Chapter 4: Pressure

The show did not end when the questions stopped.

People lingered.

They moved away from the platform in uneven waves, drawn back toward the other exhibits—the Fat Man joking loudly now, the bearded woman braiding and unbraiding her beard with practiced patience—but the rhythm had changed. Conversations were quieter. Laughter came late, if at all. And again and again, visitors drifted back toward the far end of the tent, where the metal frame stood like an accusation.

Some returned with softened faces.

A middle-aged woman pressed a handkerchief to her mouth, whispering to her husband that the girl looked no older than their youngest. A boy stared too long at the small feet locked in their devices until his mother pulled him away sharply, scolding him for staring while unable to stop glancing back herself.

Others came with a different energy.

A man laughed once, nervously, and said it was clever—very clever—the way the iron held her up. Another asked, too loudly, whether she was still noble now, or if falling from the sky stripped that away. Coins clinked as bets were placed in murmurs: how long she would last, whether she would ever stand again.