Oddly enough, it the aftermath that Myka thinks of as she actually touches the shoes for the first time.
Artie will be full of fatherly-like disappointment. Pete will wear that wounded look so well, one that she has seen before and one that she has been the cause of, too. Leena will look away, askance gaze heavy with whatever aura she has seen about Myka's body.
But it is Claudia that Myka hopes to avoid after all of this is said and done.
For that is where truths will continue to topple forth without much effort – in Claudia's eyes, all the hypocrisy of Myka's words and Myka's actions will fall to the floor and shatter for the whole world to see. No longer hidden by older years and previous losses; no longer shielded with by-the-book phrases always spoken.
Running away to her father's bookstore won't just be seen as an aberration anymore; it'll be the signpost that everyone should have heeded – Myka included.
Suddenly, though, a heat spreads over her hand. It starts at the tips of her fingers and then that warmth travels along each line upon her palm. By the time it winds its way around her wrist, Myka knows that she is slipping under the artifact's spell.
And the urge to pick up the other shoe is overwhelming, so Myka tells herself to not fight this impulse.
After all, that is why she is here – in this hotel room, in a town with a name she cannot remember, with her Farnsworth turned off, with the door locked and with the 'do not disturb' sign on the outside knob.
Myka is here to break some rules, to find some peace of mind.
And that is one path she must walk alone.
/
Slipping downstairs, quieter than she has ever been, and shadows are thrown onto each wall that she passes – beyond the living room, beyond the entrance to the kitchen, beyond the boundaries she once swore to never cross.
And into the basement.
Myka half expects Mrs. Frederic to show up, to catch her with that impenetrable stare and chastise without a single word uttered.
Of course, that isn't going to happen. Not anymore.
And if her feet were nervous for a moment, if her rational side was trying to speak up, it is the fact that Mrs. Frederic won't be materializing from around some corner that pushes Myka forward.
It is a cramped room instead of a cavernous warehouse. It is a face no longer smiling between Claudia and Pete. It is a locket never to be returned to its rightful owner; a piece of the past, heavy with old tears and new sorrow, buried beneath stories that Myka isn't sure she'll ever read again.
It is all of these things that make her enter the correct code, that make her put on the purple gloves and that make her remove the ruby-red slippers from confinement and into her possession.
It is the nights without rest. It is the specter that she has become. It is the grief that she cannot handle.
Slipping out the door, barely breathing as she gets behind the wheel of her car, and headlights kept off for just a little while – beyond the front porch, beyond the line of trees along the drive, beyond any chance of being found out.
And into the unknown.
/
Then Myka is putting the ruby-red slippers on, no longer cognizant of anything beyond this current act.
And the faint sounds around this room go mute as the heat finally covers her entire form – feet to legs, legs to torso, torso to head. It is not an uncomfortable sensation, not really; it is a lot like coming in from the cold, face becoming flushed due to the sudden onslaught of warmth.
Her eyelids flutter. Her shoulders sag. She feels weightless, as if all the ligaments and all the tendons have been cut loose – like a kite let go of, traveling on nothing but atmosphere.
/
Bethany Jackson didn't want to return.
That's what Myka keeps reminding herself of as she drives through the night; that's the knowledge that Myka must retain if she is going to do this right.
And many of the others that the shoes sought out, in pain and in need, they didn't want to come back to this world either. They wanted to stay with those flickering images of the mind; to live out in dreams what could not be in the cold light of day. They wanted to sift through the longings of their hearts and find purchase on figments of joy – no matter the blood that would slow in their veins, no matter the atrophy that their muscles would descend into, no matter that the body would shut down and leave the brain to be the last hold-out of a person about to die.
Myka doesn't want to die, though.
She wants to wake up.
She wants to wake up in a better world.
And it is not lost on Myka just how achingly familiar that particular sentiment is.
/
Now Myka's thoughts become a jumble, unable to stay with one because she is moving too quickly to another. It is as if her mind is made of endless rows of dominos and someone has finally pushed them all down – tumbling, tumbling, tumbling.
It is a flash of the sealed-up note she left with the hotel clerk behind the counter, a way to contact Pete if things should go horribly wrong in this hotel room. It is a glimpse of guns drawn, many times over; a glimpse of hard stares that hide everything and that hide nothing at all. It is the mirror in her childhood bedroom, reflecting every single awkward moment - each one of them caught in a young girl's red-rimmed gaze.
It is laughter. It is silent weeping. It is mornings and it is stars. It is kisses once given and it is looks that once lingered. It is every scrap of danger and it is every second of calm.
It is Myka's whole life, racing ever faster by her side and there is no way that she can keep up.
/
It comes to her within another voice, that sentiment – a memory trapped somewhere between tombstones and forever. It comes to her within irony and awareness now, those sad syllables covered up in bronze and floating off of time-travelled lips.
That sentiment comes to Myka wrapped up so heavily in Helena – the curve of the mouth, the wave of black hair, the nearness of thighs and of arms upon that concrete bench, and the desperation in those dark eyes...
It is that sentiment that rips away the last of Myka's doubts.
/
And so Myka falls back, asleep before she even reaches the mattress below.
/ /
TBC