The Missing Chapter (Bright Lights and Bad Reflections)

There are several oddities about Drayring Valley, chief among them the fact that a 24-hour diner exists, and seems to draw more than enough traffic to justify the late hours. It certainly doesn’t hurt that they serve some of the best breakfast fare within a hundred-mile radius. 

Unlike Sarah’s cafe, I’ve never been the only one at Clive’s diner. In fact, the quietest I’ve ever seen it was 4 am, and it was still busy enough with the steady rumble of conversation and jovial chatter that it could have been mistaken for a lively afternoon. Probably why I don’t frequent it.

That same atmosphere surrounds me now, just beyond my grasp.

While other groups and couples are scattered about laughing and enjoying their meals, Elias and I sit in a frosty silence across from one another, the chill so palpable that I worry the tables near us might get frostbite.

“Eli, honey, good to see you. What can I get started for you both?”

Our waitress appears with an effortless smile, her bright, crisp uniform and perfectly styled red hair all tying together an easy warmth that almost makes my nerves ease as she turns to me, her pen raised.

I don’t intend to say a word more than necessary to the sheriff on this coerced meal together, but I don’t see any reason to punish myself further and not at least enjoy the food.

“I’ll take-”

“She’ll have a breezy breakfast, eggs over easy, and I’ll have the usual Doris. Thank you.”

If Doris is as put off as I am, she masks it quickly with a slightly duller smile.

“Coming right up.” She takes the reprieve with her. What is left is mutual hostility so striking that it feels oppressive and heavy. I can’t stand it anymore.

“I’m going to wash my hands.”

I push myself to my feet, trying to maintain some level of normalcy as I force a neutral expression onto my face. I reach for my jacket hanging innocently on the hook to the side of our booth.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Auburn.” He doesn’t even glance at me as he says it. I feel hot anger flare, but I don’t act on it. I redirect my focus to the pocket of my coat, take out my lip chap and spin on my heel, anxious to put as much space as possible between myself and the arrogant ass that is Elias Carston.

The hallway to the restrooms is empty, and the hum of the diner fades with every step I take. It isn’t far, but the shift is immediate, and I’m snapped back to crossing the threshold at Hill House. By the time I reach the door I need, I can’t help but feel as though I’ve slipped just slightly out of step with everything behind me.

The fluorescent lights overhead send a jolt through my forehead and behind my right eye. Big lights are a crime, let alone in bright white tubes, but worth enduring for some time away from Elias’s crushing presence. I push open the door and hurry inside.

It’s clean. Tragically even brighter than the hallway, but ordinary in a way that should be comforting. White and sage green checkered tile, spotless mirrors, and the faint smell of bleach cleaner. Nothing out of place.

I grip the edge of the sink and let out a controlled breath, staring down at my hands.

They’re still trembling.

“Get it together,” I murmur, turning the tap on. The rush of water fills the space, grounding. Tangible.

I scrub longer than necessary, watching the water run over my skin, the heat bringing a soft flush to my knuckles. When I finally look up, I pause.

There’s something tucked behind my ear.

For a second, my brain refuses to make sense of it. My reflection feels wrong, like I’m seeing myself through the flipped preview of a selfie. My hair is still the way I left it, albeit frizzier, but nestled against the curl near my temple is a flower.

Cautiously, I lift my hand to it. The petals are cool to the touch, and it one hundred percent was not placed there by me.

I pull it free and hold it up to the searing light.

It’s delicate, pale enough to almost glow against my skin. The petals are thin and layered, with a faint red hue that has no business being there.

A Queen of the Night. An off-coloured nocturnal bloom. Strikingly similar to the one encased in resin now sitting on my bedside table.

One that should have closed the moment it left the dark.

“How-” I start, but the rest of my question doesn’t form.

The lights flare for a moment, and then I swear they dim just slightly.

I glance back at the mirror.

For a fraction of a second, my reflection doesn’t move when I do, and my stomach drops.

I turn sharply, scanning the empty bathroom. Stalls closed. No footsteps. No sound but the faint hum of manufactured sunlight in fluorescent tubes.

Nothing out of place.

When I face the mirror again, everything seems normal.

Except it isn’t.

