by Shaye Easton
“Remember when you said I was just the job?”
The room is quiet, filled only with our breathing. As soon as the words have left my mouth, they feel like a dream. Maybe because I wish they were. He’s taking too long. This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have spoken. Oh god, what am I do—
Quietly, as though he’s half-hoping I won’t hear it, Caden says, “You were never just the job.”
Every buzzing thought is wiped from my mind. Did he really just speak? The silence is too heavy, heavy enough to make the idea of sound impossible, heavy enough to crush his words into oblivion until I can no longer recall if they were ever real.
My heart is thundering in my ears. I ask, “I’ll see you on the other side?”
“I’ll be there.”
There. That was real.
Time passes. Minutes turn into hours, and I know Caden’s asleep from the slow rhythm of his breath. But no matter how hard I try, sleep is elusive. And it’s not just that. I’m having trouble thinking, having trouble feeling. My emotions have been shut off to me, locked behind bars of unyielding steel, and my thoughts are muddied and entangled, giving me headaches every time I dare to venture into their midst. It’s confusing, being unable to sleep because of my busy thoughts but also being unable to think them, and I’m tired. So tired that I feel I could slip into oblivion at any moment, so tired that sometimes I feel myself falling only to be caught by gentle hands and put back with my thoughts like a child forced to sit with the kids she dislikes so that they’ll all learn to get along.
But there is no getting along with what I can’t take: all the graphic and blood-soaked images from the past couple days. In the end, I just have to lock myself in a secluded corner of my mind, away from all the noise, and pray that I’ll be able to fall asleep.
And eventually, I do. I drift off into the dark with a thought, cast out to Sara along our fading line of connection like a shout into the void:
Stay alive. Just for a little longer.
I must be dreaming already when I hear her reply, bouncing off the walls of my mind:
I will.
Chapter Forty-Four
I wake up to pain.
Fire floods my veins and coils around my heart like a snake. It infects all parts of my body, igniting all the injuries I failed to feel during the day—the broken arm, the burned shins, the raw lungs, and the thunderous migraine at the back of my skull.
The blinds roll up and grey light filters down into the room. I think I screamed but I can’t be sure. The pain is everywhere, as it always is, and I lose myself in it, forgetting everything beyond the prison of my skin. The heat is boiling my blood like water on the stove.
I sense more than see Caden nearby. I know he won’t come close; during heat attacks, I emit a cold fire, an intense burning cold that radiates off my skin. In the cold, white daylight, Caden is nothing more than a dark silhouette hovering above me. And I think: I’ll never look the same to him again.
All at once, the idea of deserting the body that I’ve always considered mine is terrifying. It’s like a nightmare, one where you’re not yourself anymore, where you have to watch someone else walk around in your skin. It sounds superficial and vain, but if I don’t pass up a massive part of my identity, I’ll die, and it’s suddenly the worst thing in the world.
I take a lungful of air and it burns my throat on the way down. I send out messages to each of my limbs, curling my toes, rolling my shoulders, clenching and unclenching my hands. I experience life in this body. One last time.
And then I’m having an out-of-body experience again—I’m floating above, beyond the pain, beyond the fear, a spectral being looking down on it all. I see Caden, watching me with his forehead creased. He nearly reaches for my hand. But I’m already gone.
I feel the tug towards Sara on the couch. The air is suddenly charged, and I’m drawn towards her like a magnet. It doesn’t seem right. At the same time, it’s the easiest thing in the world. I shoot forward or, more precisely, I sort of disintegrate forward—and slip into a new skin.
And the world goes dark.
***
I’m standing on the pebbly bank of a large, silent lake. Mist rolls languidly over its surface, partially obscuring the dark trees on the other side and I stare out at the short pier, its wooden beams swallowed by the dark, crystalline water. In the distance, mountains rise up out of the ground, their dark peaks hugged by a dense fog. There’s a chill on the air and the hairs on my arms stand on end, the back of my neck prickling with unseen danger. A strong breeze whips up the heavy scent of gumtrees and damp soil, and the tall trees in the dark wood stir behind me. Something lures me forward, and I walk down the short pier, stopping a metre from the edge. Again the wind blows, but this time it carries a soft voice.
