by John Langan
The carousel was in full-spin as we entered the building, the horses climbing their poles; the riders holding those poles, or the reins if they trusted their balance, or nothing at all if they were trying to be daring; the air vibrating with the shrieks of teenagers and one small child protesting his parents' decision to take him on this scary contraption, all laid over a merry pipe-organ melody. Considering the weather, the line was shorter than I expected. When the carousel slowed to a stop and its riders dismounted, I was in the next group to be admitted. There was this one horse I was looking for, a white horse stretched out in full gallop, his head lowered, his mouth open as if panting with the effort of keeping ahead of everyone else. His mane was real hair—at least, it felt real when I ran my hand over it, which I did, the way you might greet a real horse. His tail was the same. The detail was remarkable. Each and every muscle, the edges of his hooves, even his teeth had been carved with a thoroughness that itself was a relic of a bygone era. His saddle and reins were purple and gold, freshly painted. As I swung myself up onto him, I pulled my hair out of the ponytail I'd threaded it into during the drive to Wood's Hole and shook it loose. I looked for Roger, who waved when he saw me searching for him. I waved back.
A few last-minute stragglers hurried through the gate and up onto the carousel. My horse was on the outer rim. Its companion on the inner rim was almost identical, a white horse in full gallop, except that it was tossing its head to its left, towards its mate. There was a girl seated on it, six or seven at a guess, wearing a jean-jacket and jeans, her hair long and red. She was like a snapshot of myself at that age. I'd had the same outfit, although my jacket had had a pair of large, cartoonish daisies sewn onto its shoulders. She was staring straight ahead, with this deadly serious expression on her face. I knew what she was thinking. When I used to sit waiting for the carousel to heave forward, I'd put myself behind the starting gate at one of the big races, the Kentucky Derby, the Belmont, the Preakness. I would gaze at the next horse on the carousel, trying to see beyond it, to a dirt track and a bandstand full of excited racing fans wearing their Sunday best. As the calliope started, I would strain to hear the starting buzzer. I never maintained the illusion for very long, but when it worked, I saw the gates burst open, felt my horse leap out onto the track, his hooves spraying dirt. That was what the girl beside me was after, so I didn't say hello to her, which I would have if she'd been snapping her gum, or playing with her horse's reins.
Instead, I contented myself with studying the carousel, surveying the other horses—none of which was as nice as mine; although there were a pair of roans ahead that were all right. The inside of the ride—that enormous cylinder that sits at the center of the carousel and houses the engine; I don't know what it's called, the hub?—it was decorated with mirrors. They were long, rectangular, framed with what was supposed to be gold. It was hard to see yourself in them—the building was full of pale light let in by the windows at the tops of its walls; to supplement that, whoever was in charge had switched on the lights; and the combined glare made the mirrors look as if they were full of fog. I could see the girl next to me in it, but I wasn't much more than a blur behind her. Behind me—
I couldn't say what I saw reflected there, because the moment I jerked my head around to look for its original, the carousel came to life. The pipe organ blared, the ring of horses surged forward. My nerves flared, and the carousel was at the edge of my skin, close—closer than Belvedere House usually was. I was so surprised, so caught off-guard, I had to grab my horse's mounting pole to keep from tumbling off. I glanced back across to the mirror, but all it showed now were the red-headed girl and me, reduced to Impressionist approximations by the light washing across the air. My awareness of the carousel stuttered, stopped. I righted myself, releasing the pole so I could take the reins. I had been startled by the shape looming over my reflection, but I was tired, very tired, and so prone to seeing things. There was no reason for my heart to be hammering, my palms slick on the reins. No doubt, all the coffee I'd drunk was making me jumpy. Here was the arm that dispensed the rings being lowered into place; I could make a try on this swing past. Standing in the stirrups, I angled to the left, raised my arm, and—
And almost fell off the horse as my balance deserted me. I was perched on my horse as it climbed its pole, hand outstretched to seize at the end of the arm. Then it was if the carousel sped up. I lurched back and to the left, the carousel's floor tilting up to meet me, the ring arm impossibly high. The hand I'd extended flailed. My right hand grabbed for the pole as the horse descended it. I caught the pole and hauled myself up to it. There was time for me to think, What the hell was that? then the carousel spun even faster. The ride was gaining speed, but I was feeling that gain ten times as much as I should. I had all I could do to hold on to the pole and keep from flying off into space. I was the only one experiencing this. To my right, the red-haired girl crouched forward on her horse, her gaze never wavering from the fantasy unfolding before her. In front of and behind us, other riders laughed and mugged for companions' cameras and took rings from the arm. To my left, the interior of the carousel hall and its contents had become a luminous smear. The calliope music piped far away, as if it were playing from the next building over. Beneath me, I heard a steady snickering, as some part of the ride's undercarriage dragged around the floor. The ring arm sped past. Caught by the wind of the carousel's spin, my hair streamed out behind me. I stole a glance to my rear, to be sure no one was there. That no one was wasn't reassuring. I was sure I had just missed someone standing there, holding his ruined fingers up to the ends of my hair. Ted? Who else? I wanted to look again, but that first glance had brought the gallon of coffee I'd drunk churning to the back of my throat, and I had a good idea what a second look would cause. So I closed my eyes as the ring arm sped past for the who-knew-how-many-eth time and tried not to feel fingers fluttering the air behind me. Panic attack, I thought, you must be having a panic attack. I concentrated on trying to bring my heart, straining in my chest as if it were trying to tear itself free, down to mere heart attack level. Calm, I told myself, breathe. I opened my eyes. The red-haired girl's hair rode the wind like a banner. The ring arm sped past. Beneath me, the carousel snickered around its circuit. Everything beyond the carousel was a pale smudge. Calm, I thought. Breathe.
