Author stuff: Welcome one and all to the three ringed circus that is my mind! No seriously, I pretty sure there are three rings in there.
Greeting and salutations to everyone who is new, and much love to my old friends and readers peeping in to see what this is.
For anyone who is not aware, this is a murder mystery set in a circus. It has been in the works since July 2013 for that Camp NaNoWriMo and had been, unfortunately, stuck in limbo until some short time ago when I was able to finish writing it. Yes, this fic is completely written. And, because of this, I am able to post a chapter a day for you to delight yourselves with.
Plus, there a little bonus collection of fics entitled Preludes to the Circus — already available on this site. Feel free to read them and gain some background info about this world.
Since this was started last year, and I hated to change the dates because the worked so well with the lunar cycle, I kept them. So, this story takes place last year. Enjoy that.
Just as our Danny Phantom has been around for ten years, I have been on ff for ten years (this being my second account) and I wanted to celebrate with something special for all of you. This fic is my gift to everyone who has been in the Phandom as long as I have been writing. Much love and cupcakes to you all.
This fanfic is dedicated to my past and fellow NaNoers,
for you ever helpful love and support.
Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. All legal rights belong to Nickelodeon and Butch Hartman.
The Court of Stripes
by iOc
Chapter 1
Friday, 11 October 2013
"What do you think you're doing?"
Danny jumped, releasing the door knob to the hall of mirrors. It technically wasn't open to the public yet but that didn't mean that he — a cirky, a circus employee — couldn't access it.
He turned around and saw the abnormally pale ringmaster and assistant director frowning up at him. This was Frederich Isak Showenhower — however he was best known as Freakshow. The name suited him.
"Just, er, going into the Hall of Mirrors," Danny said.
"Oh? And how many people like going into the Hall of Mirrors for fun nowadays."
"I do…?"
"Well… shouldn't you be working or something?"
"I have some down time at the moment. I can go in, can't I?"
"On a normal day, yes. However, the cleaning crew just finished up. It would be best not to mar their hard work. Now, why don't you run along and go… play with the animals or whatever it is you do."
Danny started back to his family's RV. His parents would be gone — they had an act to rehearse. His sister… probably assisting the teacher for the children at the circus or in the trailer that acted as the main office.
He sighed, thinking back to what his father had told him about their family. On his father's side, he is a twelfth generation circus performer. They had come to the states seeking a better life, ended up as criminals, and running away to the circus. On his mother's side, there was no history — which was very startling for anyone in their world. But, his father had fallen in love with his mother at first sight. He wrote letters to her while he traveled, and she wrote back. Their story was like something from a romance novel — only with a freaky circus theme that is.
Shrugging, he entered his family's RV. It was a monstrous beast set somewhere in the middle of the guarded, temporary living space for cirkies. It was a three bedroom, two bath moving vehicle that suited the family's needs on and off the road. It was home.
His and his sister's rooms were at the far end, separated only by cabinets and a small bathroom with only a sink and a toilet. His was on the left and her's on the right.
His bedroom was abnormally cluttered with what few things he owned. Most of the clutter was his clothes. He couldn't remember what was clean and what was not. But his costume was on the ground. Great, that would need to be ironed.
He sniffed it.
And washed. Badly. Or fabreezed.
He decided to swing by the costumer's RV and see if anything could be done for the wrinkles and the stench. He grabbed the rest of it off the floor and looked around for something to occupy his time with.
He had several projects laying around. A wire-based prop needed to be fixed, a soundtrack for a film needed to be edited, a film he had worked on needed to be edited… badly, a screenplay that needed some polishing and another that needed an ending, and an act that needed a little work.
"What to do," he said, humming. He picked up one of the screenplays and flipped through it. That scene needed to be rewritten. So did that one. And, yeesh, that one needed to be cut up into a million pieces, burned, thrown out to sea, and eaten by sharks.
Then again, they were scenes in his B-grade film noir series. He was hoping to revive the genre — kind of like what Blade Runner tried to do, only better.
He set it down and grabbed an empty notebook. He was grateful that his sister had free time to go and run errands. She worked in the office with the owner, Matthew Zeitlos — better known to his employees as Clockwork. It was a rather comfy job — considering that everyone else in the circus had hard, manual labor.
The cover had an unusual, white cardboard front boldly declaring it could contain three subjects. He hadn't decorated it yet with anything. Usually, he would just glue some things cut out from magazines that went along with the screenplay and write the official title in sharpie. Since he didn't have an idea yet of what he wanted to make, it was best to just jot down any ideas that he had.
He picked his costume back up, cradling the tangled bundle between his chest and the notebook, he headed out to the costumer's RV.
Grace Lord was not happy to see him or the state of his costume. She wrinkled her nose and frowned at him.
"What the hell, Fenton?" she said. "You know you're supposed to hang this up after every performance. You're lucky that I always have an extra one for you and your father. The two of you, really."
