Simon felt Mrs. Loudon’s gaze drift over him like a chill wind as she looked him up and down.
“We went the round of doctors, had countless tests done, but we were still no nearer to discovering what it could be. The best guess seems to be that it’s some phantom virus. With plenty of rest and no undue stress, the doctors assure us he’ll recover. It’s been slow, but we’re beginning to see some improvement, aren’t we, Simon?”
He gave her a look that said, Please stop.
“I’m sorry,” said Mom. “I’m talking too much.”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Loudon. “I suffer from a chronic illness myself. I know the frustration of not feeling well, of suddenly being unable to do things you once could, of losing yourself little by little to illness.”
Simon was taken aback by the unveiled emotion in her voice.
“I’ve found that certain traditional remedies have been a great help to me,” she went on. “I could put something together for you, if you’d like. It will certainly do you no harm, and it could well do some good.”
“We wouldn’t want to trouble you,” said Mom.
“No trouble at all. I’d be pleased to help in whatever way I could. After all, we sick folk must stick together.” She cast a look Simon’s way. It was unreadable—as was everything about her. He looked into her eyes, then quickly looked away, his head whirling. It was like peering down into a dark pool. He clutched Babs close, till she squirmed to be let go.
“You’ve done wonders with the house,” said Mom as Babs scrambled up onto her lap with another cookie in hand. “It looks like it did when I was a child.”
“You’re very kind. Have you lived on the street all your life, then?”
“This was my family’s home when I was growing up,” Mom explained. “I moved away when I got married, then recently moved back, after my dad died.”
“It’s charming,” said Mrs. Loudon, sweeping her eyes around the modest room. “I’m afraid our place is still in rather a state. I seem to be constantly looking for things I can’t seem to lay my hands on.”
Simon stole a look her way, but she failed to meet it.
“I’m sure you’ll sort it out in no time,” said Mom. “It must be hard going through all the family things.”
“Yes, but it needs to be done,” she said with seeming sincerity—as Simon thought about the boxes tossed unceremoniously in the trash.
“Your aunt and uncle were a dear couple,” said Mom. “Did you get to see them much?” She was probing. Mrs. Loudon sensed it and instantly stiffened.
“Not often enough, I’m afraid. Family get-togethers over the years. Cards and letters. The last time I saw them was at my mother’s funeral.” She was clearly uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken.
Simon saw a look flit across Mom’s face as she ran her fingers through Babs’ hair, inadvertently uncovering the bump on her forehead. Babs recoiled.
“Oh, that’s a nasty-looking bump,” said Mrs. Loudon.
“Yes, someone has discovered how to escape her crib.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Loudon. She reached for her purse. Taking out a small compact, she studied her face in the mirror, turning from side to side. It was a simple gesture, but to Simon it seemed she laid hold of her reflection like a drowning person latches onto a piece of wreckage. He watched intently as she powdered a spot high on her right cheek. A thin red line showed momentarily through the make-up.
Closing the compact with a click, she slipped it back into her purse and came out holding what looked to be a business card. “I wonder if I might leave this with you,” she said, passing it to Simon.
Over a pale pen-and-ink drawing of a piano, the words
ALICE LOUDON
Piano Instruction
Reasonable rates – All Ages
were embossed in an antique type. He passed it to Mom.
“Ah, so you teach,” she said.
“For a good many years now—since I stopped performing. I don’t know what I’d do without it. It gives me life. I see you have a piano. Do you play?”
“A little,” said Mom. “The piano was my dad’s. He loved to play. Simon learned to play on his knee. He plays very well, even took lessons for a little while, though he hasn’t shown much interest lately.”
“Well, it’s never too late,” said Mrs. Loudon.
She rose and walked toward the piano. As she passed the full-length mirror in its wooden frame, she fixed on her reflection.
“May I?” she asked. Reaching down, she danced her fingers over the keys. “It has a nice tone. They don’t make pianos like this these days. Mine’s an old Bechstein. I’ve been playing it for years. It goes wherever I go.”
She played a few bars of the piece set out on the stand. She coaxed a magic from the keys. The old piano had never sounded so good. “Lovely,” she said. “You know, I have some old sheet music at home you might like—if I can find it.”
The dog rose and walked alongside her as she moved toward the door. Mom followed with Babs on her hip. Babs’ eyes were riveted on the dog as its claws clacked against the bare floor.
“You’ve been most kind,” said Mrs. Loudon, putting her sunglasses back on. “Thank you very much for the tea. It was good to see you again, Simon. I’ll drop by that medicine I mentioned.”
“Seems very nice, doesn’t she?” said Mom as she closed the door behind her and put Babs down. The moment she was down, Babs made a beeline for the living room. Mom hurried after her and whisked the cookie plate out of reach. She began gathering up the cups and saucers.
“Odd,” she said. “She didn’t touch her tea or cookie.”
He could tell there was something more on her mind, and asked what it was.
“Oh, it’s silly. Just something she said about her mother’s funeral. She said she’d seen the Hawkins there. But I seem to recall that Eleanor went alone. Randall was away on a dig somewhere. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
24
He was jarred awake by a loud bang. A large truck had tethered heavy chains to the dumpster on the Loudon’s lawn and was hauling it up onto its back. The bin was so full that the driver had to tie a tarp down over it so that the stuff wouldn’t blow off.
