Would you?

Cora stared out the window at the April rain filtering through the leaves of dozens of trees in the woods. She and Max drove in silence to the old estate, rain pouring onto their windshield. Max pulled up to the front door under the portico, turned to Cora and said, “you go in, I'll park the car.” Tenderly, he reached out and ran a hand through her graying hair and rested it against her face. “I don't know what I would do without you.” Cora inhaled sharply and grabbed his hand. After giving him an affectionate squeeze, she was gone.

Cora entered the large foyer, complete with a black and white checkered floor and grand staircase. She paused to look at herself in a large, gilded mirror. She smoothed her hair slightly, noted the small wrinkles beginning to line her face. The sound of a familiar voice beckoned her from the other room, “he was so young.”

She rounded the corner to see Sara and Moira standing together next to a large display of flowers. Sara and Moira, her two best friends. They met in college and confused every barista in town with their incredibly similar names. Sara always teased that with their rhyming names they would make a powerful coven. But Cora was too religious and Moira was too practical to entertain her silliness. Sara was kidding, mostly. Seeing the two of them together, Cora's love for them welled up in her heart and brought tears to her eyes.

Sara, tall and lithe of limb, wore a simple black dress. She was gently rubbing Moira's back. The death that convened them that day was Moira's husband, Fred. Moira was short, muscular, tough. Her strength gave her a look of infallibility, but a closer examination of her face revealed puffy bags under her eyes from hours of crying. And perhaps an overindulge in chardonnay for medicinal purposes. Cora walked briskly over and embraced both of her friends fiercely. Moira's fingers dug into her back.

“He was so young, I'm so sorry love,” Cora said, echoing Moira's words. Fred was in his early fifties, as they all were, give or take. He took care of himself, attended routine checkups and had virtually no ailments. But the previous week, he had inexplicably dropped dead of a heart attack. Moira stared blankly at him laying in his casket. Despite being physically present, Moira was clearly a world away. Sara continued to rub her back.

Some of Fred's relatives approached to give their condolences. Sara and Cora bowed out and headed for the refreshments.

"I took Steve to the doctor right away when we heard," Sara said absently as they walked. "He didn't push back at all, you know much he hates physicals. He’s rattled. It's such a shame. How did Max take it? I know when he was in the hospital you were..." Sara trailed off.

At that moment, Cora saw her husband shuffle in, put his umbrella in the stand and brush off a few stray raindrops. He saw Steve and reached his hand out for a solid handshake and supportive clap on the back.

“Max was a little shaken when we found out, but generally fine. If anything, he wants to spend even more time with me now. He calls the girls a lot more.” Cora took a long drink of water. “How are you doing?"

Sara blinked slowly, emotion cracking her voice. "I don't know how she's so strong. I don't know what I'd do without him."

Cora’s head shot up at her words. She glanced back at the gilded mirror. She remembered the night Max went to the hospital, her guilt consuming her.

--

“He can't, he can't, he can't...” Cora repeated to herself in a hysterical panic. She was finally home from the hospital after Sara had forced her to leave. “Shower and try to get some sleep. He's been unconscious for 24 hours and you haven't slept even longer than that, you need to keep your strength up,” Sara had lovingly chided before she went home. “The hospital is ten minutes away, I'm up the street, you need to rest.”

Cora stared at herself in the mirror, the blood from Max's scalp still on her clothes. He had fallen from the roof putting up Christmas lights. He was deliriously excited to have the girls home from college for a whole two weeks for winter break. He wanted the house to look perfect. Cora had heard his ladder crash, discovered him on the lawn, and rushed him to the hospital. Before she left, the doctors had told her the odds of recovery from his injury. They were not good.

Cora stood before her enormous gold mirror, alone for the first time since the accident. She finally broke down in tears. She closed her eyes, gasping for air. “Please, please,” she pleaded futilely to an empty room. Suddenly, it was cold. She opened her eyes again and looked up. The mirror stood before her. Otherwise, she was surrounded by darkness. She saw her confused reflection shining brightly from within the glass.

“Cora,” a sultry voice called behind her. Cora turned slowly, seeking the whereabouts of the ethereal sound. She saw a seductive figure with voluptuous curves and luxurious long black hair. The woman had no face and her hair swirled about her as if underwater.

“Who are you,” Cora whispered.

The woman, amused, replied slowly, “depends what you believe in. For you, perhaps I am an angel.”

Cora shook her head, trying to make sense of her surroundings. She was somehow in her body, in her house, and yet...she was not.

The woman moved towards Cora. “He will die,” she spoke harshly and with conviction.

“No, no he can’t, he can’t,” Cora gasped, whimpering her last few words.

The woman said in a voice thick as honey, “But, I can save him.”

Cora looked up, her fear of this being clawing at her. She sensed the truth in its words. God-fearing though Cora was, her desperation overcame her better judgment.

“How,” Cora asked, feeling panic rise in her body.

