THREE
“You can give me just as many dirty looks as you like, Mother. It won’t change a thing.”
“Eloise! Really, how can you speak to me that way? It’s like we’ve taught you nothing at all. Clearly, the influence of your upbringing hasn’t done much for you.”
Eloise chose not to respond to her mother, but instead to focus her attention in on her father. This had been a wicked standoff between the three of them, by the far the worst she could remember since that time she was six and had decided she would no longer bathe.
When she looked at the grandfather clock placed in the corner of her father’s office, she saw that she had been sitting in there for more than an hour. More than an hour of going round and round in circles about a thing she wanted more than she could remember ever wanting anything in all of her life.
She couldn’t even understand why! That was the thing she found the most frustrating of all. It wasn’t like she had always had some kind of love affair with carnivals, nothing so cut and dry as that. Honestly, she’d never really considered them, one way or the other. That being said, the moment she’d looked at the paper and seen the clipping advertising this one, she’d known she would have to go. Knowing had been the easy part. Convincing her parents to go along with her plan, on the other hand, was proving to be highly problematic.
“And to think, after all of that time and effort I put into planning your debutante ball! All of that work, all of those lovely, elegant people, and this is the way you grow up? Wanting to run around with carnival trash?”
In that moment, Eloise loathed her mother. It wasn’t a permanent feeling (Eloise had little luck when it came to holding a grudge) and would be evaporated by the time she went to bed that night, but in the moment, the feeling was very real indeed. She hated the fact that her mother acted like there was no world outside of the one directly associated with them. She hated the prim, almost panicked tone her mother’s voice so often took on when she got good and worked up.
Most of all, she hated how much they looked like each other. It wasn’t that there was anything exactly wrong with her mom’s appearance, she was beautiful, actually, but it was the idea that the similarity put into Eloise’s head. It made her think that in another couple of decades, she would become what her mother had become; rigid and closed off to anything new.
One thing was certain, if her mother’s aim had been to put the carnival idea to rest, she had failed dismally. Instead, the opposite had been achieved. Now more than ever, Eloise was convinced that she would be going to that carnival. Not only that, but now she was sure it would have to be that very night; the opening night. She would have that and nothing else. She opened her mouth to say that very thing, when her father stepped in and beat her to the punch.
“It’s enough, Claudette.”
“But Edward! How can you even think of—”
“I said it’s enough. Don’t make me say it again.”
Claudette Wright, who would have eviscerated anyone else who dared to speak to her in such an authoritarian tone, shut her mouth immediately. She had her opinions on the subject and she would continue to have them, but she would hold them silently from that point on. She was a strong enough woman when she had to be, Claudette Wright was, but not strong enough to stand up to her husband.
Never strong enough for that. Instead, she turned her eyes on Eloise, maybe hoping that just the force of the stare alone would be enough to put the matter to rest, but of course that was not the case. The matter would be settled between father and daughter now, with the mother soundly removed from the equation.
“Now,” Edward spoke smoothly to his daughter, acting like nothing of substance had happened between him and his wife at all, “I can see that you’re determined to go to this thing. I’ve known you since you came into this world and I reckon I can see it in your eyes when you don’t mean to back down off a thing.”
“You’re right, I don’t.”
“What I want to understand is why.”
“Why what?”
“Don’t play dumb,” Eloise’s father snapped sharply, causing her to blush furiously with anger and shame, “you know I don’t like that in a woman. Answer the question.”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t, or you won’t?”
“I can’t, at least not completely. I guess I don’t really know. I just...I looked at the paper and there it was. I saw the advertisement and I knew I had to go. Haven’t you ever done that, Daddy? Looked at something and known you had to have it?”
“Sure, I have. How do you think I got your mother?”
Eloise and her father both glanced at Claudette, checking to see if the nod to the long-ago courtship was enough to make up for the slight she’d been handed, but the chilly look on her face told them it hadn’t been. Eloise’s father shrugged, less bothered by the woman’s anger than he should have been, and went back to the business of dealing with his daughter.
“And what will you do when you get there?”
“You mean I can go?!”
“No, I didn’t say that. At this point we’re still dealing in theoreticals. I want to know what you plan to do if you go to that carnival tonight.”
“What does anyone plan to do? I plan to have a good time! I plan to eat foods I shouldn’t and ride rides until I feel sick. I plan to play games I already know are rigged, but you know what? I won’t care that they’re rigged because at least I’ll be doing something!”
