I floated within the sea of people flooding through the tent flap. The crowd carried me into the standing gallery, pressing me right up against the waist-high stage. Reporters fiddled with the cranks of their motion capture machines, pressing their fingers into the grooves that allowed the transmission of their magical auras into the machines. Brutes in derby hats glowered at the crowd and chewed cigars, scanning for freeloaders sneaking in without paying. The center pole loomed, as big around as a tree and almost as tall, vibrating with dark energy imbued by the barker himself. Rain lashed the canvas with angry, impotent fists. The orange glows of cigarettes dotted the gloomy space like sluggish fireflies, and smoke coalesced in a pungent haze.
I stood in wonder, taking off my hat and clutching it to my vest, self-consciously slicking back my hair with my palm. I’d been to living shows as a kid, but this was my first adult show. Coven law said I’d crossed the line into manhood, though it didn’t really feel much different from boyhood.
A curtain twitched and the barker came onto the stage carrying a torch in one hand and a bundle of sticks in the other. The crowd cheered wildly: clapping, hooting, and whistling. He set down the sticks in the center of the stage and turned to face the crowd, his smile a toothy mix of charm and cunning. The crowd’s noise died down as he stood, poised, waiting for their full attention. He let the silence linger for a tense moment and then boomed, “Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the living show!”
The crowd roared their approval as he took a long, dramatic bow. “Thank you for attending our ninety-second season. Prepare for a spectacle that will incense your senses! Unnerve your nerves! The very tapestry of reality will be unwound by the most potent barker magic this side of the material plane!”
The barker took a small vial from his pocket and threw it into the air above him. “Behold my methods, mysterious and profane!” The vial broke on the pile of sticks behind him. “Observe rituals taught to me by sequestered cabals of the ancients!” Behind him, the sticks began to shuffle, rasping against the warped wooden boards of the stage. He took off his coat and laid it over the animated branches as he stepped behind the pile. His hands danced as if he were manipulating a complex marionette. Branches jabbed against the shoulders of the coat, causing it to rise.
I looked on in amazement, my knuckles white from clenching the brim of my hat. The sticks pressed upward as his hands worked their barker magic, filling out the coat as they raised it to the height of the barker himself. The sticks arranged themselves into the skeletal form of a person; thin stick legs ran up to the jacket, and a rudimentary wooden rib cage and sternum were visible where the unbuttoned coat hung open. Uneven stick arms jutted from the sleeves, ending in knobby collections of smaller sticks vaguely resembling hands.
The barker pulled his hand away once the stick figure was complete underneath the jacket. The only thing missing was a head.
Most of the crowd “oohed,” cheered, or clapped. I watched, wide-eyed, wondering what the barker would do next. His face looked perfectly calm and controlled in the glow of the torch.
“Now, my stars will join us on stage!” From the right came a naked young man, handsome, strapping, a head taller than the barker with a broad muscular chest. From the left walked a woman nearly as large as the man; tall, muscular, commanding, beautiful in her intensity. They strode confidently, neither covering their nakedness nor flaunting it. “A barker is nothing without stars! Let’s give the stars of the living show a round of applause!” shouted the barker with a wolfish grin.
The man and woman beamed as the crowd showered them with applause. I felt a pang of jealousy, wishing I received such attention. The barker stepped back momentarily and allowed the stars to enjoy their moment. The man and woman each grasped a hand of the stick figure and turned out to face the crowd. The barker walked directly behind the stick figure.
“All the two-bit living shows you’ve seen in the past run by petty prestidigitators can’t compare to a barker who possesses true power. Feast your eyes on a feat of barker magic like you’ve never seen. Be warned: this transformation isn’t for the faint of heart!” the barker said as he stepped back and touched his torch to the spot where the stick figure’s head should have been. A violent orange glow flashed, and then a smiling human head made of flame crackled and flickered atop the stick figure’s shoulders.
