Dead Reflections (6 page)

“Yeah,” Robbie said, thinking about Cory’s words.
Lollipops. Different colors, with white sticks. I got the red one. Is there something wrong with this house?

Crib death.

“What room was the baby in?” Robbie asked.

“Pardon me?”

“You said they lost their baby to a crib death. Which room did the baby sleep in?”

He heard Hawkins’ breath whistle through the receiver and wondered if the man rolled his eyes at the question.

“The bedroom beside the master room,” he said.

Robbie realized it was the room that Cory had chosen. Terror flooded through him.

“That’s a sad story,” Robbie said.

“Sorry to have to tell you,” Hawkins’ said, “but you asked. Stuff like this happens, and who knows why? I don’t think they could stand to be in the house anymore; the sad memory of it. They wanted a fresh start. It’s an old house, Mr. Parker. If you were to look into its history, chances are you’d discover that other things have happened there over the past century. People died in their homes back then; wakes were held—”

“I know,” Robbie cut him off. “I just thought I’d ask about the house, for safety reasons. Sorry to have disturbed you.”

“Not a problem,” Hawkins said. “Once the place is fixed up the way you want it to be, I’m sure it’ll grow on you. It’s difficult to make a new move. Things take time.”

“Yeah,” Robbie said. “Thanks.”

“Feel free to call me if you have any other questions or concerns. I like to make sure my clients are happy.”

“Sure.”

He hung up and drummed his fingers for a moment. Crib death; the same room that his youngest son occupied.

“Crib deaths happen quite often,” he mumbled.

Then Tanya came upstairs with the story of the mouse.

Cory sat on the edge of his bed, his stuff spilling from boxes, and stared at the window. He wasn’t sure if he was happy being here. He missed his old room with its Harry Potter wallpaper and posters. He listened to Chris and Cole prepare to go to town together. They loved him, but they didn’t always want him tagging along, especially if they wanted to talk to girls. He felt at odds, and now that he was away from friends he’d had in his old neighborhood, he realized that he knew no one here and probably wouldn’t until school started at the end of the summer.

He sighed and lay back on his bed, grabbing a comic book. After ten minutes, he was bored almost to tears.

Cole stole a peek at him. “See you later, Cory. Be cool.”

“Yeah.” Cory let his shoulders slump. The front door opened and shut. The house fell quiet.

Cory thought about the conversation he’d had with his father.
You and your brothers are not to go into that bedroom or bathroom. The mirror is old; maybe it’s cracked or loose. Daddy will take care of it.

He tried to remember what had happened after he’d seen the lollipops in the mirror and the feeling of curiosity when he’d reached forward to touch the reflection of something that wasn’t in the room with him. His fingers outstretched, he’d felt the cold kiss of glass against his fingertips. Then…the details came back to him, knocking the breath from him and making him sit up.

* * *

His fingers had gone through the mirror. What was hard turned suddenly soft and he was inside a room exactly the shape of the one he’d just left, only on the other side of the looking glass. This room was from a long time ago. It contained a claw foot tub, a wooden stand and washbasin, and several melted candles. His hand grasped the lollipops as he looked back at his parents’ bathroom through the mirror. The air in this room was dusty, stale, like air that had been locked up for a long time. When he pushed his hand against the mirror, it stayed firm this time. That frightened him. He wasn’t sure how to get back now. An idea had come to him; he’d just walk through this other house and find the door to the outside, then he’d run back to his real house, but not before first taking one of the lollipops--a red one--as if holding something as natural as this could act like some kind of a safety net.

He walked through this other bathroom and into the same-shaped guest bedroom as in his parents’ house. This room contained a wooden four-poster bed with a quilted comforter. A highboy with polished drawers and brass handles stood opposite. An intricately carved rocking chair waited in a corner, and a low table and fancy stool in the opposite corner. The table contained many glass bottles of perfumes, the glassware hand blown glass, some looking like sea shells or tiny magic lamps with stoppers; clearly, a woman’s room. The room smelled faintly of the perfumes, talcum powder, and something else. Something almost spicy and not quite nice.

