We got up early and went hunting for food for the Little People. We were exhausted and grouchy, and it took time for us to wake up.
After a while I asked Evra what the Little People liked to eat. "Meat," she replied. " Any kind of animal, they don't care."
"How many animals will we need to catch?" I began doing the math in my head.
"Well, there's twelve of them, but they don't eat a lot. I guess one rabbit or hedgehog between two of them. A larger animal — a fox or a dog — might feed three or four."
Suddenly a thought burst into my head, "If we catch enough today then we can stockpile it so we don't have to hunt tomorrow."
"I like the way you think Shan."
Later after we finished the laundry we met up with Sam again. He'd been waiting in the bushes for hours.
"Why did you wait out here kiddo?" I asked.
"I didn't want to interrupt," he said. "Besides, I thought somebody might have let the wolf-man out. He didn't seem to like me when I saw him yesterday."
"He's like that with everyone," Evra told him.
"Maybe," Sam said, "but I figure it's best not to take chances." Sam was in a questioning mood. He'd obviously been thinking about us a lot since the day before.
"Don't you ever wear shoes?" he asked Evra.
"No," Evra said. "The soles of my feet are extra tough."
"What happens if you step on a thorn or a nail?" Sam asked. Evra smiled, sat down, and gave Sam her foot.
"Try scratching it with a sharp twig," he said. Sam broke off a branch and poked Evra's sole. It was like trying to make a hole in tough leather. "A sharp piece of glass might slice me," Evra said, "but that doesn't happen very often, and my skin's getting tougher every year."
"Did you ask your parents if you could join the Cirque?" Evra ruffled the small boys hair.
"No," Sam sighed. "I told them about it, of course, but I figured it would be best to take it slowly. I won't tell them until just before I leave, or maybe not until I'm gone."
"So you still want in?" I asked as I folded some of Mr. Crepsley's pants. Next I began to painstakingly press every one of his shirts with a small iron.
"You bet!" Sam said. "I know you tried scaring me away, but I'll get in somehow. You wait. I'll keep coming around. I'll read books and learn everything there is to know about freak shows, and then I'll go to your boss and state my case. He won't be able to turn me down." Evra and I smiled at each other. We knew Sam's dream would never lead to anything, but we didn't have the heart to tell him. This life wasn't for kids.
We decided to head out to the abandoned railroad station a few miles away from camp. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Evra worn a sheer white dress to cover up most of her skin from the harsh light. The three of us danced around under the autumn leaves and skipped around the trees playing tag.
That's when I smelled it. That foul, sour stench. It hung heavily in the air. Repulsive yet familiar.
"What is that?" Evra held her nose and complained.
"It smells like-"
"Gotcha!" Someone grabbed me from behind and pinned me forward. I screamed and whirled around. Evra grabbed Sam and pulled him out of the way. The hairy man knocked me over and I came down hard on my ankle spraining it in the process.
I let out a yell of pain and imminently felt tears well up in my eyes and I struggled to pull away.
"Oh, hey, man, I didn't hurt you, did I?" He had a friendly voice, and I realized I wasn't in any real danger.
The look on his face was one of immense concern, "I didn't mean to freak you out," the man said. "I was just trying to scare you a little for fun."
I sat up and rubbed my leg, already knowing it would be impossible for me to put too much pressure on it. "I think I'll be okay." I groaned.
"You're sure? It ain't broken, is it? I've got herbs that can help, if it is."
"How dare you offer us weed, there's a kid present you dope!" I chastised. "Not to mention that herbs can't mend broken bones!"
"Whats-" Sam started but Evra grabbed him by his shirt and clapped a hand over his mouth.
"They sure can't," the stranger agreed, "but they can elevate you to planes of consciousness where worldly concerns like broken bones are nothing but minor blips on the cosmic map." He paused and stroked his beard. "Of course, they burn out your brain cells, too. . . ."
"Just who the heck are you? Why are you creeping on girls? I should call the police on you!"
"Whoa! I'm sorry, dude. No need to bring the pigs into this. I'll be off in just a sec. I wanted to introduce myself. The names R.V." He smiled and extended a hair. The burly guy looked like he didn't shower. Period. His clothes were probably clean at some point, I supposed. But I wasn't confident.
"R.V.? Like, the van?" I raised an eyebrow skeptically.
"It stands for Reggie Veggie," he stated proudly, " As a kid I ate a lot of veggies and it kind of stuck."
