A Shade in the Mirror

by Tracey Lander-Garrett

  I closed the closet doors and made my way back through the bathroom. The tub was huge. Man, Michael Adderly sure knew how to live. Two sinks, perfect for the married couple brushing their teeth side by side.

  Or fangs.

  “What’s next?” I asked, coming back into the bedroom once more.

  “Well, there’s—” Dr. Hernandez began, but then stopped suddenly, looking at Zoe.

  “There’s wha—?” I asked, only to be interrupted by a terse shushing from Zoe, who was holding her hand up.

  I listened. There were footsteps. Footsteps that sounded as though they were ascending stairs. At first, I thought it was just Billy, but then I realized that the sound was coming from the wrong direction. Not from outside the room behind us, but inside the room, ahead of us, getting closer.

  I inhaled sharply and stared at Zoe. She shrugged her shoulders.

  Even in the dim partial light, I could see that Dr. Hernandez looked as if she’d swallowed something nasty.

  The footsteps sounded different too. Not Billy’s chunky combat boot sounds, but the click-clack-click-clack of a woman’s high heels on wood. I swallowed, scanning with my flashlight, when the steps stopped.

  All was silent. Then I flinched as a hollow metallic click sounded. This was followed by the high-pitched squeak of hinges protesting as part of the upholstered wall slowly opened.

  We were all frozen to the spot. Motes of dust hung in the beam from my flashlight. And then, from the darkness beyond the hidden door, there was movement as a figure glided through the beam of light. I was so unnerved I couldn’t even take a breath, and then I realized that the figure was wearing a brown leather jacket and tight jeans. I inhaled loudly and sighed with relief.

  “Jesus, Katie,” I said, or began to say, intending to bitch her out for scaring us to death, when a string of unintelligible words left her mouth and she swung at me.

  There was no time to duck, or get out of the way. I instinctively curled my body in toward the punch, relaxing my muscles with its impact instead of hardening them against it. Rather than making myself a wooden block the punch could smash, I became rubber to absorb it.

  Her fist hit my shoulder instead of my face. Pain radiated like heat from where the blow connected. “Puta!” she shouted and her nails came toward my face. That time I was able to step back out of the way and then Dr. Hernandez tackled her.

  Zoe was yelling something about it not being Katie’s fault, and Katie was continuing to yell in Spanish, and in a few short moves Dr. Hernandez had Katie on her knees, both her hands held behind her back and her face pressed into the bed.

  In the midst of all this, I wondered how it was that I knew how to take a punch like that.

  “Are you okay?” Dr. Hernandez asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, and rubbed the spot where I’d been hit. “She connected but it wasn’t bad.”

  “No!” Katie cried, the first English word I’d heard come from her since she’d entered the room. She began raising and smashing her head against the bedclothes without effect, growling and muttering to herself.

  “Is she speaking Spanish?” I asked.

  “No Spanish I ever heard,” Dr. Hernandez said. “I mean, it’s Spanish, but it’s different. I can barely make it out.”

  “Be still. Detenerlo,” Dr. Hernandez warned, raising Katie’s hands at an unnatural angle that must have been very uncomfortable. The head smashing ceased.

  “She’s possessed,” Zoe said softly.

  “What?” Dr. Hernandez and I exclaimed in the same incredulous tone.

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “I just do. Have you got her?” Zoe asked Dr. Hernandez.

  “Oh yeah, she’s not going anywhere.”

  “I’m going to try something,” Zoe said. She moved closer to the bed and knelt down at eye level with Katie.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked Dr. Hernandez.

  She shrugged. “She’s the supernatural expert.”

  Zoe tried again. “Hey!”

  Katie—or whatever was inside Katie—growled something unintelligible.

  “Take me,” Zoe said. “I won’t fight you. She’s fighting you now, but I won’t.”

  “Um, Zoe?” I said.

  She ignored me. “Come on, just leave her and take me. I’ll let you in. You can say what you have to say, but if you attack any one of us again, I will make things very unpleasant for you. Understood?”

