Ghost

“Watch your pockets,” Nigel reminded her, casting his eyes around the crowd himself and keeping his hand on her arm. Sarah glanced quickly up at him, wondering what on earth compelled him to bring her to this place. The traveling faire was no place for a young girl, even under the protection of the old doctor. When asked, her teacher just smiled grimly and continued ushering her to one of the many tents.

The tent’s entrance was framed in blue flames, giving it a spectral appearance; the effect wasn’t lost on the many sightseers hustling excitedly into the pavilion. Several names were posted on the sides of the cloth—“Insect, Beast, Ghost…” Names that meant nothing to her, until the realization hit her.

“The freaks?” Sarah turned and looked at her companion. Nigel opened his mouth, but snapped it shut and slapped at a creeping hand near her waist, shooting a nasty glare from his sharp hazel eyes before turning back to her. She clutched her cloak—unneeded with so much flame around—closer to her body.

“A necessary lesson, Sarah,” he said softly, looking up at the names. “These conditions are more common than people would think, but they are easy to find here. This faire is known for their collection.”

They passed under the opening of cloth. Sarah squinted in the dark, trying to see what everyone was bustling to look at as her eyes strained to adjust. Her eyes fell on a disembodied hand resting on a male’s bare chest before her teacher pulled her attention back to him with an insistent tug on her arm. It took longer than she knew he would appreciate, but she was staring in horror at the people on the other side of the bars, pointing and throwing coins that bounced off the man’s already-bruised flesh.

When her eyes met his, his gaze softened. “Try not to pay attention to the spectators, Sarah.” His wrinkled hand moved from her arm to the back of her cornsilk hair, a gesture that somehow managed to give her a little comfort. When she made an effort to return his grim smile, he patted her back once and continued, “Look at this with a scientific view. Many of these people are affected by conditions or birth defects. Ada has already shown you many of these from that book at home, but I want you to see what they will turn out to be when they grow.”

Sarah swallowed as she turned her back on him, looking again at the man with the hand on his chest. Now that she could get a better look, she could see that the skin on his hand and his chest was fused at the heel of the hand, just over the sternum. As she continued to examine from behind the bars, she could see that, despite having the proper bone structure, the hand seemed slightly diminished, as if it hadn’t developed properly with the rest of the body. Her eyes began to look over the rest of the torso. He had pronounced ribs, and she couldn’t see much muscle or fat anywhere. His face was gaunt, with deep shadows under his dark eyes.

She returned to herself with a start as Nigel’s hand began to usher her forward. Scientific view, she reminded herself, her throat constricting as she continued to peer through thick bars at the poor people behind them. However, no matter what she did, she couldn’t keep her heart from reaching out to the inmates. Her eyes burned with salt tears as she saw a person—the gender was indistinguishable—covered in thick brown hair all over its body. Sarah noticed with a sick jolt that somebody had buckled a leather collar around its neck, a heart tag hanging from it reading “Fluffy”. She held tightly to her teacher, biting her lip as intelligent, human eyes fell sadly on her, shame evident as their dull, wolf blue irises ran over her face before settling back onto the dirty floor beneath its feet.

Next to “Beast” was a dirty, bald creature with wide, electric blue eyes, lying prostrate on the floor. Its head was raised, staring without comprehension at the people across from it, uttering a faint humming sound. Two arms lay stretched out on either side of it, while its diminished legs were unmoving behind it. With her hand on Nigel’s, resting on her shoulder, she stood in front of the wraithlike thing. There was an infantile quality to its gaze, and it hummed another soft note, sounding content despite the spots that had been rubbed raw on its arms and chest due to lying in the dirt for too long. As the name “Insect” began to ring through her head, a choked sob tore her throat, and two more arms joined hers as they wrapped around her until she was more under control. She took the grey handkerchief from Nigel and wiped off her face as she walked to the next display.

At first she didn’t see the inhabitant in the small amount of pale light that shone in the cage, but slowly her eyes made out the white skin covering scarred hands. The arms attached connected to slumped shoulders, hunched over so that the elbows could rest on the knees. White hair hung lankly from his scalp down to his scant chest and covered his face. He was bare from the waist up, and wore patched brown trousers that were plainly outgrown, for they barely reached his shins, and the holes worn by younger knees exposed sections of pale thighs. Sarah’s breath caught when she realized that he was younger than her—he couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen. His gaze flickered to her, carried by clouded red eyes burning with suppressed rage that settled slightly as his intense expression fell into a confused looking frown. She stayed frozen as he studied her unwaveringly, his eyes never moving.

“There are many cruelties here,” whispered Nigel, as he ushered his unwilling pupil away from the last cage holding the “Ghost”, “but the one that irritates me the most is the mockery they make of people who cannot function in human society, no matter how much they tried.” He shot a warning look at a rat faced man trying to put a hooped earring on Sarah’s right ear as they passed. “They find the ones that have no other way of making a living and offer them work, and some don’t even get that courtesy.”

Sarah thought of the people she had seen, wondering how she would have reacted, seeing people on the street of her neighborhood with thick hair like a dog’s bursting from beneath their sleeves and above their neckline, or with fingers peeking from between shirt buttons. She tried to think of anywhere else they could work, but her mind drew up nothing but blanks. Troubled, she moved to hold her cloak close again, but stopped when her hands came up empty.

