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One of Us, Part Two

- Family Matter

"You really shouldn't be looking out there."

But look Gia did, while the sun arced over the sky and burned away the morning fog from the hissing green wall of spruce trees surrounding the house.

She watched as workmen pounded and hammered, wrenched and jiggered, ran and shouted. Down went tent pegs, up went poles. Folded canvas blossomed like tulip buds into great candy-colored tents. Ingenious machines unfurled and unfolded like flags until they rose, defiant, against the sky. Cables unspooled and generators ignited, and in one case shorted, sending burly men scrambling and Gia into a sudden fit of laughing, and almost ruining their day's work before it shut down and fumed.

Then the sun retired and set the oncoming fog bank afire with pinks and purples and oranges as if the traveling carnival had spilled sherbet in the sky, Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show sparked and jolted like Frankenstein's monster until - it was alive! Lights flared and danced and machines spun and shook and whirled like electric pinwheels, like a troupe of gymnasts dressed in rainbows. Monster tents that had sprouted like giant evil mushrooms hid secrets and fascinations announced by recorded barkers. The stars themselves, envious of the display, withdrew behind the fog for the night to sulk.

Gia watched, for she was locked and barricaded inside a house haunted thrice-over. Between her and the sane world lay a besieging ring of wheels and tops and tents, and around it a white lattice wall of wooden struts and supports and the great swooping line of the roller coaster – impossible to erect that in a day, yet there it stood like a giant spiderweb – and beyond all that, endless night forest and churning, hungry bog, fog, frost, darkness and desolation. Pandemonium and shadows; cougars, and the dark.

Gia, are you really wanting to ride the rides? Are you really curious to see what's in those tents? You're craving popcorn and soda pop? Hah! So the child inside you lives still, despite the best efforts of the grownups to scoop her out of your skull like so much ice cream.

The Ferris wheel cartwheeled mere yards from her window. She could see children laughing and smiling in the cars. Sometimes one would wave to her; she didn't wave back.

Where do the children come from? Gia wondered. This house hid itself within a wetland reserve, a valley set aside for trees, birds, frogs and leeches, undisturbed by blundering humanity. Is that what becomes of Mr. Dark's victims? Blinded by bright lights, deafened by jangling calliope, subsisting on mummy-flavored cotton candy, riding the rides past joy, past nausea, past boredom until they become automatons cheering on cue? Then up, into the boxcars again like cattle, shut inside and off? Gia shuddered. Like Christine with her phantom passengers, ghosts trapped inside for eternity – the whole carnival!

She'd been good and scared of the Elliott family before, and now they guarded her just outside this little room from whatever candy-land demon relative had conjured all of that from a handful of boxcars in a day, and had frightened even them.

"Y'know," Tom said with his warm drawl, "when we came here we had to knock holes in these walls to get some windows. Even we need a little ventilation. Some of us, anyway. Now I kinda wish we hadn't bothered. Gia, you really should not be looking out there."

And Gia decided he was right. She yanked the curtains down, though that didn't stop the music and noise, or the lights from painting the room into a fun house. Gia and Tom waited together in the onetime nursery.

"They've been in there a long time," Tom commented, again.

The family. When they saw Christine smashed into a red and silver corkscrew and Mister Dark descend from his great black engine, the family had turned upon her and swept her back inside their antique house. Then the elders vanished into the dining room and shut the doors for a conference.

"They're protecting me," Gia said, raising her voice to be heard over the dratted music. "Why?"

"You being Ms. Tisiphone's driver, you've probably noticed the family abides by certain principles?"

The rules. "Yup."

"Mrs. Elliott promised you'd be safe in here, and that's hospitality. That Mister Dark, he should know better. If I know the mister and missus, they're madder'n hornets."

Abruptly, the expression on Tom's face changed, and the warmth and twang in his voice faded. "Gia, you are wanted in the dining room." Then Cecy vanished and Tom the caretaker was himself again.

"Well, we better take you downstairs."

"She do that to you all the time?"

"Sure! Keeps us close."

