"Never tell a child, you have a soul. Teach him, you are a soul; you have a body."

~ George MacDonald

ACT I: THE NATURALIST & DEATH

WHEN I WAS LITTLE, I watched a man die.

     He was throttled good and proper with a length of baling twine; grasping, grasping, grasping in vain at the gloved hands that clenched behind his neck and twisted the breath clean out of him. His tongue swelled against his aged lips as the life sludged from his pores, slow, like a drip of hot wax along a candle's edge.

     I watched it all from the salt-crusted window, standing no taller than the sill; him on his knees, me on my tiptoes in the sand, crushing the bed of broken seashells.

     I wasn't supposed to be a la plage that day. Not at the cove, not on the Lord's Day. Not in my white patent leathers and stockings. Not with the light pink ribbon in my hair—

     But Monsieur Mazet tended our beach and Maman's rock garden.

     He owned the butterflies.

     He liked to show them to me.

    And I loved to look. Those wisps of nature encased in jars—the rusty caps punctured and leaching air—were magical.

     They filled the shack when he died. Hapless victims. Aimless. The jars that once lined the walls on flotsam shelves were smashed open in the murderous struggle. Freed, the butterflies nestled on the peeled wallpaper; dancing, drunk on the tabletops. Fragile wings on spindle-legs toddled up the inside of the window, clinging to the glass beyond my nose. Through a tangle of curls and scaly feathers, I saw Monsieur Mazet die, his body falling face-first on the dirty, wood floor.

     Thump. Thud.

     My breath sounded as loud as a bellows to my ears.

     The man with the black gloves stood over him. He carried things in a leather bag that made me think he was a doctor.

     A wide glass bottle.

     Silver tweezers, like the ones for Maman's eyebrows but longer, thinner—meaner.

     He wasn't a doctor.

     There was a vial, too, and he sprinkled water on his gloved hands. One after the other. Peppering droplets on his thumb and wetting his forehead in the sign of the Cross.

     Then, he rolled Monsieur Mazet over; easier than our housemaid, Madame Hector, rolling out the living room rug after its monthly beating.

     Souls live inside everyone, trapped between cages of bone and clotted flesh. They flutter while our hearts fade and even after we're buried, they carry right on trembling in the dark. Sometimes, they escape.

    If we don't take them first.

     Souls fetch an astounding price on the menagerie market. They are tantamount to an exotic silken monkey, or a two-headed cow when proffered to the right sorts. Morticians sew corpses' mouths shut for a reason. One needle and a spool of thick thread, stitch, stitch, stitch. That day on the beach, I hadn't the tiniest inkling it'd be me undoing their handiwork by lamplight, neck-deep in a freshly dug grave with a trite pair of scissors from my chatelaine.

     But souls look like butterflies in their corporeal form, and I love butterflies, and white and pink were Maman's colors, not mine. People call me a vampire, I call myself a ghoul. I wear black daily because every day there is a funeral.

     It's easier when I dress like I'm invited.

     The man in the sack coat and the weathered bowler hat extracted Monsieur Mazet's soul from between yellowed teeth. The elegant silver tweezers poked around where food once vanished, aggravating the squirmy lump that had begun to rise up his throat.

     Monsieur Mazet's soul was the color of soot and ash and the ink from a freshly printed newspaper. The man pinched the damp wings with the tweezers and pushed it carefully into the bottle.

     Then, he saw me.

     I should have run. But I didn't. I didn't move or speak a word when he came outside, bag in hand, to regard me; tremulous insects frantically clutching his broad shoulders in the sunlight.

     "Monsieur was a bad man," he said, speaking to me as an adult would, towering over an eight-year-old observer. "But, you see, I have killed the weed and effaced the root."

     He crouched to my level, and showed me the black butterfly, crawling around inside the glass belly. I stared; silent and curious. Chuckling at my obscure quiet, the man slid a small card from his vest pocket and passed it to me:

Trépas & Son, THE NATURALIST

Skins dressed and mounted

Exotic menagerie managed

Parcel to hand shall have our attention.

