Exit Light

by Megan Hart

  Martin nodded twice, slowly, and looked like he meant to say more, but stopped himself. He headed for the front door, but paused. He looked back at her.

  “What happened? Do you mind my asking?” Martin shook his head. “Never mind. It’s none of my business. I’m sorry.”

  It wasn’t his business, but his instant apology softened any retort she might have given. “We were in a bad car accident,” she said. “Kevin was driving. I was permanently injured. Kevin was unable to deal with the consequences of what happened…and…the marriage ended. I’m told it happens a lot like that.”

  Martin looked out the front door to the ramp at the side of the porch, and more astutely, at the door itself. His eyes took in the brightly lit hall, the scuff-marked walls from where, clumsy and angry, she’d banged the arms of the wheelchair. It had only been a few times. She hadn’t been in the chair long, but it had been long enough.

  “What happened?” he asked again, quietly.

  “He fell asleep at the wheel. We ran into a tractor-trailer parked on the side of the road. He suffered a concussion and walked away from the car. I…didn’t.”

  He waited.

  She lifted her chin. “My left leg was crushed beyond repair in several places. They had to remove it just above the knee.”

  Martin looked, as she’d known he would, immediately toward her leg and the foot showing beneath the hem of her long skirt. Then he looked up at her. “They did an excellent job fitting your prosthesis.”

  A doctor would say something like that, she thought. It wasn’t the worst reaction she’d ever had. “I did my share of limping around until I found something that worked. But I’m happy with it, now.”

  As happy as she could be.

  Martin nodded again, like he understood something she hadn’t explained. “You’re right. Lots of marriages don’t last when something like that happens.”

  This wasn’t what she expected him to say, and her stomach twisted like a fist had clutched it. Before she could respond, not that she knew what she was going to say, Martin spoke again.

  “He was a fool, Tovah.”

  She still didn’t know what to say, so only nodded as he had a moment before. “I know.”

  “And it’s better to know that early on, when you still have time to live your life, than waiting until later.”

  This was still somehow so intimate an observation, so unexpected, she could only stand with her mouth parted to speak but with nothing to say.

  While she gaped, he leaned in to take her hand, shaking it firmly as he barely brushed her cheek with a kiss. “Thanks for dinner. Good night,” said Martin, suddenly cheery, and left her standing in the doorway.

  “Good night,” she managed after he’d already reached his car.

  Tovah, hand cupped over her cheek like she meant to hold his kiss there, watched him drive away. She wasn’t sure if she should squee or be insulted he’d kissed her the way a dutiful nephew busses a maiden aunt; the heat from his lips was still too distracting.

  Max appeared at her side, pushing his shaggy head into the palm of her hand. “Hey, boy. Where’d you disappear to?”

  Max woofed once, low. She scratched his ears and shut the door. Martin had kissed her. Kissed! Her!

  Okay. It was a squee.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Breathless, Tovah pushed off the ground, her attention focused on the jutting rock of the mountainside. She hit the stone with a bone-jarring thud, teetered and nearly fell, but pinwheeled her arms and managed to keep her balance. She grabbed the rock and squatted, heart pounding, and looked down to the ground, which seemed twice as far away as it had been a moment ago. It probably was. Tovah didn’t have quite enough control to keep all the details in line unless she was paying specific attention to them.

  She searched for a handhold and found one, her fingers digging into the side of the mountain as her feet pushed into other cracks. Small pebbles broke away and fell past her. She moved another step, gained another inch. Dirt sifted into her hair and down the back of her collar, itching, but she didn’t bother shaping it away.

  She was going to find something real even if it killed her.

  “Nice jump,” said Spider from the rock in front of her. Eight crimson legs matched the wee rubies of his eyes, gleaming. Today he was about the size of a tarantula, with the same rounded, furry body segments, but the coloration was different. “When you gonna learn to fly?”

  Tovah wiped sweat from her brow, realizing even as she did there was no reason for her to sweat. No need for exertion, for the thumping of her heart or her body to feel weariness. It was habit to represent this way. Easier to concentrate on what was going on around her if she didn’t have to think about changing what felt most natural to her body.

