CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

 

They drove all day. It was late when they first saw the carnival in the distance. The circle of the Ferris Wheel rose up above the tree line. As they got closer, they could see the other rides as well. The carousel, its horses circling endlessly. A swinging pirate ship. The Tilt-A-Whirl. The carnival was open for business, and the rides spun and gleamed in the evening light. The sounds of laughter and screams of joy filtered through the open windows in the car. They could smell roasted peanuts and the sickly sweet scent of cotton candy.

Melanie still wanted to call the SF, but they’d persuaded her to let them try going to the carnival.

Carrie didn’t know what it would be like here, but there was something about the place that whispered to her, that called to her. It made her wolf feel soothed.

She realized that it always had, every time the carnival had appeared in her hometown in April. The sight of the carnival had given her a peace that she’d never recognized until now.

They pulled in behind the carnival, where a cluster of RVs and trucks were parked.

Carrie reached over and grabbed Holden’s hand. “It’s going to be okay now,” she murmured. “I can feel it.”

He took a long, slow breath. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

And they got out of the car, looking around. They weren’t waiting long before someone approached them. “Hello!” called the woman as she walked over.

Carrie waved tentatively. “Hi?”

The woman closed the distance between them and smiled up at her. She looked just as she had that night weeks ago—older, but still pretty. When she smiled, there were crinkles around her eyes. “I’m Calla.”

“Oh,” said Carrie. “Um, I’m Carrie. This is Holden.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Calla. “You two want to look around tonight, ride some rides? We’ll get started in the morning.”

Holden and Carrie exchanged a look. “Get started?”

“You’re staying at this carnival, so you’re going to make yourselves useful,” said Calla. “I got jobs for the both of you.”

Well, Carrie hadn’t expected that, but she realized she didn’t have an objection. “Okay,” she said.

“Good,” said Calla, handing tickets over to Holden. “Here’s some tickets. Have a bit of fun. I’ll see you right here at seven sharp tomorrow.” She gave them another smile and then left.

Holden looked down at the tickets in his hand. “Here we are at the carnival again.”

Carrie smiled. “Last time, you barely knew who I was.”

“I was an idiot.”

They spent the evening playing games, going on rides, and eating funnel cakes.

When the carnival shut down, they weren’t sure where to go, so they headed back to Carrie’s car, where they climbed into the backseat.

Holden wrapped his arms around Carrie and she tucked her head against his shoulder. She closed her eyes, and they sat that way for quite some time. Holden’s fingers moved rhythmically over her arms, and she liked the way it felt to be close, to be touched.

She sighed.

He kissed the top of her head.

She shifted, tilting her head back.

Their lips met.

The kiss started out slow and soft, just a meeting of the lips. But then they found themselves pressing their lips together again. They found themselves exploring each other’s tongues.

Little bursts of delight began to explode through Carrie’s body. This was nice. The backseat was small, but it was cozy.

She eased her hand inside Holden’s shirt. His skin was hot and smooth.

His breath caught at her touch. He broke their kiss. “Do you want to—?”

“Don’t you?” she whispered. “We only did it once, and when we did… Well, I strongly got the impression that it was something we were supposed to do together. Like a lot.”

He chuckled, and she felt the vibration of it in his chest. “Supposed to do?”

“Fated to do.”

“You believe in that kind of thing? Fate?” His hands were inside her shirt now, skimming over her waist, moving over her ribcage.

Goosebumps erupted over her flesh. Her nipples tightened, and she felt arousal begin to spread through her. She gasped. “I believe in us.”

His hands closed over her breasts. “I do too,” he breathed. “More than anything.”

She moaned.

He kissed her, and it was a gush of sparks, of pleasure.

Outside the car, the windows were getting steamed up, enclosing the two of them in their own tiny world together.

* * *

The sun woke them the next morning, struggling into the sky.

Calla was hot on its heels. “Good morning!” she said. “Let’s get moving.”

She led them through the camp, where the rest of the workers had set up their RVs and campers. Most people were up and about now, but some were still asleep. They were sprawled out in chairs around now-dead campfires—a few still clutching half-empty bottles of beer.

