"Jerome! Jerome, please! Please don't leave me here!"
A car engine revved outside, followed by the crunch of dirt. Bessie threw herself into the back of her chair, thrashing to free herself. The ropes held. Clenching her hands into fists, straining the splinter the wooden chair, she vented all of her struggle into one long scream that nobody heard.
When her lungs could not give power to her voice anymore, she drew an enormous breath, panting like she had surfaced from the depths. The ropes wrapped over her chest had perhaps an inch of give to spare, but they still prevented her from truly being free to gulp air without restraint.
She sat in silence, wrung out from her outburst, eyes stinging from the salt of her watery eyes. She stared aimlessly at the ground, lost.
But not hopelessly. The adrenaline from her ordeal was like a live current humming through her veins, keeping her alert. Whenever she found herself in a tough situation, she always remembered Clive, Haly's former resident magician and escape artist, for it was he who said: "There is always a way out." Though it would seem like such an obvious thing for an escape artist to say, he did not just lend its application solely to his act. It was an all-emcompassing phrase.
Sweet old Clive sadly passed away five years ago, but Bessie always remembered his words. There is always a way out, she repeated in her head. She was seven when Clive told her this. He had strapped her into one of his straitjackets.
Straitjackets. Something felt very recent about that image...
A picture came back to her. When she went under after her tampered drink, she swore she dreamed about Clive. About the time he strapped her into one of his straitjackets as a fun demonstration, to teach her how to escape it.
"Remember," he said, pulling the sleeves behind her. "There is always a way out."
He had told her how to...
Something clicked. Bessie looked at her hands and yanked experimentally. Maybe that wasn't a dream at all. Perhaps it was a memory. That memory flashed through her mind as a subconscious call, her body's reflex from the past, an automatic response to confinement when Jerome was tying her up.
The ropes gave, just a little bit.
Bessie tried to keep from celebrating too early, but she could not stop her tiny, elated "Yes!"
She had been partially awake and had puffed herself up, and when her body shrank and relaxed, the ropes Jerome had tied were not as tight as he had thought.
Bessie closed her eyes and layed her head back, releasing a meditative breath. "God bless you, Clive," she whispered. She had been working harder, not smarter all this time. There is always a way out, echoed Clive's voice in her head.
Bessie jerked her left hand, trying to release that side first. The rope ceaselessly burned and nipped her skin as it bunch against her wrist.
"Come on, come on," she repeated over and over. Her forearms slipped through with little bother. The problem was her hand. No matter how much she tugged, her progress stopped where the bones fanned out above the wrist. Her hand was jammed. The slack she had created wasn't enough. Bessie grit her teeth, enduring the pain. Pain was okay, because the tradeoff was much more coveted. Putting her elbow into it, she yanked again and again, hoping that it could be done by enough force.
"No, no, please!" she begged. She was beginning to lose hope. She hissed from the fricton stinging her wrist. Her desperation caused her to pick up the pace, and she even started twisting her right hand, but she was just hurting herself more.
With a burst of frustration, she crushed the armrests with her fingers and threw her head back, winded from the effort.
Stop, stop, calm down, she told herself, staring at the ceiling. Don't get frustrated, don't get angry.
Clive got her halfway there. She had to carry herself the rest of the way. To get so close to freedom only to be stopped right here was not fair, and her tightrope walking disciplines taught her better than to do something halfway. She just needed to think of something else to bring her the rest of the way to the finish line. There had to be something else. Just one missing piece.
Maybe if she could find something to wedge between the rope and her wrist, it could create an opening wide enough to wrestle her hand out of. She searched the floor. What could have been small enough?
Nothing. The crates. The extra horse leaning on the wall. These were all very large pieces that had no hope of offering something small enough to slip through the ropes.
Small enough...
An image popped into Bessie's mind. Like a cog! The one Jerome was playing with earlier.
Jerome had tossed it away, though. Where was it?
Bessie launched herself forward. The chair tipped and she was able to stand on her bound feet. Bending at the waist was the only way to find balance. She was like a turtle carrying a chair for a shell, but luckily the wood was lightweight. The ground had felt a lot more grittier than it should have, but only now was she able to pause long enough to confirm it. Either Jerome removed her shoes, or in his carrying her from place to place they somehow slipped off.
Walking was a physical impossibility, so she hopped to the vicinity where Jerome threw the cog. She needed to be very careful. If she fell over on her side or on her knees, getting back up could be an equal impossibility, and that was time and energy she could not afford to expend.
