CH 1
She pulled the cloak more tightly about her shoulders as she stepped out of the cottage, pushing the door shut quietly behind her. Treading lightly on the dirt path, she lifted her head to the sky and inhaled the crisp harvest night that embraced her. From a distance, she could hear muffled crashes of tambourines and the occasional peal of shrill laughter. She glanced over her shoulder quickly, to make certain there were no watching eyes, and then, set upon her way.
Dim sounds of merriment grew louder and more distinct as her nimble feet carried her swiftly away from her home—the succulent aroma of roasting meat beckoning her forth. Before long, she arrived at a small, U-shaped encampment of horse-drawn wagons and octagonal tents that housed all manner of entertainers—from dancers to jugglers to exotically garbed men who were said to consume fire.
With autumn encroaching on the land, the gypsy fair would soon be moving out for the season. Though she knew she could possibly catch hell for sneaking off, Annie was determined to drink in the rare sights and frivolity all around her. She gazed curiously at the stands where the merchants were hawking their beads and silks, imagining that one day, she would buy a fine scarf to wrap around her waist, or a beaded bracelet for her wrist. She laughed at the lanky figure walking on stilts, who bent low to offer her a flower. Knowing she did not have enough coins to spare for the bloom, she shook her head politely, but he placed the bud behind her ear anyway, before rising again to his towering height and continuing on his way.
Meandering through the crowd, Annie gazed at the signs nailed up to posts outside the tents. Bearded Lady, Sword Swallower, The Mystical Fortune Teller—each one required admission. Stuffing her fist into her pocket, and feeling the paltry few coins she had stored inside, she knew she could only afford to see one exhibit. She had to choose wisely.
The largest tent, at the very back of the formation, boasted the most plentiful crowd, with a line of spectators snaking down the pathway to pay their fee for admittance. The Living Corpse, was written on the large placard placed at the foot of the pavilion. Your ears will never know such beauty. Your eyes shall never know such horror! Come one, come all to witness the Devil's Child.
Intrigued, Annie took her place in the line, gathering the small bits of silver in her hand. When she came to the flapped opening of the tent, she felt a large, fleshy hand grip her on her shoulder.
"Just one minute, little girl," came the gruff, scratchy voice of the money taker at the entrance.
"I am not a little girl!" she countered, aghast at being called such. "I am twelve years old, and I will thank you to remember it too!"
Short and stout, with torn brown breeches and a stained shirt, he raised an eyebrow at her. "Who do you belong to?"
"No one but myself, Monsieur," she responded, icily.
"What you are about to see…" he admonished her condescendingly, folding his arms across his barrel chest. "It is not for young eyes. I don't want any trouble with your people expecting their money back if their little miss cannot handle it."
Annie jutted her chin out proudly and stared him square in the eyes. "My people are not here. My silver however is, and it is as good as any other. I assure you, Monsieur, that I have witnessed things that would make men twice my age, and size, quiver in their boots. Now," she added, holding out her fist. "Here is my fee. Step aside and allow me to enter."
The attendant narrowed his eyes, regarding her closely for another quiet moment. Her gaze never faltered from his, her chin never lowering from its haughty upraised position. She was a child, but a formidable one, so with a grumble and a sneer, he flattened his palm to receive the coins that she offered, and grudgingly granted her entry.
The inside of the tent was dark and hot, a stench that conjured hell itself permeating the air. It was filled just about to bursting with fairgoers who stood shoulder to shoulder to see a glimpse of this supposed devil child. Being smaller than most of the throng, Annie wove in and out of the press, twisting and turning to make her way to the front.
Before her, there stood a cold, steel cage—empty except for a solitary figure in the back corner, facing away from the onlookers. He wore filthy breeches that were far too short, and his bare back revealed a crisscross of white and red scars where the whip had obviously stung his flesh. Though he was tall, his form was slight, almost skeletal, his bony shoulders jutting up toward the sky. Hints of black hair, stringy and matted, brushed the base of his neck, as his head hung low before him. Everything about his demeanor screamed broken, lost, defeated—and to Annie, those screams were deafening.
