Exit Light

by Megan Hart

  “Yes. For a time.” Her heart cracked. “But things change.”

  Edward shook his head again, negating her. “You weren’t supposed to change.”

  She had nothing to say to that. Another apology would sound patronizing and insincere. She had no more explanation.

  “Is it because of my face?” His features blurred and shifted. “Because I never look the same to you? That matters so much?”

  Once it had mattered quite a bit, but now it didn’t seem like it should have.

  Tovah stepped away from him. “No. Not that. I got sort of used to that.”

  “Then what?” He sounded so sincerely confused that she hated herself for being so full of doubt. “What did I do? Was it the mountain? It was the mountain. I pushed you too hard, didn’t I? But I did it to help you, sweetheart. Don’t you understand? To help.”

  He moved fast, grabbing her wrists. The blood from her hands had dried and caked, painting her skin like an abstract tattoo. She hadn’t yet shaped away the wounds, and at his touch she hissed in pain. He didn’t let go. Edward smoothed his thumbs over her palms, sealing the slices with his touch.

  “Let me go.”

  “But I just wanted to help you,” he insisted. “Didn’t I help you?”

  Tovah looked into his face, which had shifted again, so slightly she might not have noticed. Something was different in the shape of the brow, the width of the mouth. Edward’s lips parted slightly, showing teeth that gleamed.

  “Didn’t I?” he asked her again, softly.

  Tovah nodded slowly, her heart twisting. “Yes. You did.”

  His hands linked with hers in a lover’s grasp. “I told you when you climbed this mountain you’d find something real, didn’t I?”

  “Something that would last. Yes.”

  His smile would have charmed her, before, but now it left her cold. “And here I am. Wasn’t this what you’ve been looking for?”

  Tovah shook her head once, twice, slowly. “No.”

  Edward dropped her hand and stepped back. “No? You tell me no?”

  “That’s what I said.” Tovah looked at her once-upon-a-time lover. He turned his back to her, his shoulders slumped.

  “But why?”

  Tovah was used to strange things happening in the Ephemeros. She hadn’t before experienced the ability to taste colors or smell sounds…but now Edward’s voice smelled like rain. It tasted like rain, too, the sort that falls between lightning and turns the earth to mud.

  She looked at her feet, still resting on grass. The left was still there, but still fake. It had no toes, just a smooth, curved edge that usually didn’t matter because it disappeared inside shoes. She shaped it to match the right and felt it shift and blur, but the shaping took more effort than she’d anticipated and left her sweating.

  “Why?”

  Edward had turned to face her while she concentrated on her foot. His eyes had gone dark, though his face still played. The few familiar pieces blended with new features. He was still handsome, but bleak.

  “Edward. Some things have been happening here. Bad things.”

  Edward frowned. “Bad things happen. If they didn’t, nobody would need a guide. But good things happen, too, Tovah. I thought we were a good thing.”

  “I thought so too.”

  “But you don’t anymore.”

  She shook her head. “No, Edward. I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Why not!” His shout thudded around her like stones hitting the earth.

  The force of it thundered in the soles of her feet. It smelled like lavender and burning leaves, and her throat closed against an uprush of emotion. She said, “What do you want instead?”

  He faced her, his mouth working and fists clenching. Tovah wanted to back up again, wary, but the cliff was still behind her and she knew too well how high she’d climbed. She could jump, maybe fly, but she didn’t want to run.

  His will pressed around her on all sides, then did something unexpected. It reached inside her and pulled on hers. Threads of desire, memory, wishful thinking, unspooled like thread and were swallowed up by his. It was a violation worse than rape.

  “This?” Edward became Ben. “Your helpful, faithful Eagle Scout?”

  “Or this?” Edward became Kevin. “Your bastard ex-husband?”

  “Stop!” Tovah gathered the tendrils of her will around her, tight, ripping them from Edward’s phantom touch. “You’re crazy!”

  “I’m not crazy!” Edward’s cry echoed all around them.

  A pain that had nothing to do with the glass on the mountain sliced her. “I’m sorry, Edward.”