It was so dark near the crates. They casted large shadows. Bessie hoped that maybe her feet would find the little piece before her eyes did.
There it was. Its tarnished appearance nearly camoflauged it with the dirt floor, but a lingering, weak shine of brass gave it just the contrast she needed to spot it.
In some ways her height was a curse, and in others it was a blessing. This moment, right here, right now, was the biggest blessing it bestowed. She was able to crouch low, very low, until the tip of the armrest touched dirt. Her fingers stretched for the cog and brought it in. She clamped it tight, unwilling to ever give it a chance to drop. Rising, she flopped backwards, the chair legs catching and seating her.
The rope burned and bit as she rotated her arm palmside up. Using her fingers, she pushed the cog down between the rope and her wrist. This was going to hurt. Hopefully the cog's smooth metal surface could not only lessen the friction, but also protect her skin. Winding herself up with a couple puffs, she pulled. There was a little bit of give, which was promising. With one mighty grunt, her hand finally popped free.
Bessie was elated, and she even laughed in disbelief. Her left arm now lighter than air after having been tethered for so long, she employed the same tactic again on the other side with a newfound excitement. Her right hand was free, too. The knots binding her ankles, however were complicated, and due to horizontal stabilizing beams between the chair legs, it was not just a simple matter of lifting it out.
The chair was too big to army crawl through the small underspace beneath the carousel. Then Bessie had an idea. There's always a way out. With two limbs still out for the count, Bessie hopped to the maintenance door, able to open it with her free hands. The sunlight was akin to a slap in the face and she flinched, squinting so hard that pressure built in her skull. The sun would remain for many hours, but it was quite low. The time must have been late afternoon. Now her escape wasn't just a matter of leaving the carousel. Escaping the night would only be the second round if she didn't leave now.
The rust eaten horses were before her, mid-prance in their frozen poses. Craggy, perforated bits like shavings peeled back from them. Backing up into one of the horse's legs, she worked on cutting herself loose, careful not to grind her skin into the rust. The rope snapped free. Her leg flew out from how much force she put into helping it along.
Freedom was something Bessie swore she would not take for granted ever again.
Haly's Circus always set base in an empty field within reasonable distance of a road, no matter the city. However, there was no point in searching for the tent this time. Gotham may as well have been an ocean away. Bessie always had Haly's Circus on the horizon to guide her back home, but Haly's was not here. Empty, grassy fields had zero traffic. The road was her best bet, there was a much higher likelihood of people passing by.
But which way was it?
She thought back a few nights ago. The white one with the lavender purple saddle lined in pink roses was the one that faced her. All she had to do was just go in that general direction, with that particular at her back.
Bessie easily found the correct horse and ran forward, sweeping aside the waist-height tallgrass. Brambles and tough reeds nipped her bare feet and she winced.
She did not look back. The lonely, dilapidated carousel was long behind.
After many minutes, the empty field eventually gave way to treaded grass and exposed dirt. Bessie knew she was in the right place. Haly's Circus had only been here days ago. Bessie tried not to think of Jerome's involvement during that final night in Blüdhaven. She lunged over the tallgrass faster, as if just the thought of him was giving chase behind her. She suddenly felt sick. She had let him flatter. She let him make a home in her heart. She listened to every little nice thing he said.
The most welcome shade of grey emerged, and Bessie began her long trek into the unknown, barren view.
She held her wrists to ease the rope burn. The skin sizzled, looking like inflamed, twisted bracelets. The salt of her palm sweat that rubbed in stung even worse, so she was forced to let go. She could not stop herself. With nothing else to distract her, with nothing left to put all of her effort and work into, she began to cry. Which only triggered an acceptance in her mind. Her emotional response cemented this new, terrible reality, making it very real all of a sudden. For she wouldn't have been crying at all if it wasn't.
With no shoes, her feet got cut and scraped and poked on the gravel. Even ten minutes was much too long for her to be left alone in her own thoughts and fighting for continued survival, experiencing what just happened over and over and over again until she was sure she'd need to be sedated or brain dead to stop reliving it. The images would never lose their intensity over time, they would be as fresh as the second they happened, and the trauma would revive anew. Nothing was right. Her very foundations had crumbled away, and she was without the shell of Haly's Circus to carry her.
