Page 16

The looking glass in the cathedral’s quiet room was not overly big. It was thin and rectangular and cracked in one corner, spiderweb fractures silvering the surface. The frame was wood, termite bitten. It still loomed large in the low-ceilinged room.

A girl stared out at her. Dark hair. Amber eyes. A pale, shadowed face. Her own, and yet it was as unrecognizable as a stranger’s.

One of the pledges had brought her clean clothes to change into. She wore someone else’s oversize T-shirt, the name of a band she’d never heard of screen-printed along the front. Someone else’s tattered jeans, the belt looped tight enough to cinch. Someone else’s sandals, one size too big.

Inside her beat something else’s heart.

Something else’s will.

This time tomorrow, she’d cut it out.

“I hate you,” she whispered. The voice that slipped out of her was spectral. Tattered. As though all that remained of the girl she’d once been was a ghost—left to haunt the empty corridors between her bones. “I hate you.”

In the glass, her reflection’s mouth began to sharpen at the corners. She bit into her cheek to try to stop its spread, digging her nails into her forearm until shallow red crescents appeared.

It wasn’t enough.

It never was.

She wanted to leave, but Jesse had given her explicit instructions to wait for him here, and so wait she did—forcing herself to stare down the sharp-toothed creature that wore her bones like an exoskeleton.

“You are not as brave as you pretend,” said the Vivienne in the glass. “You are a coward. And if you try to carve me out, you will die a coward’s death.”

Nauseous, she pulled her eyes shut. There was a pit in her stomach that wouldn’t abate. A splintering of her resolve she didn’t quite trust. She could feel it building in her belly. Wriggling up out of her like an earthworm through the mud.

“Look at us,” whispered the mirror Vivienne. “Look at us and see.”

A sour taste hit the back of her tongue and she gagged, toppling forward until she caught herself on her hands and knees. Her stomach turned itself inside out, its contents crawling up her throat—pushing against the backs of her teeth. Opening her mouth, she pried loose a wet, hot snarl of ribbon. It coiled on the floor beneath her in a sick, satin spew.

The last of it slid through her hands and she coughed, her nose packed with stink and her eyes watering. In the glass, her reflection hadn’t moved at all. She remained perfectly framed in the mirror, her eyes sepulchre black.

“I am knotted all around you,” it whispered. “I am tangled so tightly in your bones, I have become all that holds you together. I claimed you for myself, all those years ago. You were so small. So afraid. He would have broken you, but I made you whole. You keep on forgetting what I did for you. What horrible fate I saved you from enduring. You are mine, sweet girl. You will never, ever cut me free.”

“Vivienne.”

She blinked, and there was Jesse. He was standing in the open door, looking wary, a rolled bit of paper tucked under one arm. She knelt before the mirror, shoulders rounded and hands pressed to the ground, on all fours like an animal, her breath coming in great heaves.

And in the mirror—

In the mirror—

“Where is it?” Jesse inched forward warily. “Your reflection—it’s not there.”

Shakily, she rose to her feet. Her leg gave an awful throb, the phantom ache of an old break creeping in. In the looking glass before her, she could see all the room reflected back at her. A smattering of mismatched armchairs. A table stacked with Bibles. An oscillating fan gone green with mildew. Jesse, a home call kit gripped in his fist, the metal bell of a stethoscope peeking out from within.

She wasn’t there at all. She peered into the mirror and saw nothing peering back. In her hands she held a crumpled mess of ribbon, clean and neat—as though she’d tugged it loose from a pair of satin slippers.

“You were in an altered state,” said Jesse. “When I came in the room. It’s like—like you weren’t even there. Are you there now?”

She nodded, staring in horror at the ribbon in her hands. At least this time, she hadn’t brought back something living. At least this time, nothing lay dying in her grasp. It was a small mercy.

Setting the ribbon onto the table, she signed: Are we still on for tomorrow?

Jesse’s gaze shuttered. “Yeah, we’re on,” he said. “But because it bears repeating—that paper I wrote was hypothetical. A theory. You understand that, right? What you’re asking me to do—no one’s ever done it before. It could kill you. It very likely will.”

His words rang through her in a death knell. She wasn’t reckless. She wasn’t suicidal. She didn’t want to die. But the cracks inside her already ran so deep, she didn’t see any other way. When you had a cavity, you went to the dentist to have it drilled out. Left unchecked, the rot would move into the bloodstream. The heart.

This was no different. She had to believe that.

If I die, I’ll take our dirty little secret to the grave. She scooped her hands toward her like she was digging through dirt. I’ll be six feet underground and you’ll be in the clear. There’s nothing to lose.

Jesse’s laugh came out strained. “Yeah, this is a low-stakes investment for me for sure.”

High stakes, high rewards , she signed. It was something Philip liked to say. If you pull it off, you’ll be a god.

“So you keep reminding me,” he said stonily.

She peered back at the mirror—at the place a girl was meant to be. Jesse stood there alone, his chestnut hair a mess, his mouth pressed into a grim white line. Quietly, he fiddled with the roll of paper in his hands.

“Would it change anything if I told you I thought you were eighteen when we met?”

She fought an eye roll. You knew exactly how old I was.

“You targeted me.”

You made it easy.

