I pushed the remaining jacks aside, willing the tremble in my fingers to cease and pointed toward an elderly lady to the right of the woman. She wore an elaborate jewel-spattered hat, braided with ribbons and flowers.
“A pin, please.” She extracted one, a fine specimen, two inches long with a diamond head.
I started on the woman’s real hand. Gently, the pin sunk into the flesh between her fingers, skewering her to the velvet table as if she were a butterfly. She made no sound, nor even flinched. The crowd was silent, sensing the finale, their eyes wide, muscles tensed as they hung on every little movement.
I pulled the pin out slowly, a smear of blood coating the barb. Moving toward the fake arm, I gently prodded the flesh of the forearm. The woman jumped. I did it again, and she flinched. Hovering the pin just above the fake skin, my eyes locked with hers beneath the hood.
My right hand crept toward her real arm, nails silently extending. Power coursed through my body, pooling with a tingle in my fingertips as I dragged my nails down her arm, the jagged ends biting into her flesh.
She didn’t move an inch.
I fought to stop an exhale of relief as the magic rushed out, my body yearning to lay limp as if exsanguinated.
A young boy popped up beside the woman and crammed himself next to her on the bench. “What’s going on, Ma?” He shoved a pink and green swirled lollipop into his mouth and stared at the fake arm with my pin hovering over it, before peering past the barrier.
My stomach twisted. She had a child?
It was too late, but the real question was, would it have stopped me?
I smoothed the blood away using the velvet tablecloth and tugged down her long sleeve. Unfolding the cloth from her shoulder, I returned the barrier beneath the table and lowered my head. The audience broke into applause.
In a daze, the woman cautiously wound her arm in as if the nerves had all come loose. Coppers rained onto the table, bouncing off one another until the excited voices turned away to see what other wonders the fayre held.
Midnight had barely struck, but I was done.
When I pushed the remaining fire jacks toward the boy, he pocketed them gleefully. I waited until his mother had fully roused herself and shepherded the boy away before tugging down the wooden sign above my stall. Candyman was obscured again in the rush of customers who had left my performance, blocking my last view of him. I scooped up the coppers, left the tarot and other equipment, and headed toward the far end of the field.
Once the grass began to tickle my knees and the colorful glow from the fayre had dimmed to an ashy firelight, I doubled over and retched.
When there was nothing left in my stomach, I straightened, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. The woods bordering the field were thick and almost impenetrable, but I had scoped out my retreat already. Picking my feet high along a narrow game trail, I made for the other side, a distance of only a few miles if I stayed true.
I didn’t know how much time I had before the Collectors came. They wouldn’t snatch the woman at the fayre, it would be too public. On her way home, perhaps? Maybe they had a shred of decency left and would wait until she’d tucked her child into bed, sparing him the eternal nightmares. It would be better to wake and find her vanished than the alternative.
This, I knew firsthand.
The wood pressed in around me, brambles snagging on my cloak and razor-thin spiderwebs caressing my face. Where were the night creatures? The hooting owl, the mouse rustling through the fallen leaves? Even the bats were not silhouetted against the dark clouds.
I ignored the acid roiling in my stomach, the ever-deafening roar in my ears to turn back and spend the night in the warm embrace of Candyman. Safely tucked up amongst people and far away from the darkness that lurked everywhere else.
A twig snapped like bone from just ahead.
Is that why the animals had fled? The Collectors were already waiting?
Crunch.
I tried to submerge the screaming of my subconscious mind, the instinct for self-preservation and pushed through toward a small clearing.
A figure emerged from the shadows on the other side.
CHAPTER TWO
THE DEVIL IN DISGUISE
“Take a seat, Tam.” The figure lowered her hood and waved a gloved hand toward the ground at her feet. “You look terrible. You’ve been working hard, yes?”
I ground my teeth, cutting off the retort that bubbled back. I obeyed, settling myself along the bony spine of a fallen tree. “Why are you here? I’ve barely finished. You can’t possibly need me to go again?”
I tried to force myself to focus, to keep my head clear for the incoming conversation. What I would give to be huddled up beneath Candyman’s stall right now. It would’ve been better had I failed, at least then she wouldn’t have an excuse to come for me so soon.
