The Favoured, The Fair and Ms. Vérité Claire

2 Beauty And The Beast

"Believe it or not, he likes them kind of stuffy."

"I meant about your outfit," Julia said, blinking heaven-ward.

"I trust you. Nothing too sombre. A subdued splash of colour. Which reminds me, do you think you could wear make-up today? Binnie loved nothing more than a face full of paint."

"Sure."

"Oh and if you happen upon a hat, maybe it's a good idea."

So Julia spent the earliest part of the afternoon trying to happen upon a hat with little success until at last she found a sweet black velvet tam in a wig shop on Queen Street. A dark orchid-purple dress with a soft leather belt was not far behind and Julia's mission was complete. She had the garment bag folded gently on her lap as she sat on the subway, pleased to be earning her keep. The train rolled along smoothly with none of the delays that plagued the rush hour, its passengers pre-occupied with books and phones leaving Julia peacefully unnoticed stop to stop.

Of course, what they say about animals and children - along with psychics - being able to detect things unseen by most eyes also goes for the insane, which is why the sudden glimpse of a man muttering to himself at the opposite end of the subway car made Julia's heart sink and her every pore purse as he caught her and returned the mistake with direct, hostile eye contact.

She looked away quickly and adopted a fixed gaze at an advertisement overhead and across from her. Counting letters rather than reading them, she could hear this man's argument with no one in particular growing louder and more aggressive. He was pacing now, she could tell, not that anyone else seemed disturbed by it. Even as the car filled with a tantrum of his obscenities, readers did not lose their places and the lucky majority wearing earphones remained unaware or uninterested.

There was a passenger in the single seat under the ad Julia was studying who did lower his newspaper slightly so that she could see his scrambled dark brow arch. She watched him turn his head towards the man trudging ever closer to their end of the car. Julia felt brave enough to look that way again. Her second mistake. She was busted.

As though at last honing in on an enemy, the man barrelled up the train with a menacing forward lean. He stopped right in front of Julia, staring at her, and screamed, "WHY DID YOU TAKE THE CHILDREN?!"

Julia was certainly alarmed but remained rigidly silent.

"YES YOU!" he spat in grotesque fury. "YOU'RE ALL ALIKE. YOU ARE ALL ALIKE!"

With a mixture of pity and horror, Julia replied as bravely and calmly as she could, "I'm sorry, but I don't know you."

He swore and sneered. "They were mine too!"

"I'm sorry," Julia repeated firmly, but gently still, "but I don't know you."

The man hissed something unintelligible. He began to hit himself in the thigh with his fist over and over, but then, to Julia's relief, turned and tore back down the other end of the car. It was like witnessing a crazed oriole smash its head against a window, defending itself against its own reflection.

Julia thought someone might offer a word or look of support, at least in gratitude for it not happening to them, but people remained as they were. And just when she thought the coast was clear, the man returned at full charge, snarling at her face in response to some imagined slight. "Oh it's all my fault?! MY FAULT?!"

Somewhere between flight and fight, Julia froze.

Suddenly, the passenger in front of her threw down his paper and managed somehow to stand and separate her from the madman before she knew it was happening. She had not even glimpsed his face but now cowered behind the protection of his enormous back. He was not tall, but tall enough, solid and unflinching as a lead pipe. She imagined a look in his eyes that must have been formidable. The oriole flapped his wings with deranged rage.