Chapter 15
Iwoke up shivering, drenched in cold sweat. My body ached, and my skin felt tender against my sheets, like when I had a fever. My mouth felt dry, like someone had stuffed it with cotton while I slept. I groaned. Ugh. Was I getting sick? It was the onset of cold and flu season, after all.
I forced my eyes open, and found that my eyelashes were crusted together.
Automatically, I ran my fingers over my face, and found the salty tracks of tears dried all over my skin.
Had I been crying in my sleep? I had no memory of any dreams—if I’d had any, they’d slipped through the cracks of my waking mind.
I groped around in the dark until I found my glasses, and pushed them back onto my damp face.
I felt strange—overheated and dizzy, my head swimming.
I reached for my water bottle, but I’d drained it before bed.
I dragged myself out of bed and onto my unsteady feet. Freya’s eyes were like lamps in the blackness as she stared at me.
“I’m okay,” I told her. “I think.”
I slid my feet into my slippers, and shuffled my way down the hallway to the bathroom.
I turned the light on, winced, and then immediately shut it off again.
I braced myself against the sink, taking several deep breaths.
I felt… strange. Hot and cold at once. With shaking hands, I pulled the hand towel off the hook by the light switch, pulled on the stopper to plug the sink, and turned on the tap.
I soaked the towel in the cold water, wrung it out, and wiped my face with it.
Then I rolled it up and draped it over the back of my neck the way my mom had done for me before, when I was feeling nauseous or overheated.
I leaned over, dropping my head down, closing my eyes, and trying to take some slow, deep breaths.
My mouth still felt like sand, so I reached down to scoop a handful of water into my mouth.
My fingers brushed against something in the basin of the sink. I opened my eyes again.
Something lay at the bottom of the sink. I couldn’t tell what it was because the running water had obscured it. I turned the tap off, and squinted down as the water stilled in the basin. I leaned closer and felt my heart skip a beat.
No. Surely not. It couldn’t be.
I plunged my hand into the water, and pinched the object between my fingers, lifting it out to examine it.
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be, and yet it was. I was holding the sea glass—the same piece of sea glass that I had given back to Leila. The piece of sea glass which, if Leila did as I had asked, had already been returned to Granny Nightjar. So why the hell was it now sitting in the palm of my hand?
As I stared at it, both frightened and fascinated, a creeping feeling began to spider its way up my spine, along my neck, right up into my hair. It was a feeling I’d had before, and I knew what it meant.
I was being watched.
I went as still as a statue as I remembered that right in front of me, in the dark, was a mirror.
I needed only to lift my head to gaze directly into it, and, based on the sensation still zinging along my back like a current, I knew I would not see my dark bathroom reflected back at me.
My heart was fluttering, a desperate insect trapped in a jar.
I tried to calm it as I looked down at the sea glass in my hand.
I didn’t understand why, or how, but the sea glass wasn’t a coincidence or a fluke.
It was an invitation. Or perhaps, the key that unlocked the door I’d been knocking at.
So now I had to decide: accept the invitation, walk through the door and see whatever it was trying to show me, or turn my back on the mirror, climb back into bed, and learn nothing.
The second option was tempting. But the first was irresistible.
I sucked in a breath, held it, and looked up.
I almost screamed. I had to slap my hand over my mouth to prevent it.
There was a woman standing in front of me, staring straight into my eyes from the very place my reflection should be.
Where I ought to have seen my own pale face, my large frightened eyes magnified behind my glasses, my nest of dark, sleep-tangled hair, I saw a stranger instead.
She was beautiful. If I hadn’t already been holding my breath, I would have gasped.
Her hair hung in glossy curtains on either side of her face.
She had full lips, wide eyes, and high cheekbones.
One of the cheekbones was marred by a nasty bruise and a cut, from which a tiny trickle of blood was oozing.
As I watched her, she raised a hand and pressed her long fingers gently to the bruise, wincing.
My gaze moved from her injury to her eyes, and my heart stuttered in my chest.
