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“Go away,” called Cecil.
He said it into the sofa cushion he was lying on, so it came out sounding more like, “Guh mmf,” and was apparently too muffled to be heard outside, or else whoever was at the door just didn’t care.
There was too much pounding. At the door. In his head. Both needed to stop.
He got up, achingly, only because it seemed like the most efficient way to put an end to the door-pounding. Unfortunately, being upright made the head-pounding much worse.
“Hang on, hang on!” he shouted. The sound of his own voice, raspy and rough as it was, hurt his head, too. Stepping over a stray take-out container and the sharp-looking shards of what probably used to be dinnerware, he made his way to the front door. He cracked it open, wincing at the sunlight.
“Josie?”
He stepped out to greet her as well as someone with a splitting hangover could greet anyone at seven thirty in the morning.
The sharp once-over Old Woman Josie gave him made Cecil squirm. It also gave him the presence of mind to take stock of what he must look like. He was still dressed in yesterday’s work clothes, minus a tie and one sock. There was also something hanging, albatross-like, over his shoulders.
Ah, a lab coat.
He pulled it off and tossed it back into the shadowy foyer, hoping Josie hadn’t noticed.
It was a vain hope.
“What’s he done to get you all worked up this time?”
“I don’t know. I drank. I forgot.”
“It doesn’t seem to have helped.”
“I’m not sure it did,” Cecil said miserably. “Now I’m left wondering what happened. What if whatever it was comes up again, and I’m not prepared for it?” He added in a low voice, “You didn’t hear it from me, but it almost seems, sometimes, like it would be easier just to remember.”
“Next time think of that before you drink half a bottle of…“ Her nostrils flared as she sniffed the air. “…what is that? Scotch?”
Cecil nodded, remorseful. “Single malt, 1995. And it was two thirds of a bottle. My tolerance has increased dramatically over the past year. The past year.” He groaned, clutching his head. “I think I just remembered why I was drinking. And now I think I would like to throw up. Josie, what day is it? Please tell me it’s not the day I think it is.”
“Whatever day it is, it’s a big one for all of us,” said Josie. “Today is the opening of the new Old Night Vale Opera House.”
“Oh?” said Cecil, momentarily forgetting his personal anguish in the face of such supernal accomplishment. “It’s finally finished? That’s incredible! Congratulations! I know you and the Erikas have been working so hard.”
“The construction has been done for a month or so. We’ve been getting everything in place for the first run. What’s an opera house inauguration without an opera, I always say. The angels are putting the finishing touches on some of the set pieces. Last minute details. Otherwise, everything’s ready.”
“That’s—wow! That’s great. I’ll have to do a segment on it.”
Josie shook her head. "No reporting on it until you've enjoyed it first. I want you there as a guest for opening night,” she said, handing him a small gold envelope. “For you, on the house.”
Cecil took the envelope. “Thank you. This is very generous. Much too generous, actually,” he added, frowning, as he peeked inside. “There are two tickets here.”
“There are,” said Josie evenly.
“But I’m only one person. I don’t… I mean, without Carlos here…”
“I’m not sending you to the opera alone. Give one to someone else.”
Cecil held one of them out to Josie.
“What are you doing?”
“Be my date?” he asked. He was trying for winsome, but he suspected he’d managed beseeching at best. And at worst, desperate.
Josie chuckled gruffly. “Your date? Cecil, I have my own private box.” She clapped a deceptively strong hand on his arm and squeezed. “Find someone to go with you. It’ll do you good.”
*
“Someone to go with me… Who would go with me?” Cecil muttered, as he moved around the kitchen, assembling ingredients. “And to an opera. Whatever opera is, anyway.”
He cracked two cassowary eggs into a glass, whisked them till they frothed, and added a sprinkle of cayenne pepper and, for good measure, some sprinkles.
Pinching his nose and tipping his head back, he downed the mixture in one long gulp. “Awful, awful, awful,” he gasped, scrambling for something to chase it. “But worth it. Very worth it,” he amended as his headache immediately began to dissipate like fog in sunlight.
