by Lucky Simms
Pouting slightly, she opened her eyes again and sighed. “I could just rub it again? That seemed to work…”
Leaning over, she breathed on it and buffed it roughly with the heel of her hand. No flickering lights came to the depths, but she began to feel something, like the faraway sound of a radio being turned on.
“No wait,” she whispered distractedly. “I can feel it… It’s in there.”
Sitting forward, she breathed on it again and rubbed her thumb against the grime, clearing away a clear spot to see through. Deep inside, there seemed to be something. Some flash.
“There! Did you see that?”
“No,” he muttered, but he could feel her sensations and hear it through her. It had that same feeling of gradually tuning in a radio through static.
“It’s there! Gosh, it’s so hard to see… But it’s like…”
“Like lightning?” came a voice from the doorway.
Billie jerked upright so fast she almost knocked the bowl to the floor. Riddick’s hands flew out and steadied the vessel as he whirled around to the sound.
“Mavis,” Billie breathed. It was not a question.
“That’s ‘Mom’ to you, don’t you think?” Mavis corrected as she walked into the room.
Billie stared at her, dumbfounded. She hadn’t said “Mom” in so long the word had almost lost meaning for her, but something in her mind repelled her from it like a magnet. After all this time, her thoughts just automatically wanted to veer away from her.
“Aw,” Mavis purred. “You don’t want to? I can’t say I blame you. I try not to say ‘Mama’ either.”
She strolled to the coffee table and pulled it out slightly, then pushed the stack of magazines to one end and sat so she was facing Billie and Riddick like the point of a triangle.
“Why are you two looking at me like that?”
Billie closed her mouth, realizing it had been hanging open. “I’m sorry… I just-- What are you doing here?”
Mavis looked affronted. “This my home, dear. And yours. And kudos to you for retrieving the mirror from… Mame. That sounds funny too. You know we didn’t always call her Mame.”
Billie nodded, confused. “Yes, I know.”
Mavis waved her hand in the air. “Ah, I see. Of course you do. You know so much now. And what a beauty!” She laughed. Her teeth gleamed in the low, golden light. “You really are just so beautiful. And you--” she turned to Riddick who seemed to wince under her gaze. “You scamp! You’ve always been a scamp… taking things that don’t belong to you, turning up just everywhere…”
“Mavis, what--” Billie took a deep breath to steady herself while a thousand questions pelted her mind. “Why are you here?”
“Hm?” she said vaguely, turning her attention back to Billie. She spread her hands wide, palms up. “It was time, is all. Now… what were you just doing?”
“I was… looking into it. Trying to understand.”
Mavis cocked her head and pursed her lips. “Looking for what?”
“For the flashes… the lightning. For the answer.”
“Ah,” Mavis said, nodding slowly. “Did you get an answer?”
“No,” Billie admitted. “It was just starting to. I saw the flickers and tried to get in there, but it faded. And then you came in.”
“And have you also seen these… flickers?” Mavis said, turning to Riddick.
Riddick shook his head, just slightly.
“What?” Billie blurted out, shocked.
“I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I can feel you see them, but I can’t see them.”
“That’s… OK, fine. But they are there!”
“I know,” he said quickly. “I wish I could see them, but I can’t.”
“And they said I was crazy!” Mavis giggled.
“What?” Billie said, turning toward her. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Mavis shook her head, smiling sympathetically. “There’s nothing to see in there, dear. That’s not how it works.”
“Yes… It is. That’s totally how it works.”
“Nope,” Mavis shrugged. She tapped her temple. “It’s all in here.”
Billie shook her head nervously. “I am not crazy. I know what I saw.”
“Aw, sweetie,” Mavis cooed, clucking her tongue. “I know what you think you saw, but that’s just not the way this artifact works. Did you ask Mame about it?”
“Well, no--” Billie admitted. “She was going to show me, but… The mirror said I should come here.”
Mavis nodded proudly. “I know! I called you!”
Billie’s mouth fell open. Riddick felt her confusion and fear welling up like a spring flood. “You know, why don’t we all just go to Mame now?” he suggested.
“You stay out of this, Riddick!” Mavis hissed.
Billie stared at her mother, aghast. She remembered her shrieking at nothing, staring at the ceiling as though there was someone there. And she remembered Noughton holding her by the elbows, and Lu Blue… In the rain...