They descended the stairway. "Not the end of her talents either. Y'know, she put Ms. Tisiphone and her sisters into cars in the first place. They overtaxed themselves in a war, long story. She started 'em off in Ford Fairlanes. Traded up to the Plymouths a few years later."

She caught sight of a dark-skinned savage with an oversize head and filed teeth pacing in front of the door, gibbering and grumbling to itself in some barbaric language, itching for something, anything, to try getting past him. The thing was... only a foot tall... and made of wood. More of Cecy's work? Gia slapped a hand over her mouth, though whether to suppress a laugh or a scream she couldn't say.

They entered the dining room and Tom, ever the country gentleman, held a chair for her, then left and shut the door. Gia was alone in the room with "the mister and missus." The lady sat, her equally tall, gaunt and imposing husband stood apart, reading from a book.

"Young lady," the woman began. "I'm sure you're aware you've caused us some trouble."

Gia nodded. "I'm grateful for your hospitality."

The woman smiled coldly. "You should also be aware that you drew this trouble here."

"Me?"

"Tiffany didn't properly prepare you. You were frightened of us."

Hell yes! But Gia kept silent.

"That fear brought Caius. He and his attendants feed upon such things."

"You cannot stay," the husband abruptly rumbled. "A family must not be set against itself."

"Yes dear," the matron nodded in deference to her husband. "Gia, we're going to have to ask you to leave."

"I see. So... death-carnival and beyond that an endless bog—"

"We do not plan to throw you out the front door!" the matriarch interrupted testily. "Cecy has sent for uncle Einar. He'll come tomorrow morning. You're not very heavy so he should be able to fly you as far as Millinocket. From there you can take a bus south to Derry or Castle Rock and thence to wherever you'd like."

"Until then, stay indoors. You're safe with us," the master of the house added. He was taking pains to appear not at all interested in the conversation but, Gia noted, he was listening.

"Wait a minute now, what about Christine?"

"What of her?" the matron said.

"She's like a shark. If she can't run or feed, she can't heal! That backwards odometer of hers."

"But I was given to understand you no longer wish to be her driver."

"Huh! Cecy's a gossip."

The matriarch scowled.

"And she went and told Christine, didn't she?" Gia scowled right back.

"Tiff's already safely back in her garage. We take care of our own, but it will take some time before she's awake, let alone well."

"Wait... so you're telling me... I can go? Not travel with Christine anymore?"

"Isn't that what you want?"

Gia sat back in her chair, flummoxed. This was unexpected.

I can be free? I could leave all the bad weirdness behind. No more night-riding in the haunted car, no more blood, no more ordeals.

Then what...?

No. I'm not like Nell, hiding in her house because she can't find the guts to do anything else!

But... what?

"What do I want? Ma'am, I don't have an answer to that question. You know about what happened to me," here Gia pointed to her own head, and the woman nodded.

"I've been letting Christine make my decisions for me ever since. My... what if my judgment's impaired? Ma'am, sir, you think you're opening up a cage, and thank you. But the real cage is here. How do I get out? You can never escape yourself."

The woman cocked an eyebrow. "That is wisely said. Pity is never more than cold comfort. Still... how may we help you, young lady?"

"I don't know."

"You have until morning to decide," the man rumbled.

A family must not be set against itself.

Gia sat on the stairs, watching the pacing gibbering wild-man doll watch her, until Tom came and sat beside her.

"They said I brought Dark here."

Tom grunted.

"Because I was afraid."

"Yeah, he feeds on that. For what it's worth I'm scared of him too. Y'see, the two of us, three countin' you now, we're the only normals around here."

"Normalcy's questionable for me, and growing more so daily. Who's the third?"

Tom nodded. "Timothy. He knows a lot more about Dark than me. You promise to behave yourself, I could introduce you."

Gia watched as Tom climbed the stairs, reached up and pulled a cord. Down came a new, smaller set of stairs. "After you..."

They climbed into the attic, now converted into a loft. Two people waited inside. One, an elfin-thin woman, lay under a thin sheet atop raven-black hair that wove and lapped like the sea at night all the way down to her feet. The hair nearest her head became progressively grayer, and Gia saw a sleeping middle-aged face, but bearing very few of the folds and crinkles of age.