“So you did it.”
I spin around and there’s me, my dark brown hair outlined by the shine of a newly risen moon, my face cast in dark shadows.
Except it isn’t my face. It isn’t me. It’s Sara, wearing the body that’s rightfully hers.
It wasn’t a question, but I reply anyway, “I said I would, didn’t I?”
Sara makes no move to respond, her dark figure like a ghost watching me. Then she steps forward and it’s as if she’s stepped into the glow of a light. Suddenly, I can see the hollow blue of her eyes, the sickly pale tone of her skin, the vacant expression plastered to her thin face. She’s all bone and shadow: a skeleton. I’m convinced that at any moment she’ll crumble to dust.
“You don’t look good,” I say, my voice echoing around us, bouncing off the surface of the lake.
“I’m dying,” she replies.
And just like that, it all comes back: the building, Davion, Sara on the couch, shaking and sweating. “Where are we?”
She taps the side of her head with a bony finger. “In here.”
I stare. “What do we do?”
Sara shrugs. The movement offsets one of her shoulders. I hear the bones crack.
She looks over at me with panicked eyes and takes a step forward. A bone in her shin fractures. She gasps. “I’m going to disintegrate.”
“To dust,” I whisper, and I’m horrified by my own prediction. I raise my voice. “You have to go. If you stay here, it’ll kill you.” only after the words have left my mouth do I know they’re true.
“Where? Where do I go?”
All the trees are thrashing, blown into a frenzy by a wind I can’t feel. I spin around, my eyes sweeping over everything around us. There’s no door, no glowing neon sign that says Exit Here. There’s not even a pathway.
My eyes widen as I look down at the wooden planks beneath my feet. The pier! The pier is the pathway, which means...
“It’s the lake.” Again, it’s not until the words are out of my mouth that I feel how right they are. “You exit through the lake.”
“You’re joking.”
I shake my head. “You have to jump.”
Sara releases a shaky breath and starts down the pier, towards me. With every second step, I hear more of her bones cracking and breaking. The wind which leaves me untouched blows into her as fiercely as a gale.
She doesn’t belong here anymore. And this place wants her gone.
“I’m not going to make it!” she cries, holding up her hand. Her pinkie finger snaps off and is blown away by the wind.
“Like hell, you aren’t!”
I sprint to her side and take her by the shoulders, pushing her forward as I run. I look down and watch all the fingers crumble off her right hand. She hasn’t seen it yet, and I don’t say anything. But when she does, she stumbles, horrified and afraid.
“You can’t stop.”
“My hand–”
“Goddammit, Sara. If you don’t get moving right now, you’re gonna die here.”
The wind picks up. It blows off her left arm. She screams.
“Run!” I shout, shoving her desperately forward. We’re ten paces away from the edge of the pier. Five, and her ot
her arm comes away in my hand. I throw it into the lake before us.
Two. Sara’s right leg breaks off at the knee. She cries out again as she goes down. I backtrack and drop to my knees. She’s crying as she looks up at me, the wind drying the tears on her cheeks almost as fast as they pour down. “I’m done,” she gasps. “Just leave me. I’m done.”
“Oh no, you’re not quitting now.”
She has no arms, no legs. And now her lips are dissolving off her face, the particles blown away on the wind. But this is my mind now, and here I can do anything.
I wrap my arms around her waist and lift. In the real world, she’d be heavy, possibly too heavy to carry in this way. But here she’s so light; it’s like carrying the hollow torso of a mannequin.
I feel her brittle bones snapping as I hold them. She has no mouth to tell me to hurry, to cry out with, to let me know that it’s not already too late, so I go as fast as I can. I take us the last few steps to the end of the pier and throw her forward.