They were the saddest eyes I had ever seen.
I could see her broken heart swimming in the tears that had gathered there.
She closed them slowly, and the tears brimmed over, snaking down her cheeks and dripping from the point of her chin.
Automatically, I reached out to her. I wanted to soothe her pain, to comfort her in some way, but the words wouldn’t come.
I didn’t know what to say, because I didn’t know what had caused her such agony.
Somehow, I knew it wasn’t just the physical pain of her injury.
There was a deeper pain there… something shattering.
I found myself reaching up and touching my own cheek in an identical gesture, as though the act of imitating her would enable me to understand her—to understand her, and then, maybe, to help her.
“Who are you?” I murmured. “What’s wrong? Can I help you?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t acknowledge me in any way.
I wondered if she was really looking at me, or if it was like one of those two-way mirrors in police stations, where you can see the person waiting inside the room, but they can only see their own reflection.
I watched as she turned her head slightly, better to examine the damage to her otherwise beautiful face.
The bodice of the creamy-white dress she was wearing was spattered with tiny droplets of blood.
Her chest was heaving as she fought against wracking sobs, and I watched helplessly as she struggled for control, trying to fight off my own tears.
At last, she went still. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, as though she was praying.
Her hands dropped limply to her sides. If she hadn’t been standing up, I would have thought she had fallen asleep.
The stillness stretched on for long enough that I began to get restless.
What was going to happen? Why had this woman appeared in my mirror?
What was I meant to do, besides stand in silent witness to her agony?
As these questions chased each other around the inside of my skull, the woman suddenly raised her head.
Her expression had changed so dramatically that I doubted for a moment that I was looking at the same person.
The features which had, a moment earlier, been twisted with agony were now smooth and relaxed, the picture of inner peace.
The change startled me, caused a knot of tension in my insides, though I couldn’t say why.
The woman suddenly bent down, and I had to lean closer to the mirror to see what she was doing.
She had dropped to one knee, and as she did so, the hazy surroundings came into focus.
I could now see that she knelt on the beach at the foot of a cliff in the moonlight.
I knew that cliff—it overlooked the stretch of beach directly across from where Lightkeep Cottage now stood.
If I had turned and looked out the bathroom window, I would have been able to see the top of that same cliff jutting out beyond the road.
But I didn’t turn. I was too busy watching as the woman picked up stone after stone from the base of the cliff, and put them into her pockets.
I frowned, the knot in my stomach tightening. What was she doing? The answer felt close, like something I had known once, long ago, but forgotten. It hovered just beyond my reach, taunting me.
After several minutes, the woman rose unsteadily to her feet, unbalanced by the piles of stones she now carried in her pockets.
I expected the fabric to tear, for the stones to tumble back to the ground, but they just thudded against each other.
Then, her face still supremely calm, almost expressionless, the woman turned away from the cliffs and began to walk, slowly, down the beach.
Still, the knot tightened. Still, the answer danced out of my reach.
What was happening, and why was I watching it unfold?
Dread was growing in me, roaring in my ears like the waves crashing on the beach.
I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to see what happened next, and yet I couldn’t look away.
I was rooted to the spot, my eyes locked on the retreating form of the woman with the rocks in her pockets.
Oh. Oh no. No, no, no.
The realization hit me like a physical blow. She was walking into the sea. Walking into the sea with her pockets full of stones.
“Don’t!” The word tore up my throat before I could stop it, ragged with fear, and for the second time, I slapped my hand over my mouth to quiet myself.
There was no point in shouting. This woman couldn’t hear me.
This wasn’t happening in front of me. It happened long, long ago, dredged up from the distant past and reflected in this mirror.
It was an echo, and I couldn’t erase the scream that spawned it.
Helplessly, I watched as the woman marched inexorably toward the water, her posture erect and determined, her head held high. She didn’t slow down or hesitate. She simply put one foot in front of the other as the water swirled around her ankles.
As it swallowed the hem of her dress.
As it engulfed her legs. Her waist. Her chest.