Chapter Seventeen The Nova
Chapter Seventeen
The Nova
I found a spare box of fragrant petals and one vial of oil stashed in a forgotten corner of a cabinet, just enough for a midnight bath.
The moonlight formed a crescent in the circular window above my head, the steam dancing about my face as I stared at the bare roof beams. They said too many warm baths would drive women insane, but I was past worrying about water.
With palms cupped over my eyes, I tried to force any light away, no matter how dim. Pressing on them made small stars flicker in and out, little phantoms winking.
There was very little I could do to diminish the stress.
It was like a small demon was forever sitting on my chest. Some nights I thought it was one of my familiars looking for comfort.
Turned out, it was just a very human condition.
The physical manifestation of stress was the least-surprising specter in my home.
I glanced over to the stool, my father’s journal propped open.
I was about a quarter of the way through deciphering his work.
One thing I knew for sure—this was not gibberish.
The water portal worked for Altair, but would it work for me too?
Where it led, I did not know, but it was the perfect time to find out.
It was clear by now that there was something in this book that Altair didn’t want me to know. But what else was there under the surface?
I closed my eyes again, clearing my thoughts as best I could. The darkness was calm, my senses and nerves dampened. Meditative breaths, followed by the slowing beats of the heart.
“Florescentia.” The incantation came as light as a breath.
My body slipped down to the bottom of the tub, my knees pulling up as I sank below the waterline. A fuzzy silence filled my ears, pressing against my eardrums. The conditioned bath suspended my hair, the strands licking my face with gentle sweeps.
Water wasn’t just about transformation or being able to flow with where the world took you; it was introspective, it had memory.
Submersion allowed you to hear your own blood, the beats of your heart, every bump and shift of your organs as the water suspended you.
There was never a drop of water on this earth that had ever been created from scratch or destroyed; it had seen the beginning, and it would see the end.
My lips broke the surface first as I gasped for air, sitting up as my lungs filled.
As I brushed my hair from my face, I reached for the ledge to lift myself from the basin.
Except, there was no ledge.
I rubbed the water from my bleary eyes. I was in the bathroom still, but the basin was no longer, and I was on the floor. As still as a mirrored lake, the room was filled with shallow water.
I placed my hand on the submerged floor, but I felt something soft.
In my hands, water grass. Disturbing it pulled up a cloud of silt.
Within the darkened water, small glints of light. Small fry darted through the liquid, a glow to them that pulsed when they moved faster.
I waded over to my vanity, the desk overtaken by stubborn vines. On the back of the chair was a robe, the bottom soaking as I wrapped it around me. The fabric stuck to my legs as droplets splashed up with every step.
I pushed past tallgrass and mire flowers, each touch making the flora bloom, their petals opening to a glow. As I looked closer, cupping a flower in my hand, I saw it was a water iris. The petals folded open, deep blues and purples speckled with white, but within the flower was something peculiar.
A mouth within the iris, stamens growing from the lips.
With my nails, I pinched my face, my arm. Every visual insinuated a lucid dream, but I knew there were oddities among me that could have been causing it.
With my soaked robe length gathered in one arm, I sloshed to the door.
With the pressure of the water, opening it took some force.
Once done, the water spilled into the hallway.
It rushed over the floor and down the stairs, emptying into the rest of the home.
The runner of the hall was softer, the floral pattern coming to life as a carpet of flowers and clover weeds.
Grass sprouted from between the floorboards, tickling under my feet as I crossed the threshold.
The darkness shrouding the ceiling was littered with small, twinkling visions of stars.
The banister was as solid as I remembered, thank goodness. Water rushed past my feet through the balusters as I went down to the second floor, the library door ajar as it came into view.
For a moment I wondered if the curiosity was worth it. Perhaps I could close my eyes and wake up. I’d be safe and warm inside my bed; I’d sigh in relief when the rooms were dry and no plants were growing from my floors. The inside was inside, and the outside would remain as such.
That surely would be safe, but not satisfying.
The minute my palm met the door was when I decided my fate, and the push sealed it.
First, it was darkness.
At the farthest face of the room, a single budding light.
It effloresced, waning and growing like the beat of a heart.
