Hollow City

Even in my new, period-appropriate clothes, I felt transparently out of place. Blending in was as much about performance as about costume, I realized, and my friends and I carried ourselves with none of the slump-shouldered, shifty-eyed attitude that these people did. In the future, if I wanted to disguise myself as effectively as the wights, I’d have to sharpen my acting skills.

The carnival grew louder as we went, and the smells stronger—overcooked meats, roasting nuts, horse manure, human manure, and the smoke from coal fires all mixing together into something so sickly sweet that it thickened the very air. Finally, we reached a wide square where the carnival was in full, rollicking swing, packed with masses of people and brightly colored tents and more activity than my eyes could take in at once. The whole scene was an assault on my senses. There were acrobats and ropedancers and knife-throwers and fire-eaters and street performers of every type. A quack doctor pitched patent medicines from the back of a wagon: “A rare cordial to fortify the innards against infective parasites, unwholesome damps, and malignant effluvia!” Competing for attention on an adjacent stage was a loudmouthed showman in coattails and a large, prehistoric-looking creature whose gray skin hung from its frame in cascading wrinkles. It took me ten full seconds, as we threaded the crowd past the stage, to recognize it as a bear. It had been shaved and tied to a chair and made to wear a woman’s dress, and as its eyes bulged in its head, the showman grinned and pretended to serve it tea, shouting, “Ladies and gentlemen! Presenting the most beautiful lady in all of Wales!”—which earned him a big laugh from the crowd. I half hoped it would break its chains and eat him, right there in front of everyone.

To combat the dizzying effect of all this dreamlike madness, I reached into my pocket to palm the smooth glass of my phone, eyes closed for a moment, and whispered to myself, “I am a time traveler. This is real. I, Jacob Portman, am traveling in time.”

This was astonishing enough. More astonishing, perhaps, was the fact that time travel hadn’t broken my brain; that by some miracle, I had not yet devolved into a gibbering crazy person ranting on a street corner. The human psyche was much more flexible than I’d imagined, capable of expanding to contain all sorts of contradictions and seeming impossibilities. Lucky for me.

“Olive!” Bronwyn shouted. “Get away from there!” I looked up to see her yank Olive away from a clown who had bent down to talk to her. “I’ve told you time and again, never talk to normals!”

Our group was large enough that keeping it together could be a challenge, especially in a place like this, full of distractions tailor-made to fascinate children. Bronwyn acted as den mother, rounding us up every time one of us strayed to get a closer look at a stall of brightly colored pinwheels or steaming boiled candy. Olive was the most easily distractible, and often seemed to forget that we were in serious danger. It was only possible to keep so many kids in line because they were not actually kids—because there was some older nature inside them, warring against and balancing their childish impulses. With actual children, I’m sure it would’ve been hopeless.

For a while we wandered aimlessly, looking for anyone who resembled Miss Wren, or anywhere it seemed peculiars were likely to hide. But everything here seemed peculiar—this entire loop, with all its chaotic strangeness, was perfect camouflage for peculiars. And yet, even here, people noticed us, their heads turning subtly as we passed. I started to get paranoid. How many of the people around us were spies for the wights—or wights themselves? I was especially wary of the clown, the one Bronwyn had pulled Olive away from. He kept turning up. We must’ve passed him five times in as many minutes: loitering at the mouth of an alley, staring down from a window, watching us from a tented photo booth, his mussed hair and horrific makeup clashing bizarrely with a backdrop painting of bucolic countryside. He seemed to be everywhere at once.

“It’s not good being out in the open like this,” I said to Emma.

“We can’t just circle around forever. People are noticing us. Clowns.”

“Clowns?” she said. “Anyway, I agree with you—but it’s difficult to know where to start in all this madness.”

“We should start at what is always the most peculiar part of any carnival,” said Enoch, butting between us. “The sideshow.” He pointed at a tall, gaudy facade at the edge of the square. “Sideshows and peculiars go together like milk and cookies. Or hollows and wights.”

“Usually they do,” said Emma, “but the wights know that as well. I’m sure Miss Wren hasn’t kept her freedom this long by hiding in such obvious places.”

“Have you got a better idea?” said Enoch.

We didn’t, and so we shifted direction toward the sideshow. I looked back for the leering clown, but he had melted into the crowd.