During our final summer together, the endless summer, while our parents left on some spa retreat, I had spent a few weeks staying with Kiki, as I always did during the holidays. Charlie was away at some law seminar thing and the only adult supervision we had was from the very lax housekeeper who had worked for the Kingsleys for as long as we could remember.

We'd spent so many days swimming in the notoriously vicious Nile that we were both inadvertently yet seamlessly tanned a light nut brown, and we'd explored The Reeves National Park, as was our tradition, so many times that you couldn't walk one hundred metres without finding either a K or an E engraved into the thick boughs of a tree. For all of Kiki's cheerleader looks, that she often emphasised with glowing pink blush and fluttery eyelashes so as to look more innocent that she really was, she was seriously very in touch with nature and we often spent days traipsing through the forests that surrounded Reeves.

Kiki Kingsley, the girl who epitomised the traits of the monarch her name beheld, was, in actuality, a complete unutterable rebel who refused to confine to the constraints imposed upon her by the Kingsley surname. And so rather than accompany her brother to seminars or partake in some Goop-esque wellness retreat, she had stoutly deigned to spend her summer with me, and I loved her for it.

One night, in the darkest hours between sunset and sunrise, Kiki woke me up. She didn't turn any lamps on, and instead flickered on the torchlight from her phone. The whiteness of the pale light blanched her tan features but I wasn't scared. Just intrigued. Every moment spent with Kiki Kingsley was always rife with wonder and intrigue.

"Can you hear it?" She asked me, breathlessly. "The music. Do you hear it?" And I did. A dark haunting melody, arpeggiating up and down a harmonic minor scale. But, concentrating, I could hear more, different voices layered upon one another. A low mournful cry, like a dirge, really. I'd never actually heard a dirge before but that's exactly what it sounded like to me. And then the slow lilting tones of ... carnival music? "Come on!" Kiki cried, dragging me out of the soft goose down of the bed of one of the many spare bedrooms of her house.

After so many years of midnight getaways, we were both experts at climbing out of the windows of the uppermost floors of her home, shimmying down a pipe, finding perfect hand-sized notches engrained within the outside walls of the house. We were both equally adept at ensuring that we were virtually silent as we hustled down and out into the empty lamp-lit streets.

We'd stumbled, half blindly every time a shadow of clouds crossed the moon, following the melancholy tone of the music, until eventually we'd found ourselves within the forest. Every few seconds, we'd tumble into a small patch of moonlight, shining down from us from a slit in the dark canopy of leaves above us and I'd stare at the sky, trying to catch a glimpse of the moon. For a long while, I didn't see it. But then, when Kiki paused, catching her breath in a small clearing, I saw that celestial orb hanging in the sky. It was blood red, and perfectly round. I wanted to tell Kiki that it was some kind of bad omen. A foretoken of disaster or something, but she gripped my hand tightly and we ran farther into the dark, sticks and leaves crunching beneath our shoes. Letting the gnarled branches of the trees whip at our legs and our arms, slicing into our skin. The words I'd wanted to say, stolen from me by the wind.

I lost track of time, the only measure of it contained within Kiki's repeated breathless declarations of "we're nearly there!", "we're close now, so close!" None of us stopped to question the logic of the situation; why or how there could be music coming from within the depths of the forest. And how where we going to find our way back? We should have brought some string or something.

I began to feel like we were stuck in a Labyrinth. The Labyrinth that Daedalus constructed to hold the Minotaur. I'd never told Kiki this, but I actually half believed in the Ancient Greek myths, especially in the dead of night. This mysterious nighttime expedition only further enhanced my younger, more impressionable mind's imaginings. And I could just picture tree nymphs watching us mischievously, sending us on some wild hunt into the midst of the wild woods of Reeves to find a melody that wasn't really there.

I was wrong though. That haunting melody was not some false reverie; it was real. We came to an edge in the forest, a clearing where the trees ended. We clicked off our torches as soon as we caught a glimpse of the sight.

A midnight carnival.

