The Sibylline Carousel — Part II
The tent flap flutters open, and in strides a man with scruffy hair and beady eyes. He wears a simple scarlet t-shirt with matching red pants. In all ways, he’s a rather diminutive man, yet he moves with a confidence and purpose that belay his stature, sneakers hitting the dirt with the dull thuds of a powerful stride.
“Hi!” Evelyn calls out to him.
“Shhh,” I hush her. “I’m sorry, she’s normally very well behaved.”
The man collapses into the chair, gray eyes regarding me and Evelyn with terrifying intensity. He holds us there, in his unwavering gaze, for a long moment. Maybe he’s having a bad day, or perhaps we’d interrupted his preparations. Whatever his role here may be.
“Hello!” He waves, beaming. The power of his voice knocks the air out of me. “Who are you?”
“I’m Evelyn!” Evy returns his wave, bouncing in her seat. “This is Mommy!”
“Catherine.” I opt for a nod this time, not wishing to suffer further embarrassment considering my earlier attempt at a handshake. “Lovely to meet you.”
“Likewise.” There is such a tremendous force behind his words that I can’t help but brace myself against the onslaught. A dull pain presses against the back of my head. “The name’s Roy. I’m the lion tamer and champion of other ferocious beasts. Do you like kitties, Evelyn?”
“Yes, of course!” Her tiny voice is like shattered glass as his continues to reverberate throughout the tent.
“Did you have a question for me?” I blanch at the rudeness of my interruption the moment the words leave my mouth. But this isn’t about Evy, he’s here for me. This is my interview.
Mine.
Patience, Cat. Remember, we’re doing this for her.
I shake my head, the intrusive feelings clinging cobwebs. It’s the stress, or this stupid headache. Doesn’t matter — now was hardly the time to lose control.
“Yes, indeed I do.” He turns to me, any mirth conjured from his conversation with my daughter now stripped away. The lines of his face are sharp, aggressive. His hard eyes bore into me, and the throbbing in my head intensifies. “I can see your power, psychic. I feel it. But what do yousee?”
Another reading, then. I suppose that makes sense — a practical exam, as it were.
I close my eyes, push the distracting ache aside for now.
It’s back.
“I… I see a horse.”
“Again?” Evelyn chirps. I gently squeeze her shoulder to remind her about interrupting.
“She gallops across a lush field, tall grasses parting as she races through. The moonlight follows, glinting amidst strange shadows and — ” I gasp. “Not shadows. People. Brandishing swords and spears, and… they’re attacking the poor creature! She rears up, tries to escape, but the growing crowd roars after it, swarming, offering no mercy.”
The sights and sounds I experience throughout the vision are indeed disturbing, but it’s the energy that truly rattles me. A palpable anger, a rage.
“They gather, like a rolling thundercloud, seething and swollen. An electric frenzy. They cut, slice, tear, bite, claw… they rend the creature apart as it cries out. The horse, bloodied and ruined, unleashes her own fury at her desecration and shakes the ground, stomping and kicking. At last, she collapses, still. Glistening in the fires of their violent trance, her viscera paints the soil in fevered streaks of crimson. She is butchered, nothing but a grotesque mockery of her former beauty. But… but the horde isn’t finished. They turn on each other, screaming, laughing, crying… a massacre.”
Their defilement of such innocence won’t go unpunished. They need to pay for what they did, make them taste of their own savagery. If I could reach them, seize them by their wicked faces and dig-dig-dig my nails into those disgusting inhuman eyes. Eyes so abhorrent, so wrong. So unworthy of beholding such purity. I will gouge them out, I will —
Aw, who’s a little grumpy Cat? You’re so darned cute when you’re angry…
The vision fades. I realize I’m shaking and I clasp one hand over the other to still myself.
“Sorry.” It’s all I can manage. The violence and hatred still drip from my skin.
“For what? That was quite a show!” He claps his hands together, and the shock wave buffets me.
My body is nearly numb, but the slap of his words rails against me and I hunch over, trying to catch my breath. I want to scream, I want to retaliate.
I want him gone.
“See? I told you they’d like you, Mommy!” Evelyn wraps her tiny arms around my waist, and for a moment I want to throw her off me. But the feeling passes. “I told you you’d do great!”
I smile weakly at her, brush her cheek.
“You’ve brought us quite the gift, Catherine.” The small man stands, his voice drilling into my ears. With a sharp snap, he extends a whip out into the darkness. I can’t help but flinch. In an instant, it recoils, and the man in red is holding a stuffed lion wrapped up in the end of his whip. Neither the whip nor the lion were there a moment ago. “And here’s a gift for you, Evelyn.”
She squeals, jumping from her seat and running over to fetch the toy as it is unwound from the whip, then hurries back to show me her new friend.
“What a handsome lion.” I smooth his puffy mane back and away from his inky glass eyes, just as I would do with Evy. “And what do you say?”
“Thank you!”
