Chapter 3: The Unraveling

The floorboards of Mystic Relics were cold and gritty against my bare knees.

I stared down at Lila-Beth at the reality of her. The faint sprinkle of freckles across her nose I’d never been close enough to see before. The quick rise and fall of her chest. The absolute, shocking humanity of her lying beneath me. Her skin was warm, almost feverish, and the shared pink-gold aura we still emitted cast weird, dancing shadows on the walls of taxidermy and junk.

“I have legs again,” she whispered, her voice hoarse with disbelief. She wiggled her toes in a slow, experimental curl and flex that was heartbreaking in its simplicity.

Then her gaze dropped, taking in the fact that I was still, very much, on top of her. “And you’re still ... on me.”

“Yeah, thanks, I noticed.” I scrambled backward so fast I skinned my knee on the rough wood, crab-walking until my back slammed into a shelf of garish antique cookie jars. They rattled ominously. My skin still prickled with that faint, ethereal light, marking me as undeniably other.

Holloway’s chuckle was a dry, rustling sound. He leaned against the front counter, arms crossed, looking like a gargoyle who’d just won the lottery. “Y’know, most folks pay extra for that kinda show. Consider it a complimentary unveilin’.”

A white-hot bolt of rage shot through me. I grabbed the nearest object, a smug-looking ceramic chicken, and hurled it at his head with all my strength. It sailed past his ear and shattered against the doorframe with a tremendously satisfying crash.

He didn’t even flinch. Just smirked.

Lila-Beth sat up slowly, movements stiff and new, as if she’d forgotten how her joints worked. She ran her hands over her arms, her face a canvas of awe and dawning horror. “Okay. Okay, we broke the chair part. So why are we still...” She gestured vaguely between our very bare, very glowing bodies.

As if in answer, the heavy leather ledger on Holloway’s counter shuddered. It slid across the polished wood with a whispering sound, dropped to the floor, and skidded to a stop at our feet. The pages fluttered open as if blown by an unfelt wind, settling on a page covered in tight, spidery handwriting.

Holloway ambled over and tapped the page with a grimy boot. “Read it. The fine print. Miriam always was one for clauses.”

Lila-Beth leaned forward, squinting in the dim light. I followed her gaze.

The flesh-bound shall remain unclothed, lest the magic come undone.
Seek the eclipse when twin hearts beat as one.
A truth unveiled ‘neath the crimson sun.
Then, and only then, shall the binding be outrun.

The words seemed to pulse on the yellowed paper. A cold knot formed in my stomach, colder than the floor beneath me.

“Well, that’s ... ominously vague.” My voice was flat. “So the sitting part was just ... step one?”

“Step one of a two-step authentication process.” Holloway nodded as if this was perfectly reasonable. “Miriam believed in thoroughness. And poetic symmetry. You broke the chair-curse. But the eclipse clause binds you to each other ‘til the blood moon says otherwise.” He shrugged. “No clothes. No barriers. ‘Lest the magic come undone.’ Means if you try to cover up, magic gets ... fussy.”

Lila-Beth buried her face in her hands, a sound of pure despair muffled by her fingers. “Aunt Miriam, I am going to kill you.”

“Good luck with that,” Holloway grunted. “She’s been dead six weeks. Heart attack. Dramatic to the end, left instructions with me ‘bout the chair. And the eclipse.”

The news landed like a stone in still water.

Lila-Beth went very still. Her glow dimmed, flickering toward a bruised purple. I felt a pang of something that wasn’t my own, a complex grief, sharp and sudden, cut with anger. Her only family was gone, and she’d been trapped as furniture, unable to even say goodbye.