If there's something less punctual than a Cerulean train, Leaf Green thought, it hasn't been invented yet.
She had been standing on Platform 16 for an obscene amount of time. She'd arrived two minutes before scheduled departure time, utterly out of breath from sprinting to the station after being held back by one of her professors. Now, at forty-six minutes past nine at night, the train was over half an hour late and her running had been for absolutely nothing.
Her heels beginning to pain her from standing, Leaf plopped down onto one of the dark metal benches thankfully available on the the platform. It was empty, like all of the other ones. Like the rest of the platform. It wasn't an impossible event to be alone here under the tired, flickering lights and ancient, arching, cement ceilings. Unlikely, yes, but the hour was drawing late and many had had the fortune to catch an earlier train.
She rifled through her messenger bag to pull out the novel she'd been reading, a surprisingly engaging memoir of a clown, but just as she opened it, a sudden draft plucked the bookmark from her hand and shut the book to make her lose her page.
"Oh, damn," she said under her breath as the bookmark (well, really a receipt from a café two weeks ago) fluttered off toward the tracks past her fingers outstretched in vain. She weighed the pros and cons of going after it as it teetered on the brink of flying down to the rails, and decided it wasn't worth it. After a few minutes of flipping through pages, she found her place and continued reading.
Finally, at ten oh six post meridiem, just as she concluded a chapter on curious experiences with circus dogs, the sound of a train screeching to a halt on the rails before Leaf made her heave a sigh of relief. She hadn't checked the timetables after her expected ride (double damn!), so she would have to hope that this one would take her all the way to the end of the line in Pallet Town.
Leaf looked around the car as she stepped in, though she didn't expect to have trouble finding a seat. The only other patrons were a studious-looking young man with a black frock coat that was around a century out of style and a lady beside him in a white, ruffled dress that also smacked of Edwardian influence, both of whom seemed utterly out-of-place in the dimly-lit metro car. Leaf supposed that fashion would have inevitably marched beyond her.
The seats were black, or perhaps a dark blue, she couldn't tell, even upon closer examination, but regardless of ambiguous colour, they were comfortable enough to sleep on. Leaf pulled her book out of her bag again and opened to the page she'd left dog-eared in the absence of her bookmark. Here were details of the intricacies of circus makeup, replete with sketches.
As soon as she turned the next page, the lights flickered off, and the car was plunged into an inky darkness.
oOo
When the lights came back on, a few seconds later, they were an almost blinding stark white. Leaf blinked against the sudden brightness and glanced at the couple across from her, who seemed utterly unperturbed by the change.
They were ghosts, Leaf decided as she squinted at them. That must have been it. If they noticed her staring for a solid five minutes, they gave no indication.
A ding interrupted her observation and a crackly voice came over the speaker to announce their next stop, a name that sounded like Skellett or something she'd never heard of before.
"This is our stop," the man across from her said with a voice like an old record, and Leaf watched the two stand from over the top edge of her book. To her surprise, he approached her and outstretched a gloved hand. As if she were no longer in charge of her own movements, her hands closed the book (mark the page, no!) and placed it in her bag. She watched as she took the young man's proffered hand, warm, and he gently pulled her to her feet, and she followed the two ghosts out of the car into total darkness.
A strange coldness washed over her, as though she had just walked through some sort of waterfall, and her eyes adjusted to the blackness around her slowly. Thankfully, she realised, she could move her body of her own accord again. A sudden panic gripped her — where was she? — and she spun around to hop back on the train, but it had soundlessly vanished from behind her, leaving empty rails at a dizzying depth beneath her feet.
She took a deep breath, no use getting hysterical, and surveyed her surroundings, which were surprisingly populated.
Everyone around her looked like he or she had just walked off a Lumiose runway, from chic ensembles to historically-inspired pieces like the ghostly two on the train to the most outlandish creations, but all in monochrome, creating a distinctly dizzying effect. Even the skin of people seemed to have a greyish cast, as though she were seeing this all through the lens of an old-fashioned camera.
Leaf was missing a familiar weight on her shoulder, and she patted her side to find empty space where her bag should have been. Had she left it on the train? Or had it simply vanished as she passed through the cold gate? What a terrifyingly confusing dream this was.
Beyond the station crowd (mostly couples, she noticed with only a trace of dry humour) stood what appeared to be a settlement of sorts with houses like stacked boxes and brick chimneys jutting out precariously close to edges of rooves. The walls were grey stone yet seemed warmer than one might have expected.
