Chapter 12

The doors open just as I reach the threshold. The woman in silver who greeted me the first night. The one who looked like she'd been eating too many cherries. She seems paler than last time, her eyes ringed in more silvery smoke. She glances at the red voucher in my hand and smiles.

"Well, aren't we the lucky one?"

The grand hall is darker tonight. I can just make out the red chandelier, the looming shape of the giant aquarium, concealed by red curtains.

"This way," she says, smiling, leading me down the hall. Her hand on my arm a firm, caressing grip. I'm about to go on a very exciting journey, she says. I'm about to take the first step. Am I excited?

"Very excited," I whisper, fear swimming in me like a bright fish. We pass clusters of luminous people in exquisite dress—red and black and silver. Their bright faces glow in the dark. Members, they must be. No sign of the woman in red anywhere. On the landing of the stair, I see the twins in silhouette, faces veiled. I feel them watching the woman in silver tug me through the crowd. "An exciting journey," they all echo as she ushers me past. "The first step." They smile knowingly with their eyes. I'm touched by their raised glasses, their eyes on me, so many sky-colored eyes, their hissing whispers of "Bravo." "Bon Voyage." But another part of me thinks, All this for a free treatment? For what is probably just a fancy facial? But maybe they take their facials more seriously here. Calling them treatments. I nod at them all. "Thank you. Merci." And they just stare at me, these strangers.

"We should hurry," the woman says, tugging on my wrist nervously. I wonder, will we go through the corridor marked SIGNATURERITUALS or the one marked VOYAGES MERVEILLEUX? Instead she leads me to an unmarked staircase near the Depths.

I'm having trouble following her down the winding stairs. Suddenly, my feet won't move.

"What is it, Daughter?" she asks, pulling on my arm to no end.

"I don't know."

She frowns. Do I not want the free treatment? Do I not wish to go on an exciting journey? So I say, "Excuse me," and take off my shoes. The insides feel very hot between my fingers. Throbbing like hearts, or a pair of lungs breathing. The stairs are cold on my bare feet, but at least I'm able to descend them now. She smiles, relieved. Daughter's antics on the stair were très amusant, she says, but she's very glad they're over now. Because we really don't want to be late for such a momentous occasion, do we? Such a momentous occasion as a spa treatment? I think. But I say, "Absolutely." And she tells me to run, "Let's run, all right?" And then the two of us are running hand in hand down the stairs. As I run, I want to laugh. Running for a treatment. Sort of defeats the purpose of the relaxation element, doesn't it? But I run with her, the shoes beating harder and faster in my hands.

I'm in some sort of dark-red waiting room. Heavy with the scent of eucalyptus. Mirrors all around. Bon Voyage, the woman in silver said, and then she was gone. She took my clothes and my shoes and my purse with her. Left me standing here barefoot in a white-and-red robe. I hear a waterfall somewhere. The distant sound of chimes. Some red magazines, looks like, on a black marble table. Beside them, a vaseful of what looks like raspberries. Also chilled water jugs filled with… what is it, blood vessels? Pomegranate seeds. Get a grip, I tell myself. A little nervous, I guess. Why a little nervous? When they've been nothing but kind? Just a spa. Just a free treatment. I'd love to hear all about it. All the lavish details, that strange man, Hud Hudson, said. Me too, Hud Hudson. I want them too. I always did. How many times have I sat at the dress shop, looking up pictures of the fanciest spas on my phone? Wishing I could walk through those gilded gates and walk out again, lifted and glowing and reborn? Thinking the secret is just behind those gates. Secret to what? Something essential. And now I'm here. Within the gates. In the waiting room. Better, much better, than my Montreal spa's waiting room with its dated copies of Elle and its cheap paper cups of weak tea. I go there twice a year, which is the most I can afford. Twice a year, a woman in a white smock takes me into a darkened cubicle and electrocutes my face. I taste metal in my teeth for weeks after, but it's worth it for that slightly lifted look. After the electrocution (she calls it microcurrent), she coats my still-spasming skin with marine algae. I lie there under the cold, black sea goop for as long as she'll let me, dreaming of luminosity. How I'll soon glow in the dark.

What the fuck did you do to your face?Mother would say when we FaceTimed afterward.

Nothing.

Liar. You did something. Tell me.

Don't I have a lifted look?

You have a scared look. Like you've been stunned.

Well, maybe next time I visit you, I can go where you go.

She got silent then. Waved her hand as if to wave my words away. You don't want to go where I go. I've told you, you don't need any of this stuff. That Egyptian blood saves you. I'm another story.

Well now I'm here, Mother. I've gone where you go. Maybe I'm not another story after all.

