Flea

Chapter Sixty One

Maeve blinked down at the used pregnancy test, then at herself in the mirror. She pulled back braids into a tight bun and inserted a wig on bobby pins with calm purpose, knowing one thing. If the girl had to stay in that godforsaken cottage one more evening she'd tear it down by hand. 

***

The sunset over rolling countryside would've been spectacular if Maeve could stop blinking around coloured contact lenses. She was confident nobody on the train recognised her with braids bundled under a brunette wig and newly brown eyes shuttered behind tortoiseshell glasses.

Sneaking out of UA would've been near impossible for students and teachers alike. However, Maeve just enlisted her handy helpers Billy & Deb to loop the security system's cameras while inviting guard bots to a free evening movie night: Robotic Domination Through the Ages. The girl hacked electronic locks in a side entrance and was on her way. She could almost taste freedom in the air and smiled, genuinely smiled, up at the purple sky for what felt like the first time in months.

A train ticket to Fukuoka and there she was. Maeve had missed people-watching on public transport, so spent the couple of hours riding making up backstories for everyone in her carriage. Then for herself. Cathartic and cheaper than therapy.

It was a relatively short walk from the train station to the Fukuoka opera house, so she carried her leather jacket and enjoyed the warmth of summer dusk. A few men followed her down the street with their eyes and she picked up the pace. Surely she hadn't become that famous over the span of a couple of weeks?

When an usher gestured for the teenager to show them her ticket on her phone, Maeve handed the device over with a bright grin. They blinked at her in bafflement.

"It's Hibiki Sato. She'd like to talk to you," Maeve explained, indicating the active caller. They raised the phone to their ear like it contained a ghost.

"Yes, I see... Alright, Ma'am. It's been sold out for weeks but we can wait to see if a few seats at the back open up- No, quite right, a private box. Thank you, best of luck for-"

They brought the phone away from their ear in a daze, clearly having just been hung up on.

"She's quite lovely normally. I caught her at a... Rushed time, as you can imagine," Maeve explained, adjusting the custom white shirt dress Best Jeanist forced on the girl for her 16th birthday. It contained a note that sniped 'since the only thing you wear is men's oversized shirts anyway.' She'd already tripped over the hem climbing the steps to the grand entrance and regretted ever accepting the gift in the first place, but finding something to wear that was forgettable in both a ballet premiere and on the train proved difficult with such a limited wardrobe. She'd always just worn a work suit in the past to fancy events, but at these kinds of places dressing inconspicuously drew even more attention.

"We actually have had a reservation pulled at the last minute for a box, so if you'll just follow me I can have you seated," the usher, well, gushed. Maeve swept past the usher with other shimmering concert goers and passed under an enormous billboard with a winged man tumbling over himself, desperately clawing at air.

***

The tuning of an orchestra always felt like a breath of anticipation. A floating beginning from the oboe, then swelling and calming like the pilgrimage of air through the body. Silence.

Then.

The past few weeks, hours, sloughed away from her like a cocoon. Maeve was floating and yet transfixed in place, as a delicate melody nobody had ever heard outside of that opera house emerged. The only movement in the theatre was the fluttering hands of the conductor; the audience was so still it almost felt like a crime to move and break such a powerful spell. Wind instruments floated, fleeting, until strings took over and build in intensity to soar and push up scarlet curtains to reveal an elaborate wedding scene with dancers prancing through arches of flowers.