Carousel Read online

  “Wait,” I said. “The door opened? Or Reggie opened it?”

  Timothy shuddered. “It opened by itself,” he said in a low whisper. “His hands weren’t anywhere near it.”

  “I believe you. What happened next?”

  “I saw a kind of… of light. Like a ball of fire, only it had a blue glow and wasn’t too awful bright. Just floating there in the air, without a wick or a lamp or nothing. And Reggie said not to tell anyone, ever, and hurried out after it. It went off toward the stair, and he just followed, without taking anything with him.” Timothy’s shoulders heaved, and he let out a little, gasping sob. “I should’ve called for help or something. But I was scared maybe the light would come for me, too, and—and—now Reggie’s gone and I ain’t never going to see him again.”

  I put my arm around the thin shoulders. The child sobbed against my coat. “You will,” I said. “Don’t give up hope.”

  “But what if he’s cold and afraid and alone?”

  The chill bite of the wind, rushing unfettered over the plains, came back to me with sudden force. Standing on the train platform in a tiny Kansas hamlet while strangers looked over me and the other orphans and selected which they wanted, like buyers at an auction. A coat too big for me had kept out most of the cold, the sleeves long enough to protect my hands from the wind.

  One of my older brothers had given it to me, to keep me warm. I’d never seen him again. I couldn’t even remember what happened to the coat. Probably Ma gave it away to some more needy family, or else cut it apart and used it to mend other clothes, or for rags.

  “We’ll find him.” The promise was as much to myself as to Timothy.

  The boy nodded and sniffled, wiping his eyes. “You won’t tell Dad I cried, will you? He says it ain’t manly to cry.”

  Whyborne flinched slightly. We all had our own wounds. “I won’t tell anyone,” I said. “But can you tell us anything at all about the old man?”

  “Reggie’d seen him before, in his dreams. Said he’s the one as took him to the carousel every night.” Timothy frowned as he scrubbed at his reddened eyes with his sleeve. “But there weren’t no man in the hall, sir. Just the light.”

  “I believe you, Timothy.” I patted his shoulder. “You’ve been very helpful. Can you fetch your parents now?”

  IV.

  “What is your opinion, my dear?” I asked a short time later, as we stood at the entrance to the pier.

  The bandstand lay empty and the shooting galleries dark. The sun had set on the short winter day, leaving us with only the light of our lanterns. The summer afternoon we’d spent here felt a lifetime away.

  A line formed between Whyborne’s dark brows as he studied the silent pier. The winter days were short, and the last light of the sun caught in his spiky hair, revealing threads of gold and copper amidst the locks. “The carousel struck me as… eerie… when we visited here before. But you didn’t notice it, and you had a much closer look.”

  I’d ridden on a wooden horse, alongside Pa and Cousin Ruth, while Whyborne remained behind to keep Ma company. “I didn’t, but I’m not as sensitive to certain things,” I said carefully.

  In other words, I wasn’t a sorcerer. But Whyborne hated the term, and I didn’t wish an argument over something so petty at the moment.

  He shook his head. “Truthfully, I thought it my imagination at the time. But the missing boy’s reoccurring dreams, accompanied by promises of being taken away from ordinary life to something far more magical…”

  “It sounds like a fairytale.”

  “The sort which ends with a witch and a cauldron,” Whyborne agreed. “The blue light that led the child away… Well, the brother could have dreamed it, but I suspect we could be dealing with sorcery.”

  I wanted to argue the boy might have simply run away. Or been lured by an old man with evil, but non-magical, intentions. But a glance at Whyborne’s solemn expression stilled my tongue.

  I’d seen him summon fire from the air, call down the wind from the very heavens, move water with nothing but his will. The ease with which these things came to him, the carelessness with which he treated forces that ought to be handled like lit dynamite, kept me lying awake at night.

  But I couldn’t argue with his expertise. If he suspected sorcery… Well, we’d make certain of it, to be thorough. It didn’t lessen the fact I trusted him to know.