Her head separates from her torso as it hits the oily water. All her bones sink below the surface and are swallowed by the inky dark.
At once, the wind dies out. Save for my panting breath, the lake is quiet. I spin around in a circle, and just as I’m thinking, What now? a massive rolling black cloud engulfs the trees on all sides. It billows towards me like a dark, silent dust storm, chewing up the pier as it gushes closer and closer.
It’s upon me, and I fall into the dark.
Chapter Forty-Five
When the darkness finally lifts, I’m in a bedroom. Bright yellow sunlight spills across the white duvet and fills the room. On the wall opposite to me, there’s a bundle of fresh sunflowers in a glass vase. They sit atop a shiny white chest of drawers, next to a ceramic catch-all and three tall silver candlesticks cradling three unused taper candles. There’s an abstract black and grey painting above the bed, mounted in a silver frame, and sitting by the edge of the bed is my hastily-packed Country Road bag that I dragged to Rand’s the morning after the party.
Groggily, I slip out from under the covers and plant my feet on the carpet. I stare down at a pair of black track pants, blinking until their strangeness properly registers with my mind. I don’t own any pants like these. Standing now, I grab the hem of my grey shirt and stare. It’s not mine.
A feeling akin to dread and bordering on horror builds like a lump in my throat. If these aren’t my clothes, then…
I hurry from the room, bare feet slapping against carpet then wood. Every time I put my foot down, the coldness of the floor hits me as a surprise, a sudden bite of feeling. The house itself is permeated by chilly morning air; it seeps through the fabric of my clothes and settles into my skin. I shiver and fold my arms to my chest.
The house is unfamiliar, and I have no idea which door leads where. I throw open each one I come across, barging into empty bedrooms and a study before I, at last, find a bathroom. I stop at the threshold, hands squeezing the painted door frame as I hover, half in, half out, on the verge of either launching forward or springing back.
Launching forward wins; I squeeze my eyes shut and vault before the mirror, feet prickling with the iciness of the tiles. I tell myself I’m going to open my eyes again, but suddenly they feel glued closed.
Come on, Melissa, you can do this.
I take a deep breath and exhale slowly, but the air shakes out of me and my hands are practically convulsing by my sides. I feel a sensation in my gut like butterflies mixed with worms, fluttery with nerves but churning with dread. If I can get through a life of heat surges and survive the machinations of underwalkers, I can get through anything. I can certainly get through one little, possibly life-altering change in appearance.
I open my eyes.
My breath catches in my throat. Or should I say Sara’s throat? Because the girl staring back in the mirror is not me. She’s a long-haired platinum blonde with a faded tan. With pronounced cheekbones, a pointed chin and well-maintained light brown brows. All the features I once stared at with jealousy, I now wear: the feminine sloped nose; the smooth, blemish-free skin; the perfect almond-shaped eyes.
I lift a hand to my cheek and touch it with my index finger. Sure enough, it’s solid and real as anything. I give the skin a pinch and gasp at the twinge of pain. Pain, proper pain, unlike the fiery agony I’ve been stuck with once a day for the past thirteen years.
This isn’t real. It can’t be.
But out of everything, one feature draws the bulk of my attention, compels my heart to pound against my ribs.
My eyes are midnight black.
Black like ink, like oil, like a raven’s wing.
Black like staring straight through the veil and into the dark otherworld beyond.
I’m struck by an overwhelming sense of being trapped in a waking nightmare. There’s no going back. I’m a true spectre now.
I emerge from the bathroom slowly, head down, my body shaking, my breath emerging quickly but quietly from my mouth. I start to venture down a hall, my footsteps making the floorboards creak. I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing; my legs simply take me forward, away from my terrifying reflection, towards the foyer, past the door, around the bend. I emerge into a dining area, warm and bright, sunlight spilling over the table like a runny egg, and it contrasts horribly with the gloom in my head.
