Chương 305: Katalepsis, Eusebeia Epoche - placid island; black infinity - 2-1.1

On the day I first met Raine, I jolted awake in bed and vomited a nightmare into my— … No. That's not quite right, is it? Those aren't the words she said. And you should know, you've heard them once before. However hard I try, I can't imitate her cadence, or the tone of her voice. I practice and practice and practice, yet I can't mimic the way she tells a story. She has such a flair for words, doesn't she? I'm sure you agree, despite her habitual descent into purple ostentation.

And I simply do not have that in me; the talent is not genetic, no matter how much else we share. No matter how many times I reword that sentence, or speak it out loud at the mirror of my mind — or at the mirror in the bathroom, here in Number 12 Barnslow Drive — it never feels right. I can't make it sound the way she did. My version has nary a fraction of the gravitas she granted to the great and twisting tale of my rescue. When she spoke that beginning, she made it real.

But when I repeat her words, it doesn't even sound like her. It never sounds like Heather. But it doesn't sound much like me, either. Now, that wouldn't be so much of a problem, except that I don't have the slightest clue what I sound like. All I have is her. Because that's the most important thing about me, isn't it? No, don't bother to deny the obvious. I shan't be offended, or hurt, or harbour a secret resentment against you for telling the truth. Admit it.

That's the thing we all care about the most — the negation, the not-thing, the missing element. An absence that cannot be denoted by a zero, because zero is still a number. We are beyond numbers now. Need I make myself more clear? Obviously I must, else I wouldn't be saying all this. I am avoiding the point, because the point is sharp. The most important thing about me. I'm not Heather. But if I'm not Heather, then what am I? Answering that question is why I'm addressing you.

It might not be why you're here; you're probably here for somebody else. But it's why I'm putting in the requisite effort. We've heard Heather's story, she reached a kind of end — though personally it didn't feel like an end at all. It felt like a beginning. I'm sure you can understand why, if you think about my position for more than a second or two. So, now, it's my turn to tell a story. Even Heather herself agrees with that, though she quarrels with so much else.

She strongly suggests that I talk with you, at least for a short while, as much as I can before I run out of steam. I'm bad at talking about myself, believe it or not, despite how smooth I can make my voice sound when I have plenty of time to prepare the words; it rather comes with the territory, after ten years in prison. I'm better at watching other people, peering through the metaphorical bars of my imaginary cell.

When I tire of speaking — which I will, I warn you now — then perhaps I'll tell their stories instead. I am, after all, very good at watching. It's all I had to do, for rather a long time. But yes. My tale. I best begin before I get side-tracked by philosophy and belly-aching. I'll try again. From the top. In my own words. My name is Maisie Morell. You've met my sister. You've spent the better part of a year (or was it six? Time is so confusing) inside her head. But you don't know me. Nobody does. Not even myself.

… A warning. Much of this is not pretty. You think you know what that means. You've seen Heather's story. She was no stranger to blood and guts. But this isn't that. This is me. Perhaps that, of all things, I do truly share with my sister. … Are you really still here? Gosh, I didn't expect that. Thought I might have frightened you off. Alright then. I suppose I am compelled to keep my word. … On the day I met my reflection, I woke alone. That day was October the 28th, a Monday.

It was six weeks and three days since I had opened the eyes of my new body for the first time, and beheld my twin sister by the side of a bed I did not recognise, in a house I knew only from second-hand memories. There had been a previous, somewhat indeterminate amount of time between that eye-opening awakening and my initial return from 'Wonderland' — name change pending, apologies to my sister, but her taste in nomenclature leaves much to be desired.

I had very little memory of that initial period of time; apparently I had attempted a spirited escape — sprinted for the front door and gotten halfway down the street, my carbon fibre bones as yet unclad in this palpable delusion of a young woman. But I could recall neither the event itself, nor why I had felt the need to run. Heather's various friends and lovers and allies (the 'spookycule', name change most certainly not pending) had regaled me with the escape attempt many times. But it wasn't real to me.

I had been asleep. In a coma. I didn't care. What was real? Six weeks and three days of a second chance at life. And this was the first morning I had woken alone. A moment's peace, bathed in brittle October light peeking around the edge of the curtains. Myself, snuggled up deep beneath the sheets and blankets and the big thick duvet. The radiators, beginning to click and creak all throughout the house, beating back autumn's hesitant chill.

My own breathing, slow and even, interrupted by the occasional snore as I slipped back and forth over the edge of sleep. Fringes of cold beyond my cocoon of warmth. Distant birdsong. Fading nightmares. Nothing else." … Heather?" I rolled over to find her, but she was not there. Nobody was there. Empty hands and empty sheets in an empty bed. Alone. I bolted upright, tangled in the sheets, shaking and sweating, heaving for breath. Why do simulated lungs and fake sweat glands react so?

My eyes flew wide, casting around the bedroom, my bedroom. But there was nobody there, nobody but me and the furnishings. Panic crept up my throat, but I clenched my teeth to lock it inside. I fought not to hyperventilate or cry out or scream at the top of my lungs. I allowed myself a small whimper, so small that only the house itself would know.

"Heath— Heather … mm …" One stray scream would summon half a dozen people to my bedroom, all of them ready to protect and comfort and guide, or do whatever else I needed. One or two of them would likely be armed. None of them would judge me for weakness, or tell me off, or roll their eyes. Actually, no; if Evelyn was in, she would probably roll her eyes, and I would enjoy that.

The brand new mobile phone on my bedside table could give me a direct line to Heather with a few moments of fumbling thumbs; she'd made sure of that, done dry-runs just to make sure I knew how to use the device, as if it was some esoteric contraption from another dimension, rather than just a phone. If I called her and whimpered, she would leap out of her class at university like the whole campus was on fire and filled with monsters.

