The Medici Mirror

by Melissa Bailey

  Her green eyes looked at me, still serious. She nodded. ‘And there’s something else. Do you want to know?’

  I looked at her sombre face and had to admit to myself that I really didn’t. I was still reeling from what she’d just said.

  ‘I asked you a little while ago if you thought the dreams you’d been having were in fact dreams. Or if they were something else. You didn’t answer me but I still knew what you thought. You didn’t think they were dreams. Not really, not truly. Did you?’

  I looked at her, at her pale, earnest face. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think this was a dream either. It was definitely something different. It was a vision, Johnny. It was a premonition of what’s coming.’

  I stared at her, heard her voice, the utter conviction in it, and in that moment all I wanted to do was laugh. To give myself release, to dismiss as ridiculous everything she was saying, to dispel her fears with hilarity and then move on, together. But I also realised that I couldn’t do that. We had come too far down this path together. In that moment of uncertainty, when I longed to hear laughter, I heard another sound instead, strange, haunting, strangled. It was a moment or two before I realised it was coming from me. I coughed and the coughing brought an end to the other sound.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, grabbing for the bottle of Jack Daniel’s and pouring us both another shot. ‘I’m just feeling a little . . .’

  ‘Weird? Join the club.’ Ophelia reached for her glass and downed its contents. ‘But I think that’s the way things are meant to pan out. I really feel it, Johnny. Unless we stop it.’

  I nodded vaguely, but my mind was on something that had been bothering me since she raised it. ‘Do you really think that I could hurt you, Ophelia?’ As I said the words aloud, an image of myself in the underground room came into my mind, the green ribbon tied around my wrists as I had sex with Ophelia. As I thought about it now I could feel it digging into my skin, cutting into my flesh as I struggled to free myself from its grip. I stopped short and looked into her eyes. Then I realised that she hadn’t answered me. ‘I could never hurt you,’ I said, and even though Ophelia nodded at me I knew we were both thinking of the times we had been in the cellar together.

  I sighed deeply and poured Ophelia another drink. We sat in silence for a few minutes, each caught in our own dark thoughts.

  ‘I’m scared, Johnny.’ Ophelia’s eyes were wide, her face paler than usual. She looked as scared as she no doubt felt. Looking at her now, something twisted deep inside me. More than anything I wanted to protect her.

  What I was most scared of was that I wouldn’t be able to do that.

  43

  MY BREATH PLUMED into the night air like smoke. It was bitterly cold, the sky clear, not a cloud in sight. I tried to see stars, but as ever they were obscured by the light of the city. I exhaled deeply and another breath bloomed into the night. I was like a man on fire.

  Pulling my mobile from my jacket pocket, I dialled the number before I could think better of it. For what felt like for ever I was forced to listen to the intermittent ring, punctuated with emptiness. But just as I was about to hang up, she picked up at the other end.

  ‘Johnny?’ The voice didn’t sound sleepy, but there was a tone to it that I couldn’t quite place. Perhaps it was repressed anger that I was calling so late.

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’ Pause. ‘I’m sorry, Tara. Did I wake you?’

  There was a crackle on the line. ‘No, amazingly, you didn’t. Is everything okay?’

  It was then that I placed the tone. It was concern. She was worried about me. ‘I’m okay. I just needed to talk to you.’

  ‘At three a.m.?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sorry,’ I said again.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t sleeping.’ There was a shuffling noise on the end of the line, as if she was getting up from somewhere and moving around. ‘Okay. I’m sitting down. Talk to me.’

  I didn’t really know where to start. But today’s developments seemed like a good place. First I told her about Mr Alexander’s phone call and the letters that his colleague Nathaniel Raven had once had. Then I described James’s solitary grave in Bunhill Fields, away from family and friends, and the last letters I had found behind the mirror. Finally, although it was most on my mind, I told her what Ophelia had seen in the mirror and what she had dreamed that night. When I was finished, the line fell silent.

  ‘Tara, are you there?’

