Astrid had never seen so many colours in one place.

The traveling carnival had arrived at the edge of her village at dawn, its wagons painted in dizzying swirls of gold and crimson, its banners snapping like restless birds in the spring wind. By noon, the meadow was transformed: lanterns strung between poles, music drifting like perfume, and crowds gathering from every farmstead for miles. Astrid clutched her brother Elias’s hand as they approached the entrance archway. He was older by six years, tall and sun-browned from long days in the fields, and he wore the patient expression of someone who had promised their mother to keep a close eye on a sibling with the energy of a firecracker.

“Stay near me,” he murmured, though he was smiling. “Carnivals are full of tricks.”

Astrid nodded, but her eyes were already wandering to the jugglers tossing knives that flashed like lightning, to the acrobats twisting through the air like ribbons, to the fortune-teller’s tent where incense curled in blue spirals.

Astrid tugged Elias’s sleeve. “Do you see--”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Don’t stare.”

But it was impossible not to. The knife-juggler had the same face as the fire-breather. The acrobat swinging from the silks had the same face as the woman selling candied apples. Even the man at the ticket booth had worn that same unsettling smile. Still, the carnival was dazzling, and she was young, and curiosity tugged Astrid forward like a string. Elias bought them each a paper cone of sugared almonds, and for a while they wandered between tents, watching performances, listening to music, letting the strangeness fade into the background hum of excitement.

That was until the ringmaster appeared. He stepped onto a small stage near the center of the grounds, dressed in a long coat of midnight blue. His top hat was decorated with a single white feather. But when he looked at Astrid, something changed. He lifted a gloved hand and beckoned.

Elias placed a protective arm in front of her. “We’re not interested,” he called.

The ringmaster ignored him. His gaze stayed fixed on Astrid. “You’ve come home at last,” he said, voice smooth as velvet. “Our child.”

Astrid’s heart thudded. “I--I don’t know you.”

“Oh, but I know you,” the ringmaster replied. “You belong to us.”

Elias stepped forward, jaw tight. “Astrid, get up. We're going home.”

The ringmaster tilted his head, amused. “Home? Is that what you call the ones who found her in the barley field? Wrapped in a blanket that wasn’t theirs? Crying for a mother who never came?”

Elias stiffened. “How do you know about that?” he demanded.

The ringmaster’s smile sharpened. “Because she is one of us. A child of the Carnival of One Thousand Faces. And now that she has returned, she will stay.”

The music around them faltered. Performers turned in eerie unison, their identical faces all swiveling toward Astrid.

Elias grabbed her hand. “Run.”

It was during the spring of what came to be known as the Year of Woes --- before the drought, before the wolves, before the appearance of the Grey Men, but after that cursed midwinter Sickness that killed every baby and killed every parents soul --- that Edwin, son Elias in tow, came home one evening huddled over what looked like a bundle of rags, and smiled with sweet bemusement at his wife, Ishtar, who waited for them at the door as she did at the end of every day.

Her eyes widened, and her brows raised a question. He just grinned and nodded toward the house. Wordlessly, they all went inside together,. But once inside, Ishtar's curiosity grew too strong. She pulled him to the table, sat down and insisted he tell her everything, as Elias grinned and shifted nervously from side to side, as 6-year-olds do.

Rather than say anything, her husband simply folded back the corner of the blanket and revealed what he knew would bring her deep joy: the tiny face of a baby. She thought the baby was beautiful, and said so. Watching Ishtar in that moment, he thought she was beautiful, and said so. Elias thought they were acting mushy, so said he thought everyone was beautiful, and changed the mood.

After the laughter, Edwin began to tell the tale of how he came to be holding a baby. On their way home from the far fields, they spied a lone wolf, just standing, staring intently. In order to avoid the wolf, they ducked into the barley field. Moving through the barley, keeping an eye out for the wolf, they came upon a patch of barley that was totally withered and dead. And in the middle of that withered patch, in a cradle fashioned of dried barley, Edwin said, they discovered an infant swaddled in a crimson and gold baby's blanket. There was noone else around that they could see. He started to call out, but then thought of the wolf and instead walked to the edge of the field to see if it was still there. It had vanished, but in its place was the most astounding sight: a jester, half the height of a normal man, and as wide as he was tall, grey-skinned and dressed in grey, just standing and staring like the wolf. "Careful not to catch his attention," Edwin concluded, "I went back into the barley, and straight home we came."

Ishtar didn't know what to believe. She knew her husband to be an honest man, but she didn't know what to make of the events he described. The one thing she was witness to, the baby, was weird, but totally explainable. Surely, over the next few days, the mother would show up, and the mystery would be cleared. The patch of withered barley was definitely odd, considering the steady rain over the past few months, but living things don't always follow rules.. This time of year, there aren't any wolves around here. They're up in the mountains. So, strange. But living things don't always follow rules. The ball-shaped grey-skinned grey-costumed jester standing near her family's barley field, however, did have her stumped, never having seen a human ball or a person with grey skin. Then she imagined an inflatable vest and grey makeup, and that, too, was moved for her into the category of explainable.

Edwin had a different take. He heard Ishtar's explanations. He agreed each was possible. But two things kept him from agreeing everything was normal. First --- He was there. His every sense was exposed to every subliminal nuance. And his gut, his instincts, screamed "not normal!" to him. Second --- In his 36 years of life, he'd never seen or heard of the sort of wilting in the barley: so soon after rain, so sharply separated dry from healthy, so concentrated in a single island in the field. In 36 years, he'd never seen or heard of wolves in the area this late in the season. In 36 years, he'd never seen babies being abandoned. (Granted, he'd heard of it happening, but never in barley fields. And, definitely, never in HIS barley field.) In 36 years, he'd never seen or heard of anything remotely like roly-poly all-grey miniature jesters. ALL these once-in-many-lifetimes events just happening to occur to the same man on the same day, he thought, simply can't be the result of blind chance. Edwin felt certain that someone or something orchestrated these events

Elias thought the wolf was scary good,. He really wished he'd seen the ball man. The barley field never crossed his mind. He really liked playing with the baby, but got bored easily.