Chapter 1 #2
Plucking the balloon from the front of her mask, Chicot tied it off quickly, offering it to Elijah. He swept a bouncy curl from his forehead, shaking his head back and forth.
“Oh,” he said, his voice now light with flattery. “It was for me? Thank you.”
He reached up to take the balloon from Chicot, his hand nearly touching it when Chicot pulled a pushpin from her pocket and popped it.
Elijah scrambled backwards with a shriek.
The crowd laughed. Chicot threw her head back, her hand pressed to her belly as she mimicked laughter, the bells on her hat filling in for the noise she didn’t make.
“Ugh!” Elijah dusted himself off and looked at the crowd with an incredible amount of disdain. “Jesters.”
There was another peal of laughter from the audience.
Chicot quieted. She leaned forward with her arms crossed.
Elijah jumped back into action. He strolled across the stage as he started to set up their next trick.
The show went on like this, a half hour of contortion and songs and jokes and juggling and jingling, all ending when Chicot caught her blades while hopping off a balance board.
The small crowd was happy when they finished, both hooting and hollering as they clapped.
Chicot’s breathing started to even out. She wanted to bask in the noise of the crowd, the cheering and excitement, but Elijah was already grabbing their things.
She waved, pretending to blow kisses from her mask, making sure to direct one toward Brewhilda before she started to help Elijah.
They cleared the stage quickly, exiting through the small backstage area and onto the grass path leading to the jousting arena.
They clasped hands, hidden by an old oak tree, and started to hop up and down excitedly.
She quickly slipped off her mask. She was sweaty and breathless, but she was alive, and the crowd had laughed! They’d fucking laughed.
“Your mask worked perfectly!” Elijah set his hands on Chicot’s shoulders. Chicot grinned.
“I know! I think we’ve finally fixed it.” She bounced on the balls of her feet, letting nervous energy wash over her. Elijah made an indistinguishable noise of excitement in agreement.
“Yes! Shit, this is going to be such a good summer!” Elijah wrapped Chicot in a hug, her laughter growing louder and her anxiety melting away.
“It’s going to be great. We might even get the chance to make videos on a real stage.
” Chicot matched Elijah’s grin, the two of them stepping side-by-side in perfect sync as they spoke.
Elijah whistled. “That’s going to make us look real professional.”
“Well, we are real professionals, right?” Chicot smirked as Elijah wiggled his eyebrows at the thought.
“We are, aren’t we?” Elijah continued to pretend to be shocked as bubbles rose and burst in Chicot’s chest. They had worked on this for over a year.
Albion was one of the bigger faires in the country, and a dress rehearsal made the reality of it all hit at once.
It had certainly relieved the sting of the rejection they’d gotten from the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire at the time.
In fact, Chicot had all but forgotten that they’d been rejected from the other faire now that they were getting settled at Albion.
Although, a few months of constant rehearsing in whatever patch of grass they could find between kids’ birthday gigs would do that to a person.
It would make someone forget a lot of things.
“Let’s get a drink tonight to celebrate.” Elijah still had an arm around Chicot’s shoulders, pulling her along as they walked around the back of the stage to join the crowd for the next act.
“Hell yeah!” Chicot clenched her fists in front of her, punching the air a few times as they walked.
Brewhilda was no longer in sight when they came around the corner, so they sat behind The Pirates Three, who were talking amongst themselves.
Chicot hoped they could be friends. She really wanted to make friends at Albion.
“Can we go to the Curd Castle?” Chicot unclipped her ruffled collar and started to undo the laces on the bodice she wore over her unitard, taking both off in favor of a large, dingy Ramones T-shirt.
Her bodice was comfortable, but she preferred loose clothes that didn’t touch her skin when not performing. Elijah snorted, unbuttoning his jerkin.
“What is your obsession with that place?” Elijah shook his head. Chicot pulled down her hood with a jingle. She shook out her sweaty hair, running her fingers through her fine brown tresses.
“Easy, they have the best fried cheese curds in a ten-mile radius,” Chicot said. She pulled the few bobby pins from her hair that she’d used to keep her bangs from falling out of the hood. It was a nightmare if it wound up in her face while she was wearing her mask.
“Ah, yes, I forgot how deeply Wisconsinite you are.” Elijah waved her off, rolling his eyes.
“Or I just have good taste?” Chicot nudged Elijah with her elbow.
She ran a hand through her hair and tried to smooth it down.
Now that she no longer lived at home, she could have it whatever length she liked without any unwanted comments.
