Carnival of Bones (Carnival of Bones Duet Book 1)

by Penn Cassidy

  I could feel the rejection of his offer simmering inside me, swirling around amongst the fury. Stay here for a whole month? I couldn’t possibly do that. I had… I had…

  What did I have to get back to? A life? Friends? A fiancé? Was Bael right?

  “You do this,” Theodore said, sticking out his ring-clad hand as if to shake mine, “and I’ll get you your answers. That’s a promise.”

  Time was all out of order, and the sky remained dark and speckled with stars. I tried to put it out of my mind, chalking it up to the fact that the crossroads was supposedly located in between life and the afterlife. But still, going days without seeing the sun was dizzying.

  I’d agreed to Theodore’s proposition. I’d stay here for one month and not a day more, because even if he walked me to the front door of my apartment in the city right now, it still wouldn’t answer any of my burning questions. I needed to get to the bottom of what was happening to me more than I needed to get back to Austin.

  So I stayed put for a few days while a wagon of my own was being put together, happily bunking with Elly, who, thankfully, didn't mind my company. Bael had said Lafayette would fetch me when it was ready.

  He and Theodore were supposed to be investigating my predicament in the meantime. He told me to enjoy my time here and get to know the people who called it home.

  A part of me wanted to demand specifics on what exactly ‘investigating’ would entail and why someone like Theodore had to investigate anything. After all, he apparently knew everything that went on in his carnival. There was still a lot they weren’t telling me. There was so much about this place I needed to know.

  By the fourth day with no word from either of them, I decided to do some of my own investigating.

  Elly sat cross-legged on top of her bed, playing a game of cards with a man named Tony.

  Tony was sharply dressed in a tweed suit with red suspenders, a bowtie, and a pageboy hat. He was lanky and nearly seven feet tall, with comically large hands and feet and an impeccably waxed and shaped handlebar mustache. Apparently, he was a juggler and one of Elly’s good friends.

  They played poker on her bed, passing a pewter flask back and forth every few minutes. Cigar smoke filled the room, and an old phonograph in the corner played scratchy jazz music.

  Tony was entertaining to say the least, and he never seemed to stop talking. His voice was deep enough to be a radio personality, and his smiles were infectious. It was almost enough to pull me out of my funk for a while.

  “Don’t let her sneaky smiles fool ya, girlie. She hasn’t beaten me in a game of poker in twenty years,” Tony said as Elly folded yet again.

  He shot me a wink as he pulled his winnings to himself. They weren’t even playing for money, just random shiny objects and trinkets. There were old buttons in the pile, mixed with hairpins, necklaces, and lockets. Things you’d find in a bin at an antique store.

  Twenty years, he’d said. Elly didn’t look a day over twenty-five and Tony had to be thirty at the most, but I suppose the usual rules didn’t exactly apply here.

  “Can I ask you guys something?”

  I watched them from my perch on the chaise lounge. Three mugs of tea and four naps later, I was getting restless and irritable.

  Tony and Elly paused their next game and waited for me to spit it out. Neither of them were the subtle, gentle type. They reminded me of old, crass bikers in a dive bar with their gossip and foul language. But they were much prettier to look at, of course. It was actually very charming.

  “How long have you lived here at the carnival?” I gestured vaguely at the inside of her wagon.

  The two of them glanced at each other, and Elly set her cards down in a neat pile before pivoting to face me fully. She wore a long, dusty rose colored silk robe today instead of her striped ensemble. Her buzzed head was wrapped in a matching silk scarf, and she held a cigar lazily between her lips.

  “Oh, girl, I lost count back in the twenties,” she said with a small laugh. “But Tony here was the freshest meat on the block. Until you got here.”

  My brows rose as I looked Tony over. He rolled his green eyes at Elly, then said, “It was nineteen thirty-seven when I kicked the bucket.”

  He lifted the hat from his head, pointing to his chocolate brown hair.

