He nodded mechanically, but he couldn’t see what she was so excited about. His thoughts were all foggy. The only time he felt at all clear was when he was playing. And then it wasn’t the music he heard. It was her voice in his head.
It was all he could do to keep his eyes open now. As soon as she left he lay down on the couch and went to sleep.
The next morning, Abbey skipped school. She was on his doorstep at nine sharp and stayed with him the whole day. She forced him to eat something, and kept him away from the piano.The phone rang repeatedly. They let it go to the answering machine, but no message was ever left. The doorbell chimed more than a dozen times. She refused to let him answer it. They peeked through a crack in the drawn curtains as Alice Loudon made her way slowly down the walk and across the street to the old house.
Abbey came back the next day, and the next as well. By then, Simon had begun to feel more like himself. He could still feel the piano calling him, but nowhere near as powerfully as before. He looked in the bathroom mirror and saw himself for the first time in days.
Abbey noticed the difference right away. “Welcome back, Simon,” she said. “I called Cameron last night and told her what was going on. She wants us to meet her at a diner down near the museum tomorrow afternoon.”
“Remember,” she said as she was leaving. “Don’t answer the phone. And don’t let her in.”
She hadn’t been gone more than five minutes when the phone began to ring. It took every ounce of strength he had in him not to pick it up.
35
The rush hour traffic was hopelessly snarled. Horns blared and brakes squealed. The rain beat against the windows of the bus and drummed on the roof as it crept along. Already running late, Abbey and Simon got off and walked the last few blocks in the rain, sharing Abbey’s broken umbrella.
The busy downtown street was a wind tunnel of office towers. People hurried by, battling their umbrellas, clutching their hats. Shop windows snatched their reflections as they passed.
As they approached the diner they saw Cameron’s bike chained to a lamppost out front. She was huddled in a back booth, a cup of coffee cradled in her hands. She looked up and waved through the steamy window.
Several people who would normally have been out panhandling on the busy corners had sought refuge in the diner during the downpour. They sat nursing cups of coffee, their belongings bundled beside them. They glanced up with guarded eyes as Simon and Abbey blew in with a rush of wind out of the rain.
Cameron stood to greet them as they came dripping down the aisle. Her clothes had a slept-in look about them. Slack tendrils of hair hung from her bun. She tucked them briskly behind her ear as she sat back down. Her backpack and bicycle helmet lay on the bench beside her.
Simon and Abbey sat down in the booth, facing her. The waitress tore herself away from the TV and ambled over to take their order. Cameron ordered the all-day breakfast; Simon and Abbey ordered colas and a plate of fries. While they waited, Cameron asked Simon to tell her about Alice Loudon’s visit to the house.
He struggled to find words for the feeling he’d had of power flowing between them as she laid her hand on his shoulder while he played for her. Just talking about it woke the longing again. He told her about the fatigue that had followed, the strange dreams, the deep fog that had settled over him.
“You should have seen the shape I found him in the day after her visit,” said Abbey. “He’s better now, but she keeps phoning, and knocking on the door. It’s only a matter of time before she worms her way in. And it’s not just him she’s affected.”
Simon told Cameron about the changes he’d seen in his mom and the other adults and kids in the neighborhood since they started taking lessons with Alice Loudon.
The waitress reappeared with their food. Cameron tucked into hers right away, eating ravenously. She looked up and saw their stares.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I’ve been sleeping in my office since you brought me the mirror, catching meals when I can. I didn’t think it wise to leave it alone.” She spoke of hearing strange noises in the hall at night, the furtive rattling of the door handle at all hours.
“Perhaps it’s just my imagination—but I’ve taken protective measures all the same.” Reaching under the neck of her sweater she pulled out a band of cloth covered in hieroglyphic symbols that she was wearing round her neck.
“It’s an ancient spell,” she explained. “Egyptian magicians often wrote spells on strips of cloth to be worn by those in need of protection.”
She took two short strips of linen covered in hieroglyphics from her pocket. “I’ve prepared these for you,” she said. “They’re to be worn around your wrist and left there till they fall away. After what you’ve told me, I think you may need them.”
Folding the strips lengthwise, she tied several elaborate knots in each. “The knots form a barrier the evil forces are unable to pass,” she said.
Leaning across the table, she tied the cloth securely around their wrists, chanting the words of the spell as she did. Several people swung their heads around to see what on earth was going on in the back booth as Abbey and Simon tucked the bracelets out of sight under their sleeves.
Cameron reached into her backpack and brought out a strange-looking object. It was about two feet long, flat, and curved like a boomerang, decorated on both sides with crudely drawn human and animal figures. One end had been honed into a point, blunted with wear. It was clearly an ancient thing.
As she handed it to Simon he felt it thrum with pent-up power. He set it down quickly on the table. It lay among the cups and plates and cutlery like something from another world. Abbey reached out and ran her fingers over the scratched-in figures of snakes and jackals and animal-headed humans.
