Forever Carnival

art by Kale Hensley

by Lianne Neiger

I used to bug my best friend Ezra with a ton of would-you-rather scenarios. He was usually game. The kid could pull an essay answer out of his ass to the craziest hypotheticals. Then there was my favorite one to ask: would you rather be the one leaving or the one being left behind? That one stumped him. I get it now. I thought I had an answer once, but being dead makes that shit kind of hazy.

What doesn’t being dead make hazy, though? I’ve seen myself in the Hall of Mirrors; I look like someone hit the blur effect on Snapchat. Still, I’m not a bad-looking blur-boy. People recognize me, say hi. I’ve only been a dearly departed for four years, so some of them know my name, ask me questions about the other side. 

The other side has rickety rides that screech on turns, neon lights, and the aromas of barf and popcorn. It’s carnival every day, baby. Well, for me at least. For the public, only Fridays through Sundays.

Townies like that Forever Carnival’s a permanent attraction, for the most part. It’s steady tourist money, plus enough locals have passed away that they don’t feel comfortable kicking us ghosts out, even when we’ve died so long ago there’s nobody left to remember us. Not that it’s all rainbows. People are nice to the ghosts they know, but they instantly forget the ones they don’t. As for the Long-Deads…well, nobody’s nice to the Long-Deads because they’re pieces of shit. They look like what you get if you shake an Etch-A-Sketch until the lines are almost completely gone. They have the humanity of an Etch-A-Sketch, too. Thankfully, those nutjobs are just temporary visitors, jumping the tracks in the Haunted House so the cars pass right through them and such. They’re practically invisible in the dark but I’ve seen people come out talking about cold air and dark thoughts. Yeah. The Long-Dead are major creepers and everybody knows it. What they don’t know is literally anything else about them.

“Spin faster, Dover!” Jacqueline squeals with seven-year-old intensity. 

“You know I can’t,” I yell over the ragtime music, “if you want spinning go into a teacup with alive people.”

“I don’t like these ones. Would you rather eat a snake or drink a tooth smoothie?” She waits for the grimace and roars with laughter when I come through.

“Easy. Eat a snake, especially if I can fry it. Hey, how come the Long-Dead don’t do the fishhook thing?” I ask Jacqueline as we spin, her delicate hair lying flat on puffy sleeved shoulders, unmoved by the wind. The lace collar dress and checkered skirt of her dress lying totally flat, like they’ve been pressed and starched a thousand times. I think she’s forgotten what wind does, how it works.

“Not that we can see, but maybe they do it invisibly.”

“But they’re all over the place. Back when I was alive, I remember being told about Long-Dead shenanigans happening in Florida. ‘Florida Man claims the dead’s dark thoughts made him steal a penguin.’ Stuff like that,” I say, not wanting her to shrug it off. She’s been here longer than me, she has to know the real deal.

“Those could all be different Long-Dead, silly, not the same ones. There’s no way to tell them apart. I don’t think they could tell themselves apart, either. You’re forgotten, and then you fade…and then you feed on what scraps you can get.” There’s something odd about her expression then, but before I can ask she claps her hands, and says, “Or you just disappear, maybe.” Jacqueline smiles then. “Let’s find someone who wants to be our friend and have them spin us.”

☠

“Do you know any Long-Dead? Have you seen them in action?” Ezra asked about six months into my afterlife, half-whispering.

“Uh, I don’t think you can know them, but I’ve sort of seen them around I guess,” I said, not bothering to whisper because the Long-Dead are past caring when someone talks about them.

“Do you have other friends here? Like, ghost friends?” Shane checked herself out in her phone’s camera app. Apparently satisfied with what she saw, she turned those dark eyes on me. Pre- and post- blur-boy status, Shane always has a way of not really seeing me but seeing through me…kinda thought it was hot. Still maybe kinda do.

“What, like, buddies? I mean, I know some dead people, but they’re more like acquaintances.” Liar. There was somebody; I just wasn’t about to brag about that. Who’d be proud of a friendship with a seven-year-old? That’d be like the weirdest flex.

“But what do you, like, do when we’re not around? Practice midair backstrokes?” Ezra, being a smartass, as usual.

“I don’t know, I’m…not really present until after dark.” They both looked at me like I died a second time. “I can’t really explain it. It’s like I wake up, and the sun is setting, and I roam around until you guys get here, and then I go to sleep when the sun’s coming up. Nocturnal, baby, like an owl. Hoot hoot.” I didn’t tell them I was grateful for that. It’s probably messed up, not casting a shadow. Irrelevance on an astrophysical level isn’t my speed right now, so thanks for the break, universe.