He wondered if the mirror had been some kind of a door that had allowed him entrance into a house built next to theirs, and that by reaching for the lollipops, he’d somehow pushed a small button behind or actually in the glass. He knew that someone was inside this other house. He could feel their presence. He wasn’t sure whether to call for someone to help him, or just try to get out of here on his own.

He stepped into the corridor. The air continued to smell bittersweet. The light that filled the windows was a pale white haze. Cory stepped over to the window and looked outside. He saw clouds or mist moving past the glass. He felt as if he was inside a house that floated somewhere up in the sky.

He headed along the corridor, peeking into what was supposed to be Chris’s and Cole’s rooms. These also contained furniture from another era; the same high four-poster beds, one with a small footstool beside it in order to reach a mattress almost as tall as him. Flowers in vases filled with water almost glowed in this odd, white light.

He reached his own bedroom and stopped to look inside. He saw a baby’s crib, its white bars containing blankets and cushioning. He heard a baby’s cry but couldn’t see the child. The room smelled of powder and sour milk. A mobile with thin filaments holding tiny, colorful butterflies twirled slowly over the crib. Music accompanied the movement of the mobile, notes that sounded like water droplets hitting a firm surface. He heard the baby laugh and wanted to walk into the room to see the child. Even the company of a baby would be better than being alone here. A footstep along the ceiling above let him know that someone was in the attic.

He glanced into the main bedroom and saw another high bed, this one made of brass bars and thick with blankets. More antique furniture, the curtains drawn so that the room was dark. A smell of medicines floated at him: eucalyptus, rubbing alcohol, the miasma of many pills within bottles.

“Jeffery?” an old woman’s voice called from the bed. “I feel so sick. Help me.”

The covers moved and Cory saw the shape of feet, twin points sticking up beneath the material, shift position. He backed away. The squeak of a footstep in the attic, coming down the stairs now.

* * *

Cory rushed down the main stairs, past a parlor with high-backed sofas, polished tables, and oil lamps that gave the air a sooty scent. A fire popped in the fireplace. A player piano began to play by itself, its roll music punching the melody out with gusto.

“Mommy,” Cory ran for the front door. He tugged and it opened. He rushed onto the porch and saw only white mist, thick as smoke, everywhere. He grabbed the handrail and took a step downward, tentative, his foot feeling for the ground. He reached out and felt nothing.

Nothing but air.

He dipped down so that his leg swung far lower than he knew where the ground should be and still felt nothing but air within this mist. He didn’t know what was out there. He realized that, if he stepped off the end of the step, he might fall into nothingness—he wouldn’t know where his real house might be, if it was out there at all. He had to go back to where he’d come in; to try and return through the mirror.

He hurried back up the stairs. The player piano continued its jovial song, something fervent and in a minor key, the ivories pressing then rising, pressing then rising like rippling teeth. Upstairs, the baby began to cry. He was halfway along the hallway when he felt watched. He turned. It was an old man, thin, palsied scalp, the skin under his eyes bagged and almost purple, clad in a burgundy smoking jacket and proper trousers, the chain of a hand-watch swaying as he walked, stepping into the landing.

“I didn’t mean—” Cory began, but the man walked right through him. Cory felt a moment of damp, as if he’d been hit with a gust of rain-filled wind, and the man reached the doorway to the main bedroom.

“Jeffrey?” the aged female voice called out again. “Help me.”

“I’m here, Isabelle,” the man said. Then he turned and looked directly at Cory. “I put the lollipops there for you,” he told him. “You can help yourself anytime. Feel free to visit. It’s a nice place here. I’m going to get my wife some water now. Come back again.”

“How did you do that?” Cory asked.

The old man, his skin so transparent that Cory swore he could see the man’s teeth and gums shining through his cheeks, smiled and held a thin finger up to his lips. “That’s our secret,” he said. Then he shut the bedroom door. Cory listened to the woman in the bed begin to cry; then what sounded like rough, coughing sounds issued from the room. Then all went quiet.

