Poison and Mirrors

by Holly Hook

  “I do. Just not from in there.” If I stepped inside that mirror, I might not come back out. Sara would win. This was a trap.

  “The choice is yours,” Alric said. “Step through the mirror, or you will be left in the dark.”

  “I’m already in the dark,” I said, waving to the room around me.

  But Alric wasn't listening. The mirror rippled.

  Turned black, like sinister ink.

  And a shape started to bulge out of the glass.

  Alric. He was coming through. A hand formed in the bulge, reaching for me inch by inch. I held in a scream and searched the room for a weapon. It was colder than ever. More electric than ever. I found nothing except for some hot pink panties on the floor, and Alric wasn’t going to be stopped by that.

  So I grabbed the mirror.

  “Mara,” Alric said, his voice rattling between worlds. “You are in danger. I can help you.”

  It was a lie. I threw the mirror down to the floor as hard as I could.

  A deafening boom sounded and glass flew. I didn’t even care that I was waking up everyone in Haven House. The cold feeling vanished along with the electricity. I had banished Alric…for now.

  I stood there, catching my breath.

  But there were other mirrors in the house.

  Lots of them.

  Like the one in the bathroom at the end of the hall.

  I ran back to my room as one of the boys shouted something from below. I didn’t have time for that. I dug through my backpack for something heavy. My clock read 11:59. Almost midnight. Almost time for any portals in this place to open up.

  I found my Lit book which was roughly the size of a brick and bolted to the bathroom. The cold feeling enveloped me as soon as I tore open the door. I flipped on the light and the sight of the bathroom mirror all black and bulging out like some misshapen oily bubble lodged itself in my mind for the rest of my life.

  “Pervert much?” I asked, and hurled the Lit book at the mirror.

  It worked and the mirror shattered into hundreds of black pieces, raining down on the sink and covering it with what looked like obsidian. The black flashed silver in one moment and died away, leaving only crystal in its place.

  I stood there and stared at the shattered glass for a long time. At the wooden backing where the glass was supposed to be.

  Even as footsteps raced up the stairs, I stared.

  What if Alric really was trying to help me? I might have blown it.

  Before I could think about it, the footsteps drew so close that I had to turn around.

  My breaking the bathroom mirror had also blown my only chance of escape, because if I had left it, I might have seen the reflection of the ugly little man charging me.

  He was only four feet fall, with a long, black beard that went down to his thick knees. The guy looked as if someone had taken a full sized person and mashed them down into this form without cutting any muscle. This was the closest thing to a dwarf I could imagine.

  And he wore a red Adventure Time T-shirt and wielded a hammer.

  “Tony—“ I started, but the man growled, raised the hammer, and swung.

  I had no time to move. The hammer came at the side of my head, sideways, and made contact.

  Pain exploded. I slumped against the bathroom, eyeing the familiar red Adventure Time T-shirt, and closed my eyes.

  Chapter Nine

  “Where should we bury her?” a gruff voice asked in the void.

  I floated through strange images and my head pounded like someone had hit it with a hammer. My eyelids fluttered and cool night air wrapped around me. I had a vague memory of glass shattering in the bathroom and of an ugly little man, but nothing else. I couldn’t think right now. My head hurt too bad for that.

  “I don’t know,” another man said. I’d never heard the voice before. “This park…I don’t like it. It’s too open.”

  “There are plenty of trees,” a third man chimed in. “Plenty of woods.”

  The pain died off a bit and I was able to open my eyes a tiny bit. Darkness. Night. Grass tickled my nose and I wrinkled it. A large tree rose above me, reaching its branches into the sky. They looked like skeleton arms.

  A dream.

  That was all this was.

  No.

  The headache was too intense for that. The grass, too real.

  And the little men stood several feet in front of me, beards hanging almost down to the grass.

