Hall of MIrrors

Amusement park rides swirled around us as the heady scent of buttered popcorn and fried dough wafted through the balmy summer air. Clanging bells, hissing water guns, and popping balloons punctuated the steady din of the jostling crowd around us.

I'd brought my teenage sons Alex and Jake to the carnival and they were eager to try every dizzying ride in the park. Standing outside the chains at each ride, I'd watch the two of them howling and laughing their way through the tilt-a-whirl, the scrambler, and the orbiter. As my sons raced to the back of the line for another frenetic ride, I scanned the mishmash of booths hawking cheap jewelry and leather goods and the food trailers selling corndogs and fried Oreos.

Nestled among the kaleidoscopic wall of vendor booths and carnival games, I spotted a familiar attraction. My boys would find it boring, but as a child, I loved the challenge of navigating through the maze of distorted reflections, convex mirrors, and gleaming glass panels. I could go through it in less than ten minutes and return before the boys finished their ride on the swinging pirate ship.

I approached the Hall of Mirrors, its pink and teal striped exterior faded to the dull tint of a waxed wrapper of Necco wafers. Cartoonish signs posted beneath monochromatic images of Victorian baby faces and Dickensian characters promised INTRIGUE AND AMAZEMENT for all who ENTER. There was no line.

I proffered my ticket to the attendant, a gaunt-faced man with long sideburns and neck tattoos. He squinted at me like I was an apparition, then plucked the paper ticket from my outstretched hand. "Welcome to the Hall of Mirrors."

I glanced at the stationary pirate ship that was boarding another group of riders, then walked through the Hall of Mirrors' mouth-shaped entrance. Once inside, fluorescent lighting illuminated the mirrored walls like the interior of a department store dressing room. As a child, I loved to pose in front of these mirrors that stretched my legs and compressed my torso like a Gumby doll. It was magical to see my contorted image cast across all those reflective walls.

I navigated easily through the maze until I hit my first dead end. As I retraced my steps and ventured around a different corner, a shadow darted across the wall of mirrors to my right. Someone else must be in here too. I listened for footsteps to judge their approximate location, but only heard the hum of the air conditioning overhead.

Continuing my trek through the twisting corridors, I was sure I'd reach the exit in five minutes. But once again I wandered into a dead end. Mirrors boxed me in from three directions. I spun around to go back the way I'd come, but the passageway looked different. Shouldn't the opening be on my right?

I turned left, took two steps forward then veered sideways into a different corridor. Confident that I was now heading in the right direction, I strode right into a transparent wall. When I banged my knee, I realized the long mirrored passageway was an optical illusion.

As I walked deeper into the Hall of Mirrors, the air grew colder and the overhead lights started to dim. My distorted reflection morphed into a crooked silhouette that shadowed me as I navigated through the mirrored maze. Where the hell is the exit? I needed to get back to Jake and Alex.

But yet again I'd maneuvered myself into another dead end. Or was it the same one that I'd extricated myself from before? I just needed to retrace my steps back to the entrance. Stumbling through the labyrinth of mirrors, I felt like a lab rat scurrying through a researcher's maze. How could I be lost? Was someone watching me? Observing which way I'd turn. Monitoring my reactions.

"Okay, enough of this shit."

I retrieved my phone from my shorts pocket and pushed the power button. The screensaver image of my sons should have popped up, but the screen remained dark. Was the battery dead? How could that be? I'd charged it in the car on our way to the carnival. I yelled for help, hoping the attendant outside could hear me. My voice ricocheted off the mirror panels like the inside of a pinball machine. Had Alex and Jake exited their ride? Were they looking for me?

When a blurry figure flitted across the reflected surfaces like wind-blown smoke, I told myself to remain calm. It must be some kind of special effect. The smoky shadow rose from the floor to the ceiling like fog, flowing into the mirrors to my left and right. That's when I heard a whispery murmur behind me.

I spun around, still clutching my cell phone, but no one was there. I glared at my reflection in the mirror directly ahead of me. Frazzled hair, flushed cheeks, panic in my eyes. My heart raced as the whispering grew louder and my reflection began to fade. I blinked twice then stepped back as a figure materialized in the mirror.

A ghostly woman with a pale face and a wild mane of wiry hair. She wore a long, flowing dress that seemed to blend into the shadows behind her. I screamed and turned away from the apparition, but every mirror reflected her image back at me. I crouched in a corner and closed my eyes. It's just a creepy special effect. I took a deep breath and then slowly opened my eyes. The figure hadn't moved. Her lips twitched into a mournful smile.

"Don't you remember me, Beverly?"

My mind raced as I tried to process what was happening. Was someone toying with me like a stumped player in an escape room? And no one called me by my first name. My father had enrolled me in kindergarten by my middle name Maeve. And that's who I'd been for the last thirty years.

Jagged cracks spiderwebbed across the surface of the mirror as the ghostly figure hovered in silence. Then she whispered to me, her words almost inaudible, "I'm your mother."

Flashbacks of broken glass and mangled metal convulsed inside my brain. I'd only been four years old when it happened. The night my mother drove us off that dark road into a steep ravine. Locked into my child safety seat in the back of our Dodge Caravan, my entire world flipped over and over as we careened down that rock-strewn slope and smashed into a tree.

"I don't know what kind of sick game this is, but I need to get out of here. My kids are waiting for me."

"Terrifying, isn't it? The fear of losing your child."

