by J. L. Murray
“You’re a quick study,” she said. “But not quick enough. I’m going to make you watch. I’m going to destroy you, Frankie Mourning, and then I get to stay. I’m going to break you. I won’t run like those others, I won’t be afraid. After all, I’m you.” She smiled as she lifted the mirror, pulling hard, and I heard a snap as she pulled it off the wall. “I’m you, only better.” She set the mirror on the floor.
I could see the end of the bed looming before me, part of the mirror obscured by the dresser. I tried to bang on the glass again, and my hands met something solid this time. When I drew my fist back, I had a drop of blood on my knuckle where it had grazed the edge of the dresser.
My throat was raw from screaming, but I refused to cry. She sat on the end of the bed and watched me, taking out a small hacksaw from a bag at her feet.
“He’s not even going to know the difference,” she said. “Souls are like jewelry, Frankie, men don’t give a shit either way. Isn’t that right? Remember when you didn’t care what anyone thought of you? I remember. I remember like it was me walking around.” Her eyes went out of focus for a moment, and for a second I wondered if she’d had some sort of attack, but then she blinked and smiled at me. “No matter. I’m going to be better than you ever were. It doesn’t matter how long I’ve been alive.”
“You’re not alive, you piece of shit!”
“I just can’t for the life of me hear what you’re saying,” she said, setting the blade of the hacksaw against a horn. “But I’m going to look just like you when I’m done. It’s not like he cares about your substance. I have everything he needs.”
“Stay away from him!” I banged on the glass again, feeling it grow colder every time I touched it. The third time, when I pulled my fist back, my fingers were covered in ice.
“Careful,” she said, sawing back and forth. A white dust covered her leather jacket, dusting her hair in what looked like snow. “That’s how his magic works. That’s how all of this works. He’s ice where his brother’s fire. And ice always wins.”
“Whose magic?” I screamed. “What the fuck is this?” I watched as the ice crystals melted, pins and needles making me gasp as the feeling returned.
She stopped sawing and grasped the horn in both hands, grimacing as she pulled, a raw, guttural noise coming from deep inside of her as a loud snap echoed in the world around me. The reflection of me smiled as she held the horn in her hand. Blood was dripping down her yellow hair, which she dabbed at with a white motel towel. The red in her hair still stood out, but she started in on the other horn, looking determined.
Experimentally, I reached gently into what I knew was a mirror, but seemed to me more of a window. I pushed my arms through, the edges frigid, like shoving myself through an ice-encrusted pond. I tried to wiggle my fingers, but they were stiff, unwilling to move. I pulled my arm back when I couldn’t take it any longer, crying out in pain.
“That’s a good way to lose your arm,” she said, blood dripping down one side of her head. “You’re going to need both of your arms in there. I miss the days before I knew...” She stopped sawing, seeming to be remembering. “Before I knew anything. Before I knew I was just a reflection, a bavuah. Before I wanted more.” She smiled a slow, haunting smile. “She gave that to me, my mother. He opened the ground, and she came out. And we’re hers, Frankie Mourning. All of us. We can’t stray too far from her, but it’s better than following you around. Except Harishona. She can go where she pleases. But I think it hurts her.”
“Who the fuck is Harishona? Why do I keep hearing that name?”
“Patience, Frankie Mourning,” said the reflection, sawing again. “You’ll see everything in time. I want to be friends. We won’t be like the others, always out to get each other.”
“You stole my fucking body!”
“We can be friends, I just know it. But I can’t keep calling you Frankie. That’s my name now. I’ll call you Cassandra. Remember that story Daddy told us? She could see the future, but no one would believe her.”
She set down the saw once again and broke the other horn off. She grinned wildly as she pressed the bloody towel to her head.
“Look, Cassandra, I’m just like you.” Her eyes were wild, flickering back and forth, taking everything in all at once. “Oh, the colors, Cassandra. So many colors. It almost hurts to see them.”
I heard the sound of a key in a lock and the reflection’s head looked quickly toward the door. She shoved the horns and the saw off the bed and kicked them underneath. And then I saw him, just his shoes as he stopped in front of her.
“What happened to the television?” I heard his voice say.
“Just an accident. I dropped it.” My reflection was blinking up at him from the bed, smiling sweetly. The blood streaked her pale hair, and I could still see flecks of red on her face.
“Someone got hurt in the parking lot,” he said, taking a step toward her. “Knocked a guy out. He said the toolbox in the back of his truck was jimmied open when he came to.”
“That’s certainly odd.”
“Yeah,” he said. I could see his jeans now. “You okay, Frankie?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I’m very fine.” She started shrugging off her leather jacket.
“Well, I got you a bunch of shirts.” He tossed a paper bag onto the bed next to her. “Some sweatpants, too. That’s all they had for pants. They say Montana across the ass.”
She giggled. “That sounds fun.” She pulled the crusty old tee shirt off her head and threw it onto the floor.
“So why don’t you just change your shirt, and we’ll go and check on Beatrice.”
“What’s the rush, baby?” The reflection was unbuttoning her jeans. My jeans. She pulled them down and stepped out of them.
“Are you serious?” he said. “People might be dying right now, Frankie. Remember?”
“What’s another half hour?” she said, stepping toward him until all I could see was her bare feet and legs and Dekker’s jeans.
“No!” I screamed. “Dekker, no! That’s not me! Dekker, Dekker, Dekker!” I was pounding at the frozen barrier in front of me. The edges of my vision were tinged with frost, and I wondered if it was the mirror or my mind that was encrusted in ice. I started to kick when I couldn’t feel my hands any longer, and I heard a crash.
“What the hell was that?” said Dekker, walking toward me.
“Dekker! Dekker, it’s not me! Fucking listen to me!”
“Oh, that Cassandra,” my reflection said. I could see Dekker’s face now, though he didn’t see me. “She knocked the coffee pot over. I’ll just take care of that.”
“Cassandra? Why is the mirror in here?” Dekker saw me now, he was looking right at me.
“Dekker! Fucking listen to me! That’s not me, it’s not me!”
But I knew he couldn’t hear me.
“I wanted to keep an eye on her,” said my reflection. “Let’s just cover her up so we can get busy.”
“Busy with what?”
“You think I just walk around naked for no reason?” She smiled up at him. He touched her hair, streaked with blood.
“You’re in a funny mood,” he said.
“Let’s find out how funny.” She turned, grinning victoriously at me. “Let’s find out what I can do.” Then she threw a blanket over the mirror and everything changed.
The motel room was gone. And I was alone in a strange world.
chapter fourteen
I
stepped toward the gathering mist, the ground crackling, frozen footprints behind me marking my path. I could see my breath and pulled my jacket tighter around me, zipping it up with shaking, numb fingers. I stopped, looking around, realizing I was inside the mist now, and it smelled of ice and dust. I could barely see the ground under my feet, a circle of frozen white growing wider and larger from the spot where I stood. I watched as it slowly spread, until everything I could see was crusted in frost that crackled and turned to frozen dust when I touched it.
“Everything here is a contradiction,” it said in a breathy voice that seemed to whisper right into my ear, covering my earlobe with a chill layer of condensation. Not quite frost, but cold enough to send a shiver down to my bones. I took a step back, tripping on a stone. I fell to the ground, the hot air still blowing in my face as I stared at the goat watching my every move.
“Are you the devil?”
“Frankie, I’ve heard so much about you. I do hope it’s true. I want you on my side. You’ve had one foot in my world, anyway.”
I pushed myself to my feet.
“I already have a job, thanks.”
“Don’t you want to get out of here, Frankie?”
“What is this?” I said. “Hell?”
A muffled chuckle came from the goat’s direction, and I realized there was someone inside it. Not a dead goat monster.
“I’m not the devil, Frankie.”
“Then who are you? What do you want? What is this place?”
“Just another dimension.” He took a step toward me, impossibly tall. “If you look around you may see some people you know. In fact, I guarantee you will.”
“My reflection said someone opened up the earth and the monsters came out. Was that you?”
He gave a painfully slow, awkward bow, the great head obviously heavy, but came back up gracefully enough, as though he had practice.
“You’ve heard my name often enough since your...reanimation. But don’t be afraid. I’ll see you again before you leave.”
“Leave?” I said, my voice shrill. “How do I leave?”
But the mist rolled in again, and when the hot wind blew the mist away, the goat was gone.
I walked toward a blue light in the distance, blinking through a fog that gathered around what appeared to be a house. Its roof glowed, blue and ghostly. It was the house I’d seen in the mirror, the house I’d set on fire with my sister and mother inside.
“Don’t go in there,” said someone behind me. I whirled and blinked as I recognized her face.
“Roo?”
She nodded slowly, unsure. “I think so. It’s been so long.”
“Do you know me? Have we met?”
She blinked at me, pushing her short hair off her forehead.
“Should I know you?”
I swallowed hard, my throat raw and sore from screaming. “I guess not. I must have met someone who looked like you.”
“I’m looking for my brother,” she said, her voice high like a child’s. She was looking around her, as if checking for threats. “I’ve looked everywhere, but I can’t find him. I was with him. I think I was with him.” She focused on me, a small, nervous smile playing on the corners of her mouth. “Don’t go in that house. I went in looking for Brian. But he wasn’t there. I don’t know what those things are. I think they’re someone else’s memory.”
“Your brother was here?” I said.
Roo blinked at me. “I...don’t remember,” said the real Roo. The soul of Roo.
I remembered what the other Roo told me. Her brother had been chopped to pieces. The sheriff ruled it a car accident. The fake Roo must have been trying to get close to me for...what? What reason would she have to befriend me? Dekker had suspected Roo from the start, but it was still a shock, now, to realize we’d never met.
“I don’t think he’s here, Roo,” I said softly, touching her. Her skin was cold and was somehow without substance. Like she was a shell, or a balloon about to float away. I took my hand back.
