The Egyptian Mirror

by Michael Bedard

  She made a point of leaving the door open behind her as she left the room. For a while they worked their way through the review exercises in the back of the book, Simon trying to coax his brain down paths it didn’t want to take.

  With the door open, it didn’t take long before Babs wandered in with one of her puzzles. She dumped the pieces on the floor, flipped them right side up, and assembled them with lightning speed.

  “You’re really good at that, Babs,” said Abbey.

  “Don’t encourage her,” he warned. But it was already too late. In a matter of minutes, the floor was strewn with puzzle pieces, and the math review was a distant memory.

  It was Babs who heard it first—a low rumbling noise outside that rattled the window. As she ran to look out, a large truck came creeping along the street and drew up to the curb in front of the Hawkins house. Intercontinental Movers, read the writing on the side. Long-distance Moving Specialists.

  “It’s them,” he said, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  Three men in uniform with matching caps emerged from the cab of the truck and went around to the back. One of them unlocked the sliding door of the box trailer and shivered it open on its track. The others pulled out a metal ramp nesting under the box and banged the end of it down onto the road.

  At that moment, a black car came drifting down the street and eased into the space in front of the moving van. The paint shone with a muted luster like the black stone mirror in Mr. Hawkins’ collection, and the chrome trim gleamed in the sunlight. The door on the driver’s side opened, and a woman in a broad-brimmed hat and sunglasses stepped out. A small copper-colored dog bounded out behind her.

  Abbey’s mouth fell open. “It’s the woman from the park,” she said. “Her hair’s darker. But it’s her, all right. That’s the dog.”

  “Woo-woo,” cried Babs and ran off to tell Mom.

  It was the first time Simon had seen the new neighbor in the light of day. He’d had a strange feeling about the woman in the park, but he hadn’t realized it was her. She walked over and spoke with the movers. The dog scampered along at her heels as she started up the walk to the house. It had grown since the day they saw it at the park.

  The woman tied the dog to the fence and went up the stairs onto the porch. She opened the door for the movers, then went and sat down on the porch swing. With a light push of her foot against the floor, she set the swing in a shallow arc. Taking her hat off, she set it down on the seat beside her and primped her hair with the palm of her hand.

  She had the studied air of one aware they were being watched. As indeed she was; all up and down the sleepy street—through lightly lifted blinds, discreetly parted curtains, the gauzy stealth of sheers—she was the object of a host of hungry eyes.

  Already the news was racing through the slack wires slung from house to house. The phone hadn’t stopped ringing since the moving van turned onto the street. Even Joe and the gang had stopped their game to gawk.

  All pretense of studying laid aside, Simon and Abbey gazed transfixed as the movers trundled the new people’s belongings down the shuddering ramp. There was not a great deal of furniture, but what there was was fine and rare. Swaddled in padded blankets, it was set down briefly on the lawn and unveiled to reveal the rich luster of antique things, and then eased gently up the stairs and through the door of the old house. And all the while the woman sat toeing the porch swing back and forth, directing where each piece was to go as it was carried past.

  The younger children in the neighborhood ventured timidly near, inching up across the lawn to where the dog frisked about on its leash outside the fence. The woman smiled and said it was fine if they played with him, but they must be gentle. Soon, half a dozen of them were gathered on the lawn that had always been off-limits when the old man lived there.

  Piece after piece, box after box, the new neighbors’ belongings were carried smoothly into the old house. Only once, near the end, did the movers show signs of exertion as they labored a heavy item, shrouded in blankets and strapped to a dolly, down the buckling ramp and up the walk onto the lawn. Uncovered, it proved to be an old upright piano, the case elaborately carved and inlaid. A matching bench soon joined it on the lawn.

  While the movers secured the wobbly porch stair with hammer and nails, and worked the stubborn pins from the hinges of the front door so that it could be removed to allow the piano to fit through, the woman drifted down from the porch and sat down at the piano. She tapped tentatively at the keys to see if it was still in tune, and then started to play a strange, haunting melody. The children sat spellbound on the lawn, listening.

