the wights—or wights themselves? I was especially wary of the clown, the one Bronwyn had pulled Olive away from. He kept turning up. We must’ve passed him five times in as many minutes: loitering at the mouth of an alley, staring down from a window, watching us from a tented photo booth, his mussed hair and horrific makeup clashing bizarrely with a backdrop painting of bucolic countryside. He seemed to be everywhere at once.
“It’s not good being out in the open like this,” I said to Emma.
“We can’t just circle around forever. People are noticing us.
“Clowns?” she said. “Anyway, I agree with you—but it’s difficult to know where to start in all this madness.”
“We should start at what is always the most peculiar part of
“Usually they do,” said Emma, “but the wights know that as well. I’m sure Miss Wren hasn’t kept her freedom this long by hiding in such obvious places.”
“Have you got a better idea?” said Enoch.
We didn’t, and so we shifted direction toward the sideshow. I looked back for the leering clown, but he had melted into the crowd.
At the sideshow, a scruffy carnival barker was shouting through a megaphone, promising glimpses of “the most shocking errors of nature allowed on view by law” for a trivial fee. It was called the Congress of Human Oddities.
“Sounds like dinner parties I’ve attended,” said Horace.
“Some of these ‘oddities’ might be peculiar,” said Millard, “in which case they might know something about Miss Wren. I say it’s worth the price of admission.”
“We don’t have the price of admission,” said Horace, pulling a single, lint-flecked coin from his pocket.
“Since when have we ever paid to get into a sideshow?” said Enoch.
We followed Enoch around to the back of the sideshow, where its wall-like facade gave way to a big, flimsy tent. We were scouting for openings to slip through when a flap pulled back and a well-dressed man and woman burst out, the man holding the lady, the lady fanning herself.
“Move aside!” the man barked. “This woman needs air!”
A sign above the flap read: PERFORMERS ONLY.
