By six o'clock, someone had already told Oswin to watch where he was going.
The evening was turning out splendidly.
He moved his foot off the witch's trailing skirt. She gathered the black satin around her ankles and continued down the street, still talking to the person beside her. Neither of them looked back. Oswin stood for a moment with his foot raised, then set it carefully between two paving stones.
There were people in front of him, people behind him, people close enough to brush his fur. A small knight struck his leg with a wooden sword and was told to leave the gentleman alone. Somewhere a bell rang inside a pumpkin. The wind carried frying dough, candle smoke, and the rubbery smell of new masks.
Oswin walked in the middle of the pavement.
In daylight he had to go along the edge of the wood, with his shoulders hunched and his head down. It did not help much. That spring, a man gathering fallen branches had seen him through the trees and run away screaming, leaving a very good hat behind. Oswin had put it on a stump where it would be easy to find. The man had not returned.
Tonight a woman passed with an axe apparently lodged in her head.
“Lovely work,” she said.
“Thank you,” said Oswin.
He had combed himself.
It had taken most of the afternoon. His fur grew thick and brindled over his shoulders, and there was an awkward place between his backward-curving horns that he could reach only by wedging the comb in a tree and rubbing against it. He had shaken out the leaves afterward. Most of them.
At the entrance to the fairground, a man in an apron lifted rings of dough from a pan. They rose glossy and pale, then darkened at the edges. Oswin stopped so abruptly that somebody bumped his back.
“Sorry,” said the somebody.
“Quite all right.”
He lingered over saying it. He had never before had occasion to say it to the back of a nun with a painted skull for a face.
“One?” the doughnut seller asked him.
“One first.”
The man rolled a ring in cinnamon sugar, slid it into a paper bag, and held it out. Oswin offered a coin. His claw went through the bag.
“Ah,” said the man. “Wait.”
He fetched a little wooden plate.
Oswin ate the doughnut in three bites, because that was the most bites he could manage and he wanted several. The outside crackled. The middle was soft and so hot that he breathed through his open mouth, which reached almost to his ears. A passing vampire gave him an approving nod.
Sugar settled into the fur under his chin. He brushed it with one hand and caught it in the other. Then he licked his palm.
He had eight coins left.
Four were for the House of Horrors. Four were for whatever he wanted afterward. He had worked this out many times, usually while hungry, and the afterward had acquired considerable detail.
But first there was the house.
It stood on the fairground beyond the last shops, taller at the front than it was anywhere else. A painted tower leaned over the entrance. A painted moon showed behind it, and somebody had painted a bat across the moon, then another bat where the first had dripped. A real lamp glowed behind the painted windows.
Across the top, in red letters, was an invitation.
HEAR YOURSELF SCREAM.
Oswin had heard plenty of other people do it.
On October evenings he sometimes sat among the trees beyond the fairground. From there he could hear the rattling rides, the calls of the stallholders, and the screams coming out of this house. He had learned to distinguish the ones that ended in laughter. Occasionally someone would laugh so hard that they screamed again. Those were his favourites.
He wanted to make that noise.
The queue wound between ropes. Oswin joined it behind a pirate in a long red coat and an enormous hat. Her grey braid came out over the collar. Beside her stood a scarecrow wearing gold spectacles, with loose straw sticking out of his cuffs.
“They always have something behind the door,” the pirate said.
“Then you'll be ready.”
“I am ready. I enjoy it.”
“You enjoyed pulling my sleeve nearly off last year.”
“You were walking too slowly.”
She turned to see how far the queue had grown, and looked up at Oswin.
“Oh, that's good. Can you see out?”
“Yes.”
“Both eyes?”
“Both eyes.”
“That's where he went wrong,” she said, indicating the scarecrow. “He was a turnip once. Couldn't see a thing. Fell over the dog.”
The scarecrow looked at Oswin. “It was a very low dog.”
Oswin nodded. There were circumstances in which a low dog could be difficult.
The queue moved. He moved with it. Then it stopped, and he stopped too. The pirate argued that the dog had been of an entirely usual height. The scarecrow found a strand of straw inside his spectacles. Oswin stood close enough to hear every word.
A young man with a pale face and a dark ring around each eye came down the line, counting heads.
“You're late,” he told Oswin. “Round the back. Ask for Len.”
“I'm in the queue.”
“Yes, but if you're working—”
“I want to go in.”
The young man glanced from his horns to his claws, then back to his face.
“Right. Sorry. Four at a time.”
He continued counting. Oswin stayed where he was. A faint, delicious shriek came through the wall of the house, followed by a thump and a woman's uncontrollable laugh.
At the booth Oswin laid out four coins. The woman behind the little window gave him a yellow ticket. He took it between the sides of two claws, very gently.
The pirate peered at it.
“You've got a skull. Mine's only a number.”
Oswin examined his ticket. It did have a skull. He liked his ticket even more.
At the entrance, the young man counted the pirate, the scarecrow, a woman in a moth mask, and Oswin into a group. He told them to keep moving, keep their hands to themselves, and follow the white arrows.
“Are you going to scream?” the pirate asked Oswin.
“I hope so.”
She laughed. “That's the spirit.”
The young man tore Oswin's ticket in half before he could think to ask for it back.
Inside, the air smelled of old cloth and warm lamp oil. Oswin lowered his head beneath the entrance beam. His horns passed under it with an inch to spare.
A pale hand shot through a hole in the wall.
The pirate jumped against the scarecrow. The scarecrow said, “Well, honestly,” in a high, surprised voice.
Oswin had seen the fingers waiting in the hole. Nevertheless, it was a very good hand. It had long grey nails and a ring with a red stone, and its owner shook it with admirable fury.
