by Lucky Simms
Lu Blue was so bright, so much fire with Mame, Mama, Miracle. Mama, Mama. So selfish.
And Noughton, Mavis knew, was also selfish. Holding the girl for himself, snaring her here while casting Mavis out. Mavis knew how to keep her safe and silent, how to keep her from burning too brightly.
But here was Noughton, and touching him was like touching a wax facsimile. He had started warm but then she approached, and he left himself. So tricky, like a fish. Like a wiggling little eel, weaving this way and that, darting just out of reach.
We connect, we correspond. Mavis touched Noughton lightly on his eyelids. She felt him go all cold and jelly. Why jelly? Why not burn? Why not burn with me, brother? Slippery, silly fish, that Noughton. He thought he could hide from her.
Always slipping, always misdirecting. Noughton, always two places at once.
Poor Mavis with nobody. Always alone, to gather the beads. Everybody else sits twinned, pieces touching, becoming bright circles. Feedback loops. All fire. Not poor Mavis. She rides alone.
“Is that right?” she asked her brother, big brother, so silent. “Is that right? I should be alone while everyone else is in union?”
But that is all right now, she told the cold one. Now I understand. Five years is really nothing, just memories written in a grain of sand. We can all be together now. We can all go back to the house.
“Where are you now, brother?” Mavis asked the wax man. He said nothing, just stared with sightless eyes. “I know you are in there!”
BARGAINS
Billie stood at the gate and looked in. She wasn’t sure she could walk through the carnival again, but her promise to Mame burned in her mind. She had to try. What would the carnies do? What did they know?
And whose side were they on?
She tried to clear her mind and see the patterns the mirror had taught her to look for. She could feel the characters on the stage, but she could make anything out with clarity. Yet she didn’t feel an immediate sense of foreboding, and that was good. She felt calm, as though simply waiting for the tide to flow back into her.
Suddenly, she felt a touch on her elbow. It was Riddick, and he looked confused and terrified. In his hands he held the mirror. He pushed it toward her. Yes! she thought. That’s what I felt. I knew it was coming to me! The rain came down in rivulets over the dusty surface, puddling in the basin and making a soup of the dried blood.
Billie looked around hesitantly. The carnies had gathered near the gate and were staring at her. Roger Dell nodded. Moses nodded. Gary - if that was his name - nodded. Everyone knew what she knew. All connected, each to each.
“How do you have this?”
Riddick shook his head. He looked like the words were inadequate to the memory he wanted to share. “I’m not sure,” he stammered. “I think it was Noughton. But it wasn’t Noughton. There was… something that looked like a person, and I could feel him as though I knew him. Billie… I don’t know what to think. But I know for sure he wanted me to have this - he wants you to have this.”
He pushed it toward her more assertively. “And we have to go. Right now.”
“OK,” Billie said and followed his lead. He held her elbow and pulled her back through the gate, walking quickly across the field. The rain had begun coming down in loud cascades, bouncing all over the cars and the guests of the carnival who poured through the gate, running toward their cars.
Billie was glad for the confusion of the tourists and townies as they jogged through the turf and weeds. No one seemed to much notice them pass. Everyone was busy trying to shove their giant stuffed animals and small children into their cars.
Some teenagers were huddled behind a minivan, quickly passing a flask of whiskey or something foul among themselves. They jumped when Billie and Riddick suddenly came around the corner, then continued darting across the rows of cars.
Billie muttered, “They probably think we’re kidnapping a baby or something.”
Riddick looked over his shoulder quickly but dismissed them as harmless. “Keep going. It’s not too far.”
And it was like kidnapping, wasn’t it? Billie felt she was running off with something no one wanted her to have. But yet, she felt it was hers. Could she be kidnapping her own baby?
In any case, every time Riddick touched her she felt the lightning course through her body. With it came an undeniable sensation of running toward what was right and true. Like running home.
Riddick flung the door open to his room at the motor lodge. He drew Billie inside and set her on the bed, then dragged some cardboard boxes from the back of the small closet. Opening drawers and cabinet doors, he threw clothes, books, and bottles into the boxes as fast as he could.
Billie stroked the surface of the Blood Mirror. The rain had washed away so many layers that obscured the surface, and she felt she could now see into it. Just below the surface, there were visions, there was light. She began to hum.
He stopped suddenly. “What are you doing?” Riddick rushed to her and knelt at the end of the bed, looking up into her face. Her hair was plastered to her cheeks. There was still rain gathered in the hollows of her neck and shoulders. She looked half asleep.
And that song - what was she humming? It seemed so familiar.
He shook her by the shoulders. “Billie! Wake up! We have to leave right now!”
Billie walked through a door in her mind and saw Mame. Mame when she was younger, joined up and shining with Lu Blue. She saw Kimble between them. She saw Noughton holding Mavis back by her elbows. Poor Mavis. Poor Mavis.
She saw Riddick growing younger, growing smaller. She saw him when he was just a little boy, freckles on his nose. He gave her a kitten once. She touched his hand.
“No, Riddick. We have to go home.”
