Monsterstreet #3, page 6
Meanwhile, Record Number of Elderly Check In to Local Nursing Facility
Claiming the Identities of the Missing Children
Ren felt a shiver down his spine. According to what he was reading, everything that Mrs. Wellshire had told him was true.
After the carnival left town, people could finally see the kids as their aged selves. But no one recognized them, so they couldn’t go back home, Ren realized. And that’s what will happen again tomorrow morning if I don’t find a way to defeat the carnival.
Ren knew it was up to him to save Kip and all the infected kids in town.
He then noticed a file with a photo of a bald man with sunken eyes and countless faded freckles on his withered skin. The message typed beneath it read:
Name: John Doe
Claims to be missing local child Herbert Copeland
Estimated Age: 101
That’s the man who carved his name on the wall in Mrs. Wellshire’s room, Ren realized. He didn’t die just a few years ago—he died seventy-seven years ago! If I don’t do something, dozens of new John Does and Jane Does are going to be checking in to Old Manor tomorrow, claiming to be missing kids.
He knew there was only one person who could help him. One person who had been around for it all the last time the carnival had come to town. And still remembered.
When Ren arrived at Mrs. Wellshire’s room, a jack-o’-lantern flickered on her windowsill while she slept in her bed. Her back was to the door, so he quietly approached her.
“Mrs. Wellshire?”
She didn’t answer.
He touched her arm to see if she was okay, and it felt cold as ice.
Then, like a scary scene in a movie, the old woman turned over and hissed at him.
And that’s when Ren saw her vampire fangs, dripping with blood.
22
Checkmate
Mrs. Wellshire reached for Ren’s throat, and he stumbled backward onto her couch. His heart felt like it was about to explode in his chest.
She’s one of them! Ren thought.
And then he fainted.
Moments later, he woke up in the dark, his vision blurry.
He saw Mrs. Wellshire’s silhouette sitting up in her bed across from him.
Afraid, Ren jolted back, wondering if she had already bitten him.
Just as he was about to check his forearm, he saw her bloodied fangs sitting on the tray table beside her bed.
“Are you okay, boy? I didn’t mean to scare you so bad,” she said. “They were going around giving out Halloween props, and I took the fanged dentures. Thought it might be fun to give you a good fright tonight.”
“I thought you were a—a . . . ,” Ren started, unable to finish.
“There, there. I may be scary, but it’s only because I’m old,” she said with a laugh.
He wondered if she knew what the carnies really were. But he didn’t want to upset her.
“Are you going to dress up for the Haunted Manor like all the other residents?” Ren asked, sitting up on the couch.
“Ha! I spend every breath trying to stay out of the Land of the Dead and then your aunt decides to bring it here,” she joked. “Halloween is fun for kids, but for folks like me who are two steps away from the grave . . . it can be all too real.”
She pointed out the window to the foggy graveyard. Hundreds of tombstones were silhouetted against the stormy-green sky. The carnival lights glowed beyond it.
Mrs. Wellshire coughed into her hands.
“Can I get you anything?” Ren asked.
“Just pull up a chair and keep an old woman company. Do you play chess?”
“I’ve played with my dad a few times,” Ren said, and she pointed to the chessboard in the corner.
“My sister and I used to play all the time.”
Ren dragged a chair beside her bed and set up the chessboard on the food table. But all he could think about was what he had found down in the basement.
“Mrs. Wellshire, do you remember when all the old people were moved into the Manor after the carnival left town seventy-seven years ago?”
“Oh yes,” she replied, moving up one of her pawns. “There were endless rumors flying around town. And the missing kids—and the old people claiming to be the kids—it’s all we talked about at school.”
“Did you ever try to tell anyone about what happened to your sister?” Ren asked.
“I tried to tell a lot of people—my teachers, my neighbors—but no one believed me. Eventually, it seemed like everyone had forgotten her. I spent half my youth in the town museum, researching the past visits of the carnival. But I always ran into dead ends. It’s as if the carnival erased any trace of itself—and the kids it took—from the town’s memory.”
