Friday, November 3.
       They weren't supposed to be doing this.
       The scent of dusk, all dead leaves and bonfires, followed Zoe and Adam down Mooncrest Lane. They walked side by side, keeping the same even gait. The sound of their soft footfalls on the pavement echoed in Zoe's ears.
       Stay in the house--that's what her parents had said. Adam's parents agreed. As long as they stayed in the house and didn't touch anything dangerous, no babysitter was needed.
       For the first time in their lives, the ten-year-olds felt grown up.
       Except they'd already broken the deal. Zoe couldn't remember why. In fact, she couldn't even remember getting up from the dinner table. Her timeline jumped straight from macaroni and cheese to this trek down the sidewalk, the two of them heading for. . .
       Heading for where?
       The carnival, that was it. A carnival had sprung up in their little town.
       "I hope they have that salt and pepper shaker ride," Adam said, staring straight ahead.
       "Yeah. And a ferris wheel."
       Zoe glanced across the tree-lined street to see other groups of people walking along in the same direction. She couldn't say who they were or where they'd come from, but it made sense for them to be there.
       Because. . .?
       The question flitted out of her mind, as though tugged by a string, and got lost somewhere in the darkening twilight.
        "Rigby Avenue," she murmured.
       Adam nodded. "In that big field near the bowling alley."
       They kept walking.
        The scattered caravan on Mooncrest split off when it reached the first intersection, with some turning to go west. But Zoe knew the route didn't matter--they'd all end up in the same place. She and Adam stayed on the northbound path through quiet neighborhoods, guided by the glow of porch lights.
        It was okay that they'd left the house, really. She knew that now.
        "We're almost there!" Adam said.
        They picked up the pace, not quite running but not just walking anymore either. Because Rigby Avenue lay right up ahead, getting closer, closer. . .
        Rounding the corner brought a wonderland of light and color to life, with half a dozen rides towering over striped tents and fluttering pennants. Calliope organ tunes (did those play anywhere other than carnivals?) rose up into air that smelled like caramel apples. And popcorn. And funnel cake. And. . .just countless other things needing to be devoured.
        Not quite running turned into full-fledged sprinting.
        The laughing friends skidded up to a throng at the carnival's grand entrance, where all eyes watched a red-haired man standing barefoot and shirtless atop a metal archway. He twirled a pair of lit torches like batons and sank each into his mouth one by one, swallowing their flames.
        He relit them afterwards with a kiss.
       "What?" Zoe stammered. "How did he do that?"
       For his next trick, the fire eater blew on one of the torches, and the flame danced into the shape of a roaring Tyrannosaurus Rex.
       "How did he do that?" Adam countered, but the collective "ooh" around him drowned out his voice.
        Holding each torch at arm's length, the fire eater bowed. "Welcome, gentle souls, to Gabriel Vane's Carnival Extraordinaire! We've been expecting you. Come in, come in!"
        The crowd poured through the archway. Some of the adults pulled kids along with them, but many more went in alone--a mixed bag ranging from teenagers all the way to seniors. Zoe and Adam, at the tail end, reached the entrance behind everyone else. That's when Zoe stopped dead.
        "Adam, do you have any money?"
        He took a breath and plunged both hands into his pockets. They came out empty.
        "Not to worry!" The fire eater pointed a torch at the kids and sat down on the arch, dangling his legs over the side. "Everything's free at Gabriel Vane's carnival!"
        "Really? We don't need tickets for anything?" Adam asked.
        "Nope."
        A new voice reached their ears from somewhere inside, gravelly and packing a punch. Not every word made it out to the sidewalk, but Zoe caught key bits: Hall of Mirrors. Fortuneteller. Carousel.
        The fire eater's face broke into a Cheshire Cat grin. "Best go on in. You don't want to miss anything."
        They scurried underneath with a quick thanks, stepping from pavement to uneven grass. That same crowd clogged the front of the midway, and the voice at the center got louder as they moved closer, words stretching into full sentences. There he was--a whirlwind force of a man in a long black coat and top hat. Standing on something to raise him good three feet above the swell, he jabbed at the air as though conducting an orchestra.
