PURGATORIO
In the dream, Amber slammed her way into the small lobby of the Cypress Fall Bus Station, like an animal fleeing a pack of jackals.
Compose yourself! Now!
Amber slowed, trying to appear as conventional, as forgettable as possible, all while her heart ramrodded under her hoodie,
She approached the desk, the ticket seller looked up; hopefully she’d missed Amber’s entrance.
Wait- Noooo… I need to think things through. Too late. She’s seen me… can’t help it, I need a ticket… is it… wait… after I get it though… if I have to wait, please no, but would it be better to be somewhere with lots of people or to stay out of sight? I’m acting weird, smile now.
“Hi, I need the next bus to South Providence, please,” Amber said brightly.
This is going to wipe out my account.
That was true, but lately Ella had started having her work the counter more often and her tips had been improving as she’d been talking to more people, so maybe if she diverted some of that into her pocket it could make up for this, but even if she had to ask Simon for more money it didn’t matter:
She couldn’t be here, not yet.
The woman at the desk politely informed her that there were no more buses going to South Providence.
That's not possible. Amber blinked several times and scratched at her pants, feeling an overwhelming urge to scream.
She didn’t though, she continued to smile as though she didn’t feel the presence of doom breathing down her neck.
“Alright, that’s alright, you know. Then a ticket for the next bus to…” her throat clicked, “Anywhere else out of county, next available. Please.”
Amber was politely informed that there were no more buses running.
“That’s not-” Amber gritted her teeth and smiled through the panic.
What are you talking about, you vacuous vulgarian??? South Providence is a major hub of this part of the coast- Christmas Eve on Christmas Eve I limped- Sorry. No. I hobbled- Sorry. No. I walked in here, here, this bus station, and bought a ticket to South Providence. They were running every two hours up until midnight, on Christmas Eve, I was on a bus in five minutes and I was gone in ten.
“Not anywhere?” Amber asked, determined to keep her voice cheerful instead of allowing it to descend into hysteria.
The woman at the desk nodded. “You can call for a ride and stay in here if you like, but we're closing at dark.”
Amber looked at the clock, it was late in the day. She gave a pleasant little laugh, sifting out the desperation, “Then I’d better get a hold of somebody then… Thank you so much for your help.”
She turned away, pulled out her phone, moved as far as she could from the windows, and sent an outgoing call.
It’s fine, it’s annoying, but Madaline will come and get me, it’s fine, I’m in a public place…. So… Nothing… Maybe… Just stay in public, but out of sight… I just need to figure out, how to communicate urgency to her without-
It didn’t matter, she got a full voice mail box.
No! Madaline’s stupid… friends.
She stomped her foot and tried twice more, Madaline didn’t pick up.
Amber shook her head and felt a little ashamed, I don’t know why I was calling her anyway, he’ll be mad and I don’t know what I’m even doing here, but, I should’ve called Simon… need to make sure he doesn’t find out that I called her first, that would be-
The number had been disconnected.
Ella? Maybe Ella? She didn’t have Ella's number. She called work twice, nobody picked up.
She groaned, glancing at the clock, the seconds hand swooping at what felt like high speed to mock her.
Who else can I call… try Madaline until she picks up, but if she doesn’t-
Then she saw something that made her world stop.
The panic crashing and clanging against her brain since her arrival was instantaneously suffocated under a wave of unbridled sorrow.
The phone went down, and on impulse she was moving, pressing back out the doors into the cool autumn air.
The familiar landmarks and structures of her childhood surrounded her, across from the bus station was what felt like the last family owned general store in the USA, as novel as the pay phone outside the South Providence Library.
She slowly stepped across the road, and sped up halfway.
There was a woman outside handing out flyers to the few shades of people that passed her by.
It really was like looking in a mirror, but the woman hadn’t noticed her, turning her back to Amber when she was half way across the street.
At the last second before she hugged her, Amber managed to catch herself, slamming to a stop.
Amber didn’t want to scare her, she’d always startled so easily, always jumping if a door closed just a little too loud.
Amber greeted her carefully, what came out was more or less a whimper, “Mom?”
The woman turned.
Compared to Amber's, Genevieve Orlet’s hair was lighter, honey brown and left long ,though it had grown the same until Amber got her new cut.
Her eyes were also far smaller, the color of bread crust; Amber, like Madaline herself, had her father’s eyes.
There was the lack of a hard to detect Adam's apple, and no more than an inch less of height, but after that they were like drawings of the same character, done by separate artists who were trying to replicate the other’s work. Same round face, same delicate wrists, same willowy arms, same slender frame, but an ample curve to the area of the hips when they let enough fat collect there.
The woman looked at her with a polite lack of expression, and held out a flyer for Amber.
Thoughtlessly, Amber took the flyer and held it without inspecting it, just waiting for her mother to say-
“I’m sorry, I don’t have a daughter.”
A wave of nauseous grief hit Amber; dry eyed as ever, she felt the muscles twitching under her skin as they prepared to make her face crumple anyway.
Then a thought put the process on pause, That’s- Maybe- That’s kind of an odd way to reject me, to affirm me as a daughter, but not hers, two years, maybe she just doesn’t-
Amber licked her lips, and scratched at her arm, “Mom, it’s me… I- I’m transgender, remember? I’ve been transitioning so-”
Genevieve rubbed at her wrist in thought, then:
“I don’t have a daughter.”
It was like a stake to the heart. Still though, maybe…
“Mom, please, I’m- I was born your…” she swallowed the poison, “Your son, but I’ve been transitioning and I’m doing really well, I’m, you know, I’m good at it, I think, I’m not… ready… done… yet… but I’m going to be appropriate and...” Perfect, I’m going to be perfect. She took a deep breath, and forced herself to smile, “And I’m really just doing so well, you know, I have a job and a boyfriend and we live in a nice little house and his sister lives with us and she’s my best friend and I’m really just…” she took another deep breath and held out her hands trying to ingratiate her mother, “Listen, mom, I understand how badly I messed things up… when I came home I introduced things to dad way too quickly, but as you can see I’m fixing myself, so if you could maybe just start like talking to him about things here and there, cause I’m sure…. When I’m done… if he’s sees me-”
“I don’t have a son.”
Amber nodded, her heart fluttering, “Right. I’m-”
“I don’t have a daughter.”
Amber's smile faltered, raised, faltered, raised and at last faltered once more then stayed down, “Um, mom, that doesn’t… mom, I don’t-”
“You haven't been disowned, not really, you just don’t have parents. You never did.”
Amber swallowed hard, there was pressure behind her eyes, hot and wet and utterly sealed. She opened her mouth to try again, but Genevieve beat her-
“You value finishing what you start.”
Amber carefully nodded, “Yes, it’s very important to-”
“You learned that from him.”
“Of course, I know that, that’s why I’ve been working so hard to-”
“He, values finishing what he starts,” Genevieve Orlet nodded, speaking slowly, dropping weight into each word.
Amber went cold, a slight amount of reality coming back to her awareness of the circumstances.
The few shades of people had vanished, the only people on the street now were her and her mother.
She was here, here on the street, before she was ready… and that meant…
Amber shuddered as she let out a breath, looking around, the main drive of her home town once more covered in a sheen of potential calamity, like a coating of poison.
“You shouldn’t stay on the street," Genevieve Orlet said.
Amber worried at her lip, something curled inside the fear, it wasn’t hope. She heard the sound of her lips coming apart, “You know,” she shook her head, “Just once, you could say something, just once, do something or… if you have the car, we can both…” she swallowed, her brain aching from the severe case of cognitive dissonance making this statement took.
“You don’t have parents.”
“Yes I do, it’s just-” Amber said, looking down and away.
Genevieve Orlet didn’t argue, she waved her sheaf of flyers, “You should go to the carnival, you’ll be safer there.”
Amber looked back up at her mother, then around at the street, her finger began to rub at her wrist, after a moment she produced a marionette shrug and put her PR smile back on, “Al-right,” her bottom lip trembled, “How do I get to the carnival? I guess…”
A wind blew, stripping leaves from the trees.
Genevieve Orlet pointed down a dirt road that intellectually Amber knew had never existed in Cypress Fall, flanked on both sides by sparse fields, the kind of road that came out of a Blues Song, which would eventually come to an intersection and there you’d meet the devil.
Amber breathed deep and nodded, “Kay, um, thanks, it was… it was good talking to you, mom, really good... I love you- both of you!"
Amber waited.
Genevieve Orlet didn’t respond.
"So yeah... I’ll see you… sometime… Um, I'll- I’ll call you both… once I’m… better... you'll see... you'll both see... " she took a deep breath, "Once I'm ready, you know, then he'll... he'll understand."
