author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Notes from the author:

One of the funniest things I ever saw at a Mardi Gras parade was a group of preachers on Canal Street losing their grip on the crowd. It’s questionable what kind of grip they had in the first place. But the tidal pull on everyone’s attention most definitely turned as the parade arrived. Still, the preachers didn’t give up. They just changed their tune, dropping any pretense at a coherent sermon and simply chanting “Bible! Bible! Bible, bible, bible!” to the rhythm of a passing marching band.

When Carnival comes to town, everyone dances to the beat of its drum. Everyone follows where it leads. Generally it leads nowhere worse than to hangovers on Ash Wednesday morning, but you never know.

Having escaped at last from Faerie, Moire fetched up on the riverbank just after sunset on Lundi Gras. Despite her long captivity, it had only been two days since she’d been taken.

Sounds of the citywide party traveled up the levee to where she stood swaying in the grass. She’d have to cross the parade route to get to her apartment from here. At first she thought she wouldn’t be able to bear it; the bright colors and costumes and masks would be too horrifyingly reminiscent of where she’d been. But she’d grown up in this city. She’d lived here all her life. She’d joined in the nightly revelry every carnival season. There was nothing otherworldly about the scene. It only meant home.

She fell into step with a family leaving one of the parking lots along North Peters. “Calm down, kids,” one of the parents was saying. “Plenty of time before the first float reaches us.”

“But the clowns! Hurry, Daddy, we don’t want to miss the clowns!”

Moire followed them to the neutral ground, then came to a grateful halt. She would wait for the parade, she decided. She would hold up her hands to the passing floats and yell Throw me something! with the rest of the crowd. She would put plastic beads around her neck, dance as the marching bands came through, stomp her ragged sneakers down on the twinkle of aluminum doubloons. She would learn how to be herself again, just another New Orleanian celebrating during Mardi Gras. She would—

“Abomination!”

She whirled.

“Heathen freak!”

Multiple voices, sudden and unrelenting, electrically amplified.

“You cannot hide what you are—God sees you!”

Moire finally spotted her verbal assailants, and her panic subsided. Street preachers, that was all. A handful of them, like the cast of a musical, standing on and around a collection of wooden crates arranged near the curb. From that vantage point they could harangue the parade crowd and the northbound vehicle traffic at the same time. The last week of carnival always brought them out in numbers, hoisting picket signs, handing out leaflets, attempting to shame parade-goers for engaging in idol worship. It was just part of the ambiance.

“God’s wrath is upon you! He will fling you into the fiery pit!”

But they were all looking straight at her. As though they knew.

They couldn’t know. How could they know...?

This has been an excerpt from the Friday Fictionette for April 22, 2016. Subscribers can download the full-length fictionette (1341 words) from Patreon in PDF or MP3 format depending on their pledge tier.

Friday Fictionettes are a short-short fiction subscription service powered by Patreon. Become a Patron to get a new fictionette every first through fourth Friday and access all the fictionettes of Fridays gone by.