The bed was extraordinary, a four-poster canopy over a solid box the size of a queen mattress, filled almost to the top with sand. Do they stow her up here because she likes the air, or to keep Anuba out?

"Cecy?" Gia guessed. "She's beautiful."

Tom nodded, taking a brush and idly stroking her long hair. "She's not often here, though. She likes traveling too much. Don't disturb her until mealtimes. And over here's—"

"Hello," interrupted a cheerful oaken croak of a voice, an elderly voice, yet warm and bubbling like hot cider. The second person was an old man sitting in a big easy-chair in a corner, beside a desk. He waved.

His hair was white, as white as his button-down shirt. He once had, Gia could tell, a kindly face, though venerable years had melted him like a waxwork dummy, until the handsome face spilled flesh over his stiff collar, until shoulders sagged and belly inflated like one of Dark's balloons.

I promised to behave myself, and he's not scary at all. A little sad, maybe. "Hello, sir." She actually tried the curtsy again, much better this time. "Pleased to meet you, mister Elliott."

The old man answered her curtsy with a nod and a broader smile, waiting.

"Miss Gia," Tom explained. "I should have asked if you can type. Timothy's gone stone deaf, and the best way's if you can type to him."

Mr. Timothy Elliott sat near a creaky Underwood. Gia approached the arcane contraption - this thing must be ages old! – and stared in distress at the keyboard, for the letters had all worn away, scoured clean.

"My fingers have walked a lot of miles," old Timothy shouted jovially. "Are you Gia?"

Gia sat down and gave it her best effort. The snip-clatter of the type bars soothed her, driving away the mad clanging of the carnival with its sensible, efficient clips. The thing was awful to use, took a lot of effort from her fingers, but its woodpecker sound, though she'd never heard it before, somehow called back a time long gone.

"Im verry peased tro meet you sir," she typed. "Can you telll me abuot that carnival out tfere?"

Timothy's smile disappeared. "Right to business, eh? They've come for me, I expect. And for Tom." The man called out as if trying to out-shout the calliope music he couldn't hear. "As you can see, I'm old. I could go tomorrow or next year or last another quiet decade, It's strange, being old. I remember running wild on sunny summer days. Look at me, girl: bottle up spring and summer so you can uncork the vintages in winter - that's the way!"

The man gulped some water from a glass. He's not doing so bad, given his age, Gia thought. He still has a young man's eyes and a young man's smile.

"Don't overtire yourself now," Tom warned through the typewriter.

Old Timothy waved him away. "No Tom, this is important. My caretaker here, he fusses over me too much. Where was I? The carnival. They tempt and they prey. Old men like me, we're easy targets for the Autumn People, afraid of Mister Dark if we haven't lived life. 'Come and be a kid again,' he'll whisper in our ears, and before a man knows it he has us. I think - mind, I don't know but I believe – they cozy up to our misery, drink our tears and eat our discarded bandages. But that's how you beat 'em: laugh right in their faces! Mirth and happiness makes you less appetizing."

"Im in troubel then," Gia typed. "Im not a vary happy prison."

"All kids your age think their problems are huge. What? Just 'cause you look a little funny? Girl, you have your youth and that pretty head of hair. You should grow it out like our Cecy there. And you just remember your folks and how much they care for you."

Timothy had said this innocently, but his smile faded immediately at her wince. "Oh dear! I said something wrong, didn't I? Don't get on with your family, I guess?"

Gia shook her head.

"Sorry. I just take it for granted. Mom and dad found me on a porch in a wicker basket. Dickens for my headrest and Shakespeare at my tiny feet. I'll tell you a secret." His smile had returned and grown conspiratorial. "Odd people like this family, they need Tom and me. They need an audience! Take flying. A wonder of course, but without a wingless foster nephew to applaud you, you start taking it for granted. Without a couple of normal folks batting about, what fun is it being eccentric?" He winked.

Gia laughed at the jolly, twinkly-eyed old man.

