Chapter Three: The Wilder Side
Gwendolyn
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I was staring at my own face in the phone. I had been out shopping when an alarm I didn't remember setting went off, and the timer was titled "Check Videos". I knew it was me but not. I had apparently left myself a recording but... I didn't remember doing so. Because, let's be honest... those weren't my eyes. They were... cold. I could always feel her in the back of my mind. More often than not, I only ever felt myself slide to the back of my mind when something bad was happening. It felt like... I literally got moved to the backseat of a car doing 90 as someone with more driving experience took the wheel.
Sometimes it was like going to sleep and I just didn't dream... those were rare, thankfully, which is why when I thought about the possibility that something was clinically wrong with me, it was easy to dismiss. Don't crazy people ALWAYS black out? Didn't the "real" person live in complete cluelessness as to the actions of their alternates? I knew better than to rely on Hollywood to tell me anything of value, but still... there had to be some truth to it, right? I was just paranoid and insane in a different way.
Insane. Like dreaming about having sex with a whole eclectic pantheon of deities... dreams so real, I have woken up naked and dripping and not know how the former happened, but only too aware of how the latter occurred.
The video was just a reminder that I had to pick up my daughter that day but she was staying after school for her drama club and I didn't need to be there until after five.
Speaking of said delusions, I thought as I gathered my purchases and headed to my car. I was due for one any day. You'd think as a witch, I'd be better at knowing the lunar cycle dates, but if truth was told, even I would admit I was a shitty witch. Whatever the pagan equivalent of a lapsed Catholic was, I fell pretty squarely into that group. Sure, I made sure I always celebrated Samhain, Yule and Beltane and Ostara... But if you asked me about the lesser known holidays, I was lucky if I managed to remember them on the day they happened, much less plan for then ahead of time!
I was placing the shopping bags in the trunk of my car, when his voice spoke mere feet from me. "You know, I am truly not certain which I like best..." His voice was like a caress down my spine and I nearly hit my head on the door of the trunk as I abruptly jumped and straightened up, startled and turned to face him.
My mind was in chaos. It was one thing, to see him in my room where I could just tell myself it was a dream, all my wild imagination. It was another, standing in the fading daylight, in the middle of a strip mall, beside my car... when I was certain I was wide awake. But my brain just couldn't compute.
"I was very fond of your Priestess image. Enchanted... pun painfully intended... watching you as the quaint solitary witch. But watching you doing chores so pedestrian as shopping... watching you be the good wife and mother..." His tone was jovial, but his words made me feel like someone flipped a switch in me. I knew it wasn't my voice that hissed in warning: "Don't you dare bring my family into this."
He held his hands up in a show of surrender and he looked truly surprised. I felt that... sliding feel. Like I was in the backseat again, a mere passenger in my own skin. "We have a compact that stipulates you have zero interference with me and mine." I didn't even recall formulating the thought before the words passed my traitorous mouth.
He was using the fair haired, blue eyed form again, the one that reminded me of what the comic book character would look like had he been a flesh and blood man.
"We have an accord that I may watch you whenever I like and may only interfere with *you* one night a month," he corrected.
*If he expects us to be embarrassed at the idea of him watching us, he's in for one hell of a shocker!* said that other voice in my head. I tried to focus as I silently questioned my own sanity. I rolled my eyes heavenward, and instead said in a bored tone: "Glad we are clear on that, then. I'm going home."
"Evangeline." I felt a shaft of ice coat my spine and I turned to look at him, slowly. My heart was pounding in my chest like a jackhammer. He knew. He knew and I couldn't speak for a moment, until The
Other Me spoke for us:
"...how did you know? No one ever knows when it's me." Her voice sounded small, I thought. Wait... her? Or me? I still felt like an observer, but it was rare that my delusions were ever this clear. "Our daughter never knows it's me... sometimes my husband doesn't. Our husband," my voice corrected, absentmindedly.
This isn't real, this isn't real! If I screamed it to myself over and I over, that I might yet will it to be true. But I wasn't sure what truth I was denying. He wasn't real? Or... the feeling that I wasn't controlling my own body wasn't?
His hand cradled my face and he searched my eyes. "She fights. I can see you both." How did he know this? It was... my secret, this insanity. How can he know? "You hide yourself well, Evangeline. You do. But those you fool cannot see your mind... and it literally is different."
Not true!! Not *fucking* REAL! I felt like I was screaming if into the void. But I was-
"She's panicked," my mouth said.
"Yes." His thumb was caressing my cheek and I felt my will dissolve with each caress. "Can you maintain control?" He asked softly.