Page 3 of The Cannibal

On the other side of the wall, a melodic voice. It tickled my ears. My mind swam, searching for the familiarity. It was just on the tip of my tongue, a hazy image in my mind as I searched.

“No!” A shout. Phoebe.

As promised, my legs carried me in what could have been my last twenty seconds of being brave, of being strong. A shot of adrenaline so fierce I forgot that my stomach was ready to shrivel and expel. Enough to where the colors around me burst into vividness, enough to make my eyes tingle, they were on fire. If it weren’t for adrenaline, I’d be sick.

The rifle pressed into my shoulder, pointed straight with my last thread of strength.

A grand, red room. The chandelier so dazzling, I had to squint. A giant parlor palm in an ornate vase, so large, in fact, there was bench seating around it. The mirrored walls made it seem larger; it frankly didn’t need it. A parlor room gilded as if it were built by Catholics.

Screams cracked in my ear, a mass of movement around the room as people stood. They clutched one another, staring.

They were staring at me, in abject horror.

“Alina . . .”

I swung, the rifle pointing to the voice. The crowd ducked the barrel like they were some sort of tidal wave.

At the end of the bayonet, wide green eyes.

She was as I remembered her, like I was watching a memory of her from before, a return of what was once familiar. Swathed in a lustrous pink day dress, it matched her cheeks. Her hair is so vibrant, red and curled in a perfect silhouette. Except her face was different, taut with an unpleasant kind of surprise, a deep sadness ready to unwind in front of me.

My eyes hurt, the sickness was beginning to tingle at the back of my head, the pulsing of my temples almost too much to bear. It was hard to swallow, or perhaps the words were just getting stuck.

So many words could have come. An apology was my first impulse. The only thing that came was a recoiled weep.

With one shaky step forward, I dropped the gun and my legs gave out.

Phoebe hooked her arms under mine and held me up. Her silk-covered fingers grasped at my nightgown, my hair, whatever she could to hold me up.

I couldn’t control it any longer, the pain came all at once and released all the same, in a cry into her bluebell-scented hair.

In the mirrored wall, uncertain shuffling and hysterical faces shifted between the bleary view. When I looked at us, though, Phoebe and I . . . I saw her back. It was her. I saw my own fingers grasping the fabric as I embraced her.

What looked back at me was not me. There was a horrifying sight, pale with black-filled eyes.

My reflection was no longer recognizable.

A creature had replaced me.

2

THE POISONER

The dead flowers crumbled against the bedding, and the silence between us was just as fragile.

The tips of my fingers were no longer red, not like they used to be. The scratching of boar bristles pulled at my hair, then fingers gentle enough to weave through.

Phoebe sat behind me as my legs hung off the edge of the bed.

It was never awkward like this between us, but it seems more things had changed than expected. There were questions, I just wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answers yet. The tension was palpable, unyielding.

“What . . .” I swallowed hard, the dryness returning. “What happened?”

Phoebe’s brushstroke caught, then continued again. “I think you need some time to come to it before I explain. Rest knowing you are safe, everyone is safe.”

The answer did not give me the ease she thought it would, but it clipped the urgency.

She stood and picked through a pile of clothing draped over the single chair.