When he died, their father had two requests. To get Ice Blue cotton candy and put it at his grave with the coin that was in his ankle, and then videotape what followed and share it with their mom. At least, that was what the secret paper said. The one that only James Jr. and his sister, Lily, were allowed to read.

“What is this?” James asked his sister, shaking the paper in his hands. He then glanced over his shoulder at his mom who was crying in their aunt’s arms just as a black crow flew over both of their heads. He watched it land on a gravestone next to their father’s opened grave. It squawked burdening James’s already dampened mood. No one else seemed to notice. At least the bird’s presence helped put weight on what felt like a too sunny day for a burial.

“Why didn’t you ask the man who handed it to you?”

James was annoyed. “Because he walked away to his car and then just drove away.” The man had a top hat and had been dressed in all black with the cleanest white gloves that James had ever seen, but that might have been because James was a mechanic.

“Well, I don’t know how he expects us to do what it asks anyway or why he would bring us the paper now. They will be driving the coffin out here soon to bury him. After that, the coin in his ankle will be gone.” She shrugged. “Too bad I don’t have my scalpel,” then laughed manically, which made James flinch. “I should know by now to carry it with me at all times.”

James thought that his sister was a bit much, sometimes. She was a thirty-three-year-old surgeon who always told the most awkward stories at family dinners with their more than awkward dad. Being the eldest, James was the one who had to team up with their mom to try to put a stop to it most of the time.

He sighed. “I have my knife. I’ll do it.”

Lily’s brown eyes widened. “What?”

“I’ll go and cut out the weird coin that he put in his ankle from God knows where.”

“But… around all these people—James, no. You can’t. You can’t just mutilate our father. At least not here! People will see you!”

But he could. He wanted to. Needed to. He owed it to his father since he had been the one who had never connected with him. And now that his father was gone, it was too late. This was his last chance to fulfill one of his dad’s silly odd requests that James typically would have ignored.

He slid his heavy knife out of his pocket and flipped it open. Lily whipped her head around to make sure no one saw. “I am surprised that you aren’t all for it, Lily.”

“And I am surprised that you are! This is a joke, James!”

“How do we know that?”

“It has to be one of his drunk games.” Lily’s eyes were pleading. Her breathing coming in fast as she grabbed the necklace around her neck just as they both saw the hearse pull up with the coffin. She looked legitimately worried about him. Like she didn’t know what to think about him anymore.

“Maybe. But it is his last request,” James whispered in her ear as he headed to the jet-black vehicle that held his dead father.

Shaking her head, Lily gripped his shoulder. He was tall and awkward compared to Lily, so she had to reach high. “I’ll scream.”

He couldn’t believe that she would do that to him. That she would stop James from… he looked down at his knife winking at him in the sun. Well… maybe he could. He was about to go and cut open his father’s ankle to slide out the coin his father had always talked about that was under his skin. No one knew why. He wouldn’t say. It was one of the very few things that their father didn’t explain.

Lily shook her head again. He could tell from the remorse in her eyes that she had read the betrayal in his. “I’ll cause a distraction for you. As soon as they get out of the car. Before anyone else comes over. Only if you are sure you don’t want me to do it. I’m the surgeon, James.” She looked over his shoulder and he did too. Everyone was waiting and staring.

“I’m the one who needs to. You… you always made him proud. Always connected with him. In ways that I could not. The least I can do is this.”

She studied him for a second longer, “You really need this?”

He nodded then she grinned.

He had never wanted the silly coin, until now, until he had read the paper that was still in his hand. He shoved it into his pocket and then stepped away from her and let her do her work. Lily looked to the sky as she let out a blood curdling scream, grasped at her chest, and then fell straight to the ground in a heap.

Everyone rushed toward her as James slinked away to the hearse. He cursed when he saw that there were no side doors, so he flung up the back hatch and opened the coffin.

His dad who was normally a big guy was now even bigger, bloated, and a pasty color from the chemicals the mortician layered on his face and put into his insides. At least they had gotten rid of some of the yellow from his liver failure.

James groaned when he looked him up and down again. He knew he didn’t have a lot of time. He needed to get to his dad’s legs. This meant crawling on top of him— he didn’t know how to open the bottom half of the coffin without wasting time trying to figure it out.

