Martin shrugged. ‘Go ahead. This is all new to me. I never came across anything psychic in my life. Not until this, anyway.’
Homer Theobald suddenly looked at him more acutely. ‘Those cuts –’ he said, indicating the bandages around Martin’s neck and the dressings on his cheeks and ears. ‘If you don’t mind my asking you a personal question – did you sustain those cuts in an auto accident, or are they anything to do with this mirror business?’
‘I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.’
‘Mr Williams,’ said Homer Theobald, suddenly testy, ‘you may think that I do nothing more for my considerable income than kid movie stars that I’m talking to their dead relatives. I told you, most people think that at first. But the fact remains that I have a gift of sensitivity that extends beyond the normal range of human faculties.’
He reached out and he gently drew his fingertip along the stitches in Martin’s chin. ‘These injuries have some connection with the mirror, am I right? I sense that you’re frightened. I sense that you feel out of your depth. You don’t know how to handle what’s happening to you. You don’t know whether to laugh or scream. Well, that’s right. The beyond is always alarming. In the beyond, the same physical rules don’t apply. Objects fly; people change shape. I don’t often tell my clients that. They wouldn’t understand, most of them, if I told them that their beloved parents are appearing to me in the shape of intelligent turtles, or that their heads have been stretched until they’re nine feet high. But you know, it stands to reason, in a way. Why should the world beyond obey any of the laws of our own world? It would be more bizarre if it
did
.’
Martin nodded, and quoted, ‘
It may be quite different on beyond
.’
Homer Theobald frowned. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I was quoting. From
Alice Through the Looking-Glass
.’
‘Yes, well,’ said Homer Theobald. ‘There was always more to
that
book than meets the eye. The Victorians had a
very
finely developed sense of death and the world beyond.’
He lifted his head, and looked around the hallway, and listened. Then, without hesitation, he crossed to the wall where Martin had impaled the brindled tomcat, and touched it. At least, he was about to touch it, but he suddenly drew his hand back.
‘Anything wrong?’ asked Martin.
Homer Theobald turned to stare at him. ‘Something
very
unpleasant has happened here.’
Martin nodded.
‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ asked Homer Theobald.
‘Why don’t we take a look at the mirror first?’ Martin suggested. ‘Then I can tell you the whole story from the beginning.’
‘I just want to know one thing,’ said Homer Theobald. ‘Is there something in this mirror that isn’t reflected in the outside world?’
‘Yes,’ said Martin.
‘Is it a person? If it is, say yes, but don’t tell me what his or her name is. I have to keep my mind clear, you see. Thinking of somebody’s name is an immediate invitation for them to get inside my mind.’
‘It’s a person,’ said Martin.
‘Is it somebody you knew?’
‘Somebody I know of; but not somebody I knew. He died a long time before I was born.’
‘I see,’ said Homer Theobald. He took out a clean handkerchief, unfolded it, and patted the perspiration from his bald head. ‘So it’s a man.’
‘A boy, as a matter of fact.’
‘So he died an unnatural death?’
‘Extremely unnatural, yes. He was murdered.’
Homer Theobald closed his eyes and thought for a while. Then he said, ‘Cats.’
‘Yes,’ Martin agreed.
Without opening his eyes, Homer Theobald stretched out both arms and felt cautiously at the air all around him. ‘There was a cat. There was more than one cat. But the first cat came to the back door and wouldn’t go away. It sat there and sat there and the boy used to feed it. There was an argument. No, you can’t feed the cat. That cat is unhealthy, you only have to smell it, it stinks. But I love it. Nobody can love a cat like that. I want it in the house. Certainly not, you can’t have a filthy animal like that in this beautiful house, we’ll all get fleas.’
Homer Theobald stopped talking as abruptly as he had started. He opened his eyes and he looked at Martin with the same kind of expression as an auto mechanic when he’s about to tell you that your whole transmission’s shot.
‘I’m still in the hallway, right? I haven’t even
seen
this mirror yet. It’s in there, right, in that room, against the wall?’
