Mirror Me

by Rachel Sanderson

  Zelda was Rebecca O’Reilley’s dog. Zelda was there the night Rebecca O’Reilley was murdered.

  I think of the scar on Zelda’s shoulder. I’m certain that I know how she got it. I feel sick.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Zeke asks. ‘Other than, you know… Sorry, dumb question.’

  ‘I talked to Duncan,’ I say.

  ‘Yep, I saw.’ Zeke flicks the indicator on and turns onto the road that leads through the centre of Derrington and then out of town. There are a couple of cars parked and a few shops are open but mostly it looks deserted. Everybody’s at the Fair.

  ‘And?’ Zeke says.

  ‘He recognised Zelda,’ I say and suddenly I have a lump in my throat like a rock. I want to cry. I’m scared and tired and I want to cry.

  ‘Really?’ Zeke says.

  ‘Zelda belonged to Rebecca O’Reilley.’

  Zeke makes a hissing noise as he lets air out from between his teeth. Tears begin to fill my eyes and blur my vision but I talk through them. ‘I just, I don’t get it. It’s like… it’s like a curse or something. Like the universe is just throwing this all at me. And I don’t believe in curses but I can’t think of any other explanation.’

  ‘I have to say, Abbie, it is pretty weird.’

  I wipe my eyes with my forearm and look back at Zelda. She’s oblivious. Totally absorbed in the passing world, her tongue hanging out like she wants to taste the air.

  And then something clicks.

  ‘Zeke, the house. The house, the house –’

  ‘Um, what house Abbie?’

  ‘We went for a walk the other day and Zelda ran off and she ran around the back of this house and I had to, like, drag her away.’

  ‘Uh huh?’

  ‘And it was all weird and empty and it creeped me out. Zeke, I think it was their house. It must have been. Zelda took me there. She took me to the O’Reilley’s house.’

  ‘Left,’ I say, hoping I’m not getting us completely lost.

  I’m used to walking and everything looks different from the car. I spot a familiar landmark, a big shed on a block of land not too far from our place.

  ‘Yep we’re close now,’ I say.

  I’m leaning forward into the seatbelt as I look out the window, trying to remember the route that we took. I spot the long row of pine trees lining the drive.

  ‘That’s it down there,’ I say, and Zeke takes the turn then slows.

  ‘Let’s just drive past. We’ll be able to see from the road, right?’ he says.

  ‘Turn up the driveway.’

  ‘Abbie –’

  ‘Zeke, please. There’s nobody there. Let’s just take another look.’

  Zelda is stirring in the back. She crosses from one side of the back seat to the other, looking out the window and whining.

  ‘Okay,’ Zeke sighs, and takes the turn at a crawl. We drive towards the house at a walking pace. The pine trees give the effect of driving through a tunnel – they shade the driveway and block our view of the sky. I shiver. The house looms ahead as big and blank and empty-feeling as I recall.

  ‘Yep, that’s it,’ he says. ‘I remember when it was on the news, it reminded me of the house from the Addams’ Family.’

  I realise that I’m holding my breath and force myself to inhale, exhale, inhale.

  ‘I came here once actually,’ he continues. ‘But it was such a long time ago I can hardly remember it now.’

  I turn and look at him.

  ‘Becky’s tenth birthday party. She basically invited the whole school. There was a bouncy castle and pony rides and a huge ice-cream cake. It was like the most amazing thing ever at the time.’

  I look back at the house and try to imagine it as a place where people have celebrated, a place where people might have laughed and talked and fallen in love and eaten really nice meals and read books and slept in on the weekends. But I can’t. As hard as I try to, I just can’t.

  ‘Can we go now?’ Zeke asks. ‘This is creeping me out.’

  Chapter twenty-eight

  ‘You don’t have to wait with me if you don’t want to,’ I say.

  Zeke rolls his eyes. I jiggle the key in the lock a few times, it always seems to stick, and eventually the door swings open. Zelda races in ahead of us. Tom got her one of those squeaky rubber chicken toys a few days ago and it’s become her favourite thing in the universe. She’s always hiding it places, then finding it and throwing it on the ground and pouncing on it. Hours of doggy fun. I figure that’s what she’s gone to do now.