His smile was devoid of humor. “And now here we are.”

Here we are. Did the bird die?

“It did,” said Jesse. “I wanted to talk to you about that, actually. I have a theory. The barest shadow of a theory, at least. Come here.”

He unrolled the paper flat, grappling with the corners that curled in over his hands. It was a map, though it had been extensively marked. Bold black marker veered in sharp corners and curved arches from one end to the other and back again, intersecting at odd places here and there. At the top, someone had written Property of Alex Sadowski .

“Have you ever heard of Alfred Watkins?” asked Jesse.

She shook her head.

“I didn’t think so. Most schools leave his research out of their curricula. It’s still fairly controversial.”

Why? Who is he?

“Watkins was an archaeologist in the late nineteenth century. Not a very well-respected one. He believed that the world is covered in these ancient ceremonial pathways. There are these fringe theories, even today, that the paths are so worn down by travel, the very air around them has begun to thin.”

She wasn’t entirely clueless. She’d seen videos online—most of them heavily doctored—of people slipping through the sky. Read internet rumors and tabloid theories that there were places in the world where one reality butted up against another.

The stories were so pervasive that even Frankie—wry, cynical Frankie—had gone through a phase in middle school when she believed the rumors so thoroughly, she’d convinced herself she could carve a window in the sky with a steak knife. All she’d gotten for her troubles was a three-day suspension for bringing a weapon to school.

She’d never talked about it again after that.

What does this have to do with me? asked Vivienne.

“With you? Well, first of all, take a look here.” Jesse jabbed a finger at a spot on the map. She leaned in closer to see. The line was thinner than the others, but it was there, the sharp point of a triangle closing just over New Haven, Connecticut.

“Sadowski’s something of a Watkins enthusiast,” said Jesse, fanning a hand over the map. “He’s been compiling a list of places where there’s been reports of supernatural activity. The unexplained, the strange, the terrifying. These are all the spots where he thinks the air is thin enough to move through.”

Vivienne studied a wide black crater Sadowski had scrawled across northern Maine. The markings looked entirely arbitrary, no discernible pattern to be seen.

This map makes no sense , she signed.

“Maybe.” He tapped the triangle again. “Maybe not. This is us, see? This is where the church is, right off the New Haven commuter line. We’re right on top of the intersection.”

They both glanced at the mirror. In the glass, Jesse stood alone at the table, one corner of the map curling up over his hand.

“For whatever it’s worth,” he said, “I think this place is heightening your connection to your … altered state.”

Her stomach churned. I have to show you something.

“Yeah?” He let go of the map, letting it curl in on itself with a papery snap. “Let’s see it.”

Slowly, she lifted up the edge of her shirt. There, on her torso, was a glossy strip of chitin. She’d woken to discover it earlier that morning, scabbed over her skin like a wound. Like she was transforming into an insect, a real-life version of the sad little salesman from Kafka’s The Metamorphosis . It was too horrible to even think about. Too horrible to even look at.

Jesse didn’t appear to share her disgust. “Is that new?”

She nodded, tears pricking her eyes. She was suddenly grateful for her lack of a reflection. She didn’t want to see herself like this, monstrous and misshapen. Her insides leaking out.

“Well, this definitely backs up my theory,” he said. “Can I touch it?”

She nodded again. He sank to his knees in front of her, fishing through his med kit and prying loose a pair of gloves. The snap of latex made her jump. Gingerly, he began to poke at her midsection.

“Does this hurt?”

She shook her head.

“Is there any sensation at all? Can you feel me touching it?”

She shook her head again. It was like a piece of armor, embedded in her skin. A cyborg part, or else some sort of preternatural plate. Like whatever was inside her was slowly engulfing her from the inside out. There was a prick, and she gasped, rearing back. A blue-green substance wept from a shallow abrasion in the casing.

“Interesting,” said Jesse, setting a thin scalpel on the table and leaning in to press the tips of his fingers to the site. He held them up for inspection. “I’m no entomologist, but if I had to guess, I’d say this presents pretty closely to hemolymph.”

Her confusion must have registered on her face because he added, “Its analogous to human blood. Similar, but not the same. It’s found in arthropods. Invertebrates—cold-blooded animals.”

Cold-blooded. The word resonated awfully in her head. She’d never felt less human than this, reflectionless and alien, her body betraying her. She wobbled slightly, peering down at her middle. Already, the substance had begun to congeal, turning gray.

“It would explain the segmented appearance of the growth,” mused Jesse, rising to his feet. “This is good. Really good, actually.”

How is it good? she signed. I’m turning into a nightmare bug.

He grinned. For the first time since she’d cornered him with her proposal, he looked excited. “You ever see Predator ? With Arnold Schwarzenegger?”

She blinked at him.

“I’ll take that as a no. There’s a famous line in the movie. ‘If it bleeds, we can kill it.’”

It took several seconds for understanding to sink it. She didn’t find it remotely comforting. It’s not very promising that you’re basing your medical diagnosis on an action movie.

“It’s a starting point, Vivienne,” he said wryly. “It’s better than nothing. I’ll take whatever advantage I can get. Rest up. No foods or liquids after midnight. Tomorrow morning, we cut you open and see what’s inside.”