by Ayse Hafiza
She opened the door and stepped toward the bright light in the hallway. Lizzy just wanted to get on with whatever was next for her, and so without hesitation, she stepped into the light. She felt dizzy with anticipation. Where would she be headed now that she was free, what was the plan? When she opened her eyes, she could see a crisscross of mesh in front of her eyes. Blinking a few times just to make sure she saw clearly, she rubbed her eyes too for good measure.
She could hear noises, but maybe she was drowning because it sounded like she was under water. Her eyes struggled to adjust, she could see the mesh was in front of her eyes and a yellow light behind it shining through. Lizzy was trying to concentrate and understand where exactly she was.
“Come on Idris, make sure you don’t step on the insulation, only step on the wooden beams.”
She heard the strange man’s voice. With each word he spoke she felt the water draining away from her ears, allowing her hearing to improve. She wanted to swallow to force pressure to open them, but being disorientated she allowed herself time to adjust. Where was she? She tried to focus her eyes, realizing the yellow light was a lightbulb, not the sun. The thin filament wire inside the bulb that she initially thought was an impurity gave it away. Lizzy didn’t understand why the bright light that she had stepped in had a filament wire, she wasn’t expecting that. But the other side of the veil seemed odd. Lizzy focused on the mesh seeing fibers break away, her eyes tried to take in the contrast, the light of the bulb and the dark of the mesh. Lizzy needed to concentrate on one sensation at a time, she couldn’t let herself be overwhelmed.
“Come on dinners ready,” came a woman’s voice drifting into her ears.
“Coming!” called Rashid.
‘The other side of the veil had dinner, that was odd,’ Lizzy thought to herself. She wasn’t sure she was in the right place. Surely she was meant to be a soul in a waiting room of some sort, not covered with a mesh. Unless that was the mesh of an undertaker’s cloth? The thought calmed her. Maybe she was laying on a slab and covered by material in a mortuary. But sure, if that was the case it would only be her body so why was her spirit seeing these things?
None of it made sense.
The light abruptly turned off, and she was now left in darkness. Although Lizzy was a spirit herself, she didn’t like the thought of being left with other spirits. She wondered if she would hear any other voices.
“Hello Mrs. Elizabeth Blades,” said Jane.
The words rang in her ears, she could feel the warmth of the breath that spoke them, it contrasted with the malice that edged the words, causing Lizzy to jump for her life. Jumping out of her physical place and pushing the canvas onto the floor. Lizzy had moved and as she lay on top of the settled canvas she looked back at where she had been. She couldn’t believe her eyes. She was looking at the mirror sitting on the dusty attic floor. Lizzy looked at the image of Jane still captured within it, but it wasn’t the Jane she remembered. The kind looking police officer was gone, in her place was a woman who looked crazed, had a darkness in her eyes and a cruel scowl on her face.
Lizzy’s eyes opened wider as she stared at her. If her heart was still beating it would have been enough to stop it.
“Jane,” Lizzy whispered her name.
“You condemned me here,” she accused.
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“You stole my life, robbed me of the chance of being anything but forgotten being anything at all,” said Jane.
Lizzy tried to shake her head to shake the words out of it. She would rather listen to the sound of water in her ears than listen to the lost woman’s accusations. Lizzy didn’t want to look in the mirror and face her, Jane could tell.
“Open your eyes Lizzy, look at us!” she yelled.
Lizzy didn’t want to see what Jane wanted to show her.
“Did you think you were going to slip through the veil undetected. We’ve been waiting for you Lizzy Blades,” said Jane.
Lizzy opened her eyes and saw the sea of red eyes looking at her. Lizzy might have crossed the veil between the living and the dead, but at least she wasn’t still stuck in the mirror. She stood up and dusted herself down. She felt young again, not like the elderly woman she had been. She looked at her skin, it was still papery on the outside, but she didn’t feel the surges of pain that her old body gave her. No, Lizzy felt powerful as she stood in the darkness of the attic. She picked up the canvas from the floor and walked toward the mirror covering it again. Out of sight it would remain out of mind.
Her attic had a lot more things in it. There appeared to be baby things piled in one corner. It didn’t take a genius to work out that a family lived here, and they were the family Frank sold the house too.
Lizzy looked around. Arthur’s letters box wasn’t here, they were still in the hospice, and for a moment she wished she had disposed of them, although Frank wasn’t a child he knew that she had loved someone other than his father.
That contemptible old man. Lizzy wondered if he was still here, she wasn’t in the mood for a reunion. Lizzy waited in the darkness of the attic, along with the dust and boxes. Looking at the old water tank, she wondered what it was that she was doing back here. Why had she been sent here, there was no logic to it? Wasn’t the other side of the veil meant to be some sort of heaven, hell or waiting room experience. Surely you weren’t meant to find yourself back in a house that had been a prison? Hadn’t she spent enough time here already?
Lizzy wasn’t happy. The post-death experience wasn’t living up to her expectations. She kicked at something on the ground and a ladder moved. It was the ladder that connected the attic with the rest of the house. The motion of the ladder allowed a trap door to open and light flooded into the attic from the opening. Slowly the ladder unfurled with a clatter onto the hallway. Lizzy peered below.
