My Home Now

6

Mitchel Conroy’s oxfords clacked and heart thumped as he hurried through the settling dusk from something.

Since breakfast, the eerie sensation of being watched had intensified with the crawling of his skin.

He hadn’t seen anyone. Or heard anything. But he felt it wherever he went.

Something was coming and the darkness was making it bolder.

He picked up the pace as he turned into the tree-lined avenue that led to the wrought-iron gates of his community. Sticky puddles of sweat beneath his suit urged him on until he reached the keypad, disengaged the lock and pushed through the gate, letting it slam shut behind him.

Not safe.

Not yet.

That inexplicable belief that he was about to be pounced on carried him across the courtyard; up marble steps; along a plant-filled balcony to his apartment. 

Lights on. Door locked. Silence. 

Apart from his panting and the banging of the courtyard gate.

Or did he imagine that?

Rubbing a hand over his mouth, he tried to calm his heart.

It didn’t work.

The unexpected paranoia that had invaded his world when he left the complex that morning remained.

But why?

He didn’t have enemies. He was a real-estate agent, single, tax-paying, boring. There was no reason anybody should want to stalk him. Yet even now, in the security of his home, his skin continued to prickle and burn.

“What the Hell?” he said, slapping his face as he hurried into the hall.

“I was starting to feel good about things, why have I suddenly got anxiety?”

He stopped between the doors that led to his bedroom and bathroom, alongside the mirror on the wall. The oval mirror with the antique frame intricately carved with twisted vines and writhing dragons. The mirror with the murky, clouded glass.

The mirror that had eased his pain and guilt.

He needed a fix.

He pressed his hands to the wall either side of the antique and lifted his head, then started in surprise at what he found.

“What..?”

A bump from somewhere in the apartment distracted him and he spun to face back the way he’d come.

The door was open.

But he’d locked it. 

Hadn’t he?

He straightened, stepped away from the wall.

“Is someone there?” he called.

Silence, for a moment, then: “Yes,” a familiar voice caressed him from behind, and a suited arm snaked around his neck.

“Thank you for showing me your life. This is my home now.”

The last thing Mitchel saw before his neck snapped was his reflection in the mirror where it belonged.

Its eyes were charcoal.

5

“Hi! I’m Julia!”

The speaker, an upbeat woman with long, greying hair, scurried towards him through a cluttered aisle of antiques, a large mirror cradled in her arms. “Looking for anything particular?”

“Sorry,” the man in the suit with the neatly trimmed goatee replied, stepping back from a grandfather clock. “Just browsing.”

“Beautiful, isn’t he?” The woman nodded at the face of the soldier and his diligent marching hands. “They don’t make them like this anymore.” 

“They don’t,” the man replied, summoning a melancholy smile. “My parents had one like it. It was lost in a fire and... Well, whenever I pass an antique store now I just have to look. But this isn’t the one.”

Turning from the clock, ready to leave, he met the woman’s gaze and was staggered. Obsidan grey eyes regarded him from a sallow complexion, with an intensity that made him feel weak.

“A fire,” she cocked her head. “How tragic. If only we could also replace parents.”

“What?”

“Could I interest you in a mirror?” she went on, unperturbed. “I wrangled this job by impressing the owner with my knowledge but I still need to make a sale. This mirror needs a new home and I know you’ll make a good owner. It’s Japanese. Pre-Edo. Isn’t it beautiful?”

As she spoke she held up the mirror, so he couldn’t help but peer into its depths.

“Why did you say that?” he asked, as his gaze was sucked into the murky glass. “About parents?”

“Call it intuition,” the woman replied. “I know when people are hurting. When they shoulder blame. Your parents house wasn’t safe. The wiring needed maintenance. You could have done it.”

“Hey!” he said, moving to push the mirror aside but stopping short. His reflection had juddered, or so he thought, and now it looked liquid and soft.

“Hating yourself is normal. But you don’t have to suffer. The glass in this mirror has special properties. Looking into it for a short time each day can heal the soul. What do you think? Looking into it now, do you feel better?”

“I feel…woozy. How did you know…”

He cut himself off when something in the mirror caught his eye, a door ajar at the bottom of the aisle, a pile of crumpled clothes on the floor, a puddle of what looked like spilled paint…

“I’ll do you a deal,” the woman called Julia said, stepping closer and removing the image. “Whatever you can afford. Your parents would want you to have it. It will help with the guilt. Just look. That’s all you have to do. Look and let it breathe for you. What do you say?”

Mitchel Conroy found himself removing his wallet as he stared into familiar eyes that somehow put him at ease.

“Well…it is nice. I like the frame. The engravings… I guess I can help.

“We have a deal.”

4

“What the Hell happened in there, Detective?”

Officer Ryce, mopping sweat from his forehead, rested his bulk against the open-doored sedan and basked in the glow of its spinning light. “Get anything out of the boy?”

“Not much,” Detective McCoy replied from the drivers’ seat, tugging at the hairs in his moustache. “He’s deeply traumatised. Sending him in to be assessed.”

