by Kara Silver
“Here you are!” Waiting to go on in the theatre tent, Tristan grabbed her into a hug, and she wanted to sink into his warmth. “You haven’t practiced this, but you’ll be fine. Just do as… Beatrice? Is everything fine?” he asked as she pulled away.
“You tell me,” she replied.
“I… After, okay? Just come in when I do.” Casting a glance at her as he went, he took his place a few feet away in what passed for the wings, then held up a finger to signal when to wait and when to enter.
She could figure that out from the players’ cues, but she wasn’t studying them. Not this time. Tonight, Kennedy scanned the audience. The spectators always got so into the action, clapping and exclaiming at the appropriate parts, almost a part of the play themselves, identifying with it…losing themselves in it.
Oh. She gulped, clawing for an understanding just outside her reach. That’s it. That’s what it is. She shot from her place to the tent flap to peer inside at the rows of transfixed people, all of them leaning forward, straining not to miss anything, swaying and turning to catch everything…moving as one. One entity. One being. As if in a trance. It hadn’t been like this before, had it? Not to this degree? This, this can’t be good.
Kennedy raced back, but not to her spot, despite the signals of the players not on stage, despite Tristan’s frowns. “What’s going on?” she demanded, right into his ear.
He stared at her, silent, and all the players, whether on stage or waiting to go on, stared at her, as if they could hear, could see.
“Fine, the show must go on.” Kennedy returned to her place. “But afterwards, we’re talking. And not stopping until I get answers.”
As soon as she took to the stage, she wished she hadn’t. It wasn’t just the theme of that night’s piece, although she could have done without that. As Tristan had said, she hadn’t rehearsed this, but it seemed all she had to do was what she normally did… and ignore the forces of vice, or evil, watching and tempting the characters, especially The Lovers. Was it some sort of morality play?
Whatever, the audience laughed as one when the comic servant characters fell into temptation and joined the legion of devils, then oohed when the higher-class doctor succumbed and ahhed when the righteous Pantalone and la Signora lost the struggle. And when she and Tristano interacted, with her trying to ignore the hissing, beckoning legion of demons watching them, the audience was on the edge of their seats.
And Kennedy felt sick to her stomach. Her head thumping, knees knocking, she prayed she’d make it to the end of the play without fainting or throwing up. When, near the end, Tristano swopped his normal mask for the grotesque, agonised red one denoting his demon-allegiance, Kennedy could not look. She had to force herself to take his hand and accept a similar mask from him, signalling her acquiescence, but couldn’t bring herself to slip it on. Holding it in front of her face was the most she could manage.
She looked along the line of the i comessi players as they bowed and curtseyed, basking in the audience’s wild applause. The identical demonic grimaces, the almost rictus contortion of their features—it took her a few seconds to connect it with the ranks of comedy and tragedy masks displayed on the walls of the strange café her uncle had taken her to for breakfast, what seemed liked weeks ago. Then all the emotion had been wiped from those facsimiles of faces, to leave them bearing tortured, tormented expressions of agony, the same as the new masks the troupe wore this evening.
The second she could, she bolted from the stage, and, as she expected, Tristan followed her. He caught her outside and pulled her back by the hand.
“Don’t.” She issued the warning as she wrenched herself free. “And my name’s Kennedy,” she added, forestalling any attempt to address her by her commedia name, even though she’d thrilled to it so recently. She prodded him, a hard finger in his chest, forcing him behind the tent, into relative privacy. “Answers. Now!”
He didn’t flinch at her growl, which disappointed her. Instead he spread his hands wide, looking almost charming. “To what, amore?”
“Huh. I’ll be dam…” Yeahno, best not go there. She probably was damned anyway. “To questions.” Then she almost smiled. This was like being with a certain someone else. “It’s like Aeth says, this place, it’s not good for you. Only you means them, doesn’t it.” She didn’t make it a question, just pointed over at the crowds streaming out. Them.
“Aeth,” Tristan repeated, his face darkening. “I get tired of that name.”