The road ahead of her was a conveyor belt; nothing came, nothing went, there was nothing that came closer or further. Despite one footfall after the other, she felt such an overwhelming sensation of no progress. It was as if she was stuck in some endless purgatory, with no beginning, no end, and a lost identity. Her mouth was dry, creating a mealy layer coating her tongue.
He abandoned her.
What was he going to do if she ever got back home, still alive? What was she going to do when their eyes met again? Was his intent to kill her? The past 24 hours only raised more questions than she could ask in a lifetime, and they only sprung from today. How many more were going to haunt her from this day on?
If she could survive this day on.
A long, much too long, time later, a homely little gas station appeared on the horizon. Bessie's heart thudded. She broke into a loping jog. The gravel and pebbles digging into her feet impeded her speed more than she wanted. Several times she dared to break into a run, ignoring the discomfort for a little bit before the grit became overwhelming. Bessie yanked the door open, bursting in on the surprised attendant, begging to use their phone. There was only one phone number she had memorized.
The station attendant took mercy on her and handed her a bottle of water out of one of the wall coolers while she sat outside on the curb in the shade, waiting the very long wait for her rescue. Though it was long, she forced herself to be comforted by the fact that rescue was going to come. Forced comfort, however, was not a comforting notion.
Her parents appeared in a car she did not recognize. Nothing was going to keep the Strunas from their daughter. Lovro hurried from the car, kicking dust behind him, a sobbing Magda not far behind.
"Daddy!" Bessie wailed desperately. She ran to them. Her soles burned. The tears just appeared and her chest heaved as her emotions released violently. She almost collapsed until Lovro caught her, clutching her tight. Her feet left the ground and she was weightless in her father's arms. Her father was her anchor, keeping an ugly monster at bay and she held on to him as agonizingly as though this were a goodbye and not a reunion.
Bessie did not sit in the car, she laid down across the backseat, rendered mute and curled into a ball. Her parents spoke, but she could only murmur some vague response, returning to her thousand yard stare. A long car ride offered plenty of time to relive her harrowing day in uncomfortably vivid detail.
When the Strunas returned to Haly's Circus, Bessie felt as though she should have been appalled, terrified, and nauseated to her stomach after what she just escaped from. But all she felt was...confusion. Disoriented. North was left, down was forward, walk was backwards. Her brain processed what happened, it knew what happened, and yet it still seemed like a fever dream.
Worst of all? She just couldn't bring herself to hate Jerome.
After a lifetime of thinking nothing but the best of him, reflex refused to succumb to the disgust she knew she was supposed to be feeling right now. What he did was horrendously wrong. Bessie herself was lucky to get out intact the way she did—Ms. Valeska hadn't been so lucky.
But he was her longtime friend. Didn't that still mean something to him?
Maybe he was just confused, like she was right now. Maybe he could get some help, and then things, while not going back to normal, could certainly get as close as possible to the way they were, given the circumstances. Who'd sooner throw it away? Most would argue that Jerome did by kidnapping her, threatening her, and shattering her trust to dust, but Bessie felt defeated by simply cutting their line.
He spared her. He knew she would get out and he didn't stop her. It could have been a moment of compassion, but she wasn't going to flatter herself. Perhaps he merely overlooked it. The thought didn't do much to keep her hopes buoyant. Some part of her wished beyond hope that some part of his twisted shell still considered her his friend. Whether it was only his brain that remembered it, or his heart that felt it.
The extended circus family were mostly in attendance, waiting anxiously. The car headlights pulled up and every head perked. Lovro got out first. He waved with a relieved smile on his face. His assurance of "She's here" was unnecessary, his face already communicated that Bessie had been recovered. Tension collectively drained in the gathering. Lovro opened the back door, and Bessie slowly emerged, dirty and emotionally beaten to within an inch of her sanity. But alive.
Mary Lloyd said nothing. She ran up to Bessie and encased her in a crushing hug. Not long after, John followed and took both girls in his arms, and together they completely shielded Bessie from either side. She melted into the safety of the cocoon they provided. The warmth they gave was beating back the gnawing emptiness. In a way, they were keeping Jerome away from her.
Jerome, she recalled. Where was he? Bessie suddenly felt a poisonous panic rise in her blood. Where was he? They had to know. She had to tell them. Bessie peeked though a break in Mary and John's embrace. Jerome wasn't anywhere in sight.
"Bessie, we were looking all over for you," fretted Mary, breathless. "Jerome's gone, he got taken away by the police! Then we noticed you weren't here, no one could find you! What happened?!"
