A Shade in the Mirror

by Tracey Lander-Garrett

  She was standing right in front of the window, with her light brown hair floating around her head, blown back by the wind.

  Except the window was closed.

  Her eyes, which held an odd, vacant look I’d never seen before, suddenly focused on me. Her voice was faint through the window pane, but got louder. “Where is he?” she asked in a high, clear voice with a Long Island accent. “Where is he? WHERE?” The last word was a scream, resounding with frustration and anguish.

  I opened my mouth to answer, to say something, anything, but nothing came out. I watched her eyes roll back in her head and saw her drop to the floor in one motion, like a curtain cut from the rafters. I gasped and tried the window. It was locked.

  I scrambled back through my own window and threw my door open. I sprinted down the hall to find Kara crumpled on the floor in front of the living room window, the swell of her stomach exaggerated by the angle of her back and the way the nightgown was stretched.

  Two words rang in my head: the baby.

  I got down onto the floor and hauled her into a sitting position. “Kara,” I said, pushing her bangs out of her eyes. “Kara, wake up.”

  Nothing.

  I felt her wrist, but couldn’t feel anything. I knew there was some specific way to check for a pulse, not to use the thumb or something, but in my panic, I couldn’t think of it. Was she breathing? I put the back of my hand up to her nose and felt a gentle brush of air across one knuckle. Thank God.

  Her breath was faint but at least she was breathing. I patted her cheek several times, at first gently, then harder, trying to get a reaction. Nothing. Was passing out dangerous for a pregnant woman? Probably? Then I saw it, around thigh-level on her nightgown: a wet spot of red.

  Leaning back, I grabbed a throw pillow from the couch and lowered Kara’s head onto it, then ran to her room to find her phone. I spotted it on her bedside table and dialed 911.

  Ten minutes later, we were in the back of an ambulance racing to the hospital. I found her boyfriend’s number and called him, and he said he’d call Kara’s sister and meet us at the hospital.

  The paramedics wheeled Kara’s stretcher into the emergency room. Pale and fragile in the harsh overhead lighting, she still hadn’t woken up. We passed through a set of double doors, and two women in scrubs joined us and began interrogating the paramedics about Kara’s condition. One turned to me and asked, “Family?”

  “No. Roommate,” I responded.

  She gestured toward a sitting area stuffed with orange and blue plastic chairs. “You’ll have to wait over there,” she said as they pushed the stretcher though the next set of double doors. I watched them swing closed with a thud.

  I sank down into a blue seat under a blaring TV, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Kara had fainted, that much was clear, but what about before that? She’d asked “Where is he?” but who was she looking for? Her boyfriend, Serge? The stalker? I also considered the possibility she’d had a schizophrenic break and was talking about someone imaginary.

  But one image kept coming back to me: her hair floating around her face, the blank look in her eyes, the way her face contorted into a panicked grimace when she screamed “WHERE?”

  Even her voice had been different. I rubbed my eyes and then the rest of my face. What was I thinking? I wondered if Kara would remember any of it.

  The meteorologist on the TV over my head was talking about all the rain we could expect. I changed seats so I could watch and not have to think.

  Serge arrived about thirty minutes later, a look of panic on his face, his wavy brown hair mussed, wearing a dress shirt and tie beneath a blazer with jeans. “How is she?” he asked, breathlessly. I told him I hadn’t heard anything since we’d gotten there.

  Not long after Serge arrived, a doctor came out through the double doors to tell us that Kara was awake and that we could see her. “The baby?” Serge asked at once, a tremor in his voice.

  “You’re the father?” the doctor asked.

  He nodded emphatically. “Yes.”

  “The baby is okay. We’re going to keep Kara here for a few days to do some tests, but you can come in and see her now.”

  In a corner of the ER, surrounded by sea-green curtains, wires, and beeping machines, Kara reached for Serge as soon as we were in sight. I stared at my feet for a few moments until Kara said, “Maddy.”