“So it’s true that grown-ups can’t see the kids’ actual ages until after the carnival leaves town?”
“If you’re talking about that young man in the hallway, I know he’s your little brother,” she said, pointing to the seventeen-year-old Kip who was walking down the hallway in his costume, dragging one gauze-covered leg behind him like a mummy. “Your aunt won’t see it until after the carnival leaves town. If there are any aged kids who are left behind this time. But any of us who have received a bite have eyes to see the darkness at any time.”
“So will others like him show up tomorrow morning after the carnival leaves?”
“Only the few souls who find the strength to walk away from the carnival after they’ve received the bite. I was one of them. And so far, you’ve been strong enough to resist the bite altogether. Maybe it’s because we were both thinking more about our siblings than ourselves. But even for the lucky ones who escape, their lives will never be the same. Whatever life they have left will always be haunted. Most have already given up too many heartbeats to fully be themselves again.”
Ren handed her the locket she had loaned to him. She took it into her hands and gazed upon the photograph.
“I should have kept fighting for my sister when I was your age. I shouldn’t have just given up. Maybe things would have turned out different.”
Ren thought of Kip and didn’t want to have the same regrets as Mrs. Wellshire.
He moved up one of his bishops on the chessboard. “I heard the Tick-Tock Man talking to a carnie last night. They said something about breaking the backward clock by taking the heart of the carnival beyond the boundary. I guess what I’m asking is . . . do you think the carnival can be destroyed? Like, for good?”
She thought for a moment, and Ren could tell she had considered the question before.
“I suppose if you found a way to stop feeding it, you could starve it for a while,” she replied. “If the kids stopped riding its rides, eating its food, coveting its thrills, then I suppose the carnival would eventually die. Or at least move on to some other place.”
Ren thought of the black cats roaming around the carnival grounds, then said, “Like a stray cat that stops getting scraps from one house and so moves on to another?”
“Exactly,” Mrs. Wellshire said. “But it won’t be that easy. It never is. I’m sure you wouldn’t be the first to try.”
“If I go back, I’m afraid I won’t be able to resist it anymore. It nearly brainwashed me last night. I wish I knew a way not just to starve it so that it will leave but to defeat it once and for all. Tonight. Forever. So that it can never steal another soul again.”
Mrs. Wellshire made her next move on the chessboard.
“Checkmate,” she said.
Ren looked down in surprise and realized he had missed a play.
Mrs. Wellshire smiled. “You know, my sister always used to say that you have to think two steps ahead of your opponent and not let them know your next move. Then you have to strike their heart as quickly as possible.”
Ren’s eyes grew wide.
The heart of the carnival, he thought.
“Every conscious thing has a heart,” Mrs. Wellshire continued, as if trying to give Ren a clue.
“So . . . if the carnival is alive, then where is its heart?” he asked.
Mrs. Wellshire looked out the window to the neon lights and big tops in the near distance. The black Ferris wheel with purple lights seemed to be smiling back at them as dozens of adult-size trick-or-treaters swarmed toward the carnival grounds.
“The Ferris wheel?” Ren said.
“Perhaps,” Mrs. Wellshire replied. “After all, everything is built around it, protecting it like a a fortress or a rib cage.”
Just then, the grandfather clock in the corner of her room rang nine times.
“You’d better hurry, boy,” Mrs. Wellshire said. “The Tick-Tock Man will collect the final payment at midnight. And all transactions will be final.”
23
Outsmarting the Wheel
Before he left Old Manor, Ren locked Kip inside their windowless room with enough food and water to last until he returned. Kip fought him like a rabid animal, but Ren fought harder. Then Ren hid the key so that there was no chance of Kip escaping, or of anyone letting him out. He even told Aunt Winnie he had decided to let Kip go trick-or-treating with him so she wouldn’t get worried and go looking for Kip.
