Priority number one: get away from the haunted hotel room. We knew that technically our odds of something bad happening were low, but this was the place where Cassie’s body had laid cold for over an hour. This was not a place we could sleep comfortably if we could avoid it. There were broken windows and some shredded wallpaper.

“You can come to my place,” Sidney offered. “My Dad will make you some scrambled eggs.”

“Your dad?” I asked. “You don’t mean…?”

She understood what I was asking. “No,” she said. “God no. The Stranger isn’t my real dad. That was just for the story.”

She and Constance shared a giggle.

“Your real dad is here?” Kimberly asked.

Sidney nodded. “Dad, stepmother, and her son. The whole family. That was part of the deal.”

I figured that Constance would invite us to her house because that was so close, but it turned out that place belonged to some random NPC from a story about mind-controlling leeches. She just took it over for our storyline.

As we walked through the night, Cassie and Isaac walked solemnly. Antoine had Kimberly wrapped in his arms. Dina trailed behind.

Bobby wanted to talk.

“You notice how the Now Playing board calls that story a reboot of Reply the Departed. Indeed it had.

The Throughline

The Centennial Celebration:

Reply the Departed: Reboot

I also noticed that the section on that board for Bonus Material had gained another ‘???’.

Bonus

???

Secrets of Carousel #6: The Dark Water

???

???

That told me that Reply the Departed had Secret Lore or something similar. If I were to guess, it had something to do with the blue lantern ghost. Even as we walked through the darkness, I still wanted to go find that lantern. Magic was strange.

“I can’t wait to listen to that tape,” Bobby continued. “It might give us a jumpstart on solving the Throughline. One step closer to figuring this whole thing out.”

The tape detailing the history of Carousel that Dina had stolen from the carriage that brought us to town was still unplayed. We didn’t want to listen to it while still at the hotel.

Constance, who was not very far ahead of us, said, “You might take Carousel’s warning on that.”

“What warning?” Bobby asked.

“When Carousel makes a point to mention something like that, that’s a warning,” Sidney said.

Constance nodded her head. “Yes,” she said. “I would wait until you completed the Centennial storylines at least. Wouldn’t want to steal Carousel’s thunder or you might also get the lightning.”

Sidney and Constance laughed together as fast friends.

“Is everything on the tickets a threat?” Antoine asked.

“I’m sure not everything is a threat. You must consider the context,” Constance said.

Antoine and Kimberly looked at each other.

The walk was about twenty-five minutes until we got to a house in a nice neighborhood with big lots and multiple stories. They each had nice gardens and automatic sprinklers.

“There it is,” Sidney said, pointing to a house at the end of a cul-de-sac.

It was the type of house you might wish you had grown up in.

“This is actually the cul-de-sac I grew up in,” Sidney said. “They’ve got NPCs in them of course, but the houses were from my world.” She led us up the driveway to the front door.

She took out a key and started fitting it into the lock. Before she could, the door was opened and a man in a T-shirt and pajama pants opened the door. He was slightly balding. He looked like any random dad.

“Sidney! Do you have any idea what time it is?” he asked. “You had us worried sick.”

“I tried to call, but my phone wasn’t working,” Sidney said. “I was at the library helping Ms. Barlow with an exhibit for the Centennial tomorrow. I promise.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The red wallpaper called her dad “Ross Martin, Worried Father”. He was level three. Nothing out of the ordinary.

His eyes shot toward Constance. “Oh,” he said. “I wasn’t aware you needed her tonight, Constance.”

“She did try to call, Ross,” Constance said.

“Oh,” Ross said, “Still. I don’t like not knowing where you are. After what happened before, you know. We moved to Carousel so I didn’t have to worry about you, you know.”

Sidney hugged her father and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “That stuff is long behind us, Dad,” she said.

How old, exactly, was Sidney supposed to be? That was the question I was asking. Her age was so ambiguous. I thought she was our age, maybe older, but now I was wondering if she was a teenager.

“And these are?” he asked.

“My friends. They helped on the project.”

“Ah,” he said. Then he looked at us. “If you’re going to stay, just keep it quiet. You guys like scrambled eggs?”

“Sure do,” Bobby said.

Ross waved us in. The house was beautiful. The living room was filled with comfortable furniture. We all piled in and laid out, exhausted.

Sidney’s stepmother, Tawny, was in the living room and greeted us enthusiastically, “You’re Sidney’s friends? I’m so glad to meet you. She never lets us meet her friends. Let me get you some drinks.”

She was awfully chipper for five in the morning.

“You moved to Carousel so he didn’t have to worry about you?” Isaac asked. That was the first thing he had said in a while.

Sidney faked chuckled and said, “Yeah. I had some run-ins with evil. First when I was sixteen, then again every few years until I was in my mid-thirties and it was going to kill my daughter. I got a deal to save her. They made my life into six storylines. That’s almost a record here. Dad doesn’t get killed until the third one.”

