Mirror (19 page)

‘Maybe we should go get ourselves a priest,’ Ramone suggested.

‘I thought you were looking for a medium,’ Martin reminded him.

‘A priest, yes!’ Mr Capelli enthused. ‘A priest!’

‘We could get both,’ said Ramone. ‘A priest
and
a medium.’

‘Oh, God, this is ridiculous,’ Martin told him. ‘I don’t know what to do. Maybe the best thing we can do is do nothing. Just wait it out, see what the mirror wants.’

It was then that – without warning – the blue and white ball dropped off Martin’s desk and bounced onto the woodblock floor – once, twice, three times. Then it rolled toward the mirror, almost as if the floor were tilting, like the deck of a ship. At the same time, the dirty gray tennis ball dropped off the desk in the mirror and came rolling to meet it.

‘Something’s happening, man,’ warned Ramone. ‘Something’s happening. I can feel it.’

None of them knew what to do. But they could all feel the air in the sitting room
warping
almost; like ripples of heat rising from a hot blacktop; or the distortion of a highly polished sheet of thin steel. Their voices sounded strange, too – muffled and indistinct.

‘It’s
pulling
,’ said Martin. ‘Can you feel that? It’s pulling things toward it.’

They didn’t notice Emilio at first. He had been standing two or three feet behind his grandfather, staring at the mirror wide-eyed. Gradually, however, he began to move forward, his arms by his sides; and as he passed them by he started to laugh, an extraordinary high pitched laugh just like Boofuls’.

At once, Martin turned around. ‘Emilio?’ he said. Then, ‘
Emilio!
’

‘Holy God!’ Mr Capelli cried out.

Emilio was sliding toward the mirror without even moving his feet. He was being drawn toward it as if it were an irresistible magnet
.

‘Emilio!’ Mr Capelli shouted, and tried to snatch him.

Emilio threw both his arms wide and tossed back his head, and his laugh was loud and metallic like garden shears. In the mirror, his reflection slid toward him just as irresistibly, but there was something in his reflected face that didn’t match his real face. Something different, something whiter, something smaller-eyed, piggy, untrustworthy, something that jumped and smirked like a face from a long-forgotten movie.

‘
Ramone!
’ Martin yelled; and Ramone dodged, and feinted, and caught hold of Emilio’s arm at the very moment that Emilio collided with the surface of the mirror. Emilio screamed: a hideous piercing scream that went through Martin’s head like a chisel. He thrashed and clawed and kicked at Ramone, and it took all of Ramone’s strength to hold him.

‘
Bastard!
’ Emilio screamed. ‘
Bastard!
’

‘Emilio, what are you doing! Emilio!’ Mr Capelli quivered and tried to snatch Emilio’s flailing arm. But Emilio screamed ‘
Bastard!
’ at him, too, and kicked him first in the stomach and then between the legs. Mr Capelli coughed, gasped, and dropped to the floor.

‘
Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!
’ Emilio screeched. He threw himself from side to side like a wild animal, hair flying, spit spraying.

Ramone shouted hoarsely, ‘Martin! I can’t hold him! Martin!’

For one desperate moment it looked as if the mirror was going to drag both Emilio and Ramone into its brilliant shining surface. But then Martin grabbed hold of Ramone’s collar and deliberately fell backward, using his whole weight to pull them over. The three of them collapsed against the desk and tumbled onto the floor next to Mr Capelli. Emilio knocked his head against the corner of the desk: Martin heard it crack. Then Emilio lay still with his face against the floorboards, suddenly white, his eyes still open but flickering with concussion, and just as suddenly as it had begun, the magnetism from the mirror died away.

‘
Madre mia
,’ said Ramone, heaving himself up onto his feet, his sneakers squeaking on the boards.

Martin grasped Emilio’s T-shirt and dragged him toward him. ‘
Out
, Ramone. We have to get him out.’

Mr Capelli was up on his knees now, coughing and coughing as if he were going to choke. Martin laid a hand on his shoulder and said, ‘Mr Capelli? You all right, Mr Capelli? I have to get Emilio out of here.’

Mr Capelli coughed and nodded and coughed some more.

