by Risa Fey
Why was he there?—she wondered. Watching and hiding, like a stalker.
She didn’t care. But she kept an eye on the intruding family, wishing they would leave so that she could talk to this mysterious man for a bit longer. She realized only belatedly that he could be an actor sent by the aliens. She was tired of being an experiment, and the mere thought of him being sent by Them set her on edge to the point of putting her guard up. She was tired of Their meddling and ridicule, wearied of being made a spectacle on Their intergalactic television sets. The constant scrutiny was maddening. And while she was able to run away from her degenerate family, she was keenly aware of her inability to escape Them.
They would always follow her. They would always be there at her heels.
But he had claimed that he had always been there, too. The difference was: his was an invasion of privacy that she could live with. His was an invasion of privacy that she actually wanted.
CHAPTER 4
THE WAY PEOPLE looked at Cora made her skin crawl. Their glares were cold and dagger-sharp, like icicles, and the darkling shine in their eyes betrayed derision at her physiognomy. She couldn’t help being ugly, but they made her feel like it was her fault nonetheless. Some prenatal moral failing on her part must have caused the disfigurement, and God knew that if it had been up to her, she would be the most beautiful girl in the whole world and men would fawn after her like dogs.
Perhaps she was the most beautiful girl and it was everyone else who was ugly. Some glitch in the program of society might have falsely cast her in the wrong role of being the unlovely one, and only They—the Ones who had programmed the universe to begin with—could fix the wayward glitch. But of course, they wouldn’t; They would never fix what They had broken, including her.
It wasn’t even like she hadn’t tried to be pretty. Cora used to preen herself at her mother’s vanity, applying a cheap collection of moldy cosmetics that never failed to make her skin erupt into itching pustules and red blotches. Even brushing her hair didn’t help Cora’s appearance by any measure; all it did was rip the dry filaments into fuzzy shreds.
The only good that ever came of preening herself was in the short few minutes after applying the setting powder, when she believed she might be pretty. Caked, stale foundation would be smeared over her neck and nose, camouflaging the blemishes, and the red lipstick—too bold for her lackluster skin—would make her feel like empress of the world. The eyeliner would zigzag in catty tracks around her eyes, overdone and penciled-in too heavily; and the daubs of metallic eye shadow would disintegrate onto her cheeks, looking like plates of bronze over her eyelids.
Cora did not wear makeup anymore. She no longer wished to try, even with those fleeting moments of empowerment. If she tried again, she knew people would stare more than they ever did before.
Her mother used to laugh at her pathetic attempts at doing herself up. “Unflattering,” she had once commented. And: “What a hideous little girl you are. The more you try, the uglier you look. Why fight what Nature cursed you with? Why don’t you just accept that you’re hideous, and be done with it?”
Cora had always thought her mother looked ugly also. She was slipshod and disheveled-looking at any rate. But if Cora was supposed to be a freak of nature, then her mother was a slovenly monster of misproportions.
Still, the apple never did fall far from the tree.
“Maybe when you’re old and wrinkled and supposed to be ugly, it won’t be so noticeable,” her mother had said. “As things are now, I’m embarrassed to even be seen with you.”
“Don’t be so hard on her,” her father had said, lifting a bottle of mock toast in Cora’s direction. “She has all her working parts, and that’s really all that matters. Isn’t it?” Cora remembered his grin being full of smarm and private meaning. She remembered her father’s words making her feel grimy and polluted.
Would that I was old right now, Cora thought to herself. If she was old, then it wouldn’t be too much of a bother; all she would have to worry about was how to get from one end of the room to the other without provoking a bad hip or knee. No one would blame or chide her for her ugliness then, since it would be understandable if she was decrepit and senile.
The customer Cora was ringing up at the present moment gawked at her from over a handful of grubby change. The whole time he had been shopping, he’d been stealing surreptitious glances at her, and tossing furtive smiles whenever their eyes met.