A hush came over the crowd when a large man carrying a thin black cane in one hand, and a long black whip in the other, walked out onto the floor in front of the cage. He was dressed all in a black from his top hat to his thigh high boots, with only a red tailcoat to add a touch of flamboyance to his otherwise dour appearance. "Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen," he began, in a loud disturbing voice, that made the hairs on Annie's neck stand on end, "to the den of despair—the very lair of the Living Corpse…"
Annie watched the figure in the shadows flinch a bit at the mention of the moniker, and if possible, his head hung even lower to his chest, his back hunching over as he had heard the gypsy master's words.
"'…How', you ask, 'can a corpse still breathe?' I shall tell you, my friends, for The Reaper comes to all of us—young and old, rich and poor—and it rends us from this life with no discrimination. But here, ladies and gentlemen, you will behold death as it was thrust upon this world—a festering wound, a putrefying blister on the visage of all that is holy. For it is no creature born of angels that you shall see before you—but the vile, the horrific, devil's child."
A chorus of gasps issued forth from the milling crowd, who was hanging onto the gypsy master's every word. Annie, however, continued to regard the figure in the shadows even as she vaguely heard the theatrical speech. He had begun to tremble now, his back tensing with every reference to death and decay. The emaciated form heaved up and down in an ever-quickening rhythm, as if he was breathing harder and faster. And the master droned on.
"…And yet, the devil is cunning, is he not?" the appalling man continued, spinning his yarn of horror and disgust. "Creating seduction from perversion, allure out of aberration. And it is no different with the fruit of his own decrepit loins, for the demon masquerades as an angel, in order to draw us forth."
At that moment, the master gave a hard crack of his cane, and waved his hand toward the figure—who still did not turn to face the heaving throng of onlookers. Annie saw him stand up taller, bracing himself, it seemed, as if for a blow. Almost imperceptibly, a single golden note began to swell from the shadows. Pure and unearthly, it hovered in the air, floating like a wisp on the wind. It pierced the soul with its clarity, and brought to mind the weeping of angels with its heartbreakingly exquisite tone.
For a moment, the horde in the tent stood silent and still, transfixed by the glorious sound filling their ears. Men put their arms around their womenfolk, as they began to shed hot, enraptured tears. Annie stood enchanted, by the ambrosial resonance, certain at that moment, that the solitary figure was some type of celestial creature fallen straight from heaven.
But the euphoria was interrupted, when the Gypsy Master set his gaze back on the bewitched multitude. "Do not be deceived, foolish mortals!" he admonished, his voice loud and brash, seeming somehow blemished in the presence of such otherworldly purity. "For it is with beauty that the serpent seeks to trick you. Yet, observe as his true nature is revealed."
With another crack of his cane, the note ceased. Slowly, so very slowly, the figure turned around, walking forth out of the shadows. His head still bowed, a curtain of black tangles concealed his face, but Annie noticed that the grisly lines that intersected his back cut across his front as well. His whole chest was a macabre tapestry of reds and whites and pinks that told a tale of painful lashes and screams in the dark. His arms hung limply at his sides, but Annie could see that his hands were shaking.
"Look upon the people," the gypsy master commanded, "that you wish to entrap with your false beauty and your alluring lies." The figure's whole body began to quake, his all-too-visible ribcage expanding and compressing rapidly with labored breaths, but he still did not look to the crowd. "Look upon these men and women gathered before you!" the gypsy screamed this time, flecks of spittle flying from his mouth in his intensity. "So that they might behold your accursed visage." Annie recoiled when he let his whip fly through the bars of the cage, slicing another cut of cruelty into his prisoner's already battered chest.
It was at that moment that the figure lifted his head, the black curtain parting to reveal a face that was both hideously asymmetrical and deformed. The skin on his right cheek was wrinkled into a thousand little folds that looked papery and rough to the touch, blotched in tones of yellows and tans and reds. His eye was sunken deep into the socket and the right side of his nose simply didn't exist, replaced by a dark black hole. His lips were grotesquely bloated on that side as well, puffy and wide and distended—and such a bright, angry red.
Shrill screams pierced the tent, as women, who just moments before were enraptured by his voice, now scrambled to get away from the sight of his face. Several of the patrons emptied their stomach contents onto the ground before they were able to leave the pavilion, adding to the stench of filth that already suffused the space. "Unholy," Annie could hear them bellow. "Unclean!" "Monster!"
But Annie was rooted to her spot near the cage. As the others were screaming, and scrambling away, Annie noticed something that the rest of them, so caught up in the drama of the moment, had missed. The Living Corpse was just a boy—one with a look of mortification washing over his face, and a single humiliated tear streaming down his cheek as he watched the throngs disperse.
