The Grim Keepers

by CW Publishing House

  "How are you doing that?" Callie whispered. She had her back pressed up against the wall opposite the mirror and her eyes never strayed from her reflection. The look on her mirrored face showed wistful sorrow, and with each repetition of the supernatural chant a tear fell from her glassy eyes. Callie raised a hand to her own face, her cheeks feeling the hot sting of the tears, but she pulled her hand away dry. "This isn't possible..." She tore her gaping eyes away from the mirror and ran out of the bathroom and into her bedroom. The reflection followed her there as well, this time presenting itself in the full-length cheval mirror standing beside her dresser.

  Standing face to face with herself once more, Callie gathered up the courage to reach out her hand. She lightly grazed the surface of the mirror, relieved to feel the cold glass against her fingertips.

  "Who are you?" Callie uttered.

  Her reflection didn't answer. She only offered a sad smile and continued her melodic chorus.

  Callie slept in the living room that night with her headphones turned up as loud as they would go. Though they drowned out the sound of her reflection, they couldn't erase the song from her mind.

  *** Three Days to Halloween ***

  Andrea didn't believe her. Fox had been busy the past few days, and while she was all alone, Calli was going out of her mind.

  She had tried to show Andrea her reflection and its eerie song, but when Andrea looked into the mirror, she didn't see anything out of place.

  "Are you feeling all right?" she had asked. "I know you've been stressed lately, but if you're having a mental breakdown, this might not be the best time to be partying and stuff. You know, with people that might aggravate your...condition."

  "I'm serious! You really don't see it?" Callie had tried, but Andrea didn't believe in what she couldn't see. Or hear. She truly felt as if she were going crazy. Andrea had gone to school and Callie was left by herself, missing class and losing her sanity. She stood up, pulled herself together as best she could, and stalked into the bedroom to confront whatever mental illness harassed her through the looking glass.

  "What do you want from me? Why am I seeing you?" Callie shouted at the unusually still image. For the first time, the reflection spoke rather than sang.

  "I'm a reflection. You will always see me." Callie felt a wave of nausea coming on. She leaned against the edge of her bed to steel herself, then addressed the mirror again, lowering her voice to a normal tone.

  "That's just it, though. You're a reflection. You shouldn't be talking on your own. Oh, God, if anyone saw me right now, I bet they'd think I’m going mental." Callie put a hand to her forehead, checking for fever. Though she didn’t feel hot, her nausea threatened to make her collapse. She swallowed hard, fighting back the urge to empty the contents of her lunch all over the floor. She eased onto her mattress, praying that the simple act of sitting down would help to quell her churning stomach. Luckily, it did. When she eventually spoke again, she realized that her reflection was still standing.

  "You can move on your own, now," Callie stated. Her reflection only nodded. "I still don't understand why."

  "You unlocked the door," the girl in the mirror whispered.

  Callie stared, waiting for a deeper explanation. Her reflection looked down, as if composing herself. When she raised her face once more, Callie was shocked by the honesty of her somber smile. It was as if her image could actually feel emotion. It was almost too much for Callie to bear—the idea that an image on a piece of glass could feel anguish, loss, hope, all of which Callie saw reflected back at her in her own eyes. Tears crept down both Callie's cheeks and those of her image, and Callie had to feel her face again to be sure the tears were her own this time.

  "You unlocked the door," her reflection repeated, hope glistening in her fragile words. "You can save me. You can protect me. You can open the door."

  "What door?" Callie asked with trepidation. The girl stepped forward, and for a moment Callie thought she was going to collide with the clear wall standing between them.

  The reflection stopped at the frame and put her hands up on the thick glass. "This door," she said softly.

  The conversation only left Callie with more questions, ones to which she needed—but wasn't sure she wanted—the answers. She immediately tossed her blanket over the mirror and rushed to slam her bathroom door shut. She then threw up in the kitchen trashcan, which might not have been the most sanitary choice, but it was her only option that didn't involve a mirror looming over her shoulder.

