Carnival -- Chapter 5 is up!

Another chapter? WHAT?! Hell yea! w00t!

Keep reading! And review! REVIEW, I COMMAND THEE! *coughs* Sorry, feeling a little full of myself tonight. *giggles*
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Everything got moving an hour after sunrise, and by noon, they’d left the last town in the dust. Erik set a pretty quick pace, which surprised Zachary but didn’t worry him; they’d put themselves behind schedule, staying as long as they did. Zachary rode in the front truck with Erik for the morning. They talked.

“Why?” Zachary asked him, frowning. “Why would you bring him along?”

“What was I supposed to do with him?” Erik asked, lighting two cigarettes and handing on to Zachary.

“He’s dead weight, Erik.” Zachary took a long drag of his cigarette and glared out the window. “We’ve got a telepath.”

“Huxley awake yet?” Erik asked him, and Zachary didn’t answer. “Besides, the kid’s not going to replace anyone any time soon, he can’t control it, remember? And the way his eyes go all wonky, it would be bad for business. Huxley’s not getting pushed, Zach.”

“I never thought he was.” Zachary snapped. “But why?”

“Because I feel bad for him.” Erik admitted. “The kid’s an orphan, he was raised in a fucking church.” Zachary winced at this. “I know, right? Beside, when Huxley wakes up, he’ll want to talk to him, and you know it.” He cleared his throat, and they smoked in silence for a while. “Roger’s gonna teach him some stuff.” He said after a while.

Zachary scowled. “This is bullshit.” He muttered.

“What happened to your wrist?” Erik asked, eyeing the bandage wrapped around the wound. When Zachary didn’t answer, Erik swore under his breath. “I thought I told you to stay away from that fucking vampire.”

“And I thought I told you that it’s none of your fucking business.” Zachary retorted. “I’m a big boy, Erik, I can take care of myself.”

“Oh, yea. Letting that crazy motherfucker bleed you out is certainly looking out for yourself.” Erik remarked, and Zachary flashed him the middle finger. “I’m worried about you, okay? You’ve been weird the last few months.”

Zachary glared at him. “It’s none of your business.”

“You spend too much time with Mooira-“

“I just said-“

“-and now you’re getting back into that bullshit with Alecsi. Are you insane?”

“I’m fed up with your shit is what I am.” Zachary told him. “Quit acting like you’re worried about me. It’s business.”

“It’s not business.” Erik insisted.

“I’m one of your biggest pulls.”

“So? You’re also my friend.” Zachary snorted at this. “I’m serious. We’d be friends even if you didn’t have those.” He gestured with the hand holding the cigarette to the swarming snakes in Zachary’s skin.

“If I didn’t have these, I wouldn’t even know you.”

Erik sighed. “Listen, Moira’s been with us for almost fifteen years. The last person that got close to her didn’t end up so well. I don’t want something happening to you.”

Zachary rolled his eyes. “I heard about that. He froze to death.”

“Because of Moira.” Erik emphasized. “That fucking crazy fish lady froze him to death, Zachary. You need to stay away from her.”

“I’m sure now you’ll have some story about Alecsi chewed a hole through some worker’s throat, too, huh?” Zachary muttered.

“Watch it, Zach. You know what Alecsi is capable of. You’ve cleaned up after him before.”

“So? I’m done having this conversation with you.” He turned his back on Erik, slouching down and closing his eyes, and pretended to sleep. Erik let him, kept quiet.

When the whole train stopped to stretch legs and eat a late lunch, Zacahry checked on Huxley. Tia was sitting with him, her lap covered in gauzy white and blue lace as she worked on the dress for the twins. She said he hadn’t moved or spoken at all, and Zachary left her to her sewing. He went in search of the twins; he needed something light and happy to break him out of this mood.
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“A vampire?” Weston asked, awestruck. “Really?”

Colin smiled. “Yes, really. A true vampire. He’s almost two hundred years old.” The boy looked so comically astounded that beside him, Alina giggled into her hands. They were sitting in the shade of Colin and Alina’s trailer, eating lunch.