Good thing, too, since he really needed to get to work. Station Management had methods for dealing with employees who weren't punctual, a select few of which weren’t fatal. And besides, Cecil was a professional. Regardless of how much he drank on a work night.
He showered, shaved, and performed a few minor blood rites, chanting with genuine fervor. He would take all the help he could get today of all days, and if it came in the form of wrath from vengeful ancient gods, so be it.
An idea came to him as he collected his broadcast notes from the corners they’d fled to the night before.
He hadn’t seen his niece in a while. Maybe Janice would want to go to the opera. Did young girls who had excellent aim with small caliber rifles tend to like opera? He could find out. She’d be home. It was summer vacation. And she’d be awake, since everyone in her household habitually got up at an obnoxiously early hour.
After some disgruntled searching, Cecil found his phone wedged between the cushions of the sofa, and called.
“Hello?” That sounded like… ugh, no.
He’d forgotten. The treacherous Palmer-Carlsberg landline, his sole means of contacting his niece. The last thing he could handle right now was having to talk to Steve Carlsberg. This would require fast thinking.
Which was, admittedly, not his forte.
“Hi!” said Cecil, in a high voice. “May I please speak to Janice?”
“Who is this?”
“Her friend.”
“Which friend?”
What was a common ten-year-old girl name?
“Femke,” said Cecil, then grimaced. This was maybe not working.
“I don’t think Janice knows a Femke…”
“I’m, err, new,” Cecil improvised. “I’m the daughter of the cultural attaché from Svitz. My family just moved to Night Vale. I miss home terribly, especially the stroopwafels, but I’m so glad that the Girl Scouts have been so welcoming! Janice more than anyone else.”
“I haven’t heard anything about a cultural attaché from Svitz coming to Night Vale, and I’m sure that’s something that Cecil would have mentioned on his sh— oh! It’s you, isn’t it, Cecil? Haha, you sure got me that time! That was a good one. How are you doing?”
Cecil switched back to his normal voice, albeit the dripping-with-scorn version of it reserved for Steve Carlsberg. “Can I talk to Janice, Steve?”
“Sure, just a minute. You know, I was thinking about you the other day… we haven’t seen you in a while, and well, you probably don’t want me mentioning it, but we know this must be a tough time of year for you. Do you want to come over for dinner sometime this week?”
Cecil gritted his teeth. “Steve Carlsberg, let me talk to my niece.”
“You could just get out for a little bit. Take your mind off—”
“I am not in the mood for this, Steve,” said Cecil, this far from shouting.
“All right, all right” Steve relinquished. “But tell Janice to pass the phone back to me when the two of you are done talking.”
“Yeah,” said Cecil, adding under his breath, “as if.”
Janice picked up the phone. “Hi, Uncle Cecil.”
“Janice! How is my favorite niece?”
“I’m your only niece, Uncle Cecil.”
“‘Favorite’ and ‘only’ are often the same thing, and often for the best,” said Cecil, paraphrasing a popular love song.
“If you say so.”
“Sooo, I have a question for you,” said Cecil. “How do you feel about opera?”
“It’s what everyone my age is into right now.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“Oh. Bummer. Nice sarcasm, though! You’re making great progress.”
“Thanks,” said Janice. “I’ve been practicing.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Let me know if you need any more pointers, but it sounds like you’re doing great on your own.” When he’d found out that Steve had refused to enroll her in the afterschool course Irony and Ridicule for Beginner's, claiming that she was still too young, Cecil had taken matters into his own hands. He wasn’t about to see his niece miss out on learning basic life skills. “But about opera…” Cecil continued. “What if there were a bribe involved?”
“Are you talking about the opera tonight? 'Cause I’m already going to that. Ms. Josie brought tickets for all of us this morning.”
“Oh, ok then. I guess I’ll see you there. And Janice? The next time I’m forced to talk to your mother, I’m going to tell her that she should buy you your own phone. A girl your age not having a smartphone is ridiculous. How will you ever be prepared for the demands of contemporary society? If you’re not an internet sensation by the time you’re seventeen, you can say goodbye to your chances of ever having a lucrative career.”
