M Sellars - Miranda

I allowed myself to fall back to the right and summoned everything my tortured body could give. Rolling as hard as possible to the left, I thrust out my arm and lunged against the railing. My index finger hooked the handset cord, and as I fell back I pulled it with me.

The telephone base clattered over the edge of the nightstand in the middle of the thirteenth ring, unceremoniously bringing it to an end. The device hung there by a thin wire while I maintained a tenuous one-fingered hold on the coiled cord that was attached to the receiver. Pulling my arm back, I managed to fish the handset up over the rail and wrap my hand around it. Breathing heavily from what apparently qualified as extreme physical exertion, I bent my elbow and shoved the handset up against the side of my head.

“Hello?” I said.

Without pause I was greeted with the response, “You sound tired, little man.”

The voice that flowed into my ear was one that I had never heard before. However, there was no mistaking who was behind it. If the choice of words wasn’t enough evidence, the drawling accent that artificially insinuated itself on top of them was familiar on levels beyond just the audible.

“I am tired, Miranda,” I replied.

The response that came was unexpected, to say the least.

“As am I, little man,” she said.

Her tone lent a bewildering substance to the comment. She literally sounded as if exhaustion was taking a heavy toll. Had it not been for the obvious distinguishing differences in the voice itself, I would have almost believed that I was talking to Annalise instead of Miranda. But, I knew I wasn’t. I couldn’t identify the body at the other end of the line, but it definitely didn’t belong to the malignant soul that was using it at the moment. That simple fact made anything she said to me automatically suspect.

“Are you honestly expecting me to believe that?” I asked.

“It really does not matter what you believe,” she told me.

“If that’s true, then why are you calling me?”

“To give you one last chance.”

“One last chance for what?”

“To be with your wife, of course,” she replied.

I felt a wave of anger wash over me at her mention of Felicity. I still had to find a way to undo what she had done to her, so the fact that she was using my wife as a carrot to dangle in front of me was incendiary. But I’d traveled this road with her before, and I knew that was her game. So I took a moment to breathe before offering a measured response.

“What’s the catch?” I finally asked.

“We share her,” she said.

I stifled a disgusted snort. “You know that isn’t going to happen.”

She paused and then replied with an oddly dejected sounding tone backing up the words. “I thought that might be your answer.”

“I’m surprised you even bothered to ask,” I said.

A heavy silence flowed between us. I could hear her breathing on the other end of the line. Now and then I thought I picked up a sound that was akin to distant traffic.

“I don’t suppose you want to tell me where you are?” I asked.

“Close,” she replied.

“That’s a little vague. Would you like to be more specific?”

She ignored the second question and said, “You only have yourself to blame, you know.”

“For what, Miranda?”

“All of them,” she said.

“All of them?” I repeated.

“Yes, all of them. Everyone who has had to die because you kept her from me,” she explained.

“Nice try,” I told her. “But a guilt trip isn’t going to get you anywhere. I feel enough of it as it is, I’m not taking yours on as well.”

“You should feel guilty,” she replied. “They are all your responsibility.”

“Sorry, Miranda, but their blood is on you, not me.”

“Is that what you want me to tell Lisa?” she asked, her voice soft.

The cycling ache that was pressing against the interior of my skull ramped up the scale a bit and then added a sharp stab of intense pain for good measure. The name itself didn’t ring a bell, but something about the way she said it told me the situation was heading south in a big way.

I twisted to the right while holding the phone tight against my head and then sent my free hand searching for the call pendant once again.

“Who’s Lisa?” I asked.

“The person who used to live in this body,” she said.

“And where is she now?” I pressed.

“Where she will be forever, little man,” she replied.

“And where is that, Miranda?”

She sighed. “You know. You have been there.”

Images of the grey cell from my vision flashed through my mind, and I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.

“Why, Miranda?” I demanded. “Are you planning to keep Lisa’s body?”

“No, little man,” she replied. “I told you. There is only one that I want, but you will not allow me to have her.”

“So then what now?”

“I am too tired. You have won.”

“Then you’re leaving?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“You have no reason to,” she replied. “I understand that. But it is the truth. I am leaving. Forever.”

“But if you leave, shouldn’t Lisa come back?”

“Not if she has nothing to which she can return.”

Her comments glanced from one another like steel on flint, sparking a recent memory. A searing flash from my tortured visions shot through my brain, and it immediately twisted my stomach into a tight knot.

“Some people need to stay dead, Rowan,” Ariel says. “Even if they have to die again.”

“What are you going to do?” I demanded, my tone rising in pitch as Ariel’s ghostly voice continued to echo in my head.

My hand was still frantically feeling about for the call button but finding nothing more than a twist of sheets and blankets. On a whim I moved it out to the edge of the bed and dragged my fingers along the side until they bumped against the point where the mattress met the railing mount. Digging into the gap, I finally felt a round cord and sought to hook my digits beneath it.

“If you had simply given her to me, little man,” Miranda said. “Then this would not be happening.”

“What are you going to do?” I demanded once again.

“End this,” she replied. “Like I said. I am going away. Forever.”

“How, Miranda? Tell me.”

“Why do you ask what you already know?”

“Don’t do this, Miranda,” I told her. “This woman doesn’t deserve to die.”

“Neither did I,” she whispered.

My fingers tunneled beneath the cord, and I slipped them along its length as I pulled. The pendant clattered against the side of the bed but then caught on something as I yanked.

Silence was filling my ear at this point, and a horrible sense of dread was welling in my chest.

“Talk to me, Miranda,” I snapped. “You wouldn’t have called me if you didn’t want to talk this out.”

“I overestimated you, little man,” she said.

“How?” I pressed, trying to hold her attention. “How did you overestimate me?”

“I thought that you would at least want to see her again.”

“You mean Felicity?”

“Of course.”

“I do, Miranda. You know that.”

“I gave you a chance,” she said.

“I wasn’t good with the terms of your offer.”

“Just remember, you are the one doing this to her.”

“Doing what?”

“Once I am gone, what makes you believe you can find her again?”

“I know where to look.”

“I have a question, little man…”

“What is that?”

“How long do you think it takes to fall from a ten story building?” As if the words themselves weren’t frightening enough, a gut-wrenching melancholy overshadowed the statement.