“It’s called an apotropaic wand,” said Cameron. “It’s made from hippopotamus tusk, and shaped like the throw sticks ancient Egyptians used for hunting birds. Magicians used it to draw magic circles around those they wished to keep safe from the evil forces that flocked like birds about them. I’ve written down a spell to accompany it.” And she handed him a piece of folded paper.
“Now this is what I want you to do later tonight, Simon,” she said. As she leaned across the table and whispered her instructions to him, he felt as if they’d left the world of office towers and traffic jams far behind and entered into an ancient realm, where the forces of good and evil were locked in endless battle.
He remembered the poster he’d brought with him. “I wanted to show you this,” he said, taking it from his pocket and handing it to her. “It’s for a fall concert Alice Loudon is planning.”
Cameron examined it closely. “Does this look familiar to you?” she said, pointing to the undulating line that framed the poster.
“That’s the pattern that runs around the rim of the mirror,” said Abbey, and Simon suddenly realized it was.
“Music played a vital role in ancient magic,” said Cameron. “It was believed that music drove off evil powers. So spells were often sung or chanted to the accompaniment of rattles or clappers or rhythmic stamping. If an ancient Egyptian magician were somehow translated to the modern world, it would make perfect sense that she would appear as a musician.
“After what you’ve told me about your recent encounter with Alice Loudon, and the changes you’ve noticed in her pupils, I wonder if she might somehow be sustaining her own life by feeding on the lives of others through music. She may see this recital as a means of restoring her failing powers by drawing on the lives of all those gathered there. Who knows where that may lead?”
“But how can we stop her?” said Abbey. “Even in the state she’s in now, we’re no match for her. Look what she did to Simon.”
“We have to find a way to exploit her limitations,” said Cameron. “In the end, she’s a reflection, a shadow, a two-dimensional being in a three-dimensional world. She’s a creature of surfaces. S
he lacks depth, imagination. She’s unable to read another’s thoughts, to imagine hidden motives. Those who possess these qualities are able to deceive her—as you were able to hide your knowledge of the whereabouts of the mirror from her when she asked you about it, Simon. In addition, she’s desperate, and because of that may become reckless and leave herself vulnerable.”
The waitress came with more coffee. She filled Cameron’s cup and cleared away the empty plates. When she’d left, Cameron leaned forward, resting her arms on the table.
“I have a plan,” she said. “A plan to call her back into the mirror, where she can do no further harm. We will lay a trap for her and lure her in. It will take all three of us to carry it off, but we must be patient and wait for just the right time. The eye engraved on the mirror is the eye of Horus, the falcon-headed god. It’s a potent protective symbol, identified with the moon. At its full, the moon is a powerful force for magic. We had a new moon last night. Two Fridays from now it will be full again. That’s when we’ll act.”
They sat huddled together over the table as Cameron unpacked her plan. By the time they were done, the rain had stopped and dusk had fallen. Most of the other customers in the diner had drifted off, and the waitress was looking up at the clock. They paid the bill and left.
“Be careful. And remember—not a word of our plan to anyone,” said Cameron as she unlocked her bike and strapped on her helmet. “And don’t forget what you’re to do tonight, Simon.”
The wheels hissed like snakes against the wet road, and the bike light flashed like a beacon as she drove off into the dark.
The downtown windows blared with light. Reflections lurked everywhere. Even the roads were riddled with mirrors after the rain. Abbey and Simon veered off the main drag to the refuge of quieter streets. Each lost in their own thoughts, they threaded their way silently home.
* * *
Late that night, Simon slipped out of his bedroom window and stole across the porch roof. He scrambled down the shaky trellis. Across the road the Loudon house was dark. The street was still. A sliver of moon hung in the sky.
Starting at the base of the trellis, he worked his way down the alley, through the gap in the fence into his yard and then across it, scratching a line on the ground behind him with the point of the ivory wand and reciting the words of the spell Cameron had given him:
The eye of Horus lights the way,
Through dark of night it shines like day.
Begone, you spirits. With this wand
I set a bound upon your harm.
These words of Magic from my mouth—
By East, by West, by North, by South—
Arouse the gods carved on this knife,
And each one leaps out into life,
And armed about this circle goes,
To drive away all deadly foes.
He stole silently up the walk on the other side of the house and across the front lawn, drawing the wand along the ground behind him. It made a whispery, rustling sound, as if the creatures inscribed upon it had leapt free and walked in his footsteps.
Begone, you spirits who do ill,
I seal this circle with a spell.
You shall not harm those in this house—
By East, by West, by North, by South.
At the foot of the trellis he touched the end of the magic circle to the beginning and closed it. It crackled and flared for an instant like a downed wire, and then went dark. He scurried back up the trellis and slipped inside through the open window.
Sleep came swiftly—deep and dreamless.
36
“Phone for you, Simon,” Mom called up the stairs.
He plopped down on the edge of the bed and picked up the receiver.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Simon. It’s Cameron. Can you talk?”
“Yes,” he said. “This is a good time.”
