“Last night I…had a dream. There was a man in it. Tall, with sky-blue eyes. He was painting a landscape. When I walked around to see what he was painting, his canvas was covered in blood. Then his eyes…changed. They were all wrong.” She swallowed thickly, tasted bile, and took another gulp of the water.
“Let me guess. Black where there should be white, white where there should be black, and red instead of blue?” Aaron sighed heavily, as if he already knew the answer. “I knew this was going to mean trouble. When he went after her in the Dark Path, I knew this was going to happen.”
Bertha stroked her hand over her beard thoughtfully. “You don’t think he’s going after her, do you?”
“He hasn’t done that in years. He’s not allowed to, what with Hernandez and all.” Aaron shook his head. “But he might try anyway.” He looked over at her, concerned. “What has he said to you?”
“Creepy shit.” Cora took another swig of the water.
Bertha snorted. “That doesn’t narrow it down. Not even a little.”
Cora smiled. She liked the big woman. She wasn’t sure why, or if she should, but something about her seemed genuine, if nothing else. “He…” She gritted her teeth and shook her head. “This is nonsense.”
“Nothing is nonsense. Nothing you can say is going to make us think you’re crazy.” Aaron leaned in toward her a little. “Trust me. What has he said to you?”
“He asked me what I would be willing to give in order to make my pain go away.” She paused. “I have a chronic—”
Aaron swore. Loudly and suddenly. The noise made her jump. He looked at her sheepishly. “Sorry.” He stood from the bench and ran a hand over his heavily gelled, slicked-back hair. “I need to go. I need to go warn Ringmaster. Cora. Stay away from Simon. Whatever you do.”
Before she could respond, Aaron was gone. He had half-run out of the room.
Bertha put her hand on Cora’s, pulling her attention back to her. “Simon is dangerous. Very dangerous.”
“I wasn’t trying to go near him. I didn’t know…” Cora chewed on her lower lip. “What’s happening?”
“You won’t believe me if I tell you. My recommendation is…enjoy the Faire. Ride the rides, watch the shows, eat the food. But stay away from Simon.”
“But—I don’t care if I won’t believe you—I probably won’t. But I want to know what you think is going on. How…how was he in my dream?”
Bertha sighed and stroked her hand over her beard again. “All right. He has a piece of you. The Faire took some of you away, and it grew a little stronger when it did. It then passed what was left to Simon, to help keep him going. Because of that, you’re linked. He’s using that to try to manipulate you. Because he wants the rest of you.”
Cora stared at her blankly.
Yup. She barely understood any of that, let alone believe it. She shook her head dumbly. “Sorry. I don’t…I don’t follow.”
“Here’s the short of it, sweetheart.” Taking the mostly empty bottle of water back from Cora, she dumped the remainder out on the packed dirt of the tent. “Simon is a dangerous, murderous piece of shit.” Bertha unscrewed the cap of the bottle of gin and started to pour gin into the smaller bottle. “No matter how tempting his offer is, don’t listen to a single thing that comes out of his mouth. Stay away from him like your life depends on it. Because it does.” When the smaller bottle was a quarter full of gin, she handed it back to Cora, then promptly took a heavy swig from the bigger one.
Cora sipped the gin. It was good. She didn’t recognize the brand. The label was designed to look old and vintage and was probably from some hipster distillery. “I’ll do what I can. I don’t think I want to go anywhere near him, so don’t worry about it.”
“Good. He’s trash. And he’s very good at tricking people into giving him what he wants.”
Cora nodded weakly. She sipped the gin again. It was going to help her feel better, one way or the other. “Thank you. I should go find my friends before they get too worried.”
“That’s for the best.” Bertha smiled and stood, putting her chair off to the side. “If you ever need anything, or need somewhere to hide, come right on back to Bertha, you hear?”
They were all talking as though she lived in the park. “I don’t know if I’m going to come back to the Faire after tonight, but thank you anyway.”
There was an odd, knowing, and sad smile on Bertha’s bearded face. “I hope you’re right.” She showed Cora out of the tent and placed a heavy hand on her shoulder before she walked away. “I didn’t believe either, when I came here.”
“I really wish you could comprehend how little sense any of this makes.” Cora sipped the gin. “But the booze is appreciated.”
“Well, if I can’t give you the answers you want to hear, I can at least give you some hard alcohol.” Bertha laughed and walked back into her tent. “Have a good night, Cora. I’ll see you soon.”
Nope. You won’t. Because I’m gonna put this place in my rear-view mirror and never come back. I might even start taking a different road to work. “Yeah. You, too.” She walked away and chewed her lip. She made it back to the Puppeteer’s tent, just in time to watch people streaming out of it. The show was over. And there, by the entrance, was Simon. He was thanking people and accepting what looked like gushing praise from everyone who came out.
Many of the patrons looked wide-eyed and amazed, as though they were people walking out of a movie theatre for the first time in their lives without ever having known one existed. People were talking to each other excitedly about what they had seen. Whatever it was.
It was a puppet show. She couldn’t imagine it was that spectacular. But everybody else seemed to disagree.
She kept her distance, some fifty feet away.
But it didn’t stop Simon from finding her in the crowd. He smiled at her and, raising his hand, wiggled his fingers at her in a greeting. She blenched and looked away briefly. When she managed to turn back, he wasn’t focused on her anymore.
He was focused on Jane. He had Lisa’s daughter scooped up in his arms, and she was hugging him around the neck. Whatever the girl was saying, Cora couldn’t make out from where she was. But by the pitch, it was excited and thrilled. Simon was laughing.
Cora fought the urge to rush over to him and snatch the girl out of his arms. The instinct to protect the child from the man who was clearly a psychopath on a good day and—if Aaron and Bertha were to be believed, which was a stretch—a murderer on a bad one.
You’re falling for their plot. This is just some interactive theatre nonsense. They’ve got you hooked into their stupid story. She made it two steps before she stopped herself. Lisa and Robert are right there. It’s fine.
This is all just a stupid game. You must have seen him in the darkness well enough to make out his face, and you didn’t realize it. That’s why you dreamed of him.
Then…how did he know I called him sexy?
Hot and cold, fiction and reality, fear and anger, they warred in equal parts like zeros and ones. Half of her wanted to believe the nonsense. Half of her knew it was all a lie. Both parts of her wanted to go home.