Victoria’s apartment was very large, and airy, the plaster curving into the high ceiling quite elegantly, painted with a mural of a deep violet night sky with stars of real gilt and vermeil, a hand-drawn plaster crown moulding and wallpaper border of a twilit forest dividing this from the walls, which were papered in a very Art Nouveau style of pattern in not at all Art Nouveau colours—the background was a deep phthalo green, and thorny rose vines made Art Nouveau curving symmetrical patterns, their wild roses blood-red with black leaves. The wood skirtings and doors in their frames were darkly-stained to blend with the wallpaper—in here. The sofa, chaise, and armchairs in the front parlour were all upholstered in red damask.
Marshmallow was very careful to wipe her feet on a doormat that said ‘Beware of... well, just Beware.’ on it.
And that was when she started noticing things beyond the expensive side of the place.
The kitchen, which was through a wide, gothic-arched doorway on her left, had all kinds of Halloween kitchen decorations: two skeleton hand salad tossers in the drainboard, black and orange dish towels hanging on the oven handle, curtains with cute little pumpkin print... it made things feel less formal and serious and more comfortably playful. There were hand-made fabric pumpkins sitting on the kitchen bar in a decorative fruit bowl, and the hanging rack over the gas stove, that had copper pots and pans hanging from it, had pumpkin motif as well. The countertops were black marble, and Marshmallow knew it had to be real marble, given the richness of everything else, and there was a black Kitchenaid stand mixer with a ceramic bowl that had black stripes.
Marshmallow didn’t even know they made ceramic bowls for Kitchenaids.
The refrigerator was very old and so rather round and cartoonish, and it was bright orange, covered in stickers, or maybe magnets, from Beetlejuice, Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel—which made sense, because both were shows Xander Teague did a lot of voices in. There was also a magnet of a blue mer-horse on a white shield (Marshmallow wondered if that meant something), and a crayon drawing, laminated, of Victoria, drawn in a way that said it was a human child’s drawing, not a clown’s—clowns had a specific way they drew people that human kids never did, and more control over the lines, since they weren’t babies still figuring out motor skills like kids were.
The cabinets were stained purple, the sink was black with brass taps, and the handles to the drawers and things were orange pumpkins, and a ceramic jack-o-lantern with a big smile sat on the counter nearest the door to the kitchen, holding keys in its big open mouth. The floor of the kitchen was a pretty black and white checkerboard, but with diamonds instead of squares, like a harlequin’s motley—but it was mostly covered in purple mats of the thick, soft kind. The dishwasher had a picture of a black cat in a pumpkin, and Marshmallow wondered if it came like that, or was a decal of some kind. She’d never considered you might do that to a dishwasher, but now she wanted to see if she could do it back home, since Bonma always complained that the stainless steel was very ugly, and attracted fingerprints. There was another appliance built into the lower cabinets (or rather, drawers—they were all drawers), narrower than a dishwasher, and Marshmallow wasn’t sure what it was, but she was curious.
The floor in the rest of the foyer and the living room was the familiar narrow wood strips Marshmallow was used to—except this floor wasn’t wavy-wobbly with its age, and was shiny and coated, with no spaces between the planks, like the floor in Marshmallow’s house. There were low pile rugs in purple with playful yellow star designs too, but they weren’t fancy and fringed, and seemed pinned down—probably, Marshmallow realised, so they wouldn’t tangle up in wheelchair wheels. The art on the walls was all hanging from the rail around the top of the room, in carved fancy frames—but it was all art that showed Victoria was big into convention-going. There was a steampunk version of Sailor Moon, and a very large painting over the fireplace of several rare villains, that Marshmallow recognised because she loved all Disney villains: Professor Ratigan, Maestro Forte, Dottore Malvolio, as well as Cruella, Ursula, and Maleficent. There were even some animation cells, and a photograph or two of what must have been family—they were all goths, Marshmallow had never seen a family that was all goths and that many generations, before... and not all of them were white, she realised. There were Hispanic people too.
There was a curio case that Marshmallow had first assumed contained just antiques or something expensive, because the curio case looked so expensive; but, as she came closer, she saw there were some little lampwork animals—deer and unicorns mostly—sharing space with Monster High dolls, sharing space with some delicate porcelain statues of the sort Bonma would have liked—if they hadn’t been of naked fat people, Marshmallow thought. Bonma wouldn’t have naked statues in her house, fat or otherwise; those were for museums, in her opinion. It was nice, Marshmallow thought, seeing people built more like her than she usually saw in art like this.
In a niche, there was a bronze statue, maybe a foot and a half tall, of a male ballet dancer, his hair up in a bun, in a delicate pose you didn’t normally see men in. Surrounding it were three smaller framed sketches in what looked like chalk pastel, of what seemed to be the same dancer in various poses, maybe observational, preparation for the statue—they reminded Marshmallow of Renoir’s endless paintings of ballerinas, all colour and light and motion....
There was more art from the child, crayon drawings in pride of place just like the other art; Marshmallow liked Victoria more for seeing it. That little kid must feel so proud of themselves, seeing their art treated with this respect... she wondered who they were. A niphling?
There was so much art in here, and that was aside from how beautiful all the furniture was, all carved dark wood; Marshmallow knew how long all that carving took, she’d had her older brother Isaac teach her how to do stuff with wood after he learned her school didn’t have a shop class anymore....