6, Boulevard de Strasbourg, Paris

     "You are an oddity, ma bichette. Come for a visit," he said. "Once you've worked out your sevens and tens, of course."

      I should have told someone what I'd witnessed, just like I should have run screaming down the street that night—ten years later—when I found my best friend murdered behind the Palais Garnier.

      But I didn't. Instead, I unclipped the tweezers from the metal chains dripping off my belt, and, kneeling in the shadow of the gilt palace, I fished her iridescent soul out from between the rouge-red slits of her wounded neck.

     She spread her wings on the tip of my finger while mine shriveled in my chest, withering in the heat of my anger. Then, I placed her in a jar and carried her, safely tucked in my purse, back home to Lover.

     Trépas's son.

     THE NATURALIST.

     I will do anything to catch her killer.

ACT II: THE PILL & THE MARK

THE OPIUM PIPE CALLS to me, beckoning with wanton fingers. It needs me as much as I need it. Scents intoxicate me, a mixture of sweat, Oriental spices, and tobacco. Clouds of smoke hover overhead. I watch in mild interest as some ghost-like creature nestles up close and whispers a thousand little lies. Tendrils waft away, creating a stairway to the sky. Yet, who are those worthy enough to make that trip? We are certainly going the other way.

     "Do you see them?" I whisper. I'm not sure I've moved my mouth, or spoken out loud, but the words hang in the open anyway, exactly where I wish them.

     The ceiling is moving, a thousand shimmering leaves rifling in the breeze. I am prone on my back, my hair undone and tumbling over the edge of the bed, ebony as a charcoal streak on a blank canvas. Warmth creeps along my bare skin and perspiration dampen my chemise. I am undressed, melting in my flimsy tango knickers.

     I am not worthy.

     And that revelation is the least of my immediate problems.

     A cold, cold hand slips into mine. I point at the ceiling, eyes wide. "I can see them."

     "Do you like looking?"

     Beside me, Iva Jane rests on her side, her blonde hair tangles in the fingers that support her head. The rest folds over her shoulder in honey-gold drapes, wavy from a crimping iron.

     She wore her hair loose the night she died. The white, tulle costume she still wears is covered in eternal blood. She is powder and paint; a pale, pale, visage tainted by cruel carmine. The ghost of my best friend. Solid, yet vapor.

     My brow knits at her question. "You sound like him."

     "Who?"

     My pipe sits out of reach on a closed trunk. The squat opium lamp smokes, sending greasy fingertips to smudge the silver ripples on the ceiling. The room, I know it is small—drowning in a river of musky cloth and stale scenery—but at this moment in time, it is a wasteland between worlds.

     "Monsieur Mazet," I say. Above me, the dead float. Impressions, swirling, stinging my vision like silt in the ocean. Not many people can exist in the ether. In the fog curtain separating the Here from the There. But I can. I've been bled.

     "He would invite me into his shack by the sea, a terrible shamble, mismatched and ill-shaped. A witch's hut." I roll onto my side, my nose inches from Iva Jane's. Our legs touch, slender branches fitted together. "He would stand close behind me, tobacco and thyme, and say 'I want to show you the butterflies.' "

     I feel Iva Jane cringe, an icy tingle that travels where we touch, palm to palm, knee to knee. "Sacrebleu! Were you frightened, mon chère amie?"

     I smile and hide my face for a moment, trying not to laugh. Her French has not improved with her death. Whatever finishing school treated her lack of finesse, they did so in an exceedingly poor fashion.

     Iva only ever excelled at dancing.

     "No, dearest," I say. "I never felt like the fly. Although, he was very much the ugly spider." I tap my fingers up her forearm. Her skin is alabaster under my touch. Stone cold. She laughs, grinning at me with her mouth and the grim, raw, slash that parts her throat.

