“There’s no one there!” said Annette urgently
“They are,” Jacqueline said, still struggling. “Look, they’re right—”
But her parents were gone, disappeared back into the mirror’s void, leaving it dark and silent as the moment she’d laid eyes on it.
Jacqueline heard Mal’s words of warning in her head. You might see things. Ignore them, they’re there to trick you.
She broke down crying.
Her friends helped her up the stairs and out of the basement. By the time they excited the Coppington mansion, breathing in the cold crisp air, it had snowed another six inches. Jacqueline thanked Annette and Neil for their help, wiped the tears from her cheeks, and stood on her own. Even though it was cold, she was thankful for breathing clean air again after inhaling all that must and grime.
“Jackie, what happened?” asked Annette.
She shook her head, sniffled. “Nothing. I think I just had a hallucination.”
“What was it?”
“My parents.”
“Oh damn, that’s rough,” Neil said.
Olivia slapped her on the shoulder. “Well, it’s over now, and it ain’t all bad, since we got a souvenir!” She brimmed with excitement as she held up the old book.
Jacqueline winced. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to take that…”
“Shit, Jackie, no one’s lived here in forever. Who’s gonna miss it?”
She didn’t have an answer for that.
“This book might be important,” Olivia said, eyes sparkling. “Maybe that mirror was an experiment or something, like a mystical attempt at the freaking internet. If so, I bet this’ll tell us. That’d be awesome!”
Neil shoved his hands in his pockets. “If you say so, Olive.”
The spunky girl strutted around in a circle.
“Look at it all you want later,” Annette said, turning her gaze to Jacqueline. “I just wanna get back to the house before Jackie’s aunt gets home.”
Jacqueline nodded her agreement.
A few minutes later they were back on the road. The buzzing that’d been a constant in Jacqueline’s head returned for a waning moment, as if giving her a warning. She didn’t think that was a good sign.
CHAPTER 40
The Prophet hunkered inside his shelter as the sun disappeared over the pure white horizon. His stomach grumbled, and he turned toward the girl on the couch behind him. The girl stopped blathering, eyes wide and brimming with tears. The corpses of her life-bringers sprawled on either side of her.
The Prophet ran a hand through his rapidly diminishing hair, despair overwhelming him. Sustenance simply wasn’t enough any longer; his true form was languishing inside him, eating away at his borrowed skin. If his true self wasn’t born from the flesh soon, he would wither away, banished to the ether.
The bound girl whimpered again. The Prophet slithered up to her, his second teeth slowly descending from his gums. He examined the needle-like marks on her forearm, and his true form, writhing beneath layers of muscle and sinew, begged for more. So much for bleeding this one slowly.
The girl thrashed against the couch as he sniffed her neck. Her shoulder smacked his cheek, sloughing off skin. The Profit growled in pain. Why was this incubator of a body so damn fragile?
You were alive once, he told himself. You will be so again.
But first, food.
He squeezed the girl’s neck until her eyes rolled into the back of her head and then leaned into her. His pincer-like teeth broke flesh, far enough away from the main artery that she wouldn’t bleed out. Blood pumped into his mouth, feeding the form within the form. He grew delirious, sucking harder and harder until he almost gagged. Beneath him, the girl’s struggles diminished.
At the last moment he disengaged, not wasting a drop of that precious liquid. His victim lost consciousness, her breathing shallow. The bite marks on her neck closed up as if they’d never been there.
Still, his hunger raged.
The Prophet considered the girl’s dead parents. The father’s body was nothing but a hollowed-out husk, so he chose the mother, ripping open the woman’s chest and tearing, instead of sucking at, the meat inside. This blood was thickened, its nourishment scant, but it was better than nothing.
As scraps of dead flesh slid down his throat, the Prophet sunk into a pit of despair. His search for the Gorgon was fruitless. He would never be whole again. He spat out a hunk of meat and gawked at the bound girl. She was still unconscious, her neck exposed to him, so pure, pulsing with blood.
Take it. Take it all.
He lunged, ready to greedily consume all the essence she had left. His maw opened wide, his borrowed heart raced. He bent down to devour.
An intense, invisible force sent him careening to the floor, where he thrashed about, screaming. A shrill whistle exploded through the center of his head, so loud, so intense, that even the ghost of Cole Mafee, the youngster who once owned this body, shrieked from the depths of his blackened prison.
Then the fit was over, and the Prophet was filled with a warm, familiar sensation. Deep inside, his true form purred. He lurched to his feet and rushed to the window, gazing at the dark white world outside.
His every cell sang a refrain of hope.
It was like a doorway to a different plane of reality had been opened, leading south. Tiny particles of light formed a pathway that begged for him to follow. He felt the beckoning call of the Gorgon, the unearthly energy that wafted off her. She is changing. She is reconnecting with who she truly is.
Soon, so would he.
Blood racing, the Prophet rushed out the door and into the cold night. He didn’t think about the girl tied up on the couch, or worry that she might be discovered. None of that mattered now. The Gorgon was calling him, her essence like a song filling his eternal heart with joy.
