The Egyptian Mirror

by Michael Bedard

  And then he heard it again—a deep guttural growl, louder this time, accompanied by a furtive movement from somewhere deep in the shadows of the bushes. And then, at the heart of the leaves, there was a glimmer as two cold eyes glared back at his.

  He turned and tore from the yard, dropping the hoe behind him in the grass. He ran for his life, not once daring to look back. Racing across the street, he dashed breathless into the house.

  “What is it, Simon?” said Dad. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “It’s nothing,” he said.

  And when Mom asked what happened to the tray, he said he’d forgotten it and would get it in the morning. One thing he knew for sure, there was no way he was going back to fetch it now.

  The smell of paint and carpet hung like a toxic fog in the air. No one else seemed bothered by it, but his head reeled from the reek of it.

  After dinner, he crept off to his room. He sat at his window, sucking in the cool air, staring across at the Hawkins house as the dark came down and settled over the yard and its terrors, and the lights winked on in the downstairs room where the old man cocked his ear for prowlers.

  The tray sat on the porch steps where he had left it. By and by, the shadows deepened till he could see it no more.

  8

  He woke with a start to the sound of Mom calling up the stairs to say he’d better get moving or he’d be late for school. He had no idea what time it was, what day it was. When he sat up, the room began to spin. He was so exhausted he could hardly pull his clothes on.

  It had taken him ages to fall asleep. And when he finally did drop off, he found himself right back in the Hawkins yard. Again, he heard the chill growl from the bushes. Only now it seemed something more than a growl, and the eyes that looked back at him through the leaves were level with his own. He woke in a sweat, heart pounding, and lay wide-eyed in the dark listening to a dull, rumbling throb pulsing from a car outside.

  He looked out the window now and saw the tray still sitting on the steps. The trip across the street to retrieve it left him limp and breathless.

  “You look awful, Simon,” said Mom as he set the tray down on the counter. “Are you not feeling well again?” She put her hand to his forehead. “You’ve got a fever. Get right back up to bed, and I’ll call the school. What is this thing?”

  For the next couple of nights, Mom carried the dinner across to Mr. Hawkins. She was relieved to find him looking better, and said he was asking after his helper. On Wednesday, she handed Simon a note from him, along with the book of Currier and Ives prints.

  Dear Simon, read the note, I’m sorry you’re not feeling well. Please accept this book as a get-well present from me. When you’re well enough to come by, I have something important to tell you.

  It was the mystery as much as anything that drew Simon from the refuge of his room and sent him walking across the street to bring the old man his dinner that Friday.

  Mr. Hawkins was expecting him. Simon found him sitting at the dining room table. He had shifted his books and papers to one side to make space for the tray. Centered on the table before him lay the bronze mirror. Simon stopped in his tracks.

  “Just set that down here,” said the old man. Then he motioned for Simon to sit down in the chair opposite him across the table, the mirror between them.

  “So you got my note,” he said as he uncovered the dinner plate. “And you’re no doubt wondering what on earth I might have to tell you that could be so important. It concerns this mirror,” he said, with a nod in its direction. “It was a favorite of Eleanor’s, and I’ve noticed you’re drawn to it, too. There’s a curious story around how we happened to come by it. I find I must tell you that story now.” He took a forkful of his dinner and stared down at the mirror, as if searching for where to start.

  “A few years back,” he began, “I was invited to speak at the annual conference of the British Archaeological Society in London. I had recently been involved in the excavation of an Iron Age cemetery in East Yorkshire, and the rich trove of artifacts we found there, including an ornate iron mirror, was to form the focus of my talk.

  “Eleanor accompanied me. We stayed at a hotel where we’d often stayed years before, and planned to visit some favorite haunts and look up some old friends while we were in town.

  “There was a buzz in the air about the Yorkshire find, and the talk was well-attended. As I was delivering it, I found my eye drawn more than once to a fellow who sat near the front. He stood out from the sedate, rather dusty-looking group one normally finds at such gatherings, and I wondered what had brought him there. At the reception after the talk, I was speaking to some colleagues when I noticed the same man talking to Eleanor. A few minutes later, she came up to me with him in tow.

  “‘Randall, I’d like you to meet Henry Winstanley,’ she said. ‘Mr. Winstanley is a dealer in antiques. He shares our interest in mirrors, and has put together what sounds like a very interesting collection. Recently, he acquired an item he believes we may be interested in.’ And she gave me a look.

  “I knew that look, just as I knew the unmistakable tone in her voice. It meant she had decided there was something here worth pursuing, and I was to stand up and take note. Eleanor had a remarkably keen eye and an astute business sense. Over the years, I’d come to trust her intuition in such matters, and more often than not it had proved correct.

  “We agreed to meet with the dealer. He would show us his collection and present the item he had spoken to Eleanor about. He wasn’t prepared to say anything more about it just then. He seemed strangely guarded and ill at ease, and I couldn’t think why.

  “Nothing more was said of the matter. Over the next few days we went about our business, and it quite went out of my mind. On our last night, I was ready to settle down to a quiet dinner, when Eleanor reminded me of our meeting with Winstanley. It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do, and I was all for cancelling. But she wouldn’t hear of it. She said it wasn’t far, and suggested we go on foot. She would bring along her map and be our guide.