Victoria herself was a work of art, too, (Marshmallow didn’t stare, but she did see). She wore a Victorian dress of fine black linen, all draped and beaded with jet and beetle wings and... Marshmallow realised that wasn’t jet, it looked like purple... shell? Was that wampum? And her curly black hair, wound up in a style to match the dress, was streaked with white in a way that looked both natural and unnatural. People didn’t usually get streaks like that, it looked so spooky.... Like her and Bonma, Victoria was a busty lady; even sitting down and even with all the fabric of her dress, Marshmallow could tell. She was very corseted, sitting up very straight, and her sweetheart neckline only showed off how much there was—which meant she didn’t mind it, perhaps even enjoyed it. Marshmallow was always more comfortable around other ladies like her, that were heavy on top; and it was nice to be around one that seemed to enjoy it, rather than treat it like a shameful thing that had to be hidden.
Thinking about that reminded Marshmallow that Aix hadn’t stared or commented on Marshmallow’s chest at all, and with how he was scarred... well, she didn’t see top surgery scars that looked like that in the scant few pieces of art she’d seen drawn by transmen, or photographs, so did that mean his chest had, also, been big once? She shouldn’t be wondering this, should she? It was rude. It was rude, probably; but if he’d had a big chest, himself, than that explained why he didn’t treat Marshmallow’s as anything extraordinary....
Victoria was sitting by one of the three tall windows making up a bay; the apartment was on the fifth floor, and happened to be tall enough that the view that way was uninterrupted enough to make for a beautiful view down Broadway itself. Pippin was on her lap, snuggling with her.
Victoria waited for Marshmallow to take in the room, to enjoy all of the art she’d collected, commissioned, and inherited over the years, before saying, ‘Welcome, welcome! Sit down, please! I hope you had an uneventful drive here?’
‘I learned a lot,’ Marshmallow said as she sat down slowly on the sofa, Aix parking his chair and getting out of it to slip off his rainbow sneakers and curl up on the chaise lounge. ‘Aix says I should ask you about what it takes to be a city guardian. I wanna be one of Baltimore’s, that white lady doin’ it right now by wavin’ a gun around and cosplaying a policewoman doesn’t speak for me or my neighbourhood.’
‘You are quite right!’ Victoria said, with a nod. ‘You have a perfect right to protect your neighbourhood, I shall sponsor you myself—and so shall the Vampire Prince, I imagine. He’ll be joining us for the show, along with The Captain, as cousin Xander calls his grandfather, and Xander’s husband, Sean. Dmitri will not be joining us, he has his evening affairs to attend to tonight.’
‘I thought there wasn’t a prince right now?’
‘Well, it’s all shifting about just now, but I believe the general consensus—at least, among the vampires staying in Baltimore; many of them plan to leave—is pretty much in agreement. You can speak with him tonight—in fact, I encourage you to do so! Now, have you eaten properly? I have a lovely casserole recipe Aix gave me that I just put in the oven when Aix said you were both entering the Holland Tunnel, it should be ready in half an hour.’
‘I think we could both use a rest, yeah,’ Marshmallow said, a little bowled over by the bustling friendliness of this lady.
‘And Pippin could use some time watching cartoons with her Auntie and having the space to play, she’s been cooped up for hours,’ Aix added, Pantomiming with his words; Pippin beeped happily in agreement, her tail shivering just like a happy cat’s.
‘Of course! Aix, you can show Marshmallow to the guest room, I think; I’ll come wake you when lunch is ready.’
Aix got up, slipping his shoes on again and padding across the rug to one of the huge wooden doors, pushing down the brass lever and revealing a hallway—a wide hallway, more than wide enough for any kind of fancy wheelchair and also a whole other person walking beside.
This kept being the biggest, most luxe apartment Marshmallow had ever seen, she thought as she followed Aix, observing how carefully and quietly he closed the door. He did stuff like that, and he walked very quietly too, like he never wanted to make any noise—or had grown up scared of making noise, which was something Marshmallow didn’t have experience with herself, but knew a fair number of people who did.
The hallway was carpeted in a sort of hotel-feeling carpet like the carpet outside the apartment in the corridor, and Aix didn’t turn the lights on, so the hallway was only lit by the light coming in through the transoms over every door and the light coming in through the open doorways—not all of them were open—as he led her to the end, where a door stood open, showing a bathroom with a shower drain in the middle and no curtain or bathtub, just a fancy massage shower head, the sort of toilet Marshmallow was used to seeing in more public bathrooms, that had exposed pipes and no tank, and a sink with a generous counter on either side, but no cabinet, just brass legs and a rail in an old-fashioned way. The tile was small and in beautiful blue and white patterns that felt very much like they went with the old-fashioned beauty of the rest of the house, and there was a large window, with stained glass—and it was really stained glass, not cling film like Marshmallow had put up on the windows back home. The pattern was blue circles, the glass sort of wobbly like ripples radiating from a stone.
‘This is the bathroom, the water pressure is divine by the way, and the window is to be opened when you’re using the shower on hot.’ He went inside, turning the lock and using the brass handle on the top sash to pull it down, revealing a screen. ‘Opening the top means less of a cold draft on your skin. All the windows can do this, by the way, they’re all double-hung.’ He went over to the complicated-looking brass rod and lever over the door. ‘Also the transom should be opened when you’re done, to make a cross-breeze to clear the steam. It’s really efficient, but the thing is there isn’t a fan in the bathroom, you just open the windows. Am I explaining too much? Like, do you already know this stuff or...?’
‘I don’t,’ Marshmallow said. ‘I live in an old building but it’s not the way it was when it was built. I didn’t even know transoms opened, or that you could open a window like that one from the top.’
‘Yeah, a lot of little functionalities were painted over and like... not maintained. Example: people think radiators are supposed to knock and rattle and no they absolutely are not. Radiators are supposed to be totally silent. If they aren’t, they’ve got air in the pipes, or they’re not level, and need repair, before they burst.’
