The Faire (Harrow Faire #5) - Kathryn Ann Kingsley Page 0,92

unions?

“Nope.”

She snickered at Lazarus’s single-syllable interjection in her head. He had been taking a more active role in the Family in the past week. He had done most of the packing, and liked to announce that to everyone when they looked at him strangely.

That, and listing off all the weird and probably scandalous requests they had made over the past years that he had fulfilled.

That usually shut them up real fast.

Especially Aaron.

However, when Lazarus had tried that trick on Bertha, the Bearded Woman just laughed and told the embodiment of Harrow Faire to “skip to the good stuff.” Cora wouldn’t have thought an eldritch monster was capable of blushing if she hadn’t seen it herself.

“What’s the hold-up?” Simon called from the passenger seat. He had insisted on driving until he discovered that the truck came with a shiny digital in-dash touch screen. Then he was more than happy to scoot over so he could play with all of the features.

“Just thinking.”

“Think while driving. Let’s go. I’ve been stuck in this godforsaken hellhole known as New Hampshire for a hundred and forty years!”

“Is everything always about you?” She shot him a look.

He smiled at her and pushed his mismatched sunglasses up his nose. “Oh, cupcake, why must you always ask stupid questions? Of course it is.”

She rolled her eyes, and with a wave of her arm, she heard the engines start up. Rudy was even driving one. She’d had to teach the man how to drive. Luckily, the trucks were all automatic transmission. The last thing she wanted to deal with was having the Zookeeper pop the clutch into reverse on the highway.

“All right, all right…” She climbed into the driver’s seat, shut the door, and buckled up. Not like she’d stay dead if she died in a car accident, but she also had no desire to learn what it felt like to die by crashing through the windshield.

Fishing in her pocket, she got the keys to the truck. From them dangled a keychain. On it was a crest that would fit in her palm, made of every kind of metal known to man, and a few she was certain had been lost to time.

“You turned the Key into a keychain?” Laz asked as he suddenly appeared between them.

Simon screamed.

Cora laughed.

“I’m vaguely insulted by the pun.” Laz ignored Simon’s yell and rolled his eyes.

She turned on the truck and took one last look at the empty field where Harrow Faire had been for so very long. She smiled. After a long argument with Simon, and another vote from the Family—the choice had been to go south for the winter. They would go down the coast, see Virginia and the Carolinas, and then go west. Elena wanted to see her home state of Texas again. After that, they would go back north in the spring.

“Are you ready?” Lazarus asked.

“Yeah.” She put the truck into drive and turned her thoughts to the future. She smiled at the two men beside her.

“Let’s get this show on the road.”

Epilogue

Anybody who said the Florida Keys were unpleasant in the winter had never spent much time in New England. Cora sat on the edge of one of the performance stages that dotted the main path of the midway. It was the same one where she had met Ludwig for the first time, even though she never really did feel like she ever met the old Strongman.

The memory of standing on his shoulders with Amanda as the Aerialist cheered her on was a painful one. But she let the hurt take its course. She felt responsible for Amanda’s death. She deserved to feel bad about it.

The Faire had stopped in five cities along the way down the coast, and now planned to spend a solid month along the beach.

And she had never seen a happier group of people than the Family was right now. The look of wonder and joy on their faces every time they set up shop in a new town made her smile. Whenever they were allowed to take a wad of cash from Aaron’s giant horde to visit the shops or go eat, they were like excited children.

Simon had a tablet that he could draw on. She had to remind him when it was time to sleep or eat for weeks after he got it. Despite the fact that the Faire could summon up whatever it was that anyone wanted, it seemed that the Family was more than a little excited to shop for