinging to her too tightly to let her fully relax. She could sleep on the bus, on the ferry to Port Townsend, on the flight back to London.

She rolled to the side and opened her phone to browse for international flights at nearby airports. She hadn’t checked it since the bus ride out, and scrolled for a moment through her notifications. She’d been tagged in a photo from her mother’s exhibition on the museum socials. Not her mother’s, but the museum’s. She imaginged some twenty-something intern only a few years her senior doing it without thinking. Crystal checked her messages; they were empty, save the text-reciept from the motel.

“Well it certainly could’ve gone

worse

–”

“Agreed – wait. We gotta keep it quiet. Think they’re trying to sleep.”

She could see two silhouettes emerge from the bathroom mirror, sitting briefly on the counter beside the sink before sliding to the floor. Crystal sat up, pulling the sheet up around her, despite the lack of cold.

“I wouldn’t worry about it. This one has slept through fire alarms,” she straightened a bit of blanket that had hiked up, leaving one of her sleeping friend’s legs exposed. Edwin and Charles shared one of those indecipherable looks of theirs.

“Not you, though. I take it?”

Crystal shrugged. “Waiting for the excitement to die down, I guess.”

“You feeling okay?” Charles asked, sitting near the top of the bed by her.

“Yeah. Just…fuck,” she shook her head. “I don’t know. I wasn’t prepared for that one.” Crystal played for a moment with the fabric of the white hotel sheet. “I read Annie’s memory, to find the way through the maze. It was awful. She must’ve felt so alone for so long. And with the maze

using

her, keeping her wandering and lost to keep the carnival running. All because one person was so jaded and

hateful

she built a trap to screw over a bunch of people she never even

met

.”

She studied her hands.

“Of course, it all immediately crumbled the second Annie’s ghost as no longer being forcibly held in place. It would require a lot of energy to power something like that.” Crystal glanced up. For a moment, she saw Edwin back in Esther Finch’s house, strapped to a machine, wringing him for agony and energy. She considered reaching out, but Charles beat her too it, patting the side of the bed next to him until Edwin sat down.

“Suppose that’s the nature of carnivals. Gotta milk someone else’s pain for entertainment,” Charles grimaced.

“Yes, but. It requires a tremendous amount of energy because it is not

natural

for things to stay the same for a long time. Change is fundamental. It

needed

Annie.” Edwin pursed his lips as he paused. “Left to their own devices, everything evolves.”

“And every

one

,” Crystal said quietly.

I hope.

“Indeed. It goes without saying that a person who does not understand that is not a reliable judge of character.”

“Yeah,” Crystal said. Next to her, Niko rolled over, snoring quietly into the pillows. Charles bit his lip, grinning at her fondly. Edwin silently reached over to move aside a strand of silver hair that had settled across her face. Crystal had gotten used to the noise the next room over, gotten much more mileage out of listening to her roommate through the wall, snoring and breathing and

alive

than she ever had out of a white noise machine. She realized suddenly how much she missed their little apartment in London, and the probably-not-hallucinogenic kitchen table dandelions Jenny was probably cursing out this very moment. Right,

London.

“Did you tell Sarah what happened? I was thinking - if we could get her here or Mark back to London, they could say a proper goodbye before she…” her voice trailed off.

Charles and Edwin exchanged another Charles-and-Edwin look.

“We actually thought you should do the honors.”

“That is an excellent idea about Mark, though,” Edwin added. “Perhaps some of the others would like to speak with her as well. Violet seemed upset when she heard Sarah had moved on.”

“I’ll check flights,” Crystal said, holding up her phone. “Soonest tickets to London?”

Edwin nodded, but Charles paused for a moment.

“Actually, could you wait a day? Give us until tomorrow?”

“Sure. Why?”

Charles glanced across the hotel room at where Monty slept, dark hair drooped and shielding his face. “Got something I need to do.”

Monty had expected the agency to depart as soon as the ferry had docked in Port Townsend, but Niko had requested to check in with Tragic Mick as soon as they climbed onto the pier, and the rest of the group seemed prime to indulge her. The old walrus grunted in acknowledgement of their entrance, before asking a few pointed question about how long the trip had taken in comparison to their predictions, and about whether or not his shop assistant had been kept well, per his request. Monty insisted that he had, at least by all means that could be reasonably expected. It was a new sensation, being fretted over.

He had more or less supposed that would be it, but Charles returned a few hours later while he was dividing a basket of dried herbs into individually stoppered bottles. Mick had been reluctant to give him any duties for the afternoon, but Monty’s offer to give the store’s patrons free palm readings when he was idle was apparently not helpful for the Magic Trick’s sales.

“Cheers,” he said, waving. “You got a moment?”

Monty set down one of the bottles and nodded. “Is everything okay? Are you looking to buy something? I can get Mick.”

“We’re aces,” Charles said. “I actually wanted to talk to you. Or, thank you, really. For all your help. Couldn’t’ve put the pieces together without you, mate.” He smiled, and Monty studied his face. He looked sincere. “I got you something.”