She would skim herself across the dimensional membrane like a flat stone on a pool of liquid mercury. She would be at my side in a heartbeat. My fingers twitched for the phone. I wanted it so badly — to crawl into her arms and feel our bodies match and sob myself into oblivion. But I'd had enough of that. I couldn't backslide now. I had to try. A deep breath propelled me out of bed and onto the floor, upright, arms wind-milling, hair dragging behind.

I was not bound to my sheets, I would never be bound anywhere ever again. Free hands ripped the curtains asunder; let there be light! And lots of it, as much as I could get. Cold light, October light, Northern light, in an ex-industrial university town at practically the other end of the country to where I had been brought up. But light. Earthly and sweet and good. I closed my eyelids and turned my face up, toward autumn's waning sun. My skin was still working. After a few moments I felt the heat of that light.

Another relief. I whimpered some more, then bit my lips to force an end. I shivered and shook as the sweat dried on my skin and the sunlight grew cold. Alone. All by myself. Just Maisie. We had planned this solitary awakening, mostly at my own insistence. Yes, that's right, this was my plan, and no, I'm not a masochist, emotional or otherwise. That's Heather's speciality.

After a few minutes of bathing in the watery sunlight of a Northern English winter's morning, I wiped the tears from my eyes and looked beyond the garden of Number 12 Barnslow Drive. A few spirit creatures gambolled and cavorted on the rooftops of other houses. I had not yet grown used to those, a strange and alien intrusion. Heather had assured me they were quite safe; her memories did the same. But still, this feeling of trepidation was my own, so I clung to it rather hard.

Blue skies, cold and empty, fragile as the stretched surface of an old drum. A cloudless day, like a blank canvas already ruined by pale ink. Clouds would whisper secrets in their patterns, but this clear day told me nothing.

"Blank blank blank blank blank," I hissed to myself.

"There should be something there. I wish there was something there. It would be easier if I could read the mood of the city and the hills from the clouds. Why today of all days? Why today? Perversity. Cosmic indifference. Stop. You're talking to yourself again. But it's clear that the day is clear and—" Down in the garden, at the bottom of my peripheral vision, somebody moved — raised a hand, perhaps waved. I lowered my sight and caught a flicker of long brown hair, just as the figure stepped behind the big tree."

… Heather?" The figure did not re-emerge. I leaned to one side of the window, then to the other, but I could catch no glimpse of a person behind the tree. The trunk was wide, but not so wide as to offer a perfect hiding place. I sighed.

"Phantoms in your periphery. Exactly what you need." I wanted my sister so badly that I was hallucinating her presence. I blinked hard and rubbed my eyes. The flicker of long brown hair had been nothing more than the shadow of a branch on the wet and dewy grass.

"Put yourself right-wise," I whispered.

"Heather will be home after lunch. You need to do this, or you will never do anything ever again." Six weeks and three days of a second life. And every minute Heather, Heather, Heather. Since my awakening we had been inseparable. I had scarce a single moment alone in all the hours since I had opened my new and earthly eyes. We slept together, ate together, bathed together, lay tangled in each other — and none of it against my wishes. I wanted her at my side, every moment of every day. And she gave without limit.

My dear sister would have happily watched me take a shit, if I had asked, like a dog who needs her owner nearby during a vulnerable moment; which I almost had, because for the first week of my new life, my digestion had not functioned properly. But that issue was solved by the Good Doctor Martense, not my sister. My gratitude was inexpressible, not just to Heather, but to all the members of her polycule, all her allies, her friends, everyone who had helped. But I had lived with them now for six weeks.

And I still did not know who I was. This Monday morning was the first day Heather had been willing to attend an early morning class at university without either waking me to bid me her effusive goodbyes, nor tuck me into her bed alongside some surrogate. I had been quite forceful that she should not wake me, nor lead anybody else to my bed as company. Let me sleep. Let me be, for once, alone. I had not been able to articulate why. Heather hadn't liked it. Neither had I, and she could tell.

But I had been strong where she would yield to anything from me, and after several hours of messy back-and-forth, she had yielded to this as well. I got my way, because Heather would give me anything. So I was alone. And I was myself. I opened the bedroom window and stuck my head out, sucking down great lungfuls of cold air. That'll wake anybody up in a hurry, even the dead, like me. Once I was crisply awake I sealed myself back inside again, then checked my phone. Six messages from Heather awaited my attention.

She was being admirably restrained. The first two were just good-morning and I'm-off-to-class-I-love-you-I'll-see-you-later. The third was a quick list of the current whereabouts of everybody in the house who was capable of shooting, strangling, eviscerating, beating up, hog-tying, or otherwise doing bloody good violence to anybody who might come to the door with a mind to do mischief upon my person. (Yes, I know, she's as bad as Evelyn sometimes, though she won't admit it.) The next two messages were pictures from campus, bits of brutalist concrete cutting across the pale skies, accompanied by nice little notes from Heather. The final one was a long and winding message reminding me to eat breakfast, with flawless punctuation and two compound words which Heather seemed to have dredged from a dictionary, but which I knew she hadn't. I reread all the messages three times, then forced myself to put the phone down and leave it on the bedside table, without replying.

"Joined at the hip and joined at the heart," I whispered to myself as I crossed the room.

"Heart-hipped rip-hearted excision … mm …" Time to get dressed, like I was a real human being. I had slept in a t-shirt and pajama bottoms — her t-shirt, her pajama bottoms. I shed those, sniffed the t-shirt before I could stop myself, then threw it on the floor with a slap.

"Stop that!" I hissed at myself.

