by R.L. Summerling
Sweat clung to me beneath the crimson velvet of my dress. I marvelled at the coolness of your skin, your slim manicured fingers laced with mine. A woman in a mountainous snowy wig entered the stage and began trilling about love, I think. You were a distraction, causing me to lose the thread of the plot some time ago. It was New Year’s Eve and the cloak of the new century was closing in. Filled with recklessness, I had suggested we go to the opera, why shouldn’t we be seen together in public?
“Here,” you’d said with a glint of diablerie in your eye, “let me.”
As you dripped laudanum under my tongue, I found exquisite delight in our shared perversion. The actress finished her aria and you gave me a smeared lipstick smile, one that matched my giddiness, with no trace of that demure woman you were around your husband. The chandeliers blazed too brightly and the edges of my vision began to blur, my head lolled forward.
You squeezed my hand twice sharply; the pinch of bones touching made me snap my head up. I blinked rapidly to try to sober myself, a trick I had tried ever since I drained my first decanter of wine when I was thirteen years old. That’s when I noticed him. The man in the box directly opposite us, with high cheekbones and an aquiline nose that matched mine.
“Father,” I said.
It couldn’t be; my father was dead. I had watched as the fever had wracked his body, stripping him of the dignity and morals he held so dear. His demise had been agonizing and slow, the medicine he had dedicated his life to brought little relief. Now he sat before me as I remembered him in those final days, more of death than life. His skin was pallid and he was shrouded in a dark heavy cloth. Milky eyes were sunken deep into his skull and his lips, cracked and thin, had receded over his gums. My stomach contorted with fear and I wanted to scream for your help, but I could make no sound. The spectre of my father held out a skeletal hand and I saw in his palm he held a pocket watch. The silver glinted in the candlelight and all at once, I became terrified of both the past and the future. If only this opera would never end, the clock would never strike midnight and you wouldn’t return to your husband.
I pushed my way out of the packed theatre and stumbled into the cold night air, my breath coming hard and fast. I tried to compose myself, but dread filled me as I felt a hand on my shoulder, icy fingertips against my neck. I let out a cry and whipped around; expecting to see the ghost of my father, but it was you. Red and gold sparks rained over the city, the New Year’s Eve fireworks had already begun.
R.L. SUMMERLING is a writer from South East London. In her free time she enjoys befriending crows in Nunhead Cemetery. You can find her at rlsummerling.com.