"So, can I borrow the other one for my performance this afternoon?" he said, raising his eyebrows hopefully. He clasped his hands together and smiled expectantly. It worked every time.
She rolled her eyes and nodded, getting to work. She waved him away, telling him to come back in an hour or so when she had his backup costume all ironed out for him. He smiled and jogged out of the RV, knowing she would work on it immediately.
He made his way over to the stables, hoping to run into someone he knew so he could start talking about a new film idea. Tucker was good for that. He may have been the scrawny animal trainer, but he enjoyed the same films as Danny. Plus he was just as knowledgeable when it came to the noir genre.
"Tucker," Danny said, calling as he pushed aside the canvas door. He received no answer. "Tuck? You here?"
"Yeah, just give me a moment," a voice said from the far back.
"Need any help?"
"No, I've got things covered."
Danny hopped up on one of the benches running along the side. Tucker had the radio on. Some pop artist was wailing away — he could care less, really. The song ended and the DJ started talking.
"Wow, what a great song." the DJ said. "I remember when she first came out. She certainly has gotten a stronger voice over the past couple of years. I don't think anyone had grown as much as she has in such a short period of time…"
He rambled on for a minute before announcing the local news.
"Emma L'estrange is still missing," the DJ said. "This is day three. She is 5'7" and 145 lbs., brunette, gray eyes. Remember, if anyone has any information, please call 555-86..."
"They've been running that message a lot this past hour." Tucker said, stepping out of the stall he had been previously working in. He looked the same — dark skin and hair hidden underneath a red cap, round jaw under a flat face with intelligent green eyes. "She is apparently the top student at a local college. Highly involved with a lot of activities, an equal rights activist and whatnot. Pretty important to her peers by the sound of things. They're the ones funding the announcements."
"Huh. Wonder if she ever came to the circus." Danny said. If he saw a picture of her, no doubt he would recognize the face. He was pretty good with observing people and remembering what they looked like.
"If she had, it might have been her last day with us, from the sound of things." Tucker sat down next to him. "So, Kwan rehearsing for tonight?"
"Yeah, he's pitifully nervous. I don't know why. He does good every time."
"Nerves are good, though. They keep you performers on your toes."
"I don't want to be on my toes all the time. It's not fun. It's like a ballet or something…"
Tucker shrugged, brushing it off.
"So," he said, "why did you come see me?"
"I need a new idea for a screenplay."
"But you haven't finished the others you started. Wasn't there one about a tea shop?"
"It was a café, and that one just needs to be edited and the other with the mermaid just needs an ending. Those are easy enough, but I don't feel like working on them today. So, I need an idea. Have any?"
"Why not create a new hero and have the film set in the circus or something? I don't think anyone has ever done that before."
"Yeah and there's a reason for that. No one wants to see a noir film set in the circus. It'd be too easy. Most members of the circus in the 40s and 50s were criminals who ran from the law. Finding a serial killer as one of their own is to passé. Got anything else?"
"Nope. And, passé? Really?"
Danny huffed and closed his notebook.
"Well, if I'm not going to be working on a new script, do you want to walk around for a little bit?" he said. "I have about an hour before I need to go pick up my costume from Grace."
"Costume needed a repair?"
"No, it stunk and it was wrinkled. She's getting the backup ready?"
"What do you do to that thing?"
"Who knows."
The two young men wandered around the circus grounds, poking fun at the early gillies — civilians — and their fellow employees. They shouted playful jabs at the ones they knew best, and they were able to convince the man in charge of making the cotton candy to give them three free bags.
They eventually rounded back around to the RVs and found the third person to their trio, an acrobat named Kwan. He was not happy to see them — especially since he was clad in a purple unitard.
"You guys know that my rehearsal's not over yet, right?" he said. He saw the unopened bag of cotton candy. "Is that for me?"
"Yeah, we figured you could use one for all the hard work you do," Danny said, polishing off his own bag. It melted deliciously in his mouth.
"Although, with that attitude, I'm not sure you deserve it," Tucker said.
"You guys are asses, I hope you know that," Tucked said, frowning. Danny tossed the bag to his friend.
"Eat it when you're done rehearsing," he said. "I need to go pick up my costume from Grace now. I have a show in a bit. It takes me a while with the makeup and everything. Last time I wasn't ready in time. We started five minutes late, and you know how he gets when that happens."
"Do you mind if we come and watch it for once? I mean, we've only seen the show once or twice, and the performance has changed from when you first started…"
Danny shrugged. It was really up to his mentor. He had no say in a lot of things about the performance. He was just there to play the role of the assistant.
His mentor asked him to be the assistant in the illusionist act several years before he finally agreed to it. He didn't like the man personally — seeing as how he always flirted with Danny's mother — but he was a fantastic teacher. Within the first week, Danny had learned the entire routine and he had been able to help with it.
