by Anya Allyn
A smirk played on the side of Henry's mouth, and he stepped away.
None of the guests were eating. Their eyes seemed hungered, but not for the food.
I shut my eyes from the sight of them. Wafts of the foods around the room entered my nostrils. My stomach ached.
Jessamine brought another plate over—a plate of tiny delicate cakes and profiteroles. Taking them gratefully, I ate them all. Plate after plate was offered to me and to the others of the underground. I threw caution to the wind and ate until I could eat no more. Ethan wolfed down entire plates of devilled eggs and stuffed olives and cheeses.
Philomena pushed yet another slice of gooey caramel fudge into her mouth, and rolled around groaning on the floor.
Jessamine clapped her hands. “Up Philomena. Ladies do not make spectacles of themselves during dinner.”
The little girl rolled onto her knees and crawled along the floor like puppy to her chair. Jessamine clucked in distaste, but Henry threw back his head and roared.
A cry started up amongst the people. “Lord of Misrule! Lord of Misrule!”
Two men and a woman heaved the old wooden puppet theatre out.
Missouri and Sophronia waved Aisha and me over. We slunk behind the heavy, red and white striped theatre. Philomena settled down on the floor near Jessamine.
“Who are all the people?” I whispered. “And why is Henry here?”
Missouri reached to pick up a marionette—an ugly red-faced baby—her hands shaking. “I don't know. I don't like it. I want them gone...." She lifted terrified eyes to me. “Let's do all they ask. And hope they leave.”
The grotesque Punch's face gaped as Sophronia picked him up from the basket.
Aisha's mouth tensed. “I won't be doing a silly puppet show.”
“Then don't”. Missouri stared around at her in surprise. She went on to explain to me that a Punch and Judy show was to be about naughty people who did the wrong thing and whom were caught and punished. She shrugged stiffly. “The Lord of Misrule is Punch. It's a tradition that goes back centuries. He's the Lord of this whole feast.”
Sophronia was deft with the puppets and could manage two on her own—so she was to play two of the parts. Missouri was to work one other puppet, and Missouri and I were to do the voices. We acted out a simple play of slapstick retribution.
Cackling laughter bounced around the room as Punch, left to babysit his own baby, hit the squalling baby with a rolling pin. Missouri did the voice of the baby. A passing policeman saw Punch hitting the baby, and Judy and the policeman rushed in to hit Punch with a baton.
The play finished to uproarious mirth. We had the puppets take their bows, and we sat behind the theatre, stretching our legs.
Next, Jessamine called Philomena to play a game with Clown—instructing Missouri to wind a scarf around Philomena's eyes, as a blindfold. The wooden clown moved to the centre of dance floor. Philomena had to find Clown, with Clown being allowed to tilt to avoid her grasp. The people laughed hysterically and clapped her on.
I avoided Henry's gaze as he gazed curiously at me across the floor.
After a few minutes, Clown tilted forward to make it easy for Philly to grab him. She wrestled her blindfold down, relieved to have found him.
Henry bent down to her. “You won, butterfly. And here is your prize.” He handed her a long wooden box, painted with clown's mouths.
She fixed her gaze intently on the box, her small fingers scrambling to open the lid. She shrieked as a jack-in-the-box leapt out. A round of sharp laughter hit the air.
She stared over at Missouri with wide eyes, as though to check if it was okay that a toy should jump out at you from a box. Here, toys did a lot of unexpected things.
Henry clasped his hands as though looking down upon an adored child. “And now you may choose the next game.”
She stepped away from the toy. “Hide and seek” she said shyly.
Missouri shook her head vehemently, trying to catch Philly's attention.
Henry bowed. “As you wish, my lady. All of you girls, and the boy, are to hide. If we find you, you are to help us find the next one of you.”
Missouri took Philly's hand and left for the corridor. Sophronia followed. I hurried after them. I knew where they were all headed—the bathroom. None of us wanted to be found by Henry or those people. Ethan grabbed Aisha and took her off to the dressing chamber—Aisha wrenching her arm away from him. But she changed her mind and went with him.
