Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 6 Part 7
Before I could even answer Garibaldi, I was being pulled away from the rest of the troop as they stayed behind to assess what was left of Starla. I was so petrified with fear that I didn’t even try to escape from the grip he had on my shoulder as he pulled me along down the hallway and into one of the vacant rooms. He let go of my shoulder and I quickly backed away from him as he looked down at me.
“Do you have something to tell me, Benny?” the ringmaster asked me as he crossed his arms and stared down at me like a disapproving father. I tried to avoid his gaze but the overwhelming fear and anxiety forced my eyes back up to meet his. To my surprise though I didn’t immediately see anger on his face. It was disappointment but for sure it wasn’t outright anger and malice.
“I…went into your office,” I told him barely above a whisper. I kept my gaze locked on his waiting for immediate retaliation from him. But it didn’t happen right away. He sighed in disbelief instead and rubbed his temples with his fingers.
“Benny,” he said as he lowered his hand to his side. “You know you aren’t allowed in there.” He looked down at me and I detected an immediate shift in him. “So why…why the FUCK did you go in there?” I was suddenly transported back to my old home, with my father looming over me with murderous intent.
“I-I just…wanted to know about you.” I lied to him. It wasn’t a complete lie but it was the only thing I could think to tell him that might lessen any blow he might give me. But it was clear that my petty excuse wasn’t going to cut it as his anger was complete and total.
“The sign is there for a fucking reason, you brat!” With this outburst of anger, I watched in horror as the scar across Garibaldi’s face split open. Instead of blood pouring out of the now gaping hole in his head I watched as a row of sharp teeth made their presence known as they emerged from inside the scar. I let out a horrified scream as I watched the scar start to split further open. When I did this it must have snapped Garibaldi out of his rage-induced stupor as the scar quickly closed and the teeth receded into the scar.
“B-Benny! I-I’m so so sorry!” he suddenly told me back to his normal self all of a sudden. I quickly backed up away from him as I felt a well of tears starting to fall down my cheek as he tried approaching me.
“S-stay away from me!” I yelled at him feebly. That seemed to hurt his feelings somewhat as I saw his shoulders droop slightly. He fidgeted with his hands and I watched his fingers instinctively go to his wedding ring and begin to fiddle with it.
“T-there has to be a way for me to make it up to you. I-I didn’t mean to lose my temper on you.” he pleaded with me, spinning the ring around on his finger. It seemed like he was beating himself up pretty hard over causing me to cry in fear. I thought back to when I had been inside his office and of the framed picture on Garibaldi’s desk.
“Do you have a wife, sir?” I asked him through a sniffling nose. His fidgeting stopped immediately and he looked over at me with a speed that I thought for sure would snap his neck. He looked down at his hands and quickly let them drop to his side.
“I did,” he told me. Letting those two words hang in the air for a while. “If I tell you about her, will you forgive me for scaring you?” he asked me, rubbing his white and black hair. I hesitantly nodded back at him. It wouldn’t really but I wanted to know more about him. And if keeping him off the topic of me going into his office also came from this even better. He let out a long exasperated sigh which turned into the strange chirping he did sometimes.
“Her name was Lucille. She was…my everything. She saw the good in everything and she saw what little good there was in me and made me see that there was some good in me. I met her after I was on the run from the law. And she took me in and cared for me.” He sounded like a completely different person talking about her. His normally laid-back and uncaring attitude was replaced with one of soft remembrance almost like the wild creature had been tamed.
“It was the happiest I’d ever been in so long and she completed me. She was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. And then I lost her.” He sighed shakily, lifting his hand to his eyes and letting another shaky sigh fall out of his mouth.
“What…happened to her?” I asked him. A rather insensitive question to ask I’ll admit but one which I desperately wanted answered. He looked over at me and looked like he was reliving some horrible nightmare all over again.
“A terrible accident.” That was all he told me before he quickly changed the subject. “We wanted to start a family so badly but I couldn’t do it with her. So I decided to start the Freakshow. To fill that void that she left behind.” Whatever rage he had felt towards me evaporated as he seemed lost to his memories of Lucille. I dried my eyes and wiped my nose with my sleeve as we both stood awkwardly away from each other.
