The Ugly Carnival

Part 3

It was another day and a half before Léo could walk on his own and without much pain, and he hit the town early in the morning. Léo was determined to find the location of Estelle and break her out before the next parade. Wandering around the village, he looked for places that could hold the hundreds of accused women. There had to be some kind of prison system to feed and hold all these girls. Léo heard loud cheering coming from the town square and rushed towards it.

He saw a crowd surrounding a girl chained to a lightpost. As soon as he got close, Léo realized the girl was Estelle. Mr. Beaumont was standing next to her talking, but Léo couldn't hear him over the crowd. When Mr. Beaumont stepped down, the crowd started forming a pile of stones near their feet and Estelle started crying. Léo tried to push through the crowd, but there were too many and he couldn't get through. By the time he returned with his mother, the villagers had already started throwing the stones. Estelle was crying and bleeding, while the crowd was laughing. Léo and Roselyn sat helplessly as their best friend and adoptive daughter was killed by the people she called neighbors.

Léo couldn't comprehend how his hometown was capable of such violence, especially towards a young girl who did nothing wrong, now that he understood the full picture. Roselyn locked herself in her room and refused to come out even when Léo brought her food. A week after Estelle's death, Mr. Beaumont hung himself in their house. One could only assume it was because he knew he was the reason his daughter was killed.