Page 1 of Carnival’s Playground

PROLOGUE

CARNIVAL

The sign on the edge of town reads Welcome to Grimwood Crossing, population, four thousand two hundred, and somebody with a can of orange spray paint has scrawled Happy Halloween, y'all underneath it, letters big enough to read from the highway doing sixty. That tells me everything I need to know about this place before I even hit the city limits. Small. Proud. The kind of town that takes its holidays seriously and doesn't apologize for it.

I ease off the throttle and let my Harley roll under it, the growl dropping to a rumble that matches the mood. Orange and black crepe paper strung pole to pole. Fake cobwebs stretched across storefront glass. Pumpkins lined up on porches like the whole town's been waiting all year for this.

October's my favorite month too, though for different reasons. Ten years on the road strips the sentiment out of a season and leaves you with a checklist. Rigging. Generators. Load in, load out. I don't care about costumes. I care whether the ground's level enough to set a big top without it sagging come Friday.

Name's Wyatt, at least that's what it says on my birth certificate. Nobody's called me that in years. Everybody who matters calls me Carnival, on account of I've slept under more trusses than roofs. This show's Grimlight Reveals, a traveling Halloween circus hitting little Texas towns starved for something bigger than a bake sale. Three trucks, two box trailers, a big top, and a smaller tent for the haunt walk. Just enough crew to make it happen if everybody pulls their weight.

I find the lot past the feed store. Trucks backed in along the tree line, half the rigging crew already up on ladders stringing lights. A fifteen foot inflatable skeleton sways off the arch over the main gate like it's waving hello. I kill the engine, swing my leg over, and go looking for whoever's running the show.

That's when it happens.

I come around the prop trailer, reading a text from Dutch about where he wants the main rig staged, not watching where I'm going near as close as I should. Somebody comes around that same corner from the other direction, arms full, moving fast, and we hit like two trucks meeting on a one lane bridge.

Headfirst. My skull cracks against somebody else's, hard enough sparks flash behind my eyes. A heartbeat later, I hear glass hit the dirt, followed by cussing creative enough to impress me if I wasn't busy seeing double.

"Son of a… what in the actual hell?" the woman grumbles, staggering back, one hand pressed to her forehead, glaring at me like I did it on purpose. "Do you not have eyes? Are they decorative?"

I blink her into focus. Bleached blonde hair pulled back in a braid gone half loose, a face flushed red from anger or the collision, eyes the color of good whiskey narrowed on me like she's deciding whether murder's worth the paperwork.

"I've got eyes," I tell her, rubbing the spot where our skulls connected. "Was looking at my phone. My bad."

"Your bad," she mimics, her voice flat, like the words taste wrong. "You just took out a box of glass pumpkin lanterns that took me three towns to collect, and all I get is ‘your bad’?"

I look down to see a dozen hand blown glass pumpkins, orange and black swirled glass, scattered across the dirt in various states of ruin. Only a couple survived. "Well, hell," I mutter, crouching down and picking up one of the intact ones, turning it over. Real craftsmanship. "These are pretty. Sorry about the ones that didn't make it."

"Sorry about the ones that didn't make it," she repeats, hands on her hips, and I understand right then that's gonna become a theme. "You want to sorry your way into paying for them too, or is the apology strictly verbal?"

I stand close enough now to take a good look. Late twenties. Sharp jaw, sharper mouth. Worn jeans, flannel with the sleeves rolled up over forearms with actual muscle in them. Work muscle. Grease smudged along one cheekbone like she's been under a generator all morning.

She isn't circus glamour. She's circus labor. I like that a whole lot more than I probably should, given she still looks like she wants to feed me to something with teeth.

"I'll pay for the pumpkins. Bill me. I'm good for it," I say, holding out a hand, the glass pumpkin still cradled in my other arm.

"Oh, you're good for it," she responds, crossing her arms, not taking my hand. "Convenient, seeing as I don't know your name, don't know where you're staying, and got zero reason to believe you'll still be standing here in ten minutes instead of hopping on whatever that monstrosity is." She jerks her chin at my bike. "Riding off into the sunset like some kind of outlaw."

"It ain't a monstrosity. Two thousand fifteen Road King, runs cleaner than most things in this lot," I tell her, keeping my hand extended. "Name's Carnival. New rigger. Dutch hired me on."

She looks at my hand like it might bite her before she finally takes it, her grip firm and quick. "Carnival. That's not a name. That's a job description."

"Road name. Works the same, mostly better, on account of nobody who calls me that expects me to answer for bills or bad decisions from ten years back," I explain.

"And what's your mama call you, when she's not calling you late for dinner?" She releases my hand, crossing her arms again.

"Wyatt," I say. It comes out easier than I expect. "But nobody on this lot's gonna call me that."

"Doesn't suit me. Nothing about a grown man naming himself after a candy apple stand suits me." But the corner of her mouth twitches like she's fighting a smile and losing. "Avery. I run props and effects for the haunt walk. Which means those pumpkins you just turned to gravel were mine, were budgeted, and were gonna be the centerpiece of the entrance display. Now I have to explain to Dutch why we're opening in four days, with Halloween still a few weeks away, with only half the lanterns I promised him."

"I really am sorry," I tell her, and I mean it. It's clear looking at the wreckage she put real love into whatever she built. "I'll help you fix it. Whatever that takes. I'm decent with my hands."

"Bet you tell all the girls that," she banters, bending down and starting to gather the surviving pumpkins into a crate.

"Only the ones I just concussed," I respond, crouching beside her to help.

That earns me a snorted laugh, short and surprised, like it escapes before she can stop it. She presses her knuckles to her mouth a second like she could shove it back in.