  The figure stopped struggling and Katie slumped like an abandoned rag doll.

  “Why you are in my house?” came the voice from Zoe’s lips, in heavily accented English.

  She stood.

  She was looking directly at me. Her face seemed odd, somehow less Zoe-ish than before. Her lips were pursed, and her eyes narrowed. Her stance was different too, the way she tilted her head and held her hands on her hips was confident, aggressive, not at all like the girl in the shapeless skirt and sweater. Now they hung elegantly on her, her posture straight, shoulders back. Zoe, I realized, slouched.

  I stared at Dr. Hernandez, hoping for a clue of what I should or shouldn’t say, but she was busy checking Katie’s pulse with one hand while continuing to restrain her with the other.

  Cripes. What the hell are you supposed to say to a ghost? What did the ghost book say? Don’t be emotional. Speak calmly and with authority.

  “I have a right to be here,” I said. “I have permission. You had no business attacking us.”

  “Did you come here to steal him away from me?” she asked, her fists curling at her sides.

  “What? No. Wait, who?”

  My response seemed to mollify her and the fists uncurled. “Michael, mi corazón, my husband,” she purred.

  “Michael . . . Adderly?”

  “You see, you know him,” she said smugly. “He is very famous.”

  “You were . . . you’re his wife?”

  “Si,” she said.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Rosalita DeJesus Rosario Adderly.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want . . . I want you to know.”

  “To know what?”

  “He kill me. He marry me and bring me here to die. If I don’t come, then I don’t die that way. You see? He kill me with his love. Just like the other.”

  “The other . . . his other wife?”

  “Si,” she said. Then she blinked several times and pinched the bridge of her nose. Had her shoulders slumped?

  “Is there anything else you wanted to say?” I asked.

  “She’s gone,” Zoe said, in her regular voice.

  Katie moaned, no longer face down and on her knees, but now lying on the bed on her back. “She’s coming around,” Dr. Hernandez said. “Katie, talk to me. Tell me your last name.”

  “Huh? My last name? It’s Davis,” she mumbled.

  “Good. And what time of year is it?”

  “Spring.”

  “Also good. Where do you go to school?”

  “SUNY Mount V.”

  “Excellent. And can you count backwards from ten for me?”

  “I guess,” Katie said. She counted down from ten and seemed much calmer afterward.

  “What am I doing in here? How did I get here?” she moaned.

  Zoe stepped up. “What do you remember last?”

  “Going to use the bathroom. Rinsing my hands. Putting lip gloss on.”

  “And then?”

  “Nothing. Then I was here. Did I fall? My head is pounding. And my wrists feel sore.”

  “You, um, you required a little—” I broke off as Zoe coughed and shot me a look. “—caretaking.”

  Dr. Hernandez asked Katie if she felt well enough to sit up, and Katie said she’d try. I leaned closer to Zoe and whispered, “What’s up?”

  “She could still have connection to the ghost. Better not to call her attention to it.”

  “Hey, so what’d I miss?” said Billy from th
e doorway, holding the camera on his shoulder.

  Zoe and I gave one another a look. First I giggled and then she did.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The darkness of the secret hallway seemed to swallow the shaky beam coming from my flashlight. A dusty, disused scent assailed my nostrils as I took a step inside. I ducked to avoid a cobweb, and a floorboard creaked beneath my feet. Ahead, some thirty feet down the narrow passage, my flashlight caught a folding ladder extending from the floor to a trapdoor in the ceiling, probably leading to the attic.

  The rest of the crew was standing in the doorway of the master bedroom, peering into the dark and awaiting my report, when I heard a soft sound farther down the hall. I froze. Was it another ghost? Someone else a ghost had possessed? The soft sounds continued, getting closer. Something small, down on the floor. I swung my flashlight around and screeched. The small black cat stopped in its tracks, its glowing eyes reflecting the flashlight beam back at me.

  “Are you okay?” Zoe yelled, while Billy muttered something or other.

