The Throw-Aways. Chapter 2

Chapter Two.

I’m sure this all seems completely baffling to you at the moment. After all, it confused the hell out of me when it happened and I am sorry to go this far without explaining it to you. I am even more sorry to say that I note be explaining this current predicament until it is needed, though.
You can argue that it is already needed, but that would be pointless.
If you are to follow me on this odd journey, than I shall not grant you the luxury of understanding when I had to be completely befuddled.

  Now where were we…Ah…


  The light creeping though the window was a strange mixture of orange and red when I opened my eyes. Through swollen eyelids I regarded the window itself as if it were on fire " So it appeared to me anyway. As my eyes focused, it became clear that it was nothing more than a shower of scarves tinting the mid-day sun as fought to push through the glass.
The sounds of crackling music forced its way into my ears. Voices that seemed ageless and yet ancient as they sang out their cheerful melody whipped through the atmosphere of the room. Pops and jumps betrayed its source as a record player. This fact only made the music from an era of war long past fit my surroundings even more. What I could see of my surroundings, at least.
The scrolling headboard of the bed I was laying on stretched above me, its dark wood curling in on itself to for a tight spiral. Above that were more scarves tangled around nails and hooks, flowing down to wave gently in the faint breeze from the ceiling fan. I rolled my head to the side, staring at the window once more. An elaborate vanity was set to one side, an old-world wardrobe to the other. Perfume bottles and makeup cases littered the washed surface of the vanity, making their own city of glass and plastic. Flowered silk of a dressing gown hung over the back of the small chair while the three panels of the mirror surveyed the rest of the room. Somewhere, past the foot of the bed, a half-empty bookshelf stood. It seemed almost to blend into the yellowing wallpaper behind it. I stared at it for a moment, fancying that I could see it frowning over the lack of content on its shelves.
My eyes scanned the reflections inside the mirror, drinking in the crystalline lamp near the door and the faded envelops adorning the wall above it. The record player was perched near the bookshelf on a thin legged table. It was an old thing, even among record players " The kind you had to wind before you would be rewarded with any sort of tune.

  I looked it all over twice more before I noticed her. A wing-back armchair had sprung up between the record player and the bookshelf in the time it took me to blink. The tattered, rust colour of the upholstery made her pale skin stand out in sharp relief.
He legs were crossed in a lady-like manner and one slipped clad foot was bouncing in time with the music. Her body was relaxed, seeming to melt against the chair as her thin arms draped over the arm rests. Shining black hair stood up in odd angels all over her head, though a small bit was brushing against her forehead. Eyes closed and a face so serene, for a moment I thought she could be asleep.

  I pushed myself up onto my elbows, rubbing my tired eyes.
“Good, you are awake. For a moment I thought I was mistaken.” It was a silk voice that I did not quite expect from the tiny occupant of the chair. I was slightly taken aback as she opened her eyes, leaning forward to observe me.
Until that moment, I had not given much thought to where I was or how I had come to be there. I should have considered the fact that I was not in my room or my bed, but it had slipped my mind in the early moments of wakefulness. Now the occurrences of the previous night came flooding back.
My hands clutched the blankets I lay on, finding some amount of comfort in handfuls of velveteen. So I had wandered into something beyond my comprehension and undead blonds were not a figment of my imagination. Or were they? The woman I had seen on-stage last night could still have been a product of my alcohol laden brain.

“Who? Byron?” The silky voice slipped into my thoughts. “She is quite real and quite undead, I assure you.”
The woman in the chair was staring at me with sharp, brown, slanted eyes that made me feel suddenly naked despite the several layers of clothing I wore. How had she known that was what I was thinking about? Had I said something aloud without realizing? I did have a horrible habit of that.
“No, sweetheart, Byron’s gift is being indestructible…this is my gift.” She tapped the side of her nose with a long finger nail as she spoke.
I blinking rapidly, confused by her statement. “I have no idea what you mean…”
She titled her head to the side in a manner that was attempting to look sweet. “Don’t you?”

Suddenly, the semi-emptiness of my mind exploded into a flurry of motion and colours. I doubled over, gasping, as flashes of summer sprang to life in sharp detail. Lakes and bridges, stripping down to nothing but underwear to swim in creeks and making daisy chains to sport as crowns. One summer flew by and then another. Winters and autumns sped by as if every important aspect of my memories were being examined.
I could hardly breathe, my hands were clawing at my throat and I wondered for a moment if I might be attempting to strangle my own self.
The spring I was thirteen sprang up, hovering for a moment on my first kiss before tearing off to travel to something else. Bile was welling up in the back of my throat, threatening to release a wave a vomit as more memories surged through me. Fall, I was fifteen and the music, the piano, drifting from some unknown source to where I sat on the swing of an empty park pulsed in my mind for a drawn out moment. Winter came next, the first time I tried to place pen to paper and let the words in my mind be set free in written format. Frustration and failure washed over me like it had so many times before as I watched a younger me throw balls of wadded paper over her shoulder.
The tied paused momentarily on another memory I would rather leave in the dusty corners of my mind. Over the roar in my ears I could hear laughing. A sweet chiming sound that, if not for the situation, would have been pretty. Forcing my watering eyes to focus on the woman, I saw she was staring intently at me.

Perhaps it was simply hard to think in this state or maybe it was the fact I still refused to believe I was not dreaming, for whichever reason I had not given and once of thought to what was really happening.
…She’s in my head…

“That’s right, babydoll, I’m in your head.” Her voice was faint, but clear even now.
I panicked completely. Using every bit of concentration I could muster, I set myself to the mammoth task of imagining a sheet of paper-A new, crisp, white sheet of paper that was unmarred by any sign of ink. The visions began to slow and fade until my mind was utterly blank. Almost as if all the thoughts had been temporarily erased like the scribbling from a blackboard.
The woman’s eyes narrowed, long lashes resting on high cheekbones until her eyes were nearly closed. “How did you do that?” She questioned in a slow, drawn out manner.
I honestly had no idea how I had managed it and so I simply shrugged my shoulders. My ears were beginning to stop ringing and my eyes were clearing.