James braced his legs on the side of the coffin and thanked his height as he dug down and crawled back to try to get to his dad’s legs. He was lucky he was skinny, and he was extra lucky that he remembered that the coin was in his father’s right side.

It was dark and it smelled, but James was used to holding his breath in certain situations as he felt down his dad’s swollen leg, found the top of his shoe, and lifted up his pants with his fingers. He was happy to find that his dad’s pants had been cut in half to fit him. He then felt the familiar feeling of the coin that his dad had asked him to feel a thousand times under his skin. With his knife, he slid into it, under it, and then pulled it out. He didn’t feel anything wet like blood, but it did stink. He gagged as he scrambled backwards out of the small space and then jumped out of the coffin, slamming it shut without looking at his dad again.

Everyone was still crowding Lily as he brushed himself off and walked away. He smelled the hand that had made the cut and made a face. He guessed he was officially like his father and sister now.

 ******

It wasn’t until after the burial that Lily had asked to see the coin. That was the first time that James had allowed himself to pull it out of his pocket.

He laid the gold coin in her hand.

“Wicked…” she breathed. “Did you wash it?”

“Um…” He didn’t even wash his hands.

She waved at him scrunching up her nose in disgust but kept staring at the coin. “My contacts need adjusting. I can’t see the imprints on this as well as I want. When we get to Mom and…Mom’s house… I want to look at it with my glasses.” She typically only wore her contacts when they were going someplace nice. James wondered how many years they have been overdue.

“How long are you staying?” James asked looking over her shoulder at the coin. It had on it what looked like a three-dimensional ghost of a clown or maybe it was a distorted man. Tilted one way in the sun, the coin was golden-green, and then the other way it was white. It was exactly how his father had described it, though James never thought it was real, just one of his dad’s jokes.

“How long are you staying?”

They both lived in different cities, still in their same state, but far from their hometown. “Probably until after I finish his request."

He snatched the coin back up from her hand and put it in his pocket.

“Then I will too, obviously. But I don’t understand what he meant by Ice Blue cotton candy. I also don’t understand why the color is capitalized.” Their dad may have been odd, but he was smart like Lily. He wouldn’t have made that mistake.

“It could mean nothing, but the cotton candy part is easy. He has to mean from Huppers Park.”

They both grew quiet. Growing up, James and Lily were forbidden to go to the amusement park under strict orders from their mother. It had something to do with their father’s adolescent years of drinking and doing drugs.

“It’s thirty minutes away,” James whispered. “Do you want to go today?”

Lily laughed. A few people stopped and stared. “Sorry. I know. Funeral. Do you really think Mom wants us to leave her today? Aunt Helen is coming over tomorrow. We can sneak away then.”

It was a good idea, but James couldn’t help but feel antsy. A part of him was ready to complete his father’s one last wish and return to his normal life.

 ******

Since it was the middle of the week, Huppers Park was not that busy, but it was still loud. Machines ran in every direction over top of James and Lily as people screamed. Metal hummed. Heat blared off the dark pavement as they walked. Sickly sweet scents intermingled with fried odors and created itchy concoctions in James’s nose. The last time, and only time, that James and Lily were at the park was when they were teenagers. That day their dad had snuck them here and they had found all their friends, until they were ripped away from all of them by their screaming mother. The embarrassment and shame of that day rattled inside him now. Ever since then, they had both avoided the park.

James took out the now purple-green coin. He had washed it last night, and then he had cried as he had washed his hands over and over again and again before throwing out his knife.

He felt Lily tugging at his arm, shaking him out of his memory. He clenched the coin as he followed her to a booth.

“Do you know where we can get some Ice Blue cotton candy?” Lily asked the man with long greasy black hair and missing teeth. He smiled at her as if she were the candy in his life.

“Flavor or color?” He croaked looking amused.

“Ummm…. I don’t know.” She looked around at what he had, which were bags of pink and green cotton candy all around him. Then she looked to James.

James didn’t know what to do. He looked at the coin hoping maybe it would grant him an answer, but when he glanced up to ask the man, he saw the man staring at the coin too.

The man’s smile stretched. “Ahhh… you are new. You want the Ice Blue. Flavor and color it is.”

James swore the man was there one second and then gone the next like a slow flicker. Then he was back with two frosted blue tickets.

Lily jumped. She must have seen it too. “How did you do that?”

