Imago Ch9: What We Leave Behind (Patreon)

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Alastor's gone. 

Deirdre doesn't know for how long Alastor’s been gone, a thought that strikes her as faintly ridiculous.  The grandfather clock in the corner may be unwound, but in the distance churning gears count the time. None of that matters.  All that matters is that she’s awake, and on her own.  

She shifts under the bedcovers, pressing down into the soft mattress. Her limbs feel stick-thin, and each breath carries the barren scent of frost. Deirdre isn't certain she has the strength to stand. She sighs, thinking what a shame that would be.

Because Alastor’s ivory-handled razor is right there, folded on the dresser. 

In every way that matters, Deirdre has surrendered to him.  She’s fallen in line with his vision of her.  Listened to his story. Absorbed his rhetoric. Whether or not he has the power to sever their worlds doesn’t really matter, he’s dead set on trying. He'd kill again in pursuit of it. Others like her.  Others who had 'crossed the river'. Like Tiernan. Like her parents. 

So. 

The razor. 

The plan is simple, just four steps. Collect the razor. Return to bed. Conceal it under her pillow. 

Wait.

The thought that she might fade away before she can make good on it lingers at the edge of her thoughts like a hungry leannan sidhe…but she’s sure he'll return, before the end. He'd see it as a kindness. A courtesy. And then...she can make her attempt. 

But the first step... 

"...starts with...a-a step." Deirdre whispers. 

She pushes away the blankets, exposing her gem. Its sickly green light splashes across the bedroom in ghoulish pulsating neon.  She eases over the edge of the mattress, but as soon as her hoof touches the floor her leg buckles. Deirdre cries out, hitting the tiles with a dull thud. The gem pulses. 

"Shut it." She hisses. Groping blindly at the bedframe, her hand closes on the post. Hand over fist, she drags herself back to her feet.  Vertigo strikes and the room spins. Open-walled and surrounded by gear-studded emptiness, for a single terrible instant Deirdre isn't sure which way is up.  

She grits her teeth. Her legs wobble. One step forward. Another. Her arms stretch out behind her, still supporting her weight. If she lets go, she's afraid she'll topple over. If she doesn't, she might as well have stayed in the covers. 

Deirdre shoves off.

The momentum sends her stumbling. Her world lurches sideways, the dresser stutter-stepping into her path. She cracks her arm against it, seconds before the rest of her follows suit. For one horrible moment she feels it tipping over into the dark, ready to carry her with it.

But it's just vertigo. The dresser is fixed in place, unmoving. She lets out a laugh -  pitchy, a little hysterical, but an actual laugh. She’s okay. She made it. The world is still moored, even if only in its small way.  

The razor waits before her.  

Gathering herself, she grabs hold of it. Her hand doesn’t want to cooperate, and she scoops up the whole thing, ivory and iron alike. It sears her skin, but it's a sharp pain. Direct. Clarifying. Deirdre's breath hisses through her teeth as she flips it open, then adjusts her grip so she’s only grasping the handle.  She watches the green light play off the blade, her own reflection wobbling on the gleaming surface.

"You won't beat me."

The gem glitters. 

Deirdre claws at it, scowling. She wishes so badly she could just tear it out. If only she c-

Click

She freezes, then looks down. Traces her fingers over the macabre ornament.  The setting is flush against her skin, as if part of her own flesh. But the gem itself…there's just the faintest line between the setting and the hateful jewel. 

Deirdre blinks.  

"O-oh."

Goosebumps stud her skin as the idea forms, her plan alters. She's hardly daring to hope. Hope hurts. Hope is a friend she cannot forgive, lingering outside the door long after she’s locked it. Her legs give out, and she sinks to the floor, her back against the dresser. She’ll need all the strength she has if she’s going to do this.  

Her hands shake as she turns the blade toward herself, carefully slipping it into the seam between the setting and the jewel. Deirdre nudges the crack open a little further, wedges the blade deeper, gains more purchase until she’s sure she has the best leverage she’s going to get.

She pulls.

Nausea slams into her immediately. The world spins, and the cold flash of iron-tainted perspiration crawls all over her body. It’s like pulling a rotted tooth.  She bites down hard to keep herself from screaming as she digs the blade in deeper, pulls harder.   She can feel the gem’s roots begin to snap, one by one. Green starbursts dance before her eyes. The edge of the razor clicks as it disappears entirely from view. Deirdre grabs the handle with both hands and twists. 

With an awful, ripping sound, the emerald pops free from the setting, strobing furious light from its facets as it bounces across the floor. 

