

### Americarnie Trash

Jon Jacks

Other New Adult and Children's books by Jon Jacks

The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly

The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale

A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)

The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator

Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll's Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666

P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers

Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)

Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent

Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak

Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife

Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches

Text copyright© 2015 Jon Jacks

All rights reserved

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. It remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Thank you for your support.

# Chapter 1

Trash, tramps and thieves – townsfolk see them all as interchangeable when it comes to describing Americarnie folk.

Even so, whenever we're in town, they'll come to see our show.

To have their fortunes told. To buy miracle cures. To get drunk. To make fun of us. To luxuriate in their sudden sense of superiority.

They're laughing now, at our stupidity. At our ridiculous beliefs.

It's a free show. One we put on out of pride. To give an idea of whom we once were.

Whom we _believe_ we once were.

Not that we're really entitled to hold that belief.

It's blasphemy. Leaving us open to arrest. Even execution.

Therefore it has to be a comical show. To show we're not serious.

It also has to feature other acts, like juggling, fire-eating, the trapeze. To ensure they come to watch.

A story that goes back almost three thousand years, trivialised.

The shepherds below me, their nervous conversations coming to an end, look up in fear as they see me fly overhead.

The light from the oil lamps, directed my way with angled mirrors, lights up my glistening gown, my glistening wings, as I soar high through the air.

The simple shepherds crumple to the ground. They almost bury their faces in the earth in their terror.

'Now I pray you, I lie down on this green!' one wails.

'On these fears; repentance I mean!'

The small yet incredibly high plinth I have to land on, like most of the trapeze apparatus, is in darkness.

It all adds to the sense of the miraculous.

But it makes it all the more dangerous for me.

I land lightly, gracefully, on the plinth. I stretch out my vast wings, peer down imperiously on the cowering shepherds far below me.

The light cast on me glows all the brighter, adding to the sense that I am a fearful messenger from God.

'Where to should ye turn?' the bravest of the shepherds asks of me, daring to look up at last. 'So, what is it I must say you?'

'Rise, herd men!' I cry triumphantly. 'For now is _he_ born! God is made your friend, now at this morn!'

Although still quaking, the shepherds begin to rise from the ground. Even so, they avert their eyes as they attempt to observe my gloriously glowing presence.

'He be-stays at Bedlem, go see,' I continue, hoping that my voice carries the necessary majestic tones, the hints of awe. 'There lies that child, in a crib full poorly!'

My message to the shepherds delivered, I raise my arms; and soar off up, up into the darkness of the night sky.

*

Like our equipment, Jeserel is cloaked in the blackest materials.

With the ingenious interplay of light, the perfectly rehearsed moving of the mirrors, no one should have seen him swing down on his trapeze, snatch down at my raised arms, and pull me back up into the air with him.

As we reach the top of the curve, he throws me out into the air so that, briefly, I really am flying, with nothing supporting me but the momentum of the swing.

I twirl a few times in the air, letting my blazingly white wings wrap around me.

I reach out for Verelda's outstretched hands, hoping she is out there in the darkness, ready to catch me.

*

As, in her turn, Verelda flings me up onto the highest point of the pole, the lights playing on me are covered in black sheets.

To the watching crowd, I appear to vanish as I soar ever upwards into the darkness.

Once again, however, it's a darkness that makes it all so much more dangerous for me. I have to remember, through so many days of practice, where I'll find the small platform I have to land on, the ropes I must grab for security.

My fingers curl around the invisible rope. My feet slip smoothly onto the minute wooden platform.

I sigh with relief, my heart almost bursting with the pleasure of knowing I'm safe once more. At least, that is, until my next appearance.

Far below me, the play goes on.

It's a travesty, a disgrace.

If the audience could see me, they would see the weeping of an angel.

Yes, we adhere to the lines of an original Miracle Play: but we add our own devices, as we have to by law, to be sure of an audience.

The baby's father places him across his shoulder, burps him. The fire-eater hiding in the darkness breathes out his fire, such that it seems to come from the baby himself.

The audience laughs.

The father holds the baby as if he has dirtied himself.

The audience laughs all the more.

The attendant shepherds wave their hands, as if wafting away a terrible smell.

'Might I kneel on my knee,' a shepherd asks, 'some word for to say to that child?'

I fling myself out into the air, the light on me once more.

To the audience, I'm an angel flying. As, I'm reliably told, we used to do so long, long ago.

In the time when we still had wings.

The time when we ruled the earth.

His timing perfect, Jeserel catches me in mid-air. His hands tightly clasp around my wrists, catching me at the top of his curving swing on his trapeze.

As he swings back down, he takes me with him, letting me go as we near the plinth once more.

I land on the darkened plinth, my wings outstretched to give the impression that I'm hovering high above the manger.

'In a crib was he laid,' I pronounce imperiously. 'He was poorly arrayed, both manner and mild.'

As I'm carried up into the air once more by the secure, outstretched arms of a swooping Verelda, I glance down at the shepherd juggling with his gifts.

It's a parody of the tale we would once have told with such conviction.

As Verelda throws me out into the seemingly empty black air yet again, I wonder, as I always do at this point, if someone is going to be there to catch me.

Today, though, I don't care.

In fact, I sense Jeserel's hands rush by me in the darkness, clutching at nothing.

I haven't reached out for them, as I'm supposed to do.

For today I can fly.

I can prove, today, to everyone fortunate to be watching, that all our tales are true.

I stretch out my arms beneath my outspread wings.

I smile blissfully.

I can hear the audience rising to their feet, screaming out in wonder and awe.

It's true! Angels really exist!

*

# Chapter 2

I can't move.

My back hurts. Hurts like it's on fire.

My head hurts. Throbbing.

I'm dazed, my vision unclear. But I can make out people crowding around me.

Leaning over me. Their faces concerned.

Verelda is there too. Crying, for some reason. Jeserel has his arms around her, like he's trying to comfort her.

Letting her know there's nothing she can do. That it wasn't her fault.

'Don't touch her, don't touch her! She's probably broken her spine!'

That's Kevarn. I recognise his voice, his concern for me.

'What's wrong? Why can't I move, Kevarn?'

'Just stay still, Sel; stay still. We're getting help – help's on its way!'

He smiles, like that's enough to reassure me. Yet it's a forced, worried smile; and that worries me.

There are a number of people gathered around me. All looking worried. All looking down at me.

I try and rise up, but I can't.

I'm lying on the huge pile of garments and curtains that are used throughout the show. Where the actors come for a quick change of clothes, to transform into another character. It's all in darkness, so no one in the audience sees what's going on.

Only, now, it's not all in darkness. I can see the costumes, the bright colours and fake gems of the gowns of the Three Magi.

I haven't announced the birth to them. Have I?

The lights are on all around me. Spoiling the magic. Revealing the trapeze, the wires, the ropes.

'Is it over?' I ask Kevarn uncertainly. 'I can't remember...can't remember the show finishing?'

'Yes, yes; tonight's show is over,' he says, once again with that strained smile.

I chuckle.

Not at what he's just said, of course.

No, I just find it amusing that, just beyond his head, a white feather is slowly falling through the air towards me. Swirling in the slightest breeze, it's so light.

So beautiful.

An angel's feather.

There are other single, glaringly white feathers scattered around me. Not many. Not that I can see, anyway. I can only make them out by straining my eyes to bring them into view.

Didn't I have...didn't I have _wings_?

Yes – _there_ they are.

But they're not a part of me anymore, no longer attached to my back.

They're hanging, tangled and broken, amongst the ropes not far above me.

They still look beautiful. Amazing.

But they're bent, crooked,

Useless for flying.

I laugh again.

I remember now.

I _was_ flying. Soaring through the air.

The audience gasping in admiration. In surprise.

But then...then something went wrong. I began to drop. To fall.

And yet – it _was_ my wings that had saved me.

As I fell, they'd remained outstretched. Snagging time and time again on the ropes strung around and supporting the trapeze equipment.

They'd slowed my fall. Even, briefly, made me twirl in the air gracefully.

Then they'd snapped free.

No longer willing to give me my freedom.

It was their own freedom they desired.

And so they deposited me here, on this pile of mouldy, bogusly glamourous clothes.

They don't exist, do they?

Angels, I mean.

There's no such thing as angels.

Not anymore.

My mom, Americarnie folk: they're all just liars, aren't they?

*

# Chapter 3

It was the teachers, after all, who had been speaking the truth.

Every class I had to attend, I put up with the ridicule, the sneers. Because, deep down inside, I just _knew_ they were wrong: Americarnie folk _are_ descended from angels!

The Testament tells us so.

Or, rather the Testament as it was originally written tells us this. It had been rewritten many times, to hide the truth. Even the Testaments we hide from the authorities, when they come searching for them, even those don't contain the original and true Testament.

Or so my mom, my friends, and leaders amongst the Americarnie always told me. Always reassured me that _we_ were the chosen people.

That's why we could put up with the jeering, the laughter. The distaste. The hate.

And yes, I would experience all that whenever I attended a class. In whichever town we'd arrived at. Wherever we were playing.

I couldn't see why I was ordered to attend school. It was the same lesson for me every time anyway.

A 'as Selmerey's here today, let's welcome her by exploring the history of the Americarnie' lesson.

Every teacher. Every time.

A lesson held in their language, naturally.

Hardly anyone, only other Americarnie folk, speak my language now. And we're not allowed to speak it in public. Or even if any non-carnie folk are around.

Mom used to say – before she left me, left for another carnival, another man – that there was a time when everyone spoke our language.

A time when we were the ones who lived in the towns, the cities.

But even I, as wide-eyed as I was when Mom told me these stories, used to think she was just a little crazy when she said we were the ones who'd built those cities. Along with the now defunct machines that once ran them. Machines that once kept the cities alight throughout the night.

But just how much of Mom's version of history can I trust?

Every school I visit, every school text book I'm given to read, tells a different story to Mom's.

In the schools' version, we, the Americarnie, were the destroyers of the world that used to be; we were, it seems, _always_ liars and thieves.

We'd demanded more and more of the world's resources, waged war on others to steal their share. And, ironically, because of this we thought ourselves superior to those we'd impoverished.

Of course, when I'm there, in a class, the teacher at least tries to put all this history across in as nice a way as possible.

She – it's _always_ a she – hopes her pupils understand that they should always show tolerance to the Americarnie way of life. Even though the Americarnie had only ever shown intolerance to others.

Only in this way, she would invariably say, would the Americarnie learn the many errors of their ways, gain humility, and ask for forgiveness of their many sins.

'And does anyone know where the name Americarnie comes from?'

I can count on one hand the classes where this question wasn't innocently asked by the teacher.

No one really knows. Not the real reasons, anyway.

A merging of three ancient words, giving _Amiracarne_. _A_ , regarding; _miracula_ ; Miracle Play; and _carne_ , flesh – Miracle Play made Flesh.

But _everyone_ knows the word's _false_ etymology.

And every class has the smart-ass who, to the accompanying sniggers of his friends, supposedly innocently puts his hand up and gives it as his answer.

_Amori_ - _carne_.

Love Meat.