As he spoke, he watched a patrol car pull away, his eyes on the passenger in the back, the twelve year old he’d put there a minute before.

“You reckon he did it?” Ryce continued. “That level of brutality. Towards his own mother? Seems impossible…”

McCoy pushed himself out of the vehicle while Ryce refolded his hanky. Nearby, crime scene investigators were wheeling a covered gurney from an apartment block.

“No signs of a break-in. No evidence of anyone else in the apartment. Kid discovered covered in blood and cowering in the bathroom by the neighbours who found the door open. But why was it open?”

Ryce shrugged. “Boy tried to run but changed his mind?”

“Or he went out and came back. What did the neighbours say?”

Ryce tugged a flip-pad from the pocket of his sweat-stained shirt.

“Julia Harrison. Moved here six months ago with her son, after her husband left her for another woman. Seems the boy blamed her for the break-up, for not being able to see his dad. She worked long hours, he skipped school. Arguments and raised voices were a regular occurrence, but things seemed to be looking up for her. Neighbours thought she might be seeing someone. Could have been a trigger for the kid? But then we’re back to how could he do it?”

McCoy stared into the grey, mid-morning sky, brow creased as he recalled what the boy had babbled, over and over.

“Any sign of a broken mirror?”

The pudgy officer frowned. “No... He was going on about that when we took him out. Something about his mother breaking a mirror. There’s a screw where one could have hung but…what did he say?” 

McCoy pinched his forehead at the onset of a migraine.

“Crazy stuff. Said his mother did it to herself, with glass from a broken mirror. He said it was cursed. Said whenever he looked in it, the person looking back wasn’t him...”

“Well, there you have it,” Ryce said, tucking the pad away. “Complete mental break. Just when you think you’ve seen it all.”

McCoy hmm’d as he watched the remains of Julia Harrison be loaded into the back of an ambulance. He wasn’t so sure.

He’d looked into the kid’s eyes, recognised his fear. He was telling his truth. Regardless of what had happened in that apartment, there had been a mirror where one was not now.

And this case would not be solved ’til it was found.

3

“Hayden, I got a call from the school. They want me to go in. Again.”

Stepping around discarded clothes and empty soda cans, Julia opened the curtains in the dimly lit bedroom before turning to her son, who was lying in bed on his phone.

“Hayden! Are you listening?”

“No!” he snapped, jumping up and storming out of the room. “Why should I, you don’t listen to me!”

“You have to go to school, Hayden. It’s the law. And it would do you good to make friends.”

“I told you, I’ll go to school in Riverton, not here. I hate the mouth-breathing morons in this shithole. All I get is weird looks and whispers.”

“Sending you back to Riverton is not an option. I know you think I’m doing it to punish your father but that’s not it. Your dad is… Ugh. I don’t like saying it but he can’t look after you. He’s like a child himself…”

“Don’t,” the greasy-haired preteen interrupted, stopping dead in the hall. “Talk about him like that.”

“I don’t mean anything bad,” Julia said, coming to stand behind him, wispy strands of grey hair brushing her cheeks. “I don’t hate him anymore. If I thought he’d be good for you I’d let you go but that’s not the case. One day you’ll understand. God, Hayden, things got so much easier for me when I surrendered my anger. They can for you too. Have you tried looking in the mirror?”

“Jesus Christ!” Hayden cast the antique on the wall a look of disgust. “See, you don’t listen. I told you I’m not going near that thing, there’s something wrong with it.”

“No, there’s not. It’s just old. But it does have soothing properties. I know it sounds crazy but look what it’s done for me. I haven’t felt this relaxed in years. You have to give it a chance.”

“If it’s so good why did Peterson give it away?” Hayden challenged, stomping past the mirror towards the bathroom. “Then go and strangle his wife? Why would you still want it after that?”

“We don’t know he did that. He was found dead too. Somebody else could have… That’s irrelevant. The mirror was a gift. Just look.”

Hayden, at the bathroom, groaned when he saw his mother had taken the mirror from the wall and was coming towards him.

“No…”

As much as he tried not to look, he couldn’t avoid making eye contact with a version of himself that made his skin crawl.

“Get away!”

He jabbed his arms out and shoved, causing Julia to stagger into the wall.

She yelped, lost her grip, let it drop.

Hayden, halfway through the bathroom door, stopped when he heard the smash.

“No!” Julia cried, dropping to her knees in a puddle of glass. “What have you…”

Tears in her eyes, she looked at her son and saw he was staring at the floor, the frame, the shattered glass. His eyes were wide. His mouth agape. His face had lost all colour.

“M…mum…” he stuttered.

And that’s when she put her hand on a fragment of glass and felt it stab her.

2

Two hundred in her account.

Six hundred rent due.

No pay for a week.

She slammed the laptop screen down and dropped her head into her hands.

Electricity, gas, groceries.

TV, internet, phone.

So much to pay, so little money and stuck in this low-paying job, trying to sell antiques to time-wasting browsers.

But she didn’t have a choice here in ‘Worth’.

All she had was anxiety, a difficult son and a soon-to-be philandering ex-husband who didn’t give a fuck.

