The Midnight Carnival (3 page)

The car rocked disconcertingly as Una leaned over to look straight down.

‘Una, don’t rock it!’ said Grace.

‘Why would she be scared?’ asked Una. ‘Even if she fell out, she could cast a spell and fly. We all could. There’s no danger for
us
.’

‘Somehow that doesn’t help.’ Grace jumped as the ferris wheel lurched suddenly into motion.

‘She’s probably just forgotten. I’ll remind her.’ Una twisted between the other two girls to look back and shout, ‘Adie, if you fall out, just don’t hit the ground!’

Grace could see Adie’s face turn pale green as she grabbed on tighter to the bar in front.

‘I think that worked like a charm, Una, well done. And would you mind not yelling to the whole town that we’re witches?’

‘I spoke in code. No-one will know what that meant.’

‘It’s a wonder the CIA haven’t hired you yet.’

After a dozen creaking turns, the wheel stopped and the girls climbed off. They were shortly joined by Delilah and Adie, who still looked a little wobbly.

‘Wanna go again?’ said Una.

‘I’m good for now,’ said Grace, noting the relief on Adie’s face. ‘I
am
hungry, though.’

‘There’s candy floss somewhere around here,’ said Delilah. ‘B-brr pokes me in the ear every time he smells it.’

At the mention of his name, the little wood nymph stuck his face out between strands of the small girl’s hair. He was about ten centimetres tall, with brown grainy skin, and a faint whiff of dried leaves clung about him. Delilah adored the creature – he was devoted to her – and Adie found him very cute, but the mischievous little faery gave everyone else the creeps. The girls knew they would never have escaped the dangers of Hy-Breasal without him, but he still wasn’t a favourite among them. Knowing B-brr wanted candy floss somehow made Grace want it less.

‘I wouldn’t mind some popcorn or something. I’m sure they’ve got other stuff at the stall.’

‘Or,’ Una said suddenly, ‘we could visit the fortune-teller.’

She pointed to a weather-beaten trailer with a sign out front. There were stained net curtains in the windows and the outside of the vehicle was filthy.

‘I don’t know. Maybe food first. I could–’

‘Fortune-teller.’

‘–maybe a drink too, and–’

‘Fortune-teller.’

‘What does everyone else–’

‘Fortune-teller.’

‘
Fine
, Una. We’ll go to the fortune-teller first.’

‘Ha! I knew I could annoy you into it.’

2

Painted Faces

There were three steps up into the trailer and even at the bottom Adie could pick up the powerful and musty scent of incense.

‘It smells really strong in there.’ Tugging at her dark curls, she willed the colour to return to her cheeks, still pale from the death-ride on the rusty ferris wheel.

‘That’ll sink into your clothes,’ Rachel said in warning. ‘Seriously, you’ll stink of it all day, it’s like cigarette smoke. I’m not going in.’

‘Adie, you wanna go in with me?’ asked Una. ‘It’ll be great craic.’

Adie nodded, wishing she had the guts to say ‘no thanks’. She didn’t mind funfairs, as long as she didn’t have to go on the scariest rides, and she didn’t mind dusty old flea markets,
as long as she didn’t have to haggle with the eccentric people that ran them. But this place seemed to be an eerie mix of both – scary rides, weird stalls, and way too many strange characters.

Una pushed Adie up the steps into the darkness of the fortune-teller’s trailer. Adie didn’t admit it, but the heavy incense made her feel claustrophobic. It was like being trapped by an invisible wall of scent.

‘Welcome, young peoples. I am Grigori.’

The old man sat at a fold-out table, his hands flattened next to a set of tarot cards. He wore a collarless shirt, dark waistcoat and a long, crimson dressing gown. His grey hair was smoothed down over his neck, and his perfect smile boasted a gold tooth. Adie shivered as he turned his pure white eyes toward them – no pupils, no irises, just blank white eyes.

‘We… um… we were wondering if you could read our fortunes.’

‘That why I here.’ His accent was very strong, and Adie couldn’t place it. ‘Sit. I tell you past, I tell you future.’

Adie took the seat opposite and felt Una grip her shoulders behind.

‘Ask him the future,’ she hissed in Adie’s ear. ‘Who’d bother asking about the past? You know that already, you were there.’