  ‘Are you hungry? I can make us some lunch…’ I say, even though food is the last thing I want right now. My stomach is still churning from the text and the wood chopping and from what Duncan told me.

  ‘Thanks, I’m starving actually.’

  I lead him to the kitchen, then open the fridge and dig through the crisper drawer. ‘Is this you?’ Zeke says. He’s standing at the bookshelf looking at a picture of me and my Dad from when I was little.

  ‘Mmm hmm,’ I start chopping up tomato and cheese. ‘Do you like avocado?’

  ‘I eat anything. I’m part goat. The ultimate omnivore.’

  ‘Okay good.’

  I grab the bread knife and cut a few slices of homemade rye bread, then load our sandwiches up with everything that looks vaguely sandwichable: cheese, tomatoes, avocado, rocket, pickled onion, and bonus salami. Mum gets it sometimes as a treat, though we’re not allowed to eat it around Stacey.

  ‘How cute were you? Look at those pigtails,’ Zeke says.

  ‘Adorable. Here, eat.’

  We sit down at the table. Zeke’s legs are long and we’re sitting close. His knee touches mine. I pretend not to notice even though the contact is just about the only thing I can focus on. That and the fact that there is nobody else in the house, nobody else for miles. It’s just me and Zeke, with probably a few hours alone together ahead of us. For a few minutes, there’s only silence and chewing noises. I chew as quietly as I can. I will have to talk to Mum about making bread without so much damn crust.

  ‘Do you want a coffee or something?’ I ask once we finish. ‘I can only do instant. Or there’s a billion kinds of tea.’

  ‘Coffee sounds good if you’re having some,’ Zeke says. ‘Thanks.’

  I get up and put the kettle on and Zeke picks our plates up, drops the few bits of crust into the bin, and stacks them with the other dirty dishes on the sink. He stays standing there, right next to me, as I get the cups down.

  ‘Abbie,’ he says.

  ‘Zeke,’ I say, spooning some coffee into the cup.

  I turn and he’s looking at me so intently, with such an unusually serious expression, that for a moment I completely forget what I’m doing. He takes the empty spoon from my hand and lays it down on the bench. I can’t breathe. I actually can’t breathe, the feeling in my chest is so intense. It’s like the whole world has shrunk down to this place, this moment. Zeke takes my hand and draws me towards him, then leans in closer. His lips brush mine, and for a moment I am just standing there in shock.

  Zeke is kissing me. Zeke is kissing me.

  And then he kisses me deeper and I’m filled with sweet warmth and wonder and I kiss him back. And it’s the most incredible kiss I could have ever imagined, for a second everything feels perfect, completely perfect, and then my elbow bumps the coffee mug and I realise what’s happening too late to stop it.

  There’s a smash. Zeke pulls away from me and laughs.

  ‘Oops,’ I say. I swear, my whole body is glowing.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Zeke says, grinning.

  I grin back, stupidly, idiotically. It’s hard to believe that not long ago I was almost sick with terror. Now I feel happier than I’ve ever felt before in my life.

  ‘Hey Abbie, hey Zeke,’ Tom says when he gets in, like finding Zeke sitting in our lounge room with his arm around my shoulders on a Sunday afternoon is just a totally normal thing. ‘Mum let me go on the Gravitron. And there were showbags too. Wanna see what I go
t?’

  ‘Sure,’ Zeke says, shifting away from me before my mum comes in.

  ‘Abbie?’ Mum’s standing in the doorway with a potted geranium in her arms and a worried look on her face. ‘A word?’

  ‘Okay. You guys will be right?’ I say to Zeke and Tom – mostly to Zeke – but they’re already both so engrossed in opening little bags with Lego mini-figurines inside that they don’t even notice me.

  ‘Wow, cool!’ I hear Zeke saying.

  I follow Mum into the hallway and down to the other end of the house. I wonder if I’m about to get a lecture about being alone with Zeke. Not that we did much. Just kissing. Lots of kissing. So much kissing I got dizzy. We only just managed to break it up before we got disturbed.

  Mum looks intently at me. ‘I didn’t want to worry Tom. I saw you leave early. Are you okay? Did something happen?’

  I close my eyes for a second and remember the earlier portion of the day. ‘I’m fine. There’s only so many prize-winning bovines this girl can take in one day.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  I nod and smile.

