"Do you like your seat, Dandy?"
Gloria, an older woman dressed in finery, looked at her grown son sitting next to her in the audience. They had bought out all the seats, which still made the show money but it wasn't enough considering they were the only ones in the audience. Her son, a young man of about twenty-five with black hair curled at the front, sat up straight with a prim look on his face; it was very fitting due to their wealth and status, but it made him look like a man-boy, a sour-puss, a fruit. His cold blue eyes looked at his mother and he sighed breathily.
"They're all my seats," he replied sternly. "I can sit anywhere I want."
"Indeed," Gloria responded, her lazy eye staring off into space.
"In fact, I like the one you're in better, mother," Dandy replied with a convincing smirk.
"Oh." It was at that moment Gloria stood up from her chair; they had switched. The view certainly is better than here, he thought to himself.
"Better?" she asked.
"It's warmer," he said with a slight smile.
"Mother made it toasty for you," Gloria laughed. "Can you see?"
"There's nothing to see yet, mother," Dandy replied, stiffing his upper lip. He took an impatient, deep breath. "Where are the freaks? I'm getting bored! I don't like this!" Gloria shook her head and put a hand on her son's shoulder, feeling the rich fabric of his light blue blazer.
"Remember what the doctor said," she reminded him, "if you let yourself get agitated, the rash will come back. You don't want that, do you?"
"No," Dandy strained, "I just want the show to start."
White—her dress was the color of a dove's feathers. Naya was given a gown that fit her like a shroud. The bodice was made of clean, new lace and it had an old-fashioned style of closure in the front that consisted of small buttons. The bottom of the dress was a few inches past meeting the ground; it was so long that she had to pick up the front to walk without tripping. Ethel, who was all made up with her hair styled and having her beard trimmed by another carnie, was the first to notice the white veil that covered her pale, lily-colored face. Elsa made sure it was not a bridal veil, but see-through enough for an audience to see her face as the spotlight shown on her like a light from heaven. Upon seeing herself in Elsa's full-length mirror, Naya gasped—ghastly, she thought, disgusting.
"I look terrible," she said somberly.
"Don't say that, leibchen. You look…" The German woman seemed speechless for a moment, in awe of her ghostly beauty, "beautiful."
"People will look at me and be scared," Naya contradicted.
"You are meant to be looked at, leiben," Elsa said, smiling as her hazel eyes sparkled at her manipulatively—even her own costume, consisting of garish, over-the-top makeup and a blue pantsuit, met the same level of extremity as Naya's pale features against the gown given to her. Naya sighed as she watched the German walk away suddenly, and when those hazel eyes, circled by thick, blue eyeshadow, looked at her, she straightened her back.
"Five minutes," she said, gesturing her to come toward her to follow close behind. "Come."
"Ladies and gentlemen," announced Ethel; Dandy and Gloria, still in the audience, feasted their eyes on the strange spectacle. "Everything you've heard is true. All that has been advertised is here, under this tent. Wonders; curiosities; a plethora of the strange, the weird, the bizarre, the unusual!" Her voice seemed to boom charmismatically. "From jungles untamed to forests enchanted."
The light shed on Meep, who bit the head off a young chicken. Gloria winced in her seat before the light turned to Pepper and Salty, a microcephalic duo who just stood there looking as though they didn't know what planet they were on.
"From the Dark Continent to the spice-laden lands of India."
Amazon Eve, with her great, tall stature, stood next to a small cage holding Ma Petit, who was dressed in an astounding orange and green outfit complete with her signature sari.
"Astounding mistakes of nature are gathered here for your amusement and edification. What you're about to see will astound your very senses and harrow. Yes! Harrow your souls. Tonight, for the first time anywhere, we introduce a frightening spectacle. A chill will run down your spine, and it will scare the living soul from your ever-beating hearts. Dead, or alive? That is the question, the answer being the latter. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I present…the Living Ghost!"
As the light shone on the young albiness dressed in white, Dandy's cold blue eyes warmed up and widened as he felt his breath being swiped away by the pale beauty onstage. Gloria, who was dumbfounded at the sight, was on the brink of fainting; yet her son could not take his eyes away from her form. Naya, who was easily irritated by bright lights, turned her eyes downward slightly, giving the two-person audience a glance at her naturally white, but full eyelashes. Her lithe, willowy figure was dressed in the high-collar, white lace gown with a long skirt, and it only intensified her spectral presence. Even as Ethel continued to talk, Dandy looked up at Naya, who glowed on the stage like an ethereal spirit.
"But amidst the terrifying and the tragic, there is a voice of beauty. Ladies and gentlemen, direct from the cabarets of prewar Berlin, the enchantress who holds sway over all of nature's mistakes: Fraulein Elsa Mars!"
The large, red velvet curtains drew back as a woman with a honey blonde, curled coif, obnoxious blue eyeshadow, insanely intense red lipstick, and a sky blue pant suit sitting on a mini prop rocket that seemed to slide across the stage. Her husky contralto, slightly out of tune, began to croon a lively song:
"It's a god-awful small affair
To the girl with the mousy hair
But her mommy is yelling "No"
And her daddy has told her to go
But her friend is nowhere to be seen
Now she walks through her sunken dream
To the seat with the clearest view
And she's hooked to the silver screen…"
It was a spectacle—Gloria and Dandy watched catatonically as Elsa gave her performance. Eve was playing the melody on the piano to accompany her unique voice, while Paul played the drums. Ma Petit was playing a mini violin created especially for a woman her size. Acrobats on suspended rings performed tricks in the background, and a sword-swallower performed a mini act on the side of the stage. Pepper and Salty were moving props to simulate animation, while the rest of the acts were backstage waiting for their turn to be displayed. Naya's heart raced—she stared out on the stage, looking at Elsa and watching her performance include sparkly confetti dropping from the ceiling of the stage. She seemed to be so comfortable in and she was familiar with the spotlight; it was something Naya herself felt she could never do. She was so used to being left to her own devices and in solitude—how could Elsa possibly believe that she could just walk on stage as easily as her and 'perform' for people to gawk at her unique, but extreme physical appearance. She took a glance over at Jimmy, who, as Elsa's performance drew to a close, held his deformed hands in fists at his sides, a look of anger in his eyes directed at the floor.