  “Our path led us far from the busy thoroughfares of the city into a labyrinth of narrow streets untouched by time. Our footsteps rang on the cobbled streets, and for the first time on our trip I felt we had recaptured something of the charm and excitement of the city we had known in our youth.

  “The shop, when we came upon it at last, was one of a dozen on a dark, silent street. The others had closed their doors for the night, but H. Winstanley—Antiques and Curios still had a light burning inside.

  “The bell chimed as we entered, but Winstanley was nowhere in sight, and we were at our leisure to look around on our own. The small shop was full of fine antique furniture, exquisite porcelains, and delicate crystal. But repeated ringings of the bell on the counter failed to rouse the owner. Eleanor was writing a note to Winstanley, explaining that we had called and failed to find him in—when there came a sudden flurry of footsteps. And out through a curtain at the rear of the shop burst Winstanley. He was wearing an apron.

  “‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I was upstairs preparing something for us to eat, and completely lost track of the time. I hope you haven’t been waiting long.’

  “Out through the curtain with him had drifted the most delicious smell. I was solidly hooked. He led us to the rear of the shop and through the curtain. Here there were even finer things than at the front of the shop. Most of his clients, he explained, were private collectors. He was their eyes and ears on the art world. He knew the sort of things they were interested in. These items had been purchased for them.

  “He led us up a narrow staircase to his flat, a simple set of rooms decorated with impeccable taste. As it turned out, he did know a great deal about mirrors and had several fine eighteenth century French mirrors on his walls.

  “The dinner was delicious. Afterward, we settled in the living room to talk. All was politeness,
but there was still no sign of the mirror that had brought us there. It was growing late, and the prospect of rising early the next morning to catch our flight home had begun to weigh upon me.

  “Winstanley wandered off, as I supposed, to fetch coffee. But when he returned, he was carrying an object wrapped in a piece of velvet. He set it down on the table between us and quietly uncovered it. And so it was we had our first glimpse of the Egyptian mirror. It was an impressive piece, lying there couched on its bed of velvet, and as Eleanor and I leaned down to look at it, Winstanley started in on his tale.

  “‘Some months back, I was at an auction here in London. A wealthy collector had recently died, and his estate was up for auction. An item one of my clients was interested in was on the block, and I was determined to carry it off for him.

  “‘While I was waiting, I browsed through the catalogue. Near the back, I came upon a curious item that piqued my interest. It was described as an ancient bronze Egyptian mirror. It had first surfaced in the late nineteenth century and had since passed through several hands before being acquired by its current owner. One of these was the famous clairvoyant Edward Cardwell, who had claimed it possessed magical powers.

  “‘It was a curiosity, and it was a mirror, so I was drawn to it. It was arcane enough that I didn’t expect it would attract much interest. By the time it came up for bid, all the high rollers had long departed, and I was able to buy it for a reasonable price. It’s a little outside my own area of expertise, and when I read that you would be speaking in London, I thought perhaps you might be interested in it.’

  “I examined the mirror. It was a pretty thing, and possessed some interesting features. The handle, a representation of the Egyptian goddess Beset, was finely worked. There was a curious motif of intertwining snakes incised around the rim, and an eye inscribed on the face. It had all the earmarks of an Egyptian piece from the late Middle Kingdom. Yet it was clearly a fake.

  “No ancient bronze mirror could possibly have been preserved as this one was. There was not a trace of patina on it, not a hint of corrosion of any kind. It was fine work by a skilled metalworker with an intimate knowledge of the production techniques of the period. But it was, at best, two or three hundred years old.

  “Yet Eleanor had taken a fancy to it. It had clearly kindled something in her. Whether she believed it possessed magical powers, I didn’t know. What I did know was that she had fastened upon it, and there would be no swaying her.

  “I asked Winstanley what he wanted for it. He quoted a figure lower than I would have expected, and left us to mull it over while he went to make coffee. Over our years of collecting, Eleanor and I had developed a certain technique. I would seek out the initial price the dealer had in mind, and then I would leave her to bargain it down. Our collection owed much to her skill in such matters.

  “So when Winstanley returned with the coffee, I made myself scarce for a time, examining his collection more closely while she worked her magic. When I got back, she gave me a sly wink. I found she had worked him down to a ridiculously low figure, less than half what he’d originally been asking. I was stunned.

  “In a matter of minutes the deal was finalized. It was late when we left. As we threaded our way back through the dark, echoing streets, I had the feeling we had as good as stolen it from under his nose.

  “When we got back to Caledon I consulted my friend Joan Cameron, a curator in the Egyptian department at the museum. She agreed that the mirror was a remarkably fine piece of work. She thought the Beset figure that formed the handle was especially well executed and was intrigued by the curious design around the rim and by the eye of Horus on the face of the mirror. But she echoed my opinion that it was undoubtedly a forgery.

  “Eleanor was unmoved. She hung the mirror on the wall opposite her chair, and I went back to work on the book. Life settled into its normal course, and I put the whole affair out of my mind.