  “Was walkin’ to work one morning, when WHAM!” He smacked his palm against his head. “A grand piano fell from a window of the tallest building in New York and squashed me like a pill bug.”

  “Holy shit, Tony!” My stomach rolled, just imagining the carnage.

  He waved me away, placing his hat back in his head. “Didn’t feel a thing. Next thing I know, I’m knee-deep in a swamp, fightin’ for my life as a gator tried to turn me into a midnight snack.” He shook his head at the memory. “Wrestled that beast until I was too tired to keep on fightin’.”

  And that was back in the thirties… Shit, Tony still looked like a young man in the prime of his life. But I could see him in that era easily, and I could hear the New York in his accent.

  “So how come you’re not like the grey faces?” I asked. “Why didn’t you move on?”

  I wondered what type of man he was in life and where he’d been destined to end up. Was that even how all of this worked?

  His smile thinned a little, and his green eyes dulled as he dipped his head, grabbing the back of his neck and rubbing the muscles.

  “Well ya see, I didn’t exactly die right away. It was a mess of course, but apparently, for a few minutes there…”

  I didn’t even want to imagine it. What he was describing was horrific.

  “Anywho…” he said. “Found this place and was given a choice. I could choose the mirrors and move onto what came next, or I could stay at the crossroads forever.”

  I assumed he was referring to Theodore or Bael. One of them had given him the option.

  “What made you choose to stay?”

  He thought for a moment, taking a small swig from his flask. Then his mustache twitched as a smile lit his eyes again.

  “What can I say? This world just wasn’t ready to say goodbye to ole Tony.”

  It was a nonanswer, but I was fine with that. Some things were personal.

  I looked at Elly. “And you? Did you have a choice?”

  Her face remained stony as she said solemnly, “It was less of a choice and more of the lesser of two evils.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  She huffed a laugh. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Mori. It was a long time ago, and I’ve had time to cope. My death wasn’t pretty. Cancer’s a real motherfucker like that.”

  Her eyes flicked up and met mine, shining with the picture of health. Now that she was dead, anyways.

  “I lived my short life for pleasure and fun. Supid as it was, I thought I was invincible. There are plenty of regrets I knew I’d have to face in that mirror, so I opted to stave it off a while. Been here ever since.”

  After that, she lapsed into silence, lighting up a cigarette.

  Damn…maybe I shouldn’t have asked.

  “It’s never daylight here,” I said a few hours later after Tony had left.

  Elly was in front of her vanity mirror again, painting makeup on her face, though it was much less severe than the last time. She’d said she was taking me somewhere to get my mind off of things but had yet to tell me where or how.

  “Time doesn’t really exist at the crossroads. I don’t think I’ve seen a sunrise in…well, I’ve lost count of the years.”

  Then how the hell was I supposed to know when a month had passed? I made a mental note to ask Bael the next time he decided to grace me with his presence.

  “Don’t you miss it though? I can’t imagine being trapped here for eternity.”

  Never able to leave or meet anyone new. Never able to feel the sunlight on my skin. I shuddered at the thought.

  She shrugged. “I have no regrets as far as that goes. The outside world never held anything for me but
pain and misery.”

  “It’s changed a lot since…whenever you died, you know.”

  I wasn’t sure if I even believed that. Had it changed? People still hated each other. They were greedy, sneaky, mean, and miserable, but there was good out there too.

  “I doubt that.” Elly gave me a dubious smile in the reflection of her mirror. “Fashions, music, and decades might change, but when you get down to the bare bones of it all, humans are always going to be the same. No matter how you dress them up, they’re still just as selfish as they’ve always been—monsters, really, and I want no part in it. Sometimes, I think my sickness did me a favor.”

  She spritzed on some kind of perfume and fanned herself before swirling around in her seat to face me.

  “Take it from me, honey, this place ain’t so bad once you accept it. Just wait until you see it in its real glory, then tell me you prefer the real world.”

  Something awful must have happened to Elly when she was alive to have made her this jaded. I couldn’t really blame her for it though. I wasn’t far behind her in those sentiments.

