Marrionetta extruded more chlorophyll slime into the bucket beneath her chin. Violet patted her forehead and neck down with a cool washcloth. The pupptress’s hair was tied up in pretty french braids — safely away from her mouth and sweating temples. The braids were Violet’s handiwork.
“Were they in here?” Violet asked, gingerly pushing in on one of Marrionetta’s little body drawers. There were three drawers inside Marrionetta. One in her neck that pulled out long. A slender vertical cabinet that opened laterally down the length of her arm. The last was a small, round pocket in her lower abdomen. They were all pegged tightly shut. Using her finger, Violet lightly outlined their silhouettes. Marrionetta nodded. Yes, that’s where the organ plugs were stored.
Violet had been keeping herself in the dressing rooms with Marrionetta. Marionetta slept almost exclusively on the ruby red sette. She didn’t seem to mind that Violet had taken the bed on the platform. There were a few other unspoken rules and ideas that had emerged between the two of them. Violet went and fetched her meals, braided her hair, and changed out her vomiting bucket every hour or so. Marrionetta had begun sharing little favors of her own with Violet, insisting she try some of her expensive perfumes or treating herself to a silk robe for the day.
During a long stretch of afternoon, the two dancers had touched on the exploratory idea that Violet might be able to remove the implants inside of Marrionetta. They could use Marrionetta’s various pries. Marrionetta had collected many good quality tools over the years — mostly gold plated or decorated with small gems — to open and close her private drawers and to cinch open her pegs. She didn’t like to do it though. Lorelei had used his own tools. They were cold, she recalled. For the removal, it all just depended on when Marrionetta could work up the nerve. Violet hadn’t pressed the issue once it had been delicately floated during one of their many oblique conversations. Marrionetta was still feeling extremely sick and they both wondered if removing them altogether would hasten an even nastier outcome.
There was a rapid knock on Marrionetta’s door. “Mary!” came a sprucing command. “It’s Goren! Let me in, please?”
“Priggin’! Foo!” Marrionetta’s mouth turned into a layering frown. Then, her stomach upturned and she quietly spat a long, silken strand of green mucous which hung forever and a day from her mouth before depositing itself into the bucket. “Make him go away.”
Violet moved towards the door. “Miss Mary isn’t feeling well at the moment.”
“Violet?” asked Goren. “Thank god. Open the door. Mary’s needed at rehearsal. The major is in less than three weeks. We have to stage out her latest choreography.
Violet’s hands traced up her forearms. She looked at Mary with questioning eyes. Marrionetta waved her hands irritably. No.
“Maybe later?” Violet asked through the door.
Goren started pounding on the door. “Marrionetta, you selfish, wayward, dolly! If you don’t show up for rehearsal we can’t lay out the stage rigs! Nobody else can get rehearsed. The shifts will spend all of opening night crashing up against each others’ noses and your very own cherished, stinking act will be a lousy, hazy mess just thanks to everyone’s inability to sort out the operational trim! So quit lying around like a useless bunch and get your shaven sticks to the big top!”
“Tinsel spring!” Marrionetta shouted back through the door. Violet looked confused.
“What?” said Goren.
“Tinsel spring! The year we put on the silver tinsel and Ernt had the elephants dressed as fairies. I’ll do that one. So set it up that way.”
There was a long pause on the other side of the door.
“Fine,” Goren said at last. “But you had better be there tomorrow!”
They heard Goren stomp away down the hall. Marrionetta cinched her nose at Violet, a finely tuned enmeshing of spite and laughter. Violet smiled back, nervous that she had somehow won Marrionetta’s momentary favor. Then Marrionetta stuck her head back in the bucket and vomited threefold.
x9dread 