by Amber Dawn
And then the bathroom door slammed behind her. She screamed and almost dropped the knife. Her free hand clutched at the knob, slipped in sweat, but the knob refused to budge. Kate looked up into the mirror and the figure was there again, peering at her over her shoulder.
In the darkness Kate could see the figure more clearly. Her clothing was nondescript, ankle-and wrist-length, soaked and stained. She was thin. But everything paled beside the blood, black in the candlelight. There were gouges in the woman’s face, bald patches where hair used to be, and blood trickled like tears, cutting through the tacky clots and knotting beneath the wounds. The woman’s eyes were bright and glistened wetly in the mirror.
There was a tap, tap, tap, tap, and Kate could not tear her eyes away to notice that her hand was shaking so violently that the knife was tapping against the sink counter.
The woman cocked her head to the side. Her face was expressionless, but the gesture made her seem almost compassionate. Some still place in Kate’s head thought the woman was almost beautiful. Kate felt a hand in her hair, stroking it lightly.
“I always come when I’m called,” the woman in the mirror said. “If only you are patient.”
The voice was unremarkable. Kate looked over her shoulder. There was still no one there. But she could feel the pressure of fingers on her scalp. The rhythmic stroking and the voice calmed her in spite of herself.
“What do you want?” The words were out of her mouth before Kate even realized that she could speak.
The woman shook her head. “What do you want?” she asked.
Kate hissed between her teeth when the pressure on her scalp increased as the woman curled her nails into the flesh and drew down. Kate thought of an apple peeler. A finger traced the side of Kate’s face. Kate could see it in the mirror, she could feel it, but it was not there. She tried to move away from the woman’s hands, but her feet seemed frozen in place. The woman just leaned with her, her warmth seeping through Kate’s clothing.
“Do you want me to leave?” the woman asked, no louder than a whisper. Kate could hear every word, every breath.
“Who…?” Kate could not finish. The woman’s nail split her skin from forehead to jaw, and Kate watched the woman smile and bring her finger to her mouth to suck.
“You know who I am,” the woman said. Her breath felt clean and cold where blood welled into the furrow lining Kate’s cheek.
The knife fell to the floor with a clatter, and Kate felt a tongue, wet and hot, slide up the cut along her scalp. The woman pressed her moist lips to Kate’s temple where the heartbeat raced.
“Do you want me to leave?” the woman asked. But she seemed to already know the answer.
If she could have, Kate would have worn a scarf close around her face or called in sick the next day. But she did not want to stay at home, and everyone would have asked about the scarf as much as they asked about the cut along the right side of her face. She explained that Gracie got a little crazy and scratched her, but she didn’t think most of her co-workers believed her.
The cut was too deep and a little too wide for a cat’s claws, and repeating Gracie’s name in response to concerned queries only reminded her that she’d left the cat alone in the apartment with that woman.
“You look like hell,” Lila said, leaning on the receptionist counter and almost toppling a pile of manila folders.
“Thank you.”
“No, really,” Lila said. “It’s not just that cut. You did clean it, right?”
Kate raised an eyebrow. She’d bought hydrogen peroxide on her way to the Holiday Inn, along with a bottle of Simply Sleep.
She covered the mirrors in the hotel room with sheets from the other bed and slept with all the lights on. It had taken her an hour in the shower and a cheap hand mirror to make sure that all the blood was out of her hair. In spite of the medicine, she still woke up around 5:30. Unwilling to linger alone, she came to work early.
Even now, she wasn’t sure whether it had been a nightmare or a hallucination. She would swear in court that she had seen what she saw and felt what she felt, but if working in a psychiatric ward taught her anything, she knew that what people saw and felt could not always be trusted. She remembered the woman behind her in the mirror. She remembered the nails in her scalp and watching her cheek open like ripe fruit. She remembered the woman’s hands heavy on her shoulders then slipping under the slight curve of her breasts as though reluctant to let go while her image faded. She remembered tenderness in the pain. Once the woman disappeared completely, Kate still stood there, in that familiar position, staring at herself in the mirror as black blood trickled down her face.
