A Shade in the Mirror

by Tracey Lander-Garrett

  “Right, no, I mean, rushing is the last thing I want to do,” I lied.

  “Yeah, me too.” His face was flushed. “I don’t want you to feel pressured or uncomfortable in any way. You’re sleeping here tonight and I don’t want you to think I expected—” He stopped and gestured vaguely with his hand toward where he’d been sitting. “—that.”

  “No, not at all. I didn’t think you expected anything,” I said. If I was being honest with myself, I hadn’t expected anything either, but I’d been hoping.

  An awkward silence prevailed.

  “I should get some sleep,” Derek said.

  “Me too,” I said.

  He asked me if I needed help with the futon and I said I didn’t, and then he went to bed. I set the futon up and put the sheets on again, but couldn’t seem to fall asleep. I kept wondering if I’d screwed up by climbing into Derek’s lap like that. Maybe I’d been too aggressive. I heard some guys don’t like that. I wasn’t even sure how it had happened. It’d just felt right.

  Not for the first time, I wondered about my past.

  What kind of girl was I?

  Doesn’t it bother you? Derek had asked.

  Who had been my first kiss? And what about my first everything else? The doctors told me I wasn’t a virgin. I must have slept with someone at some point in my past. But who? A first boyfriend? A second or third? Had I slept with loads of guys? I didn’t seem to be into girls, as far as I could tell, so girlfriends seemed improbable. When it came down to it though, I just didn’t know.

  Maybe it was time to start looking again. See what, if anything, I could find about myself.

  The morning was sunny as I walked up the steps of the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. The front of the building is rather majestic, with a tall brass entry flanked by two massive stone pillars embossed with gold figures like Zeus and Athena. I’d become familiar with several branches of the New York and Brooklyn Public Libraries while I’d been at Spring House. Though my lack of ID prevented me from checking out books—a fact I lamented every time I visited a library branch—I could still use other library resources. My social worker Linda (after accusing me of being a Luddite and then having to explain what that was) encouraged me to sign up for various free programs at several locations, including basic courses: how to use computers, do internet searches, email, social media, and more. Some processes had seemed familiar, others utterly alien. As I got more comfortable online, I spent hours searching newspaper databases for missing persons records, not just in New York, but the tri-state area, followed by the rest of the U.S. Since I spoke French, I even tried Canada. Nothing turned up.

  I also researched Fichet keys, since the locksmiths I’d talked to weren’t any help. Fichet was a French company that made safes, safety deposit boxes, vaults, even jail cells. They’d been in business since the mid-1800s, but there wasn’t much to go on as far as my key went. I found lots of images online of different kinds of Fichet keys, even one like mine with the two separate sets of teeth side-by-side. The teeth were also called “bits” and the double bit on this key was pretty rare. Because the key would work from either side of the lock, Fichet referred to it as a sans souci clef: a “without care” or “carefree” key. Wasn’t that ironic.

  I sat down at a computer in one of the Wi-Fi rooms and searched the newspaper databases. Nothing, as usual. Plenty of missing people, but no one who looked like me.

  Maybe Derek was right. It was depressing, really. Not just the thousands of missing people all over the country, but not knowing who you are. Not knowing if you like eating fish, or are allergic to bee stings, or whether you know how to swim. Not knowing what your favorite color is, or the name of your favorite teacher. No friends, no family. No history. Just a bunch of random skills, odd trivia, and a wide smile, owning only a weird antique key to nothing, clothes from secondhand shops, a used laptop purchased from a co-worker, and a futon from Housing Works. Even the bulletin board in my room had come with it. Like the mirror that had come with Kara’s.

  The whole haunting or intruder thing had been excessively weird. Did I really believe we had an intruder? It was easier than believing we had a poltergeist. Besides, everything I’d read claimed that poltergeists usually focus on individuals, not on places, and usually those individuals are children or teens. Julie was twenty-four and Kara was twenty-five. It couldn’t be them.