Sing, my beauty. Sing.
CHAPTER 41
The buzzer sounded, and Mr. Lawson hastily stood. “All right guys,” he said. “Like I told you earlier, put your work on the back counter. I’ll see your smiling faces tomorrow.” He hurried out of the classroom.
The art students dutifully stowed their charcoal self-portraits as they were told. Only Jacqueline remained sitting, her drawing, a collection of random, dashing lines that kind of looked like the outline of a face, still on her desk. She swallowed, nervous as hell about what came next, resigned to the fact she had no other choice.
“Hey, Picasso, you gonna pack it up or what?” Annette asked as she lifted her oversized purse.
Jacqueline eyed her fellow students warily. “Actually…”
“Actually what?”
She held up her index finger, waiting until the classroom cleared out and only she and Annette remained.
“C’mon, Jackie,” said Annette. “We’re gonna be late.”
“We only got study hall. We can miss it,” Jacqueline replied. She slipped from her seat, hustled across the empty classroom, shut the door, and locked it.
“You haven’t gone all serial killer on me, have you?” said Annette. “That’d be bad.” She raised an eyebrow as Jacqueline sat back down and took a deep breath.
“I need to talk to you,” Jacqueline said.
“About what?”
“Weird things.”
“Yeah?”
Jacqueline paused. She couldn’t just tell Annette what’d been happening, or she’d be called crazy. But ever since going to that house thirteen days ago, strange things had been happening. Which meant a demonstration was in order. Her charcoal pencil was still on her desk, and she moved her hand toward it, rolling it across the surface of her barely-started self-portrait. “See?”
Annette furrowed her brow. “See what?”
“What I just did.”
“You pushed a pencil across your desk. So?”
Jacqueline groaned. “No. Shoot, get closer. Watch my fingers.”
Annette shrugged and leaned over. Jacqueline took another deep breath, reached out with her
opposite hand. This time she kept her fingers splayed, shoving the pencil back across the desk. Annette’s eyes widened.
“You just moved that without touching it,” she said, awed.
Jacqueline nodded.
“How?”
“Don’t know. It’s been happening a lot since we went to the Coppington house. First time I noticed was two days later. I was having a hard time with my Spanish homework, and I accidentally launched my pen across the room even though I never got close to it.”
“Did you get scared?”
“At first. But I can control it if I don’t freak out.”
“What causes it? Static?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“Well, you got your phone on you?”
“Yeah.”
She tapped her finger on the desk. “Put it here.”
Annette reached into her oversized purse and placed her large smartphone next to the pencil. Jacqueline flicked her index finger at it from four inches away. The phone careened across the desk, and Annette caught it before it dropped to the floor.
“Wow,” Annette said, gawking first at her phone, then at Jacqueline. “What are you, like Carrie or something?”
Jacqueline fluttered her lips. “No. Well, I don’t think so. I mean, it’s not like I can move stuff with my mind or anything. It’s just physical stuff, like…this is hard to explain…like my body extends beyond my skin. Or something.”
Annette looked bewildered.
“I don’t get it either, Annie.”
“This is so weird.”
“You’re telling me? You’re not the one it’s happening to.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
Annette slowly lowered herself into her chair, staring at Jacqueline with those wide, sky-blue eyes. Jacqueline turned away, uncomfortable.
“Jackie, was this another magic trick?” Annette asked. “Like the compact?”
Jacqueline grimaced. “Um, about that…”
“What?”
The way Annette studied her made her uncomfortable, but she swallowed down the feeling. “Listen, Annie, you’re my best friend. You know that, right?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Then don’t laugh. The thing with the compact wasn’t a trick either. It was real. A boy really lives in that mirror. I can talk to him and everything. He’s been with me ever since my dad went crazy.”
Annette chewed her lip. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
The tiny girl sat back and drummed her fingers on the desk. “That’s some story.”
“It’s true. You gotta believe me.”
“I gotta?” She peered at Jacqueline from the corner of her eye. “Can I meet him? You got the compact on you?”
The compact was in her pocket, cold to the touch. “I do, but he’s not here right now.”
“Where is he? Picking up a pizza or something?”
The look Annette gave her made her feel as crazy as her dad had been. Jacqueline slumped in her chair, heat chasing up her neck.
“Oh jeez, I’m sorry,” Annette said. “That wasn’t fair.”
“Thank you,” Jacqueline murmured.
“This mystery boy have a name?”
“Mal.”
“Mal what?”
“I don’t know. Just Mal.”
“Oh. It’s kinda a cool name.”
“I know, right? Sounds rugged but sensitive.”
“Like the captain in Firefly.”
“What’s that?”
“An old show my mom used to love. Doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Ah.”
Annette squinted at her. “Jackie, why you telling me this?”
Jacqueline clenched and unclenched her fists, stared at the unfinished drawing on her desk. “I’m scared, Annie. I’m seeing things. Remember the killer guy in the park? Well, to you he looked like a bum. To me, he looked like a monster, all rotten and clawed.”
“Really?”
