Peter had promised me that no one else remembered the time spent inside their mother either, those months of incubation, pulsing and warm. In those early days, we were all budding cells. So small, so nebulous, so utterly dependent, unscarred and unprepared for the bright, waiting world. I’d always thought myself disadvantaged to have had no such protection. I’d imagined others still carried the effects of their gestation, subconsciously attuned to what it meant to be alive in a way that I would never understand. I’d pitied myself. Was this what it was like to move through a living body?
Looking around, I was reminded of the images I’d seen in Peter’s books, great churches with intricately tiled walls, swirling patterns of mosaic made in reverence to heaven. Perhaps I was, despite appearance, climbing up this twisting maze to some sort of empyrean. For a moment, I was consoled. Then, as the pathway steepened, as the walls around me narrowed and the little light there’d been began to fade, I saw the skulls arranged to make a doorframe. They were cavern-eyed and jawless—to pass under their gateway was to let them eat me whole. I turned back to examine the decorations I’d thought fungus and realized that they, too, were bones, stacked together like firewood, making up the walls of the tunnel, the blunted ends their only visible parts. Suddenly light-headed, I bent down with my hands on top of my knees to try to take in a good breath. I imagined the air in here to be rife with spirits, felt I’d sucked them all inside me.
These bowels of the forest were damp and dark, and gave off a fertile stink much like the scent that I’d noticed on the women at Urizon. The only light shone weak ahead of me, filtering through in divots, dappled as if breaking in through trees. The floor was made up of a sticky mud that sucked at the bottoms of my feet.
After several minutes of tromping, I came across a barrier made of smaller bones—little nibs of hands or feet—hanging as a beaded curtain might separate rooms of a house. From somewhere beyond came the overwhelming churning sound of the sea, the sort of noise heard listening to a seashell. I grimaced and pushed through the curtain, pretending I could not feel bones tickling my skin.
I arrived in a vast and echoing cavern, lit by a pale purple light. Its ceilings were patterned in bone, abstract, almost floral, each small piece of the body utilized with sweet precision and positioned in a keen and lovely way. A dais stood in the center, bone as well, I gathered. Six steps made of bones led to an osseous stage fused smooth. On it was a massive pile of wood and cartilage, a throne with arms of gnarled branches, bones braided through. It was flanked by great antlers.
And at the foot of the platform sat Matthew, cross-legged, his head bent in concentration, his brow furrowed and tight. He was fiddling with something in front of him, a puzzle-like contraption, propping it up and then letting out a frustrated huff when it collapsed. He did not respond to my arrival. Relieved, I went to him eager for our reunion, ready to demonstrate my newfound camaraderie with the trees, proud as a dog showing off a new trick. I’d almost reached him when a figure stepped out of the shadows, blocking my path. My shadowed double. Her eyes were whiteless dark.
Until she stood in front of me, I had not quite believed in her. Despite the many marvels I had witnessed, despite my own visions, Lucy’s explanation, Alys’s warning, despite telling myself, Yes, I understand, I am prepared, the sinking queerness in my stomach made it clear that I hadn’t, I wasn’t.
To look at her in front of me was like seeing Urizon shifted off of its foundation by ravenous trees, my father with flowers for eyes, my blood pooling onto the floor of Rafe’s prison. All my life she had been waiting, growing stronger, of me and not me, given form and feeling by the urges I’d repressed. Each breath the doctors fed me through a plastic tube aroused her. Each blade of grass I twirled between my fingers lent a charge to the defibrillator that would start her heart. Each animal I encountered with Coulton, each creature I commanded, pushed her forward, gave her strength. This girl was my own black-eyed shadow, manifestation of my darkness, taking everything I wanted but denied myself, growing bold as I grew ruthless, sustained by each life that I touched. Her hair was richer than mine, shinier and thicker. Her skin was brighter, her figure more fit. It was as if she had absorbed all my vitality, as if I, not she, was the shadow. I was afraid to speak, had no idea what I could tell her, but when I looked again at Matthew, I knew I must say something.
There was a vacancy in his expression that I had never seen before. His eyes held none of their usual thoughtfulness. His hands made the same motions, again and again, though it was clear that such action would not work. He still had not acknowledged me. He scared me.
“Let Matthew go.” I planted my voice low in my chest, hoping to sound older, more sure of myself. It came out as a croak. “Let him go and set him right. What have you done to him?”
My other self looked at me, her head cocked, mouth dancing to a grin.
“What have I done?” Her voice was velvety and rich. “You gave him to me, or don’t you remember?”
“I what?”
“When you touched him. You gave all of them to me.”
She was menacing in her stillness, as calm as Coulton, as sleek as a young fox. I felt lanky and awkward beside her. My skin itched. I scowled. As she spoke, she moved closer, shielding Matthew from my view.
“They are ours, really, both yours and mine,” she said. “The gifts you gave them were a gift you gave yourself. But you already know this.”
I shook my head, feigning denial. But I did know this. I did.
There was always, warned Peter, a price. Sometimes immediate, sometimes so long in its collection that we debtors might believe ourselves exempt. A princess promises her unconceived child to the fairy that frees her. A druidess curses a stolen tract of land. A little girl revives her father. And yet . . .
“You don’t own him,” I insisted. As I spoke, I considered my own trajectory, from my father to Matthew, to Coulton and Rafe. Even under their influence, I’d still been myself. “Even if you kill and bring him back, Matthew doesn’t just belong to you.”
“Yet here he is,” the black-eyed girl said simply.
“Then where are the others?” I asked in frustration. “All of the other bodies, other lives?”
My black-eyed shadow smiled and pointed to the left side of her chest, raised her arms up to the ceiling and spun a slow circle. The implication, then, they were here, with us—Mr. Abbott’s terrier a tinkling chandelier, Rafe a Corinthian column . . .
My shadow walked to where Matthew sat and placed a hand on his head. She licked her lips with a bloodless gray tongue, examining him as though he were a sort of barnyard pet, one she might raise and love and care for, and then eat without a second thought once suppertime arrived.
“I keep this one here because he is our favorite.” My shadow stroked Matthew’s temple. I felt the urge to lunge, push her hand off him, but held myself back.
“Then when he solves that puzzle, he can leave you?” I asked. I had in mind several old stories, other heroes given seemingly impossible tasks. There might be a trick to the game, the whole thing might be a riddle, and if we merely shifted angles, strategy would become clear.
My shadow laughed. “How silly,” she said to me. “How quaint.”
I walked over to Matthew and knelt down so I could see his puzzle’s pieces, determine what they were and how they might remain erect. It was difficult to get a good look, as Matthew’s hands moved fast about them, but when I finally did, I saw that they were merely little twigs, dried out and dirtied with stubborn bits of soil. There was no innate order to follow, no way to intuit their end goal. Still, Matthew’s fingers were raw from them, from struggling, repetition. The tips of his fingernails were black.
“What are the rules, then?” I asked of my shadow. “What is it that he has to do?”
She smiled, ran her finger along the curve of Matthew’s ear. “That he has to do?” she said to me. “Why, nothing.” I saw in her my own attempted coyness, magnified and cruel. My throat tightened.