Page 13 of Carnival of Crows

A haunted carnival.

I wanted to keep the rides exactly as they were. Keep the rust. Keep the broken windows. Turn every inch of it into something people would pay to be afraid of.

By the time I stopped talking, Cassie was staring at me over the rim of her glass.

“What?” I’d asked.

“You’ve really given this some thought.”

I hadn’t answered, because I had. For a few years at that point. I was bartending at a chain restaurant. It was good money, but I knew I wasn’t meant to be slinging Long Island Iced Teas for the rest of my life. The problem was other than my dream of reopening the park, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life and bartending paid the bills.

The next morning, Cassie called before nine. I answered with my face buried in a pillow and a headache that made death seem reasonable.

Her first words were, “Were you serious?”

I sat up. She didn’t need to explain. Three hours later, both of us in sunglasses, and a bag of greasy burgers and fries in hand, we were standing outside the rusted front gates.

Her father had given her the keys.

Uncle Michael had never hated the park. None of our parents did. They just didn’t have the dream themselves. To them, Graves Park was what stole their parents from them. They spent their childhoods watching their parents choose the business over everything else. Even them.

To us, it was possibility.

Cassie and I walked every inch that day. We climbed through buildings filled with raccoon nests and water damage. We stepped over broken bottles and ducked beneath collapsed ceiling panels. We made lists on the backs of old park maps.

What could stay.

What had to go.

What could be saved.

We gave ourselves one year.

Our goal was to open by Cassie’s twenty-fifth birthday. Friday the thirteenth. It was an invitation from the universe if there ever was one. We called a family dinner with my brothers and her sisters that night. It took zero convincing. Our siblings were all in from the get-go.

Our parents were harder to convince. They were willing to hear us out, but made no promises to let us follow through with the plans. Until they saw the plans outlined in front of them. Luca, who was great with numbers, projected a budget. Cassie, who was a project manager at a construction company, made a complete timeline.

When they saw it was a serious business plan and not a thoughtless dream, they allowed us all to access the trusts our grandparents had left us early. It gave us enough money to do the work properly instead of covering rot with black paint and hoping nobody leaned too hard against a wall.

Five years later, the park was nearly sold out for the entire season. For the first time, the five of us could take actual salaries. Not much, but it was something.

We could pay Daniele, who also happened to be Cassie’s childhood best friend, instead of letting her insist the photography was good for her portfolio. We had actors on payroll, food vendors, employees who didn’t share our DNA or owe us favors. The park wasn’t just surviving. It was profitable.

My attention snapped back toward the carousal as it slowed to a stop. Luci and her friends stepped through the exit gate, still laughing. The one that had been taking Luci’s photo when I came onto the platform showed the others her phone, showing them something that made Luci cover her face. Probably the picture of me scaring her. I hoped it was.

I hung back waiting to see which direction they went. When they turned toward the fun house, I pushed away from the booth and followed at a reasonable distance. A professional distance. A completely non-creepy distance.

The front of the fun house had once been painted with grinning suns and clouds. Years of rain had faded them into pale smears across the wood. Most of the upper glass panes had been shattered long before we took possession of the park.

Teenagers used to sneak in after dark. They broke windows, spray-painted the walls, left beer cans in every corner, and smashed mirrors simply because they could. At first, the graffiti had pissed me off. Some of it was mindless, but mixed among it were massive pieces of street art—twisted faces, skeletal animals, bright lettering curling around doors and climbing over old murals.

Once we cleaned up the broken glass and sealed the unsafe sections, the graffiti became part of the attraction. We couldn’t have recreated that kind of abandonment if we tried. The fun house looked violated and forgotten.

Luci stopped beneath the cracked sign and stared up at it.

Only three letters still lit.

F N H