Page 23 of Magpie
“We were walking home one evening after another successful performance when he approached us. He stammered out a well-rehearsed plea to join our group. I smiled politely, ready to decline, but Alister surprised me by shaking the man’s hand and inviting him over for a drink. Alister adored our fans more than I did, always finding it easier to step into the limelight. He lived for their praises. All I lived for was him.
“He and the man spoke until the early hours of the morning, long after I had gone to bed. Alister woke me before the sun was up, kneeling by the side of my bed and begging me to create another key. His eyes were feverish as he gripped my hands tightly in his and told me his plan for us, for our life. He intended to grow our troupe by adding another—not just to the performance. To our shared tether. I was tired, and confused. I had already saved his life by attaching it to mine; I couldn’t understand why he needed another. But he asked me to trust him, and I was powerless to deny him anything. He knew it, too, and he used that knowledge against me.”
She sighs, closing her eyes and massaging the side of her head, a pained look creasing her brow. I get the feeling she’s had a hard time coming to terms with that part of herself, the part that gave in to Alister’s every whim. I know I have.
Opening her eyes, she looks at the murky crystal. “So I created another key, and I gave it to Sean.”
My breath catches in my throat at his name, my heart squeezing, tears threatening to spill over. I close my eyes against the burning in them, swallowing the lump in my throat. I can still hear his last words echoing in my mind, shouting at me to run. I shake my head, dislodging the voice as I stand forcefully.
“Look, I’m sure this is a very interesting story,” I snap, trying to force heat into my voice, to hide the cracking in it, brought on by the memory of Sean. “But if you’re not going to tell me how you got away from him, then I’m just wasting time here.” Turning from Irina, I begin to rush for the door.
“I told you, Maggie, you do not want to leave him the way I did,” she calls out after me.
I spin, furious at her for dragging up memories that I buried long ago. Furious at her utter refusal to actuallyhelpme. “How do you know? You do not get to decide what I will and won’t do,” I spit, glaring at her. “You have no idea the lengths I went to forhim. Or the lengths I will go to to get away. Tell me how you left him, Irina.”
She flinches when she catches my gaze, shivering against the hatred and anger that rolls off me, my darkness only too happy to spill out into the light of this store. The quiet stretches on between us as she slowly stands, stopping several paces in front of me. Like she can’t quite bear to be any closer to me.
Her eyes are sad, almost apologetic, shame coating her words as she says, “He only let me go because I promised him you, Maggie.”
Icome to in an unfamiliar bedroom. I’m standing, staring at a wall, blinking against the dim light flickering from the sconces, casting the room in a deep orange glow. There is a splashing sound coming from behind me, but I don’t pay attention to it. My mind slowly swims back to me. With a sigh, the tension leaves my body. Alister didn’t lie when he told me the first few days would be difficult, but he was wrong about itonlybeing the first few days. I find myself slipping in and out of awareness, blinking from one room to the next with little understanding of how I came to be there.
But I did as Alister commanded, and I let go of my life before. At least, I’m trying to. Because every time that spiraling panic reaches up to grab me, I find myself drifting further into the hazy void. If I shove down that fear, that rising anxiety, then I am able to stay present, fully aware of my mind. I’m getting better at ignoring those pressing feelings, and the time between stretches of unawareness is growing longer, but I still find myself coming awake in strange surroundings.
Which is easy to do, considering how big the house is. I have spent the last several days wandering the vast halls, climbing and descending staircases, filing in and out of the many rooms. I have not come across a single other resident in my endless hours of searching the place. Alister has mentioned the rest of his creations many times, and I thought I surely would have run into one of them by now. But the halls remain empty in my silent vigil.
Still, as I look around at the walls and their various shelves, I do not recognize the room I’m in. I give myself another shake, dislodging the last wispy tendrils of the fog, before I turn to find the exit.
And come face to face with a naked man.
His blood-red eyes widen as they behold me. He’s frozen like a statue, standing with a towel pressed to his still-dripping hair. It is not his maroon eyes that have mine lingering on his face, but rather the living shadows that roam over him, making it look like he has the markings of a skeleton tattooed across his skin. They shift and fade, never quite staying in place, but the darkness around his eyes is always there.
I find myself taking a cautious step forward, drawn to him. The wide-eyed look of shock slides off his face, replaced with a crooked, cocky smile as he continues to rub the towel through his hair, moving by me and heading to the dresser on the other side of the room. All at once, I become aware of how I’m staring.
“I’m so sorry,” I squeak, bolting from the room.
“I’m not,” he calls after me, his laugh dancing down the hallway as I scurry away.
I make my way back to my room, only stopping when I have the door shut and I’m leaning against it. Images of his hard body, his sculpted muscles, and those shifting, shadowy tattoos that give him a ghostly appearance swirl in my mind. I touch myface, feeling my cheeks burning—the first hint of warmth I’ve felt outside of Alister’s embrace.
Letting out a puff of breath, I turn and head toward the bed, where I have a stack of old books that Alister gave me. He told me to study them, to prepare me for something, but he won’t give me any more information than that. Determined to get thehardbody of that man out of my mind, I flop down on the bed and pull the stack of books toward me.
I’ve just read the same sentence four times in a row, images of deep red eyes and a crooked smile filling my mind and distracting me, when my door snicks open. I stiffen, glancing up, and let out a sigh of relief when I see Alister leaning against the doorframe, observing me. I’m reminded of the brief heat in my cheeks, the first fleeting feeling away from Alister’s touch, the thought refusing to leave my mind.
“Will I ever feel again?” I ask, flipping through the pages of the spell book in my lap. Alister said the words will make themselves known to me when I’m ready, but so far all I see is shifting ink.
“Do you want to?”
I pause, my eyes lingering on a sliding, dancing series of swoops and swirls that refuse to stay still. Do I want to feel again? It seems odd that I do not, but I can’t find any pressing desire to leave the numbness behind. Still, I find myself saying, “I don’t want to always be cold.”
“You’re never cold in my arms, Magpie,” he whispers, his velvety voice tracing down my skin, but still I frown, staring at the page and not looking up.
“But I am not always in your arms. More often than not I’m left to wander this huge, confusing housealone. Where are the other people who live here?” I blurt out, carefully not mentioning the man I ran into this afternoon. Closing the book, I stand and move to cross the room to him.
He steps inside and shuts the door. “Would you like to meet them?” he asks, holding a hand out to me. There is a devilish glint in his eyes, a wicked curl of a smile. The sight is entirely wild, untamed. My mouth is hanging open from my unspoken words, and I snap it shut, my mind whirling.
Do I want to meet them?
I’m not sure I’m ready to greet the midnight creatures that call this place their home, his many creations. Yet…he tells me we have forever together, so do I really want to spend it alone with only brief flashes of him? Part of me says yes, thrilled at the idea of spending eternity in his enticing embrace, but the other part of me…the one that can’t stop thinking about that man, about hisbody…
