The First Age

The Carnival had a rhythm, a pulse that thrummed beneath the gaudy lights and peeling paint. It was a living, breathing beast, and Sámiel was its dark heart. His horror show was the stuff of whispered legends, a macabre dance that left audiences both terrified and enthralled. But tonight, as he returned after a three-day absence, the beast felt... off.

His boots crunched against the gravel, the familiar path leading him to the cluster of trailers that housed the Pekelniak family. These weren't the sleek, polished RVs of the well-to-do, but battered, weather-worn boxes on wheels, their exteriors adorned with trinkets and talismans meant to ward off whatever spirits might be lurking. The scent of fried onions and stale beer hung in the air, a testament to meals shared and stories told.

Sámiel stood out here, a peacock among crows. His attire was a deliberate affront to convention: a pleather jacket in a shade of crimson that bordered on obscene, a ruffled shirt unbuttoned just enough to hint at scandal, and trousers so tight they seemed painted on. From a choker on his throat dangled a silver knife charm. His dark hair was a wild mane, streaked with unwashed greasy strands that caught the dim light, and his eyes— those eyes—were kohl-rimmed windows to a soul that reveled in the delicious discomfort of others.

He approached the largest of the trailers, its door slightly ajar, revealing the warm glow within. Stepping inside, he was met with a tableau of familial chaos.

"Look what the cat dragged in," sneered Tereza, his older sister, from her perch by the tiny stove. Her arms were crossed, flour dusting her hands from the dough she’d been kneading. Her face, lined beyond her years, bore the perpetual scowl of someone who'd long given up on pleasantries.

"Missed me, did you?” Sámiel drawled, a smirk playing on his lips.

"Hardly," she shot back. "But your audience did. Three nights without your little freak show. People talk."

"Let them," he replied, unperturbed. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

From the corner, a soft chuckle emerged. Josef, their father, lounged in a threadbare armchair, a cigarette dangling from his lips. His eyes, milky with age and too much homemade liquor, regarded Sámiel with a mix of amusement and something darker.

"You always did have a flair for the dramatic," Josef rasped. "But even the best performers know not to keep the crowd waiting too long."

Sámiel inclined his head, acknowledging the rebuke. "Noted, dear father.”

A sudden movement drew his attention to the small figure darting toward him. Aneta, his niece, no more than six, with wild curls and eyes too big for her face, latched onto his leg.

"Uncle Sámiel! Did you bring me something spooky?" she demanded, her grin missing a front tooth.

He laughed, a genuine sound that seemed almost out of place. "Always, little one." From his jacket pocket, he produced a small, intricately carved wooden spider. "This is Aragog. He'll keep the nightmares at bay.”

Aneta took the token with reverence, her eyes wide. "Thank you!"

Tereza huffed, wiping her hands on her apron. "As if she needs more reasons to be scared."

Sámiel's grin widened. "Fear is a gift, dear sister. It reminds us we're alive. Relish it, while you can.”

The door creaked open again, admitting Marek, his younger brother. Sweat slicked his brow, evidence of a long day's labor setting up tents and repairing rigging.

“I saw you walking in,” Marek said, not unkindly. "Vas family’s in a tizzy. Roza and Esper took off."

Sámiel's interest piqued. The Vas sisters were... intriguing. "Ran away, did they?”

Marek nodded. "Few nights ago. No word since. Their folks are tight-lipped, but you can see the worry."

"And the others?”

"Some say good riddance. Less competition. Others are concerned. We look after our own, mostly."

Sámiel licked his top lip with a swipe of a pierced tongue, a habit when he was deep in thought, and clicked the barbell against his teeth. The Carnival was a web of alliances and rivalries, a delicate balance of camaraderie and competition. The disappearance of the Vas sisters tipped that balance.

"Perhaps I'll take a stroll,” he mused aloud. "See what the night has to offer.”

Josef's gaze sharpened. "Don't go stirring the pot, boy."

