Chapter Twenty-Nine
Adelaide sat on the top of a picnic table, chewing the Snickers bar she’d obtained from the candy stand. It was her dessert. There were hundreds of candies she didn’t recognize for sale in the booth – and in the countless booths beyond that one. But at the moment, she decided she needed something familiar, even if it was something as small and insignificant as a candy bar.
“You said no one could come here unless invited,” she said around her mouthful of peanuts, caramel, and milk chocolate.
“They can’t,” he replied coolly before he bit down on the end of a Laffy-Taffy and began to pull. It stretched a good foot before it broke off in his mouth, and he grinned as he chewed and the taffy in his hand slowly wilted.
“So… you invited all of these thousands of people all at once? In the span of a few seconds? You know them all personally?”
He chuckled. “Yes and no. I do know them all personally. Live long enough, and you get to know a good many souls. But as to the first half of your question, they’re not exactly… here,” he said. “They’re dreaming.”
Addie blinked and lowered her bar. “What do you mean?”
He gestured to the people nearby. “These are all real people,” he said, “but they aren’t actually here right now. Each of them is currently fast asleep wherever they come from, dreaming of The Carnival of Night.” He smiled. “Their dreams become our reality.”
She process that. “Is that how you ‘invite’ all of the people you bring here?”
“Is that what I did with you?” he asked, clearly indicating that it wasn’t.
“Honestly, sometimes I feel like I am dreaming,” she admitted. “Or that I’m dead.” She crinkled up the Snickers wrapper and looked for a trash can.
“Here,” he said, taking it from her. He held it in his hand palm-up, and it burst into flame, burning away within seconds to leave nothing but a small bit of ash that the wind caught up and blew away.
“Not big with recycling, I see,” she joked softly.
He smiled, but she could tell that he could tell she was distracted.
“Okay Addie,” he told her. “Now’s your chance. Ask me anything.”
She took a deep breath and sighed. “Okay, fine. Back there on the cliff, when you had your wings,” she said, glancing at the space where his wings had been before he’d simply willed them to vanish, “you said I could have them too. You said I was the Nightmare Queen.” She indicated the world around her with her arms in a general shrug. “Why me? I’m barely now learning that all of this is real. Shouldn’t the queen of your realm be someone from your realm? Someone a bit more accepting of all of the magic?”
“Are you able to accept it?” he countered.
“Yes!” she suddenly shouted. Her eyes widened. Because she realized it was true. She was accepting it. After all she’d seen – how could she not?
“Yes,” she repeated, this time more softly. “But what I don’t understand is still the same. I don’t understand why you’ve chosen me.”
Nicholas regarded her a long, silent time. The metal of his gaze shifted, melting into silver, hardening into steel, and back again. She was transfixed by it. Finally, she realized no one had said anything for too long, and as her cheeks grew hot, she looked away, choosing a spot on the stone ground to stare at.
Nicholas burned away his Laffy Taffy just as he had the Snickers wrapper and sat down on the picnic table beside Addie. He reached up and curled his finger under her chin, pulling her gaze inexorably back to his. “I didn’t choose you, Adelaide Lane,” he told her. “Fate did. But now that I’ve met you, I know I would have done the same. You’re special. Far more special than you believe.”
“I find that hard to believe,” she quipped.
He chuckled. Then he jumped off the table and offered her his hand. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
“Something more than this?” she asked, looking at the world of thrill rides and blinking lights around her.
“Oh yes,” he said, and something in his voice, and something in his eyes made her put her hand in his and climb down from the table.
He lead her from the picnic area and back into the crowd of the Carnival. Adelaide allowed him to gently guide her as her gaze slipped to the activity around her. All through the fair, children laughed and ran as parents looked on winsomely and glanced at one another, hoping to never forget. Addie had the feeling some of these parents were no more. They were their loved ones’ memories, their loved ones lost. Hugs squeezed tight, and kisses lasted forever, and the Carnival never stopped playing.
Ferris wheels turned, carousels spun, and lights blinked, and music played. Vendors handed enormous plush prizes to children smaller than their newly won toys, the darts and baseballs never ran out, and there were no cruel tricks here, no inside secrets to filching fair goers. There was simply the Carnival, which pulsed like a mighty, living beast.
When they came to a slow stop, Adelaide returned her attention to her companion. He turned to face her. “This is the heart of the Carnival of Night,” he told her. “The Crystal Carousel.”
He stepped aside, revealing what his body had been hiding.
Adelaide felt her fingers and toes tingle, her mouth drop open, and her eyes expand. The sight filled her vision with prisms of beauty reflecting the entire spectrum of light. There was a chiming sound, like the tinkling of a glass wind chime. And the rest of the world went still.
Dozens of animals graced the enormous carousel, from Earth-bound mammals and reptiles to mythological creatures of lore to monsters Adelaide had never seen or heard of. Each was meticulously – probably magically – constructed of crystalline glass down to the minutest detail, from a Clydesdale’s eyelashes to the feathers on a set of Pegasus wings.
A life-size yet completely see-through mammoth carved with a million facets glittered where it reached its trunk to the heavens. Its long, long tusks swept the floor in front of it, majestic and impossible. A lion with a perfect mane of glittering crystal roared so perfectly, head up and eyes shut, she could almost hear it rattle the clouds in the night sky. A dragon with wings folded at its back belched a cloud of fire that shone before it like ice. Addie gazed at them all as the enormous Carousel slowly, slowly turned. Unicorns, dolphins, the Sphinx, rhinos, narwhals, manticores… her eyes widened as the Carousel’s turning revealed the largest and most impressive of the ride’s magnificent beasts.
It was a creature straight out of a deep and dark dream. Its massive wings were cast wide on either side, so colossal they formed a glass shelter over the other animals. Its visage was unlike anything Addie’d ever beheld, neither dragon nor ghost, not quite terrifying demon, all fangs and eyes that seemed to glow despite being carved of glass. It was larger than life and stunning.
The entire Carousel was.
“Breathe,” Nicholas whispered in her ear.
Addie jumped a little and inhaled sharply. She had actually stopped breathing. The realization made her laugh. She felt slightly giddy. “It’s the most wondrous thing I have ever seen,” she laughed. She wanted to touch the animals – but thirty-some years of being a human had taught her that some things were for seeing and not touching, so instinctively, she held back.
“Get on,” he told her next.
She glanced up at him. Really? her expression begged.
He grinned. “Choose one,” he instructed as he gracefully boarded the Carousel with long, strong legs and slowly moved between the beasts like a dream within a dream. “I’m partial to the great cats, myself.”
The monster, she thought winsomely. “I really like that monster.”
He stopped beside the largest of the creatures, and something secret flickered on his handsome features. He placed a hand on the creature’s mane and looked at her over his shoulder. “Then he’s all yours.”
“Oh man,” she whispered. What am I waiting for? she asked herself.
Suddenly, she was bursting into motion, running to the Carousel and jumping on as if she were afraid it would suddenly break free from the bonds of gravity and fly off without her.