  “I don’t need to learn to fly.”

  Spiders couldn’t roll their eyes, but this one did. “Oh, and you really need to climb a mountain?”

  “Hey. I don’t see you soaring through the air with the greatest of ease.” Tovah settled herself onto her butt, her back pressed up against the mountainside. Her feet dangled into nothingness. Apparently the ground below had become some sort of sea. Water misted her cheeks and the sound of waves rushed around her ears.

  Spiders couldn’t flip a bird, either, but this one managed. “I’m a spider, doll. I don’t need to fly.”

  She laughed, peering over the edge. “I got up here. That’s good.”

  “Now you gotta get down. You gonna jump?” Spider scuttled to the edge and looked over. His body pulsed with every breath. In real life, the sight of a spider that size would have made her squeal in disgust. Here she reached out a hand to pet him as she would a kitten. Spider’s mandibles clattered. “You hitting on me?”

  Tovah chuckled. “You want me to?”

  Spider inched closer, his eight legs working seamlessly. The pattern on his legs shifted as he moved, becoming darker. His eyes, still red, reflected her face. At the feathery touch of one leg on her bare skin, Tovah shivered. Spider made a low chuffing noise, a laugh.

  “Sorry,” Tovah said. “It’s the whole arachnid thing.”

  His head bobbed. “Yeah, yeah, grosses you out. I know.”

  Tovah had never asked Spider why he represented that way, instead of more like his human form. She thought it might be rude, but she did wonder.

  “You seen Ben?”

  “No.” Let him make of that what he would.

  “How come?”

  Tovah glanced at him. “Ben and I…we don’t get along, Spider.”

  He scoffed. “Bullshit.”

  Tovah didn’t bother arguing about it. Ignoring how it felt for her not to see or talk to Ben might not be the best way to deal with the fight, but it was the easiest. Sometimes, you just had to walk away and keep walking away.

  “Tovahleh, don’t be like that.”

  “Like what?” she snapped, hating that Spider knew how to push her buttons. “We don’t get along. That’s the truth. Ben is what he is and I am what I am. Not everyone is destined to be BFF.”

  “If I knew what that meant,” Spider said, “I might agree.”

  “Best Friends Forever,” she told him. “Which Ben and I are not.”

  She stood on the ledge and stretched, flexing her muscles. She looked at the mountain looming so high above her. She wanted to be sure she’d shaped it with enough hand and foot-holds, but not so many it wasn’t a challenge to climb. The advantage to doing this in the Ephemeros was that here she didn’t need special equipment, just her own hands and feet. If she fell, she only had to shape a soft landing.

  She gained a few more inches before he spoke again.

  “You’re wrong about him, you know. Ben,” Spider added, as if she couldn’t guess.

  “I don’t think so.” She inched higher.

  “I’m just saying maybe you should give him another chance.”

  She stopped for a moment to glare. “Oh. Sure. Make it my fault? Spider, it’s okay. Not everyone has to like e
veryone else. Not even here.”

  Except…she did like Ben. A lot. She didn’t necessarily like the way he seemed to go out of his way to needle her, but she still liked him. Too much. She blamed the memory of the kiss for that.

  “There are things you don’t know, Tovahleh.”

  “Spider,” she said with a laugh. “There are plenty of things I don’t know.”

  “About Ben.”

  Again she stopped climbing to look at him. This time, she glared. “Then it’s up to Ben to tell me, isn’t it? Not you.”

  She reached higher to find another handhold.

  “Lots of people want to learn to fly.” Now he was going for the casual commentary.

  Tovah slipped her fingers into a crevice and found a stone protrusion with her foot. She looked at the top of the mountain. Almost there.

  “I don’t. Anyway, don’t they say dreams about flying are signs of sexual frustration or something?”

  “What half-assed psychology books have you been reading?” Spider’s back undulated with a myriad of shimmering, mesmerizing colors.

