‘Xander, your rose is dead.’
‘Hm?’
‘One of the nice ones I got you for your birthday.’
Xander looked over at his nightstand. Atop it, two roses rested in a glass, one still yellow, one wilted and brown. The water they sat in was murky and mouldering.
‘Oh, sorry. I’ll throw them out later.’
His gaze shifted to the girl leaning against the window of his apartment bedroom. Her arms were crossed and her lips pulled into a teasing smile. The morning sun illuminated her heavenly silhouette, light hitting strands of her red hair and turning them a shining gold. Her eyes glinted like shattered jade. Cracking. Cracking.
‘Jeez, they never last long with you, do they?’
‘Flowers don’t seem to like me, generally.’
‘I don’t either.’
He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘That’s mean, Abigail.’
She giggled and her voice was a knife against porcelain. The corners of his lips tugged upwards in some semblance of a smile and in return she grinned, all teeth like a rabid dog.
The sun called to him at dawn with tantalising allure.
A blink and she was gone. The bedroom window was open. He scrambled to shut it.
‘Xander!’ she called from the kitchen. ‘Breakfast!’
He followed her voice and found the room empty. The knives were missing from his chopping block and the scent of iron lingered in the air. ‘Sure. What do you feel like?’
‘Can you make scrambled eggs?’
He turned and she was sitting on the kitchen counter behind him, kicking her legs.
‘Yeah, do you want anything with them?’ He took a pan from one of his cabinets and placed it on the stove, then pulled a spatula from the drawer above it.
‘What about …’
‘What?’
She was gone again. The floorboards creaked with her laughter.
‘Abi?’
‘I’m here!’ It came from the living room. He found her standing by the front door, fastening her hair into two braids with ribbons. ‘I’m going.’
‘What? I haven’t even started cooking – are you crazy?’
Abigail didn’t answer, just smiled. There were no bags packed by her feet, but a dreadful feeling in his chest warned him not to let her go.
‘I still don’t get why you keep that.’ She pointed. The spatula was gone, replaced by the wilted rose.
‘Will you stop talking about the flowers? Where are you—’
‘You kept it stuck in that cup and now you won’t even throw it out? Jeez.’
‘It …’ He sighed. ‘Abigail …’
‘Why is that one still alive?’
‘Huh?’ He looked down. The flower in his hand was healthy, and when he looked up again, he found the dead one in Abigail’s hair. He snatched it from her, clutching both to his chest like his life depended on it.
‘It’s unfair, don’t you think?’
The sky went dark. Nightfall brought with it knowing eyes and the coldest truths. There was crying in the bathroom.
Stars glinted mockingly through the window in his peripheral vision. They knew all, whispered it to each other in passing as they rose and fell. The sun gave way just to leave him to their wrath, he knew it. He pulled the curtains closed, gritting his teeth.
‘Xander!’
He walked to the doorway of the bathroom. She was hunched over. Heaving, sobbing, screaming. The air was heavy and blistering, and blood pooled on the floor tiles.
‘Stop – it hurts! Someone, help me! Please!’
‘I’m the only one here.’ He knelt beside her and placed his free hand on her shoulder.
She screamed again. ‘Throw it out! Throw it out!’
Another voice came from the mirror, identical. ‘Xander, your rose is dead.’
He stood and looked at it. Her reflection grinned back at him, knives for teeth and hair burning like the sunrise. ‘Abi—’
‘They’re coming for you!’ Abigail screeched, writhing on the ground. ‘Why?! You said you loved me—’
‘Kill the rose.’
‘I left the window open for you!’ Her shriek was a birdsong, joining the morning chorus to let him know that dawn was near. ‘Hell is waiting!’
Xander slammed his fist against the mirror, shattering it into scattered pieces of silver. Starlight. Two pairs of jade eyes crinkled in delight and agony, then vanished. Cracking. Cracking.
He returned to his bedroom. The window was open once more, as were the curtains. He stepped closer and peered out. Below was a bed of roses. One yellow, surrounded by red. Above, the stars continued to taunt him with their gazes.
He felt hands on his shoulders. The room smelled like rot. He didn’t dare turn around.
The sun rose.
‘Xander, your rose is dead.’