Carnival of Feasts – WeWriWa/8sentence

Hello, all! Welcome back. For those of you new to WeWriWa‘s or just happening upon this post, let me give you a little background. WeWriWa is a blog hop where writers share 8 to 10 sentences of either a work in progress or a finished piece. Comments are encouraged, as is supporting others by visiting their blogs and giving their excerpts a read.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted a WeWriWa/8sentence. I’ve been a bit busy tinkering away at a couple new short stories. The one featured below was written for the Once Upon Now short story contest hosted by Target on Wattpad. Entries are must be between 4,000 and 9,000 words and contain fairy tale themes or feature classic characters. I chose to use three of my favorite fairy tales as inspiration, Hansel and Gretel published in 1812 by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning, and Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki.

Here’s the setup:

After visiting an old-fashioned carnival with his family, seven-year-old Manny gets swallowed up by a specter of the same carnival late the following night. The only witness to the disappearance is his older brother Josh. Knowing no one will believe him if is tells the truth, Josh puts it upon himself to get his little brother back. Gaining important information from an unlikely source, Josh sets out to find the carnival. Hearing the tale-tell organ music from the night before, Josh finds the carnival and gets inside.

On to the excerpt!

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Mustering my resolve, I entered the tent and walked to where Manny sat. At the sight of me, the children hushed and stared. The barker who had his back to us turned to see what had caused the loss of his audience. I paid the room no mind and squatted at Manny’s side. He looked at me, his expression blank as if I were a stranger. “Manny?” I said. “It’s me, Josh.”

A small flicker of recognition danced in his eyes, but he remained silent.

“I don’t believe you have a ticket,” said the barker.

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Will Josh get himself and Manny out? What about the other children? What does the ghost carnival want with the children in the first place?

I hope you liked this excerpt from Carnival of Feasts. If you would like to read the full story, you can catch it on Wattpad. If you happen to have a Wattpad account, and like the story and would like to see it in print and sold in Target stores, please vote between July 14 through the 21st. Only votes gained during that time will be counted towards the winning stories.