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Prospero was gentle in the knock on Annabel’s door. He stood in his robe and nightclothes with book in hand, ashamed of the position he was in, standing like a beggar at his ally’s door. This was a position of weakness, weakness that could be exploited, fingers like spider silk settling across his flesh.
The door cracked open then, on a pair of pink eyes in a face appearing gaunter than usual, cheekbones rising skeletal above pinked nose and shadows evident under blonde lashes. Annabel’s brows shot up in surprise at the sight of him.
“Oh! Prospero, darling, what a surprise, I wasn’t expecting you. Do you need something?”
“Ah, my apologies for dropping in so late, Montresor and Ada sort of… occupied my room. I’ve come to ask if I could sleep here for the night.” He avoided her piercing pink eyes, face alight with shame.
“Oh, darling, come in then! We can’t have anyone passing by and getting the wrong idea.” She ushered him inside, hastily pushing her curls out of her face. It was sort of late for her to still have them loose, but he wasn’t one to judge. She looked a bit frail, however.
“Pardon my presumption, Annabel, but you don’t look well. Are you coming down with something?” He lifted a hand as though to check her temperature, but stilled in midair as he recalled their social positions.
“How sweet of you to worry, love, but it’s nothing really, just a light sniffle from the draft.” She turned in a swish of her nightgown, rushing to the vanity to rummage the drawers and subtly push a mound of crumpled tissues into the bin. Prospero’s brow furrowed in concern, but before he could ask Annabel had swished past him to look through Ada’s desk and even to poke through her suitcase before sighing heavily.
“It doesn’t look as though we have any spare sheets, is it alright if you use Ada’s?” He looked to Ada’s bed to see an absolute rat’s nest of sheets complete with drool stains on her sagging pillow and a dirt-stained nightgown rumpled on the floor.
“Y-yes, that’s fine,” he forced out, but Annabel giggled and he turned to stare at her with confusion.
“Apologies, darling, it’s just- the pure unadulterated disgust in your face was utterly priceless. Ha! Goodness, I wish I had a camera.” She giggled into her hand, a tear coming to her eye as she snorted. He smiled too, after a moment, fondness rising in his chest.
Wiping at her eyes delicately, Annabel postulated, “I suppose if you’d rather you could slumber on the floor, but I doubt that would do us any favors in tomorrow’s lesson. Or, hm. I have another idea, but it’s highly irregular.”
“What do you mean?”
“We could share my bed.”
There was a beat of utter silence, before they both burst into apologies at the same time. “No, no, no, not like that-” “I wouldn’t want to be improper-” “I’m sorry if I gave you the impression that-” “I’m truly uninterested in-”
“-purely to sleep, I promise you,” Annabel finished. “I cannot overstate the lack of desire I have for romantic entanglements with you.”
Prospero’s face was burning with shame. “The feeling is completely and utterly mutual.”
“Well if that’s cleared up, it’s been a while since we talked through our plan. I should like to clear up some of the finer points before tomorrow’s lesson.”
And so they ended up on Annabel’s bed, both cross-legged as Prospero thumbed through his book and Annabel toyed with a chess set, finger circling the top of a white knight. “….and what to do about Morella? It seems foolish to not at least attempt to return her to our cause.”
“We needed her then, but at this point she seems more trouble than she’s worth. It may be easier to search for new teammates than to attempt to win her back now Lenore’s got her claws in.”
“Mmn, you may be correct…” Annabel trailed off, chess piece clicking against the board as she yawned. “Apologies, it seems to be getting late, and I still need to put my curls in. It’ll be about another hour.”
“I could try to do them for you, if you like?”
She turned to him with an open expression of surprise, the most unguarded Prospero had seen her. “Do you know how?”
“No, but I’ve seen my mother do it before. I think I could figure it out. They’re rag curls, correct?”
“Y-yes.” Annabel seemed utterly bemused. “Are you certain?”
“You’re letting me sleep in your bed, Annabel, it’s truly the least I can do. Now where are your ribbons?”
Pulling his fingers gently through blonde curls, Prospero immediately realized he couldn’t do this anything close to well with gloves on, and after a moment’s hesitation he pulled them off, placing them atop his book with utter care before combing his bare fingers through Annabel’s hair again.
Sensations of touch were always especially heightened right after removing his gloves, so Prospero winced in preparation for the worst, but Annabel’s hair was soft, clean and pleasant against his fingers. He combed through the first curl with little resistance, hardly able to pay attention as she spoke of her predictions for the next day’s lesson.
Taking the first ribbon, he began at the end of her hair, winding and twisting blonde with purple. It took a few attempts to get the hair to cooperate, but eventually he was able to do it right, and tying it at the top he showed it to Annabel for approval. She half-smiled and pronounced him good for a beginner.
