Clairvoyant’s Debut
A Miss Pearl Story
There was a pernicious rumor going around town recently. That the theatre play The Clairvoyant had bailed Thiago Mestaphes out of his most recent bankruptcy. Many viewed the smash hit as a windfall, after a most public disgrace at last year’s Winogarad Derby–where he had briefly lost the lease on his own theatre.
His wife, Wynonna Mestaphes, The Nightingale of the North, was chosen to be the lead of the operetta, though she had done little else than saucy dance lines and trivial satire acts, and had failed to inspire the confidence of more serious critics who viewed the Drow performer and Half-orc husband as a blight on the Winogarad theatre circuit.
Wynonna plucked at a stray feather off her dress anxiously, waiting in the wings of the stage. It didn’t matter how many times she performed, pre-show jitters always seemed to seize her right at this moment. She closed her eyes and tried to orient herself in the familiar: the soft, swimming whine of the orchestra tuning in the pulpit. An audience member sneezing aggressively into a handkerchief. Whispering from the crowd. The pitter-patter of barefoot stage help, arranging the set madly in the dark.
She sighed, straightening her head dress to calm her nerves. Going over her character once again, she reminded herself the details: The heroine was a fortune teller from the North — a Drow displaced by coming to the surface. Wynonna’s brow furrowed in the dark. During the frenzied writing stage, she’d had her concerns that the production was a bit too crude in terms of depiction, but her Thiago had sworn that she had been born to play this story. Her exotic features, he insisted, had been long under-appreciated. She rolled her eyes.
Here she was, cleaning up another one of Thiago’s messes. Except this time instead of wearing bananas, she was a tragic heroine of the Vindalic Slums, reading people’s fortunes for coin, until the fateful day she reads the palm of a man whose love and death lines match her own.
The very first scene–which only Thiago could have come up with–was one of the hardest to perform: a three minute aria with only the softest accompaniment from the orchestra. Wynnona didn’t have a single place to hide if she didn’t hit her notes perfectly the first time. And here she was, swaddled in this oversized headdress like a sacrificial pineapple.
Wynonna scowled, trying not to let the negativity set in. It was easy for Thiago to write his indulgent productions and then fuck off to his next young actress’ flat. She’d always be there, trying to keep the theatre open. Had she not personally been the theatre’s financial collateral, the lenders would have shuttered the doors permanently. Thankfully, she’d been able to convince them that she was worth more to them on–rather than off the stage.
The velvet curtains parted and the applause began. Wynonna took a breath to steel herself, punching down bitterness rising in her throat. She had work to do, and the audience had come here for entertainment, she intended to fulfill that sacred pact.
She let her feet sweep her to center stage, her eyes adjusting to the dazzling lights, the familiar nautilus shape of the theatre. Taking a deep bow, she swept her hand from one end of the stage to another, acknowledging the audience. She relished the crescendos of applause, perhaps taking a little too long to indulge them. The applause was something at least, that she could never get tired of.
And then, the sudden quiet as the crowd sat down, now deep in attention.
She closed her eyes, pulling the frenetic energy of the theatre down into herself, down through the trunk of her body, her legs, and then through the soles of her feet. The sound planted itself and then grew like a sapling, growing stronger as it traveled upwards. The note reverberated in every rib, muscle and cell until it sprung from her lips. The magic made her tongue tingle, leaving her taste buds coated in a mineral, coppery taste. Always somewhat like blood.
The first note was always the hardest, but bearing down and pushing through was all it took. Everything flowed like water into her after that, as she crossed the stage, singing her aria, pretending to read the palms of the other actors on stage. Her magic sat like a gauze over the rapt crowd, glittering softly in the dark.
“I can guess anything you like, a harvest, a fire, when you’ll be a mother,” she sang, “But the only thing I cannot guess is I’ll love another.”
The spotlight swung forwards, trapping her in a small pool of light. She pulled out a small, decorative crystal, shining it into the spotlight. The crowd gasped when the crystal tossed multitudes of colored light across the theatre. She examined the prism in the light, seeing all their faces reflected back at her in the walls of the gem.
“I have read the fates of many men. Simply show me your hand.”
“Magnificent, simply magnificent,” Percival crowed, blowing his nose noisily into his handkerchief. “The critics are having kittens right now. Shows them, for trying to underestimate your talents. Bravo, Madame.” Percival sneezed into his handkerchief, nose running. He pinched his nose and turned away from the mountain of flowers on her dressing room table.
Wynonna brushed out her snow white hair, trying to let the nightly ritual calm her. He’d only just arrived, but somehow her lover was already grating on her rattled nerves. Lovers, in her storied opinion, were ever hardly worth it. Especially with Percival now working hard to suck all the air out of the room.
“I wonder what part of the production your husband will take credit for this time,” he sneered, plucking the petals off a rose from one of her numerous bouquets. She wondered if this was about her at this point, or about making a spiteful jab Thiago.
“I daresay I don’t know darling, he ran off with that Libby girl to our chateau this afternoon.”
“He’s a brute. Running your fine reputation into the mud with his dalliances in plain sight. You don’t deserve this.” His face twisted, and the elf descended into a fit of sneezing.
Wynonna could feel a headache begin to descend between her ears. She covered her eyes from the room’s bright gas lamps, “Oh Percival, do leave.”
“Whatever has gotten into you?” he asked, injured.
“I’m not in the mood to hear you prattle on about my husband.”
“Of course. As you wish, Madame,” he said haughtily, plucking a rose out of her bouquet and then tossing it, “I hate these things.”
Wynonna waited for his footsteps to recede down the hallways before setting down her ivory hairbrush. She moved to the decanter, sighing. A glass of brandy would fortify her after trying to sing her heart out in a corset three sizes too small.
She lifted the glass to her lips, regarding a loose flyer that had been left in her dressing room. They’d depicted her in the poster as diminutive, swaddled in silk turbans, several shades significantly lighter than she actually was. She pressed her lips together, annoyed. Another idea of Thiago’s, no doubt. Exotic apparently meant palatable to local tastes.
Grabbing the ivory-handled wand off her dresser, she tossed the poster into her hearth, setting the poster ablaze. Watching the flames consume the parchment, she sipped her brandy and started to think of all the lines she could change.
This story is collaboration from the From Beyond the Table Universe. If you’d like to follow along, or learn about it’s creator Paublo Tirado and his upcoming projects, please visit him here: https://twitter.com/GoblinTSuchil
All illustrations are courtesy of Illustrator and 3D Artist, Sam Dutter. You can find his work and recent projects here: https://twitter.com/samdutter