He probably thinks my ugliness is amusing, Cora told herself, like a worthless curio in an odds and ends shop. Cora felt like one among the hundreds of merchandise being sold there, the only difference being that no one would ever buy her.
The customer handed her the last bits of requested change. His face was sweaty from the midday heat, and his short brown hair was mashed beneath a wide-brimmed hat. Leaning coolly over the counter, he said, “So when do you get off?”
Saying nothing, Cora put the money in the cash register and handed him a faded receipt that the machine gargled out.
“Are you too good to even talk to me?” Scowling, he snatched at the proffered receipt, crushing it in his fist. “Maybe you ought’a get off your high horse, Miss Nobody, and take a good look around where you are. I’m not the one on the other side of this servicing table—I have a better job than this. So if you’re going to snub me, you can shove it. You sure as hell aren’t better than me.”
As he stormed out the door, Cora whirled around and shielded the tears from coming to her eyes. The last thing she wanted then was to cry. If she cried, her eyes would look even puffier than they already did, and that would only make her look uglier, and she could not endure that.
Did the cruelty of men know no limits? She didn’t want anyone’s attention, nor did she want anybody’s friendship. His intentions had been malicious from the start, probably spurred by a desire to humiliate her.
Cora held her blanching face within her hands, and waited for the din of panic to abate.
Some few minutes later, Mr. Philips emerged. He stopped short, taking stock of the state of her. “Cora? What on earth’s the matter?”
Her throat tightened around an ache. She didn’t want to confide, but she also knew the unprofessional behavior demanded an explanation. “The guy I just took care of…” she started, not knowing how to word the encounter without sounding puerile.
“Did he harass you?” Mr. Philips’s tone altered, taking on a burgeoning hint of anger.
“No.” She sniffed and wiped at her clammy cheeks with the back of a knuckle. “He was just… The way he… It’s hard to explain.” He was looking at me, she wanted to scream. He was looking at me—he was looking at me—he was looking at me!
Mr. Philips’s caterpillar eyebrows pushed together, forming striations of worry above his nose. His forehead puckered with concern, and the tilt of his head was full of puzzled inquiry. Cora knew she had to offer some explanation, or else risk things becoming too awkward.
“He looked at me,” she said, with a modicum more self-control. “He called me a nobody, and then he tried to humiliate me because I’m ugly.”
Mr. Philips frowned, struggling outwardly for an appropriate response. “Then he couldn’t have known what he was talking about. Ugly? That’s insane, since it obviously isn’t true. Don’t allow a low-bred son-of-a-cur like that muck up your day.”
“What do you mean it isn’t true?” Her words were bitter, half a scoff.
Mr. Philips blinked at that retort. “Well… it isn’t true,” he said. Then he hesitated, questioning the appropriateness of what he said next. “You don’t have to be modest about the way you look, Cora. Even I’ve noticed the way the young men look at you.”
Her neck stiffened, back becoming rigid. “It’s cruel enough what he said—but then you have the nerve to make fun of me as well!” Cora stepped back, pressing a tissue from the box on the counter to her nose.
“Making fun?” Now Mr. Philips was genuinely shocked. “Cora, I think you misun
derstood what I sai—”
“No!” she cut him off. “I know what you said, and I know what you meant!” She recoiled even as he stretched out a hand to touch her shoulder. “You’re just like all of them. You think I’m funny to look at; you think I’m odd; a freak to ogle at at a circus show. You even think it’s funny They let me live. It’s all amusing to you, isn’t it?”
“What?” He hobbled forward, face a mask of incredulity. “What do you mean by ‘let you live’? Is someone abusing you, Cora?” But the concern in his tone went unremarked.
