Dance Macabre

Chapter: 01 Waltz of Evocation

The night was hazy, the air was chilly and the damp with smoke and salty seas mist. London was ambient with sticky weather, one that makes you keep unsticking your collar. The night would however be surprisingly somber.
With the sound of distant rail echoing the sky, the air carrying a smoky and almost opaque drizzle.
Cattleya Cloustus walked with quick small steps, her heels making a soft clanking noise on the pavement. With her frail hands embracing the violin, she turned towards Hazelwitch street, a feeling of cold and almost soothing nostalgia struck her. The remembrance of her past, like a needle covered in nectar, the needle which would give her the nectar but stung her too.
The journey to the house was a short walk from her academy.
Stepping on the wary steps of her lawn, cattleya sent her hand searching for the key. Opening the door, she stared back at the picture that was placed on the neatly arranged self.
The Family picture of the time when life actually made sense, when something made her wanna get up in the morning. It had been five months since the death of her only child and two years  since her husband's demise. She gazed at the clock at it said 8:30 pm.
                      Cattleya was one of those women who remain untouched by the wrinkled hands of age. She had a smooth unlined face which was complemented by her amber eyes and dark lips. She slowly unzipped her boots and carefully placed them by the door and the other clothing followed.
She allowed her slender body to slip into the shower and cupped her face in her scarred palms.
The showers were always her safe place, she could cry, giggle, smile, or stare at a wall for hours without having to explain it to anyone. Especially after her family's demise, these episodes were much more frequent, she would spend hours in the shower and portrayed the water-absorbing all her misery, gloom, heartache, and grief and would leave her clean, yet again.

 She had to hide her true self the best tonight because the golden invitation to the chairman's anniversary was placed on the mahogany corner table. It has been a long time since gave up upon the search for a reason to live and despite her tenacious attempts to find one, she always lost and felt shattered in the process.

                                                             She raised, pulling herself back together, her ravenous hair sticking to her perfectly tanned body. she walked into her room where the champagne brown silk slip dress was kept on the bed alongside which were the laced high heels that Caenon had brought for her on their first anniversary. She let the damp robe slip off her shoulders, with still a particularly wet figurine , she walked towards the rosewood table which held all his favorite scents, from the trivial drugstore products to the sumptuous french colognes that must've once made her feel alive while Caenon smelled them off her neck and wrists. 

 The blow dryer's horse noise canceled all other clamors of the cityscape, which sent her hair soaring away, revealing the bold scar of her failed suicide attempt sticking to the side of her neck. One by one the layers of colorants enfolded her skin followed by the slipping into the silken slip dress, whose high slit would have had Caenon's gaze on her the entire waltz. The heels were strapped on with slim and agile fingers and the neck was adorned by a brilliant low-cut crystalline snake-styled chain. As she walked towards the door to leave , she caught a  glimpse of her svelte figure, "Dressed to enchante all men that came across, a thorn to the wive's eyes"  One might say.