‘Um… I’d like to know the future, please.’

‘Cross palm with silver,’ the man said.

‘Huh?’

‘Money,’ Una said. ‘Give him money.’

Adie rummaged in her pocket and placed a €2 coin in the fortune-teller’s hand.

‘Good,’ his gold tooth sparkled. ‘We begin. Shuffle, please.’

Adie shuffled the tarot cards awkwardly, and handed them to the man, who split the deck in three and turned over the first top card.

The image was of a stone tower being hit by lightning. Flames burst from the windows, and two men were falling to their death from the top. The fortune-teller didn’t look down at the card, but touched it lightly with his fingertips.

‘Ah, the tower. Great upheaval, disaster comes. The men fall, yes? Because there is no control. You cannot prevent.’

‘Oh.’ Adie shifted uncomfortably in her chair. ‘Okay.’

She didn’t ask any more about her impending doom. She thought it might lengthen the session and she wanted this over as quickly as possible. The man turned over the second card. This one had a big, red heart in the centre, with three swords piercing it.

‘Three of swords,’ he said sadly. ‘Separation, sorrow. You have time of great grief.’

Lovely
, Adie thought, but she smiled politely. Even Una had gone quiet.

The third card showed a woman in a white robe, with an infinity sign above her head. She petted a smiling lion at her feet, and the roman numerals VIII were at the top of
the picture.

‘Strength,’ the teller said. ‘This card mean strength, but not strength from outside. From inside. Great power, great control. See how woman tame lion? She persist, survive. Make great trial seem small.’

‘Oh, right,’ said Adie, intrigued in spite of herself. ‘But why is that one upside down?’

The teller’s fingertips stroked the card.

‘Inverted, so it means opposite. Weakness, failure. No strength from within, no power. This not good card for you.’

A cold feeling rippled down Adie’s spine.
It’s just nonsense
, she told herself.
I’m not weak. This teller doesn’t know how many dangers me and my friends have faced. And how many we’ve beaten
. But a little knot in the pit of her stomach made her repeat the words in her mind,
me and my friends
. Her friends. She was nothing without her friends. She was brave only when they were brave. She fought back only when they fought back. All their adventures flew through her mind and she wondered, would she have survived any of them without her friends?

The fortune-teller suddenly gasped and grabbed her hands. His white eyes gazed upwards as if he heard a voice from above.

‘I see…’ he said, ‘I see…’

His eyes lowered to Adie’s and a smile crept across his face.

‘Friends you have. Great friends. And they are special.
Indeed, they are special.’

It was as if he had read her mind. Frightened, she pulled her hands from his grip, but he didn’t seem fazed.

‘So long waiting. And then, something special…’

Adie had had enough. She got up, grabbed Una’s hand and stumbled from the trailer.

‘Well, that was all kinds of creepy,’ said Una.

‘Horrible. That was horrible. All that stuff about…’

‘Hey, don’t worry about it. What does he know? You’re a certified superhero in an actual superhero gang. And
this
superhero’s hungry. Let’s go get some food.’

Adie let herself be led away, but couldn’t help taking a glance back at the spooky trailer. Behind one of the net curtains, she could see a pair of white eyes staring blankly in her direction, and the glint of a single gold tooth.

‘Oh, my God, you got it in my hair!’

Jenny had finally arrived, and Rachel was glaring at her.

‘That’s not candy floss. That’s that mousse, or whatever stuff you put in it,’ Jenny sniffed.

‘It is not. The stuff I put in my hair makes it silky.’ Rachel pulled a few strands through her fingers. ‘This is sticky and – yuk, there’s more of it!’

‘Relax, it’ll wash out.’

Rachel’s nostrils flared as she took a deep breath. Adie
imagined she was silently counting to ten, so as not to flip out and whack Jenny on the head.

‘Just keep it away from me.’

‘Alright.’ Jenny took an exaggerated step backwards, then waved to Adie and Una with the ball of pink wool in her hand, nearly getting Rachel again. ‘Heard you were having your palms read. How was it?’

‘It was a tarot reading,’ said Adie, ‘and it was terrible.’

‘Nah, it was cool,’ said Una. ‘You should try it out, it’s well freaky.’

‘Will do.’ Jenny tossed the candy floss into a nearby bin.