“What was that noise?” asked a man’s voice.
Lizzy ran down the ladder into her old bedroom.
A man came upstairs and looking at the ladder scratched his head.
“How did it fall?” came a woman’s voice behind him.
“I don’t know maybe I didn’t put it up properly,” said the man pushing the ladder back up into the loft. He pushed it back and made sure the opening to the loft was secure.
“Be more careful love. The children could have been playing here,” said his wife as she turned her back and started downstairs. The man finished his task and followed her.
They were a Pakistani family, and they didn’t spot her. She let her sense of panic dissipate. Lizzy was having her mind blown, she couldn’t believe that she was standing in her old house. Although they had changed her curtains. The wallpaper wasn’t her swirling William Morris design it was a beige pattern with wheat shafts bending slightly in the breeze. Not to Lizzy’s taste but that didn’t matter.
She quietly looked around her old bedroom. There was one double bed and one single bed, and a rocking chair covered in toys in the corner. Three people shared her old room. She could see children's toys on the floor too. Lizzy stepped toward the net curtains toward the daylight that was streaming into the room.
Lizzy needed to answer the question she pondered in the loft, she needed to look out of the window to answer it.
A few steps forward and she could peer out over the garden. And saw him standing in the window of the garage. He was there as bright as the sun in the sky.
“Welcome home Lizzy,” said George. She heard his words clearly even though he wasn’t standing anywhere near her.
“You bastard!”
Lizzy’s face darkened as she realized she had been trapped.
10
The Funeral
The hospice had the pub landlord's phone number. Frank didn’t have a phone because he didn’t have a home, well not one in London anyway. Frank lived sparsely in the commune. Even though he had made some money from the sale of his parents’ home, he had spent that to make a journey to Salem. He had traced his family roots to North Berwick, then the
Scottish Isles where he found the old family house on the Isle of Eigg and when the chance arose he made an investment in a dilapidated property.
Frank was expecting the call, wouldn’t anyone if their parent was living in a hospice? It could come at any moment, but the meaning of that call was something he wasn’t ready for. When Frank turned up for work John, the Pub owner, sat him down in a private corner booth with a pint. His first thought was that he was about to get fired. But he had worked for John for a number of years. He even felt like an informal member of his family. John had a pitiful look in his eyes as he said in a quiet voice.
“I took a phone call for you this morning. . .”
Frank listened intently as John continued, “Sorry mate, but it’s about your old dear. . .”
He knew what John was going to say before the words escaped his mouth. Frank sat and listened, all the same, he needed someone to verbalize the words that told him mom had died. He heard John speak them, but Frank was already away in his thoughts.
Now he was alone, truly alone. The only person who knew of the most terrifying thing he experienced, the capture of Jane by the cursed mirror, had passed away. The only person who believed in the existence of the curse and what it felt like to live with it, his mom had gone.
Mom should have been a natural ally, but she wasn’t. She had been self-centered, and he had never understood that about her before his father’s death. Now it didn’t matter, her body lay cold on a slab in a morgue and he needed to collect it. Frank was given the rest of the day off, so for the first time he went to the hospice.
It was news he was expecting, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept. He felt a strange combination of sadness but also relief and that created guilt. Frank took the bus to the hospice, the ride there was uneventful because he was lost in his own thoughts. When he stepped off the bus, just outside the large looming gates, he stood for a moment absorbing the landscape before him. The tall, imposing Victorian red and sand colored brick building. He looked up at it, wondering which window had been his moms. The shrubs outside made it look cheerful for a place that death visited frequently. He took a step inside the car park, looking at the lettering of the building, somehow unintentionally trying to connect with the experience of his mom having lived inside. Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the door, and the smell of disinfectant hit his nose. The nurse on reception looked up as he stepped in, she had a pitiful look in her green eyes. He wanted to look away, wanted to tell her that he was okay and that he didn’t need her pity. But he wasn’t sure he didn’t. Bracing himself with a deep breath she smiled at him, there it was compassion edging her faint smile.
“I’m Frank Blades, my mom is Elizabeth Blades. . .”
He couldn’t verbalize the words.
“Yes, thank you for coming.”
He didn’t need to be thanked, Frank’s job wasn’t done until his mom was in the ground.
“It was peaceful,” said the receptionist with a faint smile.
Frank looked at her, he hadn’t asked, he didn’t want details. Then he realized that she was just doing her job.
“The manager would like to see you, talk through the formalities of what happens next.”
“Where is she?” he asked, surprising himself.
“Right now, she’s in the morgue. It’s the basement floor, but it’s better if you wait for the manager.”
Frank didn’t want to wait.
“Let him know I’m downstairs.”
“Mr. Blades. . .Mr. Blades. . .” the receptionist called out as Frank walked toward the signs for the basement.
The elevator door closed with the receptionist still calling after him.