Amber waited.
Genevieve Orlet didn’t respond.
Amber took another breath, "Yes... that- that sounds like a good plan... I'll come over and you two can meet Simon, and he and Dad can talk and... you and me... we can... we- we can watch Disney movies again... you know... maybe that's a little juvenile... but it should be okay cause I'm a girl... I remember, dad specifically said... like we both really loved the Little Mermaid and... it would be really nice to- Um, yeah, kay, I I just... You know, I love you... mom... ”
Amber waited.
Genevieve Orlet didn't respond.
Amber nodded and smiled, "Right... you have a very nice evening, I'm going to check out that carnival."
Amber folded the flyer, put it in her back pocket, picked up her feet, and went down the dirt road.
It went on a long ways, Amber kept expecting to see something over the horizon, but kept finding only emptiness until the word hinterlands began knocking around in her head, yes, the hinterlands was where she was.
Once the town was far behind her, the immediate panic slipped away, until at last any hopes or fears were no longer present possibilities hanging in the air, but back inside her, once more they were potentialities that she could take action on and create a proper outcome for. It was her responsibility. It always had been.
Thus, she reassured herself that she would come back to Cypress Fall when she was actually ready and then everything would be okay, everything would at last finally be okay, so okay.
She contorted the meaning of her mother’s warnings as she went, pressing any reality that didn’t fit her schemes from her mind, including her immediate sense of peril when she’d stepped off the bus:
She hadn’t been in any real actual danger.
It was just nerves, just a little anxiety.
It really hadn’t been that bad.
Then after a while more, she was able to stop thinking about it too much all together.
From there, her mood improved as she went along, carried by the dream, caught up in the strangeness of things, the blank, expansive strangeness of the hinterlands.
It excited her, anything could be out here, anything at all could be in the hinterlands, with that idea her feet began to bop along with the merest bit of euphoria.
That sense of excitement kept on for a good bit until at last she had to start thinking that actually no, there was nothing interesting in the hinterlands, but not only was there nothing interesting in the hinterlands, there was in fact nothing in the hinterlands period, that's by definition what made them the hinterlands and the hinterlands, in her opinion, were boring.
She could write a book that was nothing but a list of things that could be in the hinterlands but weren't, things that simply by being something were more interesting than the hinterlands were, everything that could never be in the hinterlands, because then they wouldn't be the hinterlands.
Amber was bored, she was sick of the same dead canvas of sky and meager grass and dust, a canvas that just kept going on and now that she'd been given time to just walk in the same dismally boring direction forever, she'd really started to think about how much she hated that, hated being bored, how she hated the awful grinding dullness of repetition and monotony, all it was good for was making you feel like you should be doing something else or wearing you down so bad thoughts could catch up with you. She hated it, she really hated being bored.
She probably wouldn't prefer a panic attack to acute boredom, but it was certainly it's own valid form of torture.
Like vacuuming, since she was here alone, she was just going to think about it; she hated vacuuming the house, she just did it all the time, it was boring, she understood why it was supposed to be done, Amber didn't mind cleaning a place up when it needed it, certainly didn't mind helping out, doing her share, but god it was so boring, and then there was doing the dishes...
Furthermore, if it must be said again, the hinterlands, she hated the hinterlands, she wanted out of the terrible lack of stimulation.
Her phone had no service out here, she'd checked it twice in the prior fifteen minutes and was winding herself up for a third when she saw it, almost causing her to yell out in relief:
It was like the cross guard of a train track, stretching across the road and off into the distance on both sides, and beyond, still nothing, but behind it in the road was a table and a figure sitting at it, like she was managing it.
Amber drew closer, stopped and stared, her boredom long gone.
Her first idea of what she was seeing was that her mom was doing an old Loony Toons joke, running around attending to different jobs, but then she heard the sound on the wind, a familiar voice singing to herself, it was the song from the bus:
“Bad things happen... never had much sympathy... the bad things were always coming for me.”
Amber moved towards her and yep, somehow, it was her.
She was lazily, but comfortably slumped in her seat, face partially buried in a copy of Dante’s Inferno “...run, run, run away, never come back, run, run, run away, show em your color is-” Until at last as Amber came in range she glanced over the top of the book, closed it, and sat up.
Amber saw in a flash of possessiveness that she was wearing Amber’s coat, she stilled the feeling, and tried to take a moment to consider how best to approach her or if Amber should perhaps just get away-
Hinterlands... No phone service... Cypress-
Amber accepted her circumstances and kept moving, sighing to herself, She’s going to quote Dante at me, please just go back to singing.
Serpentine looked at Amber like she could read her mind, “Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward path had been lost.”
See. Don’t be baited.
“It’s not a forest, and the path has been brutally straight.”
Serpentine chuckled into a stretch, groaning a little, “I’ve been waiting for you forever,” she dropped her hand on the book. “You know they cut off people’s heads in here, sew them on backwards and make them walk around.”
“I read it, it’s a punishment for fortune tellers, people who claim to know the future,” Amber said, coming to a stop, turning as she reached the barrier, facing Serpentine's table at the other side of the road, keeping her distance.
“Little unfair, but you see the humor in that, you know, it’s funny.”
“No, it isn’t, it’s grotesque,” Amber said quickly.
Serpentine’s eyebrows raised and she made a show of turning her head left and right, as if to ask, who are you performing for?
Amber sighed,“Fine. It’s a little funny. Darkly funny… It’s both...:” Amber stopped again, studied her.
Serpentine studied her back, showing her teeth. “Meanwhile, the Lustful are at the top of Hell, proper Hell anyway. Blown about on winds as they were blown about by their desires, the seducers, the adulterers. I think Dante may have sympathized with certain sins.”
“Yeah, yeah, I kind of got that too.” Amber nodded.
It was disorienting to be standing across from her; they looked the same, but there was such a clear difference.
Amber was used to looking in the mirror to find a figure held tight and compacted; not Serpentine though, Serpentine given her own body to drive was relaxed and expansive, wrapped in Amber’s coat the impression of her wasn’t all that dissimilar to a copperhead resting on a warm rock. Irony is she was singing a song about running away, but looks like she never needs to.
“Why are you…” Amber trailed off, hoping she’d fill in the blank.
“Why am I what?” Serpentine asked, her voice like Splenda.
“Why are you… separate from me?”
Serpentine’s eyes flickered momentarily, then went still, staring Amber down, then she made Amber jump as her hands suddenly flung themselves up, yelling, “I don’t know, Amber! Why are we separate? Seems a little unnatural, doesn’t it? But. You. Tell. Me.”
“You don’t need to yell, and why would I know?”
Serpentine dropped her hands, returning to a more even tone, “That’s just it, cause of course I know and of course you don’t know, or you say you don’t know, that’s how this,” she flicked her finger between them, “Works. I know things, so you can pretend that you don’t know them.”
“I-”
“Nope, not having that debate, I have a simple job, take your ticket, send you through, then I can go on break and your date can take care of you from there,” she held out her palm.
Amber shook her head, “I don’t have a ticket, and where's this carnival even at, and my date? Who’s my date?”
“Yeah you do, flier. Carnival's behind me, over the edge,” Serpentine gestured off behind her, “Who’s your date though? Awful funny thing for an attached girl to ask, so who do you want it to be? The boyfriend or the bestie?”
Amber stammered, blushed and stepped back, “That’s not funny.”
“Funny as hell,” Serpentine waved the book, “But nobody's laughing. Flier,” she said, holding out her hand.
Amber got the paper out of her pocket and approached Serpentine's end, handing it over.
Serpentine ripped the flier in half, tossed the detritus away and hunted around under the table.
Amber glared at her, “You know, you're just doing what you-”
Serpentine interrupted her, “Pleeeeeaaaaasssse. From your end and Simon's at least, the one reason, the only reason, Simon has you listed in the relationship status section of his socials and Madaline doesn't is because he is a straight, cis man. That's all. That is his sole advantage. If Madaline was a man you’d dump one sibling for the other so fast, but hey, stick it on the list of things you pretend you don't know."
Amber scratched at her arm, “That's not even remotely tru-" her words choked off, her skin crawling in disgust as the whole of Serpentine's statement at last resolved in her brain, "What! Do you hear yourself? I don’t want Madaline to be a man!” Amber snapped, both insulted and appalled by the idea “And-”
Serpentine pressed a hand to her forehead, laughing, “Oh my god, it’s so funny because it’s so true,” she cackled. “But so is the thing I said,” she finished, her voice dry with a hint of cruel mirth.
