by Bryan Davis
“Dad told me to look at it if I get in trouble.” I angled the glass until the bearded man on the pylon appeared in the reflection. With the bridge beginning to close, he lowered his gun and jogged onto the descending metal ramp.
From somewhere behind me, music played over a raspy PA system. I swiveled toward the sound. A tourist boat headed our way. A couple of passengers leaned close to the edge taking pictures with phone cameras, apparently oblivious to the danger.
Kicking to prop up my shivering body, I refocused on the mirror. In the reflection, the man aimed his gun once again. I cringed, expecting to get shot. Sirens blared in the distance. But would the police arrive in time to save us?
A bullet ripped through the frame, shattering it. I juggled the mirror until my hands clutched the bare glass’s edges, rough but not sharp. Resisting the urge to glance at the bridge, I pulled the mirror closer and focused. In the reflected image, the police arrived and nabbed the gunman.
Another bullet zinged into the river inches away. “How can he still be shooting? The police caught the guy.”
“No, they haven’t.” Clara grabbed my elbow and helped me stay afloat.
Spitting oily water as the waves slapped against my lips, I changed the mirror’s angle slightly. The bridge had closed, and cars were crossing again.
Clara released me. “It’s safe now.”
I looked up at the bridge. Two policemen cuffed the gunman as the span lowered to a close. Hadn’t that already happened?
A flotation ring splashed at my side. Another bumped Clara’s shoulder. Lifelines ran from the rings to the tourist boat. While more passengers looked on, two men held the ropes and yelled something that the wind carried away.
I grabbed my ring and made sure Clara had a good hold on hers. Still clinging to the mirror, I rode the swift tugs toward the boat. Whatever this Quattro viewer was, it held a lot more mysteries than met the eye.
CHAPTER FOUR
I pulled a blanket around myself and tucked it in at the sides. The woolen material felt good — snug, cozy, warm. Our rental Jeep’s vent blew a jet of heated air across my face, adding to the pleasure. Wearing a pair of mid-top boots borrowed from the tour boat’s captain, an oversized Chicago Bulls sweatshirt one of the tourists gave me, and jeans, gym socks, and underwear fished out of a police charity bin, comfort surrounded me. Considering the calamities that had crashed down just hours earlier, everything felt surreal and strange.
The ghastly image of my parents’ lifeless forms pulsed in my brain. After our rescue, we learned that the police had found no bodies in the performance hall’s props room, meaning that Mictar had them. Why would that creep want them anyway? What else could he do to my parents that Dr. Simon hadn’t already done?
The painful thoughts sizzled like electric shockwaves. I had to concentrate on something else or I’d lose control. Leaning my head back, I cast a glance at Clara as she drove with a newly purchased mobile phone on her lap. Dressed in a purple jumper and matching shirt from the charity bin, she looked serene as she stared out the windshield, far more peaceful than most people would be after a near-death encounter. In spite of spending the night on a bench in the police station, she seemed wide awake.
Her outfit raised reminders of a Voodoo priestess I had once seen as I passed by an alley in Port-au-Prince. She fixed her dark eyes on me and chanted mysterious Creole verses into the midst of a boiling cauldron. Her brew suddenly spewed a plume of hot gasses and smoke. When it cleared, she was gone.
I shuddered. Too many mysterious things had happened in my life, and the mirror’s strange behavior seemed to top them all.
After a few quiet moments, Clara spoke up. “Do you know what a safe house is?”
I gazed out the side window, but with dawn just beginning to break, it was too dark to see much, only the silhouette of the retreating Chicago skyline framed by a rising orange glow. “A place where someone hides, like in a witness-protection program.”
“Right. I am taking you to a safe house your father prepared for you quite some time ago. I don’t know what he learned about Mictar and Dr. Simon, but it’s obvious it led to his and your mother’s deaths, and you’re the next target.”
“But I don’t know anything. Dad never told me much about his assignments.”
