The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant, Volume IV: The Black Carousel by Charles L. Grant

of.”
    “Sort of.” An intentionally loud sigh. “So look;
the family’s going to the Travelers tonight, rumor saying it being
the last and all. You want to come along? Be glad to have you. I
need someone to tell me what the tricks are.”
    “Very funny.”
    “Maybe we’ll bump into the teacher.”
    Casey looked at the back door and saw a rose
petal on the floor, curled, a baby’s fist. “Dead,” he said
quietly.
    “What? She is?”
    “My garden, Yard. The last one.”
    “Oh Jesus.”
    “I got home and all the roses were dead. And are
you ready for this? Even the paint’s starting to come off the walls
outside.”
    “Can’t be. We worked for three days, that
paint’s on there for life.”
    “It’s coming off, Yard. I swear it, it’s coming
off.”
    “We’ll check it tomorrow. First thing. Some damp
might have gotten underneath it.”
    “Sure. Okay.”
    “So look, Case, are you coming —”
    “Hey, Yard?”
    “What?”
    “Do you know what a penny tune is?”
    “Never heard of it. You sure you’re still not a
little in a bag there?”
    Casey hung up, gathered his plates and dropped
them in the sink. Then he picked up the petal and dropped it into
the trashcan. The wall clock — hands and numerals in the belly of a
crowing rooster — told him it was already past seven. An hour to
kill before the sun went down, then a check in the mirror to be
sure he was still human, and off to the fair.
    The telephone rang.
    Christ, he thought as he slapped up the
receiver; nobody calls for two weeks, then everybody calls.
    It was Tina.
    “Listen,” she said, speaking rapidly, her voice
nervous, “Norma and I are going to the carnival tonight and we
thought maybe you’d like to come with us? I mean, she’s feeling
pretty bad about what she said the other day, she wants to make it
up to you, buy you a hot dog or something? I thought maybe if you
were going . . .”
    Waltz ’cross the floor.
    “Damn, Tina,” he said, “I’m really sorry but I
already have . . . that is, I’m already meeting someone.”
    “Oh.” Silence, but not long. “Well, hey, that’s
fine, that’s great. Anybody we know?”
    He felt suddenly awkward, almost defensive. “No,
I don’t think so.”
    “Oh. Okay. Well, maybe we’ll see you there,
okay?”
    “Sure. Probably.”
    “And Casey,” she said, “Norma really is
sorry.”
    Waltz ’cross the floor, all the roses are
dead.
    “I doubt it, Tina,” he said flatly, and hung
up.
     
    She was there.
    The midway was crowded, all the concessions
busy, but he saw her the moment he stepped into the oval. She was
on the Octopus, alone, hair yanked and tossed by the ride’s private
wind. He stood back and watched her, grinning, waving once when she
spotted him and raised her hands in a boxer’s victory salute. For a
moment he didn’t want her to come down, and didn’t watch her until
she’d reached the top of each arc. She was among the stars; she was
a star; she was, he thought with an abrupt tightening across his
chest, his own star, nameless and distant no matter how close she
came to touching the ground.
    A woman walked by, a rose in her hair.
    The roses are dead.
    His brow broke sweat in warm running beads, and
when the strawberry blonde was momentarily lost to view, he tried
to spot Tina and the poisoning bitch in the crowd, whose faces were
frozen in manic grins and widened eyes. And in failing, failed to
notice that the Octopus had lowered its arms until he looked back
and couldn’t find her.
    Damn, he thought in near panic, and raised
himself on his toes. But he was too short to look over heads and so
forced himself to wait, half praying, half fearful, sagging at last
when she broke around a man following his paunch around the
track.
    He grinned.
    She smiled, leaned over and kissed his
cheek.
    “Corri,” she whispered, hands holding his
shoulders, his own hands fluttering, not knowing where to go.
“Corri Pilgrim.”
    His mouth opened; she closed it with