Prologue
A brass mechanical elephant strides toward me glinting gold in the amber setting sun. Its trunk is raised; steam clouds chug from its nostrils. The carnie at its controls peeks out from behind the breastplate, shouting for me to move out of the way.
But I don't.
I just stand there, frozen in the midway, staring up at its jewel-plated armor and sparkling gemstone eyes. Imagining I'm one of the lucky children riding aboard its copper saddle, beneath that bright pink parasol that shades its back.
Frantic, the carnie pulls back a tusk and the mechanical beauty trumpets, sounding a little bit tinny, yet magically -- elephant! Mouth wide, showing off its ruby-crested tongue and a row of splendid ivory teeth.
Oh, how I love this machine. The way its gears clank around inside its head so perfectly, unlike the gears inside my own.
"Out of the WAY, KID!" the carnie shouts again.
I hear him but still I don't move.
"Eyelet!" My mother's hand bites down hard on my shoulder, snatching me out of the way. A house-sized plume of dust rises under the elephant's foot, marking the spot where I used to be.
"You could have been killed!" She shakes me by the shoulders. "What were you thinking?" She drops to one knee. "Was it a daydream? Or were you having another of your episodes?"
I shake my head wondering if was an episode and not just my curiosity that held me there—it's getting so very hard to tell. I've been having episodes so much more frequently, lately. But I mustn't let her know that.
Her face sours. "Oh, Eyelet, what am I to do with you?" She crushes me hard to her chest.
The lavender scent of her hair overwhelms me. Nothing, I think. It's not up to you. Father is going to fix me. As soon as he perfects his machine.
"But Mum," I push back, changing the subject, feeling too big for such coddling at nearly nine. "Did you see him? The elephant, I mean. Did you see how positively delicious he was?"
"I did." She smiles.
"The way he moved. It was perfect." I spin around, watching him waddle up the midway. "And his trunk." I turn back. "It even blew steam."
"I saw that," she says.
"And they have a ferris wheel made out of a gigantical gear!" I show her with my arms. "They're giving people rides in its teeth, if you can believe it."
"I can't—"
"I know!"
She grins.
"And have you seen the long-legged clowns—there's oodles of them—walking about everywhere—" I put a hand to my mouth and whisper in her ear, "well, they're not actually long-legged they're short legged walking around on stilts, but I don't want to spoil it for the other kids."
She laughs.
"And one of them, a short one, a clown I mean, flew right up and over my head." I show her, stretching my arms out into a half-moon. "He shot right out of the mouth of a cannon, he did. Grease-painted face all smudged up with soot, wearing one of the biggest grins I've ever seen!"
"You're enjoying yourself then, I take it? Carnival is a success?"
"Brilliant." My chin snaps toward my chest. "Only thing that would make it better is if Father were here." I look back at the gates. "He is supposed to be coming, isn't he?"
Her eyes linger a little longer on the horizon than they should, shining with flecks of green and blue. "I'm sure he'll be here soon." She bites her lip, which makes me not believe it. "Until then—" she looks back at me, mustering a smile, "how about some taffy to fill the void?" She pulls three gleaming jewelets from her purse and my eyes widen.
"Three jewelets," I say. "That's a lot of money."
She leans in close, her voice a teasing whisper. "Dad would think it spent on a good cause, don't you think?"
I grin. "Most certainly."
"All right then." She pulls herself up into a stand. "We best go get in line, before there's none left?"
I frown and cross my arms over my chest. "But I wanted to watch the elephant until he disappears. I won't be able to see him from the line."
She glances toward the elephant and back and I see worry settle in on her face again.
"Please Mum, I'm afraid I'll never get to see anything like it again."
"Alright," she reads my disappointment. "But promise me you'll stay put."
"I promise, I won't move from this very spot."
Reluctantly, she drifts off across the fairgrounds looking back over her shoulder from time to time to make sure I'm still standing where I should be.
I am.
The midway crackles with the sound of whistling dynamite, creaky gears and children's screams. The air tastes dipped in sugar. The elephant saunters toward the back gates flicking its ears at make-believe flies. I do hope Father makes it in time to see him. He'd find him so very impressive.