A lump the size of a rock clogged her throat as tears welled up.

What was the answer? Where was the hope? How could she…

“Julia.”

She yelped and spun towards a man in the door of the office, fear squeezing her heart until she recognised him as Douglas Peterson, one of the few regular browsers who bought. A gentleman, always immaculately dressed, white hair, bushy beard, sad eyes.

Sad eyes that today looked dark.

“Mr. Peterson!” she gasped. “You scared me!”

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s fine,” Julia said, wiping her eyes as she slipped past him into the shop. “I was in a world of my own. Haven’t seen you in a while, how’s the book?”

She grimaced as the question left her lips.

She knew from past conversations he was struggling with a manuscript, his first in years having once been a mildly successful author.

“I gave it up,” he said with a wave of a hand. “The masses don’t read my existing stories, they certainly don’t deserve more.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

She was, but not surprised. From what she had gathered he was forcing it, and the process was destructive, not creative.

“Don’t be. Trying to be successful in this day and age is a sure-fire ticket to despair. You know about that, don’t you?”

“I’m…not sure,” Julia scoffed. She liked the old guy but wasn’t about to confide in him. “Anyway! There’s not much new I can show you I’m afraid. We did get an armoire that…”

“I’m not here for that,” Peterson cut her off. “I’m going on a trip. With my wife. Before I go, I wanted to give you this…”

He stooped to retrieve something Julia hadn’t noticed, an oval mirror that rested against the counter. Carved vines and dragons twisted together within a tarnished frame that had once been lustrous gold, and its glass was home to murkiness and shadow.

“Something small, to thank you for your kindness these last few months.” 

“That’s…hardly small,” Julia alternated her gaze between Peterson’s face and her own staring back from the glass. “I couldn’t…”

“Of course you could. I can’t take it with me. And it’s a shame to leave it where it won’t be of use. It’s special, you see. Its glass has soul-cleansing properties. I know that sounds strange but it’s helped me out of more than one hole, and I know you’re in a hole too. It needs a new home. You’d make a good owner. Take it. Look into it. Let it breathe for you.”

She opened her mouth to object but her reflection shuddered like it was shaking its head and something–curiousity, intrigue?–made her think twice.   

“Soul-cleansing? Well…we all could use some of that…”

“It will make you feel better. Trust me. Take it. It’s a gift.”

“That’s…very nice of you, Mr. Peterson. I don’t know what to say except…

“Why not?”

1

Douglas sat in his study, staring into the mirror.

His mysterious Japanese mirror.

Which he’d received as a gift from his archeologist brother-in-law some weeks before. A timely gift that had freed him from writer’s block, imposter syndrome and depression.

It was ugly, with tarnished gold edges and clouded glass, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about much anymore. Not his writing, not his savings running out, not his wife. Pushing him to betray his ideals by churning out crap. 

Since the mirror had arrived–with a note about how it could nurture and heal strained souls–nothing seemed to matter except the solace he found in its reflection. The more he looked, the more relaxed he felt, and the more certain he became that nothing could interrupt his…

“For God’s sake, Douglas! Stop staring into that thing! You haven’t written in days!”

His wife’s reflection appeared behind his, scowling while his only smiled. 

“It’s okay, Shel. There’s no need to write. Not when I have nothing to say.”

"Well, you better think of something! We need money! I’m sick of scraping by on the pension. You need to write a book! Damn Richard for sending you this hideous thing. What was he thinking? And I can’t get in touch with him, it’s like he disappeared off the face of the Earth.”

“It was a lovely thought and it’s helped me feel better, I… What are you doing?”

“You’re wasting time,” she said, taking the mirror off the wall. “I’m moving it so you can focus!”

“No, Shelly. You can leave it. It takes away my anxiety and...”

“Stop it, you sound like a child! Get typing! You can do 5000 words today if you…if…what’s…that?”

Douglas, behind, saw what she did, something inside the glass shifting. Dark shapes swirled. His reflection behind hers warped. Its eyes darkened. It seemed to lean forward and then, like a mirage, two shimmering arms slithered forth and silver hands closed around her neck.

She screamed and dropped the mirror and Douglas staggered back as it fell, allowing a blurred form to slip out.

An unstable form that was dressed like him.

A half-melted form that wore his face. 

It stepped out of the glass as the mirror landed, its surface rippling and blurring as it broke Shelly’s neck. 

Douglas clutched his chest and collapsed.

The thing that looked like him released his wife, let her crumple to the floor, picked up the mirror. 

Douglas rolled onto his front, chest tightening, started to crawl towards the door.

“Wait,” his own voice said, and he loosed a feeble cry. “I want to thank you.”

The impossible thing, now solid, stepped in his way.  

It lowered the mirror before him.

It’s charcoal eyes bored into his soul.

“Thank you for showing me your life,” it said, and Douglas’ head flopped onto his arm. 

His eyes came to rest on the mirror.  

Its glass didn’t show his reflection.

Because his reflection was out.

“This is my home now.”

Douglas Peterson’s heart gave out and darkness claimed him.