     I let her believe me. A thousand little lies. In truth, Monsieur Mazet smelled sharply of danger and desire and intentions that told me to run. But I never did. And each visit, he listed closer, laying hands on my shoulders, tracing the curls in my hair—

      Something tickles my neck. Reaching up, I gently swipe under my chin and come away with a butterfly balanced on my knuckles.

     "Mademoiselle Thibodeaux!" a sharp voice pierces the chrysalis surrounding me, dragging me back to reality. The walls change from bright, luminescent lines to bare wood studs and ancient posters, advertising actors, and arias from operas long past.

     Iva Jane bolts upright, gusting frigid air across my naked shoulders. Her soul, flits off my hand, spiraling.

     I groan and push myself up on an elbow. It's the scene-shifters assistant, Albert. I pay him a half franc so I can use this dank closet when the need arises. "Yes?"

     "Final rehearsal in five minutes."

     "Merci."

     I flop back again, raising a cloud of dust. The mattress is crunchy, stained by age. The ropes creak, ready to snap. Props don't last. They wind up shoved backstage, wasted.

     Iva Jane doesn't settle down. She hovers at the foot of the bed; the filthy mirror behind her besmirches her reflection that only I can see.

     "You must get up, Esmée. They will ring soon."

     I sigh and wave my hand to stir the scented smoke that lingers. The dance means more to her than me. We practiced it for weeks before her death, Le rossignol, The Nightingale. Her deft memory and Maman's stuffy tutor were the only reasons I secured Iva's vacant spot among the other girls of the corps de ballet after her murder.

     With the opening performance in less than a week, the choreographer Monsieur Romanov hadn't the time to train a new dancer. I knew the steps. And for the past three days, I've been executing them in line with a string of other girls.

     I prefer punches to pirouettes. Grave robbing is dangerous work; there are other grave robbers, and, sometimes, police. I am more adept at holding a knife in my fist than I am at fighting for a seat at the dressing table.

     But I will do anything...

     Le rossignol papers the streets, in shop windows and post boxes; playbills and posters showered on an eager public. The operatic event of the season.

     Which is why I know he will be here when the curtain rises.

     The man who killed Iva Jane.

❃ ❃ ❃

LOVER ACCOSTS ME IN the wings.

     I don't call him anything else. In the cast list of my life, the lover is exactly his function. A theatrical identity I don't confuse with an honest sentiment. He is compressed by Maman and Monsieur Trépas, appearing a step above le laitièr on my list of important players:

 M. Victim (Iva Jane Gibbs): principle companion, English

M. Mother (Maman Thibodeaux ): principle old crone, French

M. Taxidermist (Monsieur Trépas): principle teacher, French

M. Lover (as himself): principle rogue, French

M. Milkman (Monsieur Daaé ): flat cap role, French

     And right now, he is a means to an end. An extra pair of hands and eyes to help me—to help Iva.

     I met Lover the day I ran away, leaving Maman to comb the Paris streets, calling my name, effectually ruining our family trip to the city. But I'd been waiting for my chance. Growing bigger, more clever. I spent my summers by the shore in the old gardener's shack shoving Maman's eyebrow tweezers down the throats of dead dogs and cats among the littered glass.

      Animal souls are not as pretty as humans. They are moth-y and blanched. Too fragile and nondescript to exist outside the body or garner a decent price.

      But the experience, the practice, made me valuable to Monsieur Trépas. The day the bell jingled, and I walked into his shop, a dozen wry, furry faces greeted me—mounted like coat hooks on the walls—and below them, grooming a rabbit pelt behind the counter, was the man with the black gloves.

     I glanced at the title on his card.

     And his son.

     Lover has grown taller since our thirteenth year, which is how he spots me so easily in the crowd. The corps girls are a tittering wave, sweeping me off the stage in a tide of silk and sweat that makes my heart thump, nervous. Lover catches my elbow and pulls me aside so suddenly; the nervousness turns to nausea.

     I only dance well when I am high. It helps me to ignore my achy feet and taut muscles and makes the libretto seem more like a series of belches in morse-code, and less like gibberish. Which is funny. But it also means I have the urge to be sick halfway through Act Deux.