“Oh—!” Cora threw up her arms, staggering around the other side of the register’s counter. “Don’t pretend. They only keep me alive out of sadism, and not at all because They care!” She bumped her hip against a shelf, then rounded behind it as well, placing as much space between her and Mr. Philips as she could. “It must be fun for Them,” she went on ranting, “and for all of you—to watch a failure and a monster lumber around through life, unloved.” Cora was halfway across the shop, standing beside the display with the broken mirror.
“Cora, please calm down.”
“I won’t!” She trembled violently. “I’VE HAD IT!” She picked the mirror up and dashed it to the ground, littering the floor with tiny glints of glass.
Enchanted particles flurried up from the reflective grains. Motes of otherworldly power twinkled once before dying out. It was a turning point for Cora. The unseen gate of Time, Space and Being was now completely shattered, and creatures from the other realms could now cross onto the unseen plane of the mortal world. Previously, They had only been able to broadcast Their voices across the dimensions, but now, They were free to pass through the broken portal, to saturate the earth with Their unholy presence. She had opened the way for Them; it would be her fault, whatever followed.
The voices flooded forth and spoke all at once, blares of horrifying sound and beastly harmonics.
Cora clapped her hands over her ears. “I don’t care what You All think!” she cried in an effort to reject Them. “I don’t care what anybody thinks!”
Mr. Philips’s mouth hung open. He didn’t know what to say, but he couldn’t help pointing out the obvious: “Miss Cora, you’re raving.” Ignoring the shattered glass on the ground, he walked across it.
Cora kicked a shimmering cloud of glass at him before bolting out the door. Her heels thundered down the beechwood steps. She imagined the tiny shards gnawing into his ankles like living shrapnel, wedging deep beneath the flesh and into the unreachable chinks inside his muscles. Beating fists over her head, Cora squealed like a tortured animal before pumping her feet into a sprint.
Few people were around to witness the meltdown. Cora ran off the tarmac road and along the unpaved shoulder of the motorway, instantly forgetting who and where she was. All she could think to do then was escape the persecution—escape the men and women jabbering in her head—escape Them. But more than anything, she had to escape herself. Cora was keenly aware of an impulsive need to kill herself—and she might have tried had she had the means to do so.
The rage of thunder was in her head. A fury of white noise showered through her ears. A muted buzz clogged up her eardrums. Her cheeks felt hot and puffy with embarrassment.
The world was nothing but an elaborate stage, and They were filming her meltdown for an alien audience some fifty billion light-years away. They filmed her childhood, the abuse, and projected her thoughts like subtitles on a foreign film.
The universe was laughing at her. She could hear Their laughter, even from where she was, booming from all corners of the universe—and she could not find the exit from the stage.
Turning off the shoulder of the motorway, Cora ran a meandering line down the middle of Rendling Road. The usual overgrowth leaned over to snag her dress, swallowing her up and out of view from the T-shaped intersection.
Cora wiped the stinging moisture from her eyes. Her heart hammered in her chest, pulsing like a drum roll in her head. She felt as if the eyes of the universe were raining down on her from every chink and corner of the galaxy—the eyes of gods, with hearts of stone and tongues of malice.
Everyone is watching, Cora realized with a fresh heightening of panic. The whole universe was spying on the tragedy of her life, and even Mr. Philips was sitting now in the armchair of his astral home, witnessing the collapse of her mortal soul. The hidden cameras followed Cora, expertly catching her misery at every angle.
CHAPTER 5
CORA WAS HOME before she even knew how she had got there. She ripped the door open so hard that the hinges creaked precariously, and the rickety panels wobbled when the door slammed shut behind her. Cora stumbled into her bedroom, colliding with the dresser table where she bunched the black veil in her fist then ripped it off.
She threw a chair against the wall, and flung something else that was in her way across the room.
Then she crumpled to her knees beside the bed.
Cora shifted a bit so that her back was pressed against the bed frame. She wept aloud, unable to hear anything but the invasion of unwelcome voices.
Insults clobbered at her skull, worming into the recesses of her subconscious. Interlocutors overwhelmed her, picking at her brain like crows at a bloody carcass.
