by Harper Lin
“So, back to the café? We’re losing business,” I suggested. “Plus, if Bea is better, she’s probably wondering where we are.”
Aunt Astrid nodded. Her calm made me uneasy. I couldn’t say why. I wished the cats were with us so that I could talk with them and see what they were sensing. But after the showdown, I was determined they were going to stay together at my house and rest. Just in case we needed their help again.
I let out a deep sigh and drove to the café. There was movement inside, but the lights were still off, the Closed sign was up, and it wasn’t Kevin, our baker, who had suddenly dyed his hair red.
“What’s Bea doing in there?” I asked.
When we pulled up, got out of the car, and walked up to the door, we couldn’t believe what we were seeing.
19
Reflection
Bea was wearing a horrible leopard-printed dress that looked like it came off the rack from a stripper’s dressing room. Aunt Astrid and I both gasped as we saw she was cleaning out the cash register. With trembling hands, my aunt unlocked the door.
“Bea? What are you…?”
“Shut up. I don’t want to hear it.” She rolled her eyes and continued to put the money in her purse.
“Honey, if you need money, I’ll give it to you. You don’t have to steal it,” my aunt said as she inched closer.
I had to pull my chin up off the floor after hearing her tell my aunt, her mother, to shut up. Had I not been out of arm’s reach, I would have slapped her myself.
“This has gone on long enough.” I stomped up to Bea and snatched her purse from her hand. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Okay. Yes. I suddenly regretted that move when Bea glared at me. I thought I was going to turn to stone right then and there. And that was when the reality of what was going on sank in. We didn’t get rid of anything. We might have closed one portal, but this was far from over.
“Give that back, or I’ll scratch your eyes out,” she hissed at me.
“You give it your best shot, cuz.” I handed the purse to my aunt to take the money out. My knees were shaking, and I didn’t have a drop of saliva in my mouth. But I wasn’t the one who blinked first.
“Do you really think I’m scared of you? You are an ugly girl who can’t get a husband and will grow old with her cat. You don’t have what I have.” She strutted past me like a streetwalker. “I’m getting out of here, and you can’t stop me.”
“Bea. What about Jake? He loves you,” Aunt Astrid interrupted. “We all do.”
“Jake?” She laughed. “Jake is just a stepping stone.”
That was when I noticed it again. She was looking at her reflection as she spoke. In the glass of the windows. In the toaster. In the mirror behind the counter. Anywhere she could catch a glimpse of herself, she was looking, and she didn’t seem to notice she had gaudy, tacky makeup on in addition to the too-tight dress she was wearing. She had a cute figure but not cute enough she could wear something two sizes too small. Not to mention about ten years too young.
“Don’t you hear yourself, Bea?” I asked. “You don’t talk like that. You love Jake. You guys are the poster children for Valentine’s Day.”
“Ha. Look at me. I deserve better than Jake and all of you. Now get out of my way.” She nearly knocked her mother to the ground as she stomped out of the café, got in her car, and sped off.
“Should we follow her?”
“No. I know where she’s going.” My aunt started to cry as I helped her get her balance. “We were too late. The Medusa Praesentia has infected her. Come on. We need to find out exactly what to do to stop this, or Bea is going to suffer the same fate as Mrs. Kitt.”
Those words were like ice water down the middle of my spine. “How long do you think we have?”
“I don’t think we have twenty-four hours.” My aunt wiped her eyes and then hurried down into the bunker. “I just need to get a couple of books. Then we need to go back to your house.”
“My house? Why my house?” That was a strange request because all the supplies, all the books and journals and maps, were at my aunt’s house.
“Because Bea’s going to the babe couple’s house, and she’ll be very angry when she realizes what we’ve done.”
She emerged from the steps with several thick books in her arms. I took four of them, and she carried the remaining three as we left the café, putting the Closed sign up and locking the place up tight. Aunt Astrid quickly muttered a security spell on the door to make sure Bea didn’t get back in.
