The Carnival of Lost Souls : A Handcuff Kid Novel

by Laura Quimby

  The card irked him—the strange invitation seemed so real, somehow feeling alive as it had trembled in his hands. The words had moved. Was the invitation really from the mysterious magician Mussini? But the carnival was so long ago—when the professor was young. There was no way that Mussini was still around. The professor probably had a normal explanation for everything. Mildred would have never placed him with a dangerous guy. Weird was one thing, but not dangerous.

  Still, Jack needed answers, and he would have to face the professor sooner or later if he wanted to get them.

  An entire week went by. Jack was still as jumpy as a baby rabbit. He waited day after day for the professor to confront him for snooping in his office. Surely he had left some incriminating evidence behind—some dirt on the floor or on his clothes. But so far, the professor said nothing about his office, the trunk, or the card. Jack’s deception was exhausting. His head ached. Regret spread through him more and more each day. Why did he break his word? Why did he have to screw everything up?

  Saturday morning, Jack sat cross-legged on the living room floor, shoveling heaping spoonfuls of cereal into his mouth. The horrific moans of a violin oozed out from under the professor’s office door, as on every Saturday morning the professor listened to classical music. Jack turned up the television, hoping that the high-pitched mania of his cartoons would drown out the screech of strangled cats the professor called masterpieces. Suddenly, the music stopped, and Jack jumped to turn the television down.

  Jack slurped up the chocolaty milk-soup of his cereal while his eyes followed the professor walking around the room, circling him. The professor stared at him; the look of suspicion caused dread and guilt to roll around in Jack’s stomach.

  “When were you going to tell me?” The professor began gathering up pages of newspaper from the coffee table.

  “Tell you what?” Jack asked, resting his cereal bowl on the floor. He tried not to panic; the less he said, the better. The professor didn’t seem that angry; maybe he would let him off easy for sneaking into his office.

  The professor glanced down his nose at Jack. “That’s not a very good answer. Try again.”

  “I was never going to tell you,” Jack said, hoping his blunt yet honest answer would at least gain a few points. He could still feel the cold earth slip between his fingers when he opened the trunk, and he could still see his name printed clearly on the card. He was the guest of the magician Mussini. He had opened the trunk when he knew he shouldn’t. He broke his word to the professor and Mildred by sneaking into the office. And now he just sat there, pathetically waiting for his punishment. A lump formed in his throat.

  “Never! But if you never told me, then we couldn’t go.” The professor stood in front of the television, focusing Jack’s attention.

  Go where? What was he thinking? Jack stared at the professor.

  “I’m not sure I want to go.” Jack wiped his mouth off on his pajama sleeve; his chin still ached from the fight in the park. If the kids were right, then Jack and the professor were off to the psych ward, which might not be so bad as far as punishments go, compared to where they might be headed.

  “Well, as your legal guardian, I am insisting that you attend.” Swiftly the professor wedged the newspapers under his arm and rummaged into his pocket. He pulled out a piece of paper and dropped the creased leaflet onto the carpet in front of Jack. “Concheta found this stuffed in the pocket of your jeans when she was doing the laundry.”

  Jack snatched up the yellow slip. It was the carnival flyer he found in the park! A wave of relief washed over him, and he jumped to his feet. He had forgotten all about it.

  “All you had to do was ask.” The professor smiled. “As you know, I love carnivals and was thrilled when Concheta showed it to me. I think you’ll find we have many things in common.”

  “That’s a relief,” Jack said. “Um, I mean, I’d love to go.”

  “Tonight is the last night to attend.” Jack grinned and the professor walked out of the room.

  If the professor didn’t know that Jack snuck into the office, then Jack wanted to keep it that way.

  The professor decided to get some fresh air and walk to the carnival. They waited until after dinner when the sun was almost down to trudge through the woods and then maneuver a patch of tall, weed-choked grass. Concheta’s long jean skirt kept getting snagged on the prickly weeds, and she cursed the grass in Spanish while simultaneously using Jack’s head to keep her balance. Finally, they reached the gritty parking lot that had been transformed into a neon wonderland.