When the doors opened the strip lighting was a stark contrast to the peach color tones of the reception. He thought to himself that he had never been as aware of what a difference color schemes made. There was nothing about the basement level that looked comforting, it was all blue walls, steel trolleys, medical equipment, and deathly silent as you would expect it to be. Frank felt his heartbeat rise as he stepped out of the elevator. He wasn’t going to call out her name, he didn’t think she would respond. Instead, he closed his eyes and used his mind.
‘Mom. . .Elizabeth. . .Lizzy Blades,’ he called out, but there was no response. Frank could hear the chatter now, it was faint, but it was there. There were silver trolleys that once held corpses lining the corridor, but even though the bodies had been moved on he could hear the confused thoughts of some of the people who hadn’t worked out yet they had died. And there were screams of terror from those who had.
Frank paid no attention to the dead. He wasn’t there to counsel them he had a very specific thought in mind as he walked along the corridor.
The strip lighting on the ceiling was like the white lines of a road, marking out defined lines or timelines Frank thought to himself as he started to run along the corridor. As he turned a corner, he saw an observation window with a wire mesh insert. His mom lay on a table in front of his eyes. Although she wasn’t his mom, the old woman had none of his mom’s energy or aura. No colors surrounded her.
He found the door to the room and entered it. Frank walked to her side and looked at her peaceful face. Was she somewhere peaceful? He wasn’t sure. For now he didn’t know where she was, and that hopefully meant she had made the transition and got to the other side of the veil.
Frank touched her hand, it was cold. Logically he knew it should be, but that didn’t mean he was ready for it.
He leaned over and whispered in her ear.
“Wherever you are Mom, I hope you are in a better place and that you find peace.”
Frank meant it. He hadn’t understood his mom, well he thought he had but that month after Dad died was eye-opening. Frank left that whole experience feeling he hadn’t really known her, not at all.
She looked so fragile laying on the table before him. It wasn’t the person he knew and loved. The real mom, his real mom was not here this was just a shell. A shell that he would put into a grave. He kissed her on her forehead and then he wished that he hadn’t stayed away realizing that he did it to punish her.
He stepped away from the perfectly still body hoping that it would twitch a finger, or that its eyelids would flutter, but they didn’t.
“Erm. . .Mr. Blades? I’m afraid you aren’t allowed to be down here alone,” said a voice behind him. He knew that the manager of the hospice had found him. Frank took an eternity to release his gaze from his mom’s face.
“I know, I’m sorry I just needed to make peace with her.”
“Totally understandable, but please can we head upstairs to my office?” asked the manager.
Frank complied walking behind the manager’s quick steps back toward the elevator.
The manager's office had a comfortable seating area, in front of him on a walnut coffee table were brochures from local funeral houses. Once seated in the peaceful room the manager explained the next steps which were apparently mandatory. He offered words of condolences. Without waiting for a reply, he retrieved from his desk drawer the letter she had written for him just before passing.
Frank took the letter and stuffed it in his pocket, he wasn’t going to read it in the presence of the manager. He wanted to treat his mom’s last words with reverence.
“So, that leaves her personal effects. What would you like to do with them? In these situations we usually allow the family members to choose keepsakes, then if you like we can donate the clothing to the needy.”
Frank nodded.
“In that case let’s go to her room so you can choose things you’d like to keep.”
It was then Frank thought about her box of keepsakes. What if there were things belonging to his grandmother? Maybe he could find his grandmother's song and call her spirit. If his mom’s things were lost to a charity shop he would never be able to commune with his grandmother and find out more about the curse. The family curse had plagued him like a virus ever since he learned of it. He h
esitated as he thought about what could be the worst decision of his life. He couldn’t bring his dead mom’s things to the commune, and there was nowhere else locally.
“On second thoughts, can you send all my mom’s belongings to my address in the Scottish Isles?”
“My! You did come from quite a distance to be with us today,” exclaimed the manager.
Frank wasn’t in the mood to correct him.
He needed to find the songs of the spirits of his ancestors, he needed to commune with them and learn more about the curse. It was then he thought about the mirror and about how mom had said it would follow him.
“Is there an antique mirror with my Moms stuff?” asked Frank, he needed to know if it was true. If it would follow him based on the love that Jane had for him.
“An antique mirror, goodness no. We don’t usually allow residents to keep pieces of furniture,” said the manager straightening his polyester suit. His eyebrows had raised at the suggestion.
“It’s just that it’s a family heirloom.”
“I’m sure my nurses have never seen anything like that in Elizabeth’s bedroom.”
Relief washed over Frank. Even though he had seen the mirror swallow Jane, the fact that years later it hadn’t managed to reach him gave him a sense of relief.
“Well, you can be sure if somehow it does turn up that we will, of course, forward it on.”
Frank nodded.
He knew it was still likely sitting in the dusty attic, or if the man who had bought the house had any sense it had been sold at a car boot sale. Frank shuddered at the thought of the mirror trying to find him. He was after all now the only owner it could claim.
Frank had been careful not to grow attached romantically to anyone since his Jane, he had already paid the price for falling in love. By observing his parents marriage it taught to marry someone that he loved, but the lesson of the mirror was to do just the opposite, like mom had. Frank decided it was less complicated to stay as he was. . . single.