It was because of this that, despite the classes being humiliating enough, the breaks were always even worse.

Far, far worse.

Then it was hands up my dress. Hands down my dress.

No matter how much I tried to fight them off, or beg to be left alone.

No matter how much I tried to shrink within myself.

There were always too many of them to resist. Too many hands to continually dash away.

The hand around the mouth; that was always the sign that things were turning even worse.

The dragging off behind a wall, or into bushes.

My only hope in such a situation was that either Kevarn or Lorn, after their usual desperate searching of the school, would find me.

Of course, they would always get a beating for their trouble.

Particularly poor Lorn. Naturally, he'd prefer to hide his deformity, rather than drawing attention to himself. That way, he was only opening himself up for taunting.

But carnie have to stick together.

Neither of the boys would let me suffer in this way. Even though it always cost them dearly.

Sometimes, at last on our way home, it would be a while before Lorn would speak to me.

As if I'd brought all this trouble upon myself. Upon him.

'It's the way you _look_!' he would snap, turning away, turning his twisted back towards me.

'It's all so _easy_ for _you_ , isn't it?' he would sometimes add in a pained mumble. 'It's so, so easy to believe _you_ were descended from angels!'

*

'Where are they?'

Some of the people standing around me are getting angry, glaring off towards the carnival's entrance.

'They were called ages ago!'

Kevarn is still concernedly hovering over me.

'Here, Sel,' he says, opening up one of his bottles of ElixiAir, bringing it close towards my lips, 'this will help; trust me!'

I laugh. But I wish I hadn't; laughing is getting very, very painful.

'Kevarn! I _know_ what's in your remedy, remember?'

'No, no, you don't understand,' he insists, pressing the bottle to my lips, letting the liquid seep into my mouth. 'These are the _real_ waters: _Diabolus_ waters!'

I almost splutter, wondering if this is wise, drinking something acquired from Carnival Diabolus.

'You _need_ it,' he insists all the more vehemently, yet managing to keep his voice low, unheard by anyone but me. 'You've _broken_ your back! Even if they're prepared to treat you, you'll be in a wheelchair the rest of your life!'

'How... how do you know?' I stammer nervously between gulps.

'I've seen enough ill and injured people in my life to know when it's best not to claim _my_ ElixiAir will cure them!'

He forces more of the sharply bitter liquid down my throat. I almost cough it all up.

I'm not sure this is at all wise.

'How did you get it?' I whisper anxiously when, at last, he lets me take a breath of air. 'What did you offer for it?'

The real ElixiAir, the one from Carnival Diabolus, doesn't come cheap. And payment is hardly ever in something as mundane as money.

'Never mind!' Kevarn answers, his dark skin glistening with sweat. 'This _will_ work!'

He forces more of his precious drink into my mouth. It no longer tastes bitter. It tastes sweet. Like summer wine.

I laugh, like I'm drunk.

Laughing no longer hurts.

Instead, it feels good.

Very, very good.

'Is it working?'

He frowns, the concern in his eyes more obvious than ever.

I nod.

He smiles, like he takes the fact that I can nod as a good sign.

'It _works_!'

He says it like he's surprised after all.

'Help me up, please.'

'You sure?'

He stoppers his bottle.

I nod again.

'Just a bit dazed; feel a little drunk – that's all!'

I grin; grin stupidly, I reckon.

He eagerly helps me sit up on the pile of clothes.

'She's fine! She's okay!' he yells out excitedly.

Verelda's the first to rush elatedly towards me, eyes wide with wonder and joy.

'But...but they said your back...'

A split second later, Jeserel is with her. Like her, he holds me close yet delicately, as if worried that my back might break again at any moment.

'They said to stay back; that you mustn't be moved!'

Everyone around me is now darting forward, weeping with joy as they hug me. They help me down from the piled clothes, help me to stand on my two feet once more.

The cheers and whoops rise up, even amongst the last of the departing crowd.

'It's all right everyone! She's fine, she's fine!'

Even Master Elias sounds overjoyed as he announces my recovery through his megaphone.

Then again, it's more likely to just be relief.

It wouldn't be good for business, me getting injured. Especially not in the middle of a Miracle Play.

It doesn't exactly have the right connotations, does it?

The angel falling. Breaking her back.

Scaring everyone off.

Then again, who knows? Seeing carnie trash getting badly injured might actually appeal to a large number of townies.

Might actually have them all flocking in.

Master Elias is glancing my way; wondering what else he can milk from my recovery, I'll bet.

His eyes light on the bottle being held by Kevarn; light up as an idea dawns.

'The _miracle_ cure, ladies and gentlemen!' he hollers through his megaphone, directing his cry towards the tail end of the rapidly vanishing crowd. 'You _saw_ how badly she fell–'

As he speaks, he rushes over towards Kevarn, snatching the bottle from him. He holds the bottle up high in the air, letting what's left of the liquid sparkle in the light from the oil lamps.

– 'yet she was cured by ElixiAir!'

Kevarn glowers, furious that Master Elias has used my injury as a sales tool.

The departing crowd are only slightly more impressed; they laugh, or jeer, taking it all for granted now that my fall had been deliberate – just another ploy by the carnies to prise more money from them.

Master Elias glares at me, indicating with an abrupt wave of his hand that he requires a little more from me. Something to help him sell our 'cure-all for most sorely afflicting ailments'.

I pirouette gracefully, end the move with a deep, ballerina-esque bow.

Finally, I elegantly skip off into the darkness with the odd, grateful wave to the departing townies.

The crowd laugh again, but this time add a few claps of appreciation.

They have to admire, I suppose, the audaciousness (if not outright stupidity) of attempting to sell a medicinal lotion with a trick that could have resulted in serious injury if it had gone wrong.

Of course, it hadn't been a trick.

But something _had_ gone wrong. And I _had_ been seriously injured.

I'd hardly been able to move.

The pain had been steadily getting worse.

Whatever was in that bottle from Carnival Diabolus, it really had worked!

*

# Chapter 4

Despite being _physically_ cured, I still feel cut up inside.

Lorn hadn't come to see how I was; he must have heard about the fall, yet _still_ he hadn't come to see me, to check I was all right!

I'd broken my back. I could have spent the rest of my life in a wheelchair.

Yet Lorn was nowhere to be seen.

He'll have some excuse. He always does.

My friends had wanted to leave with me, of course. To make sure I really was okay. That I wasn't going to suffer a relapse.

An irate glare from Master Elias had put them right on that score.

With a glower from beneath a severely lowered brow, he'd left them in no doubt that they had to stay, had to prepare the equipment for the next acts.

I was glad they had stayed behind. I wasn't in the mood for talking.

Unless it was talking to Lorn. If only to see what excuses he'd got for me.

I was in a nosier, smellier if more brightly lit part of the carnival.

The area where the ancient, rattling big wheel turned. Where screams and guffaws came from the churning ghost train, or shrieks of pleasure from the few, smaller rides we'd managed to salvage.

Over it all, their hung the tinny sounds of scratchy music, the worryingly irregular throb of the generators that kept all this and the strings of electric lights running.

It was all centuries old. No one could build anything like this anymore.

It was now probably more patch and cannibalised components than original material. Whenever one ride finally failed, every piece was painstakingly saved to help keep the rest going.

Coal rather than far more unattainable oil powered the ingeniously adapted generators.

Standing virtually beneath one of the strings of brightly coloured lights, a townie cart displayed a skill far less established than ours at rescuing the scavenged materials of earlier times.

The tyres were heavily patched, being – I suspect – now solidly filled rather than inflated with air. Metal had rusted, despite numerous coats of paint. The worst areas had been patched with wooden boarding.

The useless engine, as with our own carts and caravans, had been replaced with a seating area for the driver.

It's an ambulance: that's why it had been allowed so far into the carnival. Yet it had obviously gone this far and no farther, stopping well short of arriving at the spot where I'd suffered my accident.

The uniformly clad ambulance crew are arguing with a handful of carnies I recognise.

They hadn't realised they'd been called out for an injured carnie, the crew are complaining. They'd been told there had been a casualty amongst the audience.

They're so angry, they fail to recognise the disquiet of their horses. If they have noticed, perhaps they've simply put the nervous skittering of their horses down to the effects of the argument itself.

The horses, however, are shying away from the darkness beyond the lights.

They sense the presence, deep within the darkness, of the other carnival; the Carnival Diabolus.

*

# Chapter 5

Even when you know it's there – even when you shade your eyes against the brightness of the overhead lights and try and peer as intently as you can into the sheer darkness – it isn't always easy to see anything of the Carnival Diabolus.

It's there, though; definitely there.

At times, I've caught glimpses of it. A carnival much like ours – only, they say, one where it's not fakery.

It's real; all too real.

The freaks. The fortune telling. The healing. The hurt that comes before the healing.

People have gone in there, returned dazed, changed.

Shocked. Blissful. Bewildered.

Some have never been seen again.

Sometimes, too, when the wind's right, I've heard the screams. The laughter. The music. The drunken singing.

All muted, naturally. But there if you listen carefully enough.

I swear, too, that I've seen large fish in the darkness. Glistening, weaving shoals of them. Even whales.

All swimming in the air, as if it were a deep sea.

The ambulance crew, of course, remain oblivious to this whole other world. Even though it exists just a few steps away from them.

They see only a complete darkness beyond the lights. They sense, as everyone who attends a carnival senses, that it's not wise to enter that darkness.

But they don't know _why_ they feel this way.

They tell themselves it's ridiculous.

Just an irrational fear.

Still, they don't enter that darkness.

There's always some reason to pull them away, just before they're about to step into it.

Even when our carnival suffers a surprise search for any illicit copies of the Testament, the officers carrying out the rifling of our homes, our rides, our booths, all stop short of entering the darkness lying just beyond the lights.

They don't know why.

You can see it on their faces.

They don't even realise they haven't searched there.

We could hide countless copies of the Testament within the darkness.

Yet we don't: because even carnies aren't sure what lies on the other side of our lights.

*

# Chapter 6

'Hey, you! You boy!'

One of the ambulance crew has stopped off from arguing. He's pointing off towards the crowded walkways running between our booths.

He could be pointing at any number of people thronging around the hexagonally shaped stands.

'You with the humped back!'

That could only be Lorn!

I look urgently for him amongst the crammed people. The other members of the ambulance crew are also now intently looking for him, alerted by their colleague's cry.

What do they want him for? What's he done?

'We can help you!' one of the crew pleads, shouting over the heads of the crowd as he ploughs into them, searching for Lorn.

'It should be treated!' yells another, similarly storming into the massed passers-by.

Their aggressive actions are at odds with their protestations of caring, of offering assistance. They're more the actions of police running down a thief.

Lorn seems to think so too.

I can see him now. He's stooping even lower than his crooked back forces him to, weaving his way swiftly through the crowd.

The people in his way stand aside for him, puzzled by this mix of deformity and beauty, wondering if it's yet another piece of the carnival's fakery. They unintentionally block his pursuers, seeing only irate men attempting to bludgeon their way through families and couples.

The odd carnie, recognising if not quite understanding Lorn's plight, create further obstacles.

This seems the ideal time to move a large piece of boarding. Or to pull out an awning.

