SICK OF SHADOWS
But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often thro' the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed;
"I am half-sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.
~ from "The Lady of Shalott" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
CHAPTER ONE
I was shocked, to say the least, when he had followed me outside after that party, smiling quietly from under his hat like he did. It was alluring, and I was sorry I'd found myself attracted to him. I'd heard stories, gotten warnings from the boys of his behavior. But I wasn't so sure; I wanted to see for myself if he was anything like the boys said he was.
So when he pushed me against the hard, cold brick and mortar and attacked my mouth with his own, I knew I was in deep. I had never, ever been kissed by a boy, ever in my life. I was a sixteen year old girl living in 1898; what did you expect? But being pressed up against this brick wall, kissing this boy, I felt reckless, and it was the most deliciously satisfying feeling. So I did what any naïve, stupid girl would do: I kissed him back.
This happened, over and over, for three months. Three months of groping, stroking, kissing, grasping. He'd corner me outside the Lodging House, get his fill of me and then leave to buy his papes. He'd follow me out of Tibby's, drag me to an alley just so he could satisfy himself until that night when he knew I would open my window and let him inside, just like I always did, just like I always would.
But then, one day in April, he pulled me aside outside the Lodging House. He looked flighty and nervous, which was odd on his face.
"Is everything okay?" I asked nervously. Worry looked misplaced on his handsome face. He was never worried about anything. "Did I do something wrong?" Why did my brain always go to that?
"No, Katie," he said harshly, and then sighed. "Ah... I mean Flick. No, you didn't do anything wrong. It's just…"
"What?" I asked, desperate for a response. Was he going to break up with me? Would he go back to Dreamer again?
So, instead of breaking up with me, he pulled me into his arms. I stood stiff and rigid in his embrace. Embrace. I rolled the word around my tongue, testing it. He was... hugging me. He never hugged me.
There was many things he did to me, and hugs were not one of those things. I blinked in shock, my face pressed against the plaid of his shirt. He held me tighter, if that were possible, and I could feel his hands trembling at the small of my back.
"I'm so sorry, Flick."
He was whispering against my shoulder, holding me steadfastly against him. I was shocked, and disturbed, and a little creeped out. He kissed my shoulder, even though my blouse was in the way.
"You're… sorry?" I whispered back, still not hugging him back. Hugging was foreign. Hugging was not something he and I did. Ever. Not even once.
"We do all this things we shouldn't," he said softly, leaning back, staring at me with those mesmerizing cerulean eyes of his. "And I don't even talk to you."
Shocked, I stumbled over my words. "It's okay—"
"It's not okay, Flick!" he exclaimed so suddenly that it made me flinch in surprise. He never rose his voice with me. "I'm not supposed to like you, Flick. Not like this, I mean. I wanted you badly at first. You were so innocent, and it made me crazy." He stopped talking to twirl a dark strand of my hair around his finger, a smile tugging at his lips. "But I can't get you out of my head. You're addicting."
He attacked my mouth again, his hand gripping the back of my neck in his intensity, pulling us closer together. I momentarily forgot what we were talking about, lost in his mouth — literally. When he pulled away, he was smiling in that charming way he always did.
"I'm addicted to you, too."
He pulled me back into the Lodging House then, and didn't sell that day, because by the time he was finished, all the papers were gone.
:-:-:-:-:-:-:
Flicker smiled lightly, like she was trying to smile under the strain of a great weight that she was forced to carry on her back. And that's what it felt like. She carried her baggage around like dead weight, and sometimes it was suffocating.
Cold.
He was ice. Stiff, angry, gluttonous, and full of displaced rage. He was a walking cadaver; a ghost with a beating heart. For all intents and purposes, he wasn't even real. Just a figment of everyone's imagination. Spinner was the worst thing that ever happened to her, and yet, every time she thought about him too much, she wanted to cry. Damn him for doing this to me, she thought bitterly.
"How was your train ride, Miss Allen?" an oversized, overworked house mother of sorts asked her. She looked bored, and couldn't have possibly cared whether or not Flick had a nice train ride or not.
The only reason she ever had an apartment with her tenement building is because of Max Malini. She always saved Flick's old room for her, when they stayed in New York, because he used his name and his clout to keep it open. Something about that old room just felt right. Granted, the room used to hold her and Spinner and their various adventures and excursions, but still. She liked the stability of it; the way it was always there.
She liked the squeaky floorboard in front of her bed, she liked how her window never opened the whole way and got stuck near the top. She had been traveling for most of her life, so anything stable she scooped up readily and held onto it tightly. But she was a performer first, and an orphan second.
"Katie... well, ya see, me and Dreamer have been gettin' along much better lately. So, I think we should stop this. I'm not good for you, and you ain't good for me. I'm sorry."
She set her case down at the side of the bed and stared at the neatly made bed, sighing as she looked around the expanse of the familiar room. It was a cookie-cutter type of room; perfectly square, bed shoved in the middle, chest of drawers on the east wall beside the only window, the door to the washroom on the south wall, and a bedside table with a lamp and three drawers underneath. It was like a hotel.
Granted, Flick would have loved to stay at something extravagant like The Dakota, having heard all the grand stories about how famous actors and actresses stayed there while touring the city, but her old room suited her just fine. It was just going to be her, since she didn't plan on getting back with Spinner at all, no matter how tempting he was, and he was very tempting.
Without giving herself time to unpack things, Flick left her things in her old room and shuffled straight out of the big, hulking tenement building that was planted front and center in the middle of the East Side, a lovely little place she was fond of. New York was the only home she ever knew. She had a great many friends, and Manhattan was, thankfully, not where Spinner normally resided.