He didn’t answer, just held out the tickets. “Name is Recks if you visit me again.” He gave a nod at the coin.

Lily stepped back leaving James to grab the tickets. They were ice cold and left frost on his fingertips for a moment. James pocketed the coin and shook his hand.

“What’s wrong?” Lily asked.

“They’re cold.”

James noticed Lily tearing at the skin of her right pointer finger with her thumb nail. “What do they say?” she asked.

James looked. They didn’t say anything; they only held a picture of a ride.

“I guess it means we head to that.” Lily looked around and then pointed in the distance. She had found it. The ride that looked like a flying alien’s ship and spun people around on the inside as they were pressed against a wall.

There was more screaming, and a couple of kids danced by as they walked toward the ride. James wasn’t surprised his father liked it here since he had always been fun in his own quirky way. The rides were a little eccentric like him, showcasing pictures that made James a little uneasy. There were paintings of humans on leashes that he had never noticed before, dogs and cats running upside down trying to get at a slurpy pink frothy drink, and different shapes and colored doors with monsters or creatures peering out that were constantly changing the moment the painted doors somehow opened and shut.

When they reached the flying saucer ride, James noticed it was decorated with a painted purple door lying horizontal on its side with dried paint bleeding from it.  The painted door remained closed unlike the others he had seen that somehow had been brought to life. There was a lady with long pink hair standing right outside of the ride. She noticed James staring at the door, winked at him, then held out her hands for the tickets. Once she had them, the frost inched across her fingers and her smile grew a little too wide. She told them to step inside.

For the first time since all of this, James was actually reluctant to do so, but Lily grabbed his hand. “You want to connect with Dad, right? This must have been his favorite ride. Let’s go.”

James let his little sister drag him inside. A metallic taste rested in his throat as he crossed the bridge that led to metal walls with no cushions for comfort. The door closed behind them as all went black.

He felt something turning, as if the ride was going to start before they had a chance to strap themselves in, even though he did not see a single belt or harness. His arms flew out trying to grab onto the walls or anything to hold him steady, his heart rattling inside his chest.

But then everything stopped. It had all been so sudden. There was no way that could have been the whole ride.

He grabbed onto Lily’s shoulder as a pink light shone down from above. James swore it looked like a moon in a hazy mousy sky.

Lily took a step, but James held her back. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we are supposed to walk. What if it is a haunted house?”

That would explain the guy they had met and the ticket trick. James took a cautious step, but then jumped and shrieked when something crawled over his shoes.

It was a red giant centipede that was translucent as a ghost. James watched it dig a hole into the ground and disappear.

“What the heck!?”

Lily laughed. She pointed to the dead grey trees that surrounded them. Owls, the color of light blue, purple, and green were flying and landing on them before taking off again. Not a single hoot escaped their mouths.

“It’s just like some of the stories that Dad used to tell us!” Lily laughed. “Remember!? Colorful birds in a haunted place. Giant insects that wanted to escape. Hippos that eat candy and dig in the sand. Boogie the owner; you can’t make him mad!”

Yes… James remembered that rhyme. Along with some of the stories his dad used to tell about Boogie and the adventures they used to go on together. How there were different houses that were disguised as rides that would open up and eat you and then spit you out somewhere else. Finding your way back was easy but fighting the desire to return was always hard. Because once you went somewhere, your soul always belonged to that somewhere else.

James had always dismissed it as ramblings, but now… seeing it with his own eyes… he wasn’t sure. Was this a secret underground amusement park for special guests? Did each ride open up into something like this? But how was technology this advanced back when his dad was young…

Lily walked toward a few trees.

“Lily, wait!” James yelled after her. He had a bad feeling.

“What?” She laughed again. “It’s insane. It’s like he’s here! Isn’t it? Like our father is here. I remember every single one of the stories. I would cling on every word. Look at this grass.” She bent down and plucked a blade. James watched it squirm and scream as it withered and died in her fingers. “Just like he said!”

“How are they doing this?” James asked himself more than her.

“Dad always said this was real.”

“It can’t be.”

“Why not?”

“Because… Because things like this don’t exist.”

“Oh really. So, what is that?”

She pointed to a few particular trees not that far away. They had bags of Ice Blue cotton candy dangling from the branches and a green ghost hippo using his small legs to spring up and grab one. After chomping it a few times in its mouth, the hippo ran away with no weight to its steps.

