“Wow, did Tim Burton binge on Laffy Taffy and vomit all over this place or what?” Jordan whispered.
“It certainly is . . . whimsical,” Abby said. “I didn’t realize there would be so many people here.”
“Let’s try to blend in,” Dan suggested, which was harder than it first looked. The only other people not in ridiculous costumes were fellow prospies, who wandered through the Technicolor nightmare with their mouths open and chins tipped back, as they marveled at the tents, the wandering jugglers, the cotton candy vendors.
Midway games and popcorn stands lined the edges of the carnival, which seemed to be roughly in the shape of a circle. Lara’s repainted signs pointed the way to the maze, to a haunted campus tour, and to the juggling stage. Dan glanced down the wide lane to his right, spotting a low, basic stage where a few students in leotards balanced on one another to make a pyramid.
A bullhorn cut through the air and all three of them turned to see a plump blond woman shouting from the back of a parked pickup truck. Red streamers hung from the taillights, a white banner dangling between them that read “KELLY LANG FOR STATE SENATE!”
“We could check out the maze,” Abby said, trotting ahead. “It doesn’t look too big, might just take us a minute.”
“Do we need tickets or anything?” Jordan wondered, eagle eyeing a cotton candy seller.
“Looks like everything but food is free,” Dan said. He recognized a few prospies hanging around a fenced-in area where a professor dunk tank had been set up. Luckily for the poor professor shivering on the bench, most of the students trying to dunk him were having a hard time aiming properly, which Dan guessed had something to do with whatever was in their plastic water bottles.
“All right, I’m up for the maze, but let’s not get separated—these things always make me dizzy,” Jordan said, hooking arms with Dan and Abby.
They queued outside the biggest tent at the carnival. Masked students—no skulls, Dan noted—wandered up and down the line making halfhearted zombie noises.
“Are we scared yet?” Dan said, chuckling.
“At least it will be warmer inside,” Abby said.
When they reached the head of the line, a girl in a convincing bearded-lady costume led them into the tent, where it was, sadly, just as cold. Hay bales marked out the maze, stacked high enough that even the tallest person wouldn’t be able to see over and cheat.
“Good luck,” the bearded lady said, closing off the tent flap behind them.
It was dark, darker than Dan expected. Abby took a few nervous steps forward, herding them along.
“I’m already dizzy,” Jordan mumbled as they rounded the first corner. The only lighting came from above, a few fake lanterns anchored to the hay bale. A moist grassy smell drifted through the narrow lanes, dirt and strewn wood chips scattering as they ambled clumsily through the corridors.
Something zipped by to Dan’s right, brushing his shoulder. It disappeared around the next corner before he could get a good look, but the only glimpse he had gotten made his jaw tighten.
A red cape.
“What was that?” Abby whispered.
“I’m going on ahead,” Dan said, breaking off from the other two.
“Dan, no—don’t!”
Jordan’s voice faded behind him as he ran. Of course, the moment he went around the next turn he was met with a fork and had no idea which way the red cloak had gone. From the darkened passage to his right he heard a low laugh. His skin prickled, but he followed the sound, carefully tiptoeing around one sharp corner and then another. Very quickly, he was lost. Looking up, he hoped the shape of the tent above could help him orient, but a black swath of cloth hid the pattern in the ceiling.
“Lost?”
Gasping, Dan turned, coming face-to-face with the same red-and-black skull mask that had watched them before. He rocked back onto his heels, caught off balance by just how close the mask loomed to his face. In a moment of panic, Dan grabbed for the mask, but his balance tipped backward as the masked figure lunged forward, slamming into his shoulder and knocking him to the ground.
Dan scrambled to push back to his feet, dazed.
Another caped figure appeared next to him, and then another, and a fourth. They swarmed around him, laughing, close enough that he could feel the whisper of fabric as their cloaks brushed his face. Girls laughing, boys laughing . . . Dan couldn’t make out one from the other. He curled onto his side, shivering, but not before seeing a flash of rubbery white, a flash of blue. He recognized the shoe just before it landed in his ribs.