"...or living forever? Another secret: this family, be frightened of them if you wrong 'em, sure! But the truth, the great truth about all the chain-rattlers and night-moaners and gimlet-eyes... they want to help you grow up into a brave young man or woman. Once you do, they fade away. I packed up and left when I was a teenager. Then one day not so long later, you're old, and you remember them and they're your friends after all, and were all along, 'cause you couldn't have gotten through the scary times without them. You're too young to understand that, I think. Anyway that's their job. Because the world can be a scary place, and would be more so without them, without their help."

Gia shook her head and typed, "i think I folllow." She paused. Then, "Mrs Elliott wants someone to fly me out of here But the carnies theyre not onna just give up are they?"

"Perhaps not," Timothy conceded. "Mister Dark is very patient. He has all the time in the world."

Bottle up spring and summer...

...uncork the vintages in winter.

Gia sat at the top of the stairs, watching the strange wooden man pace back and forth before the front door.

By sunup, this "uncle Einar" will arrive and fly me away from Christine and away from this house. He'll take me back to civilization and I'll be free of all this.

Why is my gut coiling around itself like a spooked snake?

Gia, your pride's getting in your way. You are mentally impaired! You've got to accept that you need help simply to survive.

But do I need Christine?

You can't make it alone, and she's the only one volunteering. And she's strong. If anybody hurts you she'll trample 'em. You like her and you'd miss her. If only she'd stop using you as bait...!

What am I to her, anyway? A convenience so she doesn't have to watch the road? A worm for her hook?

"I'll have a long heart-to-heart with her," Gia promised herself. She can bawl me out all she wants for being rude to her family. I pretty much deserve it.

Then that's settled. Problem is Mr. Elliott's going to insist you leave in a very few hours because you've brought Dark and his carnies. You're dividing the family and you're endangering old Mister Timothy and Tom. And that will be the end. What to do?

Why, Mr. Dark has to go!

Yes, that's all there is to it. It's him or me, isn't it? Timothy said I can beat the carnies by laughing in their faces. Sure, I can do that.

And if I lose, oh God! If they catch me, they'll throw me into the freak show tent, to be petted and fussed over by the bearded lady and the thalidomide man. Step right up! See Gia the puppet girl, who must always obey your every command with a bright smile. Come tell her to bite the head off a live chicken!

Hell! Hell stacked upon hell until the groaning pile falls through the floor into a new, tenth circle.

Are you really willing to wager that? Gia, are you that crazy?

She looked at the latches on the door, and mentally rehearsed the most efficient way to unlock them.

I'm officially insane.

Gia walked down the steps toward the now-suspicious savage. Abruptly she leaped onto a chair and pointed. "Eeeek! A rat!"

Sometimes the simplest tricks are the best.

The fierce thing yowled and dashed off after the uncatchable-because-imaginary rodent, while Gia stepped off the chair, unlatched the door and was out and shutting it just before the fearsome little ankle-biter could tackle her. Schmuck!

She turned and the carnival lay before her, a busy portrait of bright lights framing the impeccable carousel placed right in the middle of the driveway.

If Gia hadn't known all she knew, she'd have been delighted. The carnival was old, perhaps even dangerous-old, and old fashioned, yes. But no one her age could resist the whirling, flashing lights and the tumbling acrobats, or the strange mingling scents of tiger and elephant and popcorn.

Except this was the October Carnival, and if she wasn't extremely careful she'd never leave it. The merry-go-round, she noted, rotated in reverse, and immediately Gia thought of Christine's backwards-running odometer. Aha, I get it. Very cute.

Then she heard the crash of glass and saw the savage gabbling demon-doll hanging onto the shards, climbing out. Oh no, that I do not need! Gia leaped from the stairs and into the crowd.

The children and teenagers she found surrounding her appeared normal, but there was something brittle about their cheer, artificial and too squeaky-clean. It was as if she'd stepped into a Norman Rockwell painting of a carnival. Reality's messier than this!

She ducked past the rocking pirate ship, zipped around the Zipper and dashed around the Tilt-a-Whirl. Track me now, you ugly doll!

First sight of the Hall of Mirrors set her antennae twitching. Ooooh no, not going in there! And then she saw - him.

Mr. Dark was a monster.

