This choice: Leave Cabinda and continue your plans • Go Back...Chapter #18The Princess of Pop by: imaj   Five months later.
“You can just wait out here dad,” you wheedle. It’s difficult to form the words properly over your braces and they come out in a bit of a lisp. “I mean, you don’t like her music anyway. So I’m doing you a favour really.”
“No Char,” says the man wearily, your new father you suppose. He has a good two feet on you in height, so he looks down at you with a warm tired smile. “You’re too young to go in by yourself.”
“Am not,” you sulk. Charlotte Donovan, the girl who’s imago you are wearing now, is very sensitive about her age. Was very sensitive, and now that you’re Charlotte you get to be sensitive about her ten and three quarters years too. The three quarters part is very important. Practically a teenager, the Charlotte part of you thinks.
Another part of you, a very small part, feels a little empathy for Charlotte’s father. You remember what it’s like to wrangle pre-teen girls, and at least you had Eldibria to help you. He’ll be heartbroken by the end of the evening you imagine. You wonder if it would make it better or worse for him to find out an impostor has been wearing his daughter’s face for the last week.
“Besides,” your dad continues. “I paid for a ticket to see this Britney…”
“Her name’s Breeanna,” you interrupt angrily. Your dad's smile widens. He’s messing you about! “Oh that’s not fair!”
“I’m going to see this Breeanna because my number one daughter is her number one fan,” he smiles again.
Ugh, it was better when he was messing with you. “Whatever,” you say with a roll of your eyes. Secretly though, you’re excited for what comes next. You and Charlotte, though for quite different reasons.
You pull your dad by the hand, leading him up the wide stairway in the foyer towards the auditorium proper. The crowd of pre-teen and young teenage girls, and the odd apathetic looking parent, drifts along in the same direction. You aren’t quite scattering them in your wake, but you’re certainly making it clear that you’re in a bit more of a hurry than they are. Because you’re a bigger fan than they are, obvs.
You reach the crest of the stairs and step into the auditorium. It’s dark, but they haven’t lowered the house lights fully yet so it’s still possible to see your way to your seats. The distant stage is empty save for a low fog of dry ice clinging to the floor like a morning mist. A light show plays out in silence, periodically casting the auditorium into a pink and neon blue glow.
“Over here,” says your dad, leading you to a pair of seats close to the back of the auditorium. It’s not a great view, and if you were the real Charlotte, you’d be a little disappointed. Your dad opens a coat pocket and pulls out a couple of chocolate bars. “Here,” he says, offering you one. “I brought you something.”
You recognise the brand, and a Charlotte memory screams Lame at you. “Ugh, Dad,” you whine. “Could you be any more embarrassing?”
“I can always try harder,” he grins. “Well, if you don’t want them.”
You snatch one of the bars from his hand and tear it open, greedily stuffing the contents into your mouth. It still tastes good though now you’ll have to make up for it later and skip supper or something. “Didn’t say that,” you mumble, your mouth full.
“Shhh, it’s starting” you dad says, prompting another eye roll. The house lights finally cut out and the auditorium starts to throb to a cheerfully high tempo beat. In the distance, barely visible from your seat, a young blonde woman strides confidently out onto the stage. Five thousand young girls start screaming in delight as Breeanna launches breathlessly into her first song.
“I need to go toilet,” you whine to your dad.
He looks at you rather incredulously, then nods in acceptance. You shuffle past a couple of other young teens. They glance at you in annoyance as you break their line of sight to the stage. No one pays any attention to you once you reach the aisle though. You wonder if any of the audience will feel a little remorse about that when they watch the news tomorrow. Then you slip back down the stairs and into the now empty foyer.
A couple of staff members are floating about, barely paying you any attention. You make sure it stays that way by wrapping them in your cloak. Then you head towards a set of double doors at one side of the foyer. According to the plans you memorised last week, they lead into the backstage area. The two burly guards at the door let you pass without incident, largely because you pull them within the folds of your cloak as well as soon as you get close.
The well appointed foyer gives way to a more spartan corridor, with concrete block walls and pipework visible. The perky thumping of the music recedes as you make your way deeper into the warren of corridors. On more than one occasion you have to duck into an alcove, or use your cloak as an employee of the auditorium or one of Breeanna’s entourage goes past.
You fear you are getting lost until the music starts to get louder. The bare walls and floor give way to expensive carpets and drapes. Then you find what you’re looking for - Breeanna’s dressing room. The star on the door is a big giveaway. No one else is about, so you open the door cautiously and enter.
Inside, an older woman sits in a chair which faces a large, illuminated mirror. She must have heard you open the door, because she spins it round to face you before you can weave your cloak around her. She’s heavyset, and maybe around five and half feet tall, wearing jeans and a camisole that are maybe just a little too small for her. Dark roots show in her bleached blonde hair. She takes one look at you and her round face crinkles up into a warm smile.
“Aw sweetie,” she says, a distinctive Australian twang to her voice. “Didja get lost?”
You look around the room: At the mirrors and the makeup. The rack of different costumes for each of Breeanna’s sets. At the woman in the chair, who you know to be Marjory Wilson. She does Breeanna’s hair and makeup before each concert, at least that’s what you and Charlotte read on Breeanna’s InstaFeed stream.
“No,” you smile darkly. “I think I’m exactly where I meant to be. You know Breeanna don’t you?”
The woman - Marjory - frowns as she stands up from the chair. “You can’t be here sweetie,” she explains patiently, giving you another sugary smile. “Breeanna needs a little break from things from time to time.” She holds out her hand for you. “Whodja come here with? Let’s get yah back to them.”
You meet her hand with your own, summoning a complex sigil to it as you do. As you hands meet, her imago slides inside you. Memories of a long friendship that predates Breeanna’s rise to fame rise in your mind when you summon them. Good to know - you’d been worried that what you’d read about Marjory might have been little more than a pile of warm PR bullshit.
Marjory gasps a little when she realises she can’t move any further. She never makes another noise. All there is the frozen expression of horror on her face as she starts to shrink. Even that is hidden after a few seconds when her head disappears into the folds of her clothes.
You don’t bother to disrobe before pulling on Marjory’s physical imago. Pre-teen sized clothes burst at the seams, then disintegrate into ash as you use Arbol’s embers to destroy them. Your new flesh jiggles and shakes as you pick up Marjory’s abandoned clothes from the floor and shake them out. It takes only a few minutes to put on your new outfit.
Then you settle into being Marjory in mind as well as in body. Breeanna will surely need her closest confidant by the end of the evening, for you imagine she will be distraught when everybody discovers about the young girl that went missing tonight.
To stop reminiscing, attend to Fi's reports in "A Short Hop" 
You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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