Chapter Text
1.
Megan Ito has been seeing her doppelganger her whole life.
There are different words for it, to be sure: her Grandmama calls it etiäinen, her Nana calls it yokai, obake. Meg doesn’t really care what it’s called, more concerned is she with what it does. Most of the time, it just lingers in her peripheral vision, or stands in her reflection, smiling the same unnerving smile at her.
You’ll give in one day, the doppelganger promises. And it will be my turn.
Not likely, Megan thinks. She watches the birds on the feeder, pointedly ignoring her spirit at her side.
2.
As much as she crams her head full of birds’ names and songs, she can’t escape the other her. She plays blittle league blaseball until she goes to the park to practice throwing at the fence and her doppelganger is already standing there, smiling as she winds up.
I’m better than you, the other Megan says. The ball flies into the fence so hard it shakes.
“I don’t care.”
You’ll never be better than me.
It’s childish to stomp her feet like she does, but she can’t help it. “Then I’ll quit, and I’ll do something you can’t ever do.”
3.
Megan goes to college and studies birds. She wants to be a biologist someday, learn the flight patterns of birds far beyond her home birdfeeder.
On the side, she joins a paranormal club and tries not to feel ridiculous about it. Then on her first meeting, she does feel ridiculous about it, when the pale boy in charge of the club, who hails from somewhere no more interesting than Missouri, dismisses her hesitant comment about etiäiset and talks about ghosts instead. She doesn’t go back.
She can figure this out on her own. Her doppelganger laughs and walks her home.
4.
She meets Parker Macmillan on a break, in a tattoo parlor in St. Louis. She’s been building an aviary on her shoulders, and the black-billed magpie is her next muse. He’s walking out when she’s walking in, and they meet accidentally when he’s staring at the ground.
Unfortunately, he’s cute; she folds her drawing in her pocket and takes him out for boba, and he tells her that he plays sports—blaseball, mostly, but he’s a runner and he’s fast. She dares him to show her what he’s got, and they race along the river.
He’s much faster than her.
5.
In the end, it’s Parker’s fault that she drops out. Her grandmothers don’t seem to mind much when she calls them to tell them her decision. She’s going to play blaseball, something she told herself she wouldn’t do. There are some things more important than running from her demons.
Besides, she thinks as she digs her nails into her palm. Maybe here, she can find a way to get rid of the other her, forever.
Her reflection smiles at her while she’s on the phone, and even when Megan turns away, she can feel the heavy gaze on her back.
6.
Megan’s good—she’s really good. For once, teams are competing over her, and though she starts with the Kansas City Breath Mints, she travels, playing for different cities, with different teammates. She likes all of them.
In Baltimore, she adds a chickadee, a grackle, and a crow to her ink menagerie, and Eliot teaches her about as many legends of evil and fated twins as ze can. In Charleston, she tags some seabirds and learns about stealing destiny.
In the middle of it all, she talks to Parker at least once a week. He’s sounding worse and worse these days.
7.
The Immortals die; the Artists die; the Psychics die. Megan and Parker top the idol board every season and gain ego after ego. When they come to the Truckers together, Season D, their ego rate is the same as Parker’s kill rate: 100%.
The Truckers welcome Megan warmly and Parker lukewarm, but the cold and sterile bubble that surrounds him must reassure them somewhat. The Force Field.
Megan can see her reflection in it, pacing around the field as restlessly as Parker himself, looking at him with a predator’s eyes, unnerving. His stitch-marks reflect on her skin, and Megan shudders.
8.
It’s Parker’s plan, trading for the Force Field. He wants to run.
“Besides,” he says to her, late one night when they’re walking around the truck stop, quietly watching the stars. “What if it can help you?”
But Parker’s feet spark, even beneath the glowing blue dome of the item, and Megan keeps watching the flames sputter and die.
The other Megan doesn’t like the plan any more than Megan does, albeit for different reasons. She must call it a hundred different things, from foolish to naïve to useless.
You’re never going to get rid of me, the doppelganger hisses.
9.
She gets into a yelling match with Parker over it—it’s the closest they’ve ever come to really fighting. But even when she yells at him, she knows she’s going to give in. Parker hardly stands up for anything he wants, never puts his foot down like this.
The first time they met, Parker raced her along the river. She can’t remember seeing him as happy as he was then. Even if she doesn’t know what’s coming, even if the charred grass at his feet scares her, she wants to be the reason his face lights up like that again.
10.
Why does she take his Force Field, despite her hesitation? Maybe part of it is curiosity, the desire to hold the item. Maybe part of it is pity, or affection. A lot of it is the knowledge that fate is hurtling towards her, and running from it has reaped her nothing but fear.
It’s time to be a brave girl, kultsi, her Grandmama would say.
She’s not brave.
She waits until she won’t have to see him again: Day 9, when he will roam somewhere new, and she’ll be left behind. She gives him broken sunglasses as a goodbye gift.
11.
Today is the first day of Diwali. Megan lights a diya in her hotel room and one in the truck, and knows that more than a thousand miles away, her Nana is doing the same thing, and creating patterns on the porch outside. Tomorrow, spirits will roam; this feels like an omen if ever there was one.
She’s been Unstable for three full days. Her other self has hounded her steps relentlessly.
You can’t escape me forever, she taunts in a hiss. Death won’t be enough to rid you of me.
“No,” Megan murmurs as she walks to the stadium.
12.
“But I can trap you,” she says when she sees the fire coming. It’s an inferno, large enough to wipe the whole dugout from existence. The Force Field glows brilliant blue in the face of it.
You can’t! The other Megan screams. You are not strong enough. You must die!
Megan plants her feet, grinds her teeth. “I’m stronger than you,” she yells back, and then she’s burning and coming undone.
When it’s over, she sees herself, like a strange and warped reflection. The new Megan looks at her and smiles. “No, you aren’t,” she whispers, and static consumes her.