Clarice noticed the tent on her way to work. Its strange curtain flapped in an empty lot next to an abandoned shopping center. She didn't know when the shopping center had been abandoned, nor when the tent had been erected next to it. It was unusual, but Cloverdale had become a town of unusual things.
Clarice mulled over the same thoughts as everyone else. Time moved strangely on some days. Parts of her life seemed empty, as though the people who occupied them had vanished. Maybe the shopping center had bustled with life a week earlier, but somehow adopted a ramshackle and caved in appearance. Or perhaps the building kept a normal rhythm in time while Clarice and the other unlucky citizens stood still. She didn't like to think about it.
The tent, though, demanded attention despite also seemingly left behind in the flow of time. It had once been bright and colorful, splashed in spotlights to excite carnival goers. Now the reds and yellows had faded. Bright pink spans of cloth patched the tarp in several places. In the daylight, Clarice knew it was hollow, but as she passed on her way home from work, light flickered inside. Impossible silhouettes moved gracefully across the tents exterior, but no sound betrayed movement within. Clarice was not a curious woman, and she was not an adventurous woman. But that tent compelled her attention. The more she gave to it, the more she heard the faint sound of calliope music on the wind.
She pulled back the flap and entered the tent. Dazzling light caused her eyes to squint. A grand chandelier hung from the center where a tent pole should have stood. Strands of diamonds splintered the light emitting from a giant bulb. Beneath the strange light laid a threshed floor which smelled of cedar. In a semicircle facing the entrance stood thirteen different chairs.
The strange furniture fascinated. One chair seemed to be made of a living plant, the one beside it made of ice, and another was nothing but swirling cloud. She accounted the strangeness of each of them and also noticed the feeling of emptiness each accompanied, except for one. The chair directly across from the entrance drew her eye. A wing backed thing made of polished black ivory and covered with a dark purple fabric. The legs sat on skulls, and the arms ended in gleaming rubies that Clarice felt were watching her. The chair looked older than the others, much older, but the facade was new, or at least newer. Clarice's sense of curiosity and adventure ended with the sight of that chair.
"Welcome," said the man sitting in the chair. "Please, come join me." He gestured to the chair on his right, one made of fur and leather bound around antler and bone. "Do not worry. Its owner will not be joining us.
Clarice began to cross the room. She couldn't remember when the man had appeared, but he had been waiting for her. A cheap trick, she considered, then immediately dismissed that as the least likely explanation. He was tall, even while seated. He wore black buckled shoes, like she had seen in history books on the pilgrims. Long striped socks disappeared behind trousers held up by a shabby leather strap. A purple coat with tails and large black buttons covered his chest, with the ruffs of his shirt poking out the sleeves. His fingertips poked out of tattered gloves, each black finger wearing a gleaming ring and yellow, but clean nails just slightly longer than they should be. Dreadlocks framed his face with his eyes hidden behind the opaque circular lenses of his glasses. A golden tooth glinted in his otherwise brilliantly white smile. Atop his head was a tall, purple top hat with a faded red ribbon tied around its base. Clarice shuddered at his presence, yet she also had the impression that this was a man who had been with her all her life. She took a seat on the grotesque chair beside him, feeling diminished and afraid, like a scolded pet.
"Now, my child, what is your name?" the man said in a sonorous voice.
She cast her eyes on the ground, noticing a variety of beetles darting in between the leaves of thresh. "Clarice."
"Hmmm," he said, pulling a silver pocket watch from the vest underneath his coat. "The others will be here shortly." No sooner than he had said it, than Clarice noticed a young man sitting precariously in the icy chair on the other side of the skull adorned throne. "Time does not work like it should anymore, does it, Clarice?" the top-hatted man grinned at her, his face a bit more skull like than before. "Do not worry about him, he's already been here and gone. Just a ghost of tomorrow or yesterday, maybe. Even Old Uncle loses track of them sometime. It's not that boy we're waiting for, anyway. We're here for the red child."
Clarice looked at the young man sitting opposite of her. She knew him from somewhere. Probably from high school as he seemed to be about her age. "Sebastian?" she said, cautiously. The young man's eyes flicked towards her briefly, but then focused again on the tent opening.
"Don't be minding that boy," Old Uncle said. "Let's see, we can't have you wearing those clothes. Blue is your color. It brings your eyes out." As he spoke, the jeans and work polo that Clarice wore melted away, turning into a robin's egg blue sun dress. The beautiful dress delighted her enough to drive away her fear for a moment. The young man, Sebastian, was suddenly in a tight fitting grey suit, with a black tie and gleaming ruby cufflinks. "And Old Uncle is already in his Sunday best," the man said with a laugh.
A shimmer of energy went through the tent, and Clarice's gaze went to the entrance once more. Outside she heard murmurs and the low growling of beasts. The flap of the tent pulled back, and a woman stepped forward into the light. "Do not distress, children, she cannot see you until Old Uncle wishes you to be seen."
The woman was perfect. Clarice felt ashamed of her figure for the first time in her life as Mandi walked into the center of the circle of thrones. The red woman wore a dress almost identical to the one on Clarice, except in vibrant crimson rather than blue. The fabric barely constrained the woman's massive breasts, and even the flare of the skirt did little to hide her wide hips.
"Greetings, Amanda," said the Old Uncle. "I have been waiting for you. For a very long time."
Mandi spoke in a beautiful song of a voice, "What are you?" Venomous suspicion laced her voice, but it still enthralled Clarice. "Who else is here? I can smell them."
"Such angry questions for Old Uncle," the man said as he lolled his head to the side. "From such a pretty woman. Come, let Old Uncle kiss your cheek." He waited. "No? Then straight to business then." The ground moved. Tendrils of thresh and earth wrapped around Mandi's arms and legs, binding her in place. She tried to cry out but her voice choked in her throat. A scuffle of bodies tried to rip back the flap and others clawed at the sides of the tent with angry voices, but the fabric did not move. "We will not be disturbed!" said Old Uncle in a thunderous command. The uproar outside the tent ended abruptly.