  She spent another night on the couch, and another night with blaring headphones.

  *** Two Days to Halloween ***

  "Woah, babe... Ya know, you don't have any makeup on." Fox stared at her with wide eyes. "I mean, I'm not complaining, ya know." He quickly tried to recover. "It's just...ya know. Different."

  "If you say 'ya know' one more time—I swear to God, Fox."

  "My bad. Sorry, babe."

  Callie had gone just over twenty hours without looking in a mirror. She was miserable.

  "Hey, that reminds me. I got you something." Fox dug around in his backpack.

  Curious, she momentarily forgot her troubles until Fox pulled out a small, round object. Callie didn't even need to look closer to know exactly what it was. She could already hear the singing.

  "I felt bad that you broke your mirror the other day, so I found another one. It was blue, right?"

  "Um, yeah. Thanks," she lied. Her broken mirror had been purple, but she appreciated the thought behind it. She wasn't about to tell him she had sworn off mirrors the day before, not when he had been sweet enough to buy her a replacement. But she also wasn't about to pop it open just so she could apply makeup. Not that she didn't want to be beautiful. She felt especially worthless knowing she barely looked decent enough to be out in public. She just didn't want to talk to her reflection anytime soon. She needed time to think, to work out what it all meant.

  Callie had spent most of the morning at the computer lab in the public library, researching mirrors. More specifically, anything paranormal involving mirrors. She wasn't too sure where to look, though. She had found dozens of reports of demons and evil spirits crawling out of them, but they were all deathly pale and had obviously been brutally murdered. A bunch of articles pointed to some fantastical world on the other side of the glass with white rabbits and talking cats. A few old myths did pop up about traveling into and out of mirrors, but she had been cautious about clicking on any links with words like 'psychic', 'witchcraft', 'satanic', or 'five easy payments' in the description.

  Only one site had seemed truly believable, and detailed a legend about a girl who had become 'trapped' in a mirror, forced to reflect the emotions of others for all of eternity. It didn’t quite explain Callie's own predicament, but according to the article, the girl had been imprisoned there when she had bullied her younger sister. The sister—seeking vengeance—had used an ancient spell to curse her, trapping her in a sheet of polished silver and forcing her to reflect the grief she had inflicted. It was an intriguing story until Callie read the very last line: "A work of fiction."

  She had sat there in the computer chair, wondering if she would ever figure things out, when Fox had finally shown up. He was supposed to have brought her breakfast, but since he was three hours late, he brought burgers instead. They sat there in silence, enjoying the greasy goodness, when Fox pointed to her computer screen and the fictional article.

  "Whatcha looking for?"

  "Mirrors. And doors. Or mirrored doors. I'm not really sure." Fox's next comment stopped her with her burger halfway to her mouth.

  "Doing research for Halloween? Planning on opening a doorway?" He laughed.

  "What did you just say?" Callie demanded. "What do you know about opening doors? Like, doors in mirrors?" Fox barked a short laugh, and his smile spread into a wide grin when he realized she was serious.

  "Halloween, babe. The one night of the year when the doors to the paranormal are opened. The dead can walk among
the living—woo!" He made as if to sound like a spooky ghost, wiggling his fingers at her face and opening his eyes wide. She was not amused.

  "I'm serious, Fox," Callie said, irritated. "I've been here all day and you just walk in and say that..." She sighed.

  "Yeah. You're always so serious, lately," he remarked, having lost interest in the conversation. "I gotta get going. Practice starts in an hour."

  "Wait, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you."

  "It's okay," he reassured her, "but seriously, you gotta lighten up, babe." He leaned down and pecked her on the cheek before grabbing their trash and heading out.

  Callie had an answer, but now she also had two new questions. Halloween was coming up in just two days; was that the "one day each year" that her reflection kept chanting about? If that day came and went, would things go back to normal?

