Wait!
Just how stupid have I been?
How incredibly naive?
‘Absolutely beautiful, isn’t she?’
Freak interrupts my thoughts. The weird little pixies or elves or whatever they are are all silently and patiently standing to one side.
‘Is…is she what I think she is?’
My mind’s a whirl. My stomach feels suddenly empty.
I want to get out of here.
‘Come come, Jill; you’re fully aware of the material I work with.’
I’m still hoping I’m imagining all this. I stand closer to the girl, reach out, touch her face.
I jerk my hand back in horror.
Skin! Real skin.
*
‘Oh God no!’ I wail miserably, snapping my hand back from the dead girl’s beautiful face.
I spin around, expecting Freak to be already advancing on me with a knife and cleaver.
Instead, he’s beaming at me like he’s just given me the world’s most amazing Christmas present.
‘Surely we don’t have to go through all this again, Jill? All this false squeamishness? Think about it; what you felt through the gloves, anyone can experience through my most special creations!’
‘You skinned her?’
‘Jill, this poor girl was dead. What would have happened to this incredibly beautiful body of hers? It would have rotted, become a disgusting mess. But this way, her incredible beauty is preserved for ever! Would we destroy a preciously beautiful vase, simply because its owner has passed on and has no further use for it? Why shouldn’t less fortunate women have a chance to share in her God-given gift of beauty?’
As he talks, I don’t have time to run out of the room, like I wanted to.
His freaks, his pixies or elves or whatever you want to call them, are all suddenly clambering all over me, taking off my clothes swiftly and effortlessly.
They’re all over the poor girl too, somehow opening her up at the back, dress and all.
And with a swift, flowing movement, they whip her skin off the now bared and regular mannequin lying beneath.
Oh God!
Am I going to end up replacing her on that mannequin?
*
Chapter 27
‘Please, please! I’ll do anything you want! Anything!’
Sure I’m begging! Wouldn’t you?
The little freaks are now pulling the girl’s skin towards me. In a swift, practised move, they begin to slip her over my own now naked body. They lift me up off the floor, holding my legs and feet out so that the girl’s legs hidden beneath her dress slide smoothly onto mine.
At least Freak’s had the decency to look away.
The skin had seemed to expand slightly as the freaks had taken it off the mannequin. Now, as it touches my own skin in the right areas – fingers against fingers, toes against toes – it begins to shrink and tighten once more.
I think I’m going to be sick. But then, strangely, I begin to pick up on the girl’s thoughts; calming thoughts, reassuring me, telling me not to worry. She’s fine with all of this, she’s telling me, so why shouldn’t I be?
I thought the touch of her skin against mine would be clammy, disgusting. But it isn’t; it’s like silk, smooth and welcoming. And, as more and more of it binds itself to my own skin, it becomes just one more part of me.
Or, rather, I become part it.
And suddenly, I’m Anne Morrow, Tudor courtesan.
*
It shouldn’t be possible, I know, but I’m now the possessor of what must be the world’s most supremely elegant neck.
Just running my hands up my own, wonderfully long neck is a priceless sensation in its own right. How many times has this neck been kissed, stroked, envied?
I mean, I know; but I just can’t count the number of times!
I catch a view of myself in one of the shop’s many mirrors – and my eyes blaze with satisfaction.
God, I’m beautiful!
Even with all these freaks still clambering over my back, stitching me up with all that snake-like twine they’d used in my operation, I look as elegant as a Vogue model, as regally poised as an empress.
The freaks and the shop reflected back at me in the mirror fade from my vision. In their place, there’s a richly decorated court room, a throng of expensively attired men and women.
And the most god-awful smell!
I’ve been in better smelling stables. The stench of drains, mixed with unwashed bodies. Of course, everyone’s tried to hide the smell with heavy perfumes, but they’re all so powerful they’re almost as bad as the problem.
I try to hold my breath but, naturally, it’s impossible.
Looking about me, I’m instantly struck by how the visual splendour is so completely at odds with what my sense of smell is telling me. Shut my eyes, and I’d swear I was in the poorest district in town. Open, they find it hard to take in all at once all this vibrancy of colour, this vain display of wealth. Dresses, even male costumes, are heavily adorned with silk and velvet trappings, with gold and silver thread, a whole hoard of precious gems.
Anne is neither impressed nor bothered by either the opulence or the horrendous stench. She neither sees nor smells anything unusual.
Of course, everyone’s dressed in the Tudor style, with puffed up, layered sleeves. For the women, it’s widely splaying dresses, for the men, tights and an almost semi-spherical flouncing of material around the hip and upper thighs. A few wear what could be dark, elongated coats.
Although we’re crowded into a large room, we’re all standing to either side of a clear, wide space. Glancing over everyone’s heads, I can just make out what could be the top of a high throne at one end of the room. There’s someone talking up there, voices with a hint of either anger or fear.
Moving around a little, I get a clearer view of the throne. A small group of people are cluttered in front of it. These are the people I can hear talking.
As they move slightly, I at last get to see who’s sitting on the throne.
