Witch Ghost Dog Clone

Living Dead Girl

     It was mostly humans in the audience. Even someone inside the thick canvas tent could tell by the loud hiss of their words and the clunky shuffle of their feet. Mainly Americans. People from as close as Philodefy and maybe as far as Miss Igan.
     The quieting thrill of the whispers gave away some native Tovarians, too. From the far south, maybe even Runicam. Probably no one with captured jinn, or enchanted rugs, or even one of the desert wyrms. A human doesn't come to Madame Lacha if they can wield magic like that…. Or if she does, she wouldn't be caught dead in these tents. Not without a private tour.
     "Welcome, friends, to Madame Lacha's Carnival of Wonders, Oddities, and Terrors." A golden mask amplified The Angel's voice so that it rang soft and precise. "The place you are about to enter is not for the weak-hearted or the faint-willed."
     As if people have traveled through a magical portal from New Jersey or crossed through the griffin-infested Deep Wilds to drink coffee and talk about the weather.
     "The fool will be altered to the core. The wise will forget the distinction between Heaven and Hell. Do not touch the displays. Douse any astral torches and touch off any cell phones. I am The Angel, and I will be your guide."

     The Angel herded the crowd through the first tent, where they gawked at The Gargoyle. He was human enough. Once in a while, he'd be mistaken for a deformed naga or a yothgre with a skin disease. In truth, he was pure stone magic. Made of pebbles that he shaped by thought alone. A dolphin swam through gravel waves while the audience gasped. A delicately blooming rose hardened when he handed it to a lady. A balloon on a string quivered in the air and shattered to pieces when a child touched it.
     That's the Wonder portion. The strongman lifting things, the merrow-maids singing. The unicorns with plaited manes, bleached fur, and scrubbed asses who were stuffed so full of drugs they would lay their head in anyone’s lap. And of course, the swayboughs. Lacha had no shortage of stupid pretty girls ready to sell themselves for training in the magic arts. Pretty girls are useful, dressed up as fairies behind mirrors, dancing with snakes, doing little tricks with fire and water.
     Pretty boys, too. The wolf in human skin stripped on a pole—like they do in America— until he was too naked to hold his shape and transformed into a howling beast. That was the signal for the Oddities to emerge.
     Feather-Head would float in, a half-wit in a frilly dress fashioned in an American style called Victorian. For my five yegg, he was the saddest thing in the show, always smiling, too stupid to know he was the butt of the joke. He was a cursed thing, like Gargoyle, something not quite man and not quite magic. He could be lifted with two fingers and floated over the audience like a damned beachball; they inevitably whacked him to and fro, and he'd just laugh and smile. Be covered in bruises and scratches after every show.
     While they tortured the poor idiot, swayboughs moved things around the tents. Displayed the mandrakes in bell jars. Wheeled out the basilisk Lacha had suffocated and stuffed when it grew too dangerous to live. A crystal jar radiated black light and contained the avocado pits everyone believed were a demon's shriveled testicles.
     The strangest thing—which was no strange thing to anyone who traveled the witch's path through Tovar—was a human-faced paisa-bird. It would gnash its teeth and wail and whine the only phrases it had mastered. "Help me!" "Feed me!" I'm Scared!" and "Fuck you." It probably learned that last one because although it never failed to lure and startle someone, we kept it chained, so it never actually ate anyone.
     The audience rarely noticed when The Angel abandoned them, and the odd became the terrifying. They hushed when the candles dimmed and looked in vain for him when The Angel's voice piped over the crowd.
     "My friends." A glimmer of light appeared over the exit. Most, having got their money's worth, headed right for it. "The entertainments are not done, though I implore the squeamish to abandon the tour now. Outside there is iced cream and witch-kisses, which is a Tovarian sweet bread. As always, our lovely ladies are ready to tell your future. Families with young children are asked to leave, now."
     No one enforced this. But after the paisa-bird, no one ever had to.
     "Then, farewell, friends. Follow The Crane."