  “Shall we inspect the carousel?” I asked. “The police will have taken a look, but perhaps you’ll notice something they missed.”

  In August, the brass poles and painted animals of the carousel had been visible at a distance. Now, wooden shutters enclosed the entire structure, shielding the interior from the harshness of the winter weather.

  “How are we to get in?” Whyborne asked.

  I didn’t reply immediately, instead angling the beam of my lantern to fall across the snow. What must have been nearly pristine white this morning was now a churned muck of footprints. The police had tramped about everywhere, destroying any evidence of prints which might have shown us for certain whether the boy even set foot here.

  I led the way around the structure, inspecting the wide wooden planks used to shutter it for the winter. As I’d hoped, one stood slightly ajar where the police failed to secure it after checking inside.

  “Help me move this.” I put the lantern down, and Whyborne and I wrestled the plank aside. Taking the lantern back up, I stepped in, and he followed.

  In the bright sun, surrounded by a laughing crowd, the carousel animals had struck me as wonderfully lifelike works of art. Here in the cold dark, they seemed sinister. Horses flung back their heads, mouths wide in frozen panic. The teeth of a tiger gleamed menacingly. Even the delicate swan seemed to watch me with black eyes.

  God in heaven, the things were lifelike. I could trace individual hairs in the manes of the horses, and the swans seemed almost ready to spread their wings and fly away. As we passed by the tiger, I would have sworn I felt the touch of hot breath against my face.

  Nerves, surely. “Do you sense anything amiss?”

  Whyborne unshuttered his lantern and walked slowly through the carousel. Eventually he stopped beside one of the horses, an armored charger with flaring red nostrils. Tugging off his glove, he laid his bare hand on its wooden neck.

  I forced myself to be patient. After what seemed like several minutes, he withdrew his hand. “There’s… I’m not sure how to describe it. Like a vibration, almost, except it isn’t the wood vibrating.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Whyborne pressed his ear to the carousel horse. “There’s a voice.”

  The air seemed to grow colder—or perhaps it was my blood. “A voice?”

  “Come listen.”

  My feet felt glued to the wooden platform. I lifted them anyway, taking one step and then the next, until I stood by him. The sound could have been anything—the pounding of the sea waves, perhaps, sending a vibration through the machinery and into the carved animals.

  I mimicked his position, placing my ear against the wood, so close to him I felt his breath against my face, steaming in the icy air. My impression of the lifelike detail grew—I would have sworn I could feel the roughness of a horse’s hairy coat on my ear. But surely it was only the marks left behind by the chisel.

  I closed my eyes, blocking out all distraction. Whispers. A constant, murmuring whisper in what sounded like the voice of a young girl.

  I swallowed against my dry throat. “Can you make out the words?” My own words came out as a whisper as well, although who I couldn’t say who I feared might overhear.

  “No.”

  Perhaps that was kinder. I drew away. “All right, we…”

  The words in my throat died. When we’d climbed aboard the carousel, the animals had all been facing straight ahead in their courses.

  Now every one of them stared directly at us.

  Neither of us spoke, only grabbed one another’s hand and ran for the exit. My foot skidded, and I sli
d toward one of the horses. I twisted wildly, sending a bolt of pain up my leg and back, but the pain barely registered beside my desire not to touch the accursed things.

  Whyborne’s steady hold kept me on my feet. As we leapt from the platform, he let out a startled cry. I pulled hard on his hand, expecting something had caught hold of him. But there was no resistance, and we ended up sprawled in the snow together, his long body on top of mine.

  “Are you all right?” I gripped him tightly.

  “Yes. I think so.” A shudder went through him. He scrambled to his feet, as if loath to have the opening to the carousel at his back.

  I stood up as well, a bit more slowly, the muscle I’d pulled twinging in protest. “I’d say sorcery is definitely involved.” I strove to keep my tone light, but a note of fear trembled beneath the words anyway. “Why did you cry out?”

  “A light.” He kept his eyes fixed warily on the carousel, as if expecting the animals to tear loose from their poles and follow us. “I spotted a light as we jumped.”

