Chapter Thirty #2
The mirror shard puffed into a glittering fog, and was soon permeated by a dim, eerie light that emanated from the obsidian ring.
At the same moment, Mrs. Jupiter opened the bottle, poured a generous amount of clear liquid into her hand, and raised her fist to let a small trickle rain down onto Meredith’s head.
Then she whirled and flicked the remaining droplets into Florian’s face, raising her voice along with Sylvania’s to drown out his sputtered protest.
This time, the mirror cloud did not dissipate but hung in the air as if frozen in place by the ring’s light.
It expanded, flowed together, and solidified into a great glass globe floating overhead.
Within the sphere, an image took shape, flickering as though from an old film projector: Florian and Meredith standing in the driveway of Midnight Cottage.
The shade of Florian in the sphere spoke, voice crackling but clearly audible as he berated Meredith with the same cruel, hideous words David had seen littering the mind realm.
Though he’d already known, it was still excruciating to watch it play out in real time, and he couldn’t bear it when past Meredith’s eyes fell closed in defeated acceptance as Florian spoke the lie that David was ashamed of him.
David seized hold of the real-and-present Meredith’s hand. “I’m not,” he said, louder than he meant to. “Never.”
When sphere Florian snatched the daisies from Meredith’s head and flung them to the ground, Kinley started toward the real Florian, but Mrs. Jupiter placed a restraining hand on his arm.
“If he thinks he can get away with that—” he fumed. “Nobody fucks with my best friend like that.”
“Just wait,” she said, and he reluctantly acquiesced.
David couldn’t deny that he felt the same urge, unaccustomed though he was to any violent impulses outside the realm of sport, but giving Florian the beating he deserved wouldn’t set right the damage already done.
Instead, he squeezed Meredith’s hand tighter—a little too tight, judging by the way he winced.
“Sorry,” whispered David, letting up on his grip.
Adalynn took a step away from Florian, and Cartier’s critical look had solidified into the same one he’d fixed upon Steve Corner the night before.
“Look, I don’t know what kind of hocus-pocus garbage you’ve cooked up, but that’s not how it went,” insisted Florian. His cheeks had colored an ugly, blotchy pink. “Mere’s always been oversensitive. Goes taking everything out of proportion.”
No one else said a word, and the scene in the sphere shifted to the living room of Midnight Cottage. Another heated exchange, Bianca’s ferocious barking, Florian slapping Meredith’s coffee cup from his hand, and green-glazed porcelain shattering against the wall.
David could only kick himself for not having caught on.
Another shift in the sphere—the same room on still an earlier day. Florian paced past the impression of gingham curtains, but this time it was Meredith who spoke first, asking the wary question: “Why’d you go and tell Genevieve you’d asked me to be in your wedding when you never did?”
“Christsake, Mere, you think I wanted you involved?” Florian gestured in frustration.
“Genevieve had to go running her mouth like usual, so now my fiancée is asking questions about why you never come around, and I do not need this. I swear to God, if you pull any of your usual shit around Adalynn, or in front of her dad—”
Meredith raised both hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I won’t cause any p-problems, I swear.”
“No, you won’t,” agreed Florian, his voice positively venomous.
“You’re gonna show up when and where I tell you to, you’re gonna lose all this sparkly shit—” He gave the collection of bracelets on Meredith’s wrist a contemptuous smack, making him flinch away in alarm, then resumed pacing.
“You’re gonna keep your dumbass mouth shut, and you are not gonna screw this up for me, you got it?
The last thing I need is for them to think whatever’s the matter with you runs in the family. ”
“But w-w-what—”
“Would you spit it out already?”
“W-what if it does?”
Florian whirled back toward him, and even in the flickering light of the sphere, those same red blotches of fury showed up clearly on his face. “What?”
“What if you do have kids, and they’re n-not quite the way you expect—” Meredith doubled over with a gasp of pain as Florian’s elbow slammed into his side. Somewhere out of sight, Bianca barked furiously.
“If you ever say a goddamn word about my wife or my future children again—” Florian broke off at the sound of a creaking floorboard.
“David?” called Meredith. The desperate, futile hope in his expression was horrible, and worse was the way it faded in the silence that followed.
David felt ill. This was one of the worst things he had ever done, even if he hadn’t known he was doing it, even if he had gone on directly to the front door. What had been thirty more seconds for him must have been endless for Meredith.
“That’s enough, I think,” said present Meredith. Mrs. Jupiter nodded. At a wave of her hand, the sphere dissolved.
David could do nothing but wrap his arms around him and hug him close. “Meri, why—” His voice broke. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
But he had tried to, David realized. That night in the bathroom when he’d seen the bruise and assumed it to be from Brian, Meredith had started to contradict him before David had cut him off.
Meredith kept silent, but leaned back into David and reached up to take his hand.
Adalynn had fled to her father’s side, tears flowing down her cheeks. “Florian, I—I don’t even know what to say.”
“I do,” said Cartier, much to David’s surprise. “And I think that’s just a despicable way to treat anyone, let alone your own sibling. Ada, you’re a grown woman and your affairs are your own to manage, but this marriage has no support from me.”
“Don’t worry, Dad,” said Adalynn, “because it won’t be happening.” She tore the engagement ring from her finger as if she couldn’t get it off fast enough, and returned to Florian only to shove it into his hand.
“Ada, listen—”
“There’s nothing else to discuss,” said Adalynn.
“Listen,” insisted Florian, catching her by the wrist, “you aren’t gonna find anybody else who treats you the way I do, and if you call this off—”
“Let go of me.”
“—I won’t be taking you back, so think long and hard—”
“Hey!” Kinley started forward without hesitation. “The lady said to back off.”
David, moving alongside him, said sharply, “We’ll have none of that,” at the same moment Cartier said in a terrible, imperious tone that never rose in volume, “Take your hands off my daughter.”
Seething, Florian let go and took a step back, hands raised. “Whatever. I’m out of here.”
“I think that’s for the best,” said Meredith.
“And you’re not welcome back,” David called after him.