by Carol Weekes
“I can’t live here anymore,” Robbie admitted. “Yes, we want to put it back up for sale, but I’m going to take my family out of here while we wait for it to sell. We’ll stay with my parents. I don’t even want our furniture. I’ll auction it off. I want nothing that has been inside this house. It’s wrong. It’s evil. No one else should fall victim to it. What you’re telling me confirms that, Mr. Hawkins.”
Hawkins reached inside his coat pocket and extracted a package of cigarettes. “I’m going to step outside to have a smoke. I’ll list it for sale this afternoon. You may take a bit of a loss on the property or you may just break even on your costs.”
“I don’t care at this point. I just want out of here. Now…what do I do about finding my wife? Where the hell in this house do people go?”
Hawkins’ looked at him. “I can’t answer that for you, Mr. Parker. I haven’t a fucking clue and, frankly, I’m not sure that I would want to know. You might want to ask a psychic or a priest. No one’s ever been able to get rid of that mirror.”
They stared at each other.
“I’m sorry,” Hawkins continued. “I’m just the real estate agent.”
* * *
Hawkins was good to his word. He had the house listed for the same price they’d purchased it and a ‘House for Sale’ sign up on the front lawn by late that afternoon. Robbie signed all necessary paperwork. Hawkins was also right about the mirror. After Hawkins left, Robbie had gone back into the spare bathroom. The mirror was fully mounted again on its wall, as if it had never been pried loose.
“Did you two put the mirror back up, Cole?” Robbie asked his older sons. He looked at Cole, then Chris who appeared surprised.
“No,” Cole said. “We never touched it.”
“Neither did I,” Robbie murmured. “We’re leaving. You’re all going to Grandma and Grandpa Parker’s house this afternoon. The place is up for sale again.”
“What?” Chris spat, his eyebrows raised. “Why? What about Mom? Where the hell is she anyway?
“Because the place is bad,” Robbie said. “We’re moving. Pack what you need for the next little while and start loading it into the car. No questions asked. Just do it.
As for Mom, I don’t know,” Robbie said, “but I’m going to find her. In the meantime, you and your brothers will be away from here.”
“You and she aren’t having problems…” Cole asked. “Like marriage type stuff?”
“No!” Robbie exploded.
“Why would she just go away then?”
“She went into the mirror to get me,” Cory said, matter-of-factly.
“Oh, for frig sake, more nonsense with that stupid mirror!” Chris fumed, spinning and walking away from the bathroom. “That is so stupid. It’s a mirror, not a door. Is everyone going nuts in this house? You need your head examined, Cory!”
“You saw it for yourself last night,” Robbie shot back as Chris bore into his bedroom. “You saw your brother’s feet slide through!”
“I saw nothing,” Chris yelled back. “It was a bad dream. We were all mostly asleep.”
Cole looked at Robbie and his face registered both disgust and fright.
“What’s going on in this house, Dad?”
“I don’t know, son. I feel like I’m going crazy. I promise you, I am going to find your mother. You boys are staying with my folks. Let’s get going. No more excuses, no more hesitating. Now!”
“Okay!” Cole scowled, but he and Chris began packing their bags.
“You stay right with me,” Robbie hauled Cory along by his hand.
He called his parents next.
“Yes, for a few weeks, possibly longer until this place sells.” He spoke firmly. “I know, I know, but the house was a mistake. I can’t explain right now. I appreciate your being able to take us in. I’ll tell you more when we get there.”
He dropped the boys off just over two hours later. Chris and Cole stormed away from him, hauling their bags with them, refusing to look at him.
“What’s wrong with the boys?” Doug Parker wanted to know.
“It’s a long story, Dad. Keep the little one close to you. Do not let any of them wander off. Promise me.”
“Robbie, what the hell is going on here? Are you and Tanya having…difficulties? Where is she?”
Robbie looked at the ground. He gripped the car keys in his fist, then forced himself to look at his father.
“I don’t know where she is. I’m going back to look for her.”
“Isn’t she at the house?”
“Maybe,” he said and walked away, ignoring the expression of confusion on his father’s face.
* * *
Even with all the furniture in place, the house felt almost sticky with anticipation as he let himself inside. It waited. Somewhere in here he felt determined to find his wife, his love of over twenty years. He shut the door and did a cursory search through the basement, and then main floor, feeling watched as he did so.
“Tanya?”
Angry, he raced up the stairs, pausing to look at their marital bed where she’d slept beside him only hours earlier. His heart ached and his throat felt tight with panic.
He stepped into the empty spare bedroom and looked at the door leading to the bathroom. He saw a person’s shadow move across the wall facing him and his hair stood up on end.
“Tanya?” He rushed into the bathroom, to find her standing in the mirror, clear as stones on a clean river bottom, facing him. She smiled at him, the same warm, enticing smile she’d always given him…the smile that had attracted him in the first place, and one hand up against the glass so that he could see her fingertips compress.
“I love you,” she told him.
“Tanya…please come out of there.”
“I can’t, honey. Even they don’t know I’m here right now. I got the children home safely—Cory’s back with you; Gina is with her grandfather and the baby is with extended family.”
