Fourteen-year-old Andy and his parents are heading to the local shopping mall one evening when they spot a road-side carnival and decide to stop. On the surface, it looked just like any other carnival, a tracery of lights set above the gloomy trains, creaking carousel and rusted roller-coaster.But of course it wasn't.For while his parents are engaged in whispered arguments, Andy wanders through the silvered entrance of Burleigh's Amazing Hall of Mirrors. Sometime later, it could have been minutes; it could have been hours - quite a different boy walked out.And now there are two Andys. One, a stranger, leaves with his parents. The other stays behind, trapped in the mirror.

It isn't until night falls that Mona - the circus girl with eyes that have seen centuries pass - discovers him and takes his hand, pulling him back into the world. With no home to return to, he is welcomed by the carnies - a group of roustabouts and circus performers that seem to be much older than their appearance would have you believe.Meanwhile, something isn't sitting right with Andy's mother. Her son is acting strange, stranger than the Andy she knew before he disappeared inside the hall of mirrors. There's an incident with a girl who is now unable to speak, a macabre fascination with rodents, a plague of flies. And then a whisper comes, that the ancient mildewman is stirring.Utterly intoxicating, Carnivalesque is a dark, twisted tale of metamorphosing adolescence, loss of innocence, and the perils of growing up.