  “Then, one day I walked into the room with our tea and found Eleanor standing staring at the mirror. She was holding the newspaper in her hand, as if she’d been about to sit down with it and had been stopped in mid-course by something she saw there. Utterly oblivious of me, she continued to stare silently, as if in a trance. I had to call her several times before she heard me.

  “‘Do you see that?’ she asked then, still staring into the mirror.

  “I went and stood behind her. ‘See what?’ I asked, for I could see nothing but the muted reflection of the room.

  “‘The image of our backyard,’ she said. ‘And there, that figure, peering from the bushes.’ I assured her I could see nothing.

  “In a matter of minutes the vision had passed, and she was her old self again.

  “But it was as if a door opened in our lives that day, and afterwards things were never quite the same. Many a time I would find her standing entranced before the mirror as I had found her that day, staring into its depths at something she alone could see.

  “She was able to recount quite lucidly what it was she had seen, how it had come and gone. She said that at first a ripple would run through the reflection in the mirror, and it would cloud up in the way the water in a pond does if disturbed. As it cleared, she would find some scene spread before her. There was never any sound, never any sense that she herself was part of what she saw—merely that she was observing it. Soon it would start to fade, and the mirror would return to normal.

  “She interpreted what she saw as a premonition of things to come. Often it had to do with her garden, fallen into neglect, harboring some half-seen presence. It was all a fantasy, I believed, and I was all for taking it down. But she wouldn’t hear of it.

  “Then two years ago she suffered a heart attack in her sleep and died. It feels like yesterday. Her scent still lingers in the room. Her voice echoes down the stairs. I hear a noise and swear it’s her coming down the hall. I turn and see her sitting in her chair.

  “I tried taking the mirror down after she died, but it wasn’t long before it found its way back up onto the wall again. It seemed to belong there. From time to time, I’d find myself standing in front of it, straining to see more than the dim reflection it cast back at me. But it was all in vain. It was never more than an ordinary mirror for me.

  “And so things might have stayed were it not for that fall from the ladder that brought you here. The moment I saw you it was as if I were looking at your granddad as a boy. And some wonder woke in me again. Then one day I saw you standing in front of the mirror all still and entranced, exactly as Eleanor used to stand, and I knew that you, too, saw.”

  All this time the mirror lay on the table between them. Now Mr. Hawkins picked it up and returned it to its place on the wall. When he got back he began rummaging through the papers on the table, looking for something.

  “Some weeks back,” he said, “I received a letter from Henry Winstanley. What he had to say shook me to the core, and I’m afraid I haven’t quite been myself since. Though the mirror is closed to me, I know from how it has opened to Eleanor and to you that it possesses a power. I know enough of power to know that it can be used for good or ill. If the mirror falls into the wrong hands, I fear it may be for ill. I can’t allow that to happen.

  “Ah, here it is,” he said, plucking a letter from the pile. “Perhaps when you read this, it may help convince you that I’m not just a crazy old man.” He handed the letter to Simon, who recognized it at once.

  “Take it with you,” said Mr. Hawkins. “It’s late, and I’ve kept you far too long. You’d best hurry along home. The wind is up. There’s a storm coming on.”

  9

  The sky was dark and ominous. As if sensing the oncoming storm, Babs was more restless than usual. Simon could hear the light rhythmic rocking of her crib through the wall. Outside, the clouds roiled, the thunder rumbled and boomed. In the distance, lightning flashed. The rising wind shivered the streetlights on their stands and whipped t
he tree branches into a frenzy. Suddenly the sky opened, and the rain teemed down.

  He sat by the window, watching the storm. The letter lay open on his lap. He had read it through twice, first in disbelief, then with mounting dread. In it, Winstanley confessed that when he told the Hawkinses how he’d come by the mirror, he hadn’t told the whole story. It seemed there’d been someone else at the auction that day with an interest in the mirror—a woman.

  He’d first caught sight of her at the viewing, before the auction began, as prospective buyers were taking a closer look at the items up for bid.

  I discovered the mirror off in a corner, he wrote, sitting on a table with a number of other small items. It had taken me some time to find it. No one else in the room had taken the trouble, and I found myself quite alone with it. It was a pretty thing—very finely crafted. I had never seen anything quite like it. It had a strangely primitive air about it.

  While I was admiring it, I noticed that a woman had detached herself from the crowd and was drifting my way. She was like a figure from another time—tall and thin, with an old-fashioned air of elegance about her. She wore a hat with a broad sweeping brim that cast her face in shadow. Most of her skin was covered—down to the long kid gloves she wore—and what was not covered was strikingly pale.

  I could see little of her face save for her lips and chin. As she neared I noticed that those lips were red and full, and I realized with something of a shock that she was much younger than I’d imagined.

  As she moved slowly along the line of tables I knew with some sure instinct that she would stop at the mirror. And stop she did. We stood opposite one another across the table, but not once did her gaze rise to meet mine. Her eyes were only for the mirror. She reached out and touched it, ran her gloved fingers lightly over the figure that formed the handle, with a strange familiarity. I expected an attendant to come rushing over, but no one seemed to notice.