Beyond the Reflection’s Edge (31 page)

“I hear something,” Francesca said. “Something about the funeral.”

Daryl leaned close to the laptop screen. “Apparently Daryl Red hasn’t figured out how to turn the voice volume up while the music’s playing, so she’s typing out Clara’s words.” She pointed at the advancing letters on the screen and read them out loud, pausing as she waited for whole words to appear. “You have to get back to Earth Red in time for the funeral. It’s morning now, so the service is only a few hours away.”

Nathan touched Francesca’s shoulder. “Since Earth Yellow is catching up so fast in time, we have to get Francesca back, or her whole life will be messed up. She might never meet my father, and I’ll never be born there.”

Kelly set the mirrors on the desk. “Can we risk it? Your Earth Blue father said you had to be at the funeral on Earth Red. What if we get trapped on Earth Yellow or even just delayed?”

Clara looked up at the ceiling. “Maybe you should risk it. You can probably ruin one of Mictar’s goals.”

“What goal?” Nathan asked.

“If you time it right, you can go back to Earth Yellow and get the third mirror before Mictar does. He’s sure to go after it.”

“Good thought!” He spun back to Kelly. “What year did your father buy the mirror from the guy in Scotland?”

“About fifteen years ago. Not long after I was born, I think.”

He stepped close to Daryl’s workstation. “At the rate Earth Yellow is catching up, when will it get to fifteen years ago?”

Daryl squinted at the screen. “Impossible to tell. Sometimes it zips along, and sometimes it’s just a little bit faster, but it still has about fourteen years to go. It’s nineteen seventy-nine there right now.”

“That raises an interesting question in my mind,” Clara said. “What will happen to Francesca? I don’t think she’s aging here at her Earth Yellow rate, or else her body cycles would be crazy. But will she suddenly age if she goes home, or will she be younger than she’s supposed to be?”

Nathan set his chin on his hand. “So if we don’t take her back now, we might ruin her life. If we do, I might miss the funeral. And with either choice, I have to stop looking for my Earth Blue parents. Both choices really stink.”

Kelly raised her hand. “I vote for Earth Yellow. If time is passing faster there than here, won’t Earth Red kind of slow down while we get Francesca home? I mean, we’ll have more time to get the job done, right?”

Nathan pointed at her. “She’s brilliant!”

Still hanging on to the violin case, Kelly dipped her knee in a mock curtsy. “I humbly accept your accurate assessment of my intelligence.”

Clara lifted her feet in turn. “I need some boots. The bovine manure is getting pretty deep in here.”

“I’ll adjust the settings,” Daryl called out. “Earth Yellow coming right up!”

Kelly gazed at the ceiling. “Where will we go in Earth Yellow? Did this observatory even exist thirty years ago?”

“Great question.” Nathan stood next to her and watched the mirror change. The chaotic rainbow of colors returned along with a new blend of dissonant noises. Soon, a harmony of notes emerged, and the scene above coalesced — a daytime view of a spring forest with windblown leaves plummeting to the ground, clouds racing overhead, and a squirrel scampering up a tree like a furry bullet.

He let out a low whistle. “That squirrel’s had too much coffee!”

“Time’s passing faster,” Daryl explained. “I suppose it’ll slow down for you when you get there.”

Nathan searched the landscape but found no sign of civilization. “Do you think we’ll come out where the observatory is going to be?”

“That’s my guess.” Daryl looked up at the forest. “Kind of out in the middle of nowhere, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” He checked for his wallet. “At least I have money now, so maybe I can get some decent transportation back to Iowa.”

“Do we stand in the middle of the room again?” Kelly asked.

Nathan hustled toward the telescope. “I’d better get the body out of the way.” He grasped the corpse by the wrists and dragged him to the wall.

“Check his pockets,” Clara called. “Maybe we can find a clue of some kind.”

He searched the man’s pants pockets and found four shotgun shells and a wallet. After rifling through the wallet, he kept a driver’s license and a plastic card that was embedded with an odd set of letters and numbers. After pushing the wallet back
into the man’s pocket, he strode to Clara and set his findings on the desk. “If you have to leave, hide the shotgun and shells in the ladies’ room downstairs, so we’ll know where to find them when we get back.”

Clara grabbed a rolling shotgun shell and stood it upright. “If we have to leave, you might have a hard time getting back.”

