The Demon in the Mirror

by Jessaca Willis

  Before Lazell or Neryma can answer, there’s a loud splash. Lapping follows, and the three of us turn to find both Damaris and the third student floundering in the lake. There limbs flail as they struggle against one another, and I realize with bewildered pride that Damaris must’ve thrown them both into the lake while the others were distracted.

  Under my breath, I find myself cheering him on.

  “Go help him!” Lazell yells over to Neryma.

  Her eyes go wide, and she glances down, indicating her ironed uniform. Lazell grumbles and watches helplessly, hand still aimed at me with an open palm, as Damaris and their accomplice scramble in the water.

  Finally, a hand smacks the earth from the rim of the lake. With a gasp, Damaris pulls himself out of the murky depths, his wings sodden against his back, but every inch of him glowing radiantly. It’s then that I remember his divinity meditation earlier in the day, the one that increases his power and gives him a lustrous effect when he uses it. They picked the wrong day to mess with this seraphim.

  In his tow, Damaris pulls the other student from the water, tossing him carelessly to the ground.

  The lake stills behind him as he catches his breath. No one dares move. Even though it’s three against one, the odds are in his favor. But I think it’s more than that. I think they don’t actually want to hurt Damaris. Like I said, he’s everyone’s friend. He’s kind of like a loyal puppy that everyone can’t help but love.

  “Euri didn’t do anything,” Damaris says, looking as ominous as the storm that’s brewing overhead. “Let her go or the Head Mistress will hear about this.”

  Even I quiver at his warning. I’ve never seen him so irate before. There’s something terrifying about the rage of someone who is almost always calm and kind.

  Neryma shrinks, a hand floating silently to her mouth. She looks from Damaris, to Lazell, to her friend still occasionally coughing in the grass, and back to Lazell.

  “We should go,” she says meekly. “If the Head Mistress finds out, we could get expelled.”

  Lazell whirls on her, and his hand almost—almost—drops. “Go ahead, run away and hide just so more of us can be killed. I told you guys it was her, but you were too scared to do anything, and now Hazel’s dead!” He spits, and his voice becomes a low growl from behind the barrier. “I always knew you didn’t really love my sister.”

  This makes Neryma lose her breath. For a second, she’s frozen there, wounded by such a suggestion. Even I knew about the strength of their relationship. Neryma and Hazel were one of those high school sweetheart couples that everyone knew would stand the test of time. At least, they would’ve…

  With tears in her eyes, Neryma suddenly collapses to the floor, solid as a plank.

  At first, I’m uncomfortable. I think I’m staring at a girl who just feinted and, although I suppose she has her reasons, it stills seems a little too 1950’s to me.

  But the longer she’s down, the more concerned I become.

  I’m not the only one. Just as the first droplets fall from the heavy clouds above, Damaris, Lazell, and I exchange a strange look like we’re trying to figure out if she had some sort of health condition that no one knew about. But Neryma’s just laying there, completely still. I don’t even think she’s breathing. Her eyes are wide open, and as more drops of rain fall, pinging her in the forehead, she winces with each one, but her eyes never fully close.

  And that’s when I realize the uncanny similarities between the other dead bodies and the way she is positioned.

  Dread draws me to the border of the barrier.

  Lazell seems to notice it at the same time, but instead of running to her aid, he rushes me. “Stop it! You’re killing her! Stop!”

  My hands fly up in meager defense. We are face-to-face as he screams, but I’m trying to look past him. Damaris is already on the ground beside Neryma. His hands hover over her body, like he’s trying to assess her, but I can tell by his frantic movements that he can’t figure anything out.

  There’s only a half second between when the barrier drops around me and when Lazell’s fist collides with my cheekbone. The pain is cool at first, before turning iron hot. My feet slide out from under me and I crash into the sopping grass.

  “I said let her go!” Lazell roars.

  The world seems to be spinning now as I blink up at the sobbing sky. Then Lazell’s face appears, blocking my view of the next bolt of lightning. He crashes into my chest, pinning me with his legs. His arm winds back.