"Stop. That. Stop. Stop. Cease-end-stop-no." I yanked open the chest of drawers and rummaged through the new clothes. I had a whole selection, owned outright, but purchased with money and charity which would never be my own. I glared down at the t-shirt on the floor, the one I had sniffed. Then I selected an outfit that Heather would never wear: a long, sky-blue, pleated skirt; a tie-dye t-shirt bad enough to give anybody a headache; and a thick, pale shawl to go over my shoulders.

Mismatched socks went on my feet — one red, one purple. Clashing, ridiculous. Whatever! I tossed it all on and fought my hair — too long, always in the bloody way — until I was thoroughly irritated. I should have dragged it into a ponytail, but I couldn't be bothered. I slammed my backside down on the bed and looked across the room, at my reflection in the full-length mirror. I looked like a clown, but at least I looked like— Myself? The yellow ribbon was around my wrist again. I had not seen it appear, as always.

Silken, soft, so light I could forget it in an instant. A piece of Heather's body, always with me.

"Your presence is unpresented," I hissed at it.

"Please, just … let me try." I looked away and back again. The piece of yellow ribbon was gone. Sitting back down on the bed had been a mistake, because now I didn't want to leave. Teeth clenched, fists curled, I sat and stewed in my own frustration. I couldn't even dress myself differently to her without looking absurd. My fingers ached to pick up the phone and call her; I dug my nails into my palms.

I wanted to crawl back into bed and give up on the question for a few more hours, just pause my own existence until she returned and made everything clear again. My computer called me, too. Mine — not Heather's, nothing like Heather would ever use. Heather was barely capable of operating a laptop without injuring herself. My computer was a prebuilt (for now!), another item purchased with money that wasn't mine.

She (yes, she, computers are women, don't laugh or I shall think of biting you, and you shan't like that) stood in pride of place on the re-purposed desk, a great black tower of clean steel attached to a screen by a cluster of umbilical wires. A real screen, which I had already put to great use. And oh, she sang to me, though the screen was off and the machine was hibernating. I longed to sit there and pull up my chaotically curated list, then descend into not being myself for a few hours.

Dial up another anime that I hadn't yet watched, pretend I wasn't present, and only emerge when dehydration became too much. I had done a lot of that over the last six weeks — absorbing the moving image. Not just anime, or videos on the internet, but anything I could get my hands on. Movies, television, cartoons, documentaries. But most of all, anime. Evelyn had shown me the best ways to get at it on the internet; Heather had been clueless. Still was.

Heather didn't understand my need for this stuff; we had watched quite a bit together, but her interest rapidly waned, while mine only increased with every new scrap of media. Even the bad — especially the bad! Oh, she would try her best for me, but inevitably drift back to her books after too much. I didn't mind. One thing I loved that she did not understand. But I could not give in to that urge, not right then, no matter the refuge. That would be a terrible waste of my hard-won solitude.

Vomiting up vile medicine only means you have to take it all over again. I contented myself with a long, lingering, luscious look at the print I'd pinned up on the wall, after I'd had the yellow drapes removed (not my favourite colour, no offense to Sevens, nothing personal). The print was a screen-shot from one of the dozens of shows I'd devoured over the last few weeks, one that had rapidly become a favourite — an anime titled Autumn Girls in Red Season.

The show was about a group of young women who'd grown up in a small village in the mountains, and had all returned there in their early twenties for a variety of contrived reasons. It was the sort of show set in a fictional, fantastical memory of the countryside, where nothing bad ever really happened, everybody was intimate friends with each other, and there was no dramatic plot to speak of — beyond getting lost in the woods and meeting some vaguely spooky nature spirits.

The countryside in question was both fictional and foreign, unreal to me, and perfect for my tastes. The print showed a forested mountainside, half-lit by ethereal sunset; the fading light revealed formless suggestions between the trees. The five main characters were tiny figures, looking out over patchwork farmland. Episode six, at precisely 15 minutes and 26 seconds. I had captured the screen-shot myself. Heather hated the show. It gave her the creeps. Time for me to try.

The last thing I did before leaving the room was go back to the bed and dig out the plushie. I'd given all the other plushies back to Evelyn — I didn't need to be watched over by somebody else's little friends. But this plushie kept returning of her own accord. And I didn't mind her so much.

"Good morning, Praem," I said as I dragged her from deep inside the covers. Flat little eyes looked nowhere in particular. I propped her up on the pillow.

"There, you are righted upward in your rightful placement. Are you glad?" She didn't reply, of course. Heather swore up and down that she could — that this plushie was actually part of the real Praem in some obscure metaphysical fashion. I still wasn't sure if that was a joke or not. Praem herself had never answered my inquiry, the one time I had been able to give it voice. I scooped up my phone from the bedside table and slipped it into my skirt pocket. Then I left the room.

I stepped out into the upstairs corridor, by myself. What can I even say about Number 12 Barnslow Drive? A mouthful of a name, so let's drop that habit.

'Barnslow' is so much easier. I already knew every room and hallway, every nook and cranny, just as well as Heather did. But those memories were not my own, they belonged to her; when she walked down that corridor toward the rooms at the end, she simply did it, rather than wondering why all the twists and turns always added up to more than three hundred and sixty degrees. She never had trouble counting the number of doors; to even suggest that number wasn't consistent would draw the blankest of looks from her.

She never got blinded by the strange shadows which loomed from corners newly born. The corridor never gave her vertigo. She never felt a presence watching over her shoulder. At least the house was very pretty. And at least my room was near the stairs. Sharrowford revealed itself through the upstairs window, layers of rooftops spread out beneath an October sky. More sunlight and open space. Now I was beyond my bedroom, I was no longer alone. Somebody was moving around downstairs, soft and confident, probably Praem.