“Nigel, I dropped my cloak,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“I dropped my cloak,” Sarah repeated, turning back to the tent. The crowd had thinned, and only a few people remained who were trickling out the exit, but she still didn’t want to go back in there. As Nigel turned to ask again, she called shakily over her shoulder, “I’ll be right back!” as she hiked up her skirts and trotted hastily back inside. She saw her cloak’s dark shape resting in front of one of the cages. Relieved, she slowed to a walk and went to it, careful not to look up toward the humming she heard beyond what she came for.

“Young lady,” said a voice behind her, “It be time fer young ladies to be headed home wi’deir pappies.”

Sarah stilled, her heart thumping in her chest, and said carefully, “I left my cloak behind, sir.”

The man came and stood in front of her, peering at the ground, before giving a gruff “humph” and striding to the shape on the ground, blocking the beam of light that had allowed her to find it. “Best not be leavin’ clothes ‘round, miss. Other people might be getin’ idears of yer leavin’ m’re behind than the coat.”

A light blush tinged her cheeks, but she answered steadily as she took it back. “I’ll keep that in mind, sir.”

The gypsy gave another “humph” as he turned and walked toward the other end of the tent. She turned away to follow suit, but stopped when she heard a soft scuffling in the dirt behind her. When she turned, she saw the boy—an albino, she now realized—kicking moodily at the dirt.

~*~

Ghost continued working at the soil beneath his feet, teeth gritted together as the cuts on his feet opened again. Slowly, the hole was opening wider and wider, and soon he would be able to squeeze through. He turned and glanced in the guard’s direction before crouching low over the opening and finishing the work with his hands, making sure that the opening was wide enough on that side as well as on this one. With another quick glance over his shoulder, he ducked down into the hole. His feet worked by the toes in the cage as he wormed his way through. The bars, sharpened on the underside so they could be planted in the ground at each location the gypsies went to, scraped into his back, leaving bloody rends in his paper-white flesh. Despite himself, he let out a pained breath as his top half emerged, but the waist of his pants caught on the metal. Clenching his teeth again, he slid his fingers down into the hole and unstuck the cloth before pulling himself the rest of the way out. Resting in the dark of the shadows for a brief moment, he smiled humorlessly, reminded of the vampire stories he had heard the gypsies telling each other, how they dug their way out of the ground at night, pale skin invisible in the darkness, for they couldn’t be touched by sunlight.

From the shadows he watched the guard enter the tent again. Fear mounted his chest again as he glanced around for a hiding place and found none. Moved by adrenaline, he crawled in the opposite direction on his hands and knees, giving his sore feet a respite while they could get it.

The guard began to swear, driving him to rise to his feet and start running out the exit, but stopping short upon seeing the people outside. He ducked behind one of the cages as the guard ran by. As he released a relieved breath, a hand rested on his shoulder.

He leapt back, hitting his head on the bars of the cage before attempting to focus on the person who had snuck up on him. It was a girl—the same young woman who had looked upon him earlier. Her eyes were wide, as if horrified that she had driven him to inflicting pain upon himself. She handed him a bundle and began searching the tent through the bars. He watched as her panicked expression slowly hardened to one of resolve, and she glanced down at him with a different expression.

“Put it on, quickly,” she whispered, returning her attention to the rest of the tent. Reminded that action was required, he hastily opened the bundle—a cloak—and shakily donned it. It fell past his heels. No sooner was the hood over his head before her hand was around his arm just below the shoulder and lifting him to his feet, pulling him toward the exit. He stumbled after her, the soles of his feet already resuming their steady burn. He recoiled when they entered the throng of people, but her momentum pulled him in nonetheless. She then slowed to a walk, which startled him worse than the crowd. Sensing his anxiety, she whispered, “We need to find my teacher.”

Dimly, he remembered an old man with her. He nodded slowly, pulling at her hold until she slid her hand down to his. As they traveled through the milling people, he studied her. She looked to be around seventeen or eighteen, but her figure was dainty, which explained why he had assumed her to be younger. Her loose, blonde hair fell in ringlets down to her waist, with flyaway locks pulled away from her round face with a cream ribbon. Her dress was a pale blue, unadorned with anything but a small purse, which was miraculously still attached to her sash. Even in the dark, she looked vibrant and pure, like a fledgling angel.

“Sarah!” The old man from before came forward and grabbed the girl by the shoulders. “What were you—”

“I’m fine,” she interjected quickly. She—Sarah—pulled him in front of her. “Nigel,” she began in more hushed tones, “he was escaping when I came in after my coat.” Her verbal tempo increased when her teacher began to look alarmed. “The gypsies are looking for him, so we need to leave quickly.”

Their gazes clashed for a short span of time before the man’s hand came down. The boy flinched away, but the hand landed lightly on his shoulder and pulled him forward. “What’s your name, boy?” he asked as Sarah fell into step alongside him. They walked, but their strides were long and ate a lot of ground.

Wary, he wracked his memory. After tripping a couple of times due to the fast pace, he gave a shaky shrug before replying, “Ghost.”

Nigel sighed. He seemed to think about this for a moment, pausing only to make an intimidating face when a drunk stumbled into him. Ghost watched the man leave before looking up at Nigel again. The man looked down at him, his eyes crinkling at the corners as they broke away from the bulk of the crowd. “Lucky my pocket was on the other side, eh?” Ghost watched him with wide eyes for a moment before hesitantly letting the side of his mouth curve upward.