The stars went stiff, as if the stick figure’s hands had frozen them in place. Large globs of blue light bubbled on the stick figure next to where the man and woman held its hands. The pustules of light grew to the size of small fruits, then burst, dribbling out luminescent fluid onto the twisted branches of the figure’s arm. The bubbling and bursting lights traveled in languid progress up the arms until the two paths connected in the center of the figure’s chest. The man and woman gasped in unison, their mouths falling open and their eyes glazing over. The blue bubbles covered the stick figure’s entire rib cage, and the figure’s torso glowed beneath the grinning orange flame of its head.
The stick figure began to move.
Its arms moved slowly, creaking as the branches bent. They rose to either side of its head as it reached toward the top of the tent. The flaming mouth stretched, impossibly wide and wicked, as it levitated upward. The man and woman fell to their knees, though from exhaustion or adoration I couldn’t tell. I stepped back, bumping into the person behind me, who stood frozen in awe and terror. I couldn’t take my eyes off the exalted glowing stick figure rising toward the top of the tent.
The barker stood behind the rising magical creation, his arms stretched upward in the same manner as the figure. The crowd murmured in amazement as the figure approached the top of the tent. Just when the flaming head would have touched the canvas, the head went out and the sticks ceased glowing. They fell from the sky, landing in a broken heap in the center of the stage, and the coat floated downward, perfectly slipping onto the barker’s raised arms, as if an invisible set of hands were slipping it onto him. For a second, there was silence, and then the crowd broke into a wild frenzy of adoration.
The barker smiled as he smoothed his collar. He took a bow and then gestured with each hand toward his stars. They had changed while I’d been distracted by the stick figure. The formerly large, confident couple looked wizened and sickly. The barker made no move to help them up. The man crawled on his hands and knees, his limbs trembling from the effort, his skin leathery and pockmarked. The woman pulled herself up on the edge of the curtain, her emaciated legs not much thicker than the sticks in the pile. The stars stumbled out of view and the barker waved his hands for quiet.
“Ladies and gentleman, I am casting for our next big star in the living show! The star must be so bold, so charismatic, so larger-than-life that they are willing to bare their soul for all the world to see! Are you brave enough to be the biggest star of the living show?”
A rush of bodies pressed against me as people raised their hands, waved, and shouted. A thrill went through me as I thought of being a big star in the living show. My mother had always told me I had a lovely voice and an earnest charm. I waved my hat back and forth, certain that my yelling would be lost in the cacophony of sound.
“You!” the barker cried as he pointed toward me. Gooseflesh dappled the skin of my neck. I jumped up and down.
“Come to the stage!” the barker bellowed.
I hopped up on stage, ignoring the resentful looks of those around me. I couldn’t believe my good fortune.
“This handsome young man, with the green eyes, the broad shoulders, and the divot in his chin. This is my next big star!”
I shrugged, hoping no one saw me flush in the low torchlight.
“How old are you, Son? Nineteen?” asked the barker.
“Last Tuesday, Sir.”
The barker smoothed his mustache, his large white teeth set in a grin. “I love that ‘aw-schucks’ folksiness, Boy. The crowd is going to love you next season! What’s your name?”
“Bobby!”
“Ha! Of course it is! Well Bobby, we’ve got some work to do to get you ready for your big debut!”
He put his arm around my neck and turned to the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, join us next time for the living show, where you’ll get to know Bobby inside and out!”
I waved at the crowd as they turned to exit the tent.
“Come with me,” the barker whispered in my ear. I walked with him to the exit on the left side of the stage. As I passed by, I saw the woman from the stickman show on a cot. A barker apprentice with long braids sat beside the cot measuring out a magical tincture into a spoon. The tar-black liquid glowed with iridescence, revealing its barker magic properties. The woman on the cot looked at me, and her eyes widened. She tried to mouth something, but the apprentice turned her face away and put the spoonful of liquid into her mouth.
“Don’t worry about her, Boy. She’s a has-been. You—you are the next star,” the barker said as he steered me behind a curtain separating the back stage from the side stage.