  They had lowered their voices to whispers now. I took a quiet breath and opened my eyes the rest of the way. The men were silhouettes against a distant streetlight. Trees rose all around us and I caught the shine of a swing set in the distance. The park. Their words matched up with my memory of it. My town had a park tucked back behind the library and it was really dark and creepy at night. Sara and I had come out here and played tag late at night back in the eighth grade. Or at least, I remembered that. It was probably false, just like everything else.

  And then terror hit me.

  The park would be a good place to hide a body…if they brought me back to the woods.

  I turned my head. I lay on the edge of it. The forest was pure black. These little men thought I was dead and they had come out here to bury me.

  I couldn’t tell the men apart but their gruff words mixed together and I could sense their tension. I counted them.

  Seven.

  Seven dwarves.

  I gulped. These weren’t those happy singing dwarves from the Disney movie. There was no Dopey here. They were all Grumpy multiplied by ten with a bit of Jack the Ripper thrown in.

  One of them wore Tony’s Adventure Time T-shirt.

  The boys.

  These dwarves must be the boys. The little kids who inhabited the lower level of Haven House were really these horrible creatures all along. Sara and I had been living with them and Stephanie knew about it. The Tony one had hit me with a hammer.

  They thought I was dead.

  It was why they were in the huddle like that.

  I didn’t understand. Weren’t the dwarves supposed to protect Snow White, not kill her?

  “The woods,” a dwarf said, raising his voice. “No one will be out here this late. Stephanie will bring the shovels and garbage bags shortly.”

  Stephanie.

  She was in on this, too. I wondered if that tea she'd brought me had been drugged.

  I lifted my head a little. I was lying on an expanse of darkness. The dwarves hadn’t dared brought out a flashlight. I wondered if little men could see in the dark. Obviously they didn’t know how to check a pulse. It must not be a skill taught in Fable or whatever.

  “Are you sure she’s dead?” one of the dwarves asked.

  “She was out,” another said. “I hit her good.”

  “But this is Mara we’re talking about.”

  “I told you. I hit her good. Even if she’s not dead, she will be when we bury her.”

  A pair of headlights pulled into the park, far ahead.

  Stephanie.

  That had to be her.

  The woman who ran Haven House was really hiding dwarves and liked to kill people. Maybe she’d done the same thing to that one girl with the knife. Haven House’s reputation was in trouble. This could be what Alric was warning me about.

  Whatever it was, I had to leave.

  I wanted to vomit. I must have a concussion and I needed a hospital. The world spun around me and I pushed myself up to my hands and knees. The dwarves kept arguing feet away, unaware that I was moving. A car door opened. Every noise jumped out at me and amplified. Every nerve fired.

  How fast could dwarves run?

  I staggered to my feet. The world spun again and I almost went back down. Yeah. Concussion. I couldn’t stop. I’d throw up later.

  I tried to run, but could only stagger at first. I headed farther from the trees, towards the side of the park that I knew was closed in with a chain link fence. I had gone about twenty feet when the dwarves stopped arguing.


  The silence was deafening.

  At last, I could break into a run.

  My head felt ready to split open, but I ignored it. I couldn’t take another blow to the head. Vomit rose in my throat and I stumbled, then caught my footing.

  “You were sure she was dead,” a dwarf said, breaking into a run.

  “Mara!” Stephanie shouted.

  I pumped my legs faster. My head split with each footfall. The fence stretched out ahead, dark against the yellow light of the library. I jumped and grabbed on, then climbed over, catching my leggings on the fence. Something ripped and I toppled to the concrete, groaning in pain. Yellow flared in my vision and I got up.

  The dwarves pounded at the fence on the other side. Now that I was in some light, I could see just how ugly they were. Huge noses. Jutting chins and sloping foreheads. Each one looked about five hundred years old and their beards contained crumbs that must be just as old. All seven of them wore the T-shirts of the boys who lived at Haven House. Tony and Jose and Chad were all gone, replaced with these beasts. The boys had never even been real.