But the man is gone. Apparently, the magician isn’t the only performer here with a disappearing act.
One more to go.
Evelyn is preoccupied with her stuffed lion, pouncing on invisible antelope and roaring at unseen threats, so I take a moment to collect myself. Something strange is happening with my visions, distorting them. They don’t make any sense. I’ve not had this much difficulty in deciphering a reading since Eddie had me read for our daughter, but that was… that was different. She had been so young and her fate so closely bound to ours.
But what of Eddie’s fate? I saw nothing of the horrors dwelling within his broken psyche. No clues to the sickness that festered there. He invited death into our home, and she claimed her prize.
I should have read the signs, should have seen it coming.
Perhaps I am a fraud. Another shill incapable of holding even her own family together.
God, I don’t know what we’d do without you, Cat.
The smell of warm butter and salt stirs me, interrupting my self-flagellation.
“Oh my word, what adorable little dumplings!” The third interviewer, what seems to be a plump woman with black curls, pokes her head through the tent flap. She wiggles her little sausage fingers at us.
“Hello!” Evelyn waves back. There’s no point in correcting her anymore.
I smile and nod in the woman’s direction, watching as she squeezes into the tent. She’s enormous, much larger than I had guessed, with a velvety black dress stretched across her impressive girth. Like her hair, the darkness of her gown speaks to the absence of colour more than anything. A void, empty. She lumbers over to the chair, huffing and wheezing, and somehow she manages to fit. I do my best to hide my shock.
“Well, don’t you look just delicious!” she exclaims to Evelyn. “I could eat you up!”
My little girl giggles and burrows her face in the stuffed lion, playing coy.
“Do you like popcorn? Of course you do.” The woman strains to lean forward over the table. In her pudgy little hand she’s holding a striped bag of fluffy white popcorn, tufts of steam floating up from the treat. Had she carried that in with her?
“I love popcorn!” Evelyn takes the bag from the woman, and I clear my throat. “Thank you!”
The smell of her snack is heavenly, and my stomach rumbles in an envious growl. Maybe just a bite…
“And you must be Catherine!” The woman pauses to munch on some popcorn she’d plucked from another bag perched on her lap. I can hear — feel — the soft crunch as she slowly chews each morsel, letting the savory taste swirl about on her tongue. “I daresay my associates speak quite highly of you.”
“I uh… thank you.” I smile, eyes glued to the popcorn she is greedily stuffing into her gullet. Why didn’t she offer me any?
“Why don’t you give me a little ol’ demonstration?” She licks the salt from her fingertips, and saliva pools in my mouth. “I would love a good show. See, I’ve brought my popcorn and everything!” She cackles to herself, bits of white fluff falling to the floor.
“Yummy, yummy! Right, Lord FurryPurry?” Evelyn presses a few kernels to the stuffed cat’s mouth, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from snatching them up for myself.
I lick my lips, dry now, and do my best to swallow the lump in my parched throat. I close my eyes.
The darkness swirls about, quickly this time. So many back-to-back readings is straining my sanity but the images are summoned faster than ever. Forms coalesce and —
Of course.
“A horse.”
The woman’s strained breathing is perforated by the smack-smack of popcorn. “…And?”
“And… nothing. It’s standing there, alone, in a barren landscape. The earth is gray and… stone, perhaps. The sky is gray. Everything, gray.”
I wait, the horse’s tail flicking weakly from side to side. But nothing is happening, the scene devoid of the frantic energy of the last two visions.
“Well, tell me about the horse, buttercup.”
“Yeah, Mommy!” Evy’s little hand is on my knee, giving it a shake. “What’s the horse like?”
I push closer in my mind, and the creature seems unremarkable at first. The same horse as before, but perhaps a little skinnier. No, definitely not as meaty. Sickly, even.
“I can see her ribs,” I say. “And her face is sunken, eyes flickering back and forth. Her body… like leather stretched tightly over a box of sticks. She must be malnourished.” I look around. “There’s nothing nearby for her to eat. No food, no water, no… wait! I see a small pool in the distance. With lush grasses and ferns. The horse sees it too, and it’s running. Her eyes are wild now, desperate and joyous all at once.”
“Run, horsie!”
The pain inside my stomach claws at my ribs, sears my throat. Come on, just a little closer…
The image shifts suddenly, and the pool evaporates like haze on a hot summer day, consumed by a vast expanse of gray.
“It’s gone.” My voice is as shattered as the horse must feel. “The water, the food… her salvation is gone. The horse cries out in frustration, wheeling about, but she trips. She collapses and buckles onto her knees, then falls to her side. The dust kicks up, coating the whimpering beast as she scrapes weakly at the dirt with her hooves. Her eyes flutter, and I can feel the desperate hollowness within her, consuming the creature from the inside out. Ashes fill her mouth, the tastes of despair and hopelessness the last she’ll ever know.”
I shake my head, the image dissipating. The emptiness remains.
The woman watches me, hand clutching a piece of popcorn and suspended in the air.