Bessie's heart stung all over again at the mention of his name. She tried to say it, but the betrayal he caused was holding her back. "He..." she began, and that was all it took before the tears tore her down. "He took me," she managed to say before she became unintelligible.
John only held her tighter. "You're okay now," he promised, rubbing her shoulder. "Nobody can get you here. Your family has you. Let it out."
Bessie only slept when the threat of a rising sun turned the sky misty blue, and even then, she only nodded off for an hour or two. She craved a shower in an attempt to feel clean, but it was a grime that no water and soap could remove.
Everyone was exceedingly doting on her the next day, using soft voices as if they would upset her. Bessie only really had to tell the story once. The Haly's Circus grapevine took care of the rest, and she preferred it that way. Retelling was reliving.
Her feet had been cut up so badly that she was essentially forced to take it easy. So obviously no tightrope walking. For the first time in Bessie's life she was okay with that idea. Her heart just wasn't in it. She got around with a mild limp. A burning sensation on her soles made her feel like she was walking on hot coals with every step. Sitting down in frequent lapses brought some relief.
Her body was hollow. He stole a part of her life. He stole something that could not be replaced, something integral—her sense of friendship. Her sense of safety within those friendships. Her sense of safety in general. Bessie's world view, once cautious but free and unobscured, was now a closed door, hiding the long months ahead to repair it. Frankly, she had very little hope she could see ever see the world the same way again. And it all started with Ms. Valeska's murder on that fateful night.
Leo respectfully knocked on the Struna caravan door. Bessie's parents had left her alone in the hopes that she could catch up on her sleep, but there was no hope. The knock startled her and for one frightening second she thought Jerome was back to finish what he started, but she could see through the kitchen sink window that it was Leo. She limped over to the door and let him in.
"Let me look at you," said Leo sadly when he crossed the threshold. "God, I thought we were going to lose two that day."
Bessie nodded. She did too. The weight of standing was becoming a bit much, so she sat down on the fold-out couch, her mattress tucked and put away.
Then, a horrifying thought paralyzed her like a precision strike. Was Bessie the only one who didn't know about the abuse Jerome endured?
No, she told herself quickly, shaking her head violently to dissolve the thought. No, no, they wouldn't. These people were not like that. They were good people. They were good people...
The thought stayed. No matter how much she tried to refuse its entry, it persisted, seeping through cracks in her defences, taking advantage of her self-doubt. Not knowing what kind of people her circus family were was scary to her core. They were all her foundation, and if she discovered a secret like this, how many more closed doors hid armies of skeletons?
She scared of the answer, but she needed to ask.
"Did you know? she said quietly. She hoped Leo didn't hear her and she could just pretend she said nothing. But what happened to her was not something she could just bury her head in the sand for until the bad feelings went away.
"What?"
"Did you know?" she said a little louder. She looked up into Leo's eyes, desperate to know that there were still good people in this world, and that he was one of them.
"Did I know what, Bessie?"
"The abuse?"
Leo paused. Mouth grim, he kneeled, which brought him eye-to-eye with Bessie seated on the sofa. He took her hand, holding it with both his own.
"Kid," he said heavily. "If I knew that day when he showed up with that black eye..." He exhaled, blinking rapidly. "If I knew that it was another person who done that to him, I would have crashed through that door and taken him outta there. I should have asked questions." He pinched the bridge of his nose. His voice disappeared. Bessie thought he was pausing to think, but instead, Leo inhaled sharply with a sob. "Bess, if I knew what that kid was going through..."
Bessie had never seen Leo this way. Never. His trademark exuberance was gone, and it hit Bessie hard. Her lips tightened as she too, shed a new tear, alongside him. She embraced him, latching her arms over his shoulders, trying to support him as she sniffled into his shoulder. All her life she had felt like the adults were the pillars of strength for her to hang on to when times were hard. They weren't afraid of everything. They were logical. They would always help her solve her problems, because they had the answers. In this moment, she discovered soberingly that life was so much more grey than that. Sometimes, they just needed someone too. Just like her. For the first time in Bessie's life, she didn't feel like the kid who was always going to be safe and looked after—she felt like an equal. Able to be a pillar of support for someone else.
