So far I have no idea how I'm doing with this...anyone with me here? Missing a certain someone? Don't worry, he's here right now! I think I'm taking more of a Kay approach with him this time around, along with a little of my own imagination. Hope it works! *crosses fingers*

The morning was cool, the sky was overcast, and the wind blew in great gusts that made the canvas tents flap and rustle. There was a smell of rain in the air, mingling with cooking fires and horses. Most of the camp was already up and about preparing for the fair's opening on the morrow, but there was one among them who'd been awake for hours and had yet to make his appearance.

This isn't to say that Erik hadn't been active. He had spent several hours before dawn walking the countryside around the camp, preferring the world when there were fewer people around to stare and gawk at the strange masked man. When the first of his traveling companions had begun to stir, he'd retreated back into solitude. He'd been with this fair for many months now, but he was still as unused to them as they were to him, and he would rather have as little to do with them as possible.

He sat alone in his own tent, listening to the bustle outside and paying no mind to it. The shaft of sunlight that stabbed inside from beyond the flap that served as the door was glaringly harsh, making the darkness in the rest of the tent seem that much deeper. He sat in the far corner, as far from the door and the light as he could get. Its intrusion was a nuisance and its presence unnecessary; he'd always been able to see in the dark, and to be honest the sunlight hurt his eyes.

The clamor outside grew louder, shouts, laughter, and the noises of the animals rising and echoing back to him. It masked the sound of approaching footsteps, and until a shadow passed in front of the door, he was unaware he had a visitor. A light, slightly raspy voice called, "Erik? Are you there?"

"Yes, Genevieve," he replied.

Without waiting for further invitation, an old woman entered the tent. She had long silver hair that she wore in a braid over her shoulder and the burgundy yarn of the shawl she'd wrapped around herself was faded. Her dress was patched and her feet were bare, and she carried a long thin cane that she continually passed back and forth across the ground as she walked. Her eyes were the same cool gray as the sky outside, and it seemed their pale color had bled from the irises into the pupils. Of course it would work out that way, he thought humorlessly. The only person in this circus who could tolerate my company would be a half-senile blind woman.

Genevieve had been the fortuneteller in the fair for many years before Erik had joined, and even though her mind wandered more than ever nowadays, she was still good if unusual company. She was alternately direct and cryptic, she never told a story the same way twice, and she had a knack for turning up precisely when Erik would rather be alone.

"I'm not waking you, am I?" she asked.

"Not at all," he replied. "How are you this morning?"

"As well as any cat-fed bird," she answered.

This was exactly why Genevieve was at once an entertaining and infuriating conversationalist. Erik would have assumed this was meant to be a bad thing in any rational person, but with Genevieve he never could tell. Perhaps she wasn't well at all, perhaps she'd just confused her words, or perhaps she'd put something exotic in her morning pipe again. Who could be sure?

She made her way through the tent and sat down without waiting to be asked. "How are you this morning?"

"Alive," he replied.

"It beats being dead," she told him, "though when you're as old as I am, it doesn't make a difference either way. How are the new illusions coming along?"

The irony of it had always struck him: Not only was the half-senile blind woman the only one to seek out his company, she was also forever interested in his conjuring. She'd spent too many years duping people into believing she could read into the future not to appreciate Erik's skills as a magician. She often told him that she trusted him over most others in the fair because she already knew he was a liar and a cheat just like her. And while she couldn't see a single one of his tricks, she took great pleasure in telling him how he could make each one better and applauding him every time he perfected one without taking her advice.

"I've nearly worked out the Chinese box," he told her. "A few more days of fine-tuning should do it."

"Do you think it will be ready for the opening tomorrow?" she inquired.

He glanced at the door distastefully. "Another town, another opening, what does it matter?" he asked. "I might not even do any shows while we're here."

A frown creased Genevieve's already wrinkled face. "Why so sour, young man? Why this bitterness?"

"You might well ask," he replied, then went taciturn.

Genevieve brushed it off and sighed. "Rouen…I was raised on the coast, but my favorite cousins lived here. They're all in the ground now, of course, but it's still good to be back."

He didn't answer her. He wasn't at all happy to be back in Rouen.