  “I’m not crazy. I was trying to help you. What’s so wrong with that?” He paced, each step leaving the imprint of his feet in the grass. The wind came up, whipping around her face. Edward didn’t notice.

  The Ephemeros shifted around her. “Edward. Listen to me. There’s something you should know.”

  He looked up, gone a total stranger. There was no part of him left she recognized. Nothing left of the lover who’d given her body such pleasure and her soul such ease. His fists clenched and opened at his sides while fury and sorrow bent his mouth.

  “There’s someone…”

  “Tovah?”

  Tovah whirled. “Kevin?”

  It was Kevin, representing as his college self, but recognizable. He probably always represented like that. Still stuck in his past. She wasn’t surprised. He wore the shirt she’d bought him for their first Valentine’s Day. It flapped open over a T-shirt she also knew. His hair, longer than he’d worn it for years, hung in smooth black waves to his shoulders. She’d loved his hair like that.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Kevin looked around, hands on his hips. “I was just with Monica Godsey. We were getting ready to go waterskiing.”

  It wasn’t the most bizarre dream she’d ever heard, so she didn’t even bother trying to explain. There could be no good reason for him to be there now. “You should get back there, then.”

  “Don’t send him away on my account,” said Edward. “Since it seems you two are so cozy, and all.”

  His words made that true. Kevin’s embrace felt like coming home to her parents’ house after living away—like she’d once never been able to imagine living anyplace else while simultaneously unable to imagine how it had been to reside there. Tovah had been pushed before, against her will and with it. This was an odd combination of both. Edward was guiding Kevin, who didn’t know it, and shaping Tovah, who did.

  She didn’t fight Kevin’s arms around her, or Edward’s desire they be there. “Edward. Don’t do this.”

  “Who’s Edward?” Kevin, belligerent, jerked his chin toward the other man. “How does he know you?”

  He was college Kevin but she was still early-thirties Tovah, and this bit of posturing that might have seemed romantic back when his jealousy had meant something no longer appealed. She pushed out of his arms, standing between the two men. Edward, tall and broad, advanced. Kevin stood his ground.

  Edward sneered. “I’m the guy who’s been fucking her, that’s who I am.”

  Kevin put up his fists. “I’m her boyfriend, asshole!”

  “Stop it! Stop this right now!” Tovah put her hands up, holding them apart. “This is ridiculous!”

  “This is your ideal man?” Edward spit on the ground next to Tovah. “This is the best your will could dredge up?”

  “What the hell’s he talking about?” Kevin, still posturing, lowered his hands a little.

  “Kevin. You want to be waterskiing with Monica right now. Go back there. Find her.”

  “Not until I figure out what you’ve been doing with this jerk!”

  This dance would have been more absurd if she hadn’t felt the shifting shudder of the Ephemeros begin. Fear and anger, she thought. Fear and anger did this.

  “Edward. Don’t.”

  “Don’t what? Don’t let him try and get into it with me? I’ll take him down, no problem!” Kevin bounced
on his feet, thumbing his nose.

  “Why him?” Edward ignored Kevin and looked to her. “Why did he show up?”

  She’d thought Kevin’s sudden appearance had been courtesy of Edward, but he seemed to think she’d brought him. “This is my ex-husband.”

  “Ex-husband? Dude!” Kevin laughed. “I didn’t know you were married!”

  “Not him,” Tovah said. “You.”

  Watching college Kevin morph into his present-day self was like watching a series of photographs overlaid atop one another, each transparent enough to still show those beneath. He changed, but the youthful self was still there.

  “What?” Kevin asked.

  “You have to go now, Kevin. Right now.”

  “Or else what?” There it was again, that arrogance at feeling pushed.

  “This is what you’d choose?” Edward’s voice was quiet and underlaid by the sound of rising wind. “A man like this? One who seeks to hold you down instead of raising you up?”

  “Hey, dude, you can’t possibly know anything about me, so back off. Tov, what the hell is this?” Kevin turned his back on Edward, focusing on her.

