Chapter 21

On my couch with a detective named Hud Hudson, who keeps staring at me. He gave me his business card and that's what it said in silvery-blue font above the words Private Investigations. "Have we met?" I ask him.

"A few times now."

"I had a feeling."

"Belle," he says, "I hope you know this is getting very serious."

"Serious?"

Hud kindly drove me and my sisters home, carried them into the apartment since they didn't seem to be able to carry themselves. Two under one arm, one under the other. Now they're sitting all around us, smiling. At least this is how it seems when I look in any one of the mirrors in Mother's living room. The mirrors are where my sisters come alive, so that's where I mostly keep my eyes. It's lucky Mother has so many, a wall of glass right across from where we sit. Whenever I look at this wall, I see them offering various kinds of support. One sister is sitting on the carpet playing with the coffee table flowers, deranging them like she's a florist. Another is slouched by the open window, watching the water. Leaning pretty far out, she loves to breathe the ocean air.

"I hope she won't fall."

"I'll keep an eye on her," Hud says, not looking at her. Looking at me. I see that in every mirror and even when I look at him straight on.

My third sister sits beside us on the couch. Keeping the closest eye. She looks the most worried, the most suspicious of Hud Hudson. She can't deny that he's beautiful, of course. We all think that. He's a detective of Beauty, after all, isn't he? Or a beautiful detective. Either way. And how he's looking at us right now, with such intensity, such I want to get to the bottom of you. Even my most suspicious sister concedes it's entrancing. But we've always liked a bit of distance, haven't we, Sisters? Arm's length is best. Not that we don't have desire. We are human, after all, aren't we? Just that in our bodies, something is sealed up, closed like the CLOSED sign I used to put in the shop door at night. Something is holding itself away as if behind glass, isn't that right, Sisters? In the mirrors, my sisters smile. Exactly.

Meanwhile, Hud's staring at us like he doesn't know where to begin.

"May we offer you a drink?" I ask him.

"God yes," he whispers. "Please."

I pour some of Mother's cognac for him, myself, and my sister on the couch. He and I raise glasses, but my sister leaves hers where it is. Doesn't trust Hud at all. I don't like this, she whispered again and again on the ride home. And I told her shhh, even though Hud didn't seem to hear, and her mouth stayed pursed in that secret smile. It was in the rearview mirror only that I saw her mouth moving, that her eyes were wild with just how much she didn't like this.

"If you don't mind, Belle, I'd like to ask you a few questions," he says now. And then he pulls out a pen and a small notepad from his pocket. Clicks the pen.

My heart begins to thud in my chest. "Questions?"

"For our records is all."

In the mirrors, I see my sisters stiffen. They don't like this for me.

"What's your name?"

"Belle."

"What is your full name?"

Nothing comes. Only one of those blanks. Is there a word that should come after Belle? Feels like there should be one, one that never felt like mine. Alien. Heavy on my tongue, a strange-shaped stone. Looks like "night" but means "light" is a phrase that suddenly appears in my mind. But it means nothing. So maybe this is a trick question?

"Belle," I say. I watch him scribble on his pad.

"What about your father?"

A slanted eye of gold winking on my wrist, watching me. "I'm afraid I don't know."

"What's your mother's full name?"

My sisters and I smile at one another in the mirror. That's an easy one. "Mother."

Furious scribbling with his pen. "And where do you live?"

I gesture out the window at the blue sky, whose brightness hurts my eyes. "Eden. Obviously."

"Where were you born?"

In my mind, I see a wretched island wreathed by a slushy river the color of Hud Hudson's eyes. That can't be right. "Here."

"Where do you work?"

"At Belle of the Ball. A dress shop. You know that."

"Your name isn't Mirabelle Nour and you don't live and work in the Plateau area of Montreal, Canada? At a shop called Damsels in This Dress?"

"In Distress? That sounds awful."

"What about Montreal?"

"I've heard it's pretty there but very cold. Too cold for me."

"So you grew up here? And you've never lived or worked anywhere else?"

"That's right." Along the wall of glass, my sisters nod encouragingly. They love my answers so far.

"Where is your mother now, Belle?"

