Deborah Noyes - Plague in the Mirror

Theres a certain kind of silence when you wake in the deep of night, in a strange bed, knowing that someone has entered the room.

You dont know how you know. Your eyes are closed, and whoever it is hasnt made a sound.

But the silence is thicker than usual; it weighs more, in the way that a withholding friend is worse than one whos just neglecting you.

With that weight, that knowing, on her chest, May opens her eyes to find a figure at the foot of the canopy bed.

At first, she cant make out more than a luminous outline, but as her eyes adjust in the dark, she sees its a girl, looking as surprised as May feels.

The intruders hands hang at her sides, and the folds of an old-fashioned gown puddle on the Tuscan tile at her feet. May has the urge to clap her hands over her eyes the way you do when youre a kid and think blindness and invisibility are the same thing.

You cant see me.

Me.

Because as the other girl walks forward in the moonlight, its like looking in a mirror. The ghostly stranger might be her identical twin or a fainter version of May, who cant look away or cry out or move.

The girl extends both arms and tilts her head. Her fingers open and close like anemones, and May helplessly watches her run a palm over the satin bedspread, fingertips disappearing into the fabric. Lifting the cloth of her gown to kneel, she works her way up the length of the bed with hands on either side of Mays rigid body, a mean, knowing smile blooming on her face. She sits down, weightless, right on Mays midsection. Ciao, bella.

May tries to squirm free Get off! but theres nothing to repel. The girl is both there and not there, and its paralyzing.

So, you will speak to me in inglese? Come mia madre? As if to answer her own question, she slides a short, savage-looking knife from the folds of her dress and holds it by Mays clenched jaw, the milky-pale blade never touching skin. No? I would show you what Cristofana thinks of no the knife disappears again but I cannot. Her voice dips as with a secret, an expansive gesture taking in what might be the room or the whole world. I knew I would find you. But not where or when.

May lets out her breath to object, but her voice is useless, gone.

Oh, stop trembling, sciocca. I wont harm you. The ghost girl sighs theatrically. Not today. She rolls away, an acrobat springing to her feet.

May watches her it pass effortlessly through the closed door, dissolving into the wood. She curls toward the wall, feeling her limbs unlock, her breathing slow to normal. She waits for her voice, a sob or a gasp, an earsplitting scream, anything, but the middle-of-night silence wins out, and some sane part of May knows thats best. She instead conjures her mothers voice from childhood, that firm, low, loved voice, soothing Shhh its just a dream. The room is hushed, gentled, but only for a second, because this dream wont behave like one; it wont wear like dreams do.

Just breathe.

Fixing her gaze on the digital clock face, May watches an hour pass, and another. She tracks shadows on the ceiling, naming the shapes they make tree, wolf, teeth and every time she shuts her eyes, the scene loops through her brain again: a bleached, weightless figure crawling beastlike up the bed and over her; the transparent glow of the knife; but most remarkable of all, the face, her own exactly, and as alien as the moon.

So May keeps her eyes open.

Stifling her yawns over continental breakfast, May comes to as Gwen folds her newspaper closed. Their summer rental in City Center East opens today, and May knows that Gwen will hustle them out of the temporary B&B to beat the heat and the lunch crowds.

Dude, May says, leaning too conspicuously toward Liam, walk me to my room so I can pack.

He moves to stand, no questions asked, but his mother halts him with a hand on his arm.

Gwens used to them, but its been almost a year since Liam and May have really hung out that is, before he shuttled over on the Volainbus Monday to fetch her at the airport and now May isnt a part of anything bigger anymore. Shes just May, alone in Florence with friends of what-used-to-be the family, and her summer guardian is overcompensating. Youre not packed yet? Gwen asks.

May decides to just come out with it. My rooms haunted. Her voice is kidding the morning light has calmed her, settled over the terror of night like a layer of snow but she still feels it, the heat of fear. I think.

Li gives her that measured, bemused look May somehow forgot until this moment, the brotherly Im-waiting-for-you-to-start-making-sense look. Li isnt her brother. Technically, he isnt family at all. Neither is Gwen, who went out of her way to help Mom and the teachers structure this as an independent study to sub in for Mays final exams. But Mays known these two all her life, and in a way, theyre better than family. Especially now.

I guess I had a nightmare, she admits, half believing it. And I didnt want to hang around in there and pack alone.

Gwens smile is tight with concern. Its normal, you know, with stress. Bad dreams insomnia

Oh, please. Dont start. May covers her ears, humming like an angry hive, and Gwen regards her watch with a shrug. All right. Im here if you need me. Ill line up a cab. You two need to get cracking.

Theres no trace in the room to suggest that the girl was there.

Sleepwalking? Li theorizes from the rumpled bed while May sits on her backpack to crush down its contents.

He looks like a deposed prince in jeans and Converse lying with crossed ankles under the antique canopy, at home as can be on a sea of silk covers. May hides her smile. She must have looked wrong in that bed all week, too, an imposter. The B&B villa is in the hills that circle the city, on the site of what used to be a vineyard, according to its brochure, and before that a medieval nunnery. Li and Gwen arrived exactly a week earlier than May did and hadnt yet exerted themselves in her absence. They mostly enjoyed the villas blue, blue pool, the grassy hedges and banks of red flowers, or walked north in search of wine and olive-oil tastings in country farmhouse shops. The first thing Li did when May arrived was plunk down her bags poolside, and show off the pink tan line under his collar.

Maybe you woke up, he adds now, or half did, and saw yourself in the mirror. They both look over at the tarnished glass above the dresser, its dark frame carved with sinuous lilies. Their reflections stare back, expectant. That wouldve scared the crap out of me.

May struggles with the zipper on her pack and nods; as a kid, she was known to sleepwalk. Yeah. That makes sense. She feels stupid, pitiful the way hes looking at her because if it was a dream she cant seem to wake up from it.

On the other hand, May thinks, with a glance at her childhood best friend, she doesnt feel invisible anymore, the way she did watching her mother deflate at the airport checkpoint when she thought May was out of range or at the gate, locked in a half lotus on the hard airport chair, flip-flops askew on the carpet, iPod cranked to vibrate, trying not to meet anyones eyes because her own were wet. No matter how loud May had thumbed the volume, she still felt mute and vanished, locked in a struggle not to let her mothers tired face, the obvious relief to be sending May away, be her last memory of her family. That invisible feeling was hard to shake even once she touched down in big, busy Florence. But Gwens kept them so occupied this week with walking tours that Mays had little time to feel sorry for herself, and they havent seen City Center yet, so today will be even busier.