The Egyptian Mirror

by Michael Bedard

  See you soon.

  Abbey

  He tucked it in the frame of his mirror beside an old photo he’d found that afternoon. He’d been alone in the house. With summer school over and Abbey out of town, time weighed heavily on his hands. He went downstairs to grab a bite to eat, and happened to wander over to the piano. The stack of old sheet music Alice Loudon had given to Mom was out on the stand. A musty smell drifted off it. The topmost piece was a tune from a Gershwin show. He stood at the bench tapping out the opening bars. But when he went to turn the page, he jarred the pile, and the whole lot tumbled to the floor.

  He was gathering them up when he noticed a photo that must have fallen out of one of them. It was an old sepia-tinted print of a woman seated at a piano. She was lit from the side, so that the light fell on her arms and her hands at the keyboard, and her face in profile above. It looked so remarkably like Alice Loudon that it could have been her twin. He turned it over. The name of a Paris studio had been stamped on the back, along with a date. It was eighty years old.

  * * *

  At the end of August, a heat wave settled over Caledon like some great bird brooding over its clutch. The upstairs of the house was like an oven. Night after night, Simon lay in the steamy dark listening to the muted strains of Alice Loudon’s playing drifting in through the open window.

  There was magic in the music. It was full of such sweet sadness, such heartfelt yearning that it nearly moved him to tears. He felt it must have sprung from some deep longing for lost things in her life. Yet at the same time it touched his own. He hung on every note. It was as if his sinews had been stretched taut like strings, his bones laid out like keys—and she played upon him.

  A door opened onto another world, hidden at the heart of things, beyond the reach and ruin of time. What was lost was found again; what was broken made whole again; what was ill was well again while she played. Memories floated like lilies on the surface of the music. He felt the weight of the tray in his hand as he took Mr. Hawkins his dinner, the hush of the old house as he went about his missions on the second floor, the eager gaze of the mirrors as he moved among them, the book-scented heat of the sunroom as he struggled with the stubborn window, the icy stare of the dog as it peered up at him from the yard.

  Eventually, he drifted off. His dreams were full of music, primitive and pulsing, like a heart that had beat steadily since time began. A masked figure came whirling from the shadows of the steamy room, whirling and stomping in time to the urgent rhythm that ran through the scene. As it whirled, he glimpsed its great round eyes, its yawning mouth, its flashing mane. He lay suspended between sleep and consciousness while the music throbbed within him and without.

  28

  As summer neared its end an uneasy quiet came upon the street. The clamor that had marked the Loudons’ first months as they searched the house for the mirror had stopped. The rowdy din of the gang at the end of the street was gone. And now with the singing of the birds eerily absent as well, it felt like the ominous stillness before a storm.

  Late in the day, as the sun sank and the shadows lengthened, Alice Loudon would often sit on the porch swing, Caesar by her side. Even from a distance, she did not look well. Her face was gaunt, and there was a noticeable frailty to her. At the height of the summer she’d often sat, in the cool of the evening, swaying lightly back and forth on the swing. But now she sat dead still, a shawl about her shoulders and a blanket over her knees, smoking cigarettes and staring off into an inner distance.

  She had spoken of a chronic illness, but Simon had seen no evidence of it till now. She seemed much older than she had mere months before. Despite his dread of her, he could not help but be moved by her struggle with whatever it was that had its hooks in her. He knew what sick was, knew it better than he ever imagined he would, and Alice Loudon was sick.

  The dog never stirred from her side. It sat rigid and alert, its ears twitching at the slightest sound, its eyes ceaselessly panning the street. Now and then it would swing its head around to peer up into her face, but she took no notice as she sat there ghostly and still.

  When he was at his sickest, the last thing in the world he worried about was how he looked. But the sicker she became, the more trouble she seemed to take with how she appeared. She had always worn a lot of makeup. He’d noticed it the first time they met—the elaborate eye paint, the bright lipstick, the heavy layer of powder. But now against her gaunt face it seemed garish and sad. What was it that ailed her? he wondered.

  He was sitting at the window one evening, reading the “Soul Catchers” manuscript. He eked it out in snippets now as he neared the end. While he remained immersed in the book, it was as if time had stopped, and Mr. Hawkins was with him still. Once he was finished, it would start up again, and there would be no stopping it.

  Alice Loudon sat lost in thought on the porch swing, not even bothering to nod as Mrs. Glover walked by with Koko, her poodle. Koko used to bark up a storm when it passed the Loudon’s little dog. It didn’t bark now. It was clearly afraid of Caesar—as were all the other dogs on the street. Remaining perfectly still by its mistress’s side, Caesar followed it with his formidable eyes as it skulked by.

  As Mrs. Glover vanished into her house, Simon turned back to the book. A block of added text had been scrawled in the margin of the page in Mr. Hawkins’ trembly handwriting. He found the writing too torturous to read in the dim light. As he rose to switch on the light he glanced across the street.

  Alice Loudon had vanished.

  Moments before, she’d been sitting there as still as a statue. But somehow, in the brief seconds he’d turned his attention back to the book, she’d disappeared.