Leaf tried her damndest to tap shoulders, wave in faces, call out to deaf ears, but everyone seemed too busy on his own mysterious errands to help her find her way in the odd world. When she finally managed to locate someone who paid her any mind, a rather intimidating man who towered over her like a shadowy, hulking monster, he only pointed her toward one of the nearer stack houses.
Leaf had weaved through the thinning crowd and knocked twice on the door of the house before it was suddenly thrown open by a brunette girl, her eyes a startlingly bright blue and her cheeks flushed. A young man with a shocking head of green hair (though Leaf could not complain after the monotone of the station) stood behind her, pressing kisses to the back of her neck.
"Oh, hullo!" the girl, who could not have been older than seventeen, exclaimed as she smoothed down her dress, a summery, light grey number. "Sorry about this. He gets likes that sometimes." The young man was still kissing her shoulder blade, his hands gripping her hips. She ushered Leaf into the house and closed the door behind her.
"I'm his Muse," she said, as though that would explain anything. "May."
"Leaf," Leaf introduced herself, and the man parted from May with an exhalation. He introduced himself as Drew.
"How do you like Scarlet so far?" he asked, and she gave an answer out of politeness rather than actual intention.
So that's what it had been. Scarlet, not particularly odd given the nature of the usual naming practice throughout the region. But still, she'd never heard of the place. She hadn't given up on the dream theory, which seemed as plausible as ever at the moment. Hopefully she would wake up before her stop.
The door opened with a tinkle, and Leaf looked back to see a couple, of course, a young man dressed impeccably who nodded in acknowledgment at her and a young woman at his side, blonde and willowy with silvery grey eyes. There was something exquisitely fine about her features, like she'd been carefully sculpted by a renaissance master.
"Lawrence, Designer. Cordelia is my Muse," the man said. There was that word again. His face was stoic beneath oddly boyish dark curls, but not entirely unwelcoming.
Cordelia was soft-spoken and dainty, extending a hand for a gentle shake from Leaf. It seemed frail and cold as ice, as though she were a phantom. "How do you do," she said with a breathy voice like porcelain. A porcelain doll, that's what she was like.
Though May had appeared more likely to make such an offer, Cordelia was the one who had invited Leaf out for a stroll about the town. Leaf supposed appearances could be deceiving, at least in some instances.
She realised she hadn't gotten a good look at the town upon her arrival earlier that day. (The day before? A week ago? Time seemed to somehow pass rapidly and stand still simultaneously here.) Now she could enjoy the scenery at the delicate pace her walking companion had set on glass legs. There lay a cobblestone street beside the pavement on which they strolled, though Leaf hadn't seen motor vehicles of any shape or form here, excluding the train, which hadn't blessed Scarlet with its presence since her unceremonious arrival. All in all, it was a rather quaint place, with stone walls and painted shutters and flower boxes of bright poppies and pansies along the street.
Still, couples dominated the crowd. These, Leaf now understood, must have been the pairs of "muse" and "designer", like May and Drew, Cordelia and Lawrence. Solitary people hurried along, almost as if they feared being seen sans partner.
"Cordelia," Leaf began, and the girl looked at her. Their pace did not break. "What...is a muse, exactly?" A soft smile spread across the blonde's rosy lips.
"A Muse is the most important being in a Designer's life," she explained earnestly. "She is his vessel of creativity. Without her, he cannot complete his work. Everything he does is of her, for her, by her. She is a goddess in his eyes."
Leaf didn't quite know whether or not to trust the rosy picture Cordelia had painted of the life of a muse, but the girls who followed along their designers like ducklings seemed happy, their cheeks pink and eyes twinkling.
Back at the workshop, May pushed Leaf into what seemed to be her room without ceremony, where clothes dominated the interior design theme. The shorter girl gathered several dresses from around the room with only a moment spent deliberating on each before she thrust them all toward Leaf.
"We're going to a party tonight," she said, cheerful but without any room for discussion. "I want you to look perfect."
Leaf's long hair was carefully curled, makeup was generously applied to her eyes, and she was suited in an interesting dress she wouldn't have expected for a party — all white and lace and ballooning sleeves and a skirt that brushed above her knees. The shoes had long straps that wound about her calves and heels just short enough that she might not stumble. Finally, May completed the look with a silky lily in her hair, so stunningly smooth Leaf almost believed it was real.