“And what if you lose control?”
The mood in the room changed immediately, almost like the air itself had all of a sudden become something semi-toxic. It was a simple enough question, a question any fly on the wall observer would certainly misinterpret, but Eloise understood her father perfectly.
“Losing control” wasn’t some theoretical concept for her where maybe she’d spend too much money or make a fool out of herself or something. It was about more than reputation for the Wright family, something that went beyond Claudette’s supreme need to keep up appearances.
For Eloise, “losing control” could quite literally become a matter of life and death. For her, maybe, but certainly for the people around her. It was something she hadn’t even considered, something she never considered, but now that her father had brought it up it was the only thing she could think about.
If he’d wanted to scare her, he’d done a wonderful job. It was almost enough to make her want to back down off of the carnival idea entirely. Almost, but not quite. She’d already invested too much time in the matter and besides, she really did want to go. There was something drawing her to it, something she couldn’t explain but had no desire to ignore.
“I won’t,” she answered in a voice barely above a whisper, cringing at the sound of her own weakness.
“How do you know?”
“I just do. I never lose control, do I? Have I ever? Even once?”
“No, I suppose you haven’t. That’s good, Eloise, really, but have you ever considered that some of that might be due to your mother and I? We’ve gone a long way to make sure you aren’t in a position where you might do something you would regret. Because you would, you know. Losing control and hurting a bunch of innocent people is hard to move past. It’s something that stays with a person.”
Eloise stared at her father, desperate to get at the true meaning behind his words, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore. Instead, he was looking at her mother, intently, almost like he’d just asked her for an update on the weather instead of referencing the possibility of mass murder.
Her mother was staring back at him, her eyes wide and seemingly unseeing. In fact, Claudette Wright looked like she had seen a ghost, or something worse than a ghost. Her face was an alarming shade of white, all of the blood suddenly drained out of it. When she swayed a little where she stood, Eloise jumped up, worried and ready to catch the woman if she should fall.
“Mom! Are you okay? You look like you’re going to faint or something.”
“I’m quite alright. Just a spell. A spell of dizziness. I think I’ll go lie down, if that’s alright with everyone. Just until it passes, you know.”
“Of course, honey,” Eloise’s father answered in a voice as smooth as cream. “You go do that. I’ll finish hashing things out here.”
Claudette waved one hand over her shoulder, having already started quickly out of the room. Once she was gone, Eloise turned back to her father, full of the feeling that something was being kept from her. It was a feeling she was well familiar with, seeing as it happened in her household with some frequency.
“What the hell was that about?”
“Language, Eloise. At least try to act like a lady when you’re around me, will you? It’ll make me feel better.”
“Okay, but really. What was that? What’s wrong with mom?”
“No doubt my words brought back some unsavory memories for her, poor thing. You see, your mother wasn’t always the way she is now. She had some of your same wildness. Unfortunately, she couldn’t keep herself in line. She was in a crowded celebration, some place in Europe, I think, and she got scared.
When that happens, our first instinct is to shift, which you know. Well, that’s exactly what she did. She shifted, and she killed four people before she got away. She was lucky she could get away. If they’d caught her, they would’ve killed her for sure. She doesn’t like me bringing it up, but sometimes a point just has to be made.”
“That’s awful,” Eloise replied in a rush of breath, her stomach doing an uncomfortable little flip flop that made her glad the only thing she’d eaten was toast. “I had no idea.”
“It is awful, which is why I brought it up. It’s a real possibility, Eloise. You need to know that, if you’re going to be in a crowd.”
“If I’m going to be—?”
“That’s right, you heard me. You can go to the damned carnival if that’s what you really want. You know I don’t like saying no to you. Just remember, there’s going to be a whole mess of people, a whole lot more than you’re used to being around.
Pay attention to what you’re feeling. If you feel a shift start to come on, get out of there. Stop whatever you’re doing and just get out. Understand? You get out and you come straight home.”
“Thank you! Oh, my god, thanks! Honest, I mean it. I’m so excited!”
“You’re welcome, but tell me that you understood me first, before you get to celebrating.”
“I understand. I’ll be careful, and if anything starts to feel off, I’ll come home.”
“Good. Now, there’s just one more condition.”
“Okay,” Eloise responded slowly, wondering if it had all been a trick and she’d gotten her hopes up for nothing. “What’s that?”