When Ren stepped outside, lightning flashed, and a loud grumble of thunder followed a few moments later.
He hurried down the main road toward the carnival grounds, running past dozens of masked trick-or-treaters who were on their way to another night of thrills.
“Stay away from the carnival! Go back home!” Ren shouted at them.
But no one heeded his warning.
He overheard one girl dressed as a princess chatting away to her friend dressed like a robot, “It was so weird. My sister looks like she’s twenty now, but Dad still thinks she looks like she’s ten.”
Kids all over town must be experiencing the same thing, Ren thought. After tomorrow, either the kids who have been bitten will leave with the carnival and their loved ones will eventually forget about them—or the aged kids will look too old for anyone to recognize them.
It wasn’t until Ren arrived at the bat-shaped gates and peered out onto the midway that he realized that many of the trick-or-treaters were under some evil spell. Not only that, but they didn’t look like normal kids. Their costumes were kidlike, but the people beneath them were much older. Some looked like teenagers, others like middle-aged adults, and Ren even saw the withered skin of old people beneath several of the costumes.
These all must be the kids who were bitten, gave up heartbeats, and have aged at an astronomical rate, Ren thought.
While sneaking toward the Carriage of Souls, Ren passed by Zora’s lantern-lit tent. She was inside reading the fortunes of two new customers who were both wearing pirate costumes. His instincts told him to go on, but there was something he wanted to ask her.
As soon as the two customers left her tent, Ren snuck inside.
When Zora saw him, she stood from her chair.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“You knew he could hear us last night when you told me I could ask three questions. Why did you let him take me?” Ren asked.
“I was protecting you,” she replied.
“From what?”
“I warned you that he can hear everything if he wants to. If I had tried to help you, he would have killed us both,” she explained. “It was better for me to keep his confidence.”
Ren wasn’t sure he could trust Zora’s words.
“It doesn’t matter now,” he said. “I need your help.”
“With what?” she asked.
“I need to steal back my brother’s clock before it’s fed to the carnival tonight,” Ren said. “Can you tell me how to get into the Carriage of Souls without being caught?”
Zora shook her head. “Even if you were able to recover your brother’s soul-clock, you wouldn’t be able to get back the time that’s already been stolen from him. You might be able to save the heartbeats that remain, but if he chooses to feed his soul-clock to the carnival, there’s no turning back.”
“I made sure Kip won’t have a chance to choose,” Ren said.
“Don’t be so sure,” Zora warned. “The magician always finds a way to get what he wants. Besides, anything that belongs to the carnival that travels beyond its boundary will cease to exist. Including your brother’s soul-clock. You’d have to destroy the carnival first.”
“That’s exactly what I plan to do,” Ren said. “Once I can get close enough to the heart of the carnival.”
Zora’s eyes widened, as if she was surprised he knew about such a thing.
“The magician will never let you near it,” she said.
“I’ll find a way,” Ren replied. “I have one question, though. If I destroy the carnival’s heart, what will happen to you?”
Zora didn’t answer, but Ren sensed the truth in her eyes.
“Come help me,” he said. “I know that you regret giving your soul to this place. But there’s still time for you to make things right.”
Zora shook her head.
“Whatever good that was in me died a long time ago,” Zora said.
“But what you’re doing here—it’s not natural; it’s not right,” Ren replied. “The wheel of life is supposed to move forward, not backward. We all owe a death for a life. And to never pay what we owe is sort of like . . . stealing.”
“Or just outsmarting the wheel,” Zora replied. There was silence for a moment, then she continued, her emotions escalating. “You think you’re the first person who’s tried to convince me to turn against the carnival? What’s done is done. There’s no going back now. No changing sides.”
“But that’s not true. There are two sides to every coin, remember?” Ren said, pointing to the gold coin on her table. “There’s always time to change. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
He noticed Zora’s eyes were misty, and he sensed that there was a great battle taking place within her.
