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Will’s been coming to the museum regularly for about a year now. She suspects that everybody who works there knows her and expects her every Saturday though they don’t afford her more than a polite nod. It’s for the best; she’d rather not be disturbed on her only day of peace. The one day a week she can lose herself in feelings that don’t belong to her or others. She makes a beeline for her favorite painting on the fourth floor, shuffling through the museum quietly. The artist isn’t as well known as the other artists in the museum, so the gallery is almost always empty.
Once she finds her usual bench she plops down and begins digging through her messenger bag for her phone and headphones. It's then that she looks up at the painting; it's only been a week, but each time feels like the first. Curling her knees to her chest she meets the eyes of a haunted Sappho. She stands on a rock’s edge holding a lyre with the dark gray sky brewing behind her. The ocean’s waves are ominous and the sea surrounding her is never-ending. Her wavy hair blends in with the black drapery on her head that goes on to coil around the lower half of her body - breasts and shoulders bared. Will becomes engrossed in Sappho's anguish, the agony of unrequited love staring down at her. When she closes her eyes, she sees Sappho throwing herself into the tumultuous waters in defeat, and her heart clenches at the mental image, causing her eyes to shoot open.
Her eyes tear away from the painting and that’s when she sees her for the first time. A blonde woman is seated on the other side of the bench she sits on. Her waves obscure her face and she’s impossibly still other than the movements of her pencil on the notebook she has sitting on her crossed legs. Will scrambles for her phone to check the time and lets out a heavy sigh when she realizes she’s been here for 3 hours already. How long has this woman been sitting next to her?
She cocks her head in Will's direction, as though she can sense Will's eyes on her, and Will's cheeks heat up from being caught in the act, but she can't seem to look away. Burnt sienna eyes pin her to the spot, a single raised eyebrow being Will’s signal to go back to Sappho’s eyes in front of them. After an awkward drawn-out moment, she sees the woman’s full lips speaking, and WIll rips out her headphones realizing that she’s been incredibly rude. Social interactions have never been her strong suit.
“Um, I’m sorry can you repeat that?” Will’s eyes land on an impossibly high cheekbone in lieu of making eye contact again. There’s a subtle twitch of the woman’s face as she takes Will in fully.
“I’m sorry to have startled you.”
Her voice is low and her accent is thick, one that Will can’t seem to place. Will’s eyes flutter over the stranger’s face again - finds herself entranced by her strong jaw, elegant features, and sure eyes still staring at Will in quiet amusement. Will huffs out a little forced laugh as she directs her gaze to long delicate fingers resting on a now-closed sketchbook.
“Oh no, you’re okay. I’m just easily startled.” Will waves her hand in at herself in a dismissive manner as if that explains everything. “I was a little lost in thought.”
The woman hums thoughtfully, a finger gently tapping at her sketchbook. Will assumes the conversation is over and begins apprehensively thumbing at the headphones in her lap. She wants to put them back in and pretend this awkward encounter never happened yet she finds herself hesitant to end the conversation so soon.
“And what do you think about this depiction of Sappho? Unfortunately, it’s not a popular one.”
Will keeps her eyes straight ahead in thought but feels the burning stare of the woman next to her on the side of her face.
“Her sadness is captivating. It’s a raw depiction of the other side of love. So jarringly different from her other depictions.”
“I find her more fierce and powerful than I find her sad. She’s determined in her turmoil and ready to face the waters below her.” Will’s eyebrows get lost in her hairline at that. All this time she’s spent getting acquainted with the Sappho before her and she’s never stopped drowning in her sadness. “She’s titillating in her last moments of control.”
“I’ve… never thought of it that way.”
Her eyes dance over Will's face, a nearly imperceptible smirk tugging at her lips. She stands gracefully and looks down at Will, hand extended towards her.
“I’ll leave you with that notion then. It was nice to meet you….” she trails off, waiting for Will to supply her name.
“Will.”
She whispers as she raises a caffeine-shaky hand. The woman’s hands are soft but her handshake is firm. As she pulls away, her fingertips tickle Will’s palm. She meets Will’s eyes as she begins to walk away and there’s something teasing in them. Will finds she can’t look away until she’s fully out of sight and even then her palm tingles.
As she spends the next few hours staring up at Sappho, she finds her mind lost in somebody else’s point of view.