She hopped a trolley in the Lower East Side, paid for her way, and sat down as it made its way towards Brooklyn. Flick soaked the familiar sights up with her eyes, smiling happily as she took them all in, as overwhelmed as she'd felt the first time she reached New York. It was a grand place, the city. She'd grown up in the slums of Boston, in an orphanage that could barely be called so. Flick had only ever heard about Boston proper, never having the guts to pick up and run away.
Flick was not adventurous by design. In fact, she fancied herself a little boring. But she a heightened sense for trouble. Trouble, it seemed, followed so close on her back, and there was no way to shake it off. Max Malini, her guardian and magician extraordinaire, always teased her about it, and said it was the only reason he liked her. She had a spark, it seemed, that he rather liked about her.
As the trolley neared the Bowery, where she was headed, Flick hopped off it and padded up to the Bowery Theater. It wasn't her favorite place to perform, however, being so incredibly close to the Five Points, but it was a favorite of Max's, having been raised in the Bowery, so she braved the disturbing feelings she got when she came. The place was all ready packed, patrons chattering excitedly about how exciting vaudeville entertainment was.
Flick elbowed her way through the bodies, smiling demurely around herself as she headed for the door that led backstage. Anne, the stage manager, gripped Flick's upper arms when she noticed her. Anne was a stout, sweet-faced woman with a small temper towards things that didn't go her way, but a heart of gold. Anne was consistently Flicker's favorite stage manager from all the places they'd performed, and they'd been on quite a few vaudeville stages.
"Goodness, would you look at her?" Anne said, in her thick south London accent. "A bit peaky, I see. Does that man never feed you?"
Flick blushed. "I haven't eaten all day. I've been nervous about returning to New York."
Anne nodded, and her voice lowered. "Is that boy going to be here tonight?"
"No, Ma," Flicker said playfully. "I haven't talked to him in a year."
This seemed to satisfy Anne and she patted Flick on the cheek affectionately. "Well, good riddance, I say. That boy was Trouble with a capital T. You are much better off without him."
"I am trying to believe that myself," Flick said honestly. He may be Trouble, but I loved him. He loved me, too. I just know it. He had to have. Why else would he have kept coming back to me?
Anne offered a wrinkled smile, turned and began barking orders to the stagehands. Flick sighed and walked to her dressing room to get changed. Once she was laced up in her corset and a rather pretty dress made almost entirely of grape-colored chiffon, she stepped from the room and looked around nervously.
That's when she saw him.
Strolling down the hallway, looking the very picture of self-absorbency, was Max Malini, in his cape and walking stick. He was young, however, but he rather fit into the image he created for himself. When he noticed Flick, he stopped, took her hand, and kissed her gloved knuckles.
"I'm so glad you could make it, my dear," he said, peeking up at her playfully. "Will you be sitting in my box this evening for the performance?"
He was such a skilled actor! He took on so many personalities that it was rather hard to keep up with them all.
Flick nodded. "I will, kind sir. How lovely of you to have asked me," she said, in a most ridiculous way to match his act.
Max laughed and straightened up. "You are my good luck charm, Miss Katie. Of that, I am certain," he told her. "Now then, you are nervous, yes?" Without waiting to hear her answer, he produced a worn deck of cards and grinned up at her.
It was the first trick he'd ever done for her, and it had become a staple in their relationship. Right before a performance, he would do the card trick for her, and have a successful night performing. Only once did he not have time to do the trick of her. Needless to say, it never happened again.
"Will you never tire of this trick, darling?" Max teased her, holding the deck of cards out to her.
Flick shook her head. "Never," she confirmed, and placed her palm on the top of the deck, waiting for a few seconds as she thought of a card, and then removed it.
He spread the cards out between his two hands, peered down at the cards, and then plucked one out, holding it out to her. With a smile, Flick turned the card over and the Queen of Hearts stared back at her.
"How do you always know where this card is?" Flick sighed, handing the card back to him. "You've rigged that deck, I swear you have."
"Darling, you've looked at the deck yourself one hundred times!" Max laughed. "No rigging required. I am simply a genius."
Flicker sighed again, enjoying the old argument between them. Then the thought hit her. "You know, Max, I thought you didn't enjoy vaudeville bills. Why are we here? I never got to ask."
"Ah, but I am top bill tonight, darling," Max told her, bowing with a flourish. "Top bill or the highway, I always say!"
Flick rolled her eyes. "You never say that, Max, but thank you for answering my question."
Max left her be then and Flick ducked back out the door, walking up the stairs to get to the boxes that sat above the regular patron seats. She sat down slowly, bored out of her mind until Max took the stage. She'd always been fascinated by magic, and she'd learned a few tricks in her time with him, but she'd never be as good as him.
His stage presence was nothing she'd ever seen before. He talked everyone's ear off and before you knew it, the trick as done and everyone was amazed. Flick grinned in spite of herself as everyone applauded the performance. It was sad, since the people in the back couldn't appreciate his talent. Max was a close-up magician, and you couldn't fully appreciate his greatness until you saw his shows up close.
Suddenly, she was tapped on the shoulder. Flick blinked a few times and turned to see the familiar face of Swifty, her best friend, holding out a red rose for her. With a gasp, she flung herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. He laughed and hugged her back.
"Couple 'a guys saw you was back in town, Flicker, and I came to see if ya wanted to come back to the Lodgin' House for old times sake," Swifty said softly against her ear, since the show was still going on, though Max's act was finished.
Flick didn't even think about it. "Sure thing. Just let me change, and we can go."