table on the verandah of a log cabin. Interestingly, it looked mighty similar to Anyan’s. Jason soon joined her, carrying a big platter of something. He sat it down in front of Jane, calling into the house as he did so. Two little girls, one dark and one light, came carrying their own smaller plates out to join their parents. They all sat down together, Jason eating off Jane’s plate as he almost always had in life, while the four talked animatedly, if silently.
In my heart of hearts, if I was honest, I knew I would have given anything for that picture to have been a reality.
But instead I shook my head, stepping away from the warm, strong arm of Jason’s body.
“It’s not real,” I said. “And it can’t be real. I would have loved for that to have come true, but it didn’t. Jason died, and I’m a different person now.” Almost as if to prove my point, the figures wavered and then disappeared, leaving only the replica of Anyan’s cabin sitting alone in the mirror.
[But it could be real. I can make it real, for you,] came that seductive whisper.
“Only by destroying me,” I said, almost sadly. “I’m not that Jane anymore. And, to be honest, I don’t know if I’d want to be her. She was sweet, but she wasn’t able to cope with things. I like being who I’ve become,” I said, realizing that fact for myself only as I said it for the first time.
I really do like who I’ve become, I thought, much to my evident surprise.
“And again,” I said quickly, before the creature could up his ante any more, “I don’t get to choose my happiness over others’ lives. That’s not my right. Nothing you can offer me will change that fact.”
First, Jason disappeared. For all my brave words, my heart wrenched at the sight of him fading away. Then, the mirror disappeared from above the creature’s enormous sucker, and its tentacle slithered away. Finally, all the tentacles began slithering. Left and right they went, untangling themselves to reveal another door in the opposite wall.
This door was black, not white, and it was carved with all sorts of Alfar symbols.
Exit all hope, ye who enter here, I conjectured upon their translation. They stayed shut as I neared, and I had to push my way through them. They were heavy, but I managed to push them open by putting all my weight into it.
Call that service? I griped, mentally, only to come to a halt as soon as I’d crossed the threshold.
For I’d come face to cornea with one enormous fucking eyeball.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The eye blinked at me. I blinked back.
Like my own, the eye was jet black. Unlike my own round orb, however, this one was more a horizontal slit—like an enormous subtraction sign. And it was huge: The eye itself, along with the round, slightly protruding socket in which it was housed, was larger than the entire length of my body. The skin around the socket was green-gray, but then it flashed orange, and then brown.
Like a chameleon, I thought as it blinked at me again, and I blinked back. Or an enormous octopus.
[Come around, Jane,] said that warm, sonorous voice in my mind. [Come around and see my home.]
I sidled past the eye, which watched my progress. Only then did I realize it had been moved around in its socket, and that I’d come in through some sort of side entrance.
Once I’d moved around in front of it, I peered around the room. It had once been white marble, like the others I’d just been in, but it was now streaked with algae, lime, salt, and sand. Partially that was because there was a lot more water here than there had been. Water ran down the rock walls, like natural fountains, spilling into pools here and there, or dripping out onto the floor. All that water made it look a lot more like a natural cave than those other overly white spaces had. Similar to that last room, however, this one also had tentacles piled around, here and there. They pulsed and twitched occasionally, but were otherwise still.
Also like those other rooms, this one heaved with power. Yet the power was slightly different, somehow. The other rooms had been Alfar, laced with something else… Here, I just felt that “something else.” It felt a little like Terk’s brownie magic, or Nell’s power when she tapped into the old magics, but more concentrated.