I started to sweat, the back of my dress shirt clinging uncomfortably. “Um, Mr. Barker. I-I’m really honored. I just, you know, should probably tell my family—”
“No, no, no, no,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “When I’m done, everyone’s gonna know you! You’ll have adoring fans at every city in every coven! The whole world will be your family!”
“You, uh, really think so?”
“Of course, Bobby. Of course. But we’ve got some work to do to get you prepped for your big debut. Boys!” The barker clapped his hands.
The two brutes from earlier came through the curtain, one still puffing away at the stub of a cigar, the other strangling the neck of a liquor bottle.
“Bobby here is our next star. I’ve got to gather some of my magical tools. Go ahead and tie him down. I’ve got a lot of work to do before his debut!”
“Wait. I’m not sure. I’m—”
The thugs grabbed my arms. I was young and strong, but totally outmanned by their rigid grips.
“You wanted to be a star, Bobby. Well, this is what it takes!” the barker said, a brief glint of vindictiveness flashing in his eyes before he became a charming swindler again.
He clapped his hands. “Get the stage broken down, everyone! We’ve got a lot of packing to do before we set off for the next city, and I’ll be busy in my wagon for the rest of the night. I expect no interruptions!” he said with a hint of menace.
“No!” I screamed as they hauled me away. “Somebody help!”
An apprentice passing by blinked with bovine indifference, and the crowd was now long gone.
#
I could hear the barker’s familiar refrain. The suspenseful climb, the breathy fall, all leading to the hard sell of his product—me. The louder snatches came to me at stage right: “like nothing you’ve ever seen,” “every working organ,” “a marvel he lives,” “incomparable feat of magic.”
My head was strapped to the wooden board, as were both my arms and legs. Magically bound and unescapable, as always.
The barker waved his hand from center stage and the two brutes wheeled my mobile mount out into the torchlight. A tear ran from one of my eyes, like it did almost every time, the tickle of its path down my cheek a different enough sensation to cut through the wall of pain in my chest. It wasn’t the pain I feared; it was the people’s faces. Some would be contorted in horror, others lit up in excitement, and a few would be pinched in disgust, but behind all their eyes would be a glint of interest—and that was all the barker would need. They rolled my display toward center stage and I braced for the pain and shame of violation. I readied my pitiful plea for rescue, gathering the tiny snatches of air my compressed lungs allowed me. Gasps, sighs, and a spattering of claps greeted me as they turned me to face the crowd . . .
#
I’d been to living shows before, and as a theurgic archiater I was hardly squeamish; however, neither experience nor vocation prepared me for the shocking and piteous display presented that night. It was a man—a boy really, barely past puberty, young enough to be my son—with arms and legs spread, tied to a vertical wooden board. His entire torso was cut open, his skin peeled back and tacked to the board, His split sternum trembled with tension, held open by seemingly nothing more than the perverse power of barker magic. He looked like a dissected animal, his organs displayed, labeled, and—most surprisingly—working. His heart contracted with two-step beats. His lungs inflated and deflated, and his esophagus trembled as he swallowed. He lived. Somehow, the poor young man yet lived. I couldn’t help but marvel at the reckless ambition—and yes, wizardry—of the barker’s abilities, but I was repulsed by such an egregious disregard for the well-being of the human subject of his dark art.
I’d been elbow-deep in human bodies before, both living and dead, but always with a benevolent purpose: research on the dead, surgery on the living. Never simply for curiosity or entertainment.
The patrons were lining up to—there was no other way to say it—examine and fiddle with his insides. The boy’s mouth moved, creating empty words. His face was so contorted with suffering I averted my eyes. Was he just responding to stimuli? Simple pain reactions? Was he “aware” in the traditional sense?
I took my place in line; my responsibilities as a woman of the theurgic arts mandated I inspect more closely. The boy grimaced as a slight-framed woman not much older than he put her hand inside him. She shook her head in amazement and waved over a young man who inspected the boy’s insides with impudent eagerness. They chatted and prodded before losing interest and moving on. A knot of anxiety tugged at my stomach as I got closer. His face looked as if it had once been handsome, but now was sallow, weathered, and haunted. His features seemed so alive and filled with real emotion. But despite the power of barker magic, I still didn’t believe the boy could actually be alive. It had to be some trick of clever necromancy, where he was reanimated but thoughtless and without will. Possibly some illusion where he was dead but had a glamour to look alive?