Shane looked like she wanted to push me before remembering she couldn’t. “You’re such a weirdo, Dover.”

“Yeah but would you rather date a weirdo ghost or a pervert zombie?”

There was a beat of silence, and I let the dings, clanks, screeches, shrill laughter and engine whirrs wash over me. It was the part of the night that was not quite blackout dark, but coffee-no-milk dark, and the itch was starting like full-body static.

Finally, Ezra broke the–ha!–dead air.  “Depends. What kind of zombie are we talking about? Walking Dead? Dawn of the Dead? White Walker types? Drew Barrymore as a zombie in that Netflix show? Because Drew can get it.”

“I was thinking the grunting, slow-moving, rotting genitals variety.”

Shane snorted before pulling a serious face. “You’re both disgusting.” 

Three’s an odd number. I mean, literally and figuratively. I didn’t think that back in high school, at least not freshman or sophomore year, but dating Shane in junior year definitely made things weird–throwing off the dynamic we had going, even if we didn’t actually do anything other than kiss a little and sit on her bed sometimes. We ended it pretty fast, and things were 90% okay, but then a year later I kicked the bucket, and it got awkward again.

Not that I mind awkward. Awkward keeps them coming back. That and guilt, probably. They’d visited every night for the first year, sneaking in when the carnival was inactive, and then every weekend the year after that. Guilt doesn’t have the best half-life I guess; now, I’m lucky if one of them shows up every other weekend. It’s the same conversation each time they come back: So sorry, there was a really important test/midterm/final/group project I had to study for/work on. I get it, sort of. Only none of us gave a shit about that stuff in high school–I mean, there’s a reason Ezra wound up in community college and Shane in a so-so city university she commutes to, and it’s not just money issues.

Pretty sure they’re going out with their college friends on those weekends, probably getting wasted at some frat house. Ezra’s in a frat, I know that. Something with Omega in it. They’ve never brought any friends out to meet me, for a number of reasons: the friend’s religion forbids contact with the dead; they’ve been haunted before and are scared of me (which is dumb because only Long-Dead haunt and I’m pretty fresh for being dead); they have enough ghosts of their own to deal with (so rude); sometimes they just “don’t like carnivals.”

You can passive-aggressively remind your friends they’re probably the reason you killed yourself only so many times before they resent you for it, so I’ve been trying to act cool, mostly. I sneak in reminders here and there, subtle jabs instead of straight punches, but just before they went off to college, I got them to stay a little later than usual, let them see me be invisibly pulled towards the teacups at 10:45pm sharp, like a fish on a hook. They came to visit more frequently after that, for a little while, but they made sure to leave by ten-thirty.

☠

The teacups is where I met her, Jacqueline. Not Jackie, Jacqueline. She doesn’t let me forget. She winds up at the teacups every night, like me. It’s where we both died, I guess.

I mean that’s where I met her as a dead dude. Apparently, we first met when I was still alive, but I can’t remember; you always forget ghosts you don’t know. Either way, every day she gets to the teacups before me, which makes sense because she died around nine (from what I can piece together; the kid’s not the best at telling time) and not 10:45 like me so she does the hooked fish thing almost two hours earlier. It’s kind of weird. She’s a lot older than me if you look at it chronologically, must be around eighty, even though she looks and sounds like a kid. She’s dressed in that frilly way I’ve seen my grandmother dressed in her kid pictures and similar in visual quality, too–distorted around the edges, faded colors. Her braids were probably blond originally, but they’ve taken on the shade of an old white t-shirt that’s been washed too many times.

Better than being stuck in an ironic My Chemical Romance t-shirt. Well, used to be ironic, now just prematurely aging—the band died before me. 

“You went away just now,” she says, pale pink checkered skirts blending into the teacup we’re in. Some of them are blue, which is much cooler than pink if you ask me, but sadly those aren’t the ones we chose to stop breathing in. Irony is so much more fun when you’re alive.

“I was remembering stuff, I guess,” I say, checking out the world lazily spinning around us.

“Ezra and Shane?” Her voice is all high-pitched. She goes particularly kid-like when she’s upset about stuff, puffs her soft, cherubic cheeks. And she doesn’t like to hear about my friends.