“Mom isn’t going to believe this!” Lily clapped before taking out her phone, but then she blanched when the screen flashed bronze and then black. She shook her head laughing and put it away. “That makes sense. Never mind.”

James looked up at the cotton candy. “So now what?”

“You go get one.” Lily patted him on the back and pushed him forward.

“But what if another hippo…”

“I’ll keep on the look-out.” Lily winked.

He bit his lip and went forward. The tree felt thin in some parts like paper, his hands pushing through, but sturdy in other parts like an actual tree. He climbed to the lowest branch that held some of the cotton candy, trying not to make too many holes in the tree, and grabbed a bag. The bag stuck to him, threatening to melt into his hands like it was some kind of membrane. He dug his free hand into the sleeve of his shirt and grabbed the bag with that instead. To his surprise, his quick thinking had worked. The bag had stopped melting as if his hand had been the thing that was too hot for its skin. He then jumped down.

“Do you remember Dad ever mentioning this?” He held the bag up that he was holding through his shirt. Only the part of the bag that had partially melted was sticking to him. The cotton candy inside looked safe. Lily shook her head.

“How do we get out of this place?” He was ready to leave. The atmosphere felt denser somehow weighing on him.

“You never listened to Dad at all, did you?” Lily smiled.

James didn’t think that deserved an answer. She walked confidently past him, stood in the empty space they had been on before, and waited for him there, but then a light blue owl swept down at him trying to claw at the bag he held through his shirt. Wherever its claws landed, vicious designs of frost spread for a few inches before melting away. James turned and hunched over trying keep the owl away from the bag as he yelled at it to get away. After a few more clutches of its claw, James didn’t hear beating wings any longer.

James waited a few more seconds to make sure that the owl was gone before he turned back to his sister ready to reprimand her for not trying to help. But then he saw that she was gone too.

His heart started beating faster, his blood rushing through his veins to his head making him feel feint. Where could she have gone? He stayed where he was turning in circles. The cotton candy bag was beginning to melt again from the sweat coming through his shirt.

“Hello, again.”

The strange voice made James jump and a cry lodge in his throat. There was a man with a top hat standing beside him. It was the same man who had given him the letter at his dad’s burial. But how did he get into the ride? And where was Lily?

“Are you lost?” the man asked. His skin was ghostly pale, but solid. His grin grew teasing as he tipped over his hat in a formal gesture before setting it back on top of his head. His black suit and black shiny shoes were collecting dust from the ground.

“Where is Lily?” James asked. He didn’t care who the guy was or why he was there. He just wanted his sister.

“Your sister? She left.” He pointed to where his sister had been standing. “Your sister was a good daughter and listened to your father. She knew the way out.”

James stared at that spot. It was bare dirt with grass all around forming a circle. “How?”

“That was where you both came from.”

James grew curious about something, “Are you Boogie?”

Laughing, the guy patted his own cheek and then lazily pointed to James, “You would not want to meet Boogie.”

From the stories his dad had said, Boogie had never sounded like a bad guy. At least in the few stories James had listened to.

“I knew your dad,” the man said. He did not step closer to James. He did not move at all. Only stood and stared at James as he studied him up and down with one hand now resting on the rim of his hat. “Your dad was a good guy. Way better than Boogie any day of the week. He was devoted. To here and to his family. Not many people can be devoted to both things.”

James didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what being devoted to here meant. He also never thought of his father as a good guy.

The man grinned. “But you didn’t know him at all, did you?”

James clenched his teeth.

“Maybe if you stay you can get to know him?” Another centipede, this one orange, slithered up from the ground before diving back in.

No. James needed to get back. He needed to get back to Lily and needed to finish his father’s request. He was the one with the coin and the cotton candy. Lily couldn’t do it without him. “I have to leave. Can you tell me how?”

“That I cannot. Only because suffering is my favorite way to feed. Use your imagination and find out. Or think like your father. Maybe you will come up with something.”

Within a flicker of the air, he was gone.

James couldn’t help but to hate that man more than he hated himself. He hated him for knowing his father and for trapping him here with no way out. Or was it James who had trapped himself here? If he would have listened to his father and all his stories maybe he would know his way out like his sister.

James looked up to the pink moon in the sky. He had no imagination, so what could he do? Think like his dad? But how?