She nodded gravely. “And three days ago at the mall, I saw two other guys that didn’t look normal. It’s like their skin’s all bubbly, fangs, claws, that sorta thing. But if I blink a few times I don’t see it anymore. I thought I was going crazy, but Mal said I’m ‘seeing through the veneer’ or something. That these people aren’t people, but some weird sorts of demons. I don’t really get it. I’m not making sense.” She shook her head. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m just nuts.”
“I never said that.”
“But you look like you think it.”
“Fair enough. Have you talked to your aunt about this stuff?”
“I don’t know if I can trust her,” Jacqueline whispered.
“Really? Why not?”
“Mal’s convinced she’s working against me somehow.”
“And you believe him?”
She gnawed on her lip. “I don’t know what to think. I mean, there’s little things that’re suspicious. Like I didn’t even know she existed until she showed up on my foster parents’ doorstep. She totally doesn’t act like a grownup. When I was depressed, she took me shopping and tried to bond with me and all that instead of sending me to a shrink. And she didn’t push the issue with the cops after the party.”
Annette sat back. “So…you’re complaining she didn’t have you prodded by doctors?”
“Ugh!” Jacqueline exclaimed a little too loudly, making Annette recoil. “It’s not that. Well, not all that. There’s other stuff too.”
“Like…?”
“She had a lockbox full of money and pot upstairs. A gun too. But when I went up there two days ago, the lockbox was empty. Well, the money was still there, but the pot and gun were gone.”
“She might’ve just got rid of it,” Annette said. “Adults smoke weed too. My mom does. Does that make her bad?”
“No, it’s just—”
“And lots of people keep guns in the house. Especially beautiful single women. For protection.”
“I know,” Jacqueline moaned, yanking on her own hair. “But there’s more. I was watching a special on that girl they found tied up in Mass—”
“The one whose parents were killed? Isn’t she the one that talked crazy? Said some kid vampire killed her folks?”
“That’s her. Anyway, I saw that report, and thought of all the other girls that’ve gone missing lately. Did you know there were seven of them, all within thirty miles of here?”
“I did. Mom’s kinda freaked about it.”
“Exactly! And you know what’s weirder? My dad and I lived in this town before. In Mitzy’s house. Girls were going missing then too. Someone even tried to kill me.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“Found articles on it online.”
“Oh.” Annette shivered. “Damn, Jackie.”
“I know, right!”
“So what’re you gonna do?”
“I’m thinking of running away. With Mal.” She winced as she said it.
Annette scrunched her face. “The boy in the compact?”
“No. Mal won’t be in the mirror anymore.”
Annette gave her a cockeyed glance.
“I’m supposed to set him free,” said Jacqueline. “On my birthday. In nine days. Remember that big mirror in the basement of the Coppington house? Supposedly I can use it to free him. He told me how to do it.”
“No kidding?”
“No kidding.”
Annette leaned against the desk, ran a hand through her hair. “Okay, let’s say I believe all this. Let’s say you somehow magically make this Mal a real boy. Then you’re gonna just…go where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Doesn’t sound like the most thought-out plan.”
“I know.” She rubbed her chest. “That’s why I’m talking to you.”
“Really? Why?”
Jacqueline took Annette’s hands. “Because I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know if any of this is real. I need
your help, your support. I don’t wanna be alone. I don’t know if I wanna run away. I don’t know anything. I feel like the world’s stringing me along, and I’m tired of it.”
“Well, have you tried to figure it out?”
She held out her hands, palms up. “How?”
Annette tapped her index finger against her chin. After a moment her eyes widened and she looked at Jacqueline in excitement. “I got it.”
“What?”
“You said that big mirror in the basement is important, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, Olive took a book from the cabinet next to that mirror. She can translate it. She’s crazy like that.”
“I don’t know,” Jacqueline said. “It’s one thing telling you…I don’t want anyone else to know.”
“Then we won’t tell her anything. We’ll just say we wanna go back to the house and try some spells out or something. Maybe say you’re trying to see if you can talk to your parents. That might work. And we’ll tell her that maybe there’s some info in the book that’ll help us pull it off. Tell her to get her butt moving on a translation. She’ll be pumped.” Annette laughed and paced in front of the desk. “That book might be an instruction manual. And whenever your little boyfriend gets back, you better introduce us for real this time.”
“Okay,” said Jacqueline, managing a smile. “I can get down with that.”
Annette hugged her. She was strong for such a tiny girl. “You’re crazy, Jackie, but I love ya.”
“I love you too.”
“No more judgment from me,” she said. “If it turns out you’re imagining things, I’ll talk to your aunt for you. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Jacqueline’s pants pocket suddenly flamed with warmth, and she smiled. She stuffed her hand inside and grabbed the compact, giddy with excitement. This was the time. She just knew it. She opened the compact, and the boy in the mirror stared up at her with his gray eyes.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Just trust me,” Jacqueline replied.
“Um, Jackie?” said Annette.
Jacqueline lifted her head, smiled at her friend, and held out the opened compact. “Annette, meet Mal. Mal, Annette” she said.
“Well hello there,” said Mal’s voice.
Boy in the Mirror Page 27