As it grew, more of the room became unveiled. The couch in the corner burst with flowers, whispers darting around the room, assuming now that they were the strange plants themselves.
The flora extended past irises this time: orchids, climbing jasmine, lilies. Sprawling greenery padded the spaces between them, thistles with human teeth, parsley with little eyes atop its flowers, and lady’s mantle dripping in gold dew.
Along the bookcase, an overgrown hardwood vine clung to the high shelves, the floorboards misplaced by its roots. Fragrant flowers littered the foliage, long snakelike roots stretching to every corner of the room. If I wasn’t careful, I’d trip on the thick trunks.
“Traveling by water can be treacherous,” a voice said behind me. “Drowning is never out of the question.”
I turned to see the beast, but in his human image this time. Tall and lean, composure too perfect, his structure too ideal. He inspected one of the flowers by the doorway, nearly everything glowing bright as he passed. His eyes seemed to reflect the brightness too.
“Why do you choose to look like that, anyway?” I watched his movements.
Black pants, polished shoes, and an open black shirt.
Though it was not fabric. It had the distinct sheen of the Peculiars, all the more a reminder that this was an illusion, even himself. “You could look like anything, anyone.”
“I picked the image with the most favorable connotation.” He smiled, standing straight with his hands clasped behind his back. “Your mind can’t make sense of my true form. If you caught a glimpse of it, it may break your mind completely.”
“So you happened to choose an uncanny resemblance to my late husband? You could pass as a brother.”
“Is that not the most favorable?”
“And then you mock me with markings.” I turned my back to him.
“You misunderstand my imitation.” His footsteps sounded behind me. “Would you prefer a different taste?” His voice had altered, lighter and feminine.
I turned back to see he had changed to a woman, same coloring, similar clothing.
“There is no form in which I find you favorable,” I said to make myself clear.
“Oh? So it is the monstrous types you like,” her voice purred, warping as the black markings on her body spread, until the beast had grown back into its inky puppet form, the third eye on his forehead opened wide.
I wouldn’t answer to such mockery, which was meant to get a rise out of me. It all was. Everything was a test of will, of strength of mind.
“I prefer this one because it might just be your most honest form,” I said, a smile of wit thrown at him with my compliment.
I touched over the tall iris flowers, plucking one from the stem. It yelped, the little mouth on the flower twisting in pain, and water began to fill the cup before rolling off the petals. The illusion startled me, yet I couldn’t look away.
“There is a lot you don’t know about this place.” He loomed over me. I half expected him to pounce at any moment.
“The Otherside,” I said.
“Whatever name you call it by, you do not know it,” he said. “Everything is connected, alive.”
“Like bees in a hive mind,” I replied, with a healthy dose of sarcasm.
“Everything has an order, even in your world. You people are not perceptive”—he brushed a long claw over my shoulder—“but you, dear Iris, are already known to this place,” he finished, his touch making my markings come to light.
I threw my shoulder away from him, facing him so he couldn’t poke and prod at me any longer.
“There are things here that you cannot comprehend, and they will appear to you in a way that you understand. By dabbling in this world, the more you interact, the higher the risk it will take you altogether.”
“Is this a warning for the Otherside, or for you?” I taunted.
Something touched my leg, wrapping around it.
I glanced down at my feet. One of the roots of the tree had brushed itself against me, looking for more places in the floor to burrow.
I backed up, hitting a hard chest.
“This world holds as many horrors as it does delights.” His voice was in my ear, his dark form materializing behind me now.
“Delights?” I hummed, eyeing the tree. “Are these all Peculiars?”
“Here, they can be more than just shadows.”
I approached the tree. Along the branches, orchidlike flowers grew in the divots. Their petals glowed, and the pollen fluttered around them before falling. The whole assemblage resembled our water lamps, a living thing swirling around in the dark, lighting the way as the entity circled the plant.
By the roots, a different type of appendage. Long vines with large flowers at the ends, a lilylike shape and a stamen like a monstera fruit. It had to be larger than both my hands together.
“You cannot control it.” His shadowy form swiftly appeared beside me. A hiss of a whisper on my other side, then his voice materializing before his shadow. “Don’t,” he warned. “Do you not hear me?”