Amber leaned over the barrier, pointing at her, “You are nothing but a-” she stopped suddenly, her attention redirecting, her body freezing as her eyes grew two sizes and began to sweep about; from this position she could now see what was beyond the admittance table:
It was a drop, a walking slant that slid down into a dry ravine, that seemed to go on forever, there were orange and black tents and rows of games and rides, with a blinking Ferris Wheel towering over it all and after a moment of her eyes darting here and there she knew like she knew her own heartbeat that even though she couldn’t see it, somewhere down there would be a carousel.
At last her body sprung into movement, lurching her spine up, her hand shooting out pointing exuberantly like a child who’d just found out they were going to Disneyland.
An observant viewer of the pair might notice just how similar this flick of a light switch change of emotions was to Serpentine's momentary explosion into exasperated, hands in the air, yelling.
“This- This is Cooger and Dark’s... How? This is Cooger and Dark’s Carnival? ” Amber babbled in jubilation.
Amber’s brain felt the weirdness, but did not press the question of how sitting before her was a carnival that only existed in the minds of a dead author, millions of readers and one mediocre movie that Amber preferred to forget.
The version below was Amber’s personal vision of it, down to the ravine which hadn’t even come from the same book.
“This is indeed,” Serpentine said, a surprisingly warm smile springing to her face, “Coogar and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show." She went back under the table and at last found what she was hunting for, a large, strange, curving stamp that made a half circle. She slipped the cover off and looked to Amber, “Just need to stamp your wrists then you can go ahead.”
It took a couple tries but Amber pulled her eyes back to Serpentine, “That’s a weird stamp?”
“Put your wrists flat on the table, please, princess, it's the price of admission.”
Amber glanced momentarily back the way she’d come, then back to the carnival and laid a wrist on the surface, palm down.
“Emphasis, wristssss, both of them.”
“Why do you need both?”
“Do you want to go to the carnival or do you want to chat with me?”
Amber slid her other wrist down.
Two quick, whapps with the stamp left a strange tubular etching in ink, circling half way around Amber's wrists.
“Other side now.”
Amber sighed and turned them over, bearing their interior.
Serpentine struck, two more whapps.
Amber stared at the strange design now imprinting both her wrists, going all the way around like bracelets.
She turned them over, stopped, scrunched up her nose.
Serpentine smirked.
The stamps made up a rough serpent biting its own tail.
Serprentine put up her hands allowing the arms of the coat to drop a little, displaying identical markings, except hers weren't stamps, they were tattoos. “There,” she said, with a little satisfaction, "Now we match.”
The gate went up. Amber stared at her wrists and didn’t move, uncertain how to take this.
“It’s a good look, don’t you think? But even if not, why worry, you're going to the carnival.”
Amber shook her head and stepped under the gate, the sun had started to drop, she’d somehow missed the stage where the shadows got long and they were instead at the point where the thin layer of dark covered everything, a gloom. The remains of the harsh day at her back, she stepped into it.
The gate closed behind her.
She took a few more steps down the slope, a little excitement kindling inside her chest.
“Hold up,” Serpentine said behind her.
“What, you said-”
“Give me that, I’ll trade you,” Serpentine pointed at the dysphoria hoodie, pulling off the coat.
“What? Why? Why are you trading me?” Amber asked, unable to stop herself from heading back up to the gate and working the hoodie over her head.
“Because depending on how far you go, it might get really cold.”
“Oh… thanks.”
“No problem.”
For a moment Amber held out the hoodie, as Serpentine passed over the coat, their movements mirroring.
Amber caught sight of the moment the stamp on her wrist became parallel with the tattoo on Serpentine’s. She pulled back, clutching the dysphoria hoodie.
The image made her feel so uneasy.
I think… somehow… in spite of… what a… bitch, she is… somehow, I’ve gotten way too comfortable with her.
Serpentine caught where her mind was going and sighed, she flicked at little hair out of her face, a carelessly graceful gesture, “Amber, I am not your evil twin or your doppelganger … Though I suppose in the sense of omens, I might as well be, but the point is, I’m not here to kill and replace you, hell, I’m not even here to make you more like me, why would I need to? The hoodie is yours. It’s mine, they’re both mine and they’re both yours, because there is no space between us, I’m just the game you're playing to try to save your neck and as a result I’m everything you won’t own up to.”
“Game I’m playing to… why would I need to play a game to save my neck?"
“Well, maybe, after today we can put it away, we can only hope. Take the coat Amber, go find your date, try to enjoy yourself, there are many roads to the palace of wisdom, but the road of excess is probably going to be the easiest on you, more fun too, but it is up to you.”
“What is that even supposed to- Road of excess, are you trying to play off William Blake?” Amber asked, taking the coat and handing Serpentine the hoodie.
“I'm not trying to do anything,” she responded, her tone suddenly stuck up and sarcastic. "Marriage of Heaven and Hell, specifically the Proverbs of Hell, 1790."
Amber pulled on the coat, she felt better inside it, more herself, confident. “I... Well, but- How does that even apply here, that doesn't answer what I just asked you, the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom, what does that have to do with what I asked, why can't you ever, ever, just have a straight answer for anything?”
“You dubbed me Serpentine. Back and forth. Angles come with the description.”
“I called you a snake. You decided you liked Serpentine.”
“I think the real point is… I decided I liked Serpentine, that it fits, and why, because at some point you decided that you like snakes, and if I’m a snake, Amber: Then. So. Are. You.”
Amber opened her mouth to argue.
“Come on, being a snake isn’t so bad is it? We're adaptive, clever, flexible,” she did a backbend yoga pose that made the muscles in Amber’s back tingle, following with a leg stretch. “Mmm, remember, Miss Craymore, 7th grade science class, there was that picture in the text book, all the reptiles evolving, the family tree… you know, over a hundred and fifty million years of evolution and snakes have stuck around..”
“So?”
“So they’re survivors, like you, like me, like us.” She finished her stretch and returned to a rest position.
Amber’s body ached to do its own set and relax some of the tension inside her. It was a good idea, but she didn’t want to make a display that would just be another argument for Serpentine being, what? Correct?
No.
"Besides, don't you remember, Serpentine is what you call me, but it isn't actually my name, it's just a description... kind of like princess, actually. "
"Princess isn't a description, it's a nickname."
"Seriously, now you're just being pigheaded, something that you call someone based on an attribute, a description, is absolutely one of the things that a nickname is, you want to go to the diction- eh, never mind," her tone changed, congenial, friendly, "Go on, Amber and if you won’t listen to your own awful self, listen to your date, you know, forget about bickering with me, just," she laughed, "Amber, just... dare to have a good time. Okay? That's your mission now.”
“Yeah… sure… whatever you say, that seems... reasonable."
"Great," Serpentine said.
"Great," Amber said.
They turned from each other symmetrically and headed in opposite directions.
PARADISO
Amber proceeded down the slope carefully at first, then with increasing ease, even boldness as she got closer and by the time she was on flat ground, hitting the first set of games, her feet had picked up a gentle momentum that left her strolling along, taking things in.
The fact that she could both be in this place, while also being aware that this was a totally fictional setting from the pages of a book, only troubled her for a few moments. It caught up with her as she looked upon the unoccupied seat of a dunk tank filled with chilly green water, but by the time she’d passed the stationary bumper cars, it had faded and she accepted the implicit programming that occurred to all dreaming passively: Go with it.
Nor did she question where everyone was, how there was neither patron or operator of any kind, though the place smelled very much alive, with that peculiar combination of smells she’d always figured carnivals must have, fried food and machine oil and rust and earth.
There were a couple of oddities that she did puzzle over as she walked, not stopping to examine them but just continuing along, one was how high the walls of the ravine felt from the inside and how it and the carnival seemed to stretch on forever, like she was at the bottom of a giant grave, this had not been a feature of the carnival in the book, even with all it’s magic.
The other thing that hadn’t been a feature that initially stole a dollop of her concentration were the actual graves; they would occasionally just be sitting in a random location, either unmarked or covered in so much grime that the names upon them couldn’t be read, a few with the ground before them bulging, as though the burial had been a shallow one.
But without names, they quickly lost their fascination and failed to cause her any bother, they kind of made sense really, after all, it was autumn.
She passed a stand selling caramel apples, and licked her lips, her stomach gurgling with deep longing. She looked around, looked around again, reached, hesitated…
I could get caught… at least 500 calories… She began moving away, kicking up dust, frowning a little. Then a thought process triggered, a connection flicking open; one that she would make great use of in the coming months, but at the same time would prove itself to be a double edged sword, You know what? When am I going to be here again?
She rushed back to the stand, stopped, hesitated, Nobody can blame me, nobody will know and it's not my fault nobody is watching the stands. She stole one and moved away quickly, trying not to grin, a temporary tinge of ecstasy making her float on her feet.
