Beyond the Reflection’s Edge (12 page)

He looked up at her silly grin. She was trying to shake him out of his funk. “Actually I kind of liked it.” He thumped his chest, mimicking her earlier move. “I felt like a real man.”

“Oh, no!” Clutching her throat, she stuck out her tongue and staggered with dramatic flair. “I ate an anchovy! I’m growing hair on my chest, and I left the toilet seat up! Don’t ask me to stop for directions; I’m turning into a man!”

As Nathan laughed, he caught a glimpse of Kelly’s comical display in the mirror. The two Kellys seemed to be performing a weird tribal dance, completely out of sync with the classical music playing on the radio. The girl in the mirror turned fuzzy for a moment, then sharpened again, now dressed in loose-fitting khaki pants and a short-sleeved safari shirt. When the real Kelly turned toward the mirror, she released her throat and stared.

Nathan shot up from his chair. He, too, was dressed in khakis in his mirror image. Their reflected surroundings morphed into a dim chamber with a faint glow seeping in through arched windows near the high ceiling. Shards of varnished wood littered the smooth floor, making a trail through a maze of music stands toward two coffins that sat on a long table in the gloomy distance.

“This is my dream!” Nathan took two uneasy steps closer. “It’s the performance hall, the same place my parents were killed, but now the coffins are on stage.”

Kelly sat on the bed, still staring. “The mirror’s reflecting what you’re thinking again. You put us both into your dream.”

He pointed at his image as it crept side by side next to hers. “Where did I come up with the safari outfits? I’ve never owned anything like that.”

“I have. My dad wanted to take me hunting, so—” She stopped abruptly. “That’s exactly how those baggy old pants fit me. How could you know?”

In the image, a man in a navy blue blazer rose from behind the coffins. “How did you cross the barrier?” he asked.

The real Nathan stepped closer to the mirror and whispered, “I can hear him.”

“Same here.” Kelly, shivering hard, pressed close to his side. “Your imagination is going nuts!”

“He’s one of Mictar’s men. I think his name’s Dr. Gordon.”

The Nathan in the mirror halted. “I crossed the same way as before. I had a dream, it showed up in the mirror, then music, a flash of light, and zap, I’m here. Why?”

“You’re not carrying it,” Dr. Gordon said. “How could you transport without it?”

“I have my ways.”

Dr. Gordon walked to the front of the coffins, a pronounced limp in his gait. “I asked you to bring it. I wanted to teach you how it works.”

Nathan retreated a step. “It’s too dangerous. I’m having it locked up forever.”

“How will you return to Blue?”

“You seem to know how. I’ll just follow you.”

Dr. Gordon eyed Nathan suspiciously. “Very well. Come over here. I’ll show you why I called you.”

“You have their bodies?” Glancing all around, the Nathan in the mirror skulked forward, Kelly’s reflection at his heels. He peered into one of the coffins. Clutching the side with tight fingers, he growled at Dr. Gordon. “How did they get here?”

“I suppose Mictar thought Earth Yellow would be a safe place to hide them.”

His jaw shaking, Nathan reached into the coffin and lifted a feminine hand. “How did you find them?”

Suddenly a tall, dark figure in the mirror grabbed Nathan from behind, covering his eyes with his thin hand. As the boy struggled, the real Nathan clenched his fist. “Mictar!”

Kelly yelled at the mirror. “Don’t just stand there, Kelly! Help him!”

In the mirror, Kelly leaped onto Mictar from behind and gouged his face with her fingernails. As Nathan’s double slumped to the stage floor, Mictar reached around and tore
Kelly from his back. Now with an aura of light surrounding him, he covered her eyes with his hand. Sparks flew from beneath his palm. She stiffened, and her mouth dropped open, but only a timid squeak came out. A few seconds later, she, too, collapsed.

Straightening his pulsating body, Mictar heaved in a deep breath and looked up toward the ceiling. “Ah! The ecstasy of youthful vigor!”

Dr. Gordon hobbled forward and frisked Nathan’s clothes. “He didn’t bring it!” He jumped over to Kelly and searched her body, running his hands along every curve.

The real Kelly shivered again. “I think I’m going to be sick!”

Gordon grabbed a shock of Nathan’s hair and jerked his head high enough to speak to him face-to-face. As the wounded boy’s features stretched out, his eyelids opened. Empty eye sockets encircled by black sooty scorch marks were all that remained.

