The Laughing Dark: A Tale of the Carnival Beyond the Portal
Luna knows every back corridor in Ironspire's Shadow Districts. She has walked them in the dark, in the rain, in the middle of negotiations that were going badly and needed a different route out. She knows which doorways are safe and which ones are not and which ones look safe and are not, which is the most important category. She has been moving through the Shadow Districts since before she had a reason to be careful, and she has never once been surprised by what she found in them.
Until the corridor off the Ember-glass Forges, on a Tuesday, in the rain.
She had been cutting through on her way back from a barter at the Great Forge — a route she had taken forty times, a corridor she knew the way she knows the Attic's back hallway, by feel and by the particular quality of the dark in each section of it. Cinder was with her. He had been moving at her left shoulder the way he moves when he is reading the environment rather than simply accompanying her — the particular attention of a wolf who has assessed the last three blocks and found something in the frequency of the air that he has not yet identified and is not yet ready to name.
She turned the corner.
It was already there. Already looking at her. Already grinning — the wide, certain, completely genuine grin of something that had been waiting and was not surprised to see her and found the whole situation, including her expression in this moment, absolutely hilarious. It was standing in the corridor the way it stands wherever it stands: completely, without apology, with the absolute ease of something that belongs everywhere it decides to be and has never once been told otherwise.
Cinder stopped. He did not growl. He did not advance. He simply stopped, which is the thing Cinder does when he has assessed something and the assessment has come back with a result he does not have a category for. His tail did not move. His ears were forward. He was very, very still.
Luna looked at it for a long moment. It looked back. The grin did not change. It was not performing the grin. It was not wearing it. The grin was simply what its face did — the outside of something that had already decided what it thought about everything in this corridor, including her, and found it all deeply, genuinely funny in a way that had nothing to do with comedy and everything to do with knowing something she didn't.
She did not run. Luna does not run from things in the Shadow Districts. She has a policy about this and she has maintained it through considerably worse than a clown in a corridor, and she was not going to break it now. She held its gaze for the full count of ten — the particular ten-count she uses when she is deciding whether something is a threat or simply a fact — and then she looked down.
The Laughing Dark — Horror Clown 3D Print Tee was on the ground at its feet. A Harajuku-style lightweight silky polyester graphic tee — moisture-wicking, breathable, soft against the skin — with a vivid 3D-printed surface that renders the clown in extraordinary detail: the face painted in shades of bone and dried shadow, the eyes full of something that has been watching for a very long time, the grin wide and certain and completely genuine. The print does not fade. Does not peel. Does not crack. It is as permanent as the thing it depicts.
She picked it up. She did not look at the clown again while she was doing it. This was a decision she made in approximately half a second and she stands by it. She straightened up, tucked the tee under her arm, and walked the rest of the corridor at her normal pace, Cinder at her left shoulder, neither of them looking back.
When she reached the end of the corridor and turned onto the main thoroughfare of the Shadow Districts, she stopped and looked back.
The corridor was empty. The rain was falling. There was nothing there.
She brought the tee back through the portal and set it on the counter without a word. Chelle looked at it. Looked at Luna. Looked at Cinder, who had gone directly to his spot by the door and sat down with the focused attention of a wolf who has decided that being near the door is the correct position and intends to maintain it. Chelle said nothing. She has learned, over a long time of working near the portal, that some things do not require explanation and are not improved by it.
Midnight, on the rooftop, tilted his great head when the tee came through. He held it there for a long moment — the tilt that means something has arrived that he finds genuinely significant and is taking his time deciding what to think about it. He has not decided yet. He may never decide. Some things are more interesting as questions than as answers, and Midnight has lived long enough to know the difference.
The tee is in the Closet now. The skull tees from the Ashen Plains have made room for it — the other kind of room, the kind you make quickly and quietly when something sits down next to you and you decide you are going to give it exactly as much space as it wants. The Closet doors are almost closed. Almost. The gap remains, as it always does.
This is a piece for the one who turns the corner and doesn't run. Who holds the gaze for the full ten-count. Who picks up what was left and walks the rest of the corridor at their normal pace and does not look back until they reach the end — and then looks back anyway, because they needed to know. Who understands that the most frightening thing is not the thing that chases you. It is the thing that was already there when you arrived, already grinning, already certain, and left something behind when it went.
The corridor off the Ember-glass Forges is empty now. The rain has stopped. There is nothing there. Luna has walked it twice since, at different times of day, by different routes. Nothing. The tee is in the Closet. The grin on it has not changed.
The Laughing Dark subseries — all encounters:
The Weaver's Jest: A Tale of the Laughing Dark
The Mystery of the Laughing Dark: A Tale from the Whispering Woods
The Jester of the Gossamer Plains: The Laughing Dark Arrival
The Laughing Dark — A Relic of the Painted Circus
The Laughing Dark — What the Closet Kept
About This Tee
What it is: Laughing Dark — Horror Clown 3D Print Tee — vivid 3D horror clown graphic across a lightweight silky polyester tee. From a corridor in Ironspire's Shadow Districts, via the Closet, at Pedlar's Attic.
The feel: Lightweight, silky, moisture-wicking — the Harajuku feel. Soft against the skin, breathable, moves with you. Print is sharp at every angle. Won't fade, peel, or crack.
Sizing: Unisex S–XXXL. Relaxed fit. Size down for a closer cut.
Care: Machine wash cold. Inside out. Tumble dry low.
Type: Encounter Tee — the creature leads. It was already there.
What will you find?: Laughing Dark — Horror Clown 3D Print Tee