I looked at the red-haired girl, who had yet to break her stare. Whatever scenario she was racing through, she was maintaining the illusion much longer than I'd ever been able to. With her hair blown back by the wind, I could see the earring clinging to her left ear, a silver horse, standing with its head down, grazing. It wasn't big, and it looked like a clip-on, which was strange. These days, it seems like most girls have their ears pierced when they're about three days old. At the sight of that earring, I felt a stab of nostalgia so sharp it cut through my nausea and panic, for my own pair of silver horse earrings. They had been a present from Grandma for my First Communion. They were clip-on, slightly too big for my ears, but I put them on the moment I realized what they were, discarding the gold crosses my parents had given me earlier at the breakfast table. These horses had been galloping, their manes and tails rippling, their hooves close together as they drew their legs in. Until my ears were pierced, those earrings had been my favorite. I kept them at the top of my jewelry box, in their own drawer, and polished them ever time I wore them. After my ears were pierced, I tried to have the horse earrings converted, but the jeweler botched the job. The right one fell out the first time I wore them, to the mall with my friends, and despite my dad's best efforts, it was lost.
Pipe organs thundered, I jumped, and everything was normal again, the calliope, the inside of the building, the carousel—which was slowing, as the ride wound down. The ring arm swept past, and I reached up and took the ring from the end of it. It was plain, gray, oddly reassuring. On impulse, I leaned over to the red-haired girl and held it out to her. "Would you like this?"
Eyes full of annoyance, she said, "What for?" packing her ques
tion with all the scorn seven years old could muster.
Face already reddening, I shrugged. "I don't know." My hand wavered, withdrew.
Rolling her eyes, the girl blew her hair through pursed lips. The gesture surprised me. Not because I didn't understand it—I did. It compressed about half a dozen meanings into itself, including, "I am not a baby," and, "You are an adult and therefore incapable of doing anything right." What startled me was that this had been my gesture, the one I took pride in having invented, developed, and perfected. For a moment, I almost said, "Who taught you that?" but I caught myself before my mouth was more than half-open. No doubt, the roll-of-the-eyes and weary sigh had been combined long before hours of practice brought me to them. No doubt, kids would be employing them when people were living on Mars. "Sorry," I said to the girl, who was already dismounting her horse as the carousel eased to a stop. She didn't reply, didn't even spare me a second glance as she leapt off the carousel and joined the crowd exiting the ride.
I hurried to catch up. Whatever I'd just been through sent a thrill of vertigo through me as I stepped down. I staggered and would have fallen, but an old woman caught my arm. "Steady," she said.
"Thanks," I said, bracing myself against her. "All that motion. I guess it got to me."
"It does, honey," she said. "It does at that."
The exit to the carousel lets you circle around to join the line for another spin, or continue out of the building. Roger was waiting for me, which meant one time on the horse was going to have to be enough for me—as you can guess, not a problem. Hanging at the exit was a large plastic bucket with "RINGS" stenciled on it. As you passed, you dropped your losing ring into it. You know, I still don't know what prize the bronze ring gets you. I considered slipping my plain gray ring into my purse. I had kept the last ring I'd taken during our previous visit, as a souvenir—but I didn't want or need a reminder of this particular ride. I held the ring over the bucket and let it fall.
A small hand caught it. I looked up in time to see the back of the red-haired girl's denim jacket as she fled the building with her prize. A man bumped into me from behind. I apologized and moved to join Roger. "What was that about?" he asked, nodding after the girl.
"I have no idea," I said. "I offered her the ring on the carousel and she didn't want it."
"Strange are the ways of children."
We walked out into the fog. Roger wanted lunch, and despite the fact that the word alone made my stomach squeeze, I agreed. We made our way up Main Street to the Oak Bluffs Bistro—basically, a diner trying to pass itself off as more upmarket than its vinyl-seated booths and fake-wood tabletops confessed. Its plastic-coated menu did what it could to bolster the illusion, christening generic diner fare with idiosyncratic names intended to convince you that you were ordering something more exciting than the cheeseburger platter Roger selected, or my scrambled eggs and toast. When the waiter had left with our order, Roger said, "So. Was the carousel all that you remembered?"
I wanted to say, "All that, and a lot more besides." Instead, I asked, "Couldn't you tell?"
"No," Roger said. "I fear I was distracted."
"What do you mean?"