"Well, I hate to break this up so earlier R.V. but I better get my sister and brother back to our place soon." Evra kept a tight grip on Sam and the two of them helped me to my feet.
Just as I suspected, I could hardly stand on it the pain was so bad. If I had been at full strength this would be a non-issue. But such was life.
"I'll see you around!" R.V. called out as we headed back to camp.
Evra helped wrap my ankle, which had swollen and turned different shades of purple and blue. I struggled to put on my pajamas and was panting by the time I had them on right.
By the time the sun set I had already been napping for a good couple of hours. Evra went out to join the others for dinner, already making sure I had eaten something earlier with some strong pain medicine.
I thought she had returned early, I felt rough hands on my face as I began to wake up from a lovely nap. But it wasn't her scaly face I saw.
"Crepsley!" I stated drowsily. " What're you doin' here? You can't come into the girls tent!"
"Miss Von told me you had a fall earlier. May I take a look?" He turned on one of my standing lamps.
He reached a hand under the covers and gently pulled back the bedding. He cringed when he saw my ankle and made a sound of disapproval.
From his coat he retrieved a small jar of a strong smelling salve, "This should bring that swelling down overnight."
He gave me a pointed look.
"Don't say it," I groaned. I stretched my arms up, arching my back to relieve some tension. "I know what you're going to say. But I can't don't you understand how I feel?"
Normally, I would dare to have a man in my bedroom. But given the strength of the pills Evra gave me earlier, I plead carte blanche. Not to mention I highly doubted he had any weird intentions
"I do understand how you feel. But you must understand how I feel too. Seeing you become sick and frail….I can not stand it! It is unnecessary." He scowled.
"There's nothing you can do about it." I felt him trace my jawline with his thumb. I leaned in savoring the sensation. Proprietary be damned. "You don't care."
"You think?" Without explanation his pulled his hand away and reached for his coat pocket, withdrawing a syringe. I could barely make out the details of what he was doing. But I saw him reach for his mouth, and then a flash of crimson and the smell of red mercury.
Mr. Crepsley lowered his head down until our noses touched, and then he kissed me.
I had never been kissed like this before. The vampire was relentlessly pushing the warm liquid into my warm. I quickly spat the liquid out, knowing immediately what it was.
The blood ran out of my mouth, and yet our mouths were still dancing together. Something strange and foreign had overcome my were no thoughts, no questions, just the feel of his body on mine. I pulled him closer.
"OH MY GOD!" Came a horrified scream from the front of the tent. Mr. Crepsley pulled away from me in the blink of an eye and threw the covers over me.
Evra never looked so pleased with herself in the whole life. After taking in my mortified expression she started to die laughing. The snake girl doubled over clutching her side.
"I knew it! I just knew!"
I finally began to return to my senses.
"I can't believe you tried to force feed me!" I glared at the orange haired vampire, who looked as red as his cape.
"By the color on your cheeks it would seem I accomplished more than that." Crepsley unapologetically smiled and left our tent.
"He...and I...We…" I grabbed my face in disbelief.
"Tell me everything? Was he a good kisser? How far did you go?" Evra was practically bouncing on the walls.
I grabbed a pillow and smacked the snake girl with it. My ankle felt way better with that strong smelling salve on it.
"It didn't mean anything! He was just trying to force me to drink human blood."
"Oh yeah, well what's your excuse? He had to pry your fingers off one by one!"
The next day, our young friend found us by the stream. I was aggressively scrubbing linens as Evra continued to make jokes about the night before. I had resorted to ignoring her.
"That R.V.'s weird," Sam said after a while. "Can you imagine giving up everything to go off and fight for animals and the countryside?"
"He's doing what he believes in," Evra patted his head and handed him a basket so she could fold the dry clothing.
"I know," Sam said. "I think it's cool that he's doing it. We need people like him. It's too bad there aren't more of them. Still, it's a weird way to live, don't you think? You'd have to be pretty dedicated. I don't think I could become an environmental warrior."
"Me either! I support them, but now that I've got a bed again I won't give it up any time soon." I added.
"I totally could!" Evra grinned.
I scoffed, "As if."
"Why not?" she pouted. "I could take my snake and live with them and fight with them."
"They are a little too granola for you, I bet they don't even know who Taylor Swift is." Evra gasped in horror.
"But everyone knows TayTay!"