  “In which direction?”

  He pointed. I noted it, then tugged at his sleeve. “I don’t like turning my back on this either, but we don’t have a choice.”

  We left the carousel behind, moving in the direction he’d indicated. A low wall and gate lay just past the next row of entertainments. A sign on the gate advised us there was no admittance to the public beyond this point. As soon as we slipped through, I caught sight of the light myself.

  “A lantern,” I said. “Someone else must be here. Quick, shutter your light in case they’ve a lookout.”

  We plunged into darkness. I stood still for a moment, waiting for my eyes to adjust. The full moon peered between the clouds, its eerie light reflecting on the thin layer of snow, making it far easier to navigate than it would have been otherwise.

  We crept closer to the building showing the light. It appeared to be a workshop of some kind, the windows set high to let in sunlight without being blocked by machinery or tools. Too high, in this case, to see in easily.

  I cast about, but of course no convenient crate or ladder lay there for my use. If magic was involved, I wanted a look inside before we burst through the door. Even more so if the light proved to belong to some hapless worker innocent of any wrongdoing.

  I drew close to Whyborne. “I want to look inside. Go down on your knees so I can climb on your shoulders.”

  He looked slightly alarmed at the prospect, but only murmured, “I’d prefer the usual reason you have me go down on my knees.”

  When we’d met, he would never have thought to make such a joke. I shot him a grin in return. “I’ll keep it in mind for later.”

  Once he took up position, I scrambled onto his back, wincing as my boots left marks on his coat. My perch wasn’t a steady one; Whyborne might have been a good deal taller than me, but he wasn’t the most physically active of men. Even so, it gave me just the extra inches I needed to peer inside.

  The building indeed housed a workshop. Darkness shrouded most of the interior, and canvas tarps covered whatever equipment wasn’t needed over the winter months. Oddly, a pair of jointed automata, the size and likeness of men, slumped uncovered against the wall. What exhibit or entertainment they were meant for, I couldn’t guess.

  An uncovered workbench stocked with tools and paint lurked on the opposite side of the room from the window. Closer at hand stood an old man working on what was clearly a carousel horse in progress. Its outline remained rough, but under the wood chisel in his hand, the startling, lifelike details began to emerge. The tool gleamed with a bluish light, and for a moment I thought it a trick of the window glass.

  But no—although the consistency of a soft fog, the light swirled with a strange air of sentience. Strands caressed the wood around the chisel, bloomed from a tighter funnel of light, the opposite end of which sank parasitical roots into a small body. A boy lay on the floor like a discarded heap of clothes, his eyes closed and his face almost as white as the snow outside. A chalk circle, inscribed with sigils and lit with black candles, surrounded him.

  I sprang from Whyborne’s shoulders. He let out a startled grunt, but I was already at the door, my revolver in hand. The door was locked, but I opened it with a single hard kick, sending it crashing back against the workshop wall.

  “Stop!” I shouted, leveling the revolver at the old carver. “Whatever you’re doing to the boy, cease it immediately!”

  The old man stepped back from the carving and turned on me a look of anger and impatience. “Get out of here!” he barked. “You don’t understand.”

  Whyborne stood just behind me. “I’ve read about such spells,” he said in a tone of horror. “They’re used to drain vitality and prolong the life of the sorcerer past its natural span.”

  The old carver let out a creaking laugh. “Life? What life lasts half as long as art?”

  The devil? Had he lost his mind?

  Whyborne clutched my shoulder. “Griffin—the carousel animals—this is why they’re so uncannily realistic. Why they…”

  Why they moved when we weren’t looking. Every hair stood up on my neck.

  “My first creations weren’t as lovely.” The carver stroked the mane of his latest project with a loving, skeletal finger. “Dull, clumsy.” His gray beard split, revealing yellowed teeth. “But I learned the secret.”

  “Killing children?” I spat.

  “They just fall asleep, that’s all.” The old man gestured almost tenderly toward Reggie’s prone form. “And then they ride the carousel forever. Just as they always wanted.”

