by Risa Fey
If she could only have a mirror in her cell, then that would be enough to keep her sane. She would be happy, in fact.
Silly girl. They aren’t dumb enough to hand out mirrors in a prison! You might cut yourself, or hurt others.
Once you’re in there, you are finished.
No more Thaed. No more happiness. Just little old you with all of Us to keep you company…
Cora’s heart began to pound.
If what They said was true, then she stood to lose the only man who had ever loved her—the only man who would ever love her.
She could not endure that—she would not. She would rather die.
Thaed spoke from the passenger seat, unseen. “I can get the car to work,” he said. “Trade seats with me.”
Cora got out of the car, but as she was rounding to the passenger’s side, a glob of ruddy silver paint fell from the moon directly into her path, splashing her legs. The paint felt cold as arctic water.
She skirted around the bloodlike grume, but Thaed waded through it, trailing thick fluid through the detritus and into the driver’s seat.
Silvery red splashed around the bottom of the driver’s side, coating the clutch, brake, and gas pedals as Thaed adjusted himself within the seat. The engine cranked. The keychain jangled in his ghostly fingers; he turned it, clicked it back, and turned it again.
After only a couple of failed tries, the engine fired and revved to life.
Cora expelled a sigh of relief.
“Where to?” Thaed asked her, sounding more like a college boy in search of a joyride.
“Anywhere not near my home.” Cora settled into the spongy seat, finding nothing odd about an invisible man—who was supposed to exist on an entirely different plane—manning an antique car he likely had never driven before in all his life.
Obedient to her wish, the stick shift wobbled into gear.
The car was lopsided due to the flat tire. But Thaed managed to slowly maneuver the car around some copses and black shrubs, rolling deeper into the woods. Some twenty minutes later, they approached a lake. The car pulled up to the edge of the bank. The parking brake went up, and the engine seemed to turn off by itself.
The pressure of an arm settled around Cora’s shoulders; she trembled slightly at the feeling. Fog hung over the surface of the water, diffuse ribbons of misty paint.
“Almost feels like a date,” Thaed said, and she couldn’t tell if he was joking.
“Mr. Philips is dead.” Cora rubbed her palms nervously together. “There’s nothing romantic about any of this.” She wished she could see Thaed, that way she could at least read his expression.
“I disagree.” His fingers closed around her right-hand shoulder. “Without being asked, I helped you hide the evidence of your murder. It’s romantic that we’re conspiring like this. We have a secret now, a deadly one, something known only between you and me.”
And Mr. Philips, Cora thought then, apprehensive. But in the next instant, she realized what Thaed had just implied. “Hey—I didn’t murder him!”
“This is something only you and I can know,” he went on as if he didn’t hear her, “and if anyone else ever finds out about it, it’ll be the end of us.” The grip of his fingers tightened, moving from her shoulder to her throat. “I think this is very romantic, and I’m damn well close to kissing you right now…”
Cora swallowed roughly, feeling betrayed. She shook her head.
“We can turn this night around,” Thaed said. “I understand this must be difficult. But we can make a date of it, if you like…” The leather of the seat squeaked as he readjusted his weight, trying to slide closer to her side. “We can salvage the night… have a little fun.” A finger caressed the paint-smudge on her cheek, and the calming seduction in his tone subdued her like a trance. His sultry voice warmed her to the very core of her womb, and she couldn’t bear looking toward the empty seat at him.
Saying nothing, Cora frowned and turned her head down. The last thing she wanted to do was reject him. But the idea of yielding to Thaed’s overtures in her dead boss’s car made her feel physically sick.
Realizing she was affronted, Thaed withdrew his arm, breathing deeply with impatience. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll send this car into the lake, and we’ll both go home to our separate worlds. You’ll sleep alone in your own bed, and I in mine; we’ll squander the magic that brought us both together in this car, and to hell with what could have been. Whatever you want, Cora. If this is all the thanks I get—”
Cora was astride him before he could even finish.
