Carnival Perceptions

It is not until we enter the carnival that it strikes me that Neesa is actually shorter than Leda. I ponder for a moment how I could have thought otherwise as they stood in my doorway, but the thought is quickly lost in the blur of activity known as carnival. The colors and sounds of the carnival wash over me, taking every lucid thought with them. It is like entering a dream world where there is no pain, no worry, no time to think or worry--just fun and the thrill of the moment.

Without any verbal communication, we all find ourselves lured to the cotton candy vendor. He smiles down at me from a clownishly painted face, giving his red, rubber nose a squeaky tweak before slipping his hands into plastic glove, "My ladies, I'm honored by so much beauty. Please tell me you have come to purchase some cotton candy."

"Of course," Leda replies, "We'll need the sugar to give us the energy for all the fun we're going to have."

"I hope you like raspberry, little princess," he says to me with a wink.

I just smile happily as he hands me a paper cone full of the cottony perfection. He seems a little taken aback by my silence, but purses up his lips to make a resonating raspberry anyway. Leda laughs at this and takes her own cone of spun sugar, pulling a piece off between her thumb and forefinger and popping it into her mouth.

"Yummy," she says, smiling at the clown.

"Just what the doctor ordered, Bellabooo?" Neesa asks me.

I nod as my mouth is so full of cotton candy I am afraid of splattering people with blue sugar if I speak. She accepts her own paper cone from the clownish vendor.

"Dr. Mom? Which one of you would that be?" He asks conversationally.

"Neither, actually," Neesa replies.

"Ah, I was sure you were both too young to have a daughter that age. Sisters then?"

Leda giggles and looks at Neesa questioningly. Neesa smiles back but shakes her head in the negative before responding, "No, we're just the babysitters."

"Yes, she's quite the handful and since so few people can be in two places at one time..." Neesa trails off, leaving the vendor looking perplexedly at his own red nose, as she pays him and leads us away.

"Oh, look, Fun House Mirrors. Let's go in there," Leda says.

I trail after them into the dim interior of the building as both my hands and my attention are involved with holding and eating cotton candy. I get the feeling I am going to be made to wash the blue, sticky mess from my hands before anyone wants to hold my hand again anyway. We hit the first wall of mirrors and Leda exclaims with delight, "Oh, look at me. I'm one of the little people from Willow."

"Does that make me a hobbit child?" I ask as I walk up behind her and peer at my short, plump self, staring back at me over a half empty, incredibly wide cone of blue candy.

"Even better, we're hobbits," Neesa replies.

"I'd rather be an elf," Leda replies and we wander off to the next set of mirrors.

"Wishes come true," Neesa says, observing her elongated form in this next set of mirrors.

"And we now have true comic book super hero legs," Leda says, observing her legs which appear to be the length of my entire body from the perspective of these mirrors.

Both of them laugh at this and we make our way through more hallways lined with mirrors. I watch my image be distorted in every way that it possibly can be. The ones I like the best are the ones where my scars seem to fade away. My face is stretched and distorted into strange semblances of a visage, but the scars are no longer visible.

We finally stumble back out into the throngs wending their way from ride to building to ride to building and back again. The air is filled with shrieks of delight, laughter, and the undertone of vendors calling out the worth of their wares. We find ourselves caught up in one of the waves of people. Neesa and Leda look at each other and shrug. Each drapes an arm across my shoulders and we are washed together toward another large building.

"Tunnel of Terror" is emblazoned across the front of the door. The door itself is shaped like a skull with sunken eyes and a gaping hole for a mouth that is also the door.

"Shall we?" Leda says looking at me.

I shrug. I can't imagine that anything can scare me after all that I have been through in the past couple of months. We join the line, waiting impatiently with the rest of the people who want to test their tolerance for terror. I finish the last of my cotton candy, between jostles, bumps, and snatches of conversation. Leda and Neesa begin chatting about something I don't understand, so I zone them out to watch strangers walking past instead.