When they got to the edge of the camp, they came upon the outskirts of the carnival. Here, the rides stretched up into the blue, morning sky. They weren’t moving now, of course, so they were silent behemoths. Up close, their lights extinguished, they looked worn and tired—not as glitzy as they did in motion.

Calla strode between the rides, banging on each one of the cars of the Tilt-a-Whirl until a few heads appeared. Teenagers—not much older that Carrie and Holden—had been sleeping there. They yawned and rubbed their eyes.

“Morning,” said Calla cheerfully. “Time to get moving.”

Carrie scurried close to Calla. She lowered her voice. “Do they… do they work here?”

“Absolutely,” said Calla, grinning. “We take what we can get around here. The lifers will have RVs and transportation, but the drifters will sleep wherever they can.”

Carrie looked back at Holden. So, this was the only alternative to the car? Well, she didn’t expect she was going to let Holden sleep anywhere but right next to her from now on.

Holden didn’t notice her look. He was too busy craning his neck around at the sights.

Calla looked over her shoulder. “Mick’s RV is empty right now. I think the two of you deserve it.”

“Really? But that’s… No, that would be wrong.”

Calla shrugged. “You think about it, all right?” She led them past the rides and stopped in the middle of a grassy area where the games and concessions stands were set up. She turned to them. “This is the midway, and we’ll start you out here. It takes some special training to work the rides. Not because there’s a lot to stopping and starting them, but because there are things you need to know to do if something goes wrong. If you’re around here for a while, and you take an interest, we can show you how to do that. But for now, what the two of you will be doing is spelling the workers in the games.”

Carrie furrowed her brow. She wasn’t sure what Calla meant.

“You’ll need to have a working knowledge of each of the games, since you’ll take them over for a half hour while the person who generally runs them takes lunch or dinner. So, this morning, we’ll go through each one, and you’ll get started this afternoon, all right?” Calla smiled.

Oh. Carrie thought she understood now. She peered around at the games. All of them? Well… how hard could it be? Mostly, she’d hand out balls and take money, right?

It turned out to be a bit more tricky than that. One of the things that Carrie and Holden had to learn to do was to demonstrate how “easy” it was to win each of the games. Of course, it wasn’t actually easy at all, because all of the games were rigged.

Now, Calla didn’t use the word rigged. She said they were enhanced to make them more challenging, and she said that they shouldn’t share this fact with the people who were forking over their money to play the games.

But Carrie knew what she meant.

Still, Carrie wasn’t about to refuse to do the work. For one thing, she had nowhere else to go. And besides, there was something charming and exciting about the carnival. There might be a layer of sleaze here, but she didn’t sense any real malice from Calla. She was a woman trying to make a living, that was all.

And once the carnival opened, Carrie had to admit that there was something magical about being part of it. She loved watching the crowds of people, the wide-eyed children, so excited for their day of fun. The teenage couples, their fingers entwined, gazing into each other’s eyes and grinning stupidly. The parents watching their kids and beaming.

It was all bound up in the warm spring air, the smell of popcorn and hot dogs and cotton candy, the sounds of the carousel and the workers hawking their games… She felt as if she’d been spun into a different world, and she loved it.

She and Holden would pass each other as they made their way from game to game to spell the workers there. And both of them would grin at each other.

“This is cool, huh?” she said to him, as the sun began to sink behind the horizon and the lights came up on the rides and the stands.

He looked around appreciatively. “Yeah.”

It was magic—an electric fairy land. Maybe it wasn’t innocent, and maybe it was a little frayed at the edges, but Carrie knew the old stories of fairies, and there was something sinister about them anyway. All magic had its dark side. She liked this carnival. She wasn’t sure if she liked the events that had brought her here, but she was glad that she was here.

That night, after the carnival had closed down and all the light had been extinguished, she and Holden made their way back to Mick’s RV, having decided that it was stupid to refuse it, both happy in a way they hadn’t been expecting.

Things were going to be okay here. A place like this had too much magic to be a bad place.