Arms clung around her, and he let out a gasp of joy. Invisible hands groped in a frenzy up her nightgown, and a frantic lovemaking ensued.
Thaed’s excitement was more violent than was usual, characterized by more rage and impatience than anything else. The penetration hurt, but she said nothing to slow the onslaught. Cora was scared of losing him, and her fear made her compliant. She clamped onto his shoulders for dear life, saying nothing that might anger him. He cudgeled her brutally, almost to the point of injury, but she only yelped and whimpered when she could not help it.
In minutes—possibly mere seconds—he was done. Thaed murmured in a drunken groan, “My God, I love you… What a good girl.”
When he had softened enough, Cora climbed off and fell back onto her side of the car. A layer of sweat shined over her skin, and she shivered at the clammy feeling it resulted in. She felt nauseous and wanted to throw up, but held it in.
Thaed started up the car again. “Get out, my love.” There was no more anger in his words, only pure and complete adoration. “Go home. I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”
Cora threw the door ajar and started walking through the underbrush. She turned back for a moment when the engine revved, and oily black smoke spurted from the tailpipe.
The nose of the car lurched and crashed stammeringly into the water. Black-blue paint spattered the open air, mixing with the straggling threads of fog. The wheels gouged into the soil, and the car’s matte finish bled like dye into the surrounding lake. The leather interior was flooded, and the driver’s door hung open as the vehicle continued to advance into the water and sink slowly.
Thaed walked away from the car, feet squelching in his shoes. Paint dripped from his unseen figure like rain from a water-repellant tarp. He followed Cora home at a distance, saying nothing the whole way. But all the while, she could sense the smile he was wearing as he stepped into the white paint dripping from her legs.
CHAPTER 16
ASHES DUSTED THE well like pulverized chalk. The shaft melted as if it was made of wax, and the stones sagged, mortar drooping like a syrup of earthy minerals. Cora picked up a twig from the ground on her way home, flourishing it in the air like a witch practicing the choreography of her spellcraft.
At one particularly forceful wave, the crooked joints of the twig flared to a bright, orange glow. A concentrated bulb of flame formed over its tip, and Cora stared, dazzled by the swirling flames, and spellbound by her own accidental sorcery. The fireball guttered in the breeze, growing brighter, tightening into a marble of concentrated power.
Witch, accused one of the voices in a spiteful hiss.
If anyone should be burned, it should be her.
That poor old man—murdered for no reason.
Thaed doesn’t really love her, I don’t think.
No—he’s only fallen victim to her witchcraft!
But another voice didn’t seem to agree with all the others. She’s not a witch, it said. If she was, she would have used bloodmagic by now to make herself beautiful. No charms or glamours would be necessary with that kind of magic.
The many voices cackled together like a united entity. But then Thaed broke in with an angry, almost godlike roar:
“Insult her again, and I’ll kill the whole lot of You damn envious hags!”
Envious? Ha! They jeered together, deriding the very notion.
But then one of Them started choking, and the t
ortured sounds of strangulation rose above the collective laughter. The invisible victim retched and gasped out half-formed pleas.
Cora’s confusion over the commotion was brief. She realized Thaed was killing one of Them somehow, wringing the air out of the heckler’s disembodied lungs.
Alright! Alright! the panicked voice begged eagerly. I won’t bother her anymore. Just let me go!
Thaed evidently released the heckler, since the sounds of coughing and gulping for air soon followed, and the other voices lapsed into grave silence.
“How are you able to attack Them?” Cora asked, her curiosity piqued. “I can’t even see where They are. How is it that you can? Are you there with Them, wherever They are?”
Are you one of Them? she also wanted to ask, but didn’t. Have you been lying this whole time about what you are?
“Of course,” Thaed answered, “I can see Them. Our worlds are overlapped, after all, and it doesn’t take much effort to interact with them using sympathetic magic—like I did with you and the car back there.”
But I thought you said it was difficult for you to do that, Cora thought.