“The mirror doesn’t feel safe in my office anymore. I think I’ve found the perfect solution for what to do with it. I’m going to hide it right here in the museum—in plain sight. No one will ever suspect it’s there. I’m planning to do it this Friday, after closing.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“No. Just sit tight. I’ll call you when it’s done.”
There was a click on the line as she hung up. A moment later there was another, lighter click on the downstairs line.
After dinner that night, Mom left Dad and him to do the dishes. Tucking her sheet music under her arm, she headed across the street to Alice Loudon’s house for one of the special lessons she’d been taking in preparation for the concert. Simon watched through the front window as she disappeared through the door. Later that night, he called Cameron and Abbey.
* * *
It was late Friday night. The full moon hung high in a cloudless sky. It peeped through the tall lancet windows of the museum as Cameron passed though the silent gallery, the beam of her flashlight panning over the dark display cases.
A scattering of security lights picked out a scene or two. One shone down on the mummy case, another on the diorama of the Egyptian woman doing her makeup. She was applying a dark line of kohl to her eyelids with a pointed ivory stick as she gazed in the mirror in her hand.
The mirror was much like the one Cameron carried with her. As she approached the case, she switched off the flashlight and set it down on the floor. Taking a small key from her pocket, she slid it into the lock on the side of the case. There was a faint click as the catch was released, and the front panel swung open.
With the wall of glass gone, everything changed. The impenetrable barrier between past and present, imagined and real, was suddenly removed. The relationship between herself and this achingly lifelike figure from antiquity was instantly altered. No longer was it the living on one side, the lifeless on the other; the two had magically merged. As she looked at her, Cameron imagined Alice Loudon as she might have looked back then.
As she reached into the case to exchange the mirror in the mannequin’s hand for that in hers, she heard the whisper of claws against the wooden floor. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw a large black jackal-like dog slide from the shadows on the far side of the room, fixing her with its baleful eyes.
There was a faint rustle from the shadows behind it. And slowly, as though spun from shadow itself, a second figure emerged. It was Alice Loudon.
“So we meet at last,” she said.
Cameron looked her full in the face without flinching. She felt she knew this woman. She had prepared for this moment, and now the creature of her imaginings stood before her in the flesh.
It was a figure from another time and place. She wore a linen sheath, belted at the waist. Her hair and makeup were in the Egyptian style. About her neck hung the missing necklace, fashioned from beads of gold and colored glass, with amulets of polished stone strung between. In her hand she held the missing snake wand—a bronze cobra with bared fangs.
For a moment, she seemed to falter under Cameron’s steady gaze. But then she fastened on the mirror, and desire flared in her dead eyes.
“Give me my mirror,” she said.
“I think not,” said Cameron. Straightening to her full height, she stepped back and faced her adversary full on.
“You are a fool, and you will suffer for your insolence,” said Alice Loudon. “Before we are finished here, you will beg me to take it from you.” And she threw down the wand.
It resounded like thunder as it struck the floor, and was instantly transformed. Its rigidity dissolved into undulating waves, and it slithered swiftly across the shadowed room toward Cameron. Suddenly, it reared up. Its tongue flicked and its hood flared as it swayed hypnotically from side to side, preparing to strike.
Cameron stood her ground. Holding the mirror before her in her outstretched hands, she chanted the words of an ancient spell. Mesmerized b
y its reflection, the creature reared back and struck hard against the surface of the mirror with a sound like the clash of swords, and fell lifeless to the floor. Cameron kicked it with the toe of her shoe, and it clattered up against the display case, again a harmless wand.
“Ah, a formidable opponent,” said Alice Loudon. “How refreshing. And she even speaks the old tongue, however strangely.
“Very well. You’ve had your fun. Now be a good woman and give me the mirror, or I promise you your fun will come to a sudden end.” She let her hand fall to her side, where the dog stood motionless as a statue. Now its eyes flared, and the hackles bristled on the back of its neck. “Don’t be a fool,” she said. “Of what possible use could the old thing be to you? If it’s mirrors you want, I have a house full of them—some of them quite valuable, I believe. Just give me this one.” And she took a measured step toward her. “It does belong to me, you know.”
“Yes, I know it does, Mrs. Loudon. Or should I call you Mereret?”
A shudder ran through Alice Loudon, like a flame struck by a sudden gust of wind.
“It was millennia ago I last heard that name,” she said. “Even in my lifetime it was closely guarded lest it fall into evil hands and put me in their power. But you know that, don’t you? What else, I wonder, do you know?”
She took another step and came within the glow of one of the security lights.
“What can you know, shut in this little sliver of light you call life? You are like a cat following a stray beam of sunlight about the house to lie down in and doze awhile. What can you possibly know of the lust for life, the thrill of breath in the lungs, the dance of blood in the veins, you who tend dead things?
“But come, come, let us not quarrel. Just give me my mirror. What will you do with it? Measure it? Label it? Set it in some dismal case among all these other dusty, drained things? It’s nothing to you. To me, it’s—”
The Egyptian Mirror Page 19