Chapter four: Murder in the theater

Trigger warnings for those who need them

This chapter contains a murder attempt and first-hand account at trying to save the victim’s life.

The four of us get spat out into the lobby again and I wonder how long the break is supposed to take.
Should we get drinks?
Actually I’m pretty sure Xuiyo wouldn’t want us to get overpriced theater drinks…
“Alice.” Hamala calls out to me.
“Huh?”
“We’re going to sit somewhere a bit less in the open.”
“Oh, okay.”
I follow the others to a little nook of floor space that exists between the bathrooms and a room that’s probably storage.
There are no chairs, but these floors look like they get cleaned regularly so we sit down.
“Well, what do you think?” I ask Hamala and immediately her eyes start to sparkle with enthusiasm.
“It’s amazing, this kind of dance is so different from what I learnt to do but it’s still very elegant and the costumes are just superb.”
“I agree. Although I can’t imagine the snake costume being comfortable. The mask covering his head looks quite heavy to me.”
“I assume they kept weight into account since he needs to dance in it. Hamala muses “What do you think of the play?”
“Oh uh, I like it, I just feel a bit sad for the lead.”
“Yeah, I the plot makes it so the gardener and the snake get their comeuppance, it would be a very depressing story otherwise.”
“I hope so.” my eyes drift to Xuiyo again “Are you okay?”
He shrugs “I don’t like how many hobnobs are here.” he then averts his eyes “The play is…interesting I guess. I like it more when Hamala does her sword-dances though.”
“Oh you big charmer.” Hamala presses a kiss on Xuiyo’s forehead and I smile.
Then things are silent again and my chest starts feeling tight again. “You know, we still have over 200 coppers, 10 silvies, 100 chui and some Cygnian iou’s.”
Xuiyo pulls up an eyebrow.
“I know you worry about how much money we have but we’re not poor yet, not by a long shot.”
“I know that, I just don’t want you wasting all the money on frivolities.”
“I’m not, I-”
“It’s not your fault. You were just raised differently. For you money wasn’t something you needed to worry about. It was just there when you needed it. You weren’t taught the value of the sticks you carry, not really.”
I bite my lip. Not quite sure what I can say to that without sounding horribly defensive.
“Well just cause she wasn’t taught back then doesn’t mean she can’t learn now. And there are better ways to teach her than reprimanding her every time she tries to buy something.”
Hamala says calmly.
Xuiyo looks at his girlfriend for a bit, messages going back and forth inside those eyes that I cannot hope to decode.
Couples are weird like that.
Then he smiles, kisses her forehead. “All right, I guess I was being harsh and unhelpful.”
“And I could learn how to budget better.” I concede.
Hamala pulls herself up from the floor “Good, now make up and let’s go back to out seats, I see it’s getting quieter out here and I don’t know how they let people know it’s about to start again.”
“Okay.”

The curtain rises and beyond is a bedroom. Large canopy bed, large windows frosted over with ice and snow.
Looks like some time has passed.
Mariella is sitting on the bed with the gardener by her side.
She’s holding a porcelain doll in her arms, a baby. She sings to it in odd notes and it feels…
Unnerving.
She doesn’t even have any words to spend, it’s just sounds that are wonderfully sweet and dreadfully sad at the same time.
Then the snake appears looking all cocky and proud and making it clear by the motions of his arms he expect the baby be handed over to him.
Mariella holds the infant close, recedes back into the confines of the canopy bed in an attempt to get away.
The gardener pulls a candlestick from the nightstand and waves it about looking far too unsure of himself for comfort.
He strikes.
The snake catches the faux golden decoration and snatches it from his hand seemingly effortlessly. The snake then proceeds to hit hit him on the head with it.
The gardener stumbles back, the snake grabs Mariella’s foot and drags her from behind the curtains.
She vocalizes her distress in rapid high-pitched chirps.
Like a small bird.
My heart is pounding looking at it.
I want them to stop.