“What did you do to Noughton?” Billie asked suddenly. She pulled the mirror to her chest and stood up, the bowl clattering to the thin rug on the floor. Mavis followed her with her eyes.
“What did you do?” Billie said again.
“I--” Mavis started and then shook her head. “Noughton will be just fine. He just disappears sometimes. He’ll be back.”
“No, that’s a lie.” Billie said with certainty.
Mavis hissed out a frustrated sigh.
Billie saw it now: Noughton’s dark face, the one that had been so carefully hidden from her in the clockwork theater. She saw him spin around, the way the darkness turned him off like a light, and he reappeared somewhere else.
“Where is he?” Billie asked though she thought she knew the answer.
Mavis shrugged. “It’s hard to say.”
Billie watched it again. Noughton turned his dark side. She saw his face. He looked like Noughton, only more of a copy. A facsimile. A Noughton-shaped doll. As soon as his face was exposed, a shadow fell across it and through it. It was as though someone pushed him right out of himself.
Billie looked around the theater, saw all the people she loved, connected on their wires. Everywhere she turned, the shadow darted around behind her and stayed just out of sight. As long as she looked at her people, the shadowed stayed behind her. Riddick, Mame, Madear… as long as she could see them, they were cast in light.
“You can’t be here,” Billie said.
Mavis laughed. “You know, you sound just like Mame. Telling me what I can and can’t do. I can see her in you.”
“I take that as a compliment,” Billie said coolly.
“Well, you shouldn’t,” Mavis snarled. “And you wouldn't, if you knew her better.”
Billie looked into the theater. Was she right? It was hard to say. It seemed like everyone could be taken apart until they were only flaws, but she really believed in Mame’s intentions. There in the theater, she could see Mame’s love pulsing like a sun.
And even brighter, she could see Riddick’s. He was glorious, all shot through with silver wires of connections, joined with everyone. Yet so mysterious. How had she never realized that was so central to her life?
“We could be together again, you know,” Mavis offered. “We have so much to catch up on. I could show you how to use the mirror.”
Billie shook her head. Inwardly, she watched the theater for signs of what would happen next. She asked it questions. Should we stay here? Should Mavis? Will we be safe?
“You have no idea what it can really do,” Mavis cajoled. “Together… you and I would be amazing.”
Billie said nothing but watched her carefully. Does she mean what she says? Is Noughton going to be all right?
“And you too, Riddick,” she said half-heartedly. “I see that now. It’s your home too. Mame was wrong to keep you from it.”
Riddick blinked at her from under knit brows and worked his jaw silently. He listened i
ntently to Billie’s emotions.
“No I think you should go,” Billie said finally, nearly whispering. In the silent room, the words cut through the air like she had shouted them.
Mavis chuckled. “I am not going anywhere.” She shook her head like something had been decided, then looked up at the ceiling wearily. “You know, so much was taken from me too.”
“I know.”
“No… you can’t know how it feels… to be cast out, away from your own child, by your own mother.”
“I do know,” Billie said.
“Well,” Mavis started, and then looked at the mirror as if remembering. “OK, yes. I guess you do know. I keep forgetting that. It’s like a truth serum, isn’t it? That’s how I always thought of it. It’s truth, frozen in glass. All you have to do is ask.”
“Mame says it’s not all true,” Billie muttered.
“No,” Mavis agreed. “That’s correct. In a way. It’s like shadow puppets. Sometimes it seems to mean one thing but it means something else. But still…. it’s the best we’ve got, right?”
Billie nodded.
“Sweetie, please…” Mavis said earnestly. “I am sure we can find a way to make this right.”
Billie shook her head.
“Billie!”
“I think you should go. And take it with you.”
Mavis squinted at her suspiciously. “What did you just say?”
“Take it,” Billie said determinedly. “Go. Now. And never come back. If Mame finds you… When Mame hears of this she’s going to kill one or both of us. But you can’t stay. And the mirror says there is no other way to make you go.”
Billie spoke with a sad resolve. In her mind the theater started to go dark, as though all the lights were going dim. She tried to focus her sight as the vision faded and commit it to memory, maybe preserve it for her to access later. But each piece simply slipped away one at a time, leaving only Riddick in the center, burning like a single candle.