Ramone helped Martin to pick Emilio up and carry him through the hallway and down to the Capellis’ apartment. Emilio wasn’t badly hurt. There was a swelling red bruise on the left side of his forehead, and his eyes wandered sightlessly, but he was beginning to regain consciousness.

‘Boofuls,’ he murmured. ‘Where’s Boofuls?’

‘No more Boofuls,’ Martin told him. ‘Boofuls is gone for good.’

‘Or just about to, if I have anything to do with it,’ growled Ramone.

Mrs Capelli came flapping out of her parlor. ‘What now? All this noise! Did somebody fall over? Where is Constantine? Emilio! What’s happened? Look at his head! Nothing but noise and trouble this past week! Oh, what a bruise! You men, you’re like children! Nothing but thumping! Can’t you do anything quietly? Now he’s hurt! My poor Emilio! Come on now, bring him in here!’

‘He’ll be okay,’ Martin told her. ‘Just knocked his head on the side of the desk, that’s all.’

‘My poor boy! You men are all the same!’

Once they had left Emilio with his grandmother, Martin and Ramone went back upstairs to see what they could do to help Mr Capelli. He had managed to pull himself upright, but he looked gray in the face, and he had to lean against the wall to help himself along.

‘Come on, Mr Capelli, let’s get you downstairs,’ Martin told him.

Mr Capelli coughed and sniffed. ‘That mirror – that mirror has the devil in it! What did I say, no good would come out of it! You get rid of that mirror, you get rid of it right now! Right now! No argument!’

‘You may want that mirror out of your house, but I’m not at all sure that mirror wants to
go
,’ said Ramone.

Mr Capelli clung heavily on Martin’s arm. ‘That mirror goes, right now! I don’t care how! You get rid of it! You smash it into small pieces, if that’s what it takes!’

‘Breaking a mirror, that’s serious bad luck,’ Ramone cautioned him as they helped him to shuffle down the stairs, one stair at a time.

‘A kick in the nuts from my five-year-old grandson, that’s
good
luck?’ hissed Mr Capelli.

‘All right, Mr Capelli, we’ll do what we can,’ Martin soothed him. ‘Let’s just get you downstairs.’

Ramone peered at Martin and said pessimistically, ‘Your bandages are all bloody. Looks like you burst some stitches.’

‘That’s all I need,’ said Martin, wincing with effort as the taut bulk of Mr Capelli’s belly forced him against the banister.

Mrs Capelli came out again and fussed over her husband just as much as she had fussed over Emilio. ‘This house is a madhouse! Never again! Tenants, always the same!’

‘It’s all right, Mrs Capelli,’ said Martin, ‘everything’s under control.’

‘Under control!’ Mr Capelli burst out. ‘My grandson goes crazy! That’s under control? Look at you! Blood, bandages! Everybody’s hurt!’

Martin tried to give Mrs Capelli a reassuring smile and backed off onto the landing. Ramone followed him.

‘The old man’s right,’ said Ramone as they climbed back up again to Martin’s apartment. ‘That mirror has to go. Somebody’s going to get hurt, or worse, and I sure don’t like to imagine what that “worse” might be. Come on, Martin, we almost lost that boy, same way we lost Lugosi.’

‘But if we break the mirror, you’re going to lose any chance you ever had of getting Lugosi back,’ said Martin. He was frightened by the mirror; but he was still reluctant to get rid of it until he knew more about Boofuls, and why he was trapped, and why Boofuls’ dying grandmother had given Sister Boniface that key.

But Ramone shook his head. ‘Lugosi is probably dead, anyway. Think about it, man. I’ve accepted it already. I was hoping he had a chance, you know, but the more I think about it … Man, he disappeared into
glass
, didn’t he? Solid glass. You don’t think he lived through that? I sure as hell don’t. I’m going to light a candle for him, that’s all, and say a little prayer. I don’t think there’s very much else I can do.’

Martin said, ‘I’m sorry, Ramone.’

‘Ah, forget it,’ said Ramone dismissively.

They walked back into the sitting room; and their mirror reflections walked back into the sitting room, too. They stood staring at themselves for a very long time.

‘He was right, you know,’ Ramone remarked.

‘Who was?’

‘Mr Caparooparelli. You heard what he said. That mirror’s bad news.’

