Maggie's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

The new visitor made it three steps inside before he stopped. Maggie watched him from beside the lamp. He was young, thin, wearing a jacket too heavy for the room. The ceiling above him rolled slow shapes of green and pink. The couches breathed. He saw all of it at once, and his face went white. "No," he said. He backed toward the door. "No, no." His hand hit the wall and came away wet with color. He stared at his palm like it was bleeding. "What did you put in the drink. I didn't drink anything." Maggie stepped away from the lamp. Her legs felt light. The gray in her fingers had climbed to her wrist. She held both hands out, low, palms up, and stopped a few feet from him. "You didn't drink anything," she said. "The room does this on its own. You're not sick. You're not losing your mind." He was already turning the handle. If he ran, he would tell people. People would stop coming. She pointed at the river along the east wall. Marlow was still sitting beside it. The bright blobs were moving again, slow and full. "Look at the water," she said. "Just the water. Not the ceiling. Not me." The visitor's eyes darted. He looked. One blob rose out of the current, hung in the air, and drifted toward him. It stopped an arm's length from his face and pulsed once, gentle. Marlow didn't move. He watched the visitor the way he watched the blobs, waiting to be read. The visitor's shoulders dropped a quarter inch. Then a butterfly Maggie had not called uncurled from behind the lamp and crossed the room. Its wings ran with the same slow color as the river. It landed on the visitor's wet hand. He flinched, but he did not pull away. He watched the wings open and close. His breathing slowed. "It's warm," he said. He was not talking to Maggie. He was talking to the butterfly. "Sit down," Maggie said. "Anywhere. The chairs are kinder than they look." He walked, careful, to the glass bubble chair near the center and lowered himself into it. The chair took his weight and swirled its inner light around him. He did not speak again for a long time. Maggie sat down on the floor because her knees would not hold. Her wrist was gray to the bone now. The lamp behind her pulsed steady. The visitor was still here. He was looking up. The ceiling was breathing, and this time he saw it.