Mayfly

by Rei Fletcher

  "Will. Use your will. Will it to open."

  "Open sesame."

  The doppelgänger cuffed the back of her head. She scowled, turning on it. The doppelgänger waved the knife.

  "Take this seriously, or I'll go find the nearest resident of your little trailer park and put this knife through their throat."

  She looked down and closed her eyes.

  I'm here. I'm here like you wanted. I've come to keep my promise.

  She looked toward the trailer park.

  I don't want to go.

  "Fine. Killing it is."

  "Stop! I'll try. I'm trying."

  "You know you can do it. You're the only one standing in your way."

  "Fine. I'm here. I'm here, you fucking monster. Come on, pig. Come and get me. It's time we had a fucking talk."

  A burst of wind whipped her hair back. She shielded her eyes against the driving grit, watching the trees split open like overripe fruit. The lights swooped toward her, throbbing and beaming with joy. The doppelgänger pushed her forward.

  "Look! The sweet things missed you."

  She batted one away when it came up close to her face.

  "Be nice. They're your sisters now."

  A path opened up in front of them, clear and pleasant, like a wide country lane. Compared to the wild runs she used to take it was almost ceremonial. The doppelgänger pushed her shoulder. She turned, looking back at the driveway. The wind from the gate fought with the breeze from her home, tangling her hair. It would be cool, soon, and there would be dew, and stinging cheeks from when you went inside.

  "Now's no time to get maudlin."

  Trees swallowed the view, blotting out the fragments of sky. Things moved in the gloom: fuzzy black shadows with mould-green eyes, and slick black forms that snaked up tree trunks, light reflecting balefully from chitinous shells. There was no dancing through the trees, only a long, straight path to the cottonwood tree.

  At the edge of the clearing she stopped, unable to make herself move closer. Ewan stood under the branches of the tree. Floated, really. His black coat disappeared into the high grass, but his feet didn't seem to touch the ground as he came slowly toward them.

  "My Marianne, back home at last."

  "Yeah." She licked her lips nervously, labouring for breath. He was hard to see, at first, blurring black on black. She blinked, trying to make him make sense. "Yeah. Back to this shithole."

  The doppelgänger slapped her again.

  "Watch your language."

  "Ah, my dear, let's let her enjoy her voice. Soon enough she'll have no mouth left with which to speak."

  Black, ashy burns lined the pale, healthy flesh, from the middle of his stomach to the bottom of his face. Raw white bone flashed; she saw ribs and jaw. His smile was horrible, but oh god, his eyes were still beautiful. They trapped her. Her hands fell to her sides, strength draining away.

  "You did well."

  "Thank you, my lord," the doppelgänger said.

  "Are you ready to take her place in the world?"

  "Very much, my lord."

  "Marianne, thank you. Thank you for returning." His fingers brushed her cheek and she shivered. "Are you ready?"

  She tried to look back at the gate. From the corner of her eye she saw forms moving that way, the grass bending, shadows passing overhead.

  No…

  "My people are eager."

  "Do you look like them, or did they look like you, once?" She squeezed her hand into a fist, nails digging into her flesh. "You get the face you deserve, my mom always says."

  His eyes grew sharp. His fingers wrapped around her throat, snug, without squeezing.

  "Do not mock me, little light."

  "What are you going to do, kill me twice?"

  "You aren't going to die. You're going to live forever with your sisters." He waved at the lights. "But I can show you more degrees of pain than you can imagine, between here and there."

  He slammed her to the ground with a strength and speed that she'd never expected. She cried out, gasping for breath. Not even with both hands could she loosen his grip. He loomed over her, hand stroking her hair. She kicked out, trying to squirm away, to get out from under his terrible weight.

  "No, no, my dear Marianne. A bargain was struck, and no one reneges on a bargain with me."

  She looked at the gate. She thought she could almost see it, and things streaming that way. They were going to get out and hurt people. The trailer park was right there. Her mom and John and the old biddy in number twelve.

  He pressed his hand against her chest, then jerked it away. His eyes were wide, betrayed. He seized the collar of her shirt and ripped it away.

