forces ancient and impossible

I don’t want to be here. I told Sophie I didn’t want to come, but she said it would be ‘good for me,’ and she isn’t easy to say no to. She’d say something like:

“You can’t spend the whole summer vegetating on the couch, Artie,” or

“We come to the cabin to have fun, Artie.”

And then I’d have to come. Which she knows. Sophie always knows just the right thing to say. Sisters always do.

The lake is a vast, refreshing swathe of complete darkness, a sight seldom found in the sleepless city Sophie and I grew up in, went to college in, work and live and run around in. I like it better up here, the dark forest of pine trees standing at attention like an army, the gentle lap of waves over a pebbled beach. But Sophie likes the city, and we both know I don’t do well living on my own. I’d miss her too much, she’d say. I don’t know, maybe I would.

I miss this, though. The dark and the quiet. Not the noise of the house party behind me, all thumping music and shouting people. And really, we’re in our mid-twenties, now, aren’t we supposed to be done with things like this? But Sophie says twenty-four isn’t too old to party, and Sophie is usually right about things like this.

“Sophie?”

I straighten up and turn toward the voice coming out of the dark, which is no easy task in an Adirondack chair. A man stumbles toward me, tall and gangly, weaving as he walks. I put my beer down. The bottle’s almost empty. I could smash it and use it as a weapon, if I need to.

“Oh,” the guy says as he gets closer. “Not Sophie.”

I relax a little. It’s only Ben, Sophie’s friend from work. She brought him along for me, she said. Because she has Max, who’s also here, somewhere inside with the smell of sweat and stale beer. Never mind that Ben has been following her around like a lovesick puppy the whole time, never mind that I asked her not to, that I was fine being a third wheel. Mom and Dad aren’t around anymore to tell her to stop being so pushy, so she gets her way.

“No,” I say, and the smile is forced and half-present. “The other one.”

Ben doesn’t even give me a pity laugh, just settles down in the chair next to me, an uncomfortable twin to my own.

“You guys really do look alike,” he tells me, his eyes unfocused, his beer dripping down his chin as he takes a sip. I swallow, then look away.

“Hard not to,” I say, picking up my own beer. I don’t drink it, though, just cradle it in my hands. The corner of the label is already peeling, eviscerated by my earlier efforts, when I was still inside, crammed into the corner and uncomfortable. “We’re identical.”

“No,” Ben counters, “no, I can tell.”

Congratulations, I want to say. It’s not hard, I want to say.

“Most people who know us can,” I allow. “But we’re still identical.”

“Not entirely, though,” Ben says, and I know we’re operating on two different definitions. I know he’s being difficult on purpose. Sophie would fight him.

“Alright,” I sigh. I pull my leg up, propping my foot on the seat, and continue to pick at the label on my bottle. The glass is warm now, after sitting so long in my hands.

“Your hair is shorter, obviously,” Ben goes on. I tuck my chin-length bob behind my ear. Sophie’s not as indecisive as I am. She’s had her signature waist-long locks since high school, always healthy and well-maintained, braided or impeccably curled. I keep cutting mine short and growing it out again. My hair now is uneven, an unfortunate casualty of an attempted at-home trim.

“And your eyes are closer together than Sophie’s. Her nose is smaller, too.

“Cool,” I say, really just hoping he gets bored, gets up, goes back inside. Hoping he doesn’t take my nonchalant disinterest as being a rapt listener. A lot of people do.

“And she’s got this freckle,” Ben continues. “On the left side of her mouth."

I want to tell him I have the same mole, only mine is faded and scarred, from how much I’ve picked at it. Mine grows ugly dark hairs I only ever find when I’m nowhere near a pair of tweezers. Sophie’s, of course, doesn’t.

“Yep,” I say, finally taking another drink from my bottle, and wincing at the warm, flat beer. I swallow, and take two more long swigs. Maybe to make the conversation go faster. Maybe so I don’t lose my shit and start yelling at him. I won’t, of course. He probably knows that already, even if we only got here a few days ago.

“I think she’s trying to set us up,” Ben says, and he wants it to sound conspiratorial, maybe even like a joke. I think it just sounds sad.

“Yeah.”

There’s a boat tied up at the end of the dock. The buoy clanks against the holdings a few times. Tiny waves crash and skitter over pebbles. We both take another drink.

“You don’t like me.” It sounds lighthearted, but when I look at him, he’s not smiling. My grip tightens on the bottle, nearly empty. He’s not dangerous, just sad.

“No,” I say, and then stop. It comes out oddly pitched, and neither of us knows if I’m disagreeing with him or not.

The song changes inside, and people start to cheer. I don’t recognize the melody. I’m not looking at Ben anymore, and he drains his bottle before standing up.