I’m disappointed. I was expecting to see Henry the Eighth. But it’s a young boy.
Edward. Henry’s son Edward is now king.
‘…it’s well known, it all has to be done on the morrow.’
It’s only a whisper from somewhere amongst the crowd not far from me. Yet I hear it as if it’s directed at me. Muted sniggers follow. When I turn around to see who’s responsible, I catch a small group of handsome men looking my way.
I glare back at them scornfully. They all sheepishly look away.
Looking about me now, I realise that any of the men who can see me are fleetingly glancing in my direction whenever they can. I can detect an unmistakable lust in even the briefest of those glances; a hardness to their stares that I’ve become used to.
They don’t seem to realise it, but it’s like the entire soul of each and every one of them is on view to me, simply because I’ve become so skilled at interpreting every inflection of their eyes, every move of their hands, head or body.
The expression on the faces of the women is the complete opposite of what I see written across the faces of the men; loathing, envy, a sense that they wish I would just be removed immediately from the face of the earth.
But no; it’s not all of the women. Some of them, women hanging around in small clusters, are emanating a whole barrage of other emotions in their stares and moves. These women are expectant, impatient. They’re with older men who, similarly, seem unaware of my beauty yet, oddly, are perhaps the ones staring hardest and most unashamedly at me.
They’re wanting me to do something. They’re disappointed in me; so far, I haven’t done as much as they expected of me. They want more of me.
> And then I realise who all these people glaring at me are.
They’re my family. My extended family. My uncles, aunts. Even my grandparents.
They have high hopes in me. They want me to use my beauty to cement their power in court. To open up new contacts for them, forge new alliances. Ensure an increase in their wealth, honours and land holdings.
To them, I’m a pawn.
But they want me to make my moves and become a queen.
*
Chapter 28
Snapping out of my experience of being Anne Morrow is harder than when I’ve just been wearing the gloves.
The horrendous smell instantly vanishes, its replacement being the lavender of the shop. There’s more white light here too, less glittering of colour.
But a young, handsome Tudor man is standing right in front of me.
He grins cheekily.
‘Are you all right? Jill? You still look a little dazed.’
I recognise the voice. It’s Freak.
‘I got dressed while you were enjoying being Anne,’ he explains with a sort of swift curtsy, noting the confused look I’m still giving him.
‘Enjoying?’ I snap. ‘With all those…dreadful people!’
‘People? Which people?’
‘The uncles! The aunts! All expecting that poor girl to do whatever she has to, just to see their own wealth and power increasing!’
‘Oh yes; and to make sure they survive, you mean?’ Freak says casually. ‘This is the Tudor court, Jill; if your family doesn’t keep one step ahead of another family, it’s not just power that you lose but your life.’
‘This is sick, Freak, I mean really sick! I mean, the gloves were bad enough, but–’
I’m trying to pull off the skin, but it’s like pulling at my own skin. Nothing’s moving, apart from the way your skin naturally moves when you tug at it.
Freak smiles, while giving me an impressed frown.
‘You know, it usually takes someone ages to really get used to becoming another person; you’ve pulled it off – sorry, no pun intended – first time!’
‘Freak! I want out of this horrendous skin now!’
‘Skin? That’s such an awful term, Jill! How can you describe poor Anne as a skin? Didn’t you just live a part of her life? Isn’t she wonderful? Isn’t that amazing?’
‘It was awful, awful Freak!’
I’m still trying to find some way of shedding Anne. And yes, when I think of it in those terms, it does sound terrible. Like I’m thinking of poor Anne as being some sort of disease, or pestilence.
‘Didn’t you hear me say that her own family are betraying her? I felt so bad for her, poor girl! How can people come here to experience something like that?’
‘Well, they don’t; the more distasteful aspects of my creations are shielded from their wearers. Only the good, most wonderful experiences are made accessible. Once again, you’ve managed to tap into the full life of a person – which makes me realise that you’re already ready for the best part of the experience!’
Before I can protest, he reaches out, takes my hand. I can feel his hand just as if neither of us were wearing his ‘creations’.
‘No, no, Freak! I’ve had enough! I–’
The scents around me have changed again. The heavy perfume of lavender is still there, but there’s also a very weak hint of the drains I’d smelled earlier.
The shop is different too. The bright glare of the spotlights has vanished, so that now we’re suffused in the flickering amber glow of lanterns. The floors are no longer sanded smooth, but are made of relatively new boards.
The carefully posed mannequins are still here, but they’re all from a different age. They stretch back in time to early medieval, even Roman and Greek. There’s not one I can see that seems to be wearing anything later than Tudor period dress.
We’ve travelled back in time.
We’re in the shop as it would have appeared to Anne Morrow, if she’d ever stepped in here.
*
Freak’s here as well.
No, I don’t mean the Freak I left our time with, dressed as a handsome young man. He’s here with me too, of course.
But there’s another Freak here. One who looks more like the Freak I’m used to, only wearing Tudor dress.
I suppose he’s Freak as he was when he was running this shop, way back in the sixteenth century.