“You haven’t mentioned any plans to destabilize Lenore’s group,” Prospero hummed, winding ribbon with hair gently. “They’re stronger now, and the peace has been broken. What do you want to do?”
“I’m not sure, to be honest.” It wasn’t like her to be so candid, but with her back turned and his fingers gently scratching at her scalp Prospero felt closer to her than ever before. “They’re nearly all manifested now, and they’re sure to stick ever closer to one another after all this. We’ve missed our window, it seems.”
“True, though I suppose we could revert to targeting Lenore. They’re nothing without her.” A jolt went through Annabel’s body at that, a sort of flinch. He slowed his work, worried he’d accidentally pulled too hard at her hair.
“No, that won’t… They’re sure to be protecting her, now more than ever. And she wouldn’t go down without a fight, herself.” Annabel sighed heavily, head tipping back and eyes closing in satisfaction.
“Let me know if I’m hurting you,” Prospero murmured, before returning to the plan. “You’re not wrong. I suppose we just have to keep our guard close and try to move up through these classes. If merits are the way through she doesn’t have a chance.”
“Are you sure you’ve never done this before?” Annabel teased, leaning back with her curls splayed across his lap now. “You’re awfully good at it, it doesn’t even hurt.”
“Is it… meant to?” She giggled at his perplexed tone.
“Beauty is pain, darling. Haven’t you ever cut yourself with a razor?”
“Well, sure, but it’s not like it’s meant to hurt every time. That would be bizarre.”
She laughed, a melodic sound, and he noted that she was twisting the wedding ring on her finger. “I suppose it’s just for us, then. What a lucky life you must lead.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, don’t worry, darling,” she chuckled. “It’s not your cross to bear. You don’t need to be laced into corsets, or pinched pink, and those curls of yours aren’t even necessary for you. They do look nice, loose like that, but so unrefined!” She was so relaxed, laying on her back in her nightgown, that it almost seemed she was being honest.
“I wanted my hair long, as a child.” He didn’t know what he was saying. He didn’t know what it was about gently weaving ribbons into her hair that made him want to tell her this, this piece of his truth he hadn’t shared with anyone. “I saw my mother and her long curls and I wanted them too. I managed to have it shoulder length, before I contracted lice and had to have it all shaved. The humiliation was too much, I never tried to grow it longer again. But I always coveted.”
“I never cared for it long.” She sighed deeply, still twisting at her silver rings. “But my mother had beautiful white ringlets, I’m told. She passed when I was young, so the maids began doing my hair in her image and I suppose I never stopped.”
“I think the lice were given to me on purpose,” Prospero mused. “I was never unclean, there was no chance I could have caught them naturally. Father never liked my hair long.” Annabel hummed sympathetically.
“What would you do, if you win the life?” Annabel asked, almost nervously. Prospero chuckled sadly.
“I’ve… always wanted a daughter. Girls’ clothes are so beautiful, I wanted to put her in little dresses and lace and do her hair. But I never… I haven’t met a woman I would want to marry, so it didn’t happen. But maybe… if I had another chance. Other than that, I’m not sure.”
“That’s… beautiful. I’ve never known someone to want a daughter. You wouldn’t prefer a son?”
“I would be happy with a son, certainly, but I’m not the type to help him grow athletically or to play properly. I think I would prefer to spend time with a daughter, she may be mellower and I confess I’ve always wanted to learn to make lace.” He hummed, finishing another ringlet. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“What would you do if you got a new life?”
She twisted her rings once more, almost frantically back and forth. “I- well. I wish I could have my wedding, uninterrupted this time.”
“Did you love him?”
“More than anything,” her voice held a pain deep and cutting, one Prospero had heard in his mother’s lullabies. He didn’t understand, but he mourned for her still. He wished he knew the feeling of that kind of love, so that he could empathize with her loss.
“What after?”
She was silent for a while. “I suppose… I never thought about it. I… I’d like to travel. To see the world, go abroad. I’d like to compete, in chess championships, or backgammon. I’d like to learn, more, to experience the world more freely. And above it all I want h-him by my side.”
“I admire you, Annabel.”
“And I you. But why, specifically?”
“That love, the depth of it. I wish I could feel such a thing.”
“I understand that,” she sighed. “It was… many years, before I found my lover.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever have one. Though, I suppose you never know.” He tied the last curl with finality, settling back to check his work.
“Would it be such a bad thing, not to love in that way? Not to feel the trappings of it?” Her voice was gentle, mussed, and he pulled her closer and she crawled under the blanket.
“I don’t know,” he murmured into her hair. “It’s lonely.”
“I know.” A mumble, muffled in his chest, but it seemed… genuine.
They fell asleep with legs tangled, her hair splayed over him and his arm tossed carelessly over her back. And gentle and fleeting as the red of the night faded to smoke black into the eggshell of dawn, so they held each other. A bit closer.