You took me to the edge and showed me
What would happen if we stepped into the light
And I recoiled and dreamt
Of our destruction
Elodie opened her eyes in the darkness, her lips flooded with poison, her hand curled around the dagger she kept under her pillow. She’d heard a voice calling her name.
She blinked in the gloom, the glowing embers in the fireplace the only light. She lay perfectly still, and listened for noise. The silence was unbroken. There was nobody in her room. And still, she felt a presence. . . the same she’d felt briefly when they’d come in. It was stronger now. Mournful, infinitely sad.
Hungry.
Again, Elodie heard her name being called, this time from beyond her room, beyond the closed door. She got up slowly, shivering in the chilly night air. The stone floor felt cold under her feet. She lit a candle, its warm light flickering in front of her face, then walked out in silence. She stood in the corridor for a moment, looking left and right. And then, all of a sudden, she felt her body moving of its own accord. She hadn’t commanded it to, but it did – one step in front of the other, as if a foreign will had possessed her. She tried to resist, she tried to call for help, but it was no use. She couldn’t stop herself, and she couldn’t force out anything more than a whisper. She called for Sean, but nobody could have heard. Her muscles were tight with the effort to stop, and a trickle of sweat fell down her temple, freezing in the cold air.
Elodie shuffled all the way down the corridor, each step a struggle between her will and the strange force that had possessed her, until she stood in front of the rosewood doors. Her hand rested on it, pushing it open effortlessly, and her body forced her to step inside. A deep, musky scent hit her. It was like a perfume, a heady mixture of flowers and fruit and spices, and something stronger, heavy, something she couldn’t identify. Once again she tried to call Sean’s name, but no sound came out of her lips; her throat was frozen. She whimpered once more as her body took her in front of the wooden wardrobe, heavily carved and decorated. She was forced to open the mirrored doors – the glass was rusty and speckled, and a strong smell of mould and dust and times past enveloped her. Rows and rows of dresses were hanging in the wardrobe on wooden hangers. They looked like they’d only been left there yesterday, though the pungent smell gave their age away.
And then, she heard the first whisper. A voice in her mind, a voice saying something she couldn’t quite make out. Someone had taken possession of her body, someone who was talking inside her head. Somehow her thoughts were still there, her consciousness remained, but she held no power over her body or her voice. Elodie felt her heart pounding even faster as she contemplated the terrible possibilities – a demon, a malevolent presence that would make her harm her friends . . .
Elodie panted in fear, her forehead covered in sweat, as those arms that weren’t hers any more began taking off her jeans and her top – she’d slept dressed, as the room was so cold, even with the fire on. She stood in her underwear, shivering, her body hurting with the effort to resist – and another whisper resounded in her mind, one single word that once again she couldn’t make out.
Her hand swept the rows of dresses and skirts before tightening on a white one. She slipped it off the hanger and contemplated it: it was a simple cotton dress with short sleeves and colourful embroideries around the neckline and the hem. Elodie watched helplessly as her body forced her to slip on the dress, and then take out what looked like a corset from another hanger. She tied it around her waist, struggling to make it fit – it was too big for her, and the hem of the dress touched the floor.
She tried to close her eyes. She didn’t want to see what she was turning into, who she was turning into. But the spirit forced her to keep her eyes open, and she examined herself in the mirror – her face, her hair, her hands – she was herself, she was Elodie . . . And then, just for a second, she saw her, a black-haired woman, sweet-eyed and red-lipped, taller than Elodie, her hair falling in soft waves around her shoulders, kept back by a gold band. She looked young and sorrowful.
In the blink of an eye, she was gone and Elodie’s own reflection stared back at her. Her hands travelled through her blonde hair and down her waist and hips, and then felt her face, her arms, her thighs as if she were rejoicing in her own body. A wave of panic swept Elodie as she felt the other woman’s emotions invading hers, and her own receding further. She felt full of a strange sense of joy as her hands travelled up and down her own body – the sheer joy of being alive, of having a body at all.
The third whisper came: and this time she understood.
“Martyna,” said the voice inside her head. Elodie gasped.
Martyna . . . Is she back to take her revenge on Nicholas? Using my body?
Elodie tried to stop herself from stepping out of the room, but she couldn’t. The film of sweat froze on her forehead, and all her muscles tensed once more against Elodie’s will – but Martyna’s spirit was too strong. Martyna took Elodie’s body out of the room, and into the corridor. The candle had been abandoned. She knew her way in the darkness. Martyna knew where she wanted to go.
“Nicholas,” said the voice in her head, and then some words in a language she didn’t know. The words she couldn’t understand, but the tone was clear: tenderness and longing and need. So she didn’t want to exact revenge. She didn’t want to kill him? Unwillingly, desperately trying to stop herself, Elodie opened Nicholas’ door.
Nicholas was standing in the middle of the room, a pained, incredulous expression on his face. “I felt you returning,” he whispered.
“Nicholas,” Martyna said through Elodie’s mouth.
“Martyna . . . how . . . how?”
Elodie’s voice replied, “I never left this place. You sealed our home. You sealed me inside. I couldn’t leave, I couldn’t look for you. I knew you’d come back.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what my father did. I didn’t stop him.”
“You couldn’t have stopped him. Loving you destroyed me. And still I would do it all over again . . .”
It wasn’t Elodie who placed a kiss on Nicholas’ lips, as soft as a feather, tasting him like the sweetest liquor. It wasn’t her who cried silent tears of relief at feeling his presence again. It wasn’t her who wrapped her arms around Nicholas’ waist and moaned softly. What was left of Elodie was prisoner in a body that wasn’t hers any more. She was in Nicholas’ arms, the son of the King of Shadows, the man responsible for Harry’s death, and so many others’. The confusion she felt made her shiver uncontrollably as all her muscles struggled to move, but Martyna’s spirit was stronger.
Elodie’s lips opened and spoke words that didn’t come from her, words in a foreign language, of love and longing and pain for the long, long separation. She realised that Nicholas’ face was wet with tears, maybe his, maybe hers, and a small ripple of pity travelled through her. Suddenly, she didn’t know if it was Martyna or her who took his face in his hands, who studied his coal-black eyes and felt the bones and flesh of his features as if it were she who was blind. Horror and confusion made room for something else as he touched her with infinite love and a hunger for her that melted her heart.
He loves her, she thought, but it’s me he’s holding. Desire swept through her as she didn’t know where she ended and Martyna began. She was powerless under Nicholas’ touch. And she realised that she didn’t want to stop him any more.