Bessie learned a lot in the past day of the true vulnerability people hid all of the time. Sometimes the strongest people could hurt the most, sometimes the most confident people could hide the biggest insecurities, and sometimes the ones who had the most to say had nothing to say at all. Though Bessie was seeing new sides to the people she thought she knew all her life, and was wary of what she would find, she vowed from this day on that she would not cower. She would not run. They were not strangers, she told herself constantly.
She knew, however, that she could not interrogate them all. So whether or not anyone else knew what Jerome had suffered through, it would be their own burden to bear.
Mr. Haly also wanted to speak privately to her and called her into his office later that morning, which was a separate caravan from his home. His office trailer bore filing cabinets and a simple desk on the one end. Two upholstered aluminum chairs sat in front, Bessie occupying one of them.
"Bessie?"
She looked up as if she'd never heard that name before. It stirred something in her memory, of when Mr. Haly first called her that, for it was him all those years ago who had bestowed it. Bringing great pain, Jerome came back because of his connection to that particular memory sequence. Everything reminded her of him. Even everything he'd only been fleetingly been a part in.
Jerome was five years old again, having trouble pronouncing her name. "—liss—eelisa..."
Even Bessie couldn't say her proper name very well, it was quite heavy for a four year old.
In order to keep every Elizabeth already under his employ in order, Mr. Haly started nicknaming them all. The Elisabeta version was more foreign, but still similar. He gave way to calling her Bessie, which she was told was an English diminuitive version of her name, and she thought it sounded much prettier than her real one. English sounded so exotic to her untrained ears that she wanted to integrate herself into it.
Bessie as a name just stuck. She couldn't recall the times where she was exclusively referred to as Elisabeta only, barring her parents.
"Bessie?" said Mr. Haly again.
She looked up. "Hm?"
"It's been a long time since I've been able to talk to you one on one."
That was true. Bessie could not really recall many times she and Mr. Haly spoke in such surroundings with no one else to witness. The most recent she could remember was when he reiterated to her over and over how important it was to make adhering to the rules of safety at all times an absolute priority when walking her wire. He was incessant over it, requiring Bessie to repeat back every procedure she would enact to achieve this, not satisfied until he was entirely sure Bessie could recite them in her sleep.
"Tell me everything," he said soothingly. Being short and balding was never a detriment to someone like Mr. Haly, he could be a business-driven, domineering man a lot of the time. But not this time. Not in this moment. He was not a boss here, he was the patriarch of the Haly's family. "Do you need counseling? Because I will definitely get that done for you right away if that's what you want."
"Thank you, Mr. Haly," said Bessie quietly.
After leaving the office, Bessie aimlessly wandered with seemingly nowhere to go. Jerome was just...gone. That word became a new discovery to her. An epiphany. She'd gone her whole life never knowing the brunt of it's true meaning and its true reach until now. Former circus employees who left a long time ago, they were not gone. A letter, phone call, or search enquiry could make them resurface again, and Bessie could catch up exactly where they'd left off. Jerome may has well have blinked out of existence.
Whether on purpose or not, Bessie could not admit to either, she passed the one caravan that neither Valeska would inhabit again. The breeze whispered through the grass around the tires, completing the picture of abandonment. Bessie never truly considered the word 'gone' until she was shown what was left behind.
Sheba was adopted by another circus member at the last minute when there was threat that she would leave forever with no one to take care of her. For the first time in Bessie's life she finally found camaraderie with the snake, for Sheba lost her family in all this, too. Unlike Bessie, Sheba wasn't able to understand her sudden abandonment. All animals, no matter how high in the food chain, must have been capable of love. And if they were capable of love, then they were very much capable of heartbreak. For the first time in Bessie's life, she was able to form an understanding with Sheba. A bond through shared hardship. They were in the same boat.
At some point in the afternoon, Bessie ran into John in the practice tent. Bessie wasn't there to hone her skills, she was just there on a mindless whim, just to watch. To distract. He brought her aside to speak to her alone to check up on her well-being. As their conversation went on, he admitted that he and Mary reconciled and got engaged. Bessie's heart became heavy and she nearly let go of her smile, but she stuck it on for their sake. His happiness was downplayed in his face, but the shine of his eyes and the buoyancy of his posture gave him away. Bessie now saw how little use there was in continuing to love a man who could not love her back. At least not in the way she craved. It was finally time to inititate that long, arduous process of letting John go.
His friendship, however, could always be counted on, and she made due with that consolation.