“Yeah.”

“They haven’t been back all week.”

I roll my eyes. “I know that. The carnival doesn’t open for the public on weeknights, plus they’ve got school and stuff during the week.” I don’t mention that they used to sneak in regardless. I don’t mention how much I don’t care about their school and stuff.

“It’s Friday night.”

“Well, they’ll be here tomorrow.”

“I don’t like them. Why do you like them? They’re the ones who got you dead.”

“They’re my best friends. Plus, we don’t know that.” How are you supposed to explain complicated stuff like this to a seven-year-old ghost? I doubt there are YouTube tutorials on it. “Yes, they messed up, but we’ve been together for, like, ever. Plus, they feel bad about it.”

“If they were sorry, they’d come back every night, carnival or no carnival,” Jacqueline says, pouting. 

It’s hard to force an argument when you actually agree, but even harder to admit your friends aren’t who you wish they were. “Well, they’re doing the best they can. They’ll be here tomorrow and maybe Sunday, too. They promised.”

“Even if they don’t,” she says, voice lowering, “I’ll still be here. So, you don’t have to ever be alone.” She plays with one of her braids, and it feels enough like flirting to be uncomfortable. She gets like this sometimes, in these weirdly adult moods. It’s like she can’t decide which age she wants to be.

But I’m definitely eighteen, so, like, absolutely not happening. “That’s cool. But they’ll be here.” The world’s come to a pause. We have a minute before it gets spinny again. “Do you want to maybe check out a different ride? We’ve got like fifteen minutes before it’s my turn to—” I hook a finger inside my cheek and pull.

“I like the teacups.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Same answer every time, but a guy’s gotta try and leave the tea party now and then. Jacqueline’s scared of most rides except the elephant ride, and that one’s a no-go because of the dead babies. Everybody hates the dead babies. Like, you feel for them at first; it probably sucked being a tiny premature newborn in an incubator up on display, part of a freak-show that existed in that spot before the elephant ride—people were into wacko shit back in the thirties. But there’s only so much pity you can feel for screaming blurs before you just want to get out of there. Lots of living tots don’t seem to mind the phantom howls though, even if their parents are less than thrilled. They just forget about it later, anyway.

So we stay in the cups, circling around the giant teapot, waiting for a living kid to join us and actually twist the damn wheel thing that used to be slightly nausea-inducing but the only exciting part of this ride. Now and again, a kid jumps in and mostly ignores us, which I’m totally fine with, but Jacqueline isn’t. Must be tough on her, being dead for so long. There’s nobody to visit her from when she was alive and definitely no new living friends. I might be all she’s got.

Pretty soon the stars get harder to see, and my body, ectoplasm or whatever it is, starts buzzing, and that weight of sadness is on my chest. This is the part that sucks the most, the emotional playback. I can avoid the hooked fish vibe by beating it to the pink teacup, but I can’t outsmart the depression replay. It’s like a soundless tsunami that I have to wait out. The confusing part is that I can’t even make sense of it exactly. For a while it’s heavy, chest-banging disappointment which probably has to do with being stood up by Ezra and Shane and seeing that photo on Instagram, but then that feeling changes into full body pulsing—shock?—then a flash of heated anger, more anger than I ever remember feeling in my life. Then there’s a burning in my throat, which evidence would explain as liquor, followed by cold, freezing cold, and shaking for a long while, getting foggier and foggier until crescendoing to an all-encompassing VapoRubbed-brain utter terror before it all stops. Before I stop. And then restart, I guess. Kind of.

“Is it over?” It’s Jacqueline. There’s only Jacqueline. 

“Yeah,” I say, wanting to throw up but obviously unable. That’s another thing you don’t consider when you’re alive, the possibility of missing bodily dysfunction. “Yeah, it’s done.”

She shakes her head, tutting like a school nurse. “They did this to you. You hurt like this every night, but then you still—”

“You gotta blame the alcohol, right? They didn’t force me to drink that much. They definitely didn’t make me drown in my own vomit.” But they’re what made me chug down all the liquor, and we all know it. Ezra and Shane know it. “If you want to blame anybody, blame Tito’s.” Not that the kid would know vodka brands.

“I just don’t want them to hurt you again,” she says, going all soprano.

