True Image

This is quite a collection, she says.

Objects are displayed throughout the lake house. The spoils of dead empires. This is her first time at one of his parties.

You like it, he says. Well, there’s something more I can show you. Come on.

He leads her to a door down the hall. Produces a key from his blazer. She watches its many teeth bite into the lock. She finishes her champagne and tries to look mysterious.

In the study he flicks the lights on. There’s a white tile floor and a writing desk. A window looks over the lake basin and into the featureless night. On the wall is a long mirror bound in chain mail.

I’ve never seen one of these, she says.

Do you trust me, he says. He’s handsome, between wives. He looks like a fasting vampire.

She studies the mirror.

I trust you, she says. But I’ve heard it hurts. 

Sometimes. You’ll feel the time pass.

They say it can drive people mad.

That only happens to the weak, he says. Just relax. Let your mind go where it wants. You’ll know when you find a True Image. It’s a new way of seeing.

He stands close and her skin prickles. This room is even colder than the temples her foster parents dragged her to as a child. She waits, then waits more. She waits until the mirror expands to fill her vision.

Fear turns her knees to sponge. Her jaw squeaks open.

The mirror flickers, strangled by metal. She realizes the chain mail exists for her protection.

I had a surgery when I was six, she says. I think I came back different.

The surgeon told her to count back from a hundred. His voice was thunder. On ninety-seven her mouth tasted like burlap and she swirled into the plumbing below the world. A place with no sound, no stars. She wondered afterwards if the surgeon tampered with her soul, put something else inside her. If she would still get into heaven.

Now she turns to him, face wet. She wants to tear off her cocktail dress. The incision is under her top rib, small and tasteful like everything else about her.

Thank you for sharing, he says. I appreciate your honesty, but that was the past. That’s not supposed to happen. You should’ve seen ahead. Around the curve.

Let me try again, she says. Please. Here, touch it. You can feel the scar. You can do anything to me.

This was a mistake. I’m calling you a cab.

The possibilities of her life fold into a singularity, a flatline. He guides her out of the study with a hand on her back. Locks the door behind them. She hears the sparkling laughter of people who only know abundance. She wipes her tears.

By the way, he says. I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell anyone.