He looked down at his feet and kicked off his shoes.

Maybe if he acted like him, then the thoughts would come.

He slid off his sweaty socks and let the dirt cool his bare feet. Just like his dad did when he would go outside.

Another thing his father liked to do was spend his time in fright. Or as close to it as he could get. Testing himself or proving himself to his family. Showing them that nothing actually scared him at all.

James sighed, walked to the bare spot that Lily had apparently disappeared from, and plopped on the ground. James hated terror. And he felt that proving oneself was worthless because no one should have anything to prove. Except, maybe this time, James needed to prove something to himself. Maybe he needed to prove he could connect to his dad in some ways if he tried.

A centipede popped up from the ground a few feet away. Now that James was closer to the ground, it looked even more terrifying on its hundreds of legs each about the size of his fingers as it crawled.

Please crawl away from me. Please. He heard his voice whispering in his mind.

But the centipede was coming toward him. Its attention on the cotton candy stuck in James’s lap.

Normally, he would get up and run, but he couldn’t. His dad would have sat still and let it crawl over him and then would have laughed. So, James sat still, but screamed right when the thing crawled on him. When it touched his feet, he started thrashing his legs. He only stopped when it coiled away from him and dug itself underground.

Things shifted around him, and all went black, as if the world had been snuffed out.

A door opened. And Lily was there staring at him.

“Where have you been!? You look like a mess. And where are your shoes?”

“I—how did you?”

Her foot began tapping and she pointed down at it. “All you do is this.”

All James could think about was his thrashing legs.

 ******

They went straight to their father’s grave. James had to deal with holding the cotton candy in his shirt the entire drive there, which was burdensome because he was afraid of it melting the entire way. They then had to also use Lily’s shirt to help peel it off of his own and to help set it on the grave fully intact. But they were relieved when they had done it, sticky plastic membrane mess aside. The cotton candy was laying on the grave where James reluctantly put his dad’s coin next to it before stepping back, still with no shoes.

Lily took out her phone that had begun working the moment they had stepped out of that odd ride and hit record.

They waited. The cotton candy sat beside the already dying flowers with the coin dull and white beside it, waiting for something.

But nothing happened.

Lily didn’t say a thing.

Was this really a joke? Or was this all a dream? Was James actually sleeping in his bed right now with this thing his mind had concocted to remember his father by?

He took out the paper and read it again to make sure they did everything right.

They had. But still…. nothing.

He heard Lily start to tap her foot. He imagined her patience was growing thin like his or at least he hoped, so they could give up and go home soon.

Lily tapped her foot again.

Then something appeared. A large opening split part-way in the sky about the size of a car as a green ghost of a hippo came barreling through.

Lily’s foot stopped tapping. They both held in their gasp. But James could feel Lily’s hands shaking with excitement while she started a new recording on her phone just as the hippo floated down, trudged on its four feet, and opened its giant mouth to take in the cotton candy.

In less than a second, another portal opened, and it was gone. Along with the coin. It must have taken that too.

Lily whooped, while James didn’t say a thing. He felt empty inside.

He watched his sister replay the video again.

They both took it to their mom. She watched it with wide disbelieving eyes and then shook her head, “He put you up to this, didn’t he?” she tsked. James could see the tears in her eyes. Whether she believed what she saw or she didn’t, he didn’t know. “That was what was in that letter I saw that man give you, wasn’t it? He put you up to this. All these years…”

Lily’s mouth dropped open when she watched their mom hit the delete button and then James had to grab his little sister’s hand when his mom went into the trash on her phone and emptied it to make sure the video was gone for good. As much as James didn’t want it to disappear, he wasn’t so sure it belonged. At least not in this world.

 ******

He met his sister on the front porch a half an hour later. Lily planned to leave the next day. He had planned to leave tomorrow too, but not anymore. Not after he had called his old job and told them that he was staying.

But she didn’t know that. And he didn’t want to tell her. He didn’t want to be as open about things as his dad had been, but he did want to get to know him more. He wanted to understand. He wanted to rid himself of the guilt he felt tugging at him for not believing in his father for all these years.

Unlike Lily had.

“Where do you think he got that coin?” Lily asked looking out at the sunset.

“I really don’t know.” James answered, but he planned to find out. Just like he planned to find out who Boogie was too.