“Please leave now. I have a big night ahead,” she said, pushing Ren out of the entrance of her tent. She closed the flaps behind him and tied them off so that he couldn’t come back inside.
Disappointed, Ren turned and crept along the jack-o’-lantern–lit midway, staying in the shadows as best he could. The grinning pumpkins blazed with an eerie light, as if they knew some dark magic was approaching.
When Ren arrived at the Carriage of Souls, the door was locked, just as he suspected it would be.
A cold wind blew over him.
Unsure what to do next, he put his hands in his pockets to keep them warm, and his fingers touched something cold.
He pulled a mysterious relic from his pocket and peered down at it.
A skeleton key, he thought. It looks a hundred years old. Zora must have put it in my pocket when she pushed me out of her tent.
Grateful, Ren inserted the key into the lock and turned it. Then he pushed open the door and cautiously stepped inside. He looked around for Kip’s soul-clock and hoped to save as many others as he could.
But when the moonlight spilled into the carriage, Ren saw that all the clocks were gone.
24
Feast of Souls
Dread rushed over Ren.
How can I save Kip if I can’t find his clock? he wondered in desperation, noticing that the coffin was missing too. I can’t give up. I have to find a way.
Just then, a purple mist reached into the carriage and grabbed hold of his nostrils. It was the same scent he had smelled when he stepped off the train three days before—the delicious, irresistible temptation that was the carnival.
Somewhere in the distance, calliope music played like a funeral song. It lured him back outside, where a crowd of spellbound trick-or-treaters swarmed toward the dark heart of the carnival. They each wore a different mask and carried a blazing jack-o’-lantern in their hands.
Pretending to be under the same spell, Ren pulled on his skeleton mask, joined the Halloween masquerade, and followed the music, resisting the pull of each ride along the way.
When he arrived at the center of the grounds, he saw a giant performance stage in front of a dozen wooden church pews, where all the trick-or-treaters began to sit down. The stage was framed by massive black curtains that reached so high into the sky, Ren couldn’t see the top of them.
Most enchanting of all, twelve torches blazed around the crowd, each with a purple flame that was revealed to be the source of the alluring mist.
It was then that the dark showman took center stage.
“The Tick-Tock Man,” Ren whispered.
The magician’s coffin stood upright beside him, with his cane attached to the top of it like a lightning rod.
It looked like he was getting ready to perform a magic trick.
“Welcome to the Big Show! The Halloween Masquerade!” he called out to the crowd of trick-or-treaters, all holding their flickering jack-o’-lanterns. They sat silently, their glazed eyes full of buttery light, still under the enchantment of the mist. “For the past three nights, your bite has granted all your heart’s desires. But I know that some of you may regret giving up so many heartbeats in exchange for short-lived thrills. Buyer’s remorse, so to speak. But what if I told you there was another deal you could make here tonight—one that would void all the time you’ve already traded? What if I told you that the bite was just the beginning and that there is a way you would never have to stop trick-or-treating?”
Ren thought of Kip back at Old Manor and was relieved that he was locked safely in their room. He didn’t think his little brother would be able to resist the Tick-Tock Man’s grand offering.
“If you leave here tonight without taking this final step, you’ll remain in your aged forms, and death will come much sooner than it would have otherwise,” the magician said. “But if you join us here tonight, you’ll never have to know the stench of old age. You can remain young . . . forever.”
The gathering of trick-or-treaters listened attentively, their cravings growing, their souls dimming. They had ridden so many rides at the carnival that virtually all of them were now old and withered beneath their masks and costumes.
“Consider this the final altar call for your transformation hour,” the magician declared. “For those of you who desire eternal youth, I invite you to the stage to retrieve your soul-clock and feed it to the hub of the wheel. If you deny this gift of salvation, you will leave here tonight with far less than that with which you came. But if you take this last leap, you’ll gain everything. The choice is yours.”
