By Alex Terrell

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One day she just appeared—my Nachtgänger. Faceless. Silent. Ready to take my place. It was as if my inertia, or perhaps my ill mind, summoned her like a familiar to my side. Only she is human-shaped and not at all an animal. I could tell she already loved me, and I could sense I would feel the same whether I wished it or not. It was comforting, the inevitability of it. 

I don’t know what anguish called her to me. Perhaps it was after the woman threw her steamed espresso on my shirt because she didn’t like the way I made it. Or when my mother asked (for the third time) when I was going to start my diet back up. But something came apart in me from the amalgamation of these minor slights. The mask slipped from my face and she—my Nachtgänger—picked it up. I watched as a large screw emerged from beneath the veil of flesh where her face should have been. She held my mask in her hands, gazing at it like it was spun gold. Then she screwed it into place until it clicked like a gas cap. Her eyes bore into me, a question in them. I nodded my consent. She smiled so wide I thought my mask would crack. 

Now, when evening comes and I can do no more, when it is all too much for me, she goes in my place. Though she is mute, and she lopes with some odd gait to her, no one seems to notice. Perhaps they like me better this way. Perhaps I am easier when they think she is me. When I am soundless, agreeable, attentive, calm, quiet, kind—

Well, they just seem to like me better this way. 

She parties with my friends, toasting to the good times, telling me of their revelry when she returns. It is not lost on me that I am invited to places more when she goes for me. She does me the courtesy of letting me pick out what she wears. Consistency is very important to a Nachtgänger. I have stood behind her in the full-length mirror a hundred times preening her, molding her, making her into my image, and sealing it with a kiss on her lips, which always taste of peaches and ash even though she doesn’t eat. 

Sometimes, we make love in the dark. I can feel the familiar folds of myself. No one loves me the way she does. No one knows me the way she tries to. When I reach for her, she always reaches back. When I summon her home, she comes. 

Tonight, I wait up for her even though she tells me not to. She skips through the door, her mask cattywampus. She smiles eruditely. She is such a gossip. We lay with the crowns of our heads pressed together and she shows me everything. What my friends said to her, the secrets they told her, the knowledge she’s gleaned. Tonight she fought my friends for the check and won. She is every bit as kind as I have always wanted to be, but could never seem to conjure. I’ve been teaching her to write, so she is excited because she was able to sign the check with my name. I tell her a squiggle would have done. 

She lays her head in my lap. I rummage through her hair until she is asleep. I am proud of the life she has built for us. Of the foundation she laid for our house to stand upon. So when I swing the ax, when it connects with her skull, I do not cry out. As the rivers of red run cold across my bedroom floor, sinking into the spaces between the wood, I do not cry out. I have chosen to love her this way. By vivisection. 

When I open her, I let my hands sink into the coldness of her flesh, and I am the most in love I have ever been. I scour her insides for all that I might’ve missed. Her organs are a crimson collection of my memories. Her spine, a catalog of feelings I haven’t yet felt. Her sinew, a bridge to reach hidden places I’ve been too afraid to tread. 

I bite into the everything of her. I taste all that she’s experienced, all that she’s kept, and it’s like a prayer. It is home. I climb into her skin. I suture the seams. It is not stealing to take back what is yours. 

On the bedside table my phone chimes. Another invite to another thing. I tip-tap my reply, but it’s hard as I am still learning how to move in her skin. It will be just as hard to learn to live with a closed mouth. 

Yes, I type slowly with my phone’s keyboard. I’d love to come. Thank you.