  Without thinking, as I sink back into the flattened flowers as far as I will go, I reach my hand up from under the crook in his leg and aim it at his back as best I can.

  “Obscuro!”

  I see the black bolt of energy as it chases Lazell’s flying body up and over me. I gape for a moment at the force of it, a level of power I’ve never before expressed. But then my attention returns to the real problem at hand.

  When I look back to Neryma’s still body though, I noticed her wings have disappeared, and that Damaris is no longer kneeling over her. He’s lying flat on his back with the same unnerving stillness.

  “Damaris!” I yell, scrambling to my feet and charging to his side. I shake his shoulders but he’s pinned to the ground. “Damaris!”

  Like all of the other bodies, his eyes are wide.

  “No—no—no!” I look around, finding the third student, the one who was aiding Neryma and Lazell, blinking dumbly at us. “Go get help!”

  He looks at me, uncertain at first, as if this is some kind of rouse. I grab a rock and throw it at him, knocking at least some sense into him and yell again. This time he pushes off the ground and darts back through the trees to the academy.

  My gaze falls back to Damaris. Tears pool in my eyes again. I can’t lose someone else I care about. Moirai’s death—disappearance, whatever—has been hard enough, but losing the only friend I have, someone as kind as Damaris—I just can’t do it. He’s done nothing to deserve this. He just wanted to pick some damn flowers for a dead girl for crying out loud!

  His eyelids flutter. It’s a weak movement, but it’s one that gives me hope. That, and seeing his wings are still intact, means he’s still alive, for now. And that means there might still be time to save him.

  “Damaris!” I sniffle and clear my throat, trying to make my voice louder than the roar of the torrential downpour. “Can you hear me?”

  “If you’re not doing it,” Lazell groans from behind me. He’s taken on a different tone now, something less menacing and more sorrowful, curious, maybe even worried. “Then what is?”

  “I don’t know,” I snap before addressing Damaris again. “What’s wrong? What’s happening to you?”

  Frantic, I look up and down his rigid body. Though he’s muscular for the ripe age of seventeen, right now he is firmer than usual. It’s like he’s been turned to stone, the kind of stillness brought on only by death. And there’s something about him that’s making him look…heavier, like he’s being compressed into the ground by a boulder or something.

  Light flashes overhead in two bursts, and for the first time I see what’s been missing from all of this, and what’s pressing Damaris into the grass.

  I bolt upright.

  On the first spark, a translucent human shape comes into view, bracing itself over Damaris’ chest. The creature seems amorphous at first, considering I can only see it with a flash of lightning, but I have just enough time to see the stream being suctioned out of Damaris’ mouth, something that I can only presume to be his life force.

  “It’s a ghost!” Lazell bellows.

  Something tells me it’s not, but I don’t get a chance to argue. The second burst rips all words from my vocabulary. With the foreboding and raucous roll of thunder overhead, the creature cocks its head in my direction.

  I’m frozen in place by its eyes which, despite the translucent color of the rest of it, glimmer like stones of gold. Recognition coils around my neck like a snake.

  “Moirai,” I whisper
.

  The creature before me is indeed my sister, even if her appearance is slightly changed, demented. Darkness has deformed her limbs, turning them black and edgy where they were once light and soft. I think I see talons where she used to have nails, and maybe even a ribbed tail jutting from the base of her spine.

  She looks every bit the description of the word demonic.

  But, she’s still my sister, and I can’t even begin to describe the whirlwind of emotions that blows through me. There’s relief of course—Moirai is alive, or at least I think she is. She is mostly invisible which might make most people think she’s a ghost. But we just learned about ghosts and most of them can’t physically harm people, let alone restrain them on the ground and literally suck the life out of them.

  Besides, given what I learned earlier about banishments, I don’t think Moirai is dead, which means she can’t be a ghost.