       "We have contortionists, tight-rope walkers, snake charmers!" he boomed, dark eyes gleaming over high cheekbones. "And don't even think of leaving before visiting our House of Curiosities, filled to the brim with genuine artifacts that will astound and amaze!"
        The kids flinched as a horn honked right behind them. They turned to see a wild-haired vision in polka dots stealing his way along the edge of the crowd, a red smile plastered across a grotesque white face.
        Adam's shudder matched Zoe's internal ugh, and she chuckled.
        "Don't miss King Solomon's Magic Carpet Ride for a once in a lifetime experience!" the carnival barker went on, winning back their attention. He stroked his greying goatee, and. . .was he looking right at Zoe? She swore he was, until his gaze shifted to a muscle-bound jock. "Test your strength and ring the bell! Prove to everyone you have what it takes!" Now he swept his arms out wide, and the whole crowd belonged to him. "Witness stunning feats of physical endurance and fortitude on our grand center stage! Beds of nails! Sword swallowers! Knife jugglers! See. It. All!"
        "Come on, let's go!" Adam said, pulling at Zoe's sleeve.
        She fell into a skip right beside him, then lurched backwards. "Ew. What's he doing here?"
        Adam followed her line of sight to a lanky twenty-something with dirty blonde hair. He hung a few feet back from the mob, a half-empty beer bottle dangling from his hand. Cracked leather jacket, as usual. And the edges of tattoos crept up his neck from under his t-shirt collar, somehow seeming like an alien creature ready to devour him.
        Everyone in town knew Brent Vogel. He'd intimidated each kid long enough for them to notice the dark, kidney bean-shaped birthmark on the white of his left eye. Everyone could also point out Brent's girlfriend, who had the habit of wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants almost all the time, even on the hottest summer days.
        She was not with him now.
        Adam grimaced at Brent--who never looked away from the carnival barker--and gave him a wide berth. Zoe traced his steps.
       That old rumor surfaced in her mind, the one that always made her face feel hot and her throat tight. It was something horrible Brent had done to a dog, or so people said. Right after hearing about it for the first time, Zoe had tried to convince herself it wasn't true. It couldn't have been.
        But she knew Brent, and she knew it wasn't beyond him.
        She'd cried herself to sleep that night.
        The memory dimmed, though, as they moved into the glow of the midway and spotted their fifth-grade teacher flinging darts at a wall of balloons.
        "And hey, there's my dentist!" Adam laughed, eyeing the line for the Tilt-A-Whirl.
        "Oh, and the 7-Eleven guy! Isn't that him?"
        "Yeah, it is! Weird. Do you think our parents are here somewhere too?"
        "Nah," Zoe said. "They went to that play, and it's outside of town. They probably don't know about this."
        "Look!" Adam pointed across the carnival grounds at the very tallest attraction: King Solomon's Magic Carpet Ride. "Let's go on that!"
        "Okay!"
        They broke into a run, and that's when it hit Zoe--the freedom of this unexpected Friday night. Everything was here and now, with a chorus of happy shrieks and so many vibrant hues splashed against an infinite, blackened sky.
        She forgot Brent Vogel altogether. He had no place in this.

        The air felt cooler at the top of the King Solomon ride. Zoe, sitting on a small Persian rug next to Adam, got the sense of looking down from a mountain peak. All the tents, booths, attractions--even the Ferris Wheel, spinning at a leisurely pace with green and blue lights jetting across its framework--all of it below. Antlike people scampered through the spaces in between, only the clowns standing out in their multi-colored glory.
        Zoe didn't grasp just how tall and steep this ride happened to be until they'd gotten in line. That's when she tried to wimp out with grace--no, no, they could definitely ride it later, but they'd miss one of the shows if they stayed to ride it now.
        A narrow-eyed Adam called her a scaredy-cat. She called him an asshole in return (which made him snicker) and, just to prove him wrong, tromped up the long metal staircase ahead of him when it was finally their turn.