Despite their frustration, despite their last glimpse of Lorn being his humped back as he vanishes around a far corner, the pursuers don't give up the chase.

*

# Chapter 7

I know were Lorn will have headed for.

The Glass Labyrinth.

The walls are of glass, appearing little different from the openings. Every now and again, a mirror adds to the confusion.

If you know the way, however, it's not a maze but an elaborately weaving corridor.

Lorn is in the Mirrored Hall, where he's almost unnoticeable amongst the deformed reflections of so many other people.

In at least two mirrors, he appears almost normal; normal, that is, apart from his ethereal grace, the elegantly and perfectly proportioned elements of every other part of his body.

When he sees me, he grins.

There's an anxiety in his eyes, though: an anger blending with the bitterness that has grown within him as he has grown older. He has become increasingly aware of how his deformity sets him apart.

Unlike the other young boys, who are proud to show off their developing bodies – stripping off their shirts, eagerly baring their torsos as they help the carnival rise from the ground – Lorn always keeps his body covered.

Even when I've held him, held him close, he shrugs free whenever my caressing hands draw near towards his back, his serpentine-like spine.

'Why are they after you?' I ask.

It's odd, their insistence that he needs treating. They were prepared to leave me to suffer, even though I had broken my back.

'They want to cut my back open. They're under orders to look out for people like me: to bring them back for treatment.'

He says it with a remarkable degree of certainty. But how could he possible know this?

He sees the question in my puzzled, disbelieving stare.

He chuckles wryly.

'I saw it in the crystal.'

I give a snort of derision, angry that he's resorting to lies.

Lorn's fortune telling, his palm readings, are as fake as anything else here at the carnival.

His real skill lies in observation and charm: picking up clues to a person's character, their history, from the way they speak, what they wear, how they move.

He builds on his originally simple pronouncements by noting the reactions they elicit. He subtly feeds back their own innocent disclosures.

'It's true,' he insists, yet without any real enthusiasm, like he wishes it wasn't really so. 'I don't know _how_ it happened: it _was_ a vision, I'm sure! I just sensed, _deeply_ , that it was real! Like with your accident.'

He grabs my hand, looks directly into my eyes. Asking me to believe him, to trust him.

'I _knew_ you'd be okay! That I didn't need to come! That I didn't need to risk being taken away!'

'I _wouldn't_ have been okay,' I say sourly, 'but for Kevarn and his water!'

He guffaws roguishly.

' _His_ water? Don't you mean water from Diabolus?'

'You saw that in your vision?'

'Yes, and no,' he admits. '"No" in that I already knew Kevarn had a bottle: he'd asked me to drink it. To cure my back.'

'You can't have taken enough! It worked for me.'

Even as I scold him for refusing this opportunity to cure his affliction, another part of me recognises that if he had, _I'd_ be the one now permanently deformed.

'It worked for _you_ ,' he said, a hint of a scoff to his tone, 'because it returned you to how you're _supposed_ to be. As for me; I've always looked like this. _This_ is how I'm supposed to look!'

I reach out to stroke his back; but, as always, he shrugs, pulls clear. He raises his clenched hands up before his face, a sign that he's trying hard to control his emotions.

'Don't... _don't_ say they're where my angel's wings should be!'

He doesn't believe that we're descended from angels. He's never believed it.

Recently, he's been even edgier than usual with me.

Treating me weirdly.

Like he can't get enough of me, yet somehow still wants to keep his distance.

Staring into my eyes, clasping my hands tightly.

Like he wants to soak up every element of my being.

Like he wants to be able to remember me.

Like he thinks I'm not going to be around much longer.

If I'd believed he had any talent for seeing the future, I'd've been anxious, worrying about what he might have seen.

Now, of course, it seems he can see the future in his crystal.

'He's here! Hiding in the mirror maze!'

Thorough the multiple layers of glass, one of the pursuing ambulance crew has spotted us.

He makes to dash towards us. He runs into a glass pane, crumples to the ground.

'Quick!' Lorn cries. 'I have to get out of here!'

*

Rushing through the maze, we plunge out of a maintenance exit we know of, out into the still-crowded alleys running between the rides and booths.

We weave past anyone who would otherwise be blocking our way.

Alerted by his cries, the friends of the stunned ambulance man are all heading this way, all coming from different angles: a pursuing man coming down every alleyway.

'We're trapped!'

Lorn urgently glances everywhere about him, desperately seeking an escape route. The nearby booths are too small to hide in. Too high and too separated for us to bother climbing.

Directly ahead of us, beyond the glare of the strung up, gaily-glowing lights, lies the darkness of the Carnival Diabolus.

Lorn hesitates; he whirls, kisses me.

Says: 'I saw _this_ too! I _have_ to do it.'

Then, releasing my hand, before I can protest, let alone try to stop him, he sprints towards the darkness.

He rushes beneath the lights.

As he steps into the darkness, he vanishes.

*

# Chapter 8

Despite my fear, I chase after him.

Suddenly, however, strong arms are curling around my waist, lifting me off my fruitlessly whirling feet; holding me back from completely following Lorn.

'Let me go, let me go! I have to go–'

'No, no! You won't come back! You're carnie; you won't come back!'

It's Kevarn, crying his warning out close to my ear. He must have heard the earlier shouts, come along to see if he can help.

Like me, he will have seen Lorn vanishing over the line. Disappearing into the Carnival Diabolus.

'I have to try and bring him back!'

I struggle to break free, but Kevarn's gradually dragging me clear.

The crew of the ambulance are nearby, impatiently looking around for Lorn, wondering where he went, how he managed to avoid them.

They didn't see him vanishing into the darkness.

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.

He had begged the angels to spare the people of the cities they were aiming to visit their wrath upon.

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.

They had been on Earth as men for a surprisingly long time; perhaps too long.

They had become used to, even enjoyed, earthly pleasures.

Hadn't they delayed completing their task until morning, until the sun rose?

Are we really to believe that they refused the relieved and grateful advances of Lot's daughters?

What wouldn't these young girls offer these men who had spared their lives?

*

# Chapter 14

When I arrive back at the carnival, I'm confronted by a sight I've become familiar with; it's under siege, surrounded by streams of angry townsfolk.

The only thing I find unusual about this is the timing. It's all happening too early.

We haven't been here long enough for the Carnival Diabolus to have sucked in its usual payment of lost souls.

The longer we stay in one particular place, the darker our own, regular carnival becomes.

It's not a regular darkness, of course. It's the darkness of the Carnival Diabolus, spreading into and becoming more a part of the regular carnival.

Then there's the inherent darkness of the people themselves; people who wish to experience, to enjoy, the darker side of life.

And so these two elements of darkness greet each other, wilfully embrace, joyously combine.

It's only then that people begin to disappear. And it's later still when the townies become aware that there have been a number of disappearances.

All seemingly linked to the carnival.

It's _then_ that we normally find ourselves besieged. _Then_ that we have to prepare for an overnight flight.

As I draw closer, I realise that there are no police amongst the crowd, no officials insisting on calm, making promises that those responsible for the disappearances will be severely dealt with. There are no abusive yells, no threats of vengeance.

No angry faces.

Their faces are blissful, ecstatic, similar in so many ways to the young couple who had followed me to the cemetery, who still followed me even now, at a distance.

They talked of 'our child': I'm surprised they're still together, as a couple. Marriage isn't allowed. It only enslaves women.

Perhaps, ironically, it was the illness of the child that had kept them together, supporting each other, pooling what little strength they had as individuals.

The couple rush to join others amongst the joyously clamouring people, perhaps recognising someone, perhaps recognising that they are believers, like themselves.

They glance my way excitedly every now and again, everyone they speak to looking my way with equally wide-eyed awe.

It isn't supposed to happen like this.

It's dangerous.

For them, these new believers, so foolishly open in their adoration.

For us, for preaching and promoting blasphemy.

Perhaps we'll have to move on early; perhaps even tonight.

*

# Chapter 15

When I wake the next morning, we're hundreds of miles away.

In a new state. I don't know which one. I don't need to know.

It's also a different time, too.

Not, of course, hundreds of years different.

Just a few years different either way; some time in what would have been our future, or our past.

It's pretty much the same to us, thankfully.

The carnival looks entirely different now, of course.

New banners. New name.

We could just appear overnight in a field by a town. Already set up. Everything already in place.

In just the same, miraculous way we vanished overnight from the plot we'd taken up in the last town.

Obviously, we try to make our sudden vanishing appear as natural as possible.

We leave the holes in the ground, where our poles had been, our pegs driven into the ground. There are also the patches of packed, trodden earth, where booths had stood, people walked. There are enough things left behind, too, including rubbish, discarded items, to give the impression we've made a midnight flight.

They expect that of us anyway, don't they?

That, like thieves in the night, we're well practised at fleeing a town where we have become unwelcome.

Americarnie trash. Tramps. Thieves.

It's one thing to leave a town so suddenly. It would be a different thing entirely to abruptly appear in the midst of a town.

So, like any carnival of old, we announce our arrival with a gay procession.

One of brightly coloured flags, banners, exotic costumes, rarely seen animals.

Even the horses drawing our caravans and floats are gaily decked out, with high-rising plumes of feathers, with trailing streamers of every colour and tone imaginable.

And then, of course, there are us, the performers.

The acrobats are reasonably fortunate, having to do little but tumble, leap and somersault along the edges of the slowly moving procession.

Fire eaters dash alongside the people lining the streets, letting out the odd, amazing burst of flames.

Jugglers grab objects from the crowd, throw them up in the air, return them safely.

The freaks are, well, just freaks; they simply wave as they walk by, or, unable to move, from their seat on one of the floats,

Floats are a strange word for carts that jolt and judder with every large stone or hole we encounter.

And it's this that makes certain acts, including mine, even more dangerous than they would otherwise be.

Fortunately, for most of the procession I'm allowed to simply sit on a suspended swing, or slide gracefully, like a twining serpent, down hanging ropes.

Yet every now and again, along with Jeserel and Verelda, I'm expected to leap from one high swing to another.

And a sharp jolt of the float at the wrong time sends the bar you're reaching out for swinging chaotically, unpredictably.

Similarly, the tamers of the more ferocious animals suffer from the unexpectedly sharp jolts, any one of which can anger their caged lions, wolves, bears and tigers.

They're safe for the moment, naturally; but later, when they have to prepare their charges for the shows, the animals are irritable, as unpredictable as the roads that caused the problem in the first place.

Even so, despite these dangers, I'm enjoying myself.

It's always nice, the warmly welcoming crowds lining up to greet us. The overly excited children, already pestering their parents to buy tickets, to take them to see the shows as soon as possible.

Our arrival into a town is always a cause of celebration.

The early days are the good days.

We never really know how soon it will be before we outstay our welcome.

*

# Chapter 16

We'd only been in town a few days when the Senator arrived.

I wasn't really sure who he was.

I've never been interested in politics. I hardly ever read the few newspapers that are available.

No matter who you vote for, they all seem the same to me.

Same old promises. Same old lies.

Lorn used to say he didn't trust any of them: they didn't represent us, understand us, or look out for us.

