Chapter Thirteen

Tabitha stood at the door to the cold and empty room and watched Michelle’s bloody body slide awkwardly down the mirror, the skin of her face squeaking along the surface until her corpse hit the floor and crimson pooled at her midsection.

She dragged Michelle by the legs to the center of the floor and yanked the knife from her stomach and went to work, cutting away all of her clothes. When she finished and Michelle was naked, Tabitha drew a long line with the knife blade from the wound in Michelle’s stomach to her throat and peeled the skin away from the muscle with careful, gentle sweeping motions, taking her time to savor each squelching stroke of the blade, carefully lifting breasts and limbs until the only skin left on Michelle’s body was her flawlessly beautiful face.

A pair of children came in to fetch the skin and bring it away.

Tabitha then pierced the muscle at the solar plexus and dragged the knife downward between the muscle and organs, mindful to not nick the stomach or intestine. Then, straddling Michelle’s chest, she slipped the knife under the breastbone and pulled upward, slicing cleanly through the bone in a spray of marrow and blood. Parting the lungs and ribs with her left hand, she deftly cut away the diaphragm, reached up inside, and carved the heart away from vein and artery.

One of her children held a wooden bowl aloft. She set the heart inside it and handed the knife to another child.

As she waited for the others to come to help, Tabitha watched a scene play out inside the mirror.

Bright sunshine warmed the white rug at the foot of the bed. The record player droned out a song she couldn’t hear while Michelle and Madeline leaned into each other, dancing with their eyes closed. Madeline leaned her head on Michelle’s shoulder. Michelle wore a contented smile.

A child tugged on her dress and held up a small hammer.

Tabitha took it and stepped toward the mirror. Time shifted, and the scene changed. Beams of white and soft blue illuminated the room, and the breeze from the open window shifted the curtains around the bed in great waves as the couple made love in the moonlight.

She stared in steady silence for a minute before waving her hand, dismissing the image and returning the mirror’s surface to its typical reflective shine.

Tabitha handed the hammer back to her child. “When you’re finished cleaning, touch nothing else and lock the door. No one is to enter this room ever again. This mirror stays untouched until I say otherwise. Do you understand?”

“Yes, mommy.”

“Look at me,” Tabitha said with soft sternness.

The child, its eyelids long lost, looked up with permanently moistened eyes.

“I love you.”

“I love you too, mommy.”

She smiled. “Run along, now. Mommy has one more thing to do.”