"Just as the ride was beginning, I heard someone call my name, twice. Not 'Roger,' but 'Roger Croydon,' so I assumed it was someone I knew. After all, how many Roger Croydons can there be? More than one, apparently, for I spent the next few minutes searching through the crowd for a familiar face, and found none. I was certain whoever had called to me was standing across the room. The voice sounded rather distant. In a space of that size, however, with everyone talking and the carousel's music playing, who can say for sure? The consequence was, I was occupied for the length of your ride. I did see you stumble on the way off, but that young woman caught you."
"Young woman? She looked pretty old to me."
"Why, she couldn't have been more than twenty, twenty-one."
"Roger," I said, "she had a good ten years on you, minimum."
"Which qualifies her as very old, I am pleased to note. I assure you, my dear, she was a few years younger than you, which, I believe, makes her practically a child."
"The voice you heard," I said, "did it sound familiar?"
"Not particularly," Roger said, "although, as I've said, the acoustics of that building distort everything."
"Could you tell if it was male or female? Young or old?"
Roger smiled. "Why all this interest in crossed wires?"
"Could you?" My heart was racing again.
He shook his head. "If pressed, I might say that the voice was that of a young man, but I would in no way stand by that answer. It could as easily have been an old man, a young woman, an old woman. Why?"
"But you think it sounded like a young man?"
"Yes."
"And you didn't recognize it?"
"Yes, yes, a thousand times yes," Roger said, his exasperation only partially mock. "Is this some type of joke I'm supposed to have gotten by now?"
"It's not a joke," I said. "I don't know what—"
"Ted," Roger said, his eyes widening. "Oh my dear Lord, you think that was Ted calling to me. Why? Why were you asking if I saw you on the carousel? What happened there? Tell me," he said, his voice strident.
"Calm down," I said. "I'll tell you about the carousel, just calm down."
Our waiter had returned with Roger's Coke and my tea with lemon. He placed Roger's glass in front of him, fumbled with my cup and saucer. I reached up to help him, glancing at his face as I did. The next instant, I was on the other side of the booth, hands pressed over my eyes, screaming at the top of my lungs. Far away—I had to get as far away from him as I could. I scrambled on the seat, trying to push myself further into the corner. One of my feet slipped, connected with the waiter's knee. I heard him shout, the clatter and crash of the tray, tea-cup, saucer, spoon, and teapot as they slipped from his hands onto the table and floor. A wave of boiling water rolled off the table onto my leg, flaring fireworks of agony along it. "Veronica!" Roger said, reaching across the table for my hands. I slapped at him furiously, keeping my eyes squeezed shut. Something touched my leg. I kicked at it, hit nothing. All the while, I kept screaming, screaming my throat raw. Roger struggled to grab my shoulders, wrists, hands, anything, saying, "Veronica!" over and over, as if my name were some kind of magic charm. I fought him as if he were the devil himself, slapping and scratching and punching as I tried to compress myself into the smallest space possible.
You've probably guessed I saw Ted. You can understand how confronting my dead stepson would have been frightening, even terrifying—how I would have jumped, shrieked, tried to get away from him—but you can't understand the intensity of my reaction, the hysteria. You've also figured out that, whatever I saw, Roger didn't. When I threw myself screaming to the other side of my seat, he immediately looked at the waiter. All he saw was a skinny seventeen-year-old whose olive skin was a roadmap of acne. I saw Ted, yes, as he had been and as he'd become. It happened so fast I want to use one of those clichéd phrases like "in the blink of an eye," except even that seems too long. In film—in a movie reel, there are—what?—twenty-two frames a second? Something like that. Well, this happened in the space of maybe three frames.
Imagine the camera is focused on me as I lift my eyes to the waiter. Now freeze the film as you see what I see. The first frame shows Ted's face above the waiter's black t-shirt. It looks pretty much the same as it did the one and only time I met him, the way it does in the portraits hung around Belvedere House. The long, horsey features, the scar across the bridge of the nose, the eyelids slightly lowered. The skin is tanned, but gray underneath. It's an expressionless face: I want to say it's the face of a corpse; only, somehow, it's blanker—an active, as opposed to a passive, nothing written on it. Bad enough, you would think.
Advance a frame. That empty face has been replaced by—by something I can't describe. You remember I said the gas mask was an analogue for what Ted looked like now? Here was the original s
taring at me. Can you imagine something so—alien, so terrible, that the briefest glance at it overloads your brain? You can't, can you, because whatever you can visualize, you can find some way to accommodate, to deal with it. What I saw in that single frame was so far removed from my frame of reference that I can't completely remember it—even at the time, I couldn't see all of it, because I didn't understand what I was looking it. The eyes—the eyes were round and flat—oversized—like a pair of lenses that the skin around had been stretched to hold. They might have been glass. Roger and I were reflected in them. There were no lids. I saw that, too. The eyes were trapped open. The skin around them was—it was—I don't know—I think braided is the word I want. No, that isn't right. It was more—it was moving, okay? Not all of it, but parts, as if it were crawling over itself. The color—it was pale, like white with a blue light playing over it. There was black, too—black underneath the pale. That's the best I can do. The rest—the rest was worse, so bad it's starting to warp the frame showing it. You can see its center bubbling and thinning, as if someone were holding a match underneath it. Whatever the frame showed has already been distorted beyond recognition.