“I’m sorry I went into your office,” I told him after a long awkward silence. My words snapped him out of his stupor and he looked over at me and mumbled something inaudible at me before turning and leaving me alone in the spare room. I waited there until I heard his footsteps fade away before exiting the room and walking back to my room.
Upon entering the door I was shocked to find my shapeshifter friend waiting for me on my desk in his usual raven form. In the chaos and confusion of everything that had happened, I’d completely forgotten that he’d gone missing. He croaked at me and I was happy to see he was alright. I offered him my arm and he flapped over to me, perching himself on my arm like a falcon.
I didn’t leave my room for several hours. I couldn’t bear to face anyone at that moment, and I didn’t even bother trying to go and get breakfast. I just sat in a corner of the room with my shapeshifter friend. Petting him softly and occasionally asking him to turn into something for me. Usually something small and fuzzy like a bunny or a squirrel. It was starting to be about noon when Abigail poked her head into my room to check on me.
“Benny, sweetheart. You need to eat something.” She told me as she opened the door to my room and brought with her a bowl of oatmeal and some milk. When I saw her I just felt more guilty over what I had done. It felt like I had gotten Starla killed and the feeling of guilt was weighing heavily on me. Letting my shapeshifter friend down on the floor I curled up into a ball and just shook my head at her.
“It’s all my fault…” I told her through barely held back tears. I heard her set the bowl down and then the sound of her straining to sit down with me. Before I could say anything else I felt myself be picked up and placed in her lap. Her hand rested on my hair and tussled it back and forth as she held me.
“What’s your fault, sweetheart?” she asked, rocking me back and forth and making me feel like I was safer than I had ever been before in my life. I shoved my face into her soft body and just began crying uncontrollably into her. She patted me on the back and softly shushed me as I let the tears flow fully and uncontrolled for the first time in a long time.
“It’s my fault Starla died…” I told her through gasps of air. She suddenly stopped rocking me and carefully pushed me off of her chest. She was looking at me with a bit of confusion. Her vitiligo-covered face examined me as she tried to figure out what I meant.
“Benny, sweetie. Starla is fine.” she told me, which stopped my crying right then and there. “Well I mean, not exactly fine, but she isn’t dead. Tony is calling his friend right now to help fix her. Starla is…well she’s like a doll. She gets broken sometimes and Tony has to fix her from time to time.” She reassured me, wiping the tears still flowing from my eyes.
“So…she’s okay?” I asked Abigail and she responded with a nod and a soft pinch of my cheek. I wiped my eyes and nose with a hanky that she provided me and sat in her lap eating the oatmeal she got me for a bit just enjoying her company and her reassurances that it hadn’t been my fault. But I couldn’t shake that feeling that it had been my fault.
After I finished the bowl, she took my dirty dishes and left me alone after I assured her that I was okay being by myself. Once she’d left I looked back over at my shapeshifter friend and asked him to turn into his snake form again. After he did I picked him up and coiled him around my neck. Leaving my room and closing the door behind me I started making my way back over towards the big top. I half-heartedly waved at the few people I saw, including Santiago and Nikolai. I learned from the twins, more really Edgar, that tonight’s show was canceled on account of Starla’s injury and that everyone was given a day off.
I asked Edgar about where Garibaldi was but he didn’t know and Allan didn’t also. So I went on my way, wanting to apologize more thoroughly to him I also wanted to know how in the world he was going to fix Starla. But from everyone I asked, none of them had seen him since he first dragged me away. I was about to give up and go back to my room when the solution quite literally hit me.
One of the Aces came rolling at me from behind and toppled me over. The Ace in question was Hearts which didn’t surprise me much at all as he’d seemed to be the one that the others all enjoyed bullying. The other Aces all came walking over and excitedly waved at me. They all seemed to have missed me and I would’ve been lying if I said I hadn’t missed them.
“Do you guys know where Garibaldi is?” I asked them as I picked up and sat Hearts down off of me, stunned at how thin and light he was. All of them nodded quickly and pointed in various directions. Clubs looked at all the other Aces and bonked each of them on the head, the others all quickly nodded and pointed correctly toward Maxwell and Chester’s tent.
