6
I could feel it. I was already shaking from stimulated nerves and an increase in the rushing of the blood. Storm and I took one another's free hand and went one step forward. We were falling. It was black, there was nothing. All the pain was amplified by our screams. My eyes squeezed closed and my nails dug into Storm's hand and vise versa. There was nothing, of course there was. Nothing was around me, I didn't even think I was breathing, my rib cage was being pressed together so tightly. Would this happen for all eternity? This pain in my chest, this smashing of my head on both sides? Now I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or not. I couldn't feel if my lashes were resting on my cheek or on the bone just below my brows. I was so famished and so thirsty. I felt like I was one hundred, maybe one thousand years of age. Then it all stopped. My interior was still capable of working. I could hear my heart pounding in my head and I could think. I couldn't move, I couldn't feel Storm anymore.
I was alive? There was dirt under my shoes? There was air in my lungs? I fluttered open my eyes and gasped. There were so many people! I put the key inside my brazier and blinked a couple more times. There were huge boxes lining the streets. I think they were houses. Storm had told me about houses, and there was this hard gray stone held the ground under me. I touched it with my hands. It made a slapping sound, not a smooth one like the grass. Someone rudely pushed me and mumbled under his breath for me to move aside.
I kept walking, not being able to comprehend this dream. Storm laughed, leading me along. I tucked my stray hairs behind my ear and stumbled sloppily up to his side.
“Where are we?” I asked, not being to able to fully find my voice. It smelled like something I had only smelled a couple times before when the animals and hotdogs hadn’t masked the air all the way. I looked up and saw black clouds puffing out of tubes on top of the big boxes. People kept walking in and out of the big wooden doors. The womens dresses puffed out so large and awkwardly. I thought that the wind would carry them away like a parasol. Their faces were so pale and powdered. It was like they were wearing the costumes I used to be forced into.
The men were dressed differently, too. Suited in black and trimmed to perfection. Many of them held canes, but they hardly touched the ground as the men walked quickly up and down the stoney, elevated strips. The shoes were always making crunching noise as the stones compressed with the hardened rubber. Then there were other people. People who looked sick and people who looked poor. I felt badly for them, for the kids who’s hands they whipped through the crowds and the half naked, cold babies balanced on their hips. There were beggars lining the sides and people just walked by them like they were invisible, obsolete to the world.
I emptied my pockets and found three shillings. I dropped them in an older man’s cup.
“Bless you,” he whispered, smiling up to me like I was the sun, his teeth dingy and brown. A humble smile from my lips was returned.
“I only remember this from dreams, I thought.” Storm whispered to himself. “I don’t feel as this is real.” I kept gazing, feeling people bump into me, knocking my shoulder forward, pushing me ahead a couple steps.
We slowly found our way through the clumps of others. There was so much to see! I wanted to suck it all in before I woke up. It seemed as though sleep was the only thing that held this together. I hiked up my skirt as I walked up the wet looking steps to the big wooden door. I pressed my hand against it and looked through the little hole in the center of it where my eye could reach when I stood on my toes. It didn’t show such a grand inside as I thought it would be. It was just a fuzzy light. I sighed and stepped away. Storm stood to my left and was staring forward along with me.
I went to another man on the side of the oversized box. He was dressed nicely like the rushing men, but he sat like a beggar. He just sat there, humming to himself and rocking back and forth. He wasn't looking at anything, but it seemed as though he noticed all that took place around him.
“Pardon me, sir, but perchance you may know where we are?” He slowly looked up to me and started to chuckle. He chuckled a little harder and I started to also, and then Storm joined in, too. We were all laughing, having a jolly good time until his laugh cut ours off when it stopped so suddenly.
“You’re dead.”
I stood speechless and took back a couple of my steps.
“Grandpop, no. You’re scaring them.” A boy, Storm’s age, probably older, laughed and looked to me with bright blue eyes. I suddenly fell back into the zone of not showing emotion. He was dressed in one of the sharp suits and clean swiped shirts, but he looked more cleansed than the batty man we had been talking to.
“I am Petrona Greenway.”
“Petrona is not a name.” I smiled hardly with a turn of my lips, trying to remember my manners. His own pair divided into a big one.
“Ah, but, dear, Peter Merona is. Peter, be me father’s name. Merona, be me mum’s.”
I nodded.
“And your name be?” he asked.
“Estella. This is my friend, Storm.” I stepped aside to motion to him.
“Aye, what a style you two be!” He gave a full laugh, but not a mean one. “What a style. May I say that this is my doorstep you be standin’ on?”