Dan winced. He knew those shoes.
“Cal?” he whispered, finding the strength to climb to his knees. The moment he said it, the red cloaks vanished, rushing off down the maze and out of sight.
He felt a hand clutching his arm and looked down, strangely detached from the physical feeling of the fingers there. The hand belonged to Jordan. Dan looked up, puzzled, feeling everything swimming in slow motion. Then Jordan pulled, hard, and Dan slipped to the side, back to the ground. He felt the world spin once and then he couldn’t feel Jordan’s hand on his arm anymore.
The carnival darkened, not just the light but the colors. Everything looked dim. He wasn’t staring up at a stilt walker anymore, he was staring up at everyone. The grown-ups made him feel so small.
Funnel cakes and popcorn. His stomach growled, but he had only a few dimes and he knew where he wanted to spend them.
He knew the way now and he ignored the taunting voices that called to him from the dark crevices between tents and trailers.
“Daniel, come out to play. . . . Come out to play. . . .”
Soon his brothers wouldn’t taunt him like that. Soon they would be the ones who were afraid. They would cringe and hide under the covers, not him. He pushed his way through the crowd, through the forest of grown-up legs, of trousers and skirts. The tent was all the way at the end of the carnival, tucked away like a shameful thing, a secret.
The man was waiting outside the tent in his shabby top hat. He had a long, thick beard that made the boy’s chin itch just looking at it. He smelled like a grandfather, like tobacco and leather. And when he smiled, his smile wasn’t kind but it wasn’t mean either.
“Well, look who we have here,” the man said, standing up from a metal stool. “Did you bring your tickets, boy?”
“I did, sir.”
“And more importantly, did you bring your bright young curiosity?”
“I did, sir, yes.”
“Then I have this for you. . . .” The man swept aside his old tailed coat and pulled out a stone on a long silver chain. The stone was oblong and red and flashed like a star on fire. “Follow the star with your eyes, boy, follow it back and forth. Listen to the sound of my voice, the only sound in the world. . . .”
Dan could feel the cold seeping in. He was on the ground, his legs splayed out in front of him, and the damp grass was clinging to his jeans.
At least the Scarlets were gone. Nobody was kicking him now. Scarlets. Plural. This was even worse than he’d thought.
“He’s back.”
Dan blinked up at Jordan, who hovered over him. He reached up and both Abby and Jordan took his hands.
“The Scarlets,” Dan muttered. “I just got . . . I saw them in the maze, and then the shoes . . . I saw Cal’s shoes. It’s not just one stalker, you guys, there are . . . There was a whole group of them! They attacked me.” He rubbed at his forehead, still a little dizzy. “But that’s not even the worst part. The nightmares? Yeah, they’re not just when I’m asleep now. That one hit me out of nowhere. I don’t know what triggered it this time.”
“Is that happening a lot?” Abby asked, holding his arm tightly.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I’m starting to wonder if that little ghost boy is like that—like a waking dream. Except this time, I was somewhere totally different. And I wasn’t me.”
“What did you mean you saw Cal’s shoes? Did you see Cal wearing them? Was he in the maze??
?? Jordan helped him up from the grass. They were just outside the exit to the maze. Dan couldn’t remember being carried out.
“Four Scarlets . . . They were all wearing the capes and the masks, but the cloaks weren’t long enough. I saw those boat shoes you hate so much.”
“Are you sure?” Abby pressed, steadying his other side. “More than one person could have shoes like that.”
“No, they were his. I recognized them.”
“Stay here, I’ll grab you something to drink,” Jordan said. “You look like you could use it.”
Jordan cut through the lines of students queuing up for attractions and food, his dark, curly head disappearing behind a curtain of coats and winter hats. Abby tried to rub some warmth and comfort back into Dan’s arm.
“I’m fine,” he insisted, and smiled for her sake. “Really.”