The nausea vanishes almost at once, and Deirdre slumps back against the dresser, panting for breath, as something loosens in her chest. A moment later, the setting falls free, hitting the floor with a clang. In its wake remains a patch of pale, blotchy skin, with tiny puckered pinpricks where the needles had dug into her.  Deirdre places her hand over the scar and feels the flesh, cold and dead, beneath her palm.

She puts her foot out, testing it. It takes her weight after a moment, and she stands. It is suddenly so easy to stand. The flashing from the gem has slowed to a steady glow, illuminating the floorboards. Deirdre walks over and gingerly picks it up, holding it between her thumb and forefinger. She turns it back and forth, studying it. 

The light trapped within…that's her. Her vitality, her lifespan. Her strength. Could she...get it back? Someone in the Market has to know. There's always someone in the Market who knows. A spell for a price, or a favour, or a secret. Someone could make her whole again, as though none of this had ever happened. 

She could see her parents. Feel Tiernan’s warmth. The stone glitters, as if in agreement. Deirdre smiles sadly, leaning against the dresser for support. 

"But...I'd have to get back to the Market first. Wouldn't I?" 

She turns, walking carefully to the tall, floor-length mirror that Alastor uses as a doorway. She can see the far side of it - a cluttered room, lined with crowded shelves like rings in a tree. The glass is clear and unclouded, and for one brief moment her hope  flares bright once again…but when she presses her hand against it, the barrier is as solid and immovable as iron. He had properly invited her in. To escape, she would need him to properly give her leave. Deirdre's lip trembles as she lifts the gem up higher.  

“I'd be as mad as he is to think I could have that."   

The emerald starts to flash again, but she’s already drawing her arm back. There’s really only one thing to do.

Glaistigs are known for their throwing prowess. It's a far cry from hurling stones at a trespasser in the woods, but even so, Deirdre's proud of the arc the emerald makes as it sails away from her, bursts of green light illuminating the clock gears like distant lightning strikes. She watches until it fades into the dark beyond.  Until she can't see it any longer. 

"Now we both lose." She says, softly. Whatever else happens, that's something to be proud of. Deirdre grips the razor in spite of the chill in her fingers, wrapping her free hand around herself. 

“So… what now.”

There’s the plan, of course. But now, after what she’s done, she feels the need to move. To walk about on her own, the thing he’d thought she’d never do again.  She eases back to the bed and slices away a strip of the sheet, wrapping it around the razor for a feeble bit of insulation, before turning to the rest of the room. It isn’t much. There’s the bed, the dresser, the mirror, the unwound grandfather clock, and the void beyond.

She’s all too familiar with the bed. The mirror has already proven unhelpful. So that leaves the dresser and the clock.   

Deirdre rattles through the dresser, digging through its cheap pinewood drawers. There’s faded linens in patterns that her great grandmother might appreciate. Crochet, doilies. Why would a man like Alastor hold onto such things? They’re old and fading, threatening to fray away into the dust they’re caked in. Deirdre swipes her hand through the drawer, tossing the bedcovers and mats out to the floor, when she strikes something hard. She frowns, digging it out and holding it up for a better look. It’s a copper crank, green with oxidation. The scent of it makes her feel faintly dirty. What could-

The grandfather clock.

She’s at it in a flash, peering through the glass with wide eyes. Sure enough, there are three little holes in the clock face, with a small bevelled prong sticking out of each.  Deirdre’s hands shake as she swings the cover open, inserts the crank, and winds. First one, then the second, and finally the third, until each of the weights are drawn to their full height. Kneeling down, she reachesfor the pendulum, pulls it back, and lets it swing.

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Deirdre can feel the tiles beneath her hooves vibrate. Gears begin to pick up speed, and large chunks of existence roar up through the void below. Flooring and furniture assemble into rooms like islands out of nothingness. She watches the kitchen where she'd been taken slowly reform itself not twenty feet beyond her pillar. Other platforms flank it -  to the left, a library: musty carpets flooring a forest of filing cabinets and bookshelves pressed so tightly together there barely seems room to walk between them. A large mahogany desk has to push and scrape itself through the mess to reach the centre front. To the right, a wooden floor assembles itself plank by plank, including a bloodied table and piles of assorted objects that send familiar tremors through her tired skull. Spools of thin wire. Polished rowan staves. Canister upon canister of salt. All stacked on each other in an untidy hoard. 

tik 

A series of gears form a levitating footpath between the different rooms, interlocking in dance of constant mechanical rhythm.