"Not sure, to be honest."

"Do you know what happened to her?"

"Happened to her?"

"That she died?"

And I have to laugh. Isn't he the one who's supposed to be the detective of Beauty? He should really have his facts straight. "She was just here."

"Where? Show me."

"No." For one, Mother isn't in the mirrors at the moment. Just me and Hud in the glass—and my sisters of course, smiling a little more sadly now.

"Belle, listen. You're in grave danger, do you understand? You've fallen into the hands of some very evil people."

"Evil people? I don't know any evil people. I only know my friends at Rouge. And you. You're a friend too, aren't you?"

Hud Hudson's turn to look at me sadly with his clear gray eyes. "No, Belle. At least, I haven't been. But I want to try and be one now."

"What do you mean?"

"I should've been straight with you from the beginning. I just never thought they'd move so quickly. So fuck me for that."

"What do you mean?"

"Your second treatment."

How does he know about the second treatment? I look in the mirror at my sister on the couch. She's seething. Oh, he's clever, this one, isn't he? He thinks he's very clever indeed.

"Second treatment?" I say. "I haven't had a second treatment."

He looks at me like come on. Am I seriously going to lie about this?

Why am I lying about this?I ask my sisters with my mind. And in the mirror, my sister on the couch smiles like it's really very simple. Because Beauty is our little secret. Because we never tell. Not even over our dead body. We deny everything. We deny all.

I think you should be honest, says my sister deranging the flowers. Honesty is the best policy.

Don't listen to her, she knows nothing!shouts my sister on the couch. Denial is really the only way forward.

The water looks so pretty from here, sighs my sister by the window.

"Your face gives you away, Belle. That Glow."

"Plenty of people glow, Detective."

"There's the Lift, too. The Smoothness. The Whitening," he adds, lowering his voice.

Whitening?And we all have to laugh, me and my sisters. Call it a Brightening. "I'd call it a Brightening."

"Is that what you'd call it?" He looks at me until I find I have to look away, in the mirrors, at my sister on the couch. She appears outraged by his terminology. Regards him coldly. Her looks could cut.

"Also that mark that was on your forehead. Barely there anymore," he marvels. Still looking at me, entranced. Not just entranced, another shade of feeling in his expression. Darker, sharper, I used to know its name.

Envy, snaps my sister on the couch. Envy is its name!

Not envy! Desire, says my sister by the flowers. He desires you, because you're so very entrancing, Sister.

Well, envy and desire are often one and the same trance, murmurs my sister by the water.

I look at the scar across Hud Hudson's sharp cheek. Like someone took a hook to the skin and ripped. Seeing me notice, he turns away and pours himself another drink. "Taken all together, I'd say the evidence is pretty damning, Belle."

Evidence? Don't let him get to you like this, he knows nothing! What is he going to do: arrest you for a Glow? Ha! Since when was Beauty a crime? Envy, now there's a crime for you!

I think he just likes you, says my sister by the flowers. Really likes you and this is his way of saying it.

I think you should sit by me, Belle, says my sister by the window, who won't meet my eye in the mirrors. We should walk to the cliff's edge. I know a game we can play. We can play it together, you and me.

"Belle, are you listening to me?"

"Of course we—I am."

"You did it, didn't you?"

"No."

Very good, denial!cheers my sister on the couch.

"You followed the path to the house on the cliff. There was a party, and everyone applauded. Said how you glow and glow. Like a moon, Daughter."

"No." I shake my head. "No, no."

"And once you were good and drunk on the bubbly drug, a woman, maybe in silver, maybe in red, she took your hand and led you downstairs, below what they call the Depths. They made you lie down on a table, sort of like a massage table, in a dark room full of fog. And you took some deep, deep breaths. What were you breathing in, Belle? Maybe eucalyptus. Maybe ether. Maybe a special blend of both."

Wow, says my sister by the flowers. He seems to know the whole story. He's very smart.

He THINKS he's smart, shouts my sister on the couch. He knows nothing!

"And then they took something from you, didn't they? What did they take from you, Belle?"

A little of your cloudy skies, says my sister by the flowers.