  Before Jack could race into the crowd, Concheta yanked the hood of his sweatshirt, and he stumbled backward.

  “Don’t get lost,” she said, handing him a fistful of crumpled dollar bills. “Now, go buy a candy apple and one for me, too.” She smiled mischievously and pushed him toward a crowded alleyway of vendors selling loads of sticky sweets and fried food.

  Jack darted into the crowd. The carnival was alive—a maze of rides and booths and games whirling and spinning all around him. Rides rose up out of the crowds like metal dinosaurs, roaring shrill music and blinking with millions of tiny lightbulbs. This place was better than he expected.

  After devouring his candy apple, Jack and the professor attacked the arcade and the game alley, then jumped on a string of jarring thrill rides that spun their heads around and around in the fun chaos of the Tilt-A-Whirl and the Zipper. Concheta mostly watched, but she did take a few turns on the merry-go-round, sitting sidesaddle on a glittery pink horse. Jack looked, but he never saw any of the strange sideshow acts the professor had told him about. When he asked about them, the professor just stared off into space.

  “Oh, those attractions are long gone.” The professor put his hand on Jack’s shoulder and directed him toward the center of the fair and an enormous glowing Ferris wheel. “Time for the last ride of the night.”

  Concheta planted herself a few yards away and waved them on. The professor and Jack didn’t have to wait long; the crowds were thinning, as the night was growing late. Once locked inside the tiny swinging metal box, Jack jumped at the opportunity to talk to the professor alone. “I figured it out.”

  “Hm,” the professor mused. “What’s that?”

  “What that magician, the Amazing Mussini, wanted from you. Your most valuable possession. It wasn’t that hard, really.” Jack figured the professor would respect him more if he solved the problem of what he sold to Mussini, and maybe even forgive him for opening the trunk in his office.

  “Really?” The professor rested his arm on the back of the cart and twisted his body under the metal safety bar, turning his attention to Jack. “I’ve been anxious to hear what you think.”

  Jack took a deep breath. “I figured you’re a smart guy, Professor, from all the books you’ve read and all the places you’ve been. You were probably a smart kid, too. You know a lot about everything, especially stuff that no one else bothers to study, like magic tricks and escapology. I think Mussini wanted a kid like you around, to help him create more tricks for his act.” Jack eased back in his seat, not realizing that he had been tensed up against the safety bar.

  The ride lurched, the box swung, and they were lifted high into the liquidy darkness. They both grasped on to the metal bar that rested across their laps. A rush of air blew over him, and Jack glowed with the excitement of soaring, as if he and the professor were escaping into the starry black sky as the simple magic of the ride carried them upward.

  “That’s a very good answer. But I’m afraid it isn’t entirely correct.”

  “Then what did Mussini want, if it wasn’t money?” Jack asked.

  The professor’s eyes anxiously darted over the crowd. “Mussini is a trader, and he travels between the lands of the living and the dead. He wanted my services, for sure, but that meant I would have to go with him.”

  “How does Mussini travel between the world of the living and the dead? That would be a cool magic trick.”

  “It�
��s complicated.” The professor twisted up his mouth. “Mussini is a powerful magician. He trades in lives. He wanted my soul.” He spit out the words as if they tasted awful. “You don’t understand the position that put me in.”

  “Couldn’t you just work for him at the carnival?” Jack asked. “You could help him with his act.”

  “The deal doesn’t work that way.” Against the professor’s pale face, his dark eyes gleamed like an animal’s at night. He turned to speak into Jack’s ear so that he could be heard over the din of the carnival. “I was around your age at the time. What did I know? I signed a contract, and I had no way out.” The professor grabbed Jack’s arm. “My only option was to figure out a way to escape the clutches of the Amazing Mussini and keep my soul.”