It took all the strength left in her arms to reach for the bathroom door. It wasn’t locked anymore, and the light that spilled in reminded her that there was indeed light in the world. She stumbled out, unaware that she was hyperventilating until her vision blurred and darkened. She rested her head against the doorframe and gathered herself. As soon as she could walk, she ran, grabbing the things she needed this time.
Lila was still looking at her.
“Yes, I cleaned it. I’m not stupid,” Kate answered. “Stop staring at me, it’s creeping me out. Don’t you have work to do or something?”
“That’s what I’m doing,” Lila said. She pulled a file from under her arm and tossed it on top of Kate’s keyboard. “Check out your new patient up here, honey. You won’t believe it.”
“Marlene Davidson, thirty-seven years old,” Kate read, “lacerations, possibly self-inflicted, possible Post Traumatic Stress Disorder … holy shit, this is the woman who—”
“Survived the Surgeon,” Lila finished, grinning. “One and the same. Her family isn’t letting her talk to the press, but yours truly knows why she’s being transferred up here. It’s not just to get her away from the public eye and give her counselling to help her adjust.”
Kate’s eyes sped over the file. And froze when she read the initial doctor’s concluding evaluation.
“Yep,” Lila said, seeing that she had reached the juiciest information. “She actually said that the Surgeon was Mary Worth.
Isn’t that just sad? Imagine, Bloody Mary. Did you ever play that game when you were a kid? I was always afraid to try.”
What Kate was doing was not permitted. She was neither a nurse nor a doctor; she had no business entering any patient’s room unless she had someone else present or there was an emergency.
She stood outside the door, her hands gripping her sleeves. Finally, when the coast was clear, Kate unlocked the private room and slipped inside. It was a small room without much in the way of decoration except for flowers in a plastic vase. The bed was propped up, and Marlene was reading a book. Her right hand trembled violently as she turned the page. She looked up at Kate as she came closer and waited for Kate to explain herself, her ragged expression troubled but almost trusting.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Kate murmured. She tried not to stare. She knew that disfigured patients never liked it. But it was hard not to. “I don’t mean to …”
Marlene’s face immediately changed. “I see. You’re here because you think I’m crazy.” She had a slight lisp because of her missing lips, but Kate could understand her perfectly.
“No, no, no, nothing like that.”
“Or you want to see what she did to me.” Marlene’s voice was rough and accusing, but underneath was a note of self-deprecation.
“Do you think you’re crazy?” Kate asked.
“Bloody fucking Mary nearly killed me. I was there. It’s not the sort of thing you just forget.” Marlene carefully rested her head against her pillow and exhaled at the ceiling. “Of course I think I’m crazy.”
Kate pulled a chair closer to the bed and sat down, hugging Marlene’s file to her chest. “Do you … do you mind telling me about it?”
Marlene did not move her head, but her eyes turned to look at Kate. In the midst of her mutilated face, they looked particularly bright blue. Kate was once
again struck by the odd thought that the face—like that of the woman in the mirror—was beautiful. Kate’s arms pebbled with goosebumps.
“You’re not a doctor, are you? You’re not even a nurse,” Marlene said.
Kate shook her head.
“Why do you want to know?” Marlene asked quietly. “Are you going to run down and tell the damn media every sordid detail?”
“I’m not a plant,” Kate said.
“Are you different?” There was a sort of nastiness to the question. Kate held the file closer.
“Excuse me?”
“Do you keep secrets?”
“What?”
“Your face,” Marlene said. “That cut. She likes them different.”
“What are you talking about?” Kate felt herself constrict, pull inward. This was what she had wanted to hear, yet the whitewashed walls of the room seemed too close.