She unwrapped the treat quickly and went at it. The caramel was rich and delicious, the bright green apple was even better, just slightly chilled and bitter.
She ate it as she moved along, gazing at attractions, by the time she found her date, her lips and fingers were sticky, she was munching the last bite of the core and tossing the stick in a trash bin, her belly humming with pleasure.
Of course, Amber thought when she saw her.
There Madaline was, riding on the carousel, dressed in her leather pants and coat, sitting upon a pale horse, but, also, of course, she wasn’t alone.
Ill defined girls gaggled around her.
Amber felt the sudden urge to surge forward and say… something, that Madaline was supposed to be her date and that this wasn’t-
Amber stifled the thought, it wasn’t appropriate. Still, she couldn’t stop the scowl from flickering on her face, which was when Madaline saw her, lighting Amber’s blood up with green fire.
“By the pricking of my thumbs,” Madaline called, as the carousel slowed to a halt, “Something wicked this way comes.”
Something thrashed inside Amber, as Madaline turned away to one of the girls and cupped her face, smiling at her, she did it just long enough for the jealousy Amber refused to recognize for what it was to gnash its teeth, but then:
“You can all go,” Madaline said with a careless wave of her hand.
“I’m not wicked,” Amber said, quickly hurrying forward, watching as the shadows clambered off the metal menagerie, ghostly voices laughing like the night wind, they gracefully began to stumble away, displaying such familiarity; arms around shoulders, fingers locked into fingers, hands holding hands or else latched to coats or shirts, moving as an interconnected mass, no member left apart from the others.
“Who are they?” Amber asked, looking back to Madaline and almost stopping herself from snapping.
Madaline hopped down off the carousel, she looked magnificent. “Oh you know, they’re my friends, the carnival queers, the theater folk, the autumn people, call us what you want.”
Amber puzzled at this explanation, particularly at the declaration of them as the autumn people; that didn’t make sense, the autumn people were the antagonistic force in Something Wicked This Way Comes, the novel by Ray Bradbury, they were the operators of the… She looked around at the Carnival, once more caught by the contradiction, the autumn people were the operators of the carnival she was standing in, but after a second her brain overcame the snag and moseyed along.
“Um... you and your friends aren’t the autumn people,” Amber shook her head. “They’re evil, they’re... unhappy...”
“Ah,” Madaline held up her finger, “But didn't you want to write an essay or something about that at some point? Maybe even a short story of your own, something exploring the problem you saw? You had the idea right after you got on hormones, before the end of the semester. You wanted to write about the one major failure of the ultimate Halloween Story.”
Amber tried to remember, yes, that was all true… Had she told Madaline about that? She shook her head, “Ye-yeah, I did.”
“Thesis: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury is the best book in the world, but…” Madaline laid out her palm in invitation.
Amber's pulse picked up a little, but she decided to focus on the thread of the conversation, “Um, the book is about good versus evil, the town is good, the carnival is evil, but the book never gives the carnival it’s…. time in court. The autumn people, the members of Mr Dark’s carnival are presented as… satanic in the literary sense. It’s all very Faust, you know. We never really get their perspective. We only get one side and it's like a trial where the defendant isn't allowed a voice and it seems to me that in the ultimate Halloween story the carnival, as the embodiment of Halloween should-” A sudden rush of panic billowed through Amber, she twisted, grasping the smooth flesh of Madaline’s leather coat, “Madaline! If this is Mr Dark’s carnival then you shouldn’t have been riding the carousel, it’s magic, it’s dangerous, it could kill you-"
“Hey, hey,” Madeline's eyes caught hers and Amber instantly felt so soothed, good vibrations buzzing inside her skull, like a more gentle and relaxing version of how the speakers in Madaline’s car made the air feel. “It’s all okay, see, I’m fine, same age. The whole one time round, one year forward, one year back thing doesn't apply to me, right,” she grinned, her hand sliding over Amber’s, “Character class perks, I got a little magic too tonight.”
No, no no not tonight, Amber thought dreamily.
Amber had been raised an atheist, she'd known very young that there was no Santa from the North Pole delivering presents on Christmas, and no Miltonian Satan delivering damnation to the damned in the way of Dante and no God in heaven to save her, never had been, never would be. All the ghosts of the world are in our heads, not old houses, just bad memories, but in that moment if Madaline had told her she could call forth the dead or turn water into wine or save her soul, Amber would have believed her, she would have to, because she'd been wrong that day in the cafe:
You are not magical, any charlatan can be magical and you don't have a little magic, no, you are magic… you are always magic.
Distantly, Madaline was explaining, “With the carousel, it works as a little stat buff, I’m immune.”
A finger touched Amber’s cheek.
Droopy eyelids blinked.
“Magi…. Um? What… Stat buff… What kind of stat buff?
Madaline chuckled, “Oh, I’m sure we’ll get to it in a bit.”
Amber looked her over, she seemed different… somehow, hair more wild than ever, three nails on each hand had been allowed to grow, they looked so sharp, gleaming with green paint, like the tips of scalpels and her eyes, she swore her eyes were almost luminescent in the low light, and they were even more magnetic than usual, Amber had to keep pulling her eyes from Madaline's to consider the other details, it was like peeling something taped down and they were always drawing you back and-
Madaline glanced away.
Amber blinked again, shook her head, like cobwebs clearing.
She saw her hand on Madaline and after a couple tries let go.
Madaline slid along her side, light pressure on Amber’s back once more, So warm, and then they were moving, heading down a lane of games, rings hanging on bottles, numbered rubber ducks floating in a little pool, a wheel of fortune turning slowly without the assistance of a hand.
Amber caught sight of a prize sitting nearly begging to be claimed, it was a little hand sized stuffed lion, pink and blue and white.
Amber veered off towards the game, feet stuttering from the sudden lack of Madaline’s warmth, then kept going, her brain alight with two separate images, her laying in bed, notably with Simon’s side of the bed cropped from the frame, as she clutched the lion to her chest, in the other she was taking the lion and turning and handing it to Madaline.
She needed it.
Thus her brain began to work a strange kind of calculus, first considering that nobody was watching except Madaline who she could feel approaching behind her, a font of heat following her.
Just like when she’d taken the caramel apple, nobody was here, nobody was watching, she could without a doubt take it and get away with it… except now Madaline was here and doing so might affect Madaline’s perception of her… It took her five seconds to conclude that Madaline wouldn’t care.
Amber grinned and reached out to grab the lion and stopped, a final consideration, perhaps one of the oddest of her psychological makeup, this wasn’t a stand for buying stuffed lions, it was a game and rigging the game, outsmarting it, that was one thing, but to just take the prize like that would be like letting the game win.
Amber chewed her lip, no, she didn’t like that. If she wanted the lion she would have to beat the game in some way.
The setup was fairly simple, a little BB Gun locked to the counter with moving targets, red and white bulls eyes.
After a little more consideration, she bent and meeped as her ass brushed Madaline behind her.
Her ears turned red as the image of Madaline grabbing her hair and bending her over the counter popped in her head. Nope. I definitely did not think that.
“Sorry.”
“Don't be, it's a great view, all those calories and yoga are doing such wonders.”
Amber’s brain fizzled. She can't just say that… no it's fine, she's just... wants me to be confident.
“Thank you.”
Amber bent again.
She heard Madaline step back.
Amber's ass met nothing but air.
She grabbed a stone, straightened herself and threw it at a big red button on the wall; the little red and white targets began to trundle along a track.
She hopped in a seat and aimed down the sight of the gun, then like she knew what she was doing, she racked the mechanism and began pinging shots off of targets with an accuracy that would both flummox and excite the real Madaline.
“Didn’t realize you were a gun girl? ” Madaline hummed, making Amber miss as she stepped closer.
“Um…I’m not, but it’s not like it's a real one anyway, and you know, I don’t like spaghetti or meatloaf or mopping, it’s just stuff you pick up when you're growing up.”
“Right. So, you had a BB gun growing up?”
Amber missed again, “No. Now shush.”
Madaline was quiet for her.
Amber took a breath, waited, correcting her aim, and let herself start pulling the trigger again. Targets pinged and flopped down.
As soon as she felt she’d hit enough targets to prove her point to the game she hopped down and snagged the lion.
She was filled for a moment with a series of conflicting emotions that always followed such a task; the thrill of success, of having proven herself competent, of having beaten the game, of winning, but also the hint of dysphoria, that it wasn’t an appropriate thing for her to be successful at and even if it were appropriate she should never show herself to be too competent as it could make… somebody… upset.
She took a deep breath and swallowed it all down, it didn't matter, she had the lion, that was the important thing.