     We're in a nook behind the set. Ropes dangle from the scaffolds overhead, hanging motionless in the shadows. Lover may have grown, but I am still short as a magpie, and he picks me up, depositing me on a large crate oozing hay through its gills.

     "Hello, darlin'."

     His voice bleeds from the dark. The edges of his three-piece suit are undefinable in the muted light. I only see his collar, stiff and white, buttoned snugly around his elegant neck. When God made Man, he saved a slab of starless night to sculpt out Lover. His cheekbones are carved rock, and his eyes are blue as the variegated sea—

     I am enchanted.

     Before I've caught my breath, he is parting my skirt, fingers reaching underneath my hem. But I stop him. Dancing has its advantages, chief of which is strength. Clenching my legs together, I crush his hand between my knees.

     Not yet. Crunch.

     Lover grunts in pain, but I keep him there a moment or two, bent over my lap, arm buried in my crinolines and lace. Mostly, I can't decide if I should let him continue...

     "Do you mind?" Lover asks and the moment vanishes.

     "Excusez-moi," I open my legs and set him free. He straightens, massaging his palm. I focus on finding the edges of his face instead of fixating on the sudden hunger gnawing my stomach. The opium is wearing away like a fingernail against grit, and I am starving.

     Lover touches my wrist. "Is Iva here?"

     I glance down at the cut on my skin. A beam of sallow light slices through the cracks in the timbers behind me, illuminating the red scratch. Lover was livid the night of Iva Jane's death—when he caught me with the knife and Iva's soul, letting her quiver on my arm, proboscis lapping at my blood—and it's strange to hear him ask so casually.

      "We are alone," I say. A soul that feeds on a human can project its ghost, its former self, onto the consciousness of whoever they've tasted. Iva haunts me because I let her. But her projection doesn't last long. I left her in the second cellar, locked in the room where I take my pill.

     I bleed again and again to keep her near. Because of her, I can see through the ether into Death: A tide of unhappy faces, jaws broken from the force of their anguished screams linger in the corner of my vision night or day. Souls trapped in caskets underground or showcased in glass boxes on Gentry mantelpieces, all waiting for an afterlife that will never happen. Opium helps me see.

     It eases my fear and lets me embrace the horror, curious. A chance discovery. I was using when Iva bled me.

     Lover fixes his flat cap, tugging on the brim, anxious. "Good, because she shouldn't hear this. I looked in on the stage-manager, and we had a decent chat. It seems Iva is not the first corps girl to be murdered at the Palais Garnier."

     A gasp escapes me, the hiss of a gas flame igniting. Fire burns in my chest. "How many?"

     "Four. All back-row dancers. The new Opera managers kept it hush to prevent panic and bad press."

     He unfolds a scrap of paper and hands it to me. The spot of light over my shoulder reveals a list of names penned in flourishes.

     "What is this?"

     "Patrons who are allowed access to the Palais Garnier for rehearsals or reviews—"

     "He could be any one of these men."

     "—ah, darlin', but only one has a private box reserved for tonight's opening." Lover leans in and drags a finger across the creased paper. He stops on Comte de Darcel.

     I scooch forward on the crate," Iva said he was a regular. That he never missed a rehearsal or performance, though she didn't know his name."

     "Oui. She also said the man who killed her was carrying a white lily," Lover swipes two fingers in the pocket of his trousers, a piece of torn newspaper appears. "Look."

     Our foreheads touch as we huddle to catch a glimpse of the monochromatic photograph spread between us. There is a sleek motorcar with a number painted on the engine, and beside it, a young man stands wreathed in flowers.

     A walking cane rests against his leg. The tip is an ivory lily, petals unfurling to greet his hand. He smiles at the camera.

     His eyes are the seedy pits at the heart of a gouged peach. There is no light.

     Only evil.

     Beneath the photo, the name Comte de Darcel is printed in thin type.