“Aeth? Aethelstan?” Kennedy launched into brat mode. “Yeah, it is a weird name, Aeth.” She nodded.
Tristan took a half step towards her. “Say that name again and—”
“You’ll be sorry,” she finished, squaring up to him, her fingers closing around her knife in her pocket. “I’ll say it as much as I want, and, now, you’re going to listen and then talk. Are we clear?”
24
She stared hard at him, letting him know she was serious. Deadly serious. “Aeth said something else about the fair. I don’t remember exactly—I should start writing his pearls of wisdom down—but he said the fair is a place that’s alluring, that makes it easy to give into temptation.”
Tristan stared down at her, his head tilted back. “And?”
“For God’s sake, Tristan! I don’t suppose he meant where people here for an evening out cheat on their diets and scoff down sugared doughballs, or break sobriety and have a glass of naff champagne. Or even get a cheap thrill at the old What the Butler Saw machine in the arcade.”
“So?”
“You know,” Kennedy reflected, taking a step towards him, “For once, I would really have liked to do this the easy way. Why does it always have to be the hard way? Why can’t I get a few days’ holiday, for crying out loud?”
Tristan straightened from lounging against a wooden strut. His casual, carefree pose looked as though it was harder to maintain, making Kennedy glad. “Let’s walk a little. You don’t want to get cold,” he muttered.
“Sure. No problem. Here, there, fairground, cemetery—makes no difference to me. I might start handing out my CV, right from the get-go,” Kennedy mused. “You should all know what you’re dealing with.” She felt a bitter delight when he cast a wary glance at her from the corners of his eyes.
It was helping to quash flat any attraction she felt to him. Had felt, she amended. Those tousled red-brown curls, the sparkling green eyes, the full pink lips—immune. Yep. “I recall another of Aeth’s greatest hits,” she said. “That the fair is the sort of place where il demonio can hide in plain sight. And now of course I realise what il demonio means. Demons.” She hissed out the last word.
“Col cavolo, Kennedy!” Tristan struck out at the side of a booth they passed. “Why do you need to believe him? Aren’t you happy here? I know your aunt and uncle are happy to have you here. To welcome you into the family.”
Oh. That struck a low blow. She swung to him, to refute that, to remonstrate, and is if a film were playing, one in 3D and with scratch and sniff cards, she felt Giacobbe and Emilia folding her into their warm hugs, heard them asking her eagerly about her life, smelled and tasted the tomato whatever it was being cooked for late supper. Family. She turned the cushion into a barrier.
“Family? My so-called cousin isn’t. She wants me gone.”
“What?” Tristan stumbled on the uneven ground. “Why?”
“Maybe she wants you all to herself.”
“Ah. What do you call it? Hazard of the job. The role.” He swept a hand down his costume.
Kennedy recalled some reading she’d done on the nature of the commedia and the characters, and Tristan’s explanation of the Lovers. That gli Innamorati were more in love with love than each other. Did that spill over in real life? Life imitating art? “So was that what happened to me?” she whispered. For all she knew, there’d been a string of innamorata playing opposite Tristan, all of whom had fallen for him, or the idea of being in love.
“No.” His denial was immediate and h
e clasped her hands in his. “I want you to stay with us. With me.”
“Really?” Kennedy tried not to shiver, even in the chill breeze. She hated to show weakness. She pulled her hands away. “You didn’t let me finish the quote-fest. That wasn’t all Aeth said. He said this is where il demonio can hide in plain sight—and corrupt innocents.” She didn’t know if Aeth had intended to lump her in that category, but she did. “And I was almost… Oh, what’s the point?” She’d just cut her losses and go.
“Come with me. Let me show you something.”
“I’m going that way anyway,” she muttered, letting him thread her arm through his and walk her to near the gate. She didn’t see anything special, just a knot of people going home, perhaps, or out somewhere else, a drink in a bar, say.
