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

Slice by slice, carving him away from
whatever he knew, whatever he had.
    The idea terrified him, and he gripped Corri’s
hand more tightly.
    But what if it were true? What if his presence
here was no longer required, what if he had fulfilled his function
and was now being eased out? Dead roses. Dead paint. He and Yard
had worked for days scraping and patching and replacing and
painting and trimming and wiping up. Last fall. Last September. The
paint couldn’t be dead. But neither could the roses.
    The carousel stopped.
    The riders scrambled off, waving, pretending to
be dizzy, some racing back along the track to get on the end of the
line.
    Casey felt a tug and stumbled forward.
    “Come on,” Corri urged. “Our lucky night,
remember?”
    He climbed onto the platform, into the
pale-green light, and followed her, weaving through the frozen
bestiary until they found the llama and the giraffe. His foot
fumbled with the stirrup, his palms were unaccountably slick, and,
shamefaced, he was about to give up and ask for a boost. Then it
worked, and he was on, grinning at the grinning bears on their
bandstand to his left. They shuddered, a bell rang, and the
carousel began to move as the bears began to play.
    Up, and he saw straight ahead a huge billy goat,
head tilted to the right, roses carved into its-beard.
    Down, and he saw his smeared reflection in the
pole, covered it with his hand, looked quickly right and saw his
face in the lion’s saddle.
    Corri waved at him. He blew her a kiss.
    Abruptly the music stopped, nothing now but the
creak of gears and the hiss of the wind.
    He held his breath for a second, fearing the
ride had broken down, that the rest of his turns would be spent
listening to nothing but the machine below the magic. A quizzical
look to Corri, but he couldn’t see her face because beyond her, in
the fair, nothing moved, nothing stirred. He was going up, going
down, had to squint in the wind his passing created, but outside,
on the oval, everything had frozen.
    A single note from a xylophone.
    Corri pursed her lips and kissed the air. “I
knew it!” she cried, and gestured frantically at the lion.
    He couldn’t move.
    A single beat of a drum.
    “Hurry!” she called. “Casey, hurry!”
    A horn played two notes; chimes played two
more.
    Up and down.
    Awkwardly, keeping a one-handed grip on her
pole, she leaned over and snatched at his sleeve, tried to pull him
out of his seat. “Damnit, Casey, come on, move!”
    But nothing moved. Three notes, four beats.
    He wiped his hands on his shirt, felt a twinge
and examined his palms. Red dots where the thorns had pricked him;
on the other side, lines of garden earth in the lines of his
knuckles. For what? he wondered.
    A firm grip on his arm pulled until he had to
slap a hand on the lion’s back to keep from falling. Corri glared
at him, urged him, while the lion flew up and down between
them.
    “I can’t do it, I work here,” she said,
desperation around her eyes. “Please, Casey, before the band
plays.”
    He was afraid.
    It was stupid, he knew it, but he couldn’t help
feeling a touch of ice in the air that made him blink rapidly, as
if casting snow from his lashes.
    “Let go of the damn pole, swing your leg
over.”
    So what would he win if he did?
    Would it bring back the roses and make the paint
fresh again? Would it somehow, magically, give him a larger
paycheck, put him first in line for the postmaster job? Would it
prevent the Station from tossing him aside?
    It might, something answered; what the hell, it
just might.
    He nodded.
    She laughed.
    With much twisting and near slipping, in a move
he was sure was laughable to those who watched, he transferred to
the back of the sinking gold lion, grabbed on, held on, as the
beast rose and the lights flared and the band played its song as if
it had never been interrupted.
    Corri cheered.
    Casey laughed.
    He raised his arms in triumph and looked around
to see how many others knew what he’d done. Yard