Page 66 of Magic for Nothing

“Did you know they call this stuff ‘cotton candy’ here?” she asked.

“Um, yes, because that’s what it’s called,” I said. “Why, what do you call it?”

“Candy floss. Makes more sense, if you ask me. Cotton’s not a food.”

“Neither is floss.”

“Fair enough.” She took another bite, still watching the Scrambler. “Is this ride safe?”

“All the rides are safe.” The kids and teens who traveled with the carnival—all children of older carnies, who were very careful to keep copies of the paperwork that proved there hadn’t been a kidnapping close to hand—went under the rides every morning, hunting for pieces that had fallen off during the previous operating day. Then would come any necessary repairs and safety checks, which Emery took even more seriously than some of the shows I’d known. A little effort was better than a wounded townie. A wounded townie could spell the end of everything.

“It doesn’t look safe.”

“It’s not supposed to look safe.” Rides that looked too safe weren’t interesting to thrill-seekers. The Scrambler wouldn’t hurt anyone who didn’t have a preexisting medical condition, but it had that air of giddy danger that would attract local teens who wanted to know what it felt like to be shaken by a giant.

“Huh.” Margaret took another bite of her cotton candy before she turned to me and asked, “Want to show me where you’re sleeping? I’m ever so curious about what our little Annie gets up to when we’re not around.”

“I can’t,” I said. “My room’s in the bone yard—er, that’s carnival lingo for the camping area out back—and I can’t bring a townie there without getting in trouble. I’m still too new to have visitors over.” And no amount of people giving me space would extend to cover Margaret. If I walked back there with a stranger, we’d be swarmed, with Sam at the head of the pack.

I hadn’t recognized him as yōkai when we first met. I also hadn’t had that much experience with yōkai in general, or with fūri in specific. Margaret . . . I had no idea what kind of fieldwork she’d done, or where, or what sort of cryptids had been involved. For all I knew, she’d spend five seconds in his presence and know exactly what he was. He’d been a jerk when we first met, but that didn’t mean he deserved to be stabbed to death by my Covenant handler. Being an asshole is not supposed to be fatal.

“Fine, then,” she said, tone cooling. “Take me someplace we can have some privacy.”

I hesitated, reviewing my options as quickly as I could. Then, in a resigned voice, I said, “Follow me,” and started across the avenue.

Carnival rides come in four flavors. The thrill rides, like the Scramblers and the coaster, are designed to provide as much bang as possible for the townie buck, encouraging people to come running back. The kiddie rides, the bumper cars and the spinning cartoon animals, those are for the townies too young to ride anything else, and are usually set up near concessions selling brightly colored candy (for them) and even brighter booze (for their beleaguered parents). You’ve got the old standards, the Ferris wheels and the carousels and the bumper cars, the things everyone expects to see at the carnival, the things that are almost more noticeable when they’re absent. And then you have the dark rides.

Dark rides are simple cars on fixed tracks, moving in infinitely repeating loops through meticulously designed environments intended to titillate, frighten, or delight. Or at least, that’s the idea. Most dark rides are just good places for teenagers to make out, drunk townies to pee over the sides of their cars, and people to get good and high. The average carnival haunted house contains as much free-floating marijuana as a Grateful Dead concert. But they’re pretty private, and unless it’s one of the rare rides with living carnies incorporated into the circuit, no one will hear a word that’s said inside.

The Spenser and Smith Family Carnival’s Haunted House was run by a pair of bogeymen, and there was no way Margaret wouldn’t see through their thin layers of Cover Girl foundation to the grayish skin beneath. So I steered her in a different direction, until we stood in front of the Tunnel of Love: a carefully assembled artificial canal system in which boats floated, separated by giant rubber duckies, to make sure every couple could feel confident about their privacy. Someone must have realized the duckies weren’t exactly romantic, because they had big red hearts for eyes, adding that little touch of absolute ridiculousness that really made the ride a tourist destination.

But this was the middle of the day. Even the darkest parts of the Tunnel were filled with grainy gray light, destroying the fragile illusions created by the Christmas lights and tulle-filled dioramas. Once the sun went down, the place would be hopping. Until then, the ride jocks were lounging, trying to look like they expected people to ride when they actually didn’t.

One of them was doing her nails when we approached. Her eyebrows rose at the sight of me, and rose farther at the sight of Margaret, who had finished her cotton candy and was now licking the residue off of her fingers.

“Okay, gotta say, not what I was expecting, Annie,” said the ride jock, and put her nail polish aside. “You want to ride?”

“Please,” I said. “What do you mean, not what you were expecting?”

“Sweetcheeks, if you have to ask, there’s a disappointed string of boys behind you stretching from here to Canada.” She nimbly unhooked the rope intended to keep drunk townies from falling into the canal—it had happened, and more than once, during my short time with the show—and beckoned toward the nearest swan-shaped boat. Maybe that was part of what made the ducks seem so ridiculous. With their heart eyes and open mouths, they looked like they were eternally lusting over the oblivious swans. Waterfowl romance isn’t the sort of thing that turns most people on.

“Your chariot to the balmy fields of Cupid’s regard awaits,” said the ride jock.

I wrinkled my nose at her as I walked past and got myself seated in the slightly sticky chlorine-scented swan. Margaret followed. The ride jock flipped a switch and the ride’s gears engaged, pulling us forward, into the heart-shaped maw of love.

Margaret waited until we’d traveled about fifteen feet before she asked, in a low voice, “Are we being watched?”

“Security cameras cost money; waterproof security cameras cost more,” I said. “No one’s watching. Or listening. Most of the things that happen inside a Tunnel of Love aren’t things anybody wants to hear.”

“There’s a whole industry built on proving you wrong about that one, but we’ll let it pass for now,” said Margaret. She turned to face me. The dimness of the tunnel’s interior kept me from seeing her expression, but her posture was enough to tell me I needed to take her seriously. “Robbie’s worried you might be going native. To tell you the truth, after today, so am I. Have you been compromised, Annie? There’s no shame in it. I told them you weren’t ready for fieldwork.”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘compromised,’” I said. “Are you asking whether I’m happy? Yeah. I am. This is . . . this is what I know. This is sequins and rope burns and uncomplicated choices, and I’m good at it. It doesn’t make me work harder than I want to. It doesn’t make me think about what happened to my family. But if you’re asking whether I’m a traitor, the answer’s no. I haven’t broken any promises, to anyone. I’m here because we need to know how many of these people are innocent, and how many of them knew about the monster they were harboring.”

The words were like an oil slick on my tongue, bitter and poisonous. I sounded like a Covenant member. And sure, I could tell myself I was just playing a part, saying the things she expected to hear, but how many times could I say them before some sliver of me started to believe them? We are our words as much as we are our actions.

“I find it difficult to believe that these carnie folk of yours could have been traveling with a giant spider and not noticed.”

“She changed,” I said earnestly. “I saw it myself. She looked like an ordinary woman, until she didn’t. If she’d never changed in front of them, they would have had no reason to know.”