  She was smiling and holding a hand out to me. I walked forward and took it. “Thank you. Thank you for getting me here.”

  “It was the least I could do,” I said.

  Serge was sitting partially on the hospital bed with his arm around Kara. “We both appreciate it,” he said, and squeezed Kara’s shoulder.

  I had to ask. “Do you remember anything? I found you lying in the living room.”

  “The living room?” she asked. “No. I . . .” She bit her lip. “The last thing I remember . . . I was standing in front of the mirror in my room . . .”

  A strange look passed over her face.

  “What?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I just remembered. I thought I saw someone standing behind me in the mirror, but when I turned around, there was no one. I thought it was the stalker, but there wasn’t anyone there.”

  Yikes. “That’s . . . weird,” I said. “Do you remember how you got to the living room?”

  “No idea. I kind of remember feeling light-headed after that. I must have crawled out there or something.”

  Or something really creepy, I didn’t say.

  “Oh!” I said, reaching into my pocket. “I have your phone.”

  Kara took it from me and sighed, saying that she should probably call work, her father, and sister. I agreed and said that I needed to go home and get ready for work anyway, so I made my exit. As I headed out, I glanced over my shoulder, and saw Serge kiss Kara’s forehead while she held her phone to her ear.

  The whole time I was on the subway, I kept replaying everything that had happened in the past couple of weeks. Kara being crazy could explain the knife and shredded lingerie, but nothing could explain the glass of water or the way Kara’s hair had been flying around her face.

  Unless I was the crazy one.

  I decided not to rule that out.

  The stoop of my apartment building was cold.

  I could just see the Manhattan Bridge from the front steps, on the other side of a huge brick building. Every now and then a low rumbling sound came from a subway train passing over it. Lots of low warehouse buildings were crowded together on the opposite side of the street, with cobblestones and old streetcar tracks showing through the asphalt. I wondered how old the neighborhood was. One hundred, two hundred years? Older?

  A few trees were in bloom, including the dogwood tree in front of our building. Every now and then a white petal floated down and landed in front of me. The sun was shining, but it was still windy. For some reason, I just didn’t want to go inside. I was glad I had my jacket. I sat down in the slice of sun playing across the steps, pulling the ghost book out of my backpack for something to do.

  Sometime later, a voice said, “Locked out?”

  I looked up, startled, to see my downstairs neighbor, the woman with the very short hair, standing at the bottom of the stoop with a sack of groceries.

  I closed the book quickly. “What? Oh. Um, yes,” I amended. I thought I was telling a convenient fib, but then I realized that I actually had left the new key to our apartment in my bedroom. Technically, I was locked out, though not from the building, just from my apartment.

  “Lost your keys?” she asked, unlocking the door. She started climbing the stairs and I followed her. Beneath her coat she wore dark pink pants and soft white shoes.

  “No, just left them behind this morning. My roommate went to the hospital and I went in the ambulance with her.”

  “Which one, the Asian girl? Or the other one?”

  “The other one.”

  “Isn’t she pregnant?” she turned mid-stair and asked, a
look of concern on her face.

  “She is. Baby’s okay, but they’re keeping her at the hospital for a day or two to make sure.”

  She made a “tsk” sort of sound. “Which hospital did they take her to?”

  I told her and she tsked again. “They’re alright. Should have brought her to Methodist, though. That’s where I work.”

  “You’re a nurse?” I asked, then realized how sexist that was. “Or a doctor?”

  “Nurse,” she said. “Neurology ward.”

  We got to the second floor and she began opening her door. I hesitated on the landing. “You want to come in?” she asked. “Better than sitting on the stairs with your butt falling asleep. I have peppermint tea.”

  “I’d love some peppermint tea,” I said.

  “I’m Theresa, by the way.”

  “Madison. Nice to meet you.”