Later on that day, Bessie ran into Mary outside her caravan. Mary pulled her in to also ask for an update. Bessie admitted to still feeling lost at sea, but didn't forget to extend her congratulations on the upcoming wedding. Mary was not going to bring it up herself and was going to save the offer for a more appropriate time, but since the subject came up, she had asked Bessie to be a bridesmaid.
Bessie almost waited too long. She considered how much the image of John marrying would break her heart to witness, and maybe it would be present in her chest in some small way when the wedding finally came, but Bessie could never think of Mary as a thief. Never. Mary, the little girl who invited Bessie to play with as little as a hello all those years ago. Mary, the bossy kid who stuck up for Bessie on more than one occassion.
No, Bessie would have done anything for her, just as she would for John. Lifelong friendships were forged and strengthened by the adding years, and she would have done whatever it took to be there.
"Absolutely," she said.
Something changed after that day with the dynamic of the circus kids. They seemed to talk to eachother more, actually promise to hang out outside of regular circus obligations. Changes cannot commence in a day, but something new was beginning. Or rather, something old becoming new again.
Bessie just wished that Jerome was a part of it and not the cause of it.
Where did the deception begin and the innocence end? At what point in their lives did he adopt the mask and was knowingly plotting the demise of his mother? Did he have the capacity to do it to anyone else? How much danger had Bessie been in this entire time? And not just her. Everyone. Were they targets too?
She didn't know.
And as unsatisfying as that answer was, she would have to find a way to make due with it, because it was the best she was ever going to get.
Bessie awoke very early the next morning. Too early. She rubbed her eyes in the darkness, unable to escape back into her fitful but merciful sleep. Tossing for another hour could not bring it back, and so she threw the covers off and got dressed into warm clothes. She only knew of one thing that could bring some semblance of routine back into her life. Just for a little bit.
She quietly closed her caravan door and stole away into the exceedingly early dawn. A green tinge smeared the horizon. The practice tent was empty and dark, but that was exactly how she wanted it. Her wire apparatus was there, all the way in the back. Just enough light from the horizon bled through the tent tarp, giving her just enough.
However, something else was there when she arrived to her station. On the topmost step sat a simple, plum purple plastic box, with a metal crank handle on one side.
Bessie removed her drawstring bag full of her change of clothes and set it on the floor, walking up to the stairs for inspection.
A lavender purple envelope sat on the top of the box.
With Bessie written on the front.
Bessie wasn't expecting any mail, but the lack of stamps was pretty telling that this was not sent. Maybe someone in the circus had written her a nice note. Overcome, she jammed her finger under the flap, edging it open, and pulled out the letter.
She blanched very quickly.
Surprise!
Isn't honesty refreshing? I would never lie to you, Bess, you've done a lot to earn my trust. But you gotta give me something back. You're only mostly honest with me. That's a start, but I know you better than that. I know you bury what you really feel, and I'm here to pass you a shovel and lend a hand.
You're a work in progress, but you know what? The thrill of the chase keeps me coming back. I want to be there when you finally realize your potential.
I left you a small parting gift. No hard feelings, huh? Forgive little old Jerome?
Now, now, I know what you're thinking. But trust me! You'll like it! From this day on, I promise to never lie to you again, Bess. I made it myself. I swear it will put a smile on your face.
Keep in mind it's only a prototype, there are some kinks to work out, but I made it with love. Just turn the crank. I only want to bring joy to your life. Life is a circus. And I'm the clown.
Signed,
Your Bestie
XOXO
Was he expecting her? Bessie rushed to glance over her shoulder, scared that he may have been lurking in the shadows. Or did he leave this thing here before he drugged and dragged her off? The shadows surrounding her did not reveal any secrets.
Bessie eyed the toy warily, very nearly finding herself tempted. It could have been an apology, maybe a memory he left behind for her, solidifying that some part of him still cared. It sat there quite innocently and harmless, its only source of menace being the identity of the gift-giver.
An reddish-orange glow was giving strength to the light in the tent now and Bessie could see the gift in much crisper detail. The object seemed to be a Jack-in-the-box by the looks of it. All six sides had a molded, raised shape on it. Innocent things, such as a balloon, while another had a heart, and another a star. Typical shapes for a kid's toy.
Her hesitancy overrode her curiosity to turn the crank in the end, though, after much debate in her head. No, she could not do it. This thing was dangerous. Somehow.
Someone had to know about it. She needed to bring it to Mr. Haly, he would have to call someone to get rid of it. It could not be left here, someone else might turn the crank and possibly get hurt. With that thought in mind, but much trepidation, Bessie cautiously closed her hands over the box.