“We need to get Jake here,” she said as I sped to my front door.
“I’ll call him.” We piled out and were greeted by our cats, rested and ready for more. “How are you guys feeling?”
They meowed and rubbed against my aunt and me as we came inside.
“Is everything okay?” Treacle asked.
“No. Bea is sick.” I looked at all the cats, especially Peanut Butter. “We’ve got to help her. She’s in grave danger, and we don’t have a lot of time. I’ll need you guys to be ready to pounce at our mark, even if it is at Bea. Do you understand? If we don’t, she could hurt herself or one of us.”
My aunt hurried to the kitchen, where I followed her. I picked up my phone and called the police station to get ahold of Jake. When he picked up the phone, he sounded like he’d been crying too.
I knew it was selfish, but for an instant, I thought something had happened to Blake. They’d been partners for some time, and if they went on a call and Blake was hurt or worse, I was going to swear off cops forever and join a convent.
“Jake, it’s Cath. What happened?”
“You mean Bea didn’t tell you?” He cleared his throat.
“Tell us what?” I took hold of Aunt Astrid’s hand and squeezed.
“She wants a divorce.” I could tell he was trying to put on a brave face in front of the other officers. But my heart was breaking for him.
“No, she doesn’t!” I yelled. “Jake, she’s sick.”
“Yeah. Sick of me. That’s what she said.” There was anger there too. I thought that was good because, as long as Jake was a bit ticked off, we could talk sense into him. Despair was the real enemy.
“Jake. You’ve got to get to my place right away. I mean right now!” I barked into the phone. “Look, I’m just going to blurt this out. Don’t expect it to make sense. But she’s under a kind of spell. It was an accident.”
“You put her under a spell?” I heard him clench his teeth.
“Of course I didn’t. Jake! Just get over here! Aunt Astrid will explain everything. But you’ve got to hurry because you remember old Mrs. Kitt with the rock-hard innards? Well, Bea is going to be joining her in the petrified Miss America contest if we don’t get moving.”
He agreed, and within minutes, I heard his car tires squealing in the driveway. He let himself in, and I swear I never saw a more pitiful sight in my life. It looked as if he hadn’t slept in about a week. I thought he lost weight too. His shirt was wrinkled, and so were his pants.
My aunt and I had several of her spell books open on the kitchen table, each one of them displaying a creature more gruesome than the last.
“Jake.” Aunt Astrid took his hand. “Bea is under the spell of the Medusa Praesentia.” She pointed to the thing in the book.
Jake blinked, but it was obvious his mind was not at one hundred percent, and he was struggling just to remain standing, let alone comprehend anything so outside this world.
When my aunt showed me the picture, I had to admit I wanted to run out of my house and down the street, screaming. But of course, I stayed. I went into my bedroom and took a photo off my dresser. It was one of Bea and me last Christmas. We’d just handled another bugaboo and were able to relax with food and drinks and Christmas music, and someone, I don’t know who, snapped our picture. Bea was beautiful, with her red hair curling around her face, and I had to admit I looked nice in a green dress I’d found. But more importantly, we were comfortable arou
nd each other enough to smile wide and hold hands like sisters.
She would never talk to me the way she had if there wasn’t something wrong. And I wasn’t going to let the other world, the one divided by that thin veil, sink its claws into her. No matter how scary and big it looked.
“The Medusa Praesentia is a vanity spirit,” my aunt said as she took notes from the book.
“Vanity? Bea isn’t vain,” Jake snapped. “She’s one of the humblest people I’ve ever met.”
“Of course she is, Jake!” my aunt snapped. “But the Medusa Praesentia doesn’t care what she’s like in real life. It showed her a flawless reflection. Once Bea saw it, she couldn’t look away. Have you ever imagined what would happen if you saw yourself as perfect?”
I looked at Jake and then back at my aunt. The conversation had become awkward.