“Does he know about all of this?” Dina asked.

Sidney shook her head.

“He is blissfully unaware. Thinks the first storyline happened before we moved here. Really it’s just on the other side of town. He’s happy most of the time.”

“What do you mean when you say you took a deal?” I asked. “Samantha said something similar.”

In fact, she had taken the deal to save her dad, as I understand it.

“Some mysterious man arrived and offered me a deal. Just that simple. He said he was fascinated by my story. Said he had a place for me where my daughter would be safe, where I’d get to see my father again. Mind you, the whole time, everything is moving in slow motion. My daughter was screaming. My house was burning. I had lost. I usually won in the end. He just needed me to say yes. That’s what I did. There’s more information somewhere in my script, but I can’t find it. They don’t like to be brought into the story like this.”

Sidney got a look of sadness on her face. I couldn’t help but notice that her daughter was nowhere to be seen.

Constance appeared to sense that Sidney was done talking too because she turned to us and said, “You chose me because you thought I might have some information for you. Indeed, I do. Ask it quickly. I have a schedule to keep.”

Antoine and I looked at each other. We hadn’t had time to come up with a list of questions.

“What are we supposed to be doing here? The Throughline is the main goal, right? We have to finish the Throughline to leave, right? How does Secret Lore play in?”

Constance thought for a moment.

“Carousel considers knowledge to be power. Knowing certain things is all it takes to move forward in the narrative, more or less, for better or for worse. I will give you some knowledge.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I could talk for hours about Carousel, but I would be talking in circles. It’s beginning, its purpose, all things you will learn in due time, I hope. When you do, I hope you will tell me about it. I regret that my role in this world is as a bit player. I regret that I cannot help you in any real way. I regret… translating that damn book."

She looked at me. "You may want to write this down."

I grabbed the Carousel Atlas from Antoine’s bag and a pen from Dina so I could write things down. Even then, there was a lot to write down. I turned to a blank page and started to write what Constance told us.

"It was lifetimes ago," she said, "I was sitting in my study deciphering that book I ought not have touched. My regret for my hubris in those days is immense."

"I remember everything that happened after that," she continued after a pause, "after I said those words. Thousands of people do not deserve to be imprisoned here in Carousel but I am not one of them. The destruction I brought upon my world is unforgivable and I accept this life as my punishment. My world descended into darkness and nothingness until one day I woke from it, and I was here."

"I remember everything about that day," Constance mused, "except for what it was we talked about. That part is kept from me, stricken from the script. It was Silas Dyrkon who brought me here, a strikingly handsome man with dark hair and dark eyes. He asked me something, and I can see his lips moving, and I can feel my lips moving in my memories, but the words aren't there. All gone."

"I wasn't able to give him the answers that he wanted," she admitted, "but he was soon able to find someone who could. And the answer they gave him was to build the Game at Carousel."

"You see, first there was nothing but darkness and mystery. Then there was a town called Carousel. Then there was a game. The purpose of all of it lies so far back in the past I cannot find it. I've spent my lifetimes looking for it, but not a scrap of paper or a whisper will reveal it. He put it just beyond my grasp. That is not my purpose."

"I think that is why he wants you here," Constance said to the listener, "he wants you to know what happened, to be a part of it, to live through it or die, and he is willing to do whatever it takes to get someone to witness his obsession. Carousel was born from obsession. Most evil things are. Whether you are obsessed over life or death, you still end up in a horror movie. Isn't that how the saying goes?"

"The Game at Carousel tells the story of what happened before," she continued, “But Carousel could not tell that story in a straightforward manner. No. It stitched together the pieces from worlds apart. It used the tools available."

"The game outlasted what came before, as far as I can tell," Constance said thoughtfully.

"Sydney was brought in at Carousel 1996. Tar was brought in at Carousel 1969. All of them, the Paragons, brought in at their own time and at the same time because the game at Carousel exists outside it all. I wonder if that was related to the question Silas asked me so many years ago, how to get outside of time. If so, he really did get his answer."

"Remember the darkness. Remember the founding. Remember the game," she urged.

"Finally, I want you to remember the moment that all that changed. At Carousel 1989, a simple story about a young woman and her father being held hostage by psychopaths was brought here. Not the best story, not special in any way. And yet when it was added to 1989, everything changed."

"Carousel became irrevocably intertwined with your world," Constance concluded.

"I don't know what he's planning. I hope that the Insider knows what they're doing, but I doubt they could possibly anticipate the sheer force of will that they're dealing with."

She thought for a moment.

"Learn everything you can during the Throughline. You must master it in order to understand what came before. Good luck."

Sidney’s stepmother came into the living room with some cups of ice and a pitcher of lemonade. “Drinks, anyone?”

“I’m afraid that I should be headed home,” Constance said. “I have lines today. Have to work the library’s booth. I have a meeting with the mayor tonight. Goodnight, everyone.”