It was like one of the parties straight out of the movies.
From the outside, it appeared like any other quaint house along the cobblestone street, granted the viewer ignored the pulsing orange and red and blue lights emanating from the windows. On the inside, the whole building seemed to be alive, swollen with a sea of people. Some wore masks; all were in curious ensembles not unlike Leaf's. May pushed a drink into her hand, something she couldn't recognise by the smell but the girl assured her was absolutely safe. Leaf took a sip, pleasantly surprised by the fruity flavour and immediate buzz.
May pulled her through the throng of people, talking, drinking, dancing, to what appeared to be a slightly less-filled sitting room.
"Is Cordelia coming?" Leaf asked out of genuine curiosity. The young woman seemed too fragile to come to a place like this, with all of its debauchery and raucous conversation and the bass thumping through the floor like a writhing heart.
As expected, May said that Cordelia would not be coming, most unfortunately. However, Drew was here, much to her pleasure.
Talking with Drew, there was a young man, auburn-haired and handsome in a way that made Leaf's pulse quicken when he looked at her. He met her gaze and gave her a wink, and May must have noticed the pink that suddenly coloured her cheeks, because she pulled the brunette toward the two young men with a conspiratorial smile.
Oh, he really was handsome.
"This is Leaf," May introduced her to him before she could say anything.
"Gary," he said with a voice as smooth as velvet. "You're new, I assume?" Without giving her time for an answer, obvious enough, anyway, he took Leaf's hand in his and pressed a kiss to it in a gesture that was charmingly old-fashioned. "I like when the new girls are so beautiful."
"Thank you" was all that she could manage with his eyes, perhaps green or hazel, it was difficult to tell in the lighting, so hypnotisingly close to hers. He smiled a wry smile as he led her to sit down with him on an unoccupied sofa.
"Are you enjoying yourself?" he asked, and she took another buzzing sip from her glass before she answered.
"I think so."
"Naturally. With me, how could you not?" Of course, there would be an ego to go along with that charming smile and devilishly handsome face. Leaf laughed good-naturedly.
"And has every girl here enjoyed your presence?"
Gary leaned toward her and gestured to several girls in the room in turn. "Did...did...did... Didn't do," he finished on a girl with curled ash-blond hair in deep conversation with a tall, masked man.
"I suppose I'd better warn Didn't Do." Leaf smiled playfully.
Suddenly Gary's voice was low, his breath hot against her ear. "I'll be happy to remind you that you're also a Didn't Do."
"Is that a challenge?" His roguish smile answered her.
Soon enough, May gathered her to leave the party and return to the workshop. So then, there was night and day. "I suppose it must be fate that brought us together tonight," Gary said in parting, and he pressed a farewell kiss to her cheek. "Perhaps it will be kind enough to bring us together again."
Gary seemed the most...normal out of all of them, Leaf decided, regardless of his sedulous flirtations. He was someone she might see in one of her university classes.
oOo
The next day, in Drew's workshop, Leaf climbed the narrow staircase to the upper floor. The steps made no sound beneath her feet, despite looking at least a century old. At the top of the stairs stood a solitary door, slightly ajar, with a small landing before it. There was a peephole in the door for some inexplicable reason that reminded her of the golden eye of a cat.
Curiosity killed the cat.
Leaf pushed the door open, as silent as the steps, to see what must have been Drew's personal workshop. The small part of her that had hoped for colour, some colour, anything to break the monotony of monotone that was beginning to drive her insane, she feared, was not pleased.
Rows of fabrics — lace, velvet, chiffon, satin, organza, brocade, lamé — lined the walls, carefully organised into a gamut of pure white to inky black, shimmering shades of silver and smoke and steel between. Leaf ran her fingers along the bolts of fabric, relishing in the exquisite weave of each as she surveyed the rest of the room. Two, no, three mannequins, adorned with frothy, half-finished creations, stood sentinel by the door. A single window, the only source of light and the only dusty thing in the chamber, allowed rainy grey light to flood over Drew's desk, cluttered with sketches and pincushions and an industrial-sized sewing machine.
Leaf stopped at the sight of a red pincushion, a stark contrast to the myriad grey ones she had seen so far in the workshop, and she approached in disbelief. A dozen or so pins stood upright, carefully lined up like rows of strait-laced soldiers.