Will spends her week enduring her normal routine as a graduate teaching assistant. Most of it is spent holed up at the university lecturing and guiding numerous students through their thesis papers as the end of the semester creeps up on them. She spends her evenings nursing a glass (or two) of whiskey until she dozes off by the fire with her dogs at her feet. Though the newest, most troubling thing seems to come in her sleep: vague dreams about the beautiful blonde woman in the gallery. All Will remembers from them is flashes of a pair of bewitching eyes that both lure her in and make her want to flee. Sometimes Will wakes up with a chill in her bones, an unexplainable panic coursing through her, and other times she wakes up panting, her body burning from her core as her fingers clench in the bedsheets. Either way, her nights end in sweaty curls and cold showers as she tries to snap out of it.
Saturday comes soon enough and Will is incredibly grateful to ignore her troubling thoughts for a few hours. The November chill reddens Will’s nose and no amount of flannel layers seem to warm her enough. The persistent cold ache in her bones leads Will to stop at the cafe next to the museum instead of sipping the liquid gasoline she typically brews at home. As she waits in the huge crowd for her coffee, her self-indulgence starts to feel like punishment. She forces her way to the edge of the horde, looking for a break from the deafening roar of patrons.
It’s the abandoned daily newspaper on the table next to her that ends up successfully catching her eye. Murders aren’t unusual in any larger city; however, murders like these are definitely enough to make the front page. Two women were found murdered in their home missing their kidneys, posthumously dressed and posed. A woman with lighter hair was adorned in a loose pink dress slipping off of her shoulders and the woman embracing her wore a similar neutral-toned garment with a laurel crowning her dark hair. The most peculiar detail of the scene is the two dead doves placed above their heads. A familiarity tingles in Will’s skull at the description but she can’t quite place it. She finally hears her name get called over the sound of coffee shop jazz and too-perky-for-this-time-of-the-morning conversations and makes an abrupt decision to toss the paper in her messenger bag.
Shouldering her way through the throng of people, she quickly picks up her coffee and dashes out the door into the cold. The long wait has made her later than usual and she lets out an annoyed sigh that dances in the air in front of her. She enters the museum with a usual polite nod to the receptionist, and by the time she gets to the elevator, she's starting to feel the wrong side of warm. With a scrunch of her nose, she assesses herself in the elevator mirror, removing her beanie and running her hands through her unruly curls before deciding it's futile. She evaluates her overall appearance with a tilt of her head. She’s not quite sure what she’s looking for but her scrutinizing gaze doesn’t seem satisfied no matter how much she tugs and rearranges her clothes. A quiet tut echoes in the confines of the elevator as she makes eye contact with herself. The ping of the elevator door opening draws her away from her own blank stare.
Her boots are unreasonably loud in the otherwise silent corridor as she hastily makes her way to the gallery at the end. She halts to a stop at the glass doors, her boots squeaking against the hardwood floors as she sees the same blonde woman sitting in front of Sappho again. With a shake of her head, she wills herself to open the door despite her fluttering heartbeat. Flickers of her dreams flood her mind as she strides towards the bench with faux confidence and a flush travels up her neck from more than just the heat. She briefly contemplates taking a seat on a different bench but knows it would only ruin her view of the painting, not to mention it is unofficially her bench. The woman glances up from her sketchbook as Will passes in front of her to take her seat. Will’s eyes zero in on the woman’s red-stained secretive smile and has to suppress a shiver.
“Hello, Will. Seeing you again is a pleasant surprise.” Her voice is steady, low, and sultry - slithering into Will’s brain and making it embarrassingly useless.
“Uh yeah, you too.” She bites the inside of her cheek, cursing herself for such a bland response. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe I got your name.”
She looks up at Will through long lashes, the epitome of innocence and Will knows immediately that she’s everything but. She tilts her head to one side as if contemplating giving Will her name at all as she tucks an errant wave behind her ear.
“My name’s Hannibal. My parents were the creative type.”
Her eyes follow Will as she takes her seat at the opposite end of the bench. Will's stomach lurches at the rapt attention as she rummages through her bag for her headphones, briefly wondering if Hannibal would find Will putting them on inexcusably rude.
“Hannibal,” Will tests out the name in her mouth, a whisper into the newspaper she’s taken out to continue her search, “meaning One who Ba’al has Favored, a god associated with storms.”
Will glances up to find Hannibal’s attention has shifted from her to the newspaper clutched in her hand, the page still turned to the article about the murder, and she quickly shoves it back into her bag. Hannibal’s eyes lock on hers and Will has a feeling that she was named appropriately. Will’s harsh swallow clicks in the silence and Hannibal’s eyes are aflame, a devious smile plastered on her face.
“And Will, meaning protector.”