Even back to the time when the politicians had been our own people, they had betrayed us. Sold us out. Just for their own benefit, their own easy way of life.

'You know the story of the Mite?' Lorn had once said to me.

'The one in the Testament? Sure,' I'd replied.

'I meant the modern version; the Americarnie version. See, the rich man who sneers at the old lady putting her mite into the charity box, he doesn't leave it at that. He's a good man, isn't he? So he approaches her, tells her off for being miserly; for letting people worse off than her suffer. So he takes her arm, twists it – makes her put everything she has into that poor box. Then, when the old lady leaves, he helps himself to some of that charity money. For he's the one, isn't he, who made sure that poor box was filled?'

Lorn might not have believed we were descended from angels: but he'd certainly believed we had once been a proud people, brought low by our own crooked leaders, selling us out for their own ease and comfort.

They were, he'd said, like our fathers, the father of the children of the carnie; they took no responsibility for the results of their actions, denied it was anything to do with them, saying it would all have naturally happened like that anyway.

All they'd done, hadn't they, they'd say, was help ease us into this new world, a world that no one had any real control over any longer.

We just had to accept what we were given.

The Senator is given a tour of the carnival, Master Elias all deferential, acting like the Senator's honouring us with his visit.

Truth is, Elias hates these Senators just as much as any Americarnie. But he knows they have the power and wherewithal to cause the carnivals trouble.

Every bottle of ElixiAir that Kevarn had added the Diabolus waters to has been emptied, refilled with our own useless version.

'We don't need miraculous cures drawing attention to us!' Master Elias had stormed when he'd heard why we'd had to flee our last town much earlier than expected.

We've already been in our new town much longer than we'd managed there. The carnival is beginning to experience the signs of the gradually spreading darkness.

Lights are dimmer.

There's an increasing air of menace about the place.

The visiting crowds are expecting more of us – more thrills, more drunkenness, more debauchery. More of everything that is usually strictly limited to them throughout their day to day life.

And so we've seen more people briefly vanishing into the true darkness beyond the lights.

Some fall across the line, unsteady on their feet after a drink too many.

Others eagerly run into the shadows, chasing either a giggling or terrified girl. In the first case, both of them will tumble into the darkness.

Whole groups of aggressively squabbling men are soaked up by the blackness they seek to sort their differences out in.

When they return – and so far, thankfully, all of them have returned – they can't remember where they've been. What they've done.

They still remain, naturally, unware of the darkness.

They're dazed. Yet also, they sense, ecstatic.

Satisfied beyond their wildest wishes.

And so, if truly sated, they could, if they wished, leave it at that. They could survive the Carnival Diabolus by simply refusing to return.

But they'll be back.

They don't know why. They just know that they have to return.

Because this is where they felt so impossibly euphoric. Where all their dreams came true.

And so they'll come until they're finally entirely absorbed by the welcoming darkness.

The darkness that now lies, waiting, beyond the smiling, touring Senator.

Just a few steps back, and...he would vanish too.

But he won't, of course.

He hasn't been called.

And yet...I get the impression that he's not completely unaware of the presence of the patiently waiting darkness.

Does he sense that it's there?

Is he so observant that he's noticed few people glance that way, as if avoiding the scenes of a ghastly accident, eyes averted, heads tilted?

I could be mistaken, naturally, that he senses the border between our worlds.

Just as the carnie try and hide their averted gazes (thereby, ironically, drawing the attention of anyone who's truly vigilant), he seems to me to be forcing himself to act as if he doesn't know it's there.

It's not the usual way townsfolk behave when passing along the dividing line. Normally they step away as if, suddenly, recalling something else they had to do. Or, conversely, as if they had abruptly forgotten their original intentions.

Like us, the Senator's trying to avoid drawing attention to it.

Acting as if it isn't really there, this sheer blackness beyond the glaring lights. Acting as if it could have absolutely no effect on anyone standing by it.

But how could he possibly know of its existence?

Unless – he's a previous visitor of the darkness.

*

He regards me the way he regards the darkness.

His attempts to hide his interest in me.

His fleeting, sly glances my way.

Surely he's not attracted to me?

He's tall, handsome; an almost feminine elegance. He's a man who knows he's beautiful, too, playing off his charming smile, the humorous sparkle in his eyes. The almost hypnotic effect of slim, animated hands.

But he's way too old for someone my age.

Is that, though, why he ended up in the darkside? (If, indeed, he did, however briefly.)

It's a knowing gaze: his eyes bright, alive. Humorous. Confident.

His face ever so slightly lights up with elation when Master Elias introduces us to each other.

'Ah, yes, yes; the angel,' he says, admiring the repaired wings I've donned once more for tonight's show.

'Ah, only, of course, Senator, a mythical–'

'Yes, yes; no need to explain, Master – I'm well aware, and a great admirer of your culture. As I've explained.'

He smiles warmly at me, as if partially entranced.

'Angels: such wonderful, mythical creatures, don't you think...?'

He waits for me to answer, to provide my name for him.

'Sel, Sir; I mean, Selmerey. And yes, Sir, they are wonderful creatures.'

He nods, satisfied with my answer, it seems.

'So, tell me, Miss Selmerey: do you think of them as being wholly mythical beings?'

He's mistaken my name for my surname. But I'm too busy trying to think of the best way of answering his question to bother correcting him.

His glittering gaze seems intent on probing my eyes, as if, like the patiently waiting darkness, he's simply biding his time before springing a trap.

'I think, Sir, that...I think that it would be wonderful if they really existed.'

'Excellent, excellent answer, don't you think, Master Elias? A bright girl, a very bright girl you have here.'

A relieved Master Elias nods in elated agreement. Like me, I'd noticed, he had appeared wary of the question, nervous of any answer I might give.

'Oh, and what do you base your portrayal of this angel upon?' the Senator asks, apparently innocently yet again, the question nevertheless inherently dangerous.

'It's a traditional costume, Sir: obviously, we have no pictures to verify its accuracy.'

'I see, I see,' he nods, taking in my spreading wings with what seems obvious interest. 'I believe what you have here is quite accurate.'

He looks up, catching the surprise, the unease, on our faces.

'Ah, you're shocked that a Senator would know of and take an interest in your beliefs, yes?'

He chuckles mischievously.

'But why not?' he continues. 'The founding myths of our great country ultimately make us what we all are today, I believe. I read of such beliefs avidly: a foible, let's say, of mine. And I, of course, am rather privileged when it comes to the ancient texts placed at my disposal.'

He looks towards me once again, the eyes narrowing, challenging and sly. Despite his best efforts, he fails to ease or even veil their true nature and intent.

'Have you ever wondered, Miss Selmerey, how angels used to be portrayed?'

Master Elias forces a smile, everything else about his expression grave and grey.

'I...yes, yes: of course. Purely as a matter of interest, of course.'

'Of course!'

The Senator grins, amused by the cautious qualifications in my answer.

'What say you, Master?' he continues brightly, giving Elias nothing more than a sidelong glance. 'Should I show our angel what they used to think she should look like?'

The Master manages to retain his sickly grin, despite a gulp to his throat, a glint of fear in his eye.

'I'm sure, Sir, that Sel doesn't need to see–'

'Nonsense, nonsense: in fact, I insist. I'll send a car for her tomorrow – we must ensure her portrayal of such an important mythological figure is as accurate as possible!'

*

# Chapter 17

The car wasn't what I'd dreamt it would be; it was far, far better.

I couldn't have possibly imagined just how wonderful it would be.

It travelled along the roads so smoothly, it was as if I were travelling on a magic carpet, floating only ever so slightly above the ground. The seats were the softest and most comfortable I had ever sat in.

Windows of tinted glass went up then down at the push of a button. The seats themselves moved forward and back, up and down, at the push of a few other buttons.

No matter how hot it became outside, you could remain cool in here, here in this remarkably luxurious world.

It seemed so amazingly quiet as it moved too, the purring of a contented kitten.

I had heard of cars, naturally; I had even seen the odd picture of them. Yet nothing could have prepared me for this most glorious way of travelling.

We completely passed through the town. We left via its deserted, ruined edges on the far side, the road wending its way through crumbling buildings and overgrown streets.

My sense of ease and luxury gradually subsided, to be replaced with a nagging apprehension.

What did the Senator want with me?

Why did we have to meet outside of the carnival? Outside of the town?

He wasn't with me yet, of course.

The car was being driven by a servant. The servant said little to ease my worries; I only caught a glimpse of him every now and again, when he glanced back at me in the minute mirror positioned by his seat.

He wouldn't say where we were headed.

Only that he had his instructions.

Sit back, enjoy the ride.

He tried to sound pleasant enough.

The car began to quietly purr its way up a slight rise in the mostly barren landscape. It was then that I saw and realised where I was being taken.

The cemetery.

The Senator had arranged to meet me in the town's long abandoned cemetery.

*

I'd been full of hope that the Senator was going to reveal to me forbidden books, containing ancient illustrations of angels.

For that, I'd been prepared to risk agreeing to meet the Senator.

Yet it seems that even he is limited to seeing only these ancient, crumbling statues.

I try not to look disappointed as I step from the halted car.

I smile as I make my way between the tumbled, overgrown gravestones, heading towards the waiting Senator.

I'm not supposed to know of even these rare renditions of angels.

They are supposed to be a surprise to me.

'What do you think?' the Senator asks, elated.

He points back towards statues peeping out from behind brambles, clumps of grass.

'Did you see them, hiding amongst the rest of the fallen stone? Angels! Lots of them!'

He's standing by the sculpture of a particularly elegant, graciously pious angel. As soon as he's greeted me, he turns to caress its elongated form, his eyes lingering over it adoringly.

'Gorgeous, isn't she?'

His eyes are still on her, the angel.

'Have you ever seen anything like her?'

Once again, I'm wary of answering. He turns to me, observes me with an amused if puzzled frown.

'Do you seriously expect me to believe you've never been curious enough to visit a place like this?'

'If you seriously thought I'd already seen statues like this before, why did you invite me here? As if you were introducing me to something new?'

He grins, more amused than ever.

'You're careful with your answers, aren't you?' He nods, as if he understands, maybe even a little impressed. 'Of course, you have to be – but not with me, you understand?'

He stares hard at me, glowers directly into my own eyes.

He's asking me to trust him.

Can I?

Why should I?

He continues with, it seems, his attempt to probe deeply into me, to ascertain my thoughts – or at least to elicit a confession – purely with his eyes, his hard stare.

'I know,' he declares, 'the Americarnie believe they're descended from angels.'

'A myth,' I reply. 'If angels are a myth, naturally any supposed descent from them is also a myth.'

'Yet we know, don't we, that some people think there are hidden truths in myths?'

I glance nervously about me.

I'm looking for others, who might overhear. Who might be here as part of his plan to entrap me.

'It's dangerous to be in a place like this...' I mumble uncertainly.

He laughs scornfully.

'And so you've never visited the only place left where these forbidden images lie forgotten and ignored? Come, come, Miss Selmerey: you must be curious!'

Suddenly, he reaches out, grabs my hand. He pulls me closer towards him with a violent jerk.