As I opened the bathroom door, Sophronia and Missouri raised fingers to their mouths. Philomena stared upwards at the older girls, then put a finger to her mouth as well, as though she thought it was all part of the game.
I leaned back against the tiles. “Why do they want to play games with us?” I whispered.
“I don't know.” Missouri's eyes rested on Philomena's head, and she squeezed her shoulder. “It's all just silly games, and soon they'll go home.”
A woman flung open the door, makeup smeared on her lined face and her lipstick cracked. I couldn't tell how old she was—she might have been in her seventies. “Found you all.” She clapped her hands gleefully, raising a pair of antique pince-nez glasses to her eyes. “Now you must find the others. What fun!”
We hung back against the tiles. The bear moved around the woman and into the bathroom. Philomena ran shrieking—Missouri following. Sophronia stepped into the corridor. I stayed with her—she was unable to run very fast.
“Got you.” A young, dark-eyed man touched a bauble in Sophronia's hair. “And what a prize you are.”
The stout man that Aisha had been dancing with jumped into the dressing chamber. “Booooo,” he roared.
He chased Aisha out into the corridor, running with his arms out like a gorilla's. He caught her, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her high. Aisha screamed.
Ethan bolted out after them, leaping onto the man's back and closing his hands around his neck. Ethan squeezed tighter and tighter, his mouth cruel under the mask. The man fell to the ground with Aisha, the bird mask falling away. His face was dark purple around bulging blue eyes, hook-nose pointed upwards.
The bear moved forward, pressing Ethan against the wall. One of the dolls and Raggedy started up the corridor towards us. Aisha crawled out from under the limp man.
My lower lip shook. I couldn't save Ethan from the toys, couldn't save myself. And now he'd killed someone.
But the man on the ground turned his head at an odd angle, and winked at me.
Sophronia lifted her face to mine, her intense eyes telling me to go. I closed my eyes for a moment, then fled down the corridor. I knew she wanted me to help Missouri protect Philomena.
The ballroom was empty. Where had they all gone? Had the guests left?
I caught sight of a twirl of material in The Dark Way. Missouri's dress? Why choose there, of all places? Maybe Missouri couldn't find anywhere else to hide. Or perhaps it was Philomena alone and frightened.
With arms wrapped tight around myself, I took stiff steps down into the passage. Darkness closed around me. “Missouri? Philly?”
A hand took my arm, pulled me. With a sickening at the pit of my stomach, I knew the hand possessed more strength than a girl's. Henry's eyes glittered in the dark light, beneath coarsely-painted black eyebrows. His cape fluttered as he drew it back from his shoulder.
“You found me.” His coat smelled of greasepaint and dust.
“You have to go find another, now.” My voice choked in my throat.
He held me closer to him. “First, you will tell me how you found your way onto the train.”
I tried to wrench away. “I don't know what you mean.”
“Oh but you do. You weren't supposed to be there, but there you were. In my carriage. You should feel honored—you are the reason I ventured down to this dreary hole tonight. I had to meet the one who can step inside a memory.”
Fear coiled inside me. “I don't know about a carriage or any memories. Let me go. Let all of us go. From
this dreary hole, as you call it.”
“But my dear, you came here quite unbidden, uninvited.”
“That was a mistake.”
“There are no mistakes. There is intent behind everything we do.”
A question speared through my head, a question I had to know the answer to. “Why are we being held down here?”
He let out a low, breathy sigh. “Life operates on a system of predators and prey. You see, there needs to be small sacrifices for higher aims.”
My heart caught in my ribcage. “And we are the sacrifices?”
He stooped his head. “This is a day of celebration. You are boring me. And I'm starting to think I dreamed you into the carriage. You are far too obtuse to have come that way yourself.”
I relaxed under his hold. “You said before this is a day where the masters serve the servants. I demand the masters do as we ask.”
He stared at me with a cold interest.