     "Imagine how much his black soul will be worth," Lover murmurs, and I realize I've mistaken his excitement for anxiety.

     I crumple the paper in my fist. "No. We get a confession only. We can't risk an extraction, not after what happened with Monsieur Mazet and your father."

    How Monsieur Trépas had been possessed without our knowledge was remarkable. Two souls can't exist in one body. The struggle, usually, is unseemly and violent and wholly inelegant. Blood and fever. Veins black like mourning lace. Screaming! From the broken jar swept under the workbench in the cellar, it appeared Monsieur Mazet's had been released accidentally; the butterfly burrowing into Trépas mouth or ear, devouring the feeble soul cocooned to his heart before anyone was the wiser.

     I wasn't surprised it happened so easily. Monsieur Trépas character was as substantial as cheesecloth in the breeze, and his son was—is—no better.

     But who needs good character for kissing?

     Lover presses his thumb against my cut again. "A pity you don't extend the same...caution to yourself."

     "Iva would never possess me," I say. One sip of my blood and she could if she wanted. Boring between the layers of my skin, worming into my core like a maggot in rotting flesh. A soul with the taste for a human can hunt their prey across the continents. But she wouldn't. Not ever.

     Grasping the front of Lover's vest I tug him closer. Placing my lips to his ear, I can smell him. Soap. Formaldehyde. Dirt.

     Rosemary.

     "We get a confession only. Promise me you won't be stupid."

     He scoffs; forehead scrunching below the bill of his cap. "Don't be soft."

     "Hé," I slap his cheek. A sharp tap, tap to get his attention. "That's not an answer. No one dies this time. Understand?"

     When Monsieur Trépas cornered me in the back room, behind the dried stoats and stuffed squirrels, he didn't call me ma bichette. My little doe.

     He said he wanted to show me the butterflies.

     In the end, it took two of us to kill him and both our backs to lift him onto the workbench. Lazy insects communed with the lamp flames, casting monstrous shadows on the plaster walls as we dug around inside Monsieur Trépas searching for Mazet. The night was ripe with summer heat as we emptied his guts into a bucket; pinkish ropes that slipped in our grasp like slick fish.

     Lover sighs and answers me. Finally, finally looking me in the eyes, "As you wish."

     He steals a quick kiss from my lips, and I let him.

     Fifteen years old, and we drowned Monsieur Mazet without a second thought, in a cup of Holy Water blessed by a priest for five francs. It was necessary. He was too dangerous to keep. But tonight would be different.

     Tonight, when the curtain rose, it would also fall on Comte de Darcel, and there would be no blood—save for the little of his that Iva would drink.

     But first, I was in dire need of tea and crumble.

     And a nap.

ACT III: THE FIRST & FINAL CURTAIN

"I DON'T LIKE THIS idea," Iva Jane says, sitting cross-legged on the rickety bed.

     We're back in the storage room and I am busy, resting on my knees in front of the trunk. My fingers strike a matchstick, and I skin myself on the coarse side of the box. I haven't the time for leisure, so I've set myself up with a sewing needle—pinching it between my thumb and forefinger. A small roll of gummy, brown opium rests on the tip, and I light it on fire, snuffing it out with my next breath, stoking whorls of gentle smoke. No spices. Just a deep inhale and the after-tang of excrement.

     "By George, that's dreadful," I cough and repeat the process until the smoke morphs into specters that I drag into my lungs like the Devil dredging the Styx.

      I see Iva Jane's reflection in the mirror. Shadows eat half of her face, leaving bone and mist. The other half of her looks unimpressed at my attempt to mimic her London accent.

     "Esmée."

     "What?"

     "Stop."

     I stand, unsteady at first, and then with the balance of a vaudevillian acrobat. Every piece of me relaxes, and suddenly I love how the cake-y layers of my tulle skirt swish around my knees. It feels like low tide. The ocean swirling around my calves as I dig my toes into the wet sand. I twirl once and face my friend.

     "Stop what?"