“You didn’t need to do that,” Monty blinked. “I don’t want – I just wanted to help.”

“I know. But Dead Boy Detectives promises, well, I take those pretty seriously.”

He slung his backpack off his shoulder and opened the top, reaching inside for a moment before setting a pair of objects on the table in front of Monty.

Monty stared for a moment. Black shoes, each attached to sets of wheels, with tiny silver beads threaded through the laces. He opened his mouth silently, closed it, and looked up at Charles, feeling his face begin to flush.

“Roller skates?”

“Told you I would, didn’t I? Do you like them? Niko helped pick them out.”

He nodded, reaching out tentatively, as if Charles might yank them away if he got to close. But of course he didn’t. He stood grinning at Monty like nothing had ever been wrong between them, or perhaps like all that had been wrong between them had been put to rest.

“I love them.”

“Brills. When do you get off?”

“Um, kinda whenever. Mick said I didn’t really need to work today, I just…” his voice trailed off. “Why?”

“Said I’d teach you how to use ‘em, didn’t I?”

Crystal had hard-vetoed the roller rink – for completely understandable reasons – and so the five of them somehow had ended up in the mostly-abandonded concrete mausoleum of a skate park. The air was the kind of cold that turned Niko’s nose pink, and the wind caused the wire fencing to clang against the metal support poles. Edwin watched the girls lace up their skates – gold and purple for Crystal, and colorful skates with rainbow wheels for Niko – sitting on a nearby bench, while Monty clung to one of the nearby railing in an attempt to keep his feet under him.

Charles had done this before, Edwin was not sure if in life, in death or both, but looked smooth and at ease winding around the dests of jumps and bike racks.

“Show off,” Crystal muttered without any real annoyance, and reached down to snap closed one of the plastic latches on her skates.

“Wait, Monty - I’ll meet you by the wall. I can start but not stop!” Niko said, and proceeded to do just that, knocking into the wire mesh at a speed that made Edwin wince. She held a thumbs up on with the hand not gripping the wall, however, and appeared unhurt.

Crystal remained on the bench, pausing to check her mobile phone, and staring at the screen for a few second slonger than necessary, her expression slightly unreadable. Edwin sat down beside her.

“Not interested in skating?”

“No, it’s just. Sorry.” She set the phone down on her leg and chewed her lip. “I was just thinking about something Jenny said before we left. About figuring out who is worth putting in the effort for. And who puts in the effort for you.”

“Jenny did?” Despite being supernaturally a few decades her senior, Edwin could not help but perceive the girls’ former landlord as older than them and very adept at giving blunt but necessary advice.

“Yeah,” Crystal said. “And I was thinking about my parents. And then I was thinking that there’s this guy I know. And we did

not

start off on the right foot. But, um, we both put effort into getting to know each other, and it turns out, he’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had. And I’m glad I did that because… knowing people like him makes me want to be a better person. And makes me feel like I

can

.”

“I could actually say something similar of a young woman in my acquaintance.”

“He is still super annoying, though. Kind of a know it all,” she glanced over, the corner of her mouth quirking upward.

“Really? My friend is incredibly combative and stubborn. And

constantly

late.”

“Yeah, well, not all of us can bop through a mirror all the time.” She clicked her phone closed without looking at it and set it on the bench before turning to face him. “Edwin.”

“Crystal.”

“I can’t a wait to see you fall on your ass.”

And with a wicked, and deeply

Crystal

smirk, she stood up, and kicked off the bench, far smoother than Edwin thought was strictly fair. She reached Niko and Monty, the latter of which had been slowly coaxed off the wall and with arms at full wingspan, was tentatively gliding away from the wall.

“‘Fraid you’re not aloud to sit this one out, mate.”

He had not noticed Charles approaching, but he stood with his hands planted on the bench, watching the others with a lopsided grin.

“I do not know how to skate.”

“That’s what you got me for.” Charles extended a hand. Edwin shifted, a pair of white laced skates forming around his ankles, and reluctantly took it, instinctively gripping Charles’ entire arm to his chest as he stood, legs struggling to stay in place beneath him. Very close to his ear, he heard Charles’ soft, good-natured laugh. “That’s a lad. I’ve got you.”

Across the park, Niko made a startled yelp, knocking into Crystal, who pinwheeled for a moment before crashing to the ground, somehow in the process startling Monty to fall over as well. Edwin had half a second to grin smugly before Charles shifted slightly, and he found himself clutching onto him even tighter, feeling a bit unmoored.

“What was that about me falling?” he called to Crystal on the ground. She rolled her eyes, as she climbed back to her feet, offering one hand each to Monty and Niko.

“I was just demonstrating for you. It’s called

performance art.

”

As they all grew steadier on their feet, the sky settled into darkness. The streetlights flickered on in succession, haloing the park with a warm, orange-tinted glow. In the distance, the stars poked through the gray slip of clouds. It would not rain that night.