At first I couldn’t see the extent of the damage.My heart pounded because the only thing I could think at the moment was that I must have thrown the antique doll at my reflection myself.Aster hadn’t thrown it.He’d raised it in the air.He’d threatened without word.But in the end, the doll had left through my hand.Somehow against my own understanding, I had just destroyed the bathroom mirror.
When I stepped forward and looked over the sink, my reflection stared back at me from hundreds of tiny, shattered glass and porcelain pieces.Suddenly I didn’t have two eyes.I had thousands, all reflected in the glass in front of me.And not one mouth but more than I could count.And they watched at me from in front of me and below me and all around while I tried to register the terrible thing I’d just done.
I didn’t try to calculate the cost.I’d pay for the repairs out of my own pocket.I’d chalk the accident down to over-enthusiasm about my writing and a distinct lack of sleep.But even from the start, I realized that Aster would never take any ownership of what had happened.
I remembered seeing a wiry wooden broom and crude metal dustpan in the kitchen pantry closet.As I walked down the stairs, I tried to move quietly and not step on the noisier planks of wood.
Aster was still in here and still waiting for me somewhere.I didn’t feel free from him, and nothing I’d said would have been strong enough to banish him forever.Of course, I didn’t want to banish him.I just wanted to get him to let up on me and give me a break.That was all I’d ever wanted.All I’d begged.
I didn’t see him anywhere.Maybe he wanted to hide from me and let me suffer in the thought of what damage I’d caused this place.The disappearing act was his way of punishing me, for sure.Letting me experience the worst of everything alone so that I would crawl back to him on hands and knees later.
In the kitchen I glanced only once into the living room.I only wanted to see an empty space.
Then I opened the pantry door and took out the broom and dustpan inside, and I tiptoed back up the stairs.
The glass was everywhere.Only now did I begin to see the extent of the mess, some fragments fine as dust on the grooves of the polished wooden floor.I dropped to my knees to clean it.I told myself that the worst had passed, that now Aster’s sense would return and he’d work to make things right.But my fear draped around me until I could hardly breathe.After all, how did I know that I wasn’t about to wake up again, still typing and unmoved over Aster’s spell?
THE DAMAGE
Maybe the beatenfeeling came from the shards of glass and broken doll remains scattered on the bathroom floor, so fine and powdery I could have inhaled them.Maybe the amount of time I’d spent behind my desk had begun to hit, and the growing tension between me and Aster was taking its toll.When I threw away the glass that I could and stood back on my feet, my shoulders ached and I realized that my eyes felt ready to close on their own.
I was tired.
Not the end of the day type of tired that could be cured by curling up in bed and sleeping ten to twelve hours to relieve the stress.This strain of weariness penetrated my essence to the depths of my soul.I considered lying down and sleeping on the floor outside the bathroom.The only thing that stopped me was a fantasy of a concerned groundskeeper breaking into the house and finding me lying there, so close to the broken mirror, dead or beyond the ability to save.
I staggered to the bedroom on legs that threatened to drop at any moment.I didn’t strip my clothes off.Night had fallen, and that satisfied me.I didn’t want to be aware of anything until the right shade of white poured through those curtains over my bed twelve hours later.
I crawled on top of the bed and lay in a half-sprawled position for a few seconds or minutes.Then I pulled myself under the blankets.My movements were heavy and clumsy.My earlier hunger had hollowed into a nausea and a desire to eat nothing more solid than chicken soup.
Sleep should have been easy and natural, and I wanted sleep.But I didn’t sleep.
I lay still for a long time, counting to a hundred and down and then reviewing the day’s drama to get it out of the way.Then I shifted.I positioned myself on my side, facing the dresser.I thought of Aster, and then I tried to blot Aster from my mind.
This summer had taught me one thing: that my fate, ultimately, lay beyond my ability to control.My ambition didn’t matter.It never had.The only thing that mattered was getting out of this nightmare alive and finding a patch of untainted air to breathe.My previously confident sense of identity had almost completely disappeared through the chaos, and I didn’t know how to get it back.
I listened.I trained my ears on the cries of a few free seagulls and the sound of the waves crashing on the beach outside.That’s what I told Aster I wanted, wasn’t it?Just a break from all the writing before looking at that screen one more time.But I didn’t need Aster to tell me that his magic now superseded my wishes.He’d kept me awake so that I could work.He still kept me awake.He wasn’t my muse.I was his artist, or his pet, or something in between the two.
The tears that spilled down my cheeks were hot and angry.I couldn’t call Aster back to me.Not after all that happened.I hated to admit any truth this ugly to myself, but I couldn’t stand the sight of him anymore.I was beginning to hate him.Hate, was that what I felt?
My fingers clawed into the comforter.No, I didn’t hate him.I was a logical person.I’d always solved my own problems before without needing to take them out on anyone else, without needing to blame anyone else.
Aster still made my heart burn when I saw him, but the burn wasn’t love.What else could it be?Frustration?Envy?No, it was darker than that.So much darker.
If Aster didn’t kill me the next time he saw me, I’d get revenge in my own way.I could promise myself that much at least.I’d throw my fevered strength into the force of my hands around his neck.Or I’d crush his head with a large rock.The way he’d thrown the doll at the mirror.Or I’d run, run far away, return to Wisconsin in an empty car alone.
Then my stomach flopped, and I remembered again that I was the one who threw the doll at the mirror in the end.I still recalled Aster raising the doll and preparing to throw it.Maybe he threw it but re-wired my memory to escape the blame.Either way, I’d lost the ability to tell where I ended and where Aster—my inspiration, my muse, my greater self—began.I’d blurred the line between artist and creativity.I’d made the one mistake that no artist was ever supposed to make.
I cried harder, alone, abandoned, until my tears ended on their own.What other choice did I have?I’d been an idiot back there, batting my eyes at Aster and thinking that I could take him and make him my own.I’d never been swayed by any man’s beauty until Aster waltzed into my life and changed everything.I’d never seen magic before, or miracles.I was fighting on a battlefield my life had failed to prepare me for.
Eventually the dark outside the windows turned lighter.I realized that morning had come.The sunrise was supposed to be sacred for me and Aster, but even he hadn’t brought it up in weeks.Now when I realized the hour, I only felt sick.My eyes still stung when I pried them open from my position on the bed.I felt hot and cold at the same time, feverish.
Taking a deep breath of air into my lungs, I propped myself onto my elbows.I leaned my head on the wooden headrest against the wall.“Aster,” I said, not especially loud or eager.“Aster, come back.We need to talk.”
When he did not appear in the doorway I assumed that he reciprocated my frustration.Aster was done with me.Either he’d snapped and fallen deeper into his madness or I’d offended him and chased him away, but now I was alone with the miserable aftermath of my own bad decisions.
I narrowed my eyes and then closed them and pretended that if I waited long enough, I’d transform into a seagull and fly away from this place unhindered into the sunlight.
When I opened my eyes again, unable and not expecting to sleep, I noticed that the weight on the mattress had shifted.Aster sat on the opposite side, where he had slept beside me before many times over.He sat, bowed over, facing away from me.He did not speak.He didn’t even appear to be breathing.
