Flip side
Steam billowed into the bathroom from the shower as the door opened and a slender arm emerged, reaching for a pink towel hanging on a nearby hook. After wrapping the towel around her torso and tucking the end in on itself Izzy stepped out of the shower and grabbed another towel to start the process of drying off her hair.
The bathroom was similar to how her bedroom had been when she'd first woken up in this dimension, dominated by pink, and she'd never gotten around to changing it. Pink towels, pink bathmats, pink toothbrush in a pink holder sitting on the bathroom sink, anything that could be accessorized with pink her other self had taken the opportunity to do it. The witch half wondered why the bath tile and porcelain wasn't customized to be pink as well, it would seem right up Isabelle's alley.
She picked up a brush and looked in the mirror as she started the process of getting her hair untangled before using the hairdryer. At first, nothing was amiss. The reflection moved just as its owner did. A few patches of mirror fog obscured Izzy's neck and her arms when she reached overhead to fingercomb her hair. The only other sound was the drip-plunk of water from the nozzle. But after a moment, the reflection of a blonde with rosy skin from the shower began to lag, the choreography a fraction of a section behind, as if there were a time lapse.
And then the blonde in the mirror began to smile.
Izzy frowned, making it all the more obvious that something was amiss. The time lapse didn't make any sense, it was almost as if she were watching a video screen instead of staring into a mirror. And why was she smiling? The witch felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and she had to wonder if the house had been possessed.
What the hell was going on? Izzy stared at her reflection with a bit of annoyance. "All right. I'll bite: why are you smiling?" Did she slip dimensions again when she wasn't looking? Maybe this one worked like a Harry Potter movie.
"What's not to smile at?" The mirror-woman asked, her head shaking just a bit. Her accent was as warm and inviting as the southern sun. It had a cloying sweetness. "Look at us."
Without the slightest hint of body shyness, which some women displayed even when totally alone, Isabelle unwrapped the towel from her torso and tossed it out of visual range. One could imagine from its trajectory that it landed in a sloppy heap next to the bath tub. When her hands were free, she placed them on her hips and struck a pose from the other side of the mirror. She made an appreciative noise in her throat. "That's a good looking gal, don't ya think?" The two-dimensional blonde pivoted and twisted her torso, as if taking a look at her own backside, though the only one with a view was Izzy. "Sometimes I can't get enough of myself."
"What's the matter with you?!" Izzy wasn't scandalized, exactly, but this was ringing far too many alarm bells in her head. "There's more to us than a good looking body." The blonde shook her head at her reflection and pinched herself on the arm just to make sure she was awake.
"I can't believe I'm even trying to argue with a stupid reflection." The witch opened the medicine cabinet to look at the back of the door just to make sure this wasn't some kind of weird prank. But there was only the plain wood surface on the back, with screws where the mirror was attached. The inside of the cabinet was perfectly normal and Izzy closed it to find her reflection leaning on the sink, still naked as the day she was born and staring at her as if she were a little disappointed.
"Aww, you don't think I'm real," she said slowly. She had eyes as big and brown as a doe's and they were capable of manipulation, particularly if the subject of her attention was of the male persuasion. "Trust me, sweetie, I'm as real as the nose on your face. In fact..." She lifted a hand and slipped her fingertip through the mirror's surface. The circle her index finger made on its way to her twin was vaguely suggestive, as if she were swirling it in a bowl of pudding. It tapped the end of Izzy's nose and she winked from the mirror. "I'm so real, you'll never get away from me... Isabelle."
"No!" There was little doubt now in Izzy's mind who she was dealing with. "I'm not you." The witch said desperately, backing up as far as she could until her back hit the wall of the bathroom. "I'll never be you. You're gone, I replaced you here and you're not coming back."
She'd never seen magic like this before, not in all her years of schooling and then experience in the workforce before being dumped in Michaela's backyard. Izzy had never even heard of something like this, and it scared the hell out of her.
Isabelle heaved a petulant sigh. She straightened away from the mirror's surface and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. "C'mon." Her head tilted. "You know that's not how it works! Me and you, we're one and the same now, Iz. Memories... thoughts... that's all a person is, isn't that right?" she drawled. "And you can't get rid of me. I'm in there, too, as real and legitimate as all that magic trash you brought with you."
On a whim, she reached out and wiped a finger down the glass. It squeaked. A little of the fog disappeared. "It's only a matter of time until that's gone, anyway. You know what they say... Use it or lose it."
"You have no idea what you're talking about," Izzy said weakly, wanting to deny everything that her other self was saying but not able to dismiss it out of hand. "Magic doesn't work like that, it's as much a part of me as the blood running through my veins." She pointed at her duplicate accusingly. "I want more out of my life than to run around without a thought in my head, married to a man who treats me like a child and has no respect for my opinion. You've wasted this body and I'm not letting you get it back."
The witch decided to go on the offensive and her hands worked an intricate pattern in the air as she cast a spell to banish her reflection back to wherever she came from. "Begone, and trouble me no more!"
The image froze.
Then Isabelle smiled. "Looks like you're already collecting some rust. But it was a real nice try." On her side of the glass, she hefted a shapely hip onto the sink, then swung around and put her legs through the mirror. She scooted to the edge of the sink and let her bare feet dangle. The polish on her toes was the color of salmon. "Times like this, it's nice to have a man to take care of you. I know you don't have one yet, but it's only a matter of time."