“Don’t…ever…do that again!” I had tried to yell, but my words came out in a garbled whisper.
Her eyes flashed open again, filled to the brim with something looking dangerously like fury. “Why shouldn’t I? You are under no protection here!”
I feared the memories would begin again, not knowing that I had managed to block her out of the inner parts of my brain for the time being. I decided I needed to keep her talking. “What do you mean ‘no protection’?”
She sighed as if she loathed telling me anything. “You may have a call, but as far as I can see, you do not belong here! You snuck into our home like a little thief without any of the proper protocols; as far as I am concerned I can probe your mind to my heart’s desire!”

I didn’t like the sound of that one bit.
This is still a hallucination, I reminded myself. Just a nightmare you’ll wake up from soon.

“Will you stop that?!” She snapped. “You are not dreaming, you are in the Le Théâtre d’Illusion.”
“Even if I was dreaming you would still say that!” I snapped back, ignoring the last part of her words and proud of how strong my voice sounded.
The woman scoffed, climbing to her feet. “Well aren’t you the clever one.” She growled.
I tried to swallow the lump sticking in the back of my throat. She was not very tall, as I said before she was rather small, but after what she had just managed this tiny girl was just as intimidating as a giant. My instincts told me to jump from the bed and bolt from the room. However, my legs had gone temporarily numb.

“You will find yourself in many situations here that would cause you a great deal of harm to respond with such honesty and sarcasm, Babydoll.” Her voice was dripping with an acid sweetness.
“Who said I was going to stay here?” I asked with hesitation as she stepped closer to the bed.
“If I had my way, you would not.” She wrinkled her thin nose. “But it is not up to me or you for that matter. The theater…Jean-Perrie’s music…called you here and here you will stay.”

Haha, yeah…right…

“The theater didn’t call me and neither did that fluffy haired son of a bitch! I was drunk and stumbled in here!” I yelled with disbelief.
I expected to be yelled at in return, but the woman surprised me yet again by laughing. “Oh dear, I think I shall like you…”

  Before I could contemplate this sudden change, another person entered the room. I should say he was already there, I just had not noticed him until this point. He stood behind the girl, looming a good four feet above her. She must have sensed his presence at the same time I did for she spun around to face him.
“Oh…it’s just you…” Her voice was dull, bored and uninterested as she looked up at him. How that could be possible with such an interesting looking man was beyond me.

His eyes were rimmed with black nearly all the way up to his thick eyebrows. The angels of his face were so sharp that they caused the light to play across his feature like they were crisscrossed with scars. The lower half of his face was hidden under a coarse mustache the same colour as the black hair brushing his shoulders.

“Edgar wished to see the girl in half of an hour. Get her cleaned up so as to be presentables.” His voice was rough compared to the woman’s and coated in a heavy accent I couldn’t place.
The girl’s back straightened as she looked at this man. “And you dare to order me to do this? Let Byron clean her up!”
“I do not order, Vivi, Edgar does. I simply bring order to you.” He stated with a small smile nearly lost to his mustache.

“No one is doing anything to me!” I shouted to be heard over the string of curses Vivi was now throwing at the man.
His grey eyes finally turned towards me and I folded my arms over my chest in childish defiance. “I’m not moving from this spot until someone explains what the hell is going on here!”
Vivi rolled her eyes as the man pushed her aside and stepped around her. He leaned over me, his face so close to mine that I could smell the sharpness of alcohol on his breath. “Little one will be moving sooner from spot than she thinks. Edgar will explain things to her.”
“You explain!” I stated, narrowing my eyes.

“Give up Bam Boo, she has a history of being stubborn.” Vivi laughed as she fell back into her chair once more. I turned my glare on her for a moment. She arched a delicate brow, her lips pulled into a knowing smirk.
“The cure for moving the stubborn is to be equally stubborn in return.” Bam Boo said without taking his eyes from me. He grabbed my arms, pulling me up as I let out a scream of protest.
“Now, now Little One. We take you to Byron and get you prettied up.” He cooed, tossing me over his shoulder.
I beat my fists against his back, continuing to scream while he marched out of the room and down the hall.

***

  After awhile, my voice grew scratchy and my throat sore forcing me to abandon my cries for help. Not that anyone was responding anyway. Apparently this sort of thing was a fairly normal occurrence; not even one person peeked out of a door to see what all the fuss was about.
I wasn’t entirely sure I would wake up anymore. A certain apprehension had settled over me. Somehow I had landed myself in a horror movie and I was sure how to get off set. None of these experiences could actually have happened-The rational part of my brain absolutely refused even the slightest possibility of it. Yet, it had all been so real.

Even now, as I hung limply over Bam Boo’s shoulder, bouncing as his made his way up a flight of stairs, I could recall everything with pristine detail. Maybe I was just loosing my mind altogether. It would make sense after all. How could Vivi read my thoughts and inspect my memories?  Mind readers were works of fiction! I should know, I wrote a short story about one once.  And Byron, no one could withstand that amount of trauma, blood lose, and wound. It was unheard of.

Try as I might, I could come up with no better solution than a hallucination or insanity. I half preferred insanity to be honest; I could have fun with insanity.
“Are you still alive, little one?” Bam Boo asked, turning a corner and starting up another flight of stairs.
“No…” I replied in a hoarse groan.