He was home alone later that afternoon when the front doorbell rang. Abbey had said she’d drop by with the math syllabus for summer school. He ran to get it, eager to tell her about Alice Loudon’s visit. But when he opened the door, Alice Loudon was standing there.
“Hello, Simon,” she said pleasantly, peering at him through her dark glasses. “I brought you the medicine I was telling you about.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a piece of paper folded into a little packet.
“Take a spoonful of this and pour boiling water over it to make a tea,” she said, handing it to him. “Drink it once a day. It’s a bit bitter, but don’t mind the taste. It will do you good, if you keep it up. ”
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’re most welcome. Is your mother in, by any chance?”
“No, she’s at work.” He held the door close against him in case she had any notion of coming in.
“I see. Well, I found that music I was telling her about.” She pulled a sheaf of sheet music from her bag and handed it to him. “Perhaps you could pass this along to her for me.”
Hooking the bag onto her shoulder, she turned to go.
“Oh, one more thing,” she said, turning back. “Your mother mentioned you’d become quite close to my uncle.”
Simon felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. “Yes,” he said. “I took dinner over to him sometimes, after he broke his leg.”
“I was wondering if you might have noticed a little mirror he had. It was a family heirloom, you see, and I was hoping I’d find it among his things. But I can’t seem to lay my hands on it. It’s a small bronze mirr
or, slightly elliptical in shape—like a flattened circle.” She made the shape with her hands. “There’s an eye engraved on one side. And the handle takes the form of the goddess Beset—a woman with the head of a lion.” There was a stifled urgency in her tone.
“That sounds like the mirror that hung in the front room across from his chair,” he said. “Isn’t it there still?” He tried to keep his voice calm and measured as he gripped the door.
“I’m afraid not. And you have no idea what might have happened to it?”
“No. I’m sorry, I don’t.” He felt himself trembling from head to toe.
“Ah, well, it will turn up, I suppose. After all—where could it have gone? Tell your mother I hope she likes that music. And be sure to take that tea. You’ll be as good as new again in no time. Who knows, we may even persuade you to take up the piano again. And should you happen to remember anything more about that mirror—anything at all, mind—you will let me know, won’t you? I’m most anxious to find it.”
As she started down the walk he closed the door and stood with his back against it, the blood thundering in his ears. The conversation kept looping ’round and ’round in his mind. Had he said anything that might make her think he was lying? Had his face somehow betrayed him?
He was so caught up in his thoughts that he failed to hear the light tread of footsteps on the porch stairs. The knocker came down like a hammer blow against his back, and he realized with a shock that she’d come back.
More knocks followed—harder now. She knew he was home. If he didn’t answer, she’d be sure to suspect something. Steeling himself, he opened the door.
“Abbey—you scared me half to death.” Whisking her into the house, he bolted the door behind them.
“What’s going on, Simon?”
“Alice Loudon was just here. I thought you were her, coming back.”
“What did she want?”
“She brought me this,” he said, handing her the paper packet. He told her about Alice Loudon’s visit to the house the night before, his glimpse of the scar on her cheek, his mom telling her about his sickness, and her offer to bring him some traditional medicine she prepared.
“My mom told her about my taking dinner to Mr. Hawkins, and how close we’d become,” he said. “So when she showed up with the medicine, she asked me about the mirror. She kept on about whether I was sure I didn’t know what had happened to it. She suspects something, Abbey. I know she does. What am I going to do?” His breath came short and sharp.
“The first thing you’re going to do is lie down before you fall down,” she said. She helped him up the stairs to his room. Fear had flung him back into the abyss of illness. Climbing the short flight of stairs felt like scaling Mount Everest.
“Just lie there and rest awhile,” she said as he flopped across the bed. Taking the packet, she wandered over to the light of the window to look at it.
“What are you supposed to do with this?” she asked as she carefully unfolded the paper.
“I’m supposed to make a tea. She says it’ll help restore my strength.”
“Lord, it smells like death,” said Abbey, recoiling as she took a sniff. Nipping a pinch of the pungent brown powder, she took a tentative taste. “Eww—you’re supposed to drink this stuff? It’s disgusting, Simon.”
She held it out for him to take a sniff. The smell made his stomach lurch. She refolded the packet and put it on the bedside table.
“What’s this?” she said, picking up the little card that lay there.
“She left it last night. It’s her business card. She teaches piano.”
“I’m not surprised, having heard her play.” She laid it back down. “Now tell me exactly what she said about the mirror.”
“She said it was a family heirloom. She was hoping to find it among Mr. Hawkins’ things, but couldn’t. She knew I’d become friends with him, so she asked me if I’d seen it. She described it in exact detail. She said that the figure on the handle was the goddess Beset. She even knew about the eye. I told her I’d seen a mirror like it, hanging on Mr. Hawkins’ living room wall. But if it wasn’t there now, I had no idea where it had gone. I’m not sure she believed me.”