  Tovah admired his shaping ability for a moment before heaving herself a bit higher on the mountain. “None.”

  “You have a lot to learn about this place.”

  Annoyed, she glanced over her shoulder at him. “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “Touchy, touchy!” He skittered up the wall and squatted by her right hand, now scrabbling for purchase in a shallow crack. “Why not just shape it deeper?”

  “Because that’s cheating,” she snapped. Sweat again ran into her eye, stinging, and she blew out a gust of air to flap her sodden bangs off her forehead. “I want to do this—”

  “The hard way. I know. You always have to do it the hard way.” Spider scuttled higher, around her, then jumped over her back.

  Tovah ducked in reflex. Her foot slipped, sending a flurry of pebbles cascading down to the unseen earth below. Her heart lurched into her throat. “Goddammit, Spider! Quit showing off!”

  Dreaming wasn’t the same as imagining. Awake, she could imagine falling, and her fear would be imagined, as well. Here it was as real as hitting the ground would be. She didn’t need to fear falling, but she did.

  “Whatta you worried about?”

  She could easily hear Spider’s grin in his voice and imagine the look of it on his waking face. She’d seen it plenty of times. She said nothing, just gripped harder, toed another spot. She clung to the rock like moss, heaving a few breaths while she plotted her next move.

  “I don’t get you, Tovahleh. I just don’t get you. You can do the hard shit at home.”

  Panting slightly, Tovah took another handhold and shifted her weight higher. “Not like this.”

  “According to you, you don’t even like this!” Spider shook his massive head, mandibles chittering in disdain. “You told me that yourself. You’re a couch-and-afghan kind of girl.”

  “Was,” she corrected. “Was that girl. People change.”

  “Life’s too short to spend it doing shit you hate.”

  She heaved herself an inch higher. “And your bestselling self-help book is coming out when? Oh, that’s right. Never.”

  She’d made this climb harder than the last, wanting to challenge herself. Now it was becoming so difficult, she didn’t have the concentration to shape anything other than the square of rock directly beneath her. Spider didn’t seem to mind. He squatted in the same place he had before, but now on nothing but the gray furled edges of the unshaped Ephemeros. The good thing was, all her unconscious shaping—the sweat in her eyes and pain in her straining muscles—faded into the background, too.

  Shaping was all about skill. The mind filled in details on its own—the stronger the shaper, the less work it was to fill them in. Blinking, breathing, a shadow twisting to follow the sun. Things inherent to the waking world and unnecessary in the Ephemeros except to please its occupants. Shaping took concentration and focus. A truly skilled shaper could juggle a myriad of layers and nuances to create the exact experience he/she wanted. Tovah was able to make things pretty and keep them around but not always able to split her focus to keep everything going. Like a juggler adding ball after ball to the ones already in the air, sometimes when adding something, she dropped everything.

  “Smart ass.” Spider bounced a little.

  “Shut up. I’m almost to the top.”

  “How do you know that? You can’t see anything.”

  Tovah found another crevice for her fingers and paused while her right foot sought a new place to land. “I shaped the top just a few feet away. I know it will be there.”

  “You have faith it will be there.” Spider’s voice went low, more like his regular Henry voice. “That’s good, Tovahleh. Very good.”

  “Thanks for the pep talk. Now, if you don’t mind—”

  A rivulet of sweat trickled down her spine and lodged between her buttocks. She hadn’t shaped that, on purpose or not. Who thinks about sweat in their ass? Tovah opened herself to the flow of will ever present in the Ephemeros. It was like plucking the strings of a harp, each its own distinct note but played together creating a piece of music.

  “Spider!” she shouted. “Stop it!”

  Spider chuffed. “Stop what?”

  “You’re shaping that!” Distracted, her fingers slipped. Her feet did too, and Tovah shouted as she caught herself with the tips of her fingers just before she fell. Her heart didn’t just leap into her throat, it tried to jump all the way out of her mouth. “Stop! This isn’t the time!”