Sámiel met his father's eyes, a devilish glint in his own. "Who, me? I dream of nothing less.”

Evening was when the carnival truly came alive, but from the sequestered caravans its revels were muffled and distant. Lalitha rarely performed for it now; it was home in name and blood, but little of her spirit remained. Since the Anchor her life had become a thing completely out of phase with her family and roots. Here, she was a pariah cast out by Renáta Vas’s ill fortune, severed not only from Dominik, but from any kind of future. Tradition was too important to cast aside, after all. But neither did she find any true place of her own in the city they had settled in. Just today she’d been moved forcibly on from busking on Old Arbat, too Roma for polite society – because she refused to buy a licence for a bit of ground, like such a thing could truly be owned.

Outcast from two worlds, and still she couldn't leave this one.

“Stop thinking about it, Litha.”

Ceija glanced up from the buzzing needle. They sat on the Vero steps, her cousin bowed over her arm as she added to the disparate story of tiny tattoos growing there.

But it was hard not to dwell. Roza and Esper’s grand exit had been abuzz amongst the tents the last few days. The carnival did not cater for privacy, and the most prevalent rumour suggested Renáta had finally caught them naked together. Plenty of people had heard the yelling at least, and the girls were definitely gone. Hardly surprising, given how close they’d always been. The crueler parts of Litha were immensely glad for the Vas’s public shame – that Renáta lost a true daughter, when she could not accept a Vero one once. The softer parts were simply glad to see them free. Who needed that kind of judgement.

“Has he said anything?” She knew she shouldn’t ask, but he and Ceija were friends – still, despite everything. She’d caught glimpse of Dominik a few times since, but what was she supposed to say? Congratulations to your sister who had the balls to do what you didn’t? She couldn’t stem the bitterness, but nor could she ignore the yearning. He would have confided in her once.

Sámiel wandered.

Not with purpose, nor with haste, but like smoke curling from a dying ember drawn by the night’s quiet breath.

The Carnival was half-asleep and shivering beneath its winter coat. Might as well have been muttering to itself. Ropes creaked on weather-beaten tents. Painted signs cracked with frost. The midway lights buzzed and flickered like fireflies caught in jars too small for flight. The scent of scorched sugar and burnt oil hung on the air, undercut by the tang of melting snow and the smell of rust.

Somewhere a violin screeched in minor thirds, drunk on its own sorrow.

Sámiel moved unseen, though not unacknowledged. A few carnies gave him nods, wary or amused. He was not strange here, merely known. Like a cracked mirror hung in a hallway: no one questioned why it stayed, only what it might reflect. The fracture of reality.

He paused near a heater bolted down beside a popcorn stand, its heat straining but alive, the flames inside dancing like spirits behind bars.

“Cold night for ghosts,” he murmured.

From his coat he withdrew a thin joint wrapped in waxed brown paper. He cupped his hands, shielding the lighter’s tiny flame from the jealous wind, and lit up. The first inhale filled his lungs with the slow, creeping warmth that no fire could mimic. The second wrapped his mind in gauze, softening edges, quieting the world.

Beyond the bleachers, across the half-frozen mud, sat the Voz family trailers. Their windows glowed with false cheer, too bright, too brittle. Sámiel watched them from the dark like a fox regarding a henhouse. Not hungry, but curious.

Roza and Esper had vanished. He chuckled to himself.

Why?

He turned the thought over, rubbed it between mental fingers like a coin worn smooth. They had always flirted with the idea of escape, like most did. But few did it. Fewer still made it out alive. The Carnival had gravity. It pulled you in, made you part of its myth. The only way to leave clean was to vanish entirely. No footprints, no echo. Of course, there was always death.

He pulled deeper on the joint. Smoke spiraled from his lips, lazy and listless.

No. He wouldn’t leave. Not really.

He never stayed anywhere long, but never really left either. He was driftwood, carried by black tides, bumping up against piers and strangers' shoes but never moored. It was like the flicker of memory stirring faint and untethered. The idea of a home. Not a place, not even a face. Just the warmth of purpose. The shape of belonging without the name.

