Beyond the Reflection’s Edge (20 page)

They quick–stepped through the empty halls, passing vertical banks of blue lockers on each side. She halted at one and spun the combination dial. “No time to dump your stuff at your locker. We’ll find it after chemistry.” She opened the door and, leaning over, grabbed a textbook and yellow legal pad, but suddenly straightened, her eyes growing wider. “Are you sure you don’t hear anything?”

Nathan glanced around. “Just the fluorescent lights humming.”

“That’s not it.” Her voice lowered to a ghostly whisper. “It’s a man … like he’s in pain.”

He lifted his violin case. “Check it carefully this time.”

She bent over and set her ear close to the case. After a few seconds, she shook her head. “I’m sure that’s not it.”

As he let the case down again, he scuffed his shoe against the floor. “Look. It’s not that I’m doubting you, but if I can’t hear it, I can’t help you find it.”

“I know.” She closed her locker door. “Let’s get going.”

After marching halfway down another hall, they stopped at a classroom where a nameplate read, “Marshall Scott.”

Kelly reached for the doorknob and looked back at Nathan, her face reddening as she whispered. “I should have told you this earlier. Brittany mentioned Steven. He’s my old boyfriend from last school year, and he wants me back. He might not be too happy when he sees us together.”

“Maybe he already knows,” he said, shrugging. “Wouldn’t Brittany have told him about me by now?”

Kelly shook her head. “Brittany’s in ‘math for morons’ first period. She couldn’t pass chemistry if her life depended on it.” After taking a deep breath, she opened the door. As they walked inside, Nathan scanned the classroom from the teacher’s space on the left to the three rows of two–person worktables on the right. A couple of girls smiled at him, but most students kept their gazes aimed at their desks, some with closed eyes, apparently asleep.

Kelly extended her pink slip to a bespectacled, gray–haired man up front. “This is Kyle,” she said, gesturing toward Nathan. “He’s new, and I’ve been assigned to show him the ropes around here.”

Nathan handed him his tardy slip and schedule. Using long, bony fingers, Mr. Scott opened a class roll book and scribbled down the information. “Welcome, Mr. Simmons.” His voice was nasally but not unfriendly. “I hope your previous school has introduced you to stoichiometry. Otherwise, you will find it difficult to catch up.”

Nathan took back his schedule and smiled as graciously as he could. “Thanks. I think I’ll be okay.”

“Very well.” Mr. Scott pointed his pencil at a boy at the front table near a window on the far end. “Steven, please be kind enough to move to the empty spot next to Daryl so Kyle can sit with Kelly. They’ll have to share her textbook until I locate another one.”

“Sure thing.” A shaggy–haired boy with a dark goatee rose to a staggering height, glaring at Nathan as he shuffled past. “Cute violin case,” he mumbled.

Kelly whispered out of the side of her mouth. “I forgot to tell you. He plays football and basketball.”

“Great,” he whispered back. “He’ll crunch me into a little ball and shoot me through a hoop.”

After Nathan pushed his backpack and case under Steven’s old space on the left side of the table, he sat in a red metal
chair. Kelly opened the chemistry book and slid it to the middle of their workspace. “I still hear it,” she whispered. She then cleared her throat to mask her comment.

Mr. Scott poised a marker over a transparency sheet on an overhead projector. After rambling for several minutes about the importance of laboratory safety, he stopped and scanned the classroom. “Who can tell me the chemical formula for silver nitrate?”

Nathan glanced at Kelly, but she was busily writing something on her pad and covering it with her hand. Why would she be taking notes? The teacher hadn’t even said anything important yet.

“Come now,” Mr. Scott continued. “This is review. We just did this equation on Friday.”

Nathan glanced around the room. One boy yawned, a girl filed her nails, and most of the others just stared straight ahead. Finally, Nathan slid his hand up.

“Yes, Kyle.”

“Uh … A G N O three.”

“Excellent.” He wrote the symbols on the overhead. “Leave it to the student who wasn’t even here on Friday to know the answer.”

Nathan firmed his chin. The note of sarcasm in Mr. Scott’s voice was more than a little irritating. Besides, it wasn’t fair to level that charge against the whole class, especially Kelly. He lifted his hand again. “Excuse me, Mr. Scott, but Kelly wasn’t here either. She was helping me settle in at her house.”

A deep voice piped up from behind him. “Yeah. I’ll
bet
she was.”