“You’ve looked at my file or else you wouldn’t be here. If you didn’t notice it the first time, look again. I’m not …” she paused. “… typical. I was born female. I’m still a woman. But I guess some people might not think I am. She likes that.” Marlene’s voice shook, but not from shame. “She likes the ambiguity because it makes a real difference when she changes us. You know the legend, right? When she was alive, she killed young women and bathed in their blood to stay beautiful.”
“That’s not the way I heard it. I heard that she killed children after her daughter died,” Kate said.
“It’s different wherever you go,” Marlene said, shaking her head. “She’s still killing women. She wants women. But you have to understand something.” Marlene bent forward, those bright blue eyes coming closer, her mutilated face filling Kate’s vision.
Kate wanted to lean away, but the back of her chair kept her from doing so.
“She wants women who will want her back. She has her own little collection of freaks that have kept her here. She may not be alive, but she exists. She’s existed all this time. And she can’t be stopped.”
By now, Marlene’s bandaged hand was clutching Kate’s wrist, and Kate could see blood seeping through—she must have pulled some stitches. Kate was beginning to think this was a terrible idea. The more she looked at Marlene, the more she looked like Mary.
“You have no idea. But you will. She did that to you, didn’t she?” Marlene said.
“It was my cat.”
“Bullshit,” Marlene spat. “What does she want with you?
What’s wrong with you? It doesn’t matter where you go, she’s in the mirrors. Do you see any mirrors in here? No, I told them to take them out. But I still see her, wherever there are reflections.
She wants to finish the work done on me. And then she’ll get you. There were three other women. You’ve probably seen them on the news. At least one of them looks like she’s different. But we’re all women. And that’s what she wants from us. Don’t you understand? She wants women.”
“I should go,” Kate said, standing and trying to extricate her wrist, but Marlene clutched at her as though she was falling.
“No! You have to listen,” Marlene hissed. She twisted in her bed. “She’ll make you wish for death. Please, they won’t believe me, but you do, don’t you? You’ve seen her. She’s touched you. Don’t let her fool you. Don’t let her take you. She’ll kill you like all the others. She takes what makes you a woman. And she emasculates you. Yes. You believe me now? How else would I know?”
Kate stopped pulling away. Marlene’s grip loosened until it was just her fingertips against the sensitive blue veins on the underside of Kate’s wrist. She stared into Marlene’s too bright blue eyes. Now she needed to know. She needed to know.
“She took my breasts,” Marlene said. “She took my lips. She took my face. She took my stomach. She punctured what might have been my uterus in another life. She took my—she sliced into me and took my fallen testes. It doesn’t matter what the doctor calls them—that might as well be what they are. It’s what I am. Except I’m not that anymore. She took all of me, even the parts I wanted to keep. And I wish she had killed me, but I’m too much of a coward. I’m a monster, but I won’t look into a mirror. I spent my life wishing I could cut myself open, but now … I won’t let her kill me. I won’t.”
The doorknob rattled and turned, and Kate jerked around. She could feel her face turning red. Dr. Langley came through with his nurse Cecilia. He looked up from his clipboard in surprise when he saw Kate there.
“Miss Barrett, I didn’t know you were in here.” He looked between the two women. “I’m sorry, did I interrupt anything?”
“I was just keeping her company,” Kate said. Her voice was thin and breathy, but she could not seem to open her throat enough. “Until someone came.”
“I hope you weren’t bothering her.” The doctor looked over his glasses at her, ready to be disapproving.
“She wasn’t,” Marlene said. “I wanted someone with me.
Someone who would listen.” Marlene pulled her hand away from Kate’s wrist and looked down into her lap.
“That’s what I’m here for,” Dr. Langley said with false joviality. “Miss Barrett needs to get back to her work. May I have Miss Davidson’s file, please?”
Kate handed Dr. Langley the file. She noticed that there was blood on her wrist from Marlene’s earnestness. Dr. Langley’s face drew tight in disgust, and Kate hid her hand behind her back. She would wash it thoroughly when she left, but she would be unable to wash the blush of swelling that would eventually bruise.