‘Who’s on for the ferris wheel?’

‘We already did that,’ said Rachel.

‘Without me? Why didn’t you wait?’

‘Maybe you should get up earlier.’

‘Maybe you should go mousse your hair.’

‘Come on, knock it off,’ Grace said, nibbling on a bag of popcorn. ‘Why don’t we go on those flying chair things? They look pretty dangerous.’

Adie smiled at her friend munching on popcorn. Grace was great at diplomacy. She knew Jenny would rise to the challenge of danger, and Rachel would like the idea of perching elegantly in a seat that flew through the air. It came so naturally to her, thought Adie, that Grace probably didn’t even know how essential to their group she was. But Adie knew. Grace was the glue.

Adie wasn’t the glue. She wasn’t the adventure. She wasn’t the elegance and she wasn’t the fun. The girls were about to start their third year in secondary school, and she still didn’t know what – if anything – she brought to the table. Opting out of another rusty carnival ride, she watched the others climb on and felt blue. Even Delilah, although she was the quiet type, like Adie, she was daring. They all were. Her friends were fearless and always ready to try new things. Look at how they were all reacting to the carnival. It just felt icky to her – the people, the noise, the eerie weirdness – but her friends felt right at home. Adie didn’t like new things, she didn’t like change. As the breeze from the flying chairs made her blink, and her friends shrieked with laughter above, all she could think of was that she was scared. She frowned and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. She was the scared one.

‘Hey there, little bunny.’

A man’s smiling face loomed out of the twilight. At first, all she saw was a mouthful of brown teeth and a top hat. Then a pair of ruddy cheeks, and an icky, skinny, greasy moustache. His breath smelled of something rotten, she wasn’t sure what, and he was standing way too close.

‘I’m Felix,’ he said, touching the brim of the hat and grinning. ‘This here is my carnival.’

She mouthed ‘excuse me’ and walked away. To her dismay, he followed. She was uncomfortable, but wasn’t sure at what point she was allowed to be impolite. After walking a lap
around the flying chair ride, she decided it didn’t matter, and rounded on him.

‘What do you want?!’

The man laughed heartily. His red tailed jacket nearly burst at the buttons with his chuckles.

‘Only to give you these, honey.’ He held out a bunch of pale pink tickets. ‘For the main event tonight. Aerial acrobatics, the Melancholy Clowns, and much more. You and your friends will have a whale of a time.’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Now don’t go having kittens, little lady, I’m just offering some free tickets. That’s just the kind of operation we got here. We take care of the customers.’ His accent was American – one of the southern states, she guessed – and he flitted unnervingly between sweet smiles and sad frowns. ‘You don’t want your friends to miss out, do you? These are the last tickets I got left. You don’t want them missing out just cos you were a scaredy cat, now do you?’

That hit where it hurt. Snatching the tickets, Adie backed away.

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome, little lady.’ He tipped his top hat again. ‘Enjoy the show now.’

And with a swish of his coat-tails he was gone.

Music pumped through the main tent, reverberating through the tarpaulin walls. The air was heavy inside with so many people crammed into the space, and the tiered seating surrounded a circle of dry dirt in the centre. Grace wondered if the town council would go mad when they found a big chunk of Dunbridge Park reduced from green grass to dusty soil.

‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ The ringmaster, complete with top hat and red coat, materialised before the bustling audience. ‘My name is Felix Renaud and I welcome you to the
Carnaval de Minuit
!’

People rushed to take their seats. The show was about to begin.

A small, dainty figure descended from the ceiling on a thick, white rope.

‘I won’t bore you by flattering my own performers. I won’t give you the hard sell. I’ll just tell you this,’ the ringmaster’s eyes darkened, ‘the Minuit experience is one you will never forget. To begin,
la belle Justine
!’

In a flash of red he was gone, and the figure on the rope tumbled, apparently out of control. The audience gasped, until she stopped abruptly, only a metre off the ground. Balancing on one foot, still wrapped in rope, the girl grinned wickedly. She was no more than thirteen or fourteen years old, and dressed in ballet pumps and a pink leotard with shorts. But it wasn’t her outfit that made Grace stare – it was
her face. For the lower half of the young girl’s face was completely covered in a thick beard of soft, brown hair, ending in one twirling curl beneath her chin.