  ‘I’m still here.’ Her voice was quiet and I guessed that she was trying to digest the information.

  ‘I ran some computer searches on the Frenchman just now, looking for anything that could add to or clarify what Mr Alexander told me. But I couldn’t find anything.’ The Frenchman’s history remained a yawning blank. ‘So then I came back to the factory.’

  I heard Tara sigh. ‘Johnny, you’re crazy. You went there in the middle of the night?’

  I nodded into the darkness. ‘And I took down every photograph from every wall and checked behind every image. I thought there might be more letters there.’ I sighed, remembering my disappointment. ‘I was so sure that there was something else out there that could tie all these strands together. But there wasn’t anything.’

  ‘No. I think the factory has given up all its secrets to us, Johnny.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘After we met there the other day, I did another complete trawl of all the paperwork. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing left there now that we haven’t seen.’

  So that was it. We were at a dead end. Literally, if dreams were to be believed. I shivered in the cold night air.

  ‘Where are you? You sound like you’re freezing to death.’

  ‘You’re not far off. I’m in the park opposite the factory.’

  ‘Johnny, you’re crazy,’ Tara said again.

  I smiled. She was probably right. After all the strange things that had happened, I was probably well on my way to madness. But sitting in the quiet stillness of the park didn’t seem like the craziest thing in the world for me to do right now.

  ‘You should go home. Try and get some rest. You must be exhausted.’

  I was. And overwrought. But home was the last place I wanted to go.

  ‘Look, don’t worry about finding more information. I’ve got an idea and I’ll follow it up first thing tomorrow. You go home and go to bed.’

  ‘I don’t want to go bed.’ The words came out in a slew of fear and anger. Sleep wasn’t what I wanted these days. I was too plagued by what I saw when I closed my eyes.

  I heard Tara sigh and I thought for a second that she might lose her temper. But her voice when it came down the line was calm.

  ‘No, I can understand that. I really can.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Johnny, can I tell you something?’

  ‘Of course. What is it?’

  Tara paused again and I wondered if she would go on. When she did, her voice was soft but it made me flinch nonetheless. ‘I’ve seen something in the mirror too.’

  I was silent for a moment, trying to take it in, trying to fight back my anxiety and rage. ‘Didn’t I ask you not to go down there alone? It’s dark and dangerous.’ The words reverberated loudly in the quietness of the park. As silence descended once more I heard a dog bark in the distance.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry. You did say that, I know. But it was when I was searching the factory for information. That last time a few days ago.’ She paused. ‘It’s the only time I’ve been back down there since you and I found the mirror.’

  I sat silently on the park bench, wondering if she was telling me the truth.

  ‘Look, when haven’t I been honest with you, Johnny?’ Anger had now entered her voice. ‘And besides, I hardly think you’re in any position to lecture me. You’ve clearly been going there with Ophelia. Ritually.’

  She was right, of course. I was being incredibly unfair. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just worried, that’s all.’

  Tara sighed. ‘It’s okay. I get i
t.’

  ‘So do you still want to tell me what you saw?’

  I heard her swallow and then take a breath. ‘I saw my grandmother.’ Pause. ‘I was very close to her when I was growing up, but she died when I was small. And yet I saw her. In the mirror.’ Her voice sounded incredulous. ‘Or I thought I saw her. I don’t really know. And while it was oddly comforting, imagining her, seeing her, whatever you want to call it, it was also kind of frightening.’

  I felt the rock of anxiety that had been building in my stomach harden. ‘Why was it frightening?’ I asked.