  Tovah, however, kept her gaze fixed over Kevin’s shoulder on her dream lover. Kevin was right. Edward could know nothing about Kevin other than what she knew. But the question still was who’d brought him there. Had she unconsciously pulled Kevin to her in some sort of retribution? Some misguided, leftover longing or memory? Or had Edward reached into her and pulled it free…and why?

  “I loved him very much,” she told Edward. “Enough to marry him and make a life. But it’s not him.”

  Edward seemed calmer. Less twitchy. Tovah kept her guard up, knowing too well how quickly things could change. She kept her gaze locked on his until Kevin, probably angry she was ignoring him, shoved her shoulder.

  “If this is about the money,” he began.

  The moment her gaze broke from Edward’s, her shallow grip on the world around her broke. The edges of everything blurred. For the first time she realized something else.

  “The mountain,” she murmured. “I’m on the mountain.”

  The mountains that had always been in the distance the other times the Ephemeros rocked were under her feet. She’d been gripping the world to keep it still, but could she? Against a shaper as strong as Edward?

  “Fuck this shit.” Kevin’s college-age words spilled from his mouth as he pushed Tovah aside.

  He was already swinging a fist before Tovah could shout a warning. It crunched against Edward’s chin, driving him backward with his arms outstretched. He stepped back, then again. When he straightened he did it slowly, a spring with coils pulled to looseness that could no longer maintain its shape.

  He turned to Kevin. “Don’t do that again.”

  Kevin didn’t stop. “Make me—”

  Edward did no more than flick his gaze toward Kevin, and Kevin stopped talking. Kevin choked and went to his knees. Edward looked at Tovah.

  “You wanted to see my true face?”

  Edward had a body. Arms. Legs. Torso. He had a head. But his face now consisted of the swirling grayness of the Ephemeros. Of nothing waiting to be created into something. She’d asked him to show her his true face.

  He had none.

  “You see, sweetheart?” His voice hadn’t changed. “I can be whatever you want me to be. All you have to do is decide.”

  Indecision tore at her. He was offering her a dream come true, a perfect partner. But at what price?

  “Edward,” she whispered. “I already have.”

  “Nothing really matters, then. Does it?”

  Edward turned his no-face toward her. Tovah began to scream.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Hands shook her. She fought them, punching and scratching and slapping while she screamed. And screamed.

  Her scream cut off as abruptly as a slamming door when she looked into Martin’s face. Max barked ferociously from somewhere in the house. In moments she heard the massive thud of the big dog’s footfalls and the solidness of his body hitting the doorway.

  The couch dipped beneath her as Martin’s weight shifted and he stood. He turned. Max rounded the corner from the front hall, skidded on the tile floor and launched himself into the den. In seconds he’d come to rescue her from the man trying to do the same.

  “Max, no!”

  Too late. Max had already chomped Martin’s hand. Martin yelled and yanked free. Blood and spittle flew, splashing Tovah’s face. She swiped at it in disgust, blinking.

  Trying to figure out if she was really awake.

  “Max, down! Down!”

  Max’s growl sounded like a motor revving, higher and lower. He menaced Martin with bared teeth, but made no move to jump him again. Martin, who’d fallen back onto the ottoman, cradled his bleeding hand close to his chest heedless of the way it stained his shirt.

  “I’m so sorry,” Tovah began, grabbing tight hold of Max’s collar. “He must have thought you were hurting me—”

  “I thought someone was murdering you.” Martin’s voice was hoarse, a little shocked. “Max, boy. It’s me.”

  Max growled again. The dog’s muscles quivered under her hand, but he didn’t pull away from her. Which was good, since she wasn’t sure she could hold him. She struggled upright, careful not to knock her stump again. She didn’t remember falling asleep on the couch.

  “I had a nightmare,” she said. “Oh, God, Martin, I’m so sorry. You’d better get that cleaned up. Give me a minute and I’ll help you.”

  Martin shook his head. “I can do it. You stay put.”

  “Max. Go lie down.” Tentatively, Tovah released the dog’s collar. Max thumped over to his bed and lay down with a baleful look toward Martin. Tovah twisted to look at Martin, who was running water over his hand at the sink.