The people in the crowd are as varied as the students at the superdude academy. Old men hold the hands of young children who drag them along, rushing grandpa along to see what else he will buy them. Some teenagers pass by, laughing and elbowing each other meaningfully. A few families wander past, holding hands, smiling and laughing. These I can not look at for long without feeling sad, so I am thankful when we are finally crushed toward the door which is opening again.

Soon we are sitting on the hard plastic seats of the train that will take us deep into the heart of the Tunnel of Terror. Leda fluffs my hair as she sits down next to me. Neesa makes sure my seatbelt is on securely. They both assure me that they are there, just in case I get scared. I giggle at this. Surely, nothing can scare me, after all.

The train starts slowly and then picks up speed as it sinks into the ground. Somewhere behind us, a small child has already begun to scream. The lights go out and we can only feel our movement not see what is passing by in the darkness. A recorded voice drones on, trying to outdo the screams as it builds up a feeling of horror. We race pasts ghosts, soar down into a pit of snakes, wind through corridors of dark knights and dripping, green ooze, feel bats whooshing past us as we begin a slow climb. I yawn internally, but make screams of fright now and then just to play along and maybe to keep the still screaming child in the back company.

Then the train stops. Someone murmurs in the darkness that they don't remember this from the last time. Then the darkness becomes tangible. I can feel something in the darkness watching me. Two glowing green eyes, flecked with dark, oily spots blink at the train from the darkness. I hear Neesa's voice, "Leda, you don't think?"

Leda's response is lost in my screams, real screams of innate human fear. The dragon comes for me then. My screams have erased all its doubts that what it seeks is here. I can hear nothing but my screams. A puff of flame shoots across the top of the train. I see every one in front of me duck. I hear someone whisper that the flames are real; they can feel the heat. I feel someone fumbling at my waist. Then I am being pulled roughly out of my seat.

Leda and Neesa become one entity. Two women become one mother, one protector, one in purpose. My screams have stopped, choked by my terror. Leda's voice replaces them with wisdom, "Run, Bella, we have to run."

We are back in the first part of the tunnel. We are racing back along the tracks we have already traced. Stimulated by our movements, the images start again. Bats whoosh past us once more, flying with us as we race down the steep incline toward the oozing corridor. As the green ooze begins to seep down the walls again, we hear a high-pitched squeal.

Curiosity makes me half turn even as I run. I see the dragon again, something black oozes from it as it dangles from the mechanism that controls the bats. It has become entangled in their wires and now fights hopelessly to release itself. This angers it more, causing it to struggle until the wires tear through its scaled flesh. The smell of its blood reaches me. Acidic and tainted by evil, it causes my stomach to wrench.

I fall to my knees. Neesa and Leda are kneeling beside me instantly. I am not sure whose hands are on me as I wretch miserably, again and again. One of their voices tries to be heard over the dragon's screams of rage and pain. I can hear nothing. My mind shuts down almost completely.

I am pulled to my feet again. Leda lifts me into her arms and I clutch tightly to her. She carries me out a small door hidden behind the canvas that covers the walls. We pop out into the afternoon light and I blink. A few people look at us oddly for we seem to appear from nowhere and then hurriedly look away from my ashen face. I rest my head on Leda's shoulder as they make their way to the car.

"You're a bigger girl than I thought," Leda says, smiling at me as she helps me into my seat and fastens me in.

"It'll be okay, baby Bella," Neesa says, running a hand along my forehead and then wiping away some tears I didn't know I was crying.

"We better get moving, Neesa. We don't know that there was only one," Leda says, opening the passenger side door.

Neesa nods, racing to the other side of the car. As she turns the engine over, she turns to Leda, "I have never seen them so determined to claim someone before."

"It's because she is so young," Leda replies.

"Young and easy to shape in their image..."

"Not our Bellabooo, not that image."

"No, never our baby Bella."

"Does this mean I can't go outside anymore?" I ask.

Neither of them answers me. They just look at each other with dark worried eyes. Then their eyes go back to scanning the road and the skies for any sign of pursuit or imminent ambush.