  “I’m fine,” I yelled back. “It’s the cat again.”

  “Fucking cat!” I heard Billy say.

  The cat was still standing in the same spot. It was purring. I bent down and rubbed my fingers together in the cat’s direction. It stared at me a moment and continued purring, then slowly padded over to me and dropped something on my shoe. I swung the flashlight down, revealing a dead mouse.

  “Uck,” I said. Did the cat want to share its dinner with me? Did it want me to praise it for catching a mouse? “Good kitty,” I said, and rubbed my fingers together again. The cat stood on its hind legs and bumped my hand with its head and purred even louder, then placed its front paws against the leg of my jeans and rubbed its head on my hand. Its black fur was soft and sleek.

  “Are you done messing with that cat?” Billy asked, coming down the hall with the night sight camera on his shoulder. The cat flattened its ears and took off in the other direction.

  “I am now,” I said.

  “Hey, what’s this? Up the ladder to the spooky attic? We going?” Billy had spotted the trapdoor and ladder.

  “I thought maybe we should wait for the others?”

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  “This isn’t all about fun, you know. They’re actually trying to do an experiment of some kind.”

  “Who cares? I came here to see ghosts. I haven’t seen one yet,” Billy said. “The scariest thing in this place is that cat. Hey, do you think this hallway meets back up with the library? There was a door in there, right? And that’s where the cat ran?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “And this old attic ladder is probably what made that loud thud.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Billy said, “but did it come loose, or what? Maybe it’s been like that for years.”

  I shone my flashlight around the floor at our feet and around the feet of the ladder. There were marks in the dust on the floor as if it had recently been disturbed. Some looked like paw tracks, but others were clearly shoe prints. The dead mouse appeared to be gone, which I was happy about. I didn’t want to hurt the cat’s feelings by rejecting its gift, and I also didn’t want to step on it and have it go squish.

  “Zoe, is anyone else coming?” I called.

  “Yes, I hear them coming now,” she called back.

  “That’s what she said,” Billy snickered. When I didn’t respond, he continued, “So let’s go up-up-up before they get here!”

  “I’m not going up there without backup,” I said. “And neither are you.”

  “Fine,” he sulked. “At least turn off your flashlight or put the filter back on, will you? You’re killing my night vision.”

  “Fine,” I said, switching it off.

  “So what’s up with your ID anyway?”

  “Can we not talk about that now?”

  “Come on, Maddy, it’s me. Spill. You on the run? Hiding from the mob? What?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I dunno. I just do.”

  “You won’t believe me.”

  “Try me.”

  I opened my mouth to speak and heard several voices in the distance.

  “Okay, later,” I said, “but not now. I don’t want to explain it to a whole group of people.”

  “Fair enough,” Billy said. “But you owe me the truth and I’m gonna get it.”

  A powerful beam of light shone down the hall into our eyes.

  “Ah, yes,” the professor said, coming toward us, “the old servants’ passageways. Of course. And an entry to the attic. Well done, group! You haven’t been upstairs yet, have you?”

  “No, sir,” I said quickly.

  Derek and Zoe followed him.

  “It’s getting a little crowded in here,” I said.

  “Alley-oop then,” said Billy, removing the night-sight camera from his shoulder and handing it to the professor so he could climb the ladder with both hands.

  “Don’t touch anything!” the professor called, pushing his glasses back against his face from where they’d slipped down his nose.

  “Hand him back the camera,” I suggested. “Then his hands will be occupied.”

  “Good call,” he said. “You give it to him.”

  “Ummm,” said Zoe, catching my eye with a worried glance up toward the attic.

  I gazed up but didn’t see much in the dark. Was that a darker shadow within the shadows? That had to be Billy, didn’t it?

  But no, it couldn’t be. We heard Billy yammering to himself up there. His voice was muffled by distance. He was nowhere near the doorway.

  Zoe gave me another look again and I signaled her by raising my eyebrows and index finger at the same time. She nodded.