Riddick knelt on the carpet and looked up at her. Billie pressed one hand to the mirror, and one hand to Riddick’s chest. He felt her hand inside him, like fire in his lungs. He took a breath. This was knowing and more knowing. He could feel all that electricity racing through both of them.
He felt desire rise in him like a flood. He needed to be inside her, to submerge himself in what she felt. He rose to his knees and kissed her mouth. She leaned into him, opening her lips, pouring her breath and sweat into him.
He pushed her knees apart. He felt her want him to push her knees apart.
He bit her neck. He felt her want him to bite her neck.
He pulled her from the bed on top of him and he could feel her eagerness mount.
Then, crash, the bowl hit the floor and she cried out. She held out her hand. Blood dripped from the base of her thumb and into the shallow vessel. The mirror went from white and purple to a cloudy red.
“Riddick, yes!” She said suddenly, and he could feel her knowing. He felt the blood surge through the mirror and back into her, bringing with it a fire, a song of things vibrating all together. He saw all the people he had known, all at once, threaded together on a silver wire, all connected and shining.
The fire pulsed in her, setting all her cells afire with knowing. She throbbed with light and life and almost cried out with the sudden surge of emotion and sensation. Sucking in his breath, Riddick struggled to keep up with the battering deluge of sensations.
Billie pulled up her skirt, yanking her panties over her knees in one fluid motion. “Look at me,” she whispered, and he did. He felt himself falling into her, and she into him.
Then somehow everything seemed to happen at once, present and future. He felt every breath she’d ever taken and felt somehow he’d been there the whole time. He remembered that tiny black kitten with the green eyes. He brought it to her in a shoebox, and she looked at him with utter delight and gratitude. Even then, he knew she was his.
She’d always been his. Every detour on his path had been just an insignificant distraction. This is where he had always known he would be.
Billie looked into his deep brown eyes, trying to stay steady and focused on the light deep inside him. She sat astride hi
m and when he entered her, she felt like the circuit was complete. Everything was bright and fiery. Every question was being answered. She felt him surge and swell inside her and it was perfection, perfection.
This was their light, past and future. This is what had always been.
EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE
As they stalked determinedly up the hill to the Right House, Billie kept her eyes on the porch. A single light shone in the big window of the parlor, but no shadows moved within. She searched her mind for some sense of what was happening in there. Nothing.
The rain had stopped but the sky still shot brooding purple flashes behind the clouds as they swept to the east. The wind that carried the clouds was cooler, coming in chilly gusts that raised goosebumps on her arms.
Riddick carried the mirror in its shallow vessel and tried to keep his breath even. They took the weedy path up the side hill and the rocks were slick with rain and rivulets of slimy mud. Still he walked as fast as he was able, trying not to cast a shadow over Billie’s path so she could see. His heart hammered in his chest like a caged bird. He tried not to remember that he was not welcome in the house. No one was.
Only Noughton and Moses still lived there. A few carnies had rented proper houses in Burntown, but most doubled up in the modest motor lodge rooms. From time to time, someone would try to take up residence in the house. Maybe someone new to the carnival or some woman who thought Noughton or Moses needed caring for would move in. They’d bring a few belongings and try to make the best of the antiquated plumbing and unreliable electricity.
But they never managed to stay long. Everyone eventually said the house was haunted. There was something that lived there and wanted to be left alone, from all reports. Riddick had heard the stories about people being pushed down the stairs and doors that slammed again and again. And he thought he remembered something… but no. The memories wouldn’t come.
But with every step, Billie remembered more and more. It was like excavating a shallow grave. As they got closer, layers of shadows were swept aside, revealing what had been buried below. This was the hill where she played on sunny days. She and Madear could roll for hours, running back to the top, throwing themselves down and starting again.
Oh, dear Madear! she thought plaintively. The memory of a skinny, tow-headed Madear rolling down the hill in a gingham smock tore at her heart.
Riddick shifted the mirror under one arm and held out his hand to cup her elbow for the last few, slippery steps. They stood in the shadow of the house and looked up at it. At once foreboding and shabby, the house seemed to slouch. Billie tried to remember it sunny and lively, to plaster that image over what she saw now, but the two would not align.
“Yes,” she said quietly, mostly to herself. “Let’s go in. This is where we belong.”
Riddick stifled his automatic objection and followed her to the stairs. She looked around the porch with a small smile at the corner of her lips. This was where she trained the puppies to walk on their hind legs. She took them two at a time and held bacon in her hands with her arms out straight from her shoulders. Pomeranians were the smartest. She could teach them to pirouette in a day.
The screen door swung open easily in her hand and she felt for the door handle. It turned with no resistance, just like she expected. The front hallway was dark and smelled like boots and laundry. She wrinkled her nose and half-turned toward the hall mirror.
“This is where you gave me the kitten,” she said in a small, awe-struck voice. For some reason, her eyes filled up with tears. She remembered his velvety black fur and bright green, determined eyes. All the childhood that had been shut away from her was coming back, along with a sort of homesickness for it that she hadn’t even known existed.
He nodded and pulled her close, burying his nose in her hair and breathing her deep. It seemed like he could not have enough of her inside him. Her scent, her thoughts… he wanted to absorb them all.