As muffled snickers erupted around the room, Kelly ducked her head and covered her flaming ears.

“Quiet!” Mr. Scott aimed a menacing glare at his students. When the murmuring subsided, he pointed his marker at Steven. “See me after class.” He then shifted the marker toward Nathan.
“Kyle, I realize you’re new here, but I must ask you to abide by my rules. You will not speak unless called upon.”

Nathan straightened in his seat. “Yessir.”

“In any case, there is no need to defend Kelly. Her test scores will speak for themselves.”

A few more snickers flittered about but faded quickly.

Kelly’s hand shot up. Her face had again turned red as a beet.

Mr. Scott raised his eyebrows. “Yes, Kelly?”

“I’m feeling sick,” she said, laying a hand on her stomach. “I have to go.”

“I understand. Embarrassment likely incited an unusual gastric discharge.” He nodded toward the door. “Go ahead.”

Bending forward and keeping her gaze away from Nathan, Kelly tapped her yellow pad as she passed in front of her desk. He angled his head to read it silently.
It’s coming from your backpack. Make an excuse to go to the restroom. Lie if you have to!

While everyone watched Kelly shuffle toward the door, Nathan quietly tore the top page away from the pad and folded it in half. He then slid out the backpack and unzipped it in one motion.

As the classroom door clapped shut, Nathan withdrew the mirror, removed the towel, and looked into its reflective side. A man hung suspended by chains against a stone wall, while another man, veiled in shadows, held a knife to a woman’s throat. The woman, seated on the floor, faced the wall, preventing Nathan from seeing her clearly but the dark locks streaming down her back gave away her identity. His mother.

“Now,” Mr. Scott continued, “when we combined the silver with the nitric acid we created a reaction that produced a gas called what?”

While the shadow of one of his classmates rose behind him, Nathan, his hands now shaking, pulled the mirror closer and studied the hanging man, turning the mirrored surface away
from the window to avoid the glare. Although his face was dirty and appeared older than usual, there was no doubt about who the man was.

“Anyone?” Mr. Scott prodded.

Nathan almost blurted, It’s Dad!

The image faded away, leaving only Nathan’s worried face along with the wide eyes of a girl staring over his shoulder — Daryl.

Although Mr. Scott had not risen from his seat, he appeared in the mirror, stumbling and falling hard to the floor between the front desk and Nathan. He lay motionless, blood oozing from his nose.

The teacher got up and walked toward him. “Kyle, is there something I can help you with?”

Nathan laid the mirror on the desk. With a desperate lunge, he pushed his body in front of Mr. Scott just as he tripped over a power cord. The teacher fell on top of Nathan, softening his landing.

Someone laid a hand behind Nathan’s head. “Are you all right?” she asked.

In a daze, it took Nathan a second or two to recognize her. “Yeah, Daryl. I’m fine.”

As Mr. Scott got up and brushed off his pants, Daryl helped Nathan to his feet. “I saw it in the mirror before it happened!” she said.

“Nonsense, Daryl,” Mr. Scott said, putting his glasses back on. “Kyle obviously saw that the tape on the cord was loose and couldn’t warn me in time.” He patted Nathan on the back. “I’m grateful for your quick action.”

Nathan stuffed the mirror and towel into his pack and pulled his violin case out from under the desk. “I … uh … better go to the restroom and get cleaned up.” He slung the pack over his shoulder and backed toward the door. “That is, of course, if you don’t mind.”

Mr. Scott nodded. “Go ahead. But keep that mirror out of sight. It’s too much of a distraction.”

“Sure. No problem.” When he reached the door, he set his hand on the knob. “Uh … which way to the restrooms?”

“I’ll show him!” Daryl ran to the door. “Back in a minute!”

She led Nathan down the hall, chattering rapid fire. “That mirror thing is so cool! What is it, anyway? Sort of like a scenario predictor? The microprocessors they put in there must really be fast to analyze all the probabilities and display the most likely outcome in such high resolution. It was perfect video quality! I’ll bet the military would love to get their hands on it, or maybe stock brokers and gamblers. Yeah, that’s it. Sports bookies would kill for a device like that.”

She took a breath and turned a corner. “I want to learn virtual reality programming and apply it to holographic imaging. The video gaming industry would go nuts over it. Can you imagine physically walking through a shooter game where you can see your targets all around you without having to wear a bulky helmet? It would be
Battlestar Galactica
come to life.”