Oswin leaned down to inspect the ring.
“Keep moving,” said the hand.
“Sorry.”
The first room had no floor.
He could see the narrow path along the wall, and below it a black gulf full of dim, receding lights. His stomach gave a small, hopeful lift. Then the moth woman stepped onto the path and her foot appeared again deep below her. He saw what the mirrors were doing.
He went carefully along the boards, watching his enormous feet repeat themselves into the dark. At the far end he lifted one foot and waggled his claws. All the other feet waggled theirs.
“Come on,” the pirate called.
“Yes.”
He would have liked another minute with the floor.
The next passage was narrow and lined with portraits. One old gentleman moved his eyes after the moth woman passed. Oswin waited for them to move back. The eyes waited too.
He shifted to the left. They followed.
He shifted to the right.
“We haven't got all night,” the gentleman said.
Oswin hurried after his group, delighted. The moth woman had begun to laugh, a long, rumbling laugh that seemed unlikely to come out from behind such a delicate mask. He caught up with them as the scarecrow was putting his spectacles straight.
He wanted to see what came next so badly that he kept seeing it a moment too soon.
A long, low room brought his horns almost against the rafters. A coffin stood upright against the far wall, with red light glowing behind it. A white arrow pointed to a door on its right. To its left hung a heavy black curtain, trailing in folds on the floor beside the path.
Oswin bent forward to clear a beam. The others filed past him toward the coffin.
“Now,” the pirate said, softly but not very softly. “Watch this.”
She inched toward it. The scarecrow stayed close behind her, holding a pinch of her coat. The moth woman followed them.
Oswin followed too, keeping his head low. The curtain hung just to his left as he approached the coffin.
He could see the toe of a shoe below the coffin. Just a small dark toe. There was also a cord along the hinge, almost lost against the black paint.
He slowed. How did they open it? Did the person inside pull the cord, or did it work a catch? The lid was thick, with a fine crack down one side. He leaned a little nearer, happily waiting to find out.
The black folds beside his head moved.
A white face turned out of them, close to his cheek, and a wooden clacker cracked once beside it.
Oswin screamed.
It started somewhere under his ribs, rose through his chest, and came out so loudly that he felt it in his teeth. His hands flew up. His knees bent. For an instant he had no thoughts whatever.
The pirate screamed too.
The coffin lid burst open and something in a shroud sprang forward, but by then the pirate was screaming at Oswin, the scarecrow was shouting at the coffin, and the moth woman had doubled over, laughing into her hands.
Oswin found himself crouched with both claws pressed against his own cheeks.
The white face belonged to a narrow man whose long black cloak had pooled around his feet. He held two hinged pieces of wood in one hand. He looked at Oswin. Then his face, under its paint, broke into a grin.
“Oh,” he said. “That was a good one.”
Oswin tried to answer. Nothing came out but a breath.
He tried again and laughed.
The man laughed with him. The shrouded thing in the coffin said, “Move them on, Len,” and the pirate began to laugh too, still clutching the scarecrow's arm.
“I saw your shoe,” Oswin told the coffin.
“Keeps you looking this way.”
Len raised the clacker in a small salute.
Oswin began laughing again.
The pirate got hold of his elbow and tugged him toward the exit.
“Come on. They'll want the next lot.”
He followed her, still bent beneath the beams. As they passed through the last door, she looked behind her. So did he. There was only the door, but they went through it rather quickly.
Outside, the night air cooled the inside of Oswin's mouth. He could hear music from the roundabout and somebody calling the price of roasted nuts. His knees felt peculiar. He liked that very much.
“Well,” the pirate said. “Well.”
She took off her hat and fanned her face with it.
The scarecrow pulled his coat straight. There was straw on the pirate's sleeve.
“Delia,” he said, “you made a noise I've never heard before.”
“That was him.” She pointed at Oswin. “I was perfectly composed until he did that.”
“You were practically inside my waistcoat.”
“He was very loud.”
Oswin could feel a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth. He let it go as wide as it wanted.
The moth woman wiped her eyes beneath her mask. “I thought it was part of the show.”
“So did I,” said Delia. “I thought we'd brought an actor along.”
“No,” Oswin said. “That was me.”
His voice had gone a little rough. He swallowed, experimentally, and it was still rough. Even that was pleasing.
Delia settled her hat on her head. “I'm having something hot. My insides have moved.”
The scarecrow picked a piece of straw from her sleeve. “So have mine.”
They went off toward the stalls. Delia lifted her hat to Oswin as they passed, and he raised a hand in return. The moth woman was still laughing when she left them.
The next group burst out behind him, a young man in a paper crown hanging on to his friend. They saw each other's faces and began to laugh. Oswin laughed too. His knees had steadied, but he could remember exactly how they had felt.
He put a hand into his pouch. Four coins pressed against his palm.
Across the fairground, the doughnut seller tipped a fresh batch into the sugar. For a moment Oswin could almost feel the hot crust breaking between his teeth. Four coins would buy four more. He had meant to take the last one away with him, eating it very slowly along the edge of the wood.
A scream came through the wall.
It was followed at once by a second, much higher scream.
Oswin closed his hand around the coins.
At the booth, the woman slid him another ticket. This one had only a number. He took it just as carefully as the first.
The queue had shortened. A small group of ghosts stood near the front, arguing about whether they should all go in together. Oswin took his place behind them.
He knew about the shoe now. He knew about the curtain. He could hardly wait to see the floor again.
One of the ghosts turned around.
“Have you been through already?”
“Yes,” Oswin said.
“Is it good?”
Somewhere inside, Len's clacker cracked again.
“Oh, yes.”