  She led the way through a short foyer into a living room where she took off her jacket, revealing a short-sleeve dark pink V-neck that matched her pants. Her apartment was basically laid out the same as ours was, with the kitchen through an archway off the living room and a number of doors that must have led to bedrooms and bathrooms.

  The furniture and decorations were distinctly different, however. The walls had been painted in varying shades of tan, and the biggest feature of the living room was an old-fashioned couch made of green velvet or velour. A rocking chair with a draped knit blanket sat near the couch in front of a glass-topped coffee table, all surrounding a large television.

  “Come on in,” she said, gesturing with her head toward the kitchen. “Have a seat.”

  “Thanks,” I said, seating myself at a round kitchen table. The table had a bowl of fruit in the center, with light green cloth place mats at each of the seats. A colorful, ornate platter hung on the wall over the archway, reading “Trinidad + Tobago,” painted with palm trees and blue ocean. Theresa filled a kettle with water and put it on the stove.

  “Do you live alone?” I asked.

  “My sister says she lives here, but she’s a stewardess, excuse me, a flight attendant, and she’s traveling four or five days out of the week. She was here yesterday, but I won’t see her again for a bit.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “Since I was a little girl, five years old. It was our mother’s apartment.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, noting her use of past tense.

  “Sorry?” she said, turning from the two mugs she’d placed on the counter. “What for?”

  “Your mother? She . . .” I let the sentence trail off.

  “Oh! No, my mother, she’s in West Palm Beach, living the good life!”

  “Oh!” I felt my cheeks flush in embarrassment. “Now I am sorry.”

  “That’s alright,” she said with a smile. “No harm done.” She busied herself with a teapot and tin of tea leaves for a few moments while I said nothing. The water in the kettle began to bubble and eventually whistle, and she whisked it off the heat, turned off the burner, and poured it into the pot, which she placed on the table along with the mugs.

  She then sat down opposite me. She had a very direct gaze, large dark eyes with long eyelashes that curled at the ends and expertly arched eyebrows. “So how do you like living here? Is Mr. Delgado treating you alright?”

  “Yeah, he’s been good so far,” I said.

  “He’s only owned the building for two years. Did a lot of work on it after he bought it. I thought it was just so he could raise the rent, but it didn’t go up too much. Stabilized, you know. Your apartment’s nice?” she asked.

  “Yeah, it’s . . . nice,” I said. Except for that whole ghost thing.

  “You had the police here the other day, though, didn’t you? And then locksmiths came?”

  Man, she sure knew a lot about what was going on. “Well . . . yeah. How did you—”

  “Oh, that man was cursing up and down those stairs about the cost of locksmiths. Plus, cops are hard not to notice when they come. They asked me if I’d heard or seen anything. Which I hadn’t. I guess you had some kinda trouble up there, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I didn’t really want to get into the whole intruder story with her, especially since I didn’t really believe it myself.

  “That apartment has always had trouble,” she said with a frown, almost as if she disapproved of the apartment more than the trouble. She checked on the tea and made a small sound of satisfaction as she poured some into our cups. The liquid steamed with the fragrance of mint and the cup was warm when I put my fingers around it.

  “Seems like someone’s always coming or going, moving in or moving out, complaining about noises, things breaking or going missing,” she continued.

  “Really? People have complained before?”

  “Sure they have. Nothing could be proved though. One guy told me he thought the place was haunted.”

  I inhaled the scent of peppermint as I took a tiny sip, but it was too hot to drink. “I . . . kind of thought that too,” I admitted.

  “I saw the book you were reading,” she said with an apologetic incline of her head. “The guy—he said he told the ghost to leave his things alone. Said one of his books went missing, a dish broke, things like that.”

  “Did telling the ghost to leave his stuff alone work?”

  “He didn’t complain to me again. Then again, he moved out a few months later. So you can never tell.”

  I shook my head in wonder. Here it was, evidence . . . well, maybe not evidence, but at least some kind of corroboration that someone else thought the apartment could be haunted.