"…wonder if he'll ever know.
He's in the best-selling show.
Is there life on Mars?"
The spotlight dimmed the moment she stopped singing, a short moment of limelight glory before the light went out above her. She began to breathe heavily, disillusioned—I'm the star, she thought morosely, why aren't they applauding me?
Naya had removed her veil after the show, which was nothing but a large piece of thin, transparent white fabric. She was sitting at the mirror of one of the makeup tables backstage, looking into her ghostly reflection and sighing. Her performance had included nothing more than being on her toes on pointe, sashaying while moving her arms about like an eerie phantom having just escaped from its physical body. Dandy, who had been watching her, managed to sneak backstage with his mother close by, and the moment she stood up and separated her thoughts and distant memories from reality, she saw him there with a grin from ear to ear. Rather than smiling back, her light violet eyes just stared.
"Care for a cigarette?" he asked, holding one out to her with a lighter at the ready.
Naya politely took it between her pale white fingers and looked down at it—memories came back, but she didn't want to be rude. Upon putting the butt in her mouth, he lit the end and she took a short drag. Feeling nicotine burn her lungs was a sensation she hadn't felt in a long time. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jimmy, the young man with deformed hands, approach them. He almost froze in his tracks again at the sight of the ghostly albiness, but he was aiming for Dandy.
"You ain't allowed back here, bub," he said, jerking his thumb backward. "Scram."
"I'm not here for you," Dandy responded meanly; he focused on Naya's intense eyes as she took the cigarette between her fingers and pulled it gently away from her full, fairy dust-pink lips. "Hm, I've never seen purple eyes before. Are they real?"
"Yes." Dandy noticed her accent and smiled with delight, turning to Gloria behind him.
"I want her. Let's ask the owner how much she costs," he cooed with excitement—Naya just stared at him, darting her eyes intensely. He sounded just like a young child; pathetic, she thought to herself. Jimmy still stood by with a glare at the rich, prissy man, and Elsa pranced by with Pepper, Salty, and Toulouse close behind as she held Ma Petit in her arms. Gloria obeyed her son's strange request.
"Ma'am?" she asked Elsa, stopping her graciously. "How much?" Elsa looked at her condescendingly and shook her head.
"My monsters are not prostitutes," the German replied. Naya grew increasingly nervous, but little did she know that Jimmy's soft, chocolate brown eyes watched her protectively as they alternated from her, to Gloria, and finally to Dandy.
"Oh no, you misunderstood," Dandy said, a slight shake of his head. "We don't want to buy her just for the night. We want to buy her. Period. Twenty thousand."
Naya furrowed her platinum, almost absent eyebrows inward; Jimmy shook his head and almost face palmed, and Elsa detested the thought. Naya was indeed beautiful and exotic, but very unique—she knew that if she were to be sold off, the freak show would go right down the toilet.
"But she's an albiness. A very…rare specimen of our fine human race," Elsa sneered, trying to derail their offer. "She's our newest headliner! Have you any idea what kind of box office she will bring to my show within the next year?"
"Alright," Dandy sped. "Forty thousand. Not a penny more." Paul, who stood in the crowd nearby and heard what was happening, went over with his tattooed, seal-like appendages waving in front of him.
"Unless she is a real ghost," he joked. There was bunch of snickers, but no one laughed. Especially Jimmy—he looked at the beautiful albiness protectively and felt his blood begin to boil like water in a pan.
"Let's ask her, then," Dandy said, approaching the albiness and taking her pale, almost clammy hands into his own. "Miss, how does forty thousand dollars sound for you? Do you think that is a fair enough price for you to be sold for?" Naya darted her eyes at him, giving him the dirtiest look she could think of at that moment; what made it so gruesome was that it looked entirely expressionless. Her eyes did the talking.
"Mister," she said in her light Slavic intonation, "I will not go anywhere. I am a person, not an item. If you had any sense of…human dignity, you would think again before putting a filthy price tag on me."
Naya started to walk away nervously; Dandy followed her, relentlessly determined.
"We will take very good care of you, beautiful miss!" he exclaimed dreamily, his eyes fixed on her ghostly form as she held the front of her dress up to prevent tripping. "All your needs, all your desires. I will give you anything you want for the rest of your life! Please!" He continued to chase her, and Gloria rolled her eyes. "Please, don't leave!"
"Come, Dandy! Don't pester her," Gloria called out; Jimmy sighed slightly with relief, keeping his cool as he listened to the man's mother speak to Elsa as Dandy returned with a childish frown on his face.
"I want to go home!" he whined.
"Come. I need a long hot bath, even though nothing will wash away the ghastly memory of that infernal caterwauling." Gloria paused for a moment, looking at Elsa dead in the eye. "By far the most freakish thing of all tonight was your pathetic attempt at singing."
Elsa glared at her; she hated being insulted or looked down upon like one of her own freaks. She stiffed upper lip and watched the man-boy and his mother leave the carnies to their own devices.
Naya had been by her lonesome for the remainder of the night.
A/N:
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