‘Whoa.’
‘I know, right?’ Aix said, leading her back into the hallway, across to a spacious room all in green, the wallpaper a sort of checkerboard of gold letters and little pictures, the ceiling painted like a bright daytime sky with little white clouds and even birds, with the crown moulding shaped and painted like the tops of trees, making the green wallpaper transition smoothly to the sky. The trim around the two French casement windows and door was stained cheerful kelly green, the diamond panes in the windows alternating between green and clear glass behind the sheer white curtains; it took Marshmallow a second or two to realise the wallpaper... was children’s wallpaper, and the box in the corner was a toy box.... After that, the other details to do with children became clearer—but they were all sort of muted and historical: the pale green bureau with the wild-flowers hand-painted on it, the lamps with wooden beads painted like little clowns, the half-sized spindle rocking chair, the little old-fashioned school-desks, the... well, Marshmallow supposed it was a skin horse, such as the Velveteen Rabbit had known; it was an old-fashioned toy horse for riding on, but didn’t rock—instead, it was standing on a platform with wheels, and was obviously made of real hide, with the fur left on—black, with a red mane and tail of real hair, and the bridle and saddle of real black leather.
The kids that played here must be really careful, Marshmallow thought. Of course, she knew kids like that—some kids were, usually the kind that very easily imagined objects feeling pain or sadness.
‘This is where Auntie has the kids or clowns, usually. There’s toys in here that Pippin likes, in that box yonder. There’s a ball, and a ring stacking toy, and blocks, stuff like that. Sort of old-fashioned indoor toys for really little kids. Victoria likes kids, and kids like her, but she can’t have any of her own due to the whole vampire husband thing. I usually take this room because Pippin likes it best and it’s closest to the bathroom. I also just really like the bed.’
Marshmallow glanced around the room again. ‘...what bed?’
Aix grinned. ‘That’s why I like it.’ He went over to the carved wooden panels of one of the walls, which Marshmallow had assumed was the closet, and opened one of the closet doors to reveal... a bed.
‘Okay, is there some kind of secret hidden something in every room of this house?’
‘Yes,’ Aix said, chuckling, delighted to show someone new all these things that had surprised and delighted him when he’d first come here. ‘Remember, you’re talking about a goth lady and her goth husband, who have infinite money to spend doing crazy shit like this. Dmitri’s the one that bought the original land for this building.’ He smiled, turning the chair. ‘C’mon,’ he said, going back into the hallway. ‘I can’t wait to show you the secret stuff in your room.’
‘She said I’d be in her sewing room and closet...’ Marshmallow said, now unsure as to what that meant.
‘Yeah, that’s the big guest room...’ Aix said, and went over to the bookcase sitting in a little inset in the corridor—which was quite wide. He tilted a book out of the shelf, and there was a huge click, and the shelf swung open, revealing a huge, sunny room beyond, with one wall and most of the ceiling made of glass, like a greenhouse. It was warm, as one might expect, and in contrast to the rest of the house’s decor, this room was mostly a sort of violet-tinted white—the floor was white marble and the trim and skirting were stained white rather than painted, showing off the grain of the wood. There was no wallpaper in here, only pale lilac-pink panelling with paintings of forests and meadows, and the wood floor turned to cheerful green carpet with a lattice pattern of white flowers. The ceiling was all glass, letting in the light, but Marshmallow saw it was tinted, very slightly, and she supposed that was how the UV light was prevented from fading everything.
There were multiple dress-forms standing in a cluster, mounted at different heights, on wheeled stands; one of which, a purple one, was obviously Victoria’s; there were other ones, that must be other people—because these weren’t adjustable, like her Auntie Yasmin’s, these were custom-made, or maybe made by Victoria herself, full-body with legs and arms—and padding where fat should be. The tallest one was green, and of a broad-shouldered fat woman, and the only one with a flat chest looked newest, a pink one with wide hips, and Marshmallow realised it looked like Aix. That must be his.
There was a wall of cabinets diamond-paned in textured glass, and Marshmallow could tell there were bolts and bolts of fabric arranged by colour, though most of it was black, with some reds; the most colourful section had things too small and round to be bolts or even scraps of fabric, and Marshmallow realised... Victoria’s hands and lap had been full of yarn, that must be her yarn stash.... though it felt wrong to call something so organised a stash.
There were mirrors and a large dais set up in the middle of all the windows and skylights, covered in the carpeting and with a spiralling ramp, though it wasn’t wide enough for a wheelchair.
The actual sewing table was difficult to find, the room was so huge—bigger than an entire floor of Marshmallow’s rowhouse, she reckoned. The table was pale wood shiny with varnish or wax, and there were not one but three sewing machines, as well as magnifier lamps, around the U shape of it. The sewing machine was not a brand-new machine, but not a machine as old as the building either (which Marshmallow had half-expected). It was a Bernina (of course, Marshmallow was knowledgeable enough to know that was the best maker). The second machine she recognised was a Brother with a screen that was probably for embroidery; and the third was... what, a serger? Probably a serger.... There was also a huge cutting table a short ways away, with one of the fancy grooves in it Marshmallow had only seen at fabric stores. It... looked like it might be from an old fabric store, really.
The set up was, frankly, enviable.
‘She made it sound like I’d be crammed in here with a bunch of railings...’ was all Marshmallow could think to say, turning to see Aix had sat down on one of the low ottomans scattered around, all of which were claw-footed. ‘Where’s the bed? Hidden again?’