“There’s a boat down there,” he says.

“There is,” I agree. He looms, so tall, nothing more than a silhouette lit by the weak dock light.

“I’m gonna row it out,” he says.

I don’t know if he’s inviting me, so all I say is, “Maybe don’t.”

“Why not?” he asks. The first question he’s asked me, actually.

“You’re pretty drunk,” I point out.

“You’re not,” he says, and he’s walking backwards, weaving still. The smile on his face isn’t frightening on the surface, but it’s not genuine either, and the floating dock bobs and wavers under his swaying form. Slowly, I put my bottle down, empty now, and stand.

“Ben,” I say, as if trying to calm an animal, or a small child. “Be careful.”

“C’mon Artie!” he crows, and there’s a hysterical edge in his voice that makes me glance back towards the party, hoping someone would come to help. Part of me debates running back up to the house to get my sister, make her deal with her drunk, pathetic friend on her own. God, I wish he’d just go away.

“Ben, come on,” I say. It sounds halfhearted, because it is.

“What, are you scared?” Ben shouts. He takes another step, and his body locks up, sad half-smile going lax.

I can tell he’s going to fall, even before he hits the water. His face contorts, from thinly-veiled taunting to shock, and then fear. It should be funny, a drunk boy, made of only limbs and held together with joints like rubber bands, tumbling backward off the dock and into the lake. But I don’t laugh -- I can’t. The water surges up to catch him, lifting up the end of the dock, enveloping him instantly. The water crashes with an impressive sound. He doesn’t even make a splash. His name comes out in a strangled yelp, and I chase after him, tripping on the floating concrete pad as it pitches and yaws. The water rises again, violently, waiting for me. My feet fly out from under me, and I catch myself, my hands wrapping around the moorings, my bare knees hitting concrete.

The aftermath washes away with the haunting sound of pebbles tumbling across the beach in a huge rush, immediately replaced by the regular quiet lap of water and skitter of rocks. Blood rushes in my ears, my breath coming in irregular, heavy pants. Dull, overwhelming pain radiates from my kneecaps, my blood slowly staining the concrete. The water heaves and roils, barely two feet from my face. The dark is peat-scented and ominous, reeking of rot and cold.

Hissing whispers crawl out of the water and slither over the deck like tendrils of seaweed, creeping up my neck and along my shoulders. The words are in a language I know, but have never spoken, the sounds of jealousy and silent resentment, the words of women and cruelty. My throat is dry but I can’t swallow and my breath tastes like blood.

Something lurks below, something that twists and writhes towards the surface, rippling toward me in opalescent coils, glowing in the dark water. I shove myself away from the end of the dock, halfway up before I fall and scramble backwards on hands and feet. The thing emerges from the water in slick, impossible silence, long and green and black and silver, shapeless talons and a roaring mouth of teeth. It ascends, the wild light brightening and curling until the dark sky is filled with a false moon, a white beacon born from her reflection in the water before she is drawn, inevitably, back to it.

But the thing doesn’t land in the water. And when it lands, it isn’t a thing at all. It’s a girl, or something that looks like one, with long, ragged hair the color of an oil-slick, or the shine of rotting seaweed. She is not beautiful, not in any way my sister would think, but her features epitomize everything I have been taught to want. Long, willowy limbs, a flat stomach, sharp hip bones set beneath a narrow waist. The curves of her are perfect, rounded, soft, and her skin is smooth, flawless, and completely hairless. Her eyes are large, her nose small and narrow, her smile wide.

But it is the extremity of her that makes her terrifying, the unnatural length of her limbs, the hang of her hands past her knobbly knees, the bug-eyed fish-like face, the slick, unnatural shine of her gray-pale skin. And her smile, filled with the sharp points of a predator’s teeth, an expression of unhinged, menacing joy. I can only watch, barely breathing, trapped in my own fear. My belly heaves as blood trickles slowly toward the cuff of my socks. She watches me too, and I am a rabbit, ensnared in the gaze of a fox.

She is only herself for a moment - a horrible, unforgettable picture - before she begins to change before my eyes. She shrinks, her supernatural stature straightening and evening out. Her edges soften, her sharp jaw filling to a soft, sweet curve, her skin flushing with summer warmth, until she’s peach and gold and -

Me.

I’m looking at me, standing there at the end of the dock, with my chin-length red hair and sun-grown freckles, with my bitten nails and squat builder’s hands. Me, or -

“Sophie?” I ask, stuttering, my brain begging for some impossible, elaborate practical joke, for my sister to step out of the guise and become a laughing, rollicking familiarity.