Now what was its destiny?
She thought things over, then turned and held the little lion out to Madaline, certain that long term it would have a better home with her than Amber, she didn't think about it too directly for too long, but it was there long enough for the decision to get made.
Madaline took the lion with both hands, her fingers sliding over the back of Amber’s.
“Very sweet of you, princess,” her finger softly petted the lion's head.
A momentary flash of dismay hit Amber, she shook it off, she really could be so ridiculous.
“Um, yeah.”
“I’ll be sure to take good care of her.”
Amber watched as she carefully slid the little lion into her pocket.
The hand returned to Amber’s back and they were moving on.
“Anyway, like you were saying, in the book, you never get the carnival’s perspective, right?” Madaline said, moving them back to the literary discussion.
“Uh-huh,” Amber said. “The carousel, it… changes people, changes their age and then they have nowhere to go, except the carnival, because no one recognizes them, it's a trick, you know, giving people what they think they want, the change… it damns them, disconnects them from their community, their… family.”
They were passing a dart game, Madaline leaned over the counter and found a handful of darts and began throwing them, popping orange and black balloons.
“That's a very trans fear when you think about it. Wanting the change, then the fear that the change will make us grotesque to ourselves and others and we will be ostracized.”
“Huh, I’ve never really thought of that, but that really lines up with… some of the stuff you talk about sometimes.”
But, I mean, me… I’m kind of apart from that though, I just did it and thought- she shook the thought off, sensing its path as essentially dangerous.
“Right," Madaline went on, "Those are trans fears, but it’s also such a cis-het perspective, the carnival is predatory, its magic is a trick, its acceptance of difference is enslavement... One of a million problems with cis people, most cannot conceive of an urge to change that's so bad that you’d sell your soul.”
Amber nodded, “I think I see what you mean, but it’s more than that, more than just the trans fears, the book… it’s wonderful, but it really can't conceive of… ah… the.. the idea that someone might actually be happier at the carnival, that they might be at home there, you know and it can’t conceive of the place you were born being unhappy or hostile or dangerous or…”
“But?” Madaline asked, impregnating the pause, one final dart twirling round in her fingers as she waited.
“Um… but?”
The tiniest of sighs, the dart flew, “But you can.” A final balloon died. “You can absolutely conceive of all of that,” Madaline turned back to her, “You wanted to run away to the carnival. This carnival. When you were a kid, right?”
Amber's mind flashed back; reading the book in her room on the day she’d brought it home from school and yes, she’d had a thought when reading the book the first time, one that she’d quickly pushed down, but like so many things it had come back to her the day she’d found the pamphlets that kicked off her transition.
Something about if the carousel could make you a girl instead of changing your age, that she would sell her soul, that she would happily…
She found herself walking again. “Well, yeah,” she laughed, it sounded lighter in the air than it felt in her throat, “I guess, I had some really… eggy thoughts about the carousel, but, no, wanting to run away… no, I wouldn’t say that, I mean, we all have silly thoughts sometimes when we're kids.” Even if I did think that… yeah, maybe sell my soul, join the carnival in exchange if I had to but… not happily.
Amber halted, “How do you know that? How do you know all of this?”
Madaline turned to her, looking down into Amber’s face.
Amber’s vision was tinged with green, like a ghostly glowing forest was around her, just out of sight, it made her feel so light and a little unsteady on her feet.
“I know you, princess, after that, all I had to do," Madaline slid Amber’s book from the inner pocket of her jacket, still wrapped in the cover of A Christmas Carol, "Was give it a read."
Amber’s head jerked to Madaline’s hands.
The verdant tinge blew away.
Amber snatched her book from Madaline’s grasp like a starving animal being offered meat that might be taken back, she clutched it to her chest, it produced a rush, a flood of euphoria, a sense of being earned, deserved, hers, “Mad-” her teeth clicked, “It’s not yours to keep taking,” she snarled, riding the rush.
But in the back of her mind, that choice of words jarred her, the suggestion that Madaline had taken it before, faced her with the memory of something that didn’t actually happen; the book going in a drawer, a key being broken in a lock. Madaline lifting her onto the desk, spreading her legs.
Did it… that couldn’t have actually happened, I just- I got confused, she’s going to-
Madaline put up her hands, “Didn’t take it. Just brought it.”
A little relief, Madaline, bless her, hadn’t seemed to notice the multiple offense nature of Amber’s accusations, even still, that didn’t solve the core issue.
“You bringing it, required you taking it,” Amber said, pushing herself to get on top of things and regain control of her emotions, her voice.
“Hm. Good point. Well, you’ll have to forgive me,” then Madaline was back at her side, her hand returning to Amber’s back, “And I’ll never do it again.” Light pressure; she began to guide Amber along once more, taking them towards an attraction that sat like a great scowl rising out of the Earth, a sign declaring it: The Tunnel of Mirrors.
Amber glanced up at her with a cross expression, but Madaline turned her head and smiled, her eyes were full of sparks and Amber had to admit that she made a very good argument for not staying mad at her.
“According to that book, people are like seasons,” Madaline said, as they entered the structure, lit dimly by jaundiced lamps, the interior dank and chilly, “So, how about it, princess, which are you? A summer or an autumn?”
“Summer, I guess.”
“Right, how’s that been working out for you?” Madaline laughed.
“It’s... fine?”
“Are you asking me?”
Amber shook her head, clutching the book tighter trying to find the right words, "I mean the whole point of the book is we’re all actually both.”
Amber looked at the mirrors as they passed, their bodies and faces, cracked, contorted and monstrously distorted in various reflections. In over half she found Madaline’s eyes out shining everything else, always drawing her attention. Soon she found herself getting dizzy, then she was leaning against Madaline and Madaline was letting her.
“But if you had to choose?”
Amber opened her mouth to insist on being a summer, but fumbled for her words.
“Don’t forget we’ve already established that the book has a skewed perspective,” Madaline offered.
“Um, yeah, I… I guess- I…” instead of coming up with a good response, she blurted the next clear thought that fell into her head, “I heard you the other night with Emily,” She tried to catch it before it got out, but her lips clamped shut too late to prevent the admissions escape. In a reflection her eyes were huge insectile things eating half her head with their shock.
The tunnel echoed with a chuckle like water running over stone,“Oh,” Madaline said, the curved surface of another mirror eliminated everything except a mile high grin. “Enjoy yourself?”
“No,” Amber snapped, before getting control of her mouth.
My middle name is Janus, I picked it… because I’m twofaced, her mind rambled, half delirious in shame.
For a moment she caught herself in a looking glass with a single terrible crack down its center; the left half was normal, which was to say her face as it was now, fat redistributed, skin spun smooth by the magic of HRT, but the right side… Blood pooling under the skin, pressing the flesh outward, warping her features, rosy red flesh turning black as the blood died, swollen mounds rising like boils, lips huge, cheek fat, eye swollen shut. On her forehead was one of several freshly stitched cuts, sewn up with her own hand as she hummed the chorus of the fish song from the Sword and the Stone.
Then, right before she passed beyond this image, for a single moment both sides of the mirror, of her face, were at last united in their expression, synchronized as they screamed in inconsolable rage.
She looked away and heard the mirror shatter, she glanced up at Madaline who didn’t look back, so Amber didn’t either.
“Wasn’t me,” Amber insisted with a whisper.
“What wasn’t you?” Madaline whispered back playfully, leaning down.
“Nothing.”
“Right. But you didn’t enjoy hearing us?”
Madaline’s eyes caught hers from a mirror, and she left the shattered visage and the glass behind.
God, Madaline’s eyes really were something, it must have been a trick of the light, cause she swore they were glowing now, properly glowing, and looking at them made her head feel like it was full of a warm green haze, like Madaline had taken off the top of her skull and blown in vapor from her pen or maybe one of her joints as the light from her eyes turned the haze a deep warm chartreuse.
“It was… It was embarrassing…. Mortifying.”
“Right, is that what we’re calling it? So you didn’t masturbate to us then?” Madaline asked like she wasn’t, in effect, body lifting an anvil and aiming it at the smaller woman’s head.
“No!” The cloud in Amber’s head cleared for a moment, blown about by the danger of the question.
Halfway through Madaline steered Amber towards a mirror and stopped, Amber was relieved to discover it was just an ordinary mirror…. No, not ordinary, it couldn’t be ordinary, not with those eyes in it, Amber really just wanted to lean forward into them, it was so warm.
A chill lunged and infiltrated her bones as those eyes turned away, and Madaline’s hand vanished from her back.
She almost protested, but managed to stop herself.