“Thanks, guys,” I told them, reaching into my pocket and handing them some crayons I had brought to give them. They all excitedly took them, each of them getting a different color with poor Hearts ending up with the white crayon. Leaving them to do with the crayons what they wished, I made my way towards Maxwell and Chester’s tent. As I got closer to it I started hearing voices coming from inside.
Getting down low I stuck my head into the tent and was once again amazed with how much bigger inside it was than it appeared outside. Maxwell and Chester’s tent was adorned with balloons and streamers and seemed like prime birthday party material. Following the sounds of the voices I contemplated if I should wait for Garibaldi to finish. But an unknown third voice that suddenly started speaking from further in the tent just pulled me towards its source. I dropped down to my hands and knees and started quickly crawling my way towards its source.
“I know this is sudden, but I need your help.” I heard Garibaldi say in exasperation. I rounded a corner and saw that Garibaldi and Mac’nCheese were standing around a table with Starla strapped down to it. On the table was a phone that I assumed was on speaker since a soft southern-accented voice was speaking through it even though the receiver was in its hung-up possession.
“I can’t exactly be there anytime soon, Antonio.” The voice over the phone told Garibaldi which was annoying him but he wasn’t explicitly angry with it. “I can’t exactly leave the shop alone and waltz my way into your lovely show. What if a customer comes in?!”
“You should just hire a new store clerk at this point. As long as you’ve had your fun with the last one.” Garibaldi snickered, joined by chuckling on the other end and even a laugh from Mac’nCheese.
“True, perhaps I should look into getting a new clerk. Poor Jose didn’t last very long before he lost his mind. I’m rather bored with him.” The southern voice sighed from the other end of the phone. Whoever it was on the other end it was clear to me that he and Garibaldi were friends with how laid back and calm he looked while talking over the phone.
“Please, Creole I need her fixed before tomorrow’s show. I already had to cancel today’s one and I for sure will not do that again. I have my reputation to think of!” he said dramatically but I could tell he was acting it up ever so slightly. The exaggeration got a good chuckle out of the voice that I assumed was Creole. The mystery man who had sent Mac’nCheese to us.
“Hmm, well I can walk you through a spell that could help you. You’d need Maxwell and Chester for it.” The jester stood dutifully at attention when his two separate halves were mentioned. His bells jingled as he did so, cluing Creole to the fact that he was there. “Let me call you back once I find the correct ingredients. Shouldn’t be too long!” He hung up and Garibaldi let out a long exasperated sigh.
“Can you leave me alone for a moment? I feel like my head is going to explode.” Garibaldi asked of the jester who quickly nodded and cartwheeled himself away which got a giggle from Garibaldi and myself watching him do so. I was about to make my presence known when I suddenly heard the loud clacking of a cane coming towards me. I quickly tucked and rolled my way under a nearby table, hoping that whoever was approaching hadn’t seen me.
“Antonio!” Mathieu’s heavily French-accented voice shouted as he walked past my hiding spot and rounded the corner. Quickly sneaking out from under the table I scurried over to the corner to see what was going to happen.
“Not now Mathieu, you’re the last person I want to deal with right now,” Garibaldi told him as he turned to leave the room through a door behind him. Before he could though, the table that Starla was on moved on its own and slammed itself against the door and blocked Garibaldi’s path of exit.
“Not until you fix Starla first,” Mathieu ordered as he lowered his arm and walked up to Garibaldi. “Your childish tantrum broke her and caused you to cancel today’s performance so you better fix her now,” the Frenchmen demanded getting right up into Garibaldi’s face and poking his finger into his chest.
“I’m trying to fix her. This shit can’t just happen right away Mathieu. Not to mention I wouldn’t have needed to break her if she hadn’t told Benny to go into my office,” Garibaldi snarled back as he shoved Mathieu away from him and picked Starla up from the table by the head and effortlessly showed her off like some prized fish. “This stupid bitch needed to be put in her place for breaking the rules!” he shouted before slamming Starla back onto the table.