  I backed away, swaying and dizzy. The dwarves beat at the fence and it rattled. Spittle flew. It was just as tall as they were. I couldn’t help but watch them as my head pounded harder, begging me to lie down on the concrete and just die already.

  They were idiots. I had that on my side.

  I picked up a piece of loose concrete and hurled it over the fence at them, earning another explosion of pain in my skull. It hit the Adventure Time dwarf right in the top of the head and bounced off. He stopped pounding, stunned for a second, and then started pounding on the fence again. It was like watching a bunch of ugly little kids throw a tantrum.

  "What is your problem?" I asked, pacing along the fence. I felt less and less threatened by the second. "What have I ever done to you?" I flipped them off. Dwarves must not get the gesture, because they all stopped and stared with their beady little eyes like they didn't know what to think.

  I flipped them off with the other hand and the Adventure Time one scowled.

  "Yes. That's supposed to be offensive," I said. "Your thick skulls are confirmed." Rage pumped through me. I'd had it. I grabbed another piece of concrete, this one heavier than the last, and hurled it over the fence. This one missed and didn't make it over, but instead fell to the ground and broke into two pieces. "Did Sara put you up to this?" I asked.

  The dwarf with the black beard just growled at me. "Sara hates you," he said. "Hates you. Hates you. It's why she left."

  "So you can only speak in little baby sentences?" I asked. All the dwarves stopped rattling the fence. Stephanie was still out here somewhere. I might want to leave the area before she figured out I was in this lot and decided to mow me down with her car. "How did you like eating baby food at Haven House and watching stupid little kid movies?"

  The Adventure Time dwarf growled. Spittle flew out of his mouth. This sure wasn't in the Disney version. Disney had cleaned things up. "Things were fine until you showed up! You can't fool us."

  "But we sure fooled you," another said.

  And he grinned so wide that his white beard shifted. His teeth were almost green in the dim light.

  And then I heard the sound of a motor.

  Stephanie's motor. It had to be. It must be in the wee hours of the morning and she would be the only person out. I faced the side of the grocery store building. There were lots of thick shrubs at the front and I couldn't see out to the road, but she'd figure it out.

  Time to go.

  I turned and ran around the back of the building. I could run now. My head had calmed a bit and my legs had regained some strength. The motor got quieter, then louder again, as the dwarves all began to bang on the fence. They were alerting her.

  The car screeched to a stop, then started moving again.

  Another fence spread out in front of me. I jumped again, got caught for a second, and vaulted over. The car got louder and the fence screeched as the car struck. Stephanie was trying to run me down. I caught my breath, got up, and bolted across the lawn of the City Hall. No one was in the parking lot. It was the time of night no one should be out.

  The car's tires squeaked as it moved again. I didn't dare look back. I bolted across the City Hall lot. I had to hide somewhere. The police station was across town so that was out. I stopped at some high shrubs, but spotted headlights out of the corner of my eye. Stephanie sat there, maybe contemplating what to do. The fence was bent in front of her car. She could run it down with another attempt. She must not have a gun or she would have opened the door and shot at me by now.

  I turned the corner of the building, gasping for breath. I was two streets over from Haven House. I could grab my bike. It would help me move faster but I might be more noticeable. I ran across the street. Stephanie would have to go around the long way if she didn't want to mow the fence down and damage her car. She'd want to keep this quiet.

  Haven House was dark as if no one had ever inhabited it. The windows were all black eyes, staring down at me. Everything I remembered was in there. My dream journal. The pictures on the stairs. And it was all fake. Maybe not the dream journal. I had the feeling that was mine and mine alone. I wouldn't risk my life for it, even if it did contain my memories. Memories that Stephanie had gone through.

  Memories that made her decide I had to die.

  A terrifying thought wormed its way up, but I pushed it aside before it had time to finish and did the combination lock of the bike. I yanked it from the building where I kept it chained up. A distant motor sounded. She'd figured out what I was doing. I got onto the bike, ignoring the continued pain on the left side of my head, and pedaled past the dark garden and back into the street. There was an alley I could cut down behind the little dollar store where she took the boys. Or pretended to take the boys that were really dwarves. I had inhabited the same building as them and so had Sara. I wondered if she moved out because she figured out the truth.

