Dead Reflections (11 page)

Cory pulled the screen door shut, then slowly opened it again, watching the regular yard fall away, to reveal Gina moving back and forth like a pendulum on her swing. She looked quiet and lonely.

“Why don’t you go say hello? Don’t stay too long; just pop over and let her know that you haven’t forgotten her. Ask her to stop by sometime.”

“What happens if this door shuts while I’m there?” Cory asked.

Jeffrey smiled. “Nothing. You just open it again. However, I’ll hold it open for you. You’ll be able to see me standing here, but she won’t—because she doesn’t know about the secret yet. I’ll wait for you to come back. Go on. Try it out. You’ll see how much fun it is to be able to do whatever you want, whenever you want.”

Cory hesitated, then stepped into Gina’s yard. He stood for a moment, smelling the night air, seeing his own house in the distance. He felt a little heady with vertigo, yet alive with an adrenaline rush.

“Gina,” he said. He watched her whirl with surprise, to stare at him.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

It
was
real. He glanced back and saw Jeffrey smiling his approval. He allowed himself to stay for a few minutes before Jeffrey motioned that it was probably a good idea to say goodnight and come back. As he returned to Jeffrey’s porch, he saw Gina run after him, then stare through him, as if she couldn’t see him any longer.

“Cory?” she called.

“Hurry back,” Jeffrey called. “You’ll see her tomorrow.”

“What do you think of that?” Jeffrey asked as they returned to his kitchen. “You can see anything in the world when you come to visit us. And you get your favorite ice cream.”

“It’s pretty neat,” Cory agreed. “I just don’t understand how it can be.”

“All answers will come in time. For now, just feel happy. We love company. And look: your ice cream hasn’t even melted while you were gone.”

A voice came to them all. Cory recognized the sound of his mother calling.

“Cory? Cory! Answer me.”

“She’s standing at the bottom of her stairs,” Ruth intoned from above. “Best send him along before she starts looking again.”

Jeffrey stood. “Let’s hurry you back before your mother starts worrying.

Cory spooned the last of the ice cream into his mouth and set the bowl on the table.

“Did that like a champ,” Leonard cackled, opening a long thin silver box and extracting a dark-papered cigarette from its interior. He lit it with a metal lighter that elicited a long, orange flame. “See ya around kid. Night visits are always easier; your parents won’t try to stop you if they’re sleeping.” He gave Cory a wink. “We’re always here. So is the ice cream.”

Cory stared at him. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Leonard.

“Madeleine’s not interested in you,” Cory blurted. He wasn’t sure what made him say it. Leonard inhaled deeply on his cigarette, held the smoke, then blew a series of smoke rings into the room. One of the smaller rings passed through a widening, fading loop. He grinned.

“That so? You know women better than me? Are you a ladies’ man?”

Madeleine looked almost pained. She clasped her hands and stared down into her lap.

“Cory!” Louder, closer.

“Better hurry,” Jeffrey rushed him along.

They passed the room that matched Cory’s in his new house. Ruth sat in a wooden rocker, rocking the baby to sleep. The rocker’s runners made soft creaking sounds along the wooden floor.

“Bye, Ruth,” Cory said.

“Oh, you’ll be back,” she crooned, “for the best strawberry ice cream in the world. Won’t he, Maddy?” The baby rested upon her shoulder. They hurried past the other bedrooms. Shapes of people lingered in them, their backs to the door, their conversation muted. One of the men turned to glance their way and Cory felt a burst of shock when he recognized the face of the dead man from the barn. He wasn’t all busted up here. Weird.

He and Jeffrey reached the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror. It looked solid. Cory reached with one hand and felt it. It was hard and cold.

“I can’t go through,” he told Jeffrey.

“Do you want to go through?”

“I have to get home.”

“Then set your mind and touch it again.”

Cory stared at him.

“Go on,” Jeffrey said. “She’s halfway up the stairs now.”

Cory sighed and touched glass. His hand pushed through what looked and felt like gelatinized water.

“Easy as pie. If she asks why you’re in here again, tell her the other bathroom was being used and that you couldn’t wait.”