“Sssophie?” I repeat. It repeats. The other me. The thing.

“Okay,” I gasp, heaving myself unsteadily to my feet. My knees and hands sting with abrasions. I brush my hands on my shorts, gravel falling from the heel of my palm. The top of my sock absorbs the first warm drops of blood. “Not Sophie.”

“Not…. Sssophie.” The thing, the other girl, tilts her head, her eyes still open a little too wide, and she considers me, calculating, wondering. My mouth tightens, drawing down at the corners, my throat beginning to heat and shake. I recognize the expression, from my sister’s face, and my own. She’s even wearing my clothes, somehow conjured from the strips of kelp that had clung to her arms and legs when she rose from the lake.

Awe and fascination flow as fear ebbs, childlike and foolish in the unmistakable reality of magic. The youngest part of me cheers in triumph over the oldest truth I have carried, the belief I have refused to relinquish as I aged. That magic exists, and that I deserve to bear witness to it. It is this part of me that anchors my feet and steadies my voice, this part of me, convinced of its maturity in the most naïve and juvenile of ways.

“What are you?” I ask. Against my better judgment, I take a few steps forward, closing the few feet between us.

In answer, the thing holds something out toward me, something she’s been holding. She clutches it desperately, and her humanity is belied in the tight claw of her grip. It looks like fabric, or a poor facsimile, flashing silver and slick like the skin of some great fish, but tangled and stitched with kelp and patched with algae. It drips, leaving dark patches on the concrete, running rusty and red through the drops of my blood that dot the ground where she stands.

I don’t respond, captivated, and she shakes it at me urgently. A noise growls out through her teeth, inhuman, monstrous frustration, and it sends my heart back to the base of my throat. I glance back over my shoulder, wanting to run, but the dock, before mundane, now seems impossibly long, the lake house that spills light and people, safety and noise, an insurmountable distance away. The thing watches me startle, and, as if hoping to calm me, smiles again. It is not calming at all.

Even her teeth have changed to match mine, rounded and human, a jumbled mess on the bottom, but the incisors… mine have been worn down from years of grinding my teeth, but hers are intact, and just a little too sharp. A hint, an imperfection in the copy.

She shakes the dripping mass at me again, and I look, fear slowly replacing fascination as she steps closer and a breeze cuts cold and sharp across the lake. My stomach warns me, unsettled from anxiety and the gentle motion of the dock. I think she wants me to take it. If I take it, what then? Will she let me go? Will she transform again and slide soundlessly back into the lake? I remember the stories of fae bargains and water nymphs. Was Ben somehow a gift, to her? Is this her fair exchange? Is this fair?

The idea that I may be seen as a petitioner, offering a sacrifice, that I may be the arbiter of Ben’s death, fills me with a deep pull of inescapable dread, and, simultaneously, a sick, heady rush of power. Did I send him down the dock, to her? Was there some part of me, raging and hungry, that ushered him toward his fate? The dark water is still and quiet, a lake familiar from memory, foreboding from nightmares. The only movement is the gentle, placid lap of waves. Ben never came back up. There’s no sign of him. A tired, jaded voice, deep in my mind, thinks, good riddance.

I reach out and take the woven offering. It transforms in my hands, becoming a silver-blue cloak with gorgeous green embroidery, large, corded stitches dancing in abstract swirls and shapes. When the other me smiles, I’m less afraid. A sharp gust of wind flutters around my body, making the fur-lined garment twist and billow. I look at the strange, smiling copy of myself, no longer scared but mystified, excited. Hesitation nags, a response to the familiar gaze of her matching green eyes. My eyes. Sophie’s eyes.

A vicious wall of jealousy and resentment slams upward against that soft, mewling feeling, encouraged by a heavy swing of bracing wind and a glint in my copy’s eyes.

“Not Ssssophie,” it repeats, reminding me.

“Not Sophie,” I agree, and there is an exhilarating heaviness in my voice, something thick and unforgiving. I was chosen by this girl, this being, this faerie. Not my sister, ever-popular, ever-flourishing, ever-perfect. I see myself emulated, every imperfection, every flaw, and have to smile in return. The other Artie nods, encouraging, guiding my gaze to the beautiful cloak, emitting a faint, reminiscent glow.

“What do I do?” I whisper, attuned to every breath of wind, every quiet slip of dancing water. The party occurs in another world from me and this impossible magic, this incredible bargain. I can smell the water and the lilies and the faint echoes of July afternoon heat. “Do I put it on?”

“Put it onnnn…. Put it on!” I whisper to myself.