Nothing you couldn't do without, says my sister on the couch.

Please walk out to the water with me, says my sister by the window.

"Nothing, nothing," I whisper.

"Something they said you didn't need, maybe? Something dark and sad from your past. A humiliation. A childhood trauma. A painful labyrinth of memory you unknowingly walk in the night that shapes your dreams. Maybe even a crime. What did they call it? A Free Radical of the Mind. A Comedo of the Soul."

Don't listen to him, Belle!screams my sister on the couch.

Oh, listen to him, he's so intense, says my sister by the flowers. So filled with conviction, this detective of Beauty. It's quite entrancing.

Let's please run to the cliffs now, beckons my sister by the window. The waves are high and crashing against the rocks. And I have a game for you and me.

"And now here you sit, memory scrambled and full of holes. But who wouldn't want to exorcise a few demons, kick a few skeletons out of the closet for that Glow? Letting go is so worth it, isn't it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." I'm shaking and shaking my head.

"Maybe we should ask your mother if it's worth it? Oh wait, that's right, we can't ask her, can we? She's dead."

He's lying!

"You're lying," I shout, along with all three of my sisters.

"I wish I were," he says quietly. His gaze holds mine. Sorrowful, knowing. Hurts to look at. He reaches for my hand, and my sister on the couch hisses and my sister by the flowers shudders and my sister by the window sighs. "Listen, Belle. Please. There are those who go through those black gates, walk up that rosy path, and they never come back. They disappear. Or they wind up dead on the rocks like your mother."

What is he saying to me, Sisters? Can this really be true? But when I look at the wall of mirrors, all three are dead silent now, and still. My sister on the couch stares straight ahead coldly. My sister by the flowers has given up on the flowers. She's facedown on the coffee table. My sister by the window looks out at the water with a tear in her eye. Her face is filled with some secret grief.

I turn back to Hud Hudson. Eyes still sorrowful. Gaze holding mine like a glass. "How do you know all this?"

He lets go of my hand. Lights a cigarette. "Didn't I tell you there were two of me once?" In the mirrors, he's in shadow now. The smoke hangs over his face like a veil.

"Your brother."

"Edward. He was a member, like your mother. An actor like her too. Who knows, maybe they even saw each other at the house. Shared a glass of the bubbly drug by the Depths." He smiles darkly, takes a long sip of his drink.

"What happened to him?"

"He disappeared about six months ago." Another drag from his cigarette. I watch his scar gleam as he smokes.

"I'm sorry."

"Me too." His voice is cracked with pain. So familiar to us. "We weren't very close, not since we were kids. Sort of estranged, actually. Especially after our mother died."

A sigh from my sister by the flowers.

"About a year ago, I'd started to notice that on the phone, he'd have these word slips. Blanks. Little things, then bigger things. Mix past and present. I worried it was drugs at first—Edward was never all that… stable. Or early-onset dementia. Our mother had it. The last time I saw him, he was playing Iago at the Playhouse. He kept messing up his lines. It was painful to watch, he was always so flawless. I stayed after the show to see how he was holding up, though I worried he'd see that as some sort of insult—Edward took any dent in his armor so terribly. But when he opened the door to his dressing room, I couldn't believe…"

And now Hud's just staring at himself in the mirror as if struck.

"What?"

"His face," he says. His eyes look afraid. And there's that other shade of feeling creeping in again, what is its name again, Sisters?

"He'd looked different onstage," Hud continues, still lost in his reflection. "I'd thought it was just lighting, makeup maybe. Maybe another one of his procedures—Edward had always been into those, always a little vain. But this was something else. This transformation was unreal. Not any of his newfangled treatments, not even surgery could account for…" He turns to me. Reaches out as if to touch my face. Instead he runs his hand through his own dark hair, takes another drag of his cigarette.

"I didn't say anything to him, of course. Edward didn't like to talk about his looks, but he was obsessed. Sort of like it was a… secret for him. Or something. You know?"

We do, mumbles my sister by the flowers in her sleep.

"So I just congratulated him on his performance. And the way he looked at me…"

"How?"

"Like I wasn't his brother. Like he didn't know me at all. Sound familiar?"