There are three people before me: Caden at the table, Elodie in the kitchen, and Sara in the midst of crossing between the two, balancing a plate in either hand. Each of them looks up when I walk in, eyes snapping sharply in my direction. I’m an intruder in their happy breakfast scene. They’re all calm, casual and light. Meanwhile I’m dark, dark, dark—a shadow that’s broken off from its body, lost and confused and blurring messily into their bright, clean air.
Caden stares. His hair is dark and damp from a recent shower and he’s wearing fresh, clean clothes. The dust and dirt of the ruins has been scrubbed from his face, revealing dark purple bruising along his jaw and under his eye. A maroon cut pierces his left eyebrow. Another splits the skin of his cheekbone. His lips part as he sucks in a surprised breath.
Elodie, gold and smiling, says, “Welcome back to the land of the living.” There’s not a scratch on her, not a hair out of perfect place.
Sara drops the plates she’d been holding and they smash across the floor.
I can relate; if I’d been holding something when I saw her, I’d have dropped it too. Looking at her now, it feels an awful lot like meeting my doppelgänger. A wave of dizziness washes over me. She’s got my dark hair, my pale skin. She’s got my hands, my arms and my legs. They’re mine. Now she’s got them, and I’ll never have them back.
“Nope,” Sara says, and it’s my voice coming from her lips, my voice splintering the silence around us. The room spins; the darkness of my mind bleeds into the air, blurring my vision. “Nope, nope, nope. NO. I am not—I can’t—I’m-I’m out.”
She pushes roughly past me and all but runs down the hall. Distantly, I hear the back door slam.
Elodie looks down at the mess Sara left on the floorboards and then back up to my eyes like nothing’s happened. “How are you feeling?”
“I-I think I’m gonna be sick,” I stammer and run for the front door. I burst out into the bright white world and bend over the snow, dry heaving. This body hasn’t eaten in at least a couple days, so of course, nothing comes up. But it also means that once I’m done, I don’t feel even remotely better.
My face. My voice. My body.
It’s freezing out here and the snow has soaked through my socks. But I don’t go back inside. I drop to my knees and I stay there, shivering, staring at the carpet of white. Everything is brighter, louder, sharper: all the sensations I thought I knew have come back ten times stronger. It’s like before I was experiencing life through a mist and now a breeze has come and blown it all away. I’m thrilled.
And I’m absolutely miserable.
***
Sometime later, the front door
swings open behind me.
“Melissa?”
I look back. It’s Caden, in jeans and a bomber jacket, skin purpled and brown hair pushed messily back from his forehead. He’s holding a navy zip-up hoodie in one hand. With something of an empathetic smile, he extends it to me.
I accept it thankfully, immediately slipping an arm into the sleeve.
“It’s the only jacket I could find in that bag of yours,” he explains. “You didn’t exactly pack for the weather.”
I slide up the hoodie’s zipper and push my hands as deep into the pockets as I can manage. “I didn’t expect the weather to be a problem.”
He nods and looks down. “You’ll just have to borrow some of Sara’s things.”
“I have other jackets. They’re just back at home. I can pick them up later.”
“Melissa,” Caden sighs, and his eyes have a look about them like there’s something he’s trying to tell me without telling me.
“What?”
He chews his lip, taps his foot on the edge of the doorway. Okay, there’s something he really doesn’t want to say.
“Come on, don’t torture me. Just say it.”
“You can’t go back for those jackets.”
I blink at him. “Uh, is this a joke? Of course, I can. Sara and I are the same size—they’ll still fit.”
He swallows. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what are you? Oh god.” It hits me with all the force of a nuclear bomb. “Oh, my god. This isn’t happening. Tell me this isn’t happening.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, and he really means it. “But you can never go back. For all intents and purposes, you’re Sara now. They won’t—”
“They won’t recognise me,” I finish. “My parents won’t—,” I choke on the sentence before I can finish it.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I didn’t intend to bring this up so soon, it’s just…” He sighs. “I’m sorry.”