“Okay. Thanks for the ice cream.”

“Not so lonely anymore?”

“No, sir.”

“Good boy. Come back soon.”

Cory almost fell through the sticky substance of the mirror, crawling hands-forward across his parents’ bathroom counter. He thudded to the floor just as his mother’s footsteps reached the doorway of the spare bedroom.

* * *

“Cory? Are you in here?”

“I’m just finishing up on the toilet.” He quickly undid his belt, flushed the water in the bowl, and edged towards the bathroom doorway. His mother inched into the room.

“What are you doing in this bathroom again?”

Cory felt his face flush. “Chris or Cole was in the other one and I had to pee.”

He saw his mother let her breath out. “I’d rather you not come into this room.”

“It’s just a room,” he said. “I needed to go badly.” He heard Chris and Cole’s movie playing along the hallway and prayed that one of them
had
used the other bathroom recently, otherwise he wouldn’t be sure what to say. He wanted to tell his mother about Jeffrey and his family, but something made him hold back.

“What’s that on your face?” she asked. She wiped his cheek with one finger and he saw a bit of reddish-pink liquid on her fingertip.

“Candy,” he lied. “I was just eating some of my candy.”

“Sticky-faced kid,” his mother laughed. “Smells like strawberry. Hang on.” She returned to the spare bathroom and paused, looking around.

“What?” he asked her. “I flushed.”

“I know,” she said. He saw her move back to the bathroom and look at the mirror. His heart sank. What would she do if she saw Jeffrey standing on the other side?

“I don’t like that mirror,” she said. “I usually like antiques, but I don’t care for that one. Your father and I will look for a new one next week. There’s just something about it…”

He felt a teary sense of panic come into his throat.

“I like it,” he said.

“Well, I don’t. It’s too old, filmy, and frankly, a little creepy.” She ushered him along the corridor. “You don’t want to watch the movie with them?”

He shook his head.

“Then come back outside with Dad and I. We’re roasting marshmallows.”

They walked towards the top of the stairwell. As they started down, his mother ahead of him, Cory glanced at his bedroom. Jeffrey stood inside the doorway, watching him. He winked and put his finger up to his lips.

“You did good, Cory,” he mouthed silently. “She’s not ready yet.” Jeffrey slid back behind the wall. Cory paused. Was the guy going to be waiting for him in his room when he came back?

His mother heard him stop and looked around. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Come enjoy some marshmallows and the campfire.”

His father pushed marshmallows onto the end of a long wooden skewer and nodded for Cory to sit near the campfire. Cory took a seat, his thoughts scattered. Things at Jeffrey’s house still didn’t make sense to him. But he understood that adults held more answers than kids did and that Jeffrey or one of the others would eventually explain how solid mirrors could turn soft like putty and how they could live in a house whose entrance Cory could not see except in the bathroom mirror. He sat woefully, aware that his parents watched him, their eyebrows raised to each other over his sullen mood.

The doorbell rang the next morning. Chris answered the call, wearing a pair of baggy pajama bottoms and a loose rugby t-shirt. He saw a skinny adolescent girl who stood a foot shorter than him, looking up at him from the front step.

“Is Cory here?” she asked.

“Yeah. He’s up in his room. Go right on up the stairs and turn to your right. It’s the first room along the hallway.”

He watched her with curiosity as she stepped into the foyer, her head twisting around to take in the house. Her eyes were a wide, clear blue and she looked a little daunted by the place.

“What?” he asked her. She stopped her staring and turned to look at him.

“Is there something wrong?”

“No,” she said. “It’s a big house.”

“Too big, if you ask me,” he said.

“Do you like it?”

He shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess.”

“I wonder if you’ll like it later on.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”
Strange little girl.

“I’ll go find Cory,” she said and scooted up the stairs away from him.

Chris returned to the parlor where Cole was playing a video game. Their parents had gone into town to buy groceries and wouldn’t be back for several hours. They’d been instructed to stay home until their parents got back.

“Who was that?” Cole asked, somewhat bored. He scored another two points, his thumbs working magic over the controller.

“Some girl looking for Cory.”

“Cory? He scores a chick before we do? No way!”