  The understanding brings on a new kind of guilt and shame, one fueled by what I learned about the different banishment realms. Some of the ones we reviewed seemed normal, some were even very nearly utopian, but the one I saw open behind my twin that day in our bathroom was anything but sunshine and rainbows. It was devoid of light, devoid of life. And if this is the way Moirai has returned to the world, all murderous and ethereal-like, then it only confirms my greatest suspicions.

  I didn’t kill Moirai that day, but I might’ve done something much, much worse.

  I can’t even imagine what’s she’s been through.

  Just as the lightning fades, I see my sister take a step down from Damarais’ body, hunched and crooked like a bony spider ready to charge.

  I stumble over my own feet trying to back away and fall into a puddle of mud.

  Damaris gasps for air in choking coughs, released from whatever it was Moiari was doing to him. He tries speaking but none of his words come out clear enough to understand. Even if they did, I don’t think I’d hear them anyways. I’m too focused on the fact that my sister isn’t dead. In fact, she’s right in front of me for the first time in months.

  “Moirai,” I say cautiously. I scan my surroundings, but the rain makes it difficult to see anything with any real clarity. Hoping she’s still somewhere nearby, I begin to recite the apology that’s been seared into my heart ever since the day I banished her. “I didn’t mean to—"

  My back slams into the rest of the puddle. The air is knocked from my lungs, and I gasp like a fish on land. But even after the oxygen should’ve returned, it doesn’t. It feels like someone’s hands are clenched around my lungs. I can’t breathe; I can’t even move. It’s like the oxygen has been stripped from more than just my lungs, from the very air I’m desperate to drink in. At least, that’s the only logical explanation I allow myself to consider, because the alternative is too painful to entertain.

  With another bolt of lightning webbing through the clouds, illuminating the meadow, I see the creature—my sister—on top of me, that same stream of essence flowing from my lips to hers, and I know I can’t lie to myself about this.

  If I don’t do something, she’s going to kill me.

  Not that I don’t deserve it. I did banish her to some prison-like Hell for months. But, I’m not ready to die.

  My eyes bulge, a silent plea, one that I hope conveys everything I want to say to her. Stop. I’m sorry. Don’t do this. I made a mistake. I love you.

  But she continues indulging herself, her expression one of pure derangement. I’m grateful when she fades back into the background as the light disappears because I don’t want to see her like this.

  Buzzing bolts of black fly just over me, and I realize Lazell is trying to shoot at the ghost he thinks is attacking us. But each attack whizzes straight overhead unphased. From what I can tell, they’re going right through Moirai. Part of me is kind of relieved actually. I’m glad he can’t touch her, even if it might cost me my life.

  “Euri?” I hear Damaris croak hoarsely from his immobilized place in the grass. The glow from his body has faded, a sure sign that he’s used up most of the extra power he gained from his earlier meditation. If it hadn’t of been for that divinity meditation today, who knows if he would’ve survived.

  “I can’t hit it!” Lazell yells, confusion clear in his voice but bearing no hindrance on his tenacity. More bolts hurdle past me in rapid-fire. “What’s a moirai? She kept saying moirai.”

  I can feel my strength fading and I know I don’t have much time. I know I should do something, but I can’t do anything like this. My mouth is trapped, my arms are pinned. Honestly, even if I could use my magic, I can’t use it on her. Not again.

  “Moirai was her sister,” a woman bellows from back at the path. “But she no longer belongs here. Vade ad natandum!”

  Air bursts back into my lungs and I heave with every breathe. I bolt up to my elbows just in time to see the splash in the lake. I’m oxygen-deprived and delirious, so it takes me a second to translate the Latin into something like go for a swim, and even longer to realize who was just sent splashing into the lake.

  But when I connect the dots and realize that I am no longer being pinned to the ground by my murderous, life-sucking sister, I become frantic.

  “Moirai!” I yell, reaching toward the lake.

  Exhausted and uncoordinated, I start dragging myself to the edge of the water, but a gentle touch on my shoulder stops me. I look up, ignoring the rain streaming into my eyes, to find the Head Mistress offering me a hand up.