Her eyes flick down Will’s body with a thoughtful quirk of her brow. As their eyes lock again Will knows that Hannibal is playing a game now and Will would be lying if she said she wasn't desperate to figure out how to play it. Before she can respond, Hannibal lets out a shy laugh and continues working on her drawing. A little baffled, Will supposes that’s her out and she can listen to music without further interruption. She continues scouring through her bag, the various content’s movements creating an obnoxious noise in the quiet room. She tosses a sheepish glance in Hannibal’s direction and finds her lips tight with a suppressed laugh. Admitting defeat, Will drops the bag onto the floor and accepts that the universe just doesn’t work in her favor.
Will finds getting lost in Sappho a lot harder today than any other time she’s been here and she can’t help the bubble of annoyance that’s building in her chest. She can’t really blame Hannibal for being here, it is a public museum after all it’s not like Will owns this space; however, she finds she can blame her for being distracting. Will's ears are constantly filled with the scratch of her pencil, and every time Hannibal shifts even slightly, Will's attention is drawn to her, and with every flick of her hair over her shoulder, Will's nostrils are assaulted with the scent of sweet spice. She begrudgingly admits to herself that the scent is pleasant, and if she has to smell somebody for hours on end, at least she smells good.
Will draws her knees up her chest and rests her head on them, but instead of her eyes focusing on the painting, they rest on Hannibal. Hannibal’s toying her lower lip between her teeth, her brows knitted in concentration as her hands flick over her work in deliberate strokes. It’s then Will allows herself to think about how stunning she is: her features are classic and strong, body graceful and delicate, perched on the bench surrounded by art she could easily be in. With an exasperated sigh, Hannibal looks up from her work, immediately turning to face Will and Will fights the urge to look away like a child whose hand got caught in the cookie jar.
“Would you like to see what I’m working on?”
Her tone is soft and inviting and the tension in Will’s body releases all at once as she gently nods against her knees. Hannibal’s eyes crinkle as she slides across the bench, stopping inches away from Will. Her scent is stronger now - intoxicating - and Will takes in a quivering breath at her sudden proximity. Hannibal’s eyes are on Will now, wandering as if they can’t decide where to look, lingering on Will’s lips as she nervously licks them. Will knows Hannibal is being cautious around her and Will has a sense that Hannibal isn’t the type. Everything about her is meticulous and self-assured, doubt isn’t a part of her vocabulary.
She tilts her sketchbook towards Will and her eyes widen at the sketch of Auguste Charles Mengin’s Sappho. It’s nearly identical to the painting in front of them, almost every intricate detail coming alive on the paper between them.
“It’s beautiful.” Will’s voice is merely a breath and Hannibal looks at her as if her praise puts stars in the sky. Will feels a little dizzy with it all. “Saving the face for last?”
“Her eyes are the most important part, wouldn’t you agree? I would hate to get the expression wrong.”
They both turn their attention to Sappho and Will tries to picture what Hannibal’s version will look like with the power of the storm swirling inside her.
“Windows to the soul and all that.”
Will’s voice trails off as Hannibal leans in closer, craning her neck slightly to meet Will’s hesitant gaze.
“‘The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.’ A biblical declaration of man's ability to see one another through the eyes.”
At that moment Will allows herself to see Hannibal and she hopes Hannibal can’t hear her heart pounding against her ribcage. She knows with certainty that Hannibal is the storm that her name promises, a destructive force of nature and Will is in the quiet moments before it. It would be a half-truth at best, and a flat-out lie at worst, if she said she wanted out. Will's grasp around her knees tightens as Hannibal draws near without breaking eye contact, serving as the last tether to her self-control. Hannibal's notebook slides down her lap, causing the page to flip, and they both glance down at the unexpected movement. Hannibal quickly closes it, but not before Will sees the drawing of Simeon Solomon’s Sappho and Erinna in a Garden at Mytilene. In her mind’s eye, Will can see the bodies laid out perfectly in the bed, a medium more gratifying than graphite.
Will’s throat clicks as words lodge in her throat and she supposes it’s for the better. She tries to tell herself it’s just a coincidence but she can’t ignore the dark look in Hannibal’s eyes and the way her lips curl wickedly. Her fingertips brush Will’s calf, leaving a burning trail behind them before she stands with her sketchbook clutched to her chest.
“I’ll see you around, Will.”
Her words fill up the room as she walks out of it, the ambiguous threat left in her place on the bench. Will stares at Hannibal’s spot for an indeterminate amount of time before she dashes out of the museum. She clings to the biting air as it fills her lungs, desperate for something to ground her. She finds herself looking for Hannibal outside of the museum, which is a pointless pursuit since she knows Hannibal is already long gone. Despite her panic, as Will looks up to the sky, she feels a thrum of excitement coursing through her veins at the promise of seeing Hannibal again.