“And you’re a shape shifter?” Weston asked the man in front him, eyeing him carefully. “You look normal.” Colin in fact looked so boring it was strange; palin faced, light brown hair, brown eyes. Nothing remarkable at all. Colin’s smile widened and his features blurred and twisted; a moment later, he looked exactly like Weston. The boy cried out in surprise, and Alina burst out laughing, so loud people turned to look at them.

“That’s so amazing!” Weston breathed, and Colin shifted back to his natural face. Weston’s eyes moved towards Alina. “What’s she?”

“She’s a ghost.” Colin said simply.

“What?”

“I’m not a ghost.” Alina told him, still laughing. “I don’t know what I am, they don’t have a word for me.” She stood up, her pale violet skirts swirling, and flashed the kid a smile. “Watch me.” She said, and closed her eyes. A second later, she was gone.

“Oh my!” Weston whispered, sending Colin into fits of giggles. “Where’d she go?”

“Here.” Alina whispered into the boy’s ear, and rematerialized. The boy shrieked. “Now look.” She held her hand out, letting him inspect, and he touched it gently with his fingers. “Solid, right?” he nodded. “Not so.” She closed her own fingers around his, and they passed right through them. She clenched her fist inside of Weston’s hand.

“It feels like wind.” Weston told her. “Like breath.”

“Her momma told her that’s what she was made out of. God’s breath.” Colin rolled his eyes. “You ask me, she just a freak, just like the rest of us.” Alina gave him a tiny smile and sat back down and Colin kissed her corn silk colored hair. “But I love her.”

“So there’s a vampire, a ghost, a shape shifter, conjoined twins, a mermaid, a snake man, and a telepath?” Weston counted them off on his fingers.

“There’s lots of freaks here.” Colin said. “It’s the best place for us.”

“Why?” Weston asked.

“Because it’s the last place people expect to find us.” Alina said. “They come here expecting tricks and illusions, so that’s what they see. We’re safe here. People see us, pay for what we are, but don’t believe we’re real. In the outside world, we’d be hunted, put in science labs, or just killed.” She said this in a tone that made Weston feel bad. He squinted at her, his eyes darkening, and saw on the surface of her mind that she’d spent some time in a lab as a child, after her mother had died. How she’d escaped wasn’t there for him to find, not on the surface, and he didn’t want to pry too much. He let himself slip out of her mind, wincing at the flare of pain in his forehead. Neither of them seemed to notice anything.

Weston looked around, smiling a little. He felt comfortable here. People were like him, strange. Different. He could be okay here. If they let him stay. He worried about that. Zachary didn’t like him, and Erik seemed to be almost afraid of him. He didn’t know why; whatever had happened in the trailer was lost to him. His memory stopped as soon as Zachary had kicked the door open.

“What’s up with Zachary?” he asked Colin. “What is he?”

Colin shrugged one shoulder. “No one knows, really.” He said. “He’s a reptile. The snakes, they’re a part of him, see? The tattoos are real snakes. A bunch of different kinds.” Weston nodded. “They’re just tattoos though. Whatever it is that animates them, it comes from Zachary. He was born with the eyes, the teeth. He’s poisonous.”

“Venomous.” Alina corrected.

“Whatever.” Colin muttered. “He told me once that he’s not that dangerous. He called himself rear fanged. I found that means his venom comes from teeth in the back of his mouth, and he has to… I don’t know, like, chew to get the venom in you. It’s not like he can spit it at you, like some snakes, and if he bites you, you probably won’t die.” He chuckled at this. “Anyway, Zachary’s truly strange. Parts of him have scales; the soles of his feet, behind his knees, apparently in other places, if Alecsi’s to be believed.” Alina snickered. “He’s got the messed up teeth. The fangs in front and back, but like I said, only the back ones are venomous. His eyes… he says he doesn’t see like normal people do. Colors and everything, of course, but heat too. He says he can see where people have been by the heat trails they leave. His nose is amazing, as well. Better than a bloodhound.”

“He’s cold-blooded.” Alina put in. She looked around, squinting at the light, and pointed. Weston followed her finger to where Zachary was, far off, stretched out on his back in the middle of nothing, away from the trailers, where there were no shadows. “He’s sunning himself, see? Like snakes do. He likes when we’re in the desert. He says the rocks get so hot he only has to sun himself for a little while.”