  "Nasty piece of work." He wadded up the cotton and ripped the pendant off, chain tearing her skin. He tossed it aside.

  "Now, where were we?"

  His hand sank into her chest. She screamed, watching it disappear, the horrible sense of something inside her making her buck and twist. His head tilted back, eyes closed, laughing.

  "Yes, this is perfect. Marianne, you're perfect."

  She clawed at his face. The doppelgänger grabbed her arms and pinned them to the ground.

  "No. No, no... Please."

  She twisted her head back and forth. The lights swirled and glimmered in the air. They were so beautiful.

  His burned flesh was knitting back together, pink and new. She felt lightheaded, watching it. No, no, just lightheaded. It felt like he'd grabbed something inside and was pulling it all out. Everything in her was being dragged from the centre of her chest. Her head throbbed. Cramps twisted her stomach.

  "So perfectly delicious."

  The doppelgänger let go of her hands. She tried to lift them but they were so heavy. Her body was heavy. The air was heavy, laying flat in her lungs.

  The lights hovered behind him. Somewhere in their depths, she started to see eyes. Faces. Forms. They were pretty, those lights. Those girls. She could see them clearly now, dark and pale, blue and brown eyes and curly hair and straight. Seven girls, frozen forever in the light.

  Eight. Now there's eight. One more. One more and the whole world will change.

  The sky around them darkened. She saw dresses in the light. Wedding finery.

  I was to be his bride.

  She tore her eyes away, looking past them, dragging her scattered mind together.

  Ash. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Forgive me. Ash, please. I forgive you. Please forgive me.

  Ewan twisted his hand. The sense of it deepened. Cramps grabbed hold of her guts again. Her heart raced like a hummingbird. Even her scream was weedy. Time was running out.

  Help me, please. Ash. I'm so sorry. I forgive you. A million times a million times. I love you.

  She poured the last of herself into the call, sagging into the earth. There was a tearing sound. Ewan's coat swept back as air was sucked along the ground. Ewan looked up, his face fully illuminated. She turned her head. Beyond the edges of a crackling tear there was a peaceful forest, just a little after sunset. Peaceful. Peaceful, and empty.

  You should have known better.

  Tears ran from the corners of her eyes, trickling into her ears.

  He started to laugh, and it was beautiful as it always was. He looked down, following the trail of her tear with one delicate finger.

  "Did you think help would come? The only thing of value that you possess is the light." He squeezed his hand inside her chest. Her body stiffened, convulsing. "And that belongs to me, now."

  She willed her hand to move, inching it toward her jeans. What a house key could do now, she didn't know, but it was the only metal she had.

  "She belongs to me, you colossal fuck, and you'll be letting her go now."

  It was barely human, that voice, but she knew it from her soul. Ewan shouted in rage as Ash tackled him full on.

  His hand ripped free. Burning pain spread from her chest. It felt like her heart had frozen in place. The girls in the light wailed and reached for her.
/>   I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

  "Marianne!"

  Ash shook her shoulders. As soon as she looked away from the girls she could breathe again. Energy flooded through her.

  "I'm okay," she wheezed.

  "Sorry, I'm late."

  Her hair was wet and smelled of her fancy shampoo.

  Ash looked up, changing somehow, under the skin. She screamed and ran toward Ewan. Marianne struggled to get to her knees. Her chest still felt like it was on fire. She fumbled through the grass for her bag.

  There was a wild, animal howl. She saw Ewan fling Ash off of him. She slammed sideways into the cottonwood tree, hard enough to shake the trunk, landed on her hands and knees, and growled. Marianne could barely recognise her Ash in this one. Waxy pale, her mouth was too wide, sharpened with white fangs. Her eyes were dark red fire buried in coals. But it was still her. It really was.

  Marianne saw a shadow and rolled out of the way as a heavy branch slammed into the ground. The doppelgänger lifted it again. Marianne reached up, catching it before it could strike her. She felt something in her shoulder perilously close to giving way.

  "You bitch!"