        Now she stared down the giant slide, which dipped and rose in waves all the way to the bottom.
        Yeah, maybe letting Adam brand her a coward would've been the better choice.
        And what about that sign down below, right at the front of the line? The handwritten scrawl read: Only one ride per customer. Why was that a rule? Was it because more than one ride increased your chances of death?
        Adam smiled. "Ready?"
        No.
        "Yes."
        They both pushed off with their hands and went flying.
        The first wave almost stole Zoe's stomach away, and she knew, without a doubt, that she'd pitch forward off the carpet at any second and go tumbling head over heels down to the ground.
        But that's not what happened.
        The slide. . .where had it gone?
        Where had everything gone?
        They soared through the star-studded cosmos on their carpets, dropping and climbing in perfect unison. Cloudlike clusters of every color imaginable filled what would have been empty voids all around them. . .nebulas, Zoe remembered. She'd just learned the word, although she couldn't recall exactly what they were.
        Didn't make them any less glorious to look at. As they pulsed with an unknown energy, she saw her entire life as if it were a tangible thing. She could feel it too, everything that had ever happened, everything she could remember. A few bad moments brought back twinges of guilt, like the time she got caught trying to steal a tube of glitter out of her school's art room. But this, along with any other hours that weren't her finest, dissolved in an ocean of good. Grand events and little things, explosions and whispers, all of them part of this swirling symphony. She heard her parents cheering when she won the blue ribbon in the science fair. She saw the new girl eating lunch by herself on the first day of the second grade, and she saw herself going over to sit with that girl, who lit up like a sparkler. She felt a blue parakeet perching on her shoulder--her first pet, who always sang at night. All at once, his quiet death no longer stung. Because somewhere, somehow, he sang on.
        Above all else, Zoe saw the ever-gleaming light that marked her friendship with Adam. The two of them meeting in kindergarten, and how they'd made each other laugh right away. How they'd stuck together throughout the early years, even when everyone teased them for being a girl and a boy who were best friends. All the video games they'd played together, and the endless rounds of soccer in Adam's backyard. The time he'd raced to get her a Band-Aid when she'd scraped her knee. Trying to outdo each other with fancy jumps off the diving board under the bright summer sun.
        She saw every second at once, like an astronaut seeing the whole planet from the moon. And yet, at the same time, she was in it, she was part of it. It thundered in her blood.
        The curtains of space parted, and Zoe and Adam cleared the last wave of the ride. They slid down to the home stretch where their carpets came to a stop beneath an awning.
        Without pausing to make sense of anything, Zoe leapt to her feet and shouted, "That was the best ride I've ever been on!"
        "I know!" Adam flew up next to her. "It was like. . .it was just. . .it was so. . ."
        "I want to go again! How come they won't let you?"
        Zoe glanced at the carnie manning the ride--a portly gent with white hair and a walrus-like mustache draped over a smile. He stood bent at the waist, elbows resting on the staircase's railing, and his eyes glinted in their direction.
        "Sorry, angels, it only works once."
        "Oh." Zoe's forehead creased.
        "That's okay; there's a ton of other stuff!" Adam said.
        They bounded out together, passing other riders who'd just gotten off their carpets. An older woman beamed up at the sky with her arms crossed over her heart. Everyone had that same kind of look, Zoe saw, everyone. . .except the young man propped against one of the awning's poles, casting a thousand-yard stare at nothing, and the lady holding two shaking hands up to her colorless face.
        Both kids slowed, looking at them, and Adam shrugged.
        "Maybe they get sick on rides like this or something. It happens to my mom."

        The rest of the rides at Gabriel Vane's carnival didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. Even so, Zoe and Adam whooped every time their little "salt and pepper shaker" plummeted toward the ground only to swing up again at the last second, and they mock-yelled whenever one of their bumper cars slammed into the other.
        And the midway offered more than just rides. A pair of bound mummies greeted them inside the House of Curiosities, both standing upright in open sarcophagi. A third sarcophagus lay flat, lining the tent wall and boasting a mummy free of wrappings.
