The Angels' Mirror Pack 2: Books Four through Seven

by Harmony L. Courtney

  Calico nodded at her and smiled. “Understood, and that’ll work just fine. I just want to be able to thank you in some fashion for all the extra stuff you do for us, above and beyond the rest of the team,” she told her quietly as she reached for Angus’ hand, their towels now draped over her other arm.

  With that, they quickly waved to Prudence and headed back toward the double doors. And as they went, he noticed the sky darkening.

  Were they in for another storm?

  Calico held Angus’s small hand in hers as they made their way back to the elevators and up to their hotel apartment, Romeo at her side.

  The darkening sky was a concern, but she tried not to think about it as she quickly showered and changed before preparing for dinner, her mind wandering occasionally to their earlier phone call.

  In the middle of the night, it seemed, Justice, Edward, Paloma, and a couple of other people who had traveled through the mirror – in a different fashion than she had – returned safely after twelve days of being missing.

  Well, not missing, she amended to herself. The people who watched them walk into that thing knew the reason they were gone, but still. She shivered.

  What would it have been like to watch five people I knew and loved walk into a doorway that opened in the middle of a fence, not knowing if I’d ever see any of them again?

  She pulled out the broccoli, peppers, onion, cabbage, carrots, celery, and the pineapple some friends had brought them back from Hawaii a few days prior and set to work preparing them for stir-fry. Next, she grabbed a can of water chestnuts and took the chicken strips she’d prepared earlier in the day and set out her wok, turning the temperature up to medium high.

  “Do either of you have a preference for sauce tonight? I’ve got things set up for stir-fry and want to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything,” she called as she heard the rain begin to come down hard on the roof.

  In the background, she could hear something on the Imagebar, but couldn’t make out the words. But as she got no reply, she moved into the living area and found her son and husband watching the news.

  “After three tornadoes swept through Mississippi on Tuesday, it looks like we’re in for another this evening, coming in off the Gulf. If it follows the projected pathway, it will finish rounding its way through Choctaw, Lauderdale, and then Neshoba counties.”

  The man readjusted his brilliant red glasses a moment before resuming where he left off.

  “It has already hit Coffeeville, Toxey, and Pushmataha in the past half hour and seems to be headed for the Meridian area,” the tall, blonde-haired weatherman continued with half a nervous-looking smile before he frowned. “All residents in the path of the tornado are being advised to find their nearest shelter or to hunker down in their basements until further notice, with plenty of sustenance and water.”

  Calico stood rooted to the spot, a wave of nausea rolling through her as she dropped the knife that was in her hand, barely missing her still-bare foot. As she moved to pick it up, a flash of lightening moved across the sky, lighting up nearby, and she jumped at the sensation, edging closer to her family.

  This couldn’t be happening! They’d had drills, but never a tornado that had hit where they were. Not since they’d been in Meridian. So what were they doing to do?

  “Well, I guess we’re on for snacks in the basement instead of stir-fry,” Romeo told her, his eyes never leaving the television. “May as well get it all back into the fridge as quickly as possible. Could be any time. We need to hustle.”

  The wind was already picking up outside, and Calico could hear something that reminded her of a waterfall in the moving trees as she grabbed the knife and moved to put food away. Angus, beginning to cry, followed she and Romeo into the kitchen and as her husband grabbed some jugs of water to carry, he made sure Angus stayed out from underfoot.

  Setting the water jugs on the counter, he then reached for the third drawer from the right and grabbed a plastic bag and began filling it with various snacks, rushing through the cupboards while she made sure the oven was off and the food she’d prepared was away.

  “Go grab an extra change of clothes for Angus,” he told her rather loudly, “and meet me in the hallway in five minutes.”

  Thunder rubbed its hands together close by as she washed her hands and lightening sliced the air once more as she made her way up the ramp into their son’s room. Thankful she set aside his outfits for a couple days at a time, she grabbed a pile and headed out the door, looking back to see Angus carrying one jug of water behind her, and her husband with two more in a single hand, and the bag full of snack items in the other. She kept the door open for them and quickly locked it behind them all before heading to the elevator and pressing the button so they could get to the underground level.

  It seemed to take forever as they waited for the elevator, and their neighbors – Joel and Clementina and the three youngest of their children – joined them before they boarded.

  It was a tight squeeze, but somehow, thankfully, they managed. And by the time they’d reached the basement, Urban and Prudence had both boarded the elevator, explaining that the others had already made their way downstairs.

  Over seventy people had already made their way down to the shelter area, and Mario, Calico could tell, was already nervous, sweat beginning to form across his brow as he ushered people single file through the doorway. The crowd tried, at times, to move ahead of his systematic way of moving people along, and she pulled Angus a little closer to her, holding him in front of her legs, his outfit tightly clenched underneath one arm as they passed inside.

  And at just that moment, the noise heightened even more, and she heard the sirens begin to go off, mixed with a loud hum that reminded her of a jet engine.

  Mario rushed to get the rest of the people inside, Romeo included, and then closed the door behind himself just as the noise became a great whoosh.

  They’d made it.