‘Yep,’ he said, getting up and going around the sewing machines, revealing a pale purple door that was probably the same size as all the other doors, but seemed awfully small compared to how big the room felt... was this room two stories tall...?
Aix opened the door, revealing a small room with a slanted ceiling, the window in the slanted part, and a bed positioned beneath it, covered in crisp purple sheets. The room was decorated stuff that Marshmallow knew was from the eighties and nineties—not because she’d been alive then, but because she’d seen it at the houses of older aunties... there was a poster for Interview with the Vampire, and Buffy, and the musical Jekyll & Hyde, and a CD tower full of jewel cases, as well as a bookcase with stacks of Gothic Beauty and Japanese Gothic Lolita magazines.... The bed was Wacky Post-Modern, one of clownkeeping’s favourite eras, with the frame upholstered in puffy asymmetrical zig-zag shapes in magenta and violet, interrupted by a teal triangle, and bright purple and pink comforter.
‘This is where she keeps all the stuff from when she was a teenager,’ Aix said, shutting the door and leaning on it. He nodded at the glass display case full of more Sailor Moon figurines and toys. ‘By her own admission, she had, “a weeb phase”.’
‘I cannot picture this lady saying the word “weeb”.’
Aix laughed. ‘You’re right, she said “an anime phase”. You won’t believe what that means to a rich person.’
‘She went to Japan as an exchange student and learned Japanese there?’
‘Almost—her parents knew a Japanese branch of the family and she went and lived with them and went to college in Japan.’
‘That is wild as hell.’
‘Right?’
‘Are you her first poor person or...?’
‘Nah, she’s always had all kinds of friends; she didn’t go to private schools, though she did go to art schools, like I did.’
Marshmallow flopped down on the Sanrio-sheeted bed; it was bouncy like a spring mattress, but really comfortable—so comfortable it made her really tired, all of a sudden. She yawned. Aix got up.
‘I’ll let you nap; I could use one myself, and I know Pippin wants the opposite.’
‘I’m probably gonna wake up and think I’m dreaming or went back in time or something...’ Marshmallow said. Aix chuckled.
‘Well, just open a window—the noise and the smell should help with that immediately.’
⁂
Sean had met Captain Teague before, and liked him; but he hadn’t met the handsome otter with the Captain, who didn’t seem to talk much, and had the signs Sean was very experienced with, that said he’d recently escaped abuse: he put his back to walls and always positioned himself with a view of the rest of the room; he watched everyone carefully without seeming to watch them; nothing about his expression relaxed fully, not for a second; and he was very good at being very obliging, with no mention of his own needs or wants. Sean very badly wanted to tell him he was safe, but he didn’t know if that was true for this man or not; all he could do was what he always did for clients and friends with the same signs: move slowly, speak gently without condescend, and phrase everything with care to make sure as little pressure as possible could be read into it.
The man’s name was René, and if Sean hadn’t been so worried about him, he would have been quite attractive. Sitting on their window seat, petting the cat and watching the night outside, he looked like some kind of model—he certainly wore clothes like a model did, carefully layered and arranged even though he was only wearing what he’d bought himself on the trip here. He seemed to like navy blue; it certainly brought out his gorgeous blue eyes.
Currently, they were in the very modern lobby of the theatre where Xander was performing, awaiting the rest of their party. Both were holding programs, a band of rainbow across the top to celebrate the season.
‘The Captain says you’re a quiet one,’ Sean said, as they waited for the Captain to return from the restroom.
The laugh was pretty, René’s hand coming up to cover his mouth, almost coquettishly. ‘Quel tact! I suppose he would consider it rude to call me a whore, though it seems no more insulting than calling a man who bakes bread a baker, to me.’ He broke off, looked toward the doors. ‘They are here, I think,’ he said. Sean wondered how he knew—he wasn’t by any means a tall man, though of course he was taller than anybody sitting down.
‘I told them we would be waiting by the grand staircase,’ Sean said. The staircase in question was very grand, indeed—in an ugly, minimalist, modern way, René thought. They both watched the crowd parting before not one but two wheelchairs.
The carved wheelchair of dark wood and brass contained a striking woman that could have stepped right out of an 1880s edition of Harper’s Bazaar, her dress a confection of ruffles and asymmetrical gathers all in bold black and white striped taffeta, her dark curly hair having two streaks of silver at the temples, the way her hair was wound and curled showing them off, her dark eyes framed with a pair of baroque, black-framed cat-eye spectacles that made clear she was an Aunt, the sort that would terrify a one Bertie Wooster. Her face-mask perfectly matched her warm, alabaster skintone, and was perfectly-tailored too, the clear vinyl that showed black-painted lips not looking at all awkwardly-sewn, as vinyl so easily could. This, clearly, was the Lady Victoria of the House Averay—one never mistook an Averay for anything else.
The one standing person with them was a young black woman, wearing a bright colourblock dress that clung to her curves, her short nails painted in a bright and cheerful rainbow, her textured hair in many small puffs, each one a different bright colour, her face painted also in a bright way that made clear she was Clown People, her face-mask rainbow striped.
The other wheelchair’s mechanics were covered by a sleek, Streamline Moderne shell of a neon pink that glittered, and the creature sitting on that throne was draped all in black, androgynous and veiled completely, face barely visible. The only thing truly visible were a pair of long, soft hands, with long and pointed acrylic nails, black with a cat’s-eye effect in violet. Those lovely hands were currently holding a very small pierrot zanni on that black-draped lap. The clown was in a Beetlejuice costume, her Mask a very good imitation of the makeup, which looked very strange on such a tiny, cute sort of creature. Her Flash was all in slime-green, glittering at the tips of her downy plumage.
