Cicada Dreams — Roger E. Carrier

It was a midsummer night's dream that lingers during the day

Arkansas 1935. Rarely, and always in summer, a strange carnival will come to a town. The town is never too large or too small and never a city. Furthermore, it is always a place isolated in space and time. Never today but fifty or a hundred years ago when things were as different from today as they are the same.

The owner of this particular carnival is a black woman and devotee of voodoo. But Lady Priscilla conceals this fact, allowing everyone to believe that Wildcat, who runs the carnival's wrestling and boxing show, is the owner. In the South, it is not wise to antagonize the Klan by letting it be known that a black woman has money or power.

When the carnival sets up in a pasture outside Redmond, Arkansas, Priscilla drinks a cup of belladonna tea and soon finds herself in the land of the dead, where she is given a vision. A dark-hearted man lives in the area and has killed six young women. They are all blondes. And when Birdie, the carnival's beautiful blond trapeze artist, disappears and is held as a sex slave, a mystery begins to unfold.

The midway lies before us, and it is into this “carnival of dreams” that we now tread.