        Zoe stared down at the eyeless, leathery face and gaping jaw. She held her breath, convinced the mummy would move at any moment. Or scream. Or something.
        It did not, even when Adam poked its shoulder.
        "I can't believe you did that!" Zoe squeaked. "Now you're cursed. I hope you're happy."
        With a deadened expression, Adam tilted his head back and pointed at Zoe, creeping toward her like a zombie.
        "Gross, don't touch me with your cursed mummy finger!" She darted away from him, deeper into the tent.
        Oddities crowded every inch of the place on mismatched tables and shelves, on the ground, even hanging overhead. Zoe ducked just before bumping into a trio of shrunken heads, but before she could get a good look at them, something else distracted her--water that seemed to drip up out of a shallow bowl. She followed the string of wobbling beads past an open display case with a porcelain doll. Wait, that doll, did its eyes. . .? Yes, they followed her every move.
        "Hey, Zoe, look at this."
        She managed, somehow, to tear herself away from the watchful doll, and she started at the sight of a tall jar filled with eyeballs. Adam knelt down beside the little round table where it sat, pressing his fingertips to the glass. Dozens of irises peered out at them: brown, blue, hazel, and even an amber one near the bottom.
        Zoe stepped closer, squinting at the jar. "Is that really how big eyeballs are? When they're not in your head?"
        "Yeah, I think so. I mean, these are fake, probably. But yeah."
        "That guy at the front said everything in here was--"
        Adam pitched forward and slammed into the table when someone nearly tripped over him, and he grabbed the jar just before it toppled off the side.
        Snapping her head up, Zoe saw a wiry frame stumbling away from them.
        Dirty blonde hair. A beer bottle in one hand.
        God, she'd forgotten he was even here.
        Brent Vogel steadied himself and spun around, nostrils curling as he glared down at Adam. "Watch it, you little faggot!"
        Adam, setting the jar upright again, scrambled to his feet. "You ran into me. I never moved!"
        "You calling me a liar, kid?"
        Zoe scowled at him, and the words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them. "Yeah, if you're saying that was his fault! That was all you! You weren't looking where you were going!"
        Brent's free hand clenched into a fist. He bent toward Zoe, close enough for her to smell waves of alcohol.
        The world shrunk around her. Everything inside the House of Curiosities disappeared into darkness except for that sneering face inches away from hers. She could make out all the details on it; she could see pores and stubble. She could see an old, faded scar just below his cheekbone. Her whole body screamed to run, but that face froze her in some kind of limbo, and worst of all. . .worst of all was the knowledge that they were alone in this tent. Just two ten-year-olds. And Brent.
        She flinched when he finally broke the silence with a low, drawn-out question.
        "Who the fuck do you think you are?"
        Adam pushed in front of Zoe, staring down the menace in the leather jacket. "Get the hell away from us."
        Brent's ice blue eyes flared, the strange birthmark standing out on its cloud of white.
        A gruesome slideshow flashed through Zoe's mind--everything that might happen if she and Adam stayed right there. Blood, bruises, broken bones. . .even their corpses sprawled on the ground next to overturned furniture and curiosities.
       She yanked on Adam's arm and blurted out something that was not quite a word, more a combination of go, now, run. He lurched right around with her, having no doubt seen the same slideshow in his own head, and the two made a dash for it. No easy feat--the path twisted like a maze through countless anomalies. And with Brent blocking the way they'd come in, their only escape lay out the far end of the tent.
       Zoe didn't dare look back, not wanting to know if he followed right behind them, if his hand was just about to clamp down on her shoulder. With crawling skin, she plowed ahead even faster. So did Adam, both of them dodging past all the stuff they'd still wanted to see and taking almost none of it in. Just flashes of color, shapes, and weirdness.
       Then, as luck would have it, they plunged out the yawning exit and back into the night. Racing from the little dead spot behind the tent to the bustling midway took five seconds, tops, and yet it felt like they'd left a mile behind them.
       Must have lost him. Must be safe by now.