“Maybe not,” Daryl said. “The other Daryl might be able to get you home.”

“And what if she has to hide, too?” Nathan asked.

“Stop being a worrywart. I found the security codes for all the doors. In fact, I can change them from here if I want to. Daryl Red has the codes there, too, so we can frustrate the bad guys for quite a while. They won’t know the new codes.”

Kelly shifted the violin case toward the cordoned-off entry door. “How did the shotgun guy get in here? It doesn’t look like he blasted through.”

“Maybe that door isn’t secure.” Daryl shifted back to her keyboard. “I’ll get it locked down.”

“Are you taking the mirrors?” Clara asked.

“I’ll take one of them.” He picked it up and tucked it under his arm. “If one of us gets caught, at least the other mirror will be safe.”

Kelly reached for Francesca. “Let’s go. We’ll get a hot breakfast and find a place to sleep.”

The girl yawned and meekly took Kelly’s hand. “And a bath?”

“We’ll see what we can do.”

Nathan led Kelly and Francesca to the center of the room. Nodding toward the wall where the switches had been in Earth Red, he pressed the mirror against his chest. “Ready with the lights?”

Clara walked over to the switch. “Here we go!”

The trumpet fixtures on the perimeter wall flashed to life, sending white beams toward the ceiling that forked into dozens
of semitranslucent shafts as they bounced from the apex. The shafts reshaped into brilliant vertical bars around the trio and again melted their surroundings.

Soon, the forest scene shaped itself around them. The racing clouds seemed to put on the brakes and slow to a reasonable speed. Instead of plunging like lead weights, green leaves began to float to the ground in meandering spirals, blown off their erratic paths by gusts of wind that chased the clouds above. The squirrel slowed as well, flicking its tail erratically as he looked on from his perch near the end of a branch.

In the distance, a bank of dark clouds spread a blanket across the sun, casting a deep shadow over the trio. Lightning flashed. The cloud-to-ground strike sent a rumbling boom across the forest and tremors under their feet. A few large raindrops pelted the leafy floor, making a crackling sound as they landed. A fresh breeze blew through Nathan’s hair, cool and invigorating as it kicked up a swirl of dead leaves at his feet. They flew in a cyclonic waltz, blocking the freshness and surrounding them in a dreary blanket of decay.

He tried to peer through the flurry. He had seen this place before, the mirror’s very first strange apparition back in his bedroom.

A sudden gust blew the leafy whirlwind away, clearing their view. To the right, a tri-fold mirror, twice Nathan’s height and three times as wide as his arm span, stood upright, supported by four-by-four wooden posts embedded in the ground.

Shuffling through more dead leaves, the previous autumn’s carpet that spring had not yet swept away, he stared at the seemingly impossible, but now familiar, reflection, an aerial view of the telescope room with Clara and Daryl waving at them from the computer desk. “Interfinity must have erected this here as their transportation dock for Earth Yellow.”

While returning the wave, Kelly touched the right-hand panel. “I guess they thought of everything, didn’t they?”

Holding out his palm to catch the spattering rain, Nathan squinted at the darkening sky. “Maybe, but we didn’t think to bring an umbrella.”

Francesca pointed toward the horizon. “Look!”

As the leaves kicked up again, Nathan bent over to follow her line of sight. A dark twisting funnel roared down from the approaching cloud bank. “It’s a tornado! A big one!”

“It’s coming toward us!” Kelly swiveled her head from side to side. “Which way to the road?”

Nathan pointed toward what appeared to be a trail, a narrow path with fewer leaves than the surrounding area. “That way!” He thrust the mirror toward her. “You take this.” Scooping Francesca into his arms, he dashed along the path. As the wind whistled through the branches, leaves and twigs rained all around along with nickel-sized droplets that splashed on his hair and clothes. “Are you with me?” he called back to Kelly.

“Right behind you!”

Francesca stayed quiet, nuzzling her cheek against his neck, even as he leaped over protruding roots or a fallen tree. “We have to find a low area, a ditch or a rainwater trench!”

Kelly’s hoarse voice battled the chaotic noise. “It’s all flat!”

Glancing back, Nathan caught sight of the tornado again, an enormous black funnel of spinning fury. It churned through the forest like a wild monster, uprooting trees and spewing them into the sky. The deafening rumble drowned out nearly every other sound. Only the high pitch of Kelly’s shouts managed to overcome the racket and find their way to his ears.

