A/N- The little girl, Janey, learns about death and magical carousel horses on a stormy night.
Disclaimor- This one-shot isn't really based off of anything except maybe an old children's book that is most likely out of print, but really, Carousel is original. Please don't steal my characters or plot!
CarouselRound and round the carousel whirled endlessly in the middle of the park. It was splash of color, a bit of tinkling music in the middle of an otherwise gray city. The wooden horses were trimmed with gold and silver paint, and fake but beautiful jewels adorned their saddles and bridles. A few of the horses had long wings, and they had been carved by a master hand in mid-prance, gallop, or snort with arched necks and wind-tossed manes.
Unfortunately, most of the horses were not originals of the carousel. Years back, all but one of the initial creatures had been burned in a fire, and the rest of the current carousel horses were replacements.
Needless to say, the mysterious survivor caused talk of magic. Fairy-horses became the object of local gossip. Human hands had made the new ones, but the old horse was a different story. No one could remember when he had first been made, and rumors spread like wildfire, rumors of pipe music on clear nights. Not the silly tunes that played on the carousel, but real pipes, beautiful wild music. Sometimes, people even claimed to hear a horse screaming.
That sound was enough to freeze the blood in any person's body, no matter if imagined or real! The screams of furious stallions spitting fire and wanting blood were not easily ignored.
Mr. Morshe, the caretaker of the carousel, always insisted that if any of the carousel horses were the screaming type, it would be the original creature, but through time, the gossip died down to urban-legend.
"After all, us brainy people with a lick o' common sense, would never believe all those tales, would we, Janey-girl?" Mr. Morshe would ask to me with a solemn tone accompanied by a wink.
And that was the question I endeavored to answer during my time in the city.
For as long as I could remember, I had been coming to the park to sit and watch the carousel horses, and I loved them. Mr. Morshe became my best friend. He was an ugly old man with warm brown eyes and a funny accent, and he loved to talk to me about the carousel and his younger days. With only enough money to buy one ride, I was content to save my turn for later, because every night when the park had emptied and there were no more little customers, Mr. Morshe would allow me to ride the carousel at night without whining spoiled children aboard.
I would walk with reverence among the majestic horses, stroking a wing here and patting a nose there. Then, I would stand before the horse. He was different from the rest, and the first time I saw him, I stopped in my tracks.
My favorite, of course, was the enchanting original, older than Mr. Morshe himself was! His body paint was dark, but I could never decide if it was blue or black. A soft silvery paint had been used on his mane and tale, the color of spider-web, and he posed with two front hooves pawing the air, muscles tightly coiled as if he were about to take a gigantic leap. His nostrils were flared with anticipation, and his white angel-wings were spread wide. The horse coursed with electric energy, and the sight of him took my breath away. What I loved most were his eyes, for they were made of many-faceted glass. They cast fiery reflections on the carousel ceiling in the sunlight, and at night, they glowed like two miniature moons. I had never ridden a different horse, not even once.
I myself, was a middle child of a large family. My parents loved me very much, but with nine other children, ranging in age from six months to eighteen, mother was relieved to have me spend my days at the carousel under the careful eye of Mr. Morshe. The fifty cents for a ticket to ride was cheap in comparison to daycare or a babysitter.
The legends of fairy-horses had fascinated me from the moment I heard them, so I made it my goal to investigate the myths at the age of six. Was the carousel horse a fairy-horse? I was determined answer the question, and I pursued my quest with a single-mindedness that was unusual in a six-year-old and sometimes scared my parents. I went through all the books on fairies, mythology, and carousels at our library, and in our apartment at night, I would set a tape recorder on my windowsill facing the park. During the next day at the carousel, I would play back the tape, always hoping for a strain of pipe music or the sound of a stallion screaming, but to my disappointment, all I heard were cars, people, and the sounds of the city.
The comfortable routine continued for three years until I was nine. My world crumbled down around me on the day my mother ran out of the kitchen, carrying the phone with my oldest sister, Maddie on the other end. Her face was grave and her lips pressed together in a thin grimace.
"Janey, sweetie, I have some bad news from Maddie at work. Mr. Morshe died last night of a heart attack."
I stared at her in shock, unable to absorb the meaning of her words. As if in a dream, I reached for the phone she held extended. Maddie's voice echoed across the telephone wires.
"Hello? Janey, are you there?"
I nodded, and then stopped myself when I realized she could not see me.
"Yes," I croaked.
"Well, I was just reading the paper when I saw his name in the obituary. And then I said to myself, "Oh my gosh! That's Janey's old friend!" The funeral is today, and the service begins at…"
She chattered on and on while my ever-practical mother grabbed the other phone wrote down all I needed to know. I on the other hand, stood in the living room, not moving a muscle or hearing a thing, and the phone was still at my ear long after Maddie had hung up.
Somehow, hours later, I found myself in the back of a funeral parlor. There were only a handful of people in the room, some of them faithful customers of the carousel I recognized and others neighbors. But there were no family members, and very few tears. On the other hand, I felt like falling to pieces at the sight of the coffin. But my resolve not to cry in front of strangers was strong. Finally, I summoned the courage to see his body.