“You just want to be able to talk to me without having to go through Mom or Steve, don’t you?”
“I love you, Janice,” said Cecil hurriedly. “Bye.”
Kids these days.
So astute.
*
During his lunch break, Cecil scrolled through his contact list, wondering who else he might call.
Finally, he settled on trying Diane Creighton. She’d been a good friend to him lately. They hadn't seen all that much of each other, but when they did, it seemed like they just clicked.
“Hi, Diane?”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Cecil. Cecil Palmer.”
“Oh, Cecil. How... nice of you to call. Unexpected, definitely. But nice. Um. When did I give you my number?”
“In the aftermath of the Homecoming Day deluge. You said I should feel free to call anytime. You sounded so sincere…”
“I was, I was! This isn’t exactly the best time, but, well, what can I do for you?”
Did she seem uncertain? Cecil plowed on, regardless. “I was thinking, you know, you’re a single mom. My boyfriend’s trapped in an otherworld desert. It totally makes sense for us to go on a platonic opera date tonight, right? I mean, whatever opera is.”
The pause that followed was definitely uncertain. “Cecil, it's sweet that you called, but I don’t know. I’m not sure I could get a babysitter for Josh in time.”
“I could get one of the station interns to babysit,” Cecil offered. “They all know first aid and CPR. Not that it ever helps any of them survive, but I’m certain they’d be able to ensure Josh’s safety for the evening.”
“Well, I would but Josh is a magnolia today…”
“It’s admirable, the way you’re giving him free rein to explore who and what he is at an early age,” said Cecil, meaning it.
“Thanks. It means a lot to have your support. Josh does need a lot of special attention, though. I wouldn’t feel right leaving him with a stranger. I’m sorry, Cecil. I’d love to go with you, but I just couldn’t.”
“That’s ok. It’s no problem. I understand.” His fault, though, probably, for calling so last-minute. That's how it went, he guessed, when people had children.
“Well, next time maybe," said Diane. "Bye.”
Cecil hung up with a sigh. So much for that. Not that he could blame her, but…
He commenced scrolling until another idea struck him—one he was surprised he hadn’t come up with sooner. A childhood best friend was probably the perfect person to ask to the opera. Or as good a person as any, at least. And he felt like he and Earl were on increasingly better terms, since he'd started doing regular cooking segments on the show. It couldn't hurt to ask.
He called Earl.
Earl answered on the second ring.
“Hi, Cecil! It’s great to hear from you. ”
“How are you doing?”
“Not well. I’m in the middle of a disaster at the moment.”
In the background Cecil heard plates clattering, followed by a series of grunts. “Um, what's going on? Did one of the nutmegs get loose?”
“Worse! Marjoram.”
“You were keeping fresh marjoram in the restaurant? That’s pretty dangerous, isn’t it?” Cecil asked, frowning.
“Highly,” Earl said.
“Couldn’t you just use the ground stuff?”
“At Tourniquet, we pride ourselves on serving food made from only the freshest, deadliest ingredients,” Earl said, in a tone similar to one Cecil remembered him using to recite their Scout pledge.
The grunts in the background picked up to howls. Cecil racked his brain for what he knew about common culinary creatures. “Marjoram doesn’t like being confined, though, does it?”
“Something’s certainly made it angry. It could be that.”
“Their horns are sharp.”
“Yep,” said Earl. “And tipped with poison.”
“Well… don’t let me keep you, if you need to take care of that.”
“Yeah! I’d really better. But thanks so much for calling. It’s always good to— Oh no no no. Oh sh—“
The call ended.
“Shucks,” Cecil muttered. He hadn’t had the chance to ask Earl about the opera.
Maybe in the evening, once things had hopefully settled down a bit, he could drive over to Tourniquet, sneak into the kitchen, persuade Earl to share dinner with him, enjoy a delicious, high-end meal, and then he and Earl could go to the opera together!
Naaaaah.