The shadows have changed.

They’re deeper now, pooling in the corners in a way that doesn’t match the light. Thick, almost tangible. Just like I saw beyond the threshold at Hill House.

I stare at one near the far stall. It shifts. Not much. Just a subtle ripple, moving beneath the surface of what I can see.

I force myself not to blink. It stills.

“You hit your head,” I whisper, hoping that if I speak the words into existence, it might make me believe them. “That’s all this is,” I reassure myself more firmly.

The flower in my hand feels colder. I should throw it away. But I don’t.

The presence moves again. Behind me.

I feel it before I see it. That same awareness from before, the air has drawn closer, bringing with it heat as though something, or someone, has moved into the space meant for me and decided to stay.

Slowly, I lift my gaze back to my reflection.

The shadows are no longer staying in the corners.

They stretch. Not across the floor, but toward me.

I take a step back, but I don’t look away. I can’t.

The flower slips from my fingertips and lands on the counter without a sound.

“Auburn.”

The voice is low. Closer than it should be.

It settles against me with persistence, like breath against the back of my neck, even though there is nothing there. My pulse jumps into my throat, but the fear is tangled up with something else now. Something warmer. Something that curls low in my stomach and makes no sense at all. The distinct awareness of proximity has me acting recklessly. It’s too intimate. Displaced air rushes over the curve of my hips, the line of my waist, the heat of my skin.

Then the shadow I can see stretches higher, brushing the edge of the mirror. The surface ripples faintly where it touches, liquid glass disturbed by fingertips.

This is wrong.

The lights flare again, and then for a split second, the room blinks into pitch black.

In that muted light, he appears behind me. 

For a disorienting heartbeat, my mind refuses to reconcile what I am seeing with what I know.

Rowan has never looked like this.

His skin is impossibly pale and smooth, looking closer to polished marble than anything that has ever felt the sun. It makes a stark, beautiful contrast against the rich, deep brown hair that falls across his forehead in heavy, silk-like waves. Far too familiar. Yet not quite right.

The eyes force me to accept what I can’t believe is possible. I have seen those eyes a hundred times, warm and softened by laughter. Now, they are much closer to the surface of a frozen pond, with danger beneath them. Even so, it’s unmistakably Rowan.

This new eerie quality to his handsomeness makes it difficult to breathe. Every feature is too symmetrical, too perfect to be entirely human. 

Rowan is tall, at least 6’3, and he always makes me feel short, but right now his height is imposing, alarmingly so. The high, sharp line of his cheekbones and the firm, clean set of his jaw is all too violent. He’s the man I know, but through a fun house mirror. I could almost explain it all away as a prank or a strange dream, if not for the way he displaces the darkness. He seems to repel it as it fights to cling to him, making him seem impossible, yet somehow more real and vivid than anything else I’ve ever encountered.

He doesn’t move, yet the weight of his presence is so consuming I feel caged in on all sides.

His gaze drops from my eyes in the mirror, trailing slowly down the curve of my neck, then lower, tracing the line of my shoulder and the fullness of my body with a deliberate intensity. 

A low, buzzing heat starts at the base of my spine, a treacherous reaction to the way he studies me. My logic screams that this is a threat, but my body feels a magnetic, intoxicating pull toward the need radiating from his skin.

He tilts his head, a ghost of a smile touching his lips.

“I didn’t expect you to ever have to deal with this,” he whispers.

The sound of his voice doesn’t just hit my ears; it vibrates through my entire frame, a deep, resonant hum that leaves my skin tingling. My devotion to Hill House and puppy dog crush on Rowan hasn’t left much time for me to indulge any of my baser needs beyond my academic curiosity. Judging from the warmth that blooms through my lower stomach, I’m at risk of asking him for more than just answers now.

I want to speak. There are too many things that I need to know, the jumble of thoughts bumping into one another and scrambling like a bunch of ferrets running down a hallway. But before I can form the words, his hand reaches out.

His long, strong fingers stop just an inch from the side of my face, his teasing touch promising what I fear will ignite an addiction I might never kick.

I can’t stand experiencing him through reflection alone. As I move to face him head-on, the lights overhead snap back to a violent, assaulting brightness.

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