  “It’s always the time. If you’re going to put yourself in places like this, you have to learn to shield.” Spider’s calm tone infuriated her.

  More sweat slid down her face, into the collar of her shirt. Rocks shifted under her grasp. She forced a sturdy platform to shape beneath her feet, fury making her sloppy.

  “Spider, I mean it, goddammit. Don’t do this now!”

  “If not now, when?”

  “Don’t quote Hillel to me like that will make it all better.”

  Breathless, she clung to the jagged rock. It became a pile of razors and glinting glass. Agony sliced her and blood painted her fingers. She sent forth a surge of will, and the pain disappeared. Glass shimmered into rock for a moment before becoming glass again. Spider was stronger. He’d been doing this longer.

  But she could grab glass as if it were stone. It was a test, to prove to her body that what the eyes saw was not absolute. It was a test to make her let go.

  “You can forget about new pajamas for a year,” she muttered as Spider squatted serenely beside her. “Don’t think I won’t remember this.”

  “Of course you’ll remember it. And maybe next time you’ll know how to push back.”

  “I know how! You’re just stronger.” She reached up. Her hand didn’t want to close on the glittering shards, but she forced it to.

  Rock. She was holding rock. Her hand came down.

  Pain seared her hand. Tovah cried out and yanked her hand away. Her other hand came down on more glass, which shredded her palm.

  She fell, cursing Spider and gritting her teeth with frustration over failing. But, no matter what Spider thought of her skills, she was better than he wanted to give her credit for.

  She woke herself up before she hit the ground.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was too late to go back to sleep and too early to be awake. Tovah stared at her ceiling for a while until finally admitting defeat. She grabbed up her glasses and turned on the light. It took her only a few minutes to attach her prosthetic limb, each motion precise and so familiar she barely needed to pay attention.

  By the time she’d done all that, though, she was definitely awake and not so pleased to be. Max yawned and rolled on his belly, tongue lolling. She bent to scratch his thick fur.

  “C’mon,” she said. “If this doesn’t deserve pancakes and double chocolate coffee, I don’t know what does.”

  The sun hadn’t even come up, which made
the light in the kitchen seem that much brighter when she turned it on. From her place at the sink as she filled the carafe for the coffee maker, she could look across the side yard to the house next door. Martin’s house. A light was on in the kitchen there, too.

  He’d been absent the past couple times she’d been to visit Henry, and though she saw his car, she never saw him. Just the lights burning late into the night, or in this case, the morning. Maybe he was avoiding her.

  “It’s not paranoid to think that if it’s true, Max.” Tovah looked down at the dog, who waited on his haunches for her to give him something to eat. Food, of any sort, was Max’s best friend. “Smart boy. You know I’m making pancakes?”

  Woof.

  “Eloquent,” she told him. “Pancakes aren’t good for dogs.”

  Woof, woof!

  “They’re fine for humans in moderation,” she said to that reproach, laughing at herself for acting like he was talking. “It’s the syrup that’s the problem.”

  Max didn’t care about calories. He woofed again, big head jerking with the force of it. He licked his chops, telling her to get on with the pancake-making.

  “You go out and do your business while I mix this batter. I don’t want to sit down to eat and have you need to pee. Go.” She shooed him out the back door, leaving it open so he could let himself in the screen door that swung both ways to accommodate him, and went about pulling the ingredients for the mix from her cupboards.

  No pre-made mix for her. Tovah ate pancakes so rarely it wasn’t worth buying the boxed mix, and mixing from scratch took as little time. The pancakes tasted better, too. Humming under her breath, she cracked an egg, added baking soda and oil and stirred. The griddle had already heated enough to make the few drops of water she flicked on it sizzle and dance. She poured the first pancake, a small one, to test the heat level. It puffed perfectly, golden brown on one side when she flipped it.

  She heard the clack of Max on the back porch. “You ready, big guy?”

  “That smells delicious.”

  Max had a lower voice than she’d expected him to. She turned, spatula in one hand, mixing bowl in the other. “Martin?”