Nothing happened.
Breathing out slowly, she lifted it, but continued holding it out, like it was Sheba. Still, nothing happened, and Bessie felt a little more comfortable. The thing seemed stable.
She turned to head out when music broke the stifling quiet. It started to play from the box. Her forearm had nudged the crank and it activated on its own, rotating to a twinkling rendition of Pop Goes the Weasel, almost sounding like a funeral dirge for how slow the crank spun. Bessie panicked. Before she could even drop the box and run, the top panel popped open, releasing not only the spring-loaded puppet jester waiting inside, but a pressure-loaded hissing.
Bessie dropped it immediately, but a white cloud of some kind of gas blinded her and she coughed and fanned it away. The mist absorbed itself on her tongue very bitterly and she grimaced. She stepped away to remove herself from the cloud, emerging to clearer air, looking over her shoulder at the toy lying on the ground, weakly releasing the last of its contents. A prank? That's what Jerome left her?
A faint convulsing came from deep in Bessie's abdomen. It was mildly spasmic, it came and went. She rubbed her belly to calm it. Her nerves, however, were too shot to settle, she knew it was going to do strange things in the coming weeks in an effort to account for what happened.
The little convulsion gained speed until it contracted and pulsed like a heartbeat. Her stomach tightened and she rubbed it some more. Something didn't feel right. An odd sensation was crawling up and beginning to tickle the edges of her vocal chords. She bent all of a sudden, wracked by a pulsing whimper in her gut.
Only it didn't come out as a whimper.
Bessie slapped a hand to her mouth. The corners of her mouth were curling against her will, not at all swayed by what she was truly feeling.
The void in her body was filling. Filling with a wicked, gutteral desire to...
...laugh.
THE END
A/N: And we are done.
If I had to attribute songs to Bessie and Jerome to really melodically illustrate just where there headspaces are at, I'd put Bessie to "Those Days" by Lindsey Stirling, and "Family" by Boyce Avenue. For Jerome and his emerging psychosis, I feel that "Ultranumb" by Blue Stahli is accurate. These aren't necessarily songs that served as inspiration, but they're closest, lyrically and tonally, that I could think to get to their characters.
Constantly throughout this thing I was worried that future episodes and plotlines that hadn't aired yet would render my story AU, like my previous Penguin fanfic. Luckily for this one, nothing much aired on Gotham that completely changed my original plans in the time it took for me to write this. I'll just need to make a small maneuver in the future if I ever continue this world, I might be able to right it back to the correct road again to keep to my original plans. I was doing so good, too, everything I was writing fell perfectly within canon for a couple years.
Alas, Bessie's crush on John was never meant to be. I never intended them to actually get together, but that's like most all our crushes from our child and teenhoods, right? If John and Mary never got together, then my favorite Batman character of all time, Dick Grayson (first Robin, Nightwing) would never be born! Still, I thought Bessie having a crush on another secondary, canon character was a realistic take and gave the circus more depth beyond just Bessie and Jerome as the leads. The large majority of Jerome and OC fics have the two liking and falling in love with eachother, but this story came to me as something different from that. Hopefully it was different for the better and served to make a good story.
At one point I even had the idea that maybe Jerome would end up killing Bessie because "somebody" tampered with her wire when she found out too much. I toyed around with that idea early on in story development for a bit, but I X'd it pretty quickly. I'm not afraid to kill characters, but it wouldn't have been right for this one I don't think.
The gift was a reference to the Joker venom/gas that frequently makes appearances in the comics, video games, or TV shows. It makes people laugh uncontrollably. This was the thing I mentioned a few chapters ago that Gotham got to before I posted the chapter. I had actually planned to use this way before it was integrated into Gotham, but eventually the show overtook me and they finally introduced it. So yay, Joker gas is officially canon.
This story is done, but I definitely don't think I'm done with the Gotham fandom. I've got small ideas for a Mad Hatter story, and another involving Mr. Freeze (but those are in their embryonic stages, they might not ever come to fruition, I've got a lot of plot snags to detangle). Or maybe a Rusted Carousel sequel? I've never written a sequel before. I don't know, I just have so many jumbled ideas.
Whatever happens first, if you're interested, you can put me on Author Alerts so you'll be alerted when I post a new story.
Got questions about the ending? Need plot lines that need solving? Send me a line! My PM box is always open!