  I wondered how old I was. Could I be a teenager? But then, if it had been a poltergeist, why hadn’t anything weird happened to me at Derek’s, or at work, or even in my room? Because, I told myself firmly, there is no such thing as a poltergeist. Yet I found myself flashing back to the night that I saw the glass of water splash and smash on the kitchen floor while the lights blinked from bright to dim, and I knew that there was no rational way to explain what had happened. If it wasn’t a poltergeist, then it must be a ghost, I thought. The book I’d read said that ghosts usually have some kind of connection to the place they’re haunting. Why not search the newspaper databases for my address and see what came up?

  Ten seconds later, a headline popped up in my search window: JUILLIARD STUDENT FOUND DEAD IN BROOKLYN APARTMENT.

  I clicked on it.

  The scene was one of tears at 68 Young Street in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn today, as the mutilated body of Tamara Meadows, 20, a Juilliard student majoring in music, was removed from her third-floor apartment in front of a crowd of horrified onlookers. “We didn’t hear anything,” said Esther Jones, 37, who lives with her family in the apartment below the victim’s. “She was a nice girl. Such a pretty voice. She loved music so much. Her and her roommates all did.”

  The article went on to describe how police believed that the girl had been killed elsewhere and her body dropped off where she lived, since there was hardly any blood at the crime scene. Her roommates were wanted for questioning, though they were believed to be out of the country when the crime had occurred.

  How convenient for them. The date on the article read April 12, 1992. Twenty-five years and one week ago. I counted back and realized April 12th was the same day that the water had poured itself out.

  My scalp prickled like a hundred ants were marching over it, then over my arms and legs.

  Derek would have dismissed it as a coincidence, I knew. He would have told me that examination of “the real” outweighed “theoretical belief in the unreal,” which was what he’d said when he had again tried explaining his philosophy stuff to me. But my entire sense of self could be described as “theoretical.” What “real” did I have to hold on to? No name, no memories of birthday cakes or candles or Christmases or Hanukkahs.

  Maybe considering the possibility of ghosts was a little crazy. My life was a little crazy too.

  After the library, I went home. I got as far as our door and tried to use my key, then realized the futility when I saw the new lock. I trudged all the way back downstairs to ring Mr. Delgado’s apartment on the first floor.

  He answered the door in jeans and a dark blue t-shirt, his salt-and-pepper hair mussed, with a smoking cigar bobbing beneath his impressive gray mustache. “Locksmiths are all thieves,” he said as he gave me the new key. “It’s not cheap changing alla these locks, you know.”

  He seemed genuinely cranky. So far, Mr. Delgado had been a pretty decent guy who was very dedicated to his wife, Marie, who I’d only seen twice in the hallways since I’d moved in. The lock change must have been expensive.

  “We appreciate you arranging the lock change for us,” I said quickly. He nodded his head wearily. “I think Kara said you would add the cost to our rent?” As he continued nodding, I babbled on, “I mean, how horrifying to think one of your former tenants might have kept his keys and went into our place. Do the other tenants feel unsafe?” I kind of hoped if he felt responsible in some way for the security issues, maybe he’d charge us less.

  “Yeah, well, the other tenants didn’t have any problems like you did in yours. We just changed the locks on your p
lace and put new doorknobs on the bedrooms. Also, we got some wood slats in the windows for you to use. So yeah, I don’t know. I’m talking to Marie about it and we’ll settle out an invoice before the first of the month for you girls.” There was hope yet. From what Kara had said, Marie had Mr. Delgado wrapped around her finger. Maybe she’d feel sympathy for us and get her husband to charge us less.

  I let him know that Kara would be by soon, and went up to the apartment.

  On the stairs, I passed our downstairs’ neighbor, a woman with close-cropped hair I’d only seen a few times since I moved in. According to Kara, she’d lived in the building for years and years. The woman was locking her door on her way out. We said hi, as friendly-but-not-nosy neighbors do, and I continued up to my apartment.

  The floor lamp that had been knocked down the last time I’d been there had been set back to rights, and three separate sets of keys dangled from the shiny brass doorknob of each bedroom. The kitchen garbage smelled. I took the bag out to the trash cans in front of the building, then changed the sheets on my futon while I waited for Kara.

