https://www.artstation.com/artwork/3dyvwo
The Story
She had eyes Magda could look into forever. A new color. One Magda couldn’t place. Elusive, it shifted just as she was about to recognize it. Magda chased it, let her gaze relax because it was the only time she could capture it, though ethereal, otherworldly. Unnameable.
Lisbeth. Her name. Almost a whisper even when you shouted it. A faint touch of tongue to teeth, then lips, then teeth again. It ended like it began. And Magda never grew tired of saying it, shouting it, whispering it. Laughing it. As she did now while Lisbeth made a joyful face at her. One that didn’t change like her eyes.
Magda had changed. Would Lisbeth love her all the same? She hoped. She prayed. She asked.
“Do you love me?”
Lisbeth answered with the curve of her lips, the rise of her cheeks, the gleam in her eyes.
“I’m glad,” Magda said. “So glad.”
Magda went to hold Lisbeth, but her hands remained fused to her back, fingers tied in knots. She didn’t deserve to touch her, though she desperately wanted to. As much as Madga loved their home, it was no place for them any longer.
“Will you come with me?” Magda asked. “To the places we spoke of? Well, the places I spoke of. I know. I never shut up, do I? I can’t help it, you see. The walls here are so dark, even though the windows are so big and bright. Can’t you see?”
Magda went to the window that overlooked the cobbled yard now puddled from last night’s rain. She couldn’t help but imagine them beetles, those stones, creeping around in shallow water, bumping against each other, going nowhere. She rubbed the gooseflesh on her forearms.
“So cold,” Magda said. She put another blanket over Lisbeth who lay on the bed, watching her. “You don’t look it. I’d climb in there with you, but I fear I may bring a chill.”
Lisbeth smiled, her eyes batting long lashes makeup would never need touch.
Magda chose the bedside. Her hand rested close to Lisbeth, and she felt her warmth, walked her fingers closer, their tips prickling with heat. She stopped short, still afraid of how Lisbeth might react. To Magda’s surprise, Lisbeth grasped her two elongated fingers, and squeezed.
Magda’s heart fluttered, and for the first time, she felt her body produce heat, flooding her face, and bleeding from her heart. She thought she might die, though she knew that impossible.
From across the room, Lisbeth could have lied about her love, observing Magda in shadow. But here, in the window’s soft light dripping through cloudcover, presenting all her flaws evenly, flatly, plainly, Lisbeth could see her for who she was. What she was.
“Do you love me?” Magda asked again, cold cheeks returning where there should be a blush’s kindle. A conflagration, really. Magda had never been one to hide her emotions, and now was no different. She pulled her hand from Lisbeth’s and held it to her bosom. Two nails scratched her chest, longer than the others. They belonged to the two fingers Lisbeth had held.
Magda prayed for them to disappear, for Lisbeth to not have noticed, to not have been hurt. My God, had she hurt Lisbeth?
Magda hid her hands behind her back again, turning to Lisbeth and her pale hand, which was thankfully, blessedly unscathed.
“Thank God,” Magda breathed, but that breath became pain, and she grasped her throat, then punched her chest when that didn’t work. After a time, the thorns around her neck eased.
“I’m pathetic, aren’t I?” Magda said. “Assuming you’ll love me, go away with me, when you have all this.”
Rain patterned the window. An unsettling sound. How Magda imagined the legs of those cobble beetles stabbing the ground fiercely. She looked at the nails that had scratched her chest. Longer now, as were the others. She opened her other hand and found the same.
“Can you imagine ‘forever’?” Magda asked, fingers spreading across the blanket toward Lisbeth. “I’ve tried, but I cannot, even though it is possible. Now. I want to continue to try, though. Will you try with me?”
The question that had been tearing her up inside since she’d entered the room from the long night, leaving poor Lisbeth on her own. What a terrible person she was to do such a thing. But it had been for Lisbeth, going out, to provide for her with the only thing she had. Her womanhood. Something had changed those plans. With such selfishness. Did Magda now possess that selfishness?
Her arms held Lisbeth now, uncaring of her shame.
“Lisbeth?” Magda said. Her name didn’t feel right, Magda’s tongue was pricked twice. At the beginning, and at the end.
Magda lowered herself to Lisbeth, waiting for the girl to deny her love, her advances. But she didn’t. She just looked at her with those spectral eyes. “Forever.”
Magda’s selfishness sank into Lisbeth’s neck, so soft and sweet and succulent. That succulence was too much for Magda. It filled her mouth, her throat, spilling. Yet still she drank. Feeling more alive than she had when she was.
“Forever,” Magda said. She felt it, excited to open her eyes to see if Lisbeth felt it, too.
Lisbeth was a husk. Impossibly small. Slathered in red. Utterly still.
Magda vomited the blood out, over the wound, into Lisbeth’s mouth, desperately shoveling it back in. It wouldn’t go back in.
Magda picked her up. Held her as she had when Lisbeth was first born. Skin to skin. Magda tore her shirt down, hoping Lisbeth would find sustenance there. Find life there.
Lisbeth was weightless. Lifeless. Magda gently laid her back on the bed and tried to cover her and the blood with the blankets. She only made it worse and abandoned the futile effort, tripping back to where she had first spoken to Lisbeth from across the room, the mirror not cold because her back was colder.
Magda sobbed, tasting ‘forever.’
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