It was dark, arriving in the Czech Republic’s capital city a little after 8:00 p.m.
A yellow Skoda pulled up responding to Barry’s upraised thumb, and the Czech driver leaned across from the left-hand side and spoke to them in his native tongue.
“Um… what did he say?” Sophie asked Barry, puzzled.
“Why are you asking me? Didn’t you learn almost every language in the world?” Barry retorted, slightly stunned.
Sophie laughed, throwing him a wink. She stooped down and peered into the taxi. “Dobre rano. Mluvite anglicky?” Good morning, do you speak English?
The driver made a face that indicated uncertainty, wobbling his head a bit like a nodding dog, then made a sign with his thumb and index finger to imply ‘a little’. “Trochu… small pieces… yes.”
“Can you take us to Charles Bridge?” Barry took over.
“Ano,” pronounced ‘ah-no’, replied the driver in a positive tone. “Charles Bridge.”
“No?” Barry was disappointed.
“He said yes,” reassured Sophie. “‘Ano’ means yes. ‘Ne’ means no. Come; let’s get in before he thinks we’re stupid tourists…”
Walking across the old Bohemian sandstone bridge was very romantic. Charles Bridge was built in the 14th century, construction beginning in 1357. There were a few other couples walking along it, but not nearly as busy as during the summer months. February was one of Prague’s least touristy months despite its romantic setting.
It was cold, around minus one degree; a few flakes of snow were falling, but not enough to settle. Heavier snowfall was forecast for later that night.
Electric bulbs glowed within the lanterns set all along the balustrade between the alley of statues that stood like sentinels keeping watch. There were thirty in all overlooking the 620 metre length of the bridge, baroque in style and depicting saints and patron saints, the most notable, St. Luthgard the Holy Crucifix and Calvary. Three watch towers protected the river crossing, two of them at the Lesser Quarter end, and one, the more impressive, at the Old Town end. It was towards the Lesser Quarter towers that Sophie and Barry were heading, the steeples of St. Nicholas church could be made out in the background behind them.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Barry asked, stopping the young woman almost at the centre of the bridge, the Vltava, Czech Republic’s longest river at 270 miles, flowing beneath them. He placed his gloved hands on her shoulders and studied her face.
“I’ve had a few weeks to change my mind; I haven’t yet.”
“Okay. Just saying… there’s no going back once it’s done.” Stating the obvious was something Barry often did.
“You don’t want me to do it, do you?” Sophie asked, slightly disconcerted. She pulled free from his clutches and stepped away, towards the low wall of the balustrade facing south of the city.
“I didn’t say that. I just think… you could keep it, it’s historically important. I did some research… it apparently belonged to Cyrus the Great –”
“Yada, yada, yada. I read the info blurb at the gallery.” At the bridge’s edge, the wall stopped just shy of reaching her waist. Without a thought, she pulled out the Whisper of Persia from her coat pocket, leaned slightly over and outstretched her arm. Her hand was clutching something. Barry guessed what it was.
“Don’t!”
“Nothing good will ever come of it,” Sophie warned, glancing back towards Barry. She opened her hand and felt the yellow diamond roll across her fingers before tumbling free, dropping weightily to the inky-black surface of the Vltava with a gurgly-‘plunk’.
“I guess that settles it.” Barry was a little disappointed.
Sophie stepped away from the low wall and rejoined the MI6 field agent. “I guess so.” She linked her arm within his, and together they began to stroll back to the other side of the river.
They picked up a ride in a taxi at the intersection of Legerova and Rumunská outside a bar and restaurant called ‘Legenda’, a Jameson Irish Whiskey sign above the entrance door. Twenty minutes later, the Czech driver, who spoke better English than Barry, stopped the car and indicated that they had arrived. Barry paid using a crisp 200 Czech Crown note.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I wish you’d quit asking me that question,” grumbled Sophie, stepping out of the yellow cab.
“You don’t even know who lives here.” Barry climbed out of the car from the other side after accepting his change and walked around to the pavement. The taxi took no time to drive off. “Maybe it would be better to come back in the morning; we haven’t even checked into our hotel yet.”
“I’m doing it now, before I change my mind.”
The building of Norská 561/10, 101 00 Prague, Czech Republic, was nestled within a long row of five storey properties. A chestnut-brown double-door stood between the pavement and the apartments within, an arched leaded window in the top half of each, allowing just a glimpse of the inside. Giving the door a tug, Sophie instantly determined that it was locked. To the right of the entrance was an intercom and door buzzer system screwed into the wall. Sophie stepped over to it, giving it half-measured consideration.
“Are you going to buzz?” Barry asked, walking up close behind her.
Sophie shook her head. “What would I say?” She had been so focused on getting to Prague that she hadn’t given any thought to how she would approach the mystery behind who lived at the address written on the back of the photograph.
One of the double-doors opened out as an occupant, a man in his sixties wearing a flat cap and a thick coat, exited the building. He paid the young couple no notice and the door gently swung back towards closed. Barry lunged towards the door, stretching a foot out into the jam. “Quick,” he said, “let’s get in off the street. We look conspicuous outside.” He took hold of the door’s edge and pulled it open, allowing Sophie to enter before him.
