She tried to shove it all away. Tonight wasn’t about feeling sorry for herself. It was about silly rides, goofy shows, and a whole lot of shitty food.
For once, she was going to try to have some fun.
He watched her from the shadows with a smile. Although, to be fair, he was almost always smiling.
Madness was funny that way.
He supposed there were two ways to go. He could either be the kind of brooding flavor of nuts that sat in its tower and lurked, or he could be amused by it and the voices in his head. He preferred option B. At least it was entertaining.
Whistling to himself, he moved from the darkness and down the main fairway, idly spinning the end of his pocket watch around in a loop, wrapping it around one of his fingers, then changing directions when it ran out of length. He’d rather be winding a lock of Cora’s long dark waves through his fingers, but he settled for the chain for now.
She had big, beautiful gray eyes. They seemed to change from dark to light as he watched. They had been brimming with wild terror and edged with some kind of dark and haunted memories. She was so full of pain—in her body and her mind—and it made her all the more delicious. He was going to savor this one.
He had stood there in the shadows and listen to Barker harass the poor girl. “What’s your favorite color?” And she hadn’t been able to answer. The fear on her face was stunning.
The answer was red.
Her favorite color had been red.
Right up to the moment when the Faire had taken it from her, and he had been the one who received it. It was such an odd thing to get used to—being fed little pieces of people by the Faire. He preferred to do things his own way. But many of those who were part of the Family that lived within the Faire weren’t so lucky. Most of them couldn’t rely on their own means to sustain themselves.
But him? His talents were specific.
When the sensation had hit him—that the Faire had harvested someone, and it had been given to him—he had come to see who had given him such a tasty morsel. It was his favorite color, too. Wasn’t that charming? But that wasn’t what had really pulled him out of his tent and away from his practice.
It was the flavor that went along with the red. He ran his gloved finger over his lips, as if he had actually tasted her. As if something might linger there, like wine on your lower lip after a sip. She warmed him in the same way. He tipped his hat to the man standing on the stage as the performer readied himself for another trick. “Evening, Firebreather.”
“Screw off, Puppeteer.” The other man glowered down at him.
He laughed. He didn’t care. He was used to the insults, and he was too excited to be annoyed. He hadn’t felt like this in a very long time, after all.
It was time to add to his family. Time to make a new doll. He hadn’t crafted a new puppet in a very, very long time. He was beginning to wonder if the drive had left him altogether.
Oh, he still suffered from the hunger that drove them all to dance for the mortals and lure them in. He saw them streaming by like so many fish wandering down a stream. But it had been a long time since he had felt the need to put his lure in the water and try to catch one for himself.
He had begun to worry that his will had begun to leave him after all these years, as it happened to so many others. But his concerns were now swept away. He had just been uninspired by the fish, that was all. But that had changed the moment he saw her.
When he tasted her.
Now he was going to have the rest of her.
Oh, she’d play hard-to-get. The fish would dart and nibble the line. He would have to be patient to sink the hook just right in order to puncture through her flesh. But the lure he dumped into the waves in front of that particular tasty piece of tail—he stopped to laugh at his own terrible metaphor—was too tempting to pass up.
She was perfect. He could feel it. He had meant his words. If—no, when—she came to him, she would learn that he was not feeding her mistruths. It might take a few attempts. It might take a few pieces of bait on the line. But she would come to him.
She would also learn there were far worse things in this world than a liar.
And he was the very worst of them all.
With a flick of his wrist, his silver threads pulled aside the backstage curtain of his performance tent. He strolled in, humming and whistling a happy tune to himself. Plucking his hat off his head, he threw it like a frisbee. It landed with a skitter on the surface of his work bench. “Children! Gather ’round. Soon, we’re going to make a new friend. You must all be nice to her.”
“But, Father…” came the broken whisper from one of his dolls. The thing that had once been a woman lurched up from the pile. Very little of her remained inside the shell he had crafted for her. He had taken her slowly, bit by bit, and only scraps remained. How sad. Her head lolled on her shoulder. Dead eyes stared nowhere in particular. “You could play with us instead.”
His jaw ticked. Anger rushed over him, fast and without warning.
Madness. It had upsides and downsides.
He thrust his hand out and, fingers spread, yanked his hand back toward him. The doll hurtled through the air and stopped in front of him. She was a full-scale replica of the woman she had once been. Now she was cracked, yellowed, and fading with time. Rotted scraps, just like what was left inside.
“And why would I waste my time with the likes of you, hmm?” He tightened his hand into a fist, and the doll contorted. He knew she was in pain. That was entirely the point. “Boring, broken, incomplete thing that you are. I’m surprised anything of you still burns in that shell of yours!”
“Please—Father—”
“Perhaps it’s time you rest.” He grinned. Crossing his hands in front of him, he arced his arms wide out to his side. The nearly invisible silver threads followed his orders. They bound around her ceramic limbs and pulled taut, then snapped.
Shattered pieces of yellow-white clay fell to the ground in a heap. He whirled to face the others standing or hanging by the walls. He snarled briefly before he forced himself to smile. “Anyone else?”
Silence.
“Good. Wilbur, get a dustpan. Clean up this mess.” He pointed down at what remained of the woman. “You know how she was, always such a prima donna. She went out the way she lived, as an inconvenience.”
“Yes, Father.”
He pulled on the front of his waistcoat and stepped over the pile, heading toward his stage. “I have a show to prepare for. And soon, we will have to begin working on a new act. I need to start sculpting a new doll.”
With the same elated humming, he shut his eyes and let himself picture her in his head. He wanted to taste her again. He wanted to make sure he never had to stop until there was nothing left of her.
“I will have the rest of you soon, Cora Glass.”
3
Funnel cake was just about as gross and wonderful as Cora remembered. She hadn’t had any since she was a little kid, and the memory of it wasn’t tarnished by the reality. It was greasy, fluffy, squiggly, and covered in powdered sugar.
Emily had eaten a bite of it and inhaled at the wrong point, aspirating a giant pile of the dusty substance. Trent and Cora had both laughed at her as she waved her hands around, making faces from the sudden shot of powdered sugar to the lungs.