The Demon in the Mirror

by Jessaca Willis

  She casts her head down. “I’m saying, the only thing to do now is to close the opening you created. She will only continue using it if you don’t.”

  My heart plummets to the pit of my stomach. It smacks with a hollow thud that reminds me how much of a shell I’ve become without my twin. Losing her has been like losing half of myself. I didn’t realize it until seeing her, but I’ve been so lonely these months without her. No one can replace the bond between twins.

  “No,” I whisper, before regaining some strength. “No! I won’t just abandon her there! There has to be another way—a way to un-banish her!”

  The Head Mistress shakes her head. “Not this time. Maybe had we intervened sooner, but by the time you arrived and created the reflection portal, the Moirai you knew had already passed.”

  I perk my ears, realizing she let something slip that I don’t think she meant to. “A…reflection portal?”

  Her eyes widen before clamping shut. She inhales deeply before opening them again. Rather than denying it or sugar-coating it like most adults might’ve done, the Head Mistress speaks to me with directness.

  “I believe it is what you inadvertently created when you disregarded my explicit instructions and attempted the visual séance. A reflection portal is a way of travel, used by identical twins, triplets, and other birthed sets. However, it is usually reserved for the siblings who live at a distance from each other: the ones that chose different boarding schools, or who marry and relocate. They use it to make visiting more accessible and efficient, and to reinforce that formidable bond that birthed sets share. Anytime they are both in front of a reflective surface—which happens more often than you’d think—they can access the portal.”

  I consider her words. If I’m understanding her correctly, she’s saying that anytime Moirai and I are both facing a mirror, we can use the portal, which means it’s Moirai’s only link to this world.

  If I close it, she’ll never be able to come back through.

  But for the first time, I realize all of this also means that it is my fault that all of those students have died. Without the portal, Moirai wouldn’t have been able to get through and kill them. It means I’m likely linked to more than just Vega’s and Demetre’s deaths. Actually, it means I have a connection to them all.

  Suddenly, I can’t think of a single surface that isn’t reflective. This lake, the magical barrier, someone’s glasses, a window—all at once everything seems so dangerous. I seem so dangerous.

  “To the extent of my knowledge, never before have two nephilim created a reflection portal between different dimensions.”

  “How is that even possible,” Damaris blurts, tussling his sodden hair. “I thought once someone was banished, they were banished for good?”

  “Not always,” the Head Mistress direly. Before hope can build too much though, she explains. “Banishments can be lifted by curtain nephilim with the sanctioned power to do so. But Moirai’s sentence was not revoked. She was merely given a path for temporary travel.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, the shadows of dread slithering into my mind.

  “As I said, Moirai is no longer of this world, therefore she does not have what is required to stay here for long periods of time. I believe it’s why she’s been…feasting on students. All of the worlds have different rules and ways of operating. In our world, we breathe in oxygen, which allows our bodies to function. Some other worlds have oxygen as well, but it might not be the very crux of life in that realm.

  “I suspect that in Moirai’s world there is oxygen, which allowed her to survive there long enough to adapt to a new requirement for living.”

  Damaris and I exchange cautious glances. The same question is on our lips, but I can’t seem to ask it. I’m thankful when Damaris does.

  “What was her new requirement for living?”

  The Head Mistress clasps her hands and lowers her head. “Death, I expect. Or perhaps life. Something requiring her to kill, which is why she had to keep killing when she arrived here. It’s what fuels her now. It’s the only way she can survive.”

  I’m shaking my head. “She can adapt again, just like she did before. We can lift the banishment and she can come her to the academy, where she can learn how to be normal again.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not how it works.” The Head Mistress looks at me, pained. “There’s no light left in her. Your Moirai died long ago.”

  My throat hitches and Damaris’ arm wraps around my shoulders.

