For fourteen years, Dax Howard has lived with the mystery of his mother’s disappearance. He’s tried to put it behind him, but his father couldn’t get over the loss, wallowing in alcoholism and conspiracy theories about the traveling carnival that he believes kidnapped his wife. Now that his father has died, Dax must face the possibility that he may have been right all along… But what is the connection between the carnival and a sinister cult brewing in his rural hometown, intent on summoning an ancient being down from the stars? If Dax wants to finish what his father started, he’ll have to uncover the secrets of the cult and find the carnival himself… unless the carnival finds him first.