“She’s hardly what I’d call a catch. Scrappy looking little thing. She walks in and looks around the place like she’s never been inside a house before.”

“Maybe she lives in some shitty apartment or trailer,” Cole yawned. “Who cares?”

They heard the girl’s voice mingling with Cory’s upstairs. Chris got up and shut the door to the living room to tune them out.

* * *

“He’s not dead.”

Gina stared at him. “Yes, he is. He smashed his head on the barn floor and he died several hours later. My father was one of the people who came over here to help when his wife ran outside, screaming.”

Cory sat in the middle of his bed, cross-legged. Gina sat on his rocking chair, watching him.

“You were the one who told me that this place has things happen in it. I saw him. I was in the barn loft and he crawled up the ladder to talk to me. He had guts leaking out of his head and he told me to watch my footing.”

Gina looked intrigued, but scared.

“Maybe my story scared you and you just imagined it. Why did you come over so late last night?” she asked. “And how did you get back to the street so fast?”

Cory’s mouth worked. “Can you keep a secret? You can’t tell anyone. You have to promise me.”

“Sure. What is it?” She sat forward, fascinated, excited.

Cory got up and gently shut his bedroom door so that Chris or Cole wouldn’t overhear them. “My family doesn’t know about it yet. We have people who live on the other side of our house. They’re really nice…well, a few are kind of strange, but most of them are nice. One of them is an old man named Jeffrey. I went over yesterday and met them all. I had ice cream there—the best I’ve ever tasted. They said I could invite you over, if you wanted to visit.”

Gina stopped rocking. “
Where
next door? Is it the Wilson’s over there?” She pointed to the house to the right, the one with the kids’ toys in the backyard. “There’s no old man there.”

He glanced at his bedside clock. It read a quarter after ten in the morning. They’d have enough time before his brothers would call him down to lunch.

“No.” Cory felt a little impatient. “I’d have to show you. It’s really neat. Follow me, but be quiet. I don’t want my brothers or parents to know about it yet.” He opened his door and motioned Gina to follow him to the spare bedroom.

Gina hesitated, then stepped after him.

“Why is this room still empty?” she whispered.

“Because it’s going to be the spare bedroom and my parents don’t have any furniture for it yet. I want to show you something.”

He walked ahead of her until they both stood in front of the big, hazy mirror. She looked at herself, then glanced at him. When her head turned, her reflection didn’t move with her, but Gina didn’t see it. Cory jumped a little.

“What?” Gina asked and stared at herself. “Why are we in here? It’s a big old mirror. What’s so special about it?”

“There’s a house on the other side of it. I saw the guy in the barn, in that other house. He’s not dead in there. He’s fine. He looks like he never had an accident.”

He saw Gina’s mouth twitch a little, as if she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or mock him.

“In
there.
” She nodded at the mirror. “How can he be inside a mirror?”

“Touch the mirror,” Cory urged her. “This is the secret. I’ve been over there twice. They’re pretty neat. I just don’t know how you can walk through a mirror.”

Gina looked dubious and frightened.

“Touch it!”

She leaned forward, tentative, until the tips of her fingers pressed hard against the mirror’s smoky surface.

“So, I’m touching it,” she said. “Now what?”

He felt disappointment and embarrassment that nothing had happened. He pressed one of his hands against the glass and felt it resist: hard, cold.

“Okay, so we’re both touching the mirror,” Gina said. “What’s this got to do with people who live somewhere inside your house?”

An idea came to Cory. “Take my other hand.”

She blinked. “Why?”

“I don’t know. It just feels like the right thing to do. If we each touch the mirror and hold onto each other, it’s like it makes things more powerful.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, but did as he requested. Her free hand went through the glass with a soft squelching noise, the sound of icing being squeezed from a linen bag, and she disappeared up to her shoulder. At the same time, Cory’s right hand did the same thing. In the next instant they felt themselves lifted and sucked forward so that the front ends of their bodies were inside the room Cory recognized as Jeffrey’s lavatory. The air in here was cooler, sharp, while their legs remained in the other side, floating in the air of Cory’s house, which was warm and humid.