‘Sean, darling! Lovely to see you again!’ Victoria was saying. ‘You look well! This is Aix, and our new friend Marshmallow. And Pippin, of course!’
Pippin waved with a cheerful giggle that belied she was very excited, indeed. Sean gestured to René, who bowed theatrically, in the old style.
‘René,’ René said. ‘Enchanté, mesdames, monsieur.’
‘Enchanté, Monsieur René,’ came the reply from behind Aix’s veil, and René couldn’t entirely hide the way hearing that voice—the voice from the merboy in his dreams!—startled him. Sean had not said more than Victoria was bringing some friends, one of whom was having a birthday today; though, of course, there was no way of her knowing—! Or of René knowing—! It was such an extraordinary coincidence, the sort that made René suspicious something bad was about to happen.
One of the ushers was approaching them. ‘Hi, you’re Mrs Blackstonewood? Stage Manager asked me to make sure you guys had an escort to get to your section before the rush.’
‘That’s very kind of you, young man,’ Victoria said, ‘We’re in the Orchestra Pit today, I believe.’
‘As opposed to...?’ Marshmallow asked, sotto voce.
‘The family box,’ Victoria said, exaggerating her Mid-Atlantic accent to frankly Cruella De Vil levels. ‘I told Abuelo I was very upset that the show was closing due to this wretched little Plague; so, he bought me the theatre.’
‘Every word of that sentence was more insane than the last,’ Aix deadpanned, because he knew Marshmallow was still a little shy of saying so. Victoria laughed.
‘I know, darling, can you believe we didn’t have a theatre before now?’ Victoria said, purposely misinterpreting Aix—well, she did like being silly in her particular way, after all. ‘We’re renaming it—as soon as I can think of a name, anyway. I’m a bit hopeless at naming things. Oh, hello, you must be Captain Teague!’ she said.
By then, they were at the very front row, in the middle, where there were only half a dozen chairs in the middle of the row, the sides left without chairs. A spry old man with a battered and well-worn captain’s hat sprung up from one of these, sweeping his hat off and bowing to them.
‘Aye, Captain Teague, at your service!’
‘A pleasure, Captain, a pleasure. Now, let’s see...’ Victoria said, as Marshmallow and René went down the row toward the chairs. ‘Aix, you wanted to be at the end, yes?’
‘Yeah,’ Aix looked up at the stage. ‘Me ‘n Pippin will take this end, I think,’ he said, because, even all things considered, he still always preferred being stage right.
‘I’ll go in first, then,’ Sean said, and Victoria waited for him to settle his chair before she followed, and Aix considered.
‘Pippin, get down,’ he said, and she hopped off him; he had her on a leash attached to a striped harness, because he wasn’t sure she could resist the temptation to jump up on stage and join the other clowns in the show, and he didn’t want to make her try. As it was, she scampered to the edge of the actual orchestra pit, and peered down, tail twitching back and forth excitedly, hands over her mouth to muffle her excited giggling as she watched the orchestra get ready. He kept the leash looped over his wrist, and just dragged his chair where he needed it to be. It was, at his current skill level, faster that way. He was nervous about getting up out of it, like always, worried about people pointing at him and shouting ‘faker!’ or something; but it got easier the more he did it.
He settled back down into the chair after pushing on the brakes, and tugged the leash gently twice, the signal he was trying to train Pippin to mean ‘come here’. ‘Pippin, hey,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘C’mere.’
She came back, hopping up when he patted his lap, and he waited for the usher to leave before pulling up the top layer of his veil, revealing his eyes, made up with black and violet bat-wing shapes behind his narrow glasses, tinted just slightly, like Victoria’s, though Aix’s were a practical amber and not violet. He had violet specs once, and seeing Victoria’s made him miss them.
⁂
Pippin listened to her Friend chatter with The Lady next to him; but under that, and not in a way humanspeople could hear, Pippin listened to the muffled sounds happening behind the curtains, and sat very, very still, dimming her Flash with the dimming of the lights, until it went completely dark.
And then, the music started.
For Pippin, it was very exciting, to finally be in a Joey House after so long, and to see other joeys perform. And her very favourite one of all, too, alive and on a real stage, not on a screen! She very wanted to jump up and Play with them, she was so close!
But the Fourth Wall was there. She had to be Polite about the Fourth Wall. That was Manners. She was Audience.
She was very good all for Act One, which meant Friend gave her three Good Girl candies at Intermission, and lots of kisses.
And then Act Two started, and Beebo himself broke the Fourth Wall to talk to her! Pippin couldn’t help how her Mask lit up along with her Flash. She waved, beeping only once—a great effort of willpower. He continued talking to her, and she giggled excitedly, and then the part with all the big Trollies came and one of them bombilated off the stage to invite her up, and Pippin felt Friend unhook her Leash and jumped on the Trolly and he caught her and tossed her up on stage to another Trolly and she got to do the Bit also!
Victoria leaned over to Aix, patting his arm. ‘Don’t worry,’ she murmured softly—murmuring carried less than whispers—‘This is how we loophole her. I’ll explain later.’
Aix was just glad Pippin was with him, to take the brunt of the interaction; he was far too excited, and autistic, and furthermore prone to paralytic stage fright, to deal with audience participation of the sort where one person got picked out of the crowd. Besides which, clowns were supposed to perform properly, that was best for them—and Aix had no idea how long it had been since Pippin had been able to do that, who knew how long she’d been abandoned in rural New York, theatrical wasteland that it was?
When the big opening number for act two had ended, one of the stage hands, all in black, came out with Pippin, giving her back.
