Carnival Souls

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"We have to get you to a hospital," said Lira. It felt foreign to think of something as normal as a hospital, like she had stepped out of the pages of some twisted fairytale into the real world and was trying to make sense of it all. She wondered how long it would take for familiar things to feel that way again. "Do you think you can walk with help?" she asked Jacks.

Jacks swallowed, closed his eyes briefly at the pain, and rasped, "I think so. How's Genzel?"

Lira glanced over her shoulder to ask the question louder when the sight of Owen's face made her stop with lips parted and the words dying on her tongue. Owen's hand was on Genzel's chest where his heart was. He shook his head and a shaky breath escaped him.

Jacks must have seen Lira's face fall for he said, "He's gone, isn't he?"

Lira's heart clenched and her fingers trembled. She busied them with retying Jacks' dressing. "Yes," she whispered when she was sure her voice wouldn't break.

She put a hand under Jacks' back and helped him sit up, air hissing between his teeth as the motion flexed his wound. The horse keeper turned his gaze to the carousel carver and he reached out a burned hand to take the old man's calloused one in his. He squeezed it hard and bowed his head when nothing happened.

He was going to die anyway, thought Lira. He said so himself. Bebinn had crossed Genzel over just before his death. It made sense that once he was returned to the human world he would die. But it brought her no great comfort.

Owen spoke the question she didn't want to ask because she didn't know the answer.

"Do you think we crossed him in time?"

Lira glanced around the empty carousel as if the answer might be written in the wood. "I don't know," she sighed finally.

A soft plinking sound came from above them as it began to rain again. The sound was nearly alien after years of not hearing it.

"Should we bury him?" asked Mitsi.

"We don't have anything to dig with," said Lira, though she felt guilty for voicing it. "And we need to get Jacks to a hospital." She paused and thought for a moment. "Maybe we could send someone back here for him? A recovery team? I don't know how to explain away the carousel though."

"Genzel wanted the carousel destroyed," interjected Owen.

"What?" asked Lira, perplexed. "Why?"

"So that it couldn't be used again."

"Who would use it?" said Lira. "Bebinn is gone, there are no horses, and it's in the middle of a forest." The idea of destroying the carnival filled her with a profound sense of wrongness.

"A piece of his soul might be trapped in it," added Owen.

Lira blinked. Bebinn seemed to have a proclivity for trapping souls in wooden prisons. The violin, the carousel. Poor Lydia's loom was probably one as well.

"How would we even destroy it?" she asked. "We have no tools and we don't have time to smash it with rocks." Lira wasn't sure she could bring herself to smash it with rocks anyway.

"Burn it?" suggested Owen. Jacks flinched. "But I guess that wouldn't work with the rain," he continued. He passed a hand over his face, seeming at a loss.

Lira scrolled back through her memories. She had freed herself by playing her soul free as Zabaria had said. But what had she said about the others?

"I think Genzel may have been able to free himself," she mused almost to herself.

Owen's voice was skeptical. "What makes you say that?"

"He stood up to Bebinn. Whatever the outcome, he wasn't going to let her use him anymore. And he was the carousel."

Owen mulled it over and nodded reluctantly. "I guess that's the best we can hope for," he said. He got to his feet, his expression forlorn. "We should bury him. As best we can."

"But Jacks—" Lira protested.

"I can wait a little longer," said Jacks.

Together, Mitsi, Owen, and Lira lifted Genzel's body from the ride and laid him down in a small copse of trees just behind the carousel. Mitsi used the knives still in his belt to cut away small branches from the surrounding trees while Lira and Owen used their hands to cover Genzel with damp soil. The leafy boughs they laid in a crisscrossing manner atop him made the burial mound slightly easier to look upon.

They helped Jacks over to the site once they were done and gathered around Genzel's resting place in a loose circle, their heads bowed. No one spoke and the only noise was the sound of the wind moving through the trees. It stirred the leaves on the grave, swaying  them gently back and forth in a silent goodbye. After a moment, Lira pulled out her violin, glad that Zabaria had convinced her to keep it.

She played softly enough to mingle with the falling rain, letting the music say all the words no one could speak. Though she knew it was unlikely, she hoped Genzel could hear it on the other side and that it helped put him at peace. Owen and Jacks both scrubbed at their faces with their forearms when the song came to an end.

"Thank you," said Owen, catching her eye.

He and Mitsi helped Jacks back to his feet, the trio making their slow way back through the trees. Lira lingered for just a moment, looking down at the freshly turned earth. "Thank you," she whispered to Genzel.

The moon was low in the sky and dawn was about to break on the opposite horizon as she left the copse and stood once more beside the carousel. Lira lifted her face to the first tentative rays of sunlight, wishing she could gather it in her arms and keep it in her pocket. You have an entire life of sun ahead of you, she reminded herself. The rain had eased and all around them the lingering drops caught the golden light and made everything shine. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

"I can't believe we're really back," said Owen. "It doesn't feel real."

Lira agreed. She dug her bare toes into the damp earth, trying to ground herself. Though Genzel's passing lay heavy on them all, Lira couldn't help the feeling of lightness that bloomed in her. This is what freedom feels like, she thought.

She didn't know what would happen next; how they would go about getting out of this forest, what they would tell their families, if they could try to make their lives normal again. But in that moment, it didn't matter.

She would be able to choose what happened next. And the thought made her so happy she could've cried again.

"Where do we go now?" asked Mitsi.

"Home," Lira said with a smile. "We go home."

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"Is it over??!" you ask. Not just yet!

Okay, so I told a little bit of a fib last time. There will actually be one more part following this one: the Epilogue. So it's not goodbye just yet!! I've imagined the ending of this story for so long that I originally thought this would be the final chapter, but now I realize it needs one more scene to bring it home :) Be on the lookout for the final part next week! And as always, I would love to hear what you thought of this final chapter! (since the epilogue isn't technically a chapter) I'll also save my goodbyes to this story until the epilogue is uploaded so I can put off crying with sadness and joy a little longer. Thank you for being such wonderful readers!