I take a seat in one of the chairs shaped like a wave. I picture Mother sitting in this very chair. Imagine her in a white-and-red robe, listening to the chimes and the waterfall, partaking of pomegranate water. Soaking it all up with a non-wrinkle-inducing smile. This'll be good. It makes me smile too. There's another woman with me in the room. She's beautiful. Her dark skin glows in the dim light. Her eyes are pale. Maybe she's mixed too. Ethnically ambiguous, as Mother might say. Where are you from? I would ask this woman if I didn't fucking hate that question myself. The way Mother would answer for me, smile and say Egypt, right as I said Montreal. The woman's flipping a magazine. Too dark for me to see the cover. Can she really be reading in the dark? She looks up at me and smiles.

"First time," she says. It isn't a question. She knows it's my first time.

"Yes," I say, and my voice echoes in the room like it's a corridor. "They offered me a free treatment."

"A free treatment," the woman repeats, raising an eyebrow. "Me too."

"You too?"

"Lucky us. These cost a pretty penny, so I'm told."

"Is it your first time too?" Not a furrow on her brow. Not a wrinkle. She's flawless.

"I've had one. Still need a few more for the brightening."

"The brightening?" I ask.

"The glow," she whispers. She goes back to reading her red magazine in the dark. I'm glad she's here. Another client. Otherwise I'd feel… not afraid exactly, that's ridiculous. Just… sort of weird. Getting a treatment at… what time is it now? No clock on the wall and the woman in silver took my purse and my phone. Late, anyway, for a facial. Is it a facial that I'm getting though? Never really clarified that. Just took what the woman in red dangled. Said, Thanks so much.

"How is it?" I ask her.

She looks up at me like she forgot I was there. "How is it?"

"The treatment."

"Oh. Well, it's different for everyone, isn't it?"

"Right," I say like I understand. I notice black tapered candles on the table now, red rose petals scattered all around. There's a mirror wall beside us, a thousand of me, going on to infinity.

"Deeply perilous," she says, turning to the mirror wall. Smiling at herself there.

"Perilous?"

"Did I say perilous? I meant personal, of course."

"Of course. Personal." Personal? Come on, lady. A facial is a facial is a facial. Even I know that.

There are white faces on the wall above the mirror, I see. Plaster casts, sticking out of black frames. Making expressions of open-mouthed horror.

"So is it a microcurrent then?" I ask her.

She just stares at her many reflections.

"Or a laser? Ultrasound? Radiofrequency?"

She smiles like all the words I just said are funny. Funny little things.

"A peel maybe?" I press. "Glycolic?"

She laughs, tilting her neck back. Not a ring on that neck. Not a blemish. "You certainly know some… terminology, don't you?" She takes a sip of the red champagne. Hers looks thick and dark, the color and viscosity of blood. Does it have any bubbles? Not any that I can see. But then again the room is dark, isn't it? Silly to be afraid. Sure the white faces in the wall are a little weird, but it could just be a rich-people thing. Like the jellyfish behind the red curtain. Part of the eccentric spa décor. Eclectic, as Sylvia would say.

The woman is still chuckling to herself, still looking in the mirror, her thick red champagne in her hand. "Glycolic," she repeats, shaking her head. "Oh my."

"Daughter of Noelle," someone calls softly. A small woman in a black suit standing in a doorway. A woman like a whisper. "We're ready for you."

The woman with the magazine stops chuckling. She looks at me, suddenly so very serious. "Letting go is so worth it," she says.

"Excuse me?"

But she's turned away again, staring at her selves in the dark.

Scared. No reason at all to be, really. Just a treatment room like any other. Dark as a womb. Thick with herbal steam. Heated massage table in the middle. The woman like a whisper stands in the corner smiling. She looks like so many aestheticians I've seen before. Serene expression. Eerily ageless. Voice like air. Barely there, really, like a ghost. Her English accented slightly, though from where, I'm not sure. She's telling me to undress, she'll take my robe now. She doesn't leave the room like they normally do. Just stands there and smilingly waits for me to strip. "Great," she whispers. "Just great. Now lie down, please."

What sort of treatment is this?I want to ask, but now the question seems stupid. Ungrateful. It's free, isn't it? I think of those white plaster faces screaming out of their black frames in the waiting room. Anyway, I tell myself, too late now, isn't it? Your clothes and your purse are in a locker a maze of corridors away. You'll have to be led back to them later like a lost girl. You'll have to find the woman in silver somewhere on the winding stair. You'll have to beg her for your shoes. A tightness in my chest. My breath is shallow and quick. The whisper woman is telling me to close my eyes. I feel her lay a blanket over my body. "Breathe," she says. "Three deep breaths, there you go. I'll take them with you. Shall I take them with you?"

"Yes."