I met his gaze. “I propose a game. You let us out, into the forest. We get to run and you all get to chase.”
He laughed into the air.
Behind him, more laughter. Figures moved out from The Dark Way, their faces darkly lit with glee.
The blonde woman sauntered up to me, holding my chin between her thumb and forefinger. “Henry is going abroad soon. He won't be coming back. And you will all be leaving here, don't you worry about that.”
I knew her, knew that cruel gaze. She was the woman from the painting. And her dress, it was the black dress I had worn. Only it molded to her—it didn't shrink away as it had done with me.
The mass of people gazed at me with oily eyes, snickering, surrounding me.
Hands grasped my waist, pulling me away. I turned to see Aisha's eyes. She moved to stand beside me.
“Leave her alone.” Her voice quavered.
A smile weaved itself into the dark shadows on Henry's face.
We ran to the light of the corridor.
19. CONFESSIONS
I washed away the heavy makeup as though it were something crawling on my skin. Patting my face dry with the edge of a threadbare towel, I stared at myself. I was naked without makeup, raw. I couldn't bear to see my face. With haste, I drew red circles on my cheeks and colored my mouth in red and eyelids in pink and lilac.
My breathing steadied a fraction.
Aisha slipped inside the bathroom. She surveyed my fresh makeup, then eyed her own painted and smeared face. Leaning over the sink, she scrubbed at the heavy greasepaint. She'd been allowed to remain free from her cell, but Ethan had been locked away again.
I bit into my lip. “I want to tell you thank you. For getting me out of there yesterday...."
She stood silently for a moment, staring into the mirror as water dripped from her face. “What do those people want with us? Henry terrifies me."
Nodding intently, I handed her a towel. Henry close up and personal was nothing like the Henry that I had tracked out in the forest. His voice, the way he spoke, the expressions in his eyes—were completely changed. Almost as though he were not the same person. "What did he say to you, when you were dancing?"
"He said... he said he could take me away from this place. I just had to give the word."
Words caught fast in my throat. That was miles away from what Henry had said to me. I felt a sudden, irrational pain in knowing that Henry wanted Aisha and not me. I was the bud and not the rose.
One thing was sure. Whatever Henry meant by away was not the outside world. He could never let any of us go free. It hurt to even conjure Henry up in my head, to see his eyes.
Her thin shoulders stooped. “I didn't know Jessamine was going to send you into The Dark Way, when I told on you. I swear. I wasn't thinking. I was... not myself... I was just raging inside.”
“I'm okay.” I gave her a small smile.
She wiped her face dry. Small residues of paint were left under her eyes, and tears streaked through them. “After I was brought down here... I thought everyone would write me off as dead... even my family. My one point of light... was the hope that Ethan know I was alive and would never give up looking for me. Stupid right, to expect that much of another human being?”
We fell on each other in a hug. Her body felt as bony as mine.
“Ethan didn't kiss me,” I said softly.
She moved back to study my face, shaking her head slightly.
“It's true. Out in the forest, I was frightened out of my head. And I thought... I thought you were gone... forever. I kissed him one night when I was weak. And I'm sorry. But the truth is he didn't kiss me back.”
A gasp caught at her throat. “God, I've been incredibly stupid.”
We were quiet for a time.
“I want to tell you something too,” she said. “Back in March, at Lacey's party, I overheard something that was said.”
“At Lacey's party?” Normal things like parties seemed so strange now, out of grasp.
“Ethan told Ben that you were the girl guys wanted their girlfriends to be like.”
My gaze fell to the tiled floor, stunned those words had come from Ethan.
“I'd liked Ethan for a long time,” Aisha continued. “And so that night, I was determined to make him mine. I did all I could to get him. You can guess the rest.”
I expelled a lungful of air, slowly. “I wouldn't have guessed... any of that.” Aisha had always seemed so sure of herself back then. Like everything came to her so easily.
The others stepped into the bathroom. Missouri eyed me questioningly, sensing the charged air between me and Aisha, but saying nothing.