When she’d been able to cut her hair, she’d decided on a short, choppy pixie with bangs.
Though, she was considering buzzing off the back for the summer, making her costume just a tiny bit cooler.
“Are you two talking about that place up the road from here with all the craft beer?” The smallest of the pirates had turned around.
She was one of the performers who had been there for a long time, having been in a few different shows before they’d formed The Pirates Three.
Chicot might have spent a lot of time looking at her social media when she’d first found it.
She had looked at all the current performers’ accounts when they’d gotten the news that they’d made it into Albion. She couldn’t help herself.
“Yeah, want to come?” Elijah asked. “I would love some company in addition to the silly little jester.”
He jutted a thumb toward her. Chicot moved his hand away from her face, shaking her head as a smile tugged at her lips. It wasn’t like it was entirely untrue. She had come up with the silly little jester idea because she played it well.
“Yeah!” The smallest pirate swung her leg over the wooden bench, turning completely around to face them.
She’d taken her hair down since she’d been on stage, the ends now gathering in loose waves around her shoulders with a dent under her ear from her hair tie.
Her cheeks were round, eyes large and gray, but she was definitely older than she’d first appeared based on the fine lines that appeared near the corners of her lips and eyes when she smiled.
Chicot took in as many details as possible to remember her.
She was a ray of sunshine, and Chicot instantly liked her.
Chicot straightened her back, trying to put extra distance between them. The benches weren’t exactly far apart, so when the pirate was facing them, it felt like she was in Chicot’s lap.
“I’m Lyza, and this is Monty and Elvis.” Lyza tapped her two costars, the medium and large pirate respectively, on their heads as she introduced them.
Their stage names, Wee, Middle, and Big, made a lot of sense now that Chicot was close to them.
Lyza was about six inches shorter than Monty, and Monty looked about six inches shorter than Elvis, making them a perfect trio, each with their own size and role.
“We’ve been wanting to talk to you since we’re going to be sharing the stage. We can all go together.” Lyza beamed, her grin so large, her face had to scrunch to accommodate it.
“We’ll have to take an Uber. Umm …” Elijah rubbed the back of his head. “Will we all fit in one?”
“I have a car. I can drive if you’re both okay with that,” Monty, the medium-sized pirate, offered.
She hadn’t fully turned around, but her gray eyes settled on Chicot like she wanted her to respond specifically.
Monty had a striking round face, smooth beige skin, and sandy blonde hair, which was cropped just below her chin.
She tilted her head, her eyes locked on Chicot.
“Yeah!” Chicot’s voice was sharp, rising in pitch at the end of the word as if it cracked. She immediately wanted to simply disappear, clearing her throat. “I’m okay with it.”
“Thank you, that would be great.” Elijah leaned into Chicot’s space. Chicot relaxed, letting Elijah smooth things over. She would need to thank him later. Still, Monty’s eyes scanned over Chicot’s face carefully before she turned her attention to Elijah, but Lyza beat her to respond.
“I’m sure we all want to clean up a little first.” Lyza held up one finger as she spoke. “But maybe meet us at the entrance of the dog park an hour after the showcase?”
The “dog park” referred to the small village of campers and trailers that the performers lived in. Chicot and Elijah had been trying to ascertain exactly why it was called that, but no one quite had an answer for them.
“That works.” Elijah nodded, so Chicot nodded too.
“Great!” Lyza turned back toward the stage just as the next act finished setting up for his performance. “See you there.”
“Yeah, see you.” Monty looked down her nose at Chicot. Chicot wasn’t sure if it was because she was just so much taller than her or if it was purposeful. Regardless, it made Chicot nervous.
“Yeah,” Chicot agreed, smiling again, and then turned her attention toward the performance.
This act was a man who used a whip to cover pop songs.
Chicot found herself impressed at his ability to do this on the spot, especially since she’d tried to crack a whip a few times in her life and had almost taken an eye out each time.
And it hadn’t always been her own she’d almost wrecked.
When the act finished, they all got up as a unit.
Unintentionally, but it looked purposeful, which Chicot worried would draw attention.
She’d caught people speaking in hushed voices and pointing at her and Elijah before.
Chicot just hoped it was only because they were new, and not because they’d made a bad impression.
She put it out of mind. Even if people were skeptical of her and Elijah because they were new and had taken Brewhilda’s spot, they would probably move on as Chicot and Elijah proved themselves.
It was going to be a long summer, both as performers and community members, but they’d get comfortable soon enough.