London was much greater of an expanse than Ophelia had imagined, or than she had prepared for. She had awoken that morning feeling ready to explore, or more so, to find a job. Will's teaching position at Cambridge was excellent, and would more than sustain one person. But they were in the woods together, and together was how they would survive.
Ophelia wandered along the sidewalk outside Victoria Station with a massive crowd of tourists, clutching her purse close to her side and smoothing her sweater down over her skirt every time the wind decided to make a mess of it. Cars and tall red busses zoomed by. The sounds of music, chatter, and sizzling food filled the air and floated from shop windows as she passed.
Will had gone to the university rather early, leaving Ophelia to do what she pleased. She had dressed quickly and headed out, entirely alone for the first time since before leaving Baltimore. While it was nice to have a bit of quiet, she felt as if Hannibal should appear any moment. Of course, he did not.
Before catching a train into London, she had grabbed a bite at a small eatery a few blocks away from the station. The waitress who had served her seemed entirely mesmerized by her American accent, and Ophelia entranced by hers. She had introduced herself, as Nora of course, then had been on her way, eager to find something to occupy her time in the city. The city itself made her feel quite like a small fish in a large pond, and it was obvious on her flushed face nearly all the time. The people she encountered were kind; they seemed to sense her nerves and her desire to simply blend into the crowd.
Ophelia only wished she could express her gratitude to Will, and also to Alana and Freddie. She figured the only way to really repay them for stepping out behind Hannibal's back was by refraining from becoming a hermit. It would be so easy to slip into a rut of lazy lackluster spirit, but Ophelia refused to let herself become that person. Surely there was nothing to be ungrateful for; she was in London, for goodness sakes. She had been given a rare opportunity: the opportunity to start over entirely. Ophelia should surely be happy. Excited, even. She should have to reason to think of home, or of what had been home. Her case closed and her name cleared, Ophelia had no reason to return to the states. She had escaped two morbid fates by leaving with Will.
Now she wove in and out of the crowd, stopping at stands of wares in the street and pausing every once in a while to take in the sights that she had only read about or seen on television.
Now Hiring: Professional Dancers!
A tall red and black sign caught Ophelia's attention across the street. It hung over a tall, slender black door and a window that was covered with pink and black drapes of a satiny texture. Ophelia crossed the street toward the intriguing place with a group of French tourists.
As she approached the small cove-like entrance, Ophelia could immediately hear jazz music, laughter, and the clinking of china. She slipped through the half-open doorway and into an enormous foyer, decorated with feathers and beads, all deep reds and pinks in color.
A man in a tuxedo with a curled mustache and hair the color of the sun stepped out from behind a curtain, followed by a blast of sweetly scented air. He held himself aloft for a moment, then his stature fell as he looked her over, obviously not pleased at her common appearance.
"Welcome to The Black Cat," he plastered on another smile, this one fake and oozing sarcasm, "My name is Vince, and I would love to help you today. Table for one?"
Ophelia shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, "Actually, I saw your sign outside and was wanting to look into applying."
"An American, eh?" Vince raised his finely plucked eyebrows, "Haven't had anyone from across the pond come in today." Ophelia could just feel his eyes boring into her.
"I just moved here actually," she cleared her throat, clutching her purse for dear life, "with my brother. He's a teacher."
"Well isn't that just fun," Vince rolled his eyes and pulled back the beaded curtain that hung beside him, "Go on in. You'll find the line to the right, Miss..."
"Nora," she called over her shoulder as she ducked beneath the bead curtain, "Nora Spencer." She was immediately hit with the smell of overbearing perfume. The space was simply an enormous room, with a long mirrored bar at one end and a stage at the other. The walls were covered with beads, feathers, and draped bits of fabric similar to the foyer, only they reached up to and covered the ceiling, giving the impression that the entire place was swaddled in the stuff. Between the bar and the stage were a series of tables and chairs, most round and decorated with candles, and others roped off in corners, decorated with flowers and buckets of champagne bottles. Booths lined the walls as well, looping around to the bar and back into a room that Ophelia could not see. Two women sat at the table closest to the stage, clipboards in their hands and frowns on their faces.
The stage itself was enormous. An entire grid of lights dangled above and in front of it, and it looped halfway around the room, jutting out into two identical catwalks on either side. In the center, under the scrutiny of the spotlight, was a tall, slender redhead who grinding herself on a chair.
Oh, so it's this type of dancing, Ophelia frowned to herself. She began to slip nonchalantly from the room, but one of the women in the front turned and gestured for her to get in line. She watched until Ophelia had joined the eclectic line, though reluctantly.
Soon, Ophelia's conscience had begun to scream at her, insisting that this was a seedy place not to be trifled with. The types of girls that the two women in the front seemed to take to simply stood up onstage and wound their bodies around languidly. Anyone who attempted a real style of dance was brushed off nearly immediately. The next girl to clomp up onstage immediately began tap dancing at high speeds, earning muffled guffaws and only a few claps from the rest of the line. She left quickly, her head hung and her face flushing.