The hallway was wide and dingy; grimy black and white ceramic floor tiles click-clacked under Sophie’s feet as she walked deeper in. At the end of the hallway was a large staircase with an ornate handrail, a lion’s head was carved at its end. Beside it was an old elevator which no one other than a fifth floor resident would give any trust, an electronic number panel above it flickering on and off.
A quick survey concluded that the apartment they sought was not on the ground level. They guessed the culmination to their journey would be found on the third floor.
Without speaking, Sophie led the way.
Two minutes later, Barry slightly out of breath, they stood outside the apartment numbered: 10.
Nervously, Sophie placed an ear against the solid wooden door and listened. From inside, the faint sound of a television could be heard. Canned laughter and a familiar tune followed belonging to a popular American comedy show.
“What are you waiting for?” pressed Barry.
Spurred into action, Sophie rapped her knuckles against the door. Slow and deliberate, she struck the wood three times.
Inside the apartment the scraping of chair legs against tile or wooden flooring, immediately followed by footsteps, the echo indicative of a sparsely furnished or recently decorated dwelling.
A metal chain inside rattled as it was put in place, then a series of bolts were dragged aside before a key was turned, unlocking the door.
The door of apartment ten opened a few inches, just wide enough for the inhabitant to be able to see who visited her at such an hour. Barry glanced at his watch and the time, still set to GMT, was 9:15 p.m. Czech Republic was an hour ahead and Barry had already done the simple math.
It was a bit late to be visiting someone uninvited.
A woman in a plain fleece dressing gown spoke nervously to them. “Dobry’ den?” Hello. She was pretty, in her mid-to-late thirties, and had similar, delicate features a
nd an almost identical eye colouring to Sophie. Unlike most Czech women, who had a light brown colour or brunette hair, she had golden blonde tresses tied behind her into a bun. A pair of spectacles rested on her small nose.
“Um.” Sophie didn’t know where to begin. “Jmenuji se Sophie Jennings.” Pronounced ‘menooyi se’: my name is Sophie Jennings. In her hand she held her wallet. She tugged it open and pulled free the photograph her father had left her. “Můj otec mě sem poslal,” pronounced ‘mooya o etme asem pos lal’: my father sent me. Unfolding the picture, she offered it to the woman through the gap of the door.
Tentatively, she accepted it, precipitously closing the door after.
For what seemed like an age, Sophie and Barry stood patiently outside the apartment. When Barry was about to voice his belief that the occupant was not going to come back, the chain on the other side of the door clinked and jangled as it was withdrawn, the door quickly opening up fully.
The woman stepped out of her apartment and took Sophie in an embrace, the photograph she clutched tightly in one hand. She drew the younger woman close, her arms wrapping around her tight. She started to cry, tears freefalling down her cheeks. “Oh, Sophie,” she whispered. “I never thought I’d see the day.” She spoke perfect English, with no sign of an eastern European accent. “Your father said we’d be together one day… I just didn’t believe it.”
“Clara?” Sophie couldn’t believe it either. She pulled back to get a clearer look. The young woman in the photograph bore a striking resemblance to the person standing in front of her, though time – coupled with fear and worry – had done a little work to harden her appearance.
“Yes,” Clara said, still crying. She didn’t think she could ever stop.
“You’re my mum?”
Clara nodded over-enthusiastically, a grin stretching across her lips. “I am,” she said softly, happily.
“Hello Sophie,” George started cheerily. It was close to midnight when Clara convinced Sophie to dig out the thumb drive to play George’s recorded message. It had been over four months since Sophie had last seen the video and Clara selected the file eagerly after inserting the SD card into the slot of her laptop.
It had been three years since Clara had last seen the man, back in the laboratory. “I guess, if you’re watching this, things have gone bad and are beyond my control,” he continued uninterrupted for a bit, Clara watched the man through moist eyes, listening to his voice rapturously. She barely registered the words he was saying, they hardly mattered; seeing his face once again was enough.
Sitting beside Clara on the two-seater sofa, Sophie was equally mesmerised. George went quiet for a moment as he disappeared from the screen, going off to retrieve the vial of blue liquid which Sophie had already drunk back in the Chelsea apartment in October.
“I wish I could’ve tested it more thoroughly,” George began saying, “but I simply ran out of time. Don’t worry, it’s fine... and no animals died making it! You will, however, need to get used to the modification as you won’t be requiring the injections any more. I’m sure that’ll please you! Plus, the changes it will make to your DNA, they’re irreversible, which means nothing can ever be done to change it... so, if you were ever hoping for a cure... I’m sorry... it’s not going to happen…” George continued speaking some more, but Sophie stopped listening, instead replaying that phrase over and over in her head:
If you were ever hoping for a cure... I’m sorry... it’s not going to happen… If you were ever hoping for a cure... I’m sorry... it’s not going to happen… it echoed within her mind.
