She continued to dream through the small window, where the sun had just begun to lift away from the city horizon in a pale glow.

How could something so terrible as smog create something so beautiful? That it seemed to cover over the blemishes that had left upon the world below, the atrophied limbs and limbos of Los Angelus, the nearly sensual ghosts of industry and economic deprivation had infected it like a disease that sometimes seemed to be spreading. Locked away here, in her little room somewhere, just above this world; she nearly felt immune to it.

But those were merely more of the lies she would tell herself; to convince herself that hardly anyone even knew she was there. She would allow herself to dream about a different world, or maybe merely just a different Nell Felicitas. Someone who didn't keep all of her best and worst memories in a small set of shadow-box shelves. For what all the eye could see was merely an Emmet Kelley collection of figurines, some were said to be worth more than others but they were all precious to her. Much had changed in her life since she had first started collecting them, from the young teenage girl that loved clowns; and most of all, "Weary Willie" that Emmet had made so loved and famous throughout his world.

Once, he had nearly convinced her that anyone could actually touch the heart of the world, before she really understood words like charisma or personality defects.

That was when she had created Matilda.

She had started out simple enough. One of her grandfather's old suit coats and her grandmother's make-up. At first, Matilda only came out on Halloween, though she was actually born way before anyone would ever see her. Matilda was a dancer, or wanted to be one anyways- which was how half those early skits played out. Wearing her cousin's old throw-away high-top sneakers that were at least four-sizes too big ...

Nell would really try to dance, mostly ballet in the earliest days, but only because it seemed sillier. She had never learned anything about it before she tried other things, such as dancing with a mop and an even more hilarious version of the Flash-dance routine after she had seen the movie. She experimented with the face, because she didn't want Matilda to look too goofy. She wanted her to be beautiful in a way that people couldn't really express in their everyday world, a clown-face that wasn't really supposed to make people laugh, and she was nearly convinced that she had it ...

In Matilda's world, Nell had no defects. Emmet Kelley had never said a word, so the fact that Nell Felicitas had been deprived of the ability to speak didn't matter. Even her classmates like Matilda, though they never really got to see her face- When Nell would decide to act silly and they would laugh, they finally weren't laughing at her anymore- not really. Sure, there were always the more cruel sort, but life offered up more victims for bullies.

... Especially on the day that Verona first came out to play.

She had never thought of these things as crazy, not then. The even more ironic part of it all was that Verona was somebody she never wanted to be, but they wouldn't leave her alone- Matilda was a clown and Nell had never learned to defend herself, thus the emergence of Verona.

They had been reading Romeo & Juliet, that was why she had named her that. She knew all of these entities were really her, but Matilda was just make-believe and Verona wasn't who Nell was, just who she had to be ... for a short while, and they had left her alone after that.

Verona didn't care if she hurt them, Nell did. It was almost as if she really wanted to hurt them, and Nell never wanted to have to hurt anybody deliberately. Nell lost track of her thoughts for a brief period of time, and the only memories she had of the episode at all were in the aftermath.

She had broken Timmy Johnson's nose and kicked Billy Newman in the privates ...

"Sugar & spice, and everything nice ... That's what little girls are made of" ...

Grandma Frieda had thought she was the one that got hurt when she came home crying. She had never found out that Nell had gotten sick. That she had gotten herself so upset that she just couldn't stop herself from retching over, long after her stomach was already empty.

She barely heard the song’s end as she turned toward another collected facet; a shelf that remained empty of one of those collectible memories after one had fallen and broken. She knew the one that was supposed to be there, a simple one really where Emmett was handing a bunch of balloons to a young girl after the one she had before, had broken.

She had tried …

“In the absence of sleep, to learn to dream aloud …” She startled at the voice as the long and tall man with wavy golden hair and a strange wide-brimmed hat that covered over most of his face in shadow. “Through memorae’s veils, it is a cold sort of peace- to dream no more.”

The sound of Margo Timmins’ near ghostly voice filled in the silence as Nell stared towards the stranger inside of her apartment. She wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go- She had never quite figured out how to escape from her own prison.

“I remember her still, like a genteel lady’s scent …” he said as he grabbed a jar of make-up from Nell’s make-up counter. It had never been opened, because she had thought that when Tabitha was old enough, she might like Matilda …

“Mutations are merely those lesser natural transformations,” he said as he kneeled down before her and broke the seal on the container. “She cannot die, only you can Nell.” He said as he dabbed a thick and heavy smear of face paint on her cheek. “Matilda isn’t really the same anymore, now is she?” He smiled gently as he continued to work the make-up into her face. “Madness seems like an escape, but it is a truly hopeless place. Of what darkness possesses one that tries to destroy themselves by first destroying every little precious thing it still possesses,” he pushed her hair back as Nell was held still by some inexplicable force that didn’t come from him, but from within. It was as if her entire body had suddenly seized and locked-up, and would no longer obey her.

She had felt this way before …

“How long have you cursed yourself with his silence now, Nell?” He gave her a brief amount of time to respond before smirking and then going back to putting the make-up over her forehead. “Come now, you might have been able to fool the world all this time, but I have never really been a part of that- Now have I?”

“No,” Nell nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of her own voice.

“You see, dear Heart; it is common enough for a child’s heart to wish for childish things. You wanted to be beautiful once, not realizing that you already were. Ah … to be loved by such a vulgar creature, you never, again, forgave yourself for being beautiful. Children rarely understand the complications, as they lack that sophistication to choose their wishes very carefully. If only in a perfect world, perhaps innocence simplicity might endure,” he said as he moved back towards the make-up bureau. “I couldn’t let you destroy her Nell.” He said as he grabbed an old bag that had barely been opened in years and moved over to where she sat at the window. “You wanted her to be something that she could not ever be. You never really tried to understand her true nature, only the one that your mortal self had been conditioned to believe that was how she should be. When she wasn’t that, you abandoned her- Just like you abandoned Tabitha.”

“Who are you?” Nell’s voice shook as he grabbed her cheeks forcefully in the palm of his hand, his fingers pressing painfully hard into her cheeks.

“Matilda tried to come out to save her from this world … to save her from you Nell,” He drew her head downwards so that their eyes could meet, and Nell’s eyes widened slightly as she seen the face below the brim of the hat. “Matilda loves children most of all.”

Nell tried to force her eyes to remain open as he went back to applying the make-up to her face.

“True beauty needn’t necessarily be noticed by all …” his voice started to fade out as Nell’s body slumped back into the chair.

Milgram finished applying the clown make-up before carrying Nell’s limp body over towards the bed and laying her down gently upon it.

“Neither of them had asked to be born, yet they are both truly beautiful creatures,” he said as stood over where her body lie still and motionless.

Nell’s last conscious memory was of a small statuette of Emmett Kelley being flung across the room and shattering up against the wall. She had never really consciously chose that one from her collection, it was more just a simple happen-stance of blind rage.

She needed something to lash out at, she needed to destroy something or someone. She regretted it the moment she heard it crash, but it was already too late.

On the small tag legend that came with the figurine told the story behind the model for the piece. Although prone to exaggerations, the basic idea was that Emmett had been working with the circus when he came upon a young girl crying because she had accidentally broken her balloon. And Emmett had given the little girl a bunch of them, because he couldn’t stand to hear her crying.

The little girl’s name was Tabitha.

***

“Everybody talks about a new world in the morning,
New world in the morning, so they say
Well, I myself don't talk about a new world in the morning
New world in the morning, that's today.” …