As I Was Going to Strawberry Fair

Chapter 13

Cai

Marshal and I stood alone in the empty church. The sound of the revelers' singing faded, leaving us to the dark and silence I preferred. No doubt bandits lurked about. Such revenants as the undead-girl have preternatural senses. She would sniff the trail of the revelers, returning when she failed to catch our scent. We had to escape now out some back window. Silently, if my night-blind companion could manage silence.

"It's you, isn't it?" he whispered. "The girl who rescued me. Where did you go? You ran away."

"What?" I shouted. The old church hall echoed in outrage, as it should. "I didn't run away. You went off. With two... pretty things, who needed an innocent idiot to sacrifice in a let's-pretend game."

A figure appeared in the torn-away door-way. A bandit with the tattoo of a skull covering his face, skeletons dancing across his arms. He held a square canister which he tipped onto the floor. A sound of liquid pouring; a smell of gasoline.

I ignored him. I glared into Marshal's face, searching for the guilt a just conscience would tattoo upon it in warning to the world. My night-wise eyes spied no guilt, just stubborn anger. He even tossed hands in the air as though he was confounded. "Me?" he asked. "I'm not the one who acted all 'Behold I am Mystery Girl' complete with 'poof now I'm gone' soon as we reached safety."

Poof? Mystery Girl? Me? How dared he! But he did dare. He dared again. "We got to the clearing with a crowd around us and I turned and you could have been anyone. I didn't know what you looked like. You never told me your name. Not that names and faces mean much in a crowd of crazies wearing masks. Every time I asked a girl if she was the one who saved my life she'd say 'Forsooth, that was I,' and then add a long crazy story to it. All I could do was walk around hoping to catch your voice. Finally I ran into Meg and Peg. They promised to find you if I helped them reach the Goblin King."

The bandit in the doorway paused to listen. I could see him considering both sides of the matter. Not that there were two sides. And what business was it of his? Still I felt an urge to ask 'Can you believe this?' I did not ask. He shrugged as if to say 'sorry, ignore me' and opened a box of matches. He struck one. It failed to light. Patiently he tried another.

"Meg and Peg?" I asked. "Oh, you mean the duct-tape queens. Wait. Was that their names, or just the names of their breasts?"

Marshal made a dismissive motion, waving away the relevance of breasts. "Do you even have a name?" he demanded. "Or are you too spooky and mysterious?" The bandit tried another match. Again it failed. This time he cursed. I felt like cursing myself. Me? Mysterious? I wasn't some farm-town kid playing pirate-ghost princess in the neighbor's barn. This was my existence. I crossed my arms across my non-taped un-named breasts. "You never asked my name."

The bandit gave up on his fizzling matches and disappeared from the doorway, leaving the pool of unlit gasoline to spread across the floor. The metallic vapor began scratching at my nose and throat. Marshal crossed his own arms, unaware he mirrored my stance. "I didn't have the time. I was kinda busy being captured and rescued, running in the dark, climbing fences and talking to lunatics. And yeah, maybe I was afraid to ask your name."

I stared confounded. Afraid to ask my name? Wasn't he the purpose of my being? I stamped a foot in frustration, pushed back my hair though it wasn't in my face. Why did I mean so little to him? Why couldn't he make some sense?

The bandit returned carrying one of the glowing jack-o-lanterns. Its candlelit interior shone with delight. Automatically I nodded to this night-guard, as one shall do. The left eye winked back, the snaggle-grin stretched wider. The bandit dropped it with a grunt and a splash into the pool of gasoline.