“Imagine it, Jake. No physical flaws, even the tiniest thing that only you focus on. You’d be in perfect shape. Your body would look better than anyone else’s around you. And once you looked perfect, you’d start to see the flaws in everyone else more clearly. They’d seem uglier, dirtier. Even those you love would become ignorant and unclean in your eyes. You’d want nothing to do with them. And the more you looked at the beauty you’d become, the less you’d want to see the lepers your loved ones had become.”
“It’s like a reverse Dorian Gray,” I sputtered. “Except you’re getting uglier on the inside literally and figuratively.”
“That’s right!” My aunt pointed at me. “Cath, I need some twine, sage, and how many white candles do you have?”
“You always said have a minimum of six. So, I’ve got six.” I sighed.
“That’ll work. Get them,” she ordered.
I went underneath the kitchen sink and pulled them out and set them with all the books on my table.
“The problem with seeing yourself as perfect and everyone else as flawed is that it starts to harden your heart. So much so that in the simple chest of a human, the tissue just can’t take it. The blood no longer pumps. Oxygen is no longer there. A person has turned so inward, they kill themselves without even realizing it until it’s too late.”
“This is what happened to Bea?” Jake paled.
“Yes,” my aunt said. “How? Through a freak accident when she happened to gaze into a mirror that was infected with the parasite. Plus, her being an empath made her an even more irresistible host. But it is that same power that I believe has kept her alive long enough for us to figure this out and come up with a plan.”
“What is the plan?” I asked.
“We have to go next door to the Lourdeses’ house and face the Medusa Praesentia.”
“Oh no. Do we have to cut off its head? Like in the movies? You have to cut off Medusa’s head in order to kill her? Whose gonna do that?” I whimpered.
“I’ll do it,” Jake said without hesitating. I was glad. That sounded like men’s work if I ever heard it.
“No. We don’t have to cut off its head. I have a better idea,” Aunt Astrid said. “We’ll give it a taste of its own medicine.”
“Okay, I don’t know what that means,” I blubbered. “But I’m scared. I’m scared that this is not going to be the end of things, and what happens if we look at our reflections this time? I mean, what do we do if we all get sucked into the vanity universe?”
“That’s another thing.” Aunt Astrid took Jake’s hands in hers. “Jake, whatever you do, don’t look in the mirrors.”
“What?” He shook his head.
“Don’t look in the mirrors, Jake!” I shouted. “Come on. Get your head in the game! We’ve got to save Bea!”
“Right,” Jake muttered, and I saw his eyes clear and look at Aunt Astrid. “Right. What do you need me to do?”
20
A Mirror Infected
We looked like a cleaning crew heading over to the Lourdeses’ house. Peanut Butter worked his magic again, letting us all in through the garage door. By this time, the sun was starting to set. We came into the house that was just as we had left it. The feeling of peace and openness still hung in the air even though it was getting darker inside.
“How do you know Bea is going to come?” Jake asked.
“She has to,” Aunt Astrid said. “That’s one of its hooks. It shows the victim what perfection looks like. The victim then thinks they can go and get love, money, sex, whatever, because they are seeing the perfection. But the truth is doubt always sets in. It drags them back to the mirror every time, and only a mirror infected with the Medusa Praesentia will show them what they want to see. They are chained to it. Slaves to it.”
It reminded me of a movie I saw with Frank Sinatra, and he was a heroin addict. He had talent and someone who loved him, and he tossed it all away. This was no different.
“Jake, I need you to move that mirror over there to that window,” Aunt Astrid instructed. She told me to place the white candles on the floor in front of each mirror. “But keep them slightly out of the way. I don’t want Bea to see them and get tipped off we are here.”
“Where are we going to be?” I asked.
“Hiding until the very last moment,” Aunt Astrid said as she burned sage again and then made a string of knots from the twine. “Cath, we need to do a protection spell. Marshmallow, Treacle, Peanut Butter. All of you. We need this to be a good one. If that thing tries to get into this world, we need to be able to stop it.”
