Dead Reflections

by Carol Weekes

  Cory stared at him. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Leonard.

  “Madeleine’s not interested in you,” Cory blurted. He wasn’t sure what made him say it. Leonard inhaled deeply on his cigarette, held the smoke, then blew a series of smoke rings into the room. One of the smaller rings passed through a widening, fading loop. He grinned.

  “That so? You know women better than me? Are you a ladies’ man?”

  Madeleine looked almost pained. She clasped her hands and stared down into her lap.

  “Cory!” Louder, closer.

  “Better hurry,” Jeffrey rushed him along.

  They passed the room that matched Cory’s in his new house. Ruth sat in a wooden rocker, rocking the baby to sleep. The rocker’s runners made soft creaking sounds along the wooden floor.

  “Bye, Ruth,” Cory said.

  “Oh, you’ll be back,” she crooned, “for the best strawberry ice cream in the world. Won’t he, Maddy?” The baby rested upon her shoulder. They hurried past the other bedrooms. Shapes of people lingered in them, their backs to the door, their conversation muted. One of the men turned to glance their way and Cory felt a burst of shock when he recognized the face of the dead man from the barn. He wasn’t all busted up here. Weird.

  He and Jeffrey reached the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror. It looked solid. Cory reached with one hand and felt it. It was hard and cold.

  “I can’t go through,” he told Jeffrey.

  “Do you want to go through?”

  “I have to get home.”

  “Then set your mind and touch it again.”

  Cory stared at him.

  “Go on,” Jeffrey said. “She’s halfway up the stairs now.”

  Cory sighed and touched glass. His hand pushed through what looked and felt like gelatinized water.

  “Easy as pie. If she asks why you’re in here again, tell her the other bathroom was being used and that you couldn’t wait.”

  “Okay. Thanks for the ice cream.”

  “Not so lonely anymore?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good boy. Come back soon.”

  Cory almost fell through the sticky substance of the mirror, crawling hands-forward across his parents’ bathroom counter. He thudded to the floor just as his mother’s footsteps reached the doorway of the spare bedroom.

  * * *

  “Cory? Are you in here?”

  “I’m just finishing up on the toilet.” He quickly undid his belt, flushed the water in the bowl, and edged towards the bathroom doorway. His mother inched into the room.

  “What are you doing in this bathroom again?”

  Cory felt his face flush. “Chris or Cole was in the other one and I had to pee.”

  He saw his mother let her breath out. “I’d rather you not come into this room.”

  “It’s just a room,” he said. “I needed to go badly.” He heard Chris and Cole’s movie playing along the hallway and prayed that one of them had used the other bathroom recently, otherwise he wouldn’t be sure what to say. He wanted to tell his mother about Jeffrey and his family, but something made him hold back.

  “What’s that on your face?” she asked. She wiped his cheek with one finger and he saw a bit of reddish-pink liquid on her fingertip.

  “Candy,” he lied. “I was just eating some of my candy.”

  “Sticky-faced kid,” his mother laughed. “Smells like strawberry. Hang on.” She returned to the spare bathroom and paused, looking around.

  “What?” he asked her. “I flushed.”

  “I know,” she said. He saw her move back to the bathroom and look at the mirror. His heart sank. What would she do if she saw Jeffrey standing on the other side?

  “I don’t like that mirror,” she said. “I usually like antiques, but I don’t care for that one. Your father and I will look for a new one next week. There’s just something about it…”

  He felt a teary sense of panic come into his throat.

  “I like it,” he said.

  “Well, I don’t. It’s too old, filmy, and frankly, a little creepy.” She ushered him along the corridor. “You don’t want to watch the movie with them?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then come back outside with Dad and I. We’re roasting marshmallows.”

  They walked towards the top of the stairwell. As they started down, his mother ahead of him, Cory glanced at his bedroom. Jeffrey stood inside the doorway, watching him. He winked and put his finger up to his lips.

  “You did good, Cory,” he mouthed silently. “She’s not ready yet.” Jeffrey slid back behind the wall. Cory paused. Was the guy going to be waiting for him in his room when he came back?

  His mother heard him stop and looked around. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Come enjoy some marshmallows and the campfire.”

  His father pushed marshmallows onto the end of a long wooden skewer and nodded for Cory to sit near the campfire. Cory took a seat, his thoughts scattered. Things at Jeffrey’s house still didn’t make sense to him. But he understood that adults held more answers than kids did and that Jeffrey or one of the others would eventually explain how solid mirrors could turn soft like putty and how they could live in a house whose entrance Cory could not see except in the bathroom mirror. He sat woefully, aware that his parents watched him, their eyebrows raised to each other over his sullen mood.

  Chapter 18

  The doorbell rang the next morning. Chris answered the call, wearing a pair of baggy pajama bottoms and a loose rugby t-shirt. He saw a skinny adolescent girl who stood a foot shorter than him, looking up at him from the front step.

  “Is Cory here?” she asked.

  “Yeah. He’s up in his room. Go right on up the stairs and turn to your right. It’s the first room along the hallway.”