“He kept them to himself to protect you, but the murderers don’t seem to care about that.” Clara pushed a button, turning off the Jeep’s global positioning system. “I’ll wipe the memory later. I don’t want to leave any clues that might give away our destination.”
Her last word throbbed. Destination. It sounded final, like perdition, a place to avoid at all costs. Yet, how bad could the safe house be? An old spinster’s log cabin, squirreled away in a remote forest? Life could be worse than playing Scrabble all day while listening to her stories of years gone by. But not much worse.
“I’ll have to leave you there,” Clara continued, “so I can attend to some important issues.”
“Can’t I go with you? Nobody will be tailing you, will they?”
“No use taking any chances. Your father left me careful instructions in case something like this happened, and it’s my duty to follow his directives to the letter. After we make one stop on the way, I’ll get you settled at the house. But then I have to leave immediately to meet with your father’s lawyer to receive your parents’ estate on your behalf. After that, I’ll return with some clothes for you and a replacement violin.”
“So I’ll be alone in the safe house?”
“No, no. Tony Clark, a man your father and I knew years ago, owns the house. He’ll be there.”
“Tony Clark?” I probed my memory for the name but found only vague echoes. “Dad might’ve mentioned him. I’m not sure.”
“Well, your father must have talked with him recently to set up the safe house option. Everything will be fine.”
“I hope you’re right.” As new warmth flowed into my cheeks, I pulled the blanket lower and dipped my chin close to my chest. Every moment brought new pain. Mom and Dad were dead, and now I had to hole up in a stranger’s house. Not only that, my only real friend in the world was going to take off and leave me alone there. Could it possibly get any worse?
Clara reached over and rubbed my shoulder. “Going to the safe house is what your father wanted. You’ve always trusted him, haven’t you?”
I raised my chin enough to nod. I had always trusted Dad, but he wasn’t around anymore to make sure his promises were being kept.
She caressed the back of my head. “Nathan, I’m so sorry. There are a million things to do, and if I don’t concentrate on my duties, I’ll break down and cry.”
A wave of sorrow swept in, sending a hot flash through my body. “I know what you mean.”
“I’ll get everything you need to make you comfortable in your new home. Anything to help you feel better.”
I squeezed my eyelids shut and whispered, “I don’t want to feel better.” Tears begged to escape. A new shaking sensation crawled through my gut, more like a cathartic convulsion than a shiver. Thoughts of Mom — her gentle touch, her kind words, her matchless talent — flashed to mind. Then memories of Dad — his strong embraces and protective hands — seemed so real, almost as if he were touching my shoulder the way he always did when he wanted to share a philosophical thought.
I trembled. The pain was too much … just too much. Finally, I wept. My head bobbed, and my nose began running. As Clara’s fingers massaged my scalp, I swallowed hard. I couldn’t let the pain boil over like that. Otherwise, I would soon be blubbering like a baby.
After a few seconds, I sniffed and looked at her through a blur of tears, trying to keep my voice steady. “I’ll do whatever Dad said, but don’t bother getting a violin. I’m quitting.”
Clara’s expression hardened for a moment, then softened again. “You shouldn’t make promises you’ll be sorry for later.”
“I won’t be sorry later.”
“If you say so.” She flippe
d on the Jeep’s stereo. Violin music streamed through the speakers — Vivaldi. At other times the sounds would have made me feel better. Now? Not likely.
I sniffed again and wiped my eyes with the blanket. I didn’t want to be comforted. I just wanted to go off and wander in the woods, feel sorry for myself for a while. I deserved it, didn’t I? I had lost everything. It was time to mope and be miserable.
But Vivaldi had other ideas. As we drove on and on, the sweet violins bathed me in soothing majesty, stroking my aching heart with the very same four seasons of life I had recently celebrated with my own violin.
After a Beethoven sonata, a Mozart symphony, and dozens of miles of dazzling cornfields waving their autumn-browned stalks in the brightening sunlight, I slipped off my shoes and pulled my feet up under my body.
I gazed at Clara, blinking through diminishing tears. “Do you think there’s any way their bodies were part of an elaborate hoax?”