Jake stared at us as we recited a protection spell calling on the four corners of the earth, the seasons, the sun and moon as well as the grand designer of the whole universe who created everything from the biggest whale to the tiniest amoeba.
It was a strong spell that filled the space. I could feel it as I walked, like I was travelling in the direction of a soothing breeze.
The cats were told to stay out of sight until they were needed.
“Cath, there is just one last thing we need to do,” Aunt Astrid said. “Jake, you need to let us do a special protection spell over you. You are going to be the one closest to the mirror.”
“I understand, Astrid.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “I won’t look.”
“I know you’ll do your best. But it will be calling you. We need to blind you, temporarily.”
I gasped when I heard my aunt’s suggestion.
“I can’t do that.” He shook his head.
“You’ve got to trust me, Jake. It’s for your own good.”
“But how is that going to help Bea?” He looked at me for backup. I was struck dumb and just kept my mouth shut as I walked over to the window and peeked out the sheer curtains. That’s when I saw her car.
“Guys?”
“It is temporary, Jake. You’ve got to trust me.”
“Guys?” I said again as Bea climbed out of her car.
“Mom, I promise. I won’t look at the mirror.”
“Guys!” I barked. “She’s back, and she’s coming this way!”
Before Jake could do anything, my aunt waved her hands over his eyes.
“Visus disunate,” she whispered and took both his hands. “Trust me, Jake. You’ll see her. You’ll see her like you’ve never seen her before. Just tell her you love her. No matter what she says.”
Aunt Astrid took Jake by the hands and led him to a closet where she tucked him away, leaving the door open slightly. He was to call Bea once he heard her voice. Aunt Astrid hid behind the curtains on the other wall. I stood behind the tall mirror we’d moved.
The entire place was as quiet as a tomb. Bea’s footsteps up the walk were the only sound I heard. She sounded angry as she fumbled with the keys in the lock. I had a strange image pop into my mind. Wouldn’t it just ruin everything if the Lourdeses were to come home now? We’d all be arrested. Bea would probably be dead. Poor Jake wouldn’t be able to see until it was too late. It would be like a Marx Brothers’ movie.
Finally, Bea came in. She dropped her things and ran in my direction. She stared into the mirror. She just stood there, looking l
ike she was waiting for something.
“Where?” She shifted from one foot to the other. “Where is it?” She tugged at her hair and adjusted her dress. But her face was becoming more and more wrinkled. She was getting upset. Her breath was coming in shorter gasps.
She turned and went to the other mirror that was on the other side of the room. She stared into that one the same way.
“What’s happening?” she whispered to herself. “Where is it?”
“Bea?” Jake stepped out of the closet.
“Ugh! What are you doing here?” she whined as he emerged from the closet, his hands stretched out in front of him. “What have you done with it?”
“Done with what?” he asked.
“What have you done? You had to have done something! You ruined this! You ruined it just like you’ve ruined everything else. I don’t know how I could stand to look at you for so long!” Bea shouted.
It broke my heart.
“I love you, Bea. I’ve loved you since the minute I first saw you. I knew that you were going to be my wife,” he said as he inched his way closer.
“Get out of here, Jake!”
“Neither one of us should be here, Bea. This isn’t our house.”
“You shut up! Just shut up! You ruined it! I saw after all these years what I really am, and I don’t know why I ever settled for someone like you. Pity, I guess.”
“You don’t mean that,” he said calmly. It was then that I could hear a strange sound. There was a weird humming noise that was hovering around the periphery of us.
I saw Aunt Astrid emerge from behind the curtains. Just as she did, Bea headed toward the front door, but Jake was able to grab her. I didn’t know how he knew to do it. But he caught her quick and snapped her up. He held her tightly in his strong arms, her back to his chest, as she yelled and kicked and thrashed to get free.
“Let go of me! I hate you! Do you understand that? I hate you both! You disgust me! Let me go!” she screamed.