  “But you’re here now. And that happened a long time ago. So you must’ve done it.”

  The Ferris wheel rounded the top of the circle, and Jack and the professor drifted backward on the ride. Jack’s stomach dropped. He was falling with nothing but a slim metal bar to hold on to. He felt the same way about the professor’s story. But the professor was still sitting right next to him, so it couldn’t be true. The ride careened upward again, grinding to a halt at the top of the Ferris wheel, swaying above the world of the carnival. A wave of dizziness swept over Jack as he stared at the ground. Jack shook it off and listened to the professor.

  “I haven’t told you everything. The contract gave me fifty years to enjoy the knowledge of the secret.” The professor jerked his long legs and the cart swayed wildly from side to side, about to tip. The ride began another circle, gliding up and around. “I had time to learn all I needed to know to escape Mussini. And that’s why I asked for you! A boy who knew magic. It was my only chance to escape, and now it is your only chance.”

  Jack remembered that first day when he and Mildred stood outside of the professor’s house, and she told him the professor wanted a child who liked magic. She thought Jack was perfect for the professor. She probably thought they could become friends and perform magic tricks. But the professor had his own plans for Jack. The ride ground to a halt at the bottom. The professor rose out of the box and stood on the platform, and Jack leaped out beside him.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Jack raced up behind the professor and pulled on his sleeve. He let go as a trail of ideas connected in his head. Magic, but not real magic—trick-of-the-eye magic. A strange answer clicked into place. “The trunk was a trick?” Jack whispered to himself, not entirely sure what he was saying. The professor had baited him with the trunk—the one he had opened. The fragile illusion of a home, family, and love was disintegrating right before his eyes, like a speck of stardust falling from the sky. Jack wanted to say something, but he was too stunned.

  Concheta hurried over, waving frantically as if they had just arrived home from a journey to a far-off place. “You were so high up in the sky, like twinkling stars. I was afraid for you, mi chico.” Concheta ruffled his hair. “I didn’t want you to fall and break into pieces on the ground.”

  “Me neither, Concheta.”

  When they got home, the professor went straight to his office, and Jack ran upstairs. He had to get away and think about what the professor said and what it meant. While lying on his bed, in the dark room, loud voices echoed up from downstairs. Then toenails clipped across the wood floor, and when he let his hand fall over the side of the bed, Little Miss B.’s wet tongue licked his fingers. The professor was shouting and Concheta wailed and screeched. On the Richter scale of domestic disturbance this was a 4.5, not bad. But still, he hadn’t expected it, not here, and certainly not between the professor and Concheta. His heart jumped. Nothing good ever lasted long.

  Without turning the lights on, Jack eased down the stairs. Concheta’s voice filtered in from the kitchen. She made a little whimpering sound when she saw Jack standing in the doorway. “Oh, mi chico. You shouldn’t be here. Go back up to your room.”

  “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

  “It’s all my fault.” Shaking her hands, Concheta looked up at the ceiling as if she was talking to someone above her. “¿Qué? ¿Qué?”

  “It’s ‘cause I opened the box, right?” Jack headed toward the office. It was his fault they were fighting, not Concheta’s. “The professor found out and now he’s mad.”

  “No! Don’t go in there. He’s in there.” Concheta pulled on Jack’s sleeve.

  “Who’s in there?” Jack stopped in his tracks. She didn’t mean the professor. Now that piece of information got his attention. “No way.”

  Concheta’s lip quivered. “It’s the magician.”

  The infamous, soul-stealing magician was in the house. Thrill-laced fear pulled Jack toward the professor’s office. “I’ll be right back.” He broke free from Concheta’s grasp. “I gotta check it out.”

  The door to the professor’s office was shut. Jack eased down the hallway, kneeled outside the door, and pressed his ear close to the wood. He watched the slip of light under the door frame as shadows spun, and then he heard a dark, raspy voice. A tingle ran up his spine. A loud thump came from behind the door, then the rattle of a key being forced into a lock. A harsh voice boomed behind the door.