Cora drew her knees into her chest and pounded her palms against her ears. She flailed at the empty space above her head. It felt like They were gathering around her, surrounding her in a circle of mob ridicule.
An hour must have passed before the voices started to quieten one by one. They dropped off individually on their own, without a farewell, departing from the room now that the fun was over. Cora stayed where she was huddled, too petrified to move, believing the assault would begin anew if she so much as stirred.
Out of the silence came a voice, both gentle and attractive; the same bodiless man from before, but this time announcing They were gone.
Her head remained cradled in the protective knot of her arms. Her breath caught at the striking sound of his voice. Somehow she registered him as an entity separate from the other voices.
He was not unwanted. Unlike Theirs’, his voice was beautiful and kind.
“I hope you aren’t afraid of me,” he said, the words like honey. “I don’t want to hurt you. I would rather die than see you in pain…”
There was a thought-filled pause.
“Please,” Cora managed to croak out, smothering her ears in the fold of her arms. “Leave me alone.”
The silence stretched for a few breaths more. He was debating what to do. And then he said: “I won’t force you to listen to me, Cora. God knows you’ve been forced to listen to too much already.”
After an entire minute of complete silence, he intruded on her ear a second time, only more quietly this time. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”
She raised her head in irritation at that, then peered around. The bald-faced liar was nowhere to be seen.
It was raining outside, and the overcast skies sapped everything of its color. Her bedroom, and the interior of the cottage as a whole, was wrecked from her earlier tantrum. The blankets on the bed were bunched to the ground beside her, and several books, vases, and candlesticks lay knocked over. Cora sensed the unseen man was idling somewhere in the darkness near the dresser.
“I’m not in the corner,” he said in answer to her searching eyes. “Not in the shadows or the window either.”
“Then where are you?” She was growing impatient with the mystery of him, but she wasn’t angry enough to tell him off. He must be beautiful, she thought. With a voice like that. She was dying to discover what he looked like.
“You wish to see me,” he surmised. “I’m sorry. I can’t manifest over there, otherwise I would have done so already.” A dark figure loomed suddenly within the mirror, lingering very still within its frame. At first, he appeared ominous, but the initial clench of fear in her belly ebbed at the beauty in his face.
He was the most gorgeous man
she had ever seen, and there seemed to be no words for her to describe—to comprehend how her blood curdled with desire. He smiled at her, as if to communicate he understood exactly what she was feeling. He was young, about her age although a bit older, with messy curls of dark hair. His eyes—even though she shouldn’t have been able to see them from so dark a room and so far a distance—were bright with starry glints of blue. His mouth was curved into a slightly sardonic grin, but the expression of his eyes seemed tame and harmless—affectionate, even. He raked long fingers through his hair, evidently a nervous habit, but it made Cora feel weak with the way he did it. He blended with the shadows around him, like a dark prince from an enchanted kingdom.
“Who are you?” she asked again.
His gentle smile oozed with charm. “If it pleases you, I am your knight in shining armor.”
CHAPTER 6
CORA JUMPED TO her feet. He was clearly in the mirror, but no one else was in the room with her. He might have been in an adjacent room, in a parallel dimension, separated from her by nothing but a thin veneer of glass. The room he was standing in was a room similar to hers in every respect, save that the colorings of the drapes and bed clothes were different: murkier, with patterns more suited to a man.
“There is no such thing as a knight in shining armor,” she said in reference to how he had identified himself. “Who are you, really?” Somewhere in the back of her mind she had the vague sense that something was very wrong. A supernatural encounter like this should not be possible, and it made her think she must be dreaming.
The man in the mirror shrugged his shoulders, knowing that doubling down would do no good. “I told you, and you don’t believe me.”
Cora threw a bunched up pillow at him, but he did not so much as flinch as it slapped the glass then tumbled down. His eyes remained flat on her, cold and placid.