I left the room, caught up in thought.
* * * *
The day passed as though in a dream. As though we were mere dolls being observed by people other than ourselves.
Philomena rolled about on a floor rug—playing some game with her fingers. Sophronia unraveled a long scarf she’d made—and began knitting it again. Aisha curled up in a chair and read, playing with her hair as though she couldn't really focus on the pages.
Missouri sat on a horse in the carousel—perhaps because it was the only place in the room where she and Jessamine couldn’t see each other. She hadn't bound her hair up today, and her red hair swung as she leant back perilously.
No food was given to us today. No breakfast. After the feasting yesterday, there were no complaints.
My eyelids were heavy, gritty. I drifted into sleep.
I woke to the rumble of the tea trolley. Jessamine had decided it was time for bed. We had our tea—and I gladly accepted it. I wanted to sleep, and not think.
Philomena had barely woken from her nap when her tea was placed in front of her—but didn’t protest, as a normal child would. Swinging her legs in the big chair, she sipped from the cup.
The fire faded into a pile of ash as we filed out of the room.
The bed chamber was colder tonight—if possible. I drew myself back into the bed, arms crossed over my chest, shivering. Clown and Raggedy Ann settled into their beds. Jessamine was lost in sleep straightaway—while the other girls’ breath misted the air as they coughed. We all coughed in the bed chamber, every night. The dampness stuck to our lungs. Tonight, the odor of wet moss and cold sweat was thick. Missouri fell into a fitful sleep, her chest rattling as she breathed.
I studied the faint figure of the angel in the alcove above me—praying to her to send me into a dreamless sleep. The more I looked at her, the more she just resembled a block of stone.
My heart palpitated—I suspected it was the tea. It couldn’t be good for you to take sleeping medication every night.
The heaviness of the tea settled over me—a blanket of rain-filled clouds on my body.
An image of my father walked through my head. In a suit, he came to sit by my bed. Wordless. Without turning my lamp on. I asked him if he was taking me to my baseball game in the morning. He just shook his head and stepped away. I heard his car in the driveway—the sound of tires on gravel. Heard my mother yelling shrilly o
utside. I walked out to the living room to find mom sitting in the dark doorframe—halfway between inside and outside. She didn’t speak. I didn’t know what had happened until the next day until my mother told her sister on the phone, “Andy’s left for good. He’s gone. What’s wrong with me? What the hell’s so wrong with me?”
She cried. And then I knew.
Mom had been so excited less than a month ago, when she said that dad was coming back to live with us. She used the word, reconciliation. I was eight years old. I’d only seen dad on the limited occasions he’d travelled from Los Angeles to Miami to take me to lunch or buy me a birthday present. I didn’t remember him at all from when he last lived with us. I was just a baby then. The meetings with him each year always seemed stilted, like he was lost for what to say to me, or bored by my presence. He always wore suits—he was a lawyer, he told me, and lawyers wear suits.
I didn’t know why Andy had come back or why mom had wanted him to. Those were mysterious adult decisions that had nothing to do with me. All I knew was that after he'd moved in, they'd squabbled a lot. Like brother and sister. After the first couple of weeks, they'd shown about as much romantic passion towards each other as a brother and sister too. And the squabbles became feuds. Then Andy left.
He only sent me presents via mail after that. He didn’t fly in to give me the gifts in person. Until he stopped sending gifts altogether. When the gifts dried up, so did his communication with me.
It wasn't until last year that I knew mom had been on anti-depressants almost my whole life. It explained a lot of things, like the weeks where I thought she'd never stop crying, and the times I abruptly got sent to stay with my grandmother.
My mind stepped downwards, to a place where there were no conscious thoughts.
* * * *
Jessamine smiled sweetly when I entered the ballroom.
“Calliope—you’ve finally graced us with your presence.”
I was late to the ballroom. I'd slept later than the others, and Jessamine had strangely allowed it. She'd been softer since the day of the feast.