  The sound resonated through the street. It was as if the sky had stooped down and become a domed ceiling enclosing it, and the watchers at their windows were concertgoers tucked in their shadowed boxes in a hushed hall.

  The music was moving and sad. She drew such feeling from the instrument that it was as if she sang through it. All else faded, and there was only the music. It was impossible to say how long she played, for she opened a door onto a realm where time no longer existed.

  Then suddenly she stopped, and the spell lifted, and the sky leapt up again. Under her watchful eye, the movers wheeled the old piano slowly up the walk to the porch and eased it, step by cautious step, up the stairs and through the gaping doorway of the old house.

  And she was in.

  22

  “And the cutest little dog,” said Mom at the dinner table the next night. She’d baked some brownies as a housewarming gift and dropped them by at the new neighbors’ earlier that day with Babs.

  “She was very grateful, apologized for not inviting us in. She said the place was ‘a total disaster.’ She’s very good with children—though she has none of her own. Made a big fuss over Babs. Let her pet the little dog. What was its name?”

  “Caesar,” muttered Simon.

  “Ceasar—that’s it,” said Mom. “Theirs is Loudon. Alice and James. She’s very nice. Well-spoken, refined. Fortyish, I’d say. Pretty—put together just so. Beautiful hands—long slender fingers. A concert pianist at one time, apparently. I’m not at all surprised, after hearing her play.

  “She said she’d pop by for a visit once they were settled. I still haven’t seen her husband. He was tying up some loose ends at their last place, she said. They’ve lived abroad for many years, and only recently moved back. Just happened to see the trustee’s notice in the paper, she said. Babs, honey, use your fork, not your fingers.”

  Babs brandished the fork in her fist while she scooped up the last of the mac and cheese with the other hand. “More,” she said, holding out the empty bowl. Mom went to get her a second helping.

  “How are they related to the Hawkins?” asked Dad.

  “Eleanor’s niece, I gather. The only child of Eleanor’s older sister, Daphne. Eleanor and she never quite saw eye to eye, from what Eleanor said. She was too much the bohemian for Daphne’s tastes, and Daphne too much the social climber for hers. She married into money and moved east. Died a few years before Eleanor. It’s funny, though; I don’t remember Eleanor mentioning a niece.

  “Anyway, it’s nice the Loudons have turned up. So much better that the house stay in the family. They plan to spruce it up and settle in. It could have been so much worse. I’d begun to worry that someone might bulldoze the old place. Frankly, I’m relieved.”

  * * *

  Simon wished he could feel relieved. But as the Loudons slowly began to weave their spell over the neighborhood, all he could feel was a keen sense of dread.

  No sooner did James Loudon appear on the scene a few days later, than he was outside the house with hammer and nails and saw, busily mending the many things Mr. Hawkins had let slide. He replaced the damaged tread on the porch steps, the missing slats in the rail, and the loose board in the old fence, which flapped in the wind. He pried up the sagging planks in the porch floor and la
id down new ones, planed the edge of the front door till it opened with scarcely a whisper.

  He righted the old mailbox that had dangled from one screw for so long that it was simply part of the house, cut back the wisteria branch that had come down in the storm, and scaled the rickety wooden ladder to seal the hole in the gable roof where the squirrels had gotten in. He scraped the loose paint from the eaves trough and trim. The flakes flurried down like summer snow on the overgrown garden.

  Day after day, dawn to dusk, he worked—with barely a break. He was more machine than man. Sitting by the window with his math book, Simon marveled at his strength, his boundless store of energy, the effortless ease with which he moved.

  * * *

  “Okay, Simon, you have forty-five minutes,” said Abbey as she handed him the math test. She checked her watch. “Starting…now.”