“They won’t. I mean the worst has already happened, right?” Just then, we watch as a man walks by a little too quickly on his way back to his family. He’s shuddering, rubbing his own arms and looking pretty pissed. He emerged from the left, which means that most likely he’d just been to the Haunted House. “I guess that’s not all that true: I could still become a Long-Dead, huh?” I say, turning to Jacqueline.

She shrugs, her eyes fixated on a preteen girl in a middle school chorus shirt tying her shoes in front of the teacups. She shuffles her black Mary-Janes, maybe shyly. There’s a way she looks at kids sometimes that makes me want to look away. It’s sad, but I can’t help her. “I think she’s here alone.”

“What?”

“Her. I don’t think she came with friends.”

“So what?”

“Maybe she’s lonely. Maybe she’d feel better if she spun around in a teacup. It was my favorite ride back…back when…”

She doesn’t need to continue. I know what she means. I force myself to watch her observe the chorus girl, understanding what it feels like to be so pathetically lonely. Jacqueline keeps looking until the girl walks away and the teacups start to spin again. Keeps looking even then.

☠

I do wonder what Jacqueline’s story is, what her short life was all about. She doesn’t really like to talk about it, doesn’t even want me around at nine when she’s going through her loop. I won’t push even though it’s a shame, I mean what was it like growing up in the 40’s? Did anyone use to visit her? Dead at seven, someone must have, a grieving parent or something. Maybe one day she’ll tell me, but for now it makes it hard to relate to her, and that’s plenty hard already considering the age gap. There’s only so much I can say about myself. I can bring up some stupid shit I did in school and laugh about it for a minute, like the time Shane and I made a Twitter account for Ms. Schlossberg’s Hanging Titties and our tweets alternated between Lefty and Righty, but then I remember it’s not an appropriate story to tell a child, plus it was a pretty mean thing to do. Shane felt really bad about it after. She made me delete the account a week later, even though we had like five hundred followers at that point.

Shane’s always had better morals than Ezra or me, and she knew it. She’d say it’s because she’s a girl, duh. But I don’t know about that. There are plenty of shitty girls out there. There’s Trish Benson who told me I had bad teeth in seventh grade, and for like a year, I wouldn’t smile. There’s Hailey Dougherty who got me kicked out of band because she said I touched her boob when really she just hated my guts and wanted Penn Jacobs to sit next to her (and touch her boob, probably). Let’s not forget Mrs. Fernsworth who said I was wasting my time applying to community college and was better off signing up for trade schools. Who knows? Maybe she had a point. Silver lining to dying is you never have to learn if people were right about how worthless you were.

“Stop pulling this emo shit,” Shane said, shoving my shoulders into the wall behind my bed. It was after junior year midterms, and Ms. Schlossberg had given me shit for writing that the crazy lady in The Awakening goes swimming in the end to wake up, and even more shit when I admitted I didn’t read it. I was telling Shane how I thought people saw me, and she wasn’t having it. “If you don’t want people to think you’re an irrelevant weirdo, do something about it. Either do something or stop caring.”

“It’s easy for you to say. People don’t look at you like they look at me.”

“No, they don’t. They look at me like I’ve handed them their coffee order, and my tip is their cock.” She shook her head. Such a pretty head. “You even look at me like that sometimes. You just don’t realize it.”

“No I—”

“Shut up. You’re a teenage boy. Of course you do. At least that’s kind of an excuse. But it’s not an excuse to whine about your life and act like everything’s out of your hands, like it’s you against the world. Besides, it’s not true. You’ve got Ezra and I.”

“And me,” I corrected.

“Okay, you’ve got Ezra.”

We laughed, we made out, we thought about Ezra and felt bad about making out and just played some video games. Shane always made me feel cooler by association. She seemed like she had the right amount of perspective on everything, the right kind of insight. She was smarter than me, more attractive than me by far, but somehow still wanted me around. Wanted me even more than Ezra. For a little while at least. I guess she really could see through me. 

They’ll be coming later tonight. At least they’re supposed to. Not that I can do anything about it if they don’t. I couldn’t do anything about it even when I was alive. I can’t find Jacqueline, and I’m out of ideas for what to do, but there seem to be plenty of Long-Dead around tonight, so I roam around the Haunted House. I keep my distance and walk-float around the perimeter, watching the visitors leaving with relief on their faces, shuddering. I used to feel bad for them, tried to warn them about the Long-Dead, but they’d forget about talking to me almost instantly, let alone about the ghouls in the attraction. It’s kind of sick really, even just imagining being their victim. What fucked up feelings and thoughts are left when your whole existence distills down to a hungry blur? 