  ‘Promise you’ll tell me if there’s a problem,’ she says, looking at me sternly.

  ‘Of course. My problems are your problems,’ I say.

  ‘Always,’ she ruffles my hair like she used to do all the time when I was little.

  After an hour or so of helping to sort through Tom’s Lego collection, Zeke excuses himself. I walk him out to where his car is parked under a tree out the front of the house. I turn to face him and he puts his hands on my shoulders.

  ‘You okay Abbie?’

  I nod.

  ‘For real?’ he says. ‘I was worried about you before.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry.’

  He pulls me towards him and hugs me so tightly that I can feel the movement as he breathes in and out. The scratchy stubble of his chin presses against the side of my face. He smells nice, like shampoo and clean washing that’s been hung out to dry in the sun.

  He lets me go and looks at me again. ‘I don’t want to go,’ he says. ‘But I have to help my Dad take a load of rubbish to the dump this arvo. He’ll kill me if I don’t turn up. It’s a two-person job. Sorry.’

  ‘Well I want you alive,’ I say, still glowing from the hug.

  He frowns for a second and then leans forward and kisses me once, softly. Tenderly. My lips tingle from it.

  ‘Be careful,’ he says. ‘Promise me you’ll tell your Mum about the message. It’s important. She needs to know.’

  I watch him drive off. I feel an empty, aching longing as I watch until his car is gone and there’s a cloud of dust hanging over the road. Even before the dust has settled I miss him.

  Chapter twenty-nine

  The dream is the same but different.

  The hallway, the door, the blood. The fear. The sense of something or someone coming up behind me. Terrible danger. But this time, there’s something new. A noise. A desperate high-pitched whine, then a scrabbling, scratching sound. It’s coming from the other side of the door. And I suddenly know what it is.

  I wake drenched in sweat, the scream I’d been making in my dream coming out as a strangled moan. I lie in the silence for a long minute, listening for signs that I’ve woken Mum or Stacey, hearing the dull thudding of my heart.

  Nothing.

  I check the time. It’s 4am. I turn on the lamp and my laptop, thinking I’ll do some maths and that will help me get back to sleep. I log into my emails on automatic. There’s one there from Duncan.

  Abbie,

  I just wanted to say, please take good care of Zelda. Becky loved her and Zelda loved Becky. She must have been meant to end up with you I think. Sorry for freaking out.

  I’m sending you this picture of the two of them together.

  Duncan

  There’s an attachment. I click open. It’s Zelda. And a girl who looks a lot like me is sitting on the ground beside her with her arms around her. And they both look so happy, so relaxed, so right together like that.

  My eyes fill with tears as I’m struck again, as if for the first time, by how unfair it is. It’s not fair that Rebecca O’Reilley is dead. It’s not fair that she isn’t just living her life, getting on with things, hanging out with her dog, doing her schoolwork. It’s not fair all that was taken from her. I shut my laptop down and close it and lie in bed, wide awake, thinking.

  When I get up the next morning, I know what I need to do. I pull my sneakers on and tie my hair back, which is growing fast enough to do up in a short pony-tail already.

  ‘Just going out for a run,’ I yell to Mum, who’s in the kitchen getting breakfast ready. The whole house smells delicious. Stacey must have put the bread machine on overnight. My stomach contracts with a sudden pang of hunger but I don’t have time to eat. I don’t want to give Mum a chance to delay my walk. I don’t want to give myself a chance to change my mind.

  Zelda is at my feet, tail wagging, mouth wide in what could only be described as a doggy-grin. I still find it amazing how I can tell what she’s feeling – whether she’s happy or anxious or bored or resentful or guilty. People might say I’m reading into things that aren’t there, that dogs don’t feel the same way humans do, but I know that’s not true. For a second I feel a pang. Maybe I’m making a mistake. Maybe this is a cruel thing to do to her.

  I push the worry away. I kneel beside her and give her a pat and she sticks her nose in my ear, then I clip the lead on and we’re off.