Her words triggered another traumatic memory. Six years ago, Alex almost drowned. I'd warned both my sons to stay away from the pond behind our house. Jake always listened, but Alex was the defiant daredevil. I'd pulled him from the murky water after he'd tried to walk along the half-submerged trunk of a giant oak tree that had fallen into the pond during the early spring. He was in hypothermic shock when I dragged him to shore and Jake helped me carry him back to the house.

I only had fleeting memories of my mother. I was so young when she died. My mind raced as I tried to understand what was happening. Was this some kind of hallucination, or was my mother really here, trying to tell me something? I'd been told that my mother had mental problems. That she'd done crazy dangerous things that no one in the family would ever talk about. Maybe I was going crazy too.

"Who are you? How do you know my name?"

"I’ve already told you who I am,” she replied as she touched the Claddagh pendant that hung from her necklace and rested against her breastbone. In the old family photo albums, my mother was always wearing a gold Claddagh necklace. “I named you after my mom Beverly Maeve.” She sighed as she gazed at me. “You look so much like her now that you’re a mother too.”

I flinched. My mother and grandmother were dead.

“You loved Barney the Dinosaur. You went as him for Halloween. You attended Happy Horizons Preschool. Your favorite teacher was Miss Carpenter.”

Tears welled in my eyes. “If you really are my mom,” I stammered as a lump rose in my throat. "Then I have some questions for you."

She nodded in response.

"What happened that night?" I whispered. "Why did you drive us off the road? Were you drunk? Were you trying to kill both of us?"

Her serene expression darkened. "I wasn't drunk, Beverly. I wasn't trying to hurt either of us." Her voice was barely a whisper, but I could hear the pain in every word she spoke. "I was trying to protect you."

I shook my head, feeling more confused than ever. My father had told me that my mother used to hear voices in her head. Was it happening to me? Was I going crazy like her?

"No, Beverly. You're not going crazy." Her voice was soothing and reassuring but raged boiled up inside me.

"Who protects their daughter by driving off a cliff?"

"It was so dark that night. And it had begun to rain. Your father had promised to change the windshield wipers, but he didn't. I couldn't see. We were being chased."

"Who was chasing us? What are you talking about?" A shiver ran down my spine.

"The man who killed me."

"Why would someone want to kill you?"

"Because I saw something that I shouldn't have." She fidgeted with her necklace as she spoke.

I leaned in, desperate for more answers. "What did you see?"

"I saw a man shoot a kid. It was awful."

My mind reeled with a thousand questions. How had my mother seen something like that? And why had she never told anyone? Was that what had driven her to the edge, to the madness that led her to drive us off that cliff?

"Why didn't you go to the police? Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"I did. But they said I was delusional. That I needed help. That I could lose you." Her voice was filled with despair. "But I know what I saw. I saw that cop shoot that kid in cold blood."

"It was a cop!"

"And they covered it up. The kid's body was never found. But I started getting threatening phone calls from a blocked number. The person on the other end told me to keep quiet, said he was watching me. That he knew where you went to preschool."

"You must have told Dad about this."

"I did, but he just shook his head and said that the doctor needed to up my meds. I had severe postpartum depression.”

I’d suffered from that too after giving birth to the twins. I remember the shame and guilt that I felt when I struggled to bond with my newborn sons.

"Then one evening, I was driving home from the grocery store after I'd picked you up from preschool. There had been an accident on the interstate so I decided to get off one exit early and take the back way home. I noticed a police car make a U-turn and start following me. When he put on his flashing lights, I pulled over.

"But when he walked up to the window, I immediately recognized him. The cop who'd killed that boy. I gunned the engine and sped away but he followed me, right on my bumper. Then the rain started and my driver-side windshield wiper wasn't working. He rammed the back of the van and caused us to skid across the road and go over the embankment. I don't know if he realized you were in the car with me."

Tears blurred my vision as the memories of that terrible night flooded my mind. The sound of my mother's screams, the banging of rocks and branches thrashing the car, and the terrifying sight of our shattered front windshield gouged with a massive tree limb. I don't remember how long I sat there strapped in my child seat. I just remembered being cold and scared until flashlights illuminated the interior of the cabin and men's voices and crackling radios broke the eerie silence. They used the jaws of life to extricate me from the back seat but my mother was already dead.

"What do I do?" I whispered, feeling like a child again. "What was that cop's name?"

My mother shook her head. "I never learned his name. I was too afraid. But now you know the truth about what happened that night. I wasn't crazy or medicated or drunk. We were being chased by a man who wanted to kill me."

I had so many more questions for her, but she slowly disappeared into the mirror. I stared at my glassy reflection until I heard footsteps approaching. And then childish laughter. A little girl and her mother were working their way through the maze and heading in my direction.

I clamored to my feet and shoved the cell phone back in my pocket. The girl and her mother turned the corner and the youngster pointed above my shoulder. I slowly turned to look, filled with dread that my mother's ghostly spirit had returned. Instead, I saw

the red-lighted exit sign.

I stumbled out of the Hall of Mirrors and into the bright sunlight of the fairgrounds. My heart was still racing, my mind trying to make sense of what had just happened. Was it all in my head, or had I really communicated with my mother's ghost? I looked down at my phone. The screensaver of my sons had reappeared. I checked the time. Only ten minutes had passed since I'd entered the Hall of Mirrors. Up ahead, I spotted Alex and Jake disembarking from the pirate boat ride.