Claiming the Identities of the Missing Children
Ren felt a shiver down his spine. According to what he was reading, everything that Mrs. Wellshire had told him was true.
After the carnival left town, people could finally see the kids as their aged selves. But no one recognized them, so they couldn’t go back home, Ren realized. And that’s what will happen again tomorrow morning if I don’t find a way to defeat the carnival.
Ren knew it was up to him to save Kip and all the infected kids in town.
He then noticed a file with a photo of a bald man with sunken eyes and countless faded freckles on his withered skin. The message typed beneath it read:
Name: John Doe
Claims to be missing local child Herbert Copeland
Estimated Age: 101
That’s the man who carved his name on the wall in Mrs. Wellshire’s room, Ren realized. He didn’t die just a few years ago—he died seventy-seven years ago! If I don’t do something, dozens of new John Does and Jane Does are going to be checking in to Old Manor tomorrow, claiming to be missing kids.
He knew there was only one person who could help him. One person who had been around for it all the last time the carnival had come to town. And still remembered.
When Ren arrived at Mrs. Wellshire’s room, a jack-o’-lantern flickered on her windowsill while she slept in her bed. Her back was to the door, so he quietly approached her.
“Mrs. Wellshire?”
She didn’t answer.
He touched her arm to see if she was okay, and it felt cold as ice.
Then, like a scary scene in a movie, the old woman turned over and hissed at him.
And that’s when Ren saw her vampire fangs, dripping with blood.
22
Checkmate
Mrs. Wellshire reached for Ren’s throat, and he stumbled backward onto her couch. His heart felt like it was about to explode in his chest.
She’s one of them! Ren thought.
And then he fainted.
Moments later, he woke up in the dark, his vision blurry.
He saw Mrs. Wellshire’s silhouette sitting up in her bed across from him.
Afraid, Ren jolted back, wondering if she had already bitten him.
Just as he was about to check his forearm, he saw her bloodied fangs sitting on the tray table beside her bed.
“Are you okay, boy? I didn’t mean to scare you so bad,” she said. “They were going around giving out Halloween props, and I took the fanged dentures. Thought it might be fun to give you a good fright tonight.”
“I thought you were a—a . . . ,” Ren started, unable to finish.
“There, there. I may be scary, but it’s only because I’m old,” she said with a laugh.
He wondered if she knew what the carnies really were. But he didn’t want to upset her.
“Are you going to dress up for the Haunted Manor like all the other residents?” Ren asked, sitting up on the couch.
“Ha! I spend every breath trying to stay out of the Land of the Dead and then your aunt decides to bring it here,” she joked. “Halloween is fun for kids, but for folks like me who are two steps away from the grave . . . it can be all too real.”
She pointed out the window to the foggy graveyard. Hundreds of tombstones were silhouetted against the stormy-green sky. The carnival lights glowed beyond it.
Mrs. Wellshire coughed into her hands.
“Can I get you anything?” Ren asked.
“Just pull up a chair and keep an old woman company. Do you play chess?”
“I’ve played with my dad a few times,” Ren said, and she pointed to the chessboard in the corner.
“My sister and I used to play all the time.”
Ren dragged a chair beside her bed and set up the chessboard on the food table. But all he could think about was what he had found down in the basement.
“Mrs. Wellshire, do you remember when all the old people were moved into the Manor after the carnival left town seventy-seven years ago?”
“Oh yes,” she replied, moving up one of her pawns. “There were endless rumors flying around town. And the missing kids—and the old people claiming to be the kids—it’s all we talked about at school.”
“Did you ever try to tell anyone about what happened to your sister?” Ren asked.
“I tried to tell a lot of people—my teachers, my neighbors—but no one believed me. Eventually, it seemed like everyone had forgotten her. I spent half my youth in the town museum, researching the past visits of the carnival. But I always ran into dead ends. It’s as if the carnival erased any trace of itself—and the kids it took—from the town’s memory.”