“Then shouldn’t your anger be turned on that brat? He’s the one that followed her advice.” Mathieu shouted back, slamming his cane onto the floor and pointing an accusatory finger at Garibaldi. “You aren’t above harming children so why does he get special treatment?” He demanded to know which caused me to grip my chest as it began to beat uncontrollably. My suspicion was being proven more and more right. I’d made a horrible mistake joining the freakshow.
“Don’t you dare begin to question me. You’re on thin fucking ice.” Garibaldi hissed as a loud cracking noise began to emanate from him. I covered my mouth with my hand as I watched his scar split open again and teeth again emerged from inside the hole in his face. “You’re only here because I enjoy your act, keep this up and I’ll happily get rid of the both of you!” Garibaldi hissed, his voice becoming distorted and more chirping began coming out of his mouth.
I could tell that Mathieu was starting to regret what he had said as he started backing up from Garibaldi. I stared at Garibaldi as more changes to his body began happening before my eyes. Large pincer-like mandibles sprouted from his mouth and began snapping together as he started closing the distance between himself and Mathieu. His neck began to stretch out with loud bone cracking and snapping.
I clutched my chest tightly as it felt like my heart would explode at any second. My suspicion was quickly becoming true before my very eyes. Garibaldi was the giant mantis that I’d seen eating that person inside his office. To prove this point further, large colorful wings sprouted out from his back along with two insect legs from his abdomen. And to finish it off even a pair of antennae sprouted from his head and began twitching around.
Mathieu was in as much horror as I was. His whole body was shaking and even through his mask I could detect just how scared he was. But what he did next surprised me more than anything. Instead of running away he raised his cane and brought it down on Garibaldi’s head. With a loud crack, I thought for sure he’d split Garibaldi’s head wide open like a watermelon. But that crack was Mathieu’s cane splitting in half.
Before Mathieu could fully react to what had happened Garibaldi had sliced his face with his now long and clawed fingers, knocking Mathieu’s mask off into pieces and sending him to the ground. My eyes widened when I got to see what Mathieu looked like underneath his blue and white mask. While the right side of his face was completely normal his left side was petrified stone and gnarled into a horrible snarl that reminded me of a gargoyle.
“You’re going to wish you never did that!” Garibaldi’s distorted and horrific voice screamed at Mathieu as he raised his arms to bring down another swipe to the Frenchman that would’ve probably torn him to shreds. If not for the phone that started ringing on the table. Garibaldi wiggled his antennas and stared back at the table before letting out a low screech and racing towards it. “What?!” he screamed at the phone.
“Is this a bad time?” he same soothing southern voice from earlier asked him. I was confused as to how he’d answered the phone but upon closer inspection, I saw that Starla had pushed the speaker button from her position on the table. She really was okay despite being torn in half.
The voice seemingly brought Garibaldi back to reality as his horrible transformation was seemingly undone faster than it had taken him to begin it. He was quickly back to normal and even seemed in better spirits than before as he seemed excited to talk to the person on the other end.
“No, no of course not Creole! I was just… disciplining one of my members,” he said as he looked back at Mathieu who quickly gathered his broken mask and cane and made his exit as quickly as he could.
“See I don’t have that problem. Puppets are much easier to deal with.” Creole chuckled from the other end and Garibaldi joined him. It was at this point that I threw out the idea of apologizing to Garibaldi and ran as fast as I could away from the tent. Once I reached outside, I fell to my knees and threw up what little oatmeal I had eaten from my breakfast.
I struggled to control my breathing and in a blind panic, I stood up and started running towards where I had seen Santiago and Nikolai. I found the two of them talking outside the big top and before either could greet me, I ran into Santiago full force and began trying to tell him everything that I had seen. But it was lost in a confusing mess of my crying, hyperventilating, and sniffles. Nikolai left to go get Abigail while Santiago did his best to calm me down on his own. Wrapping his arms around me and giving me a soft squeeze as he let me cry into him.
When Abigail arrived and also helped me try and calm down I began to tell them everything I had seen and been through. The giant mantis, Garibaldi’s transformation, Starla’, Izara’s prophecy, and Mathieu’s face. And to my surprise, none of them seemed shocked by it at all. They all instead looked saddened and Abigail took the lead by putting her hand on my shoulder and sighing.
“We’re sorry you found out so soon.” she told me. Which sent shockwaves through my whole body.