A muffled tap-a-tap-click-a-click came from the far end of the corridor — Kimberly, shut up in her bedroom, doing something on her computer. She was probably writing more fanfiction. Another room was currently occupied, the door ajar a few inches; Tenny's voice floated out, a beautiful fluttery trilling, a hook in my gut. My heels twitched. But then another voice replied to Tenny. Another voice, soft and light, belonging to— Her. One of the few who did not feature in the memories I had inherited from Heather.

Tenny was lovely. I found her so much easier to deal with than most of the others. Tenny did not expect you to look her in the eyes. She never asked you to speak up. When you do speak, Tenny accepts what is said; or if she asks questions, she means them, she never tries to ask other questions by masking them with layers of unnecessary nonsense. You can sit in a room with Tenny for hours, just doing your own thing, and Tenny will be perfectly happy.

Sometimes Lozzie will show up, and she can be difficult, but she is at least tolerable. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. One can be with Tenny, and still be oneself. But right then, Tenny wasn't alone. And I didn't want to sour myself by running into her new best friend, even if the mother was safely as far away as possible. My mood was already strange and tender. I didn't need to encounter her. With heavy feet, I turned away.

But as I moved toward the stairs, another occupant of this polycule-nest stepped out from the blank portal of Heather's bedroom door. I stopped dead; so did she. Time stilled for a split-second as her eyes passed over me — the worst split-second, the one that made my stomach clench and brought the taste of bile to the back of my throat. A split-second in which any observer was not quite sure who she was looking at. Which twin had she bumped into? Was it her own, or the other one?

Visual cues took a moment to penetrate, to remind her she was not looking at—"Oh, Maisie, hey!" said Raine.

"You're up!" Raine. My little problem. Raine, breaking into a big grin in my peripheral vision, the so-called 'blazing confidence' that made my sister weak at the knees and wet in the cunt. Raine — tall, rakish, toned and muscled, with the bearing of a barely-tamed hound and the physique of a street fighter. Raine, dressed in jogging bottoms and a tank top and an open, unzipped hoodie, showing off her collarbone and a hint of abdomen. Chestnut-brown hair (what does that mean, anyway? Why chestnuts? Heather has never explained that to me), freckled across her nose and cheeks, eyes like pools of melted chocolate— No! Heather's words! Heather's vision. Heather's judgement. Raine was a bloody great butch dyke with a good smile and too much height on me. That's all.

"Maisie?" Raine repeated. Her grin creased with concern.

"You okay?" I bobbed my head.

"Mmhmm."

"How'd you sleep?" Nightmares. Dark cold infinity forever and ever, alone in the void.

"Fine," I said.

"Great! Good. Hey, seriously, I'm glad to hear it. You just woke up? Heading down for breakfast?"

"Mm." Raine ran a hand through her hair. Her eyes went up and down my body; I could tell even though my gaze was glued to a point on the wall. She said: "Heeeey, I like the new style. A bit of mix and match, right? The shawl makes you look dignified."" … mmm." Raine burst out laughing. I frowned, switching my gaze to a point on the floor, just left of Raine's feet." … excuse … me? What is funny?" Raine controlled her laughter.

"Sorry! Sorry. Just, uh, I could tell you thought I was taking the piss, mocking you or something. You scowled at the wall." I scowled at a point six inches to the left of her feet.

"I did not." Raine put up her hands and flashed that grin again.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have laughed. It just surprised me. And the compliment was genuine, by the way. The shawl works, even with the tie-dye. Especially with the tie-dye, even. Half hippie, half regal. Excellent choice. Really! Lozzie would love it." I bit my tongue hard, then looked at Raine's elbow.

"It's not an excellent choice, I look like shit. It's just … it's what I wanted." Raine shrugged.

"Then it's still an excellent choice." I made a noise in my throat. Raine laughed again. My gaze jumped to her collarbone — danger! Danger! I dragged my gaze back down, put her firmly in my peripheral. Raine presented me with an intractable problem. Not standing there in the upstairs hallway, I mean; that was a most tractable problem (is 'tractable' a word? It is now, I have invented it and you must live with the consequences.) I could simply walk past her and go down the stairs and that would be that.

Eat my dust! But I couldn't do that, because then I would have to draw close to her, and I would be forced to feel emotions which were not my own. Raine — the grin that flashed across that soft face, the way her muscles cupped her curves, the way she cocked her shoulders, the honeyed murmur of her voice — stirred in me a sickening mixture of embarrassment and arousal. I could call to mind so many intimate images of her, naked and sweat-soaked, leaning over Heather, knuckles-deep.

Raine's face in the throes of orgasm. Raine's mouth on my sister's— I hissed through my teeth; Raine blinked. None of those private memories were mine. The desire to melt into Raine's arms was unwanted, invasive, and alien. My arousal was an echo, and it made me want to be sick all down myself. I did not find Raine attractive. Heather would be aghast and confused if I'd told her that, wouldn't she? Her butch prince, not hot? Bafflement! Outrage! Complete panic!

My sister considers her tastes and tendencies to be universal, even if she would not phrase it that way. She is blind to the implications of her own assumptions. If I made the mistake of confiding in her about this uncomfortable arousal, she would invite me into bed with Raine without a second thought, and I would be defeated utterly. What is hers is mine. She wouldn't even feel any jealousy. And that — Raine — was very dangerous. Not just for the reasons you're thinking.

When Raine looked at me, she saw an imitation of Heather. Raine only cared about me because I was her lover's twin. If Heather was somehow out of the picture, I would not matter. In her eyes I was nothing but reflection. I took a deep breath. This was not the time for omnidirectional rage.

"Anyway," Raine was saying.