  Tovah looked at the screen door. The hook and eye lock she rarely used had been pulled straight out of the wood and dangled, loose. Martin must have come through it at top speed.

  “You were screaming.” Martin pulled a hand towel from the hook on the cupboard and wrapped it around his hand. He turned to her. “I was taking out the trash, and I heard you screaming. I thought…”

  He sat, suddenly, in one of her kitchen chairs. His head drooped, words trailing off into a slur. He took a deep breath and put his head between his legs.

  “Oh, shit.” Tovah struggled to grab her crutches and get to her feet. She made it to him with a vast amount of awkward effort but very little time. “Are you okay?”

  Martin said nothing. Small red dots decorated the hand towel. Tovah grabbed up the dishcloth from the drawer and ran cold water on it, then pressed it to the back of his neck.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered again, maneuvering into the chair across from his. “God, Martin, Max has never bitten anyone. I’m so, so sorry.”

  Slowly he raised his head. “He was trying to protect you, that’s all. I don’t blame him. But shit, it hurts.”

  At the sound of his name, Max had lifted his head and whined. Now he padded toward them on thickly furred feet. He pushed against Tovah’s hand and then nosed tentatively toward Martin, who flinched. Max retreated to his haunches, tongue lolling.

  “You need to get that looked at by a doctor. Max has had all his shots, but even so, animal bites almost always get infected.” Tovah paused at the irony of her lecture. “But I guess you know that.”

  “I might have heard something like that before,” Martin said.

  She’d meant that he knew it because he was a doctor, but his answer made her remember that he’d told her about being bitten in the past. “I can’t apologize enough. You were only trying to help me.”

  “You were screaming,” Martin repeated softly.

  “I was dreaming.” The horror of it washed over her again, and she shuddered. Tears fought her eyes and won, sliding over her cheeks. She put her hands over her face and struggled against weeping. “I was only dreaming.”

  The phone rang. She and M
artin both looked at it. The kitchen phone was ancient, green to match the kitchen’s 1970s décor, and still attached to the wall by a long spiraling cord. It was too far away for her to reach, and she was in no position to jump up to get it. Martin solved her dilemma with a casual reach of his unbitten hand. He snagged the handset and passed it to her without a word.

  Tovah looked at the clock. Just past midnight. “Hello?”

  It took her a moment to decipher the voice on the other end, but after a second it clicked. “Spider?”

  His voice sounded thick and swollen, like he spoke through a mouthful of molasses. “Tovahleh. Did I wake you?”

  “No.” She looked at the clock again, just to make sure she was awake. The entire night had taken on a surreal quality. “I’m awake. But Henry…so are you!”

  “I’m awake, doll.”

  “Henry, what’s wrong?”

  Martin had leaned in close. The hand towel fell away, exposing the angry red punctures Max’s teeth had left. The phone at his belt beeped, and he pulled it from his belt to check the text message.

  Henry’s answer was so garbled she couldn’t make it out. Hissing static fused the line, covering up his words. It cleared, but he’d stopped speaking.

  “Henry? Something’s wrong with the phone.”

  “Nothing…phone…”

  Frustrated, Tovah shook the handset, as if that would help with the connection. “Henry? Are you there? What’s going on? How’d you get permission to call me this late? Are you all right? Henry!”

  He’d gone. The dial tone replaced static, and Tovah let the handset fall to the table. She looked at Martin, who was already hanging up the phone for her.

  “Henry’s awake. Really awake.”

  Martin held up his phone. “The hospital just called me.”

  “You have to go.” She nodded, stunned and worn out from the night’s adventures—in both worlds. “I have to get there, too. I have to see him.”

  “Tovah, it’s after midnight. You know they won’t let you.”

  She shook her head. “They will if I’m with you. Please, Martin. It’s important. Very important. I need to see him. Before—”

  “Before he goes back to sleep?” Martin’s soft voice rubbed itself over her skin, and she couldn’t stop thinking of the taste of his mouth and how stupid she’d been.