‘Everyone wants her back after bows,’ she murmured, crouching down to better not be seen, after Pippin was safely on Aix’s lap again. ‘You too.’
Aix didn’t feel envious of Pippin—except maybe of Pippin’s comfort with the spotlight. Aix had always been jealous of performers for that. They got to do fun things like Play Pretend as adults, and dress up, and wear fun makeup; but Aix’s stage fright had always been so severe he paralysed him, and he’d never been able to get help figuring out how to cope with it.
He just nodded and gave a little thumbs-up just to make it clear, and the stage hand disappeared again, leaving him almost more excited for the show to end than he was to see the rest of it—though, to be fair, he’d always preferred Act Ones over Act Twos, no matter the show. He just liked the first half of a story, when all the character and ‘I want’ songs happened. Act Twos were usually all icky-sticky romantic, or else awful and tragic, and he liked neither. This show was actually nice, though, in that it had no romance, only a farcical romance.
It occurred to him that, possibly, he should just get more into farces.
Far from tragic too, it was more about grief and generational trauma; and he did cry, a bit—he could always cry freely, in a darkened theatre. Pippin hugging him helped, so did seeing movement out the corner of his eye and seeing Victoria holding a black handkerchief over her mouth and nose, too, to muffle the sounds, her eyes streaming with tears, though not ruining her makeup one bit. She actually stood for the last applause, and Xander gestured to her, calming the audience and speaking.
‘Spotlight, spotlight, over here... I want to thank the reason the show came back, she’s here tonight, everyone please, round of applause for the lady who lets us keep ghosting you every night!’
Victoria turned to the audience, somehow making the princess wave look absolutely elegant and a little wry, before sitting down again.
‘And the tiniest new cast member, where didja go—there you are! Come out here and take a bow!’
Pippin knew the Game, hiding until she could make it look like she was just coming out from backstage, or even up stage, and reached up to Xander, who picked her up from behind and under her arms, holding her up dramatically.
The house went wild; Pippin laughed happily, so excited she forgot to keep her Flash only ghost green and it went all colours. She basked in the spotlight. She’d never had one just for her, before! Soon she was set down again, and Xander and the lady playing Lydia held her hands, and she bowed with the rest of the cast, and soon was seeing the back of a curtain, all the Trollies coming to surround her and kiss her one by one, in their silent way—because Trollies couldn’t Honk, not like other clowns. They could make Scary Noises, but they couldn’t Honk. That didn’t make them less joey, not to other joeys; they were still joeys, they were just Different.
⁂
‘Fuckin front row fulla hot goths in wheelchairs, that was wild to keep looking at all night,’ Jasmine said to Xander, excitedly, as she sat down at her side of the dressing-table, toeing off her shoes. ‘Why didn’t you say the owner was a hot goth lady in a wheelchair?’
‘Because I didn’t want you to be nervous, Jazz, duh,’ Xander said.
Jasmine had argued her way into sharing a dressing room with him, after her backstage videos of her and Xander goofing around had gone viral and gotten more people interested in the show and given her more clout with the director. People tended to forget that she wasn’t, herself, a child, despite playing one in the show—she was just five-foot-nothing and, as Xander put it, a Superprano; she had been playing teenagers for about fifteen years now, it was fun. Furthermore, it was the 21st century, and besides that, Xander and her were both queer and not each other’s type.
‘I’ve never actually met her,’ said Schemia, the actress playing Barbara, from the curtain-doored dressing room across the way.
‘I heard her Abuelo bought the theatre—where’s the little joey?’ Jasmine said, popping her head out of her and Xander’s dressing room and down the narrow hallway. ‘Bibibibibi!’ she called, the common noise people used to coax joeys.
There was a cheerful, tiny honking in response, and the little clown came out of the joey room and up the hallway, long tail up and black and white striped, the little puff at the end slime green. the Mask on that little face, however, was back to being what must have been normal Mask—mostly white, with blue tear-freckles and black pierrot lips and eye-lines, with the little sad eyebrows and tiny black dot nose.
‘Oh my gosh are you a realio little zanni?’ Xander whispered the last word, as the joey came into the dressing room, forgetting his costume entirely and sitting down, holding his hands out. He’d never gotten to interact with a zanni, before—they were rare in America, most travelling European shows were forced to be extremely careful and pay large fees, which made most of them leave their zanni behind or just not come to the US at all. Cirque du Soleil had been formed because of that; and they were great “Tail-less Clowns”, as the affectionate slang for human clowns went—but Xander had always loved joeys.
‘A zanni?’ Jasmine said, sitting on her little stool. ‘First a fooly, and now a zanni? I have questions for you, little guy.’ She got out her phone. ‘But first, a selfie—whoa, hey! I thought joeys liked cameras!’ she said, having to contend with the clown jumping on the phone, trying to pull it out of her hands.
‘No!’ Pippin said, in a stout little voice, reaching for the phone as Jasmine—barely—fended her off. ‘No fairybox no!’
‘Okay, okay, I promise!’ Jasmine said, making great show of putting her phone away in a drawer, though she was young enough that doing this felt like cutting off her hand; worth it, though, to play with such a cute little joey. ‘See, I’m putting it away....’
‘If you wanna talk to Cousin Victoria with me you’ll have to go up to the boxes,’ Xander said, as he took off his wig and set it on the mannikin, where the top half of his costume already was.
‘I’d love to meet Cousin Victoria Who Owns The Theatre,’ Jasmine said, as she started changing out of her costume too.