"Most everybody else is out right now. Heather's at class, I know you already know that, but Evee's on campus too, and she's got Praem with her. They're going down the shelter later, to take another look at the cats. I think Praem's almost decided. I've gotta head out in a bit too, and I promised Heather I'd look in on you before I left. Tenny's in, Lozzie's somewhere about, and Kimberly's got the day off. Sevens is watching the house, she's got responsibility and all. Zheng's … I dunno, actually."

Raine's grin changed.

"I'll find her later. I think Jan's supposed to visit this afternoon for one of your check-ups, but Heather should be back by then. So you're not alone-alone, but you are alone, sort of, just for a bit." Raine pulled one of those warm, comforting grins which would have melted my sister's cunt clean off. It reflected from me like a mirror. Then it turned brittle. Raine just said: "You sure you're gonna be alright, Maisie?"

"Mm."

"Got any plans? Anything you wanna do today?" I shrugged. Kept my eyes on Raine's elbow.

"Brace myself for … for Saturday."

"Of course," Raine said, nodding slowly.

"The parent visit."

"The parent visit," I echoed.

"Pre-emptive decompression," Raine said. Her grin flattened into something more serious.

"I don't blame you. And hey, I know I've said this a million times before, but you're gonna have all the backup in the world. Heather, me, more of us. You're not doing it alone. Hell, you don't even have to talk. You can just—""Don't want to think about it."

"Sure thing." Raine nodded. Her grin bounced back; my traitorous little heart bounced with it. Nothing more than Heather's sloppy seconds. To my sudden horror, Raine reached out with one hand, casually closing the distance between us. Her intent was innocent — a chaste pat on the shoulder — but I could not allow her to touch me.

'Sorry, Raine, but I've seen your orgasm face and felt my own sister shuddering beneath you, and even a tap on my arm is too confusing for me to deal with, lest I break down in the bathroom and jill myself off to memories that aren't my own. So no touching, please.' As if I could get even a tenth of those words out of my mouth. Instead I just flinched. Raine stepped back and lowered her arm, quickly and without comment. Too polite to say anything. Too smooth and experienced to make the mistake.

Pretended she hadn't noticed. That hurt. You must understand, I did not hate Raine. I did not even dislike her. I was, in fact, rather fond of her, as I was toward all of my sister's friends and lovers and allies and whoever else she had gathered around herself during the long dark of the previous year. They had all stood by her. Most of them had assisted in rescuing me. Even the ones who hadn't had helped her slay monsters. Heather could not have done that alone.

I hated none of them, despite the complexity of my heart. But none of them were mine. If I broke down and went for Raine, I would never resurface. I would drown in Heather. Raine smoothed over the awkward moment without missing a beat.

"Anyway, like I said, I'm heading out. I'll meet up with Heather at campus. Probs Evee, too. We should all be back this afternoon. You have a good morning, Maisie. You've got my number too, if you need anything. Any time, you hear?"

"Mm." I nodded, keeping my eyes on the wall. Raine gave me a little wave and headed for the stairs. I watched her descend in my peripheral vision, then waited for the sound of her putting on her shoes, grabbing her jacket, and opening the front door. A moment longer and she was gone. And I was safe. Only then did I venture downstairs.

The so-called 'front room' of Barnslow was an incredible jumble of mess and junk — shoes and coats by the door, crates and boxes piled up along either wall overflowing with bric-a-brac a generation stale, with an actual grandfather clock rising from the rubble like a single surviving beam after an earthquake. I believe my sister and her companions had grown rather used to it, but my fingers twitched with a need to tidy up. Why had Praem never cleaned this specific space? Perhaps the mess was beyond even her.

Perhaps even maids have limits. I certainly had limits. Carbon fibre bones and pneuma-somatic muscles were more reliable than meat and blood, but I was just as petite as I had been in my first life, and I lacked my sister's tentacular advantages. Which is to say, I was not getting even one of those boxes off the floor. I would pull a back muscle in the attempt. And yes, I could still pull muscles, even if they were made from fairy dust and moonlight. Being a doll on the inside doesn't make me superhuman.

The kitchen, at least, was much better kept than the front room. Praem would not have allowed otherwise. Barnslow's kitchen was all very rustic, all stone floors and ancient countertops, but it was well-organised and very clean, with no rust or dust or mouse droppings in the corners. One wide window was inset into the wall above the sink, giving the kitchen a good view of the back garden — and an airy, open aspect, unlike the other enclosed rooms of the house. Cold October sunlight poured across the table.

Silent and empty. No Praem, no Zheng, no lingering late breakfasts, nobody at the table except a few discarded bowls and a cereal box not yet returned to its rightful place. The door to the so-called 'magical workshop' was shut tight; I could have opened it and hung out with two massive quasi-automatic spiders and one of their natural spirit-life equivalents, but I didn't feel like breaking the solitaire of my current existence, not then, not yet.

By the time I fetched myself cereal and milk, I was trying, very hard, to enjoy that solitude. I put my phone on the table while I ate, to chase away the sudden echoes inside my empty skull. (That's not a self-deprecating comment, by the way; my skull is literally empty of brains. There's other stuff in there, but my head is not the seat of my thoughts.) I navigated to one of those websites where people upload pictures of anime characters — you know the ones, don't make me say the names, I shan't do that here — and then spent my solitary breakfast browsing pictures of the characters from Autumn Girls in Red Season. I flicked through some favourites, then eventually settled on a new picture, uploaded just that previous night. It showed one of the main characters, Yuno, framed by a big blue sky and the spreading branches of a vast tree, too large to be real.

She was turning to look at the viewer, a sundress billowing outward from her bare legs, innocent curiosity in those cartoonishly big eyes. I traced her face with a fingertip, then saved the image and made it my phone's wallpaper. Got any plans? Raine's question was still rattling around inside my head.