“Remember that,” George’s voice cut through her thoughts, so loud and clearly, he could have been in the room with her. When Sophie looked up at the screen, George was staring at her. For a moment, their eyes seemed to lock, and then the illusion passed.
“Are you okay Sophie?” asked Clara, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Sophie didn’t hear her; she was still playing her father’s warning over and over in her head, like it were a sound byte set on a loop:
Remember that… Remember that… Remember that… Remember that… Remember that… Remember that…
“Sophie?” Barry sat up from resting his head on the back of a sofa, a bottle of Gambrinus Czech lager in one hand. He opened his eyes and a look of concern crossed his face. “Sophie?” he persisted, more urgently.
Sophie blinked away her thoughts, focus returning to the people in the room. “What?”
Clara paused the video playback. “Are you okay, dear? We seemed to have lost you there for a bit?”
“I’m fine,” Sophie replied unconvincingly. “Just fatigue, I guess,” she yawned. “May I use your bathroom?”
“Of course,” replied Clara. “It’s through there, at the end of the hall.”
“Thanks. I’ll be right back.”
As Sophie wandered towards the bathroom, her father’s voice began once again, following her along the hallway until she reached the bathroom door. It was open a little and she could see the ceramic washbasin and toilet just ahead; the wall behind them was mirrored and spotlessly clean.
Closing the door behind her, she crossed to the sink and turned on the tap, cupping some icy-cold water. She splashed her face a few times and felt refreshed, her tiredness immediately subsiding. She grabbed a towel from a nearby hook and dried her face and hands.
If you were ever hoping for a cure... I’m sorry... it’s not going to happen… Remember that.
“But the antidote?” Sophie asked her father, as though he were there in the bathroom with her. Dominic had stabbed her with one of the special darts and immediately after she had lost her invisibility, becoming normal. So it seemed… or had she just assumed it?
Have you tried to use your abilities since? Her conscience conjured a response, mimicking George’s voice.
“A couple of times… but nothing happened.”
“Try again!” her father appeared to speak within the room and Sophie flinched, spinning around with a start.
Unsurprisingly, there was nobody else there.
Feeling suddenly unsteady, she turned back and took hold of the washbasin with both of her hands, staring at her reflection in the mirror. She felt nervous and nauseous and her heart pounded in her chest. She dismissed the feelings, forcing calm to flow over her by using meditation together with some deep breathing exercises. Now relaxed, she allowed her focus to blur and directed her concentration on a point deep within her mind, going to the place within to summon her external alteration, the place she could never describe but felt was at the core of her being.
She closed her eyes and willed herself to change.
Warmth began to flow through her veins, starting at the tips of her fingers and the points of her toes, slowly coalescing into her feet and hands. Gradually, the sensation permeated up her limbs and throughout her body, going deep and deeper, tingly and electric, affecting four different areas all at the same time, coming together at her centre just below the fall of her breasts.
Sophie opened her eyes. In the mirror, she looked no different.
Almost complete – but not quite – the perception consuming her body continued upwards to the only part bereft of the temperate conclusion; the heat coursing into her neck and on further, into her head – until it had nowhere else to go.
When that moment arrived, Sophie’s entire body felt consumed by an inner fire; synapses in her brain fired and an ethereal awareness overcame her.
Sophie opened her eyes.
She was still leaning over the sink, the mirror reflecting her exactly to how she was a moment ago; not a hair out of place or a change in colour to her skin.
She sighed. “I knew it wouldn’t work,” she whispered, dejectedly. Standing up, she caught sight of her self –
or lack of it!
>
How could I forget?
A curious by-product to her father’s genetic enhancement was her appearance could be reflected, even when completely invisible. It was how Meredith had first seen her, why her sister had called her ‘the girl in the mirror’; naively, the nine-year-old had thought that she somehow lived inside it.
On face value, it didn’t look like anything had happened, not staring back at her from the silvered glass. But taking a big step back from the washbasin, to allow her eyes to scan her body from her feet upwards, her metamorphosis became evidently clear.
Sophie Jennings had totally vanished.
A knock at the bathroom door startled her. It was Barry coming to check up. “Are you okay in there?” he sounded worried.
She took a deep breath and concentrated on being visible once again.
“Sophie?” Barry twisted the knob and opened the door just as Sophie, suddenly alarmed, transformed into full view.
“Can’t a girl go to the toilet in peace?!” she grumbled, a flash of annoyance crossing her face. The fact that she was standing facing the mirror did not come into any question.
“Sorry,” he muttered meekly. “You’ve been gone a quarter-of-an-hour, we thought you might’ve fainted or fallen down the hole or something.”
“Hmmm, okay.” Sophie softened and appeared to be glowing.
“Are you sure you’re okay? You look… different.” Barry couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was a perceptible change in the young woman’s demeanour.
Sophie smiled, ignoring the question. She took hold of Barry’s hand. “Come… there’s something I need to tell you… and Clara,” she pulled him out of the bathroom, leading him back towards the living room. “Then,” she continued in a mysterious manner, “I’ve got something to show you.”
The Whisper of Persia (The Girl in the Mirror Book 3) Page 47