The family had warned her. When Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show had wheeled its ugly black locomotive onto their front lawn, they'd bum-rushed her back inside with dire warnings. What could so frighten this mad family of spooks and hobgoblins? Why, the charismatic Mister Caius Gates Dark, of course. She'd overheard their whispers: corrupter and fiend, marionetteer of corpses, painter of death's head moths, ringmaster and illustrated man, whatever all that meant! And here he towered like a utility pole over her in his clotted-red vest and glittering caviar suit, studying her with trapdoor-spider eyes.

Gia burst out laughing!

Gales, whoops and cheers, which became increasingly shrill and hysterical and finally faded to an impotent nothing while Mr. Dark checked his pocket watch.

"Welcome to the show!" Mr. Dark began. His resonant voice, polished as a black widow's backside, marked him as a member of this aristocratic family. "I believe you have been misinformed. May I presume someone fed you the erroneous rumor that I disliked the sound of laughter? In honesty, do you suppose I should have built a carnival if that was so?"

"I was told you feed on fear and misery."

"No, those are called lawyers. Miss Gia, if I abhorred cheer, would it not have served me better to manage a mortuary, or perhaps a hospital?"

It didn't work. Gia remained silent. Oh, now I'm in for it!

"Pardon. Before we continue, how's Robert?"

"They said he'll be laid-up for weeks, but he'll be fine."

"I'm glad. A family matter, you understand." He gave her a wink. "Shall I give you the tour? I'm certain Mr. Electrico would- hmm... I noticed the attention you gave our Hall of Mirrors. Step right this way."

Gia's breath caught. She saw herself in the mirrors, walking toward the entrance on command with that awful disembodied feeling. She saw a crone, and with a horrid shock realized it was her. She saw a young girl she'd not seen for years, because she'd only seen her in a mirror. All these and more. She gasped - herself just before the operation!

The music stopped, and it felt as if the entire carnival held its breath all at once.

"Aha! What you want is in there - I can always tell. Free pass for our guest!" At the ringmaster's cue one of the carnies opened the gate for her. She watched her legs ascending the stairs, unable to stop. Not... wanting to stop, not really. All she'd endured, how much worse could this be?

An arctic wind caressed her cheek. So cold in there...!

It was the calliope that saved her.

A new song filled the hush... and Gia remembered Christine playing it, an old song even for her. Gia'd been gloomy after the massacre at Zachry, so Christine had played her antique melodies and told Gia to sing along. She'd had no choice but to sing as best she could, until despite herself she started having fun.

Those days full of pleasure, we now fondly treasure...

Gia had batted her silly head back and forth, tapped the rhythm on the steering wheel, and joined her voice to the car's. Whatever else one might say about the Furies, they could sing!

"When we never thought it a crime... stealing cherries..." Gia sang softly.

Mr. Dark lurched away as if scalded. Surprise and rage twisted his handsome face.

Gia halted herself. Hope tapped its baton in her heart and woke up a full orchestra. Oh, of course!

Christine wanted to cheer me up. She wanted me to be happy.

"With faces brown as berries," Gia sang out. "Good old summer time!"

Dark fell back as if she'd aimed a pistol at his head.

Because she does care, evil thing that she is. And she brought me here because I have no family. She's trying to give me hers, and I pushed them away.

"You hold her hand and she holds yours, and that's a very good sign..."

Gia's voice caught. She felt a tear escape her eye. Oh big sister, I've been awful!

Mr. Dark and his minions withdrew from her. They could tolerate laughter and singing and joy. Such was their bait, after all. But love? Love could conquer them - the love of a father for a son, the love of lifelong friends no matter how brief the lifetimes, or the love of an orphan abruptly realizing she had found a family.

And even one single tear fallen from a suddenly brimful and overflowing heart – that was toxic, bitterest poison to the Autumn People.

The carousel stopped. Coaster cart halted mid-scream. All froze.

All, except the fairground organ. It played on. And life is one beautiful rhyme.

She felt hands upon her shoulders. Startled, she turned to find a war-party at her back, the Elliott family, led by the perpetually raging little Zuni-doll. Mrs. Elliott wrapped a black shawl about Gia's shoulders and gave Mr. Dark as severe a scowl as ever a mother gave a naughty child. But the glare transmuted into confusion as she beheld the recoiling carnival and the tear gracing Gia's cheek.

