Chapter 1: The Crimson Eyes in the Hallway Mirror
The bass thrummed through the floorboards like a heartbeat, low and relentless, vibrating up through the soles of Danielle's bare feet. She'd kicked off her sandals somewhere near the entryway, she couldn't remember when. The wine in her glass had long since warmed to room temperature, but she kept drinking anyway, letting the syrupy sweetness coat her tongue.
"You've redecorated," Renee said from the armchair, her voice carrying that familiar edge of suspicion. She hadn't touched her wine. The glass sat on the side table, a perfect ring of condensation forming beneath it.
Amy smiled, and Danielle felt it in her chest. That smile. It was different lately, wider somehow, more generous. Or maybe generous wasn't the right word. Danielle couldn't quite find the right word, and she'd stopped trying about an hour ago when the second bottle of cabernet appeared.
"Just a few things," Amy said. She was perched on the arm of the couch, one leg crossed over the other, her bare foot swinging lazily. The candlelight caught the angles of her face, made her cheekbones look sharper than Danielle remembered. "I needed a change."
The velvet drapes were new. Danielle was almost certain about that. They hadn't been there last month when she'd come over with that lasagna Amy barely touched. And the crimson upholstery on the couch, that was definitely new. Everything was red. The walls, the pillows, the throw blankets. Like the whole room had been dipped in it.
"It's moody," Danielle offered, because it was. Moody and warm and strangely comfortable, like sinking into a bath. She took another sip of wine. "I like it."
Renee made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh.
Amy's eyes slid toward her, and Danielle watched the way her friend's gaze lingered on Renee's throat, on the small movement of her swallowing. There was something hypnotic about it, the slow drag of Amy's attention from one of them to the other. Like being watched by something that had all the time in the world.
"You're not drinking," Amy said to Renee.
"Designated driver."
"You live next door."
Renee's jaw tightened. "Habit."
The music shifted, something slower, a groove that coiled through the room like smoke. Amy uncrossed her legs and stood, and Danielle noticed for the first time how fluid the movement was. Like water. Like she'd been waiting for permission to move.
"I'll get another bottle," Amy said, already gliding toward the kitchen. "Don't go anywhere."
Danielle watched her go. The kitchen light flickered on, and for a moment, Amy was silhouetted against it, and Danielle thought she saw something wrong with the shape of her. Something too sharp at the edges. Then the moment passed, and Amy was just Amy, pulling a bottle from the wine rack with a flick of her wrist.
"She seems better," Danielle said, because someone had to say something. The silence had grown teeth.
Renee turned to look at her, and Danielle was struck by how pale her friend seemed. Not just pale, exactly. Scared. "Danielle. Have you noticed anything off about her?"
"Off how?"
"I don't know." Renee's fingers wrapped around her untouched wine glass, and she stared into it like it held answers. "She's different. She doesn't blink as much. Have you noticed that? She doesn't blink."
Danielle laughed, and the sound was too loud in the velvet-wrapped room. "That's ridiculous."
"I need to use the bathroom."
Renee stood abruptly. The wine glass wobbled on the table, and she didn't stop to steady it. Just walked past Danielle, past the couch, into the dim hallway that led toward the back of the house. Her footsteps were quick, deliberate, the footsteps of a woman with a destination beyond the bathroom.
The hallway was darker than it should have been. The bulb in the overhead fixture had burned out weeks ago, and Amy hadn't replaced it. Danielle knew that because she'd offered to replace it herself, and Amy had laughed and said she liked the shadows.
The mirror at the end of the hall was original to the house, a heavy, ornate thing with a gilded frame Amy had bought at an estate sale and hung with great ceremony. Danielle remembered the evening. Amy had made martinis, and they'd toasted to bad decisions and beautiful antiques, and Renee had said it was too fancy for a hallway that smelled faintly of cat litter.
Now Renee stood before the mirror, and her face was the color of skim milk.
"Amy," she whispered.
Her voice didn't carry. The bass from the playlist swallowed it whole. She reached out, hand trembling, and touched the glass. Her reflection touched back, fingers meeting, nail to nail. Behind her, in the mirror, the hallway stretched into darkness.
Just darkness.
Just the two wine glasses on the console table, floating in midair like some fucking magic trick.
One glass was hers, the one she'd set down when she'd left the living room.
The other glass had been in Amy's hand.
"Renee?"
Amy's voice came from directly behind her, and Renee spun around so fast she nearly fell.
Amy stood in the hallway, a fresh bottle of wine in her hands, her head tilted at an angle that suggested curiosity. Her eyes caught the dim light and threw it back wrong. Red. Wrong.
"Everything okay?" Amy asked. Her lips curved into a smile that showed teeth, and Renee noticed, for the first time, how sharp they were. Not too sharp. Not obviously sharp. Just enough to draw blood if you weren't careful.
"You don't have a reflection."
Amy blinked. Once. Twice.
And then she laughed.
"Sweetheart, I think you've had too much wine." She stepped closer, and the bottle in her hands didn't waver. "This old mirror is a piece of shit. It's all cloudy. I've been meaning to get rid of it."
The words sounded reasonable. Everything Amy said sounded reasonable. That was the problem. The words slid into Renee's brain like syrup, coating everything, making it harder to hold onto the sharp edges of what she'd just seen.
"I saw it," Renee said, but her voice came out weak. "I saw—your glass. It was floating."
"Floating." Amy's smile widened. "That's a good one. Maybe we should cut you off."
From the living room, Danielle's voice drifted in. "Is everything okay? Renee? What's going on?"
Amy's eyes never left Renee's face. In the mirror behind her—the mirror that showed nothing, that showed the hallway and the wine glasses and the darkness but not the woman standing right there—nothing moved. Not Amy's shoulders. Not her hair. Nothing.
"I'm fine," Renee said, and she didn't know why she said it. Maybe because the words were in her mouth before she could stop them. Maybe because Amy's gaze was a weight pressing down on her thoughts, smoothing them flat.
"Good." Amy's hand found her shoulder, and her palm was cool through Renee's thin sweater. Cool and dry and still. "Let's go back. Danielle's probably wondering what happened to us."
Renee let herself be guided back down the hallway, past the mirror that saw everything and reflected nothing, back into the candlelit living room where Danielle was sprawled on the couch, laughing at something on her phone.
"Look at this," Danielle said, turning the screen toward them, showing a video of a cat falling off a counter. "It's so dumb."
"It's hilarious," Amy agreed, settling back onto the arm of the couch, her hand finding the bottle opener like it had been waiting there for her. The cork came out with a soft pop. Wine poured, dark and thick. "Renee, sit down. You look pale."
Renee sat. The couch cushions swallowed her. The music thrummed on, bass-heavy, relentless, a heartbeat that wouldn't stop. Danielle was still laughing, scrolling to another video, her cheeks flushed with wine and warmth.
And Amy was watching her. Not the phone. Not the casual glances of shared humor. Amy was watching Danielle with the kind of attention you reserved for something you were about to consume.
Her eyes caught the candlelight, crimson and dark, and for just a moment, Renee saw it—the way they shifted when Amy smiled at Danielle's joke, the way they tracked the pulse in Danielle's throat like a cat tracking a bird.
"You know what I love about tonight?" Amy said, and her voice was warm, honeyed, impossible to resist. "Having my girls here. It feels like old times."
"It does," Danielle agreed, and leaned her head against Amy's knee like she belonged there.
The candles flickered.
The shadows danced.
And Renee sat perfectly still, wine glass untouched, watching her friend's fangs glint behind her smile, wondering how long she had before one of them noticed she'd stopped drinking.