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“Do you want to dance again?” he asks suddenly. His voice is softer now, vulnerable. Heat unfurls low in my core. The last time we danced, my mind had slipped somewhere deep. His touch had been a key back into the labyrinthian pathways of my mind—a place of fractured time. He peruses me as though waiting not just for permission, but for complicity. Waiting to be chosen. Or perhaps…waiting to claim.
What does it say about a woman who indulges a man after his wife’s death?
“Lead the way, doctor,” I tease, though the tremor in my breath betrays me. His blue eyes ignite, slow and smoldering.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he says softly, drawing me to my feet and into the quiet shelter of his arms. “Don’t pull that dangerous stunt again, you could have lost your life.” For a moment, I forget the room, the fire, the long corridors that breathe in the dark. The strange nighttime rituals, and my faded memories. His eyes meet mine. Eyes that hint at things only lovers would dare to confess in the hush between midnight and dawn, tangled in sheets silvered by moonlight. I feel snared into a trap. Was it a trap though if you willingly walked into it?
“Why are you happy that I’m here?” I ask, searching his gaze, trying to decipher the language of a man who speaks in half-formed truths.
“You’re the embodiment of a goddess,” he says softly, “and you’ve called out to this lonely soul. Maybe you’re a mythical siren…only someone so enchanting could defy explanation.” His tone wavers between certainty and indignation, an honesty so bold it startles me. I’ve known him less than a month, yet his words trace the edges of me with an intimacy I cannot quite resist. They seep slowly into the cold, hollow places, warming the rooms of me I thought to be unlit.
Don’t forget the illusion of desire.
“A siren,” I echo, rolling the word across my tongue. “But I’m afraid of large bodies of water…” The very thought of it sends a quick, instinctive dread through my veins.
“We could test that, if you wanted,” he offers, teasing but earnest. “Or we could remain safely on land.”
I scrunch my face in an exaggerated show of indecision. “I think I’d rather dip my toes in slowly. Besides, we couldn’t go swimming now, it’s blustering outside.”
“I could have the pool warmed, just for you. Would you like that?” he asks. The pool. The place where I’d seen that haunted thing.
“Will you be there with me?” The question leaves me before I can stop it.
“I’ll be there if you want me to,” he replies.
Open your eyes, Marisa.
Gently, he releases me and crosses to the phonograph. This time, he selects a record with a soft touch, placing the needle with reverence. A tender piano piece blooms from the device, low and aching, curling around the room like incense.
“We don’t have to push anything tonight,” he says. “Let’s just sit together and feel the music.”
The warm fire’s glow, the hush of the melody, together they blot out the darker corners of my mind, the whisper of monsters hiding just out of sight, the ghosts that seem to pace the halls of this house. He doesn’t take my hand again.
His wife just died.
It’s been a long time; he just told me.
The contempt in his voice had been unmistakable. Maybe they weren’t in love? Maybe they’d had a tumultuous marriage? The variables were endless. I shove the thoughts aside. Not now. Not when the moment hangs so delicately between us.
This time I approach him. I slip my hand into his, claiming it.
The crooks of our elbows brush; the warmth of his chest grazes mine. I take the lead, slowly at first. I don’t know what I’m doing being so forward. But maybe the Sheriff was right. We could be in Hell. And if we were in Hell, I’d revel in my desires for an eternity if need be.
The music sways but refuses to swell, and for once my mind does not slip backward or scatter into the labyrinth. No memories claw for attention. No demons rise to drown me. The labyrinth doesn’t suck me in. Only a lull. There’s only this strange man before me.
We descend back to the blankets on the floor after a while. I lay beside him, breathing in the mingled heat beneath the tower of quilts and tattered blankets. The air smells of firewood and wine. He sits against the settee; eyes fixed on the flames like he’s reading some ancient script hidden in the embers. It strikes me how strange it all is. How impossible, I’ve found myself in such a situation. The moment, the circumstances, even the peculiarities I notice in Kieran and the Sheriff. I don’t know if anyone could bear the loss of their memories in a place like this. So vast, so unfamiliar, inhabited by strangers and stitched with dangers that lurk in the seams of every path you pave.
A newfound tension hums beneath my skin as though at any moment someone could yank the rug out from under me, sending my world spinning into darkness again. Lying here beside him, firelight warming the shadows of his face, that fear loosens its grip, just enough for me to close my eyes and fall into slumber.
Open your eyes, Marisa.
TWENTY-NINE
“Do not walk the labyrinth alone.”
— SHERIFF CHRISTIAN VALEN
Wake up.