       When they reached a vendor spinning mounds of pink cotton candy, Zoe braved a glance over her shoulder. . .and sucked in a shaky breath.
       They hadn't gotten so very far away from the House of Curiosities. And a silhouetted figure stood at its mouth, watching. She could feel Brent's eyes even without seeing his face. Then he strode out, swallowing up the distance between them.
       Other people surrounded them, yes--carnies and patrons, even a pair of clowns making balloon animals--but safety? No, no sense of it at all. If Brent wanted to get two kids who had pissed him off, he would. When had anything ever stopped him?
       She and Adam fell back into their frantic run, and he flicked his head at something in the distance. "There!"
       They charged past the swinging pirate ship on one side and a long row of game booths on the other, diving right into the thickest crowd they'd seen all night--spectators for what had to be the grand center stage. While squeezing their way through, they could only catch glimpses of a show that had everyone around them gasping and applauding. A willowy girl jumped barefoot on something--broken glass?--without getting a scratch. A tiny sword swallower downed a blade almost as tall as himself.
       Once they'd reached a spot near the middle, Zoe twisted around and stood on tiptoe to look back across the sea of heads. . .all of them facing the stage.
       All except one.
       It stared right back at her from the edge of the crowd.
       Zoe shot down into a crouch, pulling Adam with her. "He's there," she whispered. "He's still--"
       They reeled at a sudden explosion and the audience's shared yelp. Music swelled, rich with the tones of native India, while plumes of incense trickled through the air. It coaxed Zoe halfway up again, her eyes climbing to peer between the shoulders of two adults in front of her.
        An olive-skinned woman emerged from the fading smoke on stage. Wearing just a leaf bikini and a sizeable python, she undulated from one side to the other with the grace of someone underwater, while her reptilian friend tasted the air with a forked tongue.
        Zoe stood taller still, strain melting off her muscles. Adam rose up too, but she barely noticed him; something about this performance made her head go light in such a delightful way, she could feel her body starting to sway, just like the people in front of her, to the sides, all around. . .
        Brent.
        The world sharpened into focus, and Zoe swiveled her head to find him again. Still there, yes, but not looking at them anymore. He watched the stage with his lips parted, and all his senses seemed to be filled with the woman, the snake, the smoke, and the music.
        "Come on," Adam murmured, and they slunk away together, trying their best not to step on any toes.
        After breaking free of the horde and skidding around a rogue clown on a unicycle, who tipped his tiny, flower-topped hat at them, the kids found sanctuary in the Hall of Mirrors.

        Safety overwhelmed them in the long, multi-roomed funhouse, and laughter came back as they inched through a mirror maze alongside a group of older girls, bumping into dead ends or accidentally going back the wrong way. Adam found the exit first, pushing through black curtains with Zoe and the teenagers in tow. A room decked out in neon colors greeted them, flaunting mirrors of all shapes and sizes across its walls, some of which stretched them out like taffy while others packed about two hundred pounds onto them.
       "Zoe, look!"
        She exploded into giggles when she saw Adam's reflection in one of the narrower mirrors. He looked like he'd been squashed into a cylinder with stubby little legs sticking out the bottom. Coming off the knowledge that they'd lost Brent somehow made it even funnier--the night belonged to them again, and the glee of this funhouse became their whole world. They bounced along, cracking up over each warped version of themselves and listening to the other girls do the same.
        Then they came to the next set of black curtains, hiding whatever room lay beyond. A blood-red warning dripped across them:
       Only if you dare.
       The teen girls pondered it for a moment, and then pondering became tittering and headshaking and a mad dash back into the maze.
       Adam, on the other hand, turned a grin to Zoe. "Let's go."
       No. No.
       But he was already reaching for the black fabric.
       Zoe held her breath and leaned back as he pushed the curtains aside.
       Just a quiet room. The last of the funhouse, it looked like, with no one else in it. No bright colors, either. Dim lighting revealed tall, oval-shaped mirrors in wooden frames, maybe a dozen in all, lining either wall down to the end.