  “It’s not your fault, it’s ours,” the Head Mistress continues. “We should’ve found you and your sister sooner. We could’ve guided you both through your transformations and made sure you understood the powers you were inheriting. But we were too late, and now the only way to save your sister is to close the portal. Shut off her means of killing any more innocent people. That’s not who she would want to be remembered as.”

  By the time she finishes talking, I’m sobbing. And despite the umbrella of magic sheltering us from the rain pouring overhead, I manage to drench both myself and Damaris all over again. I bury my face into his shoulder while one of my hands finds the softness of the feathers of his wings.

  Numbly, I trace my fingers through them, all the while repeating to myself that this can’t be the only answer. I haven’t searched this long for a way to save Moirai, to resurrect her or to talk to her, just to abandon her to the nightmarish netherworld she’s in now. A place I sent her! I mean, this is the Academy of the Forsaken! Surely there’s something someone can do, some way that we can save her, or, at the very least, to bring some light back into her life.

  And that’s when the idea hits me. It’s crazy and reckless, and if I bothered telling anyone they very well might be able to talk me out of it, but for that very reason, and because it’s all that I’ve got, I don’t say a thing.

  “How do I close the portal?” I ask, trying to tamper my excitement so that she’ll think I’m going along with her plan.

  She nods at me, like she’s thanking me for being reasonable. She has no idea just how unreasonable I’m about to be.

  “Much the same way you created it. While looking into a mirror, say separo and envision a hole closing in on itself until it has shut entirely.”

  Separo. The word for separation, for excluding, for expelling.

  I can’t do that to Moirai. I can’t leave her there all alone.

  I have to make this right.

  With my eyes shut tight, I review every instruction I’ve ever received in teleportation. A mental image of the Reflect Your Soul statue appears in my mind’s eye. I let myself smell the pollution of the air in the plaza, the faint scent of sewage and garbage that accompanies it. The hushed whispers of the onlookers from earlier fill my thoughts as my mind breathes life into the mental image.

  Then, I let myself believe I’m actually there and I grab Damaris’ hand.

  “What are you—”

  Before the Head Mistress can finish, wind blows all around Damaris and I. My eyes squeeze tighter, fighting through the queasy weightless feeling that’s swimming through my stomach.

  Only when it passes and I feel my feet on solid ground, do I open my eyes. The jagged edges of the Reflect Your Soul statue dazzle in the rain and the lake is nowhere to be found.

  Damaris gapes at me with a beaming grin. “You did it! You finally teleported!” His pride and enthusiasm only amplify my guilt, because he has no idea what I’m about to ask of him, the danger I’m about to put him in.

  With Damaris’ hand still clutched in my own, I duck in between a nearby building, hoping to block the mirrors from reflecting me just yet. We squeeze up against the stone wall under an awning, staring straight ahead.

  We stand there silently for a minute, breathing in the wet streets.

  Finally, Damaris leans forward and looks at me. “Not that I’m against being here for moral support, but if you’re going to close the portal, why not bring the Head Mistress with you instead? She at least knows
about portal magic.”

  I bite my lip before turning my gaze on him. “I don’t need you to know about portal magic. I need you to know about divinity magic.”

  Trepidation creases his brow and Damaris swivels his head slowly. “W-what are you planning on doing?”

  After everything he’s been through for me today—sneaking out of the academy to retrieve me from Hazel’s crime scene, being restrained at the lake by a bunch of self-righteous jerks, nearly dying at the hands of my twin sister—he of all people deserves answers. And I want to give them to him, but unfortunately, we just don’t have the time. I can’t leave Moirai in that place for a second longer, nor can I risk her killing anyone else.

  “You trust me, right?”

  He blinks. “Of course.”

  “Then I just need you to do exactly what I say, when I tell you to.”

  I don’t wait for him to respond. I’m too afraid he’ll say no.

  Instead, I spin around the corner and approach the mirrors, relieved when I hear the clunky footsteps of Damaris trailing me.