“I want to see Them,” Cora said, instead of challenging him for his inconsistency.
“Then look again. Look harder and concentrate. Do you see?”
Cora turned slowly around, holding the incandescent wand out while scanning her surroundings. Seeing nothing, disappointed, she said, “No.”
But then again, she couldn’t see Thaed either. And maybe he didn’t know she could not see him. Maybe she was supposed to be able to see him—and Them—but some sort of magical or electrical inference negated the cross-dimensional Sight.
But he can see me, Cora thought then, feeling skeptical. If it were only a matter of electrical interference, then it should be interrupting him as well.
“You have your wand,” Thaed pointed out. “And you have power, regardless of the fact it hasn’t been taught to you. All you have to do is cast a spell: conjure Them—command Them to show Themselves, and They are obligated to obey.”
What Thaed advised seemed logical enough. But Cora wasn’t familiar with any spells. She wasn’t a witch and she hadn’t been raised to believe in magic. “What do I say?”
“Anything at all. Just open your mouth and make a sound, and you will form the words from your unconscious mind. The words will form themselves, in a sense. Visualize what you’re asking for, and all that really matters is your intent. The rest will take care of itself. That is the main principle of spellcraft, anyway.”
His advice sounded too convenient and too philosophical to be taken seriously—but, nevertheless, she cleared her throat. Cora swept the wand from left to right. A hazy line of red phosphorescence hung like Spanish moss upon the air. Aiming the flame-end of the wand at nothing in particular, she willed Them to appear and then shouted a word unfamiliar to her own tongue. “Filore!”
The flame of the wand imploded and burned out, abandoning Cora to utter darkness. Even the reddish moon and stars were wiped out, and Cora heard the nightlife of the woods recoil into unnatural silence.
There was nothing around her. Only blackness: the Outer World outside Time and Space itself.
She heard a shuffling noise that sounded like people walking upon gravel, as well as the rustling of clothes and general movement.
The fire on the end of her wand fizzed back to life, and it sparked and sputtered as it struggled to create enough light to illumine all the open space around her.
Cora’s heart skipped, and then it hammered. There were faces all around her—smooth white faces without mouths or eyes, gored and besmeared with crimson paint.
Or was it blood? She could not tell.
Even though They had no mouths, They still talked and jabbered on like moaning mummies. Their bodies were disjointed, but Their flesh was pale and smooth, growing over their orifices like blankets of mold.
What disturbed Cora the most about Them had less to do with Their deformities. They were all dressed like regular people, sporting contemporary jeans and t-shirts, perverting her sense of what was normal. Their hair was well-groomed, and even the females among Them wore glittering earrings to match Their bangles. Some of Them waved casually at Cora, and Cora screamed when the gory paint seemed to drip and run down Their chins like blood.
She stumbled back against the melted wax of the well shaft, and the stone caught and wrapped her in its softness. The more she struggled to extricate herself, the more Cora sank into its snare. “Thaed!”
Thaed grabbed onto her out-flung hand and yanked her from the liquefying stones. He drew her close into his arms, and her nose was only a hairsbreadth from his. She could see him with the light of the wand now lying at their feet. His mouth was so near to hers that she felt faint. The shadows sculpting his face shivered in the fluctuating light, and he was the only one out of all of Them with a face at all.
She clung to him, afraid, burying a bevy of tears into his collar. Thaed held her, running his hands soothingly over her back. “They’re horrible to look at,” she croaked.
“I know. Ironic, isn’t it? If you wanted to know what I think is ugly, it’d be Them.”
She laughed, conceding the fact that They were much uglier than herself.
The light from her wand dwindled gradually, and when it died they were in total darkness, surrounded by the faceless hoard.
“I just saw you for the first time, too,” Cora whispered, “for once not in a mirror.”
He squeezed onto her more tightly. “Are you afraid of Them?”
Reluctantly, she shook her head. Although she had been, she no longer felt afraid now that he was holding her.