He spun around. “Give me the violin!”

Kelly sprinted toward him, reaching out the case. Without a word, he set Francesca down and took the violin, popping the latches while Kelly held up the mirror where he could see the
raging demon behind them. As the tornado screamed closer, he jerked up his instrument and sawed the bow across the strings, playing a wild rendition of “Be Still My Soul.”

The monstrous funnel drew so close, all he could see in the mirror was its black twisting wall as it tossed out dirt and debris. The wind blew a vicious slap that knocked Francesca to the ground. Hanging on to the mirror with both hands, Kelly straddled her and dropped to her knees to cover Francesca’s shaking body while keeping the mirror in place.

With his back to the cyclone, dozens of rocks and sharp wood fragments slammed into Nathan, his body a shield for the two girls. Finally, the reflection changed, a dim forest road with a van parked near a tree.

“I need a flash of light!” he yelled.

As if in response, lightning blasted down from the sky, knifing into a nearby tree and slicing off a huge limb right over their heads. The tornado lurched forward, spreading its funnel like the deadly arms of death itself. Kelly clenched her eyes shut. Nathan bent over, waiting to be crushed or swept away.

Suddenly, all was quiet. Staying bent, he listened to the strange silence and studied the ground he stood on. His violin case now lay open on a paved road. After setting the violin inside, he looked over at Kelly.

Still holding the mirror, her wide eyes darted all around, and a smile spread across her face. “Now that’s pretty cool!” She pushed a hand under Francesca’s arm and helped her to her feet.

Leaving the case on the ground, Nathan stood up straight. “Cool is right, but I’d rather not go through —”

A new voice interrupted. “Okay, now I’ve seen everything.”

Nathan pivoted. “What?”

Just across the road, a young man leaned against a commercial van, watching them with his arms folded over his long-sleeved T-shirt. “Like I said. Now I’ve seen everything.”
He pushed away from the van revealing the lettering on the side —
Stoneman Enterprises.

Nathan drew his head back. “Gunther?”

“In the flesh.” Carrying a tire iron, Gunther frowned as he walked toward them, a set of keys jangling from a ring on his jeans belt loop. Although his hair was shorter, his face hadn’t changed. His voice sharpened to a menacing tone. “For a couple of kidnappers, you sure have a lot of divine help … or is it demonic help?”

“Kidnappers?” Nathan backed away spreading his arms in front of Kelly and Francesca. “What are you talking about?”

“You still have her,” Gunther said, stopping and pointing the tire iron at Francesca. “Now I can finally clear my name for good.”

“Clear your name?”

“I didn’t want to believe you kidnapped Francesca. I thought maybe someone else took all three of you.”

“We didn’t kidnap her. We’re trying to get her home.”

Gunther gave him a sarcastic smirk. “It’s taken you almost a year to decide to do that? A little slow, aren’t you?”

“Cool it a second,” Nathan said, holding up his hands. “Just tell us what’s happened since we’ve been gone, and I’ll explain everything.”

Gunther kept a firm grip on his tire iron, but his voice eased. “That day I dropped you off, I noticed a guy drive in as I was leaving, so I went back to check it out. When I saw him sneaking up toward the house with a gun, I took this tire iron and chased him. I got there just as he shot —” He glanced at Francesca. The little girl’s eyes had grown a half size wider. “Anyway, I clobbered him, but he was a tough nut to crack. He fought back and got away, but I didn’t chase him, ‘cause I wanted to stay and help, but you two were gone, kind of vanished into thin air. I called the police, and when they showed up, they asked me
where Francesca was. I had no idea a little girl even lived there, so I just told them everything I knew.

“They didn’t believe me at first, and when they couldn’t find her, they put me in jail for two days. When they developed the pictures in the camera Mrs. Romano had with her, they saw the three of you. Now here’s the really weird part. In the picture, there was a big mirror behind you, and it showed the guy with the gun behind Mrs. Romano, but there wasn’t any mirror in the room.

“Anyway, they decided to keep me locked up for a while, because it also showed me getting ready to bash the guy’s head, proving I was there with you. Since they didn’t have any evidence that I actually kidnapped her, and since I obviously didn’t have time to dispose of three bodies, they finally let me go. They dusted for fingerprints, but I guess yours didn’t match anything on file, and they showed the photo to thousands of people and put it on TV, but they came up empty.”