A purplish vein on the side of Gordon’s forehead pulsed. “I’ll find it eventually. With you and your daddy dead, that doesn’t leave very many who could be hiding it.” He dropped Nathan, letting his face thump hard against the floor.

Gordon moved back to Kelly and pushed open one of her eyelids, revealing a gaping hole. He looked up at Mictar. “A thorough excision, as usual.”

“To get to the reservoirs,” Mictar replied, “one must open the spillways.”

Leaving the bodies on the stage, Gordon and Mictar slowly descended the stairs to the audience level, passing so close to the front of the mirror, every facial detail clarified. Mictar touched a scratch wound on his cheek. As if responding to his touch, the scratch faded and vanished.

A fresh cut also marred Gordon’s face. Nathan leaned closer to get a good view. It looked like he had been in a fight.

“We have to get to the girl’s house, “Gordon said as he limped along. “The burglar is due to arrive in the morning. My leg should be okay by then. “As the two men headed for the exit door, Dr. Gordon’s voice faded. “That old fiddler didn’t do too much damage.”

The sound of a car motor shook Nathan’s attention away from the mirror. He peeked outside and saw the blue Mustang pulling into the driveway with the gray-bearded man behind the wheel. He stepped out of the car, holding a gun at his side.

“We’ve got big trouble.”

Kelly spun toward the door. “I’ll wake my dad!”

“No time!” Nathan grabbed her wrist. “Is there a place to hide?”

The front door banged open.

“Daddy!” Kelly screamed. “Daddy! Help!”

The gunman burst into the room. As he aimed his pistol at Nathan, he pushed the door closed with his foot. “The locals aren’t exactly tight–lipped around here.”

Holding up a trembling hand, Nathan stepped in front of Kelly. “Leave her alone, all right? Do whatever you want to me. Just let her go.”

“Easy enough to put a hole right through both of you.” When he pulled the trigger, the gunpowder flashed, its sparks flying away from the gun in slow motion. Nathan reached for his chest, expecting a sharp pain, but as he refocused, the brass-colored bullet came into view, maybe three feet away, floating toward him at a barely perceptible rate.

He gasped for breath, but his lungs froze. He wanted to grab Kelly and duck, but as he tried to turn, his limbs and torso locked in place. Only his eyes and brain seemed able to function at all.

As the bullet continued its unyielding advance, he glanced at the two dead bodies in the mirror. Had the reflection predicted
their murder somehow? The other Nathan and Kelly were in a faraway place and wearing strange clothes. It wasn’t the same at all. Somehow theirs was a different world.

The mirror began to darken and expand in every direction. The dead bodies pushed out from the glass, creating a hologram that blended with reality. The lifeless Nathan and Kelly floated inches off the bedroom floor, lying still, with gaping holes in their eyes, as the two rooms merged into one.

Nathan glanced at the space between him and the gunman. The bullet moved within a foot of his chest, spinning slowly as it inched along. He screamed at his body to jump, to duck, to collapse, to do anything — even to trade places with his dead twin on the floor. At least then he wouldn’t suffer the slow torture of a sizzling missile drilling into his heart.

Just as the bullet touched his clothes, darkness spilled over the room, like jet-black paint flowing down the walls. Now without sight, a falling sensation overtook his mind, a plunge into a dark void. He cringed. Any second his body would crash against the floor and thrust out his final earthly breath.

The painful thud never came. He pushed his hands forward, but they wouldn’t budge. The surface at his fingertips felt hard and cool. Had he fallen? Had the bullet struck? Why didn’t he feel the agony of a mortal wound?

Another popping noise throttled his eardrum. When his eyes adjusted, he tried to look around, but his cheek was pressed against a wood floor. The room slowly brightened from blackness to a gray gloom. Someone lay next to him, a female form, but her face pointed the other way.

Nathan waited, trying not to breathe. Maybe the gunman would think he was dead and take off, if he was still there at all. After a few seconds of silence, he whispered, “Kelly?”

The body curled up at his side whispered back, “Is he gone?”

“I think so.” Nathan pushed against the floor, still checking for pain, but everything seemed fine.

Kelly rose and knelt next to him. “Where are we?”

“I’m not sure.” He got up and helped her to her feet. “I’m not hurt. Are you?”

“I don’t think so.” She wiped her hands on her safari shirt. “When did I put this hideous hunting outfit on?”

