The tickets came in an envelope. On the outside, in handwriting I didn’t recognize, was the name Samuel Singer. My name. There was no return address.
They arrived at the office, and someone had put the envelope on my desk. There were two slips of paper, maroon and gold foil. The logo was a smiling young woman, with dark hair, pale skin, and two different colored eyes—one blue, one green. Behind her, red and orange flames.
They read:
Come See What’s Hot at :
Madame Taglioini’s Ballet.
Celebrating 50 years of Le Papillon
Masaniello Hall
ADMIT ONE
I turned each of them over. One had “Night One”, and the other “Night Two.”
To be honest, at first I thought it was some sort of weird prank. Somebody at work, Heather probably, giving me a ticket to some sort of fake burlesque show. But after some research, I’m surprised to say, it seems to be legit.
Madame Taglioni’s Ballet is one of the most exclusive dance experiences in the world. It’s impossible to get a ticket, unless you know someone. And I didn’t think I did. But apparently, someone knows me.
They’re doing Le Papillon. From what I’ve read, they always do Le Papillon, ever since Madame Taglioni played Farfalla back in the day. Farfalla is the coveted role, the one that all of the dancers fight for—a girl turned into a butterfly by the story’s villain.
On their website, they have an entire page devoted to all of the past year’s Farfalla’s. Headshots of young women, all the way back fifty years to Madame Taglioni herself. Dark hair, one blue eye, one green—it’s obvious she’s the inspiration for the ticket. This year’s Farfalla is someone named Emma Livry. I’ve never heard of her, but what do I know about ballet?
Another strange thing—all of the headshots had brackets of years under them, like gravestones. I had a hard time pinning down what exactly they were. A large portion of them, especially towards the beginning, were sort of short. Twenty years or so. At first I thought it might be how long each woman worked with Taglioni’s Ballet, until some of them were fifty, sixty, seventy year expanses. Madame Taglioni’s had a first year, but the space for the second was left blank. There were only a few others like that. It gave me brief pause, but I didn’t spend too much time on it.
Looking back now, I should have known.
It’s not my usual type of story that I cover, but I’ll take what I can get. Things have been quiet since the McAfee house. Not that I minded a little bit of quiet, after that ordeal. And judging by the event’s internet fame, an inside scoop at Madame Taglioni’s Ballet might be just what Bad Habit needs. That’s what I thought, anyway.
As usual, I was terribly, horribly, irredeemably wrong.
The theater itself was odd. If you could call it a theater. Masaniello Hall was, strangely enough, only about an hour away from Habitsville, an hour and a half if you drive around Rhodes’ Creek, which I did. The ballet travels across the entire world, but oddly, they always do Le Papillon in Masaniello Hall. The outside was plain, and at first, I had been sure I was in the wrong place. It was on a dusty street in downtown Augustus. Though I’d been to the city before, this street was one I was completely unfamiliar with.
The outside of the building that matched the address I’d found was devoid of any signs or decoration, and it was obviously not large enough to hold an audience for what I anticipated to be a very large performance. Plus, there didn’t seem to be anyone else here.
It was dark, and the street lamps were a muted, dull yellow in the damp fog that had begun to settle. The pavement was dusty, the cobblestones cracked. Dark storefronts and boarded up windows haunted the streets. I had taken a taxi, and was regretting it, standing alone in the half-darkness. I had just raised my phone to my ear, to call another car back, when a voice stopped me.
“Are you here for the show?”
I jumped, then squinted through the fog. I took a few step forwards, towards the building at the end of the street, the one that was supposed to be the theater. There, speaking through small holes in the glass pane in front of him, but a young man. He was standing at a desk behind the glass, and he wore a maroon satin vest. He was smiling at me, but it wasn’t a creepy smile. Just a polite, customer-service smile.
I walked over. “I think so. The ballet?”
He nodded, and I instantly felt relieved. I was starting to think it really was a prank. Or that I had a few screws loose. He motioned to a small opening at the bottom of the glass. “Ticket, please.”
I got out the ticket that read “Night One.” He looked it over, then pointed to his right. “Just through the door, sir.” It was an old, wooden door, that did not look like it led to a high class ballet performance. I hesitated. This didn’t seem safe, nor smart. But I’m a reporter. If I want interesting stories, I have to do interesting things. Even it gets me into trouble.
And wow, was I about to get into some serious trouble.
I opened the door and was instantly confused. Instead of a hallway, or room, like in a normal building, there was just a staircase going down. I peeked my head back over to the young man, who was still watching me. “Just down the stairs?” I asked.
He nodded patiently. “Enjoy the show.”
So, I went down.
It was beautiful. The theater is all white and marble. Light, airy—French. They have dainty pastries on a long table in the back, and a bartender serving cocktails. The theater was modest size, usually to keep the show exclusive, but there was quite a bit of people there. I quickly sat down in a seat near the back, so as not to draw attention to myself, and so I could watch the happenings in the theater without being noticed. Due to the secrecy surrounding the event, and the suspicious way that I procured my ticket, I figured it might be best to keep it quiet that a member of the press was there. But the more I looked, the more I could sense it.
There was something strange about this place.
For one, everyone there was obviously rich. I was severely underdressed, but that wasn’t what was unusual. These people weren’t just rich. They were eccentric rich. Monocles and jeweled canes, faces painted stark white—one woman had her hair twisted up into an elaborate cage, in which sat a large, blue, very much alive parakeet. There was a man with his teeth and long nails filed down into points. An old woman wore a shining necklace of what looked like polished human teeth, strung up like pearls.
As you might have guessed, I was out of place. Everyone there was obviously, loudly wealthy. They were no doubt entitled to whatever they wanted, and were accustomed to getting the best of the best.
So why did no one sit in the front three rows?
There isn’t assigned seating, it’s first come, first serve. Yet, as more people took their seats, they all silently avoided the first three rows. The kid who had taken my ticket outside hadn’t given any special instruction, not to me at least.
The lights flashed. A young woman sat next to me, looking fairly normal, save for the large glass ring she wore. It had a tiny goldfish swimming within it.
“I can’t believe we’re here, right?” she half-whispered to me. Her eyes were wide with the thrill of being in the show’s audience.
“Yeah,” I said, unconvincingly.
“Especially with Emma Livry as Farfalla,” she added excitedly. “She’s so talented.”
“Mm-hmm,” I agreed. The chatter was dying down now, and the lights sank to a low dim.
The girl next to me sighed. “I just hope she makes it.”
“Yeah—“ I started to absentmindedly agree. Then I blinked. “What?”
She turned to look at me. “Act Two. I hope she makes it. That she isn’t hurt too badly.”
“Hurt from what—“ I started, but before I could, the crowd burst into deafening applause.
Madame Taglioini, with stark white hair, the same bright blue and green eyes I could see twinkling in the spotlight, and a bit of a limp, had taken the stage.
---
Credits
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