Nightmare Carnival

Jem was standing with a hundred or so other passengers by the trackside stalls and pull-up shopfronts, stretching his legs in the heat and glare and examining the souvenir tea-towels, velveteen cushion covers, and other handcrafts with half a mind of getting something for his Gran. The long blast of a car horn made him look up to see a battered old Jeep Cherokee arrive in its cloud of dust, making him immediately think that some last-minute passenger was joining the train.

Jem noticed two things then: the weathered, thirty-something brunette in work shirt, jeans, and boots who climbed out from behind the wheel, a tall, solidly built woman — statuesque was the word — and the motif on the vehicle’s door: a coffin with a bright red rose laid across it, with maybe half a dozen words underneath.

It was that motif — coffin and rose inside its faded rondel — that did it, triggered an all-purpose compulsion spell, what’s called an obligato in the old Sly Carnival speak.

When the Indian-Pacific pulled away twenty minutes later and the town settled back into its usual silence — just the murmur of the tea-towel brigade packing up and the sound of crows and currawongs out on the flats — Jem was standing beside the track, and more than happy to climb into the Jeep alongside the woman and set off into the northwest.

He wasn’t thinking too clearly right then, but it was his first official contact with the Corpse Rose Heirloom Carnival and Former Circus.

They were ten minutes along a dirt road stretching across land as flat as a table when he finally drifted back.

“How did you manage that—?”

“Mally,” she said, warmly enough. She had a tanned, pleasant face, a good smile. “Short for Millicent Quinn, at your service. We’ve got tricks we can use.”

“I’ll say. I don’t feel pissed off but know I should.”

“Part of the package. You can get even later.”

“Figure you won’t let that happen. So where we going again?”

Mally gave him a long hard look. “Usually we just say you’re going to a carnival for a day or so, and leave it to what we call an obligato to keep it foggy for the sake of a quiet drive out. But Mr F. said you’d probably be special, and I could make up my own mind. We’re going about a hundred miles or so.”

“So the name on your door there? The Corpse Rose Heirloom Carnival and Former Circus. What’s with the Former part? How does that work?”

“Once the animals are gone a circus automatically becomes a carnival. That’s what Mr Fleymann says, though there’s no single ruling. Gipsy carnivals do it different. Taureg carnivals.”

“Are there Gipsy carnivals? Taureg carnivals?”

“Hard to say. Put up a tent. Tell a fortune. Juggle some balls. When does it become official? Sometimes there’s a clear business plan. Sometimes it’s just passed on.”

“The heirloom part.”

“See. You’re getting the hang of it already. Mr F. did pick well this time.”

This time, Jem noted, but wanted to keep it light, get his bearings. He wasn’t in the train anymore. Something extraordinary had happened yet didn’t feel like it. He knew that should bother him as well, his lack of concern, but felt no alarm whatsoever, which, somewhere back in there, was dimly, remotely troubling. It had to be what Mally had said, part of the package.

Jem went along with it, sat scanning the distances. “So, hey, look where we are.”

“Exactly. Can’t think of a better thing for making a body really see the world than flying at three thousand feet or spending time in a desert.”

“Unless it’s spending time at a carnival in a desert.”

Mally struck the steering wheel in agreement. “Right you are, Jem Renton!”

“Or maybe flying over a carnival in a desert in the middle of nowhere. That’d really make you curious, really make you want to go down and check it out.”

Mally’s grin held but she gave him another hard look, as if he had just said something profound, then went back to playing her own part in keeping it light. “Works for us, Jem. Never short of people dropping by.”

“So why out here?”

Mally kept her eyes on the road. “Now that’s the question. Part of it’s about words. Names for things. Where they come from. What they mean. How you say them.”

“Like Heirloom.”

“There you go. Used to be the name for an important family entitlement. Something passed on in trust. From the word for a tool, an instrument. Ask Mr F.”

“Right. And Corpse Rose?”

“What it says. Plant a rose bush on someone’s grave and you get a very strong-smelling rose. Very sweet. Beauty from corruption. A special fragrance with a hint of carrion, some say, but that’s nonsense.”

Jem considered that, then gathered his thoughts enough to ask: “Mally, why am I here?”

“Can’t say too much, Jem, but some people have a special gift they’re never aware of. The thirteen in our troupe, well, it’s our job to find these gifted ones, set up ways to bring them to us and use that gift while it’s good and strong. They enable us, see, let us do what we do.”

“And I have this gift? This power?”