“But he’s so pale.” Weston commented.

“He’s sick.” Colin said. “No one knows with what. The snakes, they poison him. His own venom hurts him. No one understands it, least of all him. But he’s okay. He’s older than he looks.”

Weston frowned. Zachary didn’t look much older than his early twenties, although he knew that Huxley was his younger brother, and Colin had told him Huxley was twenty seven. “How old is he?”

“Thirty nine.” Alina told him, and he gaped at her. “I know, weird, huh? He says his body slowed down it’s aging when he got the tattoos.” Alina shrugged. “He was fifteen when he got them. He came here about three years later, with Huxley, who wasn’t even eight yet.”

“Who helped Huxley?” Weston asked, and the two exchanged a curious look. “Erik said that someone helped him figure out his abilities. Who?”

“Don’t know.” Colin told him. “I’ve only been here about four years, Alina’s only on two.” Weston caught the look on Alina’s face, the sorrow and hurt, and had to restrain himself from digging into her head. “Best person to ask would be Huxley, but…” he trailed off.

“I feel so terrible.” Weston told him. “I never meant to hurt him.”

“Of course you didn’t, sweetie.” Alina patted his hand. “No one thinks that.” She ruffled his hair. “Tell us about yourself, Weston. Where are you from? How’d you get here?”

“I grew up in Texas.” He said, and Colin noted the complete lack of accent in his words. He wondered, but the boy was continuing, so he listened. “I don’t know who my parents were. A minister took me in, him and his housemaid, Diana. He raised me.” Weston sighed and pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped him around them. “Back at the church, where I grew up, Father Abshire said that I was a monster. Said that the Devil lived in me, and that if he were a truer man of God, he could exorcize me.” He knew they were staring at him, but he kept his eyes on the toes of his boots. “I never knew what he meant, until I decided to leave. I went into his head, something I was made to promise to never do. He was a…” he searched for the word, scowling. “…a pedophile.” Alina made a growling sound, and Weston looked up at her. “If you hurt someone because they’re bad people, it makes it okay, right?”

“Did he…” Alina stopped, not wanting to ask, and Weston plucked the question out of her mind easily.

“Yes.” Alina looked away, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “He told me that it was penance, for being a monster. Said that it was God’s will.” He sighed. “I didn’t understand it, at first. I left, and when I figured out what it was I’d seen inside of him, I…” he trailed off.

“You went back.” Colin finished for him, and Weston nodded. “You hurt him.”

Weston nodded slowly. He was uncomfortable talking about it, but he’d been raised to believe that secrets were lies. They’d asked, so he told. “I hurt him.” He agreed. “And he died. People said it was a brain em… emba…” he frowned.

“An embolism?” Alina offered, and Weston nodded. “Oh, Wes.” She scooted over and hugged him, and he stiffened in her arms. “You poor thing.”

Colin looked away from them, uncomfortable and sad. He liked Weston, he really did, and it was clear that Alina’s motherly instinct was kicking in hard. He spied two of his favorite people, Chloe and Argus, and waved them over.

“Weston, come and meet these people.” He said, standing up. “You’ll like them.”

“Colin!” Chloe chimed happily, her adorable face breaking out into an infectious smile. “Argus, down please.”

Argus, who stood nearly seven and a half feet tall, wrapping his huge hands around Chloe’s tiny waist and lifted her from her perch on his shoulder. Her tiny feet hit the ground, and Weston saw that she couldn’t be more than three and a half feet tall. She beamed up at him, her long curly black hair shining in the bright sunlight. Beside her, Argus stood silent, eyeing Weston carefully. He was black haired as well, although his was dusky where hers was inky. They weren’t related, it was obvious in the difference of their features, but they made an amazing sight.

“You’re the new kid?” the tiny woman asked him, and Weston nodded, studying her. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Chloe Faust. This is Michael Argus.” She patted the giant man’s knee. Her voice was thickly accented Cajun. “He doesn’t talk, but he’s a nice boy. Aren’t you?” she asked the giant, and he nodded slowly.