In the mirror Madaline stepped around behind her, Amber tried to turn, but Madaline quickly put her torso to Amber’s back, the eyes returned to looking at her, but they were absorbed into the greater image, it made Amber’s breath catch in her throat.
Madaline towered over Amber, the sight of them together made Amber feel faint.
“Right, well, did you consider that I wanted you to hear?” Madaline said softly.
Amber listened to the sound of her eyelids flapping like birds wings. “What?”
“Did you consider that I wanted you to hear?” Madaline said, a little louder, making the words casual, simple.
“No… why would you- why would… that…” Amber swallowed.
“Maybe I wanted to include you,” Madaline purred.
A drop of water fell somewhere in the tunnel and set off a reverberation that carried through its ribbed structure, it was like standing inside the skeleton of a monstrous snake.
Why would she- What do I even say to tha- An image flashed in her head, Madaline above her drawing on her breast with a yellow marker. That didn’t actually happen, it was a dream. Amber suppressed the image and took a breath.
"Did you want to masturbate to us? To me?” Madaline asked as her hands crawled gently onto Amber’s shoulders.
“I wouldn't do that,” Amber said, her voice quiet and far away, like she had only an indirect connection to it. We shouldn’t be talking about- You can’t just say stuff like that- Please, Can’t I just stand here, just waste away to bones looking at your eyes.
The point of a thin sharp nail made a harmless trail up the center of Amber’s throat.
“Alright, you didn't do it, but did you want to?”
So badly, like dying- I can’t tell her that. I can’t say that.
What else could she say, "I... Did you want me to hear?”
Amber felt her pulse beat eight times.
Another drop of water fell and echoed.
“No, Amber, of course I didn’t know you could hear.”
Relief and a slight sense of regret, began to funnel itself back into embarrassment. She missed that Madaline had dodged the actual question.
“I was, after all, a little occupied.”
“Oh,” Amber sighed, her lips twitching.
“Still, you could have done it, touched yourself, it wouldn’t have been your fault.” Madaline’s hands slid around to Amber’s front and tapped her book clutched to her chest, “Let me take that from you, I’ve got a pocket to keep it in, you know where it is now, it'll be safe with me.”
“Ok-I mean, No… that's okay, “ her fingers tightened.
“Amber,” she said sternly like an instructor, then a switch, “ Princess,” like a soft wind blowing in Amber's brain, soothing and cajoling all at once, “ Give it back to me, you can trust me, I'm your bestie, remember."
Amber tried to tell her no, it would be silly to have chewed Madaline out for taking it, going crazy like that and then giving it back five minutes or forty five minutes later or however long it had been.
Green eyes poured out of the mirror… “Nn-nookay,” she said, and watched in the mirror as she passed the book back into Madaline’s hands.
She blinked, Madaline’s hands were back on her shoulders, her eyes glowing just above her head. “How… wouldn’t have… touching myself been my fault?”
“Hmmm, you didn’t instigate anything, just reacting, easily justifiable.”
Amber started to try to debate, “Okay but… I didn’t want to- this is all based on the assumption that I-” she stopped as Madaline's fingers began working at the collar of her coat, lifting it slightly and sliding it back, bearing Amber’s shoulders and neck. “What are you doing?”
“Have I told you that I like intoxicants?”
“No,” Amber blinked, “But, I figured that out.”
Madaline slid the collar of Amber's shirt aside with a finger, letting cool air lick her shoulder blade.
Amber watched as Madaline bent her head down, her hair tickling Amber’s neck, the area growing unfathomably warm.
Amber listened as Madaline inhaled, no not just inhaled, she was drawing her nose along Amber’s skin. “Mmm, have I told you that you're intoxicating?”
In the mirror Amber’s knees buckled a little.
A hand went to Amber’s belly, Madaline left it there, making Amber’s stomach tingle. I need to tell her to stop.
Everything felt so wrong, like reality was nothing but a game of Perfection with a broken timer, you're trying to get your brain to work to solve things, but it's so hard cause at any second everything could just fly apart into unmanageable chaos.
Worse though was how good it felt for Madaline’s hand to be resting on her.
"Everything else is extracurricular…" No… wait… that was- “Was that a dream,” Amber half moaned.
“Was what a dream?”
Amber could feel Madaline’s breath on the nape of her neck as she spoke, the barest tip of her nose in her hair, somehow so much more intimate, so much more charged then when Madaline hugged her and rested her chin on Amber’s head.
How do I… need to figure it out. Amber closed her eyes, swallowed hard, “What are you… doing right now?”
“What does it seem like I’m doing?” Madaline whispered.
“I don’t know,” her voice dropped again into a slight moan.
A puff of air that was a laugh, against Amber’s ear.
Amber shook her head, the skin of her helix skating against Madaline’s lips. “I mean… no… I mean… Madaline are you still working with computers or are you… doing something at Mis-U… for like work.”
Madaline's fingers flexed gently against Amber’s belly, pressing against a terribly thin layer of fabric.
“Neither,” Madaline whispered.
Warm breath trailed up Amber’s shoulder to her neck.
“Got a new gig for tonight. Pay is shit, but the perks are fun and it’s just so worth it.”
"I know right, she’s totally worth it," Amber remembered Madaline saying as she knocked on Simon’s desk.
“Gig? What kind of gig?”
“Tonight, I'm a vampire.”
Amber’s tongue flickered over her teeth, unable to come up with anything else, she almost laughed, “You’re acting... weird… but you’ve got an awful lot of reflection for a vampire,” Amber pointed at them in the mirror.
Madaline sighed, “Well, what fun is a tunnel of mirrors if I can’t actually see myself in them...with you.”
For just a moment Amber fell into the vision of them in the mirror, We look so- before her attention was brutally diverted.
They emerged soundlessly, if there had been a noise like the shing of a dagger being drawn, or the crunch of bone spontaneously growing or just a gentle click like a switch blade locking into place, Amber thought she might have considered Madaline’s declaration to be shtick.
But there was none of that, no sound; in the mirror, next to Amber’s ear, the fangs slid into place, 4 pearly needles, two top and two bottom, they were small enough to appear almost cute, and sharp enough to be obviously dangerous.
The panic hit like a blast of arctic water, she jolted, her body going forward, but Madeleine's hands pulled her back, pulling her flush.
“No, no. Don’t freak out, bestie and no running, eh, I guess, you can run if you're into it, but my legs are much longer than yours.”
Amber stood in her grasp, her mind whirling back to Serpentine of all places, My date? Lying treacherous snake. Doesn't want to replace me my as-
“Amber,” Madaline’s breath on her ear, “Stay with me. Breathe deep for me.”
Amber took a breath.
Madaline told her to let it out and she obeyed.
They moved through several repetitions and slowly, Amber’s gaze drifted up from the fangs back to her eyes, which were indeed glowing, properly glowing, bleeding green, like traffic signals at night, telling her to move forward, to go for it, to go.
Amber felt herself relaxing into Madaline’s warmth, the warmth of her eyes, the warmth of her body, pressing back, she was the only warm thing out here.
The spike of dread she’d experienced at the reveal was still there, a little, but it felt ever so distant now.
And another part of her soon found itself wanting to snort at her concern over being in the grasp of something famed for draining young women. It was funny, because as Amber had recently encountered a very hands on example of, well… given that description, what about Madaline had actually changed.
Then a hand was moving softly through Amber’s hair, she could see it in the mirror, her eyes flickering open and shut, it felt amazing and both the dread and the humor faded.
She realized she wasn’t standing so much now as just leaning, if Madaline stepped back she’d fall.
She thought about reclaiming her footing, but it was so comfortable.
“There we go, now we can talk,” Madaline said.
“Talk? What are we talking about?”
“What do you want to talk about?”
The hand was gone, instead she thought she felt the touch of Madaline’s nose on the back of her neck once more. Her eyes were over Amber’s shoulder.
Eyes, her eyes… wait… my head… she’s a vampire, has she been- is she mesmerizing me?
Yes, Amber thought, she might indeed be just a little bit mesmerized right now.
Madaline's head trailed along Amber’s shoulder, her face angling down, for a moment her eyes were gone and the obvious question popped in her head.
“Are you going to drink my blood?”
Madaline's nose traveled up the side of Amber’s neck again, “Why? Do you want me to drink your blood?”
“N-No,” Amber said decisively.
Madaline looked at the ceiling and sighed, then pulled Amber’s body even tighter into her warmth, “Then I guess I’m not.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t sound so disappointed, I can if you want me to.”
“I- No, that’s… No… I don’t. Of course, I don’t.”
“Right. Of course not.”
“I don’t,” Amber insisted.
“Okay, well then, we can just stand here if you like, like this,” her nails ran over the thin material of Amber’s shirt. “Though you do have a few options.”