‘Yes,’ said Martin.
Homer Theobald rubbed his forehead. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to be able to do for you here, Mr Williams. I truly don’t. This isn’t anything like I’m used to dealing with. It’s spirits, yes. It’s something trying to get in touch with us from beyond the moment of death. But if I can pick it up as clearly as this from the
hallway
…’
‘What are you saying?’ Martin asked him. ‘You can’t do anything about it, or what? All I want to do is get rid of it!’
‘Mr Williams,’ Homer Theobald appealed to him, ‘what I’m trying to tell you is that I’m too frightened.’
Martin licked his scabby, split lips. ‘You mean you won’t even take a look at it?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Do you have any idea who it is? Whose spirit it is?’
‘I have a pretty fair idea. Come on, Mr Williams, I’ve been living and working in Hollywood all my life. I know what goes on.’
‘And what’s
that
supposed to mean?’
Homer Theobald took a deep breath. ‘Mr Williams, you bought yourself a whole load of trouble when you bought this mirror. You didn’t do it on purpose, of course not. Most people could have bought it and hung it on their wall and never noticed a thing. But you yourself have latent psychic powers. Nothing amazing. Compared with mine, they’re about as strong as a kid’s flashlight compared with a klieg light. But you’re intensely interested in the spirit which possesses this mirror – I say “possesses” for want of any better word. And your intense interest, coupled with your psychic powers, low-voltage as they are – well, they’ve obviously been enough to stir this spirit out of his stasis. It’s not sleep, spirits don’t sleep in the normal sense.’
Martin said, ‘Why don’t you take a look at it? I mean, just take a
look
!’
‘No-o-o, sir,’ said Homer Theobald. He was adamant.
‘You’re just going to turn around and walk out?’ Martin demanded. ‘You’re going to leave me here, not just me, but the people downstairs, everybody who comes into contact with this thing – you’re just going to leave us to be terrorized by this spirit for the rest of our lives? There’s a kid threatened here, too. A boy of five. What do you want me to tell him?’
‘Do you seriously think that I don’t
want
to help?’ Homer Theobald shouted back. ‘Do you think I’d turn my back on you if there was anything else that I could do?’
‘Well, that’s what it looks like,’ Martin challenged him.
‘Listen, my friend,’ said Homer Theobald, stubbing his finger against Martin’s chest. ‘I’m not a medium or a spiritualist or a psychic. I’m a sensitive. That means my
mind
is sensitive. What you have in this apartment is a raging beast, my friend. It’s already tried to claw you to pieces, but only your face. If
I
go in there, it’s going to claw my
mind
to pieces. I’m sorry, I understand your problem, but I don’t wish to spend the rest of my life with the IQ of a head of broccoli.’
‘All right,’ said Martin, ‘if that’s the way you feel.’
‘I’m
sorry
,’ Homer Theobald repeated. He took a menthol cough drop out of the pocket of his shirt, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth. ‘Talking to somebody’s dead husband is one thing. Raging beasts from beyond is quite another. I’m not putting you on, Mr Williams, it’s a raging beast. So what you’re asking me to consider here is the same as putting my head into the mouth of a hungry lion which has a special taste for heads.’
‘Can’t we just talk about it?’ asked Martin. ‘I mean, you keep telling me this is a raging beast – what kind of raging beast? And all this stuff about the cats?’
Homer Theobald hesitated, noisily sucking his candy. ‘All right,’ he agreed at last. ‘But not here. There’s just too much vibration here.’ He lifted his fingers to his temples and winced. ‘You can’t believe it. The
voices
.’
‘You can actually hear voices in here?’
Homer Theobald shrugged. ‘Let’s say that “hear” isn’t quite the right way of describing it. But, essentially, yes. I can hear voices.’
‘The boy’s voice?’
‘Sure. And a woman’s voice, too. An elderly woman. And somebody else.’
‘Somebody else? Who? Is it a man or a woman?’
