Do you like stories with mystery and suspense? Strange and “wyrd” ones? Well, if you do, keep reading and enjoy Eggcentricsagas. If you are just joining Eggcentricsagas, you might want to start from the beginning: A La Mano: Part 1-The Treasure
Charlotte very slowly regained consciousness. Through the howling winds, she thought she heard Betsy’s voice calling to her. It was garbled like Charlotte was underwater, and her friend was on the surface. Her eyes closed, Charlotte felt like she was in a small space with the volume growing smaller, compressing. As the pressing feeling grew more intense, a single thought floated into her mind. It is as if God is ironing me.
She tried to open her eyes but could not. The darkness seemed to be engulfing her, and she was tumbling down as the air around her spun.
Spinning, spinning, spinning…
Around and around, water sucked down a black drain… Or was it the pupil of an eye… A giant eye… A gaping, inky hole of nothingness…
There was Betsy’s voice again. So distant and faraway…
Then Charlotte could feel Betsy finding her hand, pulling it, and grabbing her wrist. Struggling to open her eyes, finally, she found herself in suffocating, nearly complete darkness except for a sliver of wavering light. Facing her left side, feeling cloth pressing down on her head, she was lying under something. Groggy, Charlotte managed to raise her head and focus on the light. It was coming from the area of her right wrist that had disappeared. The girl realized that her hand and wrist were free from the erratically moving cover and that someone was touching her arm.
Scratching it. Someone was trying to remove her charm bracelet. The fingers kept working, and she could hear the clasp finally give and the bracelet being pulled free. Alarmed at the thievery, it brought her fully conscious. Pulling her arm in, she started to crawl out from underneath her ensnarement before hearing someone whistling and then calling, “Kapi, Kapi, come here!”
When she got halfway out, Charlotte looked in the direction of the voice and saw a boy in a white turban carrying a monkey on his shoulder. As he hurried away, his monkey companion looked back at her. He was grasping something in his paw, swinging silver. The bottom part glinted in the setting sun, and the girl realized that it was her bracelet. Hoarsely she cried out for the youngster to stop, but it was too late. He had disappeared into the nearby trees.
Charlotte continued to crawl out and managed to sit up. Still dazed, but the pain in her neck was gone. Glancing at her previous entrapment, it was not the House of Mirrors beige tent but rather a smaller red and white striped one. Clearly, this tent had blown down as well, but how had she gotten underneath it? Had the windstorm blown her here? She surveyed the surrounding area.
The clearing was barren except for the strewn sticks and leaves and a scattering of broken branches. A placard lying upside down was near the wrecked tent. A little unsteady, Charlotte got to her feet and made her way over to the placard. Recognizing it as she flipped it over, the painted blue eye of the fortune teller stared back at her. The girl thought about the old soothsayer and her card reading. Then hazily remembered a few details of her dream the night before. The boy in the white turban with her rhinestone charm, the word PSYCHIC, the snake…
That’s weird, she thought. Then questioning out loud, “Where am I and where is Betsy?”
A voice behind her said, “Who’s Betsy?”
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Edward watched as the funnel cloud headed towards him. “Holy Hell!” he cursed as he hung on tightly while debating if he should take cover in the back of the train car. Would the wind storm engulf them? Then it seemed to veer a little, and he thought that it might avoid the grounds altogether. Clinging to the portal, he eyed the approaching violent column of air. Continuing towards the carnival, the illusionist wondered if it would touch down. The sound of the wind gradually became louder and louder as it drew near. The noise was deafening like a thundering train pulling into the station, and he was lying on the tracks below, waiting for it to pass over him.
A flock of birds exploded from the thicket of trees beyond, trying to escape, tumbling dots of white and black against the grey sky. The funnel was moving towards the traveller’s camp. Swaying train cars in front of him obscured his view of the tornado momentarily, but he could hear the crashing of debris, screams, and shouts. Still focused and curious, all of a sudden, Edward saw one of the striped tents pulled up into the air.
The tent hovered, sucked into the eye of the storm, and held still and quiet in the center of the madly spinning maelstrom. The tornado and tent headed towards the forest, and the magician observed the trees flattened and shredded by the vortex of air. There was flying wreckage of wood, spinning round and round carried by the fierce whirlwind. However, miraculously, the tent seemed to float in the air as if borne on a gentle, spring breeze.
Then it was gone. The storm and the tent disappeared from the magic man’s sight.
Next: The Magician’s Hat: Part 7-The Snake Charmer
