“It’s so unlike her.” Scout jabbed the Call End button. “She’s always been a Girl Scout.”
“Maybe she doubled back to the party?” Brooks dragged a weary hand over his face. I checked my phone. It was now four in the morning. I was going to ruin his trip home for the holidays.
“There’s a pool house outside,” said a hushed voice, and we swiveled in surprise.
A cater waiter was stacking dried glasses in a crate. “I’ve worked a few parties at this house,” she said. “Sometimes they’ll go out to the pool house to avoid prying eyes.”
“Thank you,” Scout said. I sensed she wanted to give the waiter a hug. “Really, thank you.”
“You can get out through that door”—the waiter pointed—“on the other side of the butler’s pantry.”
“One last sweep,” Brooks said, and I pulled off my heels with a groan, giving up on them.
The backyard grounds were beautifully landscaped, a lush tropical paradise with a lagoon-like pool lit from within by a warm green glow. But by now I was frustrated beyond the point of ogling.
“There,” Scout said, dancing around some rocks. “Behind the trees.”
“That pool house is bigger than my parents’ house,” Brooks said.
“Figures the only person who bothered to help us was a waiter,” I muttered.
“It could be locked,” Brooks warned, but when Scout knocked on the door and twisted the knob, it creaked open.
“Hello?” she called into the dark. “Georgia?”
Blindly, I slid my hand against the wall, searching until I hit a light switch. I flipped it, and the room began to swim with muted blue strobe lights.
“Creepy,” I drawled. “It looks like the set of a porn movie.”
“Isabel.” Brooks’s voice was sharp. “The bed.”
In the dark, illuminated by the pulses of eerie light, lay a dark mass. I tiptoed toward it, Brooks at my heels, but it wasn’t until my hands were on it, until I felt the familiar texture of skin, that I registered it as a body. I shrieked and yanked my hands away.
Scout’s voice was cutting. “What is it?”
“Someone’s asleep.” Brooks shook the dark mass by the shoulders. “Hey—wake up—hey.”
“Brooks—” I warned, but he rolled it over anyway, and suddenly it was a she. There was a face in the blue light, a face I knew too well, except it was all wrong. Eyes closed, a black pool seeping tentacles from her forehead. Top wrenched down to expose her chest, bruise marks in the shape of petals—no, bruise marks in the shape of fingers, of hands—darkening the pale expanse of her collarbone, climbing up her neck.
I took a staggering step back. “No—”
Brooks lunged, pressing his fingers to her neck.
“What is it?” Scout tried to push past me, but I held her back. “No, Scout,don’t look—”
She shoved me, desperate, and I clung to her, but it was too late. Her eyes went wide as she saw her over my shoulder, the mess of twisted sheets and black blood and the empty, splintered face that had once been so dear.
“I can’t feel a pulse,” Brooks choked out. “There’s nothing—”
Scout fell to the floor. Fell on all fours, wrenched her head back, and screamed.
From our vantage point years later, we can see that Our Ladies of the Dark altered the course of history. Which makes it all the more frustrating that scholars continue to argue over basic details, such as the group’s rumored original membership.
I sometimes wonder if my peers are simply loath to credit a group of celebrities with what turned out to be such a watershed moment for women. How could such unserious people, they might argue—bards and jesters at best—have made such an impact? Hollywood, after all, seems an unlikely place for solidarity to take root. Those familiar with its history know the industry was built on ruthless competition, from the studio era forward. Everyone against everyone, baked into the soil.
And yet you could argue we live in a time when technological advances have turned the whole world into a version of Hollywood; given each human being, from PhD student to stay-at-home mom, their own platform; changed everyone into a performer of their own lives, hungry for an audience. In this economy of eyeballs, attention has emerged as the most valuable commodity. To riff on Frank Herbert, she who controls the attention controls the universe. It seems obvious, then, that stars would trump dusty world leaders.
Say a woman—only a minor artist—was transformed by an unprecedented influx of attention into a star. Now imagine she had the uncommon bravery to lay down her sword among her competitors and expose her neck…