At the same time, it’s nice, forgetting. I miss it. Not the blackout kind of forgetting, that next day dread of trying and failing to piece together how much you’ve made others hate you. Not in the way I can’t remember killing myself but know I did, and have to face the emotional b-roll of dying every night. Just, the slow release that comes with time. The fade.

Sometimes I feel like I’m fading. It used to be tied to something, like being BIG sad, like when Ezra and Shane started skipping out on me more and more weekends, and it felt like they’d never come back. But lately it can happen whenever. Like when my mom visits and cries and says Dad will show up one day when he’s not so pissed at me for throwing my life away.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were so upset?” She still asks that kind of thing, 4 years later. I’ve told her I don’t know, that it never felt like something I could really do when her and Dad have so much on their plates already. Besides, what could they have done? It’s not like I planned to kill myself.

A while ago I got Mom to sit in the teacup with Jacqueline and me—around 9:30, before my hooked-fish time and after Jacqueline’s—so she’d twist the wheel and spin us. I knew it’d make her laugh. Mom liked kid things like this, liked morning cartoons and cheesy animated movies and frilly dresses. I thought she’d get along with Jacqueline, thought she’d be the ghost-daughter Mom probably always wanted (but got me instead), but Jacqueline was acting weird. Shy, almost, but less giggly shy and more get-me-out-of-here shy. But I ignored it, decided to focus on the rotation, on the revolving lights and sounds that became like one perpetual ribbon of twinkling night. The world looked happier when you sped it up. 

“Do you regret it?” Mom asked, yelling into the wind.

It was tempting to pretend I didn’t hear her. I watched her figure, sitting opposite me in the cup, so firm and weighty compared to Jacqueline and me, the two misty apparitions. If she’d blown air in my direction, would my shape have indented? Blown apart like dandelion seeds? 

I shrugged, waiting for us to slow down. “We all have to get off the ride sometime I guess.”

“Not yet,” she said softly, “it was too soon, way too soon.”.

Jacqueline took my hand, and shook her head, “He just got on a different ride is all.” Then she led us to the elephants.

☠

It’s Saturday now, another day gone that I wasn’t around for. Jacqueline said you either become Long-Dead or you disappear, but I can’t get her to tell me what happens in-between. Does it feel the way I do now and then one day, poof, you’re either nothing or worse than nothing? Are there stages? She’s been around for a while, I would think she’s seen it all, but she never answers when I ask. Just looks around for someone to play with, says I’m no fun. Damn right I’m not, that’s always been part of my charm.

“How’d it happen?” Ezra asked that first time they visited. They’d come straight from my funeral, dressed in black, same as me. I always wear black.

Shane nudged him, then quickly backed away, like she thought she shouldn’t be touching Ezra. Part of me was glad. “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”

“I mean it was on the news, the police said—” Ezra broke off with another elbow to the rib.

“It was on the news?” The carnival doesn’t exactly provide cable.

“Yeah, man. They said it was…I mean they ruled out homicide, you know.”

I nodded. “Did they open me up?”

“Nah. Your parents didn’t want that, and your internet history…well, that plus like, what the guidance counselor had to say. You know. They ruled it accidental, ultimately.”

Dumb kid with all of two friends and no future accidentally drowns in his own vomit after drinking. Why? Self-pity. Just another weak little snowflake. “I bet they’re just happy I didn’t shoot up the school, just got all sad and lonely and chokey. Pretty thoughtful if you ask me.” Silence. “I can’t believe they went to Mrs. Fucksworth for information on me. She thinks I’m dirt.” I thought for a minute. “Wait, am I dirt? Did they burn my body?”

“No!” Shane yelled, but it was drowned out by the noise of arcade games and high-pitched piano tunes, “Your parents buried you. You’re in the Walden Woods cemetery. Jesus, Dover, why would you think that?”

I shrugged, “Feels like an easier, cheaper option. Man, so Mom and Dad paid for a funeral and a grave. Dad must be furious.”

“At least they can come visit you, right?” Ezra said, kicking at a patch of grass that had somehow grown on the dirt lot of Forever Carnival, “It’s not like you’re gone, gone.”

“Guess so,” Would they, was the question. Would Dad? “What about you guys? You can stop by after school. Like around this time?”