Clara’s lips wrinkled. “No, dear. You saw them yourself. That was no illusion. No trick. Feel free to deny it if it’s part of your grieving process, but eventually you’ll have to come to grips with reality.”
I scowled. “Reality stinks.”
“I can’t argue with that. At least not right now.” Clara heaved a loud sigh. “Sleep, Nathan. You got what? Two hours last night? Escape from reality for a while.”
“Probably a good idea.” I settled back and closed my eyes. As the music played on, sleep arrived quickly, as did dreams of the morbid scene back at the props room. Mictar’s ghostly specter lurked, a stalking shadow with deadly hands ready to suck the life out of me. What kind of creature was he? He seemed half human and half … something else.
Through a series of dream sequences, I battled Mictar with a knife, an axe, and a chainsaw, always losing my eyes to his killing hands and starting over. The sequences felt like a morbid video game that allowed no possible way to win.
After about the seventh round, Clara’s voice swept the phantoms away.
“Wake up, Nathan. We’re here.”
I rubbed my eyes and read the clock on the dashboard — 11:20. Still morning.
Outside, rays of sunlight streaked through puffy clouds, highlighting a tall Ferris wheel and at least a half-dozen spires acting as center supports for striped tents of various sizes and colors. I stretched my arms and spoke through a wide yawn. “Where are we? Some kind of carnival?”
“A county fair in central Iowa. This is the stop I told you about.” Clara parked in front of a chain-link gate near a square sign that said, Hand Stamp Required for Re-entry.
I scanned the grounds. Only a few people strolled along the flat grass, most lugging tools, ladders, or buckets. One high-school-aged girl clad in denim overalls and a gray T-shirt carried a claw hammer. As she passed close to the gate, she tossed us a glance and slowed her pace.
“Looks like it’s closed,” I said.
“All the better.” Clara opened her door and stepped out. “Let’s go.”
When I joined her at the fair entrance, Clara flipped up the gate’s latch and pushed it open. “Excuse me, young lady,” she said to the girl. “Where may I find the house of mirrors?”
The dirty-faced blonde stopped and set the hammer against her hip, smacking her gum as she cocked her head. “We open at one.”
Clara’s voice altered to a formal, firm tone. “Had I asked for your hours of operation, my dear, that would have been an appropriate answer. Shall I repeat my question?”
“I heard you, Granny.” The girl flicked her head back. “That way. Behind the merry-go-round. But the mirrors won’t help you look any younger.”
Clara gave her an icy glare. “Thank you.” She stalked toward the tented attractions, muttering, “Impertinent, inconsiderate. If I were her mother, I’d …” Her words trailed off into grumbling.
I kept pace. That girl got off easy. One of Clara’s tongue lashings could sting for hours.
As we passed the carousel, the operator turned on the motor, apparently testing the ride. The brightly painted horses sprang to life and rode up and down their poles as if dancing to the merry-go-round’s lively tune, an accordion rendition of “Hello, Dolly!” that blared far and wide.
Just ahead, a sign on a blue-and-white striped tent said, House of Mirrors. Clara stopped in front of it, unfolded a sheet of paper, and handed it to me, raising her voice to compete with the music. “Here are your father’s instructions. I already went over them.”
I read the handwritten text silently.
Go alone to the center of the house of mirrors and find the only mirror that doesn’t distort your image. Make sure the strobe lights are on, then stare at your reflection. Soon you will see a container. Guide your image so that it picks up the container. Look straight ahead and exit the hall. The container will be in your grasp.
“Strange.” I refolded the note. “Sounds like some sort of magic trick.”
“That’s my guess. An illusion, I suppose.” Clara nodded toward the tent. “No sense dawdling. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
“What are you going to do?”
She glanced around at the various tents. “I saw a sign that says, ‘Watch a teenager make his own bed.’ That’s something I just have to see.”
I read the one sign in view — See Dog Boy, the Only Living Canine Kid. “It doesn’t say anything about making a bed.”
“Your sense of humor must be on life support.” She nudged my ribs. “Better get going before Hammer Girl comes around with a security guard.”