And then she rubs her hands with some sort of scented oil. Eucalyptus, maybe? Holds her hands suspended over my nose and mouth. We breathe together. I feel my chest rise and fall. "There," she says. "That's better, isn't it?"

"Yes," I say. And it is. Much better. I close my eyes in earnest now. The eucalyptus-y scent thickens. Fresh steam rolling in from somewhere like a fog. A warmth spreads through me that feels delicious. I let her wash my face about a thousand times. Rag after hot steaming rag descending upon me, smothering my skin. Her soaped hands sliding across the planes of my face, washing me away and away. I start to drift off as she applies a thick, cold paste to my cheeks. The first of several masks, perhaps? Just a facial, then. That much is clear now.

"I could really use this facial," I say. "I haven't had a facial in a while. I go to a place in Montreal, but it's nothing like this, of course."

The woman says nothing. Just continues to massage the cold paste onto my face.

"My mother came here though," I offer to the dark.

Silence. More cold paste.

"She died recently. That's why I'm in town. Taking care of things. That's why I'm here tonight, too. I guess someone here knew her. I guess she was a member."

Still nothing.

"Wouldn't surprise me," I add. "She had terrific skin. Did you ever—?"

A hand on my shoulder, gripping. Then: "I'm afraid not." She begins to knead my cheeks more forcefully.

"They offered me a free treatment. That was nice of them."

I can feel her smiling in the dark. "They're very generous."

I hear that water fountain again in the distance. Soft ambient music. An airy drone like the endless reverberation of some otherworldly bell. I notice something glimmering out of the corner of my eye. I try to look without moving my face, still under her lathering hands. Then I see it: a small white jellyfish. Glowing in the corner of the dark room, in a little glass box full of water. I know it's the tiny one I held in my palm last night. The one light as a wish. You're going to go on quite a journey together, the girl-woman in black said.

"What is that?" I ask. "A jellyfish?"

"Shhh," whispers the whisper woman. And then she says, "I'm just going to turn on the light so that I can assess your skin. It's a bright light. So I'll be covering your eyes, is that okay?"

"Of course." And now I'm really smiling. Because, jellyfish aside, all of this is familiar. First some cleansing and massage. Now assessment followed by extractions. I can handle extractions. There was never anything to fear. Which is a little disappointing, frankly. Maybe I wanted to be obliterated. She presses a damp cotton pad over each of my closed eyelids. I can't help but think of pennies on the eyes of the dead. The ferryman taking his change as I float on the river Styx. She shines a lamp over my face. The light's so bright, I can see it even through my closed eyelids and the damp cotton pads. Flaming red. I feel the fact of her eyes. Looking at me.

"Well?" I say at last, because I can't take any more of her silence. "What's the verdict?" And I laugh my nervous laugh that betrays me. "Am I congested?"

"That's a way of putting it," she says quietly.

"Lots of extractions to do, then," I offer. Listen to me offering.

She's silent. No sound in the room but my own breathing and those chimes. The eucalyptus scent is beginning to be oppressive.

"If you have to do extractions, I can take it. I'm very seasoned. I'm—"

"It's all here," she whispers at last, touching my face. I feel her finger pads trace my forehead furrows, the deep creases between my brows. The veins around my nose and the muzzle lines around my mouth. Nasolabial folds, I know they're called. Laugh lines that weren't even born from laughing. I feel her fingers glide their way back to my forehead. Trace the scar, its shadowy star shape. She touches it so tenderly that a thin tear leaks from my eye. She takes the cotton pads from my lids. "Open," she says. I do. And there I am in the oval mirror she's holding over my face.

"Memory and skin go hand in hand, you know," she says. "Good memories, good skin. Bad memories…" And here she trails off. Because the mirror speaks for itself, doesn't it?

I stare into it. I stare and stare at my own wretched reflection. So close I was once. On certain days, in certain lights. It's the closeness that kills me. The almost but not quite. The grasping and the disappointment. The resignation and the desperation. All etched in my face. The hope's still there in my eyes. Dumb, persistent, unquashable. It gives me a slightly crazed, haunted look. Hope is a weed that Marva nurtures in the shade. Have faith, she entreats. Never give up, she pleads, on your #skingoals. It might just be a matter of the right combination of acids. Of not looking so closely, so punishingly in the mirror. Under such very bright lights, tsk, tsk. Herself under very bright lights as she says this. Looking so terribly flawless. Looking like evidence of godly design.

I feel the whisper woman hovering over me, just beyond the glass, smiling encouragingly. She could be thirty-five. She could be sixty-five. Beside her, the jellyfish is glowing more brightly, more whitely in its tank.

"What if we do something about it?" she says in a voice that is like a caress.

"Like what?"

"How attached are you to your memories?"

