Love had always been perfunctory with the Reverend. Grace often wondered, clothed only in a hastily thrown on nightie and staring at the cobwebs of the parish ceiling as the comically sated form of the Reverend Esthappan Jiji Jose softly snored next to her in the nude, whether this was really all there was to it.

There had obviously not been much by the way of erotica in Grace Jiji Jose nee Vargheese's life. She was the type of student who could never properly relax the night before an exam until she had covered every square inch of portion she could. She never wrote an exam without studying the whole topic at least once. And so she slowly and unambitiously climbed the ranks until she was the second-topper for Economics in a shitpoke constituency in North Kerala. And then a few years in Maharajas. And then matrimonial bliss with the reverend. And then childlessness.

"It's your fault." Grace says vehemently as she watches his chest heave. His stomach is beginning to swell, just a brief bulge under his clerical habit but monstrous looking unclothed. She watches the hairy, pale orb fill and unfill. "You look like you're pregnant. Like there's a baby in there."

Grace gets up. Her body is perfectly lean without an ounce of excess fat anywhere. She switches on the dull, flickering orange bulb and looks back to see if the Reverend stirs. He doesn't, of course. He is tired after his rare display of aerobics tonight. She will stop letting him in a few years, for his sake. She is already afraid that he will have a heart attack and collapse on top of her.

She sits down in front of the bedroom mirror and begins combing her hair. The Casio watch on the Reverend's nightstand beeps thrice. Three o clock. When the demons are set loose.

Grace looks herself in the eye.

"The only time you can speak to me is at night, isn't it? You are ashamed of me come dawn." Mirror-Grace is looking especially beautiful today.

"I'm not ashamed of you. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me," she replies.

"I like being flattered. That's the only reason I keep coming back, Grace. You don't flatter me enough. Why did you stop speaking to me last month?"

"I already told you, Mirror-Grace. I stopped believing after I got married. What would the Reverend think?"

Mirror-Grace's face contorts into a look of pure malice and spite. "The Reverend. Fuck the Reverend. That's what you've been doing anyway, huh? So do you believe now?"

Grace wonders what to say. She comes up with nothing. So she blinks three times and goes back to seeing her own reflection. But that voice keeps ringing in her head. That voice so laden with violence. Fuck the Reverend.

She gets up again and sits beside the bed, her head in her hand. Mirror-Grace wasn't real. She knew that. She knew Mirror-Grace was just a figment of the real Grace's imagination. But she needed that figment now just as in college.

Grave tires to go back to sleep but a dull bleating sound disturbs her. The bleat is getting closer and closer. This goat is no longer in the neighbour's compound. This goat is here, outside the gate. Now it sounds like it's in front of the porch. And now beside the window. Grace shuts her eyes tight, her mouth clammy and her hands tightly clutching her mattress. "Fuck the Reverend fuck the Reverend fuck the Reverend," she mutters as she shakes.

And now the goat is in her head.
She screams, sitting bolt upright and breathing in deep. There's nothing here.

The Reverend stirs and mutters and then slips back into tired slumber.

Grace can still hear something bleating. She slowly pulls a cardigan on and emerges into the night. At first, there is nothing. And then there she is.

No. This isn't the first time this has happened.

Mirror-Grace is taller than real Grace. She is also dressed in a sexy black dress and wearing make-up. Her hair is pinned up. And she is standing next to the neighbour's goat. The goat rocks from side to side, bleating gently. Mirror-Grace smiles.

"You're not supposed to be here," Grace says quietly.

"I'm leaving so don't worry," Mirror-Grace says.

"What do you mean you're leaving? You can't leave. I need you. I'll comb my hair and blink three times and you'll be there."

"Not anymore. Not like that. Now I'll come back the way I'm supposed to."

"But you know he can't-

"Fuck the Reverend, Grace." Mirror Grace bends and kisses the goat. Then she walks away.

Grace shouts a little. Then she sits down in front of the goat, watching the sunrise.

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