caught in her throat, a lump she couldn’t breathe through, yet couldn’t swallow.
One more step, and she could see the whole crib and the baby lying in it, eyes peacefully closed.
Charity sobbed and sagged against the crib rail, one hand on her daughter’s round little stomach.
The child’s eyes fluttered open, and Charity’s shocked gasp was like a crack of thunder in the silent house. Her eyes filled with tears of joy and relief and she reached to pick up the child, already scolding herself for being such a superstitious fool.
Then the child smiled at her and Charity froze, her fingers inches from her daughter’s pale pink jumper. Chills raced up her spine and goose bumps erupted all over her body.
The child laughed—surely no purer sound of joy was ever heard—and she stepped back from the crib, fear crawling beneath her skin.
The baby laughed again, and she took another step back, then another, and another, until her back hit the pale yellow wall. In that moment, as confusion, guilt and fear met within her, calling into question everything she’d thought she understood about the world and her place in it, Charity Marlow knew only one thing for sure.
That was not her baby.
Fourteen years ago...
The whistling tones of a calliope organ rang out from a speaker mounted over the carnival gate, the playful notes tripping up and down the musical register with a spirited energy. The kids from Franklin Elementary buzzed with anticipation, whispering excitedly to one another as they fidgeted in two semistraight lines. The music seemed to feed their enthusiasm and fray their patience.
As she approached the gate, ten-year-old Delilah Marlow clutched her brown-bag lunch and stared at the graceful form in front of her. The woman handing out tickets wore a red sequined leotard with a black feathered hat, black stockings, and shiny black slippers. Her lips were painted bright red. Her blue eyes practically glowed beneath dramatic sparkly lashes and thin dark eyebrows that ended in a jewel-studded curlicue at each of her temples.
She was the most glamorous thing Delilah had ever seen.
“Here you go, sweetheart.” The costumed woman handed her a shiny slip of red paper. Delilah’s gaze lingered on the sequins and feathers as the woman handed tickets to each of the other five fifth graders in the group, and to Mrs. Essig, their young homeroom teacher. “You all enjoy your visit, and remember to look but not touch. Especially you!” She patted the brown spikes sticking up all over Matt Fuqua’s head. “With that hair, you might just be mistaken for a werewolf pup!”
The other three boys laughed and elbowed Matt, but fell into a sudden awed silence as another woman in red sequins passed by—walking on her black-gloved hands. Her tiny waist was bent backward at a severe angle, so that both of her bare feet dangled over her head, her toes nearly touching the top of her skull.
Delilah couldn’t stop staring.
Shelley Wells linked her arm with Delilah’s as they stepped through the gate and into the carnival. “How does she do that?”
“She’s a circus freak.” Matt marched past the girls as if he owned the whole midway. “My dad says some of them are just as weird as the monsters they got in cages.”
Mrs. Essig hurried to catch up with him, shooting an apologetic glance at the red-sequined woman. “They’re human,” she whispered fiercely as she grabbed the back of Matt’s shirt to keep him from wandering down an offshoot of the main path on his own. “That’s all that matters.”
Matt pulled free of his teacher’s grip. “Are we sure they’re human? My dad says sometimes you can’t tell just from lookin’. Remember the reaping?”
Mrs. Essig nodded stiffly, but Delilah knew their teacher didn’t actually remember the reaping, and neither did Matt Fuqua. Only old people actually remembered the reaping, and most of them didn’t like to talk about it, because they’d all known someone who’d died. Or killed. Or been taken.
Remember the reaping? wasn’t just a question. It was something parents said in hushed voices. Something priests advised while they made the sign of the cross. Something politicians shouted from behind podiums. Remember the reaping was a warning not to let history repeat itself. A reminder for humanity not to let its guard down.
Remember the reaping was an American way of life.
The teacher rubbed her forehead and pinched the bridge of her nose. Delilah recognized both gestures. Mrs. Essig was getting another headache.
Matt shrugged, oblivious to his teacher’s discomfort. “My dad says you have to be careful who you trust, because the reaping could happen again.”
According to Delilah’s father, Matt Fuqua was just smart enough to be dangerous. Others who’d warranted the same description included congressmen from the wrong side of the aisle and that eight-year-old from Memphis who’d figured out how to put his mother’s car into Neutral before he realized he couldn’t reach the brake.
Just smart enough to be dangerous, it turned out, wasn’t really very smart at all.
For the next hour, Delilah and her classmates wandered along the crowded sawdust-strewn midway, clutching their lunches and staring in awe at every vibrant spectacle they passed. They didn’t have access to the entire menagerie. The owner had generously offered a complimentary midway “preview” for all of the local schools, with the hope that curious parents would later attend the whole carnival at full price. But what they did see was enough to impress even the most jaded fifth grader.
Along with the tantalizing scent of the food carts and the game booths boasting all the bells and whistles, costumed circus performers gave abbreviated demonstrations to cheering children and stunned teachers. A man in a red velvet jacket and dramatic black eyeliner swallowed a series of swords on a small dais, while Delilah rubbed her throat in empathy. Five acrobats in red-and-black sequined leotards formed an inverted pyramid, their bodies bent and twisted into complicated shapes. And set back from the midway, behind velvet ropes to hold the audience at a distance, a man and woman in matching top hats and shiny red-and-black costumes juggled lit torches and breathed fire into the air.
Everywhere the children turned, a new spectacle awaited, each more extravagant than the last. But the real draw was a series of stunning hand-carved and brightly painted circus wagons that had been hauled out to line the midway. Each wheeled cage displayed a different cryptid the children had only ever seen on television, the internet, or in books. Handlers in black slacks and bright red shirts stood by, ready to answer questions or prod creatures into displaying their bizarre and sometimes unsettling features.
The first wheeled cage held a brownie, a small gnomelike creature with a long nose and pointed ears, which Matt labeled “boring” and Shelley pronounced “cute.” Another held a cockatrice—a miniature dragon with dark, unsettling eyes that stared up at them from its rooster-like head. The creature had scales that glittered with each elegant movement of its long whip of a tail. Its sharp talons clicked against the metal floor of the cage, and Delilah stumbled backward when it opened its curved beak and let out a terrible crow.
The exhibit most popular with the boys, other than the woman who could twist her body until she was standing on her own skull, was a dog with three heads, each growling and snapping at the other two. As they watched, a woman in a sparkly red bustier and black skirt tossed a bloody hunk of meat into the cage with an artistic flourish. The boys in the audience cheered as each third of the dog fought viciously over the single dinner all three mouths had to share.
All Delilah could think was that the dog must have been awfully hungry to keep stealing food from itself.
While the rest of the group remained spellbound by the savage snapping dog, Delilah wandered toward the next wagon, where a cluster of kids from another school had gathered. She had to push her way to the front of the whispering, pointing crowd, and her first glimpse of the creature in the cage stole her breath. It was like nothing she had ever seen. Or rather, it was like