Why doesn’t Gray call me back? Where is he tonight?
And then I remembered. In California, it was just eleven o’clock in the morning. He was probably right in the middle of his EMT training.
To distract myself, I decided to unpack, slowly filling the closet with my paltry wardrobe, tossing lotions and hairbrushes and perfumes onto my vanity. And that’s when I found the gift bag from Darlene.
I riffled through the tissue paper and found a bottle of dried rose petals, a length of red yarn, and a compass. A tiny note was tied to the neck of the bottle that read:
Here are the instructions for the spell to reunite lovers, as promised. But remember, love casts its own spell.
Even now, Darlene was looking out for me.
I set the ingredients down on the vanity and looked into the antique mirror. It must not have been one of Mr. Fairchild’s purchases, as it seemed genuinely old with scuffing along the frame and silver-black marbling on the surface. A shudder ran through me as I watched my reflection warp slightly in the old glass.
There was something sinister about mirrors, especially old ones.
I remembered last spring at Michelle’s birthday/slumber party, we had been playing a silly campfire game, the one where you spin around three times in a darkened room chanting “Bloody Mary” and then open your eyes in front of a mirror. Legend says you’re supposed to see the face of your beloved in the mirror.
And I really had. I’d spun around and said the words and opened my eyes to see Gray’s ghostly image staring back at me. Of course, I had screamed and we’d all erupted into giggles and written it off as the power of suggestion, but there was something almost supernatural about mirrors and their ability to reflect and distort reality.
Mirrors were also a powerful symbol of the self. Last year, I’d suffered from what I guess you could call waking nightmares, trance-like states in which I’d occasionally wander away from campus, sometimes waking up hours later in the woods, and one time, in a cave.
Darlene had taught me a lucid dreaming technique that had ended my sleepwalking days for good. She told me, “Whenever you get the sense that you’re dreaming, create a mirror image of yourself and send that version into the dream so your body stays put.”
The first time I’d tried the technique, it had kept me from wandering, and I’d been using it ever since whenever I felt my dream world pulling me too deeply.
Right now, I wished I could somehow send my mirror image out to Gray, wherever he was. I missed him that much. But I wouldn’t use the spell. As Darlene warned me, I’d wait until I needed it and hope I never would.
Feeling fatigue and muscle aches overwhelm me, I crawled into bed, luxuriating in the satiny sheets, the plush pillows, the dense comforter. Even though it wasn’t cold in the room, I wanted the comfort of thick blankets pulled up tight around me.
As tired as I was, I usually needed to read in order to fall asleep. So I grabbed my copy of
Le Fantôme de l’Opéra
from the nightstand. Reading a book in French took a lot more time and focus than reading in English, so I struggled to get through the first five pages. The book begins with a prologue by the author explaining how he learned of the Opéra ghost’s existence by studying interviews, letters, and other documents from the archives of the National Academy of Music. The first chapter launches into his reconstruction of the Phantom’s tale.
Rumors about a ghost with death’s head on his shoulders are flying though the dressing rooms of the Opera House. An unseen tyrant has been threatening the managers into reserving a private box for him. And then, a scene changer is found dead in a third-floor cellar, hanging from a beam. The police suspect suicide. And yet when they go to cut the man’s body down, the rope he’d been hanged on is gone.
I stopped reading and shivered as if a cool breeze had come through the window. Impossible, since I’d closed it earlier.
And then I heard voices, faint and murmuring. They were so quiet I couldn’t tell where they were coming from or if they were speaking French or English. Ordinarily, I would have attributed the noises to a television program, but Mr. Fairchild hadn’t bought either of us a television. I perked my ears to see if I could discover the source of the sounds. They seemed to be coming from the hallway.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe some students had arrived back to school a few days early. As scared as I was, I crept out of bed and padded to the door, then stood there, heart racing, trying to drum up the courage to open it.
Come on, Emma. Stop being such a coward. It’s just the novel taking hold of your imagination or your own stories of the ghosts of the Bastille getting the best of you.
Quickly, before I could wimp out, I sprang the latch and whisked open the door. I looked left and right and even went to stand out in the middle of the hallway. Nothing.
Laughing at my own superstitious nature, I went back inside the room. But the moment I shut the door, the voices resumed, fainter this time, like they were moving away from me.
What if I’m dreaming right now?
I looked around for signs of dreaming, what they call “reality tests.”
Do my hands look normal? Can I flip the light switch off and on? Can I tell the time on the digital clock? Can I read a piece of text?
After trying each, I determined that I was still awake.
And then I remembered another reality test: to look into a mirror. If the image is absent, blurry, misshapen, or doesn’t match the objects around you, it could signal that you’re dreaming.
Quite honestly, I’d gotten myself so worked up I was afraid to look into the mirror. But I knew I was just being silly.
I went to stand in front of the mirror and, as quickly as I could, I glanced into the surface. Recoiling in fright, I ran to my bed and jumped inside, cowering under the covers. After four successful tests, I was pretty sure I was awake. Which made the truth all the more horrifying.
Because even though I’d only caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye, the reflection I’d seen in the mirror wasn’t my own.
K TEEN BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2013 by Eve Marie Mont
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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K Teen is a trademark of Kensington Publishing Corp.
ISBN: 978-0-7582-6949-2
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Table of Contents