  She stayed out late, trying to keep her body occupied and her mind distracted. A good portion of that was spent with Fox. When she finally came home, she was so tired that she lay down in her own bed. She didn't even need her headphones; the mirror didn't make a sound all night.

  *** One Day to Halloween ***

  She pulled the blanket off her standing mirror. Her reflection sat on the floor, legs crossed, trailing circles with her fingers on the carpet. The light from the ceiling fan did not reflect off the mirror; instead, it filtered right through the glass and shone in a rectangular beam around the girl sitting on the other side.

  "My God..." Callie mouthed. The entire mirror, from top to bottom, was covered in long, thin cracks. A round section appeared where something had seemingly struck it, directly in the center. From there, a thin line curved upward to the right, spreading out in a spiderweb pattern as it reached the edge of the glass. Something didn't look quite right about the fractured mirror, so Callie looked closer. She was amazed to see that her mirror was still in one piece; the cracks were just a shadow in the glass.

  "I was afraid I'd never see you again," her reflection said shakily as she stood up.

  "You almost didn't,” Callie replied. She tried to sound confident and commanding. "What's this?" She traced her finger along the edge of the crack.

  "It's the lock. You opened it." The girl reached her own hand up to the crack, but Callie jerked hers away.

  "I'm gonna need more than that."

  "The door opens for one day a year, but it can only open if it's unlocked. You unlocked it." Callie thought back to what Fox had said the day before and began to put the pieces together.

  "Halloween. Is that the one day?" Her reflection nodded. "Why Halloween?"

  "I don't know. It just is." Her image shrugged, then looked around nervously before continuing. "I don't really understand how it all works, but I know that when the door opens, I might be able to…" She paused, looking over her shoulder as if she had heard something. She cautiously turned back to Callie and whispered, "Save me. Please. Please, you have to!"

  Callie was taken aback. The look of fear she saw in her own eyes was one she hoped to never see again.

  "What do you need saving from? What's in there?"

  "Nothing. And it's coming for me."

  "What? That doesn’t make any sense. How can nothing come after you?"

  "Not just nothing. The Nothing. It knows the door can be opened, and it's coming to lock it. It keeps us all prisoner here, where we’re forced to show people their reflection but we aren't allowed to think or feel for ourselves. Please, I can't take it anymore!" Callie’s reflection burst into tears, holding her face in her hands and sobbing loudly.

  Callie put her hand back up on the glass, her heart reaching out to the broken, dejected version of herself. The glass was warm.

  "I can't promise anything," Callie began. The reflection tried to compose herself, managing to calm herself down from outright tears to the occasional sniffling. "I need to ask you a few questions." The reflection nodded slowly. "How did you get trapped in there in the first place?"

  "I don't remember. I—I've been here forever, I think."

  Callie's face scrunched up as she attempted to straighten the thoughts in her head. "What happens if I don't save you?"

  "The Nothing comes and locks the door again, and I go back to..." She gestured around her and behind her, sighing as she dropped her hands to her sides. "I go back to you."

  Callie wasn't sure where to go from here. She wanted to save the girl—she could see how terrified and depressed she was. But Callie herself was afraid; she didn't know what would happen once there were two of her wandering around.

  "Tomorrow is Halloween." Callie said absently, her mind still lost in thought.

  "I know…"

  "Give me some time to think about it. I'll come back in the morning." Callie tossed the blanket back up over her mirror.

  *** Halloween ***

  "Take your time! I want it perfect."

  "I'm doing my best, now shut up and sit still or you can do this yourself."

  Callie had woken up to Andrea knocking on the door. She hadn't meant to sleep in so late. It was already noon by the time she crawled out of bed to let Andrea in, and the party was starting around 2:00. Even though most people wouldn't start showing up until around 6:00, the girls knew they would need a few hours to get ready and eat a late lunch. They had already taken showers, slipped into their costumes, and were now doing each other's hair and makeup. Callie was grateful for that, because she hadn't gone back to speak to her reflection yet. She still wasn't sure what she was going to do.