“Wait.” Nathan halted.

“What?”

He pointed at a recessed area in the wall. “The restrooms, right?”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” Daryl blushed. “I got carried away.” She pointed to the left side. “Men’s that way.”

“Yeah. I saw the sign.” He stepped into the alcove and paused in front of a two–tiered set of water fountains. “Thanks.”

She crossed her arms and leaned against a locker on the other side of the hall.

“Uh … “Nathan said as he stepped toward the men’s side. “I can make it from here.”

“Oh. Right again.” She spun and hurried down the tiled floor, looking back once before turning into the adjacent hallway.

Taking two long, quiet steps, Nathan shifted over to the
ladies’ side of the alcove and paused. There was no door to knock on. Should he call her name? Just go in? There wouldn’t be anyone else in there, right? He gave the tiles at the side of the doorway a light rap with his knuckles, but it hardly made any sound at all. He leaned in and whispered, “Kelly?”

No answer.

He breathed a deep sigh. Maybe he had taken too long to leave the classroom. Maybe she had gone to the car. He spun back to the men’s room and breezed inside. Might as well take care of business before he searched for her.

As he approached a urinal, a loud “Pssst” made him halt.

“Nathan! Over here!”

He leaned toward the bank of toilet stalls. “Kelly?”

“Yes. Last stall.”

He hustled to the back of the restroom and faced the closed door of the handicapped-access stall. “What are you doing here?”

Her reply came in a sharp whisper. “Waiting for you.”

“In the men’s room?”

She pushed open the stall door. With her Nike’s on the toilet seat, she squatted low. “I knew you wouldn’t set foot in the ladies’ room, and we need to talk privately.”

“I was thinking you might have gone to the car. How’d you know I’d come in here?”

“I saw how much orange juice you drank this morning.”

He glanced at the entry door. “What if someone walks in?”

She grabbed his sleeve and pulled him into the spacious stall, closing the door behind them. “If someone comes in, the only shoes they’ll see will be yours.”

Nathan set the violin case down and pulled the mirror from the backpack. “I saw who was moaning.”

“Your father,” she replied. “I heard someone say his name, like he was being taunted.”

“But was it my real father, or my father in the other dimension?
I mean, if my real father’s dead, then the guy in the mirror isn’t
my
father over there, he’s the father of —”

“Stop!” She set her fingers on her temples. “Don’t explain it. You’ll give me a headache.”

“I guess right after my mother heard footsteps, someone captured them, so trying to see them again can’t do any harm now.” He handed her the mirror. “Let’s see if I can open a viewer on this one.”

“Go for it.”

He unlatched the case and set the violin under his chin. “I feel like an idiot playing in a bathroom stall.”

“Maybe, but the echo effect will be awesome.”

He raised the bow to the strings. “I think
pianissimo
is called for here.”

“The softer the better,” she whispered.

He raised his eyebrows. “You knew what I meant?”

“I took piano for five years. My mother taught me.”

While he played the first measures of “Brahms’ Lullaby,” they stared at the mirror. At first their widened eyes stared back at them, but within seconds, his eyes gleamed once again, and the reflection’s background darkened, framing their faces with blackness. Soon, even they disappeared, and the darkness faded, giving rise to a dim stone wall, the same wall his father had been hanging from, but now only four loose chains dangled from their attachment points.

“He’s gone,” Nathan whispered.

“Shhh! I hear voices. Very quiet voices.”

“I’ll play louder.”

Nathan increased the volume to
mezzo piano
, now loud enough to create an echo in the porcelain-coated room. Kelly’s head bobbed, her lips moving as she mentally recited every syllable she heard.

A nasally voice blended in with the violin’s sweet tones. “Kyle? Are you in here?”

Nathan stopped playing. The voice, Mr. Scott’s voice, had come from the entry door.

“Yes?” he replied.

Kelly scooted back on the toilet while Nathan slid his feet into position in front of it and sat down.

“The fall bloodied my nose, so I thought I’d clean up and check on you at the same time. Now I see why you’re delayed.”

Nathan cleared his throat. “Thanks. I’ll be done soon.”

The sound of a stream splashing a urinal reverberated quietly in the room as Mr. Scott continued. “You must really be enamored with your violin to be practicing even in there. I usually read a magazine, but to each his own, I suppose.”