Genevieve continued to talk, mostly to herself, so his disengaged mind was free to wander. How long had it been now? Eleven, maybe twelve years? Were they still here? Were they even still alive? He glanced at the door again as if seeing beyond it to the city in the distance. Not too far from here, he'd been born, and it had been many years since he'd left.

His memory drifted back to that night as he lay awake in his bedroom, listening to his parents' raised voices in the parlor. He'd been sent to bed without any supper again for daring to try to embrace his mother. He'd long given up hope of ever exchanging the affectionate kisses he'd seen other children give their mothers as he watched them down in the street through an upstairs window, but maybe she wouldn't mind if, just this once, he wrapped his thin arms around her waist and held onto her the way other children were allowed to hold onto their mothers…

She let out a shriek and pushed him away from her, knocking him to the floor. "What do you think you're doing?" she screamed at him.

"Please, Maman," he said, "I just—"

"Don't touch me! Don't you ever touch me!"

"I'm sorry, but I thought—" He scrambled to his feet again and ran from the kitchen as she threw things at him, dishes stacked nearby, the vegetables she'd been chopping, even the cast iron skillet that had been sitting on the stove. "Get away from me, you little beast!" she raged. "Get out of my sight! Don't let me see you again!"

Why did she hate him so much? What had he done wrong to make her scream and throw things at him and call him a beast? He knew what beasts were; they were animals like dogs and cats and other things. But he wasn't an animal; he was a little boy who'd just tried to give his mother a hug…was that a bad thing?

He listened at the bedroom door as his father came home for the day, his footsteps sounding in the kitchen as he asked, "Where's Erik?"

"Don't talk to me about that monster!" she said. "I sent him away from me, and I only wish I never had to set eyes on him again!"

His father sighed. "What has he done now?"

"He ran in here and actually tried to put his arms around me! That freak of nature tried to tou—"

"That freak of nature happens to be our son."

"I have no son! Whatever it was that came from my womb is not my son! It's not even a child!"

"Of course he's a child, woman! What are you on about?"

Erik pressed his ear to the door, trying to catch every word. Maybe he was about to learn at last why she had never loved him…

"You have no idea," she said. "In all these years, you've never once seen his face."

"What's wrong with his face?" his father asked.

Indeed, what was wrong with his face? Erik touched the mask he'd always been made to wear. He'd worn it ever since he could remember because she told him to and she never said why, though he must have asked her at least a thousand times. What could possibly be wrong with him that she would make him stay covered every hour of the day and even forbid him from going outside?

He turned away from the door and looked around the room in search of something he could see a reflection in. In just the right kind of surface, he should be able to see himself; he'd seen images of the surroundings in things like the backs of spoons, pails of water, and darkened windows—

He scurried across the room to the window. The sun had gone down and the sky was black; if he lit a candle he could see in the window without seeing through it.

He took the candle from his bedside table and got the matches from where he'd hidden them under his mattress. He took one from the box and struck it, then held it to the wick. There was a little crackle as it caught the flame and he blew the match out before carrying the candle to the window. He placed it in the sill and watched the flame flicker and gutter in the draft edging in through a crack in the seam before turning his eyes to his reflection. The mask was there, as always, a crudely made barrier designed to hide from sight what his mother didn't want anyone to see…

Erik took a deep breath, then removed the mask.

A gasp tore from him and he nearly screamed aloud. This was why she forced him to hide his face, why she had never loved him, why she called him beast and monster. There was a monster right there in the glass, standing exactly where he was standing and wearing his clothes and looking at him with such utter horror in its eyes. He'd never seen anyone with eyes like those, a fierce burning yellow that actually glowed. No one else had skin that strange, awful shade that stretched so tightly across the bones it looked as though it might tear any second. Who in the entire world had wide dark holes where a nose should be and two shriveled bits of flesh where everyone else had lips? And to add insult to injury, the horrible monster was only half there. The other side of his face looked just like any other boy, a cruel hint at what he might have looked like…had he not been born a freak.