“Options?” Amber mumbled.
“Yes, obviously for starters there's what we've established, me being a vampire, all those opportunities." Her fangs glinted in the mirror.
Amber shivered.
"Buuuuuttttt, then again, you know the thing about vampire stories," air hissed through her teeth, then she laughed, waving her hand before planting it firmly back on Amber, "I mean, am I right or am I right?"
"Um-"
"It's just... you see where I'm going with this... All that stuff, metaphors for queerness, metaphors for…” The barest touch of a soft lip on Amber's jugular, then traveling again, “Sex. All the blood drinking, the penetration, the sharing and swapping of fluids.”
Amber's breaths came slow and shallow.
“It all makes for interesting reading material I suppose, but really,” Madaline laughed again, shaking her head “ In the end, it’s just… it’s all so baroque, don’t you think?”
“What? Yeah, I guess a little.”
“Right, so you see what I’m getting at.” A finger nail traced over Amber’s collarbone.
Amber nodded, though she did not in fact, get what Madaline was getting at.
“See, you and me.” Madaline’s fingers trailed terribly low across Amber’s tummy. “We don’t really need any of that between us, right?”
“O-Okay? Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Madaline smiled back at her fondly from the mirror, “You understand what I mean, why bother with all that, we could just have sex.”
Amber stopped breathing, tried to say something, but words wouldn’t come at first, Madaline’s left hand had rose tantalizingly close to her breast. “I… I…” she swallowed, “Did it happen?”
“Mmm what?”
“Mis- U, you and me and… the desk or was it a dream? Have we… before…”
“Do you want that to have happened?”
Amber choked on answers again, she looked at Madaline’s eyes, then after a moment looked away, Vampire, “You… your eyes, you’ve been mesmerizing me?”
“Aww," Madaline cooed, "You find me mesmerizing.”
“No, I mean, yes, but you’ve been like… hypnotizing me.”
Madaline dragged her nails away from Amber’s breast going lower again, while a nail on the other hand once more trailed up her spine through her coat, it felt like the coat and the shirt weren’t there.
“That’s right,” Madaline whispered, her nail finally setting off a fire to Amber’s nerves by reaching the actual flesh of her neck, “So, we again come back around to the idea that anything that happens, can’t really be blamed on you… if you wanted to indulge… as I was saying, we could just have sex.”
The nail left her neck, Amber watched it go around and tap the mirror.
“Options menu, care of Mr Dark's magic carnival.”
The mirror shimmered and no longer showed a reflection of what was, but what could be:
Amber had to turn her neck down to get a full look, heat crawled all the way up her body, her breath turned into a ragged thing.
It was such a strange experience, the impression of it inside the mirror was of watching a screen, this could therefore be considered the first piece of video pornography she’d ever seen and to be involved herself was... it was certainly interesting.
The image inside the mirror was uncompromisingly lewd:
Madaline’s clothes were still on, Amber’s not so much.
Madaline sat on the ground, her legs crossed.
Amber sat in her lap, facing forward, legs splayed over Madaline’s knees, her underwear around one ankle, her leggings around the other.
Amber’s arms were up, wrapping back around Madaline’s neck, her shirt was wrapped behind her head. One of Madaline’s hands was very busy twisting Amber’s bare nipple back and forth, her other hand had a pair of long fingers buried deep in Amber’s ass while Amber’s clit wept a pool of clear pre-cum on the ground.
In the mirror:
Madaline’s head bent to suck on Amber’s neck, not biting, just grazing her with the fangs before sucking the flesh, marking it as rough and brazen as she possibly could, making Amber's tongue nearly fall out of her mouth to hang there, a portrait of carnal bliss.
Eye’s locked on the mirror, Amber watched herself ride on Madaline’s hand.
Outside the mirror:
Madaline’s long nails teased the edge of Amber’s leggings and Amber felt her knees totally buckle this time, but Madaline kept her up, chuckling, dragging her nails just inside the band.
“Seems like a great time to me, I feel like we do that for a bit, catch your score up to Emily's and then see how you're feeling afterward. If you want we can even just call it your bestie helping you to masturbate. I mean, as far as what we're seeing here, my clothes are on, we are not having any sort of traditional intercourse right? There's no man, no cocks, it's just silly girl stuff.”
Amber watched as she came, back arching, face submerged in Madaline’s hair.
“But let's leave this on the table and see what’s on another channel. ”
Her fingers came out of the band of Amber’s leggings and tapped again. “All you have to do is pick one and we step through, like signing up for a dream."
The glass shimmered, rippled, then, inside the mirror:
Stone walls, roaring fire place, Madaline in heavy metal armor, Amber in an outfit that made the shoulderless black halter and yellow skirt combo seem both prudish and affordable; a white satin cross strap maxi dress, maxi being a term that seemed a misnomer in this instance given how much fabric the designer had skimped on, Xing over her breasts, shoulders and tummy both bared, the long flowing skirt had slits bearing everything from her thighs to her golden heels, then more as she jutted her leg provocatively. Golden finger nails pressed onto the front of the armor, golden eye shadow decorated eyes gazing up at her knight with mingled lust and adoration.
“Alright! Fuck yesssss!" Madaline snapped and pointed at the mirror, "If we’re going to be over the top, gimmie this, screw all this horror movie shit, yes, bitch, yes, give me a fucking sword, oh, and here’s the real advantage of this one…” she switched to whispering in Amber’s ear. “You want a justification? How about this, if a knight saves a princess from a dragon, even if she’s promised to someone else, whatever else is that princess supposed to do to show her appreciation for her hero. Don't you just love that? So much less crude than hypno eyes, so much sweeter.”
Inside the mirror:
Madaline locked a webwork of spun gold tightly around Amber’s neck, looking down at her as though she’d claimed the most precious treasure of the kingdom for herself.
The image flickered:
Madaline sat in a chair, still in her armor, save for the part that had been removed, looking down with a heinously appealing smirk on her face. Amber’s dress had been discarded, now only decorated by gold; eyelids, heels, nails and the collar, snug around her neck, just loose enough for it to be comfortable, but tight enough to always be aware of its presence. As if she were capable of forgetting while she diligently showed her gratitude for her hero; hands stroking, tongue flicking, lips pressing wet kisses to Madaline’s metaphorical blade.
“Princess and knight, courtly love, fitting for you, though knight isn’t the word you’d use to describe me,” Madaline’s fingers trailed over her, fingers finding Amber's throat again, this time sliding around, as though marking the spot for the collar.
“No,” Amber whimpered, so captivated she was unable to look away or file any sort of external or internal protest about the images. “No, I call you a queen,” the word queen emerged very high.
“That’s not the word either, but fine, if you want to pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll see if I can get it out of you later, set up like this bet I can get you to say all kinds of things,” She found the edge of Amber's shirt and traced the point of a nail over the softness of her belly.
Amber began to twitch, trying and barely succeeding to talk down her clit coming untucked, if it wasn't for how cold it was she wouldn't have been able to manage it.
Just as the Madeline inside the mirror, carefully, but firmly planted her hand on the back of her Amber's head, the Madaline outside of the mirror once more reached out and tapped.
The mirror shimmered and rippled.
“Oh, I see, I think we’ve saved the most dangerous one for last,” Madaline noted.
Amber held her breath, waiting for the image to resolve, trying to prepare herself.
The image came in and Amber looked at it, the breath slowly trickling out.
Dangerous? she thought bewildered.
It was almost dully shocking, compared to the previous two, to the carnival itself, it was just so mundane, not to mention utterly benign.
Inside the mirror:
She and Madaline were walking down the sidewalk, late on a September day.
The sidewalk was familiar, it was on a street near Amber's former dorm at Mis-U.
She hadn't ever walked with Madaline on that street, but they'd walked down other sidewalks, this could have been them last week.
It looked like a nice day, and time with Madaline was always a positive, but… How is this dangerous?
Actually, never mind dangerous, because it also wasn't provocative or fantastical or lewd...
Given what the magic mirror had shown so far, why was it offering this at all?
There was really nothing noteworthy to comment on, so-
Well… except, maybe just how attached they were, Amber often walked with Madaline's hand at her back, but here this Amber was clutching her Madaline's arm, hugging it to her chest, keeping a hold, not letting go and she was just so unselfconscious about it, and then there was what Amber was wearing.
That Mis-U sweater was all wrong, Amber wouldn’t even wear that as a dysphoria hoodie, it was far far too big on her, fitting almost as a dress and…
Oh.
In the mirror Amber and Madaline looked blissfully happy.
Oh.
In the mirror Amber leaned her head into Madaline's arm.
Oh.