Ophelia wrung her hands; she had not come in prepared to actually do anything. It was her first day in London, and she had only wanted to scout the place out. In fact, she was still quite sore. Before leaving, she had downed a full dose of pain pills and had stuffed the small orange bottle in her purse. As the line inched forward, she grew more and more tempted to pop a few more.
One by one, girls got up onto the stage and fumbled their way thorough their routines; it was clear that not many of them had prepared much of anything or had much experience with dance at all. They all danced to the same song, which put the girls at the back of a line at a bit of an advantage. The girl before Ophelia was excellent. She gave her name: Gigi French. It sounded fake, but Ophelia did not say a word. Her routine involved the chair, but was not nearly as disturbingly raunchy as some of the others. She received a light round of applause, and in response she flipped her long, black hair over her shoulder and strutted away, not waiting for any further feedback.
"Next!" the woman who had urged her into the line called her up. Ophelia took a deep breath and ascended the stairs, pulling the strap of her purse from over her head and dropping it to the side.
The two women were starkly different. On the left sat a tall, austere statue of a lady, with flowing platinum hair and thick theatrical makeup. The other was shorter and significantly more voluptuous. A small birth mark was dotted onto her cheek with eyeliner, and her chocolate hair was sprayed up into a bouffant. She looked Ophelia up and down as she took her place on the stage, obviously not pleased with her lack of preparedness.
"Name?" the blonde looked up from her clipboard.
"Nora Spencer," Ophelia tried her best to sound perky.
"An American," the woman raised her eyebrows, scribbling something down on her clipboard, "So tell us a little something about yourself, Nora."
"Well," Ophelia wracked her brain for something interesting to say, "I studied dance in school. I don't really know what to tell you; my brother and I moved to Cambridge to start over."
"And what brings you to our humble establishment?"
"Just... if I'm going to do anything with this new opportunity, it's going to be performing. We moved here to start over, and I intend to do it right."
"Hmph," the woman scribbled something else, then gestured to a man who stood just offstage, "Music."
The song began after a moment's lag. It was a Bjork tune, and thankfully her contemporary dance teacher had been wholly obsessed with the oddball singer. Ophelia slipped her shoes off and spun immediately into the dance that she had learned to the song a year before.
For the first time in a long while, Ophelia let herself get lost in the music. It wasn't about the tricks and turns, but about expressing the release that she felt in the midst of each movement. In the moment, she forgot Hannibal. She forgot all of her father's crimes, and that the one man she had ever felt for had killed him to prevent him from killing her instead. The memories of her sorority sisters melted away, as did Will, Alana, and Freddie. All she felt was the music, no matter how strange.
"Nora," the blonde woman's voice cut through her trance. Ophelia stopped short, immediately embarrassed; the music had been off for a few seconds now. She stood in the center of the stage, suddenly feeling rather small while the woman wrote a few things down on the clipboard.
"Sorry," Ophelia muttered, feeling a dozen pairs of eyes on her.
"Don't apologize, kid," the blonde woman stood, tearing the paper off her clipboard and handing it to Ophelia, "be back here tomorrow at noon for a callback. Wear better dancing clothes, yeah? We'll be moving a lot."
Ophelia was dumbstruck for a moment, then she grinned broadly, "Yeah, yeah I will! Thanks!"
She rushed from the stage, grabbing her purse and disappearing through the bead curtains. The piece of paper was scrawled with notes, all positive, as well as a name and a telephone number.
"Elle Maddox, owner," the card read, followed by a small printed black cat, whose tail swirled up and around the top of the paper.
Ophelia spent the rest of the day feeling rather light. On the first real day of her new life, she had stumbled unwittingly into an excellent opportunity, and she intended to make the best of it. Will would be glad; dancers in clubs such as those made excellent money. Sure, it wasn't the most upstanding job, but it was still dancing. And perhaps it would help her to stay underground. At least for a while.
She wandered to the park, where a small group of children was squished onto a bench, feeding a family of birds that were hopping around merrily on the pavement. They were colorful little birds, all shades of yellows, blues, and reds. All save one tiny brown bird, its wing bent unnaturally out to the side. It hopped around the outside of the group, pecking desperately at crumbs that it would not possibly hope to reach. Ophelia sighed, squatting down and taking the bird into her hands. It did not protest as she carried it into the grass and set it down amongst some flowers. She pulled the remnants of a granola bar from the depths of her bang and sprinkled it before the sparrow, who happily plucked up the crumbs, its broken wing fluttering with the utmost fragility.
Hello readers! I'm sorry the wait for this lame chapter was so long, but you'll be pleased to know that I've been working hard on later chapters. I originally planned the whole fic out, ending it at 26 chapters, but I was hit by some inspiration and have been expanding the story. It's not finished, but I will continue to update what I already have. You'll like it, I think! And as always, thank you for reading and reviewing! :)