September 22, 2010
Carnival Dream.
From where she sat on the ridge, she could see the ghosts.
She doubted very much that the people down in the carnival proper could tell there were ghosts there. Idly, she wondered if the living visitors just couldn’t see them, or if the magics of the carnival made the dead indistinguishable from the living.
It didn’t really matter, she decided. Besides, she was here to watch the lights, not the ghosts.
Werelights, witchlights, ghostlights, firebugs, even more mundane things like good old fashioned fireworks. And someone down there was doing something really weird with a string of tree lights, and she was pretty sure there were some lights floating about that she’d never heard of before.
She wanted to be down there so bad. It was just her luck that she’d gotten grounded for the whole week the carnival would be in town. Dammit. If she’d known they’d be here, she’d've held off on pranking the staff room.
But that was the carnival for you. They never advertised their presence in advance; they barely advertised when they were actually present. You found them by being drawn there, or being pixyled in, or by keeping a weather eye open. Or by being sucked in by default, when they set up around you, or by word of mouth.
Weird way to advertise, but it worked.
Well, more or less. It was grossly inefficient, though, and they probably ended up putting far more energy into their spellwork than they’d have to, if they were more there.
And they needed a better drummer. Whoever was down there now was passable, but she could do rhythms like that in her sleep.
Too bad they didn’t take people under sixteen. Ah, well; it was only a four-year wait. She wondered how she’d find them again, when she was old enough to join.
Come to think of it, they probably had a magic for that, too. They had to recruit people somehow.
And when they did, she’d be waiting, and one day she’d be the master of the lights.
Lia could hardly wait.