‘She’s a hoot; honestly, she’s Sean’s family, not mine; but she’s got one of those huge families where everyone is just Cousin this or Aunt that.’ Xander put cold cream on to wipe off his makeup as he spoke, sitting in a somewhat makeup-stained undershirt and black and white striped boxers. Even his socks were striped black and white.
Jasmine admired his commitment to the character, as she took her braided hair down from where it was always pinned up under her wig, before changing into her preferred post-show outfit of her favourite worn-soft old hoodie dress from a Heart station she’d stopped at during a road trip years ago and had, over the years of being in theatre, decorated with a little embroidery something or other with every show.
Then, she and Xander goofed around with the little clown, going to visit other cast members, making sure to warn them about the joey’s hatred of phones. Lots of the cast and crew were lingering, wanting to play with the little joey, and wanting to meet her keeper—and the new owner of the theatre. They learned she was a she, and seemed okay with a polaroid camera that Schemia had.
The dressing rooms were narrow and had been built before wheelchair access laws, and so it had to be that they went to the wheelchairs, since they were the ones that could walk. Xander was the one that had taught pretty much everyone in the cast and crew about being aware of wheelchairs; he’d always been conscientious about disability and accessibility, because his dad was in a wheelchair, and had been all Xander’s life, and had a company that designed and sold custom-made game controllers, so people of all abilities could play video games. Xander’s husband was, also, in a wheelchair, and a lawyer who helped people with the draconian and humiliating bureaucracy that confronted disabled people who wanted any help at all, as well as being forefront of the vanguard advocating for stricter masking protocol so that disabled people weren’t trapped inside because nobody wanted to mask anymore. Xander made sure everyone was masked, and the stage manager, Merla “Merlin” Reade, helped him maintain the rule that if you wanted to see Victoria and her guests, you would wear a mask properly.
⁂
‘Can you really eat up in the opera boxes?’ Aix asked, as they were in the elevator, going up. It was her, Aix, and Marshmallow in one, and René, Captain Teague, and Sean in the other.
‘Oh yes, would you like to? The bartender is up at the little bar by now, since all the other guests are gone; but so many of my cousins don’t drink spirits that one of the first changes we made was putting a freezer up there for ice cream, and a soda fountain. We could have an ice cream party, if you like.’
‘I would like,’ Aix said, glad he had his lactase pills with him. ‘I could even tend that kind of bar.’
‘Oh no, don’t be silly, you’re a guest,’ Victoria said, ‘You’re to be magnificently useless, like any artwork.’
Aix was, silently, grateful for that reminder. Victoria went on.
‘There’s even a piano—just a small one, really, but those are the best kind. It used to be, so the previous owner told me, a vaudeville stage piano. It’s got quite the rich, agéd tone, anyway.’
‘Now all we need is a piano player,’ Aix said, liking this more and more.
And then the doors opened, and the upstairs lobby was full of people; and there was the actual realio trulio Xander Teague, with Pippin sitting on his shoulders. Pippin seemed to be leading a game of Joey Says, so there was a pause where someone had the opportunity to get the first word in, and Aix couldn’t think of what to say; but Victoria could.
‘Xander, darling!’ She held out her arms expectantly. ‘Come here!’
Pippin giggled as she got down off Xander’s shoulders with a little help from him, and jumped into Marshmallow’s arms instead, hugging around her neck.
‘Rshameloh,’ she said, purring and nuzzling like a kitten, and Marshmallow hugged her back, heart melting once again at hearing that little voice say her name.
Xander had just finished hugging Victoria when the other elevators opened, and he had other family to greet. Victoria, to Aix’s relief, knew exactly how to hostess, and introduced him and Marshmallow and René to everybody, matching them up with people they had something in common with, seeming to know a little bit about everyone already. Aix and Marshmallow ended up in a conversation with Jasmine Sing, the two girls sitting on one of the many pieces of furniture scattered about, that encouraged the crowd to lower down to a seated level; it hadn’t slipped Aix’s notice that this made all the abled people put their eyes level to the wheelchair users. It was a clever bit of crowd control, and crowd control was something Aix had grown up noticing.
‘Why does Pippin hate phones?’ Jasmine asked Aix.
‘Because I taught her to,’ Aix said. ‘I like my privacy, and clownkeepers have always followed the laws on consent to be photographed, even after social media made everyone forget about that being a law.’
Jasmine was quiet about that for a while. ‘How do you not have social media?’ she asked, but carefully. ‘Genuine question,’ she added, in case it wasn’t clear.
‘Well, simply: I’m a live storyteller, and a writer; I never was interested in doing the filming, and the editing, and the acting, and the publicity—those are exactly the parts of entertainment industry that I hate doing.’ Aix made a face. ‘They get in the way, you understand.’ He heard a stifled giggle and looked up. ‘What?’ he asked Marshmallow.
‘You started to sound like Lady Victoria,’ Marshmallow said. ‘That’s all.’
Aix, who had never liked being laughed at, and since that had been the only kind of laughter he’d gotten all his childhood, he had even started to hate laughter. As he’d gotten older, and somehow, without noticing it, gotten better at being funny on purpose, he had started learning the difference between the types of laughter; now, when he was trying to make people laugh, he had found he liked hearing the sound of laughter. ‘She’s a good person to sound like,’ was he said, smiling at Marshmallow mysteriously, and looked over as he saw someone come through the scattered crowd to speak to them.
René was shorter than most of the men that weren’t in Stagehand Black, and his black curls were held away from his face in such a way that Aix knew there were hair-combs involved. He was wearing blue jeans, but they looked very new, and so did his sensible blue jacket, his watch... everything he was wearing was new and not very expensive; Aix knew why.
