Chapter 3

Three

D ane

2019

I stared down at the blood on my hands and a wave of nausea overtook me.

I was too late.

"Jesus, Dee Dee, are you all right?" Ryan asked when I opened the truck door.

"You should probably go."

He frowned at me. "What do you mean? What happened?"

"You don't get it, man." I couldn't have these guys with me. What if the man from the carnival came after me and they got hurt? "I was too late."

"Dee Dee, you're shaking," Kal said quietly. "What's wrong?"

I realized that no, I wasn't all right. My hands were trembling. I needed a cigarette bad. What was I supposed to do now? I had no place to go, no bread, no nothing.

No, that wasn't true. I had my life. That was more than I'd had when I last visited this place. And now I had a purpose.

"Dee Dee?"

Kal had climbed out of the backseat of the truck and stood beside me.

"I gotta go?—"

"Dee Dee," he said again, this time touching my shoulder gently, as if he knew I was a split second away from running into the darkness. "I think something bad happened to you."

I shook off his hold and glared at him. "How in the hell would you know?" How did I explain that I didn't even know for sure what had happened to me, that all I had was the stupid memory that came from my talking board? And scars. Lots of scars.

"Something bad happened to me too. Before I worked for Mr. Ame. We'll help you."

Ever since I'd crossed the threshold of the carnival, feelings and pieces of memories showed up looking like… You know how sometimes when you're at the movies and the projector melts the film? How it gets burn spots in it before entirely going away? My brain felt like that. Piecemeal.

One such feeling stuck out in front of the others. Everyone I'd ever trusted—everyone I'd ever loved—had moved on, left me behind. Why would these guys be any different? But I didn't need much more than a ride. Supposed I should start from the beginning. Go back to where my life made sense.

"I came here to stop a bad thing from happening, but I was too late. He was already here."

"Wait… is someone… Is someone hurt, Dee Dee?"

All I could do was nod.

Ryan tapped his fingers on the big glass screen on the dashboard of his truck, and I heard a voice call out, "Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?"

"Hi, uh, we're at the Buttonwillow Rest Area, and my friend just found… Someone is hurt."

I stared at him and wrapped my shaky hands around myself, then realized I was getting blood everywhere.

"Here," Kal said, handing me a wet cloth. I used it to wipe my hands, then he held out a plastic bag for me to put the cloth in.

Ryan spoke a bit longer and the call disconnected.

"CHP is on their way. They want us to stay." His eyes flared when he saw the bag in Kal's hand. "Did you touch anything?"

I nodded. I had nothing in my stomach, but it burned like I was gonna throw up.

"Fuck. Okay. Hey, babe? Set that bag down outside the truck. We need to give it to the officers. They're going to want our information too. Shit. Shit! Okay, Dee Dee? Do you have identification?"

I shook my head.

I have nothing.

"It's going to be okay," he was saying. "Just tell the cops you lost your wallet before we picked you up at the carnival tonight, okay? Tell them exactly that. We'll figure this out. Everything is going to be okay, okay?"

It was as if him saying "okay" over and over would actually make it so. I didn't have the heart to tell him that nothing was okay, especially not for the young man I'd found behind the bathrooms. The same spot I'd seen in my?—

"Dee Dee!"

I staggered around Kal and vomited in some bushes.

Kal held my hair back and talked to me in a soft voice. Then Ryan was handing me a bottle of water as a cop car came screaming into the parking lot and pulled up next to us. The sky was mostly dark but a dim light was starting to filter in around us.

"I just want to go home."

"Where's home?" Ryan asked. "We were headed to LA, but we can take you wherever?—"

"Laurel Canyon." It just came out, but it sounded right. Immediately I saw the winding drives, the fancy cars, the mishmash of modest and elaborate houses cut into the hillside, hidden by trees and greenery. And then there was the music, the drugs, and the love. Once upon a time. What would it be like now?

Ryan smiled. "That's right where we're going! My producer invited us to stay at his place in the canyon while I finish my demos for my solo album. How weird. Let's give this cop our information and then we'll head there. Everything will feel a little better after you've showered, eaten, and slept. I promise. Let's just get through this."

No, it really won't .

These two men talked of promises and coincidences, but all of this had to have been orchestrated by the man in charge of the carnival.I didn't know much about him, but I knew he was a powerful dude.

And I'd failed him.

Earlier that night…

"Want me to walk with you?" Pokey really was a nice man, someone I might have called a friend at one point. I didn't have anyone in my life anymore other than the strangers around me at the carnival. But when I started to leave the arcade, heading in the direction Nik had taken the creepy man, my footsteps faltered. I didn't want to be alone.