     Iva Jane ghosts across the floor. Not walking. Gliding. A pale, pale hand unfolds from the spaces the lit lamps can't reach. She caresses my cheek, chilling my spine. Her thumb traces the red dye on my mouth. Her fingers are stained bloody, and when she pulls away, the lipstick is indeterminable. She makes a mask for her face; bending her fingers into Os and twisting her palms to lay them over her eyes, fingertips spread like feathers on her cheekbones.

     Iva Jane peers at me through the holes. "This is you," she says. "You masquerade behind brave words and pretend you aren't scared, but the truth is..." she drops her hands. "The truth is, you will end up just like the rest of us. Dead. He will kill you."

     I pluck my switchblade off the trunk and flick it open. The spring releases with a satisfying click, and I hold it at a distance from my side, an extension of my arm. A threat. I smirk, "I am not just a ballerina, dearest."

     "And you think the rest of us didn't fight him? Shame on you."

      I'm befuddled by this statement. In my haze I see her words, scrambled, dangling in the air. I rearrange them until I find the one that doesn't fit. "What do you mean us?"

     "He's murdered others, Esmée. Other corps girls. I replaced his last victim. They moved me to the front row to dance in her place."

     I nod, "Oui, oui, I know this. But how do you?"

     She smiles. "I'm dead. You meet all sorts this side of the ether, and their spirits are angry."

     So is mine.

      Worry emanates from her in ripples that tread across my soul. It judders, anxious, in my chest. I close my knife and hide it in my bodice. A comforting weight between my cramped breasts. I take her by the hand, ignoring the numbness that travels through me at our touch. "I'll be fine, dearest. We have a plan, remember? You just be sure you're ready to make him confess."

     "What if it's not him?"

     "Then all we'll do is scare the bejesus out of him, won't we?"

     "They don't like this idea, either."

     "They didn't have three inches of Schrade steel buttoned in their bosom, and neither did you. No one is going to die tonight, Iva. Least of all, me. I promise."

     She flinches at the rap on the door. Albert calls to me from the other side. It's showtime.

     "Remember," Iva Jane brushes a stray curl up and away behind my ear. "He always approaches the girl who performs front row center. That's you. "

     I wave my hand, I know, I know.

     At the door, I pause and give her my serious face, "Tell me, is Gussie Davis over there?"

     "Esmée Thibodeaux," she says, hands on her hips. "If you ruin this dance I'll kill you myself and then you can find out."

❃ ❃ ❃

I MET IVA JANE on my seventeenth birthday.

     She bought us vanilla ice creams, and we ate them on the weather-worn front steps of the opera house, at the feet of the fearsome angel of "The Dance". Her mother was recently deceased, and she'd requested an extraction—which I'd been sent to perform.

     I hadn't the tiniest inkling that a year later, it'd be me keeping her soul in a jar instead. And if anyone had suggested I'd be awash in the footlights of the Palais Garnier, miming Stravinsky with the corps de ballet, I would have asked what they were smoking.

     And then purchased some myself.

     But here I am.

     My world is a red sea, laced in gold, and flecked with spots of the prettiest blues. Crystal glistens. Hanging from the ceiling in dramatic drapes that cast a gleam potent enough to chew through the velvet. And beyond the glare of the lamps fringing the stage floor, I can see indistinct faces. People. Watching in the distant dark—

     Most of them are alive.

     The dead wallow in corners or wait in the wings, haunting, spectating in a mausoleum of memories. As I dance, my mind discordant with the music, I catch glimpses of the murdered girls too. They list with Iva Jane, counting my steps. Her soul rests on the warmest footlight, never leaving my side. Cold air wrestles my excess heat away as their projections brush passed, whispering lies in my ear.

     "You are doing well."

     "Trés bien!"

     "Beautiful."

     The Nightingale, Le rossignol, ends in a rainstorm of applause, and the easiest part is over.

     "Be carefully..."

     "Good luck."

     The corps girls are presented in the foyer after the show, springing down the Grand Staircase in their costumes and maroon slippers. I am a less bouncy champagne bubble, and I linger on the second landing to get a view of the crowd below.

