The Midnight Carnival

Praise for

‘a spookily bewitching story’
The Irish Times
‘the teen dialogue is sharp and realistic, an excellent read’
Irish Examiner

Praise for

‘the multi-layered plot bounds along breathlessly, with crisp schoolgirl dialogue… the eccentric new characters make for an Irish Hogwarts’
Irish Examiner

‘a very exciting read that offers young readers something to think about as well as something to make them jump’
Books for Keeps

Praise for

‘chockfull of dilemmas and dramas that any young reader from Detroit to Delhi can enjoy reading … a touch of Hogwarts – but with half a dozen girls in the foreground … in short; quirky, spooky fun with friendship as its key’
www.serendipityreviews.co.uk

‘once again, McGann has created a satisfying, entertaining page turner … How good it is too to see an all-girl gang wielding the wands and taking centre stage?’
Books for Keeps

Acknowledgements

Thanks, as always, to my wonderful editor, Marian Broderick. To my gorgeous friend, Rachel Mungra, for far too many favours. To Emma Byrne for her brilliant designing. And finally, thanks to Helen Carr and everyone at O’Brien Press.

Prologue

The sun beat down mercilessly, parching soil that had already turned to dust. Strong winds swept dirt across the valley, billowing terrible sandy clouds, revealing nothing underneath but more cracked, useless earth. A caravan of trucks and trailers surrounded a red-and-white striped tent and, nearby, roustabouts assembled a ferris wheel, hauling it upright with pulleys and ropes. There were lightbulbs at every join of the wheel’s flaking frame, in the shape of a giant star, but no-one lit them in the daylight. A man rested against a 1928 Chevrolet, a pickup truck with oversized mud-flaps either side of its narrow bonnet. He wore a red-tailed coat, high-waisted trousers and black knee boots. There was a permanent crease across his forehead where a top hat usually sat, and his cheeks were ruddy and red. He twisted one end of his thin, waxed moustache and watched intently as a woman stepped inside a trailer with dirty net curtains at the window.

‘Earn those pennies, Grigori,’ he growled, though no-one was close enough to hear. ‘She may be the only customer we get in this good-for-nothin’ town.’

Inside the trailer, an elderly man sat at a fold-out table. He wore a crimson housecoat, his grey hair smoothed against his neck. He smiled at the woman sitting opposite, revealing a single gold tooth. She stared into the whiteness of his eyes – no pupils, no irises.

‘You are blind, old man.’

‘I am Grigori,’ he replied, ‘and I have only sight that matters. Many peoples claim gift, but I have gift.’

‘A true seer,’ she said, pleased.

The man took a large deck of cards from the pocket of his housecoat and placed them in front of her. She looked with distaste at the dust blowing in from outside, and piling on the floor beneath the filthy curtains.

‘Shuffle, and I will tell you past, tell you future,’ he said.

‘It is the future I seek, Grigori.’

She shuffled the tarot deck, caressing the cards with her long fingers, then handed them back. Splitting the deck in three, the man turned over the top card of each pile, one by one. Staring straight ahead, his fingertips lightly danced over the cards.

‘Great power, I see. Like can of petrol that will explode. So much power inside one person.’

The woman’s dark eyes lifted in a satisfied smile.

‘Go on.’

‘I see great effort, much work. Holding flame to petrol,
waiting for great boom.’

The woman nodded.

‘And then?’

The fingertips danced again.

‘And then… nothing. No explosion, no boom. Petrol leaks from can that is old, turning to rust.’ His voice was sympathetic.

‘There is no greatness for you.’

The dark eyes narrowed.

‘Look again,’ she said. ‘Check your filthy cards again.’

‘I see only potential,’ the man stroked the tarot cards gently, ‘and failure.’

Her mouth, sticky with ruby-red lipstick, quivered and grimaced.

‘Do not play with me, old man. I have done things you could not dream of. I will do more…’

‘These things you will do, power you have. But in the end… it come to nothing.’

Her breath rasped quick and shuddering. She snatched him by the wrists and he cried out under her grip.

‘Curse you and your kin!’ she hissed.

A sandstorm erupted in the tiny confines of the trailer, and the woman’s grip tightened on the old man’s wrists. A realisation came through the screeching darkness, like a shark through dirty water, and a name escaped his lips.

‘
Murdrina
!’

When he awoke the woman was gone. On the fold-out
table sat a wooden box, curling petals carved into the lid. He clutched a silk scarf to his mouth, coughing up the remains of the sandstorm. Feeling the box on the table, his wriggling fingers tipped the lid open and grasped what was inside; a straw doll, crudely made with thin wires pinching the neck, waist, ankles and wrists. He snatched his hand back as if it had bitten him.

Grigori’s woeful howls echoed through every soul in the valley, but the damage had already been done.