Cory hurried back to the man’s bathroom. The other lollipops still waited on the counter where he’d left them, and now three balloons floated in here too; red, yellow, and blue, what he recognized as the primary colors from his school art class. The red balloon said ‘Hello’, the yellow one said ‘Little’ and the blue one said ‘Friend.’

Cory smiled, but he wanted to go home. It had been interesting and the old man had seemed nice enough, although odd (and that trick he’d done!), but he wanted to get back to his parents’ house. This bathroom contained no light, only that strange white glow. Its window was old, chipped wood, its sill thick with heavy dark paint, its glass crawling with flies. The sound of the baby crying drifted to him from down the hall, followed by the maddening whirl of its mobile. He recognized the song now from his own childhood. It was
Mary had a Little Lamb.
Someone walked into the baby’s room,
shushing
to comfort it.

He ate the red lollipop, then approached the mirror. This mirror was exactly like the one in his parents’ guest bathroom. He touched the glass. It was hard, cold, unrelenting. He wasn’t sure which part he needed to touch in order to go through again. He heard his name being called from somewhere in his real house. He pressed with both hands, panicking.

* * *

“Daddy!” he called out. “I’m here!” His father’s voice faded for a minute.

Cory started to cry. He slapped his hands against the mirror, wanting only to go home. Okay, the mirror was strange and this other house next to his was very odd, even if the old man had seemed nice enough and they left balloons and candy. Maybe they were lonely. But he wanted out. Everywhere he slapped along the glass, the glass refused to give. He could see the bathroom in his real house through the glass; he was separated by a thin, yet resistant medium.

Minutes passed. He wept, frightened now. His stomach growled. Desperate, but not knowing what to do, he leaned against this side of the mirror, his face wet with tears, knowing that his real home was just on the other side. He heard the old man’s voice in the guest room behind him.

“You don’t have to go. You’re welcome to stay here. We have lots of room for company. You can visit your family as much as you want from here. I can show you how, if you’d like to stay.”

Cory turned. The old man smiled. His odd pale eyes glowed a little. He smelled of the medicines from the bedroom. “My name’s Jeffrey. The baby might like a big brother like you. You could learn how to play the piano together. We’re happiest when new people stay. It’s nicer for us all.”

“I don’t want to,” Cory said and ran at the glass. Something gave, the feel of damp elastic, and he felt himself pulled through a tight, warm tunnel as Jeffrey rushed up behind him, his old man fingers cold and grasping at his ankles. Cory landed with a thud on a floor. He sat, disoriented, sunlight far too bright in his eyes and stared around himself. He saw his father rush into the room a moment later.

“There you are! What are you doing in here? I’ve been looking for you for almost an hour.”

The taste of the stale red lollipop in his mouth, the sugar old with time. The feel of the old man’s hands on his ankles. Had the man been pulling him, or pushing him out? Cory wasn’t certain.

Hello, Little, Friend.

He tossed the comic book away as the details came back to him. He didn’t mind the idea of visiting as long as he could always come back here at the end of each visit.

Strange old man.

He hadn’t liked the old furniture or the stale smell of unmoving air. Yet, he was curious to know more about this other house and he
had
been invited to visit.
How
that house was there, and the weirdness with the mirror was the most frightening part to him. It was sunny out and he decided that he’d find his football and go kick it around the driveway. He didn’t want to go back to visit today. He felt it better not to tell his parents about Jeffrey. If he wanted to visit them, he’d have to be quiet and the best time would be at night, when his parents and brothers slept. Something about Jeffrey and his family felt sad, lonely, and needy. He almost felt sorry for them. Almost. For now, the day beckoned. He grabbed his football and carried it downstairs.

* * *

His father was on the front porch, securing a loose floorboard with a screwdriver. He glanced up at Cory.

“Football.” His father smiled. “Good choice. I can get a goal post set up this afternoon, if you’d like.”

Cory grinned. “Sure.” He looked up at the house and beyond it, wondering where Jeffrey’s house might be and why he couldn’t see it from out here. He reasoned that the other house must be built
inside
his parents’ house somehow. He thought of the mist outside its windows and how, when he’d stepped out onto Jeffrey’s front steps and had felt for the ground, there hadn’t been any solidity; just opaque vacuous space.