“Of course, man, it’ll be just like that 90’s Casper movie. We’ve even got Christina Ricci right here,” said Ezra, pointing at Shane.

“My forehead’s not that big. And does that make you my dad?”

“Call me daddy.” 

Shane shoved him. I felt something like a stab as I watched their faces, saw when they remembered why they were there, what they’d done. 

“Hey, we’re…” Shane started, clearing her throat, “not that it’s a big deal but, thought you maybe should know, we’re not like…Ezra and I aren’t together or anything. We didn’t lie about that.”

I said nothing. Ezra took over, still kicking at the grass. “Look, that party…we were both wasted. It was really stupid. Bridget had all this shitty beer her brother left at home over winter break and, you know, you don’t say no to free alcohol.”

“And Bridget’s living room’s really small so we were all kind of dancing on top of each other. Honestly, I barely even remember how the kiss happened. I didn’t even know Tyler took that photo,” Shane said, rambling, and even rambling she looked cute. Her skin was so soft. I remembered that. Even the baby fuzz by her jaw, which Ezra and I called sideburns, teasing her. 

“Why didn’t you tell me about the party?”

“It’s stupid,” Shane said, “we didn’t think you liked—like Bridget, so it felt like you wouldn’t want to go and—”

“You weren’t invited, man,” Ezra said, finally looking me in the eyes. “You just…weren’t.”

I nodded. Shane cried. 

They came back the next night, and the night after that, and at the time, I chose not to tell them about the weird 10:45pm loop because they felt bad enough, and while they were there I just wanted to know about school, and what the other kids were saying about me, and if anybody, teachers included, was upset or felt remotely guilty for treating me like I was invisible while I was still alive.

It’s funny now, but I’d entertained the idea of community college for a moment. I had no plan. No major stuck out to me as particularly interesting, not like Shane with physics or Ezra with U.S. history. I liked music a lot, but wasn’t so sure I wanted a repeat of band, and besides, was I even any good at clarinet? My parents used to yell at me when I practiced—Dad had to wake up at four every morning to start construction work and didn’t appreciate the “prepubescent duck noise.” Still, community college sounded like something, or like the start of something, maybe. A shot at being someplace else—still close enough to hang with Ezra and Shane when I wanted to, but also away from high school, away from Mrs. Fernsworth, Hailey Dougherty, and all the other pieces of shit who, I quickly found out, had mainly forgotten about me. Moved on. Must be nice.

Shane and Ezra never said it, either. Not that they needed to, I guess. I knew that’s what they meant every time they came to see me. We’re sorry we hooked up at a party; we promise we don’t do that anymore. We’re sorry we went to a party you weren’t invited to and lied to you about it. We’re sorry we bailed on our plans to hang out with you at the carnival late at night because there was something better to do. We’re sorry that you had to catch us in a lie on your phone, and that you went on those sad teacups all alone, and that it went all wrong because you were a depressed, fucked up kid who didn’t know when to stop. We’re sorry you died because of us, dude.

Hey Dover, would you rather be the one leaving or the one being left behind? Psyche, when you’re dead you do both.

☠

Mom’s here now, unexpectedly, joining Jacqueline and I on the cups. The ride slows down along with the maniacal ragtime tune, and Mom releases the wheel at the center so that we finally come to a stop. “Hall of Mirrors?” she says, never looking away from me.

“Sure,” I say, “Jacqueline, you want to come?”

“No thanks,” she answers, shifting inside the cup in visible relief. “I’ll be here.”

“Okay,” I say, and float-walk after my mom. “I’ll catch up with her later, I guess.”

“Who?” says Mom, turning around.

“Never mind.”

We pass the Haunted House, the Gravitron, the Ferris wheel and candy-cane-colored stalls offering darts and hoops and mechanical horse racing. There aren’t that many people around, only younger kids since it’s early evening on a Saturday, and there’s no line leading up to the Hall of Mirrors. I think of what I must look like, trailing my mom like that, like her personal ghost balloon. At least I don’t have to worry about being cool anymore; death’s a sure way to get kicked out of the social hierarchy. Unless you count the Long-Deads. They must be somewhere between bullies and total losers.

We walk into the Hall of Mirrors, which is split into two floors: the top is a maze, leading you through walls of tall mirrors that twist and turn, reflecting a staircase that only exists somewhere in the middle to take you to the bottom floor, a room of funhouse mirrors. That’s where I know we’re headed, to the funhouse room with flashing orange lights.

