She appeared in the mirror dressed in jeans and my favorite old black and white Converse sneakers.
Her...our dark curls out and parted to the side. It was me, but not me. Mortal me. The one from my memories, maybe younger, a teenager. And as if it weren’t disturbing enough to see an alternate view of myself in a mirror, I had to see myself in a straitjacket. Her eyes were filled with tears as she tugged against the sleeves.
“Free us,” she begged, and I reached out.
I reached in to tug at the jacket, but the moment I touched it, it burned my fingers so badly that I pulled back, gripping my blistering hand. The skin was torn and red for a second before it started to heal.
“Free us,” she demanded again.
“How?”
“Theseus.” It was all she said before disappearing, and I tried to call her back, but she was gone from the reflection.
“Theseus!” I turned at the sound of laughter.
There I was again, however, outside by a waterfall that fell behind a stone. Under the light of the full moon was Theseus and me. Both of us laughed as I jumped onto him. He held me and turned once before running with all his strength and leaping straight up above the waterfall as if we were flying. No, we were flying. He’d taken us up, but I kept us there.
“I’m flying!” I cried out in joy.
“Yes, and without a broom,” he teased, causing me to smack him, and he laughed more.
Being the person I was, I let him slip, his body, sinking toward the ground.
“Druella!” he called out, but I grabbed his hand. “So petty.”
“Me?” I pretended to be shocked. “It was an accident. I haven’t used magic like this before.”
“Sure.” He hugged me tighter as we floated. “You were surely going to let me crash to the earth.”
“It’s not like you would die,” I teased, wrapping my arms around his neck. “But honestly, ever since you came into my life, my magic has gotten so much stronger.”
“Yes, love does make witches crazy.” He grinned.
“And what does it do for vampires?” I snapped back.
“I can’t speak on behalf of all vampires...”
“No, but you can on witches?”
He smiled but ignored me. “But in my case, it makes me into the greatest love-drunk fool in the universe.”
“So, it also makes you crazy?”
“Pretty much.”
The vision faded, and when I woke up, I was staring up at the ceiling, alone in a much-darker room.
The sunlight which had entered the room faded, and I knew for sure I couldn’t leave here. I needed to stay next to Theseus. I didn’t understand everything that was happening to me, but I would figure it out with him just like he said when we came here. But not just that, I wanted to be that version of me, who laughed with him over a waterfall in the midnight moonlight.
“Pelopia?”
“Yes, mistress,” she said, opening the door as I moved to the suitcase I had brought from Montréal.
“Can you help me unpack these?” I asked, smiling.
Without missing a beat, she replied, “Anything you wish I shall have it brought. Do you have any instructions on how you wished them unpacked, mistress.”
I just stared at her.