  "What happened to all your good cheer?" She pushed, deflecting the branch. The doppelgänger staggered. Marianne lunged for it, tackling it around the knees, then climbed up and pinned it down, hitting it. More like a slap, really. Why didn't girls learn how to fight properly? "What about all of your sunny fucking optimism?"

  She punctuated each word with another hit. Whenever her skin touched it burned her hand, and left darkening marks on the doppelgänger's face.

  It screamed and swung clumsily with a rock. The stone glanced off Marianne's head hard enough to make her see double, and the doppelgänger pushed her off. Marianne crawled away, struggling to get to her feet.

  The doppelgänger grabbed her ankle and hauled her back down. Marianne inhaled a mouthful of dirt and coughed, slobbering into the grass. She heard the doppelgänger moving somewhere behind her and commanded her arms and legs to move. She managed to get to her knees when another wave of cramps froze her in place.

  "I'll still take your place, bitch." She heard the knife being dragged out of its sheath. "Even if it burns."

  To her right was a sad, limp bundle of cloth. She fumbled for the chain as the doppelgänger seized her hair. She scrambled up, trying to relieve the blinding pain.

  "I'll have all the time in your world."

  Marianne twisted her arm back. The doppelgänger laughed at her fumbling until the pendant began to burn.

  Its scream was garbled. It lost its grip on her and the knife, reaching for its face. Marianne gritted her teeth, twisting around behind it, wrapping the chain around its neck, feeling metal burn into its flesh. The doppelgänger flailed wildly. Marianne braced her knee against the small of its back, pulling harder.

  The doppelgänger stumbled forward. The chain ripped out of Marianne's hands, leaving deep cuts in the flesh. It staggered, fingers clawing at the blackened line. It dug in deep, finally grasping it. The links of the chain pulled free of its burned flesh, one by one, until the skin gave way, and blood began to sheet down its body.

  "Not as long as you think."

  The doppelgänger collapsed, blood pooling with horrifying speed. Marianne stared at her own dead body, its twitching fading in strength until it was still. That's what she'd look like, one day. That's how her life would sink back from her eyes. That's how her chest would fall, and never rise again. That thing. She hated that thing. She hated everything that it was: evil and wrong and dead.

  She closed its eyes, then pulled her pendant away from it. She searched the grass for her knife, ending up on her hands and knees when she leaned over to retrieve it. Not feeling so great. Really not. Too tired to figure out which weirdness was the source.

  Maybe a little rest.

  Above her head the sky was churning, the clouds whirling grey and black and purple and blue, even yellow, like food colouring in a cake mix. Here and there noxious-looking clouds ignored the wind, twining through the air like living things. Ash and Ewan were circling each other under the blizzard of cottonwood fluff. Ash's face was twisted with rage, but it was more than rage. It was more alien, now. Or animal. Not just her face, either. There was something animal about all of her, like she was a minute away from running on all fours.

  Ewan held out his hands.

  "This is my world, little vampire." He waved his arm. All of the peaceful forest was gone. It was always just an illusion. Just a dream. Marianne looked around slowly. This was what she'd almost helped to set loose on the world. Everything would have turned into the muddy, monster-infested swamp that stretched as far as she could see.

  Beasts squirmed along the ground, turning toward Ewan. They were going to hurt Ash. She got up.

  Ash's mouth worked, struggling over her words.

  "Do you think a world of monsters scares me?"

  She ran for him. She was so fast. How could he even see? But he swung his arm and Ash went flying.

  She isn't thinking clearly.

  Ewan drifted easily over the rough ground. He brought his foot down onto Ash's back, hard enough to make her scream.

  "Nightmare bitch, you have dogged my steps too long." He lifted her head and slammed it against the ground. "This is my world." He waved a hand. The bruised sky split open, spilling sunlight across the mud. "All of this time, all of this way, only to end at my feet. Your reward, bloodsucker: eternal, unending sleep, plagued by eternal, unending pain."

  The sunlight hit Ash like a drug, her struggles stopped. She lay still as death. He smiled and lifted his hand. His fingers flashed sharp as knives as he plunged them into her back. Even in her sleep, she grunted in pain.