I pulled open a flap and ducked into the tent. Sunshine filtered through the canopy, giving me enough light to see. After passing through an unattended turnstile, I entered a wide hallway lined with mirrors on both sides and old-fashioned lanterns that colored the reflections with an eerie yellow glow. The first mirror widened my middle into a football shape. Another stretched me vertically into a wavy ribbon. A third shortened my body into the shape of a mushroom.
After checking the final mirror at the end of the hall, I entered a large, circular room. A pole at the center reached to the apex of the tent, supporting the canvas. At floor level, connected partitions encircled the chamber, hinged between each fabric-covered section. A mirror hung on each partition, some circular, some square, and some full-length vertical rectangles.
I walked around the room, glancing at the reflections, each one warped in some fashion. As I passed one of the full-length mirrors, a crouching girl appeared, dressed in red. The moment I stopped to get a closer look, she vanished. Now everything in the reflection seemed normal, the central pole behind me, the other mirrors all around, and my own image. This had to be the mirror Dad mentioned in his note, but where could that girl have come from, and where did she go?
Standing motionless, I concentrated on every input. The carousel’s accordion theme drifted in along with the odor of burning oil. In the mirror, nothing else unusual appeared, but the dimness under the canopy made it hard to tell for sure. Now to find the strobe lights.
I spotted a switch near the entry corridor, hustled over, and flipped it up. A barrage of lights beamed down from a ring of high-powered bulbs at the midsection of the center pole. Flashing every fraction of a second, they transformed the chamber into a surreal digital video of the room with half the frames removed.
I walked back to the normal mirror. Everything seemed jerky, out-of-sync, hypnotic. The other mirrors took on a more dazzling aspect. The warped shapes looked like grotesque monsters, mutant images of myself on an alien planet. The effect was definitely cool.
As I stood several paces away from the undistorted mirror, I stared at the ground within the reflection’s image. How could something show up that wasn’t really there? That would be quite a masterful illusion.
The accordion music played on. The lights continued to flash, making me feel like I was blinking my eyes rapidly. A streak of scarlet zipped by in the mirror. Something appeared in front of my reflected image’s feet but not in front of my re
al ones — a knee-high trunk, like a treasure chest from a pirate movie.
Keeping my focus on the mirror, I leaned over and guided my reflection’s hands around each side of the trunk and pushed my fingers under it. As I straightened, my reflection lifted the trunk. With lights blinking at a mind-numbing rate, the scene felt like a nightmare — disjointed and unearthly.
Something weighed down my hands, but the flashing lights kept me from focusing on it. As soon as I walked into the entry hall, I blinked away a mass of pulsing spots. The trunk was in my grasp, weathered and brown with a fine wood grain that bore little if any varnish. It seemed too light to be holding anything inside. But if it was empty, why would Dad want me to get it?
I pushed the tent flap to the side and walked out, my vision still flashing.
“I see you got it,” Clara said as she joined me from the side. “Let’s get going. I ran into Hammer Girl again. She took off to call security.”
I hustled behind her, trying to watch where I was going while checking out the trunk. It had no latches or lock, not even hinges or a lid. Never mind the impossible way I found the trunk; how was I going to get it open?
We hurried back to the Jeep and drove on. I told Clara about the strange mirror, the lights, and the girl dressed in red. Although we came up with several theories about how the illusion worked, we failed to figure out why Dad used such an odd way to deliver a trunk. For now, it would just have to stay a mystery, as would the scarlet-clothed girl.
CHAPTER FIVE
Clara turned onto a narrow road and eased the car between rows of browning cornstalks, short enough to allow a view beyond them. About a hundred yards away, a mansion sat in the midst of several majestic shade trees surrounded by at least a thousand acres of rolling cornfields.
“What town are we in?” I asked.
“No town, really. We’re between Iowa City and Des Moines, closer to Newton, Iowa, than anywhere else.”
I glanced again at the farm-like surroundings. “I guess Mictar won’t track us here. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
