Nightmare Carnival

Jalena is surprised that she can hear Parrott so clearly over the wind. She also understands, now, why students sometimes compare her voice to a ceiling fan. There is something insistent, and mournful, and soothing, in Darlene Parrott’s sort of quiet.

“And pretty early in his time with us, he got word of our favorite local legend. The Dark Carnival.”

“Mr. Dark’s Carnival,” Rogan corrects. Her mask flaps, and she yanks it flat.

“I’ve never liked that ‘Mr.,’ ” Parrott hums. “It’s out of rhythm.”

“But it’s what it was called. You can’t just change it because—”

“I can.” Parrott’s smile is sudden, private. “I teach poetry.”

Rogan grunts, and Parrott continues.

“But David. He was a historian through and through. At least back then. And like any good academic, he set out to prove, once and for all, that Clarkston, Montana’s favorite story was just that: a story. Not a real thing. And then, one terrible, frigid Halloween night — in his tenure year, dear, same as you — his lover—”

“Meaning, the grad student he was fucking,” Rogan snaps.

Frazee clucks at her, reaches across the truck bed, grabs one of Rogan’s hands, and strokes it, as though comforting a skittish cat.

“He loved her,” Frazee says. “I don’t even think he realized how much.”

“He loved her,” Parrott says.

“Okay, okay.” Rogan’s eyes flash under the eye holes as the rubber skin ripples against her face.

“For Christ’s sake, take that thing off,” says Frazee, still stroking her hand.

Rogan does. Her own face, underneath, is pale but also blotched red, like a newborn’s. She pats the spikes in her hair, looks down at Frazee’s hand, and holds on.

“It’s warmer in the mask,” she says.

“On that fateful night,” Parrott drones on, “David’s lover led him out of town, onto the prairie.”

“That’s not what happened,” Rogan interrupts again. “That’s not how I heard it. I heard he found tickets at—”

“Sssh,” Frazee quiets her. She quiets.

“And far out of town, way out in the frozen prairie grass, David Roemer finally found the Dark Carnival. Or, his Dark Carnival, anyway. And he came back changed.”

“Only it wasn’t the Carnival that did that,” Frazee tells Jalena, but she’s not interrupting, not like Rogan. Her voice, in fact, is a substantially muted version of her usual, laughing trumpet blast, as though she’s harmonizing around Parrott’s melody. “That was also the night his lover died, remember. That’s what changed him.”

“One of the things,” Parrott says.

The two of them exchange that look again, their secret look. And again, Jalena experiences unspecified misgivings. Maybe Frazee is right, and she really doesn’t want in on this particular secret handshake.

“How did the lover die?” Jalena asks.

“She was murdered,” says Frazee.

“Shot,” says Rogan.

“By Roemer?”

“Listen,” Frazee says.

For a moment, Jalena thinks Frazee might take her hand, and almost wishes she would. But Frazee doesn’t. The truck turns down a wooded side street. The surrounding trees mercifully cut the wind. Instantly, the occasional noise from the freeway fades. There are small, bungalow-style A-frames and ranch homes tucked back under poplar trees on tiny lots. The houses have to be half a century old, maybe more, and yet they look temporary as trailer homes, somehow. A fluke of prairie town life Jalena still hasn’t adjusted to.

Parrott has gone right on talking. “At the funeral, David gave the eulogy. He talked only about his lover’s life. He said nothing about the Carnival. Not there. Not until the very end. And then — when he was just standing at the front of the Methodist church on Highbottom, quietly crying — he suddenly held up a packet of folded papers he’d withdrawn from his pocket. ‘I loved you, Kate,’ he said.”

“ ‘I love you, still,’ ” Frazee echoes, as though this were a poem, or a childhood lullaby they all know.

“ ‘I will follow,’ ” Rogan finishes. Her participation surprises Jalena, even before she looks up and sees tears in Rogan’s angry blue eyes.

“And when they closed the casket,” Parrott continues, “David placed those papers inside with her.”

“What were they?” Jalena asks, and now she’s surprised by the sound of her own voice: defensive, as usual, but softer, too. Or younger?

“That’s just it. No one knew. Not then. But they obviously meant something to David. Because three days after the burial, he—”

“Oh, shit, what’s he doing?” Frazee snaps, head jerking up as though she’s only just noticed that they’ve turned off the frontage road. Clambering over Jalena’s legs, shoving bracelets up her arms under her coat, she bangs on the back of the cab. “Where are you going, Bill? You’re not going there. Stop!”

But when the pickup does stop, at the bottom of a leaf-littered lawn strewn with dead dandelions and rusting toy Tonka trucks tipped on their sides in the too-long grass, Frazee leaps from the bed before Bemis has even cut the motor. He starts to open his door, and she shoves it shut and glares through the window at him.

“Bill, no,” she says. “Why? Why bring any of this up for her?”