  There hadn’t been time enough for her to have gotten up and gone back into the house. And Caesar would certainly have followed her if she had. But the dog was still there, standing by the empty swing as it creaked slowly to rest, and apparently as surprised as Simon at her sudden disappearance.

  It sniffed at the blanket lying in a heap on the porch floor, nudging it with its snout as if she might be hidden among the folds. It circled the slack heap several times, then suddenly turned and started across the porch, sniffing at the ground.

  As it scooted down the stairs its shadow slid along before it. Following the scent as far as the garden gate, it nosed fretfully at the gap beneath. Then it stepped back and, leaping high into the air, sailed over the fence. On the far side it picked up the scent again and followed it down the side of the house, while its lean shadow slid silently before it along the walk.

  * * *

  It was the day Abbey was supposed to get back from the cottage, and Simon was bursting with news to tell her.

  He had just finished reading Babs her bedtime story and switching off her light. Downstairs, Mom was playing the piano. She was supposed to be practicing one of the pieces from the sheet music Alice Loudon had given her. But what he heard drifting up the stairs sounded eerily like the tune Alice Loudon had been whistling in the lane.

  He stood at the dresser mirror staring at the old photo that had fallen out of the sheet music. The longer he looked at it, the more convinced he became that it was Alice Loudon sitting there at the keyboard—impossible as it was.

  The phone rang. “Telephone for you, Simon,” Mom called up the stairs.

  “I’ve got it,” he called as he flopped across his bed and picked up the receiver.

  “Hey, am I glad to hear from you,” he said.

  There was a pause on the other end. “I’m happy to hear that,” said an older woman’s voice.

  “I’m sorry. I thought it was someone else.”

  “I understand. Well, it’s Joan Cameron calling, Simon. I hope you remember me.”

  “Of course,” he said, sitting bolt upright on the bed.

  “I found your number in the book. The last time I saw you, you weren’t well. I hope you’re feeling better.”

/>   “Yes, much better, thank you.” His mind raced as he tried to figure out why she’d be calling him.

  “I’m glad to hear that. When we met at the memorial we were talking about one of our friend Hawkins’ mirrors—the one that’s gone missing.”

  “Yes, I remember,” he said. He could hear the muffled sound of a TV on the line, then a voice that sounded like Dad’s.

  “Mom, are you there?” he said into the receiver. There was a soft click on the line.

  “Something rather important has come up,” said Cameron. “Something that may involve that mirror, and you’re the only one I can think to ask about it. I’m afraid we can’t really do this over the phone. There’s a photo I’d like you to see. I wonder if we might possibly arrange to meet at the museum.” Her voice was measured and cool, but an undercurrent of disquiet ran below the calm.

  “Of course,” he said, his hand trembling as he gripped the phone.

  “Would you possibly be free this weekend? Saturday afternoon, say, around two? We could make it some other time if that doesn’t work for you.”

  “No, Saturday should be fine.” But all the while, his mind was spinning. The museum was way on the other side of town. Getting there by himself could be a challenge. “Would it be all right if I brought someone with me?” he asked.

  “I suppose so,” said Cameron. “Is it someone you trust?”

  “It is.” He would ask Abbey to come—just in case he got lost again.

  “Very well, then. Two o’clock it is—at the Egyptian Gallery, in the mummy room. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Fine. I look forward to seeing you then.” And she hung up.

  Minutes later, the phone rang again. He picked it up at once. This time it was Abbey.

  “Whoa, Simon,” she said. “You never answer the phone.”

  Someone picked up the downstairs phone. “It’s for me,” he said, and waited.

  “Sorry,” said his mom and hung up.

  “What’s going on, Simon?” asked Abbey.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “When did you get back?”

  “About an hour ago. It’s complete chaos around here, but I wanted to give you a quick call. How are things?”

  “A little crazy. I was just talking to Mr. Hawkins’ friend, Joan Cameron. How would you like to go to the museum with me this Saturday?”

  “The museum? I’ll have to check, but I think it’ll be all right. And then you’re going to tell me what’s going on, right?”

  “Right.”

  “But not now.”

  “No, not now.”

  “You’re being very mysterious, Simon.” In the background he could hear someone call her. “Gotta go,” she said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Abbey?’

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m glad you’re back.”

  “Me too—I think.”

  29

  He lay in bed, unable to sleep. The conversation with Cameron kept circling round in his head. What was it she wanted to ask him about the mirror? She’d made it sound important. He wondered if it might have anything to do with the theft at the museum he’d read about in the paper.

  He knew he’d clipped the article and tucked it away somewhere. He slipped quietly out of bed and began looking for it now. He finally found the crumpled thing at the back of his sock drawer. As he read it through again by the light of the bedside lamp his eyes kept drifting to the photo of Cameron that accompanied it. She looked like someone he could trust. He wondered if he dared risk bringing the mirror with him when he went.

  He switched off the light and padded to the window. A light rain was falling, and a misty glow encircled the streetlamps. The lights were off in the Loudon house. The world wrapped in sleep. On a night like this, what could possibly be wrong? Yet a current of unease ran below the calm, as it had in Cameron’s voice on the phone. He had the sense of darkness stirring, of hidden forces quietly marshaling their powers. And the Egyptian mirror lay at the heart of it all.

