by Jon Jacks
They’re not even aware of the darkness. It doesn’t exist for them, except as a small black space untouched by the bright glare of the overhead lights.
‘He’s gone, he gone!’ Kevarn hisses. ‘It’s too big for you to find him; ten, maybe even twenty times the size of our carnival!’
The man who had first seen us together within the Glass Labyrinth is also there, looming over me. I’m lying on the ground, where my struggles with Kevarn have brought me.
The man recognises me.
‘Where’d he go?’ he demands to know. ‘I saw you: you were with him!’
‘I don’t know,’ I reply blankly. ‘I honestly don’t know!’
*
I continued to stare off into the darkness for quite a while, hoping that Lorn might somehow return.
I couldn’t make much out amongst the shadows, that sheer blackness, however. It was even harder to see than normal, through my tears.
Kevarn held me, reassuring me that Lorn knew what he was doing. If anyone knew how to survive the Carnival Diabolus, it was Lorn.
His reassurances didn’t really help.
No carnie who had stepped through into the darkness had ever been seen again.
Those of the crowd, the townies who relished what the truly darker side of the carnival offered, who ended up being introduced to the Carnival Diabolus – they often returned.
Yet they weren’t the same people who had stepped through into the darkness.
They appeared, at best, dazed. Frequently, a kinder description of their new personality was that they were a little brain addled.
Some were now out and out freaks. Elongated to ridiculous heights, as slender as if stretched on a medieval torture rack. Shortened, as if their limbs had been hacked at by a mad surgeon. Grotesques, a combination of man and beast, as if created by the same minds who had once carved statues on ancient cathedrals.
Their only worldly role now could be as acts within our carnival.
No one else would accept them. Would recognise them.
A few, we were sure, came back as the tame, semi-trained animals that, found wandering out of the darkness, we also ended up including within our acts.
Monkeys. Donkeys. Lizards. Even elephants.
Along with squealing piglets and bleating lambs we gave away as prizes on our booths.
Were these the carnies who had returned?
And if so, how much of their original life did they recall behind those strangely anguished eyes?
*
Chapter 9
The ambulance crew remained at the carnival a lot longer than anyone expected.
Still searching for Lorn.
Still insisting that we were hiding him somewhere.
‘Trash!’
‘Liars!
‘Thieves!’
They mumbled irately as they continued to comb what they believed was every inch of the carnival.
‘Carnie tramps: even when you try and help them, they spit in your face!’
From their frustrated grumbles, I soon gathered that Lorn had been right when he’d said they were under orders to detect and treat any carnie found with a twisted back.
Just how many carnie have twisted backs? And why are the townies so intent on treating them, when they’re quite prepared to ignore any other ailment we suffer?
Wings!
Angel wings!
A twisted back has to be a sign that our beliefs are right: we are descended from angels!
And that’s why the townies want to operate on anyone displaying these signs of whom we once were!
‘Lorn said you’d given him the water.’
Kevarn is still with me; still anxious that I might decide to try and follow Lorn by stepping into the darkness of the Carnival Diabolus. He looks a little ashamed, like he interprets my question as an accusation.
‘I mean,’ I say, wishing to clarify why I’d brought this up, ‘that it wasn’t originally intended for me, was it?’
He nods.
‘Lucky for you,’ he says with a smile, ‘he only took a sip.’
‘Why only a sip?’
‘You know Lorn; he, well – he was becoming angrier with every passing day, wasn’t he?’
I nod.
‘Yeah; I know Lorn.’
Lorn’s beliefs were pretty well known.
It was the Americarnie’s own ridiculous beliefs that alienated us from everyone else: Lorn would say that pretty regularly, if not – thankfully – every passing day.
Why did we still adhere to such nonsense? Why couldn’t we just accept that there wasn’t anything special about us after all?
We’re passing the boat swings, the hoopla stall. Still busy, though even the carnival has to close at some point.
The Carnival Diabolus, though? Well, that never seems to sleep.
And those people who still want to party, to get drunk, to enjoy life to the full; well, they might just end up wandering in there. Discovering it by accident. If they’re ready.
‘How did you get the water?’
Kevarn had never answered when I’d asked that question previously, had he?
‘And what did you pay for it?’
He hesitates, like he’s hoping to come up with some other way of postponing answering.
‘Your mom,’ he says, blurting it out so sharply it almost seems to be by mistake. ‘She obtained the water! And she paid for it!’
‘How? How’d she pay for it?’
‘She promised to stay forever at the Carnival Diabolus!’
*
Chapter 10
Amongst the carnie, there were many rumours about the Carnival Diabolus.
The most resilient was that it was the domain of the fallen angels.
That, after all, would make sense, if the carnie themselves were really descended from angels.
They had rebelled against God. And so they had been exiled to darkness.
To the Carnival Diabolus.
So, does that make Mom a fallen angel?
She hadn’t rebelled against God.
Not that I was aware of, least ways.