Suddenly, he turned his gaze on her directly. In his eyes, his golden, glowing eyes, Annie could read the fire of intelligence and the spark of determination, combined with all the sadness of the world. And pinned by his gaze, Annie felt her hand reach out and touch the bars.
The boy glanced down and saw her fingers gripping the metal barriers that separated them. He regarded them curiously for a moment, peering briefly back up at her, then down at her fingers once again, his expression softening just the slightest bit. But finally, he set his jaw and fixed his eyes on her once more as he commanded her, "Go!"
And so, Annie did.
"My glass is empty," came the slurred speech from the slovenly man at the table who was slouching over his dinner plate, an empty vessel in his hand. Leaning her broom against the wall, Annie wandered over to the small kitchen cabinet where the brandy was kept. Choosing a half empty bottle of the amber liquid, she carried it over to the table and twisted the cap, pouring more than was strictly necessary into his snifter.
She waited quietly until he grunted in acknowledgement, and lifted the glass to his lips. Replacing the bottle in the cabinet, she continued to sweep, and as the dust swirled on the floor a haunted pair of golden eyes swirled in her memory.
Since returning from the gypsy fair, she had not been able to stop thinking about the boy she had seen in the tent. Admonishing herself for sneaking out, she had scurried beneath her blankets late that night, vowing that she would not break the rules again. Her mother would not have approved. She had disobeyed and she had seen something awful . . .dreadful. She knew she deserved the queasy feeling in her stomach and the pounding in her head when she remembered the overheated tent or the repulsive gypsy master.
But the boy! Annie thought, as she continued to move the dirt along the floor. He had seemed so frightened—so … afraid. He could not be much older than her, and yet his eyes held the sorrow of a thousand years. So lost, so fragile—so … broken. The boy had obviously suffered great abuse. Those scars! So many scars.
Annie shut her eyes tightly against the image as she continued her work, wishing she could sweep the vision out of her mind as easily as she could push the dust out of the cottage door. She had read the shame on his face, although in Annie's mind, there was no reason for it. "I know," she'd wanted to tell him when she'd reached for the bars. "I know …"
Annie started with a cry at the loud clang of the metal dish flying from the table. Remnants of food sprayed all over the wooden boards she had just cleaned. She turned her eyes from the mess on the floor back to the table, where he stood, scowling in her direction.
"Do I have your attention now, bitch?" he snapped at her, with an angry glower.
Annie felt her heart racing, but she refused to let him see her cow before him. "Pardon, Monsieur?" she asked, raising her chin again, to feign the courage that she did not feel.
"I was calling you, little wench," he spat, swaying slightly back and forth.
"I did not hear you, Monsieur," she answered calmly, though her gut was filled with the unmistakable urge to run.
"You didn't hear me?" he asked, lurching toward her, with a drunken sneer.
She would not flinch. She would not flinch!
"Well, you didn't clear the table either," he jeered at her, bits of spittle flying from his lips and hitting her on the cheek. "That's why I did it."
Pursing her lips together tightly, Annie's nostrils flared as she took in a deep breath. "I am sorry Monsieur. I will clean it up."
"Damned right you will! And while you're at it," he added, setting his glass—once again empty—hard on the table as he stumbled toward the settee in the small parlor, "bring me another drink."
Annie watched him go, sprawling out when he reached his destination, disheveled arms and legs hanging from the sofa. Without a sound, Annie slowly knelt, grease and gristle covering her fingers, as she began to pick up the pieces of food that were new strewn all over the kitchen floor. As she deposited partly chewed bits of meat, cheese and bread back on the now chipped dinner plate, her mind drifted once again to a pair of haunted, golden eyes looking out at her from behind bars. So sad. So forlorn. So … alone.
"I need a drink, harpy!" came the bark from the next room, and Annie cringed at the despicable sound.
"I know," she muttered under her breath, as she rose to retrieve the brandy bottle, understanding that it would cause him to pass out all the sooner and thus become her salvation. "I know."
AN: I hope you enjoyed this first chapter of Prelude! This story has been more than 2 years in the making! But it has been a labor of love. I have the VAST majority of the story written, and I plan on posting regularly-at least twice a week-maybe more. If you like what you read, please stop and leave a review! I love reading your thoughts.
Thanks!