  Twenty Four

  Salem, Oregon… May 23, 2025

  Arthur Reynolds took his first breath of fresh air as a free man again and sighed.

  Though Mark Jeffries’ trial was still on hold as he recovered, Arthur’s own case had been reconsidered and, considering he had more good time than not, they had decided to release him with forty two months of parole, meeting twice a week with his officer the first sixteen months, and to be reevaluated after that time.

  He headed down the concrete stairs and through the parking lot, noting that a handful of the landscapers from the other prison next door were just finishing up for the day. He cordially nodded to one man he recognized, but didn’t meet his eyes as he continued walking toward the bus stop.

  He readjusted the garbage bag over his shoulder – containing the clothes he’d worn when he was arrested, along with the miniscule miscellany that had been in his pockets – and glanced around him. With a pause, he rummaged through it, found his wallet, and looked for the nearest dumpster for the rest of it.

  Who wanted clothes that reminded them of the worst day of his life?

  As he lifted the lid – using the edge of the plastic bag – and tossed the rest of his former belongings, memories slammed into him like a tidal wave, nearly causing him to vomit on the spot.

  Moving the mirrors. Separating Andrea and Rosemary. Hearing voices – a man’s and a woman’s – and suddenly seeing Rosemary falling through that crazy old mirror with the angel on its top. Reaching for her; seeing his own hand move through the mirror, too – an odd sensation of disjointedness and even, he shuddered, dismemberment – coming over him as he tried to retrieve her. More voices, and fire, and that crazy bird, Floy, flying at him from nowhere.

  Well, not nowhere, he amended to himself as he struggled to regain his stomach and walk the rest of the way toward the bus shelter. From that crazy mirror.

  And then, he could hear the officers’ raised voices. Hear his own in reply, argumentative. He could feel the gun, the knife in his hands again, and his fingers twitched.
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  Stepping onto the sidewalk, he moved into the bus shelter just as light rain began to fall.

  Three young girls, their hair in pigtails, stood huddled together with a woman who couldn’t have been more than twenty five. Was she their mother? Their sister? Their aunt?

  The woman had a vaguely familiar look about her, and he guessed she was of mixed heritage. Black and some sort of Asian, or perhaps Mexican. And like a bullet to the gut – the memory of which he knew too well – he realized she looked much like Andrea’s daughter might have, had she lived, and for the first time, he felt anguish over what he’d done.

  He turned away from them, in spite of the curious glances of the younger girls – who all seemed to be between four and seven or eight years old, if his guess was right – and tears began to slide down his face. He clenched his fists in his pockets, not caring that the wallet from long ago obscured part of the passageway in one, and that bus fare to get to Portland sat in the other. And as the tears began to flow, he could sense the girls’ eyes on his back, and he felt like running away.

  But where? What for?

  He finally sensed remorse, and shed tears for those he hurt instead of for himself, and should it not be appropriate there were witnesses, at least of a sort who knew nothing about him?

  After a few minutes of watching blurry cars pass by, along with the occasional truck, he sensed someone was tapping him on the back, and whirled around to find the oldest of the girls standing there, looking up at him.

  And there were tears in her eyes. He glanced at the other girls, including the woman with them, and each were crying.

  But why?

  “I’m sorry your heart hurts today” she said so quietly, he thought he might have imagined it. “But God knows how to make it better. I know He does.”

  Arthur unclenched his fists, pulling them from his pockets. He ran a hand through his short braids as he looked back down at her.

  How could such a young child be so perceptive?

  “Thanks,” he said, not really wanting to talk, but knowing he had to say something. The girl had better grammar than he did, and he really didn’t want to go down that road.

  “Can we pray for you,” the woman asked, a genuine but shy smile forming on her full lips. “Bus isn’t due for another,” she pulled something from her pocket and looked at it a moment, “eleven or twelve minutes, so we have time, if you want-”

  Now sobered from his tears and furious, he interrupted her.

  “I don’ see how God gonna do me wrong then come ask me come talk t’ Him no more. Was’ o’ time,” he told her. “But iffen ya feels ya gotta, be my gues’,” he told her. “Jus’ don’ ‘spect me t’ be goin’ along an’ prayin’, too.”

  “I’m Rachel, that’s Kathy, Suzie, and Mama Andrea,” the possibly nine-year-old said with a smile as she reached for his hand, causing him to flinch. She’d pointed at the youngest when she’d said Kathy, and the one who might be about six when she said Suzie.

  “What’s your name?”

  Memories of Andrea flooded him even more and the tears resumed as he tried to form words. He worked his jaw several times before he was able to utter, “Arthur.”

  “Well, we’re gonna pray for you real good. More than today,” the girl said enthusiastically. “I knew someone would come,” she said, looking up at this new Andrea; this Andrea who looked like she could be his own daughter. Andrea Juarez’s daughter.

  Their daughter.

  The one he had killed before she could be born, along with her mother, who he sometimes wonder if he’d loved after all.

  Or at least cared about.

  Andrea looked him in the eye, and he quickly averted his eyes.

  “You were in there,” she asked him casually, nodding her head toward the prison.