He doesn’t bat a hair when he sees us suddenly appear in the back of his shop. He comes over to us with a smile on his face that he probably reserves for his most favoured customers.
‘Good to see you,’ he says with a twinkle of amusement.
Greeting yourself must be a bit odd, of course.
‘And you’re here from?’
‘The twenty first century,’ the Freak I came with answers.
The earlier version of Freak seems impressed. He looks me over with appreciative eyes.
‘And you’ve brought someone with you too!’
‘Yes, yes; someone very special.’ Freak gives me an admiring grin before facing his earlier self once more. ‘Someone special who we almost lost; so take care of her!’
He wags an admonishing finger at himself.
‘I can see she’s special; not many can actually make the trip back in time. As I can’t actually see her, may I ask her name?’
‘Jill Paxton.’ Freak turns to me, obviously believing I might need or deserve some explanation. ‘When we – me and my earlier self – meet like this, we’re surprisingly careful what we tell each other.’
‘It can lead to all sorts of complications,’ his other self agrees. ‘In trying to change any future event, we often end up creating the very thing we feared might happen.’
‘Of course, anyone from your future can only warn you of what has already happened to them; in which case it’s too late to do anything about it, as it’s already happened.’
‘Ironically, your future self has to guess what might go wrong, if he’s going to give you any chance of addressing it.’
‘It all becomes so very complicated.’
‘Mind boggling.’
‘Ah, but this is how you knew I was special?’ I ask, looking at them both.
They both nod.
‘I know now to look out for you Jill,’ the earlier one adds.
‘May I?’ his other self asks him, suggesting by a smooth curve of an arm that he wants to take me out to the front of the shop.
‘By all means; but, remember, we’re expecting her majesty Princess Elizabeth any moment.’
‘How could I forget?’
*
Chapter 29
In the front of the shop, there aren’t any mannequins, only tailor’s dress dummies.
Of course, mannequins as we know them didn’t exist in the time of the Tudors.
It looks more like a combination of a dressmakers and a gentleman’s tailors. There are materials on huge rolls stacked on the shelves. Partially finished dresses and men’s bodices and jackets adorn the dummies.
Outside the windows, it’s a chaotic scene of heavily lumbering carts, nervously shying or trotting horses, and men and women in the kind of costumes I’ve only ever seen before in movies or museums.
‘It’s a time when people are terrified of witchcraft,’ Freak whispers, leaning closer towards me. ‘Fortunately, we have a lot of people in very high places who can protect us.’
I realise he’s whispering because an assistant is helping an over-elaborately dressed woman chose materials for a new dress. The assistant, like Miss Dorent, is ridiculously beautiful. She gives us a fleetingly confused look, until Freak makes some sort of odd, reassuring signal with a twirl of a hand and a twitch of his fingers.
>
The woman doesn’t look quite so reassured. She’s gives me a sour glare. I’m not sure if it’s envy of my beauty, or if she recognises me and is appalled that I’m here.
‘Do you know what pixilated means?’ Freak asks me strangely as he directs me to start browsing through the materials, as if we’re just a regular couple of customers.
‘Sure; it’s when all the pictures on your screen break up into little squares.’
‘Originally, it meant being abducted by pixies; it’s surprising how humans took it into their hearts that fairies and what have you only exist to steal you away to underground kingdoms.’
The door opens and an old couple step into the shop. They look about themselves nervously, quickly taking us in, then glancing over towards the assistant. The assistant seems to recognise them.
‘I’ll be with you in a moment, Lord and Lady Crendon,’ she exclaims brightly.
The woman she’s with instantly looks even more anxious than the newcomers. She looks unsure whether to quickly bring her browsing to a close, or to risk upsetting her social betters by keeping them waiting.
‘If I may be of help?’ Freak says, sprightly stepping towards the Lord and Lady with a half-hearted bow.
The Lord and Lady look once more towards the assistant. She nods her approval.
‘Yes, yes, if you could, that would be–’
‘This way,’ Freak confidently interrupts the man’s nervous bluster, showing them towards the door leading to the back rooms.
The couple instantly appear relieved that they don’t have to explain why they’re here.
The woman stares my way, observing me with the intensity of someone trying to determine if I’m everything I appear to be; if I’m real, or if I’m someone like her, wearing one of Freak’s creations.
As she heads off towards the door with her husband and Freak, I seriously wonder if she’s making a note to ask why she’s never been offered the opportunity to be this ravishing beauty.
As Freak returns from showing them into the back room, the assistant escorts her customer to the front door, waving her goodbye and assuring her that everything will be ready for her within two weeks.
‘Do you always end up here, in the shop, when you come back in time?’ I whisper to Freak.
‘It’s the easiest and safest way.’
He’s no longer bothering to whisper now we’ve been left alone with the assistant, who’s already busying herself tiding up the materials she’d laid out for the woman to observe.
‘If you can tap into a highly emotional point in their lives, you can turn up somewhere close by them at that exact moment; but you’re running the risk of them seeing you. Which is going to cause no end of complications.’