She looked over her real-world twin. "Want a 'lil piece of advice? I'd leave out all that," she wrinkled her nose, "Stuff. Y'know, about different dimensions and techno-magic. Nobody's ever gonna believe you. They'll just think you're nutty as a fruit cake." Isabelle twirled a manicured finger near her temple. "If I were you, I'd give some consideration to survival of the fittest, and honey, that ain't you. It's me."
Izzy stared at her otherworldly self as she passed through the mirror. That had been the most powerful banishing spell she knew, it should have worked. Her mouth opened and closed a few times but no words came out as her mind raced. Her magic hadn't worked, for the first time in her life it had absolutely no impact whatsoever.
She'd never had that happen. Sometimes it might misfire or not work as intended if she made a mistake, but she'd never just have nothing happen.
"I don't need a man to take care of me." She finally said, her brain working through the implications of everything she'd seen and heard. That didn't mean she didn't have that want sometimes, to just be taken care of every now and again, but not like Mark would have. There would have been no coming back from that. "I want someone who will be my partner, my equal. You're not coming back."
Isabelle lifted a hand and touched Izzy's wet hair. Two fingers closed around a lock and slid all the way to the curling end. "I'm already here. You can't exorcise me. I'm not a demon, I'm the woman whose life you took, and I'm not goin' anywhere." She retreated and wrapped her hands around the edge of the cabinet for balance. Ankles crossing, she rubbed her feet together, enjoying the soft feel of her own warm flesh.
"You ought to be careful, Iz. Right now, we've got everything going for us... Looks, family, reputation... money. It can slip away like that," she snapped her fingers, "And it sure as hell will, if you try to take over. I'm the one they know. I'm the one they love. You think our parents are gonna like it if you start burning bridges, just because you're too 'good' for your old life? It's like... it's like telling 'em they raised me wrong!"
"I'm not burning any bridges, but I'm not going to hide that I've got a brain of my own." Izzy replied evenly, flinching at her alternate's touch. "They didn't raise me. Momma raised me in a crappy little apartment on the edge of town and Bobby looked after me when she was working."
She stared down at her feet for a moment, remembering the hard times. "They did raise you wrong. All you cared about were clothes, volleyball, and Mark. I don't think you ever had an original thought in your life. I'm not going to be you, they'll adjust. I'm being careful." She was trying to be careful, to let her parents adjust to the new her gradually.
"I'm not going to be you." She repeated, a bit desperately.
"Hey." Isabelle leaned forward on her perch and pointed a thumb into her chest. "It's not a crime to be me. I was happy! So what if I spent more time shopping than with my nose in a book? It didn't hurt anybody. I never accidentally launched myself into the wrong world, did I?" She laughed. "And I sure as hell wasn't a screw-up. Not like our brother. Whose parents did a worse job there, yours or mine?" The smile on her face became victorious and a little smug because she knew that no matter what kind of trouble Bobby had gotten himself into here, it was nothing compared to the place where Izzy originally came from. "Still." She shrugged and idly scratched her shoulder. "He's dumber than a bag of hammers. Won't be long before he ends up just like your Bobby did, and there's nothing you can do about it, either."
"Don't you say that!" Izzy responded furiously, slapping her alternate across her face. "Bobby just had a rough patch, he's gonna be fine!" God, this bitch was dredging up every worry she had in the dark of night and throwing it in her face. "I'm gonna make sure of it! He's sure as hell smarter than you. You only graduated Florida State because Daddy gave them a hell of a donation, don't think I don't know what you spent most of your time doing...or should I say who?" The memories were fuzzy, but they were there.
"I worked my tail off to be respected by all the guys who took one look at me and thought what a fine piece of ass I was, you just played right into their prejudices!" She stared hotly at 'Isabelle'. "Don't you have any self respect? Do you know how hard I've had to work at the hotel just to get over the reputation you had before I took over?"
The slap turned Isabelle's head, but it didn't seem to have any long-term effects. Her skin, if it could be called that, didn't even redden. She touched her cheek. "What, and you're some kind of saint? You're forgetting that I'm in there, too," she said, pointing at Izzy's forehead. "I know what you think when you see a good-lookin' man. Suddenly, you're all smiles and southern charm. You give out your number, you turn up at their houses... pretty soon, you'll even start knocking on their hotel room doors. It's only a hop, skip, and a jump from my way to your way, Izzy."
Isabelle turned and eased herself back through the mirror, dismounting from the counter with a playful hop. She turned to face herself through the barrier of glass.
"At least my kinda magic never hurt anybody. The way yours is going, you might wanna quit while you're ahead. You couldn't even scare off that wimpy vampire." Her palms turned upward innocently. "It's just a suggestion."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean, 'The way mine is going'?" Izzy shook her head. "I just got sloppy here in Key West, complacent. That's over. I have plans for that vampire. You wouldn't know magic if it smacked you upside the head and asked you to kiss it."
She straightened as her towel nearly unraveled, scrambling to tuck it back into place. Going skyclad now would be admitting that she and Izzy weren't so different after all.
"You're right about that," Isabelle said, bending down to retrieve the bath towel and wrap it about her figure. She tucked the end tightly so it wouldn't fall. "And before long, you won't either. See ya 'round." She schooled her body into an exact replica of Izzy's posture and let the smile evaporate from her face.