Sarah Durst: Conjured

Staring at the lock, she started to shake. She held her hands in front of her, and they trembled. Inside and out, she was like the water pipes.

She unlocked the door.

That was better.

Her ribs loosened, and she could breathe deeply again. She dumped the clothes in a corner, used the toilet, and brushed her teeth. She kept her eyes firmly on the sink and did not look up at the mirror until after she had spat. Then she steeled herself … Black-brown eyes. Straw-yellow hair. Pink lips. Round face . Fixing the image of herself firmly in her mind, she raised her eyes to see her reflection.

She almost looked familiar this time. She’d forgotten the shape of her chin and that her eyebrows were straw-yellow too. Also, the length of her eyelashes.

Eve showered and tried not to look at her body too much. It kept surprising her too. She couldn’t keep it all in her head: her toes with the freshly trimmed toenails, the goldenness of her skin, the shape of her knees, and the smoothness of her hands. She studied her hands in the shower. The flesh on her fingertips was puckering from the water, and her skin felt soft and squishy, waterlogged. She wondered if she’d ever be used to this flesh.

The doctors had said she would. They’d said the changes were all cosmetic, adjustments so she wouldn’t stand out, so she wouldn’t be noticed by those who shouldn’t notice. A necessary precaution, given that the suspect in her case had not yet been caught. Since she couldn’t remember what she looked like before, she couldn’t compare. It all felt new, and it all felt as changeable as clothes.

She dried herself and dressed. As the steam in the mirror faded, it tossed bits of her reflection back at her. Hair. Shoulder. Cheek. In a clear corner of the mirror, her eyes stared back at her, and she touched the image and then touched next to her eyes. “You should be green,” she said, suddenly certain. “Be green.”

She heard a rushing in her ears as black-brown drained out of the eyes in the mirror. Green infused the irises, spreading out from the pupils.

And then her legs folded underneath her.

I feel a brush in my hair .

“It always begins with ‘once upon a time,’ my dear. That is how it is, even if ‘once upon a time’ is now.” Gnarled hands separate the strands of my hair and wind them around knuckles. “A witch … for of course there was a witch. There always is, isn’t there? She had stars in her eyes and dust in her hair. She heard the sounds of the forest when she moved and the ocean when she spoke.” The Storyteller tilts my chin up. “Such pretty eyes. Such a pretty, pretty girl.”

The Storyteller is not pretty. Her face is shrunken in wrinkles, as if her skin were a squeezed dishrag. Her eyes are milky red, clouding out whatever their true color was. Her knuckles on the hand that holds my chin are knobs that curl her fingers. But she smiles at me, and it is like sunshine .

“There’s a girl too,” she says, “in a tower, and it doesn’t matter whether she wakes or sleeps, for she’s locked inside with a world laid out before her that she cannot touch.”

She threads a piece of yarn through a needle. It’s straw-yellow yarn .

“And so the girl sleeps and dreams wonderful dreams of horses in sea foam and birds that carry her to the tallest mountain. Lovely, lovely dreams of a pretty, pretty girl.”

Her fingers wrap around my wrist, and she smiles at me .

Then she plunges the sewing needle into my arm .

Footsteps echoed from outside in the hall. “Eve, is everything all right?” Aunt Nicki called through the door.

Splayed on the floor, Eve clutched the wet towel against her chest. She hugged it tight as she concentrated on breathing. In, out. In, out. In …

The doorknob twisted.

Eve tried to find her voice to answer. “F-fine.”

The doorknob stopped.

“Just … slipped. I slipped. I’m fine.” Eve rubbed her arms. Goose bumps prickled her skin. Everything ached. She winced as she touched her elbow. She must have hit it hard.

“Come to the kitchen when you’re done,” Aunt Nicki said. “We need to talk about what you’re going to do while you’re here.” Footsteps retreated from the door. Eve counted them—nine to the kitchen—and then pried herself off the floor. She used the sink to pull herself up and peered into the mirror.

Green eyes stared back at her.

“Such pretty eyes,” she whispered, touching her face. Shuddering, she backed away from the mirror. She staggered out of the bathroom. By the time she reached the kitchen (nine steps later), she felt steadier. Taking a deep breath, she entered.

Aunt Nicki stood in front of a toaster. She was dropping bread into the slots. “Orange juice is in the fridge,” she said without looking at Eve. “That’s a typical breakfast drink. You aren’t old enough for coffee.”

Eve nodded. She didn’t bother to question the statement, not without Malcolm here. She didn’t think Aunt Nicki would be so patient with explanations. Aunt Nicki hadn’t even turned around, not to greet her, not even to notice her eyes. I should have changed them back , she thought. But green … felt right.

The shade was up again, or still, in the kitchen, and she was drawn to the window. Outside was the same matte gray as yesterday. For an instant, she thought that maybe it was still yesterday and she’d imagined the dark, silent night with the sounds of cars and the cold streetlight outside her window. But no, she could feel the damp hair on her neck from her shower, and her elbow ached from the fall.

“Malcolm isn’t here,” Eve said. She knew as soon as the words left her mouth that it was true. She didn’t hear any other sounds in the house. It was just the two of them, squeezed into the cramped kitchen. She’d thought she would like it with fewer agents around, but she didn’t. It made the house feel tight around her, as if it had shrunk in the night.

She shouldn’t miss him. Just because he’d chosen shirts in her favorite colors. Just because he explained seat belts and cameras and pizza and television. Just because she knew him better than anyone else she could remember …

“He’ll be here for you any minute,” Aunt Nicki said. With a butter knife, she gestured at a stack of papers on the table. “Read those. You need to choose one.”

Eve sat down in one of the chairs. It swayed under her, and she planted her feet on the ground, though she wasn’t sure how that would help her from falling if the chair decided to break. She picked up the papers and read “Job Description” at the top and “Duties and Requirements” underneath. Each sheet followed the same format. “A job?”

“Yes, a job,” Aunt Nicki said. “A summer job. Work for money. It’s what ordinary teenagers like you do in the summer.” Eve noticed that Aunt Nicki hadn’t looked at her yet. She fixed her eyes everywhere but at Eve—the table, the papers, the sink, the counter, the toaster. Yesterday’s friendly hug must have been for Malcolm’s benefit. Eve bet that popcorn and movie night wasn’t about to happen.

Eve flipped through the papers: pet shop clerk, hostess, library assistant …

“You can’t sit in the house by yourself all day,” Aunt Nicki said. “And I can’t be here to babysit you all the time. I have other responsibilities too.”

As Aunt Nicki fetched the margarine from the fridge, Eve scanned through the pet shop clerk description. Cleaning cages, feeding animals … She imagined cage after cage of birds and rodents, all watching her. She set that job aside. Next one was a hostess at a restaurant called the Firehouse Café. She didn’t remember ever having eaten in a restaurant. Malcolm had described one once, but that hardly qualified her.