She wasn’t deformed, he saw. She wasn’t a dwarf. She was actually very pretty; her eyes were big and blue, her nose upturned, her lips well formed. She was curvy, and Weston suspected she might be as old as he was. She was just… tiny. The giant, on the other hand, looked barely older than a child. His face was soft and round featured, and his eyes were a murky green. He kept an eye on Chloe whenever she moved. It was obvious that he was very protective of her.

“Riding with them?” Chloe asked him, nodding at Alina and Colin. “They’re good people, these two.” She flashed him a smile and turned to speak with Alina for a while.

Colin watched Weston as he studied the two that had just joined them. The boy was curious, and Colin wondered if he would stay for good, or only until he got what he wanted. Some were like that; they would stay for a while, then disappear after a few weeks.

He caught sight of Erik climbing on top of truck. “Time to go.” He said, slipping his arm around Alina.

Chloe held out her small hand to Weston. “It was good meeting you. We’ll see you around.” Weston shook it, smiling, and watched the giant lift the tiny woman up onto his shoulder, where she perched comfortably.

He followed Alina to the trailer, but as he climbed the steps, his vision swam. He moaned and grabbed at the stairs as they came rushing up to meet him. Everything faded. Very faintly, he heard someone call him name, but he saw nothing, felt nothing. In his head, something shifted and moved, and the pain was so great he thought he would die. The voice speaking his name got louder, and he realized Huxley was calling for him.

He snapped back, lying face first in the dirt, his head aching terrible. Alina was beside him, shaking him, and he sat up, putting his fingers against the cut on his forehead. He’d obviously hit it on the way down.

“Lord, boy, are you all right?” Alina asked, terrified.

“I need to go.” Weston told her, and stumbled to his feet. She helped him. “I’m sorry. I’ll see you later.” He turned and ran, ignoring the way his head throbbed. He searched for the green and gold trailer, feeling panicky. He finally found it, near the back of the train, but what he felt inside made him stop at the stairs. There was a woman inside; he could feel her. He closed his eyes and focused. Older, gray haired, heavy set. He found a name. Tia.

“Tia.” He whispered, his eyes opening although he did not see. They were solid black. His fingers twitched at his sides. “Tia. Sleep.”

The effect was instant. The woman’s head nodded and then slumped back, her eyes closed. She began to snore. Weston looked around, worried, but he saw no one. The truck that the trailer was attached to roared to life, and he quickly scrambled in before they could get moving. He shut the door behind him just as the trailer lurched and started to move, and he nearly fell.

He ignored the woman snoring in the chair and moved instead to the back of the trailer, where Huxley lay in bed. He sat beside him, reaching out to brush back the dark hair that had fallen across his face. Huxley reacted to the touch, mumbling and turning towards Weston’s hand. When their skin connected, Weston gasped; something danced across his vision, a memory transferred through pores.

Huxley is a very small child, perhaps not even five yet. He stands beside his brother, their fingers entwined, and watches as they lower the casket containing his mother into the ground. Zachary is silent beside him, his eyes dry, his mouth set in a sharp, thin line. Huxley doesn’t know that he should be sad; his mother has never shown him anything resembling love, and he cannot even recall her touching him. He looks up at his brother, who is uncomfortable and restless in his ill fitting gray suit. Huxley looks down at the enclosed hands. “Brother?” he whispers, and Zachary looks down at him. Huxley asks him a question without speaking, and the boom slang, Huxley’s favorite, slides out and wraps around his tiny wrist. It makes him smile, the feeling of it’s scales so comforting, and it calms the strange, tightening feeling in his chest, eases the thought in his mind that something very, very bad is going to happen…

The memory shifts, blurs, and Weston is vaguely aware of Huxley’s voice, in the real world, calling for something, sounding hurt and scared. Then the memory envelopes Weston again.

Huxley is a little older now, and he stands behind his brother, his face buried against the knot formed by Zachary’s hands. His brother stands with his hands behind his back, his back straight, in nothing but his boxers, and lets Erik study the markings on his skin. “The scars.” The man asks. “What are they from?” and Zachary says something, his voice hesitant, and Huxley knows that whatever he’s saying, he doesn’t want Huxley to know. Huxley hears it in his head anyway; the scars are from their father. Huxley doesn’t know his father, he died before he was born. A snake bite. He’s always known how his father died, but this is the first time the child comes anywhere near putting two and two together; for a moment he is so close to crying it scares him. Then the big voice, the one he hears only when he’s scared, wakes up and tells him that it doesn’t matter, if Zachary hurt Father then Father deserved it for hurting Zachary and making him wear all those horrible scars. Huxley rubs his face against his brother’s knuckles, brushing his tears away before they can fall, and Zachary’s fingers uncurl and stroke the side of his cheek. Huxley is comforted, and he allows the rest of the ‘interview’ to pass, until it is his turn, and Zachary asks him to show Erik how special he is, how he can make things dance.