  Marianne ran at him, knife and pendant in hand. One or the other would connect.

  He whirled, lifting her off her feet and throwing her across the ground. She rolled through the mud.

  Still got my knife this time.

  She would have laughed if she'd had the breath for it.

  "Little light, I'll still take your gate." He walked toward her. Overhead she saw a flying beast, maybe the same one that had danced through the clouds the day she'd stupidly been willing to give herself away. It was heading toward the gate, she thought, and the patch of bright blue sky and Ewan's sun, dragging shadow and cloud in its wake.

  "I won't give it to you. Not this time. It's not yours, it's mine." She scrambled back, body aching. His beautiful eyes pulled at her. She knew. She knew and still, they were almost worth believing.

  "You're nothing, Marianne. That's why you came the first time. That's why you wanted to stay. Deep down you know that you're nothing, except to me."

  The serpentine beast stirred the wind. She covered her eyes as bits of grit spun in whorls through the air.

  "I'm not. I'm not nothing." The sunlight vanished behind the real, murky veil. She saw Ash, rising. "I open gates. I hunt. And I'm loved."

  Ash leaped onto him, locking her arms and legs around him, and sank her teeth into his neck.

  The earth shook. All of the squirming monsters started to scream. Marianne tried to stand. The ground heaved, tossing her back down. Ewan dropped to his knees. His hands flailed weakly. Ash's grip only tightened, like a cat with its toy.

  "No."

  "Die, you fucking fuck." Marianne rubbed her chest, where his hand had dug into her. The lights were swirling frantically, close, but not daring to touch them.

  He slumped to the ground. Ash fed. In the flashing light, Marianne saw it. She watched without flinching, though it was like watching an animal feed. Then Ash lifted her face to the sky and howled.

  The beasts fled for the gate. She looked quickly, but the temporary crack had closed. Only the trailer park gate was left. Marianne stumble-crawled toward Ash.

  She hid her face. Marianne knelt in front of her.

  "Don't look."

  "I've seen worse."

  Ash shook her head. Marianne touched her chin,
finding no real resistance. The animalistic bits were fading. There was an electric crackle under her fingers, numbing them. Her already pale skin glowed. Her eyes were full of shame.

  "You, ah, you have a little..." She brushed at Ash's mouth with her thumb. "Well, that was useless. How about this?"

  She kissed her softly. Ewan's blood tingled, or Ash did.

  "Marianne…"

  "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I got so mad. I'm sorry I left you. I'm sorry I let that fucking thing manipulate me." She looked down.

  "I had a whole speech," Ash said, after a moment.

  "You can...you can still use it."

  "I heard your voice. Your apologies. Your forgiveness. Your love."

  "I mean it. I was…really..."

  "Hurt."

  "Judge-y." The ground shook again. She flinched but stubbornly clung to her. "Why did you go back to the gas station and find me again?"

  "For a moment, when I feed, I feel and think and know someone else." She held up her hand. Marianne could see the energy beneath her skin. "I couldn't forget what I saw in you. It was beautiful and complex and…everything that life should be. Everything that I waited centuries for."

  Marianne's breath caught.

  "I was scared that you'd hate me. I gave myself a second chance with you. But I've never held you in thrall. I never have. I never will."

  There was no real way to tell. It felt like madness to try to work it out logically. All that left was feeling.

  "I was happy with you. I want to be happy. I want to make you happy."

  Ash's mouth quirked into a smile. "You said it much better than I did in my speech."

  Marianne felt a weight lift from her shoulders.

  "I have to tell you—"

  Ash's fingers brushed her lips. "There will be time."

  "'Time for you and time for me.'"

  Ash smiled. "'Before the taking of a toast and tea.'"

  Ewan's body began to flake, mingling with the cottonwood fluff, vanishing into the gloomy sky. Ash watch, face full of some inexpressible relief. Completion.

  "It's done. Dearest God, it's finally done." There was something tentative about it, or cautious, maybe, like when you think maybe winter is finally over when the grass starts to show beneath the trees, but you're still braced for snow.