I glance back towards the car. The driver's still in his seat, ignoring or uncaring of what's happening here.

'You're safe with me!' the Senator gasps, wrestling me closer towards the silently preaching angel, his words at odds with his actions. 'This is your opportunity to safely study these angels, to touch them, to feel how–'

He wrenches my arm, drags my hand towards the body of the motionless angel.

But now that I've touched it, the angel, of course, is no longer stilled.

It opens its eyes.

It smiles.

*

# Chapter 18

Eight years old. Jane green.

An illness 'cruelly took her too soon', as her parents' heartfelt inscription tells us.

Good at math, for her age. Read frequently too.

'Bookish'; that's how her parents proudly described her.

There's more of her, much more, of course.

All flooding into the angel. Here to look once more over the earth. To learn more about it.

As she would have done the first time she was here. If she'd been given the time.

With a whispered 'Thank you', she first shrugs then flaps her wings. With a skip, she leaps off her plinth. With a surging flutter of soft feathers, she springs into the air.

Swooping past both the Senator and me, as if to display her ease with flying, she next rises swiftly, ascending smoothly and effortlessly into the sky. Soon, she is little more than a glittering speck that could be an airborne bird.

'What...what happened?' I gasp, as if taken by surprise.

Surprisingly, the Senator doesn't appear at all surprised.

'What happened – was a miracle!' he declares blissfully. 'That's what happened!'

'But...but how?'

I have to try and keep up my pretence at bewilderment.

Not, of course, that I'm completely at ease with what I've just seen. But at least I had been half expecting it.

I had seen it happen before.

I was simply hoping it wouldn't happen again.

'How?'

He grins knowingly. Like he's fully aware that I was the one who brought the stone angel to life. Like he knew this would happen.

But how? That's not possible, is it?

Even if he'd heard about my experience in the other cemetery: even if – with his admitted interest in all things Americarnie – he'd arranged to ensure he was informed of anything unusual happening within the carnivals; even then, there was nothing to connect our present carnival and position with anything that had happened back in that town, back in that time.

'I was hoping you'd be able to tell me how you did it.'

He stares at me expectantly.

He does know I've done it before.

I shrug, indicate with a nervous flourish of wringing then opening hands that I really, really, really don't know how I did it.

'It...just happens...I'd never done it before – well, not until after the acid–'

I'm giving away too much. I should remain silent. Or, at least, be more careful with the words I'm using.

'Yes, after your accident?'

There's a confident tone to his voice that implies he's also aware of my fall, my recovery. Does he, then, know of the role of the Diabolus waters?

Probably. The miracles associated with the bottles Kevarn had sold to the townsfolk would have elicited far more gossip than my fall.

'It was the waters; the ElixiAir. I'm sure.'

I hope I've guessed correctly that he knows all about the cures, the role of the medicine that had been sold.

I still have to be careful, however; I can't risk giving away any knowledge or details that could lead him to discover or even suspect the existence of the Carnival Diabolus.

He nods, tight lipped, as if agreeing that this makes whatever little sense can be attached to these bewildering events.

I'd gained my own particular powers after I'd drunk the Diabolus waters. Lorn, too, had found that he could indeed foretell the future, but only after he'd also drunk from the bottle Kevarn had offered him.

'Still,' the Senator says after the briefest of pauses, staring directly and ever so challengingly into my eyes once more, 'it's all quite remarkable, isn't it? I mean, all these miracles? Miraculous waters or not?'

I give a nod in agreement.

What else could I do? Deny it?

'Good, good,' he declares with a sigh of satisfaction. 'At least you're being more honest with me now, Miss Selmerey: which is all I wanted. All I deserved, I believe?'

He phrases it as a question. He wants me to ask, I'm sure, why he deserves honesty from me.

'I could turn you in: I should turn you in.'

He answers his own question for me.

And he's right. Even if I denied granting the statue life, it would be his word – a Senator's – against an Americarnie.

No contest, in a court of law; in the court of daily life.

'I won't,' he says, reaching out to me, taking my arm with an unexpected tenderness.

'Because I believe they are miracles, Miss Selmerey! And I believe you really are descended from angels!'

*

# Chapter 19

The Senator had not only read our forbidden Testament, but had also used his position to obtain and read older, more original texts.

Texts that had at one time being included within the Testament, but had gradually been removed. Texts that had been banned for centuries, even thousands of years.

He had read how my people had created and developed so much of the technology we took for granted in our day and age. How we had landscaped and irrigated the land to grow crops. How we had explored the seas, even – it was bizarrely rumoured – space itself (and this long after we had lost the use and the presence of our wings too!).

'Yes, yes,' he says as we comfortably make our way back to the carnival in the smoothly running car, 'it pains me to admit it, but it transpires that it is indeed true that you created this – our – land. And you would probably still run it today if you hadn't been brought low by your arrogance and sense of superiority.'

The history and myths of my people had always intrigued him, he admitted, even from when he had been a young boy living in the city. Although the vast majority of the city's technology no longer operated, he had found himself looking on in awe at the gigantic complexes that had been built so very long ago.

On becoming a Senator, he had used his influence and contacts to enhance his understanding of the role of my people in the country's creation; a country that was now undeniably the country of his rather than my people.

He had asked to be kept informed of any unusual events at the carnivals: and yes, he was well aware that townsfolk vanished after attending some of the carnivals. Many of those in government were well informed when it came to tracking such disappearances. However, as those who vanished tended to be the more unscrupulous and unwanted of the citizens – the thieves, the gamblers, the sexual predators – it had been agreed long ago that their removal was ultimately beneficial to society.

Yet the miraculous cures engendered by the waters; now that had been a very unusual event.

And for a surprisingly large number of people, a particular event had been even more memorable: the fall and swift recovery of an 'angel' in the 'Miracle Play'.

Added to all this, to avoid prosecution for blasphemy, a young man and woman had been very forthcoming when it came to providing a remarkably accurate and detailed description of that very same girl.

With this description circulated to his many, countrywide informants, the Senator simply had to wait until he'd heard from his contacts of an Americarnie girl exactly matching that description.

It had been over three years: which had admittedly surprised him.

He hadn't expected to have to wait that long, he explained.

Even so, it had been worth the wait, no matter how long it had taken, he added, without offering any further explanation as to why this should be so.

'You are a fallen people,' he says as the car crosses town once more. 'Yet I do not see why our people as a whole shouldn't benefit from the knowledge and skills you possess. We just have to persuade those people, of course, that you do possess these considerable qualities: and now, I believe, we are close to producing the proof that you can aid us in many previously unimaginable ways!'

'Proof? You think that I could–'

He interrupts my excited query with a vigorous shaking of his head.

'No, no. Unfortunately, even your remarkable feat would be simply dismissed as a typical Americarnie fraud: a piece of fakery at its most amazing, yet fakery for all that. It's what your people have become infamous for, after all.'

"But the miraculous cures? The medicinal waters?'

'Are they repeatable? If not, what happened will simply be dismissed as a set of coincidences, or as a form of group hysteria.'

'Then what is this proof you think we have?'

'The boy, of course! Your friend! Lorn, isn't it?'

'Lorn? But how could he be proof that we're descended from angels?'

'Just as my contacts had informed me of you, Miss Selmerey, they also told me of Lorn. And I believe – and, I've heard, you also once believed – that his supposed deformity is actually caused by the presence of what should be his angelic wings!'

*

# Chapter 20

'I don't know where he is; if I did, I would help, obviously! I want so much to prove – to believe myself – that the Americarnie are the remainder of what used to be the angels!'

The second part of what I've just said, of course, is true.

The first part, however, is at least half a lie.

I still don't know how much the Senator knows of the Carnival Diabolus – still don't know how much I can trust him with details of its existence.

According to the Senator, he believes Lorn is what he calls – 'for want of a better word, I'm afraid' – a 'throwback': that is, a person containing qualities that had long disappeared in the general population.

'You often see it in the runt of a litter – not that I'm implying Lorn is a runt, naturally! Such a pup can actually turn out to be an example of how the breed originally looked before breeders created their own version of the dog.'

Even if I did tell the Senator where Lorn has run off to, it wouldn't help as far as proving that the Americarnie are the children of angels. How could we help him return from the darkness of the Carnival Diabolus? Where exactly is he within that darkness?

That, of course, I really don't know.

We've arrived back at the carnival. The evening is just setting in, a time when we're already beginning to ingest the larger crowds: the people who have just left the day's work behind, who are prepared to spend the money that will ensure they have an enjoyable night.

Ropewalkers, jugglers, plate-spinners, cavorting gymnasts and tumblers are already entertaining the gathering crowds. Booths offering prizes of large, soft pink bears, of purple monkeys, or exotically shaped lamps, are being eagerly surrounded. A metallic rabbit pings as it's hit by a pellet from an ancient airgun, a board thuds as a card is speared with a dart. Hot dogs, candyfloss, burgers, fries: all are being hungrily purchased and devoured, lathered with sauces normally unavailable within the towns.

'I'll have to get dressed; prepare for my act,' I apologise to the Senator as his driver opens the back door of the car for him, as I slip out on my side.

'Of course, of course!' the Senator replies surprisingly amiably.

I had expected more of a protest from him: a demand for further disclosures from me.

'Oh, but first, Miss Selmerey,' he adds, 'could you show me, please, to the Future Fates booth?'

'Of course.'

It's Lorn's old booth. No one has taken it over, as yet. No one has quite the talent he had for reading people.

I can't see what the Senator hopes to find there, but neither can I see any harm in taking him there.

The way there is quick, easy. Just past the largest tent, where we put on the main shows. A tent that casts large, angular shadows. The booth lies on the edge of one of the darker areas, a means of giving it a touch of mystery, of – yes – foreboding.

Ironic, really, considering Lorn's fate.

The darkness within the booth is even more complete than I was expecting: whenever I've been here before, Lorn had always already lit the small lanterns hanging from the walls and ceiling. Now the only light comes from the doorway, where I've left the tent-like flap of heavy curtain thrown back.

It makes everything in here seem all the more forlorn. The crystals glow only slightly, only weakly, in the little light entering behind me. In the darkness, the table and its chairs can only just be made out as even more solidly black shapes.

As the Senator confidently steps towards the table, he's already drawing out a small silken bag from the inner pocket of his jacket.

'I'll have to go–'

'No, please; I think you'll want to see this!'

Deftly unlacing the bag, the Senator slips out a pack of Tarot cards. Equally deftly, he begins to rapidly lay them out across the table, face down and in a regular, geometrical pattern like a sunburst.

One by one, but incredibly swiftly, surprisingly expertly, he turns the cards over.

He works so quickly, I can't make out which particular cards they are. It strikes me that the Senator doesn't appear interested in checking which they are either.

It seems, in fact, as if he's already aware of what they will be, as if he'd already arranged the cards within the pack before laying them out.

The light – or, rather the lack of light – within the darkened booth abruptly changes.

The dim light languidly drifting in from the doorway behind me blinks out of existence, replaced in an instant with sheer darkness.

The light of the doorway now lies before me, on the other side of the table.

The Senator chuckles at my gasp of surprise.

'You really didn't know about this, did you?'

