Memories.
I squeeze my eyelids, rummaging my brain, digging and sorting. Compartmentalizing. Retrace your steps. That’s what the proverbial they say, isn’t it? That’s how to get back to what you’ve forgotten?
Or who?
The sound of trickling water plays a part in the symphony of recollections trumpeting through my mind. Except this performance is broken, missing instruments, clusters of notes omitted here and there. A sad rehearsal not quite living up to what the full experience is intended to be.
It’s winter. Feb—Second Month. I was in the Fifth Reflection.
Mom is there, and Evan, my new baby bro.
And Kyaphus, the Void’s vessel. In fact, he’s the last thing I remember before falling into the draining Threshold behind the cottage. Did he push me? The idea fits. Darkness and light are at war. But the former won’t win.
I simply refuse.
So I open my eyes.
The sky is shrouded in grays. I’m lying on my back, legs and arms sprawled, and what’s above dominates my vision. The only color filters in, and I can almost imagine I landed on the set of Pleasantville or The Giver. Worlds bathed in drab hues with only a twinkling of pigment ushered in by the odd man out. Or odd woman in my case. The lack of vibrancy mirrors my mind. The things I do remember are livelier than ever, standing out among the other faded, hazy memories.
Oh, fine. I might as well admit it—I want to cry. And not just cry. I mean a full-on ugly sob. Like snot everywhere, red-rimmed eyes shedding unstoppable tears. Bring on the tissues because the waterworks are about to commence. And why not? No one’s here to see me lose it. Not a single recognizable soul to witness the vessel of the purest light identify as a mama’s girl.
Yeah. I want Mom.
Sitting up, I swipe at my eyes and nose. Could things get any worse? I’m in the gutter, literally, which explains the smell. Water streams, rushing down the grate beneath me. The sidewalk a step up is paved in unevenly cut gray stones. I scoot onto the curb and ring out my drenched mocha hair, combing through the tangles with my fingers. My bangs are no more, having at last grown long enough to tuck behind my ears. The purple ends have faded to gray. And not the pretty, “hip” gray everyone’s wearing nowadays. I’m talking the kind of gray that looks as if it were stripped off a dead sewer rat. Which totally fits right about now.
Straight across the street sits a vintage baby-blue car, its tires flat. Since I know nothing about cars, all I can think is how it reminds me of that scene from Back to the Future Part II when Marty is sneaking around the 1950s wearing a fedora.
I could sure use Doc Brown. And not because he’s a genius. Truth is, I’m pretty sure I’m in a foreign country with no ID and zero cash, minus a phone. A flying car would be great. I’m sure Harry Potter and Ron Weasley would agree.
Mixing film references? Wow. Lack of sleep plus wormhole suction really makes a person insane.
I rise and shove my hands into my hoodie pockets, playing eeny meeny miny moe in my head before deciding to head upstream from the sewer grate. More tears threaten to expose themselves and I sniff them back, though the effort is halfhearted. I’m not the naive and fragile girl from what seems like a lifetime ago. I mean, I can walk through a flipping mirror, for Verity’s sake.
But crying doesn’t make me weak either. It makes me human. A human who is—I touch my throbbing face, then lower my hand—bleeding and disoriented without the slightest clue where the nearest US embassy might be. Why didn’t I pay better attention in my foreign language class? Not that speaking Latin would help me now anyway—nor anyone in this century, for that matter.
I’m not even sure what language actually would help me. Italian? My surroundings feel very Little Italy to me, though much more authentic, and there are no buildings painted in the colors of the Italian flag.
Why does such a trivial detail from my life in the Third Reflection stand out, yet I can’t recall major events from the past twenty-four hours?
All the more reason to keep moving.
A café with an outdoor patio waits ahead, naked rosebushes lining the sill of the shop’s front window. I pause beside it, straining to make out the chatter between two cappuccino-sipping women. They whisper beneath their breaths, talking too fast and . . . hmm . . . buongiorno is definitely Italian. Score one for the queen of the Second.
Hurrying past, I continue up the street. Daylight recedes with each step, twilight pronouncing its grand entrance through tufts of cloud cover. Passersby are few and far between. Each person I cross unsettles my gut further. A heavyset man with shoulders hunched, a cigar hanging from his mustached mouth. An elderly woman speed walking, practically dragging along a little girl who can’t be older than five. A couple with heads bent together, tones hushed, the man with one arm around his sweetheart.
No one notices me, and the realization injects an all-too-familiar feeling into my center. I shove it deep and walk faster. Why do I get the feeling these people are afraid? And not afraid of me or the mark I bear, because no one has even made eye contact. No, these people carry a tangible anxiety that’s impossible to ignore. Even the air feels ominous, like the deadly fog rising after an epic battle scene in The Patriot or Wonder Woman.
Right arm cradled against my soaked middle, I cut across a main road. Eerie quiet settles in, sets me on edge. What time does the embassy close? Is it like a twenty-four-hour thing? Doubtful. Darkness will blanket the area soon, and then what?
Asking for help it is.
I choose the next person I near and touch a bony, pin-curled young woman on the arm.
Her pointy shoulders peak, then she glances over one with narrowed eyes. It’s the exact look I’d expect her to bestow, especially considering the handful of anxious people I’ve witnessed thus far. She’s early twenties, dressed in a suit that would probably cost me a kidney, and the perfume wafting from her person makes me think of what liquid gold must smell like.
And me? I appear as if I just washed up from the sewer. Which is, ugh, accurate. I cringe inwardly, waiting for her to turn her probably plastic nose up at me.
But then her expression softens and her maroon-painted lips curve into a smile. “Oh my! Signorina, what on earth has happened to you?” English! Sigh. Her accent is thick and undeniably Italian. Familiar. In many ways like home.
A cringe dominates my insides again, but this time it’s from my own stupid bias. By now I should’ve learned not to judge people based on appearances. My disheveled mien doesn’t seem to faze her, let alone the mirrormark spiraling up the right side of my face like fraying scarlet threads. She sees me as human, equal. A rarity in this Reflection or the next.
I swallow and clear my throat, force myself to hold eye contact. She may not realize who she’s speaking to—vessel of the Verity, queen of the Second—but I know who I am. Or I mostly know. “I was in an accident.” That’s a fairly true statement, right? Unless it . . . wasn’t an accident. “Can you tell me where—”
“Certainly, but first you come with me.” She wraps an arm around my soggy shoulders as if it won’t ruin her outfit. As if it’s nothing.
Maybe there is some kindness left in the Third after all. At least, my intuition tells me it’s the Third. Then again, this could be the Sixth or Seventh. For all I know I’ve died and gone to the First.