“You all…knew?” I asked them. Feeling a sense of betrayal that they’d so readily accepted me without ever once telling me that the ringmaster of our freakshow was in fact a human-eating mantis monster. Needless to say, I felt at the time like they’d allowed this to happen to me.
“You have to understand, Benny. We didn’t want anything to happen to you. So we thought that keeping you in the dark about him might have been better for you.” She sighed as she looked over at Nikolai and Santiago to back her up. Both of them nodded in agreement. “Did you talk to Tony about anything else?” she asked trying to see if there was anything else that bothered me.
“Well…we talked about his wife and her accident,” I told them which caused Abigail to let go of my shoulder and stare at me like I’d said the most offensive thing I could’ve ever said to her. I was confused by this and Nikolai sighed as he rubbed his hair with his heavily scarred arm.
“It wasn’t an accident. He turned into a mantis and killed and ate her one night,” Nikolai explained, avoiding my gaze and staring down at the grass around us. I felt my heart drop to the center of the earth upon hearing that. Hearing how Garibaldi had spoken about Lucille and how much he loved her and now hearing that he’d been the reason she was dead sent a horrible feeling up my spine. If he could do that to someone he loved and cared about, what could he do to me?
“I…don’t want to be here anymore,” I told them. In a tone barely above a whisper. Abigail was again shocked by my words but I noticed that Santiago wasn’t. He was playing with his long sleeves and looking down at the floor. Before he looked at me and let out a sigh.
“Neither do I.” He told me.
“H-how can you both say that?! We’re a family here! We love and care for each other, you can’t just decide that you don’t want to be here anymore!” Abigail said, keeping her voice down but was clearly upset over our statements. It didn’t surprise me much, since she loved everyone in the freakshow. She was like our mom and obviously didn’t want us to leave.
“Abby…I’m not…happy here anymore.” Santiago told her looking over at her and removing the clown hat from his head. “It started off being so much fun…but Tony isn’t the same anymore. He’s been getting a lot worse and I’m afraid something’s gonna happen to all of us if this keeps up. I mean…how many more times can he repair Starla before she isn’t even a real person anymore?” he asked her, which clearly struck a chord with Abigail.
“I don’t care either way.” Nikolai shrugged, producing a butterfly knife from seemingly nowhere and starting to play around with it. I’d noticed he usually only did this if he was deep in thought and needed something to fidget with. “But Santi is right. He’s been getting a lot worse. Especially since he started going to those meetings with those other freaks.” Nikolai sighed as he continued doing tricks with his butterfly knife.
“I’m not having this conversation,” Abigail said, turning her back on us and walking away quickly. It hurt me to see her in such denial but I’d seen it before in my mom whenever she made excuses for my dad. It was a little bit more than deja vu.
“What other freaks?” I asked Nikolai. He looked down at me as I stood up from my spot on the ground. “What freaks is he seeing?” I asked to clarify.
“That freak Creole is one of them. I don’t know the others but ever since he started hanging out with him he’s been getting a lot more unhinged. So if you two are serious about leaving this place. I’d say it’d be best to leave when he goes to one of those meetings.” Nikolai told us as he continued playing around with his knife.
“What do you think?” I turned to ask Santiago. The normally happy and jovial clown looked like he’d suddenly aged several years. He looked at me and nodded.
“I’ll go with you. You’re gonna need an adult to look after you,” he said with a smile, lifting an arm to tussle my hair which got a smile from me. “By the way, where’s your shapeshifter friend? He usually sticks to you like glue.” He laughed a little at his lame joke.
I looked down at my neck, expecting to see my shapeshifter friend still coiled around my throat. But he wasn’t there. Looking around for him I was confused as to where he could be. Turning around I suddenly was alerted to someone standing behind me.
“Hello, you three,” Garibaldi said with a hollow infliction. “Am I interrupting?” he asked, staring at us with a fake smile. His colorful eyes were narrowed and revealed he was angry with us. And to my shock and horror, I saw that my shapeshifter ‘friend’ was perched on his shoulder now.
“I heard…you were thinking about leaving the freakshow?” he asked as his scar once again split open and teeth emerged from inside.