Spellbound, I find the shoulders of the garment, expecting to be afraid. But there is no fear. With a smooth, sure motion, I toss the fabric over my shoulders. It should be heavy, all silver-blue leather and thick, silky fur. But it settles over me like a second skin, like floating gossamer. The copy of me smiles, and I feel myself beaming in return. Light rises around me, radiating silver-white against the humid summer evening. There’s no heat, only the sweet, refreshing slip of cool water over skin.

I feel myself straighten, inhaling deeply, standing proud and strong. I wait for the girl to disappear, to fade, perhaps to transform again and slip back into the water, but she only stands, and watches. And smiles. My skin tightens and crawls. Power? Excitement? I take another breath, an attempt to calm my racing heart, but it does nothing, and the sweet perfume of water lilies begins to thicken and choke.

The other Artie tilts her head, her eyes narrowing, an expression of sisterly contempt I know all too well. The face of a triumphant twin. Panic rises like a wave, crashing and foaming as the copy of me tilts up her chin to keep my gaze and pain shoots down my limbs and scratches across my skin like so many handfuls of broken glass. I realize, with horror, that my limbs are stretching, growing long and lithe. The cloak has disappeared, shifting back into the dripping, slimy mass of seaweed and skin. I claw at it, screaming, stumbling, and my reflection stands perfectly still, preternaturally so, and laughs.

My voice reaches for words, confusion and betrayal surging as my head aches and joints groan, but my teeth slash across my tongue, cutting it bloody, and I choke on the humid air, my throat tasting of iron, the sides scraping together like boulders. Shapeless, raging sounds turn into desperate screams as the light brightens evermore, until I am blind and senseless with pain. My body falls to the concrete, and I writhe against the stone, every inch of skin so tight and dry I feel it crack and bleed. I am nothing but light and pain and blood, an inhuman shriek given physical form. Sounds ring harsh through the air and I think I may be begging.

Something flat and narrow pushes against the small of my back, and I am rolled over the moorings and into the water without a sound.

“Artie?”

My head begins to clear as my throat cools and my breath returns in gulping gasps. My sister’s voice sounds so far away, and I can’t see her.

“Artemis!” I hear her call. “Is that you?” Footsteps thud and grind against my skull. I can’t respond, and it’s dark, so, so dark. “Where’s Ben? I told him to come find you.”

“Ben?” The voice that answers her is mine, though I have made no sound.

“Wasn’t he down here, with you?”

“Wasn’t down here.”

My voice, but not my words, and it all sounds so far away, as if through glass, on the other side of a door. A faint light works through the muddied haze and I reach for it, feeling weightless and lost. It’s so cold. I try to call for Sophie, but it’s all a muffled garble, and the words pour out of me and crowd above my face, obscuring the light. Everything hurts, and I am not crawling or walking but writhing in strange shapes, in no discernable direction. I want to be near the light, to be back beside my sister, but a barrier prevents me, pain burning and searing with each attempt to cross it.

My vision fills with strange shapes in odd colors, weaving together sounds into figures that float past my eyes. Disoriented, I crack my head against something flat and hard, and hear a scrape that follows the resounding thud.

“Did you hear that?”

I put my hand to my head. I barely feel anything against my palm. My hair is stringy and long, tangling through my fingers, which don’t feel like fingers at all. The shape of me is unfamiliar and strange.

I hear another murmur, a slur of sounds mixed together, the same voice reaching and responding. I hear reassurance, the kind followed by a gentle placing of hands, and then, softly, the scrape and plod of retreating footsteps.

As I realize what has happened, I drift to a stop, frozen in disbelief and shock. The lake is dark and cloudy, and disinterested fish drift past my winding, sinuous form. Rage cannot burn beneath the water, only cold guilt and resentment.

Slowly, long after the hazy light flickers out, my memory clears, and it falls together. My sister… the monster… me.

I have been replaced.

With a foolish bargain and cruel, offhanded wish, my life has been taken from me, by forces ancient and impossible. I am the monster now, the gray and silver and black thing made of trailing fins and too many teeth, doomed to haunt a murky, colorless world. The cavernous space of my chest cannot summon anything but indifference, the small, fearful human parts of me so easily hidden, so easily subsumed. I feel only hunger. Nothing satisfies, and I am swallowed by it. I become a dark, enormous desire to consume. I know I was once a girl, afraid of needing, and now I am nothing but insatiable need.

Where I would expect hot shame and the lick and bite of imagined vengeance, there is only silent bitterness, cold and heavy self-hatred. I carry it with me in the frigid, unforgiving current to the black, empty depths at the center. My new behemoth body settles against rock and silt, and I mourn.

The sun matters little, and the moon matters less. The only things that matter are the nights spread under dark, starless skies, when I swim near shore, and listen for a desperate soul ready to make their last wish.