Page 12 of Magpie

I t’s the stinging in my hand that wakes me up, pulling me from the depths of a nightmare.

It feels like rising from a grave. Wincing, I blink my blurry eyes, adjusting to the low lighting of the room I’m in.

From the soft orange glow on the wooden walls, I assume the place is lit by candlelight.

Wearily, I pull my hand toward me, and the effort feels like I haven’t moved in a long time.

Like I’ve been as stiff as a dead body. I pull my hand up, noticing black silk sheets spilling off it.

I freeze.

I’m in a bed, one I certainly do not remember climbing into.

Fear seizes my heart, the pain in my hand becoming an afterthought as I sit up.

My eyes frantically scan the room around me.

Not only am I in an unfamiliar bed, I’m in a room I do not recognize.

I search my mind, beginning to panic, trying my hardest to dispel the fog of confusion enveloping me.

Someone must have drugged me, slipped something into my drink to make me black out.

This is the exact kind of thing she always warned me about—

She?

She who? I narrow my eyes, trying to call forth the name of a faceless figure in my mind.

I have the fleeting image of braids, a warm smile, laughter in her eyes, and the feeling of friendship before they swirl around the drain in my mind, and I am left empty.

I frown, as I focus back on the present, on finding out where I am.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t make myself remember the events that led to me being in this strange bed.

Closing my eyes hard, I grip my aching head.

I try to crawl down that foggy path in my mind, a numbing sensation slithering through me as I fight against the haze surrounding my memories.

Flashes of a staircase, a hallway full of doors, the vague sense of people calling out to me—that’s all I can remember.

That, and the image of a crescent moon. No, wait—a smile.

Blinding white teeth in the endless dark.

I should be panicked, my nerves on edge, but that lulling cold is filling me, and I am finding it very hard to care.

Looking down, I begin to take stock of myself.

Tugging the thick comforter off, I see I am wearing a sleek black nightgown.

The flimsy straps keep falling off my shoulders, and I have the distinct feeling this is not something I would choose to wear myself.

I drift from that thought, giving myself a brief pat down and finding no immediately obvious wounds, other than the cut on my palm.

I gingerly touch the cut, sucking in a breath at the jolt of pain.

I ignore it, furrowing my brow and inspecting the injury.

I have the strangest feeling that the wound looks like a keyhole.

Odd. Shaking my head, I fling my legs over the side of the bed and stand up.

The sudden movement sends a wave of dizziness swirling around my head.

My legs buckle, my knees stiff, and once again I am overcome with the feeling that I haven’t moved in a long while.

I reach out with shaking hands, grabbing onto the headboard to steady myself as I reel.

I take in a deep breath and the dizziness subsides, and I am stable on my feet once again.

What happened to me?

The words circle my mind, begging me to go back down that path to my memories, but that creeping cold holds me close, and I find it hard to understand why I want to remember.

Still, the incessant need to retrace my steps refuses to let me go.

It’s like trying to remember a dream. I have the vague feeling that I am missing something, or maybe someone, like I am lost and need desperately to get back.

Unease churns in my stomach as my breathing picks up, fear breaking through the frozen barrier around my mind.

Thoughts begin to crash like waves against the shore, each one louder than the last.

Where am I? How did I get here?

Who am I?

I gasp. Who am I?

I look deep inside myself and find I don’t know.

Panic seizes my throat, and with a shuddering breath, I force it back down.

The emptiness inside of me is making it only too easy to ignore these frightened emotions.

I refuse to acknowledge the chilly realization that I have no memory of myself.

It should scare me, should send me screaming from this space, but somehow, I am finding it harder and harder to care.

The cold might hurt at first, but with the numbness comes a comfortable apathy that I willingly sink into.

This is just temporary. I’ll remember who I am soon.

I nod to myself. I’m sure the momentary amnesia is due to this thick fog that refuses to lift from my mind, no doubt some side effect of a drug.

Once it wears off, and I am clear-headed, I will know myself.

Satisfied with that thought, knowing it will keep the spiking panic at bay, I focus instead on the space before me.

I am in a dim room, the only light coming from a crackling fire on the far side, illuminating the mostly spartan area.

The bed I woke up in has a twisting iron frame, like crawling ivy gripping a mausoleum.

I push the unsettling image away, quickly looking to the wooden side table, the elegant scrollwork on the wood the same design as the desk situated on the other side of the room.

Beside the desk is a bookshelf, half filled with old leatherbound books, resting between bottles, dried herbs, skulls of animals I do not recognize, and crystals with harsh, jagged edges.

An ornate coatrack sits beside the closed door, a jacket and top hat hanging from the hooks.

Something about that tickles my memories, but it too is swept away on that hazy black tide.

I move quietly around the room, my hands lingering over the various books and trinkets adorning the shelves and surfaces.

Everything looks antique, like it’s been plucked from the past. I stop by the coatrack, fingering the fine material of the jacket hanging on it.

I try to remember how I got here, try to think if I came with someone who wore this jacket.

Images flash in my mind: a house, a man with a skeletal face, a key, a gloved hand on my cheek.

I shiver at that last thought, still feeling the soft material of the glove against my skin.

I’m beginning to get a headache as I try to push my mind to remember more.

It proves to be a useless effort. The more I fight against that fog, the thicker it becomes, and the more the pounding in my head intensifies.

Wincing, I hold my throbbing head, the pain sending another wave of dizziness through me.