The only thing he honestly disliked about it was his costume. He was forced to wear a wig and contacts, along with a sheer shirt — a blouse —, a black vest and matching short-shorts, and tights. He felt like a girl in it. He looked like a girl in it.
On the plus side, it got him out of his family's clown act. Really, no act was more replaceable or flexible as the clown act. It could be moved around to suit any part of the show, not to mention that it was a very competitive field. The only thing more competitive was the aerialist act and that was not by much.
He had never been more grateful to be born circus when it came to being able to get into a show. Managers and directors — the entire circus world, really — had vast amounts of respect for people born circus — people who have several generations of circus and sawdust in their veins. With his father's family being an old circus family, he didn't ever have to really worry about not ever having a job or a home.
Yes, he was very fortunate.
Le Cirque de Fantômes was a one ring circus that offered rides and other side shows to occupy a person's time until the main attraction started. While most circuses were targeted towards families, this circus actually went for teens and young adults — a surprising number always showed up every night from miles around to see a performance.
It would always surprise Danny to see so many people his own age in one place. Most of the circus employees were older or younger than he was, only a small portion of their population were his peers. And of those… well, only Tucker and Kwan were willing to befriend him.
He used to watch the gillies with wide, blue eyes. They were curious beings that marched about, shrieking and pointing around like children. He had never been more interested in their world than he was during that afternoon.
The audience followed their schedule. The circus had afternoon activities for them to attend. At noon, the grounds would open and there would be a novelty concert; followed by the illusionist show at one; the animals and rides at two; a skills, strongmen, and sword swallowing demonstration at three; a second illusionist show at five; another novelty concert at six; the evening performance at nine, ending at half-past ten; and the grounds closing at one.
Those working days were always the longest and that day was no exception.
The gillies showed up right on time, as did Kwan and Tucker — who blinked in surprise when they saw him in his costume.
He looked dramatically different from the dark-hair, blue-eyed young man he normally was. The white wig looked very authentic — a lace-front with a deep part off to the left side — and the green contacts were the only source of color from him.
The costume contrasted with his mentor's, who dressed in a white suit with a black wig and red contacts. They looked like complete opposites, and that suited Danny just fine.
They dazzled the audience, with his mentor's abilities, and his way of simply getting viewers to join them in the tricks with just a smile. It was the whole reason he had been chosen to be the assistant — almost no one been able to say no to him.
Today was a pretty blonde who — like he — was wearing green contacts, only her's were not as vibrant as the ones he wore. She blushed unabashedly as he led her up to the front for everyone to see.
Like every volunteer, she easily became a part of the illusion and was graciously thanked by his mentor. Danny walked her back to her friends, bowing and placing a kiss of the back of her hand — just like he'd been trained.
"Always keep them coming back for more," his mentor told him the very first day of his training. "Flatter your audience and, in return, they flatter you. It's how we make a living."
At first, he was very uncomfortable with it and then he slowly grew used to doing little things, like acting like a gentleman and showing the female visitors that there was a such thing as chivalry in this day and age — and it all was at the circus. It was all very silly, in his opinion, but then again he never understood the female mind.
The first show and the second show went off without a hitch, as always, and then Danny was free to wander around for some time as himself.
"You look really weird like that," Kwan said as Danny carefully plucked off the wig and took out the contacts. "It's like you're a phantom or something."
"Well, 'Phantom' is my stage name," he said, rolling his once again blue eyes.
"You also become a different person dressed as that," Tucker said, pointing out something Danny had only begun to notice a few weeks ago. "You're more confident. There's something more… devious in your eyes. It's like you're pretending to be someone else."
"Well, it's because I look like someone else. I don't look like the Danny I see everyday in the mirror. I don't look like that scrawny little kid who used to get picked on by those idiots in the strongmen tent. People sort of respect me more as the assistant to an illusionist than they did if I was a clown."
"You don't look like a Fenton, you mean." Kwan said.
Danny nodded. He wasn't ashamed of his family — per say —, he was very proud of them, honestly, but… his father and mother took the circus life a little too seriously. He was very sure that if they didn't work in the circus they would be doing something else that was completely insane — like hunting ghosts or something. Now that would be crazy.
"So," he said, "we have a couple of hours to kill before Kwan has to get ready for tonight's show. What should we do? Go on some rides? Make fun of some people?"
"How about we help you finish up those scripts that you've got laying around?" Tucker said.
Danny groaned. He was really hoping to put that off until tomorrow, when they started traveling again. But, he supposed, he could come up with a new idea on the road. He was bound to think of something soon enough.
"Alright," he said, giving in. "Fine. I probably need help editing a couple of scenes anyway. Now, get out so I can finish getting changed."
He shooed them out and quickly changed into the outfit he wore earlier, a T-shirt with some jeans.
