Page 64 of Magpie
My key.
It calls out to me, even from the void of his chest, where he consumed it. Where he consumed me, and so many others. I grab it, my fingers finding purchase around a second key as well. I begin to pull them both out.
Alister’s arms move, wrapping around me and pressing me to his chest, caging me to him.
“Do not do this, Magpie,” he sputters, sending a spray of blood against the side of my face as he coughs. “Don’t leave me.” He is trying to sound commanding, instead sounding timid and unsure.
I pull back from him easily, finding he has no hold over me.
I’m not sure he ever did.
“It is not too late to stop. We can come back from even this,” he begs, his desperation breaking through.
I sit up straight, staring down at him. He’s covered in splatters of blood and smears of ash. His skin is sunken, yellowed, tinged with disease and decay. His cheekbones are jutting out, trying to break through his paper-thin flesh.
He darts his thick, swollen tongue out, wetting his cracked lips. “You can’t live without me, Magpie.”
“Living with you is no life at all.”
I pull both keys from his chest.
His arms slide limply off me. I hold his gaze as I snap the key with the spade on the handle. I hold his gaze as he turns gray and crumbles to ash, as his body disintegrates beneath me. I hold his gaze in my mind, long after the last bit of his dust blows away.
And then I let him go.
The blood on my hands mixes with the ashes surrounding me, drying into a crusty layer on my skin as I sit, motionless. I’m staring at the other key, the one with the black-and-white bird adorning the handle, its wings outstretched in flight. Running my thumb over the bird, I feel the bend of every feather, thepoint of its beak. It is the final key, my key, and holding my breath, I grip each end, ready at last to be done.
I move to snap it in half—
“I’ll take that.”
The voice startles me so thoroughly I nearly drop the key. Looking up, I see an outstretched hand in front of my face, and I trail my gaze up the arm until I’m looking into the face of—
“Margaux?” I say, my mouth hanging open.
The youthful girl with the bubblegum-pink hair, dressed in a witch’s costume, is kneeling in front of me, smiling broadly, her eyes shining as she takes me in. She is blinding in the hushed gray fog around us.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, holding my key closer. Alister got to her, trapped her, too allured by her vibrancy. But he’s gone—she shouldn’t still be caged within these walls.
I look around wildly, just to ensure we’re still alone in the gray wasteland, that he won’t rise from his final grave and claim us both. To my shock, the dense, ashy fog is beginning to lift, but it does not reveal the glassy walls of Alister’s private study.
I’m sitting on a lush, clover-covered floor in the middle of a dense forest. Dim evening light cuts through the thick branches of the mossy trees, the quiet evening chorus of birds and insectsfilling the once silent world. I turn my head slowly side to side, taking in the verdant, serene landscape.
“Where are we?” I whisper.
“This is my home,” Margaux answers, still smiling at me as I look around, bewildered.
I turn back to her at last and study her, peering into her eyes and finally recognizing that the light inside of her is tinged with darkness. The same stolen darkness I have felt inside myself for so long. It’s not the aching, gnawing dark that infested me, the mockery of her true self. It’s pure and honest, black as night and somehow bright as day.
She is Death, and I have only ever been a forgery.
“My key,” she says, indicating the one still clutched tightly in my hand.
Of course it’s hers. It never belonged to me, not really. Without hesitation, I hold my hand out to her, opening my fingers to reveal the key. She gingerly picks it up, turning it over in the dying evening light.
Standing, she grins down at me, offering me a hand. “Walk with me, Maggie.”
I accept her hand, and she hoists me up off the forest floor. Looping her arm through mine, she begins to lead me through the twilit forest. Insects continue their gentle chorus around us as we move through the dense woods. She holds me tight, unspeaking, but glancing pleasantly at me often.
