Say Nothing
Once Trix had backed away and closed the studio door, I steadied my heart with the flat of my hand. I did not know what I would have done if she had stayed. If she had come close and scrutinised me with those arresting eyes. If she had given me no choice but to speak.
The only way I could speak an untruth was through Glen. I had not needed to reach for one since the day I signed my contract in Nick’s office. Without him and his words, the only ones I could have offered were, “I cannot tell you why. Please, never ask again.”
I regarded the mirror that spanned the studio wall. Looked at everything but my own reflection, in case other witnesses hid in the glass, too quick for mortals to catch.
I tapped the side of my head and shook my pointed finger, in dialogue with my own reflection.
Don’t be a fool. A wiser version of myself from the future, perhaps.
Or the arrogant one from my past. No one in your family has used mirrors that way for…
Well, who knows how long, but a very long time. Be still.
But I did not want to be still. That had always been my problem. It was the only downside of trying to take up a place of some permanence in the mortal world: there was neither time nor space enough to expend my energy. If I was not more careful, that problem would become a catastrophe.
I was used to people whispering about me from a distance, too polite or shy to approach.
To look closer. But from the moment Trix had walked into our emergency rehearsals for The Sleeping Beauty, her watchfulness had burrowed under my skin.
There was something about her I could not decipher.
She had entered the studio that first day already in character: Aurora in the vision sequence, a mystery to be solved.
She had remained so, long after the curtain came down.
‘Mystery,’ I said, realising I had never uttered the word aloud before. Then, to myself, and to the world beyond this small, beautiful, capricious one: ‘She will forget. What she sees, she will forget. Always, they forget.’