Disclaimer: Fear Street owned by R.L. Stine.
Fear Street Sagas was a spin-off of the main Fear Street series, focusing exclusively on the Fear Family throughout the centuries and the people whose lives have been affected by them.
The Sagas books ended at 16 but two more were planned, The Raven Woman and Carousel of Doom. The former was lucky enough to have finished cover artwork, a summary, and a small preview in the 16th Sagas book. The latter was not so lucky. As a matter of fact, people were only sure that the title had "Carousel" in it and assumed the title was "Carousel of Fear."
I somehow managed to find the completed cover artwork for Carousel of Doom on Karen Chandler's website, who did the cover artwork for some of the Sagas books, including The Raven Woman. The artwork included the actual title. I contacted Miss Chandler if she had any other information on both books, but there wasn't much left to tell.
I drew my own conclusions on what the book might've been about based on the Fear Family Tree the Shadyside Snark blog was kind enough to post years ago.
In "The Fear Street Saga: The Burning," it was mentioned that one of Simon Fear's sons, Brandon, had disappeared in the woods with his son Ben. The Family Tree listed his wife as a woman named Opal.
The woman on the cover artwork had a brooch that looked like an opal, and the disappearance of Brandon and Ben may have been appropriate time for the carousel to appear. I'm just making an educated guess as I so often do.
This is meant to give people an idea about how the book might've gone. It can be considered a prologue, an epilogue, or a basic outline, and readers can draw their own conclusions.
And yes, I apologize if this is a rip-off of the song "The Carnival Is Over" or "Something Wicked This Way Comes." I tried very hard to avoid that.
The carousel had stopped.
Should it be time? Maybe, maybe not.
Could she have had more years? It's possible.
Did she have more than was expected? Certainly she did.
The woman who called herself Joyce opened her eyes to the dim light weakly cascading across her bedroom. She turned her head, a small effort, to the woman who believed herself to be Joyce's granddaughter, named Evelyn. Evelyn rested in a chair pulled up towards Joyce's bedside, carelessly dozing with an opened book in her lap. Joyce couldn't remember what the title of the book was, only that Evelyn had offered to read to Joyce earlier that afternoon. She obviously fell asleep some point after Joyce had. Evelyn's sleep cycle was just atrocious, but Evelyn mused that was the price once paid for becoming an author.
An author, a doctor, a builder, an actress, and two who are only God knows where. So many grandchildren. And some great grandchildren. Joyce smiled a grateful, bemused smile, stretching the worn, tired muscles in her cheeks, firmly accepting that there was no blood shared between her and them. Just a silly, made up name. Kingsley. Joyce knew she had to accept it now, since there really wasn't that much time left.
Joyce was surprised that she could manage to pull herself upright from underneath the covers. Sure enough, her joints and muscles ached as they had ached over the last few years, but it didn't bother her now nor would it ever bother her again.
Evelyn was not disturbed by the rustling of the covers and quilt as Joyce reached for the bedside table and pulled towards her an old, antique picture frame. Well, now it was an antique of course. Joyce couldn't remember when exactly she had bought it. Who could remember such things. She did remember when exactly she had taken the photograph inside the frame though.
Inside the old tin frame was an equally and incredibly worn yellow and brown portrait of a man, a woman, and a young boy at a fairground, taken from a part of Joyce's life that had ended shortly after the photograph was taken. In the dim evening glow Joyce could only perceive the barest reflection of her tired, lined face in the dull glass. That she was able to perceive any reflection at all with her eyes was a miracle in itself.
That day in the photograph was not how she had expected to spend her anniversary, but she couldn't remember when Ben had seemed any more excited than he had that particular day.
A soft laugh drifted from Joyce's lips, but she didn't realize that her grip on the frame had begun to tighten, until it began to tremble in her hands.
More memories came to her, but no more tears. She was done with tears now.
Katrina. Ben's best friend, even if Brandon didn't approve of her parents from the old country. The two of them were so happy together that day on the carousel. Happy, until Katrina was thrown from her horse and all the other sounds that day had been blanked out by the singular sound of the snapping of her neck.
The carousel went on and on.
Brandon tried to control Katrina's father, but the constable had no choice but to fire.
The glistening white paint on the wooden horses.
Mr. Haversmith's heart attack, and that look as if he had died of fright when they found him.
Rocking back and forth, back and forth, around and around, to the calliope's sway.
The day Alice came up to us. Brandon wouldn't allow it but she had nowhere else to go. So scared, so tired.
Pretty lights flickering in the evening.
What was left of the twins in the mirror house. Poor Martha killed herself that night.
The hollow, wooden eyes. Never blinking, always judging. Empty, soulless, dead.
The argument the next evening. Crystal shattering against the wall and Ben fleeing the house that night. Brandon ran after him, and all I could do was stare at broken glass, not knowing they were never coming back.
Carved sneers and frenzied noise, on and off, delirium in the lights and shadows.
The search party called off, I ran after Alice not learning from Brandon's mistake.
Shrieking of pipes and screams and splatter of red on the white and gold.
He said it was all just a game. A hobby. With all his money, why not?
White and gold charred burnt and black and the smell of melting paint as the carousel goes on.
I stabbed him in the chest but he just kept coming towards us, all I could was shield Alice.
Serena tangled in the reigns and the sound of choked cries and broken pipes.
Alice and I ran with the fire spreading behind us.
Smoke and mirrors, smoke and blood and bone and wood and lacquer and cloth and muscles and fat.
Don't look back. Keep going and never look back.
And then the carousel had stopped.
Joyce set the picture frame back on the table.
Alice had died a few years ago. They decided on cremation. Joyce had spread the ashes herself over the water.
Alice was not a replacement for Ben. There could never be a replacement for Ben. But she had loved Alice as much as she possibly could for they were all they had in the world for so long. Before Alice married Matthew.
Joyce reached over again, this time, for the small piece of jewelry set in front of the picture as if it was an offering.
A moderately sized fire opal brooch. It was the present Joyce had received on her first wedding anniversary from Brandon. She had never owned opal jewelry before, which was strange considering that was her name. Sadly, she couldn't remember the reason her mother had given her as to why her parents had decided on that name, which became even stranger after she married Brandon Fear of the Shadyside Fears.
Opal. Opal Fear.
At one point, many years later, she had read that in Europe opals were considered bad luck and were tied into the spread of the Bubonic plague during the Middle Ages. Joyce couldn't remember the name of the book, nor where she had found it, but she was sure of the fact.
She grasped the jewel firmly, but carefully, in her hands, as if she was almost afraid she would crush it. The stone was nearly as old as she was.
Setting herself back down upon her pillow, the woman called Joyce carefully held the jewel close to her chest. It was not warm, nor did Joyce delude herself into thinking it was, as if her memories alone were a sufficient heating source. She remembered she had offered to give it to Alice when she died, but Alice had died before her, and on her death bed Alice had refused it, knowing what it meant to her mother. Now, looking back, that was probably for the best.
Her eyelids began to flutter, and Joyce was now ready to fully accept back the woman she had been, or rather, the part of her life that she had carefully locked away for so long. The woman who had been the daughter to Gretchen and David Archer, the wife of Brandon Fear and the mother of Ben Fear.
The young woman, Opal.
The old woman, Joyce.
Two in one, but, was she ever really two?
A smile on her lips.
She will go to them now.
And she remembered.
The carousel had stopped.
It had stopped for a long, long time.