Page 38 of Magpie

We left the city lights behind hours ago, fighting against being swallowed entirely by the night with nothing but the Cadillac’s steadfast headlights.

Margaux leans over me, and I stiffen, scooting away to avoid her touching me.

I can’t stand to let my darkness infect her airy lightness.

She seems not to notice my awkward posture as she pulls open the glovebox and grabs at a small bundle.

I’m nervously flicking my eyes between her and the road she should definitely be paying attention to as she fumbles.

“Er, do you need any help?” I ask, trying to not cling to the door too closely as she takes a bend in the road faster than I would have. Fuck the immortal confidence of youth.

“Got it!” she shouts, holding up a joint.

My mouth falls open, and I watch as she places the joint between her lips, then takes both hands off the steering wheel to light the thing.

She cups one hand around it, blocking the wind as she flicks her lighter a few times before the flame finally catches.

Just when I’m about to demand she pull over and let me drive, she tosses the lighter to the floor and at least puts one hand back on the wheel. Taking a long inhale, she lets out a puff of smoke and holds the joint toward me.

“No, thanks,” I mutter. The last thing I need is an altered mind when I’m about to walk back into the biggest mind-fuck of them all.

We drive in silence for a few more beats, Margaux taking another drag on her joint before she says, “Tell me about yourself.”

The smoke is musky and thick, headier than I expected it to be.

I cough once, blinking rapidly against the haze.

I intended to shrug, to tell her there’s not much to my life and leave it at that.

Instead, I find myself staring at the dark road ahead of us, just outside the reach of the headlights, and whispering, “There’s no life to tell you about.

” I hold myself tight as I continue. “I never let myself live one. Not really—not when I had a chance to. I was so consumed by this overwhelming sense that I was wasting my life that I didn’t even try to have one. ”

The road twists and winds, a silver snake in the dark night, and I could think we are the only things that exist in this moment.

I don’t know why I keep talking. Maybe because I want someone to know I existed.

Even if it was a cursed and wretched life, I want it to remain outside of Alister’s flame.

“I could feel myself wasting away, consumed by some…some black, inky thing that whispered to me that all I wanted was to get out. And I believed it. I clung to that thought—that if I could get out, then maybe all the disappointment, the anguish, the pain would just go away. Fuck, there was so much pain…”

I trail off, rubbing my temples as I remember that girl, Maggie, the one from before the House.

I remember the endless nights spent crying myself to sleep, or the private breakdowns I had in the shower, where I knew no one could see me.

The weight of all that sadness was crushing me, one smothering stone at a time.

“It hurt so bad I thought all I wanted was to be numb,” I whisper, and this time when Margaux hands me the joint, I accept it and take a long inhale.

The smoke is rich and lively, and instead of dulling my senses, it seems to perk me up.

I feel…lighter, like in sharing this story it’s somehow no longer a burden to me.

Like I don’t have to carry it anymore. I take another inhale before handing the joint back to Margaux.

“Then, of course, I got everything I wanted, and realized the cold reality was that I had begged for a nightmare. I got out, I went numb, and all I had to do was lose my soul in the process.”

She pulls us off the main road, onto a path between the dense pine trees that is nearly invisible. The Cadillac rattles down the dirt road, kicking up gravel. Sweat drips down my back. We are getting close—I can feel it, even without the thrumming of the luna moth against my chest.

“Mildred’s husband is dying,” Margaux says, shocking me thoroughly. That’s not how I expected her to respond to my story. I turn, studying her. She’s got her elbow propped on the open window, the joint held aloft between her fingers, but her eyes are staring straight ahead.

“What?” I ask.

“Stomach cancer,” she says, taking an inhale before flicking the remaining nub of the joint out of the window. “They discovered it at the beginning of the year. It’s aggressive, but Paul’s a fighter.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask, and she finally shifts her gaze to me. As she takes me in, she suddenly appears much older than her youthful face suggests.

“Because Mildred and Paul didn’t truly start living until he began to die.”

I blink at her, confused, and she gives me a warm smile, focusing again on the dirt road as we bump and sway along it.

“They were like you: alive but not living. They were dying in routine, seeing each other—truly seeing—less and less. They stopped talking, stopped trying , and their life became nothing. A ghost of itself, an empty outline. There was no color, no soul to them.”

I want to ask her how she could possibly know this about them, but I’m worried that if I interrupt her story she’ll stop, and I find I desperately need to know how it ends.

“But then they found out Paul was dying, and it was as if they opened their eyes for the first time in decades. They saw each other, and they saw how small, how very finite life is, and they embraced it with open arms. They didn’t go on some grand adventure across the globe—they couldn’t afford it—but they did begin to live their life like it was its own adventure.

They found excitement in the mundane, and joy in the bitter sadness that comes with facing the inevitable. ”

It isn’t until the first tear drops onto my hand that I realize I’m crying.