Mavis glared at her. She bit the inside of her cheek and tried to keep from grinning too triumphantly.
“Ohhh, you are going to be in deep, deep trouble for this,” Mavis crowed.
Billie nodded.
Mavis looked at her for long seconds. She seemed to be considering her options, whether it would be better to try to stay after all. But Billie knew she would take the Blood Mirror instead. She felt it with certainty as the mirror went cold in her hands.
She held it out. Mavis took it from her like it was an infant, cradling it to her breast and humming quietly under her breath. She sigh a long, relieved hum. Her eyes glittered.
Riddick picked the vessel up off the floor and held it out. “Here,” he offered.
Wordlessly, she accepted it. She looked at each of them with pride and gratitude, but Billie cut herself off from feeling any sort of connection. She knew there would be consequences, but they were nothing compared to what the mirror had shown her of a future with Mavis in it. She had to go.
Humming sweetly, Mavis left the room with long, graceful steps as though dancing. She seemed utterly enchanted by the artifact. Billie and Riddick followed slightly behind her, watching her sashay through the front door and over the porch, then across the grassy hill as the winds whipped her hair out in long, dark ribbons.
Riddick stood behind Billie, aligning the front of his body to the back of hers, pressing against her until her could feel they were as close as puzzle pieces.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he murmured into her soft crown of hair. “You don’t have to protect me.”
Billie watched her mother wander away as though in a dream, carrying the thing she loved most.
“I did, though,” she whispered. “And I’m the only one who could.”
“But Mame,” he started.
Billie shook her head and leaned back on his shoulder, closing her eyes. Weariness fell on her like bags of sand. “She won’t understand. Not yet.” She turned around and slid her arms over Riddick’s shoulders. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back as close as he could.
“But we were meant for each other,” he said, nodding, picking up the thing she most wanted to say, and most needed to hear.
She smiled up at him. “Yes. And we have a lot of time to make up for.”
EPILOGUE
August, 2004
Mame sat on the porch in the early morning, drinking coffee. It seemed that now she was truly hooked on it.
The first garden was lush and dense. The corn rose so high you couldn’t see the porch from the road, nor the road from the porch. Though she’d pulled most of the carrots already, there were still a few fronds here and there. The beet greens were utterly wilted. It was very hot.
The cicadas rang out incessantly, buzzing in that see-saw sound that filled the bright air. Mame stared toward the road. Over that hill, she could see the top edge of the Ferris wheel but barely. And slightly to the west, the widow’s walk atop the Right House.
She wondered how Billie was doing.
The screen door slammed, and Kimble walked onto the porch with a cup between hands. “Hello, wife,” he said supremely.
“Good morning, Kimble,” Mame answered mechanically.
“How’s our favorite invalid today?” he asked.
Mame regarded Noughton through squinted eyes. He stared across the first garden toward the Right House. He had no expression. He had not spoken in weeks, and showed no signs of desiring to. He met no one’s gaze. He seemed preoccupied to a point of terminal distraction. It was though he had been paused in the middle of a deep thought and couldn’t reemerge just yet.
“I suppose he’s just the same,” Mame said.
Kimble sighed. “Yes, I suppose so. We’ll get him back, dear. Mavis too.”
He looked around at the gardens, his huge mute son, his infuriated and heartbroken wife.
“We’ll get back home soon,” he said finally, and turned to go back inside.
Mame hoped very much that he was wrong.
ABOUT THE BURNTOWN CARNIVAL
This series of novels and stories focuses on the lives and loves of a group of freak show artists and con men (and women) of every sort. Book 2 - “The Amber Witch” is on its way, 31 October 2014. In this story, a stranger comes to town, promising Miracle that he will bring her closer to her husband if she will procure the artifact Kimble has stolen from him. But Mavis has an even darker secret she has been keeping from everyone. Will Miracle be able to see what’s right in front of her in time to save them all?
Now available for pre-order at the special price of $0.99 until November 1 only (regularly $2.99) Reserve your copy today! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NPMPJ1U
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lucky Simms lives on the banks of the often majestic Fox River, and enjoys live music, scary stories, and red wine.
Follow her on Facebook. She would love that.
More about Lucky and her escapades at LuckySimms.com
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