  ‘It was a general feeling, at first. It was an old memory, you see. And that in itself was bizarre. I mean, how was it that I could see that reflected there?’ Tara paused, thinking. ‘My grandmother called out my name. Just my name at first. And then she came into view, walking down her garden path in her pink slippers like she always did, like I remember her doing when I was a child.’ She laughed. ‘It was both wonderful and disquieting just to see her. She called me Tara-bell. Exactly as she did when I was little.’ She stopped, hesitating before continuing. ‘And that was frightening. Not the simple fact of her calling out to me. But the way she did it. Or started to do it. She was gesturing, beckoning, as if indicating that if I wanted to join her I could.’ She paused again. ‘That’s truly what made me afraid. It wasn’t just a memory that I was reliving – I was seeing a memory that had been tampered with. One that was suggesting the possibility of being with her.’

  I nodded. It sounded very similar to what Ophelia had told me she’d seen. The dream of her parents, the dream that had been altered.

  ‘I don’t know what it means,’ Tara went on. ‘But the way the memory has been twisted feels fundamentally wrong, perverse. It’s suggesting something that cannot be, should not be, and therefore must be false.’ Pause. ‘The mirror’s evil, Johnny. It should be destroyed.’

  ‘I know. I’ve been thinking the same thing all night.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m not sure. But I might just go down there with a sledgehammer and smash it to bits.’

  ‘Works for me,’ said Tara, her tone becoming lighter instantly. ‘Well, if you need an assistant just give me a shout. I’d be more than happy to help out.’

  ‘No, I’ll do it alone, when I’m ready.’ My tone was unexpectedly sharp. ‘Understood?’

  ‘Understood,’ she said.

  But immediately I felt a needling doubt. I had been saying to myself for the last hour or so that I would go down into the basement and destroy the mirror. It was the only way, I had concluded, to make sure that no one came to any harm – myself, Ophelia, Tara, or anyone else who came into contact with it. Yet still I sat here in the park, having done no such thing. Every time I tried to act upon it, something stopped me.

  I heard Tara’s voice, seemingly coming from far away. ‘Johnny?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Johnny?’

  I heard my name again. ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes. I’m fine.’

  ‘Okay. Then you should go home. And don’t worry about Ophelia. I know you won’t hurt her. If anything, I’d say she’s much more likely to turn on you.’ Tara’s tone was playful. She was trying, I knew, to lighten the mood. But I couldn’t connect with it at all. I stared at the plane trees, their branches rippling in the gentle night-time breeze. As with almost everything, it reminded me of the mirror.

  ‘One last thing. Promise me you won’t go down into the underground room again,’ I said.

  ‘I promise. Now go home and get some rest.’

  44

  TWO DAYS LATER, Ophelia and I were sitting opposite one another at her dining table. We had just finished dinner and our empty plates and glasses lay scattered on the table. I reached for the red-wine bottle sitting between us and poured the last of its contents into my glass. Having consumed most of it, I was feeling a little drunk. But I was enjoying the sensation, taking the edge off or even blocking out as it did so many of the things I didn’t want to think about.

  As I raised the glass to my lips I became conscious of Ophelia looking at me.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I said. Things hadn’t been quite right between us since the dream she’d had. The dream in which she thought I killed her. I closed my eyes and tried to jettison the thought from my mind.

  ‘I could ask you the same question.’ The scar above her lip twitched slightly, the way it always did when she tightened her mouth, when she was angry or irritated with me.

  I could feel a fight brewing and it was the last thing I wanted. So I tried to avoid it. ‘I’m sorry, I’m preoccupied. I’ve been thinking . . . well, you know what I’ve been thinking. Ever since your dream the other night . . .’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’ve been trying to work out what to do.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘I spoke to Tara about it.’

  Ophelia interlinked her fingers and rested them on the tabletop. ‘You did?’

  ‘She thinks that I should destroy the mirror.’

  ‘And what do you think?’ Ophelia was leaning towards me, her body language betraying her eagerness to know.

  ‘I think I agree with her.’

  Ophelia was studying me closely. ‘But I can sense some hesitation in you. What is it?’

  I shook my head. ‘Nothing. I know it has to be done.’ I said it with a certainty that I didn’t by any means feel. ‘Tara had the same experience as you, you know. She felt, saw, whatever the right expression is, that her grandmother was calling out to her. I think the word she used was . . . beckoning. She said it didn’t feel right. As if something was at work beneath the vision. Offering something that was unreal.’