"I can think of lots of worse ways to spend my time when I grow up. I'd kind of like to be like R.V." Sam admitted as he gripped the edge of a particularity stained sheet, helping Evra fold it in half.
The next few days followed in the same routine. Wake up, hunt for the Little People, meet up with Sam. His mom even had him lend me her secret stain fighting recipe.
I spent more time with Mr. Crepsley's capes than I did with him. Which suited me just fine since we had been avoiding each other like the plague since our little momentary lapse of judgement.
I was furious of him, of course. But there was more. Every Time I thought about it I turned scarlet. Evra found this hilarious and didn't let me live it down. But she brought up a good point. Despite how I wanted to deny it my feelings for my mentor were developing into something strange and foreign. His kind words. Dedication to teaching me despite being the most impatient brute! It all warmed my heart.
But the betrayal! I couldn't believe he would try to force me to feed. Why would he dare do that?
The time for thinking about such things was hard to find. Because one day we got a visitor.
Cormac Limbs arrived early one morning, which caused great excitement.
"You've got to see this guy," Evra said, dragging me behind her. "He's the most amazing performer who ever lived."
There was already a large crowd around Cormac when we arrived at Mr. Tall's van (where he reported into). People were slapping him on the back and asking what he'd been up to and where he'd been. He smiled at everybody, shook hands, and answered questions. He might have been a star, but he was actually really humble.
"Evra Von!" he shouted when he saw the snake-girl. He reached over and gave Evra a hug. "How's my favorite two-legged reptile?"
"Fine," Evra giggled.
"Have you shed your skin lately?" Cormac asked.
"Not recently," Evra blushed.
"Remember," Cormac said, "I want it when you do. It's valuable. Human snakeskin is worth more than gold in some countries."
"You can have as much of it as you like" Evra flirted shamelessly. Then she pulled me forward. "Cormac, this is Samantha Shan, a friend of mine. She's new at the Cirque and hasn't seen you before."
"Never seen Cormac Limbs?!" Cormac shouted, pretending to be upset. "How can this be? I thought everybody in the world had seen the magnificent Cormac Limbs in action." He clutched his chest as though suffering a heart attack.
"What do you do?" I asked.
Cormac looked around at the crowd. "Should I give a demonstration?"
"Yeah!" they shouted eagerly. Cormac looked at Mr. Tall, standing at the back of the crowd. Mr. Tall sighed and nodded. "You may as well," he said. "They won't leave you alone until you do."
"All right then," Cormac said. "Stand back and give me room." The crowd moved back immediately. I started to move with them, but Cormac laid a hand on my shoulder and told me to stay. "Now," he said to the crowd, "I've been traveling for a long time and I'm too tired to go through my entire routine, so we'll keep this short and sweet."
Suddenly, he stuck his hand out. "Bite me."
I imminently felt offended, "Excuse me?!"
"Bite my hand, as hard as you can."
When I showed no interest in doings any such thing, Evra quickly offered her razor sharp teeth to do the trick.
As her teeth suck in Cormac frowned,"Harder," Cormac said.
She bit slightly harder. "Come on, girl," Cormac shouted. "Put some backbone into it. Work those jaws. Are you a shark or a mouse?"
Evra opened her mouth and bit down quickly, meaning to give him a shock.
Instead, I was the one who was shocked, because she bit clean through the finger and snapped it right off!
I let out a small scream and stepped back quickly.
"Sorry if I frightened you," Cormac said, giving my head a pat.
"It's okay," I told him. "Can I touch your hand?"
He nodded. It didn't feel different.
"How do you do it?" I asked, amazed. "It is an illusion?"
"No illusion," he said. "It's why they call me Cormac Limbs. I've been able to grow new limbs — fingers, toes, arms, legs — ever since I was a toddler. My parents discovered my talent when I had an accident with a kitchen knife and cut off part of my nose. I can grow back virtually any part of my body. Except my head. I haven't tried cutting that off. I guess it's best not to tempt fate."
"Does it hurt?" I asked.
"A little," he said, "but not much. When one of my limbs gets cut off, a new one starts to grow almost immediately, so there's only a second or two of pain. It's a little like —"
"Come, come!" Mr. Tall bellowed, cutting him short. "We don't have time for detailed description. This show has been idle far too long. It's time we entertained the public again, before they forget about us or think we've retired.
"People," he shouted to the crowd, and clapped his hands together. "Spread the word. The lull is over. The show goes on tonight!"