Page 22 of Caging Darling

When we reach the doors of the opera house, the wiry attendant out front turns his attention away from his list and peers at us over his golden-rimmed spectacles.

“Names?”

“The Olssons,” says Peter smoothly.

I rustle in my evening gown. It’s the color of Peter’s eyes, and I can’t help but wonder if his choice was intentional.

The man checks the list. For a bated breath, I fear he won’t find our names. But of course he will. The Sister saw in her tapestries that the Olssons would be ill and staying home for this event.

The man checks us off with his ink-dipped quill, then gestures for us to enter the opera house.

It’s not like any opera house I’ve been to, though I suppose I’ve only been to the one in Jolpa. And only when I was very young, before the plague. Before the curse that stole my freedom and seeded within my parents such paranoia that they refused to let me leave the manor.

From my poor memories, I remember the opera house in Jolpa to be rather functional. This one is plated in gold at the ceiling, imprints of leaves and branches decorating the gold leaf. The carpet is a deep scarlet that reminds me of spilled blood, though surely I’m the only one in the audience thinking as much.

Well, perhaps not, considering we’re not here for an opera.

We file in, directed by an usher to our plush seats in the second row. The entire walk down the aisle, I find myself scanning the faces in the crowd, the aching in my stomach palpable. It’s a silly notion, thinking he’d be here, of all the places in the world to be. Knowing that it’s silly does little to dissuade me from looking anyway. It doesn’t soothe the pang of disappointment either when I’m met with unfamiliar faces. Our seats are in the center of the row, and when I reach mine, my stomach drops out of my chest.

The seat is covered in velvet.

A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead.

“What’s the matter, Wendy Darling? Getting squeamish already?”

Peter’s voice warbles in and out. I am here and not. Here, and also in Darling manor, and men’s hands are snaking their way up my dress…

“Hey, tell your lady to sit. The show’s about to start,” says the man seated behind us.

“Refer to what’s mine again, and you’ll lose your tongue,” seethes Peter, though slyly, a hint of coy amusement in his voice.

The man behind us, a thin middle-aged man who looks as if he’s not used to being as far back as the third row considering the gold adorning the rings on his fingers, scowls. He goes to stand up, surely not to argue with Peter, who has a full head on him. But I’ve met men like this before, dinner guests of my parents’. Men who think their wealth and status can protect them from anything.

To be fair, they’re usually correct.

“Dear, please,” says his wife, still seated, grabbing at his elbow. “The show hasn’t started yet. I’m sure she’ll settle down before then.” The woman looks at me, both pleading and apology in her eyes. Please don’t give him a reason to embarrass me, she begs through her heavily painted lids.

She’s significantly younger than him. Probably half his age. Yet she doesn’t wear the garb of a woman early in marriage. The absence of pearls in her dainty golden crown informs me she’s not celebrating a recent wedding. I wonder how young she’d been when married off to him, how many years she’s spent pacifying her husband’s outbursts.

I can’t explain why, but I nod at her, and it somehow gives me the strength to take my seat. The velvet still feels as if it’s come alive underneath me. It’s swirling with disgusting curiosity, ready to grind through my clothes at any moment. But I tell myself I’m doing it for her. For the nameless woman behind me. I don’t see her sigh in relief, but I hear it. A sharp release of breath.

And I know that we’re in this together.

Peter takes the seat beside me, but not before winking at the man behind us, who grumbles something inaudible back.

“What’s gotten into you, Wendy Darling?” says Peter, leaning over to whisper in my ear. “You look ill.”

“Nothing,” I whisper back, offering him my most practiced smile. “I’m just…anticipating the show, that’s all.”

I can’t tell if it’s concern or amusement in Peter’s eyes. Though I should know by now that he’s incapable of expressing the former without hiding it underneath the latter.

The faerie lights illuminating the opera house dim, bathing us in shadows. I glance at Peter, who appears right at home.

Fear lances through me, and I clasp at his hand. His lips twitch upward in a smile. He thinks the gesture is because I want to be touching him. It doesn’t register with him that I fear how he—his shadow self—will touch me if I don’t touch him first.

The curtains slide heavily across the stage, sounding as if they themselves are heaving. They part to reveal a thin, angular young man with pale skin, vibrant red hair, and weak blue eyes. He’s wearing a black tunic, the common garb for physicians (black hides bloodstains the best), and is standing over a table.

On the table is a corpse.

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