Haunted Carnival Prompted Contest
Prompt: “‘Try your luck!’ With a toothless grin, the old woman offered a putrid green potion.” Created by Lydia Jane.
“Try your luck!” With a toothless grin, the old woman offered a putrid green potion. Crooking her finger, she beckoned twenty-two-year old Bess and her friend Lila toward the carnival stall labeled, “The Wish Witch.”
Bess eyed the steaming iron cauldron. It was silly to trust in luck or wishes, but the fall carnival seemed truly magical with its twinkling lights, carousel music, and scents of spiced cider and funnel cakes.
What would it hurt to try? To wish?
“Go on,” Lila said, nudging Bess forward. “Melanie drank it last year. The next day she got accepted to Yale.”
“Okay.” Before she lost her nerve, Bess paid for a cup of olive-colored slime. She closed her eyes, wished, and gulped it down.
***
The enormity of Wal-Mart’s Valentine display was making Bess queasy.
“Remember me, dear?” said a creaky voice beside her. “Guess you might not recognize me with my teeth in and regular clothes on.”
Bess smiled and showed off her shiny wedding ring. “I do remember. The carnival. Your luck potion worked.”
The old woman patted Bess’s arm. “Hate to burst your bubble, but it was just pea soup. Anyway, good luck with the triplets.”
Bess fainted.
Prompt 2
Prompt: “Year after year, I come back to these old fairgrounds, just hoping to find you once more.” Created by Lydia Jane.
Year after year, I come to these old fairgrounds just hoping to find you once more. I am almost ten. Mama says I'm almost a "young woman." Mama also says I shouldn't be so attached to a doll I lost years ago. But, you're not just a doll. You speak to me in hushed whispers. You knew my name the day I stole you from "Norman's Bizarre Antiques."
You said we could make all the people who had done me wrong suffer. That list is now longer than Mama's grocery list before Thanksgiving. Lots of people have wronged me: Mama, Papa, Papa's new, "skinny-as-a-toothpick" girlfriend, the baby. There's lots more.
I just hope I can find you again. Maybe then Mama will be slapped instead of me. Maybe then Papa and his new girlfriend will be poofed to the moon. That way I won't have to vist them again. I'd also like it if you could make the baby go back into Mama's tummy. He cries too much.
It is almost sunset now. I need to go home. Mama will get mad if I'm not home soon. I'll look around these abandoned fairgrounds next weekend. Maybe then I'll find you.
Prompt 3
Prompt: “Never make a bet with a carny.” Created by Lydia Jane.
Never make a bet with a carny.
The uncanny smile and years of mischief behind her gaze should have told me as much. But something drew me to the clack of dice cupped between her palms.
They were made of bone, she told me, dropping six into my hands one by one. I didn’t believe her.
I enjoyed risk. But no odds lay in my favor. Not with Valeria involved.
Valeria was beautiful and she knew it. She wore her carny uniform of red and gold with a foxy flair that few others possessed.
I don’t know if those dice were weighted. If she could’ve changed how those dice fell with her thoughts alone, I would have believed it. The sound of her voice could have changed a coin from heads to tails.
I was a fool to have played her game.
The stakes were higher than I knew. I’d bet more than I had against this fated dealer.
Now Valeria is gone. I am the one in the carny uniform, to pay off her debt, waiting for some gullible person to wager too much and take my place in this sick, eternal carnival.
She said it took her years.