“What are you looking for exactly?” I ask.

“I think it’ll be here…” she says, roaming around. I watch her figure get pulled every which way by the mirrors as she passes: stretched long, pressed short, pulled thin, and pushed out. My own reflection follows suit a second after. What is she…then we stop—well, she does, so fast I almost touch her. Luckily, I pull back at the last second or I’d have gone through her like a Long-Dead. “Stand here,” she says, gazing into a mirror that seems normal, for all intents and purposes. “Here,” she motions to her right.

I do, which instantly changes the game. Suddenly I’m on the left, and she’s on the right—a flip mirror. 

She inhales sharply enough that I can hear it. “Okay. Now, face away from me, and hold your arms out at sort of waist height.” I do. She does the same, only reversed. “Now look. Look in the mirror.”

I know what I’ll see there, but it still hurts. Not a sudden pain, like a punch, but more like the throb of a bruise. There we are, our reflections hugging in a way that would never be possible for our physical bodies. I see my mom’s arms waver as she tries to steady herself, and our hug momentarily slips before reconnecting. “I see it, Mom.”

“Isn’t it great?” she whispers.

“Yeah.”

“I wish…it would be so good if your dad could see it.”

I don’t know what to say, just watch her watching me. Wonder if there will come a day when she can’t even see my reflection anymore.

“Maybe one day. Maybe soon,” she continues.

“Yeah.” I sigh. “Maybe.”

☠

They’ll come; I know they’ll come. It’s almost nine. There’s plenty of time—endless time, really. I wonder how an infinity feels. Maybe it’s bad. Maybe that’s why the Long-Deads become the Long-Deads. Maybe that’s what hell feels like.

I roam, steering clear of the Haunted House. I’m feeling too many things, and I’m kind of worried that’ll stir them up. I’m not sure that’s how they work, but why risk it? The teacups are around the corner. Shane and Ezra would know to meet me there, and I could just sit until they get to the carnival.

When I get there, Shane and Ezra are already standing by the gate to the ride. I’m fucking elated but keep my poker face on—pretty easy when you’ve got the supernatural Botox effect. I try to wave, but they’re distracted by something on the ride, and I get this sinking feeling like I don’t want to look but I know I have to.

As I get closer, I locate what they’re staring at. The teacup ride is active, and most cups are spinning except one, and on that one lazy cup is a young girl. A middle schooler, maybe. I try to focus and realize I’ve seen her before. It’s the girl with the chorus shirt. The one who came alone yesterday, the one Jacqueline was fixated on…Jacqueline. Oh no.

I see her, then. She’s in the same cup as chorus girl. She’s not the Jacqueline I know, she’s something other. She’s gone so hazy that I almost can’t make her out, but there’s the frilly checkered dress and hair leached of its vitality, like a white t-shirt washed hundreds of time.

“Dover,” I hear, and look back down. It’s Shane, and her eyes are screaming panic. “What the fuck is that? Is that one of those Long-Dead? What the fuck is it doing?”

“It’s…I don’t…” I look up again, searching for the non-spinning cup. There. I see it, I see it all and I’ll remember it all forever, even if they won’t. Jacqueline is hanging on to the girl, or, well, it’s almost like she’s trying to hang on, claw on, really, but she can’t. Chorus girl looks blankly ahead as Jacqueline lets her arms dig deeper and deeper, pushing against some sort of barrier on the girl until—oh god, until she’s in. Her arms are inside the girl, and she continues to push until she and the girl meld together. They could be spooning if the look on the Jacqueline’s face wasn’t so grotesque. 

“It’s like they’re melting,” Ezra says, groaning, and he’s not wrong. It’s hard to tell where the girl ends and Jacqueline begins, her outline having almost entirely disappeared. She’s nearly invisible against the sky, even in the light of the ride, but I can make out her open mouth, its hungry teeth bared. I can make out the eyes squeezed shut, like someone devouring their favorite meal after a long fast. 

Terrified, I scream, “Stop! Jacqueline, stop!” 

The thing that should be Jacqueline freezes. It heaves, and finally unlatches from the body it was feeding on. God. Feeding. 

“You know that thing?” Ezra asks, repulsed. “It’s like a demon straight out of hell.”

“That’s…I don’t know what that was. Why she would—”

“What the hell was it doing to that girl?” he shouts, and I flinch.