  Ophelia stared at me, her face a mask. It betrayed nothing.

  ‘Did you feel the same way when you looked into the mirror?’

  For a moment she remained silent, motionless, and then she shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Johnny. I can’t say with any clarity whether I felt that. What I felt, what I always feel when I see them, when I think of them, is an intense, an overriding sense of loss, of longing.’

  I nodded. That was what she’d always told me.

  ‘So what are you going to do, Johnny?’ I thought I heard a tremor of agitation in Ophelia’s voice.

  ‘I’m going to destroy it.’ I looked at her. ‘Something sinister is at work. I don’t know exactly how but I know no good can come from it.’ The dark, distorted reflection of my face flashed across my mind. It was a powerful face, but it was not my own. ‘I’m going to do it tomorrow, alone.’ I thought of my feelings, the heady wash of emotions I felt when Ophelia was with me in the underground room. When I had gone there alone, for some reason I’d felt much calmer, my senses less impaired. Perhaps I’d have more prospects of success alone.

  ‘Okay,’ said Ophelia. ‘It’s probably for the best.’ Then she smiled at me as she stood up and began to clear the table. It was an automatic smile, swift, momentary, mechanical and I felt a flicker of unease again in my stomach.

  ‘Ophelia, are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine. Just tired. You should get some sleep too, Johnny. You look exhausted.’

  I looked at her and nodded. ‘One last thing. Promise me you won’t go down there again. For whatever reason. Let me deal with this myself now. Alone. I think it’s safer that way.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I promise.’

  45

  WE WENT TO bed. Ophelia fell asleep in my arms and my body curled around hers, enclosing her, holding her to me.

  When I awoke some time later, I felt sluggish, my brain slow, still affected by the wine, and there was a dull pounding in my head. I groaned and flexed my body. It was then that I noticed the absence of Ophelia within my arms. I strained my ears, listening for her quiet sleeping breath beside me. I couldn’t hear anything. I opened my eyes but it was still dark and I couldn’t see. So I flicked on the bedside light and looked.
Sure enough, her side of the bed was empty. Instantly, I remembered having woken a month or so ago in almost exactly the same circumstances. Then I had also discovered Ophelia gone. My heart felt heavy, began to sink under the weight of knowing. I looked around the room, hoping. But she wasn’t there.

  I got out of bed and pulled on my jeans. As I passed the darkness of the bathroom I flicked on the light. A spill of yellow incandescence flowed over my feet and made me feel a little less tense. But I was still conscious of my heart, a dead weight in my chest. At the doorway of the sitting room I stopped and listened. But everything was silent. It was all so familiar, like going through the motions. I stood stationary for a few more seconds and then moved forwards.

  The moon cast a shimmering blue light across the room, over the dining table and sofas, rippling over my feet in waves as I walked across the pale carpet. I looked for any sign of Ophelia but there was none. The room was empty and quiet but for the faint noise that penetrated from the road below, the whir of street cleaners, the mewing of cats. I opened the French windows and looked out onto the deserted darkness of the balcony, a sudden hollow fear in my stomach. I closed the doors and readied myself.

  Walking back to the bedroom, I was conscious of the fact that I had not once shouted Ophelia’s name. Last month, when this scene had played out in an almost identical way, I had called out to her constantly. Then I had thought that nothing could feel worse than not knowing where she was. Now I realised that there was a feeling much worse than that. It was knowing with certainty where she had gone.

  I dressed quickly, pausing at the threshold of the flat. Was it really the right thing to do to go after her? Was she safer alone, given everything that had happened, everything that she thought might happen? Was it better, after all, to sit here and wait for her to return? I hesitated, torn. But I wanted to be with her, near her. I wanted to bring her home. I didn’t want to imagine her alone in that darkness. A darkness where I felt almost anything could happen. It was dangerous.