The woman looked from Gia to Dark, and back, and then she smiled a smile bright as moonlight. "I see," she said with a voice like wind through trees, and she nodded.

She gave a look to her husband, who also seemed confused at first, until at last the dullard male understood the mystery the two females had shared. He nodded his assent.

With that, Gia hugged the tall, corseted woman with a grateful little sob.

"Well, there's nothing for it," Mrs. Elliott pronounced, resigned and indulgent. "Adoption it is."

"You're joking!" Mr. Dark sputtered.

"Cousin," Mr. Elliott proclaimed as he strode forward on stork-legs, "It is well past time you picked up your toys and came inside. You're disturbing the rest of the family."

Mr. Dark's face purpled with rage. "No, I don't think so. I believe I shall be on my way!" He spun on his polished black jackboots and began shouting orders to his sycophants. With well-practiced, automatic moves, they shut off the power and reached for their tools.

As the carnival's lights flickered and vanished, Gia, now happily wrapped in Mrs. Elliott's arms, peeked out and noticed something lurking in the fog. Her heart leaped.

She searched around and found another such something lurking opposite the first. Oh! Oh now that's perfect, what timing! Cecy got my message to you and you came, bless you both!

She gently withdrew from the warm bat-wing embrace of her new foster mother, and shouted, "And just where do you think you're going... Caius?"

Dark whirled. It was too much, her using his familiar name like that. "What!" he snarled back.

"When you arrived, you ran that ugly locomotive of yours right over Christine. You do know what that means?"

Mr. Dark cocked an eyebrow.

You don't quite get it yet, do you? "...Maggie? ...Abbie?"

Then Mr. C. G. Dark's glittering wasps'-eyes suit flashed with the glare of four powerful halogens beaming from twin Plymouths. Gia's own eyes reflected Alecto and Magiera's beams like headlamps, impaling the sisters' prey.

"Why, it means you've shed kindred blood."

The Furies will not be denied.

"A family matter," Gia snarked when it was over. "You understand." Then she looked down at the savage little wooden creature at her feet. "And this family's gonna take some getting used-to." But the fierce doll had vanished.

"Truly?" Mrs. Elliott deadpanned. "I was just thinking how perfectly you're fitting in."

That was almost the end. Mr. Elliott informed Gia rather dryly that honor wouldn't be satisfied until the doll had at least counted coup. Reputation was at stake, after all. Three mad dashes around the house and one victory dance later, the family had been duly entertained, Gia had been disciplined for rudeness and He Who Kills had fairly claimed a lock of Gia's hair. Such was her initiation.

Mr. Dark did not perish either. But even he found having a steel-belted radial peeling out over his head persuasive. The carnival vanished before the sunrise. The train tracks waited until no one was looking before they too disappeared, like a child's toy train put back into its box.

Gia slept very soundly indeed until the sun set. She awoke to the rumbles and thumps of the stirring family. Mama Elliott soon appeared to invite her to breakfast, and chided her for not making her bed.

"Why, one would think you were raised by truckers."

"No ma'am."

"I understand the very idea of a finishing school has vanished in these benighted times." Mama Elliott tapped a finger on the tip of Gia's nose. "You are going to be such fun to make-over."

Gia giggled. Being trifled with like a child would have rankled, except her stepmother had confided her age.

"Both Robert and Tiffany awoke this afternoon. They want to welcome you to the family as soon as you've eaten. Then Tom will need your help with the chores, dear."

"Yes ma'am." Gia also noted warmly that her new family made their wishes known while scrupulously avoiding direct orders.

She finished with her bed and paused for a moment inside the little once-nursery. She'd need to add some personal touches. Fortunately the massive house boasted plenty of furniture, paintings and books to choose from. She looked the room over, and the smile on her face had nothing at all to do with surgeries.

Her own room, in her own home.

"No dawdling, now." And Gia hurried out the door.

Dedicated to Robert Kerr

- The Caretaker

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