  I take it weakly, but begrudgingly.

  As I stand, she scans the area finding Neryma lifeless, and Damaris just now regaining the ability to stand himself. She offers me her arm again, a gesture suggesting she wants to walk me over to a bench, but I push it aside and stumble there on my own. Damaris joins me, plopping on the wooden seat beside me, head bowed.

  I look back up to the Head Mistress just as she pulls Lazell aside. She whispers something to him about “disappointments” and his “sister’s final moments on this earth”. He nods ashamed, before running down the path, never once looking back. I’m sure something more awaits him once this is all done, but for now, the Head Mistress lets him go.

  Apology weighing down her expression, she approaches us next. But even though she just saved my life, I’m not sure I can accept it yet.

  “What did you do?” I say breathlessly, trying not to drown on the rain running down my lips. “Where is she?”

  With a straight arm and a bent wrist, the Head Mistress waves her hand out before us in an arch, uttering something in Latin that I can’t make out. The rain pings midair a few feet above us and I realize she’s performed another type of barrier, one to keep us dry.

  Then she stares at me. For a moment, she looks like she might not say anything, like she wants to shelter me from the truth.

  But finally, her lips part. “I sent her away until you can tell me what you’ve done.”

  Damaris shakes away some of the water from his hair and wings before staring at me expectantly. There’s hurt in his eyes, I guess because he wishes I had told him I had a sister.

  “I thought she was dead,” I answer, but I’m looking at Damaris. This story is as much for him as it is the Head Mistress. “I thought I’d killed her.”

  They both listen intently as I tell them about the most shameful and regrettable moment of my life. I continue to explain my attempt at my own version of a visual séance, cringing a little at my own brash and stupid inventiveness.

  “When the mirror broke, I just thought it didn’t work,” I continue defending myself even though neither of them are attacking me. “I thought I’d done it wrong.”

  The Head Mistress closes her eyes. “You performed the ritual correctly. She was merely in the wrong form for a séance. She was no spirit to be summoned.”

  “So, it’s true then,” I utter. “I didn’t kill her all those months ago, I banished her.”

  The Head Mistress nods. “And when you performed the séance you opened the way between her world and ours
.”

  “I poked a hole,” I say numbly, thinking back to the professor’s history lesson on dimensions.

  “The hole was already there,” the Head Mistress says reassuringly, placing her hand on my shoulder. “You merely spoke through the void, and your sister heard you and answered.”

  Damaris’ jaw drops and he stretches his finger out toward the lake. “That is Euri’s sister. But she’s, she’s invisible! She was sucking the life out of me—I felt it!”

  “He’s right. She’s not the same. Why does she look like that?” Then the questions come cascading. “Where did I banish her? Can she come back? What was she doing to us?”

  Lastly, one thought resonates the most with me. “W-where did you send her?”

  The Head Mistress looks over her shoulder back to the lake. “I sent her back. All this time, I’ve been trying to figure out where she’s been, but I’m afraid there are too many other realms to know for sure.”

  My brow knits together as I read the deeper meaning behind her words. She knew. She’s known. This morning, I thought it looked like she knew more than she was letting on, but I would’ve never guessed that it was something like this. How could she have kept knowledge about my sister away from me?

  If I wasn’t still recovering from what Moirai had just done to me, I might have the energy to ask the Head Mistress why she didn’t tell me sooner. It would be wasted energy anyways. Any answer she gave wouldn’t be good enough, no matter how virtuous she thought she was being.

  Instead, I just continue listening.

  “What I can say for certain is that wherever she’s been residing, it has transformed her, birthed her anew, one might say. Both in physicality and spirit. The sister you knew, she was thrown into an unknown world that knew only how to feast on the living. She was met with a difficult decision: adapt or perish. I never had the pleasure of meeting your Moirai, but she must’ve been a resilient and determined individual because she chose to live.”

  Tears form in my eyes again, falling freely as soon as they swell. “What are you saying?”