Scarborough Fair and Other Stories (21 page)

But they expected her to show up in costume for their ball so she would have to get busy. She smiled as she considered that she quite literally hadn't a thing to wear.

Who would she go as? She was a bit long in the tooth for the heroines, but then again, nobody could see her so she could get the appropriate disguise and be Rapunzel with yards of blonde hair if she wished! She felt like a cross between Cinderella and the fly invited into the spider's web.

Costume shops were all over the city but she couldn't find a costume she liked, that fitted, anywhere. With the season so well underway, the selection was well picked over and she was not the petite size that most designers fondly imagined their customers would be. For two days she hunted the racks and the temperature rose into the eighties. Even though she risked wearing her running shoes in the daytime, she was growing footsore. Her invisible skin prickled with heat rash and was rubbed raw from chafing. Unused to even mild heat during this season, she was so terribly hot and dripping with perspiration she was surprised people did not try to elude the moving vertical lake she felt she had become. And her search was fruitless. Except for kiddy Halloween costumes, little remained in the city.

Why on earth hadn't the people throwing the party issued their invitations a bit earlier? Probably because they had only spotted her, maybe even recognized her from someplace else, at their parade the night before the invitation arrived. Whoever they were, whatever their reason for inviting her, she desperately wanted to discover.

Perhaps she should just go as she was after all, drape a length of cloth over her arm and be the emperor wearing his new clothes if anyone DID see her and asked. But the emperor (or empress, as anyone who could see her would be quite aware), though naked while wearing “invisible” new clothes, was not himself invisible.

For a fancy masked ball you really needed to wear something unlike yourself. For her, that would be someone visible.

Someone normal. Or almost. Character from a favorite fairy tale?

She found a mask in one of the shops that reminded her of something, something she had a hard time remembering for a time. The mask was covered with holographic film that bounced reflections from its surface. It was trimmed with gilt and sequins. The main part of the mask covered the upper part of the face, but it also featured a cascading veil of crystal and gold beads to cover the lower face. She also found a gold gilt wig with carefully arranged curls such as the white ones a judge might have worn in the old days. Both of these items appealed to her and she took them without quite knowing what she was going to do with them.

She saw the black robe crumpled in a box of discarded costumes in the back of one of the shops. It had a hood. Probably featured a skull mask and a scythe too, but it had black spangles on it so that it would sparkle. She took it too.

Still, she didn't know which fairy tale character she had in mind with that odd assortment until she returned to the hotel room and saw the ornately framed and gilded dressing table mirror. One more foray to a hardware shop and a sporting goods store and she began assembling her costume.

She dithered a little about whether to arrive early or be fashionably late, but she didn't really know the protocol. Finally, because she couldn't stand the wait, because it had been so long since her presence or absence made a difference to anyone, and because she didn't want to miss anything, she arrived at the address on the invitation just after “seven of the clock.”

Completely covered in her hooded black robe, gloved and booted in black and her face and hair made visible by the golden wig and holographic mask, glittering and sparkling with every step, she was, in the crowd of elaborately garbed and/or half-naked maskers, more invisible than she had ever been before. She was sweltering by the time she arrived at the address on her invitation, the mirror concealed in a portfolio sized black bag she carried close to her robe.

The address belonged to a three story building with the vast numbers of tall windows and the two wrought-iron balconies that were a trademark of French Quarter architecture.

A doorman, dressed in a gray suit with a rat's mask and tail, ushered her inside. The rest of the staff of what seemed to be a rather exclusive historic hotel were also masked and garbed. She wondered if most of the hotels hosting the costume balls did this. The staff in her hotel remained stolidly in the day-to-day uniform of modernity and conformity.

Even more amazing, in this twilight hour, the entire lobby was lit only by candlelight from the wall sconces, candelabrum and some quite impressive candle-bearing chandeliers. The air carried some flowery perfume—gardenia, maybe?

Another rat looked at her invitation and ushered her into a ballroom.