Kevarn couldn’t miss the anguish, the disbelief, written across my pained expression.
‘She knew you had a thing for Lorn,’ he begins to quickly explain. ‘But he’d never ever return your love, would he? Not as long as he felt like he was just a freak?’
‘What? But how could she…how could she think she had to give up her life – to leave me! – just for a stupid bottle of water?’
‘Water that’s just cured your broken back, remember? She thought it would work for Lorn: that if he was cured, he’d be able to look after you far better than she ever could.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me she was planning this? Why didn’t she tell me?’
‘She knew you’d try and stop her, talk her out of it. And, just as with Lorn, she stepped over into the darkness before I could stop her.’
I notice for the first time that Kevarn no longer has the bottle of water with him.
‘How did you get the bottle of water?’
Damn! I’ve asked the question so abruptly, I haven’t worded it right.
‘I mean, yes, I know now that Mom got the bottle: but what I mean is – how did she get it to you?’
For Kevarn to have retrieved the bottle from Mom, there must be some other link between our carnival and the Carnival Diabolus. Could it be used to rescue Lorn?
‘She told me she’d leave it somewhere where I couldn’t miss it.’
‘Which was?’
‘Amongst my regular bottles of ElixiAir, of course. I knew that there was something different about it just about straight away; it seemed to glow a little. And when I touched it, there was a sort of vibration, running through my hand and into the rest of my body. Like the bottle was sort of dancing in my hand.’
‘So…so there are other doorways to the Carnival Diabolus? Other than just than by entering through the darkness?’
Kevarn shrugged.
‘Possibly. Maybe, though, it just works one way?’
I frowned disappointedly.
Yeah, that may well be right.
‘What did you do with it? The rest of the medicine?’
‘When you left, after Master Elias had told everyone about the ElixiAir, a few of the crowd sort of shamefully made their way back. I could see in the hollowness of their eyes that, although they didn’t really believe it had cured your broken back, they wanted to believe; like they were desperate for a cure for either their or a relative’s ailment. I couldn’t send them away with the usual ElixiAir–’
He grimaces, like such a thought would be totally immoral – even though he’s sold enough of his useless ElixiAir in the past to cure an entire state of every affliction, if it actually worked.
– ‘so, I mixed in what little I had left of the real ElixiAir into the fake stuff.’
He shrugs, like he’s not sure what the result will be.
‘If it works, even in its diluted form, great. If it doesn’t; well, it’s no different from if they’d just bought my regular medicine, is it?’
We’d been walking, it seemed, reasonably aimlessly.
Yet now we stop.
Stop by the darkness. The very section of darkness I had watched Lorn vanish into.
But no matter how hard I stare into it, I see nothing but darkness.
*
Chapter 11
The angels that stand around me are mournful, even, in many cases, lopsided.
Some are laid flat amongst the grass. Many have been partially smashed, or have simply been left to become overgrown by brambles and wild roses.
They weep. They pray. They raise their heads, their eyes, pleadingly to heaven.
Pictures of angels are no longer allowed, of course. Most of the statues featuring them have also been destroyed.
The only places where you can still find renditions of these gorgeous creatures are forgotten cemeteries. Ones so old and derelict no one can be bothered clearing them of anything blasphemous.
Whenever we arrive in a new town, I always go out looking for any such Necropolis. Hoping that, amongst its desertion, I can find these forlorn, lonely beacons of hope.
There’s no longer anyone around to pray for the wellbeing of those lying in the ground beneath these stone guardians. They, too, have now passed on. They, too, probably lie forgotten somewhere else in the ground, similarly no longer mourned.
An angel heading one of the graves is particularly beautiful; a child, a girl, holding a poesy of flowers. Her wings partly furled against her back.
The one she guards over is also a child, a girl; ‘Much Missed: Never Forgotten.’
Five years old.
Too, too young for anyone to leave this earth.
I reach out to touch the angel’s head, to stroke her hair of carved stone.
Hair of reddish blonde. Blue eyes.
She enjoyed playing with toy horses, a stable of multi-coloured foals and mares; with ridiculously long manes and tails.
She wished she had a real pony, naturally. Yet her parents were always arguing, each threatening to leave the other–
Wait!
I wrench my hand back, as if suddenly burnt by the stone.
How could I possible know all this?
This has never happened before!
Never, ever, have I sensed the life, the presence, of the child who once inhabited whatever little remains of the body interred below.
The stone angel shifts a little, as if tired of having to forever take up this cramped kneeling position.
Her head raises slightly.
She smiles at me.
Her wings unfurl, shiver, as if they needed a stretch after being dormant far too long.
Then, with the very slightest of leaps from her plinth, the little angel takes wing – and soars up and up into the air.
*
Chapter 12
Behind me there’s a gasp, a moan.
I whirl around, regretting having to take my eyes off the gloriously soaring angel. But I have no choice; I’ve been seen, obviously!
