Mirrors

Every night your restless dreams lead you back there again, and every night the wound is renewed. It’s been decades since your body walked in that hallowed place, the labyrinth carved and filled; decades since your skin felt the dripping heat and your stomach clenched at the smell of the dead saints and the stars wheeled above. Time should heal wounds. The therapists certainly think so; they think you’re unhealthily obsessed, unwilling to let go, unwilling to let yourself grow beyond the memory. They blame you. They don’t understand. Each night the memory is made anew, each night you are once again the things which were done to you and the things which you did—the things you were made to do, they’d say. A small rephrasing. A lie. ...

It regards you from behind the free-standing mirror, its long-beaked skull quizzically tilted; you weren’t supposed to summon it again before your half of the deal came due. But— You’re careful not to stutter as you speak, as hard as that is. “You tricked me, and I want out.” Its shoulders shake, and it takes you a few moments to realize that It is silently laughing at you. “It’s not funny!” you sputter. “The power and wealth you gave me wasn’t what I thought it would be—you wrote the contract to be unclear, and took advantage of me!” ...

You welcomed it in, eagerly brought it into your body; all that foggy liquid that flowed from nothing into your chalice, hardly contained by the force of your bindings, the strength of your spells. It shone so brightly in the sputtering candlelight. You hardly waited for the last of the spell to fade before you brought it to your lips, gulped it down in a single mass; it tasted so right flowing down your throat, thick and rich and savory, the chalice never seeming to empty. ...