  He watched her with curiosity as she stepped into the foyer, her head twisting around to take in the house. Her eyes were a wide, clear blue and she looked a little daunted by the place.

  “What?” he asked her. She stopped her staring and turned to look at him.

  “Is there something wrong?”

  “No,” she said. “It’s a big house.”

  “Too big, if you ask me,” he said.

  “Do you like it?”

  He shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess.”

  “I wonder if you’ll like it later on.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” Strange little girl.

  “I’ll go find Cory,” she said and scooted up the stairs away from him.

  Chris returned to the parlor where Cole was playing a video game. Their parents had gone into town to buy groceries and wouldn’t be back for several hours. They’d been instructed to stay home until their parents got back.

  “Who was that?” Cole asked, somewhat bored. He scored another two points, his thumbs working magic over the controller.

  “Some girl looking for Cory.”

  “Cory? He scores a chick before we do? No way!”

  “She’s hardly what I’d call a catch. Scrappy looking little thing. She walks in and looks around the place like she’s never been inside a house before.”

  “Maybe she lives in some shitty apartment or trailer,” Cole yawned. “Who cares?”

  They heard the girl’s voice mingling with Cory’s upstairs. Chris got up and shut the door to the living room to tune them out.

  * * *

  “He’s not dead.”

  Gina stared at him. “Yes, he is. He smashed his head on the barn floor and he died several hours later. My father was one of the people who came over here to help when his wife ran outside, screaming.”

  Cory sat in the middle of his bed, cross-legged. Gina sat on his rocking chair, watching him.

  “You were the one who told me that this place has things happen in it. I saw him. I was in the barn loft and he crawled up the ladder to talk to me. He had guts leaking out of his head and he told me to watch my footing.”

  Gina looked intrigued, but scar
ed.

  “Maybe my story scared you and you just imagined it. Why did you come over so late last night?” she asked. “And how did you get back to the street so fast?”

  Cory’s mouth worked. “Can you keep a secret? You can’t tell anyone. You have to promise me.”

  “Sure. What is it?” She sat forward, fascinated, excited.

  Cory got up and gently shut his bedroom door so that Chris or Cole wouldn’t overhear them. “My family doesn’t know about it yet. We have people who live on the other side of our house. They’re really nice…well, a few are kind of strange, but most of them are nice. One of them is an old man named Jeffrey. I went over yesterday and met them all. I had ice cream there—the best I’ve ever tasted. They said I could invite you over, if you wanted to visit.”

  Gina stopped rocking. “Where next door? Is it the Wilson’s over there?” She pointed to the house to the right, the one with the kids’ toys in the backyard. “There’s no old man there.”

  He glanced at his bedside clock. It read a quarter after ten in the morning. They’d have enough time before his brothers would call him down to lunch.

  “No.” Cory felt a little impatient. “I’d have to show you. It’s really neat. Follow me, but be quiet. I don’t want my brothers or parents to know about it yet.” He opened his door and motioned Gina to follow him to the spare bedroom.

  Gina hesitated, then stepped after him.

  “Why is this room still empty?” she whispered.

  “Because it’s going to be the spare bedroom and my parents don’t have any furniture for it yet. I want to show you something.”

  He walked ahead of her until they both stood in front of the big, hazy mirror. She looked at herself, then glanced at him. When her head turned, her reflection didn’t move with her, but Gina didn’t see it. Cory jumped a little.

  “What?” Gina asked and stared at herself. “Why are we in here? It’s a big old mirror. What’s so special about it?”

  “There’s a house on the other side of it. I saw the guy in the barn, in that other house. He’s not dead in there. He’s fine. He looks like he never had an accident.”

  He saw Gina’s mouth twitch a little, as if she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or mock him.

  “In there.” She nodded at the mirror. “How can he be inside a mirror?”

  “Touch the mirror,” Cory urged her. “This is the secret. I’ve been over there twice. They’re pretty neat. I just don’t know how you can walk through a mirror.”

  Gina looked dubious and frightened.

  “Touch it!”

  She leaned forward, tentative, until the tips of her fingers pressed hard against the mirror’s smoky surface.

  “So, I’m touching it,” she said. “Now what?”

  He felt disappointment and embarrassment that nothing had happened. He pressed one of his hands against the glass and felt it resist: hard, cold.

  “Okay, so we’re both touching the mirror,” Gina said. “What’s this got to do with people who live somewhere inside your house?”

  An idea came to Cory. “Take my other hand.”

  She blinked. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It just feels like the right thing to do. If we each touch the mirror and hold onto each other, it’s like it makes things more powerful.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, but did as he requested. Her free hand went through the glass with a soft squelching noise, the sound of icing being squeezed from a linen bag, and she disappeared up to her shoulder. At the same time, Cory’s right hand did the same thing. In the next instant they felt themselves lifted and sucked forward so that the front ends of their bodies were inside the room Cory recognized as Jeffrey’s lavatory. The air in here was cooler, sharp, while their legs remained in the other side, floating in the air of Cory’s house, which was warm and humid.

  “What’s happening?” Gina screamed, her face registering terror. She squeezed Cory’s hand hard, wrenching the bones together. Then, they came all the way through as if birthed, and fell to the floor on Jeffrey’s side.

