Chap­ter 15 opens with the soft light of dawn spread­ing across the town, cast­ing a gold­en glow that reminds Will and Jim of lemons. They lean out of their win­dows, their gazes scan­ning the world out­side, but the peace­ful morn­ing does­n’t seem to match the chaos that weighed on their minds. They’re haunt­ed by the events of the pre­vi­ous night, unsure if they tru­ly hap­pened or if their minds had fab­ri­cat­ed the hor­rors they wit­nessed. The air is fresh and invit­ing, spark­ing a sense of excite­ment as they rush toward the car­ni­val that appeared in their mem­o­ries. The smell of siz­zling food and the vibrant col­ors of the car­ni­val stalls fill the air, as chil­dren race about and fathers walk beside them, all seem­ing­ly obliv­i­ous to the unease the boys car­ry. Despite the ordi­nary morn­ing, the boys can’t shake the ten­sion grow­ing inside them as they approach the car­ni­val grounds, unsure of what they might find.

As they step clos­er to the mid­way, the carnival’s true state becomes appar­ent. What ini­tial­ly seemed like a daz­zling, mag­i­cal place quick­ly turned unset­tling. The once-vibrant tents are now tat­tered, the ban­ners fad­ed, and the attrac­tions are worn and lack­lus­ter. The illu­sion of the car­ni­val’s enchant­ment starts to crum­ble as they walk deep­er into its decay­ing heart. The joy­ful, col­or­ful world they remem­bered had turned into a shad­ow of its for­mer self, drip­ping with melan­choly and aban­don­ment. It’s no longer the excit­ing haven it once was but an eerie rem­nant of past joy, filled with traces of decay that speak of for­got­ten times. Will and Jim, who had expect­ed to find mon­strous crea­tures or lurk­ing shad­ows, are instead con­front­ed with noth­ing more than the silent evi­dence of a car­ni­val’s slow, inevitable decline.

Their encounter with Miss Foley fur­ther con­fus­es the sit­u­a­tion, as her obliv­i­ous­ness to the grow­ing strange­ness height­ens their con­cern. She’s lost her nephew and seems eager to immerse her­self in the car­ni­val, seek­ing excite­ment despite the boys’ increas­ing sense of dread. Will’s dis­com­fort inten­si­fies when Miss Foley express­es inter­est in enter­ing the Mir­ror Maze, a place already shroud­ed in mys­tery and fear. Despite his warn­ings, she brush­es aside his con­cerns, dri­ven by the allure of the maze’s strange and mys­ti­cal nature. As she steps inside, the air thick­ens with ten­sion, and a trans­for­ma­tion begins that Will could nev­er have fore­seen. The maze, once a place of fun, becomes a ter­ri­fy­ing entrap­ment, trap­ping Miss Foley in a dis­tort­ed ver­sion of real­i­ty. As the boys fran­ti­cal­ly search for her, their own reflec­tions begin to warp and twist, deep­en­ing their sense of con­fu­sion and dread. Will’s fear inten­si­fies as the maze reveals a dark­er side of real­i­ty, and they real­ize that what they’re fac­ing goes far beyond their under­stand­ing of the carnival’s mag­ic. The deep­er they ven­ture into the maze, the more sur­re­al and unnerv­ing their sur­round­ings become, solid­i­fy­ing Will’s sus­pi­cions about the sin­is­ter forces at play.

In the end, Will and Jim man­age to free Miss Foley from the labyrinth’s hold, but the effect on her is imme­di­ate and unset­tling. She’s dis­ori­ent­ed, con­fused, and shak­en by her expe­ri­ence, speak­ing of a girl she believes is still trapped inside the maze. Her dis­tress seems to echo the same con­fu­sion and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty they had seen the night before, adding to the eerie nature of their already unset­tling sur­round­ings. The boys are left stunned, try­ing to under­stand the depths of Miss Foley’s trans­for­ma­tion and the toll the car­ni­val has tak­en on her. As she hur­ries away, they stand there, hor­ri­fied by what they’ve wit­nessed, unsure whether to retreat from the car­ni­val or delve deep­er into the mys­ter­ies that con­tin­ue to unfold around them. They are left grap­pling with the haunt­ing atmos­phere, know­ing that the car­ni­val holds secrets that go far beyond what they had imag­ined.