Mary watches the carousel every year when the fair comes to town.

At a glance, she may be endearing. Mary is old like the dust in a history book. Sitting on her bench in her tattered white dress, she watches the children jostle each other for the best seats.

But Mary watches too long, too intently.

No one knows exactly how long she has watched, some are too young to remember, and those that are old enough have lost count of the years as the carousel spins them. Mary had been young once, beautiful too, but no one remembers, least of all her.

The fair only comes once a year, staying for four days in the fields of southern Nebraska before moving onward to another town. The fair has all the usual attractions, ferris-wheel, spinning rides, rigged games at which to waste your money winning cheap toys, overpriced food that you may lose after going on the drop tower ride.

And also, the merry-go-round.

Mary’s merry-go-round is old, older than even her. Fresh coats of paint have been applied over the decades, but they cannot hide history. All of the animals that children jostle to ride look shiny and new, save for the closed chariot. The thing’s paint is peeling, and the two headed horse that pulls it is deep black like quality fertilizer. Chains hold up a battered yellow “closed” sign like a prisoner, and Mary’s eyes track its contents.

If asked, the fair owner will tell you only that the chariot is closed for maintenance. Maybe it needs painted this year, or maybe it needs to be oiled. It never receives either though, and it is always closed because the owner remembers the thing that rides there.

Mary remembers too, and so she watches.

Her hair thins every year, her skin stretching over her face like dried leather. The sheriff brings her food, funnel cakes and hot dogs accompanied by lemonade that is more sugar than it is juice. He knows that she won’t eat, his uniform is worn and old and he has danced this tune for a few decades, but he supplies her food out of a kindness founded in the fear of something he doesn’t understand.

Sheriff Jacob Duran is one of the only men in town who knows anything about Mary. He didn’t know where she went when the fair wasn’t in town, nor did he have any idea how she managed to arrive and leave from the fair each day, but he still knew more than most. He knew she’d had a son.

He also knew that the boy died on that merry-go-round.

The Sheriff didn’t know about the thing, the thing Mary sat on the bench every day for. The thing that sat on the creaky chariot unseen behind its closed sign. The thing Mary saw holding her boy in its arms as the kids around him laughed and cheered.

One year, Mary was gone. The Sheriff sent a search party into the woods when she didn’t show up to the fair, but there was no sign of her. They searched for months, but never found any clues as to where she had gone off to. Many locals made discrete sighs of relief as their children frolicked around the grounds, out from under the crone’s disquieting gaze.

The following year the chariot received a fresh coat of paint and was reopened.

Jessica Stevens watched her son Billy climb the merry-go-round, making a show of picking and choosing his seat before beaming back at her and adventuring into the chariot of the two headed horse. The first time around, Billy smiled and laughed with joy. The second time, he was crying. On the third, his mother caught a glimpse of something in the seat beside him.

By the fourth revolution, Billy Stevens was dead, eyes rimmed in blood staring at his mother in the crowd.

On the fifth, the chariot was empty.

Save for the thing, which stared back at her.

Jessica watches the merry-go-round every year when the fair comes to town.

A.M. Gray

A.M. Gray is a writer, editor, and musician. He enjoys making art in odd places—finding joy in creating new things for the world to see. His work can be read in Every Day Fiction, Rock Paper Scissor, The Lindenwood Review, and Hollow Oak Press.