Page 33 of The Spiral

Jack.

I don’t answer the sound in the air, or perhaps in my head. I won’t, not until she shows herself again or at least gives me some answers to my questions. I stand still, tilting my head at the image of myself and considering how mad I am. Insanity is a new experience for me, regardless of my dogs who drive me there. I’ve wallowed until now, happy to stay within these walls and let the world outside rot as I punish the damned, but now, this new madness is becoming amusing, something to be toyed with. Harnessed. Enjoyed even.

Another chuckle bursts out at this new insidious nature of hers, sneaking back from heaven’s gate to show me something. It’s just like her, just like her beauty. She was light and dark. She was effortless and hard work. She was tears and laughter and summer days. Deviancy and niceties. The nimble caress of gentle rain on skin, and the sneering possession of hell’s fury.

Light begins to brighten up the glazed expanse of one window pane behind me. It spreads outwards from a pinpoint as I stare at it through the mirror. Cream tones began to change and dilate, casting a shape of kinds as I watch on in wonder. Still, I don’t move, nor change my stance or scowl. I’ll wait until she shows me what she came here for.

The lines creep closer to each other, pink tones encroaching on the creams, blending into each other and forming what seems to be a face. I stare at it, not recognising the new male reflection, which blurs and bounces between reality and folly.

“More,” I mutter, not understanding the reasoning for the image as I continue gazing and imprinting the face further to memory. Dark eyes, dark hair, hollowed cheekbones and jaw line. It isn’t a face I’ll forget in a hurry, nor one that resembles the current image she’s showing me anymore. It’s the fast one, his fucking features already embedded.

“He’s paying for it, Selma.” The face blurs again, dispersing to almost nothing and beginning to fade back to black again. “They’ll pay until they die.” A low growl sounds in the room, making me confused at her thoughts. “No. Wait. The others?” I want to see the other faces, the two other dogs, so I can remember what they looked like when they destroyed my life.

The colours turn again, more imagery coming as the second dog’s face takes form. He’s the runt, the snivelling little one who whines about his bruises. I snarl at it, remembering the way he pleaded for his life as I locked the cage behind him the first time round. And then the last of them shows, the lighter hair changing the features slowly to show dog three. He bleeds weekly, somehow drawing me back to him more rather than the other two. Not that I give a fuck about any of their pain. They fucking deserve it. All of them. “I’m so sorry, baby. I wasn’t here.”

The creams come again, once more merging and changing, offering a softer vision than the hardened tones of the previous face. Until the final image makes the scowl dispense from my face. She’s there, smiling at me softly with a slight curve of her lip. Her blue eyes gently blink as she shakes her head a little and hovers in my sight.

“Selma.” I pull in a long sigh and let her eyes haunt me with no fear. She’s the most welcome sight I’ve seen in some time, and I feel myself getting lost in her eyes without any other thought. “Still so beautiful.” Her dark curls bounce as she shakes her head slowly, lips parting as if she’s trying to say something. I watch them intently, waiting for a reason this is all happening, but nothing comes from them. She just hovers and blinks slowly, filling me with feelings of light again. I catch the swathes of curtains beginning to billow slightly from the corner of my eye, a deeper darkness descending at the same time. It makes me stare harder, willing her to stay close so I can forget reality and linger here with her, but her hair begins to change before I can speak. It shortens and straightens a little, lush folds coming to replace the curls. And, at the same time, everything lightens. Her skin tone pinks more, the olive tones changing to ivory. “Madeline?”

Jack

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me,” I whisper, turning myself around to see the vision more clearly. The moment I do, the image begins to dissolve again, the room losing its blackened state by the second as the sun peeks into the far corner of the ballroom.

I stride forward, for some reason needing to touch the spot she emanates from before she vanishes entirely, or perhaps sense her closer. “No, Selma. Don’t go again. I need you to...” I don’t know what I need, can’t find the words anymore in the middle of whatever this is. “I need you back,” I mumble, my hand finally reaching the spot on the window where she was.

The frosted glass almost stings my hand as I press against it, willing the slow creep of fucking sunlight away again. “Selma, please answer me.” Nothing happens again as I watch the luminous light crawl along the floor, sucking itself back to the position I stand in. Until eventually, the last dark fleck of Selma disappears from my black shoe and the sun glints off the shine of it again.

I lean my forehead on the window, still palming the glass and closing my eyes, searching for her face again, but all I can see is blurred edges and hazy reflections. Nothing is clear, nothing as clear as the last vision she’s left me with. Madeline.

“Jack?”

Mmm.

I suck in a breath and hold onto her sound hovering in my mind. At least I can still hear her. That’s enough for now. She’ll be back again soon enough. I know that now. She’s got things to tell me. That thought alone satisfies me. Just the very thought of knowing she’ll return and help proves more worthwhile than I could ever have imagined.

“Jack?”

I turn as something pokes me in the back, glaring at the sensation and barely seeing Madeline in my line of sight until the haze dissipates completely. She frowns at me then folds her arms around herself as she backs a step away.

“What is going on here?”

“What?”

“It’s all odd. The fog, the dark that’s just disappeared again. I saw it when I came into the room just now. It’s not normal. None of this is. I want answers.” I smile at her, enjoying the way her face quirks as Selma’s did. She furrows her brow and glances nervously around the room. “It started in here when I danced, which was nothing like me by the way.” I look her over, remembering that first dance and how she felt in my arms. “And I’ve just been up the stairs. There’s nothing wrong with them. Nothing there but empty rooms and locked doors on the third floor. What on earth is happening?”

“Are you you, Madeline Cavannagh?”

“What?”

“You. Do you feel like you?”

“I think you need a drink,” she replies, “Of course I’m me.”

“You sure?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re not, are you?”

---