He ruffled up his hair after taking off the wig cap — which probably would need to be replaced soon, he decided as he scribbled up a note on a Post-It for his sister — and grabbed the screenplays that needed some work done.
He tacked the Post-It to the corkboard on his sister's door and joined his friends at the kitchen table. He tossed the screenplays down and let them look the sheets of paper over.
They would question something from time to time, jotting down notes in the margins. Eventually, Tucker and Kwan switched off, repeating the process again and sometimes disagreeing with one another's notes. The whole ordeal needed to be recorded and posted online somewhere for everyone to see because it really was that funny.
It wasn't long until they finished up and Kwan had to go get ready for the evening performance. Tucker headed off not long after. The animals had to get ready, too, and Tucker was their caretaker. Danny offered to help but he was rejected.
"Just polish these up and you'll be good." his friend said. "I'll see you around midnight."
Danny sighed. There wasn't much he could do. The rides closed down for the hour and a half the performance lasted, and the fair grounds were pretty much abandoned.
"Huh," he said, picking up his new notebook and thinking of Tucker's earlier idea. "Might be a great opening scene for my next screenplay."
He began to jot down the opening shot notes.
FADE IN.
EXT. UNNAMED CIRCUS. NIGHT.
JULIA —
Did he like that name? Not particularly, but it was one he could work with for the time being.
JULIA walks down an empty avenue of tents. She is carrying a crowbar and looks frightened and disheveled. She is being hunted by the murderer.
He stopped there and smiled. Yes, that a great way to open a film. A murder at a circus? Hardly even heard of! Well, he had never actually heard of anyone doing anything similar within the past twenty or so years.
He carried on with the scene, happily writing the murder sequence. Now, where would a murderer put a body if they worked in the circus? Especially since they would not want anyone to know just who killed a person. He hummed and decided to look around the circus grounds. Perhaps he would see something out and about.
He gathered what he needed — the notebook, a mechanical pencil, his phone, his set of RV keys, and a flashlight — and headed out to explore. The circus was full of all sorts of wonderful delights, especially to those who wanted to make noir films.
He quickly locked up and went on his way. He found plenty of wonderful places to hide dead bodies but none that wouldn't say that a cirky was the murderer. He stopped near the main entrance of the performance tent and looked down the wide lane. Beyond the bright lights, calliope, and delicious smells, he could make out the outline of a forest that blocked the circus off from the rest of the town they were stationed near — a suburb somewhere south of Nashville, if he remembered correctly.
A forest was always a good place to hide a body, that and no one would really suspect a cirky. It was too general of a space. Too many people had access to it. It was perfect. Now, was there any place special in that particular forest that he could use as inspiration? Of course there would be! It's a forest, not an empty room. Although, that would be an interesting twist for another screenplay…
Danny headed out the main gates, waving to the man working in the ticket booth who had been hired a few months ago.
"Where you going?" he said when he saw the young man.
"I'm going out to explore that forest for a little bit," Danny said
"Working on a new screenplay?"
"Set in a circus."
"Sounds good to me. When will it be premiering?"
"No idea. I have to find a heroine first. Maybe someone like Ava Gardner or Dana Andrews. A blonde, like Hitchcock. Or maybe I should do a brunette… I'll find someone somewhere."
"Well, good luck!"
Danny nodded and headed out. He doubted he needed the luck but it was always nice to hear instead of "break a leg." Artists and actors were such superstitious people. He never understood it. Then again, he wasn't really an artist or an actor, he was a director and a writer. He was in control and he had to be if he wanted to be someone.
The road leading to the forest was made of gravel and mostly a parking lot, filled by gillies' cars. There were so many of them… There always were.
It didn't take him long to make it to his destination but Danny soon missed the sound of the crunching gravel under his feet. It had been a comforting sound, something that told him that no one was following him.
He held back a snort. He was starting to sound like his sister after they watched one too many noir films in one evening. Shaking the thought off, he ducked under the leaves, batting away branches and wielding his flashlight with the other. A forest was a creepy place, he decided, and absolutely perfect for finding a corpse in. Especially this one.
His foot caught on a tree root and he tripped, landing with a thump on the ground. Grumbling he swung the light back at the offensive thing. It was oddly pale and it looked a little bloated, popping out of a stream like that.
He stood up, dusting himself off, and looked back at the root.
"That's…" he said, gaping down at what he saw. "That's… that's a dead body."
Author stuff cont'd: Well, I certainly know how to kick off a story. As I said, my little turtle doves, this was a murder mystery. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me here or on my tumblr — icyandthefrostbites. I'm a friendly person and open to any and all comments and critiques, and always willing to talk about random things.
With love,
iOc
P.S.: I'll be posting this on AO3 later tonight when I have more free time. For the time being, I'm posting this from my phone. Just because I can.