Where could he be? I gaze at the gates. He promised he'd come. And he never breaks his promises. Even the ones he can't possibly keep.
I close my eyes and his face comes to me, this morning in the kitchen before he left. I hear the soothing sound of his voice in my ears. Smell the lingering scent of his pipe tobacco on his neck, when he pulled me in close for a hug.
"You will be there, won't you?" I stared at him through the most serious eyes I could make. He's been working an awful lot lately, later than he's ever worked before. Mum says it's because of the de-motion. Father says it's because he's so smart they don't want him to go home.
Father leaned in, caramel eyes looking at me seriously. "How much do you trust me?" he whispered, and I smiled.
I knew the game and exactly what he wanted me to do. "As much as the stars and the moon and the pesky ol' sun," I said, doing the hand signs that go with it. First crossing my fingers, then curling them up into a C, then pinching together my finger and my thumb to form an O, waving the rest of my fingers behind it like the rays of the sun.
It's our little ritual whenever I have to face something hard that I don't like. His promise to me that everything'll be fine.
He pulled me in for one more hug and I melted against him, breathing his smoky aroma deep into my lungs, now tinged with a hint of lavender after kissing Mum.
"I'll be a little late." He stood and kissed Mum again, whispering into the back of her hair. He thought I couldn't hear him but I did. "I've business to attend to out in the Follies," he said.
"The Follies?" Mum drew back looking singed. Her green-blue eyes turned watery grey. "What's out in the Follies that's important enough for you to leave the safety of Brethren?"
"Don't worry," Dad smoothed her cheeks with his hands and kissed her again. "I'll be back in time to join you both before sunset. I promise."
He didn't think I saw him give her the present either. But I did. Something bright and shiny pressed into her hand. Her fingers curled over it before I could see what it was, but I knew it was for me, by the way he was acting. "Until then, keep this safe for me, will you?" he hissed in her ear. "Or rather, for Eyelet. In the future."
"What is it?" Mum whispered, staring down at the object lighting up her hand.
"I'll explain later," Father's eyes flicked from her to me, like it was a secret," for now, just promise me you won't let it out of your sight?"
She nodded and he slipped away. And I forget to say, "I love you."
A clown flits past, blasting his horn causing my thoughts to pop back into the present. I turn to the sound of a voice that sounds an awful lot like Father's barking inside the tent behind me.
"Witness the magic of the Great Illuminator! Watch photographs come to life before your very eyes! Gaze through a sheet of metal! See beyond a block of wood! Count the coins inside your purse!"
The Great Illuminator? The coins inside your purse? It can't be, can it?
I can't help myself. I must see. I'll only be gone a second. Bolting across the midway I fall to my knees, ducking my head beneath the flap of the candy striped red and white tent. But to my dismay, it's not Father, but a carnie, all dressed up in a fine pin-striped suit and a bowler hat.
"You, sir!" the carnie shouts. "Don't you want to know what your wife carries 'round in that carpet bag of hers?"
The crowd chuckles as the couple blush.
"You're not the least bit curious to know how much she's worth?" The carnie's voice goes up of his sentence. The crowd's heads swing, curious. The young woman's cheeks start to glow. She turns to her husband and grins.
"Come on, now, don't be shy. I won't bite." The carnie waves the young woman up to the front. He's balding and thin as a communion wafer with kippers for lips they're so scaly. I can't help but wonder what's happened to him, for his skin to look so weathered. If I didn't know better, I'd swear he was part gator.
He glares out over the crowd through a set of dead lark's eyes, all dried and dull, standing atop a soapbox, like he's some sort of king.
"Come, now," he prods the couple, eyeing the man. "You can't tell me you're not a little bit curious?"
The crowd stirs like a herd of hungry cattle impatient to be fed, their wide lollie eyes flicking backwards and forwards. The husband finally nods and shrugs the young woman from his arm. She grins, dancing to the stage through the hum of the crowd.
"That's right." The carnie instructs her. "Stand up straight, right there, over that X."
The woman skips up the stairs, takes her place.
"What's your name?"