  Every little sound in the building spooked me until she arrived. Footsteps in the hallway, the clank of the pipes, and ghostly thumping music from the downstairs apartment. It didn’t help that the lights flickered every once in a while. But that had to be power fluctuations, didn’t it? By the time Kara arrived, about thirty minutes after I did, I practically wanted to hug her. She was dressed in business maternity wear, looking very professional in khaki slacks and a fitted indigo blouse that stretched over her baby bump.

  We exchanged greetings and I explained about the keys and confirmed that Kara had heard the same as I had from Mr. Delgado. Then the grilling began.

  “So who is this . . . damn, what’s his name? Don’t tell me, it starts with a D, right? Donald? David? Or was it Darrin?”

  “Close,” I said. “It’s Derek.”

  “Derek, right! Spill! Where’d you meet him, what’s he do, and have you kissed him yet?” she squealed, taking her shoes off and curling up on the big couch in our living room.

  I explained that Derek managed a bookstore near the comics store, leaving out the occult part, and that he liked movies and philosophy.

  “He put the moves on you after a movie, am I right?”

  “Well, the first night he was a perfect gentleman . . . and then, even when we kissed the next night, he was the one who broke it off and went to bed.”

  “You kissed? Give me deets!”

  I explained in detail.

  “Hm. Dry lips, huh?” she mused. “Get that boy some Chapstick. I like that he asked if he could kiss you, though. That shows he understands the importance of consent. So what else?”

  “Well, his last girlfriend was kind of . . .” I hesitated for a moment, “well, she would have fit in at Spring House.”

  “So what have you two been doing?”

  “Well, mostly? Just hanging out at his place, watching movies.”

  “With all there is to do in New York City, he just wanted to watch movies at his place? Madison, tell me you didn’t sleep with this guy.”

  “I didn’t!”

  She tapped her chin while thinking. “He’s either broke or boring,” she declared, crossing her arms.

  “I don’t know, it wasn’t like that. I was the one who got us watching movies. It wasn’t like he planned it. We were just hanging out, I guess.”

  She smiled a little. “Okay, okay. You like just hanging out. You like him. Is he cute?”

  “I think I like him? I mean, I do like him. I think. He’s really tall. Like six-five or six-six. Blond hair. Green eyes. Nice butt.”

  “I’m sensing another ‘but.’ One that’s not so nice.”

  “Well . . .” I explained I did like Derek. It was easy being around him, and I was definitely attracted to him. I supposed what I didn’t really like was his insistence that everything that people thought of as supernatural could be explained by something rational. I particularly didn’t like the way he regarded the patrons of his uncle’s store as a bunch of crazy people. Not that I could entirely blame him, after seeing the ads for UFO photos and ghost hunts, but still.

  People experience weird stuff sometimes. And not all of them are crazy.

  Kara got up to call Julie and tell her about the locks, and I went back to my room. I emptied my backpack and tacked Derek’s cell phone number onto the bulletin board next to my Fichet skeleton key and then found Billy’s number and put it up there too.

  I wondered if I should feel guilty somehow. I mean, how did I know that I didn’t already have a boyfriend? Maybe out in the world somewhere there was a guy who was sick with worry trying to find me. Maybe he and my parents were on the road, following my trail, leaving MISSING posters featuring my photo at bus stops and gas stations. REWARD, the poster would read. My name would be there, and so would my age. My real name. My real age. A series of tips would lead them to Christopher Street Comics, and they’d walk in the door, and my mother, a redhead in her fifties, would say my name. It’d be something like Emily, or Amy, something normal, and I’d turn, just to see who was speaking. I’d see her, but I wouldn’t recognize her at first, but then suddenly all of my memories would come rushing back. I’d drop whatever I was holding and say, “Mom?” and run into her arms to be held.

  Ugh. Pathetic. More than likely I’d run away from a clan of demented Luddites who abused me until I snapped. Maybe not having memories was a good thing.