I look into the mirror again. The shadows and miseries imprinted there on my skin. My pores gaping open at me like silently screaming mouths. The toll of the years casts a grayness that perhaps will never be lifted. I see my paltry almost. My utterly unbearable closeness. Closeness to what? Mother's face flashes brightly in my mind.

And I say to my own reflection, "Not attached. Not attached at all." Beside me, I feel the jellyfish quiver in its tank. Like it's sighing.

How long have I been lying here in the dark? In the eucalyptus fog? On the heated table beside the little white jellyfish? Don't know. Time's not here. She said, Why don't you lie here and we'll get started? And I thought, Haven't we already started? I said, This is some facial. And she said, Treatment. It's a treatment.

Treatment, I repeated. Of course.

There are sleek black discs taped to either side of my face now, at my temples. The discs feel somehow connected to the small jellyfish tank, because the moment she pressed them against my temples, the creature began to glow even brighter. Like a dimmer switch turned all the way up. For the extractions? I said. Exactly, the woman said. For the extractions. She was about to leave when I felt her hand on my shoulder. You may find you're in a bit of a fog after this. You may find you have some blanks.

Blanks?

Letting go is so worth it. You'll see tomorrow in the mirror. Now just lie here. Are you comfortable?And the only answer to that was Yes. My entire body under the blanket was so terribly comfortable. I was warm to my core. I was floating, floating there on the table. I didn't know where I began or where I ended. I didn't know my own body from the fog, from the bell. There was a smile on my face. A soft one that caused no wrinkles. My eyes were closing and opening on the small, pulsing white jellyfish. Light as a wish. And that's how she left me. Come back, I whispered. But my lips weren't moving at all.

Above me now, the ceiling rolls back, look at that. Like a sunroof or a tarp over a swimming pool being rolled back. What's there? A sky full of stars? Not quite. A glass ceiling, awash with blue-green light. The light of water, of aquariums, fills the dark, steam-thick room. Through the steam, I see them floating by. Red, pulsating, trailing tentacles. Giants compared to the small, glowing white creature beside me. I must be right beneath the Depths. The tank goes far beneath the main floor, so I must be deep under. Wow. It's terribly beautiful up there. Primordial is a word that floats alone in the lagoon of my mind. I'm in the lagoon of my mind now. Deep in the lagoon, there's a black box. A black box with many locks, like metal teeth. It lies there on the lagoon floor, half covered in silt. I feel the box open its black mouth.

And then?

I can't feel my body at all anymore. The heated table is getting warmer. The room is getting darker, the only light coming from the blue water above. The little jellyfish shines beside me like a star. The steam has grown thick, thick. I'm rising up from the table. Drifting up toward the glass ceiling, to where the giant red jellyfish float. Nothing beneath this body I can't feel but air. The sleek black disks are still attached to my temples, throbbing along with my pulse. I should be afraid. But I'm so comfortable. And the red giant jellyfish are so beautiful up close like this. Look at them drifting redly in the water. They're putting me in the mood to drift myself, to dream. And there, suddenly on the glass, something like a film begins to play. Like the aquarium glass has become a movie screen. Oh, are we watching movies? I want to ask. But there's the problem of my mouth again. How it won't move the way I want. How my lips feel dead on my face.

I look at the glass screen. I see a young girl tiptoeing down a dark hall. She's wearing a white frilly dress. She's ugly. The dress is ugly too, but the girl doesn't know this. She's ten years old. How come you know that she's ten? asks a voice inside.

"I just do," I try to whisper.

Look. Now she's in the doorway of a blue-and-white bedroom. Her bedroom? No. Not her bedroom. How come I know that? Because she looks guilty.

Also you just know, don't you?says that inside voice. You know the way you know your own bones. You know the way you know your cells, your breath.

Yes. I can see the red jellyfish through the glass screen, through the scene of the young girl as she creeps into the bedroom that is not her own. Looking both ways. Looking all around her now. What are we watching? I think. And that question is hilarious. As hilarious as the question, Is this a facial? I'm laughing though my mouth isn't moving. My mouth is frozen open wide like the black box inside my mind. The black box is where the movie of the little girl is coming from. The film projector is my eyes.

You know what you're watching, says the voice. You're watching you. You're the little girl, aren't you?

Yes.

Sneaking into this bedroom that isn't your own.

Not my own, not my own.

Whose? Whose bedroom is it? Tell me.

I look at the little girl there on the glass screen. The answer is a bubble leaving the mouth of the black box. The answer is a single word. Out with it.

"Mother's," I say with my dead lips. The word leaving my mouth fogs the aquarium glass, fogs the film being projected by my eyes. But I still see the girl outside the room that isn't hers. The giant red jellyfish moving through her little body. I feel my mouth stretching open.

"I'm in Mother's bedroom."