  What the hell? Why did she think I could see ghosts? I’d never seen the ghost at my apartment, had I? I shivered just thinking about it. It made me feel really sorry for Zoe.

  “Madison, will you go up next?” said the professor. “Then Zoe, then Derek, then myself?”

  I stuffed my mini flashlight in my pocket, nodded and grabbed onto the rungs, and climbed. Halfway up, the professor handed me the camera. Billy reached down from the top and I handed it to him.

  The attic was something else. Huge, stretching from one end of the large house to the other, dusty and letting in dim moonlight from unseen seams. Dust cloths covered a majority of items. The uncovered ones stood out. Over there was a tall oval mirror, and in that corner a rocking chair, and right next to it a rocking horse. Most of the stuff seemed to be made of wood and quite old.

  The professor made it up the stairs and regarded our discovery. “This must be some of the original furniture. I’ve seen these shapes in some of the restored houses in the area. Pretty fantastic stuff.”

  “Is it worth a lot?” Billy asked.

  “Depends on its condition,” Derek said, climbing up. “It’s really too bad they haven’t been able to sell this place off. Some people would pay a fortune for the antique furnishings alone.”

  Prof. Gannon spoke up. “Ah, but it’s not for sale, you see. It’s being held in a trust of some kind. Every few years, they attempt to rent the place out, but it never lasts long. Because of . . . well, you know, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said. Derek rolled his eyes.

  “So what do we need to do now that we’re up here?” Billy returned from his foray to the back of the house.

  “The same as before. Look for anything unusual.”

  I glanced over at Zoe who seemed to be entranced by a painting she’d located. “What’d you find?” I asked, taking out my flashlight.

  It was a portrait of a young lady. The image appeared somewhat dark around the edges but the subject was luminous. Her light blond hair framed her face in carefully placed spiral curls, and two hooded blue eyes stared down a long, regal nose. She was fairly young, probably in her early twenties. A hint of a smile played around her red lips. A white underdress peeked from beneath a claret-colored gown that revealed her cr
eamy skin from collar bones to décolletage, exposing one breast with a pale pink nipple.

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s daring.”

  “You like my girlfriend?” Billy asked from across the room, waving toward the painting. “She’s a hottie, huh?”

  “Catharina Van Horn, 1677,” Zoe said, pointing at the corner of the painting where this information had been painted into the oils. “Or . . .” She held a hand over the Cath part. “Arina . . . Irina?”

  “ ‘Myne Always, Irina,’ the locket said. But she was a white-haired old lady, wasn’t she?” I asked. “Or was that a wig?”

  “It was very common in those times for mothers and fathers to give their children their own names,” Prof. Gannon mused. “Klaus van Horn—the original builder of the house—I think Catharina was his daughter. That is very probably her.”

  “She reminds me of a girl who went to my school,” Zoe said. “Spoiled thing, and all the boys fell over themselves trying to impress her. She made fun of my clothes. Then one day I just snapped and asked Jimmy to make her stop—Jimmy’s an Irish ghost who helps me out from time to time—and he splattered ink all over her pinafore—dress, I mean. Pinafore was his word. Anyway, she left me alone after that.”

  Before any of us could respond to that crazy story, Billy called out, “Hey, what’s this?” He was standing in front of a window, examining the edges of the sill.

  “What’s what?” I asked.

  “The wood is dented. On both sides,” he said, gesturing.

  Sure enough, there was a large area where the window frame was scarred and the paint was cracked.

  “That’s weird.”

  “It’s like something was thrown into it, isn’t it? Something big?” Billy said.

  “But it would have broken the window,” I said.

  Derek, who’d been nearby and listening, came over to us. “It probably did break the window. Look at the glass on this window compared to that one over there.” He was right. The glass on the other window looked odd, almost wavy. “That’s the old original glass,” Derek explained. “This is new. Or new-ish, anyway.”

  “Maybe somebody was locked up here. You know, mad aunt in the attic or something like that,” Billy said.