The heads of the pins reminded her of miniature Corinthian columns, exquisitely detailed for their small size. They were longer than she expected, she realised, when she had drawn one out of the cushion to admire it more closely, almost three inches long.
She heard someone, Drew, enter behind her and turned to ask him why they were there.
"Careful with those!" he snapped at the sight of her beside the pincushion, and she was surprised by the uncharacteristic acrimony in his tone as he strode over sternly to pluck the pin from between her fingers. "Don't touch them. They're very sharp."
He delicately replaced the pin in its proper position before ushering her along out of the room. She tried to apologise, but he cut her off coldly.
"You don't need to be in here. Leave."
And the door shut in her face.
Leaf tread carefully down the silent stairs, as though even the slightest noise might draw him back out to antagonise her again. But her foot had not touched the bottom floor when May rushed toward her with an enormous grin and gathered her in her arms.
"Gary's asked for you to be his Muse!" she exclaimed once she'd released her embrace, and Leaf was taken aback by the news. Gary? The handsome, charming designer who could have had any girl to be his muse had chosen her of all of them? She felt rather pleased, to say the least. The memory of Drew's hostility was all but vanished from her mind at this news.
"But what do I have to do?" she asked, and May brushed off her question with quick hand-waves.
"It will all follow."
oOo
"Here," May said as she placed a bundle of fabric in Leaf's arms. "You'll knock his socks off with this one."
The world was black and white and some shades of grey in between. Scarlet came in bright, eye-catching flashes that were so brief they might have been a trick of an imagination starved for colour.
But this dress, the fabric silky smooth on her skin, was entirely a violent red, like nothing she'd ever seen here. May insisted on it, despite Leaf's reservations about its brightness.
Leaf was still trying to understand how time could move so fluidly here, but she guessed Gary knocked on the door about an hour after she'd slipped into the scarlet dress. As soon as his eyes fell upon her, he nodded to May as though they were sharing some private conversation.
The first night, as he explained was customary, would be a dance. A brief walk, Leaf's heart thrumming in her chest, brought them to a rather regal-looking building with stained-glass windows and beautifully ornate columns that seemed vaguely familiar. Gary led her to the centre of the dance hall, where others had already congregated, and set them up for a waltz that began exactly as he took the first step. May must have sprinkled those shoes with magic pixie dust, because Leaf felt as though she were floating on a cloud. The other pairs of dancers swayed around them to the sound of violins and trilling flutes. There was a certain ethereal beauty to the uncanny symmetry of the dancers around her, as though they had done this dance so many times it had become part of them. Leaf thought of little clockwork characters.
All the others looked the same about her, a sea of white and black, all but Gary dancing with her, holding her, looking deeply into her eyes.
She was a drop of blood spilled on snow among the frothy white dresses.
Perhaps it had only been a few minutes. Perhaps it had been hours. She was dancing, and he was dancing, and finally he kissed her like a summer breeze and it was over. Leaf felt drunk off of the energy, giggling and leaning into Gary on the way to his workshop, which would, by custom, be her living space from now on. Once they'd entered, she giving him a slightly sobered good night, Leaf started for her room on the second storey, but Gary pulled her into his bedroom instead and locked the door behind him with a click.
"Once," he said as he swiftly began to unbutton his shirt, and Leaf realised where this was headed, and very quickly. "For the books."
"No, Gary," she implored, her breath coming rapid and shallow. Her eyes darted about desperately for a means of escape. "Stop. I'm not ready."
But her plea fell on deaf ears. His shirt had hit the floor already, and he was advancing on her. For every step he took forward, she took one back, until the edge of his bed caught the backs of her knees and she fell backward onto the mattress. She scrambled away until the wall stopped her, trapping her in a corner, and she could only watch as Gary climbed over her with measured precision, her eyes wide.
"Gary, please, no," she begged, only a whisper, as he expertly untied her dress, as though he already knew exactly how it worked. He paid no mind to the hands trying desperately to hold the red dress in place. His amber gaze came up sharply to meet hers, too intense to tear her eyes away.
"No means nothing on Scarlet Night."
Leaf froze at the dispassionate tone of his voice. No, it was not his voice. It was as though he were reciting something.
A scream caught in her throat.
oOo
The next morning, Leaf stared incredulously at the long scratches drawn into her torso in the bathroom mirror under stark white lights. They were a vibrant red, her skin ivory in contrast, and some stretched from her collarbone to her navel. Her abdomen, her back, her arms were spattered with dark grey bruises, and she felt thoroughly tenderised.