"Exegesis?" I hissed.

"Equivocation? Or simple avoidance?" I tapped the table with my fingertips, then my nails.

"Tell me, how am I meant to answer that inquiry? With nothing! There is no answer, how can there be one? How would you like it if I asked you that very same question, Raine? Tch!" I stomped over to the sink to deposit my empty cereal bowl; at least I could keep my own litter clean, even if I wasn't doing anything else with this— Out in the garden, through the window, at the top of my peripheral vision, somebody moved — raised a hand, perhaps waved. I raised my sight.

Caught a flicker of long brown hair, just as the figure stepped behind the big tree.

"Deceit," I snapped.

"Once was a trick of the light and I accepted that. Twice? No, now you're just fucking with me." I should have called for help. Tenny was upstairs, Seven-Shades-of-Sunlight was around somewhere, and doubtless other ears would hear. An adult would come running at the slightest raise of my voice.

Not that I'm not an adult, but you have to understand that I do not feel like one, most of the time; I do not feel like a child, either, but more like a thing preserved in amber for a million years, then chiselled out and warmed up and set to totter around like a piece of broken clockwork. But I should have called for help. Raine would come running at one phone call; Heather was a split-second dimensional hop away.

By all rights I should have grabbed my phone and thumbed to her number, fingers shaking, breath catching in my throat. Something weird had happened in or around Barnslow, yet again! Sound the alarm! Raise the hue and cry! That's what my sister would have done, isn't it? But I keep telling you. I'm not her. I stomped into the front room, stomped into my trainers, stomped all the way to the back door in the little utility room off the kitchen, then stomped out onto the back patio. Stomp stomp stomp.

I felt better already. I felt like kicking something, hard. The garden helped take some of that away, even half-dead and turning with the colours of late autumn. October had been biting for too long. Cold air raised little goose pimples on my skin. The chill went down inside me and teased at a memory of lungs.

I tugged my shawl tight around my shoulders and stomped across the garden, stomping on the grass, stomping all the way up to the big tree; the leaves had begun to turn weeks ago, littering the ground with fallen flakes of orange and yellow, some already turning to wet rot. The smell was glorious, a nose full of life's raw stuff. A smile pulled at my face; whatever was messing with me, it would hear me coming and know that I was full of rage and— I stepped around the tree. Nobody was there.

"Fuck you," I said to the back of the tree, more surprised than angry.

"Really. Really, fuck you. Upside down and sideways and without any kind of orientation. Orientation … orientation. Sorry." I patted the tree and muttered another apology. Not the tree's fault, after all. My tread was lighter on the way back to the house. I even looked up at the building and smiled; some of the new roof-work was finished, most of the blue tarpaulin was gone. It did look smarter than when I'd first awoken. I slipped in through the back door and slipped off my shoes.

Didn't want to track dew all through the kitchen and make more work for Praem. I never like making more work for Praem. She isn't a domestic servant. She's not even really one of my sister's polycule, she's something else, and I find her both tolerable and pleasant. The last thing I want is to waste Praem's respect. So I stepped back into the kitchen, reaching for my phone in my pocket, intending to let the responsible parties know that something weird had happened. And there, I found myself.

She was seated at the table, in the same chair I had occupied five minutes earlier. For a split second I thought it was Heather; the very same mistake that makes my skin crawl and my stomach turn when others inflict it on me. Must be Heather, because that's the only thing which made any sense. She must have come home early from campus, yes? The mistake passed quickly. This petite little Morell had no tentacles, after all.

She had my hair, far longer than Heather's, hanging down in a smooth waterfall of chocolate brown, pooling in her lap. She wore my hastily assembled, clashing outfit — the long pleated skirt and the tie-dye t-shirt and the shawl over narrow shoulders. She was hunched over a copy of my mobile phone on the table, with my furtive confusion, my po-faced emptiness, my pale and incomplete face. She looked up without much expression, unsurprised to see me. Heather would never have made a face like that.

She would have looked approachable, or curious, perhaps confused. At the very least she would make the effort to appear polite and normal. Not blank, not like me. My mirror-image held up the mobile phone, a duplicate of the one in my skirt pocket. It had the same wallpaper I had set earlier, of the character from Autumn Girls in Red Season.

"Why her?" asked the Mirror-Maisie. She had my voice, too. A sweet and girlish melody, if a little abstracted. I shrugged.

"Why not?"

"Do you want to kiss her? Hold her? Have sex with her?"

"She's a cartoon," I answered. Mirror-Maisie frowned, just like I do — a sudden storm across the brow.

"Anime isn't cartoons."

"I agree with that, but it was a figure of speech." I gestured at the phone.

"She's not real. I can't fuck her. I can jill myself off to an image of her, but nothing more than that."

"You're not real," she countered. My turn to frown at this Mirror-Me. That was one of my innermost thoughts, a self-doubt I dared not voice to the others, not even to my sister.

"I'm not fictional," I said.

"You're made of carbon fibre and metal and dreams. You're not—""There is biological matter in my core." The Mirror-Maisie shrugged, just as I would. Her expression barely changed, just like me.

"Greasy bone fragments," she said.

"You're basically a walking corpse. A techno-lich. A piece of burned remains piloting a puppet. Everybody knows that." She waggled the phone again.

"And you haven't answered the question. Why her?" I sighed, rolled my eyes, and sat down at the table, opposite My Mirror Image. For some reason I had no trouble holding her gaze. The Reflection raised her eyebrows.

"You're taking this very well. Your sister would have been freaking out by now. Making threats. Trying to reason—""I'm not her."

"Evidently," said the Reflection.

"So, what are you going to do?"

"About you?" I asked.