Martin said, ‘Boofuls is still inside it.’

‘And that’s your reason for not getting rid of it? Some kid who’s been dead for fifty years is lurking around – where? Behind it? Inside it? Mirrors are flat. Mirrors don’t have no insides.’

‘But your cat’s inside it.’

Ramone was angry. ‘
My
cat is
my
business, okay? And nothing lives
inside
a mirror, right? A mirror is glass, and silver, and that’s it. Reflections, nothing else. Optical illusions; no depth; nothing you can walk into. I mean – what’s behind that mirror? Nothing! A solid wall, nothing! There’s no Boofuls living there, man. There’s nothing at all!’

Martin said, ‘Look.’

His voice was so cold, so prickly with alarm, that Ramone looked around without saying a word. There, in the mirror, sitting on Martin’s reflected desk, was the blue and white ball. And there, on the floor, in both the mirror-room and the real room, was the dingy gray tennis ball.

But on Martin’s desk in the real room, what looked like a new ball had appeared. A furry, bristling, gray and black ball. A living ball, with eyes that blinked. A ball which soundlessly opened and closed its mouth. A ball which wasn’t a ball at all, but Lugosi’s detached head – still panting for breath, but without a body, without ears, a grotesque living plaything
.

Ramone approached the head in terror and disgust. Its yellow eyes were dimmed with a film of mucus, but they managed to follow him as he came nearer.

‘What the hell is it?’ whispered Ramone. The furry ball stretched open its mouth and silently cried.

‘
What the hell is it?
’ Ramone screamed out loud, almost hysterical.

Martin didn’t know what to say. His stomach tightened, and he suddenly broke out into the cold sweat of rising nausea.

Ramone reached out for the ball-head with fingers that shook uncontrollably. The head opened its mouth, biting or crying, and Ramone instantly snatched his fingers away.

‘Oh, God, I can’t touch it,’ he quaked. ‘Oh, God, forgive me, Martin, I just can’t touch it.’

Martin swallowed bile and approached the desk as near as he dared. The head opened its mouth yet again, and its eyes stared at him in agonized desperation.

‘I don’t know what to
do
!’ shouted Ramone, hoarse with panic. ‘He’s hurting, Martin! I don’t know what to do!’

Martin said, ‘Go out of the room.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me – go out of the room.’

Ramone stared at him. ‘What you going to do?’

‘Just go!’ Martin shouted.

Still shaking, Ramone retreated from the sitting room. Martin heard his sneakers squeaking along the hallway toward the kitchen, heard the kitchen door slide shut.

With a bitter-tasting mouth, Martin edged up to the desk and took hold of his typewriter. It was a heavy Olivetti electric. His father had given it to him when he sold his first teleplay: it was reconditioned, from the typing pool at the Security Pacific Bank. It hadn’t ever worked too well: it kept skipping
j’s
and
m’s
. But all that Martin cared about right now was that it was the heaviest liftable object in the room.

He tugged out the electric cable, rolling out the page of screenplay he had been working on. The cat’s head opened its mouth in another hideous yawn, its eyes trying to focus on him as he circled around the back of the desk and picked the typewriter up in both hands. He licked his lips. His heart was thumping like a skin drum. His blood rushed through his head and almost deafened him.

‘Oh, God,’ he whispered, and lifted the typewriter up above his head. If he caught Lugosi’s head with one of the corners, he should be able to shatter his skull in one blow. It was crucial, however, that he didn’t lose his nerve and pull the typewriter back at the very last moment.

Give yourself a count of three
, he told himself.
Then do it
.

The typewriter was so heavy that his arms were beginning to tremble.
Do it!
he ordered himself.
One, two, three, and do it!

At that second, though, the cat’s head seemed to rear up from the desk and swivel around. Martin almost dropped the typewriter, then cradled it in his arms staring at the head in paralyzed horror.

It rose higher and higher, on a furry neck that seemed to pour right out of the surface of the desk like a snake, yard after yard of it, until it looped and coiled down the side of the drawers and onto the floor. It was more like a python than a cat, and its sleek strange head remained lifted up in front of him on its endless ribboning neck, staring at him with agony and venomous hostility.