The pale, empty, unsmiling shell of a stranger made me feel sick all over again. Mr. Morshe was long gone from his skeleton. A wave of morbid grief threatened to overwhelm, and I rushed to the tiny bathroom, tears prickling at my eyes. Locked inside the cramped stall, I sobbed until I was sick and threw up my lunch into the toilet. Then, I steeled myself, and washed my face with cold water until there was no more sign of my crying.
My family remained quiet for the trip back in respect for my sadness. When we arrived home, I walked calmly to my room and shut the door before sagging against it. Trembling with suppressed emotion, I threw myself onto the pullout bed and buried my face into my pillow. It muffled my screams so that no one else could hear.
For a while, I simply sat breathing. In and out. In and out. I chanted to myself. Maddie had told me that deliberate breathing was a healthy way to relieve stress. The digital alarm clock blinked the passing minutes with harsh neon letters that glowed in the darkness, but I felt as if the clock and its record of the passing time no longer applied to me. It was irrelevant.
Then, I snapped out of my meditative state with a jerk. I had heard something that sent icy shivers down my spine and raised goose bumps on my arms. I went to the window and pried it open before talking out the screen so I could lean out into the night. A strong wind was blowing, and it tasted of rain. I knew that a storm was coming in, and then, I heard the sound again. It was a scream.
Not a normal scream or a little-girl shriek, but a chilling, hair-raising scream full of fury and anguish. My mouth went dry. Only one thing could scream like that, and it was not human. The tales of the screaming stallions flashed through my mind, and I turned my eyes to where the carousel sat in the park. How long had I waited to hear the sound? The hellish scream of a tortured creature came once again from the direction of the carousel.
I leapt into action and stuck my sandals on my feet before changing into jeans and a T-shirt. Then, I quietly slipped out onto the roof through my window and slithered down the unsteady gutter pipe. I did not want to face my family anymore. When I reached the ground, I turned to look back, but not a single soul stirred in the house.
I took off down the street, sprinting at a break-neck pace. I wanted to reach the carousel before the storm hit, and the wind was blowing hard. Thunderheads loomed ever closer, and with each second that ticked by, more stars were swallowed up by the churning masses of clouds. The smell of rain was like perfume on the air, but I could hardly enjoy the weather. I clambered over the locked rod-iron fence of the park with ease.
Just ahead, loomed the carousel, and as it came into sight, I heard breathtaking music that sounded like pipes. The melody was haunting and alluring. It floated out from the carousel, wrapped its fingers around my body, and pulled me towards the horses.
Even in the dark, the carousel still was as beautiful as ever, and my eyes were drawn to my great winged horse. Suddenly, the storm released its full fury upon me, dumping buckets of rain and tearing at my clothes with claws of wind, and I made a run for the relative shelter of the carousel.
As I passed by my horse, I reached out to lay a hand on his nose, but was stopped short when his nostrils quivered. Slowly, incredulous, I turned to face him. Once again, I put my hand on his nose and found that the hard wood had turned to a soft velvety coat. I made my way to the horse's side, trailing my hand along the silky coat that streamed with rain. Muscles quivered beneath the skin, and electric energy pulsated from the creature.
Some inner drive told me to mount the carousel horse, and I obeyed without a second thought. When I grasped the very real and slick leather reins, I literally felt the shock of electricity surge through my body, and I almost dropped the reins.
The pipe music was still playing, even above the fury of the storm, and it had reached a deafening crescendo. I felt the muscles of my mount rippling beneath my legs, and he abruptly reared up with a defiant scream. Wood splintered, and nails bent as he wrenched his hooves free of the carousel floor, and his powerful angel-wings pumped twice, flinging water-droplets everywhere. I felt the mighty horse coil beneath me in preparation for a leap, and then we were flying through the rain, unattached to the carousel! With a few sweeps of his wings, the stallion and I were air-born in the storm. The wind howled, and the rain beat relentlessly against us, melding the fairy-horse and I together.
He flew higher, fighting against the power of the storm, and screaming in rage at the winds that tried to wrestle him to the ground. With my legs and hands, I urged him on, and my voice shouted loudly for the great winged beast. He lifted his head in pride, and surged forward. The storm seemed to realize it was defeated, and the wind and water stopped lashing out violently at us. Suddenly, we broke through the clouds, and I found myself sailing underneath a sky filled with more stars than I could count.
Where were we going? Then, I looked to the great winged beast I was mounted on. He turned his blue-black head to stare at me with one glassy, clever eye. I felt a grin tugging at the edge of my lips. He snorted in response, tossed his silvery mane, reared, and pawed the air, relishing his freedom from the wooden carousel. I kicked my sandals off so that they fell to earth and dug my heels into the creature's glossy flanks. The carousel horse shot off faster than I had ever imagined through the midnight sky, carrying me where he willed. And I laughed in delight at the wonder of it all.
A/N- Hoped you liked it! It is pretty short, and as of right now, it is a one-shot. I might build a story off of it later, but if that happens, it will probably be a long time from now. REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW! Please!