  I used to love my life, my culture, and my friends, too. My dad had been my best friend before he died, and my grandmother after that. I had everything I ever wanted in the world, until it was snatched away from me in the matter of a moment.

  I thought I’d found a love that would last forever and a child I could raise the same way I was raised—surrounded with love, warmth, and security. Maybe life back in the real world wasn’t so great after all. Maybe I was trying to get back to an idea of a life that just didn’t exist for me anymore. I hadn’t really been living. Not with Austin breathing down my neck one moment and squeezing it the next.

  “Come sit,” Elly said, gesturing toward the vanity chair that she now stood behind.

  I eyed it like it was a viper coiled to attack.

  She snorted. “Good grief, girl, sit your pretty ass in this chair and let me fix your face. Trust me, you’re gonna thank me later.”

  Reluctantly, I plopped my pretty ass in the chair while she uncorked some bottles and uncapped some small jars.

  “What’s wrong with my face?”

  I turned this way and that in the mirror. Sure, I looked rough and maybe I had a few bags under my eyes, but after crawling out of the literal swamps, I definitely could have looked worse. She ignored me.

  “Where are we going anyway?” I asked skeptically. “And if you say the fun house, I’m seriously leaving. That place creeps me the hell out.”

  That place was quickly becoming nightmare fuel. I blamed Lafayette.

  Elly laughed. “That place creeps everyone out, you’re not special. Just be patient and let me fix you up. I promise you’ll have a good time.”

  “I’m trusting you,” I grumbled, relaxing in the chair. “I hope I don’t live to regret those words.”

  “Honored as I may be, you really shouldn’t trust anyone but yourself around these parts.”

  I conceded a nod and supposed she was right to warn me.

  She didn’t do a whole lot in the way of makeup, to my relief,—just a bit of rouge on the cheeks, some shadow to make my eyes pop, and a bit of rosy lipstick. Luckily, I had enough freckles to cover up the bags under my eyes.

  Somehow, she’d made me look like less of a corpse in a matter of minutes. My hair was still another story entirely, sticking up in all directions in wild waves, but Elly said she liked the look and refused to help me tame it.

  She stuck me in yet another skimpy dress. It was made of thin, midnight blue silky material, and it fell to just below mid-thigh with a long slit up the right side. It was more like a negligee than a dress to be honest. I was still barefoot, but it didn’t seem to register with Elly and I wasn’t about to mention it.

  She looked me up and down, smiling at a job well done. “Girl, you look like a steak about to walk into a cage of starving lions.”

  My stomach bottomed out. “Thanks, that's super reassuring.”

  I did look good though, I had to at least admit that. It was the first time I’d felt normal in who knew how many days.

  We left her wagon an hour or so later, stepping into the crisp night to the sound of hundreds of crickets. The carnival music was perpetually playing, and in the distance, I could see plenty of grey faces lined up for rides. They shuffled along like zombies, one after another, as carneys played their parts.

  I was careful to skirt around the grey faces, trying not to look any of them directly in the eye. All I could picture were their stricken faces as they’d gone into the middle mirror in the fun house. I could still hear that first one, her screams of terror. They rattled around in my head, and I had a feeling I’d never be able to forget that moment.

  The massive tent in the center of the carnival loomed ahead. It was red with white stripes…or white with red stripes…and had a flag sticking out of the summit. The entrance was closed off with a black curtain, and there were no grey faces anywhere near it, thank god. We headed for the tent, and it was a struggle to keep up with Elly’s fast pace.

  Instead of going through the front entrance, Elly veered around to the side of the tent, taking us past a grouping of wagons lined with steel bars. Some of them rocked gently, the sounds of rumbling, purring, or little yips coming from inside them. Peering closer through the shadows, multiple pairs of reflective eyes stared back at me.