“Are you afraid of me?”
She felt the beating of his heart, and shook her head emphatically. “Not really… Should I be?”
Fingers raked through her short hair, and his fingers dug into her skin like hooks. Thaed’s lips were pressed against her ear. “Never,” he said in a warm whisper, and a quivering of pleasure melted through her bones and excited all her nerve endings. “I’ve forbidden Them from touching you… They can pine after you all They want, but They can’t have you without my permission. You are mine. And I’m not about to share you with anyone…”
Cora bit her lip and trembled at the physical weakness coming over her.
They were still in the Outer World, Cora supposed. They were embracing, standing somewhere above the stars. Thaed’s heart was hammering. He must be nervous, Cora realized. Both his arms were solid around her waist, but he stared over her shoulder—at Them.
Before she knew what was happening, his mouth was on her neck, and his teeth pinched around a twitching artery. “Thaed!” She battered a fist against his back.
“Ignore Them. Let Them watch me impregnate you…”
“I don’t want…”
“Yes, you do.”
Cora meant to argue, but her thoughts slipped into nothing, and she didn’t.
Thaed lowered her to the ground and laid between her thighs with his zipper open. It felt like a snake wriggling inside her. He’s performing sex-magic, she realized, overcome then by a brief clench of raw fear. What is he doing to me? What is… that?
It felt like he was rending her from the inside. But the heat throbbed between her legs, and all her cares melted away in the sweetness of his bizarre, compulsive lovemaking. Stars crushed below them, splashing around like water as they grappled together, and her body convulsed under the throes of Thaed’s violent orgasm.
“Don’t fall for a man’s wiles,” her mother had said. “Men are devils. And don’t you know how devils work?”
CHAPTER 17
THE KNOCKING CAME as a rude awakening. Cora’s entire body felt stiff and ached terribly. She was lying face down in the dirt next to the covered well. The ashes were gone, and so were the dribbles of paint and wax. The sun was up but the sky was overcast, a dull steel gray. Around her, a few raindrops had pockmarked the soil, but the rain was long gone.
The knocking came again, insistent.
Cora fumbled up from the ground. Dirt clogged her fingernails and matted her damp hair like a bird’s nest. Her gown was grubby and soiled, and her jutting knees were scratched from debris and the sharp edges of rock. The cheek she had laid on was smeared with dirt, and her eyes felt gritty as if from lack of sleep.
The knocking was coming from the cottage’s front door.
Cora picked her legs up into a jog. She spotted the milkman just as he was turning from the porch to leave.
“Mr. Mercer,” she called.
He stopped, then tipped his hat to her. Normally, Cora avoided interacting with people, especially deliverymen, but she was relieved to be looking at a person with a real face.
“Morning, Miss Himmel.” They had met once before, during his first drop-off a few days after Cora had moved in. Mr. Mercer took pride in remembering everybody’s names, especially the name of the new girl who lived alone on Rendling Road. “Was only looking to exchange your bottles. I’ve got your delivery on the doorstep. Figured you were out, busy, or sick.” His smile vanished when he took stock of the state of her. “Are you alright, Miss Himmel? You look a bit out of sorts.”
“I’m fine.” She backed away awkwardly—an instinctive maneuver in reaction to the couple of strides he gained on her just then. “I—I’ll go get the empty bottles,” she said, then started woodenly to the front door, debating how best she could explain herself.
Cora paused at the foot of the stoop where he was standing. “I’m really sorry I took so long to get from the back. I was… I was busy sweeping the back porch when you showed up, and I tripped over my slippers trying to get here.”
“Sweeping in the rain?”
The quirking of his eyebrow made her blush.
After a lengthy pause, Mr. Mercer could see by the bland, weary expression on her face that he was making her uncomfortable. “Right, Miss. I understand,” he said by way of mitigation. “I only wanted to be sure you were alright. So long as you are, it’s not my business to know much more than that, I suppose. I apologize.”