But no, that couldn't be him in the window! That was a monster, and he wasn't a monster! He raised his hand and touched his nose—and felt an empty hole. And the monster in the window raised its hand and touched the hole of its nose as well. Erik touched his eye, and the monster touched its deep-set socket. He ran his hand over his scalp next, feeling little wisps of hair and bald patches; so did the monster.

It was too much for a little boy to take in at all, let alone all at once. He knocked the candle out of the window and sent it rolling across the floor. He ran into the corner of the room out of sight of himself and hid his face in his hands. The skin beneath his fingers was waxy and cold and he let out a startled cry, crawling across the floor to retrieve his mask from under the window. He replaced it over those terrible features and tentatively looked in the window again. The monster was gone, but it lay just below the surface and he could never take back the sight. He turned away again and heard his parents' voices downstairs, growing louder and louder.

"Go look at him!" his mother shrieked. "Go look at that face and say again that that's my child!"

The first horror of Erik's seeing himself was replaced by the horror of his father's seeing him, of anyone seeing him. He couldn't let it happen, he couldn't! What would he do if someone saw the creature he was? What would they do to him?

He wasn't about to find out. He got to his feet and listened carefully for footsteps up the stairs, but there weren't any yet. There was still time to get away. He took the sheet from his bed and gathered supplies, anything he might need. He couldn't sneak down to the kitchen, or he'd steal some food before he left. No matter. He'd find some later. He tied the sheet up and returned to the window, unlatching it and raising it. Down in the parlor, his mother and father were still arguing, but they could come in at any second. He had to hurry.

He dropped his bundle out the window and swung a leg over the sill. He pulled his body through and then his other leg, then looked down. It was a long way to the ground, so he couldn't just jump…he'd have to climb somehow…He cast his eyes left and right looking for a way down and spied the ivy-covered trellis at the far end of the roof. Walking as lightly as he could and stepping carefully to keep from slipping, he moved across the shingles and stepped onto the trellis. One foot after the other, he made his way down to the ground. His foot slipped and he fell the last few feet, landing hard but otherwise unhurt. He stood again and found his bundle, and throwing it over his shoulder, he set off into the night.

"Erik? Are you listening to me?"

He returned to the present with a snap at Genevieve's voice. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "What were you saying?"

"I was asking you what you intend to do if you really don't plan on performing the entire time we're here."

"Oh, well…how long will we be here?"

"About a month, last I heard."

Erik sighed heavily. An entire month in the very place he'd hoped to never see again…

"Why so quiet?" Genevieve asked.

"No reason," he replied, adding mutely, You really can't go home, that's all.

It was nearly sunset when Erik emerged from his hideaway again. The people who were still about after dark usually left him alone and it seemed his ominous presence was a little less intolerable when the moon had risen. He wandered the fringes of the camp, avoiding everyone that crossed his path. He stayed out of their way, and they stayed out of his.

For the most part, that is. There was a rustle up ahead and a young woman slipped out of the nearest tent. Like Genevieve, she was barefoot, and her long dark hair rippled down her back in a mass of glossy waves. She was rather scantily dressed, with her loose blouse revealing the tanned flesh of her neck and shoulder and a split in the side of her skirt halfway up her leg, letting the lace ruffles on her petticoat peek out. Most of the women in the fair wore shawls around their shoulders; this one wore a gauzy scarf tied around her hips. She also wore a saucy and, in Erik's mind, mystifying smile. "Hello, magic man," she said.

He narrowed his eyes and replied, "Hello, Adrienne."

She swaggered over to him, still with that smile on her lips. She was part of the fair's tumbling act, and she was the only one apart from Genevieve who ever sought him out. He could never tell exactly what she was after, but her behavior was always strange enough to convince him that, like Genevieve, she wasn't quite right in the head.

"Planning something special for the opening tomorrow?" she asked.

"No," he replied. "I'm not doing anything for the opening."

"Well, what about after?"

"I'm not performing while we're here."

Her smile dipped a bit as she asked, "Why not?"

"I don't feel like it," he told her. "Now, if you'll excuse me—"

"But what are you going to do instead?"

He shrugged. "I'll probably design some new tricks."

"Need an assistant?" There was that smile again.

"No. I work best alone."