I hate it.
It’s not real.
I try to take a deep breath.
It’s not real just remember that.
Then feel at least a bit of satisfaction as Mariella stomps on the snake’s foot in retaliation.
The victory short lived.
She gets taken away regardless, through magic and foul play the snake makes her follow him with the baby still in her arms.
The gardener tries to stop her.
She turns and slaps him in the face.
Which I appreciate.
Mariella and the snake exit the stage together.
The gardener, alone now, drops to his knees.
The curtains close for yet another set change.

When the curtains open again we’re back in the throne room where the wedding took place. The gardener explains with flailing arms and facial expressions what happened to the poor princess.
While conveniently leaving out the parts where this is entirely his fault.
He then pleads with the king and queen to send the army after the snake to retrieve Mariella.
The queen laments the loss of her child and grandchild in song.
The court dotted around the scene sing ‘kill the snake, kill the snake’.
The king rises from his throne, calls for his guards and produces a dagger from his belt. He orders the gardener to go with the guards, to kill the snake with this magic blade and retrieve his daughter and granddaughter.
The gardener takes the weapon with trembling hands.
This sounds like a bad idea.
But nevertheless, the guards and the cowardly gardener leave the stage together.
The queen embraces the king.
The curtain drops again.
Another stage change.
I wonder how many we’ll need to go through until the next intermezzo.
At least these don’t take long.

We’re in a forest next.
Large trees made of expertly painted board are dotted around the stage interspersed with fake rocks. Several smaller snakes are playing around in the background as the titular villain sits on a rock amid them holding the baby and waving it around.
Mariella sits on the ground next to him, head laid on his lap and eyes staring off into nothingness.
Like a discarded toy.
It makes my skin crawl.
Then the gardener shuffles tentatively onto the stage.
The little snakes spring into action halting their fun and games to defend their master. The guards storm the stage.
The battle commences.
The choreography is wild with arms and legs flying all over the place. The little snakes crawling and coiling as they try to attack while the guards jump and kick to defend themselves.
Meanwhile the gardener just stands there, trembling on his legs.
The king should have given the dagger to one of the guards, this is nonsense.
Part of me wonders if the king is hoping the gardener won’t make it back to the castle again.
But killing him wouldn’t bring his child back home. It’d be a ridiculous motivation.
The snake pulls Mariella upright and hands the baby to her before stepping up to the gardener.
The gardener flinches, stumbles back as the snake tries to grab the weapon from him.
He misses, the blade slicing at the hand of the snake.
He pulls back in a sharp motion, steps away while looking at his hand.
The gardener steps forward.
Now it’s the snake’s turn to be scared, as the gardener steps towards him.
Things get more interesting as the two of them fight. Circling one another diving and jumping over one another’s legs and arms until one of the little snakes jumps towards the gardener, unbalancing him.
The snake takes the opportunity to take weapon from him.
Looking around it becomes clear the guards are dead.
The snake has the dagger.
The gardener bolts towards Mariella, tries to drag her with him, tries to run.
But the woman will not budge.
The snake approaches slowly, almost gleefully.
He brandishes the knife, ready to strike.
Then the gardener grabs Mariella’s shoulder and yanks her around him. Trades places with her. Turning her back towards the snake.
Using his supposed love as a human shield.
The snake stabs Mariella in the back but as he holds the weapon there the gardener pulls the baby from Mariella’s arms.
The woman cries out in agony a long mournful note.
The pitch changes, becomes more intense more heart-wrenching and pain stricken.
And then the piano stops playing abruptly.
Such a chilling effe-
“Donna! Donna, what happened!?” A voice hollers from the orchestra pit, filled with fear and distress.
Whispers accumulate around the voice. The harpist trying to calm the pianist down. Another hisses harshly at him to stop it.
“No! There’s something wrong! She’s hurt, you have to help her!” He pleads.
The gardener talks to her softly still holding her. Then the audience gasps as the snake pulls back the knife and blood gushes from the wound.