"Mrs. Benson." The young woman blushes. "Soon-to-be Mrs. Reginald Benson." She raises her chin proudly. Her gazes drifts dreamily back to the man she's left whose arm she left. A chorus of 'aaahhhhsss' floats up from the crowd.
"Very well then—" the carnie tips his hat "—Mrs. soon-to-be-Benson. Shall we get started?"
She nods, holding her purse out to one side.
"No, no, like this --" the carnie steps in to adjust it "--right in front of you please. Up tight to your chest. That's it. Just like that. Now hold it." He races from the stage, taking safety in behind a short wall erected next to a cabinet-style box that sits on a table. Holding up a crankshaft, he stuffs it into the pinhole and begins turning it, and two large glass plates inside the cabinet start to spin in opposite directions. The noise is incredible.
"Hold it. Hold it," he crows to the woman with the purse, as the plates begin to whir, louder and louder. Her eyes, as big as saucers themselves. Electrical currents pop and sizzle along the wires. Several in the crowd place their hands over their ears.
My heart races with excitement. I leap into action, forcing my way through the tangle of legs to the front of the crowd. I don't want to miss a thing. The whir of the spinning disks throws the hair back from my shoulders, but I'm not afraid. Unlike everyone else here, I know what's going to happen.
"In a moment!" The carnie shouts above the racket. "Lightning will pass between the two brass bolts you see mounted there, on either side of the front of the cabinet!" The crowd gasps. "Don't worry!" The carnie assures them. "Everything's fine! No one will be hurt!"
Even the woman with the purse looks scared.
I lean in even closer to get a better look, my hair streaming wild about my shoulders. Electricity starts to fly, jumping snake-like between the two brass bolts, and I feel exhilarated from the inside out. It's just as I remember it.
Women scream. People start to leave. One woman nearly passes out. But not me, I smile, at the familiar whorl of blood racing in my veins, my heart jiggling in my chest.
"Wait!" The carnie shouts. "The magic has just only started!"
The crowd settles down.
The apparatus picks up speed and my skin begins to prickle. The hairs on my arms stand straight on end as if some spirit's pinched me. It's suddenly far too hot. I feel like I'm getting sunburned, but I can't be, my arms and legs are completely covered by clothing. I don't remember feeling burned before, but then again, it was a long time ago.
An eerie glow begins to fester, streaming out, forming a hallo around the machine. I don't remember this either. My heart says to run. But my brain says to stick. After all, Father said there's nothing to fear.
I raise a hand to shield my eyes, squinting as the waves of electricity grow until their heat is almost unbearable, the flesh beneath my skin, rippling. I think to turn away, when at last it happens – lightning leaps from the bars at the front of the wooden cabinet up a set of snaggled wires, over to a tube of glass that rests in a stand hovering above the young woman's head. In the blink of an eye, there comes a flash, so big and bold it's blinding. It sizzles down the long thin pointed nose of the tube aimed at the woman's chest, before zap, it's gone.
The young woman turns completely green. The outline of her body radiates luminously before the crowd. Her eyes distort, their centers turning red. She looks up, glaring demon-like out into the crowd.
People gasp and fall backward. One woman faints. Others flee. Screaming. My stomach falls to my knees. I think to run, but I'm stuck in place, as though my shoes anchor me to the ground. I suck in a breath, my heart pounding in time with the whirl of the machine, the jolt of the current pulsing through me, until at last the demon leaves her eyes and green glow begins to fade. The lightning bolts between the brass bars dissolve into little puffs of stinky smoke zapping and twitching as they simmer. The glass plates inside the cabinet whirl slowly to a stop and I gasp, relieved my heart has stopped whirling with them.
"And there it is!" The carnie spins around, pulling a slate-colored screen from the backside of the machine. He holds it up, its image still glowing, the most horrid shade of green. "The contents of her purse. Two jewelets, one juniper and a key!" He points to the skeletal remains of each object photographed inside the purse's ghoulish green outline. Even the young woman looks amazed. A collective 'ahhhhh' drifts up from the crowd again. All jaws have dropped.
The young woman is quick to dump her purse and hold up each item, proving the photograph correct.