My turn came and I approached the young man. Our eyes met, and I saw a flicker of intelligence through the haze of pain. His mouth moved in soundless motion. Or was it soundless? I leaned in, pretending to be examining his opened throat, but placed my ear close to his mouth.
His breathless voice whispered, “Help . . . me . . . save . . . me . . . alive . . . it . . . hurts . . . help—”
I shuddered violently and placed my hand against the wooden board. He lived! He wasn’t an automaton or an animated corpse. He lived—and he suffered. In all my life I’d never seen magic so powerful or so evil. I shook with outrage and disgust as I leaned in to his ear. “I will get you out of here. I don’t know how, but I promise to the Holy Mage herself I’ll do it.”
“. . . they . . . touch . . . it . . . hurts . . . please . . . make . . . them . . . stop . . . make . . . it . . . stop . . .”
I didn’t know if he could hear or understand me through his misery and trauma. I stormed over to the barker, who leaned against the tent pole at the center. He smirked. “Like what you see, archiater?”
“How did you—” I shook my head. Barkers were notorious manipulators. So what if he had figured out I was an archiater? “This boy . . . he’s alive.”
“How observant of you,” he said with a sarcastic grin.
“You—I—” I stopped and took a deep breath. I drew forth my Collective Covens form. “You know I’m a sworn official of the Thirteen Covens. This is a violation of countless edicts—”
“Oh? Which coven does a traveling caravan fall under?” asked the barker as he took off his top hat and brushed it off.
“Well, the coven it originates from—”
“Exactly. We don’t originate from any of the Thirteen Covens. We’re from the unincorporated lands—”
“Well, someone had to license you—”
“Sure did, archiater.” He pulled a paper of his own from his breast pocket. “Signed by the Weird Sister herself—”
I took the paper in my hand and read over the document. It looked official. It even had the Weird Sister’s seal. It confirmed the caravan’s status of hailing from the unincorporated lands with a travel license through the Thirteen Covens.
I resisted the urge to tear the document up. “Who the hell did you bribe to—”
“Oh no, good archiater. I assure you, our establishment is all on the up-and-up. Feel free to confer with your local leadership. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
I grabbed his lapel and he scowled. “You think a piece of paper gives you the right to abuse this boy?”
He sneered. “You think a piece of paper gives you the right to stop me?”
“I’m going up there right now and getting him down. I’ll bring him to the coven temple under asylum. You think they’ll side with some unincorporated barker over an archiater?”
“You can try, but his body is bound to me. You take him more than a mile away and the magic sustaining him dries up. He’ll die. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a living show to close.” He pulled my hand off his lapel and winked at me. Then he hopped back on the stage. “That’s all for tonight, folks. Thanks for joining us for the most amazing, terrifying, and invigorating living show in all the land!”
He continued his bombastic routine. The boy’s eyes focused on mine. He continued to mouth his silent pleas: help . . . me . . . save . . . me.
#
I talked to her, but did she understand? The woman with the dark eyes and the black hair streaked with gray heard me speak and promised to save me; or did I dream it? Was she real? Can she heal my pain? Can she end my shame? I long for my body to be closed. Can she sew me shut? Make my insides my own again?
#
That twisted monster the barker not only had the law—in word, but not in spirit—on his side, but he was also a far more accomplished magic practitioner than I. But I had ingenuity and grit, and sometimes the clever beat the powerful, the determined beat the gifted. Most of all, I had the boy’s tortured visage in my head to motivate me. I scoured every esoteric book of archiater theurgy I could find and pieced together a highly theoretical enchantment that had never been performed.