Real or fake it’s hard to say.
Until I look at Xuiyo two chair over. His face pale, his eyes wide.
“Dana?” I whisper carefully.
The gardener carefully lowers the bleeding woman to the stage. Then his shoulders jump as the knife drops down beside him.
The snake bolts off the stage.
“Oh no you don’t” The gardener lets out as he jumps up and rushes after the snake.
The guards and snakes rush towards the leading lady, at once united.
A woman in a guard uniform yells “Is there a doctor in the house. A doctor please!”
I look around, hoping someone can help.
Then to my surprise it’s Dana who jumps onto the stage without a second thought.
She starts pointing at random dancers to get her cloth, clean water and have someone call the hospital for reinforcements. Then call the police as well.
The moment the police is mentioned it’s like realization hits for the theater audience.
People start talking amongst one another, try to get from their seats and leave.
Dana talks to one of the dancers for a moment, she nods and gets up in response walking to the front of the stage and calling out “Please keep calm and stay in your seats.” Dana then points to someone standing in the wings “You there, close the curtain. Thank you.” she then points to me. “Can you come up here and help out?”
“Oh! Yes, yes of course.” somehow the call to action feels like a slap in the face. A pull into the here and now.
It feels wrong to climb on top of the stage.
Like it’s not my place to do so.
It helps that Dana is already there.
“What do I do?” I ask, kneeling down next to the woman.
To my surprise Dana responds in Jigani “We need to turn her on her side and try to stop the bleeding.”
“Okay.”
“Grab her legs.”
I do as asked.
“You push and I pull.”
We roll the woman onto her side and as we do the woman gasps for air. The sound is unnerving, the smell of blood too pungent.
The curtain drops unceremoniously cutting us off from the prying eyes of the audience.
“Now what?” I ask.
“The cloth!” Dana calls out and a flower rushes onto the stage holding a basin of water and a stack of kitchen towels.
“Thank you.” She pushes it into the wound and pushes onto it hard with her fist.
I don’t know if the lady can feel still.
But if so that has to hurt.
“Feel my hand.” Dana tells me.
“Oh okay?”
“Can you feel how hard I’m pressing?”
“I think so.”
“Good, I need you to put your fist here and try to push just as hard as I’m doing right now. Can you manage that?”
I hope so, it doesn’t seem all that hard but I tell her “Yes.” because I think that’s the right answer right now.
She grabs my hand, I ball it into a fist and she pulls her other hand away while pushing mine in place.
“Now push.”
I push as if it’s my life depending on it.
Dana moves to the lady’s front side, looking at her face and then tells me “We need to roll her onto her back again. Can you keep your fist in place while we do that?”
“Uhu.”
We roll her back, my fist now buried underneath her.
She’s less heavy than I thought she’d be.
Which is a shame because I was hoping gravity would help and now I need to push upwards instead.
Her beautiful red hair drapes over my knee.
The man in the orchestra pit called her Donna.
That’s a pretty name.
I hope we can save her life.
Dana sits down at the woman’s head with one knee on either side. She then grabs the woman’s arms and pushes them down on her chest before pulling them up past her head and holding them there for a moment and then pushing them down into her chest again.
The king rushes in “How is she?” he asks.
“Fighting for her life.” Dana responds without looking up.
He nods solemnly “Good luck and thank you.” he then moves on down the stage and passes beyond the curtain. I didn’t really pay attention to what’s going on there but now that my attention is focused on it I can hear the woman from before shouting “Stay in your seats dammit!”
Sounds like that’s not going fantastic.
Then I hear the voice of the king break through the din. “I know this isn’t how any of you expected to spend your evenings to go and trust me, neither did I. But my name is Barnaby Craig and as actor director of this fine establishment I must implore you all to please stay calm for the time being. The police are coming soon and they’ll need to take testimonies so they can find out what happened and punish the ones responsible.”
“Did they catch the snake!?” A man hollers somewhere behind us.
