Page 33 of Little Doll

Wilhelmina gave me a tight-lipped smile. “Thank you,” she said. She was pulling on a silky robe over her costume when she walked out, and I noticed she hurried to don the cover quicker.

My cheeks flamed. “I’m sorry, Miss. I… I’m certain you hear that all the time.”

She smiled again, a little more warmly this time. “Well, yes. That is true.”

“It is not my wish to be like everyone else,” I said softly. Emotion caught in my throat, strangling my voice a bit. But I stared into her eyes anyway, despite my slip in manliness.

Her eyes snapped to mine. “Oh?” she said.

“Definitely not,” I said, a little lower and with another slow smile.

I visited the Grimm Fair every evening for a month. Every night after her show, I managed to steal a few moments with her, strolling in the moonlight, holding hands and laughing. I treasured every moment with her, but there were things I observed. Things I certainly did not treasure.

Bruises, for one. Beautiful tattoos covered so much of her skin, yet sometimes black spatterings of bruises like fingerprints appeared amongst the designs. Bruises so vivid and brutal that they still stood out among the lovely chaos of her.

Sometimes she limped. When asked, she would attribute her aches and pains to the rigorous routine of practicing and performing her act. But I knew differently. Watching her body move, it was obvious that it had long ago become second nature to her. Obvious that swaying, twisting, and bending caused her no pain.

So how was she being hurt?

I noticed when the ringmaster barked commands at her, her beautiful blue eyes would take on a sudden haunted look. His voice could snap her out of a happy moment in an instant and send her fleeing back to him. When I asked her who he was to her, she explained he was herfather. How such a ghastly looking man had begotten such a lovely daughter was beyond me. But I quickly came to hate the sound of his voice and the frightened look in her eyes when she heard it.

Some evenings, while Wilhelmina performed, I would wander about the carnival playing games to win her little trinkets. I would’ve gladly watched every show, but she didn’t want her father to notice me. So I got to know some of the other circus entertainers and the carnival workers. Little by little, I asked questions and learned about my darling Wilhelmina.

And the devils who had raised her.

It was soon clear that Wilhelmina had lived a life of violence and terror at the hands of her wicked father and two brutish, drunken brothers. Most of the people of the Grimm Fair were in the Payne family. But those who weren’t related loved Wilhelmina and were eager to see her rescued from the Fair.

One fellow was a carnival barker who took notice of me. He looked around mine and Wilhelmina’s age. Aside from his poor clothing, dark tattoos, and disheveled appearance and demeanor, I knew he was what the ladies would consider very attractive. I learned his name was Mattheo. At first, he was cross with me and borderline rude. But I realized he was in love with Wilhelmina. I certainly couldn’t blame him.

It was one rainy evening when I would discover just how much.

I awaited Wilhelmina outside the contortionist tent, as usual. My spot was beneath a tree and some distance off to the side. I was to wait for her to finish, dress, and sneak away to come to me. This night was different, however.

Her father, the ringmaster, gripped her arm and ripped her out of the back tent flap into the rainy night. She shrieked as her father hurtled her into the mud. “Goddamn you girl!” he roared in his strange thin voice.

Her beautiful costume splattered with muck and mire and her hair became instantly drenched in the downpour. Her makeup ran and gave her crying face an unearthly, eerie quality.

I took a slight step forward, not quite emerging from the shadows. I wanted to do what Wilhelmina would want me to do, which would likely be: stay hidden.

But I also wanted to murder Emmett Payne, the evil bastard who fathered the great love of my life.

Next, Emmett Payne drew back his leg and aimed his heavily booted huge foot directly at Wilhelmina’s face.

Naturally, I exploded.

I don’t recall closing the distance between us, but in a flash of fury, I had him down in the mud and was slamming my fists into his face. I wassurprised how little fight such a big man put forth. Especially one who was so tough that he was about to kick the face in of his own daughter. Yet, with great ease, I slammed one fist, and then my other, and then the first, and then the other again, down into his hollow face. Again, and again. I heard the bones in his face crunch. I heard the bones in my hands crunch. But I kept hitting him, anyway. I saw the blood mixed with the splashing rain on the blackening bruised flesh of my knuckles and I tasted it, splattering up into my face. Deranged in that moment, I thought it was good I was old enough to be safe from our curse. That’s what I was thinking when Payne’s body stopped moving altogether. And his guttural groans and wet gurgling pleas for mercy went quiet.

Her voice came to me like it was coming from a down a long tunnel.

“Costel! Costel, please!”

My ears started to ring and all the sudden I could hear everything else besides our breaking bones.

Wilhelmina was hitting my back and pulling on my soaking wet coat, begging me off her father. Mattheo was also on my back, and then a mime, a clown and a man shorter than three feet were on me too, struggling to pull me off Emmett.

My body became weak, and I let them jerk me back. I fell back into the mud, exhausted. Spent. Wilhelmina tumbled down on top of me, her face buried in my chest and weeping.

After a few seconds of trying to calm my spinning head, I scooted into a sitting position and lifted her onto my lap, cradling her against me. I caressed her face and hid her eyes from her deathly still father, who scarcely had a face left. It certainly wasn’t a recognizable one.

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