“What baby?”
“The baby who’d died here; the ones they—” and here she nodded over her shoulder, “had taken for its fresh young energy. They are energy vampires. They take from the living to replenish themselves. It’s a form of feeding and revitalizing.”
“The Hopkins,” Robbie said.
“Yes. They want to be here, in this house. It’s a dark pocket between life and death. They killed the father after he killed them; shoved him down the stairs in this house, but the father’s a control freak, even here. Jeffrey Hopkins. They’ve just re-created their own misery because they can’t let go of it, and they’re drawn to whoever lives or comes in this house. This mirror is their doorway between here and there.”
“Then step out of the doorway!” Robbie pleaded. “Cory came back. He’s safe with Chris and Cole at my parents’ house. Just come home, sweetheart. Please.”
He touched his hand to hers and for a moment, just a moment, he thought he could feel the heat from her fingers moving into his. She gave him that soft smile again.
“I can’t,” she said. “I’m already dead. I had to do it in order to save the children from them, otherwise they would have kept Cory, and Gina and the baby would have never been able to move into Heaven. I know you’ll love the boys and raise them well, and I’ll always be looking over you all.”
“Tanya!” Robbie screamed. “What are you talking about? Then where’s your body, if that’s the case.”
“Step outside and you’ll see,” she said. “I need to leave my body so that the law won’t believe that I’ve just disappeared. I’ll be following Gina and Melissa. I have loved ones there, waiting for me. My death will be deemed a terrible accident. You and the boys go on. I love you. I always will love you. When I’m gone, paint the mirror black. Use the paint in the basement. Paint it out and leave the house. You can’t destroy the mirror. Cover it instead. You won’t see me in it again. Go on…step outside to the front porch.”
She faded out from the mirror, leaving only the silver glass reflecting the
window back at him. Robbie wept, her words ringing in his ears. He hurried downstairs and onto the porch just as Hawkins’ pulled up in his car again, another set of papers in his hands.
“I thought I’d bring you some copies of the listing agreement…” he stopped as the sound of glass smashing came from behind them. They both whirled in time to see Tanya’s form plunge from the window that overlooked the loft in the barn. She hit the ground hard, bounced once, and was still.
“Holy shit!” Hawkins’ exploded in horror. He stared between Robbie and the barn. “Isn’t that your wife?”
“I came home to look for her,” Robbie collapsed to the porch, his face crunching with emotion. “I just saw her in the mirror…”
Hawkins ran over to check on Tanya Parker. Robbie saw him lean down, feel for a pulse, then stand back up slowly, his shoulders heaving. He stared back at Robbie who sat, broken and beaten, on the porch of the house his wife had loved. He saw Hawkins’ make a phone call. He sat numb, inconsolable as police and an ambulance arrived. He managed to give the same statement as Hawkins: she’d gone into the barn for whatever reason she’d had and must have slipped up in the loft—they both witnessed her fall. So did a neighbor in the next yard who ran over within the minute.
“What do you think she was doing up there?” an officer asked Robbie.
“Trying to sort things out,” he sobbed. Only he would ever fully understand the truth of the statement.
* * *
His father came out to get him, and the two of them sat, crying, in the kitchen of a house once again up for sale. The police and ambulance had removed Tanya’s body. Funeral arrangements had to be made over the next several days. People had to be notified. Robbie sat at the table, feeling ice grow in his chest, his eyes raw from weeping.
“How could this have happened?” Doug Parker asked. “She must have tripped on something up there; an uneven board, a clump of hay…my God. Abigail’s comforting the boys. Naturally, they’re hysterical. Come home. We’ll discuss the furniture a little later.”
“I don’t want any of it,” Robbie wiped his eyes. “I want nothing material that’s been in this house.”
“Dear, you’ll want mementos when the worst of this pain passes.”
“No!”
“Okay, let’s just leave that for now. Come with me. You need family around you.”
“Just give me an hour please. Let me sit with my thoughts for a little bit. I promise I’ll accompany you then. I need some time to pack some clothes, gather any important papers…” He broke down, his head in his arms on the kitchen table. “Come back then.”
“How do I know you’ll be okay to be left alone?” Doug gripped his car keys, shaken and frightened.
Robbie almost said ‘because I know their game,’ but held his tongue at the last second. “I’m the only parent the boys have. I’m not going to let anything happen to me. One hour Dad. Please.”
“Okay. I’ll drive into town and get some groceries to bring home. I can barely function myself over this. One hour, son. I’m not leaving you alone after that.”
Chapter 26
Robbie watched his father drive away, then he turned to face the house. Hawkins had returned to his office to list the property. The police and ambulance had left.
“I should burn you down, except I need my fucking money back to raise my sons! You’re evil. You’re all sick, you hear me? You’re social fuck ups, even when you’re dead! Murderers still, through a goddamned looking glass. I won’t let you do it anymore. You took my wife. You took my heart.”