Storm and I looked under our feet and then back up to him, seeing nothing but the glued together, micro sized stones.
“But, sir, there is nothing under our feet.”
“What a laugh you two be! What a laugh. Come in, you look thin and peckish. Come in!” He stuck a key into the hole and opened the door. I gasped and Storm smiled as all his memories gushed back full force.
There was furniture and walls that didn’t sway with the breeze. Stairs that reached new heights and twirled around each other in a upward funnel. Pictures hung down the narrow hallways and a small table with a vase of nonliving flowers sat against the dark rouge walls.
“Welcome to Amplus.” Petrona held out his hand as we walked into the thickly aired hallway. I gave him a puzzled look. “Latin, my dear.”
I kept my look.
“My! You don’t know what Latin is?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“I shall teach you some, my dear. Where are you did you ask earlier?”
I nodded.
“Dear, are you speechless?” The red head, freckle-speckled man asked.
“No, I just have not a word to say. But please do tell me where we are.” I looked at him, it must have been the wrong way because his smile turned slightly curious of the two of us.
“Aye, we are at Southend-on-Sea.”
“Where?” Storm asked. I was surprised he had spoken at all. Though he wasn’t shy, he just didn’t talk to unknown people when it wasn’t completely necessary.
“England, chum. England, Southend-on-Sea.” Petrona cleared his throat a little. Storm didn’t say anything else.
“What is this spectacular place?” I asked, placing my hand along the and listening to the sound it made as it slid across it.
“My dear, this is my home as I told you. You both look in need to bathe.” Petrona looked us up and down with an almost put off face.
Storm took a cigarette out from his pocket.
“No, chum, we don’t smoke in here.” Petrona stopped him, holding out his hand. I was surprised. A place you couldn't smoke? That didn’t seem right. Storm gave him a glare and slowly retracted the pack back into his pocket. The glare must have been wrong too, because the man's face became troubled and he retreated his arm awkwardly back to his side.
“Oh, dear Drumley, fetch these two to bathe.” Petrona hooked his index finger in the blazer of his slave. “I really would like them to bathe,” he said more quietly and with less movement of his mouth closer to the slave's ear, his hooked finger still at the top of the slave's neatly pressed and evenly buttoned blazer.
“Yes, Master Greenway.” The slave dismissed himself. “Butler Drumley is a close friend of the family. Been in this family since a child. His father be the butler ‘for him. Yes, he be.” Petrona raddled on, but I didn't have a clue on what he was talking about.
Storm and I looked to each other.
“You both two are an odd pair, you are. You odd pair, you two.”
Storm and I didn’t respond, but I still smiled a little. It seemed to be the right thing to do. Augustus always taught me to smile. Petrona’s bleached blue eyes darted in certain directions.
“Sir-”
“Please, my name.” he insisted.
“Um, Petrona, where do those stairs lead? They seem impossibly high.” I gazed upward so much that my craned neck started to ache.
“Oh, no, my dear. Wouldn’t you know? They lead to the upstairs, the next pair leads to the attic. Where are you two from?”
Storm and I didn’t answer.
“Don’t tell me you’re the ones who escaped?”
“How did you know?” I exploded with amazement, rushing up to him. Storm pulled me roughly back with annoyance.
“The warning shots . . . Drumley!” he called over his shoulder, backing off a little.
“Please don’t send us back. They will kill us if you do.” I begged, my hands conjoined together just below my chin.
“I’m afraid I must tell the authorities. It isn’t right to house you, no matter how pretty you may be.”
“No, Augustus can’t know. He can’t possibly know. We can’t go back to the Circus.” I mumbled to myself and Storm. He took us to the door.
“Circus? Don’t you mean jail?”
In fear of sounding incompetent, I shook my head and didn’t ask what a jail was. “You two are carnies? Just escaped carnies?” Petrona laughed. “Just escaped carnies.” I had never been referred to as a 'Carnie', so I didn’t really know if it was a bad thing or a good one. I stood still, even though I knew Storm was scratching to leave.
“Drumley, never mind. Take this fellow up to bathe.” Petrona ordered nicely of his slave.
“Come sir, the water’s ready.” Storm pulled away from the slave and kept his stance next to me. “I’ll go with them.” I offered. Petrona both gave us a look and nodded his head. “If you wish to.”
He grabbed my wrist before I descended the stairs. “Is he mad?” he asked me quietly.
“Who?” I pulled away abruptly.
“Your old chap?”
I shook my head. Was it because Storm wanted to smoke in the home?