Abbey stood looking out the window. “Simon,” she said suddenly, “I think I just saw your new neighbor going into a house down the street.”
Ten minutes later, they watched as Alice Loudon emerged from the Glovers’ house and moved on to the Pimentels’ next door.
“What she’s up to? I wonder,” Simon said.
That night, at the dinner table, the mystery was explained. Several neighbors on the street had called Mom to say Alice Loudon had dropped by that day to introduce herself and leave one of her cards with them. They went on about how charming she was, what fine jewelry she wore, the cut and quality of her clothes. They seemed awed to have been caught up in her orbit, like commoners who have had a brush with royalty.
By the end of the week, two children on the street had been signed up for piano lessons. As the fires of competition were fanned, more followed. Soon, half the children on the street were signed up—along with a smattering of adults eager to get a peek inside the house. The baseball game languished for want of players, as many in the gang that had gathered around Joe Pimentel drifted off.
Over the next month, three reconditioned uprights were delivered on the street. When the Bouchards had their piano tuned, Simon’s mother made arrangements for the tuner to come by and tune theirs as well. Alice Loudon’s sheet music was set out on the stand. The halting strains of Mom’s playing stumbled up the stairs to Simon’s room.
Culture had come to the quiet little street, and the hub of it was the Loudon house. As summer settled in, a steady stream of children passed silent as shadows along the street, piano books tucked under their arms, and disappeared through the door of the Loudon house.
With the weather hot and the windows open, the sounds of scales and exercise pieces drifted to Simon’s ears throughout the day. And late at night, as he drifted off to sleep, the last thing he often heard was the faint, haunting sound of her playing.
Despite Mom’s repeated urgings that he sign up, he resisted the seduction—as he resisted the contents of the little paper packets periodically delivered to his door. Abbey was right. They smelled like death.
25
The more the neighborhood fell under the Loudons’ spell, the more uncomfortable Simon became. Even Mom, who had initially been troubled by some of Alice Loudon’s memories of the Hawkins, seemed to cast all doubts aside after she decided to sign up for lessons herself. But as he pondered what she’d said about Eleanor Hawkins having never mentioned a niece, his thoughts went to the trove of photo albums in the garage.
The albums he’d discovered in the boxes had been mostly devoted to their travels to remote archaeological sites around the world, where Mr. Hawkins’ work had taken him. But there was another album—the album of family photos he’d searched through that first day he brought dinner to the old man; the one with the photo of the two boys on the porch steps. He could picture it clearly with its blue binding, but he couldn’t remember having seen it in the box with the others—or in any of the other boxes he’d gone through.
Had he overlooked it somehow? The prospect of rooting through the boxes again was overwhelming. The sense of dread that had settled on him since Alice Loudon turned her attention his way had erased the slow gains he’d made in his recovery. The debilitating fatigue was back again, draining his strength and fogging his brain. It was another steep, sudden plunge of the roller coaster he’d been riding since illness struck. He kept thinking the ride was coming to an end, only to find the bottom suddenly fall out again.
With Mom at work and Babs at Mrs. Pimentel’s, he was alone in the house most afternoons. Abbey and he had taken to meeting for an hour or so a day at the picnic table out back to try to batter some math into his
head before summer school began.
“Isn’t this the woman you said was a friend of Mr. Hawkins?” she said as she handed him the newspaper she’d brought with her one afternoon. Joan Cameron peered up at him from the folded paper.
“That’s her, all right.” She was a few years younger in the picture, but there was the same quiet intensity in her gaze. The photo accompanied an article headed, Mysterious Theft at Museum:
Over the past several months the Caledon Museum has fallen victim to two mysterious thefts. Dr. Joan Cameron, curator of the museum’s Egyptology department, reports that in each instance it was display cases in the Egyptian gallery that were targeted. Last spring, a rare bronze snake wand went missing. And in recent weeks, an amuletic necklace of gold and semi-precious stones vanished from a case containing some of the earliest acquisitions in the museum’s collection, part of the find discovered by Edmund Walker in the 1890s, which includes the museum’s famous mummy. In neither instance was there any sign of tampering with the case.
Dr. Cameron urges any visitors to the museum over the past few weeks who may have noticed any unusual activity in the gallery to contact the police at once. “We are at a loss to explain how these priceless artifacts could have gone missing,” she said. “It’s as though they disappeared by magic.”
“Strange, eh?” said Abbey.
“Yeah. Can I hang on to this?”
“Sure.”
He told her about his plan to go through the boxes in the garage again in search of the missing photo album. Abbey offered to help.
On the night they’d rescued the boxes from the garbage, it had been far too dark to see much of anything inside the garage. So as he slipped the padlock off the hasp and opened the garage door the following afternoon, he turned to Abbey and warned, “It’s a bit of a mess.”
“A bit?” she said as her eyes fell on the mountain of junk massed on the dirt floor inside. “Where do we start?”
“With these over here,” he said, pointing out two of the Hawkins’ boxes tucked among his granddad’s things. They hauled them out, wrestled a couple of wobbly wooden chairs from the chaos, and set to work.
The Egyptian Mirror Page 13