by R. L. Stine
“I’m the one to leave,” he told me. “I’ve been waiting so long. Ever since you turned on the light. And now I’m going to step out from here and join the others.”
“Others?” I cried.
“Your friends gave in easily,” he said. “They did not resist. The switch was made. And now you and I will also make a switch.”
“No!” I screamed, and my cry seemed to echo through the icy cold for miles.
“Why are you so afraid?” he asked, turning me around, still gripping my shoulders, bringing his face close to mine. “Are you so afraid of your other side, Max?”
He stared at me intently. “That’s what I am, you know,” he said. “I am your reflection. Your other side. Your cold side. Don’t be afraid of me. Your friends were not afraid. They made the switch without much of a struggle. Now they are inside the mirror. And their reflections…”
His voice trailed off. He didn’t have to finish his sentence. I knew what he was saying.
Now I understood about Erin and Zack. Now I understood why they looked different to me.
They were reversed. They were their own reflections.
And now I understood why they pushed me into the mirror, why they forced me to disappear, too.
If I didn’t do something, I realized, my reflection would switch places with me. My reflection would step into the attic. And I’d be trapped inside the mirror forever, trapped forever with the sad, bobbing faces.
But what could I do?
Staring at myself, I decided to stall, to ask questions, to give myself a little time to think.
“Whose mirror is it? Who built it?” I demanded.
He shrugged. “How should I know? I’m only your reflection, remember?”
“But how—”
“It’s time,” he said eagerly. “Don’t try to stall with foolish questions. Time to make the switch. Time for you to become my reflection!”
24
I pulled away.
I started to run.
The sad, distorted faces hovered in front of me.
I shut my eyes and dodged away from them.
I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.
My legs pumped. My arms flew out at my sides. It was so clear and bright, I couldn’t tell if I was moving or not. My feet couldn’t feel a floor. There were no walls, no ceiling. There was no air brushing my face as I ran.
But my fear kept me moving. Through the clear, cold, shimmering light.
He was behind me.
I couldn’t hear him.
He had no shadow.
But I knew he was right behind me.
And I knew that if he caught me, I’d be lost. Lost inside this blank world, unable to see, to hear, to smell, to touch anything, lost in the cold glass forever.
Another silent, bobbing face.
And so I kept running.
Until the colors returned.
Until light bent to form shapes.
And I saw shadows moving and shifting in front of me.
“Stop, Max!” I heard my reflection’s voice right behind me. “Stop right there!”
But now he sounded worried.
And so I kept running, running into the colors and moving shapes.
Suddenly, Zack turned off the light.
I came bursting out of the mirror, into the tiny attic room, into an explosion of sound, of color, of hard surfaces, of real things. The real world.
I stood up, panting, gasping for breath. I tested my legs. I stomped on the floor. The solid floor.
I turned my eyes to my friends, who were standing in front of me, startled expressions on their faces. My mom, I realized, must have retreated back downstairs.
“Did you make the switch?” Zack asked eagerly, his eyes glowing with excitement.
“Are you one of us?” Erin asked at the same time.
“No,” said a voice—my voice—coming from just behind me.
We all stared into the mirror.
Inside it, my reflection, red-faced and angry, glared out at us, his hands pressed against the glass. “He got away,” my reflection told my friends. “The switch wasn’t made.”
“I don’t understand!” I heard April cry. “What’s going on, guys?”
Zack and Erin ignored her. They stepped up quickly and grabbed me by the arms. They spun me around roughly.
“The switch wasn’t made,” my reflection repeated from inside the glass.
“No problem,” Erin told it.
She and Zack forced me up to the mirror.
“You’re going back in, Max,” Zack said heatedly.
He reached up and pulled the light cord.
25
The light flashed on.
I went invisible.
My reflection remained in the mirror, open palms pressed against the inside of the glass, staring out.
“I’m waiting for you, Max,” he said. “In a few minutes, you’ll join me in here.”
“No!” I shouted. “I’m leaving. I’m going downstairs.”
“No, you’re not,” my reflection said, shaking his head. “Erin and Zack won’t let you escape. But don’t be so frightened, Max. It’s all quite painless. Really.” He smiled. It was my smile. But it was cold. Cruel.
“I don’t get this,” April was protesting back by the door. “Will someone tell me what’s going on?”
“You’ll see, April,” Erin told her soothingly.
What am I going to do? I wondered, frozen in panic.
What can I do?
“Just a few more minutes,” my reflection said calmly, already celebrating his victory. His freedom.
“April, get help!” I cried.
She spun around at the sound of my voice. “Huh?”
“Get help! Go downstairs. Get help! Hurry!” I screamed.
“But—I don’t understand—” April hesitated.
Erin and Zack moved to block her path.
But the door suddenly swung open.
I saw Lefty stop at the doorway. He peered in. Saw my reflection.
He must have thought the reflection was me.
“Think fast!” he shouted, and he tossed a softball.
The ball smashed into the mirror.
I saw the startled look on Lefty’s face. And then I heard the crash and saw the mirror crack and shatter.
My reflection didn’t have time to react. He broke into shards of glass and fell to the floor.
“Nooooo!” Erin and Zack shrieked.
I popped back into view just as Erin’s and Zack’s reflections floated up off the floor. They were sucked into the broken mirror—screaming all the way—sucked into it as if a powerful vacuum cleaner were pulling them in.
The two reflections flew screaming into the mirror and appeared to crack into hundreds of pieces.
“Whoa!” Lefty cried, gripping the door with all his strength, pressing his body against the doorframe, struggling to keep himself from being sucked into the room.
And then Erin and Zack dropped onto the floor on their knees, looking dazed and confused, staring at the pieces of shattered mirror that littered the floor around them.
“You’re back!” I cried happily. “It’s really you!”
“Yeah. It’s me,” Zack said, climbing unsteadily to his feet, then turning to help Erin up.
The mirror was shattered. The reflections were gone.
Erin and Zack gazed around the room, still shaken and dazed.
April stared at me in total confusion.
Lefty remained outside the doorway, shaking his head. “Max,” he said, “you should’ve caught the ball. That was an easy catch.”
Erin and Zack were back. And they were okay.
It didn’t take long to get everything back to normal.
We explained everything to April and Lefty as best we could.
April went home. She had to baby-sit her little sister.
Erin and Zack—the real Erin and Zack—helped me sweep up the broken glass. Then we closed the door to the little room.
I latched it tightly, and we all carried cartons over and stacked them up to block off the door.
We knew we’d never go in there again.
We vowed never to tell anyone about getting invisible or the mirror or what happened in that little room. Then Erin and Zack headed home.
Later, Lefty and I were hanging around out in the back yard. “That was so scary,” I told Lefty with a shudder. “You just can’t imagine what it was like.”
“Sounds pretty scary,” Lefty replied absently. He tossed his softball from hand to hand. “But at least everything is okay now. Want to play a little catch?”
“No,” I shook my head. I wasn’t in the mood. But then I changed my mind. “Maybe it’ll take my mind off what happened this morning,” I said.
Lefty tossed me the ball. We trotted behind the garage, our usual place for tossing the ball around.
I lobbed it back to him.
We were having a pretty good game of catch.
Until about five minutes had gone by.
Until…
Until I stopped and froze in place.
Were my eyes playing tricks on me?
“Here comes my fastball,” he said. He heaved it at me.
No. No. No.
I gaped open-mouthed as the ball shot past me.
I didn’t even try to catch it. I couldn’t move.
I could only stare in horror.
My brother was throwing right-handed.
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