“Curious,” she says. “Now what do you reckon that means, my little sugarsnap?”
“I-I’m not sure,” I stammer. The hunger inside me devours all rational thought, eating at the frayed tethers of my sanity. Somehow, one small conviction escapes its jaws: there is something very strange about this place, this circus. Something unnatural.
That’s the thing I love most about you, Cat. You’ve got a gift for seeing things as they are. You see the truth.
“Well, I think your mom’s got a knack for stories, right, pumpkin?”
Evelyn nods enthusiastically, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk. “Mmmf-fmm!”
The woman in black cackles again, this time dropping her entire bag of popcorn to the floor. My eyes go wide, and I scramble over the table, reaching for it. Somehow, I catch it just before it hits the floor.
Empty.
“Hungry, sugar?” There is no sweetness in her voice. I look up to see the large woman looming over me, her colossal figure blotting out the tiny bulb like a mountain covering the sun.
And she’s not alone. Behind her, are the man in white with the glowing eyes, and the man in red with his booming voice. And Persephone, the deathly thin ballerina who greeted us.
“Excellent.” Her voice is raspy, crackling under the meager force of the exhalation. Her tutu is in tatters, drooping like a wilted daisy. “I knew you’d be a perfect fit.”
I stagger to my feet. Hope clings desperately to the bottom of my empty soul. “So… I’m in? Did I get the job?”
Persephone laughs, a hollow sound that quickly shatters and breaks into a terrible cough. She is not the same woman I met under the glowing lanterns earlier. Her eyes are completely black, and her skin sags, hanging on her face. Her hair is as wispy and frail as her frame, and her smile holds none of the warmth it held before.
“You’ve brought our little family such a precious gift,” she says, shuffling towards me. She drags her filthy ballet flats through the straw, the ribbons hanging loose, catching and snagging. Her bony hands stretch out, and I cower, tripping and landing on my backside. I attempt to kick away from her, but I’m paralyzed. My body refuses to obey, and she continues to inch closer.
I hold my breath, unable to even scream, awaiting the horror of her true intentions.
But she moves past me.
To Evelyn.
The vision, just as I’d seen, just as I’d told Eddie. It was what had driven him inside himself and so far from us. Drowned him in the impossibility and hopelessness of it.
This was never about me. This is her future.
Cat, you’re not making any sense. A skeletal horse? Suffering and ruin?! For Chrissakes, this is a little girl you’re talking about!
No…
My head moves, swivels to follow the pale ballerina, but that’s all the freedom I’m afforded.
Evelyn stands next to the chair, her white-blonde hair set free from her ribbons and fanning out behind her like a halo. Her porcelain face is perfectly serene.
“Don’t hurt her!” I plead, a strangled cry. “Please don’t take her too. Not her, I can’t bear it.”
“Hurt her?” The fat woman laughs. “Oh, muffin…”
“Your daughter is very special.” The man in white watches Persephone, glowing green eyes locked on her in rapt attention.
“A gift.” The man in red echoes, so loud I’d have surely been bowled over were it not for the strange paralysis.
Despite their reassurance, a tear escapes, rolling slowly down my cheek. Persephone stands in front of Evelyn, smiling down at my daughter, and I want to scream.
“Please,” I say. A whisper.
Persephone removes her cape, and in a flourish impossible for her brittle state, wraps it around my daughter. There’s another brilliant flash, and as my vision returns, Persephone has disappeared. To my immense relief, my little girl is still here.
“Oh, Evy!” I’m blubbering now, choking on my own snot and tears. I still can’t move.
Evelyn steps over a small pile of dust, ashes, and her new cape drags a white trail over the straw. She moves towards me, and a fresh wave of horror crushes my chest — the darkness in her eyes is absolute. Like Persephone. Two slivers of the void marring my daughter’s otherwise perfect face.
My heart pounds so fiercely that it echoes in my ears. Growing louder.
“Thank you, Mommy.” My little girl’s words drift on the edge of the thunderous noise in my heart. She places a cold hand against my cheek, brushing aside a tear. “I’m home now. With my family.”
“No,” I whimper. Her words sting, but she’s fading, and I’m powerless to reach for her. To hold her, to bring her back. “No!”
My heart drums like hoof-beats now, a stampede of wild stallions. A horrible sound, a familiar feeling.
Round and round, up and down. Forever.
“Daddy misses you.” It’s her voice but twisted, awful. I feel another hand touch my other cheek and I recoil, but she’s no longer there. All that’s left is the blackness.
Consumed by the eternal night.
This is my vision. This is the beginning of the end.
The world shudders and wails, unable to escape its fate.
I’m sorry, Eddie. I tried.
This is what must be given. The reins slip from my fingers.
I surrender to darkness. Trampled by the raging hooves, broken by their deafening clamor.
Free.
A whisper cuts through the torturous pandemonium.
“Can you hear them, Mommy? Can you hear the horses?”