“So it’s true that grown-ups can’t see the kids’ actual ages until after the carnival leaves town?”
“If you’re talking about that young man in the hallway, I know he’s your little brother,” she said, pointing to the seventeen-year-old Kip who was walking down the hallway in his costume, dragging one gauze-covered leg behind him like a mummy. “Your aunt won’t see it until after the carnival leaves town. If there are any aged kids who are left behind this time. But any of us who have received a bite have eyes to see the darkness at any time.”
“So will others like him show up tomorrow morning after the carnival leaves?”
“Only the few souls who find the strength to walk away from the carnival after they’ve received the bite. I was one of them. And so far, you’ve been strong enough to resist the bite altogether. Maybe it’s because we were both thinking more about our siblings than ourselves. But even for the lucky ones who escape, their lives will never be the same. Whatever life they have left will always be haunted. Most have already given up too many heartbeats to fully be themselves again.”
Ren handed her the locket she had loaned to him. She took it into her hands and gazed upon the photograph.
“I should have kept fighting for my sister when I was your age. I shouldn’t have just given up. Maybe things would have turned out different.”
Ren thought of Kip and didn’t want to have the same regrets as Mrs. Wellshire.
He moved up one of his bishops on the chessboard. “I heard the Tick-Tock Man talking to a carnie last night. They said something about breaking the backward clock by taking the heart of the carnival beyond the boundary. I guess what I’m asking is . . . do you think the carnival can be destroyed? Like, for good?”
She thought for a moment, and Ren could tell she had considered the question before.
“I suppose if you found a way to stop feeding it, you could starve it for a while,” she replied. “If the kids stopped riding its rides, eating its food, coveting its thrills, then I suppose the carnival would eventually die. Or at least move on to some other place.”
Ren thought of the black cats roaming around the carnival grounds, then said, “Like a stray cat that stops getting scraps from one house and so moves on to another?”
“Exactly,” Mrs. Wellshire said. “But it won’t be that easy. It never is. I’m sure you wouldn’t be the first to try.”
“If I go back, I’m afraid I won’t be able to resist it anymore. It nearly brainwashed me last night. I wish I knew a way not just to starve it so that it will leave but to defeat it once and for all. Tonight. Forever. So that it can never steal another soul again.”
Mrs. Wellshire made her next move on the chessboard.
“Checkmate,” she said.
Ren looked down in surprise and realized he had missed a play.
Mrs. Wellshire smiled. “You know, my sister always used to say that you have to think two steps ahead of your opponent and not let them know your next move. Then you have to strike their heart as quickly as possible.”
Ren’s eyes grew wide.
The heart of the carnival, he thought.
“Every conscious thing has a heart,” Mrs. Wellshire continued, as if trying to give Ren a clue.
“So . . . if the carnival is alive, then where is its heart?” he asked.
Mrs. Wellshire looked out the window to the neon lights and big tops in the near distance. The black Ferris wheel with purple lights seemed to be smiling back at them as dozens of adult-size trick-or-treaters swarmed toward the carnival grounds.
“The Ferris wheel?” Ren said.
“Perhaps,” Mrs. Wellshire replied. “After all, everything is built around it, protecting it like a a fortress or a rib cage.”
Just then, the grandfather clock in the corner of her room rang nine times.
“You’d better hurry, boy,” Mrs. Wellshire said. “The Tick-Tock Man will collect the final payment at midnight. And all transactions will be final.”
23
Outsmarting the Wheel
Before he left Old Manor, Ren locked Kip inside their windowless room with enough food and water to last until he returned. Kip fought him like a rabid animal, but Ren fought harder. Then Ren hid the key so that there was no chance of Kip escaping, or of anyone letting him out. He even told Aunt Winnie he had decided to let Kip go trick-or-treating with him so she wouldn’t get worried and go looking for Kip.