'What is it? What did you do?'

'Why, I simply opened the door to the Carnival Diabolus, of course!'

*

# Chapter 21

'Please; you don't understand! You might not be able to return if you go in there!'

I have to warn him.

He seems to be incredibly well informed about the carnival and the Americarnie, seems to know more than I do in some cases: but, naturally, he hasn't seen what I've seen over my years with the carnival.

No one comes back from the Carnival Diabolus unchanged.

Many, of course, don't come back at all.

He's seems to be ignoring me. Sliding his cards back into a pack, he slips them back into the silk bag.

'Once again, your naivety about your own people shocks me, Miss Selmerey.'

He places the bag and pack in the centre of the table.

'This will provide us with a means,' he continues, his eyes never leaving the pack as he speaks, 'to ensure our return.'

'Our?'

'Naturally: or are you really saying you're not intending to help me bring Lorn back from the Carnival Diabolus?'

As we've talked, we've naturally ignored the silken bag lying on the table. When we look back towards it, it has changed: it's collapsed, empty. The pack of cards that had been inside the bag has vanished.

Far from being dismayed, the Senator elatedly reaches for the empty bag. Unstringing it once more, he tips it over an outstretched palm.

What look like a few small, dark seeds spill out into his hand.

The Senator grins wryly when he sees my bewildered expression.

'Surely,' he says, 'you've heard of Jack and the Beanstalk?'

*

# Chapter 22

'They're seeds?'

'Pips, to be exact. Seven pomegranate pips, to be even more precise.'

Holding his palm at an angle above the open bag, he slowly and carefully tips the pips back into the bag, until only one remains in the crease of his hand.

With a quick jerk of the hand holding the bag, his fingers grasping the drawstring as he does so, he pulls it reasonably tightly closed.

'Amongst the seeds found within a pomegranate, one of them is a duplicate of one found in paradise.'

His palm flat once more, he holds out his hand towards me, as if offering me the pip.

The pip's no longer dark: it glows a ruby red, like a small sliver of crystal. Or as if surrounded once again by blood-red juice.

It begins to spread, as if it were now a bleeding cut to his hand. As if a nail had been hammered into his palm.

The lifeline running across his palm quickens, quivers, as if actually alive; a thread of life rising up from his skin, as snaking mists rise from ground warmed by the morning sun.

Like a snake, a recently awakened serpent, the wraith-like line at first writhes languidly above his palm; then it abruptly shoots forward, like it's striking out, a strike of lightning coursing through the air.

It crackles as it rips through the booth, sighs as it exits through the darkness off to one side of the newly formed doorway.

'That's what we follow,' the Senator announces triumphantly, reaching out with the hand holding the bag to take my own hand.

He strides towards the darkened area alongside the door, his palm still held out flat before him, the streaking thread seemingly being gradually absorbed or devoured by his hand as he moves forwards.

I go with him, too dazed and bewildered to protest.

As we step into the darkness, it's like stepping into a glowing light.

*

The glow comes from the incredible brightness of a multitude of surrounding lights.

The darkness lying beyond and all around them provides the sharp contrast that makes them seem all the brighter, all the more alluring and fantastical.

All the colours imaginable, they sparkle as if illuminated gems: rubies, emeralds, sapphires, amethyst, amber. Mainly suspended, often in long rows, they could have been the burning stars of an endless universe.

There's also the familiar sound of throbbing generators, the smells of oil, of ground-in horse droppings. There's laughter, merriment, the raucous cries of drunks. A wailing, too: the odd cry of agony, of distress. Gasps that could be amazement or moans of disappointment, of anguish. Shrieks of those being thrilled, of those filled with fear.

The weaving, snapping thread connected to the Senator's hand entrancingly ripples through this universe, leading us deeper into this mix of light and dark, of excited yells and sounds of pain.

The lights swirl through the darkness, as suns and planets whirl through space, solar systems in miniature that spin ever faster as they draw ever closer together, whirlpools of accumulating light.

They explode, as if suffering from an overload, darken, shrink, sucking in evermore of the surrounding darkness. Darkness which slithers, coagulates, hardens, becomes form, material – man.

Suddenly, the warping, wafting thread of life has vanished, as if broken, snapped.

And all about us is the chaos of unending carnival: the Carnival Diabolus.

*

# Chapter 23

The carnival extends endlessly in all ways around us. Above. Below.

No matter which way you look, which way you head, you're seeing, you're striding into, a carnival of booths, bars, rides, entertainers, shows, and bawdy, flimsily dressed burlesque.

The crowds are exhilarated, enthusiastic for everything that's happening about them; whether it's being invited to take part in a show, an act, a ride, a challenge for a prize, a gamble, a drink, a liaison, an encounter.

It's all so familiar. Yet also so at odds with the joy I've always associated with the carnival.

Blackness swirls about everything, everyone, as if it's smoke, or oil, swirling and expanding in water.

Some of the grins on faces are pained, forced, as if elicited through an effort to please on their part, or by an accuser or torturer, insistent that they play the part of enjoying themselves. Others, however, are wild, animalistic in their sense of freedom; the freedom to do everything they could have ever wished for in their wildest, most bestial imaginations.

There's no reason to hold back here. No reason not to take part in the very sheerest excess of behaviour, the lowering of morals, the shrugging off of civilisation, of humanity.

There are no shells here to either constrain or contain people.

No shell of society. No rules. No regulations. No restrictions.

No shell of body. For the bodies I think I see are only made up of the surrounding darkness, darkness that whips and snaps through them.

Still, that doesn't prevent them from enjoying the sense of body, the bodily senses of taste, touch, and being touched, an orgy of food, drink, other people.

' _Carne-vale_ – or "farewell flesh", if you'd prefer it in your language.'

The Senator observes the ribald goings on with an amused smirk.

' _Diabolus_ – the Devil! For it's the Devil himself who has wormed his way into these people!'

'Is that what you think all this is? An entrapment? A Hell?'

'People entrapped by their own fleshy desires, you mean?' His smirk is wider than ever. 'A last spin of the coin! Some Hell, though, don't you think?'

Admittedly, most of those around us appear to be enjoying themselves. But doesn't any carnival bring out that initial enjoyment? The suffering is afterwards, when you atone for your excess of pleasure with a hangover, or harsh pangs of regret or guilt.

I suspect that no one around us will be tortured by guilt. The hangover, though; that might be a different matter, judging by how rolling, stumbling drunk most of these people are.

Yet again, however, I would think that it's highly unlikely they're expected to suffer in this way.

'But I saw _some_ of the people return.'

I have to yell to be heard above the screams of joy, of terror, the laughter of those laughing at others, those less fortunate than themselves.

As they laugh, they fail to realise that they have also become the source of amusement, of entertainment, for others. For many are already freakish in their nature, sprouting here an excess of hair, there an elongated nose, even an extra pair of legs. Many are gnome-like. Even more are passable as sneering goblins.

'Yes, they were _changed_ ,' I admit, continuing my reply to the Senator. 'But they still came back!'

'Not so much changed, as _rearranged_.'

With a slight, amused nod of his head, he indicates a group of drunks merrily sidling off into the deeper shadows.

They don't realise, I presume, that what little remains of their flesh is already unforming, deteriorating, the darkness unhurriedly wafting its way through the warp of their being: they grow tails, hooves, paws and snouts.

Elsewhere, a gorgeously alluring woman, so aware of her beauty, is unaware that the ugliness she laughs at is seeping into her, mingling to create a creature she could only despise. A freak who, tomorrow, will be an attraction, the star of her own show, if she returns to her old world.

It's the terrified snorting of pigs, the bleating of lambs, that wakens me to a much greater sense of familiarity than I'd felt earlier: we're walking around a patch of the carnival that reminds me so much of my own carnival, with its positioning of booths, the nature of its rides, the tumbling and whirling of jugglers and entertainers, the slinky, elasticated bodies of girls trained since birth to wrap themselves in all manner of unusual shapes.

Yes, yes; there's Ferendra! There, too, is Gillaresh!

Yet they're not really here. They're a ghostly presence. (Or is it that we're a ghostly presence amongst them?)

They move freely about the Carnival Diabolus, unhindered in anyway by its peoples. They pass through the crowds here, just as we pass effortlessly through those attending my home carnival.

Only the booths, those occupying the very same positions within each carnival, prove to be obstacles. Booths attended by people I recognise – yes, there's Kevarn, handing out his bottles of ElixiAir – but also by people I don't, each moving through each other, in many cases going through remarkably similar actions, their hands touching if only they were on the same plane of existence.

In this carnival, every bottle glows, the glow of the truly magical, miraculous waters that Kevarn had managed to bring over into our world. As he touches his own bottles, draws them clear, it would be so easy, surely, for him to reach for and take another one of these miraculous bottles: is that how Mom helped him choose one, by simply making sure he was aware that it was possible?

It's an overlapping of realities: no wonder the carnies who come here find it so impossible to return! There is no edge of darkness here, a way of simply stepping back from the darkness, heading back into the light.

That, of course, is why the Senator insisted on making sure he was armed with the pomegranate seeds.

It's no use asking him how he knew to ask for the pips, how he knew how to ask for them. He'll just say, as he always does, that he found the answers in the many esoteric tracts he's waded his way through over the years.

He was sorting out the lies, sieving out the truth, he has already told me. That's how he would know of the secret portal in the Future Fates booth.

As for all the rest of this amazing carnival – with its trapeze artists flying from one plane into another, its tightrope walkers precariously balanced on a three dimensional web of ropes, many of which curve sickeningly – are they connections to every other carnival in the country, the world? Are they all unknowingly connected by the Carnival Diabolus?

The equivalent of the more ghostly Kevarn moves easily, fluidly, around his booth, holding out the waters to the eagerly surrounding crowd; and yet, it dawns on me, he never releases the bottle. Because the bottle is empty. And then, rapidly, it fills, glows: draining the waters of life from the pressing crowd.

When he places the bottle back amongst the others, it sparkles, full of life.

The bottles the crowd drink from are those purchased from the bars. They have no need for health, or wellbeing.

They're happy. Deliriously so.

They wither and age, yet they are thankfully unaware of this.

'A garden of earthly delights!' The Senator grins with a perhaps shocking sense of pleasure as he watches this. 'Their own uncontrollable needs have become their own punishment.'

'Where will we find Lorn?' I ask anxiously. It's far more chaotic here than I could have possibly imagined.

'I had hoped,' the senator admits, 'that he'd be here, with you, when we came through.'

'With me? Why would he be with me?'

He shrugs, as if he's not quite sure himself why he had made this assumption.

'I'd thought that, maybe, what you presumed were your talents for bringing the statues to life were really his: that he was staying around you, as a sort of guardian angel.'

'If you thought that – then why didn't you tell me?' I retort angrily.

He shrugs again.

'I didn't want to raise your hopes unnecessarily: it was only an assumption on my part.'

'If he had been with me, wouldn't we have seen him when we came through to this side?'

He nods.

'Of course; but that might be why he left – because he didn't want you to actually see him as he might appear now.'