  Chapter Five

  The next morning, I woke up early. It was a sunny day with tufts of white cotton clouds drifting across a blue sky.

  Sleep hadn’t come easily the night before. Various building noises that I hadn’t paid attention to while Kara was up were once again scary and ominous while I lay there in the dark wearing only an over-sized t-shirt and underwear. I was hyper-aware of the sound of a door in the hallway opening and closing, then footsteps as Kara (at least I hoped it was Kara) went to the bathroom. After tossing and turning for an hour, I had gotten up, locked the new lock on the door, and turned my reading lamp on. I fell asleep in minutes.

  I’d just gotten out of bed when I heard heavy footsteps in the hallway approaching my room. Kara, on her way to the bathroom, I figured, but then the footsteps stopped and the bathroom door didn’t close. Did she need something from me? I waited for her to knock. Instead, I heard my doorknob rattle. My mouth went dry.

  I wanted to say, “Kara?” but my voice caught in my throat. The doorknob rattled again. Could that be Kara, trying to get in my room?

  No. Roommates knock. She’d always knocked on my door when she wanted something, even before the new locks. Thank God I’d locked the door.

  The doorknob rattled once more. Was it the stalker? Was Kara the stalker?

  For the first time since I’d moved into the apartment, I wished I had a phone.

  I stood very still, still in my t-shirt and underwear, watching the door. I glanced at the fire escape outside my window, wondering if I had time to make a break for it. The doorknob rattled a third time, insistently. My eyes darted back to it, and I saw the door tremble in its frame as whoever was on the other side gave it a shove. I pressed my lips together tightly to stop myself from screaming.

  Then the heavy footsteps moved away from my door. I heard a door open. I thought it was Kara’s door. It closed. I didn’t hear footsteps again.

  I didn’t know what to do. Should I investigate? Only if you’re stupid. Should I get dressed? That’d be a start. I pulled on jeans, socks and sneakers. Didn’t I have anything to use as a weapon? The room was bare: bed, bulletin board, reading lamp, desk, chair, and laptop. What I needed was a baseball bat. Or a frying pan. Too bad I didn’t keep those in my room. The door down the hall opened again and the sound of heavy steps moved toward my room again.

  Once again, my eyes strayed to the fire escape. Screw this. I removed the newly installed wooden slat and opened the window. The metal fire escape seemed sturdy enough. I cli
mbed out onto it. It held my weight. So far, so good. My feet made scraping noises as made my way down the stairs. A cold wind moved through the leaves of the trees on the block and blew my hair in my face, pricking up goosebumps on my arms. The sun was now behind a cloud.

  The blinds were drawn in the window facing the second-floor fire escape, and an ashtray with butts sat on the outside sill. There were no more steps down. There was a rectangular hole, with a ladder, but the ladder was pulled up beneath the metal grating, and held in place with a rusty hook. I imagined the sound the ladder would make when released, a high screeching whine worse than the brakes on city buses.

  Did I want to alarm the woman who lived on the second floor, if not the whole building? How hard was it to put the ladder back afterward? Were fire escapes just for escaping fires? Or could you use them to escape anything? I didn’t know. What I did know was that I was afraid of whoever was in my apartment.

  It had to be Kara in the hall. Had she snapped, or something? As far as I knew, she was happy. As far as I knew. But what did I know, really? How long had I known her? Four-plus months. And I had met her in a home for the mentally ill.

  Another cold wind blew across me. I wished I’d worn my jacket. It was only one floor up. In an apartment with a crazy person. In a locked room, though. How dangerous could it be?

  Trying not to make much noise, I walked carefully up the stairs, lifting and setting my feet gently on every metallic step. Standing with my back against the building, I peeked in the window to my bedroom. Empty. I reached in and grabbed my jacket off the back of my chair and shrugged it on.

  The window in our living room that also led to the fire escape was ten feet away. I don’t know why I crept over to look inside, but what I saw tightened my stomach into a lump of fear and gave me chills as the blood in my body left my extremities.

  Kara was standing there, still in the pale blue nightgown she’d worn to bed the night before.