We wait until the ride stops, then run up to the cup Jacqueline and the girl had been on. Jacqueline isn’t there, but the girl is, looking ready to pass out. Shane grabs her in her arms, half lifting her out of the ride, and leads her towards the picnic tables by the candy-cane tents. 

“Are you okay?” Shane asks as we all hover over the kid. She’s slouched on the bench, and we can see her arms are bleeding, like she’s been scratching at them repeatedly, trying to gouge deep. 

“I’m…I’m not,” the girl says, her voice faint, with that tremble that I know will end up in tears, “I’m…oh my god, what happened to me? What got…what got in my head? All of a sudden it’s like, I was so—” She gasps and shudders. “I was so sad. All I could think about was Margot hating me and my parents blaming me for Charlie’s bruises and how I should just be alone forever because everyone would be better off without me. I couldn’t stop thinking…I was cold. So cold.” The sobs begin, as predicted.

I drift back a little. Watch as Ezra and Shane take turns soothing the girl, asking who to call. I can’t do anything—couldn’t even if I tried.

I need to go to find Jacqueline, but I’m so afraid. She’s been my only friend here. Is this all because of her? 
Long-Dead or disappear. Those are the two paths, aren’t they Jacqueline? But when’s the cut-off? What makes us switch over to one team or the other? Jacqueline never said, she would never answer me. Little girl body holding a corrupt seventy plus year old spirit and I fell for the act. But do I want the real answers? This seems like a big fucking clue and Jesus I don’t want this piece of forever to look forward to. 

I need to focus. The victim is still alive. There’s a gathering crowd, and before long the girl’s family shows up, the mom hugging the weeping girl while the dad’s on the phone. By the time the police come, it’s nearly 10:45, and Ezra and Shane have already said their hurried goodbyes. No promises to see me tomorrow, and I wasn’t going to push it. Not after tonight.

☠

I return to the teacups, feeling that itch take over, the hook starting to dig. I hate it more than ever before, but I can’t stop it. This…this is what could’ve become of that girl. This is what Jacqueline wanted. She almost did this to someone…she did do this to someone. Didn’t she? Cold, the girl had said…she was cold. I don’t want to think about it, but as the rush of emotions roll over me, escalating, transforming from sadness to anger to freezing, numbing terror, in the end I see her face. The hungry void of her mouth.

“Would you rather be scared and alone forever, or be the scary thing? The monster?” Jacqueline asks me, and it’s a memory, one back when I introduced her to Would You Rather. I see it so clearly now.
“What kind of monster?” She shrugs at me. Secretly, I’m impressed. It’s a really good Would You Rather. “Do you have cool powers?”

“You’re free to go anywhere. You’re not lonely.”

I feel a touch of sympathy, then. “Monsters aren’t lonely?”

“Not if they don’t have to be! Not if they can give it to other people.” I want to ask more questions, but she’s stomped her little foot on the teacup. “You’re not playing the game. Which would you rather?”

“I don’t know, you got me.”

She smiles then. Smiles and laughs.

☠

Some parents tried to close down Forever Carnival but couldn’t do it. Too much backlash from mourning families, mine being one of them. Shane told me Dad spoke up at city hall, which was hard to believe, but she wouldn’t lie to me about that. Not even about moving to Chicago to teach at a private high school. “I’ll be back,” she says, “I just don’t know when.”

“Right.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“That I…that I have to leave you behind,” she said, “It doesn’t feel right. I’m sorry, I really am.”

“I could’ve just been dead and buried, right? And you can…I mean you can come back and visit. When you’re back. I’ll be here.” I’ll never stop being here.

“That’s true. That’s good to know,” she says and smirks, her eyes lighting up as she waves her hand, “Ezra! I’m leaving, come say bye.”

Ezra shows up from behind me, stopping to stand next to Shane. “It won’t be the same without you around.” 

“I know. But you two will figure it out.”

“We’ll keep each other company,” Ezra says. 

It’s not that I don’t believe him, but I also know better than to expect much. I know about the half-life of guilt, and I know about loneliness, and I know how dangerous it can be to not let go. 

I haven’t spoken to Jacqueline since that day—can’t find her anywhere. Maybe she’s finally faded into a Long-Dead. I hope she didn’t. Better to fade into nothing if the alternative is what I saw. Either way, I’m alone. Is it better than being a monster? Guess I’ll find out.

When Ezra and Shane leave, I turn my back to them and walk away. For once I want to know what that feels like, to choose.

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