WeWriWa—Violetta’s Halloween costume

If you celebrate Sukkot, may you have a wonderful holiday!

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8 sentences from a book or WIP. This week’s snippet comes a few pages after last week’s, when Igor picked up his cousin Luiza for an NYU Halloween party in the Bronx (which was then the location of the main campus). Luiza is dressed as an Ancient Egyptian, Igor is a Renaissance artist with a genuine prop sword, and Igor’s younger brother Ilya and his girlfriend Milada are pirates.

Igor is so annoyed and distracted by the conversation they’ve been having on the way up, he forgets his sword and has to run back to the car. Luiza and Ilya have told him he needs to date around and not feel bound to his first crush, though Ilya himself already feels very strongly for Milada after only about a month and a half.

“There’s your chance, Casanova,” Luiza whispers as they enter the large room reserved for the party. “If you don’t ask her out soon, someone else will, and I guarantee you won’t like that very much.”

Violetta is seated near the back of the room, dressed in a long black dress with a spider web patterned over the skirt.  She’s showing a bit more collarbone than usual, showcasing a necklace with a large spiderweb and spider centerpiece and other, much smaller spiders and their webs attached to the sides of the chain.  Violetta’s earrings are also spiders.  Her shoes are flats as always, red with spiders in place of her usual flowers or bows.  Black silk rosebuds are clipped all over her hair to complete the spider queen look.

“It’s nice to see you again,” Igor says, smiling. “I didn’t realize you were such an arachnophile.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, since you only properly met me eight days ago.”

The great Mae West in I’m No Angel