A pall of tar and timber smothered the usual aroma of pine needles and damp earth. Jack was nursing his first beer since coming to this godless place, the first alcohol of any kind that he’d seen since the beginning of his indenturement. He hunkered over a mason jar of homebrew, sitting at the base of an enormous tidewater cypress that sentineled the railway leading to Peewee’s tent. The Princess’s fabric palace glowed in the near distance like a child’s magic lantern. Jack could see silhouettes cast onto the canvas by the lamps inside. He could see Ambassador’s thrown shadow, the trunk dipping for water into the tank at the foot of Peewee’s bed. He could see The Fat Lady, too, her ample figure distorted by the play of screen and shadow and sultry breeze. Propped in her bed reading—what? What tale of romance could compete with this life? He would like to believe that Cassandra’s sexually charged prophecy was simply a ploy, an attempt to pump him for information, find a hole in his story.
