Chapter Four
“Ihad a visual hallucination yesterday.”
My therapist frowns. “What was it?”
“I was looking in the mirror, holding my new kitten—here she is. Isn’t she cute?”
“Adorable. What happened?”
“I was holding her, but when I looked in the mirror, there was no cat in my reflection.”
“What were you wearing?”
“Um. My usual work clothes. I stopped by the shelter right after work. Black skirt. White blouse. I think I had a pink vest on yesterday.”
“I’m willing to bet you simply had a moment of blurred vision where your clothing, the lighting, and the cat’s fur blended together in such a way that while you could feel the cat and knew you were holding it, for a moment, it looked as though your arm was empty. That is a very small kitten.”
“She’s a runt and had underdeveloped lungs when she was born. She might not get a lot bigger,” I say, brightening at my therapist’s suggestion. “You think it might have just been a trick of the light?”
“Basically. Visual hallucinations usually trigger some deep emotions of fear, rage, or sadness. If you were simply confused and didn’t stick around to examine the situation, I’d say you were simply mistaken.”
I want to believe that. I really do.
But I don’t. That would be good luck, and I don’t have good luck.
Or do I? Three weeks in Pine Ridge have taught me that I am a damn good paralegal-slash-receptionist, that I can make new friends, that I can go out at night, and that I still have a style—and even dreams— of my own.
My luck is starting to run good.
“There’s another phenomenon you should be aware of, too.
It’s called the Troxler Effect. When we stare at our own image too long, the brain begins to misfire.
You see, our eyes were not intended to go around and gaze at our own reflections for extended periods of time.
They’re survival tools, not beauty tools.
Stare at yourself for too long, and your image will distort.
That’s likely where that whole Bloody Mary urban legend comes in.
So don’t jump to conclusions, Aggie. You’re doing the best you have in all the time I’ve known you. I’m so proud of you!”
AGGIE! THE GIRL’S NAME is Aggie.
Aggie just got my slip-up scientifically explained away, and I’m sort of relieved. I like watching her—especially when she’s reading in bed at night.
“Hsssss.”
“Oh, Berry,” I whisper as the kitten jumps up on the bed and reaches tiny pink paws towards the wall where my prison hangs. “Look, cat.”
Whatever I’m going to say is stilled as little claws manage to connect and the tiny body lurches upward, sending my frame swaying side to side on the thick coil of wire that stretches across a single nail.
Berry is going to climb my frame. Knock me off the wall. Probably shatter me.
Death by kitten. What a way for a thousand-year-old phantom to go out, huh?
“Strawberry,” I whisper soothingly. “Truce? Truce, kitten? Look, Berry, watch!” I transform into a small brown bird and flit across the glass.
The kitten stills. Drops.
Now I’m a yellow butterfly.
A swallow.
A spider.
A blue bird.
Berry watches, kitten eyes taking in everything. Tiny hindquarters start to shimmy.
Berry may be little, but she is fierce. A born hunter.
“Oh, darling!” I can’t help but laugh as she launches towards the glass with one heroic spring, the pink pads of her paws smacking against the slick surface before she slides to the floor with a startled “Mrp!”
I let her catch me when I’m a brown moth next, dramatically fluttering and losing strength under each bat of her paw. I drop out of sight, and Berry sits like a triumphant queen, licking her paws with pride.
Damn it.
I think I’ve made a friend.
When Aggie goes to work the next day, Berry curls up on the corner of the bed closest to my mirror. I appear in my true form and speak softly to her, and she purrs, falling asleep in the sunlight that reflects off my surface.
Ugh. If I scare away the human, she’ll take the cat.
I rather like this cat.
Maybe... Maybe I’ll behave a little longer.
After all, I don’t mind watching Aggie fall asleep, either.
THE HUMAN—AGGIE—IS out on Wednesday nights. When she comes home, she’s happy, chatty, and glowing. Fun to watch.
But Monday and Tuesday nights are even better for a lonely phantom with a checkered past.
What past, you ask? Well, I can give you the short version and a little advice.
Consider it a tip for the future, my friends and future victims. Don’t sleep with a sorcerer’s ex, even if he swears up and down that he’s no longer interested.
One second, you’re dancing with a busty barmaid named Calliope, and the next, you’re trapped behind glass and sporting a nightmare body of writhing tentacles, shadows, and monochromatic skin, all grays, whites, and blacks.
Now, eventually, I learned that the sorcerer didn’t really know his abras from his cadabras.
He didn’t realize I could still interact with him from behind the glass, or that he’d given me a new set of skills.