Homer Theobald grimaced. ‘I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. It’s kind of harsh, and shrill, and metallic; but it sounds like it’s closed up somewhere, do you understand what I’m saying? As if it’s muffled. Somebody talking in another room, or maybe inside a box.’
‘Can you make out what it’s saying?’
‘I’m not too sure that I want to.’
‘Could you please try?’ Martin begged him.
Homer Theobald reluctantly took off his spectacles and closed his eyes. ‘I’m warning you, though, your little-boy spirit may get itself real worked up and excited by this.’
‘Please,’ said Martin.
‘It’s the way this kid keeps carrying on about the cat. The cat is real important to him for some reason. But I’ve never had a pet before. You had those terrapins, what was wrong with those terrapins. You can’t cuddle a terrapin, they’re not the same and besides they all got away. Oh sure, they got away, they were crawling all over the kitchen, cook was standing on a stool. But I love Pickle, I love him.’
Martin grabbed hold of Homer Theobald’s furry bare forearm. ‘Mr Theobald!’
Homer Theobald blinked open his eyes. ‘What’s the matter? What’s wrong?’
‘
Pickle
, that’s what you said.’
Homer Theobald nodded. ‘That’s right. The cat’s name was Pickle.’
‘None of the books ever mentioned him.’
‘None of what books?’
‘The books about –’
‘Ah – ah!’ Homer Theobald interrupted. ‘Don’t you mention his name! I’ve got a pretty good idea of who he is, but I don’t want to start speaking any names in my mind, you understand? No mental pictures. The mind is a mirror, too, Mr Williams.’
‘You’d better call me Martin if we’re going to get
this
damned frightened together.’
‘Well, I’m Homer, but most of my friends call me Theo. You know, on account of the hair loss. Theo Bald.’
Martin said, ‘I’m sorry I interrupted you. It was just that the name Pickle came as a shock. Do you think you can pick up any more?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Theo, but he was plainly not happy.
‘Just the voice – you know, the shrill voice. The voice you said sounded like it was shut up in a box.’
‘Well … okay. But I may get nothing. And I’m sure not staying around if it begins to wake up to the fact that I’m here, and that I’m listening in.’
‘All right, I understand.’
Theo closed his eyes. ‘The boy’s still talking. He’s a real chatterbox, that boy. When he was alive, he was real popular, real sweet. But there was something which he always kept hidden. Some important part of his personality which he never showed to anybody. He’s still keeping it hidden, even now, and that’s very strange indeed, because once people are dead they don’t keep their personalities hidden anymore. They let themselves go. That’s why they take on all kinds of weird shapes. They begin to
look
like they actually should. They drop the sheep’s clothing, if you understand what I mean, and show you the wolf. Or vice versa, of course.’
He ‘listened’ harder. Clear buttons of perspiration popped up on his freckled scalp and on his upper lip. He began to mutter and mumble, a higgledy-piggledy rush of conversation, pleading, argument.
‘I can’t, Grannie, I told you I can’t. You have to. You have to give thanks. I don’t want to. I can’t. Well, what do you think everybody’s going to say about you if you don’t go.’
Theo lifted one plump hand, his eyes still tightly shut. He was indicating to Martin that he was picking up the other voice, the shrill voice. ‘Don’t you go, she can’t tell you what to do, don’t you go, Pickle will fix her if she argues, don’t you go, don’t you go.
‘I’m not going. You can’t make me. Pickle will fix you if you make me. That cat, how dare you talk to me like that. That cat is going to go out and that’s all there is to it. You’re a hateful child. You’re a disgrace to your poor mother. And you’re
damned
for saying that, you’re
damned
.’
While Theo was hurriedly muttering all of this argument between Boofuls and his grandmother, the latch of the sitting room door, without warning, released itself, and the door swung slowly open. Because his eyes were closed, and because he was concentrating on the voices in his head, Theo didn’t realize that a sharp geometric pattern of light was gradually illuminating him brighter and brighter.
‘Theo –’ Martin warned him, his heart racing. ‘The door.’