  When the Reflect Your Soul statue is barely more than a foot away, I dare stare into my own face, and flinch at the determination reflected in my own eyes.

  I call back over my shoulder. “When I summon her, I need you to channel all of your divinity light into her.”

  Damaris rushes to my side and spins me by my shoulder. “I don’t know how to do that!”

  I funnel every ounce of desperation I can muster—and oh, do I have tons—into my expression. “And I don’t know how to do what I’m about to do either. But I have to try. She’s my sister. She’s stuck there, in that place, because of me. I just…I need to do something.”

  He’s silent for a moment, as he stares at the floor, calculating. “But you really think this could work?”

  “I sure hope so.”

  Damaris claps my shoulders, a new look of determination about him. He nods before releasing me and jogging a safe distance back.

  When I turn back around to face the mirrors, I can feel my heart thrashing against my ribcage. I crack my knuckles and roll my shoulders before finally speaking the original invocation to the mirrors. I know it’s not necessary since the reflection portal has already been opened, but I’m hoping it’ll help speed up the process.

  A moment passes where nothing happens and I’m left breathing through a stream of rain while I stare back at my reflection, ready and terrified.

  Another second goes by, but still, there is no indication from the statue that Moirai has returned.

  The longer we wait, the more anxious I become and the less prepared I feel. I start to bite the inside of my lip.

  Ever so slightly, my face wavers in the mirror. At first, I mistake it for a trick of the beading water that’s gliding down the statue’s surface. But then I see the beauty mark beneath her eye.

  “Now!”

  Just as I scream, my reflection leaks out of the mirror like smoke, becoming invisible. My heart stills, but my feet take instinctive steps backwards. Everything seems to still, like she could be anywhere at any moment, but I know she’s right in front of me, assessing.

  I can’t tell if I’m shivering from the rain or from fear or both.

  A glaring light spreads over the square and I have to shield my eyes until they adjust. I want to look back at Damaris and tell him he’s doing fantastic for someone who said he had no idea what to do, but in the blinding sheet of white that surrounds us, my sister becomes visible again and I can’t peel my eyes off her.

  Against the pristine backdrop, she is shadow, she is toxic, she is death.

  A second arrow of light beams past me, hitting Moirai square in the chest.

  A screech, so powerful, shakes the earth, almost knocking both Damaris and I down to the ground. I catch his elbow, hoisting him up. When he’s steady, I duck under the light coursing from his fingertips, careful not to interrupt it as it continues piercing through my sister, and I approach the mirror once more.

  But then I stop. I glance back over my shoulder at Damaris. Sweat beads down his forehead as he exerts the last tendrils of energy from his divinity meditation.

  Then, I turn to my sister. If this plan has any hope of working at all, I need to see a sign.

  The demon she’s become twitches and arches on her feet, snarling all the while but seemingly unable to move as the light blasts through her. I see the beam of it shooting out of her back, and suddenly I fear that this has all been for nothing, that my haphazard plan is fallible.

  Maybe the Head Mistress was right? Maybe the only thing to do is to close the portal and, with it, cast my sister out of this world once and for all.

  Just as I’m about to turn defeatedly to the mirrors though, I notice the slightest pigmentation returning to Moirai’s charred skin. Her hair softens from a matted collection of vines into its usual soft waves. The longer she’s under the glow of Damaris’ power, the more the darkness fades from her, until she looks exactly as she did the day I lost her—down to the very clothes she was borrowing from me that day and everything.

  When Damaris has no more divinity light to give, he and Moirai both drop to their hands and knees.

  This is my chance, my one chance to close the portal and hope that we’ve destroyed enough of that world’s hold on her that she’ll be able to stay.

  “Separo,” I yell at the mirror.

  Fists tight, I stand posturing the statue for a few seconds, wondering if there will be some sign that the portal’s been severed. When I hear Moirai coughing and gasping, I rush to her side and collapse to the cobblestones with her.