She jolted, scrambling to pull her phone out of her pocket. “It’s Jordan. He didn’t bring any money. Will you be okay? I’ll just run over and give him a few dollars.”
“Go,” Dan assured her. “I’m all good now.”
The quick grin Abby gave him didn’t quite reach her eyes, and her lips tilted skeptically downward. He stood in a decreasingly empty spot, as more and more students, faculty, and townsfolk poured into the carnival. To his right he saw an entire row of food vendors, all of them from Camford and all of them proudly displaying signs saying their goods had been donated and proceeds would go to the mental health seminar Professor Reyes had mentioned. He tried to find Abby and Jordan among the different lines for cider and cocoa, but couldn’t see them. He did, however, spy a strange tent off behind the food vendors. It sat alone, apart, huddled under the shadows of a giant, leafless tree.
Dan no longer went anywhere without the photos he had collected, and now he found himself reaching into his pocket for them, shuffling to the picture of the tent and the birdcage he had picked up outside Lucy’s house.
They’re the same.
Silly, he thought, but the tent seemed almost to shy away from the rest of the carnival, an outlier. An anomaly. His feet carried him past the lines of chatting carnival-goers, then past the food tables. He dodged between the hot dog line and the popcorn line, plunging into a sudden pool of silence.
A shadow loomed on his left, passing closer to him than he liked. Dan flinched, glancing up to see a cracked white face glaring down at him. A clown. His makeup had gone yellow and jaundiced around the eyes, his widened mouth like a slashed and bloody smile.
“Hey,” Dan muttered, shouldering by the clown.
“You going to see the hypnotist freak, kid?” the clown rasped. He reeked of cigarettes. Before Dan could answer, a dirty white glove was shoved against his chest, leaving behind a crumpled-up strand of tickets. Dan took them numbly, feeling like he didn’t really have a choice.
“Six for a nickel, can’t beat the price.” The clown threw back his head and laughed, then almost lost his bedraggled orange wig. “If you like that sort of thing anyway. Me? I don’t like nobody messing around in this here skull.”
The clown jabbed at his own head and then pushed out of Dan’s way, coughing into his soiled glove.
Dan opened the hand that held the tickets, unspooling them as he walked across the damp grass as if he were leaving a trail of bread crumbs. The aged tickets looked like they might have been in that clown’s sweaty hand for years. The paper cracked at the edges, and huge block letters on the front advertised “DR. MAUDIRE THE MAGNIFICENT—HYPNOTIST EXTRAORDINAIRE.” The doctor’s list of accomplishments filled the backs of the tickets. Apparently, he could cure insomnia, phobias, and even carnal appetites.
None of that much interested Dan. What interested him was the matching sign outside the tent, along with the matching birdcage, and the matching, well, everything. He checked the tent against the photo again and frowned. It was identical, except in reality the cage outside the tent stood empty. This had to be some kind of joke.
Or someone wants you here.
They’d already decided the masked stalker hadn’t dropped the photo accidentally. And either way, Dan was going inside that tent. He could feel the same inexplicable magnetism drawing him toward it, the same pull he had felt leading him through Brookline’s old offices this summer, through the operating theater and the patient rooms. . . .
Dan shoved the photo back in his jeans and took a deep breath, watching the open flap of the hypnotist’s tent flutter. Two dark eyes peered out and then vanished. Someone was waiting.
Six for a nickel, an unbeatable price.
Dan glanced over his shoulder at the carnival, which seemed miles away now, and then turned with his tickets and rushed inside.
The inside of the tent smelled like spice and wood smoke. Another cage waited in the corner, this one also empty. Wide streamers of fabric hung from the center of the tent, pinned to ropes and poles to form narrow corridors and hiding places. Candles spewed purple wax as they burned away on waist-high sconces.
“Uh, hello?” Dan peered around a few of the fabric walls, swishing them out of the way. He moved a thick black curtain aside and jerked back, at once face-to-face with a gnarled old man with a bird on his shoulder. The bird was red and white, with just one eye.