Alone was unsafe.

Alone had gotten me into trouble.

"Actually," I said to him. "It might be nice if you did."

Pokey didn't say a word. Just started walking beside me.

We headed toward the entrance of the carnival, where Mr. Ame was bidding farewell to the evening's guests.

"Mr. Ame? Dee Dee's got something to tell you."

Had we somehow traveled back to kindergarten and I couldn't speak for myself? I couldn't be annoyed, though. I'd asked him to come with.

The carnival director turned to me and his freakish eyes began to swirl with color. For a moment, I thought I would find words there, like I did when I touched the planchette on my talking board. The colors were similar. But then I blinked hard and shook my head.

No. I didn't know if I could ever serve another customer again after what had just happened. What if this was the beginning of my total breakdown? What if every customer, every dive into the board, would bring me more terrible visions?

"That is not the case. But you have unlocked your truth, Dane."

Dane. That was my name. Wasn't it? Dee Dee had been a nickname of some sort, one given to me with… love. And affection.

"I don't know what just happened, but that man," I said, pointing to where I could see the back of the customer's head as he hurried away, "he touched the planchette with me. I don't let people touch it with me."

"No, you wouldn't. Two opens the portal wider. Reveals dual perspectives."

"I don't understand what I saw, exactly. It was, like a memory I guess, about me. What happened to me. But that man… he reacted strangely."

"Indeed. And he has been ejected from the premises." He tilted his head, and his gaze seemed to lock me in place. I couldn't look away, couldn't flee. "There is something else you wish to say?"

"I…" What the hell am I doing? "I'm afraid he was looking for something in particular in finding me. He wanted to know how I got here, but after what I saw… I think he actually wanted to see what happened to me. He wanted guidance ."

"And you believe he may carry out something similar to what happened to you."

It wasn't a question. I didn't even have to say it. Ame knew what was in my thoughts. Had known all along what had brought me here.

"I figured maybe I should tell you."

"And you have." Ame wasn't generally rude, and he wasn't being a jerk, but he wasn't going to let me off easy.

I exhaled harshly. "But what now? What if he… does that to someone? It was like he wanted to see it, wanted instruction."

"I suppose if he received what he wanted, he may act upon that knowledge."

"But you can't let him! You can't let him hurt someone."

" I wouldn't be letting him do anything. I do not control the entirety of the world. I have dominion over a very narrow slice of existence. Here," he said, gesturing to the carnival, which was being packed up as we spoke. " This is my world. This I can control… to a point. No harm comes to those who cross into my world. But outside, there are others who must protect those in harm's way."

"But, we can't just let him?—"

"There is no we in this, I'm afraid, Dane. But if you choose to act, I will support you however I am able."

I wanted to say no. I wanted to go back to my trailer and pretend nothing happened. Then I remembered what I'd seen, what I'd felt.

"I have to stop him."

2019

The sun rose and revealed a beautiful day ahead as we descended the grade beside Castaic Lake into Los Angeles County. I was stunned by the transformation of the landscape. My head moved on a swivel. The cars were different, the road was much wider than I remembered. There were so many buildings…

"Unreal," I muttered to myself. Ryan had been singing along to the music playing on the radio, music I'd never heard. It wasn't like any radio I'd ever seen before, either. It seemed to be controlled by some sort of touching glass on the dashboard of the truck. The same one he'd used to call the police last night. It looked like something out of a science fiction movie. Every once in a while he'd tap it and the music would change, the cool air would come through the vents, something else would happen.

"Dee Dee?" Kal asked, leaning between the seats again. He was so big, it wasn't much of a stretch. "What is the last date that you remember?"

"Date?"

"Yeah, like the day, maybe, when you joined the carnival?"

"You mean… Oh, it was December." The further we drove from the nightmare at the rest area, the more my memories began tickling my mind, like sprinkles on a cupcake. "We'd just played The Fillmore in San Francisco. It was the last night of our tour. Tess flew back, so we dropped her off at the airport. I was riding home with the guys in our band and the crew, in the van. It was December fifteenth, I think. I know everyone was happy to be done before the holidays."

Ryan glanced at me and cleared his throat. "The Fillmore, huh? That's cool."

Kal squeezed his shoulder, then looked at me with those intense blue eyes."What year do you think it is now?"

I turned to stare at him. "What year? It's 1979, man. What are you talking about?"

"Oh shit," Ryan muttered. He flicked on his blinker and changed lanes, letting out a whistling breath and shaking his head.

"We need to prepare you," Kal said. "Time doesn't work the same at the carnival."