“Hey,” Tristan called, as if he knew them. They all shouted greetings in reply, and came over. It reminded her of the easy camaraderie of the other night, when she’d gone out drinking and dancing with Tristan and a posse of his friends. The small gang of people surrounded them, fingering their costumes, talking about the play, the fair, the rides, the booths with their games, describing their favourite thing or moment. They’d all had a great time. It was good to hear, to be a part of, making her smile and nod, ask for more details, or throw in observations, enjoying the buzz, their vibe, whatever it was. Like in that bar, the other night. It’s good to do something different. To get out and about. New people. Recharge.
It’s a bit like being onstage. She’d felt all that roar-of-the-crowd stuff then, had soaked in the audience’s energy. No, not exactly soaked. More like ridden. Like a…high. As she watched, Tristan grew more…well, himself, was as near as she could get to it. Stood straighter, taller, his hair a wild mop one of the girls they were talking to just had to run her fingers through. Tristan laughed, his deep-forest-green eyes glittering, his colour a slightly redder pink. And as he gained, the small band of fairgoers around them fell quieter, stiller. Paler. And Kennedy was thrown back to last term, to learning that girls were singled out, were used as—
“No!”
Her cry broke the mood. Tristan snapped to, the languorous look in his eyes gone, his blissed-out posture straightening. He made some excuse and yanked her away, pulled her inside a hall. It was a relief to be indoors, away from any last, leftover streams of energy or lifeforce, on which Tristan had been—
“Feeding.”
“Umm. Yum.”
Wrong-footed, Kennedy gasped. “Oh, I assumed you’d brazen it out.”
“It’s what we do!” He sounded a little drunk, was what she equated it to. After that infusion, his levels would have to regulate.
“Here.” She meant the entire place, not just this part, this amusement.
“So do they. Can’t you smell the food they feed on?”
“The cotton candy and sugared doughnuts? You’re talking about junk food?”
“Not for us.” He sighed with impatience, reminding her of Aeth. It was different for them. They’d had a whole lifetime to understand and live this. She’d had, what, a couple of months?
“Look.” He turned her.
Oh yeah. This was the mirror-maze-hall-thing. This first mirror was normal, and she stood so she only had to look at Tristan, seeing him healthy and happy, pinked-cheeked, vibrant-eyed. I knew. Of course, I knew what they are. What they…do. But knowing something at the back of her mind and seeing it with her eyes wide open were two very different things. And one she didn’t like.
“Like they just feed on snacks while they’re here, it’s low-level for us, too. But sustaining.”
“But…are they, well, pure?” God, that sounded snobby, and she cringed at his caw of laughter. But her question was prompted by the events she’d lived through, learning that demons sought out the purest sustenance.
“You aren’t as innocent as you look!” Tristan approved. “Yes, the fair draws those we need. The pure, as you call it. And it’s symbiotic. They get a buzz from the minor enchantment of the place; we feed off that, and everyone likes it.”
“Everyone’s a winner.” She didn’t even know if she was being sarcastic.
“What’s the harm? Look…” He’d shifted so she was looking at herself, at her curling, lustrous hair and enchanting eyes in her flawless skin. She even thought her boobs looked a bit bigger.
“Isn’t it good to be with kin? Your kind? Living your way?”
His voice, with its light accent, wound its way into her thoughts, tying them together like a ribbon around a posy. Kindred. She stared, really looked hard, at herself and him. She was…the same as them. Aeth had even admitted he didn’t know what her purpose was. He’d said something about the balance, so maybe this could be her job! Seeing that things were okay here? Here…and there. Wherever they went—she’d always wanted to travel. She could study or read, take internet courses or go to lectures or classes wherever they were. Couldn’t she?
Just like you wanted to stay in Wyeford, go to the local college, take a job there… People had patterns, she knew. Chandy’s boyfriends were all the same guy, just with different names. Layla screwed up every interview she had, blew every chance she was given. People had grooves, yeah. And… it seemed demons did as well. Demons. Which reminded her. She closed her eyes to the mirror-Tristan-and-Beatrice, who was Kennedy, and with an effort, shifted to face the real Tristan.
