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The carnival had been opened in the mid-1800s by a band of gypsies just off the boat from Romania. First it had just been a few attractions – a fortuneteller’s tent, a sweets vendor, a merry-go-round, musicians and a mesmerizer. But within a year they had acquired more elements: sideshow performers, acrobats, a Ferris wheel. All their tents were collapsible and fit onto their wagons. Even the Ferris wheel would fold into itself and roll along behind the caravan train as the gypsies rambled about the country. In 1866 they spent three years on one fairgrounds by fast-growing Chicago, the longest stay they’d ever made by a year and a half. During this time they built the Carousel.
It was made of wood and brass, a ten-foot tall wheel fifty feet in diameter. Every animal was chiseled from the same dozen trees that had been imported from a thirteen-trunk copse in Wales. The thirteenth tree had stood in the center of the clump, and so it was appropriately positioned in the center of the Carousel, the axle. Inconsistent with previous carnival construction projects, an outsider was hired to design and build the carousel. He was a Mormon named Joseph Wells and his skill at woodcarving was unequaled, his talent for detailed painting equivalently inimitable.
Despite his competence, It took Joseph Wells three years to complete the carousel, even with the help of spare gypsies. When it was done it was an unrivaled piece of art. Each of the one hundred and fifty creatures was detailed almost to life. Their eyes glinted with vivacity, their polished sides looked soft even up close. Their lavishly decorated bodies were held in place by spiraled brass poles, but they were locked in motion. Out of the corner of their eyes, children swore the horses trotted, the frogs leapt, and the eagles flapped their wings and soared in one hundred-and-fifty-foot circle.
But if the four outer rings were gay and resplendent, the inner ring was inversely so. The creatures placed there were not horses, or frogs. They were gargoyles and demons, sea serpents and dark, bloody unicorns. Their brass poles were tarnished; their rolling mechanisms were jerky and violent. Their eyes rolled, their tongues hung out, and their horns and claws caught on clothes. Even at high noon, the inner ring was in shadow
It was, all the same, equally beautiful. At night, the gypsies threw open the ceiling windows and shed cold moonlight on the evil things. They seemed to revel in it, and the dark beauty of Joseph Wells’ creations was evident.
The residents of Chicago thought, that Joseph Wells traveled with the gypsies to their next destination. The gypsies knew, however, that he hadn’t. Their story said that Joseph Wells, tormented by the visions of his inner ring, had built himself a hundred and fifty-first creature, and ridden it to heaven. In 1913 a white Carousel stallion was donated anonymously to the carnival. More beautiful than all the others, it was kept apart from the Carousel until celebrities or presidents came to visit, when it was temporarily installed, without a roll mechanism. The gypsies agreed that no one could have surpassed Joseph Wells’ carpentry skill, but the source of stallion was never wondered about.

2005 – Somewhere, Louisiana
The carnival had stood on these grounds for months, while the proprietor battle lawyers and loan sharks. Though now empty of children and families it had been open here for nearly a week before officially dressed men had come and nailed a closed sign over the words Zygome’s Menajjerri & Faiere. They had chained up the great mechanical attractions – the colossal Ferris wheel, the resplendent Carousel, and ushered out the children, even as they put down the money for another bag of kettle corn or a cloud of candy floss. There had been some trouble taking the animals away, but luckily for them the unicorn was just a goat with one horn.
In the night, the creaking of metal poles and groaning of wooden supports was heard from the carnival grounds. It was not heard very well, or by many people, because the carnival was quite a distance from the nearest house. The only reason it was heard at all was its upwind position from town. However, despite the wind-swept, piercing, muscle-clenching qualities of these vacillations, the only person who heard it was Hank Fleck, who figured it was the night breezes battering about bits of the old carnival. In a way, he was right.
As he was led to prison, the old gypsy Zygome uttered a curse, dooming all the men responsible for his downfall a horrible, bloody death by denizens of the inner ring. Unfortunately for him, the moon windows hadn’t been opened that night, and his instructions couldn’t reach the creatures. Heading instead for the only unprotected horse at the carnival, they were given to the stallion. These instructions conflicted so greatly with its own personal philosophies given to it by the carpenter Joseph Wells, that its little brain of knot was wiped entirely clean and, confused, the horse tore free from its brass pole and bolted for the wilderness. Just in case you didn’t know, that was the sound that Fleck heard.