"Come on, now, you can't do all of that by yourself."

What was it with this woman? Why was she always after him like this? She'd approached him before about helping him make magic, but she never grasped that he preferred solitude when absorbed in his legerdemain.

She shook her head. "You're too shy, Erik," she said.

Didn't he have reason to be? Every time he mixed with the world, bad things happened. Even when he did his level best to avoid the world, it just wouldn't leave him alone.

He spent the first few days after running away from his parents traveling by night and sheltering during the day, feeling as though some horrible curse had been placed upon him. He couldn't rid himself of the sight of that face in the window—his face. It haunted his thoughts and soured his dreams into nightmares. He traveled as fast and as far as a young boy alone is capable of, but he couldn't leave behind the thing he wanted most to escape. He was a monster, like his mother had always said, and if his own mother had hated and rejected him, where else in the world could he go?

He hadn't been on his own for longer than a fortnight, however, when the next blow fell. He hadn't eaten in two days, and the smell of a nearby cookfire was too tempting to resist. He edged closer and closer to the camp and saw them…gypsies. Not just nomads like the fair he traveled with now, of mixed blood and heritage, but true Romany. They had several rabbits roasting over a spit, and these initially caught Erik's eye, but as he came still nearer, he heard music. This wasn't like any music he had ever heard before; no, this was strange and different. It was like some sort of fey spell, the way it pulled him in and whispered in his ear, commanding him to come even closer—

They found him. They became aware of his presence and a group of the men surrounded him and brought him forward. At first, they didn't seem to mean him any harm; they were merely suspicious of him sneaking up on their camp in the dark. When they saw the mask, it incited their curiosity, and it immediately provoked his alarm. He fought and pleaded with them not to touch his mask, but his desperation only trebled their interest, and they took it from him.

Their cries of shock still echoed in his mind. The Devil himself was surely among them. Some of them were ready to kill him then and there and rid themselves of this evil thing. Others had different ideas. How much would the public pay to see this abomination, this living, breathing, walking corpse? They would draw in vast crowds and abundant coin if they kept him alive and put him in their shows.

And so his captivity began. They made him walk among the throng wearing not his own mask, but a ridiculous, flashy costume of a skeleton. He would move through the fair, gathering their interest and leading them to a tent in the center of the camp. Once there, and once they had paid their entrance, he would be locked inside a cage to keep him out of reach of the crowd, and he would take off his mask. The men would jeer, the women would scream, and the children would run away at first sight of him. After they had their fill of staring at him and tormenting him through the iron bars, they would leave and make room for the next round of paying customers.

Erik shook his head to clear it and looked back at Adrienne. "If that's all," he said, "I need to be going."

She sighed and said, "If you insist. If you change your mind, you know where to find me." She made as though to walk away, then turned and added, "And Erik, if you're just going to wander aimlessly while we're here, you might decide not to do so after dark. It rather frightens people when those eyes of yours come looming out of nothing."

They were frightened of his eyes? He could show them so much worse.

He continued his stroll until he came to the edge of the camp and stood staring at Rouen in the distance. He'd left it and vowed never to set foot there again, and he would hold to his vow. He was unwanted and unwelcome there. And he wouldn't perform his magic for the fair so long as they remained. Who knew? Maybe his mother and father were still alive. Maybe they would come to the fair along with the other takers. He didn't want to see them, and he didn't want them to see him. Apart from lingering bitterness in being driven from them by her hatred, he didn't want to give his mother yet another reason to curse his existence by seeing the beast she'd given birth to performing in a carnival.

Yet he wondered how their lives had continued without him. Were they happier after he left? Did they perhaps have more children, perfectly ordinary children that didn't resemble demons? Did they love them as they had never loved him? His heart burned with envy of those siblings he couldn't even be sure existed and the love that might have been shown to them, but not him. He felt he'd rather not know either way—why add to his pain? Why wonder if he had a family? He ought to know better by now. There was no one on earth who cared about him. He was just a circus animal for the world to stare at. He had no family. There was no point in wondering…

So why couldn't he stop?

Big things coming, but...how am I doing so far? Good? Bad? Ugly? Lemme know either way, would you? :)