By a Charm and a Curse(18)

If I could still blush, I would. I’ve got on the black flapper dress, the beads dangling off it softly clacking every time I move. At the last minute, Duncan threw on the red velvet marching jacket for a burst of color. More than a little pissed, I shoot back, “Is that what you’re wearing?”

He looks permanently rumpled, like the clothes from the bottom of the dirty laundry bin, a far cry from the perfect brows and pressed shirt of just last night. His hair is actually curly now that it’s not slicked into perfection, unruly waves falling across his forehead from underneath the bowler hat. His mouth isn’t as red, but it’s more mischievous, more knowing. He’s wearing the same jeans, but the suspenders hang loosely from his hips, and he’s replaced the stiff white dress shirt with a faded green T-shirt. He’s wound a chunky hand-knit scarf around his neck a few times and tucked the ends under a heavy wool coat.

He’s not the same boy I saw last night, but he is a more human version of the boy from last night. Though the knowledge of his assholery makes him decidedly less cute.

“That reminds me.” He plucks the hat from his head and drops it onto mine. “This is yours now.”

I stomp away as he reaches out to put the damned hat on my head, but he’s fast and gets it on anyway. “I don’t want it, jackass.”

Sidney drops the third apple core onto the ground and follows me to the carnival. “I meant it when I said it suited you. Look, I’m sure my opinion doesn’t count for shit with you right now, but I do want to help. Others might want to make you comfortable, but there’s a difference—like it or not, I’m the only person who knows what it’s like to be in that damned box, and I want you to get free one day.”

I bark out a short, sharp laugh, but Sidney likes the sound of his own voice enough to continue.

“Always make sure that the booth is strategically set up. We’re at a venue a day before we open to the public, so if they stick you somewhere that won’t work, there’s time to make them move it. And do make them move it. You won’t win any friends, but they’re not the ones stuck in a box and screwed five ways from Sunday, so they can deal with it.”

We’re walking into the carnival proper now. Booth employees are putting up awnings and rolling up screens. A woman drizzles some batter into a fryer and another is dipping frozen bananas into chocolate and I wish I could be hit by the scents that belong to the sights I’m seeing.

A man stands on the roof, checking that the giant black-and-purple spider with yellowed fangs is secure atop the haunted house ride, and another worker yells instructions from below. The rickety plywood building has cartoon skeletons dancing across a gloomy cemetery painted all along the side. Jules and I rode it last night, and the rickety roller coaster inside almost made her lose her fried Twinkies. The men can be heard arguing long after we pass them.

“What you want is to be on the edge of the midway,” Sidney says. “Close to the food, close to the games. I was stuck in that box for a long time, and I got the most hits here.” He steps up to the box and pats the wooden frame with some strange combination of familiarity and distaste, if that’s even possible.

“Why…” I pause, almost chickening out before deciding I care more about getting out of here than hurting Sidney’s feelings. “Why did it take you so long? You got me to fall for your shtick pretty easily last night.”

His mouth twists into a grim smile before he lifts his hand to hover somewhere above my head. “You must be at least this tall to ask that question, and you fall woefully short.”

I smack his hand away and take a little too much pleasure at his grimace when my rock-hard fingers strike his.

We walk around to the back of the box. There’s a door but no handle. Sidney stretches up to depress the top right corner, and the door springs open. With no other handle in sight, it’s a smart way to make sure that some jerk doesn’t just barge into the booth. Sidney pulls back a faded curtain and gestures me inside.

The craftsmanship of the box is clever, thoughtful. Even though the outside needs some paint touch ups, everything inside is pristine. The shelf where the cards lie is lined with a heavy brocade patterned in black on black, and directly beneath it is a slim drawer. The chute that feeds coins into the gilded porcelain bowl is polished copper. Sidney points out a small pedal on the floor, and when I tap it with my foot, the perfect rows of golden bulbs lining the ceiling light up. It’s a little like a jewelry box.

It’s a lot like a prison.

“Smile. Flirt. Keep that jacket on and show as little skin as possible. Don’t let them see what you really are. Smile. Exaggerate the robotic movements so the rubes can’t tell that you can’t stop the twitching. If you get a rube to talk to you, be charming. And smile.” He gives me a big toothy grin at that last command, as if I need a reminder of what smiling looks like. “It’s terrible being cursed, but you can’t let them ever, ever know how terrible it is.”

I want to ask him how he can sleep at night knowing he was working to condemn someone else to take his place in this “terrible” box, to ask how it feels looking at the person who has taken his place, but the words die on my dry tongue. Because I’m about to do the exact same thing. But the anger still simmers.

If Sidney has a conscience, it doesn’t show. “Now, the cards.” A small drawer runs underneath the waist-high shelf the bowl sits upon. Inside there’s a stack of the cards with that awful marionette—who now looks more feminine than I remember—along with a lone pen. He pulls one loose from the stack. With a flourish he flips it over to show me a blank card.