  With a gulp, he nodded in a somewhat different direction. “Dat one,” he affirmed as, like her daughter, she reached for his empty hand. And for the first time since he was eight years old, suddenly, in public, he was part of a circle of prayer, only now, he was in the middle of it; the topic of it, too.

  Kathy, at only four or, possibly five, in a voice even tinier than Rachel’s, began to pray, startling him even more. And yet, he could hear her above the traffic; perhaps because he was listening for speech.

  “Papa God, don’t know ‘bout Art’ur or what happen to him, but You do. And You are good and take away our tears, ‘cause You’re good like that. So take them tears and hide ‘em good from Art’ur and help him ‘member You loves him, Papa, otay? And also, amen,” she prayed, bringing on his tears even more.

  Here he was, standing in a bus shelter, holding the hands of complete strangers, one of whom looks like the daughter he might have had – and the others looking like his grandchildren might have, and they were praying for him. And they weren’t judging him for weeping, or for having been in prison, or for poor grammar.

  They weren’t telling him he was wrong to be sad, or saying it was about time he felt remorse.

  They weren’t telling him he was doomed, or that he was too far gone for God to touch and change. They were, in essence, telling him the opposite, by their mere presence.

  And he was seriously falling apart.

  Twenty Five

  Vancouver, Washington… May 23, 2025

  Edward Stuart glanced in the mirror as he finished combing out his hair, still wet from the shower. He’d taken special measures in his dressing, knowing that the house would soon be full.

  He took in the effect of his pale gold dress shirt, mustard-colored tie, and dark brown – so dark it almost looked black – suit and smiled. Not bad, he told himself. Not bad at all.

  Setting his comb down, he could see Paloma entering the room, a towel around her, as she, too, prepared to greet their guests. He looked at the clock on the table, and realized they only had another half hour before people would start showing up.

  In the background, he could hear the chickens kicking up a fuss, and moved to step out of their room. “If one of you isn’t changed yet, would you go check on the hens,” he called. “Make sure they’ve got water and such?”

  “Changing,” he heard his daughter reply, and a round of “me, toos” soon followed from the twins’ room, where both of their sons, as well as Clayton, had been huddled up most of the day.

  Edward was glad that Jason and Me’chelle had allowed Charlotte and Clayton to stay over and spend time with their kids, but now that there was still nobody available to check on the chickens, he knew it was his turn, by default.

  Confetti, who had made herself conspicuously absent the night before, came mewling up to him, and he tried to avoid getting her fur on his suit; he loved her, but multicolored, crinkled fur was probably not the best accessory.

  With a sigh, he looked down at his dress socks, still un-shoed, and made his way up the hall, stopping to put some water in a pitcher at the kitchen sink, and headed for the back yard, Confetti on his heels. She reminded him of Petunia in this way, and he smiled a moment, reflecting on their similarities and differences.

  He paused only long enough to put his chicken shoes on and then, shutting the sliding door behind him with his free hand, found himself facing three rather angry hens that had begun clamoring around their feed and water dishes as soon as they heard him approaching.

  “Hi, there, ladies,” he said cordially.

  It wasn’t their fault he was dressed nicely and still had to come out here because nobody else was available. And it wasn’t their fault that he had grown less and less fond of having chickens around, ushering people to their beck and call at five something each morning, and then, throughout the day whenever they started to really squawk.

  Thankfully, as they got older, they did a little less of the squawking and a little more of their oddly endearing chittery-chattery noises.

  He made a mental note to talk to Paloma about how, really, he didn’t want to get more once these three were gone. The kids were still growing, yes, but he’d rather ju
st buy eggs, thank you very much. He rather cherished his sleep these days, what little of it he seemed to get.

  As he turned to head back into the house, he saw the mirror, still covered over with tarps, and his memory flooded with all he’d experienced from the moment he stepped into the doorway it had created in the fence until he fell back to the ground and was told it had been twelve days.

  He still couldn’t fathom how they’d lost twelve days, but tried to take it in stride. After all, he and the others had not exactly been in a place of time; just the opposite. And of all people, shouldn’t he know that all things were possible?

  The pitcher dangling in his hand, he unsuccessfully skirted around Confetti, removed the chicken shoes, checked his socks, set the pitcher back into its place on the counter next to the fridge, and moved to check on everyone else’s progress when the doorbell rang.

  Someone was early.

  Of course, someone would have to be early, he thought. Someone’s always early. Why should today, when we asked people not to come early, wouldn’t they?

  He sighed as he made his way to the door, fully aware he had on no shoes, and peered out to see who it was.

  A familiar face from the past stared back at him, crinkled brown eyes full of curiosity and kindness.

  Officer Miyazaki?

  What was he doing here?

  The man was out of uniform, in jeans and a pale yellow tee-shirt that read “Swan’s Symphonic Pops” in large blue letters. A necklace bearing a crucifix and an old-fashioned pair of blue and white Converse sneakers– somehow looking brand new – finished out the outfit, from what Edward could see.

  Within moments, Edward had the chain unhooked and was greeting the officer, welcoming him inside.

  “So what brings you by,” he finally asked after several minutes of small talk, and the kids had come out of their rooms. He moved toward the kitchen and offered Officer Miyazaki some water, which he declined.