  Jogging feels easy this morning, I guess because I’ve got a steady stream of adrenalin entering my blood stream. I run, and Zelda lopes along beside me happily. We head up the hill, cut right at the T-junction, pass the neighbour’s driveway and keep going on down the road. The old guy who lives on the property adjoining ours is out on his tractor, chugging slowly down the hillside at a precarious angle. He gives me a wave as I pass and I wave back.

  We keep on, and I let Zelda take up the lead now. I know she’ll pull me in the right direction. A narrow dirt road turns off near the top of the hill. I feel a shadow of fear. What am I doing? What do I expect to find? But something in my gut is compelling me onwards, so I push the questions away.

  As we start down the hill, following the winding dirt road, Zelda becomes more alert and starts to pull harder at the lead. I’m not letting her off this time. I want her by my side, the whole way. I loop the lead around my wrist as a precaution and we keep going. Zelda pulls so hard she nearly drags me off my feet. She strains until the collar digs into her throat and then she starts to make harsh panting sounds, like she can’t get enough air. She’s choking herself.

  ‘Easy girl,’ I say. ‘We’re almost there. Just slow down.’

  My words make no impact. She pulls harder, rears up on her back legs. She starts to jump and twist like a crazy thing. I’ve never seen her act like this before.

  ‘Zelda, it’s okay, we’re almost there.’ I fight a rising sense of panic, of wrongness.

  We turn into the driveway and I slow to a walk as I follow the drive up between the tall pine trees. It feels suddenly darker and cooler, and the air has an edge to it – a scent of pine and damp soil and something else that I can’t quite pick.

  As we approach the house, I start to feel dizzy. My legs are shaking like they don’t want to hold my weight anymore. Zelda slows down too, and suddenly I find her right beside me, so close that I almost trip over her, and somehow that makes me feel even more terrified.

  I scan to make sure there’s no sign of occupants – but just like last time, the blinds are drawn on all the windows, the driveway is empty, the garage is shut with a heavy padlock and the garden is overgrown and untended.

  I take a wide route around the side of the house. I feel exposed in the front yard. We’re visible to anybody looking in from the road and anybody looking out from a window would spot us instantly. Not that I think there’s anybody looking out, but still…

  Around the back of the house, a pergola ext
ends over a broad wooden deck that was probably used for entertaining or lazy Sunday lunches. I shiver a little as I see it – the vine that drapes over it is dead, and the surface of the deck is littered with fallen leaves and desiccated flowers. There are no pots, no loose bricks, no obvious hiding places for keys. Next to me Zelda whines and noses forwards. And then I notice that one of the back windows is broken. It looks like someone put a rock through it. The mechanism to open the window is just inside, in reach. It will be a bit of a climb but I should be able to make it through. I tie Zelda to a post, kneel next to her and tell her to wait. I tell her that I won’t be long, that everything’s okay, that I won’t leave her there. She whines and pulls at the lead. I feel a pang of wrongness but I don’t see any other way.

  Carefully, I reach through and get a hold on the mechanism. I wind a few times and the window opens wider. It’s awkward but soon there’s enough of a gap that I think I’ll be able to clamber through.

  The broken glass is more of a problem. I brush away the shards that I can see on the window ledge and hope I’ve got all of it. Then I push myself up with a quick heave and I half-wriggle, half-fall through the gap. I misjudge and land awkwardly and immediately feel a sharp pain.

  Damn it. A shard of glass is embedded in the base of my thumb. It doesn’t hurt as much as it looks like it should and I wonder if that’s a bad thing. I have some vague memory that a worse cut might result in severed nerves which might mean less feeling, whereas a paper cut is superficial but hurts like hell. I’m shaking. I try to pull the glass out. It sticks a little and then shifts and then the blood begins to run, a thick, steady ooze pooling in my palm and dripping in big red splotches onto the floor.

  Damn it.

  Outside I hear Zelda bark, a sharp, agitated yapping.

  I look around. The room is large and empty. Cream-coloured carpet still shows the indentations of heavy objects. From the shape, I guess there used to be a double bed here, and maybe a bookshelf up against the wall. A doorway opens onto a walk-in wardrobe and beyond that I can just see an ensuite. I find a switch on the wall and flick it but nothing happens. The place must have been empty for months. Since the O’Reilleys died. I ignore the pulse I can feel pounding in the base of my throat, the shivery, sick sensation in my gut, and walk through the room and out the doorway.