When Ren stepped outside, lightning flashed, and a loud grumble of thunder followed a few moments later.
He hurried down the main road toward the carnival grounds, running past dozens of masked trick-or-treaters who were on their way to another night of thrills.
“Stay away from the carnival! Go back home!” Ren shouted at them.
But no one heeded his warning.
He overheard one girl dressed as a princess chatting away to her friend dressed like a robot, “It was so weird. My sister looks like she’s twenty now, but Dad still thinks she looks like she’s ten.”
Kids all over town must be experiencing the same thing, Ren thought. After tomorrow, either the kids who have been bitten will leave with the carnival and their loved ones will eventually forget about them—or the aged kids will look too old for anyone to recognize them.
It wasn’t until Ren arrived at the bat-shaped gates and peered out onto the midway that he realized that many of the trick-or-treaters were under some evil spell. Not only that, but they didn’t look like normal kids. Their costumes were kidlike, but the people beneath them were much older. Some looked like teenagers, others like middle-aged adults, and Ren even saw the withered skin of old people beneath several of the costumes.
These all must be the kids who were bitten, gave up heartbeats, and have aged at an astronomical rate, Ren thought.
While sneaking toward the Carriage of Souls, Ren passed by Zora’s lantern-lit tent. She was inside reading the fortunes of two new customers who were both wearing pirate costumes. His instincts told him to go on, but there was something he wanted to ask her.
As soon as the two customers left her tent, Ren snuck inside.
When Zora saw him, she stood from her chair.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“You knew he could hear us last night when you told me I could ask three questions. Why did you let him take me?” Ren asked.
“I was protecting you,” she replied.
“From what?”
“I warned you that he can hear everything if he wants to. If I had tried to help you, he would have killed us both,” she explained. “It was better for me to keep his confidence.”
Ren wasn’t sure he could trust Zora’s words.
“It doesn’t matter now,” he said. “I need your help.”
“With what?” she asked.
“I need to steal back my brother’s clock before it’s fed to the carnival tonight,” Ren said. “Can you tell me how to get into the Carriage of Souls without being caught?”
Zora shook her head. “Even if you were able to recover your brother’s soul-clock, you wouldn’t be able to get back the time that’s already been stolen from him. You might be able to save the heartbeats that remain, but if he chooses to feed his soul-clock to the carnival, there’s no turning back.”
“I made sure Kip won’t have a chance to choose,” Ren said.
“Don’t be so sure,” Zora warned. “The magician always finds a way to get what he wants. Besides, anything that belongs to the carnival that travels beyond its boundary will cease to exist. Including your brother’s soul-clock. You’d have to destroy the carnival first.”
“That’s exactly what I plan to do,” Ren said. “Once I can get close enough to the heart of the carnival.”
Zora’s eyes widened, as if she was surprised he knew about such a thing.
“The magician will never let you near it,” she said.
“I’ll find a way,” Ren replied. “I have one question, though. If I destroy the carnival’s heart, what will happen to you?”
Zora didn’t answer, but Ren sensed the truth in her eyes.
“Come help me,” he said. “I know that you regret giving your soul to this place. But there’s still time for you to make things right.”
Zora shook her head.
“Whatever good that was in me died a long time ago,” Zora said.
“But what you’re doing here—it’s not natural; it’s not right,” Ren replied. “The wheel of life is supposed to move forward, not backward. We all owe a death for a life. And to never pay what we owe is sort of like . . . stealing.”
“Or just outsmarting the wheel,” Zora replied. There was silence for a moment, then she continued, her emotions escalating. “You think you’re the first person who’s tried to convince me to turn against the carnival? What’s done is done. There’s no going back now. No changing sides.”
“But that’s not true. There are two sides to every coin, remember?” Ren said, pointing to the gold coin on her table. “There’s always time to change. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
He noticed Zora’s eyes were misty, and he sensed that there was a great battle taking place within her.
