Page 32 of Caging Darling

No steps, no rules, no patterns. Nothing to mess up. Nothing to ruin.

Peter twirls me, and though most in the crowd hand off dance partners throughout each song, Peter keeps a hand on me at all times. There’s no use in being bothered by it.

I’m not bothered by much at all.

A few times during the song, Renslow’s face flashes before my eyes. The moment before the life left his eyes.

The music and dance chase it away, the silk gown Peter stole for me from a tailor’s shop on the way to replace the one stained with Renslow’s blood now flowing like molten gold through the air as I twirl.

“Beautiful,” Peter says, eyes never wandering, though we’ve been dancing through two songs by now.

“What?” I ask.

“You smiling. I thought I’d never see it again.”

I let out a snort. “I smile at you all the time.”

Peter purses one corner of his mouth. “Not like this.”

“Well, maybe you should get me out more often,” I say.

We dance for what feels like hours, until the skin at the tips of my toes peels away, until my feet cramp, begging me to stop.

I don’t stop.

But my body isn’t used to this much physical activity, and my stomach soon begins to cramp.

“Peter, I need to go to the ladies’ room,” I practically have to yell over the music.

Peter’s eyes narrow immediately, his unwillingness to let me out of his sight more than evident. “It’s not a lengthy walk back to the inn.”

“But I’m not ready to go.”

He flashes me a smile. “I’ll walk you back here four times a night if you keep smiling at me like that, Wendy Darling.”

Just then, my stomach turns over, and my cheeks go clammy. Peter must see the blood drain from my cheeks as the urge to relieve myself punches me in the stomach.

I can see the calculation in his face, whether it’s worth it to let me go on myself in a crowd just so he won’t have to let me out of his sight. But when I keel over in pain, he takes me by the hand and steers me toward the pub washrooms.

“Don’t be long,” he tells me, though I can hardly hear him.

Scrambling into the washroom is an ordeal, but by the time I’ve had a movement on the latrine, I no longer feel as if I’m going to collapse. When I reach the basin to clean my hands, a pair of women walk in, chattering excitedly.

“The men here tonight are rather dashing, aren’t they?” asks one, a blonde girl with red-painted cheeks that remind me of the tomatoes Peter grows in his garden.

The other woman stares into the mirror, examining her perfect reflection. She’s tall and curvy, with long silky red hair and pale white skin that almost glimmers, even in the low lighting. I can’t help but wonder if she’s treated it somehow, with the way it sparkles, almost like faerie dust itself.

This woman seems less impressed with their picks for the night. She flits her hand, simultaneously signaling her displeasure and mussing her hair so that it falls in front of her face, partially covering one of her beautiful green eyes. She smiles at herself, admiring her stark, high cheekbones. “They’re fine, I suppose. Nothing like the catch last week.”

The blonde girl giggles, pressing her palms together in front of her bosom. “I do love when sailors come this far into shore.”

The red-headed woman rolls her eyes. “Keep calling them that if it makes you feel better about bedding pirates.”

The blonde girl slaps the other playfully with her beaded bag, and the two women giggle.

But my mind is stuck on one word.

“Pirates are technically sailors, are they not?” asks the blonde girl, refreshing her lip paint in the mirror. “It’s not as though I’m lying to myself.”

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