The darkness was almost vaudevillian on his own. He was in control of this place, he had to remind himself, and there was nothing haunted about it; kids came here all the time with their parents, he’d seen it, if not recently. This place was very much still alive. If it wasn’t, he wouldn’t have gotten as far as he had in his business, in his vulnerable early years, he would’ve crashed it to the ground.
But he had succeeded, and that first success had led to greater successes. One success, and he had destroyed the possibility of failure. There was always the threat, but it was far from him. It couldn’t touch him now.
And of course, that success came back to him now, a sort of comfort as he took out the trash. The stars above him, too, lit a path by what few lights remained of the park darkened enough to be bound to the stars.
That too was calming. And disturbing, as well.
But of course, no matter what happened behind closed doors, he would always know that blood, he’d know murder. Nothing more vaudevillian than murder — except perhaps corsets.
And Orion wasn’t dead. Even worse than murder, he was still alive to torment them, still around to drive them into their darkness. As if Seth’s own wasn’t worse enough. It never was, to outsiders, to people who couldn’t see it. What was his pain, compared to theirs?
littlewonder2 