Billie pulled back and smiled up at him. She wanted him to feel at home. “Come on, this way,” she said confidently and took him by the hand, leading him into the small parlor. A brass lamp lit the room in shades of dim gold. There were dusty pictures on the wall and a table by the front window covered in a crocheted doily.
But Riddick’s unease grew. He felt like he was trespassing.
“Billie, what are we doing here? Really?”
She dragged her finger along the mantelpiece and grinned at him. “I told you, this is where we belong.”
He shook his head uncertainly. “But Mame said--”
“Mame will come too,” she said breathlessly. “Don’t you see? Everything is out in the open now. She doesn’t have to hide it from me anymore. We can all come back home now.”
Riddick shifted from foot to foot. “But you don’t really know that. Did she say she would?”
“No. I can feel it. You can feel it too. This is where we were always supposed to be, why nothing else ever fit right.”
He stared at her and chewed the inside of his lip. His hesitation cast a pallor on her enthusiasm.
“Don’t you want to?” she said plaintively. “Be together? Here?”
“Oh I do,” he said confidently and walked across the room to touch her. It seemed so much easier to really communicate when they were touching. “I do. It’s just… Mame wouldn’t have gone through so much to keep you in town without a good reason. I think… we should talk to her.”
Billie searched his dark brown eyes, trying to think of the right things to say. Why couldn’t he see? Was he just trained so well to not be here?
“No,” she said finally. “We should ask the mirror.”
“Billie, don’t you think things are fine the way they are? Shouldn’t we just take it slow, or something?”
She shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe you’re saying this… I know you feel it. I know you do. Everything is coming back to me, and it’s like… It’s like it was all stolen.” She bit the inside of her lip to keep her emotions in check but they threatened to flood her. “And I didn’t even know. I just accepted… everything. Even though nothing ever seemed right, I just played along, letting other people call the shots for me my whole life. But now it’s like… I can have it all back. Everything is coming back and no one can keep it from me this time.”
She reached out her hands for the mirror and waited. Riddick scowled and looked around the dusty room. Was this really where they belonged? He could remember, almost… This was the room where they waited to go to the carnival, all dressed up and under orders to not play too hard and mess up their clothes. He remembered the dogs on the porch. He remembered watching Madear and Billie rolling down the hill, screaming the whole way.
Everything was hazy and out of focus as though the memories were only seen from the corner of his eye. Shadows hovered around the periphery, and so many questions. What had happened, that he so easily forgot? They were like three peas in a pod when they were little, but then at some point it was like they were total strangers. Who could have taken so much from them?
“You know, you’re not the only one who lost things,” he muttered, then instantly regretted how it sounded. Billie gasped, hurt, then paused.
“Oh,” she said in a small voice, “Oh, Riddick... You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ve been so selfish about this. We should… We can start again. Just pick up the cars and set them back on the track. We can.”
He looked into her eyes and could feel her sincerity. He knew she held the image perfectly in her head: a long procession of toy train cars that had been scattered far from the track where they all fit together neatly in a line. He felt her utter faith: if the cars were back on the track, then everything would be smooth. Every obstacle could be overcome.
It was a very tempting vision. Her certainty felt like a warm fire.
“OK,” he said slowly. It really would be so easy. What did he have to hold on to otherwise? “Let’s… ask the mirror. Let’s see what happens.”
“Really?
” she said breathlessly, a grin breaking out over her face like the sun bursting through the clouds.
He sighed theatrically. “You’re impossible to resist, Billie. Let’s do it.”
He handed her the mirror and they went to the sofa and sat, knees touching with the bowl balanced on their legs. She peered at the surface.
“What do we do?” he asked, wrinkling his brow at the dull, filthy surface.
She shrugged and leaned toward it. “I don’t know. Every time has been sort of an accident. I haven’t really tried to… you know… ask it a specific question yet.”
“OK,” he said slowly. “So try thinking of a question?”
“Maybe we should bleed on it?”
“Eh, I’d rather not,” he said and she looked up at him with her eyebrows raised. “It’s not that I’m squeamish… OK, a little squeamish. But we haven’t had to do it before, right? So, just clear your mind. Maybe it will start talking to you again.”
Billie closed her eyes and sat up straight, trying to find the dark clockwork theater she had seen before in her mind’s eye. She imagined it perfectly and waited, visualizing a stage and connected players, just waiting for the light to come on.
And nothing. The stage remained dark.
Riddick watched her face go slack and couldn’t help but smile. Her emotions were plain and coming to him with more clarity every time. It felt so right to be aligned with her, as though they were puzzle pieces that fit perfectly.
“You’re very cute when you do that,” he had to say.
She scowled with her eyes closed. “Don’t distract me,” she said irritably.
He pressed his lips together and tried to not think about her freckles, the curve of her upper lip, or that one dangling piece of curl that just grazed the top of her shoulder.
Her lips parted slightly and her breath smelled sweet, like hot tea. Just looking at her was a luxury. The thought of having endless mornings to stare at her, all those realigned train cars on the track… it swelled and bloomed in his mind. This was good.