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Deirdre is dumbstruck. She has no idea if this means she's raised an alarm, but whatever the case, all of Alastor O'Reilly's lair seems open to her. All she needs to do is walk across the clockwork to reach it. 

Alastor's armoury makes her skin crawl, and the kitchen's useless to her. But the library…maybe there'll be something she can use in the library. Placing a hoof on the nearest gear, she steels her resolve.

"In for a penny..." 

The pathway is more of a dance than a walk to navigate.  She tells herself to not look down, and immediately does so anyway. The blackness visible between the gears and pistons is daunting, endless and hungry.Her head swims as she eases herself down the very centre of the walkway, her arms out to keep her balance. She ignores the way she moves to the clock's beat. 

As soon as she’s close enough to the floating room, she half leaps, half dives off the pathway, grateful to be on unmoving ground again. The relief is somewhat spoiled by the puff of dust that kicks up. Even so, she’s grateful. No more bed. No more gem. If there was a goddess of luck, she’s finally paying her due.

As she settles, Deirdre can appreciate just how disordered the room truly is. Half the filing cabinet drawers no longer close. Pages and parchments are stacked and strewn without organisation or even basic care, some newly-pressed white, most yellowed and curling, a few mouldering and crumbling to dust. The bookcases are packed so tightly the wood sags under the weight, forming dizzying rows and maze-like curves. 

Deirdre moves to the nearest stack, scanning the titles. They’re written in a hodgepodge of languages - English, Gaelic, even the ancient script of the Groves. Wedging her hand into an overstuffed shelf, she grabs a volume at random. The book takes a little bit of effort to work out, and as soon as she pulls it free, others slide in to fill the space. 

It's not what she expects. 

"'A Children’s Guide to Fairy Lore and Folktales'?" Deirdre makes a face at the chirpy-looking winged creature on the cover. If that's supposed to be a nymph... 

The book's spine cracks as she opens it. The pages are covered in large type and colourful, cheerful illustrations of things that are probably meant to be fae. It's written like a textbook for a very young reader, with lots of exclamation points and sidebars. Little more than a list of annotated bedtime stories. 

The handwritten, cramped notes down the side are far less age-appropriate. In obsessive detail, they outline the efficiency of different weapons against various fae.  Deirdre makes it as far as a tincture of iron filings mixed into a brownie's hearth-offering before she slams the book shut.

"Bastard." She hisses, a sudden rage overtaking her. How many has he tortured? How many - “MONSTER.”

She gives the overburdened bookshelf a shove, fury supplementing her faded strength. It totters for a second, then crashes over in a puff of dust and carpet fibres, taking two others with it. Deirdre kicks it as hard as she can, her hoof squealing as it gouges chunks out of the splintered wood, before she turns on the books themselves. 

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Chunks of cardboard and paper and leather fly into the air around her as she tears through Alastor’s centuries-old collection. Halfway through a drift of dog-eared papers and loose-leaf folios, one of the latches snaps and something sharp whirls past her face, slicing her cheek. She doesn't even notice the burn of the metal. A wild laugh bubbles up from somewhere deep inside her. There’s no one to stop her. She can ruin everything he considers his.

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Deirdre hurls the broken book, sending it out into the darkness. That feels good. Surprisingly good. She grabs another one of the books she hasn't slashed to pieces and sends it after. Then papers, vials, copper stands and folios.  Each blinking away into the darkness as she goes about her furious work emptying shelves, dumping out whole filing cabinets. Splintering shelves and boards. Even as her breathing grows ragged and her limbs grow weak, she pushes forward. She's barely started. There's so much for her to take from him. 

It can never match what he's taken from her. It can't even begin to settle the balance. 

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"I...am not..." She spits, her mouth thick with dust. "...a liar." 

Her hand closes around a book. Satisfyingly hefty, with a fat, leather-bound cover and brass clasps. 

"And I - am not - " 

She steps forward, drawing back. 

" - a WHORE!"

The book spins wildly, careening off into the darkness.  Falling to her knees, she screams. Screams until her lungs burn. Screams until her throat feels torn free. Until she’s emptied of breath and grief, and all that’s left to her are the ashes of her anger. 

She won’t give him the chance to touch her again.  When she’s done, she’ll cast herself away too, and rob him of one last thing. It’s just too bad she won’t be able to see the look on his face.

Something glints out of the corner of her eye.   

A brownie, staring back at her.  

Deirdre spins, blinking away her tears.

Nothing.  