  With a hiss, a leopard swiped at me through the steel bars and I jerked back, stumbling out of its reach. The creature’s eyes were wide and glowed in the darkness, and its fangs were larger than my finger. There were several other big cats in the cage with her, and they prowled back and forth, eyeing me warily.

  Elly waited for me patiently near another entrance on the side of the tent that I hadn’t known was there. But I took my time as I moved onto the next cage, spying a sleeping male lion lounging lazily on its side.

  The next one held a tiger, and then a jaguar, and even a few hyenas. There were twelve big cats total, and they were as fierce as they were beautiful. Luckily, the wagons were massive, so there was plenty of room for them to spread out, but I still didn’t like seeing animals in cages. It just seemed wrong.

  “Look a little closer,” came a voice from over my shoulder.

  It wasn’t Elly. To my left stood a tall figure shrouded in shadows, his hand gripping the reflective surface of a cane, rings twinkling in the moonlight.

  Theodore stepped closer, and he nodded to Elly. My eyes bounced between them, and Elly seemed to straighten slightly, her shoulders going rigid. But she didn’t necessarily look afraid of him. Just cautious. Knowing who he was, I didn’t blame her.

  “I’ll see you inside,” she said to me with a thin, nervous smile.

  All I could do was nod. She disappeared through the dark curtain, leaving me alone with Met Kalfou himself. This time, there was no Bael here as a buffer between us.

  Theodore looked gorgeous tonight. There was no other way to say it. His silver eyes were rimmed in equally silvery liner, much the same as Bael liked to wear his. It made him look a touch feline and a lot predatory.

  He wore no shirt, just a pair of black slacks with suspenders, and he was barefoot. Adorned in so many necklaces and rings that I couldn’t even count them, he was terrifying—beautiful, but terrifying.

  “It’s been almost five days,” I said accusingly, feeling braver than I should. “Where have you been?”

  I made sure to keep one eye on the cage to my left, staying out of reach of claws and teeth. I wanted answers, and I wanted the help he’d promised me. I was indulging in this carnival as much as I could bring myself to right now, but I still wasn’t steady on my feet yet.

  I'd spent most of those five days in Elly's wagon, not quite ready to join the denizens.

  “Miss me, did you?” he asked with a wide smile that took me by surprise.

  With canines that were sharper than they should have been, his lips were all too inviting. I felt like I could have stared at him for hours.
<
br />   “You said you were going to help me and then you just disappeared.”

  “I always keep my word, Moria,” he said. Theodore pivoted and faced the caged cats. “How do you like my beasties?”

  He approached the bars with a casual ease, reaching out a hand as a panther walked up. I held my breath as its reflective eyes glanced my way. But then it did the unthinkable and licked Theodore’s fingers before a rattling purr filled the space between us. After petting the cat, he stepped back again, joining me at my side.

  “It’s not right to keep them locked up like that,” I blurted out before I could tell myself to shut the hell up for once.

  His lips quirked up, amused.

  “Look closer then,” was all he said.

  “Yeah, no thanks. I’d like to keep my face attached to my skull.”

  I eyed the panther who’d started pacing the cage, looking like it wanted to have me as a midnight snack.

  “They won't hurt you while I’m here,” he said. “Just don’t go poking your nose into dark cages on your own, unless you want to lose an eye.”

  “They listen to you?” I asked. I couldn't help myself. I was curious, damnit. Damn this place for being so beautiful, so enticing.

  “Everyone listens to me.”

  “Right,” I said, laughing. “I forgot.”

  But I did take a closer look. Still at a safe distance, I managed to angle myself in just the right way that the moon played across the wagon, illuminating the black panther. It stared back at me, as still as a statue. When the shadows shifted, I sucked in a breath as its face transformed.

  Where dark, silky fur once glinted, in its place was a grotesque skull, like the one I’d seen on Theodore. At first, I’d thought it was a trick of the light or a clever application of stage makeup, but this was something else. This was something unnatural.

  The light shifted again, running along the length of its body. The moon illuminated a long spine, curved ribs, and a boney tail before cloud cover moved between them.