Many years ago, Kiki and I had stumbled upon the fairground. It had been a crisp autumn night, a few days before Halloween and after yet another argument with her parents about her reluctance to take up the family business and study law at Stanford, she'd stormed off in a huff. She'd wanted to run away, scare her parents into realising what it'd be like to lose her, and she'd recruited me as her acquaintance. The thing is, Kiki was always obstinately stubborn. It was exceedingly difficult to talk her out of something once she had her mind set, and so although I knew that I would not be able to dissuade her from plans of running away, I could potentially convince her to enact such plans a lot closer to home, and so, instead of hitchhiking to Redfort as she had planned, we simple retreated to the Reeves forests. It was one of our first times really exploring the place, learning how best to carve our initials into the trees, collecting interesting leaves and flowers for her to sketch later. That night, we'd stumbled upon our first glimpse of the urban legend of the Reeves hauntings.

Of course, we'd heard the tales a million times before, regaled by a mischievous Charlie as he tried to terrify us as children, hearing snatches of hushed conversational gossip that ought not to you take place at any proper dinner party. Once, when we were mere middle schoolers, we had managed to convince the local librarian that we were working on a school project about the local folklore of Reeves and she had shown us ancient newspaper clippings using the microfiche. We had trawled through dozens of newspaper articles detailing the mysterious and chilling events that led to the abandonment of Reeves' annual Halloween carnival.

Over a hundred years ago, a carnival had come to Reeves. And with it, had come a ferris wheel, trailers, carousel, tents, booths, fortune telling boxes. A fairground daydream. The carnival was to remain in Reeves for a month, opening each and every night, and so, for the first week, the children of the townspeople bustled in aplenty. Of course, the tight-knit, conservative town of Reeves had objected to the frivolities of a night time carnival. They labelled it a distraction for the children, a place for delinquents to frequent and. Moreover, they objected to how astutely un-Reeves like it was. It was not part of annual traditions. It had simply appeared one day. It was wrong. It didn't belong, and the townspeople made that very clear to the carnival folk.

And yet, the carnival and its people flourished for a few days. But soon, after the parents of the community learnt about the children's reckless night time endeavours at the fairground, they stormed the carnival, rioted, trashed the place, and eventually, even the children stopped visiting. The lion tamer performed to an empty theatre and the puppet within the fortune telling booth regaled an audience that wasn't there. That would have been the end of the matter, but they say that the townspeople cursed the carnival. They cursed its name, disparaged the way it didn't belong in Reeves. And although there is nothing to suggest that witchcraft was involved, the townspeople purportedly cursed the carnival on the name of the Nile sea. The waters that had over the years lured many to its inky depths. To their deaths.

The night after the riots, after the cursing of the carnival, the fairground folk disappeared. They didn't pack up and leave. The tents remained, and so did the fortune telling boxes, the ferris wheel. It was simply as if the carnival members had upped and left. And hadn't come back. There was no inkling of where they disappeared to. How the animals and all the people could simply vanish in the dead of night, alerting nobody. All that was left was the soft balm of salt that remained on the surface of the tents, the wheel, the carousel. As if a particularly wild wave had thrashed over the cliff, thrown itself through the rest and washed away all the living from the fairground.

The curse of the Nile.

Of course, Kiki and I had never truly believed in the existence of the curse. It was illogical, nonsensical. Surely there was some kind of rational explanation for the disappearance of the people, other than the idea that the curse of the Nile had taken them away. Nevertheless, we were non-believers until that night last summer.

That night though, during our last summer together, we'd tumbled out of the Reeves forest into the clearing where the abandoned remnants of the fairground remained. But, instead of the usual sight of the rusting ferris wheel and the broken cogs of the carousel, we were greeted by something unbelievable, something impossible.

The ferris wheel, the long ago deserted metal cage, was no longer covered in the deep blooms of rust that had become its exterior for so many decades. Instead, its surface was silver, shining, like new. The broken bulbs that lined its body were no longer cracked, they were awash with fresh glass and luminescent lights that spilled out a neon cacophony of colours as it slowly turned in the night sky.