  “Your plan worked, Professor. I must admit, no one has weaseled his way out of one of my contracts until you.”

  “The fact that our deal is done and the boy goes in my place is all I care about. I want this over with and quick. Take him and get out of my house.” The professor was losing his cool, his voice quaking with a mix of anger and nerves.

  “It will be my pleasure to take him off your hands. You never were father material.” The sound of boot heels scraping across wood made Jack jump.

  “Please give me a few minutes to collect him,” the professor said. “No need to scare the boy.”

  “Hurry up. I’m anxious to get back to the forest.”

  Jack’s heart skipped a beat. He jumped to his feet and ran up the stairs to his room. He snatched his duffel bag from the floor of his closet, threw open his dresser drawer, and stuffed all his clothes in his bag. His hands were shaking. He grabbed his Houdini book and his straitjacket and stuffed them in, too—everything he owned. A door slammed, followed by footsteps pounding up the stairs. He only had a few seconds before the professor reached his room. Panicking, Jack yanked his handcuffs out of the drawer, and they scattered across the floor. As he bent down to pick them up, the professor barged through the door.

  The professor circled Jack like a tiger stalking a gazelle. “You broke your word. I told you there would be consequences.” The once-kind professor stood before him now as a predator. His eyes narrowed, his expression hardened.

  Jack backed away from him and said, “Yes! I did it, OK. I broke my word. What do you want me to say?”

  “We are so much alike. I knew you would want to know the secret and open the box, just like I did. I baited the trap and you took it.”

  In that raw moment, Jack realized that none of it was real—his own room, the dinners, the games, and the presents—they were all part of the professor’s plan. But worst of all, Jack had fallen for it. He broke the law of magic, and believed in the illusion. Shame and anger burned in his throat. “We’re nothing alike. I’m not a liar. You were supposed to be my foster father and take care of me. But you’re nothing but a con man.”

  The professor smirked. “It took me years to create the trick—one with consequences. We had an agreement—just like a signed contract—and my idea was to lure you into my office with this magic box; if you opened it, you broke our deal. Now you will take my place.”

  “But you studied magic!” Jack pleaded, trying to grasp what was happening. “You had fifty years to learn how to escape the contract.”

  “Exactly. I finally figured out a way to beat Mussini.” The professor raised his voice and glided closer to Jack, never taking his eyes off him.

  “What did you come up with?” Jack stood trembling in the darkness of the room, wearing his
faded jeans and favorite worn-out blue sweatshirt, but he already knew the answer.

  “You!” the professor yelled.

  “You traded me to Mussini to save your own skin.” Jack’s voice caught in his throat. “I thought you were my friend.”

  But really Jack had wanted more than a friend, like Mildred had said; he had hoped that the professor could be his mentor and protector. Jack didn’t know what hurt worse, falling for the professor’s trap, or the ache in his heart for believing—for the first time—that he had been loved. The professor never wanted him. He was just using him in his escape plan. Jack stared at the professor and finally the man looked up.

  “You must go with Mussini into his world and pay my debt with your young soul. Now collect your things.”

  Jack shook his head and glanced at his duffel, trying to think about his next move and talk at the same time. “You can’t just trade people’s souls.”

  “Yes, you can.” The professor balled up his fists. “It’s done!”

  “I’m not sticking around. I’ll just call Mildred and get out of here.”

  “Don’t argue with me.” Ignoring his pleas, the professor grabbed Jack’s handcuffs from his hands and shoved them into his duffel. “You will need all of your clever tricks and manacle dexterity where you’re headed. Mussini lives in a dangerous land.”

  Jack’s mind raced, seeking out an escape route. Glancing at the window high above the ground, he knew his only way out was down the stairs and out the door. “I told you, I’m not going anywhere with anyone.” Jack tried to push the professor aside, but the professor grabbed him by the arm. “Get out of my way!” Jack broke free and took off, running down the stairs.