The sweater was Madaline’s and Amber was wearing it; object of comfort, symbol of possession, mark of pride, Amber’s girlfriend’s sweater.
That wasn't all, this wasn’t last week. It was hard to catch at first, but they were both younger, still going to school, no Simon, just Madaline and Amber, together, deliriously happy in a life that had gone a very different way:
No loneliness, probably no Christmas Eve of nightmares…
Amber wondered how they’d met, maybe really early, right as Amber had gotten there, orientation week even? Had Madaline seen Amber for what she was right away? Had Amber started her transition a year earlier or perhaps inside the mirror there were other peculiarities, perhaps their ages had been aligned, so she could have had not only four years at school, but four years at school with Madaline.
What else?
Did they still watch anime at night? Did Madaline insist on feeding her? Did Amber take Madaline to her blood work? Were Madaline’s friends Amber’s own? Did Amber spend the holidays with Madaline and her family?
So much could be similar or the same, but so much, just so much, so much, would be different over there.
The lust had quietly drained away, there was pressure growing behind Amber’s eyes, and at last she understood why this one was dangerous.
The knowledge arrived in an uncompromised moment of clarity, the kind that must either become self sustaining or else blink out.
It wasn’t the idea itself that was dangerous, nor was it the fantasy alone, no, it was this whole set up, a marvelously designed psychological trap.
Here she had been offered a menu of fantasy, to be experienced as real, to be seen and heard and tasted and felt, and what were the first two options, flights of fancy, air castles, the stuff of fairy tales. This though, this was something else, a separate genus of desire.
Three options, all she had to do was pick one and it was hers, open her hand and let satisfaction pour into it, so which would it be, which one did she want the most? The hardcore pornographic copulation with a vampire in a magic carnival or a smoldering knight and princess erotica or… this?
If this vision of an alternate life had just popped into her head, then it would be fine, or if she’d just woken into it as a dream it would have been fine, but if she walked into this one, if she chose it when given alternatives and still consciously picked it, there would be no coming back from that, no suppressing the knowledge.
That was the trick, by choosing, she declared which one she liked the best, which one she wanted most, and the first two were, to say the least, problematic, but like the school dream they could be managed, faded, suppressed, they could be written off, they were over the top. The third, not so much.
Once again, the third was something else.
The first two were… just so horny, they were all about lust, about satisfying her sexual desires, misplaced onto her best friend, sure, but still, that’s what they were.
On the other hand, the third was a wish that your whole life had gone another way, that everything was different.
The clarity itself was terrible, because if she picked it, then when it was over she would wake with the knowledge that given an option that’s what she’d chosen, no simple drifting of the mind, no intrusive thought, but something chosen and then what… after that she wouldn’t be able to keep…
Both the greatest irony and the greatest horror in all of this, is of course one that does not occur to Amber, namely the fact that so much of her psyche revolved around a desire, an obsession with rewriting the past, both the goal and the means of achieving the goal.
In the end, all this was offering was a change in target, but, unfortunately, the key word here might actually be: Obsession.
Amber stared for a long time at the mirror, at last Madaline intervened:
“What do you say, you should choose the one you want, but I promise Amber, this one, say yes and it’ll be as easy as stepping off a cliff and flying.” The way she said it made that prospect seem not only desirable, not only possible, but yes, easy and, was there just a hint of desperation in her voice?
For a moment they stood, watching the other side of the glass, inside the mirror the paramours were inside a dorm, walking off the elevator onto the third floor, the floor designated for females. Madaline says something, Amber slaps her arm, gets behind her, jumps on her back and works her way up, hanging off Madaline. Madaline laughs and carries her along, they get to a door, Madaline’s key goes into the lock.
“Can you… just… Can you pick for me?” Amber whispered.
Madaline didn't respond at first, like she was thinking or running the idea up to a higher power than her, at last the decision came back, soft and sad, “No. Not with this. I’m sorry.”
Amber nodded, thinking for a moment. “What about… is there maybe a random select option?”
Once again, “No, that’s not how this works.”
“Kay.”
Inside the mirror: they’re through the door and Madaline carefully throws Amber off her back and on to the bed, so she can remove her boots.
Here, Amber figured, is where it will become porn, obviously:
Inside the mirror, Madaline sat down on the bed and settled in against the wall, legs stretched out, a pillow behind her back. Amber, wrapped in Madaline's sweater, not a care in the world, and without a single moment's hesitation, climbed into her girlfriend's lap, facing away from Madaline and grabbing a remote control. Apparently, yeah, they still watched anime together.
Here, Amber almost said yes, she felt it inside her chest, like something waiting to hatch, all it needed was her permission, but then, the line of thought by which so many of her thoughts were terminated:
I’ve come so far, I have to… I promised… I’m going to be… her lip trembled.
Amber jumped as the mirror shattered, pieces cascading down, chiming against the ground.
She found herself looking down, studying her own features, their fragments, dark brown eyes repeating, she could no longer see Madaline in any of it
Amber looked away and swallowed, Mesmerism. Just mesmerism. Fun. Scary. Fantasy. Nonsense. Just mesmerism. Just a…
“Is this a dream?” she asked, a strange partial numbness falling across her thoughts. She watched the world ripple before it stabilized.
“Yeah, but does it matter?”
“I don’t know. Everything feels so, I don’t know, far away, now,” she pressed her hand to her face, “
Madaline moved to her side, her hand going to Amber’s back, rubbing it gently, “Don’t worry, in a little while the mood will shift and things will feel better, that’s… it’s how you are.”
Amber nodded, finding herself being led, but she felt so strange, like something had been cut out of her, or like she’d just cut something out of herself, a word floats airily across her thoughts, the word is maimed.
“Madaline, what did I just do?”
Madaline drew through her nose and breathed out slowly, “Nothing new, just made a choice.”
“Oh,” Amber said, looking up into Madaline’s face, then after a moment, she focused on her eyes, but nothing happened:
Yes, her thoughts felt kind of dazed, half punch drunk, same as they had since the mirror shattered, the numbness, but while Madaline’s eyes were still beautiful, they no longer provided that flow of green into Amber, no pleasant warmth with a side of supernatural soothing.
“You're not mesmerizing me anymore? Are you still a vampire?”
“Yes,” she showed the fangs, “But the mesmerism was just to make things easy on you and… you made a choice.”
Turn it back on please, I want to go back.
Assuming it was up to Madaline, perhaps if Amber had asked Madaline would have, but of course, Amber did not.
“What choice?”
“Well, it’s like Star Wars, Yoda warning Luke about the dangers of the darkside, the quick and easy path, how seductive it can be,” they were climbing up the stairs to the Ferris Wheel, huge and white and twinkling with electric starlight.
“I don’t feel like I picked the quick and-”
“You didn't, that's my point, in spite of Yoda’s claims, sometimes, not always, but sometimes, the quick and easy path is the better option. Sometimes it's best to just let yourself be seduced.”
Amber remembered Serpentine’s insistence for her to try to have a good time, something about the road of excess and the palace of wisdom.
Madaline opened the cage-like door to a pod and directed her inside.
Amber sat, Madaline climbed in after, closing the door, planting herself close, sharing her warmth and Amber was grateful for that. Just a dream or not, nightmare or not, Amber was grateful for her friend.
“How are we going to start it?” She asked as the pod rocked back and forth.
Outside a lever clanked to life on its own accord, the Ferris Wheel began to turn, taking them up, and around several times, and then the world began to roll, blurring below them.
A gentle wind cast their hair back as they were wheeled across the night, further into the dark.
“We’re moving?”
“Sort of,” Madaline placed a comforting arm over her shoulders.
“Where are we going? What happens now?” she pushed herself further into Madaline.
“You need to try to remember something for me Amber, this isn’t nonsense, and it isn’t a punishment, it’s just… a remedial lesson.”
“Madaline... where are we going?” Amber asked, her voice quiet.
“Call it what you want, the bottom, the sunken place, where do all the things get put that don’t fit right? The unmentionable and purportedly unlovely and unlovable?”
Amber considered her words and soon the Ferris Wheel slowed, then stopped.
The latch on the door clicked, and the hatch swung wide on its own.
Madaline stood, leaving Amber and stepping outside.
As soon as she did, the full brunt of the cold hit and oh yes, it was so much colder here.
Amber zipped her coat tight, hiding her hands in her sleeves, then as she stood she thought of Serpentine, the book she'd been reading at the entrance to the carnival.
She called after Madaline, "Is it... Is this...Hell?"
“Lacking a better term,” Madaline said from outside, “Why not?”
Amber scratched at her arm, stopped, took a breath, held it, let it go and pushed herself towards the threshold. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
Outside the door, thunder crashed and boomed.