It’s a man and woman, possibly in their late twenties. Their faces are as brightly lit with joy and surprise as the little angel’s had been.
I have to run.
Spinning around on my heels, I sprint across the grassy mounds, the fallen stones.
‘No no, please; we don’t mean you any harm!’
The man cries out urgently behind me. I can tell by the way his voice quavers, the way it’s getting louder, that he’s chasing after me.
‘We saw you…saw you fall! Your miracle!’
The woman’s voice is more strained. It’s hard for her to shout while running. It also sounds like she could be weeping.
I don’t stop.
I leap over fallen slabs. Clumps of overgrown grass. The tangled roots of the trees that have taken over the cemetery.
What are these people doing here, in a cemetery?
It’s a dangerous place for them to be.
It’s not allowed. Anything to do with the old religion is blasphemous.
‘Please, please – we followed you!’
The woman’s pleading cry answers my question.
Even so; why have they risked so much to come here, to follow me?
I stop, turn around.
They ease off their running. Smile at me gratefully.
‘Thank you, thank you!’ the woman gasps.
She falls to her knees by my feet.
And kisses my hand again and again.
*
‘No no; please!’
I try and pull my hand free of the woman’s desperately tight grip on it.
I’m embarrassed by this, this…this adoration!
‘It was just a fall, that’s all! I fell safely – onto a pile of soft clothes!’
‘We’ve heard of the miracles of the carnival – and we know that you are responsible for these miracles!’
The man has now also fallen onto his knees before me. The woman won’t let go of my hand. She’s still kissing it, almost hungrily.
‘Miracles?’
The man regards my puzzled expression with surprise.
‘The miraculous medicine you created! It has led to other miracles in the town!’
‘Our own child has recovered! He’ll live, we’re sure. Thanks to you!’
The woman kisses my hand again, like she never wants to let it go, never wants to stop her kissing.
‘The ElixiAir? I didn’t create it! It cured me when– I mean…’
I shouldn’t have used the word cure.
‘We saw the man add the water you had touched with your lips to his own medicines!’
They mean Kevarn, obviously. He said he’d mixed the Carnival Diabolus waters with his own bottles of ElixiAir.
I would have thought the miraculous effects would have been too diluted, but it seems not.
‘The medicines have never worked before, not from any carnival we have bought them from. But this one – the one created by you – did!’
‘Are…you an angel?’
‘We saw you give life to the little angel!’
‘No, no; please! I’m not an angel!’
I nervously glance about me. If anyone hears this discussion, nothing else we say will spare us from the very worst punishment.
‘We’ve heard the rumours, the legends – that your people are descended from the angels!’
‘No, no, it’s not true!’ I say, suddenly finding myself denying everything I had ever believed in, everything Mom had ever taught me.
*
Chapter 13
Thousands of years ago, the story goes, two men stepped out of the desert to approach an ancient city.
Originally, the Testament informs us, there had been three of them.
They had visited Abraham in his tent. Recognising them for whom they really were, Abraham had entertained them graciously.
Within the city, another man, Lot, also recognises the men for whom they really are.
He too, entertains them graciously.
Despite being spiritual beings, we must presume the angels have taken a liking to this unique experience of being men. For once again, they accept the offered hospitality; the food, the wine, the pleasure of company.
Outside Lot’s house, an angry crowd gathers, demanding that these ‘men’ are brought out to them. Lot tries to appease them, even by offering to them his own, untouched daughters in the men’s place.
Thankfully for us all, the two men strike the angry crowd blind, sparing Lot’s daughters.
Thankfully, too, these men who are angels temporarily stay their hand from further destruction.
Obviously, they are enjoying all these new, worldly experiences offered by Lot.
They wait until morning until they destroy Sodom and the other cities lying nearby.
They spare only Lot and his daughters; for even his poor wife is transformed into a pillar of salt when she foolishly looks back towards the burning cities.
It’s not long after all this that Lot’s two daughters give birth to children – with Lot, their own father, as the children’s father.
Could that be true?
This was the man deemed worth saving?
A man who at first offers his daughters to a crowd of angry men? And then, later, impregnates them himself?
If this was a good man of Sodom, what on earth must all the others have been like?
Of course, we’re told that Lot was blameless. That his daughters were the ones at fault.
They had deliberately given him wine, we’re told. Until he was too drunk to realise what was happening.
So drunk, he didn’t realise he was sleeping with one of his daughters?
And not just on one night, but on the following night too?
That must have been some wine!
Naturally, there is more to this tale than we're being told.
For we're not allowed to know of, let alone understand, our true history.
What do we learn elsewhere in the Testament, but that angels have willingly slept with the women of men? Their offspring, the Nephilim (or ‘the fallen ones’), were killed in the Great Deluge.
Now these two angels had also visited Earth.
They had first spent time with Abraham, who had entertained them graciously. Then they had spent even more time with Lot, who in his turn had entertained them.
