Marrionetta gasped for air. She had been tucked away in a trunk for nearly an entire day. Coffins! For the worms! she had concluded and vowed to be burned away in a kiln before anybody confined her in such a way again.
Doctor Lorelei retrieved her head from the box and promptly muzzled it. In protest, Marrionetta let all the musculature in her carved face relax so that she looked like a foul, drooping animal. The doctor however, paid her little attention.
Marrionetta noticed that it was morning. Business hours. Lorelei had already finished a pot and a half of coffee. She could tell from the light tremor of his hand that he had probably overdone it, both on the coffee and maybe on something else more stimulating the night before. She also noticed that he had bruising about the hands. She wondered if he had murdered anyone while she had been stuffed away in the trunk. The trunk must have been soundproofed because she hadn’t heard anything through the night except the cacophony of her own manic reflections. This confused her as Lorelei had already murdered plenty of people in front of her. Why the sudden need for privacy?
Doctor Lorelei retrieved another box. From this box sprang Marrionetta’s feet. The feet excitedly kicked and flexed themselves in hopes of achieving freedom but alas, that was not their destiny. At least not today.
Lorelei affixed the feet to the bottom of Marrionetta’s head. He then attached her muzzle to a lead and began dragging her out of The Emerald House. She squatly plodded along behind him. At first she tried to keep up with his long, loping stride. It was in vain. He did not care that he was effectively dragging her. She screamed through the muzzle but found — after a time — that it was not worth her energy. By the time they got to the bottom of the hill, she was caked in grass and dirt clods. Her eyes were daggers, gleaming with hatred.
After a jeering personal parade, Marrionetta and the doctor finally arrived at their destination. The mess. In front of the building stood a stockade. It surprised Marrionetta to see it although she immediately recognized what it was. She had seen many stockades throughout the many centuries she had lived. What shocked her though, was who was in this particular stockade. It was Goren Hargus.
Goren was purple and glistening with fresh pain. She knew immediately that this was who Doctor Lorelei had treated the night before to his special and unseemly profession of torture.
All her previous peevishness towards this Goren melted away in an instant. Goren and Marrionetta’s eyes met. She noticed his expression change when he recognized her, head and feet and all, rolling along behind the doctor. Even in the state he was already in, it seemed to reduce him even more to see her on a leash.
She didn’t like the look that came into Goren’s eyes. Instinctively, she arched an undaunted eyebrow at him. Almost straightaways she was dragged further along by the doctor. Still she felt sure she had detected a smile forming in the creases of Goren’s eyes just before she was carried off. It was as if he had something to her. Like, If only Drutherstone could see us now. Or something like that.
Still, it alarmed her that Goren was imprisoned and on display. She tried think why or how things could have happened this way. She could think of no exact reason but it occurred on her very keenly that the doctor appeared to be eliminating any person who had the vaguest semblance of control or authority in the circus. This seemed to go beyond typical visigoth behavior. She felt a creeping sense of dread that the doctor apparently had depths of talent she had not previously understood.
I was scouting fare she realized. Somehow, she felt that the circus was doomed. Or at least at least as a commercial enterprise it was doomed. But why us? Why us and our second rate little circus? Couldn’t he have left well enough alone? Her mind pounded over trying to connect her circus with the machine he had been building for months. How were these two events so converged upon each other?
Lorelei had been speaking with a few of the other circus employ outside the mess but now turned his attention back to Marrionetta. He bowed down and prepared to scoop her into his arms. Before he did it though, he spoke very briefly into her ear.
“Bite me, love, and I’ll leave you out here for a game of football among the lads. You wouldn’t like that, would you?” He didn’t wait for an answer and promptly picked her up like a small dog and carried her into the mess hall.
Inside, there was a gaggle of lever boys. Many of them were acting impatiently, Marrionetta noticed. Tapping their feet, running their fingers through their hair. Impatient for what though? Presently, the lever boys recognized her and became uproarious at the spectacle of seeing bold Marrionetta reduced to a head on string. A few of them tried to put their fingers in her mouth and she promptly bit them, drawing blood. Lorelei laughed with the younger boys for a time but finally he prohibited further molestation of Marrionetta’s head in favor of better plans.
“Enough of that, boys. We have a trial to plan.”
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