Even Cecil could recognize that as a plan where something was bound to go wrong.
*
“No,” said Maureen, without looking up from her phone, when Cecil walked into the break room for a coffee refill later that afternoon.
“What?” asked Cecil.
“You’re going to ask me a question. Whatever it is, my answer is no.”
“Maureen, hear me out, please. I have this extra ticket to the opera, and I need to give it to someone. You are my absolute last choice, I promise.”
“I’d better be.”
“…”
“…”
“…So?”
“The answer’s still no.”
“Well, it was worth a try.”
“It really wasn’t.”
*
When Cecil got home after work, the house was in no less disarray than when he’d left it in the morning, and on top of that, all of his refrigerator magnets had been duct-taped to the kitchen ceiling.
Defeated, he slumped face first into the sofa where he’d slept the night before. “What did I do?” he asked aloud into the empty house.
Something tickled the back of his neck before a clipped, feminine voice said, “Never once did it pass through your brain that the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home might like to have an evening out.”
“I’m sorry,” Cecil said, contrite. “I had no idea you’d want to go! I don’t even know if opera is enjoyable.”
“Your mortal mind will not be able to comprehend the glory that is opera. But the music will demand things of you, whether you can understand it or not. It will ask for pieces of your very self, and you will give them, gladly and unknowingly. You will crawl back here, as uncultured and unsophisticated as before, and also less than you once were, hollower, emptier.”
“So opera involves music? Wow, that’s the first thing real I’ve learned about it.”
“The music takes and takes,” the Faceless Old Woman intoned.
“If you’d like to go, I do still have a ticket,” Cecil offered.
The Faceless Old Woman huffed and all the doors banged as she, presumably, left the room. She might still be there watching him. It was hard to know. Whatever the case, he suspected she’d find other ways of getting back at him, soon enough.
It didn’t take long for Cecil to confirm that suspicion. When he went into the bedroom to change into what he hoped was opera-appropriate clothing (his best tunic, bullet-proof leggings, combat boots, and military-grade binoculars), he found that all of the socks in his sock drawer were rolled into mismatched sets of three.
*
The new Old Night Vale Opera House was stunning after dark, lit up by sweeping spotlights. The completed building was formidably austere. It had all the old-world durability of a medieval fortress, with baroque flourishes for elegance. The whimsically shaped arrow slits were an especially nice touch.
Cecil milled about with the other townspeople in the lobby, exchanging small-talk, much of which involved last-minute guesses about what opera actually was, and swooping in to high-five Janice while managing to avoid his sister and Steve.
As it grew closer to the opera’s start time, he followed the flow of people moving into the theater, working his way down to the front until he’d matched the symbol on his ticket—it looked kind of like a rat’s skull with an umlaut over it—to the corresponding row of chairs.
Josie had given him the gift of very nice seats, not far back from the wide, deep hole in front of the stage, which emitted the occasional tortured moan. What did they call that in theater again? Oh, the pit. Of course. He’d have to send her a thank you—some candied moth wings or maybe a decorative hunting knife. Something she’d really like.
The packed auditorium was abuzz with anticipation. Cecil tried not to think about the likelihood that the seat next to him would be the only unoccupied one in the entire theater.
“How long do you think this’ll be?” Cecil asked the person next to him on the side away from the vacant seat. “I mean, how long does an opera usually go?”
“Shhhh,” said the operagoer.
“Bart?” asked Cecil, recognizing the loudly patterned balaclava as belonging to the Sheriff’s Secret Police officer assigned to his block on Tuesday nights, Thursdays, and every-other Sunday morning. “What are you doing here?”
“Normally I’d ask you to speak louder so I can make sure my recorder is picking up every word you say, but tonight I’d really just like to enjoy the opera. So please be quiet. And don’t forget to silence your phone.”
“Oh,” said Cecil. “Sure. Sorry.” And turned his phone off.
None too soon either.
The house lights dimmed, and throughout the theater conversations trailed off into expectant silence.
“So this is opera,” Cecil murmured in awe as the stage lights went up.