  Miss Court had entrusted her with overseeing the test, and she took zealously to the task. As on the other tests she’d supervised, she offered him no hints—no help of any kind. She became a miniature Miss Court, down to adopting her mannerisms as she sat with legs crossed, twirling her foot, till he finally asked her to stop.

  With the prep work done, the Loudons had begun to repaint the outside of the old house. Alice Loudon, in a pair of old jeans and a loose shirt knotted at the waist, was working on the porch railing. James Loudon scrambled spiderlike up the steep ladder to the highest reaches of the house to paint the gable and the eaves trough.

  Simon saw a look of awe steal into Abbey’s eyes as she watched. She gave him a look.

  “I can hear you thinking, Simon. And you’re wrong. So relax, will you? I’m not going over to the dark side. Promise.” She looked down at the empty page and glanced at her watch. “Thirty minutes now.”

  But without her help to constantly prod him along, he was hopelessly lost. He bombed the test. It was summer school now for sure.

  * * *

  With the painting complete, the old place was transformed from the eyesore it threatened to become to the jewel of the neighborhood it had been in its prime. The lilac in the yard was pruned, the bushes trimmed and shaped, the lawn cut and edged, the soil in the garden topped and turned. A new striped awning graced the porch swing. The flowerbed that fronted the porch was cleared of its weeds. Daisies and daylilies took their place.

  Neighbors slowed as they passed, astonished at the change.

  “I can hardly believe it,” said Mom as she stood at the living-room window looking over at the house. “It’s like a dream.”

  23

  The battered blue dumpster gouged deep furrows in the Loudon’s lawn as it was lowered into place. Over the following days it began to fill up. From his vantage point Simon had a clear view down into it.

  Several pieces of the Hawkins’ furniture were the first to go, among them the armchairs from the front room, their upholstery slit, their stuffing and springs exposed. Soon they were buried beneath boxes of broken plaster and lath, and splintered lengths of wainscoting stripped from the upstairs walls.

  Many a night, he woke with a start to the creak and crack of boards, the groan of heavy objects being dragged about, and crept to the open window to the find the lights burning in the old house, and the couple’s shadows flitting like ghosts upon the curtains.

  The neighbors doubtless believed it was simply the Loudons working as tirelessly to whip the inside of the old house into shape as they had the outside. But Simon was convinced it was more.

  They were hunting for the mirror. He was sure of it. There was something more than human about the relentlessness of their search. He knew it would continue day and night, for as long as it took, until they found what they were after. They would never grow tired; they would never give up.

  It wore on him to be right across the street from them, the first house they saw when they looked out. So far he was safe, but it couldn’t last. It was simply a matter of time before they learned of his connection with Mr. Hawkins and the house. He dreamed of escape. If he had his strength back he would run, he told himself. But where could he run to that he would not have to return from? And when he did, they would be here, waiting.

  He woke one morning to find the mirror in bed beside him, lying face down among the rumpled sheets like another sleeper. He had no memory of having taken it out. He leapt out of bed, slid it safely out of sight under the mattress, smoothed the sheets, and drew the bedspread up over all. He watched in the mirror as his double dressed and ran a brush through his hair.

  Padding down the hall to the bathroom, he peeked through Babs’ bedroom door. Random cushions were laid out on the floor in front of her crib like puzzle pieces. Two nights ago, the inevitable had finally occurred; she’d gone over the rail.

  The thud of her fall had jarred him from sleep. He was first to her room and found her sitting on the floor, crying. It wasn’t simply a hurt cry, but one of shock and indignation. She’d spent months trying to master the art of escaping the crib. Now finally she’d done it. And this was her reward?

  He scooped her up in his arms and tried to comfort her. Mom came running up the stairs. A lump had already ballooned up on Babs’ forehead. Mom went to fetch some ice to bring down the swelling, and some baby aspirin to help calm her. For the remainder of the night, they woke her every hour and peered into her eyes with a penlight to make sure she was all right.

  * * *

  He heard voices drifting up the stairs now as he started down. One was Mom’s. He couldn’t place the other, though he was sure he’d heard it before.