  He went over to the bed and reached under the mattress. He slid the mirror out and laid it on the bed. It seemed too small a thing to have caused such grief. He would be glad to have it gone, if only for a while.

  He ran his fingers over the eye, the undulating pattern that ran around the edge. It was too dark to see much by the faint light through the window, but something felt different about the mirror.

  All summer long, he’d withstood the temptation to look in it, for fear it might somehow lead Alice Loudon to him. But now, lulled by the misty calm of the night, and knowing it would soon be out of his hands, perhaps forever, he couldn’t resist one last look.

  Sitting cross-legged on the bed with the mirror on his lap, he switched on the bedside lamp and looked down. He was shocked by what he saw. The mirror had changed. The surface of it was flecked with green splotches like the scum that forms on standing pools, so that his reflection seemed stricken as well as it stared back at him.

  Even as he looked, the image began to ripple lightly, as if the surface had been ruffled by some disturbance beneath. Shadows whirled around the rim. Without warning, he was suddenly swept up in the vortex. The room around him vanished, and he was spun down into the dark.

  As his vision cleared, he found himself looking into a room he knew, though he had never viewed it from this angle before. For it was as though he were looking out at the upstairs bedroom in the Hawkins house from the vanity mirror in the corner by the window. Ranged before him on the dressing table were a variety of jars and pots of cosmetics, ivory sticks and spoons, and a hand mirror with a matching brush. Off to one side, there were two wigs on wooden forms—one dark, one fair.

  The door in the wall opposite opened, and a figure stood framed in the light. It was utterly dark and devoid of features, like a shadow that had reared itself up from the ground. It wavered there a moment, like a flame worried by a breeze, and then with a weird drifting motion advanced into the room. As it approached the mirror it took on definition. He could make out features now, vague and indistinct, as the figure hovered on the verge of visibility.

  It sat down at the table in front of him, so close he could have reached out and touched it, and he realized with a shock it was Alice Loudon. He drew back as she peered into the mirror but then realized, as she studied herself calmly in the glass, that he could not be seen.

  She ran her long, thin fingers through the sparse wisps of hair on her head, then slowly over the skin of her face, down across her chin and along her neck as if testing for soundness, pausing here and there to give a light, tentative push. Once, as she prodded, her finger pierced the skin of her cheek as if it were tissue paper, and he caught a shocking glimpse of void through it.

  With a look of weary disgust, she dipped her fingers into one of the small jars on the table and smoothed cream over the tear, then over her face and neck. The coating of cream turned the skin satin and lent it substance. The tear on her cheek became a thin red scar, scarcely visible. She dipped into a little pot and with a practiced finger smoothed rouge on her cheeks and gently worked it in till the skin shone with the flush of life. With the tip of her finger she touched color to each wan lip, then strengthened the line with a brush till they were lush and full.

  Next, she turned her attention to her eyes. She mixed a bright green powder from one of the containers with a little saliva on a small wooden spoon, and with the tip of her finger stroked an emerald sheen on the lid of each eye. Wetting the end of one of the pointed ivory sticks with her mouth, she dipped it in a small pot of black powder and drew a bold line above the lashes of each eyelid, extending it with a flourish well beyond the corner of the eye. In the same way, she lined the lower lids, and with a small brush darkened the lashes. Finally, she painted in two broad, arching brows above the eyes.

  Turning from the mir
ror, she lifted the dark wig from its form and fit it securely in place on her head. From a small jewelry box she withdrew two curious gold earrings shaped like flies. With a slight tilt of her head she hooked them into her earlobes, then took out a matching necklace and fastened it about her neck. The transformation was complete. She had passed from shadow into form. She sat back and studied herself in the glass with wide, searching eyes. Turning her head this way and that, she softened a line here, strengthened one there, framed her hair about her face with the brush.

  Then, as she leaned in close to the glass to touch up the corner of one eye, she suddenly froze. Turning toward the window, she started to rise from her seat, then abruptly wheeled back—and brought her face up flush against the glass.

  Simon sprang back in shock on the bed, and something brushed him lightly on the arm. He spun around, and there stood Babs by the bed, thumb tucked in her mouth. She had clearly gone over the rail again, breaking her fall on the cushions below.

  “Dimon, I wan dink,” she said as she scrambled up onto the bed beside him and leaned down to look in the mirror. He quickly pulled his pillow over it and tumbled them both out of bed.

  “Okay, Babs, let’s get you a drink,” he said shakily.

  She sat on the lid of the toilet while he ran the water in the sink till it was cold and filled her cup. He smoothed her hair mechanically with his hand as she drank. He felt totally spooked, half of him still in the mirror world, half in this one. As he rinsed the cup he caught sight of a dark shape looming behind him in the mirror. He let out a startled cry, and then realized it was just Dad’s dressing gown hanging on the door hook.

  Babs looked at him with wide eyes. She took him by the hand and they padded down the hall to her room. Her sheets were in a tangle. He smoothed them out, tucked her in, and patted her back for a few minutes. But when he turned to go, she begged him not to leave.