He bowed to them. ‘Monsieur, mademoiselles,’ he said, and Jasmine giggled. ‘I wonder if I could steal Monsieur Aix away for a moment?’
‘You may so steal,’ Aix said, having expected this, moving back to his chair and pulling up the brakes. ‘If you’ll excuse me, ladies,’ he said, and paused, before patting his lap, Pippin hopping up to sit with him almost before he completed the motion. She held on to him, her Flash going soft and blue, patting Aix’s chest softly in a way that Aix had learned was her comforting him.
Her big black eyes didn’t leave René as they found a corner away from the crowd, by one of the windows, and René sat on the sill.
‘They tell me not to ask you to look at me; but may I look into your eyes, myself? You need not look back.’
His voice was intense, and Aix thought on it. ‘Why?’ he asked, carefully.
‘I must know if it was you.’
‘That’s cryptic,’ Aix pointed out. ‘Vampires have powers, and locking eyes might grant you more than you’re admitting. Why,’ he said again, and it wasn’t a question.
‘You are all so informed, these days,’ René said, looking down; and Aix could hear the tone in his voice. ‘Why would you fear me?’
‘Are you... afraid of me?’ Aix said, narrowing his eyes as it started to dawn on him that there might be logic to that, all things considered....
‘You came into my dreams, monsieur,’ René said, a little taken aback. ‘You... Lady Victoria has told me you control the monster that defeated my master. My master, whom no one could touch for centuries. You defeated him instantly, you controlled this monster that has left people ashambles for centuries instantly. Should I not fear someone that powerful?’
Aix understood, all of a sudden, and took a moment, looking down at Pippin and petting her as he... as he took all of that in. He didn’t feel powerful; but from René’s perspective... well, he was, wasn’t he? He stared out the window at the traffic for a while, thinking on what to say, and how to phrase it. He was grateful that René let him.
‘I know there’s no way to prove to you what my intentions are,’ he began, slowly, ‘so I won’t try. And well, even if you are psionic, we’re in a crowd of people; and if Pippin senses something’s wrong, she’ll cry havoc—won’t you, Pippin?’ he asked, and Pippin turned her Flash green again, and got a very serious little frown on her Mask.
‘Ye, Misser sir,’ she said sternly to René, who hid a smile admirably, making his face very grave as he bowed his head to her seriously.
Aix took a deep breath, let it out, took off his glasses... and looked at René.
René’s eyes were dark blue, Aix thought, gorgeous and deep like Regina Southern’s, the sort of colour you called ‘sloe’, or ‘inky’. His waterline was lined, just like Aix’s was, and Aix always liked a person who knew to do that—only lining outside your eye in black looked so awkward. His lashes were gorgeous, thick and dark without needing makeup, and there was a beauty mark drawn under his right eye.
Aix felt an instinctive heightening of tension, looking into his eyes; but he didn’t flinch, didn’t let that fear win. Yes, he told his autism, looking into eyes was aggressive, was even provocative—but there was a time and a place for it. This was that time, and that place. Pick an eye and just focus on all the details of the colour....
Aix’s eyes were like blue moonstone, René thought, a maze of inclusions you could get lost in, so pale a blue they looked, in this light, almost lilac. They were large, too—something his spectacles hid—and the strong bones around them gave him a piercing gaze, all the more piercing for the black wreathing them, and fact that his eyes didn’t flicker back and forth trying to look into both of René’s eyes at once—they picked René’s right eye, and stayed still.
René saw, then, that he was something Lady Victoria had not mentioned—one of the folk. Aix’s heart—or rather, his thoughts—were both as solid and as fluid as the sea. Like any of the folk, his thoughts were simple—not unintelligent, but simple. Clear. Strongly-rooted and unchanging for anyone or anything. It happened that those roots went down strongly into caring about people rather than not. There was no sadism, that was the first and most important thing—and somewhat rare, at least to René’s experience of people.
René did not go too far, not enough to truly know the boy’s desires, though it was tempting; he pulled away, broke eye-contact first.
‘You meant it, what you told me,’ René decided to say.
‘Humanity,’ Aix said, as always fighting a losing battle with tears when he got this passionate, ‘is seeing a monster in the dark void, and saying, “Hello, friend!”.’
‘Yeye,’ Pippin said firmly, in agreement. She reached out to René with one of her little inky hands. ‘Enna en!’
Aix half-laughed, half-sobbed, at that. René shook Pippin’s little hand very gently.
‘You saved my life,’ René said to Aix, quietly. ‘You saved all of our lives—such as they are.’
‘I did nothing but be human,’ Aix insisted. ‘Your master got himself killed by playing with powers he didn’t understand, nor respect. That he happened to make the decision to involve someone whose entire purpose is to be a catalyst is the gods’ work, not mine. I am the Tarot’s Fool, stumbling along my road unknowing, only doing what I think it is human to do.’
He hadn’t realised it until he said it, and it shook him a little—though, in the way of profundity, it seemed very obvious after he’d put it together, when he’d never known before.
‘There is humility and there is—’
‘I am not humble,’ Aix interrupted, angry in a flash. ‘That is a Christian notion. I am an Oracle, sir, and you ignore my words at your peril.’
René paused, at that, and canted his head. The poetry in the words reminded him this was, indeed, the merboy that had so truly advised him. ‘And so the Fool saved them all,’ he said, quoting from an old tale. It made Aix smile.
‘Now you’re on the trolley,’ he said softly.
‘Oh, Aix!’ Victoria called from across the room, and there was the sound of a piano warming. ‘Come here, darling, come sing with everyone!’