I jerked my hands away from her. For the first time in so long I actually thought that I felt pain, on the outside. Maybe I was channeling her pain from the past.
She was rocking back and forth with her knees pulled up and her hands clenching her hair. She was in udder despair and I could feel it. Really feel it, like it was in the air.
" Macha?" I said, " Macha?" I went over and placed my hand on her back.
" Don't touch me!" She screamed. She flung her arms in attempts to move mine away. Doing this she exposed her face and what I saw was what I have grown accustom to seeing in the mirror. There where differences though. The lines coming from her mouth ended in curls just below the ends of her eyes. And the lines under her eyes where like two lines from each corner coming together and filled in in between. The upper lines just extended off the peaks of her arched eyebrows.
" Did you know about this?" I asked her.
" About what?" She said.
" Look," I said pointing towards the shattered mirror
She got up and walked over and gasped at what she saw.
" Eric what's going on?' She asked me.
" I asked you once before if you trusted me and you said yes. Do you still mean that?" I asked.
She nodded
" I guess you died back then. You see, a few years ago, I died too. That window there, I was shot and then thrown from it. I died before Shelly did. But I came back a year later with the spirit of the crow as my guide. You see, the spirit guides us to the other side, what ever it may be. Sometimes, when we die, we carry a sadness with us. For you, it was the loss of Jason for me, Shelly."
"No. No. Eric, you're wrong. If I died, then why does it feel like I'm just the same?" She asked.
" I don't know. But that's the only answer I got Macha" I said desperately.
" Don't you know that there aren't always easy answers?" She pleaded
" Yes. But for now, your just gonna have to calm down. Okay?" I said taking hold of her shoulders to steady her, " We can't find all the answers here, but, for now, we're just going to have to make due."
I looked her in the eye and tried my best to be convincing. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. I knew then she had taken over being as that the mark of the curse had faded.
She opened her eyes as mine were still locked on hers. She then quickly glanced away and then back. Then as she looked toward the floor, her hair fell in her face. I reached toward her and brushed it away and then rested my hand on her face. She took her hand a placed it on top of mine. I moved in closer to her. So close I could hear her breathing. She tilted her head slightly and moved closer as well.
We were almost touching when I saw a white light out of the corner of my eye and thought I heard someone whisper my eye.
" No." I whispered, " I can't do this. Not now." I jerked away from her and walked to the other side of the room.
" Just because part of you died, doesn't mean you can't still feel." Macha said.
" But you're only a child. You have so much more to look for," I said.
" I've got nothing at all. No one has touched me in my whole life like you have in the last three hours. Jason was my strength to get me through until I could find you. We don't belong anywhere else right now than right here. Alone together." She said.
" You just don't get it do you?!? She is still here. I can still feel her here watching me," I yelled loosing control to my darker side. My crow sensing this flew into the room. That distracted her long enough to where I could do a disappearing act of my own, leaving her alone.
I couldn't take it anymore. How could I let myself get lost in a pretty face like that? How could I do that to Shelly? All of these thoughts were racing through my mind just one after another.
I didn't run far. I soon found refuge on top of a near by abandoned building. I kept thinking about what I had seen. What was it that caused people that were supposed to love her to treat her like that? She didn't need one more person to feel bad for her, just one to stand beside her again
