Page 47 of A Heart So Haunted
Six-year-old me.
“Landry?” she asked. Her voice changed, matured. I gasped, stumbled back, as she morphed in age. Older, older, thinner, thinner, until she stood at my height, with my same build, wearing my very clothes. They hung on her, and her eyes—they were almost sunken.
It was one thing to look in a mirror because mirrors lied. They warped things I didn’treallysee, parts of myself that I didn’t like, emphasized areas that made me nauseated. But seeing myself within reaching distance was different.
I swallowed, hard. I strangled the sledgehammer, unsure if I should wield it or drop it.
“You found me,” she whispered. “How did you find me?”
If I ran, would she catch me?
“I-I—” My brain short circuited.
“You let him hurt me,” she wheezed, teeth bared. Dirt coated her neckline, the dangling bits of fabric around her shoulders.Myshoulders. Her knees bled with hairpin scrapes. Bruises, all over her chest, glowered through the shredded material. I looked college age, nineteen, twenty? Years ago. I sounded like me, moved like me, but I didn’t realize I’d looked so … tired.
I knew without asking who she was talking about.
Ivan.
Still, I tried to keep my expression dumbfounded, and took another step back. A sick, roiling sensation started in my gut. Like a wave, it traveled up, up. “Who?”
“I hate you,” she whispered. She trudged closer, only feet from me now, and gestured to herself. “Look what you did to me.” Even her nails bled, ripped from the quick. “Youdid this.”
I shook my head, eyes wide. “No, I didn’t.”
Her expression turned rabid. “You did!”
A surge of anger hit me. “I didn’t do anything to you!” I shouted back. Brambles and thorns poked at my back when I hit the maze wall. My feet were leaden, eyes locked on her.
“Yes, you did. You liar. All you do is lie.”
“I never lied about what he did,” I spat. Because I didn’t. Not really.
“You never told anyone!” she roared, spittle flying.
Then she lunged for me. I dropped the sledgehammer out of instinct to catch her hands—I grabbed one wrist, but she grabbed my other—the two of us, a mirror, struggling against the other’s hold. One pushed, the other gave, only to shuffle. Her nose came a breath from my own. Her voice warbled, broken. “You hurt me. Why did you hurt me?”
Tears welled behind my eyes. I shook my head. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Momma?”
Both of us looked to the voice.
Haddy streaked through the bramble path, only to vanish a moment later. Fast enough for me to see his tiny untucked button-up shirt and his bare feet, but nothing more.
Without warning, my doppelgänger’s hold vanished. Just like the woman had when Haddy had touched her. Nothing but a cold kiss of air was left in her wake.
It took two seconds to gather myself, one gasping breath after another, the breaths so large that they hurt to swallow.
“Haddy!” I coughed. Rain bled into my eyes, down my cheeks, dribbled off my chin. But Haddy didn’t turn around and come back—and by the time I realized all sounds had ceased, it was too late. From the corner of my eye, something moved.
Shivering, I slowly looked to the movement. And there, through the bramble thicket, a face hovered.
A beautiful face.
Like cornered prey, I froze. Even the earth stopped turning.
“It hurts to see it, does it not?” the voice said. Not just a voice, but a man. He stepped from the thorns, slightly curled over, as if he’d been hunching. Listening. Waiting.