Will’s drunk - no, drunk is an understatement - she’s absolutely plastered and incoherent at her dining room table. She considers herself slightly lucky that she’s made this discovery on a Friday and won’t have to lecture with a hangover tomorrow; however, her luck ends there. She brings a trembling arm up to blearily stare at the newspaper she has clutched in her fist, knuckles white and aching with it. Another body has been found: a single woman with long black hair, a transparent black cloth framing her face and covering the lower half of her body, eyes left open to stare at those who came across her. Her breasts and chest are bared, showcasing her missing heart. Will fights off the urge to throw up for the second time tonight, taking deep slow breaths to settle her lurching stomach.
She screams as she hurls the newspaper across the room, only the woods around her hearing her cries. Will suspected but she could brush off a hunch. Who was she to accuse a seemingly innocent woman of murder anyway? She's always had the gift - or curse - of being able to read people freakishly well, but even she has to admit murder is a stretch. But now she can say with certainty that Hannibal is behind the string of murders in the city. She laughs bitterly to the empty room at the fact that her first crush since her last heartbreak is a serial killer. Her friend Beverly likes to say she knows how to pick ‘em.
Will knows what she has to do, knows that tomorrow she has to walk into that gallery and face Hannibal head-on. She has an onslaught of questions that only Hannibal can answer and once she has them, well, she doesn’t really know. She can go to the police, tell them everything she knows about the mysterious woman in the museum but who knows if they’ll believe her anyway. Is Hannibal even her real name? Wrath burns in her chest as she thinks about how many other women could be out there turned into an arts and crafts project for Hannibal’s amusement. She knows she'll see Hannibal in her dreams again as she crawls into bed, and she's scared to find out what form she'll take.
When Will swings the door to the gallery open Hannibal is already looking back at her, all false pretenses dropped when she sees the anger on Will’s face. She stands in front of Hannibal, hoping she comes off as intimidating as she intends, knowing that Hannibal will exploit any weakness. As she tosses her bag on the floor, her wild eyes glare at Hannibal. Will wants to scream at the smug look on Hannibal’s face, her eyes gleaming as she takes Will in. Will feels self-conscious about her dark circles and sleep-wrinkled clothes under Hannibal’s gaze. She undoubtedly still reeks of whiskey and wishes she’d had the hindsight to at least grab some gum on her way out the door. Hannibal looks flawless, with no stray hair in her tight bun, smokey liner and red lips enhancing her features, and a chic black bodysuit and red pumps that make her look like she just walked off the cover of a magazine.
“Finish your recreation yet?” Will’s tone is acidic as she grits out the words through her clenched jaw, her fingernails digging into her palms with how tight her fists are.
“In fact, I have. Would you like to see?”
Will lets out a bitter laugh, the noise disrupting the otherwise deathly silence. Not one to be easily discouraged, Hannibal opens her sketchbook anyway and holds it out to Will with a coy smile. Will snatches it from her and flicks her eyes to the ceiling in preparation. She’ll finally be able to match the face in the drawing to the woman in the papers.
When Will looks down she lets out a startled gasp before she can remind herself that she’s supposed to be putting up a tougher front. She jerkily shakes her head as she meets Hannibal’s eyes over the book.
“No… NO!”
Will’s scream doesn’t seem to bother Hannibal as she stares up at Will with an arrogant smirk. Will’s eyes refocus on the image in front of her and a version of her face on Sappho’s body looks up at her. Hannibal made her look ferocious, a far cry from the version of herself she sees in the mirror. Hannibal stands and gently removes the notebook from her unsteady hands. Will feels weak at the knees as Hannibal’s free hand cradles her jaw, thumb running over Will’s lower lip. She leans in, her lips ghosting over the shell of Will’s ear before speaking.
“You’re beautiful like this Will. Do you have any idea how tantalizing you are?”
Will gasps in surprise as the warmth of Hannibal’s words spread from her middle to her twitching fingertips that she resolutely keeps at her side. She screws her eyes shut when Hannibal begins nosing down her jaw, her hand coming to rest on the nape of Will’s neck, causing goosebumps to break out over her skin. She feels Hannibal’s lips hover over her own, nose brushing against Will’s in warning before slotting their lips together. It’s a soft, barely-there kiss and Will can't help but sigh and lean into it, bringing her hands up to settle on Hannibal's hips. Will can feel Hannibal’s smile against her still tingling lips when she finally finds the strength to pull away. Hannibal harshly tugs Will’s hair, tilting her head back to intently inspect her face. Hannibal must find what she's looking for in Will's eyes, a lascivious smirk breaking out on her face as she gently grips Will's chin between two fingers.
"Atta girl."
Will was naive to think she was in the quiet before the storm, she now realizes that she was in the eerie stillness of the eye of a hurricane.