I know that bird, how is it alive?
“I thought you might turn up here,” the man said, adjusting his threadbare top hat. He grinned, his ancient teeth so worn they were almost translucent, chips of uneven agates dangling from loose sockets. The smell of spice was overwhelming, and Dan’s nose itched furiously. He took a step back and then thrust his tickets toward the man as if in defense.
“Now what would you have me do with those?” The old man laughed, and the bird mimicked the sound. “Can’t do over what’s already been done, son.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Dan said, backing away farther. “How did you know I would come here?”
The hypnotist’s eyes gleamed in the candlelight. He laughed. “You ain’t all that bright, son, but I see the resemblance. It’s there if you squint real hard.” And that he did, eyeing Dan up and down before tugging on his own suit lapels.
“Daniel Crawford, you mean.” No point being coy. If the old man wanted to talk in riddles, then maybe some straightforward information would encourage him toward sense. “But that’s not possible. You can’t have seen Daniel Crawford and now me. You haven’t aged since the dream. . . .”
The hypnotist bared his gums again and smiled wider, then reached into his coat and pulled out a weathered cigar case and a book of matches. He slipped the cigar between his lips and snapped his fingers, a match crackling to life. “You ever look at the sky? You know, clouds?”
“Sure,” Dan said slowly.
“You might look at a cloud passing by and think, well, I’ll be, that is the spitting image of a bunny rabbit. I might look at that same cloud and see a bat or a bear. Still others might look at that cloud and see nothing at all.” Maudire, if that’s who he was, puffed around the cigar and then urged the bird down off his shoulder and into its cage. The bird hopped along, screaming Turk, turk!
“You look at a raggedy old tent and some empty shadows and you see old Maudire. That makes you special, right? Ha! That makes you one of a kind,” he said.
Dan fanned a plume of cigar smoke out of his face and frowned. “So what, you’re saying I’m hallucinating this? But I can see you. I can smell you. . . .”
“You see what you see, son,” the hypnotist said, shrugging. “Ain’t for me to judge.” He held up the string of tickets Dan had brought. Dan couldn’t quite remember handing them over. “You paid good money for these, so you get something in return. But you can’t do over what’s already been done, so I’ll give you something brand-new.” He smirked around the glowing cigar and stared at his bird. “You can’t do over what’s already been done, but you sure can undo it. Not easy, but you can undo it.”
“Undo what?” Dan heard his voice rise hotly. “What are you even talking about?”
&nbs
p; “It’ll all make sense when the time comes. . . . Every lock has a key, mmm? And every prison, too. The prison of the mind, now that’s a tricky place to escape, but that’s got a key, too. You’re trapped in that little head of yours, son, but there’s a way out. Some might call it a key, others a password, others a fail-safe. Doesn’t matter what you call it, only that you find it.”
“Were you like this with Daniel Crawford, too?” Dan muttered, thinking that he couldn’t take a word this man said seriously. “Did you run him around in circles when he came to see you?”
“No, I certainly did not,” Maudire said grimly. He tossed the cigar on the ground and stubbed it out with his boot. Then he sat on a low stool and perched his palms on his knees and sighed, long and hard. “No, I shot straight as an arrow with that little imp. Straight as an arrow. Biggest mistake of my life.”
His eyes, hollow and haunted, rolled from the ground up to Dan, and for a second he was sure the hypnotist’s eyes were filling with blood.
“That’s all a nickel buys you, son,” the hypnotist said. “Best nickel you ever spent.”
“I didn’t pay for the tickets,” Dan said, backing slowly out of the tent.
The hypnotist chuckled, showing his yellow teeth again. “Oh, yes you did. You paid, didn’t you? I know you did.”
Dan stumbled out of the tent and into the cold, his nose still filled with the scent of spice and smoke.
Shit, Abby and Jordan are probably worried sick.
He dashed back toward the food vendors and found the carnival even more crowded than before. Through the constant mill and swirl of people, he spotted his friends standing in a small clearing near the popcorn stand.