“You got me.” He nudged a violin fragment with his laced boot and sniffed the air. The odor of fresh paint permeated the cool chamber. “This is just like my dream.”

“I hope it’s a dream. Either that or we’re in the dark tunnel people talk about when they’re on their way to heaven.” She closed her eyes and wrung her hands. “Somebody please wake me up. I’ll never shout at my alarm clock again if it will just wake me —”

The sound of laughter made them turn. A rectangular image floated behind them, a pondlike reflection that showed a skewed picture of Nathan’s bedroom. In the image, he and Kelly, still dressed in their sleep attire, lay on the carpet, the gunman standing over them.

The safari-clad Kelly clutched a handful of Nathan’s sleeve and jerked him close, whisper-shouting. “Are those our dead bodies back in your bedroom?”

Nathan tried to calm his quick breaths. “I don’t know … Everything’s going crazy.”

In the image, Tony burst through the doorway. He grabbed the gunman from behind in a headlock and wrestled him to the floor. But the gunman was too slippery. He smashed Tony’s head with the butt of the pistol. As Tony fell limp, the man stood up and hobbled out of the room.

Before the image faded, they could hear the roar of the Mustang as it spit gravel from underneath its tires. The image slowly reshaped into a tri–fold, floor–standing mirror, reflecting their dumbstruck faces, khaki clothes, and gloomy surroundings.

Kelly bent over, clutching her stomach. “I think I’m really going to be sick this time!”

While she heaved, Nathan patted her back, his own stomach boiling with nausea. “It’s going to be okay,” he said in a soothing tone, as much to settle himself as to calm her down. After shaking off a skin–tingling chill, he took a deep breath. “We’ll figure it all out.”

Straightening, Kelly pushed her hair back, her eyes flush with tears. “We’re dead!” she shouted. Her cry echoed in the empty chamber, calling out, “We’re dead,” over and over.

“We’re not dead. Maybe we just got transported into the mirror. This place is exactly what we saw from my bedroom.”

She set her fists on her hips. “Oh, well, like
that’s
a lot better! We’re either dead or nothing but reflections in a mirror world.”

“But we’re still in physical bodies.” Nathan stooped and picked up a piece of a violin. With two curling strings still attached, the tawny wood carried a splattering of reddish stain. “And this place is too real to be just a reflection.”

Rubbing her upper arms, she turned toward the coffins. “So, if this is the same as your dream, do you think the Rosetta pieces are over there?”

“I don’t think so. Didn’t you see the lady’s hand?” He rose and strode toward the boxes, Kelly following, their shoes crunching violin pieces as they weaved around the music stands. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, the chamber slowly took on its familiar surroundings. “I was right,” he said, suddenly stopping.

“Right about what?”

“This is the performance hall where my parents died. But it looks different, like it’s been remodeled.”

“In just a couple of days?”

“Fast workers, I guess.” He pointed at the floor. “But the coffins were downstairs in a prop room, not up on stage.”

Kelly crept closer to the coffins. “If your parents’ bodies are still in there …”

“They can’t be,” Nathan said confidently but his tone proved stronger than his legs. They trembled as he stayed close to Kelly’s heels.

A siren wailed from somewhere outside. The front entrance door burst open, and Gordon limped in, reaching into his jacket. “Stay where you are!” he ordered.

Nathan grabbed Kelly’s hand and pulled her toward the side exit. “This way!” Running through the dark hallway and down the darker stairs, their shoes stomped over the creaking wood. Not bothering to look for a light, he dashed into the maintenance area and clattered along the familiar catwalk, darkness cloaking their escape.

Finding the low exit door, already repaired since his previous visit, he dropped down, pounded it open with his shoes, and leaped to the hallway below. Kelly followed, step by step, only her heavy breathing giving away her presence.

He dashed into the fire escape alcove and threw open the window. A cool rush of air breezed in. This time, in the fullness of night, the black stairwell seemed invisible against the dark background. It would be like stepping out into nothingness.

Watching the street below, Nathan pushed his body through the window and felt for the metal grating under his feet. When it caught his weight, he straightened and helped Kelly out. Striding confidently now, he hustled down flight after flight of stairs, listening to Kelly’s footsteps clanging in the rear.

He glanced up at the dark window. No sign of Gordon following. Slowing his pace as he walked out onto the swinging bridge, he looked back at Kelly, talking as he hung on to the railing. “Watch for him. The front door’s around the corner, so he might show up there and try to catch us from below.”