Page 44 of Folds
It’s delicate, pale enough to almost glow against my skin. The petals are thin and layered, with a faint red hue that has no business being there.
A Queen of the Night. An off-coloured nocturnal bloom. Strikingly similar to the one encased in resin now sitting on my bedside table.
One that should have closed the moment it left the dark.
“How-” I start, but the rest of my question doesn’t form.
The lights flare for a moment, and then I swear they dim just slightly.
I glance back at the mirror.
For a fraction of a second, my reflection doesn’t move when I do, and my stomach drops.
I turn sharply, scanning the empty bathroom. Stalls closed. No footsteps. No sound but the faint hum of manufactured sunlight in fluorescent tubes.
Nothing out of place.
When Iface the mirror again, everything seems normal.
Except it isn’t.
The shadows have changed.
They’re deeper now, pooling in the corners in a way that doesn’t match the light. Thick, almost tangible. Just like I saw beyond the threshold at Hill House.
I stare at one near the far stall. It shifts. Not much. Just a subtle ripple, moving beneath the surface of what I can see.
I force myself not to blink. It stills.
“You hit your head,” I whisper, hoping that if I speak the words into existence, it might make me believe them. “That’s all this is,” I reassure myself more firmly.
The flower in my hand feels colder. I should throw it away. But I don’t.
The presence moves again. Behind me.
I feel it before I see it. That same awareness from before, the air has drawn closer, bringing with it heat as though something, or someone, has moved into the space meant for me and decided to stay.
Slowly, I lift my gaze back to my reflection.
The shadows are no longer staying in the corners.
They stretch. Not across the floor, but toward me.
I take a step back, but I don’t look away. I can’t.
The flower slips from my fingertips and lands on the counter without a sound.
“Auburn.”
The voice is low. Closer than it should be.
It settles against me with persistence, like breath against the back of my neck, even though there is nothing there. My pulse jumps into my throat, but the fear is tangled up with something else now. Something warmer. Something that curls low in my stomach and makes no sense at all. The distinct awareness of proximity has me acting recklessly. It’s too intimate. Displaced air rushes over the curve of my hips, the line of my waist, the heat of my skin.
Then the shadow I can see stretches higher, brushing the edge of the mirror. The surface ripples faintly where it touches, liquid glass disturbed by fingertips.
This is wrong.
The lights flare again, and then for a split second, the room blinks into pitch black.