The first half would take weeks to complete, and would tax my capabilities more than anything I’d ever done before; not to mention such cavalier and unconventional use of archiater magic would cost me my career and possibly my life if it went wrong. But informing the authorities was not an option; they’d send the barker an official inquiry, set a date for an inspection, and basically allow him all the time he would need to dispose of his “exhibit” and put up the appearance of legitimacy. Even if the agency caught the barker in a crime, it wouldn’t matter; the boy would be long gone. I would have to rescue the boy first and explain it to my superiors later. I started scouring the apothecaries, the curios, and the sepulcher alleys for the components I needed.
#
Did she abandon me? I’ve not seen her in a fortnight. Or has it been longer? We are far from where I met her. Where did I meet her? When? Maybe Natalie gave me too much medicine again. Was she a hallucination?
#
My fingers suffered from a hundred needle pricks. I had burns up my arms from the binding tincture’s theurgic heat. One of my eyes glowed red with broken capillaries I’d given up on trying to heal. The ritual had taken its toll on my energy and my sanity—I wasn’t sure I’d ever recover. I hoped to the Holy Mage the boy yet lived so that all my labor wasn’t for naught. But it worked. My magnum opus of archiater magic worked—at least the first half. Now I had to perform another untested ritual on the boy himself.
I disassembled my creation, storing it in huge portmanteau that was so heavy I could barely carry it. I shuddered to consider what anyone would think if they happened to open my luggage. From the flyer, I knew my last chance to catch them was in the westernmost coven before they moved back out into the unincorporated lands and were lost to me forever. The rail station would drop me within walking distance of the fairgrounds, but I’d be slow lugging my burden. The show wasn’t until tomorrow night, so I estimated I would have about six hours to complete the ritual—and that was assuming the apprentice would take my bribe. The train whistled a warning of departure as I pushed my portmanteau on a dolly across the platform. I handed my ticket to the conductor and climbed aboard.
#
Will they let me die when the season is done? Am I dead already, but trapped in this body for peoples’ probing examinations? Am I this public exhibit, or do I have personhood independent of people’s eyes, fingers, and opinions? These brief lucid moments, when the pain is not too great, and the medicine is not too heavy, are the only times I feel real. The only times I feel human. Here comes Natalie. Another dose of the bitter tincture and I’ll be addled once again . . .
#
The sun hovered at its apex. Not an ideal time to sneak into a caravan, but I didn’t have the luxury of waiting for the cover of night. I caught the apprentice by sheer luck, and she didn’t run screaming to the barker when I flashed the bank notes at her. We spoke discreetly at the edge of the wood surrounding the campsite. She listened without any visible sign of agreement or disagreement. I figured there was no reason to lie—she was the only way I was getting in to see the boy without being discovered. So I told her straight and offered her a huge wad of money. It was a simple, no frills bribe.
She bit a fingernail as she scratched her wild dishwater blonde nest of curls. “How do I know you’s gonna save Bobby and not take him to some other place and do the same thing?”
I felt relief wash over me. It seemed she had some kind of sympathy for him—that would help. “I’m an archiater. I’ve got my papers with me. It’s my duty to promote the welfare of all Thirteen Coven citizens. I’m going to take him back to his family. He’s going to be . . . different, physically speaking, but they will have the soul of their son back.”
She spit one of her nails at a tree trunk. “Different how?”
I looked past her into the campsite. “Look, I don’t have a lot of time. If you are going to turn me in—“
“No I ain’t gonna turn you in. I’m gonna help Bobby. But you gotta do one thing.”
My heart dropped. This was all the money I had. If she asked for anything more I wouldn’t have the fare to take the rail back to Bobby’s home coven. I’d have to get in touch with the local coven and request money, which would take time and give the barker more time to discover our ruse. “Look, this is all I can afford to give you right n—”
She shook her head sharply, the first sign of passion she’d shown. “No. Not that. You just gotta take me with you. The barker promised me fame and fortune too and . . . well the living show ain’t what I thought it was gonna be. I been taking care o’ Bobby for months. I gotta keep looking after him, is all. That’s what I learned I guess: I ain’t cut out for the living show. Taking care of people’s what I like.”