  Headlights illuminated the street behind me and I rode through the closest yard, forcing my bike over bumps and dips in the grass. I reached the backyard and found no one looking out their back window at me. The sound of Stephanie's car grew louder and I stood there, holding my breath and begging my pulse to stop hammering so fast. If she came back here, I'd have nowhere to escape to except for the deck and then she might demolish that like a crazy person. But the car rolled past and got fainter. I'd evaded her for now.

  But those dwarves were still out there.

  I felt better on wheels, at least.

  I stayed in that yard for what felt like forever. The car didn’t come back. I wondered if I should go back to the cops, but Stephanie was well known around here. A haven for problem kids. I was a problem kid. It was her word over mine. They’d never believe me that she tried to run me down or that Haven House’s residents had morphed into horrible dwarf creatures.

  Or that they all wanted my life.

  I got off my bike and turned in a circle.

  Everyone wanted to kill me.

  Everyone except for Moanna and possibly some strangers on the street. I couldn’t even be sure about that.

  And worst of all was the fact that I didn’t even know why.

  Moanna was the only person I could go to. And that was a risk.

  After I listened for a bit longer, I rolled my bike out of the yard and thought a silent apology to whoever kept this grass all neat. Moanna lived outside of town. I’d have to ride through miles in the dark and avoid all the cops. Not easy. And I had dwarves to avoid, too. But at least I could ride faster than they could run.

  Moanna told me once that she lived out on Radish Road and had a huge split tree in the front yard. I could find that if I looked. She was all I had left.

  Sara had made sure of that. She didn’t need the huntsman to tear out my heart. She had already succeeded at that.

  So I did the only thing I could do.

  I made a left out of that random yard and started to pedal.

/>   The dark buildings sped past as my tires whizzed through the night. I should feel free, out of Haven House at last, but now there was nothing but darkness ahead of me. A huge, empty expanse of darkness.

  I should go grab my dream journal.

  It might hold more clues to who I really was. Where I had come from. Why everyone wanted to kill me.

  Haven House stood empty. Stephanie had left, searching for me somewhere else. A distant motorcycle revved. Someone was out late drunk. It must be closing time.

  I checked the door, but of course Stephanie had locked it. The dwarves sure hadn’t. I pulled again, harder, but it was useless. Then I searched around for a rock. I found one of Stephanie’s decorative ones that she’d lined by the sidewalk, one with a butterfly carved into it. I heaved it at the glass door and it shattered with a deafening roar that might wake the neighbors.

  Glass sparkled in the dim streetlight and I ducked through the bottom half of the door, careful not to impale myself on any of the glass. Success. The kitchen was dark and the fridge hummed like normal. I walked past Stephanie’s office. Past the downstairs bathroom. My reflection looked like a hunched, shadowy figure and the scent of toothpaste wafted out. The dwarves sure hadn’t used any. Stephanie must have.

  Upstairs. The steps creaked. Before, the noise was charming, but now it was horrifying. If any of the dwarves had made it back here they would hear me. My head pounded and I felt the wound. I had a huge, raised welt on the side of my scalp. My hair would hide it, but the pain wouldn't fade for a while. At least the nausea was gone and the dizziness was better. I seemed to be recovering.

  My bedroom door stood open. The faint glow of my alarm clock shone against the wall. My dream journal was still in my backpack, tampered with. It was the one thing here that was truly mine. Stephanie and those dwarves would never get their hands on it again.

  I ducked into my doorway.

  And noticed too late that a tall, dark figure stood by my bed, watching me.

  I stopped. My heart about did the same.

  The man reached up and lowered his hood farther down over his face as if worried I could see in the dark. He bobbed his head like he was nodding.