“I don’t want you going to that thing alone. There’s all sorts of folks at a thing like that I don’t love the idea of you associating with. I want you to go with somebody. Take Penelope, will you? She’s a good girl, got a good head on her shoulders. She’ll help make sure nothing goes wrong.”
“You know what?” Eloise grinned, scurrying around her father’s desk so she could give him a hug. “I think that’s an excellent idea!”
***
“No way! Nope, not interested. Sorry.”
“But Penelope!”
“You can count me out. I don’t want to.”
“But you have to!”
Penelope looked at Eloise as if she’d gone temporarily insane, which was sort of how she felt. The more people who made themselves obstacles to her getting her way on this thing, the more sure she was that she had to go. It wasn’t just a want anymore, it was a need. Part of her wanted to come out and tell Penelope that, but she was well aware that it would make her sound crazy.
Crazy wasn’t going to get her friend to accompany her to the carnival, and the only way she was going to the carnival was if she brought her friend. She supposed she could have just lied and gone alone, but it wasn’t in her nature to do a thing like that. At least not yet. Instead, she was dead set on getting Penelope to go along with her plan, whether the less adventurous friend was interested in it or not. She sat down on the girl’s large four poster bed, putting on her most indulgent smile.
“Come on, Penelope, you know you want to go.”
“I don’t, though! Why would I want to go to a carnival? Can you even imagine what sort of people are at a place like that?”
“All kinds of people! That’s the whole point!”
“But you don’t know what it’ll be like. What if they’re all crazy people? What if we get hurt or something?”
Eloise loved Penelope, she really did. The two of them had been friends since they were little girls, two little peas in a pod practically from birth. Their parents had adjoining properties which put them in perfect proximity for friendship. They’d never questioned it, they’d just played with each other, making up all different kinds of magical worlds in which to while away the hours.
Now that they were both twenty-two, Eloise sometimes wondered if the two of them would still be friends if they were to happen to meet, but it was a thought she tried very hard to avoid. Yes, the two of them were very different, but that sort of thing worked in friendships all of the time.
Penelope was a little bit on the plump side, something her mother had tried to fix from the age of twelve on with little to no success. She had rather dull brown hair and brown eyes to match. She wasn’t the most noticeable girl, and as she and Eloise had aged that had become a wedge between the two of them.
Perhaps that was one of the reasons Penelope was so quick to shoot Eloise down whenever she had a wild idea. Perhaps it was her way of grabbing some power for herself. Honestly, Eloise didn’t care. She just wanted her to say yes, and she was willing to play every card in her hand to get her to do so.
“Come on, Penelope. We won’t get hurt. You know I’m an excellent chaperone.”
“Chaperone? Who says I need a chaperone? You’re two months younger than me.”
“That’s right! Then maybe you should be the chaperone. Make sure I don’t get into any trouble.”
“Why is this so important to you, Eloise? I can tell it is, but I can’t figure out how come.”
“I don’t know. It just...is. I really want to do this, Penelope. I want us to do things, to do new things. I want us to explore. I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t want us to end up like our mothers.”
That was it. That was the ticket. Eloise knew that Penelope harbored a deep-seated fear that she would one day turn out to be just like her bitter, buttoned-up mother. It was the same fear Eloise held inside of her heart, but both girls knew that Penelope was in much greater danger of really doing it.
Her knowledge of that made her willing to do something out of character and possibly dangerous, just to prove that she could. It was a window of her personality that wouldn’t stay open for very long, but it didn’t need to. Not for Eloise’s purposes, anyway.
“Alright.”
“Alright? What do you mean, alright?”
“Oh, come on, don’t play dumb with me. I know that game too well. Alright. As in, alright, I’ll go to the carnival with you.”
“Oh, my god! Thank you, Penelope! Thank you so much! We’re going to have such a good time.”
“Just so long as you don’t make a habit of this kind of thing. I know you aren’t in love with the circles our families run in, but I am. I like the kind of lives we lead. I don’t want excitement every day, at least not the same kind that you’re looking for.”
“Right, of course. Point taken. But tonight, though. Tonight, you’re coming with me?”
“Tonight, I’m going with you.”
Eloise hopped up onto her feet, bouncing up and down on the bed and crowing loudly in victory. It was only the insistent tugging of Penelope that got her to sit down again, and that was only to keep her from taking it all back. She slung her arms around her, hugging her fiercely. Against the odds, everything was working out beautifully. Everything was working out exactly as she had hoped.