Crone of Coconut Court: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (Dead & Breakfast Book 2) by Gabrielle Keyes

Author:Gabrielle Keyes [Keyes, Gabrielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Alienhead Press
Published: 2021-11-19T05:00:00+00:00

13

There were other dancers. Not just Josephine. About eight in total. All young women, none older than twenty, ranging from white to Black to Latina maybe? All I knew was that I watched them from the balcony, as they sat astride their chairs onstage, stockinged legs wide apart, feathers covering their upper torsos, tipping their hats to the male audience. Coins and roses flew into hats, as cheers of admiration filled the theater.

I was dreaming. I had to be. I couldn’t remember getting out of bed, walking into the closet, or moving through the portal, yet here I was. I seemed to remember going to sleep early after an exhausting day. After the kid next door hurt my mind by challenging my beliefs, I’d taken melatonin to help me get to sleep faster.

Each of these girls, same age as my daughters, worked their asses off for coin. Part of me applauded them, while part of me wanted to cover them with shawls and give them money for college. Times were different then, sure, but even today, women exploited their beauty to make it through life. The more everything changed, the more it stayed the same.

The back balcony row had a few empty seats, and there, two men in bowler hats with thick mustaches sat dourly ignoring the show, leaning into each other, deep in discussion. Why come out all this way and pay for a ticket if not to cheer the ladies on? I wanted to flick them for being rude. Standing in the shadows, watching the theater erupt into roaring applause, listening to the old-timey music, I again felt like I was observing through a sheet of glass, like my gaze was not my own.

Feet. Look down at your feet.

I wasn’t sure who was telling me this, but I did.

Like last time, they were tiny—a child’s feet in rich, honey tones and baby soft skin. It wasn’t me. I was in someone else’s body, standing in the shadows, holding one of the old, composite doll in the crook of my left arm. I glanced at the men, so deep in discussion. I wanted them to pay attention to the show. I didn’t care for the way they looked, nor the way they pointed to the ceiling or other areas of the theater, completely in their own world of men’s discussions.

I shifted in the shadows, and again, the men noticed me as they had last dream, except this time, they stood from their seats and moved toward me, whites of their eyes focused. “Get her,” one said, intent on reaching me, but I knew the secret passageway back to the house, back to my room, and they didn’t. Even if they did, they wouldn’t fit if they tried.

I didn’t know why they wanted to capture me, but I knew they didn’t like me or my mother, the star of the show, the reason they’d come. Or was she? Why were they here anyway, if not to watch her performance?

Good thing I was tiny and could outrun, outmaneuver, them.

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