       The two friends crept forward, letting the curtains swing shut behind them. As they drifted together toward the left side, Zoe tried not to think about all the possibilities. But they came anyway, and the worst one clambered straight to the top--these weren't actually mirrors. They were portals to some hellish dimension, and when she and Adam got close enough, hands would shoot out of them. . .horrible, grasping hands ready to grab them by the throats and yank them in.
       She followed Adam's lead nevertheless, her palms slick with sweat as she craned her neck to look in that first mirror--please, let it just be a mirror.
       Her own face, nothing more. Not warped in any way. A regular reflection.
       Except for the faint glow surrounding it.
       She blinked, standing up taller, and stepped sideways to look at herself in full.
       "Oh my god," she breathed, gazing not only at her all-over glow but also the huge monarch butterfly wings sprouting from her back, a stained-glass pattern of brilliant orange and black scattered across them. "Adam, look at. . .look at you!"
       He stood in front of the second mirror, which showed him dressed from head to toe in silver armor. His face beamed under the raised visor of his helm.
       They switched places, and their reflections followed, exactly as they had been.
       "Okay, this is the greatest thing ever," Adam said. "How are they even doing this?"
       "I have no idea! And why did the curtains say--oh, look! Look at this!" With a strange sort of concentration, Zoe realized she could make her wings flutter. Motes of gold dust shook free each time before winking out of existence. "It's so weird," she said to a wide-eyed Adam. "I can almost feel it."
       Looking to his own mirror again, Adam reached for the broadsword at his hip and wrapped his hand around the imaginary hilt. Then he pulled the blade free.
       Neither of them could hold back their gasping laughter as Adam's alter ego swung the sword to and fro, showing off the smooth, polished steel. On the side of reality, he waved around nothing at all. Zoe wondered if she flapped her wings hard enough, could she lift herself off the floor? Or maybe not her, but the mirror her? No matter--she threw all her effort into it, squaring her shoulders and watching those magnificent wings beat faster and faster.
       But all at once, they fell still, and an icy cold washed over her. She spun around, nudging Adam to do the same, to see what she'd noticed behind them.
       A figure stood across the room.
       They'd never heard the curtains rustle. No footfalls either. How long he'd been there proved impossible to guess, but there he stood, his back to them, absorbed in the rightmost mirror and his own reflection.
       Zoe could see that reflection too. It almost looked like Brent, except dirt caked his hair, his eyes were bloodshot, and his face. . .she saw every horror of his face at once. The goblin-like lumps, the sickly yellow skin, the lip that curved permanently upward on one side, exposing a row of rotted teeth.
        His double wore the same faded jeans, but no jacket or t-shirt. A wound cut a jagged path across his chest. The way it gaped open would've revealed plenty of gore if it hadn't been for all the maggots spilling out.
        Zoe slapped a hand over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. In the sudden darkness, she registered one last detail she'd caught--not a beer in the other Brent's hand, but rather a bloodstained straight razor.
        The sound of shattering glass made her whole body convulse. Her eyes snapped open again to see pieces of mirror and bottle alike carpeting the floor beneath a bare oval frame, and Brent stormed back toward the curtains. But he stopped mid-stride when his gaze locked with hers and Adam's.
        He'd forgotten they were there. Or he'd never noticed them at all. It didn't matter which--he saw them now, and his face darkened.
        Something different this time, though. . .a different battleground, better odds, fear draining. . .why?
        When Brent lunged at them, they didn't run. Zoe flung her hand up instead, curling her fingers like she meant to conjure some arcane faerie magic. And Adam jabbed his arm out as if he still held a sword everyone could see beyond the mirror. It made no sense, and yet Brent froze, peering over the two of them with his eyebrows drawn together.
        The kids held their ground. Zoe sensed Adam's heart matching speeds with her own; she could feel their shared energy wrestling with the dread, pushing past it, demanding triumph.
        Brent flew at them again. . .and recoiled straightaway, cupping his belly. But when he let his hand drop, nothing seemed wrong. No torn fabric, no spot of red. So why the expression on his face, and what was that expression? Underneath the familiar glare, Zoe could see something totally foreign--a sharp glint in his eyes, an almost quivering mouth.