Fumbling around the room, I sit down in the large leatherback chair behind the desk.

I close my eyes and make myself take slow, steady breaths.

Each time a question tries to rise in my mind, I squash it back down.

When the pain ebbs, I sigh, letting my hand drop to the desk in front of me, opening my tired eyes. I notice a black book on the desk and flip it open. Maybe it can give me some insight into where I am, who I came here with.

Scanning through the pages, I find nothing that makes sense. Images and words in a foreign language are interspersed with drawings of herbs and animals, next to ingredient lists, strange symbols, and stars encircled in Celtic knots. Each page only leaves me with more questions.

Looking idly through the book, I pause when I find a piece of newspaper glued to another page, like a scrapbook keepsake.

A small gasp escapes my lips as I focus on it, unable to look away.

I do not read the elegant script scrawled across the top of the clipping, or study the ethereal woman drawn on the page.

My eyes are locked on the other figure, his gloved hand tipping a top hat down to conceal his face.

Reaching a hand up, I touch my cheek, unaware I am even moving. All I am aware of is the feel of that same white glove caressing my skin. A warning bell tries to sound in my mind, but it gets lost in the haze, swept away before I can properly pay attention to it.

I hear a key turning in the lock, and without thinking I yank the page out of the book.

Slamming it shut, I shoot up, turning uselessly in place until I rush back to the bed and stuff the page into the corner.

I don’t know why I’m hiding it; I don’t know why I’m keeping it in the first place.

It’s too late for me to change my mind. I hear the creaking of the hinges as the door swings open.

I stand, take a steadying breath, and turn, ready to face whoever is there.

The door is wide open, the doorway entirely empty. I let out a breath, confused. The only thing in front of me is a dark hallway. Deciding I am more likely to get answers outside of this room, I screw up my courage and step out.

I discover to the right another short hallway with a handful of doors on either side.

To the left is a staircase. Timidly stepping down the hallway, I take a closer look at the doors.

I don’t know why I’m studying the doorknobs so thoroughly.

They’re beautifully crafted, but there isn’t anything out of the ordinary about them.

A flash of a memory feebly rises to my mind, but it fades away as soon as it appears.

I frown, turning and starting toward the stairs, but I come to a stumbling halt.

A man stands on the landing.

He’s wearing a white shirt, the top few buttons undone, a loose bowtie hanging on either side of the collar.

His hands are stuffed into the pockets of his pants, and I can’t help but wonder if they are covered in white gloves.

The stairs are shrouded in shadows, so I cannot make out the details of his face.

All I can see is his crescent-moon smile.

I’m entranced, unable to think, or even breathe, as he steps forward, but the darkness refuses to move off him, keeping him concealed. He walks the short distance to the open door, entering the room I woke up in. I follow him, my feet carrying me unbidden, but I make myself stop in the doorway.

He is a stranger. He could be the one who drugged you. The one who took your memories.

The warnings circle in my mind, each one dissolving the moment it is thought, entirely too easy to ignore. I press my hand to the doorframe, something to lean against, to hold myself steady as I watch him.

“Good evening, Magpie,” he says, his voice drifting across the shadows to caress my skin.

I’m not scared, or even startled, though those flashes of alarm keep trying to blare in my mind.

They cry at me to be wary of this one, yet I find myself calmed by the sound of his voice.

He is seated behind the desk, the black book open before him.

He isn’t looking at me, his eyes focused on the page in front of him, intent on his work.

I’m studying his hands, free of the white gloves.

I trail my eyes up his arms, studying his features in the flickering firelight as he continues to stare at the book.

His dark locks are perfectly slicked back, not a hair out of place.

His deep russet eyes catch and hold my gaze, a smile tugging at his lips before he turns his attention back to his work.

He motions to the chair on the other side of the desk, and images of a dark attic swirl around my mind.

“It’s you,” I say, taking a staggering step forward without thinking, following the tempting perfume that wafts off him.

He doesn’t answer me, continuing to scribble in the book.

Curiosity gets the better of me, and I tell myself I am moving around the desk just to see what he is working on.

I do not acknowledge the desperation to be near to him.

Trancelike, I move closer, barely keeping myself from reaching out and stroking a finger down his hand.

Firmly keeping my hands to myself, I look down at the page.

Dark scribbles and incantations litter it. He’s sketching an image of a black key, with a bird in flight on the handle. I cannot stop myself; I reach forward, desperate to touch the image, to imagine that I can feel the cool iron against my skin.

He snaps the book closed before I can get closer. In one swift motion, he is standing before me, and I am not ready for the crushing feel of his aura.

He’s tall, taller than I was expecting, and his presence presses down on me.

All at once I find I am frightened, and I take an involuntary step away from him, but I am not quick enough.

His arm lashes out, snaking around my waist, pulling me closer to him, and with his other hand he grips my chin and tilts my head back.

The moment his skin touches mine, I remember gasping, struggling to breathe, as he forced a key into his chest.

I remember what felt like dying .

I want to pull away from him, scared of these images that keep rising in my mind, but at the same time I find myself bewitched by his touch. He must have found whatever answer he was looking for in my face, as he releases my chin and moves instead to grip my hand.

“Follow me,” he says, his voice soft and soothing, but he gives me no option to protest as he pulls me after him. He tugs me into the hallway, grabbing his top hat on the way out, and together we descend the stairs.

I cannot fight the feeling that I am walking willingly into the mouth of a beast.