Weston pulled his fingers away, gasping, his skin slicked with sweat. The pain in his head was everything, an all encompassing wall of fire. He pressed his hands against the sides of his head and tried to will away the agony. After a very long moment it ebbed away, and he opened his eyes. He stared at the sleeping man, shocked and scared and below all of that, amazed and relieved. He ran a hand across his face, taking a few slow, careful breaths. He laughed softly at his own reaction.

“It seems I have something in common with both of you.” He whispered to Huxley, who turned towards the sound of his voice, his lips pulling up into a sleepy smile. Weston reached out, carefully, his hand hovering just above contact with Huxley’s own hand where it lay on the sheet, palm up. “I want to help you, Huxley.” He told him. “You’re lost. I can tell. I can help you back, but you have to let me.” He took Huxley’s hand in his own and closed his eyes, lowering himself until his forehead was pressing against the bed.

If anyone had seen them, it would’ve looked as though Weston were praying. This wasn’t really that far from the truth. His ability had always manifested in his own head as an actual place; in his case, a church. His God was there, although it was nothing like Father Abshire’s God. To Weston, his ability was a gift from his God, not a curse, or demonic possession as Father Abshire had always told him.

He pushed into Huxley’s mind, past the coma, which Weston saw was self induced, past the fear and the memories, all the way down to Huxley’s own manifestation. As he touched it, felt it pull at him, he leaned his head back towards the ceiling and smiled. His ink black eyes glittered, and he smiled.

Huxley’s manifestation was a hedge maze at midnight. It was beautiful and terrifying. He felt around, trying to sense or hear Huxley, and very faintly he picked up something. It could’ve been wind through the branches, but Weston thought not. Deep down, he knew the sound was Huxley. He followed it, and as he did, his head lowered again, resting this time against Huxley’s stomach. Huxley’s free hand lifted, wavering, and rested against Weston’s forehead, soothing away the pain lines it found there.

In the trailer, things began to move. The lamps flickered on and off, books and glasses and trinkets danced in mid air, and Tia, in all her three hundred pound glory, rose a solid foot of the ground, hovered there, and slowly began to turn in wide, lazy circles.

Outside, sitting in the open back of the truck behind the brothers’ trailer, the winged man watched through the windows. He bit his lip, worried. Everyone knew what had happened to Huxley, and everyone knew who had done it to him. Weston had not been careful enough when he’d entered the trailer. He’d looked around, yes, but he’d never thought to look up.

The winged man rustled his feathers, golds and greens and bronzes, and thought about taking flight, thought about telling Erik what was happening. But something in him, something he almost recognized as a voice he’d grown used to hearing since coming to the carnival, spoke up and told him to be still, to be quiet. So that’s what he did. He let the wind play through his wings, enjoying the feel of it, and closed his bright orange eyes. He forgot about what he saw, turned his back on the trailer, and after a moment, he remembered nothing at all.

Inside the trailer, lost in his own mind, Huxley dropped the bright gold feather, the tip a brilliant green, like new grass, onto the cobblestones beneath his bare feet. He’d felt the winged man’s presence, felt his eyes, and had forced him away. He needed this, needed Weston. Whatever had happened to him, Weston was the only one who could help him.
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A/N: Thanks so far to those of you who have given me some suggestions, I'm working up a big list of freaky things to come into play later. For now, I hope you enjoy the winged man, he'll get fleshed out very soon (next chapter, promise!) I like him alot, so I hope you will too! Keep coming with the freak suggestions. Anything you can think of, from weird animals to weird powers for people to have, to just weird stuff in general! Help is always wanted, and constructive criticism is adored. =) thanks so much, and remember, REVIEW PLEASE!