Lara looked at Althacazur, who made a snapping motion like she was an idiot. She snapped her fingers, and just like in an episode of Bewitched, the panther and lion sat perched in front of her as two small cats, their tails flicking back and forth. She reached into her pocket again and found two more treats. She bent over and gave each cat one more.

“You liked that one, didn’t you?”

Lara smiled and petted the animals.

The bearded lady came by and swatted them lightly, sensing their reluctance to go to their cages.

The show continued as two clowns entered and began to screw off their limbs.

Lara watched in horror as they exchanged left arms and right legs, then one took the other by the head and rotated until his head came off; in turn, the headless body held on while the other clown rotated around him until his own head came off. They tossed the heads back and forth as the heads continued to chatter to each other. Then each took the opposite head, placed it on top of his neck, and rotated it back on.

Althacazur clapped as the clowns bowed and exited. “I just love that one. You’d never guess who that was in a million years. The irony of the heads coming off… you just can’t design this stuff any better.” Althacazur circled in front of her, still clapping. “Now, this one is just for you.”

The door opened and a figure came out—a large one—a towering figure with eight fucking legs. Jesus. Lara had a thing about spiders. A bad thing. Ever since Peter Brady had the tarantula on his chest on The Brady Bunch vacation episode in Hawaii, Lara had hated spiders. Worst thing about buying an old house? Spiders. Now bounding toward her was one that stood at least eight feet tall.

“Seven,” corrected Althacazur, his eyebrow raised. “Seven feet tall. Your inner voice exaggerates.”

Lara felt sweat beading on her lip. “I suppose this little guy is actually the size of a postage stamp, too?”

Althacazur leaned against the bandstand and lit a cigarette. “Nope. She’s fucking huge. Am I right?”

The spider slowly approached and then lifted her front legs, exposing giant furry fangs. From the countless books Lara had read about spiders—from the Sydney funnel-web spider that chased down your ass to the black widow that lurked in woodpiles—she knew this was bad, very bad. But underneath the arachnid was—a woman. Was a woman pinned to the thorax?

Lara felt bile rise in her throat. She was definitely going to vomit.

On second glance, the woman was not attached to the spider so much as she was the thorax—her arms and legs transformed to spider legs. When the spider got close, she could see that the woman looked just like her. Lara felt her blood drain, then her body became heavy.