  Babs ran to meet him. The bump on her forehead had begun to come down, but the deep bruise showed through her bangs, and if you went anywhere near it, she screamed blue murder.

  “Dimon, woo-woo,” she said, tugging him toward the front room.

  He felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck as he remembered where he’d heard that voice before.

  Mom’s back was to him as he came into the doorway of the room. She was perched on the edge of the couch, pouring tea from the pink teapot that normally sat untouched on the top shelf of the china cupboard. She had also taken down two delicately fluted cups and matching saucers.

  The object of this fuss sat in the chair across from her. It was Alice Loudon. She wore a long-sleeved linen dress, set off with a pearl necklace and matching earrings. She looked out of place, as if she’d wandered into the wrong neighborhood by mistake. Lying placidly at her feet, its head resting on its paws, was the little dog.

  She looked up at him over the rim of her cup as she brought it to her mouth, fixing him with a long, level gaze. It was the first time he’d seen her without her sunglasses. Though very striking with her finely tooled features and large dark eyes, she was older than he’d imagined. Beneath the heavy makeup she wore, the web of fine lines around her eyes and mouth betrayed her age.

  The dog, too, had noticed him. Suddenly it rose up—no longer the playful pup he had seen in the yard, but something primitive and fierce. The muscles tensed like cables under its fur, and fire flared in its eyes. It let out a low threatening growl. For a moment, it was the spitting image of the dog he’d seen in the Hawkins yard.

  A look of curiosity came to Alice Loudon’s face. Her hand fell to the dog’s head. “Be still,” she said. Instantly it lay down, again the pup that played on the lawn.

  “Ah, Simon,” said Mom. “I’m glad you came down. Our new neighbor has dropped by for a visit. I was just telling her how close you and her uncle had grown after his fall. Mrs. Loudon—my son, Simon.”

  “I believe Simon and I have met,” she said.

  “Oh?” said Mom.

  “Yes, in a park not far from here—before we moved in. I was with Caesar. And you were with a young lady,” she said, turning to Simon.

  Mom cast him a questioning glance.

  “I went to meet Abbey on her way home from school one day,” he explained. �
�We stopped to talk in the park.”

  “She seemed like a very sweet girl,” said Mrs. Loudon.

  “Yes, she is,” agreed Mom. “She lives in the neighborhood, goes to the same school as Simon. She and Simon have been seeing quite a bit of one another recently, haven’t you, Simon?”

  “Yes,” he said, wishing desperately she would stop.

  “You’re embarrassing the poor boy,” said Mrs. Loudon with a smile.

  Babs took him by the hand and drew him into the room, sitting him down on the end of the couch. She scooped two cookies from the plate Mom had put out, handed him one, then scrambled up onto his lap and perched there, swinging her legs back and forth.

  “Woo-woo,” she said, craning her neck to look up into Simon’s face. Noticing Mrs. Loudon looking her way, she fell back against his chest and tucked her face under his arm. He tried to urge her out, but she was wedged in tight.

  “How sweet,” said Mrs. Loudon as Babs peeked out at her.

  “Please have a cookie,” said Mom, holding out the plate. “I just baked them this morning. They’re Babs’ favorite—as you can probably gather.”

  The guest took one and perched it on the edge of her saucer.

  “Now, what were we talking about?” said Mom. “Ah, yes—Abbey. She’s been a godsend for Simon—for all of us, actually. Simon’s been sick for the past few months and unable to go to school. Abbey’s been tutoring him. Thanks in large part to her, it looks like he’ll get his year.”

  “Sick?” said Mrs. Loudon. “May I ask what’s been wrong?”

  “I wish we could say. It’s been something of a mystery, I’m afraid. Fever, sore throat, swollen glands—and an incredible fatigue along with it. He was sleeping eighteen hours a day, at its worst. He could barely walk from one side of his room to the other. The weeks went by, and it got no better.”