***
In the otherworld desert and with hammering heart, Carlos called Cecil.
“Hi—“
“Cecil? Cecil!”
“— you’ve reached the voicemail of Cecil Palmer. I’m off doing some important journalistic work. Or maybe just petting Khoshekh.”
“No, Cecil, you choose the absolute worst times not to answer your phone!”
He ended the call without leaving a voicemail. He wasn’t sure what to say. He’d called Cecil on impulse, frantic. Now he could collect himself, analyze the situation, and logically arrive at the most rational decision for how to proceed.
“Observation: One door. Appears to be made of genus quercus; common name: oak. I don’t pretend to be a dendrologist, but that is unmistakably oak. Relative, non-numeric descriptors of age are meaningless, for the most part, but this thing is definitely, definitely old.”
Carlos ran a hand along an intricate whorl in the woodgrain, disbelieving.
“I found it. I found it. And the timing.”
Except.
He hadn’t found it, exactly.
It had sort of just appeared. All on its own. Before, there hadn’t been a door, and now, suddenly, there was, in a spot in the desert he’d come to know well. This particular area had produced some of the most interesting scientific readings he’d taken, so he’d set up a longer-term monitoring device, rigged from a slightly crumpled Dasani bottle, three credit cards, and a hair tie, and came by to check on it as often as was convenient. He was lucky he’d come across the door. Lucky that the masked army had headed back in this direction. Lucky that, feeling wistful and solitary, he’d wandered away from the warriors as dusk settled in, figuring he could check on the equipment before doing some stargazing and talking to Cecil.
He knew that Cecil would tell him to hurry up and go through the door while he could. What if it disappeared? But everything was happening so fast. He wanted to say goodbye to Alicia and Frédéric, the Prius-sized Bichon Frisé, and Doug and the rest of the masked army first, and make sure he had adequate samples packed up for analysis back at the Night Vale lab. Surely there was a compromise.
Surely it was a fair enough compromise if he said goodbye and packed his samples quickly.
He cast one last look at the door, confirming its exact position, and turned back in the direction of the masked army’s encampment.
***
During intermission, Cecil got up to walk some of the stiffness out of his joints, get a drink of water, and use the restroom. Then he went to help tend the wounded.
Folding strips of gauze into serviceable bandages for some of his fellow operagoers' cuts from the debris blasts, Cecil reflected that he hadn’t had this much fun in ages. It was with giddy anticipation that he returned to his seat when the overhead lights flashed and an air raid siren began to drone, announcing the start of the second half.
Opera was magnificent.
***
Carlos was ready.
His samples were packed. He had consolidated all of them and secured them in the pockets of what might look at a first glance like a stylish, if dirt-encrusted, messenger bag but was actually something far more scientific.
Saying goodbye to Alicia and Doug wasn’t easy, but it was easier once Carlos promised it wouldn’t be for long. He was certain he could find a more reliable way back and forth between worlds, eventually. He was, after all, a scientist and unwilling to give up on what had proven a very difficult challenge. Given the option, it made a lot more sense for him to continue work on this specific challenge from the Night Vale side, where his boyfriend was. Alicia and Doug squeezed hands and were generally understanding.
After their final parting words (Alicia shouting “What are you still doing here, you big dummy? Go!” and urging Frédéric to chase him away in the right direction), Carlos hurried back toward the door.
***
For the final act, several stagehands, shrouded in black and ten feet tall, wheeled a large fixture on stage.
Cecil’s stomach twisted into knots more complex than any he could recall learning as a boy scout.
Dominating the stage was a massive door.
“What kind of wood do you think that door is made out of?” Cecil whispered.
“Shhhhh,” hissed the Sheriff’s Secret Police officer.
“Teak, right? It’s probably teak.”
***
Light hit Carlos in the eyes, so much like the awful light he had worked so hard to keep out of Night Vale. For a moment he couldn’t see anything, blinded by that intense brightness. He stood still blinking. When he’d recovered his sight, he discovered that there were several people surrounding him, blinking back at him.