Not at all, murmurs my sister on the couch from behind her hands. But her voice is full of pain like Hud Hudson's. I see Mother's face in my mind. Looking at me like I was a stranger. Like she was empty. Emptied. And me looking at the emptiness, feeling sick, afraid. Responsible—why responsible?

"People disappear, the police told me, if you can believe it. I started looking into it and that's when I stumbled upon our house on the cliff. On Rouge."

My sisters sigh at the sound of this word. The way Hud Hudson says it. How it lights up his eyes, darkens his voice.

"Try looking into Rouge, I told the cop. He said, That fancy French spa by the water? My wife's a member. Loves it. Barking up the wrong tree there, Hudson." Another angry drag of his cigarette. He shakes his head at Mother's mirrors. I know he sees nothing there in the glass. Just himself on the other side, broken and looking in.

"That cop didn't know it, but he confirmed something for me. Some people, like his wife, seem to be enjoying the services of Rouge, paying for them, without losing their minds or dying. Others, like your mother, like Edward, aren't so lucky."

I look at my sister by the window, frozen but still gazing out at the water, a tear midway down her cheek.

"That's the thing I don't fully understand yet," he says. "Why do some members pay, why do others get free treatments? Why do some lose their minds from the treatments and disappear? Why do some disappear quickly and others not so quickly? There seems to be no standard timeline, no—"

"Well, everyone's Journey is different, isn't it, Detective?" I say. Didn't someone tell me that in a waiting room once? "Very peril—personal."

"Like our demons. Maybe some are more appealing to Rouge than others." He's still staring at my face, his eyes tracing its particular configuration of contour and shadow. Why is he looking at me like this, Sisters? But they all still seem to be dreaming.

"You know Edward tried to kill me once?" he says, eyes on my eyes.

A sharp shiver runs through me. "He did?"

"When we were nine. For some reason, he had it in his head that I was the prettier one, if you can believe it. Even though we looked so alike, most people couldn't tell us apart. But Edward was convinced. So one day he broke one of our mother's perfume bottles and he did this." He points to his scar, shining in the light. A burning on my forehead suddenly. Cold rushing through me like wind.

"After that, Edward went to live in Santa Cruz with our father for a while. It was the strangest thing…" He breaks off, shaking his head as if to shake it all away. I reach out my hand to his face. My fingers trace the raised, pale slash on his cheek.

"What?" I whisper.

He looks at me. Presses my hand against his face. "I used to be able to look at Edward and know his thoughts. I could feel his joy, his fear, his pain. Whether I wanted to or not, I felt it. But when I saw him again, that was all gone. He was like a different person. He'd forgotten what had happened, what he'd done. He was smiling, but distant. So distant with me." Crack running through his voice like a crack in a glass. Eyes still on my eyes. A sorrow there, fathoms deep. His sorrow or mine? I'm drowning in it like dark water.

"Why are you telling me this story, Detective?"

"Because he was a Perfect Candidate. Like you."

I drop my hand from his face. "Me?"

"Your mother paid for her treatments, like the cop's wife, like many people seem to. She paid, but she still lost her mind, still disappeared. That's less common from what I've seen, though it happens. Typically it's the ones who don't pay, who get free treatments like you and Edward—the Perfect Candidates, they call them…"

A skipping of my heart now at that phrase. A flicker of some recollection. Hud Hudson sees it. "Those," he says, "are the ones who—"

"Go on a very exciting Journey," I cut in.

Exactly, Sister, whispers my sister on the couch. In the mirror, she's suddenly wide awake. Glaring at Hud Hudson, who's looking at me with such let me in.

Because he's a little in love with you, says my sister by the flowers. Awake now too in the glass. Elbows on the coffee table, chin in her palms, watching us like we're a film, an old favorite.

He's not in love, spits my sister on the couch. He just desires what he doesn't understand. Men love a mystery, don't they?

The true mystery is the ocean itself, isn't it?says my sister by the window. The first mirror of the world. Reflecting back the heavens. When I look in the glass, I see she's smiling at the waves, still with that tear in her eye.