“I don’t understand—why the play tonight? Why do a show about demons if you’re demons?”
“If we’re demons?” Tristan’s exaggeration mocked her use of you. “That’s actually a good question. I think…it’s because we’re drawn to do that? To challenge and push? Like you studying folklore, here?”
“I’m not— And folk would imply they were human.” Wouldn’t it? She was confused.
“Why have that museum, at Heylel of all places?” Tristan laughed. “That’s just going around the ass, right?”
“What?” She didn’t get the idiom. He tended to translate them literally.
“The master’s tools, and all that? Kennedy, you’re one of us. You belong here.” He held a gentle hand to her nape so she was forced to look into the mirror again. She shook his hand off and twisted free, pulling herself away. To be confronted with more mirrors, all showing her reflection, each time in a more crazily distorted form: squat and fat, troll-like, or wavering with twig arms and legs, like an alien. One gave her bulges, like growths, on various parts of her body and one slimmed her to a wraith.
“You’re a demon in denial!” called Tristan.
She stopped, intending to whirl on him, to answer him, but couldn’t move. Why? What was…stopping her, calling to her? Whatever it was must be low down, almost near the floor, but there was nothing to be seen. Kennedy threw herself to the ground, and as she looked, a small piece of the wooden wall changed.
It glimmered and formed and suddenly there was one last mirror, one she doubted was part of the amusement. It was simple, seeming to be just a flat piece stuck onto the wall near the exit, right down there. She doubted many people, after the fun and laughter of the convex and concave mirrors, would bother with a simple square of looking glass—if they could even see it. But she could, and stared into its misty grey depths.
Truth glass, demon glass, heartbreak glass. Blood glass. Its names whispered about her. Only one who has experienced all its facets can use it.
“That’d be me,” she replied, resigned.
If they dare.
“Oh, don’t you ever dare me,” she warned.
And its haze cleared to a sharp silver-polished shine, inviting her to peer in and see…herself. Her nature. Feeding, on innocent fairgoers, partaking in a mutual exchange of pleasure, but one in which consent was at best manufactured and at worse non-existent, making the process something Kennedy didn’t have the guts to name. And she was feeding on that poor guy—an under, her possible-parents had called him—gorging herself on him until she drained him.
“No. No!” Her denial was of everything she was
and the possibilities she’d been shown. With every ounce of conviction she possessed, every drop of determination, of self-determination, she struck out, hard with the palm of her left hand, and cracked the glass. It didn’t shatter, just broke into four neat squares, three pieces falling to the ground and the fourth…into her hand.
“Kennedy?” Tristan spoke slowly, his voice hushed. “That’s mercury glass. Silvering glass. Ancient. Venetian. Where did you get it? What have you done?”
“It’s mage glass, you ignoramus.” It was just like she’d told those Invis-Dudes: did it matter that she didn’t know how she knew stuff, as long as she did? Well, at least, enough to get the job done?
She didn’t turn, just held up the quarter section of glass and angled it to look behind her. She knew what she’d see in a mage glass. The truth. That was one of its names, after all. True faces, true natures. And Tristan’s was far removed from the beautiful bouncing-haired, gleaming-eyed youth he showed to the world.
“It’s all like this?” she demanded on a sob. “It is, isn’t it!”
She’d answered herself, but now had to see for herself. She ran, full-tilt, holding up the glass to get a crazy, whirling, sickening view of the world behind her as she hurtled along. She felt nauseous, but not just from the motion. At what she saw.
The swirls of life force coiling around the ground, keeping everyone sated, creating that hushed calm. The ‘fortune teller’ in her glass cage, her eyes flashing, her teeth chattering, delivering clients’ fates in a croak and a cackle for a penny dropped in the slot: no mechanical automaton of a torso but a trapped witch, doomed to eternal imprisonment and imprisoned to entertain. The carousel—the ride’s carved animals were enchanted beasts, creatures of legend and myth, ensorcelled into place and used as amusements.