     Mostly, they are men. A great many in black silk suits and shiny top hats. The corps girls spread through them like a milk drop through coffee, pluming from the last cream and gold stair tread. Laughter teases the foyers' impossible height, including the ceiling frescoes in the gaiety. Glasses clatter. Voices echo. Tutus are patted cheekily as the girls are paraded for the patrons—a gift in exchange for their money.

     "Who do you wait for, Mademoiselle?"

     I startle, biting down to keep a rude word from escaping. The chandeliers glance off the marble. Bright glimmers that addle my senses. I tuck a protective hand behind me in case the gentleman tries to pinch my bottom.

     "No one, Monsieur," I say. I don't turn around. I continue searching the crowd for the Comte.

     A ghost stands in the middle of the floor. People make a wide circle around her, without knowing why. The ocher glow of the electric lights and gold paint, can't touch her. She is cerulean. Blue. Frozen flesh cloaked in snow and spattered red.

     Iva Jane.

     The hairs on my neck rise. Slowly, she lifts an arm and points a bloodied finger my way. Icy tendrils walk across my exposed shoulders and lace my collar bones in frost.

     The dead girls' voices clog my thoughts, harsh as breakers on rocks. A cacophony of urgent whispers surrounds me, drowning the din of the party and the dry orchestra strings. Behind you. Behind you. Behind you.

     I turn. Comte de Darcel looms above me, more handsome in reality than a camera lens could capture.

     He grips the lily in a gloved hand, pressing the cane into the carpet runner. "I apologize, I didn't mean to frighten you."

     He smiles.

     I curtsy. "Pardon me, Monsieur. I didn't know it was you."

     He cocks his head, eyes sparkling. "You know me?"

     "Of...course," I say. "Who doesn't know the famous Comte de Darcel, motorist, and winner of the Circuit d'Auvergne?"

     He chuckles. "You'd be surprised." He scans the people over my shoulder as if deciding. "Mademoiselle...?"

     "Thibodeaux."

     "Mademoiselle Thibodeaux, you dance front row center, yes?"

     I nod. My pulse quickens.

     "This is an unusual request for me, but would you do me the honor of coming back to mine for a drink and a chat?"

      Remember the plan. I can barely squeeze the words from my lungs, "Actually, Monsieur, I would rather visit your private box if you pardon the phrase. I've never been in one before."

      True.

      "We would be very alone," I add when irritation blossoms in his brown eyes.

     Lie. Lover will be waiting. And Iva.

     Comte de Darcel folds, lifting two fingers to beckon the waiter. "How can I resist such a lovely face?"

      The champagne flute sweats in my grip as I follow him away from the party. I scratch at my wrist, suddenly aware that I have skin and bones and that eighteen years is not a life span but a blink.

      I desperately need a smoke.

      After minutes of walking along the interwoven hallways and staircases of the Opéra, I begin to realize he is leading me nowhere near the auditorium.

     This is not part of the plan.

     We're in a vacant corridor, flickering in gold light and lined in red. Esmée stop.

      It takes him several steps to notice I am not keeping pace. "Mademoiselle?"

      His voice echoes.

      When I was little, Maman kept gargoyles in her garden; miserable, decrepit monsters that crouched on spheres and glowered at everything. Their faces were gashed. Cheeks and teeth and ears furrowed haphazardly into the clay by the knife-strokes of the sculptor.

      Grotesque nightmares, hungry for peace.

      Comte de Darcel steps out from the shadow of a pillar and into the lamplight. His reflection wobbles in the floor to ceiling mirrors that cover the walls at intervals. In the glass, his human facade splits like the shell of a sunflower seed, and he is a grotesque gargoyle—

      A demon in a bow tie and tails.

      I smash the champagne flute against a stone pillar, turning the jagged stem toward him. I've cut my palm, but I ignore the blood trickling through my clenched fingers. My skirt is wet where my drink exploded.

