Page 27

“They are coming.” Clinton folded the page along its existing crease. “Let me deal with the vendor. If you start calling accounts too, we’ll have three people trying to sort out the same payment.”

“I thought you’d sorted it out already.”

A trolley rattled between us and the barn, forcing Clinton closer to the wall. He waited until the worker had passed before answering, and his voice was lower.

“I’ll get you the confirmation. Right now I need to get everyone through the gate.”

He headed toward the arriving crew. I still had no email confirming tomorrow’s delivery, and I wasn’t going to release any extra tickets on the strength of another promise.

I went back to production for the fleece I kept in a drawer, pulling it on beneath my weatherproof jacket before the staff briefing. Damien took a spare radio from the charger and clipped it to his jacket. After checking that we could hear each other, we joined the performers at the attraction entrance. Their work boots and modern jackets looked peculiar beneath bloodstained aprons and ragged costume coats. Several held cups of coffee as I explained the longer gaps between groups and pointed out the staff responsible for the bypass.

Troy waited until the others had gone to their stations before approaching me. He’d pushed his costume hood back, and white makeup had caught in his fair hair.

“O’Shea kept asking about last night’s argument,” he said. “I’ve worked with Justin for two seasons. We argued about a cue, and now everyone’s looking at me like I threatened him.”

I closed the binder, giving him time to finish. The performer at the gate was testing a sound cue, and Troy raised his voice over it.

“I stayed in my section until closing. I already told the sheriff that. You know I wasn’t the only person Justin had a problem with.”

“I told him about Clinton’s argument too,” I said. “Right now I need you to help the others get through tonight. Some of them have never worked with these gaps between groups.”

Troy rubbed the back of his neck, streaking pale makeup onto his collar. Beyond him, a younger performer was trying to untangle a costume sleeve from a radio cord. Troy went over to help, talking him through the change in timing as they headed inside. Damien watched them go, then followed me toward the room with the pumpkin lantern.

O’Shea joined us there with the reset lead. Under the work lights, the woman consulted her task sheet and shook her head at the lantern sitting beside the folded panels.

“We used the shelf this morning when we were checking the lamps, but we finished before you came through,” she told me. “Nobody was supposed to move anything in here after the walkthrough.”

The sheriff photographed the lantern and its position. While he spoke to her about which workers had been in the room, I checked the floor around the shelf for anything that might have required clearing it. The boards were dry, and the cable feeding the lamp lay in its usual protected channel.

“I’ve recorded where it was,” O’Shea said when he’d finished. “You can return it to the shelf. Report anything else that’s been changed without your knowledge.”

I carried the lantern back, turning its crooked grin toward the entrance. Its red-shaded eye glowed when I switched it on. Guests would pass it and turn left along the low railing, facing the recess where the hanging figure swung forward on its cue. Our staff crossing ran behind the scenery on the right, with access through a curtained opening.

With the work lights still on, the crew released the figure’s tie-back and tested it. The ragged coat flared around its frame as it swung toward the empty space behind the railing, stopping short of the guest path. I watched from the staff crossing, then from the entrance. Nothing came near either passage.

“Run it once more,” I asked. “I want to see the return too.”

Damien stood beside the curtain while the figure swung again. He could see me and the crew working the cue from there without occupying the narrow strip I needed to cross. When I came back, he moved aside before I had to ask.

O’Shea left us to finish the checks. By the time I returned my binder to production, the first ticket holders had assembled outside. I clipped the radio higher on my jacket and went with Damien to the entrance, where the air smelled of wood smoke from the public fire baskets.

“First group can come through,” I told the attendant. “Wait for the clear before you send the next one.”

Six people passed beneath the amber bulbs, talking too loudly as they entered the corn. Their voices dwindled around the first bend, followed by a startled yell and then laughter. I stayed long enough to see the attendant hold the next group until the radio confirmation arrived.

Within half an hour, I could hear where the new route was slowing people down. Groups were reaching the bypass while the people ahead of them lingered at its far end, looking for another room. The attendant was explaining the closure to each group instead of moving them through to the marked return lane.

Damien and I reached the crossing as a couple stopped beneath the sign, blocking the people behind them. He moved toward the shorter staff cut-through, but I caught his sleeve.

“That brings us out facing them. We’ll push them backward into the next group. Come around with me.”

He changed direction without arguing, following me along the outside edge of the barrier. I spoke to the waiting guests from beside the sign, pointing them toward the return lane while Damien kept the staff opening clear. Once the couple moved, everyone else followed. I stayed with the attendant for two more groups, helping her shorten the explanation until the pause at the turn disappeared.

By the time we left, I could feel sweat cooling beneath my fleece. Damien walked beside me along the packed-dirt strip behind the sets, where the wind was strong enough to carry loose corn leaves against our boots. The floodlights cast our shadows ahead of us, his shoulder overlapping mine.

“Thanks for following me back there,” I said. “I didn’t have time to explain it properly.”

“You pointed out a problem I couldn’t see from where I was standing.” He shifted nearer as we passed a worker coming the other way. “That’s what I need you to do.”