  God! My hand shook with horror and the need to put a bullet through his brain. But if I killed him, what would become of the boy? “Reverse what you’ve done to him. Now.”

  The carver barely looked at us, so involved was he in his project. “I can’t. So you should just let me finish.”

  Whyborne cleared his throat. “As long as Reggie hasn’t been drained to the point of death, he should recover whatever energy he’s lost, just as he would blood from a wound.”

  Anger flashed across the aged face. “I don’t know who you are, but you’ve made a mistake coming here. The carousel wasn’t my first creation, and I’ve worked with more than children!”

  A low scraping sound came from behind us. I risked a look and saw the automata beginning to stir.

  V.

  They rose slowly, jerkily, like giant marionettes but without strings to pull. Their faces, frozen in joyful smiles, turned slowly to us.

  I fired, sending wood chips flying everywhere. The automaton I’d shot didn’t seem to notice.

  “Griffin!” Whyborne cried.

  I spun around in time to see the carver lunging toward us with the chisel upraised like a weapon. Acting on instinct, I fired a second time. He proved far more vulnerable to the bullet than his creation. The chisel fell to the ground, and he went to his knees before collapsing altogether.

  To my dismay, whatever magic infused the automata seemed to operate independently of the sorcerer’s life, because they continued to stagger forward, arms raised to grasp us.

  “I’ll draw them off,” Whyborne said. “You save the boy.”

  Before I could object, he snatched up a can of mineral spirits from the workbench. “Here, over here!” he shouted. “It’s me you want!”

  His cries seemed to gather their attention, because they both turned toward him. They moved quite a bit faster now than at first, like men who’d woken from a long sleep and shaken the blood back into their limbs.

  Whyborne ran out the workshop door, the unholy creatures following behind.

  Damn it! I wanted to rush after him, but he was right—Reggie had to be my priority. I ran to the child, scuffing the chalk circle and kicking over one of the candles for good measure. The blue glow vanished.

  Dropping to my knees, I pressed my finger to the boy’s neck. Although his skin felt chilled, his pulse beat strong.

  I couldn’t leave him here, even with the old
carver dead. What if something else came to life? Cursing silently, I stripped off my coat and bundled it around him before heaving his limp body over my shoulder. A small hand ax on the workbench caught my eye, and I snatched it up before leaving.

  The tracks of Whyborne and his pursuers led straight to the gate to the midway. I ran to one of the deserted stalls, laying Reggie down behind the counter where he’d be concealed from any casual glance. Then, steeling myself, I ran for the carousel.

  The light of Whyborne’s lantern flickered through the open shutter. Gripping the ax tightly, I plunged inside.

  A wooden hand grasped my arm in an implacable grip, spinning me around and into one of the horses. I shouted and chopped wildly, not certain if I meant to strike the hand gripping me or the horse. The blade bit into nothing but air.

  “Griffin!” Whyborne cried.

  The automaton loomed over me, its smiling face horrible in its immobile joy. I swung the ax again, bringing it down hard on its wrist this time. There came a solid thunk, but its grip didn’t slacken.

  Blast!

  I kicked one of its jointed knees as hard as I could. It stumbled, but instead of letting go, it reached for my ax with its other hand.

  Then Whyborne was there, bashing at it with the can of mineral spirits. I reapplied my ax, and a moment later its hand came off altogether.

  And remained clutching my arm.

  “You weren’t supposed to follow me!” Whyborne exclaimed, dragging us away from the automaton. We darted through the maze of horses and swans, putting as many obstacles between us and the murderous things as possible.

  “I could hardly let you face these alone.” Curse it, did he really think I’d abandon him so?

  “I appreciate the sentiment, but, well—stand back!” He tore the cap from the can of mineral spirits and splashed both of the automata closing in on us, then hurled the entire can at the scene panels in the center of the structure.

  “We’ll have to get past the automata to the entrance,” he warned. Speaking a word, he called fire into being from nothingness.