A memory of a memory. And probably not even real.

He exhaled sharply through his nose. The Brotherhood came to mind. The tricks. The blood-slick performances. The ritual laughs and ritual absurdities. It had amused him then, the pageantry of it all. But the thrill was gone now. It felt... irrelevant.

Maybe everything did.

A dog barked in the distance sharp and sudden. Sámiel’s eyes flicked toward the sound. Just a mutt chasing shadows. He rolled the joint between his fingers and let the silence settle again. Behind him, laughter erupted from the firepit near the Ferris wheel. Red-faced men and women roasted sausages. 

He stayed in the shadows. Alone felt better. Smoke on a winter night, he thought, that’s all I am.

The last of the joint crackled to ash between his fingers.

He looked up at the sky. No stars. Just a low gray ceiling, like the heavens had hung a shroud over the world and decided not to look down tonight.

Fine by him.

She could feel Ceija’s pity in the brief glance of her eyes, and then her cousin bowed her head a little deeper and renewed her attention on the art until there was only the buzzing of the needle between them. Litha didn’t know if that silence meant a no or a yes, but she did know it meant Ceija would not share either way. They were united by blood and Dominik was just her friend, which seemed unfair, but truthfully Lalitha wasn’t that interested in the answer. She’d just wanted the excuse to talk about him for a bit.

After the work was done and Ceija packing away her tools, Litha stood and stretched out her limbs on the wagon’s steps. Darkness pooled and the bite of cold was hard and unforgiving. The carnival’s lights were like dying embers. Winter was not a great time for them. Any other year they would have packed up for warmer climes long ago, but things had changed after the Sickness began picking off the young people. Why they didn’t move again now Lalitha didn’t know. Something Renáta foretold, most likely. The thought made her inwardly roll her eyes.

Ceija declined the invitation to find out what the night offered. Litha could hardly blame her, it was cold and grey out, but the idea of curling up to sleep in the tiny room she shared with the twins felt like a waiting tomb. She had always been a night owl. If the carnival was too quiet perhaps she’d wander beyond the boundaries to explore the city, though the burn of this afternoon’s rejection still tasted a little sour. Foremost she searched for something to warm herself.

The alcohol always unlocked something inside her, the key to some mystical kingdom which seemed duller without it. The power had the same otherworldly essence but never the same promises of freedom. Her desire to escape the carnival warred endlessly with the comforts of home, a future denied but still not fully relinquished. She was still waiting for Dominik to change his mind, uncertain she’d ever actually accept being second choice even if he did. Perhaps she only loved a memory and not a man now, but no one else compared either. Maybe she’d wait forever.

She’d been about to join one of the fires when she stumbled on Sámi in the shadows. The scent of weed clung like a halo around him, and his gaze was dark as the moonless night. Lalitha didn’t have to wonder what he’d been looking at; she spent enough time of her own glancing out mournfully at the Vas wagons to know exactly where they lay across the blanket of darkness. She’d never presumed he was actually close with either Roza or Esper, but then Sámiel was a walking mystery and rife with contradictions. Litha suspected he preferred it that way. Maybe he was just wondering how they’d managed to cut the cord. Privately she thought they had not. Even her own mother disappeared once, but the carnival drumbeat still drew her back even years later.

Her eyes were already luminous from the bottle wrapped in her hand, though she was more merry than drunk. She read well enough that he would prefer to be alone, but she didn’t care. If he bit she would only bite back. The alcohol swished as she tipped the bottle in offering, a little on the ground like a sublimation, and then held out for him to take. She was grinning, and it was quite clear she wasn’t sober, but that was entirely normal for her, especially at this hour. Her other hand grabbed at one of his to pull him forward. Not into the fire and merrymaking behind, just out into the tableau of darkness he had chosen for himself. There was always a chorus in her head and she moved to that private beat, uncaring that he couldn’t hear the music.