The carousel spun, round and round, that haunting melody that accompanied the lilting movements of the horses -seemingly freshly painted with glistening manes and brass buckles on their reins- etched within my subconscious forever, returning only during the darkest hours of night when sleep deserts me and even my nightmares don't come to kiss me.

The whole place lit up the dark in a blur of circuitous neon. Like some kind of blazing, lambent ghost. But I don't recall much more of it. The lights danced across my eyes, dazzling me, and the air felt thick, as if I were trapped within some foggy memory. Ironic really, as the whole experience had become exactly that. One of the few things that I remember so vividly, so lucidly from that night is the fear that swam over me. Kiki was Kiki, fearless and bold in the face of everything, even the impossible resurrection of the ghost of a centuries old carnival.

But I, I was scared. My heart echoed so loud, set against the relentless rhythm of the fairground music. I recall turning to my best friend trying to exact the sheer terror that washed over me. I shook her, hard. But she ignored me, staring up into the lights that reflected gold on her eyes, like sunbursts exploding. Kiki turned to me, facing away from the brightness of the sight, but still the gold in her eyes remained. As if she were possessed by a god, or some radiant prophecy.

She looked directly into my eyes, unseeing, and took my hand.

And we walked into resplendent kaleidoscope of colours.

Kiki in the light, and me slightly behind her, still in the shadows of the forest.

Looking back on it, I can't believe we did that. But that was our youth. Kiki would have some wild, insane idea, and I'd follow along, her reluctant shadow. The majority of this memory is hazy, as if it were all but a dream.

After a while, we found ourselves before a fortune teller's box. The wood was no longer chipped and rotten, but gleaming and polished. An engraved copper plate fixed to the wooden surface read: "Listen to the elusive, mysterious Madame Doom as she directs destiny." Magnolious curtains shrouded the dark of the wood, drawn apart to reveal the puppet of a glamorous woman whose painted eyes seemed to pierce my very soul.

Well, we assumed that she was a puppet. Her eyes seemed to reflect the world and her skin was alabaster smooth. Like porcelain. Her movements were stiff as if she were breaking out of stone and, after fixing her unblinking eyes upon us, she gazed, intently, into a violet crystal ball, clouded with half formed shapes and dancing figures.

I couldn't believe the thing actually had a crystal ball, one so life-like too. If I wasn't so terrified, I might actually have laughed in disbelief. The air around the box was fragrant with a heavy powdery perfume. Cardamom, I think. And turmeric too. I studied the dark curve of her eyebrows set against the tan of her skin, the scarlet hue of her lipstick and the thick swathes of her dark curly hair, cascading in such lifelike long waves down her back, a stark contrast to the glittering gold of her dream catcher earrings and the gleaming choker that decorated her neck, trying to commit her face to memory.

The haunting melody of the carousel diffused through the air around us. The marionette moved suddenly, and pointed a singular gold tipped finger at me.

"You! Evangeline Leger" She exclaimed in a rich foreign accent, her voice course, rough and indulgent. How did she, a mere doll, know my name? How could she? And how could a puppet speak?

"You are cursed. This summer, you will bring about death. Resurrect the curse of the Nile. Those closest to you, broken, forevermore."

She searched my eyes, muttering over and over. "It's too late... the curse is set. All you can do is let it run its course..." Her eyelids blinked heavily, letting me see the thick dark wings of her eyeliner and when she opened her eyes, I swear they had turned gold. She looked so lifelike that I started to half believe that she was real. Not in the sense that there was an actual person within the box but rather that some divine deity had possessed the doll, brought it to life.

I felt goosebumps rise up over my arms, the fine hairs standing up on end, and I shivered, but not from the cold.

"What about me?" Kiki demanded trailing a nail across the glass, as if to try to stroke the mirrored ball. If she was unnerved by some puppet spouting fortunes and somehow knowing my name, she didn't show it. The fortune teller clapped her hands, her gold bangles clinking together.

"Ah ah, little one," the woman smiled mirthlessly. "You will have your time. I daresay you shall bring about more tragedy than your friend." She closed her eyes dramatically, tipped her head back and raised her arms heavenward. She looked possessed. "The gods have spoken. Your death is nigh." God, I swear that the doll was evil, some kind of demon or the devil incarnate. Her painted face seemed to take wicked delight in her sick proclamations.