“Please leave now. I have a big night ahead,” she said, pushing Ren out of the entrance of her tent. She closed the flaps behind him and tied them off so that he couldn’t come back inside.
Disappointed, Ren turned and crept along the jack-o’-lantern–lit midway, staying in the shadows as best he could. The grinning pumpkins blazed with an eerie light, as if they knew some dark magic was approaching.
When Ren arrived at the Carriage of Souls, the door was locked, just as he suspected it would be.
A cold wind blew over him.
Unsure what to do next, he put his hands in his pockets to keep them warm, and his fingers touched something cold.
He pulled a mysterious relic from his pocket and peered down at it.
A skeleton key, he thought. It looks a hundred years old. Zora must have put it in my pocket when she pushed me out of her tent.
Grateful, Ren inserted the key into the lock and turned it. Then he pushed open the door and cautiously stepped inside. He looked around for Kip’s soul-clock and hoped to save as many others as he could.
But when the moonlight spilled into the carriage, Ren saw that all the clocks were gone.
24
Feast of Souls
Dread rushed over Ren.
How can I save Kip if I can’t find his clock? he wondered in desperation, noticing that the coffin was missing too. I can’t give up. I have to find a way.
Just then, a purple mist reached into the carriage and grabbed hold of his nostrils. It was the same scent he had smelled when he stepped off the train three days before—the delicious, irresistible temptation that was the carnival.
Somewhere in the distance, calliope music played like a funeral song. It lured him back outside, where a crowd of spellbound trick-or-treaters swarmed toward the dark heart of the carnival. They each wore a different mask and carried a blazing jack-o’-lantern in their hands.
Pretending to be under the same spell, Ren pulled on his skeleton mask, joined the Halloween masquerade, and followed the music, resisting the pull of each ride along the way.
When he arrived at the center of the grounds, he saw a giant performance stage in front of a dozen wooden church pews, where all the trick-or-treaters began to sit down. The stage was framed by massive black curtains that reached so high into the sky, Ren couldn’t see the top of them.
Most enchanting of all, twelve torches blazed around the crowd, each with a purple flame that was revealed to be the source of the alluring mist.
It was then that the dark showman took center stage.
“The Tick-Tock Man,” Ren whispered.
The magician’s coffin stood upright beside him, with his cane attached to the top of it like a lightning rod.
It looked like he was getting ready to perform a magic trick.
“Welcome to the Big Show! The Halloween Masquerade!” he called out to the crowd of trick-or-treaters, all holding their flickering jack-o’-lanterns. They sat silently, their glazed eyes full of buttery light, still under the enchantment of the mist. “For the past three nights, your bite has granted all your heart’s desires. But I know that some of you may regret giving up so many heartbeats in exchange for short-lived thrills. Buyer’s remorse, so to speak. But what if I told you there was another deal you could make here tonight—one that would void all the time you’ve already traded? What if I told you that the bite was just the beginning and that there is a way you would never have to stop trick-or-treating?”
Ren thought of Kip back at Old Manor and was relieved that he was locked safely in their room. He didn’t think his little brother would be able to resist the Tick-Tock Man’s grand offering.
“If you leave here tonight without taking this final step, you’ll remain in your aged forms, and death will come much sooner than it would have otherwise,” the magician said. “But if you join us here tonight, you’ll never have to know the stench of old age. You can remain young . . . forever.”
The gathering of trick-or-treaters listened attentively, their cravings growing, their souls dimming. They had ridden so many rides at the carnival that virtually all of them were now old and withered beneath their masks and costumes.
“Consider this the final altar call for your transformation hour,” the magician declared. “For those of you who desire eternal youth, I invite you to the stage to retrieve your soul-clock and feed it to the hub of the wheel. If you deny this gift of salvation, you will leave here tonight with far less than that with which you came. But if you take this last leap, you’ll gain everything. The choice is yours.”