"Nothing. Whatever you are, you're not my responsibility."

"No, not about me. About you." Got any plans? She carried on talking: "Because that's the big question, isn't it? What now for the damsel returned, and no longer in distress? The lost girl arrives home, after so many years in the wilderness, among monsters and dragons and whatnot. What does she do now? She's back in the world, the world of paying taxes, getting qualifications, stubbing your toe, developing minor gastrointestinal complaints, and so on. But she's not the slightest bit prepared for any of that."

"Stop talking." She did not stop talking.

"She's a little girl, lost in an adult's world. All she can do, for the rest of her life, is languish in her sister's much grander shadow. How can a thing full of half-memories measure up to a giant casting such shade?" I stood up from the table and walked over to the corner of the kitchen, where the countertops met. The Other Me was still speaking.

"Unless this damsel returned can figure out what to do with herself, of course. But she has no reference points for the world that don't already belong to her sister. Everything she thinks and feels is already charted out for her, but the map is meaningless!" I reached into the countertop corner, where the knife block stood. I pulled out a carving knife, the big one. Oh. That felt good.

"Because her sister is everything to her, but she is rapidly turning into a waste," the Mirror-Me was saying.

"Because it would be such a waste to do nothing, right? Wouldn't it—" I turned around, holding the knife. The Reflection smiled, her eyes on the blade. But she kept talking.

"—be a disrespect, even, to waste this second chance at life—" I stepped toward the Reflection. She finally faltered.

"Stop," I said. The Mirror-Me's eyes flickered between the blade and my face, then back again.

"Or … or you'll do what? You can't be serious. You'll do what? Threaten me with a knife?"

"I'll cut your throat." The thing that was wearing my face like a mask made an expression that didn't look anything like me — eyes wide, lips parted, skin blanching with sudden fear. She stopped looking like a reflection in a mirror; now she was more like a portrait by a drunken, half-blind, bored artist.

"Oh," she said in a small voice.

"Oh. Gosh." Another thing I wouldn't say.

"You … you actually would, wouldn't you? You really mean it. Oh my."

"Yes." The Mimic-Thing cleared her throat and took a deep breath.

"I-I-I must confess, I wasn't expecting you to be like this."

"What were you expecting?"

"I … I don't quite know, now that you've asked the question. Something like your sister, I suppose? She would make a threat like this, absolutely. But she would struggle to do so, internally. And she might not really mean it, she might not be able to make good on the promise. She'd have to psych herself up to even bring the knife to my face, let alone make the cut." The Mimic-Thing let out a weird, high-pitched giggle.

"We both know how she is. A sort of special coward, in her own way. Quick to answer, quick to justify, slow to take responsibility—" I took a step closer.

"Shut up." The Mimic squeaked and raised her hands.

"I was only mirroring your own thoughts about her, only—""Do not let my tone fool you, when I think of my sister. I love her dearly, perhaps more than is strictly healthy, and she is a mirror in that regard. I may insult her at my leisure, as I like, but those words do not pass your lips. Or I will cut out your tongue and burn it." The Mimic swallowed.

"Yes. Yes, I can see that. You wouldn't hesitate."

"No." A hint of smile creased her lips.

"But you've never done this before. You've never slit a throat. Crushed a windpipe. Emptied another person's guts onto the floor."

"No. I haven't." She breathed out slowly, nodding to herself.

"Alright. I'll drop the subject. You really are nothing like your sister."

"Have you read her story?" I asked. The Mimic shrugged, nothing like me either now, rolling her shoulders beneath the copied shawl, where I would have just gone straight up and down.

"I may have … experienced it. Second hand. Similar to you."

"Then go bother her, not me." The Mimic waved the question away with a flick of her fingers.

"I'm not interested in her. I'm interested in you, Maisie. Your problems are far more fascinating, now. Your sister's greatest challenge is currently her literary disgust at having to plough through a bunch of eighteenth century novels. Hardly my cup of tea." With every word she spoke this thing looked and sounded less and less like me. She smiled and relaxed and wove words in ways I would not, or could not. She noticed, and said: "You're trying to figure out who I am, aren't you?"

"Who are you?" She smiled.

"Think of me as a mirror, and I shall act as one."

"I can unmask you quite easily," I said.

"Unmirror your mirrors. Mirror you on the floor." The Mimic hesitated.

"You mean with … with the knife? Please, there's no need for that." I sighed. I lowered the knife, but I kept it in my fist.

"You're not Seven-Shades-of-Sunlight. She's more sensible and responsible than this, and far too gentle when she handles me. A sibling? Mm, sibling, sibling … no. Not one of the ones in my memories, anyway. Heart wouldn't be interested in me. Her thing is doomed heroes. She's got a thing for Jan. You're probably not …

'Steel'? No, not her either. She's a monster-fucker or something. Or the monster doing the fucking. Fuck-monstering. Whatever. No, I don't think you're Carcosan at all." The Mimic smiled wider, the slash of her mouth growing beyond the mirror of my lips; the edges began to split, showing too many teeth running all the way back into her gums.

"The Carcosan Royal Family aren't the only ones who can put on masks," she said.

"You're a pale imitation," I replied.

"And paling out." The Mimic laughed — a high-pitched little cackle. More of the reflection fell away. Smile too wide, ears too pointed, teeth all sharp and jagged. Her eyes elongated, turning a milky green. Her fingers had too many joints. Suddenly she didn't fit into the chair very well, with too many limbs all spilling out of it and onto the floor tiles.

"You've also got bigger tits than me," I said.

"So much for being a reflection." The Mimic just smiled and smiled and smiled.

"Is this meant to be scary?" I asked. She shrugged. Her shoulders made a popping and cracking sound, like too many bones rubbing against each other.

