Charlie was silent.
“It took everything I had and then some to not start screaming, but I kept my wits about me, and by the time the sun went down, I had a ghost trap drawn all the way along the midway. By the time we rolled out, every truck and every trailer we owned was safe for a haunting. As long as she stays in bounds—and I’ve pushed them further every year, so she could have truck stops and motel rooms and convenience stores along with all the rest—she’s solid, she’s real, she’s growing like any other girl would grow.”
“But she’s dead,” said Charlie softly.
“She’s mine.” Daisy bared her teeth in a snarl. “My daughter, my flower, my responsibility. She’s always been able to be happy here, despite her circumstances. She’s always known that she was loved, and how many townie children dream of growing up to run away with the carnival? I gave her the life she would have wanted, if she’d been in a place to choose.”
“You didn’t give her any life at all,” Charlie countered. “She’s a shade. That poor child. Does she have any idea?”
“How could she?” For a moment, Daisy’s expression was pure smugness. “She’s grown up within the confines of the carnival. She’s changed with every passing year, exactly as a living girl would. There’s nothing stopping her from being happy, from doing everything she could ever want to do, as long as everything she ever wants is within reach of the midway lights.” The smugness faded, replaced by sudden sorrow. “Or she would have been happy, if she’d only been content. Is she gone?”
Charlie nodded slowly. “I think so. She ran from me when I told her there was no house.”
“Then I’ll have to go and get her back.” Daisy set the book aside and stood. Her skirt was hiked high enough to show the garlands of wheat and roses tattooed around her calves, climbing ever higher toward the secret mysteries she had shared with no one since Aracely’s birth. Charlie felt his cheeks redden, but didn’t look away.
Daisy stepped toward him, spreading her empty hands in supplication. “Will you help me?” she asked.
He didn’t want to. Dead was dead and living was living, and the two were meant to exist side by side, not share a single space. But Aracely . . . she’d been dead for so long, and he’d never known. She’d been happy, despite her circumstances. Did he really have the right to refuse her mother?
“I will,” he said, and Daisy smiled.
* * *
They walked toward each other, all unknowing of their unison, drawn by forces greater than the moment, forces that had been building for years. Since a fire; since an accident; since a mother’s stubborn love had refused to let go what should have been gone and buried. Four people on the green hills between carnival and crypt, between midway and mansion.
Daisy walked with her head high and her skirts bundled above her knees, a jar of salt in one hand and a jar of grave dirt in the other. Her witchery was not complicated, old and slow and comfortable in its working, pouring like molasses into the world, stirred and spelled and carefully tended. She worked the way her mother had taught her, the way she would have taught her own daughter, had it not been so dangerous to teach those workings to the dead.
Charlie walked beside her in silence, his own hands empty and his own heart pounding. He was a simple man. He ferried the carnival from one location to the next, and all he asked in exchange was a paycheck and a clear map of his next destination. This was a bit beyond him. Had he been asked, he would have said he didn’t understand why he remained, why he didn’t turn and run back to the comforting, ordinary shadows of the midway, which lit up the sky behind them like a beacon. The crowds would be coming soon. The night was on the cusp of beginning.
From the other direction came Aracely and Joanna, hand in hand, which granted them both more power than they yet understood, for to hold a ghost’s substance is to hold their strength, and they were powerful as specters go, both of them able to pass among the living, if only for a little while, both of them prepared to fight instead of fleeing. They were what their circumstances had made of them, the flower and the fallen, and they walked with the smooth, easy steps of teenagers who had never been quite allowed to cross the line into adulthood.
Aracely’s childhood had been a dream given to her by her mother, but it was hers all the same, and the length of her limbs and the clearness of her eyes belonged to her entirely. Some gifts, once given, can’t be taken back. She walked with her fingers tangled in her new companion’s, like bones buried in the same earth, and she felt the wind blow through her, and she was not afraid. Part of her, she thought, had always known; had simply been waiting for permission to remember. Part of her was less afraid of letting go than it was of holding on.
They were not lovers, both of them scarce seventeen and dead besides, both of them trying to decide what they wanted to become, as the long years of their existence stretched out in front of them, an endless line of tickets to spend at any midway they chose. But they might be. Aracely flushed when she tried to look too long at Joanna, who she thought still burned, somewhere deep inside, a body built around a cinder in the shape of a heart. And as for Joanna, she couldn’t look Aracely in the eye without tasting honey on her tongue, without feeling her skin grow tight and hot in a way that had nothing at all to do with flames. So they were not lovers, no, but one day . . .
Time was on their side. It had been since the moment that they died.
They met at the center of the field, and the carnival shone on the hill behind Daisy and Charlie, and the house that was and was not there flickered ivory and ash behind Joanna and Aracely. Daisy looked at their joined hands and felt her heart break, just a little, just enough to let the light pour in. Aracely looked at the anguish in her mother’s eyes and forgave her, just a little, just enough to let the love inside again.
“You should have told me,” said Aracely.
“Ghost children don’t always grow up,” said Daisy. “Living children do. If I lied, it was so you’d be able to stand here like this, and not be trapped forever where you were.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
Daisy rolled her shoulders in a shrug, and said nothing.
“Are you coming home?” asked Charlie. It was a blunt question, and it fell into the delicate web of things unspoken like a stone. Aracely looked at him.
“Should I?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Daisy.
“No,” said Joanna.
“Only if you want to,” said Charlie.
Aracely was silent for a long beat before slowly, finally, she let go of Joanna’s hand. The other girl flickered for a moment, like a sheet whipping in the wind. Only for a moment, though, and moments pass.
“Mama,” said Aracely. “Why could I grow up inside the carnival?”
“It’s a ghost trap,” said Daisy. “I designed it that way. To protect you.”
Aracely nodded. “Then this is my answer. When you drive away, I won’t come with you.”
Daisy made a small, pained sound of wordless longing.
“Winter where you like: I won’t be there,” said Aracely. “But when you come back in the spring, you can collect us both.”
Joanna shot her a surprised look.