  “Ow'! I’ve hurt my knee…” Gina rocked back and forth, pressing her left knee, her face crunched against tears.

  “It’s okay. We’re here.”

  “Where are we?”

  A woman’s soft voice answered them from the next room.

  “In our house. It’s so nice of Cory to invite you over. Are you okay?”

  Ruth stepped into the small room, her crisp grey skirt matching her jacket, a fitted outfit cinched tightly at the waist. Sharp black shoes with laces and thick heels adorned her feet over heavy-looking hosiery. Her dark hair was swept up in a ‘do that looked gelled into curls near her cheeks and her lipstick was a fresh, claret red. Gina stared at her, forgetting about her knee.

  “You look different,” Gina said. “You don’t look like everybody else.”

  Ruth laughed. “And neither do you. We all look like ourselves.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” Gina interrupted. “I meant you don’t look like people from our town.”

  Ruth studied her, then reached a hand out to help Gina up. “I’ve lived in this town all my life, just like you have.”

  Gina hesitated, then reached and grasped Ruth’s hand. Ruth gently hauled her up from the floor. “I’ll get that cleaned up for you. Come downstairs. We have plenty of that strawberry ice cream, Cory.”

  Cory went to follow and saw that Gina wallowed behind.

  “We can come back soon. We go back the same way we came in—through the glass.”

  “I don’t understand,” Gina’s voice trembled. “It doesn’t make sense. How can we walk through something solid?”

  “It’s only solid until you touch it. Then it changes.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. But you don’t have to worry, and they told me that, when I’m ready, they’d explain why things work like that here. Come on. You’re with me. We’ll be fine.”

  Her lips trembled, but she followed him and Ruth who waited in the upper corridor, her mouth curled in an amused smile.

  * * *

  The doors to the bedrooms were shut this morning, probably because everyone was sleeping. Ruth ushered them down the stairs.

  “This house looks exactly like yours, except it looks like something from long ago. And where is this part of the house anyway? You can’t see it from outside.” Gina twisted her head to take it all in.

  “I think it’s inside our house,” Cory said.

  “But it has windows.”

  “It has an outside, just like yours,” Ruth said. “You saw it last night, Cory. You stepped into our yard. It’s a grand place, Gina.”

  “Why can’t we see your place from the street, then?”

  “You’ll eventually understand why,” Ruth said.

  They reached the kitchen, which was empty of others this morning.

  “Take a seat and I’ll get you some of that ice cream.” Ruth left the room.

  Gina sat beside Cory, moving her chair closer to his. “I don’t know if I like it here,” she whispered. “It feels weird. It’s like being in an old movie in black and white film. You know, how people dressed and talked from a long time ago. My parents rent them. They like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.”

  “Who are they? Why do they rent stuff like that?”

  “They’re actors. I don’t know,” Gina stared around the kitchen, at the high wooden cupboards and an old stainless steel stove with copper doors and lids. “My father says his parents always watched them. He grew up watching them.”

  Cory lost interest. “This place is full of antiques. They must have a lot of money.”

  Gina shook her head. “My ears feel full, like when they get water in them and when you breathe in…” She took a deep breath. “It feels almost like I can’t get enough air into my lungs. I don’t think I want any ice cream. I’d like to go back to your house.”

  Ruth returned, carrying two bowls piled high with pink
ice cream.

  “Just eat some to be polite,” Cory whispered.

  “Where’s Jeffrey this morning?” Cory asked. “Everyone’s gone.”

  “Everyone’s out doing what they’re supposed to be doing,” Ruth said. “We lead busy lives. I stay behind to look after the baby. Someone has to, you know. Enjoy.”

  “Ruth?”

  Ruth paused in her step. “Yes, love?”

  “Can I show Gina what Jeffrey showed me last night? Out there?” He motioned at the back porch and its odd screen door, which displayed a brilliant summer day of greenery on its other side. He saw Ruth hesitate.

  “I suppose,” she said. “Jeffrey is usually the one who likes to do that.” She cocked her head as the baby cried upstairs. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t go too far through that door.” She hurried away quickly. Gina watched her go. She didn’t touch her ice cream.

  “She has a baby?”

  “I guess so. She’s always holding it and taking care of it.”

  Gina sat quietly. She prodded at the ice cream with her spoon. She watched it and noted that it didn’t melt, not even after what felt like minutes passing.

  Cory ate a few mouthfuls, then put his spoon into his bowl. “I’m not as into it today. I hope she doesn’t mind. If my mother was here, she’d tell us to eat it all, just to be polite.”

  “I don’t want to touch it.”

  “It isn’t poison. I had some last night, and I’m still here.” Cory shook his head at her. “You don’t have to treat them like this. They may like old stuff, but everybody’s different.”

  “Something about here isn’t right,” Gina whispered. “I feel like she can hear us talking, even though she’s upstairs. It feels like we’re being watched.”

  They glanced around.

  “You want to see something neat that Jeffrey showed me last night? This is the real secret part.”

  “I don’t know if I want any more secrets,” Gina said. “I want to leave.”