        More fuel for the fire.
       She and Adam took a step toward him in unison; both of them still wielding their "weapons."
        Brent drew back farther, crunching shards of glass underfoot. The muscles in his throat shifted. That glint stayed in his eyes too, twitching from Adam to Zoe and back again, several times over.
        They stared hard at him with their chins raised high.
        As his lip twisted into a sneer, Brent swung away and bolted through the curtains.
        The kids watched those curtains for some time, breathing in rhythm, blood tingling in their veins. Then Adam moved toward the broken mirror. Each piece on the floor reflected a knight, Zoe saw, and when she got closer, she could see herself too. . .wings, glow, and all.
        The two of them shared a long glance before retracing their steps out of the funhouse.

        It was almost time to leave. They knew it, somehow.
        A frenetic energy seemed to have taken hold of the entire carnival. Everyone talked faster and moved faster, and an electronic hum underscored the lot.
        The clown population had doubled. They popped out from behind tents and confectionary stands, mugging at patrons with their loud, silent faces. Sometimes they'd jog through the grounds in single file--about six or seven of them altogether--swinging their arms and legs high.
       Zoe shrieked and sprang away, Adam close at her heels, when one of the grease-painted monstrosities surprised them around the side of the ring toss booth.
       Their flight only needed to last a few yards, if that. But the friends didn't stop. They raced in laughing zigzags all over the place, past the carousel's gleaming black horses, past the bejeweled fortune teller hovering over her crystal ball, past a circle of clowns who were. . .slowly closing in on somebody? No, probably not.
        They shouted out greetings to everyone they recognized and breathed in the candied air. Red and white stripes blurred together in the corners of their eyes. The calliope organ played on. And the barker's voice sailed above all else, singing the praises of every last attraction. He winked as they scampered past--Zoe didn't have to wonder this time whether or not he'd been looking at them.
        She also never thought about Brent or his hideous reflection or even running into him again. It all just swirled away like dry leaves on a gust.
       And then, without really remembering how they'd gotten there, she and Adam found themselves back on the sidewalk outside the carnival's gates. The fire eater, still sitting atop the metal arch, spotted them and raised a torch to his lips. The flame jumped into the shape of a hand waving goodbye.

       Saturday, November 4.
       The field near the bowling alley sat empty in the overcast morning, blades of grass fluttering in the breeze. A paper cone that once held cotton candy rolled past a cluster of dandelions.
       One night.
       Brent Vogel was nowhere to be found.
        Had it just been him, maybe the news wouldn't have spread quite so fast. But that eighth-grade teacher who'd taken a couple of students into the maintenance closet one afternoon. . .he'd gone missing too. So had the homecoming queen, who'd declared time and again that she couldn't be blamed for a fellow classmate's suicide.
        And there were more. Perhaps not a lot, but enough for the town's slightly lessened population to take notice. Police looked into the matter, or so Zoe heard. But as weeks became months, people didn't seem to talk about it so much anymore.
       Within the sanctity of her treehouse, and even then with low voices, she and Adam admitted the truth to each other: they were glad Brent was gone. They didn't care what had happened to him.
        After that, they never spoke of him again. But their conversation often turned to that remarkable night right after Halloween, and they would get all giddy over the things they couldn't quite explain to anyone else.

       Somewhere, Sometime.
        "Look at this!"
       In the House of Curiosities, a young woman pointed at a jar filled with eyeballs.
        Her husband blanched. "Oh, that's pleasant. They're not real, are they?"
        "Nah. They can't be." She dragged her finger up the glass, past a green eye, a hazel, and a pale blue one with a kidney-bean-shaped mark to the right of the iris. "They do seem real, though."
        A carnival barker's voice rang loud and clear from somewhere outside the tent, announcing an upcoming act on the grand stage.
        "Hey, sword swallowers!" the man said. "Let's go see!"
        The couple hooked arms and walked out smiling.