"What happens if I scream?" I said.

"I'll vanish, I suppose."

"Really?"

"You've threatened to slit my throat." She raised both hands in surrender, before I could raise the knife again; her fingers were all knobbly at the knuckles, nails long and dark with soil and worse.

"But, point taken. I am less robust than your various Ladies in Yellow. If you really don't want this, I can just leave. I can—""No," I blurted out. The Mimic paused." … ah?" I could not even begin to unpack the reasons for my interjection. Whatever this thing was, whatever her intentions, whatever method she had used to get inside the Barnslow House, whatever plan she was unfolding — she was here for me. Not Heather. Nobody but I knew she was here. Right then, whatever else she was, she was mine.

She was also terrified. Or pretending.

"Um …

""What?" I asked.

"What's wrong?"

"You're … you're breathing like a bull. Like you're readying yourself for a charge. And you're still holding that knife." She waved a hand in the air.

"I can just leave, if you want, really! This doesn't have to come to blows. I did not come here to get hurt." I glanced at the knife in my hand, then slapped it down on the table with a hard crack. The Mimic flinched back in her chair.

"What am I going to do with myself?" I echoed.

"That's the question you want to press? The pressure you want to question?" The Mimic stared, blinking rapidly.

"I— sorry?"

"What am I going to do with myself?" I repeated, a sardonic edge slicing into my words.

"Good question. Wild question. Question of questions. Evelyn is meant to be setting up a consult with an adult education specialist. Some bullshit like that. But I don't need it. I have Heather's education, even if I don't care about the same parts of it that she did. For ten years I've absorbed her knowledge, her information, her everything, because it's the only thing I had. Do you understand that? Did you intuit that from her story? Did you fucking get it?"

"R-right, right, that's—""What my sister's polycule fails to comprehend is that I am not a ten year old girl in the body of a twenty year old. I am an adult who has spent the last ten years experiencing the world through a fucking pinhole camera!" I breathed in and out again, hard and angry — like a bull, as the Mimic had said. The knife glinted on the table. It would feel good in my fist again.

"And now you're home," said the Mimic. She spoke slowly and gently, as if to a furious animal.

"You've spent the last six weeks watching as much anime and television as you can. Mostly anime. Quite a canon you've absorbed." I looked back up at her. She flinched and put her hands up again.

"G-gosh," she stammered.

"You really are quick to think of violence, aren't you? I didn't expect this. I was trying to help you!" I touched the handle of the knife with my fingertips.

"And what did you expect? A sweet little thing? Coiling and twisting in your grip?"

"N-no! No—""You didn't expect this because Heather doesn't see it in me," I said.

"My sister has many flaws, as you are probably well aware if you slogged your way through her narrative, and one of those flaws is her ability to blind herself to things she doesn't want to see. And to her, I'm golden. I'm her twin sister. I can do no wrong. She doesn't see this side of me, because she doesn't want to." The Mimic nodded.

"You sound … forgive me, I mean no offense, but you sound frustrated with her."

"With myself. I can't be her shadow. I can't be the reflection in her eyes. Like this I'm … nothing."

"Oh." The Mimic frowned, all concerned and gentle.

"Oh dear, oh no, that's not true, that's not what I—""You were right. I was a damsel in distress. And now I'm back, and I have no idea what to do, or what to want, or what to be. Because all I've had in my head for the last ten years is bits of her. Bits of Heather which are not me. She wasn't the only one who didn't get to grow up." The Mimic pulled a grimace. She'd bitten off more than she could chew.

"You've only been back six weeks," she said.

"Give it time—""How much? How long?" I demanded.

"Ten years? Ten more years to actually grow up, to be myself?" The Mimic gestured with both hands, trying to calm me.

"That's why I'm here! That's why I came! Please— please put the knife down!" I looked at my fist; I had taken up the knife again. I put it down on the table.

"Speak." The Mimic swallowed. She gestured for permission to stand up. I granted it with a nod. As the Mimic-Thing rose to her feet, she stopped looking inhuman and returned to my mirror image. Her features slid back into place, teeth all neat and blunt, eyes soft and round, ears losing their points, limbs tidying themselves back into order. By the time she stood before me, she was once again a perfect copy. Me, dressed terribly, looking back at myself.

But when she spoke, she didn't sound anything like me: "I'm here because I read your sister's story. Because I know you're the leftovers, the dangling thread, the unresolved tension. You're right, I'm not Carcosan Royalty. I'm not even Carcosan at all. But I do share certain of their … proclivities. And now I want to help you."

"To do what?" She smiled — as I would smile, a tiny turning at the corner of my lips, a little crinkle beside the eyes.

"What if I showed you all the things you could be?" said my Reflection.

"What if I laid them out before you, like a menu, so you could examine them and turn them over, before making your choice? What if I could open the book of your life and show you the pages from halfway through?"

"And why would you do that for me?" The Mimic shrugged.

"Charity? Call it that if you want. Infatuation might be a better word. Fascination, that's not quite right. Puppy love? Maybe …" I wanted to sneer; I restrained myself. Because I rather liked the sound of this offer.

"And how would you achieve this charity?" I asked.

"How would you show me all this?" The Reflection slipped her mirror of my mobile phone into the pocket of her skirt. She pushed her slender shoulders back beneath her shawl, puffing out my complete lack of chest in the tie-dye t-shirt. She settled stray tresses of hair behind her ears. She swallowed and tried to steel her nerves. She wasn't very good at it. Was this how I would look, if I was presenting myself to a hopeless crush? Cute. The Reflection offered me her right hand.

Slender little fingers, pale palm, neat nails cut short. She bit her bottom lip, then explained.

"All you have to do is take my hand."