Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow

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The first novel of Katy Towell, creator of the Web Comic Childrin R Skary, retelling the story of the web comic in prose form.

Twelve years ago, for 12 days straight, the town of Widowsbury suffered a terrible storm, which tore open a gate through which escaped all sorts of foul, rotten things. Strange things and strange people were no longer welcomed in Widowsbury, for one could never be sure of what secrets waited under the surface.

Adelaide Foss, Maggie Borland, and Beatrice Alfred are known by their classmates at Widowsbury's Madame Gertrude's School for Girls as "scary children." Unfairly targeted because of their peculiarities, the girls spend a good deal of time isolated in the school's inhospitable library facing detention. But when a number of people mysteriously begin to disappear in Widowsbury, the girls work together, along with Steffen Weller, son of the cook at Rudyard School for Boys, to find out who, or what, is behind the abductions.

Tropes used in Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow include:

• Most Adults Are Useless: Of course, it's not entirely their fault.
• Alpha Bitch: Becky Bushard
• Arc Number: 12. It's considered an unlucky number to the citizens of Widowbury. The Big Storm began on December 12, 1912 [12/12/12] and lasted twelve days, the story begins exactly twelve years later to the day, Henry Fernberger II's hospital room is 12 and he is visited by 24 students [12x2], the clock on the sign of Lyle Zoethout's Candystand is missing the 12.
• Badass Bookworm: Delia Peet, the librarian. She managed to free Henry Fernberger from the Carousel.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Beatrice, as Becky soon found out. She calmly reads a script calling Becky (who's twice her age) out on her behaviour while her spirit friends scare the girl. Even Steffan, the only other witness, is frightened of her after that.
• Black Eyes: Beatrice.
• Boarding School of Horrors: Madame Gertrude's.
  • Headmistress Bitterman: Mrs. Miriam Merryweather.
  • Off to Boarding School: Subverted, the girls' parents enrolled them at Madame Gertrude's School for Girls because they wanted them to have normal (for certain values of normal) childhoods because their work had them constantly
  • Room 101: Room 912 also known as the Wailing Room
    • Sealed Room in the Middle of Nowhere: Happens unintentionally.
  • Sadist Teacher
  • Scary Librarian: The previous ones. Subverted with Delia Peet
  • Spooky Silent Library
• Chest Monster: The Carousel.
• Cyberpunk with a Chance of Rain
  • A Storm Is Coming
  • Grave Clouds: Constant state of gloom in town and surrounding hills.
  • Hostile Weather: The Big Storm.
• Deadpan Snarker: Maggie, but Adelaide has her moments too.
• Exhasperating Nickname: Franken-Mag for Maggie.
• Free-Range Children
• Gadgeteer Genius: Steffan
• Happily Adopted: Beatrice. We only hear about her birth mother
• Hell Gate: The Storm opened one of these.
• I See The Deceased: Beatrice. She likes animal spirits (a ghost mouse by the name of Phillip is her constant companion) but the Other Ghosts (spirits of people) frighten her.
• Kids Are Cruel
• Meaningful Name: Widowsbury in Pernicious Valley, surrounded by the Devil's Thimbles hills.
• Missing Mom: Steffan's mother is never mentioned.
• Only Child Syndrome: Adelaide, Beatrice, Maggie, and Steffan for sure. No one else mentions a sibling either.
• Ravens and Crows: Widowsbury's primary fauna.
• Ruritania: Bukovina, where Adelaide and her parents originate from.
• Shout-Out: "My, what big eyes she has!"
• Shapeshifter: The blob that Nathan Wick befriends.
  • Emotion Eater: The blob, subverted that it feeds off sorrow and replaces it with happiness.
  • Start of Darkness: When it is forced to eat Margaret Bellhouse, causing it to need to feed off of lives.
  • Eaten Alive / Swallowed Whole: The fates of the Carousel's victims
• Shrinking Violet: Beatrice
• Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Margaret Bellhouse
• Super Strength: Maggie
• That Man Is Dead: Lyle Zoethout was Nathan Wick.
  • Humanoid Abomination: What Nathan Wick becomes.
• Town with a Dark Secret: Widowsbury
• Trio: The girls fall under a few:
  • Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: While they all have their moments as the Brains (and rather adorable in their own way), Maggie is almost always the Brawn and Adelaide and Beatrice can, at any given moment, switch places between being the Brains and being the mediator.
  • Town Girls: Maggie is the butch one, Beatrice is the femme one, and Adelaide is a little bit of both.
  • Terrible Trio: Mrs. Merryweather is convinced they are this.
• Wild Wilderness: Henbane Wood
• Werewolf Girl: The other students tease Adelaide about being one because of:
  • Eyes of Gold
  • Little Bit Beastly: Pointy ears and pointy nails
  • Super Senses: Hearing and smell