At the stall we're passing, the hoopla, a man cries out with glee as he's presented with a large, soft, orange monkey as a prize: until the prize leaps into life, swings onto his back, and whips him along through the crowds as if he were now nothing more than a convenient mount.

The other players continue with their throws of the hoops regardless, aiming to deftly land them over sticks revealed, on closer viewing, to be men and women in miniature, people who scream as they are violently struck by the badly aimed projectiles.

There are more screams from the dart and airgun booths, the cards illustrated with moving people, the metallic objects being struck by the pellets similarly partly human in form. Money being exchanged, both coins and notes, are compressed men and women, as are the cards being urgently shuffled and dealt at the gambling booths.

Shrieks of glee come from the roller-coaster, the carriages spinning in a twisting, rising and falling course that's impossible to follow in its complexity and ingenuity. Shrieks of fright and agony, however, come from the people making up its maze of wooden framing, supporting its careering path.

In complete shock, I spin away from the horror I'm seeing, barging unintentionally into a crazed-looking woman wildly winding her way through the crowd. To stop herself from tumbling, she reaches out for me, grabs me by the arm – only to almost jerk back from me as if struck by a bolt of lightning.

She hasn't let go of my arms however. She grips them all the tighter, even though her face is creased with fear, her eyes bulbous and white with terror.

In these eyes, as if they're crystal balls, I see myself.

I'm riding on the back of an angel, and angel with the most beautiful, outspread wings!

'No, no! I don't want to know your future! I don't wish to know anyone's future anymore!'

The woman wails, as if pained by her insight. I sense that she is tortured by her skill: seeing everything that must pass constantly laid out before her must have its own terrors.

She lets go of my arms, weaves past me, streams through the crowd once more, trying to avoid touching anyone she has to pass.

The back of her head is also a face, one anguished and miserable. Even her torso, I notice now for the first time, is twisted around to face in a different direction to her legs.

She ambles off awkwardly, unsteadily.

But before she had let me go, I had seen my future, seen Lorn's.

I was dragging him down.

I was too heavy.

We were falling to our deaths!

*

# Chapter 24

'Did you see–'

I whirl around, checking to see if the Senator had also witnessed how my meeting up with Lorn leads to our possible deaths.

But he isn't there. While I've been distracted and held up, he's obliviously moved on through the crowd.

I look about me urgently, hoping I can pick him out from the rest of the throng.

I can't see him anywhere. He's vanished.

I rush through the crowd, continuing in the direction we'd originally been heading, hoping I can catch up with him. Once again, however, I'm disappointed – or should that be dismayed?

He has the pips. The pips that will lead us back to my own world.

I can only hope now that he soon realises I'm not with him. And comes back to look for me.

Nearby, a juggler is throwing his batons into the air. He drops one, which squeals as it crashes to the ground, revealing itself to be yet another transformed, terrified human.

And if whatever I saw in that poor woman's eyes is true, that's my future too.

*

I head towards the Glass Labyrinth, the maze of mirrors and glass.

That's where Lorn used to hang out back in my world.

Of course, I'm not sure he'll be there: even if he's taken to hanging out in the Mirrored Hall once more, I've no idea how many exist within the Carnival Diabolus.

He could be in any one of them. Or none of them.

If I find Lorn, I should find the Senator too: because the Senator is also on the lookout for Lorn.

Besides, it's really Lorn who I've come here looking for, isn't it?

As I approach the hall of mirrors, people are exiting it. They're deformed, having taken on the shapes and forms they'd seen within the contorting mirrors.

There are people wearing masks too. Joining in the gaiety of the carnival. Joining in its horror too, for on removing their masks, their faces remain just the same.

A clown darts past, weeping. Has he found too, that he can't remove his makeup without revealing the same face beneath?

The Glass Labyrinth is even more confusing than normal. It's also inhabited by the mirage-like glass walls, the ghostly patrons, that exist back in my world.

Lorn isn't here, however.

He could be anywhere, of course.

Even in residence at one of the innumerable Future Fates booths. That would make sense; continuing in his same role here.

He was good at it, after all.

But then again: hadn't I just come across a poor woman who had been punished by knowing all futures, all fates?

What's Lorn's skills against that?

In the darker shadows, a cavorting couple are transforming, growing fur and tails, their arms writhing oddly as they become forelegs. No one else around me seems to notice, their own grins just as wild with lust, pleasure, fear.

The constantly loud music, a cacophony of a multitude of many different tunes, drums through me painfully. I feel dizzy, dazed by it all.

Like a rush of blood to my brain it can't handle.

The asses I'd watched been formed in the darkness have each risen onto their four feet: or, rather, hooves. With a confused shake of their long ears, they both begin to amble off towards an area of the carnival where a string of bright lights hover above them like exploding supernovae.

Are they heading back into the real world? Are these just two more of the donkeys and asses we so often find stumbling out of the darkness.

As they pass beneath the strung lights, they vanish.

I dash after them, wanting to follow, to appear out of the darkness back in my own carnival, my home.

But I run on beneath the lights without experiencing any sense of change.

Ahead of me, it all looks pretty much as it did only a second ago.

Spinning around on my heels, I see for definite that, frustratingly, I'm still here. Still in the Carnival Diabolus.

Twirling in the air everywhere about me, the trapeze artists demonstrate an enviable talent, seemingly soaring through the air. They glow like enthral beings amongst the darkness, bathed in a cocooning light.

I'd like to be up there with them. Feeling effortlessly weightless, somehow superior to those relegated to a more stable ground. More than that, however, I'd prefer to be back with Jeserel and Verelda, who pass amongst and through them all as swooping wraiths.

Despite all this mass of people surrounding me, this chaotically throbbing populous of entertainers and audience, of freaks and animals, I feel alone.

'Hello Sel.'

The voice isn't excited. It's wary.

That's because it isn't Lorn stepping out of the milling throng towards me.

It's Mom.

*

# Chapter 25

I'm rigid, deliberately holding myself back from approaching her, embracing her.

Because I know I want to hold her.

But I also know she doesn't deserve it.

Then I feel a part of me give way: relent.

I dash forward, arms open.

'Mom!'

As I wrap my arms around her, her arms curl around me, hold me tight.

It's so so so long since she held me like this.

I hide my tears, bury my face in her shoulder. Yet she knows I'm crying. Because she's crying too. I can feel her tears running down through my hair.

'Why did you leave me, Mom? What did I do?'

'You didn't do anything, my sweet! I had to leave; it was time. We all face that time at some point in our lives.'

'But you choose to leave! You didn't have to go?'

'Didn't I?' There's a touch of lightness, of humour, to her doubt. 'You can't really determine when your time will be! The choice I had was to be prepared and therefore prepare for it. To make the best of what many say is a bad deal.'

'Why here, Mom? Why did you chose to come to the place of the Devil?'

'The Devil?' She chuckles. 'Who ever told you such a silly thing?'

I pull back at last, separating only slightly, my arms and her arms still partially curling around waists.

'But it's the Carnival Diabolus!'

I glance about me, drawing her attention to all the horrors I've seen.

'Just look at it all, Mom! It's horrendous! Evil!'

She nods sagely, as if understanding.

'But who is it who brings all that evil here, Sel? All that which they have to atone for? Diabolus came to mean "Devil": but it really stands for "accuser", "adversary". Our _Carne-vale_ offers a time to say a final farewell to the flesh: to cleanse ourselves and ultimately rise once again as pure, spiritual beings!'

'But the Senator–'

'The Senator?'

Mom jerks farther back, holding me now as she used to do when I was little, when she'd heard I'd been taking part in foolishly dangerous escapades, ones she'd frequently warned me not to get involved in.

'He came here with me–'

Suddenly, it's Mom rather than me who's staring everywhere about her with an expression of horror carved across her face.

'Then it may well be that you were right, Sel: the Devil himself may well be here after all!'

*

# Chapter 26

'The Senator's not the Devil!' I insist, grinning at Mom's foolish overreaction. 'He believes we are descended from angels! He's here to find Lorn, so he can prove it to the rest of the world!'

Far from being reassured by my words, Mom's eyes widen: she's even more horrified than before. Taking my hand, she begins to quickly drag me through the still excitedly thronging crowds.

'Then we have to hope we find Lorn before the Senator does!'

'But Mom, Mom,' I persist, stumbling along after her as she expertly weaves through the mass of people. 'He thinks Lorn is an angel! With wings–'

'He's right! That's why I sent Lorn the waters: so he would believe. The only thing preventing Lorn's wings from developing is his lack of belief – until he believes in what he's capable of, they'll remain calcified! Nothing but enlarged, deformed shoulder blades!'

'Then he can prove–'

'Not if the Senator gets to him first, he won't. The Senator intends to rip out Lorn's wings!'

*

Wherever Mom's dragging me, she's so determined to get there she's barging past anyone in her way.

Even though so rudely pushed aside, the revellers continue to grin amiably, crazily. They're drunk, excited. Uncaring.

Above us all, the trapeze artists continue their routine of hypnotic whirls.

'Mom! How can you believe anyone could be so cruel! No one could rip out an angel's wings!'

'They could if they don't want anyone to know the truth! Even a body with the stubs of angelic wings is too dangerous for such a person.'

'But where will Lorn be? I looked before–'

'The Future Fates booth–'

'We came in that way: he wasn't there.'

'I mean to use the cards, the crystals, to find him!'

Of course! Why didn't I think of that?

And then, as Mom said this, I recalled the vision of my future, of Lorn's, in the woman's crystal-like eyes.

At least, it was a vison that proved Lorn's wings hadn't been removed. Far from it: his belief had been restored.

He had regrown his wings!

Only for us both to fall. And, possibly, to die?

'Mom, Mom: I've just remembered! The Senator doesn't remove Lorn's wings! I saw his future in a woman's eyes!'

'And if that future is dependent on us finding him?'

She didn't slow her pace. If anything, she seemed to put on a fresh burst of speed, a new determination to push everyone aside even more aggressively.

It was a future, of course, that I feared.

Yet I feared Lorn losing his fledging wings even more.

*

# Chapter 27

The darkness seems to instantly and totally envelop me as we step inside the Future Fates booth.

I recognise the décor: the strung up lanterns, the centrally placed table and chairs. It looks so much like Lorn's booth, barring only a few differences.

As I'd now come to expect, there are two people seated at the table facing us, waiting to tell any customer's future.

On our side of the table, the ghostly presence of a customer from the other, more worldly carnival is already taking the chair there. The fortune teller moves swiftly, talking inaudibly to the customer she's invited to sit before her at her table.

Strangely, the fortune teller in each world appears remarkably similar; a young girl, with a black bob of hair. More remarkably still, apart from their head and arms, they appear to take up almost exactly the same space.

As one deals the cards, the other also deftly manoeuvres and changes the cards, no doubt affecting whatever reading would be made.

Did that mean these cards might actually reveal the truth to the customer expectantly waiting to hear his fate?

The girl manipulating the cards glances up towards us as we enter. She smiles.

Strangely, the other girl also gives us a sidelong glance, as if she too is aware of our presence.

'What do you seek?' the first girl asks.

'We seek the Devil!' Mom admits.

Once again, the other girl glances our way.

She's heard, heard Mom's declaration to seek the Devil.