She fixed me with those cruel cold eyes, suddenly brown again with no hint of gold. "You, the deathbringer." Then, with stiff jerky movements, she turned back to Kiki. "And you, the dead."

In the brief silence that settled in the wake of the fortune teller's supposed predictions, the air seemed to grow heavier, a velvet cloth that seemed to choke and suffocate. And then -I won't ever forget this- the smell of salt. The sea. A wicked, wild wind blew through that fairground and the darkness rained down upon us. The lights of the carousel, the ferris wheel flickered out. The tinkling music distorted, jarringly, before it sputtered out and died. I hadn't noticed before how chilly the air was, but in that instant, I felt as if it were already winter. The liveliness of the carnival faded, retreating back into the swathes of dust and rust, falling back into its usual state of deterioration and death. And although it became a graveyard yet again, the ghosts faded.

Madame Doom's booth was one of the last things to go. Kiki thrashed at the glass that protected the fortune teller. She wanted to know more. After all, the thing had just predicted her demise. Kiki ripped the curtains from the walls and cursed at her as the shadows started to sweep over that wooden box, so very like darkness engulfing a coffin. She toppled over that iridescent crystal ball, let it shatter to the floor, unleash a strange unnatural mist that unfurled from its broken pieces. But the woman merely laughed bitterly as the dark slipped over her. And then, once more, she was lifeless. Her features chipped by years of neglect. The wood crumbling from old age and her jewellery tarnished and tainted.

The shine was gone from Kiki's eyes. I looked to her, searching for some explanation as to what had just transpired. But there was nothing. The crashing of far off waves was suddenly so loud, roaring as if in some ferocious contest with the heavy wind. We ran, pushing our way against the gale-like conditions back through the forest, back to the house.

And somehow, over the thick swathes of the breeze, I heard one last prophecy. One that called after us into the night, her voice floating above us, so very much like a death omen.

"You can't run from destiny!"

And yet, I've been trying to, ever since.

*

And that is what I see as I trace my spoon through my soup, chasing a thin trail of yogurt around the purple, so similar in hue to that woman's crystal ball. We ran for what seemed like hours, eventually stumbling back to the township. But that night, we told nobody what had happened. In the weeks after the true tragedy of the summer, I finally did reveal the truth, to one person only. Charlie. He knew everything. Somehow he wasn't surprised by my phantasmagoric tale, and I wondered if perhaps Kiki had told him. Nevertheless, Kiki and I never mentioned it to one another ever again.

We never spoke of that night again. Sometimes, in the days after, during the quiet comfortable silence that settled upon us as we sipped pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks, I'd catch Kiki staring at me expectancy as if waiting for the curse to show itself. And sometimes, I'd stare at Kiki, trying never to let her out of my sight, lest her early foretold death really did occur. So many things left unsaid between us. The only good that came out of that night was the veritable bond of our friendship. At that time, seemingly unbreakable. But, like the curse said. The things closest to me would break and it seemed that our friendship was the first to shatter.

*

Rafe catches me staring into my soup. He reaches into his pocket drawing out a small tarnished coin. "Penny for your thoughts?" How can he still be so nice towards me when all I've done is just verbally attack him all night?

God. We are the worst. If he's not bitter and mean, then I am. It's some twisted charade of ours. Taking turns to wear a mask of ice. But, at least I have a legitimate reason for it. Those closest to me... broken. Who's to say this curse won't last all my life? And how many people did that lady mean by "those"? I can't let Rafe get close even though I wish I could just spill out the nightmares to him. The messy truth. All of it. So instead I raise my eyes to his, adopting an expression of pure boredom.

"My thoughts aren't worth a penny." I say, emotionless and close his fingers over the coin. I feel that he misinterprets my meaning and he jokingly goes to pull out a wad of notes from the Montblanc money clip within his wallet but thinks better of it, shaking his head and sighing quietly.

Oh good, he's learning.

~~~

My readers are disappearing :(( welp please come back