I pulled her to my chest and hugged her. She stiffened in surprise, then relaxed.
“Of course. Of course I’ll take you. I hadn’t even considered maybe you don’t want to be part of the living show either.”
The girl shivered. “I don’t think nobody does once they realize what it is.”
#
My door opened. Natalie entered, but behind her was the woman who said she would save me. She came! She didn’t abandon me or forget about me! Tears streamed from my eyes, tickling my face again. “Thank . . . you . . .” I whispered with as much force as I could create.
She sat on Natalie’s stool next to me and put her warm hand on my forehead gently. Wrinkles creased around her eyes, but she held back her tears.
“I’m Anika. I’m an archiater. I saw you some weeks ago if you remember—”
“How . . . could . . . I . . . forget?”
She smiled and stroked my face. “Natalie and I are going to try to get you out of here. The problem is the barker has some powerful magic on your body. I have an idea how we might get around that, but it’s a complex ritual, so it might fail. You have to understand the risk. You might die.”
“Better . . . than . . . this . . .”
She looked at me seriously. I could see the torchlight reflected in the bottomless blackness of her eyes. “Things have been done to you, Bobby. Without your consent. I can’t do that to you. You have to understand, when we do this ritual . . . you will be alive, but you will be different. Your essence, your consciousness will be your own. But what people see on the outside, well that still belongs to the barker. You’ll have your personhood, owned by no one but yourself, and you’ll have your freedom, but not the outer self you have always known.”
I swallowed, feeling my open throat pull against the tack holding it open. “Only . . . care . . . about . . . real . . . self . . . inner . . . self.”
She explained the details to me, most of which I didn’t understand. “I have to hear you say you consent.”
“I . . . consent.”
“Natalie, watch the door. If anyone comes by do whatever you have to to divert them from this wagon. I need six hours.”
Natalie nodded. “The barker trusts me. If I say he’s resting he’ll believe me. I been taking care of Bobby all season.”
Anika unzipped a big bag and let out a bigger sigh. “Okay, Bobby. Let’s begin.”
#
If I had thought the first part of the ritual was taxing, it was nothing compared to the actual work of converting Bobby. I laid out the skeleton I’d assembled from the sepulcher castoff bones, which had been too brittle or malformed to be used in maleficium rituals. But I’d taken those bones and straightened them, buttressed them, combined them with wood, wax, and stone, lashed and reinforced them. It was a stretch for archiater theurgy which was typically centered on healing a living person, not creating something altogether new. The replacement organs I’d purchased—preserved in complex combinations of life-sustaining tinctures—had all survived the perilous trip. I’d had no way to preserve skin, so I’d created a synthetic composite as closely resembling human skin as I could—a mix of treated animal skin, rubber, horse glue, and other binding agents. I looked the young man in the eyes. “This is going to be painful and dangerous Bobby, but if I am successful we are getting the hell out of this place together. But if I fail—” she shuddered.
“Failing . . . is . . . okay . . . oblivion . . . better . . . than . . . eyes . . . staring . . . fingers . . . prying . . .” his body shook, causing him to moan as his skin pulled against the tacks.
“It’s okay, Bobby. I can do this. Let’s get started.”
#
I stood for the first time in months. I shook like mad, adjusting, almost falling back onto the table, but Anika and Natalie caught me. Anika looked at me with a mix of incredulity and exhaustion. “We did it, Bobby. But you have to know—”
“It’s different. I understand,” I said, finally able to produce forceful speech. I stared at the stitching on the inside of my forearm.
“I’m sorry, Bobby. I had to put the stitching somewhere. I tried to do it in the most inconspicuous—”
“It’s perfect,” I said, interrupting her. “I feel . . . more like me than I ever did held open on the stage.”
She smiled in relief. “It is going to take time for you to adjust—”
“Why?”
Anika’s smile faded and she stared quizzically “Well, because your essence has to bind to the body I created for you. It’s a hybrid of organic and inorganic material so it takes time—”
“No. I mean why did you save me? A man you didn’t even know? Why did you spend the time, the money? Take the risks? Why didn’t you just gape and prod like everyone else?”
