Nightmare Carnival

“It’s simplistic. It’s her freak name. But you humans seem so invested in that. She was no more ‘the Orchid Girl’ than I’m ‘the Gentleman Corpse.’ I’m not a corpse at all, for god’s sake. But when we finally decided to assimilate, we believed that embracing the names would make it easier. And the kids like it, especially. So we use them.”

“Is it hard to talk about her?” Probing for signs of blasphemy.

“No,” he says, though he looks away as he says it. The profile of his skull is etched with lamplight. He goes on about her, though, and I start to get a sick feeling. “He would have you believe that she was a princess in a castle, waiting to be rescued by me. It’s good for mythmaking, but it’s not true. She did need rescuing that night, yes, but so did Bruno. So did the mermaid. He doesn’t talk about my ‘destiny’ with them, does he?”

I don’t know what to say.

“Nothing but lies. We didn’t want to go to the mansion. We wanted to go home. When we saw our home spilling into the sky, transfigured by the Extinction Rite. we were terrified.”

I shake my head. “You were children. You can’t blame yourself for how you felt.”

“I was frightened for my parents.”

I put a hand up to stop him. “Mr. Wormcake. Please. I can understand that this is a moment of, um. strong significance for you. It’s not unusual to experience these unclean feelings. But you must not indulge them by giving them voice.”

“I wanted my parents back, Priest.”

“Mr. Wormcake.”

“I mourned them. Right there, out in the open, I fell to my knees and cried.”

“Mr. Wormcake, that’s enough. You must stop.”

He does. He turns away from me and stares through the window. The bay is out there somewhere, covered in the night. The lights in the drawing room obscure the view, and we can see our reflections hovering out there above the waters, like gentlemanly spirits.

“Take me to the chapel,” I tell him quietly.

He stares at me for a long moment. Then he climbs to his feet. “All right,” he says. “Come with me.”

He pushes through a small door behind the chess table and enters a narrow, carpeted hallway. Lamps fixed to the walls offer pale light. There are paintings hung here too, but the light is dim and we are moving too quickly for me to make out specific details. The faces look desiccated, though. One seems to be a body seated on a divan, completely obscured by cobwebs. Another is a pastoral scene, a barrow mound surrounded by a fence made from the human bone.

At the end of the corridor, another small door opens into a private chapel. I’m immediately struck by the scent of spoiled meat. A bank of candles near the altar provides a shivering light. On the altar itself, a husk of unidentifiable flesh bleeds onto a silver platter. Scores of flies lift and fall, their droning presence crowding the ears. On the wall behind them, stained glass windows flank a much larger window covered in heavy drapes. The stained glass depicts images of fly-winged angels, their faceted ruby eyes bright, their segmented arms spread as though offering benediction, or as though preparing to alight at the butcher’s feast.

There is a pillow on the floor in front of the altar, and a pickaxe leans on the table beside it.

The Maggot summons fourteen children to the Skullpocket Fair every year. One for each child that died that night in the Cold Water Fair, one hundred years ago, when Hob’s Landing became a new town, guided by monsters and their strange new god. It’s no good to question by what criteria the children are selected, by what sins or what virtues. There is no denying the summons. There is only the lesson of the worm, delivered over and over again: all life is a mass of wriggling grubs, awaiting the transformation to the form in which it will greet the long and quiet dark.

“The church teaches the subjugation of memory,” I say. “Grief is a weakness.”

“I know,” says Mr. Wormcake.

“Your marriage. Your love for your wife and your friends. They’re stones in your pockets. They weigh you to the earth.”

“I know.”

“Empty them,” I say.