A trick of the light?  But between the broken shelves and the emptied cases, there’s a splinter of something flickering. Getting to her feet, she hurries across the library. Sure enough, at the centre of the room, there is something half-buried in the ruins she’s left. Most of the shelves have been tipped over or emptied into the void, but some of them still stand, an incongruously-solid wall amidst the toppled furniture. Frowning, Deirdre steps closer, giving the nearest book a tug. It refuses to move, but the entire shelf clicks, inching forward. With a heavy mechanical squeal and a tremble below her feet, the bookshelf pulls back, and then slides away.

There’s another room behind it. Smaller. And yet, despite the size, grandiose.

The entire chamber is centred around an old, overstuffed armchair, positioned as if it were a throne. An ornate rug spills out before it like the walkway for a procession, and hovering in clusters around the walls are dozens of mirrors of all shapes and sizes; courtiers in service to their king.

Deirdre clatters up to the nearest one.  

The mirror is spotted and wavy with age. Deirdre takes a cautious, shaky step, moving in front of the stand. That unwanted candle-flame flickers in her heart once again. She tries to quash the feeling, but she can't help herself. Alastor never would have expected her to find this place. 

Has she found a way out? 

Deirdre reaches out, her fingers brushing the glass, and in response the mirror starts to shimmer and ripple. She takes a step back as a flickering image begins to take shape. A small body, thinner and frailer even than her own. Long, floppy ears that dangle over brittle grey hair. Black eyes without irises, no different from the void below. Ill-fitting robes, as colourless as the flesh they cover. And beneath those, something glowing a lurid, sickly green, right over the figure’s heart. 

It's a girl. A brownie. Looking back at Deirdre through the mirror, face dead and expressionless. Her black eyes blink as a weak voice slithers out. "... you’re… still alive…?"

Deirdre's breath catches. She nods.

The brownie on the other side lowers her head.   “...I’m…sorry.”

Her heart lurches, and her eyes burn.  “You don’t, why would you, you're not-”  She presses her hand against the glass and her fist against the wall to keep upright. “Why apologise?”

But all she gets is that distant, long look in response.

The other mirrors. She looks wildly from frame to frame and sees other faces.   Brownies, pixies, goblins, and selkies. Spriggans and merrows, such such and such.   All staring at her with those same dead eyed expressions. Sickly green gems and torn flesh. Her head spins at the magnitude of Alastor O’Reilly’s crime. So many… so many of them. So many souls. Wraiths behind glass, locked away, without even the release of death.   

This is what he intends for her. 

Deirdre's face trembles, her mouth twists. She can see her reflection baring its teeth, overlaid over the murdered brownie.

How dare he. 
How dare he. 

The brownie can't rage against her fate, or grieve for what she's lost. But Deirdre, even diminished as she is, that’s still within her power. For this moment, she is still alive.  And In that split-second, she understands that she's going to feel those things for both of them. 

Deirdre raises the sheet-wrapped razor.   She doesn't realise that the scream is building in her throat until it's ringing in her ears. 

"AAAAAAARRRRGHHHHHHH!"

Her fist crashes into the brownie's mirror, wrapped around the razor’s handle. A tiny hairline splinters out of the centre. She winds up and strikes the mirror again. Cracks snake through the glass, spreading out like rivers on a map over the brownie’s expressionless face.

The mirror rattles like a stuck gear, the sound drowning out the distant tick of clock gears. Bits of glass begin to snap and pop as green light spills out. 

And then the mirror explodes. 

Deirdre is sent flying, the razor torn from her grasp and skittering across the room.  A kaleidoscope of colours washes over her, lights and hues she'd thought she’d never see again. Brilliant sapphire blue, passionate red, sandy yellow, soft green and royal purples. And behind it all, a sound, a rising banshee wail shaking the tiny island, drowning out the clocks.

Deirdre begins to laugh. The lights fade, the shriek dies down, but she's still laughing, face flush with life and energy. A soft wind rushes over her, cold enough to make her skin prickle. She looks up into the dark-eyed, hollow face of the brownie, floating a metre above her. The spirit’s lips part in a brilliant smile.  

"Thank you." She whispers, tilting her head back. Her form begins to flicker, wavering at the edges, and she closes her eyes with a contented sigh. 

Then she's gone.

Deirdre lies amidst the ruins, arms limp at her sides, her laughter slowly dwindling. She presses a hand over the scar where the gem had rested. As the moment of vengeful fury passes, so does her strength.

She's done so much more than she thought she could. 

A rush of air.
Stumbling footsteps on carpet.
And the prickle of iron.

She knows who it is before she even hears his voice. 

“What…what have you DONE?”

