Ethan Greywater's Arc

Chapter 9 of 10

Ethan knelt before the glowing door. His wife pressed her hand to the far side. Her mouth shaped his name, but the glass held her trapped. The music box had carried his face to her. It could not open the latch. He studied the door. A handle sat on her side, not his. The door only opened inward, from where she stood. He had no way to work it from the haunt. They were two palms against cold glass, and nothing more. He searched the sagging house behind him. Its crooked rooms gave up a rusted iron key on a windowsill. He carried it back and pushed it toward the door. The key passed through the light like smoke. It fell to the floor. He could not grip the world well enough to turn a lock that was not even there. The latch lived on her side. He tried again with a vial he found tucked on the ledge. Glowing ectoplasm swirled inside it, thick and alive. He poured it along the seam of the door, hoping it would seep through and move the handle for her. The ectoplasm ran down the glass and dripped to the boards. It touched the light and hissed into nothing. The door did not care. Ethan sat back. His wife watched him fail. Her hand stayed flat against the glass. He understood then. No tool of his could reach her side. The door answered only one thing. She had to open it herself. And she could not, because she could not yet see him clearly enough to believe he was truly there. Her eyes searched the dim haunt and found only a faint shape. Then he saw the cloak on the floor by the journal. Mirror-shards covered it, overlapping like scales. Each shard caught the yellow light of the crooked windows. He pulled it over his shoulders. The shards flared. His faint outline filled with broken light. He was no longer a smear in the dark. He was a man made of a hundred small mirrors, bright enough to catch her eye. Her hand jerked against the glass. She leaned close. Her face sharpened in the glow. She saw him now, every shard of him, kneeling and real. Her lips parted. She knew him. Not a memory. Not a shape. Him. Her hand dropped from the glass to the handle on her side. Ethan stopped breathing out of habit. She gripped it. She pulled. The door swung inward. Light spilled across the boards and over his mirrored shoulders. For the first time, nothing stood between them. The glass was gone. The barrier was open, from her side, by her hand. She reached through the open door. Her fingers brushed his cheek, warm and solid. Then her eyes moved past him, to the dark house at his back. Her smile faded. 'You can't come yet,' she said. 'Not until you remember what you did to me.'