She struggled for words. “I, well, you were suffering. And you are human—”
“But no one else cared. No one else saw me as anything other than a public exhibit.”
She looked at the floor. “I don’t know, Bobby. It’s easy to forget people’s personhood I guess. I became an archiater to try and never forget.”
I nodded. “Thank you. I have nothing to offer other than my thanks. That doesn’t seem like much.”
“It’s enough.”
I took a tentative step, feeling my leg like it was someone else’s shaking underneath me.
“I think it will take some time for you to get to know yourself again. It may feel dissociative for a while.”
I took her hand, and practiced lifting my foot. I tested my new face with a smile. “I need to see it.”
“What, your face? I’m sure we can find a mirror—”
“No, my exhibit.”
She shifted uneasily. “Well, it is set up behind you. I’m not sure I recommend that—”
“You don’t understand. I need to see it at the living show.”
Anika went rigid, squeezing my hand. “What? Absolutely not. We need to escape right now!”
“I have to see it . . . from the other side.”
Natalie shook her head violently. “No, Bobby. The barker will recognize me and maybe Anika. We can’t risk it—”
“I brought a wheeled chair. We are taking you out of here right now before the barker comes around,” Anika said.
“You’ve done something amazing for me, but I need this one more thing. You both wait in the tree line with the wheeled chair. Then you can take me back to the train.”
“This is madness, Bobby. Don’t do this—” Anika said.
“The barker—” Natalie started.
“I must. I’m sorry. I need to see . . . my outer self,” I said, letting go of Anika’s hand and practicing my steps.
#
That night the living show opened and I was there—there for the lights, the smoke, the sounds. The crowd packed the big top, standing shoulder to shoulder. Whispers spread throughout the crowd, murmured rumors about the exhibit. I wore a full cloak, feeling my stitches rub against the back of it, a dull, distant, aching sensation. My body was still connecting to my soul; I guess it was a good thing, as I wasn’t in much pain yet.
I waited in line, my outer self obscured by the crowd. The barker stood next to the exhibit proudly. I walked closer to the torchlight. A few wayward looks at the face behind my hood brought gasps, or gaping eyes. I supposed I’d have to get used to that. It was a strange looking face—more like a mask of skin stretched over a skull. It lacked the mobility to express emotion, and it was too craggy and uneven to be handsome. That part of me was gone forever.
I was next up. I caught a glimpse of myself and had a strange sensation of anxiety, sadness, and disgust. The person ahead of me picked up the replacement liver, examined it and chattered with her friend. She made a long “eewwwwww” sound and pushed it away.
My turn arrived and I stepped up to what had formerly been me. The skin was the same, splayed open, peeled back and tacked to the wooden board. The face made rudimentary movements, giving the impression of being alive, yet I knew this was a clever glamour the archiater had left to continue to give the body animation. The eyes were beautiful but empty. I felt a deep sense of pathos, feeling a connection to the person I used to be.
I glanced out at the crowd, watching their laughing, gesticulating, and cursing. They’d seen my outer self, and I’d been an object of disgust, curiosity, amusement, and maybe a little bit of pity. But now I was gone from their mind as the show wound down. I looked into the organs so painstakingly attached inside my skin, sewn, glued, and chemically soldered in place. The lungs fluttered in shallow breaths. Blood pumped through the veins. I looked closely at the heart and smiled. It wasn’t my heart. The replacement looked fairly close to mine at a cursory glance, but I’d looked down at my open chest a thousand times when I was in the living show and the thing beating in the exhibit’s chest was not my heart. It was smaller, paler, sort of pitiful in its pumping. My real heart hammered inside my chest, covered by my new skin.
I walked past the exhibit, passing by the barker.
“Hey Sonny, don’t I know you?” the barker said, his face puzzled, like an idea dwelled just outside his consciousness.
“No,” I said. “You don’t know me at all.”
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