      The handsome, human him, bends his neck like a willow branch, tipping, tipping, tipping until he leers at me from an unnatural angle. In the mirror, the demon does the same.

      "Is something wrong, la petite danseuse?"

      I swear I'll get clean after this. No more chasing the vapor in my underthings.

      There's a room to my left, an entry cloaked in velvet drapes. I don't answer.

      I run.

      The room is dark and I trip over a chair, sprawling on the carpet, losing the broken stem. I don't censor my thoughts, I let every rude word I know color my breaths. Scurrying on my knees, I bump into a table. Something rattles overhead. A vase?

      I wish I was wearing black. I miss my mourning dress and veil. My white tutu illuminates the dark like a firefly, I can't hide.

      This is ridiculous.

      Grasping the bowed edge of a piano, I gain my feet and my composure.

      Enough panicking.

       The velvet drapes lift and a shaft of light strides across the floor to nudge my slippers. Click. My blade opens, ready, and I press my back against the piano's side, sliding on the lacquer.

      Comte de Darcel enters. He flips the light switch. Electricity hums, waking the sconces on the walls and the darkness vanishes.

      The Comte looks normal. He looks confused.

      How much opium did I ingest?

      For a terrible instant, I think I've made a grave mistake, and then something hard collides with my face.

      Pain arrests my jaw, copper, and salt floods my mouth. I'm on the floor again, dizzy, and inhaling the dusty carpet as I try to drag my stubborn arms and legs into a useful position. The knife is still in my hand, and I almost stab my eye out when I move.

      "You had to make this difficult," Comte de Darcel growls. His shadow envelops me. I feel him above me, reaching down, lodging the length of the cane against my throat. I've got a bruise where the handle punched my bone. My shoulders hug his chest, and I smell him.

      His scent is floral.

      Lilies.

      Death.

      He's squeezing the life out of me. I'm hot and blurry and angry and scared.

       I can't breathe.

      Lifting my arm I use the last of my strength and I cut him across the fingers clenched near my ear. The switchblade slices his glove, drawing a precise red line. Blood on his hands.

      He won't stop.

      My vision fades, a candle snuffing to burnt wick. I don't want to go...

      As if magicked from nowhere, Iva Jane appears. At first, I think I'm dead too, and then Comte de Darcel's cane slackens and I fall forward on my chest,

      Thump. Thud.

      I gasp, sucking air into my raw lungs. Soon. I realize not all the gurgling noises are mine. Rolling over, I'm just in time to see Comte de Darcel's body tip and collapse, hands clenched to the chasm of his slit throat. A normal human being.

      A dead one.

      Lover is there, panting, knife in hand. "Are you alright?"

      The piano clangs as I grasp for something to help me up, slamming my shaky hands across the keys. I leave blood smudges on the ivory.

     "You killed him," I say, stunned. "I told you not to!"

     "Oh, that's gratitude for you," Lover says.

      "How did you know where I was?"

      He dabs two fingers to a wound on his cheek and points to Iva Jane, exasperated. "She-she bit me!"

      Iva Jane hovers in the corner. Her projection is fading from my mind, and all I wish to do is hug her tight. This isn't what I wanted. I wanted the Comte to suffer in prison. I don't know whether to thank her or apologize for Darcel's too-quick demise.

     Her horrified expression makes breaks my heart.

     But she's not staring at me.

      Behind you behind you behind you. The girls whisper.

      A heavy thud reverberates under my feet and I turn and look. Lover has fallen on his knees beside Comte de Darcel. His face is blank as a paper sheet, unaware, head tipped like he is listening to distant music.

      A black butterfly burrows in his ear.

     My shoulders crumple—

    "Fuck."

➤ This story was written as the fourth entry for @Nyhterides the Glamour of Grotesque contest (2016?). Honestly, that contest was the most fun I've ever had spinning words. For the prompt, we built a narrative around a given paragraph (bolded in the text above) and use it seamlessly in our stories.

Thank you for reading!