“Please,” Marlene whispered to Kate. “Believe me. Help me.”
“I—”
“Miss Barrett.” Dr. Langley ushered her out of the room and closed the door emphatically behind her.
Kate stared at the apartment door. It was still mostly light out, and the quiet was broken only by the occasional rush and crunch of a passing car. She peered through the blinds but couldn’t see much, mostly the reflection of her own eyes. She recoiled, fearful of what Marlene had said about seeing Mary in every reflection.
Her fingers fumbled with her keys, sliding the jagged edge into the lock and turning. The door opened. Gracie came up to her immediately, demanding to be fed, rubbing against Kate’s ankles and meowing as though Kate had never fed her in her life. All the tension seemed to flow out. Nothing happened. Gracie was fine. Marlene was wrong, sick, traumatized. Kate was just exhausted. What had happened was some kind of hallucination because of what had happened with Daniel. As she poured dry food into Gracie’s bowl, Kate looked at the Blackberry still sitting on the coffee table.
She wants women. But she wants women who will want her back.
Kate approached the coffee table and picked up the Blackberry. She had first met Daniel in a bar after she got off work, which would have been the last place that Kate would have thought she’d be picked up. But Daniel was a businessman there for the same reason she was, just to unwind, not to get any action. He was sitting next to her during a karaoke contest. He did not even know her when he elbowed her in her ribs, and with that winning smile, told her to take a chance. Kate would never do it, and although Daniel kept goading her, it turned into a talk about how bad some of the contestants were, then about their preferences in music. When Daniel asked whether she wanted to meet him the next evening for dinner, Kate was surprised enough to say yes.
Going out with him was one of the most exhilarating things she had ever done. He made her feel like more than what she saw in the mirror. Until he left. He made her doubt her disgust. Until he recoiled. Then she could see what she had always seen before, know finally that it was utterly untouchable, that she was utterly untouchable. Fingertips ghosted over her thighs, and she could almost taste the wine again, hear the door latch. Fingertips over her wrists, blood seeping and smearing onto her skin. Fingertips through her hair and a hot tongue tasting her. It occurred to her that if Mary had really been there, she’d already seen her, all of her. And she’d kissed her anyway.
Kate pic
ked up the Blackberry and opened her cell phone, pressing three to speed dial Daniel. She looked at the television screen—she had not turned it off the night before on her way out, and it was still on the National Geographic Channel, something about the lost city of Atlantis. Kate clicked the television off as she listened to Daniel’s landline begin to ring.
Four rings and a click. “Hello?”
“Hi. Daniel?”
There was only the humming of static in her ear.
“You … um …”
“I don’t want to talk, Kate,” Daniel said. “There’s not … I can’t …”
“There’s plenty to say,” Kate replied. “You just don’t want to say it. Besides, I didn’t …”
“You didn’t tell me,” Daniel interrupted. “You didn’t tell me what was wrong. You should’ve warned me.”
Kate sighed, sinking onto her sofa. She felt a tension headache building. “And what was I supposed to say, Daniel? What could I have possibly said that wouldn’t have led to the same thing?
What part of ‘I have a clit that looks like a small penis’ would have been remotely attractive to you if just seeing it was enough to make you run?”
There was another long silence. “I deserved to know.”
“No, you clearly didn’t,” Kate snapped. “I have your fucking Blackberry. Do you want to come get it yourself, or do you want me to send it to you?”
“Maybe it’s best if you send it to me. I’ll mail you a cheque for the shipping charge.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll send it cheap. You may get it within the next three weeks.” Kate pushed the button that ended the call.
She was shaking again, but only part of it was fear. Another part was anger. It was almost exhilarating. She had never said it out loud to anybody before—only her personal physician, and later the gynecologist, with their comfortably alienating jargon. Her mother always went out of her way to never say exactly what was wrong with her daughter, and Kate took her cue from her mother. And now she’d said it. It was out. Someone knew. And she was okay.