Deirdre rises, thinking of the razor. Her plan. The other mirrors.  She has to - 

But the razor is on the floor, firmly trapped underneath Alastor’s boot.  His eyes wide with shock and anger, his clothes rumpled and stained with sweat. He’s breathing hard, as if he’s been running. The grey tinge at the edges of his hair has gone white, wrinkles spreading across his face. 

He’s clutching an obsidian knife, dark as the void around them, reflective as any mirror.

“This isn’t how it works.” Alastor grates. He gestures behind him, as if to take in the devastation of the library. “This isn’t what you’re supposed to DO! I thought you’d come to terms with what you ARE, Deirdre!” 

Deirdre stares at the man, his frothing mouth. His mindless fury. This man, who she had been so afraid of, who’d hurt her so badly, was throwing a tantrum. The realisation is so absurd she could laugh. He’s acting like a child, insisting she’d broken some rules in a game he’d made up. Acting like he owned her and all those others as surely as he could own a book or a key or a doll.

Deirdre smiles, and turns away, back to the empty mirror. 

"It's my life, Alastor O'Reilly.” She says, softly, listening to the crunch of boots on glass. ”You tried to steal it from me, but it is still my life.” 

Deirdre looks up into the dark. There’s no stars, but it’s not so different from the night sky over the forest, when she thinks about it.  

“And I’ll do with it as I please." 

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Her voice cuts off. Deirdre looks down at the tip of the knife as it emerges from her chest. There’s only a little blood, just something shining and silvery rippling from the wound. She lets out a gurgling chuckle, turning to look over her shoulder just as Alastor twists the blade. 

And Deirdre crumbles into ash.

The knife clatters to the ground. Alastor lurches backward, snarling.  

“LIAR!” He bellows. “You choose NOTHING! I DECIDE! This is NOT YOUR PLACE, you - YOU -  ”

Alastor stumbles toward his half-collapsed desk, hyperventilating.  He rips a drawer from it and hurls it into the darkness, screaming and frothing like a wild animal, pawing through the devastation. His hand catches on a torn latch, slashing his palm. He storms through the room, kicking at broken furniture, smearing blood on the musty carpet as he tries to tear it up with his bare hands. There’s hardly anything left to break, so little he can destroy. Alastor staggers in ever-widening circles in time with the ticking, bellowing at the dark. 

All that rage
With nowhere to go.

Eventually, he finds himself again, lying in a heap among the torn papers and spilled ink. With a shuddering, sobbing breath, Alastor pulls himself to his feet and back into the hidden chamber, stopping before the empty frame that had contained the brownie’s mirror. He lifts it away, tossing it one-handed into the wreckage, and kneels down among the glaistig’s ashes. Under the feathery grey flakes, something glitters - a palm-sized silver mirror. A vicious smile cuts across his face as he brushes it clean. 

“A home for now, though you don’t deserve it.” Alastor mutters, struggling for breath, and lifts the mirror into place. It bobs obediently in midair as he releases it. 

Something dark swirls behind the glass, and after a moment Deirdre’s form appears. She’s a shadow of herself, colourless and spectral, her eyes black and hollow gems as she looks out at Alastor

and smiles.

Alastor twitches. “Enjoy that spite while you can, glaistig. There’ll be no more games for you.” 

Deirdre tilts her head, her smile turning sharp and sardonic. Alastor grunts and looks away, eying his reflection over the dark silhouette behind the glass. He touches the white streaks in his hair slowly returning to grey, his wrinkles departing for a younger complexion. 

“A setback. It hardly matters. We won’t need to wait much longer, precious Deirdre. This is almost over. All I have left to do is - ” 

He stops, frozen in place.   

Slowly, with trembling fingers, he lifts away his sleeve, staring white-faced at his wristwatch. 

And checks the time.

Hey, everyone, Hark here for today’s update! 

Just in time for a long-looming tragedy to finally come to pass. Miss you already, Deirdre... 

Our favorite glaistig’s been through so much, and she wasn’t dealt a fair hand…but she managed to make a play with it while she could. Maybe an even bigger one than she realized. Even if she didn’t get the shot at Alastor’s throat that Lyra had all those years ago, at least she’s left him with some sort of hiccup in his plans. 

That’s all for this update, we’ll be checking back in with L and the gang on Friday the 21st! See you then, as they take a momentous step somewhere new and very, very old…

 TT^TT Deirdre you precious angel. That bit where she says she's not a liar or a whore, that gets me every time.

HEART HERE, Sneaking in a quick message. If you like, leave a comments requesting moments from this chapter you'd like to see me illustrate next week!

Cheers!