"I know that. It's fucking weird there. Days seem longer because the sky is all lit up, even at night. You go to sleep in one place and wake up someplace else. People dress funny sometimes. I gave up trying to figure it out and just did my thing. I was only there like, what, a few weeks? A month maybe? I don't remember. Oh shit, is it nineteen-eighty? Man, I was looking forward to New Year's, and I missed it?"

Kal frowned. "Did Mr. Ame say anything before you left? Give you anything?"

Should I tell them about the guy? "He knew I had something I needed to do, and no. He said I could take what I needed, so I took the guitar and my board. Why?"

"Do you have a billfold?" Kal asked.

"No." I lost everything . "Just some borrowed clothes and the guitar. And my talking board, but that was mine from before. I think. I remember it from before." Somehow I knew that much.

"And he didn't give you a billfold? Didn't give you anything else?" Kal seemed distraught. I wondered why. What the hell didn't Ame tell me?

"Baby, he gave him us . You think we just happened to be driving through the desert in the wee hours when this guy shows up?" Ryan shook his head. " We're his help. Don't worry, we'll get you squared away. You were playing a show? You play guitar?"

"And piano. And I sing. Or I used to. Haven't been able to since, well… Not since I came to the carnival."

Ryan and Kal traded looks.

"I couldn't speak," Kal said to me. "When I got to the carnival, and after. Ryan and his friends helped me after I left, until I could."

"How long ago did you leave?" I asked him.

Kal looked to Ryan.

"We met a year and a half ago, when he joined the traveling music festival that my band was playing." Ryan glanced at me again and then looked where he was driving. "That was July tenth. Twenty-eighteen. Today is December fifteenth, twenty-nineteen."

My head started to pound and my vision went blurry—but instead of it being otherworldly like when I used my talking board, it was my tears.

I'd been gone? For forty years?

Was there anyone left? Did anyone miss me?

I didn't want to know the answer to that. All I could remember was that Laurel Canyon was a place I'd lived, and what happened right before I… met my fate, I supposed.

I looked to Kal, and his expression had changed from fierce protectiveness to just plain sad."How long were you at the carnival?" I asked him.

Kal's gaze flicked to Ryan and back to me."I joined the carnival in nineteen thirty-three."

I counted in my head as I gaped at him. "Eighty-five years?"

Kal shrugged. "It was only a year to me. I did my service for Mr. Ame, played my calliaphone and the carnival's calliope, kept them running and in good shape. Then it was time for me to go. It just so happened that the music festival shared grounds with the carnival that day." He rubbed the back of Ryan's neck. "And I met Ryan."

Ryan reached back and squeezed his hand. "He watched out for me, I watched out for him. And now we're married."

"And now we'll watch out for you," Kal said, leveling his gaze on me.

"I promised Mr. Ame," Ryan said. "When the time came, I'd help someone else like someone did for me. So we got you, okay?"

It all sounded nice, but folks didn't stay. They did their thing and went on their way.

"Well, I appreciate the ride, but I can take care of myself."

The two men traded glances once more, and Kal leaned back in the seat with a sigh.

I went back to watching the scenery go by and marveled over the changes. What had been farmland and desert was now urban sprawl, just like in the Los Angeles basin. The '70s had brought a lot of new development, but not like this. New towns, places I'd never heard of, sprouted up out of the valley floor. Finally some familiar names started to show up. Burbank, Glendale, and then Hollywood, and finally Ryan exited the interstate at Los Feliz and we meandered to Franklin and then Hollywood, and then it was a right turn onto Laurel Canyon Drive.

A sensation washed over me like waking after a hard sleep, that disorientation and sluggishness falling away and leaving?—

Clarity.

This road led to my home.

A barrage of faces passed through my mind, sights and sounds, hot summer days, breezy winter nights. Laughter, screams, tears. And music. Always music. It had been magic.

"My producer, Scott Cross, he bought a house that used to belong to some folk singer chick," Ryan was saying. "I think her name was Tess something. It's a sweet pad, and we're going to have the place to ourselves, so you're welcome to stay with us."

A fresh wound in my heart opened up at his words.

Tess Miller.

Used to belong to.

I knew exactly which house. It appeared in front of my eyes like an old movie…

1967

"Oh! You're not Diane."

"She's my mom. She asked me to bring your delivery."

"Well, then. Thank you so much for coming." Tess held the door open and I scurried inside. Mom usually made deliveries herself, but she'd been locked in her studio when Tess called the house, and she told me that since I'd answered the phone, it was time I earned my keep.

