No prelude, no grand entrance – indeed, no entrance at all. Poof, just like magic, and she was in a room that was familiar and strange all at once. Familiar because Evangeline loved nothing more than going to the pictures, and she’d seen this grand room projected on a silver screen in other, much dingier rooms not once but twice in her long life, thirty-nine years apart.
Strange because it was difficult to say whether she’d been in this room before, or not at all. Sometimes Rose’s memories went to war with themselves (measles or massacre, campground or ruins?). Sometimes different versions of her clamored to be the truth. It wasn’t so bad as some had it, when conflicting timelines split them in two and threatened their sanity. For Evangeline, it was just.... interesting. To recognize a place so instantly, and to be here for the first time, too.
Hardly caused her to slip, suddenly finding herself in the Overlook’s ballroom. Though she suspected that was not why he'd brought her here – if he'd meant to at all. Equally unlikely, that. Or had she been the one to choose the battleground this time? Difficult to say with her memories and his so tangled up in one another. Either way, it was hard not to take a moment to appreciate the view. What a vision this place was, inside and out.
“Ahh,” she said quietly, peering up and around and through the pleasant glow of the lamplight until her blue eyes found the bar, “revisiting old nightmares, are we?” And then, with a grin:
Don’t mind if we do.
She began to saunter over to the bar, the pinkish fringe of her robe whispering secrets across her legs as she walked. Distant shouts turned her head briefly but did not stop her progress. She knew to whom they belonged, and the confidence his words attempted to project was thin at best. The thought occurred to her as she popped herself up on a stool that she scarcely needed to be here, to do what needed to be done. Her old friend might have conquered his fear of this hungry place once upon a time, but the new one? Oh, she very much doubted it.
Letting him run himself ragged with old memories and older ghosts had its benefits. But a more curious creature than Evangeline there never was. After so much time waiting, she wanted to see his face.
His real face.
Neither Grady nor Torrance Senior appeared to serve her. Such a pity, but at least that indicated she was the lone predator in these halls tonight. Unbothered, Evangeline leaned over the bar and grasped for the closest tall-necked bottle within her reach. An eyebrow arched into her forehead at the sight of the label.
“Tsk, silly me, forgetting.” She nodded respectfully at the bottle. “All things serve the Beam.”
More shouts from the distance, though not so distant now – he was getting closer. Thinking ahead, she grabbed two glasses, poured a generous two fingers in both, and held one in her hand, spilling not a drop as she spun around in her seat. Her perch was deceptively aloof, like some dame waiting for the wrong Mr. Right to walk in and take pity on the empty seat next to her.
Like most of those dames, though, she was a wolf in ladies’ clothing. Mr. Right wouldn't have to look hard to see the naked hunger in her eyes. All the better to see you with.
Hearing his last stab at an insult, Evangeline laughed brightly, loud enough for him to hear even without the echoes in the empty room. She took a sip from her glass and tipped her hat at the door, though he’d yet to find his way through it.
“Some things never go out of style, my darling,” she called out to him. “I’m happy to share. You, though. You never really learned, did you? So greedy, to keep so much to yourself, all this time, and time again.”