I was clumsy at first, but now I’m an expert.
I drove him mad by changing little details each time he looked my way.
A wart on his nose. A blackened eye. Then normal. A split lip. A stained shirt.
Oh, he was a delight, and his own guilt about sending me to an eternity behind glass blotted out his common sense. He never suspected me until it was too late.
Fool.
Each subsequent owner has helped me hone my skills until I can capture the tiniest little details in seconds—provided I’m not distracted.
Tonight, I expect to be extremely distracted. It’s a Tuesday, and that means Aggie will get into bed early in one of her fancy bathrobes and matching nighties and read until she falls asleep with her head on her book or, sometimes, her little black reading device covered in stickers.
Tonight is the first night Aggie comes to bed with the book and sits on top of the covers, breathing tight and fast.
Sweet little morsel. This isn’t the first time something in her books has brought her passion bubbling to the surface, but it’s always been hidden by bedclothes and bad lighting.
This time, the light stays on and Aggie leans back, a knee-length piece of pink floral silk dipping between her knees—riding high between her thighs.
I remain slick and still, watching her and trying not to feel guilty when Berry wants me to put on a moth and mouse show and I won’t oblige. Watching Jane, the white-haired and wrinkled, never excited me like this.
There’s no harm in toying with Aggie tomorrow—after the show.
Pages flip and thighs flex, shutting and opening around her hand.
Where she can’t see me, my tentacles writhe, shadows turning solid. The thickest one is shorter and hides between two long, dark coils, only easing into being when I’m aroused.
It’s been ages since I felt the familiar pain and pleasure mingling, stiffening the rubbery, flaccid member until it’s hard and seeking something hot and wet to plunder.
My fist has to do the job for now, wrapping around the stout, wriggling tentacle, thicker and longer than the human cock I used to have.
As I squeeze, a confused sort of shame and lust washing over me and leaving me in a fog, Aggie slips her gown over her body and reclines, her book flung to the side. Her fingers circle over her dark curls, slick pink petals flashing from under warm, honey-brown lips.
My form slips and shimmers, my turgid length changing into a throbbing clitoris and all the pretty little pieces that shield it, then slipping back to my own form, shifting back and forth as I come to grips with what’s happening.
I want her.
I want her body to hold, not to break. I want her mind to shatter.
Look who’s talking about shattering, Lucius... you’re a master of torture, of madness, of inflicted pain with no remorse—and now you’re the one who’s lost, tempest-tossed from the sight of a pretty piece of flesh.
With a ragged hiss, my body is hers in appearance once again.
My hands play over the form that looks like hers now, but it’s just an illusion, a dark, dangerous one that can never bring me joy.
My hips thrust, and I’m a mockery of two forms, Agatha’s lovely, delicate limbs up top and a grotesque shadowy mass of phantasm at the bottom.
She peaks with a short, gasping cry, and I follow her with a harsh, grunted curse.
There’s a waiting silence in the room.
Did she hear me? She’s not supposed to hear me! Not until I speak to her, call her name—but I guess she’s already seen me in some fashion.
“Berry, did you hear that?” she whispers.
Berry looks at the mirror, the little traitor. No more crickets and wrens for the cat. Well... not until she looks at me with those big pleading eyes, anyway.
I’m silent. Aggie leaves her bed, shivering, wrapping the robe around her as she looks around with big, frightened eyes.
“Please... Please be someone. Someone real. A burglar. Someone I can mace,” she whispers, fat tears suddenly on her cheeks.
Wait, what?
She’d rather face an intruder than a random, untraceable noise? Surely one is more dangerous.
“Ohhh, Berry. Berry, I don’t want to get worse. Don’t want to go back. Everything was going so well. New friends. New job. You! I have to hold it together until Dad and June come back. I’m not leaving you with Arnie.”
She scoops up the kitten and cuddles it in one arm before marching into the bathroom. I can hear her frustrated sobs through the walls, the thumping of her helpless fist on the tiles.
They’re so sad. So despairing.
It’s not fear, and I don’t like it.
Ten minutes later, Berry, not quite as scrawny as she was even two weeks ago, stalks across the floor, hops nimbly to the edge of the bed, and stares at my mirror’s empty surface with a cool, calm malice.
Just as I’m about to crack and emerge to show myself, the kitten springs and pushes off the mirror’s frame with four weaponized feet, sending me swinging wildly.
I feel my world lift and snap back in place, whatever I have that passes for a heart juddering in fear.
The message is clear.
“Leave my human alone, Phantasm. Or I’ll break your world and piss on the shards.”
“All right, all right, cat. Truce. For now.”