"It's safe enough up here," she'd said. "No one's going to bother a kid on a bike. Just ride over and give it to her. She'll pay me later. Now run along, I've got to finish this piece. It's squeezing my brain like a vise."

I knew better than to disturb Mom during her work sessions. Her paintings were highly coveted, and lately there'd been so much demand that I'd tried to step up and help out around the house. I was trying to do my part now that I was a teenager, nearly an adult. Making herbal deliveries for her was the least I could do.

I held out the paper bag to Tess, and she put an arm around me.

"You're very sweet to bring this all the way up here. Why don't you stay for a while? There's a bunch of friends and their kids out in the swimming pool. Feel like taking a dip?"

I didn't know what to say. It was hot. A swim sounded far out, but I never did anything without asking Mom, even at fifteen years old. It was her and I against the world, and even though she'd been less and less available, I still wanted to be a good boy for her. Everyone else had deserted her—her parents, my father, her siblings. Then she'd made it big with her paintings.

She'd told me many times that it's the people who stick with you during the tough times who you should put your faith in, and since she was it for me, I would return the favor.

"Thank you, ma'am, but I would have to ask my mom."

Tess was so beautiful, it almost hurt to look at her. She had long, shiny blond hair, and wore a white mini-dress and tall white boots. But it was her smile that amazed me. Her teeth were as white as her dress, and her makeup was just like the models' in magazines. I looked at Mom's magazines a lot, admiring the clothes and the stories about the lives of people I'd never meet.

Here was one of those people, in the flesh, living just across the canyon from us.

Tess took the paper bag, looked in it and smiled. "I tell you what. You have an open invitation, Mr.…?"

"Oh, I'm Dane Donovan." I stuck out my hand, remembering my manners.

"D and D, I love it. May I call you Dee Dee?"

"Sure, Mrs. Miller."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm nobody's missus, Dee Dee. Call me Tess. And if someone is home here, you're welcome in the pool, all right? You're always welcome here."

2019

Ryan made the turn off of Harlesden Court and onto the private drive where I remembered riding my bicycle. We pulled up in front of what used to be Tess's house, and my heart lifted. She might not still be there, but stepping onto the grounds felt just like the day that, to me, was twelve years ago, when Tess invited me into a life I'd never imagined. Or however long it had been.

Had I really lost forty years of my life? I don't know how I could have survived what happened. My skin itched in the places the scars were thickest.

"Is this Scott's house?" Kal stared in wonder at the stunning split-level wood and glass mansion. It looked different from when Tess lived there but still had the pitched roof and all the windows.

"Yeah. Gorgeous, right?"

Kal stood by the truck and Ryan moved to his side, sliding a hand around his waist and kissing his neck. Without tearing his eyes away from the house, Kal dropped his arm around Ryan's shoulders and held him close, as if to protect him from unseen enemies.

I couldn't help but watch them. They were so much in love. I never thought I'd see two men being so open with each other. The future—or present, I guessed—must not be so bad if men like me could reveal themselves to a stranger, and touch and kiss like this in the open.

"Come on," Ryan said, taking Kal's hand. "Scott's assistant had the place stocked for us, and the pool is heated!"

I followed them up the walkway… but movement at the bottom of the drive caught my eye.

A man stood at the gate we'd just come through, watching us.

"Hey."

Kal put a hand on my back, startling me, and when I looked back, the man was gone.

"Sorry," I said. "I thought I saw someone."

It looked like the man who'd stared at me in Buttonwillow. He wasn't dressed like no cop, but maybe like an investigator or something. Intense brown eyes, nearly shorn salt-and-pepper hair, and a thick mustache all added an allure to his face, and under those straightlaced clothes was a big, powerful body.

I'd wanted him to look at me, so imagining I'd just seen him again was probably wishful thinking. He'd looked at me as if he'd known me. Which was impossible. Wasn't it?

Kal glared in the direction of the gate, his scowl intense.

"You will be safe here. I know you're thinking about leaving, but I hope you'll stay with us, at least until you have a better understanding of this time. I had help from Ryan and his friends. Let us help you."

"You don't owe me nothing, man. I've been on my own for a long time. Far as I can tell, things aren't all that different."

We both knew I was lying. Things were very different… but so what?

"Give us a couple of days. You just landed here."

I didn't agree, but I let him lead me into the house.My whole existence up here in Laurel Canyon had required me to be invisible when necessary. It was sort of a gift. Ryan and Kal had no reason to worry about me. I could get by on my own.

"Hot damn!" Ryan shouted from the kitchen. "Who wants lasagna?"

Kal turned to me with a grin.

I knew better than to turn down food. Who knew when the next meal would come?

"I could eat."