'A strange thing to seek; the Devil!' she says, her own customer apparently unaware of what she says. Unaware, too, of her interest in us.

'Most people wisely wish to only avoid the Devil,' the other girl adds in what could be the same voice.

They are enjoined twins.

The girl is one, not two.

She exists, somehow, in both worlds.

*

The girl begins to deal out another pack of cards, cards that squirm and squeal as she pulls them out from the pack and flicks them across the table.

'We seek him because we believe he is here,' Mom explains.

Mom hovers over the table, watching the cards as they're swiftly dealt. Watches as the cards are swiftly and expertly arranged across the cloth-covered top.

In this world, the cards dealt out have a life of their own.

They're hardly cards at all, but actually moving, three-dimensional beings.

'Such honesty!' says one of the girls.

'Many seek power, wealth, lust, unbridled pleasure,' continues her twin.

'Some of us wish to be overwhelmingly beautiful!' She observes her twin with a wry, suspicious expression.

'Some of us wish to be pre-eminently wise!' She, too, looks towards her twin with a look approaching disdain.

'And in this way, they too are all seeking the Devil!'

She deals out the Devil card

The Devil seems real, only, thankfully in miniature; and therefore a hopefully more controllable version. A mere representation, I hope.

He isn't confined to his card however. He moves across the table top, from card to card, interacting, merging with the characters there.

'This,' the girls begin to explain, 'is how the Devil really operates.'

Not, as we so falsely presume, as a separate entity, standing apart from all he surveys, handing out orders, making his plans.

Far from it; he is as much a part of the earth, of its peoples, as your empowering soul.

He moves from person to person, fooling them into believing they do good: for how else would he persuade them to do as he wishes?

They see themselves as good people, as acting for the common good. And therefore they insist that anyone standing against them can only be evil.

When he entered our leaders, they saw that their people were bad.

The people's sense of superiority had to be curbed, our superiors declared adamantly. The people couldn't be trusted, for their ideals, unlike those of our leaders, had gone astray.

To ensure a peaceful Earth, there would have to be a levelling of the peoples.

Only the truly enlightened could be allowed to rule, to pronounce on our fates.

And conveniently, that very levelling of the other peoples would ensure the truly enlightened would never be threatened by the possibility of replacement, of being held to account for their actions and deeds.

Yes, our leaders had benefited most from our past: but now they showed that they deserved to lead us, to lead everyone, for they had at last seen the light – their people would be forced to make amends for the trouble and anguish they had caused throughout the world.

And no one should be allowed or have the wherewithal to challenge them in their appointed task.

Just as inconvenient truths had to be removed from texts, wings would have to be surgically removed from bodies. Until all this angelic nonsense was no longer part of our belief, of our DNA.

The Devil, of course, still moved amongst us.

Still used as a conveyance anyone willing to allow him entrance.

Anyone who had become used to power, such that they regarded it as their right, and no one else's.

He entered now a Senator, a Senator arriving in a plush, smoothly running car.

A Senator who stepped out by a gravestone, and watched with a thrilled smile as a foolish young girl showed him how she could bring stone to life.

By them, unseen by either, was a young man with a ridged, crippled back.

In the next card, the Senator wrestles with the boy.

He flashes a long blade, one that glitters like stars, like a sun: a beam of light, rather than mere metal.

The light slices effortlessly through the flesh of the boy's back. The flaps peel back like ironically useless wings.

Beneath, revealed to the boy's dismay and shame, are the overly large shoulder blades, the cause of his deforment.

He sighs, sags; there's no fight left in him.

He feels more freak-like, more despisable, than ever.

And the Senator twirls his blade of light; readying himself to carve the latent wings free of the boy's body.

*

# Chapter 28

There's no way of recognising where they are!

No clues. No signs.

The Senator and Lorn could be anywhere within this vast carnival.

And even if we knew where they were, we wouldn't get there in time to save Lorn.

Without speaking, Mom urgently takes my hand. She pulls on me once again, dragging me with her.

She steps through the table, strides into the whirl of cards.

It feels much like stepping through the swirling trapeze artists of the Carnival Diabolus, the ropes extending everywhere like a vast web, the performers whirling and glowing like exploding suns.

The bursts of light vanish. I'm plummeted once more into what at first seems, by comparison, to be a surprising darkness.

Yet, of course, it is just a relative darkness. There are lights here, only nowhere near as bright as the brightly coloured whirl of planets.

It's the darkest place the Senator could find within the carnival.

He briefly halts his vicious carving, surprised when Mom and I abruptly appear out of nowhere alongside him.

He grins.

'Too late,' he smirks. 'You can't stop me now.'

In a sudden blur of a sparklingly pure whiteness, a vast pair of wings sprout and unfurl from his own back.

Then, wrapping an arm firmly around an almost unconscious Lorn, he runs, leaps: and soars effortlessly up and up into the air.

*

# Chapter 29

Without thinking this through – if I had, I would clearly have never done anything so stupid – I run after him.

I leap first onto the edges of a performing animal's stand, then onto higher boxes. Using these as a springboard, I propel myself even higher as I leap out into dark space.

After all, I've been trained to do this since only a little after my birth.

I land with a violent thud onto the ascending angel's back: and momentarily shiver, suddenly recalling where I've seen myself doing exactly this – taking a ride to my death.

Despite my landing on his back, the angel remains untroubled by it. It has no effect on his rising.

And we are indeed rising. Rising in a place where I thought it would be impossible to rise upwards.

A place where I didn't think there was anything above us to rise into, except evermore of the Carnival Diabolus.

Yet we are rising, rising into a greater, deeper darkness.

In the corner of my eye, however, I catch a flash of light; the light of the angel's blade as he prepares to continue his cruel operation on Lorn.

Rapidly crawling higher up the angel's back, I desperately reach over his shoulder, reaching out towards his slashing arm and attempting to grasp it.

I'm in danger of falling, of being slashed myself by the curving blade; but what choice do I have?

Didn't Mom say something about having to make the best of what many would say is a poor deal?

The darkness suddenly seems to evaporate, replaced instead by the flickering scarlet glow of immense flames. It's like we're heading towards the centre of the sun itself.

But it's not the sun.

It's a cerubim; one of the cherubim, the most deadly angels of all.

*

The cerubim is vast, magnificent.

He – or should that be 'she'? – appears to be made of flames. Of every type of fire there is both in my world and any other world.

Bursts of flames flare off into space, as if a sign of the glowing angel's anger or irritation.

Beyond it, however, there isn't yet more darkness. There is, rather, peace.

It's the most beautiful place I've ever seen. A garden of every green, every colour, you could ever imagine.

The Garden of Eden.

The Garden guarded by the cherubim.

Taking advantage of my awe, the angel I'm riding elegantly flips over: and suddenly I'm falling, falling back towards the darkness.

*

# Chapter 30

My arms, my hands, are flailing, reaching out frantically for anything to stop me from falling.

My fingers tighten gratefully around a clump of large, white feathers.

Naturally, the angel isn't expecting this sudden increase in weight towards the farthest extent of one of his wings.

It pulls him completely off balance. He's struggling to lift, let alone to flap, the wing I'm desperately keeping a firm grasp of.

He lashes out fruitlessly with his blade of light. His wings are too vast, his reach, even with the blade, nowhere near adequate enough to strike out at me.

We're flying, but uncontrollably. Like a badly wounded swan.

He's so intent on dislodging me, he doesn't seem to be aware that we've strayed into the very edges of the cerubim's flaring flames.

They don't burn, however. They're welcoming. Warmly embracing.

The scarlet glow makes the angel's feathery wings flicker with a bloody light, as if actually aflame.

He screams.

His wings really are on fire.

With a glare of hate at me, he takes his revenge.

He lets Lorn slip from his grasp.

And Lorn falls, falls away from the ferociously blazing sun that is the furious cerubim.

*

As both angels now burn so terribly around me, I let go of the wing.

Not just because I have to, even though there's increasingly so little to hold onto.

No – it's because I want to.

I want to be with Lorn.

To follow him as he falls.

After all, isn't that my skill?

To soar unaided through the air, as if actually flying?

I swoop down towards Lorn.

Grasp him by an arm.

Pull him towards me.

Embrace him.

Warmly.

Tightly.

I kiss him.

We'll fall together.

As one.

That's my choice.

*

# Chapter 31

My kisses waken Lorn from his daze.

He smiles lazily, like someone waking from a pleasant dream.

If he realises that we're falling, he doesn't show it.

Rather, he warps his arms around me. Embraces me as tightly as I'm holding him.

Such that we're almost one, not two.

He kisses me. His lips melding with mine.

I caress the back he has never allowed me to see. The back that had worried him so. Yet had never concerned me.

His skin flaps by his side, the folds the angel had carved free. I feel only the hard, stone-like shoulder blades.

His calcified wings.

Yet as we embrace, that hardness softens beneath my fingers.

Ripples.

Flexes fluidly.

He smiles.

Says, 'Thank you.'

There's the softest of flutters, the feathers growing, expanding beneath my caressing palms. Then abruptly, with a hard, harsh flap, Lorn's wings snap free.

Abruptly, too, we're flying.

Flying effortlessly back towards the blazing cerubim.

*

'No, no Lorn: you didn't see!' I cry out in urgent warning. 'The angel – I saw the Senator, as an angel, set on fire in those flames!'

'Then he can't have been ready,' Lorn insists, continuing his rapid ascent towards the flaring cerubim. 'He would never have been ready.'

The flaring, flickering flames of the cerubim now looms everywhere about us. Lorn glows entirely with that glittering bloody red; yet he's right, he's not aflame.

Unless you count being aflame inside; with love, with bliss.

The skin of his back is already healing. There's just the slightest smattering now of blood, just seven drops lying on the very top of his shoulder.

And within each drop, there's a pip.

I touch them delicately one by one with my fingers.

Wondering which to choose.

'Not yet, Lorn,' I say, giving him a final kiss. 'I'm not ready.'

Wriggling free of his arms, I let go of him.

Then I'm falling once more.

*

# Chapter 32

Lorn is too deeply much at one with the cerubim to rescue me.

But I don't want him to rescue me.

I don't need rescuing.

The carnival is a whirling world in its own right. Or, if you prefer, worlds within worlds.

I carefully place my chosen pip within the crease of my palm's lifeline.

It snaps, quickens – snakes out before me like a swiftly untwining thread.

It writhes and weaves through the many interweaving threads of the carnival. It latches on here: here too – as well as here, and here.

Holding on to my end of life's thread, I use it to swing upwards, up and up through the darkness. Up towards the glow of the carefully directed lanterns.

I let go, soaring gracefully through the air.

Flying.

The small yet incredibly high plinth, of course, lies somewhere out there in darkness.

I land, of course, on it elegantly. Gracefully.

I stretch out my vast wings.

I peer down imperiously on the cowering shepherds far below me.

It all adds to the sense of the miraculous.

End

If you enjoyed reading this book, you might also enjoy (or you may know someone else who might enjoy) these other books by Jon Jacks.

The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly

The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale

A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)

The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator

Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll's Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666

P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers

Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)

Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent

Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak

Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife

Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches

