The Mirror (Northwest Passage Book 5)

by John A. Heldt

  "What's in your hand?"

  "These are the pictures Joe took on Friday night," Virginia said. She handed Ginny the packet. "They all turned out well, including the ones with the girls. You can look at them now, if you'd like. I didn't seal the envelope."

  "I'll wait."

  "When I was compiling them, I noticed the envelope you gave me last week. What would you like me to do with it?"

  "Burn it," Ginny said.

  "You want me to burn it?"

  Ginny nodded.

  "Or throw it in the sound. Just don't let anyone see it."

  "Are you at least going to tell me what it contains?"

  Ginny pondered the question. Part of her wanted to tell not only Nana but also the rest of the Sun staff and Seattle's major television stations. She wanted Richard Carrington to simmer in his own juices, but she didn't want to alter history any more than she already had.

  "No. I think it's best I take the Fifth on this one."

  Virginia laughed and gave Ginny a hug.

  "What am I going to do when you're gone?"

  "You're going to light a candle every night in my memory."

  Virginia smiled.

  "I may just do that. I am going to miss you. I'm also going to miss that sister of yours. Have you seen her?"

  "No. I've been looking too. She called this morning to say she'd be back by two. It's three fifteen now. It's not like her to be late," Ginny said. "Katie is the most punctual person I know."

  Virginia put a hand on Ginny's shoulder.

  "Give her some time, dear. I know she's very fond of the Hayes boy. I imagine that leaving him will be difficult."

  Ginny stared blankly at the street.

  "You have no idea."

  Virginia peeked inside the station wagon.

  "I don't see any luggage or belongings. Are you sure you don't want to take anything with you? I'd be happy to give you a suitcase if you want to pack your dresses."

  Ginny smiled.

  "No, thank you. You can keep them. Give the shorter ones to Cindy and Joanie when they're older, if the dresses are still in style. I suspect at least one of them will wear them."

  "I'm afraid to ask which one," Virginia said.

  Ginny laughed.

  "Let's just say I know my grandma well."

  Ginny raised a hand to her forehead and looked down the street. There was still no sign of her AWOL sister.

  "What about money? Do you have enough for cab fare and other expenses?"

  "I think we're set. Katie and I closed out our bank accounts on Friday," Ginny said. "We have more than enough money for a taxi, though I don't think we'll need it."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because I expect things to be just as we left them. That's how time travel works. When we walk through the mirror, we'll pop out at exactly the same time we left. My car will still be in the parking lot. We'll just drive it home."

  "Well, if there's anything you need, just holler. It's not too late to run to the bank or a store."

  "Thanks, Nana, but I think we'll be fine," Ginny said. She peered into the distance. "I have everything I need, including my sister. There she is now."

  Ginny stepped forward as Mike Hayes approached in his white Impala and turned into the driveway of the duplex. She stopped when he got out of the car and escorted Katie across the street to the Jorgenson house. She could sense that something was wrong.

  Ginny's heart sank when she got her first close look at Katie's face. She could see that her sister, no stranger to tears, had been crying hard.

  She also looked at Mike and saw that he appeared no happier than Katie. He wore the face of a man who had just had his world taken away.

  Ginny walked slowly toward her twin and gave her a hug. She could feel Katie shake.

  "Are you OK, sweetie?" Ginny asked.

  Katie looked up at Ginny with vacant eyes and shook her head.

  "No," Katie said softly.

  Ginny glanced at Mike and then at Virginia, who stood about fifteen feet away. Each had given the sisters space to discuss whatever they had to discuss.

  "Katie?" Ginny asked. "I have to ask a question."

  She put her hands on her sister's shoulders.

  "Ask," Katie said.

  "Is Mike coming with us?"

  "No."

  "I didn't think so," Ginny said. She tightened her hold on Katie's shoulders. "I know this is hard, but you have to say goodbye now. Nana is waiting to take us to the fair."

  Katie stood motionless and stared blankly at the house. A moment later, she gently removed Ginny's hands from her shoulders and looked her in the eyes.

  "I'm not going," Katie said in a voice barely above a whisper.

  Ginny paused for a moment as her stomach began to twist.

  "Did you just say you're not going?"

  Katie nodded.

  "I'm not going to the fair, Ginny. I'm not leaving Mike."

  Ginny forced a smile and looked at Virginia and Mike.

  "Can you give us a moment?" Ginny asked. "We need to discuss a few things."

  "Take all the time you need," Virginia said.

  Mike nodded but didn't speak.

  Ginny grabbed Katie's hand and led her away from the others to the side yard. When they reached a patch that was free of roller skates and dolls, she let her sister have it.

  "What do you mean you're not going?"

  "I mean I'm not going," Katie said.

  "Oh, yes you are," Ginny said in a heated voice. "You're getting in Nana's car right now and going to the fair."

  "No. I'm not."

  Ginny looked at the sky and threw up her hands.

  "Are you nuts?"

  "No. I'm very sane," Katie said.

  Ginny looked at her twin and saw a stranger. She couldn't believe she was having this conversation with someone who shared her DNA. She took a deep breath, collected her thoughts, and tried again to reach a sibling who had abandoned her senses.

  "You don't have to leave Mike. I've told you that a hundred times. He can come with us. I'll help him adjust. He'll be fine. You'll be fine. We'll all be fine. But we have to leave now."

  "He won't leave his mother."

  "So bring her along. We can pick her up on the way."

  "She won't go," Katie said. "I asked her to come this morning. She won't budge."

  "That's her choice," Ginny said. "You don't have a choice. You have to go."

  Katie hardened her stare.

  "I won't leave them."

  Ginny stiffened as her anger started to rise.

  "I've got news for you, Katie. Mrs. Hayes is going to die. She's going to leave you. She's going to leave Mike. He won't have a mother no matter where he is, so he might as well come with us."

  "He has a sister too," Katie hissed.

  Ginny exploded.

  "You have a sister! You have two sisters and three brothers and parents who love you and miss you. Do they count, Katie? Do they? Do they?"

  "Of course they count," Katie said. She burst into tears. "Do you think this is easy for me?"

  "No. I don't think it's easy. It wasn't easy for me to say goodbye to James last night. It was hard, but I did it. I did the right thing and said goodbye. Now, you have to do the right thing and say goodbye to Mike."

  "I can't."

  "Yes, you can," Ginny said.

  "No."

  "Do I need to remind you of Marta's warning? She said we'd have only one shot at this – not two, not three, but one. If we don't leave now, we may never see home again. Are you willing to take that chance? Are you?"

  "Yes. I am."

  "No. You're not. I know you. You're not willing to take that chance. You do want to see our family again," Ginny said. "Now, get your butt in Nana's car. We're leaving now."

  "No!"

  "What's the matter with you?"

  "I'm pregnant!"

  Ginny closed her eyes as clarity swept over her. She could see now that this wasn't about a life nearing an
end but rather a life nearing a beginning. She had no answer to this wildest of wildcards but knew that she had to stand her ground.

  "That doesn't change a thing, Katie. We have to go. We have to go now."

  Katie wiped the tears from her face and stared at her sister with the saddest eyes Ginny had ever seen. She stepped forward and gave her twin a long hug. The anger was gone.

  "No, Gin. You have to go," Katie said softly. "I know what I'm giving up. I know I'll regret staying here for the rest of my life, but I have to do it. I will not leave the man I love. I will not keep him from his child."

  Katie took a breath.

  "I don't have a choice now, Ginny. I can't go."

  Ginny fought off tears of her own as she stared at her sibling and realized that Katie wasn't going to budge. She could see that Katie had not made a rash decision but rather a cold calculation. She had undoubtedly given the matter a lifetime of thought and concluded that happiness could be found only by keeping her family – her new family – intact.

  "Well, I guess that settles it," Ginny said. "If you can't go, you can't go."

  Ginny wiped her eyes and then gently took her sister's hands.

  "And if you can't go, then neither can I."

  CHAPTER 79: GRACE

  Sunday, May 2, 2021

  Grace Smith dusted the hutch for the second time in as many hours and proceeded from there to a wall of framed photos. She hated dusting, sweeping, and mopping but found the chores to be useful diversions. They kept her mind off her crushing losses.

  She had often considered taking some of the photos off the wall. What was the point, she thought, in tormenting herself on a daily basis? In the end, though, she had left the gallery in place, just as she had left the bedroom in the basement untouched. As painful as these things could be, they were also reminders of two vibrant, meaningful, beautiful lives.

  Grace finished dusting the photos and walked to a cushioned bench near a bay window that provided a glorious view of Lake Washington. The nook was her favorite place, a corner of the world that offered a temporary escape from the burdens of life.

  When she sat on the bench and gazed at the water, she thought again of the night that had brought her world to a screeching halt. She replayed the events in her mind, hoping as she always hoped that reflection might bring acceptance and peace.

  Even the most thoughtful reflection, of course, could not alter the facts. On the night of September 11, 2020, Virginia and Katherine Smith, twin daughters of Joel and Grace Smith, had disappeared without a trace from a country fair in Maple Valley, Washington.

  For nearly nine months, local, state, and federal officials had investigated a case that baffled everyone from family and friends to fair organizers and the hosts of cable-television programs. Despite repeated searches of the fairgrounds and statements from more than a hundred people, no new light had been shed on the matter.

  Police knew only that the nineteen-year-olds had visited the tent of a divorced, forty-eight-year-old fortune-teller named Marta Robinson between 9:20 and 9:40 p.m. and that each had communicated with family members by phone around ten o'clock. Katie had spoken briefly with her mother. Ginny had sent text messages to her parents and siblings. None of the communications had even hinted of trouble.

  The lone clue in the case was pulled from an interview of Ms. Robinson on September 15. "Marta the Magnificent" had told the FBI that she had warned the twins that they would soon go on a "strange, mysterious journey" and have only one opportunity to return from that trip.

  Grace wanted desperately to believe that the girls had gone on an impromptu journey of discovery to Thailand or France, but she knew the truth was probably something terrible and far more predictable. She knew that they would be found near a trail or a pond or some other remote location, if in fact they were found at all.

  As she gazed at the lake from her favorite place, Grace tried to take comfort in what she still had. She had her husband, of course, and her four younger children, not to mention the support of other relatives and dozens of friends.

  Joel had been her rock from the beginning, a seemingly indestructible soul who had single-handedly taken charge of the family financially and emotionally from the very first day. He had insisted on taking the family to Hawaii at Christmas, as they had planned, and taking the kids on as many outings and adventures as he possibly could.

  He had not let up. Driven to keep the family functioning no matter what, he had rearranged his priorities to meet the needs of his wife and children. Even today he had rejected Grace's plea that he take some time for himself and had instead taken the children to a baseball game.

  Grace turned away from the window and eyed a book in the corner of the nook. She picked it up and saw that it was a copy of Lord of the Flies, a novel that Tom, her now oldest child and a senior at Westlake High, had been assigned to read for a literature class.

  She got up from the bench and started toward Tom's room. She would put the book on his dresser, perhaps straighten the spread on his typically unmade bed, and do this, that, and the other thing, just as she had done for two hundred and thirty-three days.

  Grace got as far as the hallway when she heard a car door slam. Deciding to investigate, she walked to the front door and peered through the door's window to the street beyond. She could see a taxi parked next to the curb and at least three people inside the vehicle but little else.

  Grace opened the door, stepped outside, and tried to get a better look at the cab. She could not recognize the occupants through the taxi's tinted windows, but she could see that they were looking at her. She closed the door and moved briskly toward the lawn and the street but stopped when she heard someone approach from the side.

  When she turned to her right, Grace Vandenberg Smith, mother of six, beheld a lovely ghost in a bright yellow dress. When the ghost said, "Mama," she fell to the ground.

  CHAPTER 80: GINNY

  The news spread with lightning speed. Shortly after paramedics treated Grace for shock, phone calls were made, texts were sent, and social media messages were posted.

  By the time Joel and the kids arrived with a police escort at two, more than fifty friends, neighbors, and onlookers had gathered outside a yellow-tape barrier that had been thrown up at the request of the family. By four thirty the crowd outside the door had grown to two hundred.

  Ginny sighed as she stared out a window at the throng. She was only now beginning to realize what the family would face in the coming days and weeks.

  "Are the police going to stick around?" Ginny asked.

  "I think so, honey. I've asked them to," Joel said. He put an arm around his daughter and pulled her close. "How are you holding up?"

  "I'm exhausted, Dad. I don't think I've slept in twenty-four hours. It was nighttime when we left and morning when we arrived."

  "Then go take a nap. Nothing's going to happen for a while. Get some rest."

  Ginny nodded.

  "OK. I will."

  Ginny slipped out of Joel's embrace and started toward her room but stopped when she saw her adorable pest of a brother stand in the doorway. She could see from the grin on his face that twelve-year-old Joe had something to say.

  "Mom wants to see both of you in the living room," Joe said.

  "What for?" Ginny asked.

  "She said the baby's awake. You have to come now."

  Ginny glanced at her father.

  "Are you ready to meet your grandson?"

  Joel smiled warmly.

  "I'm more than ready. Let's go."

  Ginny followed Joe and Joel into the living room, where the immediate family, Mike Hayes, Grandpa and Grandma Smith, and Vince and Edith Pearson waited. Vince and Edith, Ginny's great-uncle and great-aunt, had been in Seattle on business when the story broke. Grandparents William and Lucille Vandenberg and their children were on their way from Boise.

  When she saw the assembly in the room, Ginny couldn't help but get teary-eyed. She had not expected to see most of these
people again. Most had changed in at least one noticeable way. Brothers Tom and Patrick had grown taller and more handsome. Joe now wore braces. Joel and Grace looked older and Grandpa Frank less steady. He had suffered a mild stroke in April.

  Even Frank Smith, however, hadn't changed as much as his twin granddaughters. Ginny had become older, wiser, and more jaded in the sixteen months she'd been away from home. Katie had acquired a husband and a son. The girls had done a lifetime of growing up between May 2, 1964, and September 11, 1965. They had become women.

  Ginny reviewed that time in her head as the relatives waited for fourteen-year-old Cindy Smith to carry out the baby. The last twelve months, in particular, had been transforming. The day Katie had refused to go back to the future was the day the time travelers had been forced to restructure their lives and rearrange their priorities.

  Finding housing had not been a problem. Joe and Nana had allowed Ginny, Katie, and Mike to live in the duplex rent-free the entire year. The couple became the teenagers' surrogate parents, protectors, and mentors and helped Katie with her prenatal and hospital bills.

  Finding employment had been more of a challenge. Because Wade Greer had filled one of the two vacancies, he had been able to rehire only one of the twins. After talking to each of the candidates, he picked the one who wasn't pregnant. Working forty hours a week each, Mike and Ginny were able to make enough to support themselves and Katie.

  Katie, for her part, had focused on taking care of her unborn child and Mary Hayes, who became her mother-in-law on September 18, 1964. She served as Mary's full-time care provider, cook, and frequent companion until the older woman succumbed to her cancer seven weeks later.

  Mike and Katie had wasted little time tying the knot. Their marriage, in a civil ceremony, legitimized their relationship in the eyes of those who cared and also spared Mike from a likely trip to Vietnam. Because of an executive order that exempted married men between the ages of nineteen and twenty-six from conscription, he had not been required to serve.

  Though Ginny had faced fewer trials than Katie and Mike, she had not had an easy year. She had broken her arm in an accident at the store, missed a week of work because of the flu, and lost a battle to keep the man she loved out of the Army.