The forest surrounding us opens into a wide field, and I see cars already creating a makeshift parking lot.

Margaux guides her car into an open spot, killing the engine and turning to me.

The shouts of excitement and laughter from the gathering crowd let me know exactly where we are.

We’ve made it to the Wandering House. Yet I can’t turn away from her, ensnared entirely in her gaze.

“Life is hard, Maggie. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something. There is pain, and heartbreak, and sorrow, more than most people deserve. But…it is also beautiful, and rare, and filled with so much magic that it takes my breath away. And you know what? It doesn’t mean a goddamn thing if you don’t let yourself feel it.

All of it—the good and the bad. Mildred and Paul didn’t run from the pain.

They embraced it, and found the light even in the dark. ”

I think of Sean, his crooked smile and shifting ink filling my mind.

Even at my lowest, darkest point, he was the light, the luna moth guiding my path.

Clearing my throat, I hastily scrub away the tears trailing down my cheek before I grab my backpack, throw the door open, and step out into the night.

I take one long, deep inhale. Slamming the door shut, I lean through the window, catching and holding her gaze.

“Thank you for the ride, Margaux,” I say, and she opens her mouth, beaming brightly at me, about to respond, but I cut her off. “Now get the fuck out of here and never seek this house out again.”

I am not Irina. I will not doom another just to gain freedom.

She snaps her mouth shut, her eyes wide, but I don’t wait around to see if she will listen to me. Instead, I turn, gripping my backpack tight, and begin to trudge up the path leading to the House.

Patrons march alongside me, their excitement buzzing around me.

I shut out the voice that tries to tell me to save each and every one of them, to scare them all into running back to their cars and away from this place.

It would be useless, a waste of my time—time I do not have.

I saved Margaux, or at least I tried to, but it will all be for nothing if I don’t end him . So I set my jaw grimly, and continue.

A line snakes around the open field, leading to a broken-down barn, reminding me suddenly of the old farmhouse I walked into that fateful night. The hum of nervous anticipation swarms over the crowd. Peals of laughter and the occasional sharp scream erupt from the line.

Alister will be so pleased.

Cold resolve fueling me, I sidestep the line and make my way resolutely forward, not taking my eyes off the barn for a second.

Like it is a predator that will strike me the moment I let my guard down.

The people at the back of the line flash me angry looks, a few of them whispering loudly about cutting ahead.

I ignore them all, one foot in front of the other as I focus only on continuing toward my doom.

Not matter how much I want to turn and run.

“Hey, bitch, the line starts back there. Wait your turn like everyone else,” a guy shouts at me, grabbing my arm.

I pause, doing nothing more than turning and looking at him.

“I’ve waited long enough,” I say. My voice is low, but somehow still cuts through the chattering voices and sends everyone around me into a state of shocked silence.

I have been without my key for several days, and even the assistance of the luna key cannot hide the decay that wafts off me, the deathly promise that oozes from my aura.

The man whispers a curse, dropping my arm and taking a step back from me.

“She must be one of the actors,” one of his friends says, pulling the startled man back into line as they hurriedly look away from me. Without a second glance at the field of souls that would fuel this house for another year, I continue forward.

I falter, just briefly, when I come to the wide double doors at the entrance to the barn. I study the structure. From the chipped red paint to the rotting wood, it looks like one gust of wind might knock the whole thing over.

But I know better.

It’s stronger than ever.

Every fiber of my body is screaming at me to turn away from this prison I fought so hard to break free from. If I take the last few steps and cross into its waiting arms, will I lose Maggie again? How long can I really hold off falling back into Magpie and the numbness she brings?

“No. Never again,” I whisper to no one but myself, chasing away the intrusive thoughts that try to stop me. I will not give him the satisfaction of fear. I will not add any more to his ever-growing flame.

For the first time, I turn to look at the doorman.

A lump forms in my throat, tears threatening to spill down my face.

Gone forever is the tall, skeletal man with the glowing red eyes.

Instead, a woman dressed like a living doll sits on a chair by the door, rhythmically stabbing long, sharp needles into a doll that looks nearly identical to me.

I know that doll, just like I know the woman, Brianna. The doll will take on the semblance of whoever looks at it. Still, the sight of her stabbing a needle into its heart again and again does nothing to settle my nerves.

Brianna is one of Alister’s older creations, and she keeps mostly to herself when she isn’t performing. We may not have interacted in the House, but we recognize each other instantly. She gives me a wide, bright smile as the doors in front of me open. A gaping maw, waiting for easy prey.

“Welcome home, Magpie,” she says, her voice sounding far off in my ears.

The inside of the barn is a great cavernous shadow, and no matter how I try to peer through it, I can’t make out a single thing. A tendril of icy air drifts out from the void, coiling around me. It tugs and pulls at me, beckoning me inside.

I will not run from the dark. I follow.