     It was the same man; he just hung his halo over the exit sign, left his fancy robes in my room, and reappeared as himself. Just Crane. Half-man, half-bird, all monster. His very wide, very white eyes were unnerving, and people would scamper away when he brought his feather-capped head too close to them. He didn't wear a shirt, and his waist was so narrow, I sometimes wondered where his internal organs were hiding. He rarely spoke, just squawked and pecked until they all went into the next room.
     By magic, the tents would swirl and change, and they would be surrounded by skeletons. A dragon. A small forest griffin. A bear. The bones of a three-headed afrit didn't hold up to study in the daylight, but the yothgre was real. His sharp teeth were dangerous. We'd posed it, so the bleached fingerbones wrapped around the handle of the ax embedded in his thick skull like he was trying to pull it out.
     I'm told it's not called 'taxidermy' if the dead thing used to be sentient, but I don’t know what else to call the next exhibit. A siren, skin shrunken and feathers browned, with her taloned-feet spread wide. A minotaur charging, the fur of his snout falling off in patches. A merrow with a harpoon raised above his shriveled head. They were frozen in death, circling the audience on pedestals, and never got nearer their prey. Rumor has it they all once worked in the camp, and I know we had a merrow boy drown once. Lacha was the type to work her people even after death.
     "Is that her? Is that the one?" Someone whispered. "The Living Dead Girl?"
     "No," Crane hissed. "Deeper in the darkness."
     Nicely, Crane. I got chills hearing that.
     Crane paused before the curtain. "Last chance to leave before seeing that which cannot be unseen, before meeting that which cannot be unmet."
     No one ever left. After all, you don't come this far into Hell without meeting the Devil.
     The curtain fell under his twisted wing.
     There were always gasps. Sometimes screams. 
     "She was murdered as a child." Crane held the knife over his head.
Most nights, the knife was staged. The translucent wet skin, the decaying muscle fibers, and the visible curl of rib cage were not. A withered right arm rested above a perfectly healthy left arm. Long dark hair splayed around a half-living head, highlighting the sunken cheek, the exposed teeth, the empty eye socket.
     Well, not empty. I kept a little bowl of dirt and some worms in there.
     “Stabbed through the heart.” Crane took great satisfaction plunging the knife into my side. Some people applauded. That does wonders for a girl's self-esteem.
     I breathed, mostly through my mouth, letting my throat hollow out and whistle.
     The audience stared.
     I sneered with the skinless side of my face, lifted my withered arm, and flexed the gnarled claws of my hand.
     They broke and stepped farther back.
     Hot crowd.
     I saw my victim. The father holding his little girl. He grinned because he didn't believe in me. Didn't think I was real.
     Crane wheeled in the merch. "Anyone who wishes to learn their future from the dead can purchase some blood to feed the living corpse."
     I lunged at the father. The dirt and worms tumbled from my socket, and the kid screamed. The father—eyes wide as dinner plates, I believe is the American expression— flinched helplessly, unable to hit without dropping his child and unable to escape my dead claw.
     He babbled in American so fast I didn't catch most of it. Bits of his future flaked over me. A car ride, a woman's face, nothing meaningful. Until… his death. Tragically soon and utterly preventable. I didn't understand how. Something called early detection screening?
     I wasn't supposed to be soft to the customers. No free readings. I was supposed to make them feed me the blood, supposed to let the chocolate syrup and mandrake juice dribble down my chin and out of my cheek. Supposed to say things as unclearly and as frightening as possible.
     But this guy. I'd scared him, and he was gonna bolt. You don't have to be psychic to know that.
     "Sir," I softened my hand. "Cancer will kill you. Get the early detection when you get back to Scranton. Ok? Please?"
     The man's fear changed directions- shocked at what it might mean. The little girl, I think soothed by my tone, peeked out of her father's shoulder.
     I didn't take my eye off his, and I saw his future change. Saw a blinding white tube and the men with masks on their faces and felt the sickness of the treatment. Then saw the little girl as a woman in a sparkling white gown and knew. He would be saved.
     Crane gave me a stern look. I was the star of the terror portion of the show, so when I broke character, the tips suffered.
     After all, no one wants The Living Dead Girl to be kind.

Pages: 1 2