She
had
been expecting the usual Holiday Inn sort of ballroom—a large room with a folding fiberglass curtain that could be pulled across the center to make two smaller meeting rooms. An area of parquet floor for dancing, the rest of the floor covered with utilitarian carpet and furnished with rather institutional tables and chairs perhaps covered with white cloths. Sometimes they had one of those prismatic balls above the dance floor, the kind you used to see in roller rinks, and later, discos.

But if the room she entered had ever looked like that, the decorations committee of the Krewe of Melusine was to be commended on the transformation.

This truly looked like the ballroom from Cinderella as it never had been done but should have. The lighting was supplied by candles, just as it was in the lobby. Crystal and silver chandeliers reflected the light from the flames flickering within them. The light and shadow played across a floor that seemed to be a solid sheet of lavender veined white marble. A patterned carpet that looked as if with only a little help it could be airborne, padded the steps under her dancing boots.

Beyond the marble dance floor, tall doors opened onto a courtyard where concealed colored lights played on the waters of a splashing fountain with a mermaid at its center. What looked like ancient cypress trees and weeping willows and a couple of palms were lit with what the invisible woman rather hoped were not thousands of tiny candles—Christmas tree lights, more likely, in purple, green, and gold.

The room was edged, not with the conventional round tables and hotel chairs, but with great groaning sideboards filled with all sorts of things to eat and drink. The centerpiece of each table was an ice sculpture, the largest of which was a replica of the Melusine themed float-boat with the mermaids.

She took all this in while peeking past the herald, closed the door softly and repaired to the lady's room to finish her costume. It felt odd to actually have to go into a separate room for privacy after having, for such a long time, more privacy than she had ever needed or wanted.

When she returned, the herald glanced at her, blew a real trumpet, and announced, “The Magic Mirror from Snow White has arrived.”

The ballroom was considerably more crowded than it had been when she ducked into the bathroom. On each step was at least one masker—sometimes a couple, sometimes more, filing down to a reception line that was now in place. She would have to run the gauntlet. Oh dear. Somehow she thought these things were much less formal than this.

The band began playing in the background, heavy drums and jingles, saxophone slithering through with a melody. Perhaps out of deference to the reception line, no singer had as yet taken the stage.

She descended behind Rapunzel and the prince, who was covered with a thorny vine. On his other side walked a woman wearing a tiara, a brief sheer set of baby doll pajamas the invisible woman thought she had seen in a Frederick's of Hollywood ad, and carrying a spinning wheel. Rapunzel, the prince, sleeping beauty. A threesome? That didn't bother her somehow. Not nearly as much as trying to see through her mask and over the mirror so that she did not tread on or trip over the long yellow braid that formed a train to Rapunzel's costume. As the trio turned to face the reception line, she saw that Sleeping Beauty was a man. She wasn't sure about the other two.

Fortunately, nobody could see from her invisible and masked face if she was surprised or not. The Guide had warned that cross-dressing for males particularly was a Mardi Gras institution.

First in the reception line was Snow White. Next to her—him actually-- were seven very little men—children rather than dwarves, from the look of them, though their eyes looked very old, and some of them, she was fairly sure, were girls. One of them spoke up, laying a proprietary hand on Snow White's pale arm. “Oh, darlin' look,” the little man said in a high overly sweetened feminine drawl. “If it isn't the magic mirror! You must check and see if you're the fairest of them all!”

Snow White flashed teeth—fangs—at the child and said, “How very droll you are this evenin', Dopey, isn't it?”

The invisible woman was still taking in the fangs when the snow white smile was flashed at her. “Thanks, mirror. That's real cute but I'm gonna have to pass. You understand, don't you?”

“Maybe she doesn't, darlin',” said the next tall person in line. This was interesting. A woman dressed as a man in drag. Overly made up and coifed but the décolletage in the gown was deep and genuine. “Never mind that little bitch, honey, you just come over here and tell Queenie who is the fairest of them all. My, that's a cute costume! Made it yourself?”