“Unfortunately he managed to…wriggle away from us. That’s why the testimonies are so important, we need to find him.”
“How’s the girl!?”
“Still being treated.”
“Will she be okay!?”
“I really hope so.”
“Will we get our money back!?”
“Uh…I…” The man stammers “I cannot promise anything at this time, except that we will try our utmost best to win back any respect this tragedy may have lost us.”
A man with a long grey coat and a severe looking beard strides onto the stage “All right clear away, clear away.” he hollers.
“I’m holding the wound closed actually.” I try to tell him but Dana sends me a look What!? I’m right.
“It’s okay, you can let go now, we did what we could.”
I pull away and note with a bit of a shock that my hand is feeling tight, cold and sticky with blood.
I look at it, almost as if entranced by it.
Two women in long grey dresses follow the doctor in and they start pushing on the wound and doing the arm-thing.
The doctor pulls a large syringe with a thin needle from his leather satchel and pushes it into the woman’s chest filling it with bright red blood.
The nurse with one hand free then takes the syringe and pushes it into the woman’s neck. emptying it again.
The doctor, rummaging through his satchel pulls out a scalpel.
Dana puts a hand on my shoulder. “You don’t need to keep looking.” she tells me kindly.
And then my breath catches in the back of my throat and my vision gets blurred with tears.
Dana walks away asking “Is there a place we could wash our hands?””Yes of course, uh, follow me.” another voice replies, presumably an employee.
Dana grabs my other, mostly clean, hand and guides me along.
I feel like a blubbering child as I follow them to a mid-sized blue-papered room with wooden benches set up in a square formation in the middle of the room, mirrors lining one wall, a sink on the other and a row of doors which presumably lead to water closets.
Dana lets me wash my hands first. There’s a mirror right above the sink and staring into it, I see a red puffy version of myself staring back at me.
Is it weird that I feel embarrassed by that? Dana’s right there, I’m sure she expected more of me than to start crying like a baby.
Maybe she should have called up Hamala instead.
I dry my hands, then sit down on a wooden bench and wait patiently for Dana to wash up while trying to compose myself.
As she dries her hands Dana sits down next to me “Thank you for your help. You did well.” she tells me and I need to put in extra effort not to start crying again.
Her arms wrap around me and I can feel a sense of calm flowing into me.
I don’t understand how she’s not as upset as I am.
Maybe it’s because she’s older.
Maybe she’s seen all of this before.
But it helps.
“Thank you Dana. Do you think she will survive?”
“I think we have tried our best to give her the best chance.”
“That’s not an answer to my question.” I huff childishly.
She hugs me tighter “It means I don’t know.”
“I see.” I hoped she’d tell me things will be okay…
But I guess this is more realistic.
We stay like this for a while, it’s hard to pinpoint just how long. The rhythm of her heart, the graze of her breath against the back of my neck, the gentle pressure of her warm body against mine. They all help to calm me somehow.
Until we get pulled back into the present by a knock on the door.
It’s the king, or actor director Barnaby Craig if I remembered correctly.
And before he as much as opens his mouth I know by the look of his face exactly what’s coming.
He takes a deep breath “There’s not enough time in the world to explain how grateful I am for your efforts to save Donna’s life. Truly, I can’t. But…I’m afraid she was beyond saving.”
Dana nods solemnly “Thank you for letting us know.”
I think I should cry.
The man nods “The police will be here as soon as possible. I expect they want to talk to both of you when they do.”
“Of course.”
I pick up the words but they don’t quite reach my brain.
There’s another thought in the way. Another emotion that has been simmering there all along but only now gets the chance to get out.
Anger, at whoever did this horrible thing.
“Mister Craig?”
“Yes?”
“Is this where the dancer playing the snake would have gotten dressed for the performance?”
The man shakes his head “No, liadro have separate dressing rooms. Why do you-?”
“Could you show me where that is?”
“Whatever for?”
“I’d like to find out who did this”