  "All right, that should just about do it." Andrea applied the finishing touches to Callie's mascara, then sat back with an accomplished smile. "Perfect! No guy at this party is gonna be able to take his eyes off you."

  "Yay!" Callie exclaimed. "Thank you so much! Melinda won't stand a chance."

  Andrea's phone rang. She spoke for a few minutes, then hung up and stood.

  "Hey, that was Steph. She's got a flat tire. Apparently I'm the only one she knows who can actually change it. Wanna come with?"

  "No thanks," Callie said. "I have a few last-minute things to take care of. Meet you at the party?"

  "Sure. See ya there!"

  After Andrea left, Callie went back to her bedroom. She stood in front of the covered mirror, debating on whether or not to remove the blanket. It would be simple, she thought. Just leave and it would all be over tomorrow. She sighed, then reached up and pulled the blanket down.

  The crack had grown. It was still just a shadow, but now darker and thicker. Her reflection sat on the bed through the mirror and looked up excitedly when the blanket came down.

  "You're here!" the reflection cheered. "Oh, thank God. I was so scared."

  Callie hesitated. She considered running. But the hope she saw in her reflection's eyes was a look she hadn't seen very often in her own, back when the mirror was just a mirror. Against her better judgment, she gave in.

  "How do I know you won't kill me when I let you out?"

  "How do I know you won't kill me?"

  "I could never kill anyone. Especially not myself."

  The reflection laughed innocently. A look of relief washed over both girls, and for the first time all week, their expressions mirrored each other.

  "Good. Because I can't kill myself either. I guess we really are the same person, somehow."

  "So, how does this work?" Callie inquired. "Do I just, like, reach in there or something? Do you step through?"

  "You have to finish what you started," her reflection explained. "When you cracked your mirror, you unlocked the door. But that was only part of it. You know how some doors have chains on them, and if you unlock the deadbolt, the door can only open a few inches until you undo the chain?"

  Callie nodded, understanding. "How do I take off the chain?"

  "Destroy the mirror."

  Callie looked around for something heavy enough to break the glass. She grabbed the lamp from her nightstand and walked back to the mirror to stand about ten feet away.

 
; "You should probably stand back," she told her reflection. She heaved the lamp at the center of the mirror, right where the fracture seemed to have originated when she first broke her compact. The lamp collided with the glass, taking just seconds to shatter the mirror, sending a multiplicity of shards and fragments scattering into both sides of the now-empty wooden frame. The lamp fell to the floor, dented but still in one piece. Callie stared at what was once a mirror, but which now seemed surreal. There truly was an open door in her bedroom, leading to her bedroom. Beyond the threshold stood Callie, staring at Callie. For a moment, neither girl moved. Then the reflection—who could no longer be properly referred to as such—stepped forward.

  The girl reached out a hand and leaned against the frame for balance. She lifted first one foot, then the other. Carefully, deliberately, she stepped over the bottom of the frame and into Callie's room. Callie walked toward the girl, who moved toward Callie in response. They stood face to face, both with expressions of wonder. The girl raised her left hand up between them and Callie raised her right hand. They touched their palms together, and Callie was amazed by the warmth she felt from what was once a mere reflection of herself. They both smiled. Callie thought it so ironic that in this moment they acted more like mirror images than they had been all week.

  The girl laughed, then turned and walked toward the bedroom door. Callie made to follow her, but when she stepped forward, she collided with something hard. She took a step back, looking at what had stopped her, and cried out.

  In front of Callie stood a wooden-framed mirror. A thick layer of glass was held inside the frame, pristine and spotless. At first she tapped the glass, then looked for a way around it. The room was getting cold. She beat her palms against the glass, calling out to the girl on the other side, who had stopped at the bedroom door and now watched her with amusement. Callie panicked, slamming her fists against the mirror as hard as she could, but it was as firm and unmoving as steel.