Page 12 of Magpie
“It isn’t mine. I just found it,” I say, my voice shaking. My heart is pounding in my chest, filling my ringing ears with the sound of pulsing blood. I feel like I am standing on the edge of an abyss, with no idea if I will jump or not.
“It has always been yours. It was only waiting for you,” he croons, the softness of his voice in stark contrast to the harsh edge of hunger in his eyes.
I see the abyss rise up before me, and without a single feeling in the hollowness of my mind, I jump.
Slowly, I turn my hand over, dropping the key to the table. For some reason, it sounds like dirt piling on a coffin lid. I slide it toward him, the scraping of metal against wood louder than it should be. I remove my hand, leaving the key directly in front of him.
He is beaming, a feverish grin spreading across his face, and my unease grows. But then he catches my eye, and that blissful emptiness settles on my shoulders, caressing me like a lover. His white-gloved hand picks up the key, and he holds it in front of his face, staring at it with reverence, turning it in the light of the moon. The iron bird flashes, seeming to take flight.
I am filled with the sense that I have just made a grave mistake.
“How do I get out?” I whisper.
His eyes flash to mine for a brief moment. He does not answer. He only smiles. With his free hand, he begins to pop open the buttons on his shirt, pulling the fabric aside to reveal his chest. He presses the tip of the key directly over his heart, and pushes it into his chest.
I have no time to register that he is stabbing a key into his heart, because all at once I can’t breathe.
Letting out a strangled noise, I clutch at my throat, struggling to pull air into my burning lungs. I feel like I am underwater, drowning in the suffocating darkness that begins to flow into me. I shove myself away from the table, my chair tipping and falling, spilling me out of it.
Before I can hit the floor, he is beside me, scooping me into his arms. His grip sends shards of ice through my veins, flooding my senses with endless cold. Coughing and sputtering, I convulse in his arms, unable to scream in panic or pain as he smiles down at me. My vision turns gray, the room dimming around me.
The only thing I can make out is his bright smile as he says, “Welcome home, Magpie.”
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” a voice snaps at me, startling me awake. The dream of gloved hands and flapping wings fades from my mind, but the uneasy feeling remains.
As I blink the fog from my eyes, my brain begins to catch up with my surroundings. I am seated in the out-of-order cabin on a train headed east. Glancing out the window, I realize we are no longer moving. I slept the entire long journey. A bustling station sits in front of me, crowds of people scurrying about, hurrying to get to their normal jobs, in their normal lives. My heart aches to be like them.
“Miss,” the frustrated voice says. There’s the distinct sound of a foot tapping on the floor in impatience.
“Sorry,” I croak. My throat is dry. It feels like I have been screaming. Swallowing against that thought, I grab my bag and toss it over my shoulder, standing up and quickly glancing at the conductor.
“Dear god…” he says, taking a step back. “Are you alright?” he whispers. I was expecting him to recoil from me, his primalmind alerting him to a predator, but his eyes are not focused on mine, and he doesn’t seem to be inching away from the deadly aura surrounding me. His shaking hand is pointing toward my legs.
Looking down, I notice a spreading bloodstain, starting around my hip and trailing down the leg of my jeans. I gasp, looking at my blood-crusted hand, the scab oozing droplets of fresh blood. It must have bled the whole time I was sleeping.
“Uh…paint. I’m so sorry,” I blurt out, rushing past him and sprinting to the closest exit.
He is more than happy to let me go, his relief at my departure washing over me in an icy wave. He will be shaken, unable to get the image of the bleeding girl out of his head as he scrubs the stained fabric of the seat. By the time the stain is cleansed to nothing more than a faded pink spot, he will forget how it came to be, thinking nothing more of the stranger in the broken cabin. I will be gone from his mind as night sets in.
A twisted smile tugs at my lips as I pull the hood of my jacket low over my face. As I weave in and out of the bustling crowd, my smile fades to a grimace. How cruel, and yet how fitting, that the only time I am remembered is in fleeting images by strangers who were smart enough to see me for what I am. A predator, a monster, and then a ghost. No more than the faded outline of a girl on a deck of cards.
The price of your freedom, Magpie.
His words echo in my mind, chasing my racing thoughts and nipping at my heels as I rush out of the train station. The morning sun is blinding, flashing bright white on the side of the gleaming train. Wincing, I pull my sunglasses out of my backpack and quickly put them on. The bright rays are hard to stand in, and I know it is withdrawal from my key. Soon, I will be like him, unable to step into the sun at all. Darkness has away of claiming what it wants, refusing to let it roam freely in the daylight.
I walk aimlessly, vaguely following the commuters, but keeping my distance from everyone. I let the soft choir of the bustling crowd consume me, sweeping me away as I try to calm my racing heart. I’m yet to form any type of plan, moving on instinct alone as I wait for my feeble brain to think of something, anything. He has my key, and I need to get it back, and I somehow have to do it all without entering the House again.
“It’s time to stop fighting, Magpie.”
“Leave me alone!” I scream, spinning around and startling the group behind me. A man in a suit stumbles a step away from me, swearing as he spills his coffee over himself before he bustles by me. A mother flashes me a worried look, guiding her young daughter away from the crazy lady yelling in the train station.
I barely notice them. My eyes are darting around, scanning the crowd as I heave in uneven breaths. I am searching for any hint of that black top hat, that shining ace of spades. Spinning around, I grip my backpack and begin to run. My hand throbs, the wound cutting against the strap of my backpack. I need to do something about that, and about my appearance. I can’t risk getting the police called on a blood-soaked woman screaming and running around a train station. The last thing I need is to be trapped behind bars when night falls.
Blending in with the crowd spilling onto the city streets, I step quietly into an alley, getting my bearings. I spot a line of storefronts across the street. A cell phone store, a coffee shop, a souvenir shop, and what looks like a vintage clothing store called “A New U”. Pushing my way back into the crowd, I cut through them and sprint across the street.
A buzzer chimes as I open the door to A New U, glancing quickly at the bored worker standing behind the front counter. She is flipping idly through a magazine, giving me a halfheartedwave and a cheerless greeting without looking up once. I tug the hood further over my face as I walk the length of the store, unable to stop myself from peering into the dark corners. My fingers trail over clothes, tugging items off hangers at random.
“Where is the changing room?” I call over my shoulder, careful to keep my face as hidden as possible. The clerk waves another dismissive hand toward the two doors situated at the back of the store. My stomach lurches. I hate the idea of being so far from the only exit.