"There you see!" The carnie waves his as if to part the sea. "And that's just one of the many magical uses for the Great Illuminator!" He grins, and stomach feels sick. What is he talking about?
"What else can it do?" someone hollers from the crowd.
"It might be easier for me to tell you what it can't do!" the carnie chuckles. The crowd joins in as he paces the stage, his finger wagging as he shouts. "Suffer from migraines? No more! Unwanted hair? Gone in a flash! Unsightly scars, pits, birthmarks?" He snaps his fingers. "Consider them zapped! Why, this young woman had a moustache when we started--" the carnie points back to the woman with the purse "--and just look at her now!"
The crowd laughs.
The young woman looks confused, taking his hand to navigate her way from the stage. "Bring an end to facial ticks, headaches, moodiness, depression--"
"It can do all that?" A plump woman shouts.
The carnie turns to face her. "All that is just the beginning!" He leans out into the crowd, placing the back of his hand to his mouth like he's about to tell a secret. "Exposure yourself enough times--" he shouts in a half-whisper "--and it'll even lighten your skin."
The crowd gasps.
"That's right my friends. Now who among you will be the first to own one? " The carnie waves his arms, as the young woman flashes the price on a sign over her head. "That's it! Step right up! Don't be shy! Get your own, personal party-sized Great Illuminator, today!" He lifts his arms and the crowd applauds.
All but me. The carnie eyes settle on me in the crowd. "For you--" he grins, stepping down from his soapbox, awarding me the photograph, like it's some sort of prize.
I look down at it in disgust. At the jewelets, the juniper and the key. "It's not yours," I whisper.
"I beg your pardon?" he says.
"It's not yours to be selling," I say.
The crowd falls hushed.
"Whatever are you talking about child?" His dead-lark eyes flicker, worried, he sort of laughs.
"The machine." I point. "It belongs to me--"
"EYELET!"
My head swings around. My mother stands at the back of the crowd, looking frazzled. A weeks worth of toffee sags in her hand. She weaves her way to the front, apologizing, seizing me by the arm.
"But Mother--"
"Not now, Eyelet--" she hisses, urging me to keep silent and drags me to the back of the tent. "But it's not his. It's mine." I fight, heels kicking up clouds in the dirt. "Father made it for me. To look inside my head. Not for him to take photographs of women's purses with!"
She gasps. The carnie's eyes grow wide.
Throwing back the flap of the tent she yanks me through it, hauling me stumbling out into the midway.
"Where are we going?" I protest. "Didn't you hear me? That man has my machine!"
"Not here, Eyelet." She glances nervously back over her shoulder. "We can't talk about this here--"
"Why not?"
She pulls me forward but I yank her to a stop. Frustrated, she falls to her knees. Her eyes are wet like she's about to cry. The corners of her lips are trembling.
She runs her hands down the sides of my hair and scoops my cheeks into her palms. I can tell by the look in her eyes she's about to tell me something bad. Something I don't want to hear. "I'm afraid the world is not always as it should be, Eyelet." She swallows, and the water in her eyes seeps over the edges of her lids. "Sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do. "
I turn my eyes away, staring over her shoulders at the back of the red and white candy striped tent, hot tears prickling. "He sold it, didn't he?" I say. "The machine he promised he'd fix me with. Father sold that man my machine--"
"There they are!"
A voice snaps across the midway like the crack of an elephant trainer's whip. The carnie emerges out from under the flap. "There!" he points, to the thug standing next to him. "There she is, right there!" My heart skips a beat as his gaze narrows in on me. His eyes are cold and mean.
Mother grabs my sleeve and starts running, the two of us fleeing the Carnival as fast as we can, bouncing off the backs of patrons. It's all I can do to keep up with her, my stride only half the size of hers—why is he chasing us? What does he want?
"Mother?" I shout, looking back at him over my shoulder. My eyes catch on something strange. "Mother!" I gasp. An ghoulish green glow rises up from the horizon behind his head. "Mother! LOOK!"
She turns just in time to see it. A flash so big, so bold, so bright it fills my head, my heart...the whole universe.
Eclipsing all that came before it.
And all that is to come.
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