"I still don't know what makes a Perfect Candidate," Hud says. "I just know some people are marked. And Rouge knows how to spot the mark." He glances up at my forehead. "Knows what they want when they see it. And what they want, they take."

He's very close to me again, this beautiful detective. Looking deeply into my eyes like he could look there forever. It's the true mystery. Reflecting everything he's lost and now found again. Can't lose it now. Can't lose it again ever.

Well, this is very entrancing, says my sister by the flowers.

All he wants to do is pull back the curtain, says my sister on the couch with great bitterness. Once he's wrenched it down and stared into what he thinks is the cold light of the truth of you, he'll walk away.

Walk away with me to the water, Sister.

Suddenly, beside us, I feel the wall of mirrors start to shimmer. Does Hud Hudson see it? No, he's still looking into my eyes. I'm the only mirror he wants right now. But like a magnet, I'm drawn back to the wall of glass, shining like it's beckoning me. It doesn't look like a mirror anymore, but a window. Through it, I see the house on the cliff. The grand hall with its great chandelier. And is that Mother I see on the stair? Yes! In a red dress just like mine. Walking down toward the Depths. Oh Mother, is that really you? There's a man in shadow behind her, who is that man, Mother? Who's walking behind you? But Mother still doesn't answer, doesn't turn to me.

Beside me, Hud Hudson's calling my name. "Belle, what are you seeing?" He turns and looks in the mirror, but I know he sees nothing. Doesn't see the house on the cliff. Our friends at Rouge on the stair. Everyone waving for me to come join them. And Mother walking down toward the Depths. Disappearing behind them. The mirror going black.

"Detective, I'm afraid I have to leave now."

"You're not going back there, Belle. Not on my watch. Not without me."

My watch?repeats my sister on the couch. Who is this man? Does he think he's in the movies or something?

He could be in the movies, says my sister by the flowers. He's very beautiful, but in that broken way we like. A detective of Beauty, remember?

I really think we should just dive into the sea, says my sister by the window.

"I should go," I say.

"Let me come with you." Gently, he reaches for my hand.

Presumptuous, mutters my sister on the couch. Thinking he can save you from yourself.

I think it's sweet, says my sister by the flowers. Look at him, so intense and well-meaning. It's quite sexy.

You should probably just seduce him, Sister, says my sister by the water.

Seduce him?

It's the only way to go to the house alone. To get to Mother. Also, you really want to, don't you?

The wall of mirrors is just glass again now. No window to the house. No Mother. I look back at Hud Hudson, beautiful detective. Eyes clear and deep as the first mirror of the world. Warm hand gripping mine. "All right," I tell him. "I'll let you come with me."

He raises an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Absolution—solutely."

"Okay, then." He sighs with such relief. Oh god, how do I do this, Sisters?

Remember, says my sister by the water, envy and desire are often one and the same trance.

"First, though, I think you should take a closer look at this Glow," I say. And then the look in his eye shifts. Slowly, I take his hands and bring them up to my face. Press his palms into my cheeks. I feel his hands trembling against my skin or am I trembling at his touch, Sisters? But my sisters are sighing. Sighing as Hud Hudson is shuddering, shaking his head like he shouldn't, he shouldn't, even though he's only moving in closer as I'm moving in closer. Not pulling back, not like our boyfriend did earlier. Sighing now as he strokes my face. At first very softly, tenderly, like he might break me. Then more intensely, with hunger and wonder. "Holy fuck," he whispers into my ear.

All around me, my sisters are sighing at the touch of the beautiful detective. Our souls open like a flower opens to the light.

Entrancing, whispers my sister by the flowers.

So long as we're just using him, mumbles my sister on the couch.

Finally, the sea, sighs my sister by the water.

I lean in and kill him on the lips and he kills me right back. Kisses. Deeply. I taste roses. I feel the want in his hands and lips, deep as my own want, its mirror. Deep as the mystery of the first mirror.

And something else is there too, in his touch that can't get enough. Something under its want, in its depths, I feel it creeping in. A dark, aching thing, I used to know its name. The one that empties. That consumes and is consumed. It tastes bittersweet, thorny like the roses in his kill. My sisters turn away their golden eyes.