The invisible woman, unsure if she could make herself heard, nodded.

“Oh, you are soooo mysterious! I just love it. And you're new too—not that I can see you, but I can just feel that you are. I know you're going to have so much fun with us. You just run along now. Red Ridin' Hood, honey, would you get Ms Mirror here some punch? I don't think she can manage with her—uh—reflectin' side in front of her like that.”

Little Red Riding Hood turned a red hooded head to her—and revealed a human face in the process of growing a snout and extra hair. “Never mind,” the invisible woman squeaked aloud for the first time in years. “I can manage!”

“Oh lookee there!” squealed the first of the seven dwarves. “Look at all those gorgeous gals!”

Descending the steps in plumed tiaras and a variety of dancing costumes—everything from ballroom and tango through Irish step dancing—came twelve pseudo maidens, at least half of whom were male. Behind them came a fellow in a Confederate officer's uniform with a cloak draped over his arm.

Little Red Riding—wolf? Said, “Well, if it isn't the 12 Dancin' Princesses!” He had a nice deep voice.

While he was looking at the princesses, the invisible woman looked more closely at his increasingly wolfish face. If it was makeup, it was the best makeup job she had ever seen. You couldn't even simulate that with a computer. Looking at the princesses, he licked his chops, running a long pink tongue over a long mouth full of long teeth and—what big ears he had!

A werewolf. And the fangs on Snow White. They could be dental appliances of course. The dwarves, grinning up at the princesses, had fangs too. Oh dear. And she had thought Anne Rice was writing fiction! But here they were, all around her, the creatures of the night Rice referred to. The fangs weren't part of their costumes. The fangs were the real deal.

That
was how they'd seen her.

She turned to head to the lady's room again and take off her costume and run away. Except—what good would that do? They had
seen
her. At the parade, where she was as invisible as usual. Some one among them at least
had
seen her and somehow found out her name. Well, sure. The Krewe of Melusine looked like it was largely composed of vampires and werewolves, that sort of creature. They had their ways of finding out stuff, according to Rice and Bram Stoker and bad movies from the forties. Maybe, as creatures of the night, they did as much eavesdropping as invisible people.

Slowly, she made her way toward the punch table. She was very hot and very dry in this outfit, in spite of the ballroom air conditioning that was also wasting energy by trying to cool the courtyard. She took a glass of punch and drained it, took another, and sipped.

A hand touched her sleeve and she jumped, sloshing wine onto the marble floor. “Would you care to dance?” a masculine voice inquired.

It was the Confederate officer. Now that he was closer, she saw that around the domino mask from which showed deep brown eyes, his face was rather badly scarred—seamed, as if he had been cut up at some point and clumsily stitched back together. He was very tall. And his smile didn't have any fangs in it.

“Yes,” she said. “But I'll have to shift my costume.”

“You have a lovely voice,” he said. “It matches your costume. Silvery and rippling.”

She was completely taken aback. If this was southern charm, it worked. Especially since this was about the first positive thing, not to mention being a very graceful compliment, she had been paid since she was young and slender and visible.

“Thank you,” she said, shifting her mirror to her back and hoping he was so tall he would not see that her neck was invisible in the shadows of the black robe. “I don't quite understand your costume, though. It doesn't look like a fairytale character to me. Who are you supposed to be?”

“Why, honey, I'm the old soldier who returns from the war and answers the king's challenge to find out where his twelve daughters go every night to wear out their shoes.”

“Oh,” she said. “Of course. I just never thought of him as being a Civil War veteran.”

“My own little interpretation,” he said with a smile. “Now then, this is your first Mardi Gras, I take it?”

“Oh yes. And it was very kind of the Krewe of Melusine to invite me.”

“Nonsense,” he said gallantly. “Having you here is our pleasure entirely.”

“New blood?” she couldn't help asking. Would all those fangs sink into her at some point during the night? Or maybe somebody would offer her immortality and a cozy coffin. And here she was without a smidge of her native earth!