She stared a moment, nibbled a fingernail, and wrote back:
What the heck? Go for it!
She had no clue what her art history teacher was referring to. She had not written an essay and had been ditching his class for three weeks.
That morning, Narissa dressed and took the train straight to Huntington Avenue. She arrived in the Mass Art Building and took the elevator to the seventh floor, where the class was held in an auditorium with stadium seating.
She took a seat at the very back. None of the other students seemed to care. Noel did not come to the lecture.
Professor Kehoe—a bookish man with a squirrel face—stood at the front of the room and read the essay off his laptop. He pointed out Narissa as the author but instead of looking at her seat in the back of the gallery, he singled out a raven-haired girl seated in the front row. He even had the audacity to call her by the same name.
Her duplicate in the front row chuckled with friends on either side who praised the imposter for her sly opinions of Impressionists.
As Narissa in the back of the gallery stared down at her twin, it seemed to her that insects, like angry gnats, darted and flew around the imposter’s head. They mingled in the locks of her hair as if they nested there. No one else seemed aware of it.
Narrisa, the real Narissa stayed calm and quiet. When the class finally let out, the imposter was rushed away by the wave of student bodies; Narissa tagged behind the group, catching glimpses of the other girl.
The imposter swept past an elderly man who was cleaning the floor, and stumbled over his mop. She turned to fix him with a wicked glare, but as in the park, her hair made her face appear murky, though her eyes glinted with hellfire.
“Der Teufel,” the janitor gasped as the bizarre girl slunk onto an elevator and vanished. He rocked back and turned, his gaze fastening upon Narissa’s distressed eyes. His eyes bulged as she approached him.
She heard him whimper, “Not another one.”
“What did you say?” she asked, as she approached.
“Look at you,” he said. “So young. So weary.”
“I feel fine.”
“So much potential. That’s why it chose you.”
“What? It what?”
“You followed it. It must not have seen you yet. Never look directly in its eyes.”
Narissa took the man by the arm and steered him into a doorway, out of the hall. The janitor had a hearty German accent and she wanted to be sure she understood every word.
“Who was that girl? The one that looked like me?”
“She… it was… a Fetch,” he stammered.
“A what?”
“A copy. Um…have you ever heard of a doppelgänger?”
“A clone?”
“Yes, like that. The Fetch are primeval, restless. They are legends from my homeland. My Oma told stories about them, when I grew up in the Black Forest near Freiburg. She scolded my siblings that if we did not apply ourselves and make something better of our lives, if we wasted our days at play, then a cunning Fetch would step into our shoes and steal our lives away.
“Oma told us they are envious creatures who crave a living, breathing body.”
“That’s crap,” Narissa spat.
“I’ve no doubt that was a Fetch, who dressed like you and wore her hair like you.”
“Bullshit!”
“It walks in your own image.”
“Did you leave Germany to be janitor here in Boston? Is that what your Gramma would consider a better life?”
The old man jammed his lips together and looked pitiful. “When I came to this country I had a career as a broker-dealer. When I was young and carefree. Do you think you are the first student to be singled out by a Fetch? I assure you, Miss, you are not. I have seen them before. I’ve seen the damage they cause.”
He straightened up and stood taller than her now. He grumbled, “Sometimes I wonder if the Fetch followed me here, from the Black Forest. I think… I am to blame.”
“What should I do?”
“The apparition doesn’t need your soul. There are two worlds of life and death. There’s the one we see and know, and the other beneath the grave.” He looked at her intently. “It will want to unite with your body… in death.”
“Screw that.”
“The creature will insinuate itself within your circle of friends. It will revel in your life, be successful, and gain the admiration of others. Its weakness is its vanity.”
“How did this happen to me?”
The janitor turned his back on her. “Take care, Miss.”
The girl suddenly thought of Noel, his nose red from a flying plate. “I have to make amends.”
“You don’t have much time left,” The old man said. “You are already becoming dim.”
A chill crept over her, even though she had no idea what he meant.
The girl tapped at Noel’s door until he opened it.
“What?” He was dressed in the T-shirt she had given him last Christmas and his favorite grungy gym shorts.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I should never have hit you. I’ll never do it again. Please, forgive me.”
“Sweet, but not necessary.”
“Your nose looks okay.”
“And yours is running.”
“Smart ass. Aren’t you going to let me in?”
Noel raised his eyebrows. “Bossy, aren’t you?”
“Hey.”
“Do I know you? Are we in Kehoe’s class together?”
“Noel,” she said quietly, “…it’s me.”
“Hi, you,” he said as he looked her up and down.
“Stop it and let me in.”
“Thanks, but I already have a girlfriend. She gets very jealous.”
Her smirk withered.
“Look, I don’t want any trouble,” he said.
The way he looked at her, she knew it, her boyfriend did not recognize her.
“Go away.”
“I… must be… mistaken,” she muttered bleakly.
“Look, go pester Mike next door. He needs a new girl.”
“I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Noel shut his door. She heard him turn the lock.
The girl went silent as a mouse, although she ached to bang on that door until it split in two. Something went soft inside her. Her head had been pounding all day and she was exhausted.
She did not want to fight with anyone again.
It walks in your own image, she remembered and shivered.
She turned away and drifted back to her sublet.
She slept for two whole days. On Thursday, she woke at dawn, packed a bag and took the train back to Braintree. She hopped on a bus headed home to Plymouth.
From the bus stop, she walked the four blocks to the neighborhood she grew up in. The Colonial-style homes looked warm and inviting. A heart-shaped wreath still clung to the front door of her house, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped onto the porch.
The door was locked, so she rang the bell. Her mother answered, looking dazed and ill. There was no sign of her terrier, Bugga. He should have been barking his head off in the entryway. Her mother’s eyes were bloodshot and a scarlet wound bloomed on her neck. She stared blankly at the girl and asked, “Can I help you?”
“I’ve got it, Mutter,” a peculiar voice said from the hall. An ashen hand slithered across her mother’s shoulder and pulled her away. The fingers were spindly, its overgrown nails yellowed.
A sparkling engagement diamond adorned its ring finger.
The girl on the porch took a step back as she locked eyes with the Fetch who stood in her home.
“Happy Valentine’ssss Day,” Narissa-the-Fetch sneered. Its voice was sibilant, the breath smelling of rancid almonds. Its skin was parched and torn, sloughing off the cheekbones and neck. The slimy hair was infested with fluttering insects. Both eyes were like orbs chipped from coal. It grinned broadly, and bared fangs filed thin, sharp as nails. A trickle of blood speckled its chin.