Her eyes fell on the scarlet dress from last night, sitting innocently and carefully folded on the white counter. When had he brought it here?
She felt almost ill as she looked at it and as she realised everything it stood for.
"No means nothing on Scarlet Night."
Had the same thing happened to cheerful May? To fragile Cordelia? To all of the "muses" she'd met? They seemed so untainted. So blissful. So beautiful. Not at all soiled like she felt now.
She needed to leave.
Cordelia was strangely absent when Leaf visited May at Drew's studio. But the other girl was there, her skin seeming ashen. When Leaf enquired as to her health, she assured her she was "dandy" and changed the topic to the night before, much to Leaf's unhappiness.
"It's so thrilling, isn't it?" Thrilling was not the word Leaf would have chosen, but May seemed so infatuated with the thought. "It is the greatest honour. You are a vessel of creativity."
She said it like some sort of holy title, but something about it made it sound as though the words were not hers. They were eerily familiar, placed in her mouth by some upper being. A puppet, that's what she was.
...They were all puppets, the girls.
May.
Cordelia.
Leaf.
She glanced over at her shoulder, half-expecting to see a string sprouting from her skin. She swiped at the empty air once May had disappeared into another room, and the paranoia set into her skin like a cold chill.
She was sitting at the table, her face buried in her hands, when Gary finally found her. She bolted up out of her seat upon the tinkling bells of the opened door and backed against the corner of the table and the wall, shrinking away from him like a cat.
"Don't come near me!"
"Leaf, what are you doing?" he asked, ignoring her cry and approaching her.
"All of them, they're just...dolls. Puppets!" she shrieked. Gary stepped toward her.
"Leaf, please calm down," he said, his voice no more than a hypnotic murmur. "You're being hysterical." He placed a hand on her shoulder. But she was not placated, and she ripped her arm away from his coaxing touch.
"I...I'm going to end just like them, aren't I?" Hot tears welled up in her eyes, making her vision blur, and she felt them slide down her cheeks and drip onto her shallowly rising bosom. "Aren't I, Gary? Aren't I?"
The expression on his face… He was pitying her. Like she was a poor, lost soul, when she was the only one who really saw what it all was. He gently pulled her out of the corner by the elbows and rested his hands on the sides of her face, cheeks glistening with tears that he gently swiped away with his thumbs.
Then there was a prick in her back, like one of Drew's sewing pins. She suddenly felt numb, only the vague sensation of Gary gathering her in his arms and his breath against her neck, shushing her like he would a wailing child. And slowly, everything went dark.
oOo
Gary pressed tender kisses up her arm, from her knuckles to her shoulder.
He had been gentler with her lately, but May reassured her that it would soon be better. "Faster, more unpredictable," she'd said, giggling, as Drew pulled her away.
Leaf had come to realise that she'd been absolutely confused and in such a state earlier. It was silly to accuse her friends, her Designer, of those terrible things, really. She was a vessel of creativity, and to have a Designer was an honour, especially such a dashing one as Gary. She'd become more receptive to his touch, more prepared to relinquish inspiration on demand. She felt beautiful.
One day, as Gary fitted a sort of Regency-inspired dress on her (white, he always liked white on her, like the first night they'd met), a fair-haired girl was ushered into the front hall of his atelier by Cordelia and Lawrence. She looked about her, confused, and averted her eyes from the sight of Gary covering Leaf's neck with passionate kisses as the brunette sat motionlessly in his lap.
"Yellow," she introduced herself to the four, and the name sounded foreign to Leaf's ears.
"My name is Leaf," Leaf said. "I'm his Muse."
A/N: Quick! End theme is "Mr Moustafa" from the soundtrack of The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Is the Stepford Wives influence too obvious in this one? I adore Levin's book. Also this story ended way more serious than I'd originally intended. I still love Gary to bits, even though in this story I guess he's a rapist whoops also implicitly Drew is too hahaha
Rape jokes aren't funny. Fuck you.
In other news, most of this was written to the lovely sound of the Assassin's Creed series soundtracks. They're actually very good for writing, I must confess.
Also the rape part was written to "Dance Without You" by Skylar Grey if you were interested in ruining that song for yourself forever
Hey, if you read this far, maybe you'd be interested in leaving a review? How am I doing? Anything you guys'd like to see? Favourite line from this one? I won't know unless you tell me!