He bore downstairs, Tanya’s final words in his mind, and found a gallon of black paint they had purchased to touch up some wood paneling in the basement area. He carried the can upstairs with the brush and began his task: he started painting the entire surface of the malevolent mirror black. He coated it in a thick layer, and as he did so he saw them move forward from the other side, at first curious, then incensed.
“You took her, but you won’t take anyone else,” Robbie heaved. An old man, an old woman, two younger women, another man, what looked like a teenager…their forms like dark shadows, their presence as cold as an Arctic wind, whispering among themselves as to what he was doing
“You could be with her,” the old man started to say and Robbie painted the last quarter of the mirror out, blocking them off. He heard them behind the glass, shuffling in there, the squeak of their fingers moving along the other side.
“As black as your souls,” Robbie hissed. “I loathe you all forever.”
He stood back and opened the window to allow a hot breeze to rush into the room. The paint began to dry in minutes. He left the mirror, looking like an ugly charred square on the wall, and retrieved clothing, important documents, money…and their box of photographs of them, as a family, taken over the last two decades. He shoved them all in a suitcase…turned, kicked the bedroom wall repeatedly until his foot ached…sat on the edge of the bed and wept…didn’t care what Hawkins’ thought of the mirror being painted. Robbie wondered if the next owners would remove the ruined mirror, only to find the ebony mess re-attached to the wall again on its own accord? It wasn’t his problem. It couldn’t be. He didn’t blame the last couple for selling, or the families before that. He knew why. Self-preservation is a driving force.
His father arrived back as promised. Robbie locked the door, pocketed the keys to return to Hawkins later on, and drove away. They did not look back at the house as they swept past the ‘House for Sale’ sign freshly erected at the edge of the lawn by the road.
* * *
Hawkins’ called Robbie and they agreed that an auctioneer would sell off the household goods; anything remaining would be donated to charity or trashed. The money from the auctioning would buy them new clothes and furniture. For now, Robbie told Hawkins, they had what they needed.
Hawkins pulled up to the again-empty house and left the car running so that he could attach a lock box with an entry key to the front door. It was his job as a real estate agent to take a walk-through, but he could not bring himself to do it right now. He attached the lock box and drove away. The day began to deepen towards dusk and as he glanced back in his rearview mirror, he thought he saw what looked like a small, greenish ball emanate from one of the house’s chimneys and float towards the distant barn. He shuddered and stepped on the gas.
Night descended, this time with a three-quarters moon. In the darkened spare bathroom, the black paint had dried upon the looking glass. The mirror, an obsidian square that looked like the mouth of a mine shaft, shivered a little at this coating, cracking the freshly dried paint in spots. Paint chips, some as large as quarters, floated down to the counter and sink like chunks of soot. More loosened as the glass vibrated a little and soon a few widening spots of silver re-appeared. By the time anyone came in within the next day or two, all the paint would be off, a powdery mess that would have the agent cussing and cleaning up before the first showings would begin.
Jeffrey stood behind the mirror and peered through one of the widening silver holes. All they required was what they had always needed to see; who the next owners would be and which one might be most vulnerable. A kid was always easy. A mother very gullible. Every buying family usually had at least one of each.
Paint. As if that would have done anything to the portal. He smirked and shuffled back into the shadows of the house that mirrored the ‘House for Sale,’ knowing that time was on their side. So the woman had gotten away with the two young ones. They wouldn’t make that mistake the next time; and there would be a next time on such a large house going for so low a price. Every time.
The End
Autopsy
Rolling gurney wheels make soft clicking noises much like
blood drops, trickling in increments along stainless steel drains
Reservoirs meant to capture the last tendrils of a life
Nail fragments, a dash of cartilage, sinew glowing rosy-white
beneath the merciless surgical
lamp, the knife descends
Cuts
open, raw red zipper grinning, exposing minutia of flesh
Striations of muscle, musical notes helter-skelter along bandwidths of bone
And entrails which spool out and over, bloating ribbons that
fall to the side, joining quivering liver and spleen
Filets of razor-thin memories laid upon the surgical glass
Life
is but a kaleidoscope of collected passing seconds
Death
is but the looking glass shattered into scattered fragments
Autopsy
A detailed glimpse of the many puzzle pieces
sewn tightly back together and buried deep with mortician’s thread
Smoke And Leaves
By
Carol Weekes
Smoke and Leaves
I saw the outline of the carny rides as I drove past them, looking like black bones whose flesh had been picked clean. I should have just kept going on home, but something made me turn around and go back there. I needed answers. The show shut down at midnight each evening and they were here for another four days. My car clock read 2:14 AM. I’d worked until 12:30 AM and had hit a late night diner for a bite to eat, given my family had gone to bed hours ago. I felt eager to go home and check on them too—but first, I need to do this. We’d watch their line of eighteen wheelers pull into town, the sides of the trucks depicting florid paintings of the various acts of magic or illusion. Promotional posters would appear in windows, bulletin boards, stapled to telephone poles and blowing along the town’s streets like oversized, garish stamps. And like a kid, always drawn to carnivals and wanting my son to experience the same kind of lurid thrill, I wanted to go. So we went together. It was a mistake.