  Weakly, she smiles across at me. It’s the kind of smile that simultaneously fills my chest with warmth and stings my eyes with tears, because it’s the kind of smile that someone terminally ill puts on to be strong for their loved ones, the kind that says I don’t have much time, but I’m glad for the time I do have.

  I swing my arms around her, enveloping my twin sister in the tightest embrace I can offer.

  “I am so sorry, Moirai,” I sob into her hair, shaking in her arms. I grasp her shoulders, pushing her in front of me so she can see my face. “I didn’t mean to send you away—I would’ve brought you back sooner, but I didn’t know… I-I love you, Moirai. I never meant for any of this—”

  My apology is interrupted by another burst of coughing, a hacking noise that’s accompanied by blood and other dark projectiles that she catches in her hand. She writhes with every gust that’s bellowed until she can no longer hold herself up and she collapses to my feet.

  I resituate us both so that I can cradle her head in my lap. “Shh, you’re safe now,” I reassure her, even though I’m starting to suspect she’s not. I wipe my eyes with the back of one of my hands and muster a fragile smile. “You’re home.”

  Even though we are miles away, in a foreign country, in the middle of the street during a downpour, Moirai nods, her eyes never leaving mine. “Yes, home. Thank you. Thank you for bringing me back.”

  Her lip quivers, and I understand the depth of what she’s saying.

  Her stomach flexes, and a bout of agony curls her body like a dying bug. “I think I have to go again.”

  “No,” I plead, whimpering like a small child.

  She smiles weakly. “I don’t want to, but I don’t think I can stay here anymore. I-I can’t breathe.”

  “She can’t adapt to the environment here,” the Head Mistress speaks from behind me. I wonder how long it took her to figure out where we were, or how long she’s been standing there, watching everything unfold. “But she has no way of going back now either.”

  “What?” I snap my neck in her direction, my eyes wide. “You’re saying I killed her!”

  Moirai’s hand grasps mine and squeezes, pulling me back in. “No, sister. You saved me.”

  Resting my forehead on hers, I cradle her tightly as she passes into the night, and I say goodbye to my sister once more.

  xxx DEATH OF A LONER xxx


  THREE MONTHS LATER

  There are no blaring sirens to interrupt my morning routine today, so I’m able to get fully dressed, tattered black t-shirt, combat boots, and all. I go through my classes one-by-one, becoming a little more welcomed inside them every day. Once the Head Mistress announced that the murderer was an otherworldly creature that had finally been vanquished, most of the students went back to their usual lukewarm acknowledgment of me.

  I suppose it’s not too far from the truth, but only the Head Mistress, Damaris, Lazell, and I know the real story about my sister and the murders, and the Head Mistress wants to keep it that way. As do I. I’d rather my peers not know that it was my sister who murdered some of their closest friends, their family in some cases.

  I was nervous at first that Lazell wouldn’t be able to get passed it, that he would hold on to the anger from losing his sister and tell everyone that it was mine that killed his. But he has, surprisingly, turned out to be a fairly decent guy. When he found out that Moirai died in the end, despite our attempts at saving her—the real her—even though she technically killed his sister, I think he felt sorry for me.

  After all, losing a twin is something we can both relate to.

  I’m still mourning—or re-mourning as I like to call it. I’m not sure if that will ever go away. I still miss Moirai and I think about her every day, but, I don’t know. I think it’s getting easier. At least now I know what happened to her. At least I got to say I was sorry. At least I know I did what I could to right the way I’d wronged her.

  After classes, I meet up with Damaris and Lazell in the mess hall for dinner. We load our trays, scarf down the food, and the reconvene back at the main doors.

  A small following of students awaits us.

  “Is this everyone?” I ask.

  They look amongst themselves shrugging and nodding collectively.

  I recognize some of their faces, students who have been attending the club every Friday since we started it. Among them are also new ones though. I’m not surprised. Word has been spreading rapidly.