  Theresa periodically took sips of her tea while speaking. “You heard about the murder that happened up there years ago?”

  “I read about it,” I said. “Did you . . . you were living here then?”

  “Sure I was. Remember it like it was yesterday. I was watching the TV movie about that Baby Jessica—when the police came knocking on my door. I guess I always get a little nervous when the police come into the building like that ever since they found that poor girl up there.”

  “Baby Jessica?” I asked. Why did that ring a bell? “Oh right, I know. That was that little girl who fell down a well, wasn’t it?”

  “I’m surprised a young girl like you would even know that story. But yes, that little girl down in Texas. They made a movie about it. I was watching that when the detectives knocked at my door asking about poor Tamara.”

  “You knew her?”

  “Sure I did. Me and Colleen—my sister—we used to take piano lessons from her and her roommate. Both of them were studying music at Juilliard.”

  “Did the police ever find out who killed her?”

  “Well, that was the funny thing. Her roommate, Rebecca, was out of the country up in Canada when the whole thing happened. She came back and just went to pieces. Had to move back home with her mother. Story was there was a third roommate, a boyfriend, but I never saw him if there was. Police never got a lead.”

  A roommate out of the country and mysterious third roommate who disappeared. One dead girl who was haunting her old place.

  The tea had cooled enough to drink and I took a long pull of it. Even without sugar, it was surprisingly sweet, and I liked the mint flavor. “Theresa?” I asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  She pursed her lips a moment before she spoke. “I don’t not believe in ghosts. I don’t know if I believe in them, but I don’t know enough about this world or the afterlife or any of that to say for sure. Seems there’s been enough stories about them that maybe there’s something to it.”

  “If you did believe in ghosts, do you think it’s likely that a ghost would haunt a place where it had been killed?”

  “Sure. It makes sense. If you believe in such things.”

  “Why, though? Does it want revenge? Does it want to tell someone what happened to it? Is it just angry?”

  “I guess it could be any of those things.”
r />   “The girl who died—Tamara—you said she had a roommate? What was her name again?”

  “Rebecca.”

  “Do you know her last name?”

  “Yeah, it was Black-Pitt. Black like the color, then dash-P-I-T-T. We thought that was funny as hell. She hated it.”

  “Did you ever hear from her again?”

  “Nope, can’t say I did. Like I said, last I’d heard, she moved back home with her mother.” Theresa took another sip of tea. “Why? You thinking about trying to get in touch with her?”

  “Maybe?” I said. “I mean, if her old roommate is a ghost, haunting their old apartment . . . and they say that ghosts hang around because of unfinished business . . . I’m just thinking that maybe Rebecca would know if Tamara left anything unfinished.”

  “Well, good luck with that,” she said. What might have been a sarcastic remark didn’t seem so coming from her. “All I can say is that I wouldn’t be messing around with any of it.” She shook her head with finality.

  I drained my mug and Theresa lifted the pot as if to fill it again. “No, thanks,” I said. “Hey, can I use your fire escape? My window might be unlocked. Maybe I can get in that way.”

  “You’re going back up there, huh? Sure, come on through this way. I’m wanting a cigarette anyhow.”

  “You smoke?”

  “Surprised that a nurse smokes? What can I say? It calms my nerves.”

  The door to my room was ajar, the new keys hanging from my bulletin board, right where I’d hung them the night before, next to the Fichet key on its chain and Derek’s and Billy’s phone numbers. I snatched the new keys up and changed the old one on my key ring out for the new one. Stupid locksmiths. Not like a new lock was going to do any good anyway. I folded the numbers and tucked them into a pocket in the backpack, and on a whim, hung the Fichet skeleton key around my neck and tucked it inside my shirt.

  There was only one Black-Pitt listed in the New York White Pages: Black-Pitt, Elizabeth. The address was on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. I wrote it down along with the number and the first name: Elizabeth. It had to be Rebecca’s mother, I thought.