The people were the same size as him, yes, but they were wearing a strange assortment of clothing, including ruffs, horned helmets, and large powdered wigs. They were also armed to the teeth.
“Sorry,” he said, backing away and reaching behind him for the knob of the door that had slammed shut after he fell through it. “Guess I got the wrong oak door.”
“Carlos? Carlos, wait!”
“Cecil?” He knew that voice to the depths of his soul, but he couldn’t quite believe—
The lighting changed, revealing Cecil, standing in the middle of an aisle among a huge crowd of not-huge people, separated from him by a ten foot drop and—was that a gaping chasm?
Carlos looked around, dumbfounded. Was he on a stage? Was this a play? He hoped it wasn’t a musical, because he truly could not sing.
And then it didn’t matter what he’d walked into, specifically, because Cecil had somehow made it up to where he was and beelined right into his arms.
He corrected his previous thought. He had never felt more like singing in his life.
“Hi,” he said, nuzzling into the smooth, wonderful skin of Cecil’s neck and trying, and probably failing, to be subtle about inhaling the scent of him. “Surprise, I guess? Happy Anniversary?”
“Carlos,” Cecil murmured in his ear, just barely audible over a sudden din of clapping and cheering. “You’re—“
“—home,” Carlos finished for him, feeling dazed. “I am.”
“I was going to say ‘getting sand all over my best tunic.’ But ‘home’ works too.”
Carlos laughed, overwhelmed, and pulled back to rest their foreheads together. Cecil was just so, well, Cecil. He wished he knew how to articulate that fact, and his joy at it. “I missed the way you smile,” he attempted.
“I missed feeling like I could.”
Carlos’s face must have betrayed his sense that the blood-pumping organ in his chest was breaking, and with far more metaphoric intensity than Carlos had the literary training to handle, because Cecil automatically began to stammer an apology.
“Sorry,” said Cecil. “I shouldn’t have— That wasn’t—“
“No, it’s okay. You don’t have to take it back, if it’s how you feel. We just… We have a lot to talk about,” Carlos said.
“We do,” Cecil agreed.
“But maybe not on stage?” Carlos suggested, nodding toward the audience, which was applauding vigorously and collectively.
“Oh. No, probably not on stage.” Cecil disengaged himself partially from Carlos’s arms. “Right! The opera!”
“Opera?”
“Yes! This is opera, Carlos! And you showed up right in the middle of it—not that I’m complaining… nor does anyone else seem to be. But still. We should probably let them finish as planned. They worked very hard putting it all together. But first… um.”
Carlos watched Cecil’s eyes dart between the audience and him. “Um?”
“Opera apparently has a lot of rules. If I’ve learned nothing else over the past three and a half gore-filled acts, I can tell you for sure that, in opera, the reunited lovers have to kiss.”
“Is that so?” Carlos asked.
“It’s pretty much the first rule of opera,” Cecil confirmed.
“In that case,” said Carlos, “my objections are equivalent to the divergence of the curl of any vector field.” When Cecil frowned, he added, “By which I mean I have none.”
“Oh,” said Cecil. “Great.”
Carlos had never had occasion to kiss or be kissed theatrically before, and while he was certainly surprised when Cecil dipped him backward, he managed both to keep his balance and to thoroughly enjoy, and respond to, the kiss.
The audience also seemed to approve, if the standing ovation was anything to go by.
Carlos gave a sheepish half bow, and Cecil, grinning wildly, nudged him toward stage right.
On their way offstage, Cecil paused momentarily to catch Josie’s eye, up in a box toward the front of theater, and shrug his shoulders in an emphatic expression of “don’t ask me,” raising his palms to add, “totally not my fault.” Carlos was not all sure how to interpret the wink Josie gave Cecil in response.
“So what exactly is opera?” Carlos asked as he followed Cecil into the waiting crowd, holding tight to his hand.
“You’ll find out! It’s…well, it’s indescribable. You really just have to see.”
“I can’t wait.”
“And guess what?” said Cecil. “I even saved you a seat.”