“Yes,” she said, not seeming to notice my touch. She was still staring at the house, burning for too long, frozen in a loop of memory and time. “Yes, I think you’re right. I think I’m alone here.” She turned away from the house, a lost look on her face, her eyes scanning the horizon that we couldn’t see for the fog. She turned back to me, a sad smile on her face. “But you’re here now. You won’t go into the house, will you? Promise me.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because it’s filled with ghosts.”
She seemed to forget me then, turning and walking toward the mist.
“I have to find him, I have to find my brother.”
“Roo, I’m going to get you out of here,” I said.
She turned and looked at me quizzically. “Out of where?” Then the mist swallowed her.
I turned back to the house, forever burning with blue flames that barely lit the dark sky. I had to see, I had to look. I could feel the house calling to me, pulling me in. How long until I forgot who I was? How long had it taken Roo?
I walked through the front door, the flames licking at me like tiny tongues of ice, making my skin prickle with goosebumps. I walked through the living room and into the kitchen, where the blue grew brighter, so bright I shielded my eyes. Here I saw them. Us. Still going through the motions, still stuck in a loop of emotion and hate and fear.
I walked around the table and toward the place where they stood. Two figures embraced in a fight, blood tinged blue coming from them both, another larger figure rushing through the back door, arms out as if to dive. They were, the three of them, still as statues, only the flames moving, casting eerie shadows across their faces.
I reached my hand out, waiting for the women to flick their eyes over, to notice me standing there, to turn their heads and see me. I hesitated, my fingers just above the skin of my doppelganger, hair choppy and uneven where I’d cut it with a pair of kitchen shears, dyed jet black to match the eyeliner caked around young eyes. But under the makeup, under the haircut and the tight clothes, under all of it, I could see I was just a child. Fear behind eyes that reflected blue flames, horror etched around my mouth at what the world had become.
I touched her then, laying a hand on the nape of her neck, my neck. I stiffened as a bloom of color tinged the room first electric blue, then bright red, the color of blood. I looked down to see we were standing in a pool of blood, my father crawling on his belly to seek shelter under the kitchen table, leaving a snail trail of bright red behind him. I heard laughter, and the figures were moving, my mother and sister on top of my father. I turned to see myself, standing in the doorway, my hair still long and yellow, no makeup raccooning my eyes, my skirt reaching my ankles. My face had the roundness of youth, pale skin gone even paler.
“Is this it?” said a voice next to me. I turned slowly, as if underwater. On my shoulder was a raven, cocking its small head at me, its beady eyes shining red from the light in the room.
“What?”
“The moment that changed you.”
I looked back at my father, reaching his hand toward me. I knew he was telling me to run. But I had been too scared. I could still hear the laughter in my head, my mother and sister finding fun in the act.
I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut. Memories were colliding here, scrambling my brain. I opened my eyes and saw the raven, still peering at me.
“Was there really a single moment that changed you, Frankie?” said the raven. “Or were you always headed here?”
“You’re not supposed to talk,” I said.
“You’re not supposed to be alive, but here we are.” Its voice was distinctly female, low and velvety.
“I was just a child,” I said. “Look at me.”
The raven seemed to regard the figure in the doorway, eyes wide, a good girl.
“You’ve never been just a child. You knew things before they did. You tried to warn him, remember?”
“Yes,” I said, breathless. The raven flapped her wings, obscuring my view for a moment, and when I could see again, we were no longer
in the kitchen. I blinked in the blue light and took in the sight of the shop. The Challenger was still a hunk of junk and I could see my father tinkering on the car engine. I was standing next to him, even younger than before, my hands covered in grease. I looked toward the window, dusty with dirt from the road, the shape of several black birds peeking through the glass.
“Why do the ravens follow me?” I said.
“That’s the wrong question,” said the bird, her voice breathy in my ear.
“What’s the right question?” I walked around my father, crouching to look up at his face, brow furrowed and lined with worry. My own face was puckered. I remembered this day. I was trying not to cry that day. He hated it when I cried, and I was trying so hard to keep my father’s love. He was all I had left.
“Daddy, something’s wrong with them,” I remembered telling him. “They do bad things to me when you’re not there. Since the lake–”
“Enough about the lake!” I knew I’d made a mistake. He worked to remain calm. I could see his mouth counting to ten, even though no sound came out. When he calmed down, he smiled a joyless smile. “You just have to try to be good, Frankie. Don’t make them angry and they won’t punish you. Sometimes you can just be so...sinful.”
Then he turned from me and started tinkering on the car again. That was this moment, frozen in time, or memory, one year before his death, two years before I killed Rebecca.
The raven flapped her wings again and it was autumn. I saw my awkward adolescent body standing in an apple orchard with other kids from my father's church. I knew there was a maze made of hay bales nearby, fake skeletons and creepy scarecrows peeking from where they were tied with baling twine. There was a plastic horse trough filled with apples. I walked toward it.
I remembered it being clear and cold that night. The party was put on by my father’s congregation, a group of busybody women who pinched my cheeks too hard and laughed too long at my father’s compliments. My mother no longer seemed to even notice them.