“Mmm, I can bring him back to you, but I would require an exchange…” Though the being had no face, Cora could feel it peering into her soul. Her discomfort grew at the sensation. “One of your lovely girls, perhaps?”

“Never,” Cora refused, unwavering.

“Ah, such conviction, how marvelous,” the woman drawled. “Hmmmm, I see two treasured friends, one of them perhaps…” Cora felt herself begin to ruminate about choosing between Sara and Moira. Immediately, she was horrified by her own betrayal.

“I can’t,” Cora responded in a whisper.

The woman closed in on Cora, now standing within inches of her face. “Ooohh, I sense we’ve reached your edge, how lovely,” the woman’s sultry tone had returned. The woman’s hair swirled about her faceless head. Cora was undeniably drawn to her. It was the same urge one feels in the final moment before a kiss, the electric anticipation compelling you to finally close the distance to the other’s lips. A viper’s prey might experience the same hypnotic sensation. Before it strikes.

“Your ability to love is simply divine.” The woman tilted her head, considering her next words. “My final offer. Your husband…in exchange for those of your best friends.”

Cora paled. She saw a vision of Max, covered in blood, laying on the ground in front of their home; then again, laying in the hospital, alone.

“He would be returned to you, a slow process, but fully recovered.” Cora felt the woman gently leaning into her ear, whispering, “falling asleep and waking up beside you, every day.” Cora stared at his skull in his hospital bed, shaved and swollen around dozens of stitches. Tears filled her eyes as she flashed back to his brilliant smile beaming at her the day they were married years ago. Until death do us part, the promise echoed in Cora’s ears.

Cora closed her eyes tightly. “Why are you doing this to me.”

“I am not showing you anything my love, your mind is a powerful thing. But I offer you a choice.”

Cora’s thoughts turned to her friends. She vividly remembered the look on Sara’s face when she left for her first date with Steve, a sweet co-mingling of uncertainty and excitement. She pictured Moira, after many months of guarding her private relationship, finally saying, “this is my boyfriend, Fred.” Cora’s thoughts rested once again on Max, sifting through images of him changing diapers, playing with their laughing little girls, never putting dishes in the sink, sulking in his study after a fight. She saw herself in their big, empty house. Alone.

Cora put her face in her hands, “I don’t know what I’d do without him.” A cold hand gently caressed her cheek, raising Cora’s chin to stare into the vacant face. Cora nodded her head once in assent to the deal. “And now you never will,” the woman’s voice hissed and receded into the darkness.

Cora fell to her knees, violently feeling herself hit the floor of her house. She felt as though she had fallen twelve stories. She looked around. It was dark, but she was home.

---

“…and you’re so lucky that Max recovered beautifully,” Sara was saying. Cora had not heard a word, but meekly responded, “He had excellent doctors at Trinity.” She glanced over at Max, who caught her eye and gave her a small smile. Her gaze then fell upon Steve. She knew…what did she know.

During Max’s recovery, Cora revealed her experience to her psychiatrist seeking answers. He had increased her medication and reassured her that she should not feel ashamed about an anxiety fueled, but imaginary, bargain for Max’s life. Yet, she thought she heard a sensual chuckle in a deep corner of her mind when he used the word “imaginary.” Days later, she had gone to confession. Her priest told her to pray a dozen rosaries for protection and forgiveness, reminding her to avoid temptation. As she knelt into a pew to begin repenting, she heard a faint seductive whisper, “too late.” Every night, she dreamed of that dark place, seeing herself in the mirror, slowly being engulfed by the long tendrils of black hair of a hideous monster. When she was alone, she spent hours standing in front of that mirror. She gazed at her terrified reflection searching for some sign that her nightmares were not real.

After noticing Cora’s crazed misery, Max asked her to tell him what the hell was going on. When she obliged, he reached his arms out, wrapped them around her firmly, and said, “I’m so sorry you had to watch me suffer all alone. I’m here, it’ll be okay.” When Max had recovered, she felt relieved. When the call came about Fred’s death, she nearly fainted. Since that moment, she dreaded taking Sara’s calls.

Cora blinked and regained a sense of her surroundings. Sara had gone to give condolences to Fred’s siblings. Max materialized next to Cora.

“Are you okay honey, you look a little pale. I know this has been bothering you.”

“No, I’m fine,” Cora responded, “you’re here.”

He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, “Yup, I’m going to get us some water.”

Cora watched him walk away. He was so supportive and patient. He was right, her trauma had driven her to that fictitious place. She took a deep breath and felt relieved for the first time in months. She turned back to the casket and looked for Moira.

For just a moment, she saw a voluptuous woman with unbelievably beautiful black hair standing over Fred’s body. The woman turned her head to the side, revealing she had no face. Cora blinked. It was gone.

Immediately, she rushed through the house in the opposite direction, through the glass filled sunroom, and threw open the double paned doors to sheets of rain. She stepped into it, letting it soak through her clothes into her skin. She wept, silently praying the rain would wash away the hell she was living in.