by Mark Lumby
“Because you told me not to. A secret, right? You said it was a secret.”
“You didn’t tell them?” I was curious by her apparent honesty, and my urge to trust her.
“No, Daniel. If..if you want to send me through the mirror, I’ll understand, but please reconsider. I don’t want to follow them. They’re not here, right? So thats a good thing for the both of us. Is it not?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I don’t need to go. You don’t need to be alone.”
I laughed at the suggestion, and wanted to strike out at her for making such nonsense. I was infuriated, after everything they had done. She may not have held the knife, she may not have watched and, if what she said is true, she may even have protested against such a violent and wicked act of mutilation. But it still remains; she was there in the same room. She was a participant.
I grabbed her by the elbow, dragged her to her feet and flung her down the loft hatch. Her head cracked open on the ladder. And it dawned upon me that this might be classed as child abuse. But these weren’t normal children under normal conditions; I doubt they were children at all.
I took my time to climb down the ladder. Isabelle was moaning on the floor, holding her head, and crying as though she was a real human child. I didn’t know what she was, but I doubted that it was human. I flipped her over and looked her in the eyes; I coarsely wiped away her tears with one hand whilst the other pulled the back of her hair. I was annoyed by her show of emotion and wanted to break her skull. How dare she act like a little girl.
When I stopped, I said, “Can you walk?” There was no sign of concern in my tone.
She became quieter, sniffed, wiped her eyes, and nodded. She was frightened and flinched when I removed my hand from her hair.
“Good,” I said coldly, pulling her to her feet. I allowed her to walk without my help, keeping a cautious eye on her as we descended the stairs. “We’re in the kitchen,” I told her firmly.
She stared open mouthed as she past the demolished walls and broken floor. She looked over her shoulder, and I think that now she realised how angry I was with them by the damage I had caused. I pushed her into the kitchen and she fell against the table. She noticed the mirror and then she looked at the towel soaked in blood, and at the knife.
“Pick it up,” I instructed her. She gave me a look of innocent horror. I took a chair from the table and sat down. “Come here.” She looked as if she didn’t understand my request, so I reached out and pulled her towards me. She yelped and began to whimper. “I told you to come to me!” I shouted.
“I’m sorry…I’m so sorry,” she pleaded. “I…I…”
“Shut up and listen.” I still had a tight hold of her hand, my nails digging into her skin and almost breaking the surface.
“But I don’t want you to be mad.” She seemed very wriggly as though she was ready to pee. “Please don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything you say. I’m here…I’m here.”
“You want to kill me, don’t you?” I pulled her closer so that she could smell my breath.
She shook her head and kept her lips highly shut, scared to say another word. My knuckles were white, and my nails were cutting into her skin, making her hand bleed. “Oh, no…you want me dead; I’m sure of that. You’re no different than the others.”
“But I am, Daniel,” she yelled.
I yanked her even closer. “Didn’t ask for a response, little girl,” I spat in her face.
“I’m sorry,” she cried.
“You do want to kill me, don’t you? I know you do, bitch. So why don’t you? Take the knife and cut my throat…it might not kill me, but it’ll buy you some time to hide. So how about it?” I push the knife across the table.
She shook her head and it was as though she really wanted to cry but was too frightened to do it.
I shouted, “Kill me! Take the knife I put it in my neck!” I grabbed the knife and pressed it against my jugular. “Do it!”
Isabelle took over with the knife and pressed the tip against my throat.
“Do it!”
She look me in the eye and said, “If you want me to kill you, then I’ll do it. I suspect you have your reasons. But, Daniel, please don’t make me do it. Because, in truth, I really don’t want to hurt you.”
“Why?” I blasted. “Why don’t you want to hurt me?” I grabbed her by the chin and shook her head. She still had the knife to my throat. “You want to kill me; isn’t that what you want!”
“NO!” she yelled, throwing the blade to the floor and storming out of the kitchen. “You don’t understand.”
My adrenaline was pumping, and I stared at the knife. She had the chance to use it, and yet she chose not to. Why? I picked up the instrument and stored it aside the mirror. I left the room.
It shouldn’t be a difficult task to find her. I had just about irradiated all the hiding places possible, so where else was there to hide? I went up the stairs and eventually discovered her in the bathroom hiding behind a shattered pine bath panel. She was curled up on her side; I could see the top of her hair. I sat on the toilet and waited for her. She knew I was here; she heard the toilet seat being dropped. It took a few minutes of silence and a few more to find confidence, but blue eyes leaked out between her fingers.
I said, “You really didn’t tell them, did you?”
At first she gave no reply as if by speaking, it would reveal her hiding place. “I told you so.”
“Why did you watch?”
“I had no choice. I couldn’t show them I cared,” she huffed. She sounded like a spoilt child that couldn’t get her own way. She shuffled out a little more. Her blue eyes that stared innocence.
I thought about what she had said. She wanted to say more but I held out my hand for her to stop. She wasn’t going to argue. “You cared?” I queried.
“Still do…don’t tell me to do that again. That wasn’t you. You scared me.”
“But you didn’t use the knife…I actually thought you would,” I shrugged and, struggling to comprehend, rested my face in my hands as though I would find the answer. “So…whats the deal here?”
“The deal?”
“Yes…where should we go from this?”
“Well…I don’t want to leave.”
“I can, you know that.”
“Don’t you believe what he told you?”
“Carl? That I was dead?”
“Yes…it is possible.”
“But he left this house, remember. I can’t see how he could be right. The way I see it, all I would need to do is find a replacement. But I’m not going to do that.”
“You’re not?”
“No…I’ll stay here…with you.”
“With me?” She shuffled a bit more into view from behind the broken bath panel.
“I figured I could learn from you. There are things I still don’t understand…the mirror, I mean. I guess you can teach me. We need to understand each other, too. It ends now, one way or another. But its down to you.”
She said, “I didn’t know you couldn’t die.”
“In this house…no. Somehow, it’s my protection. But you can’t die, either, right?”
She confirmed with a nod.
I reached out for her, and I suppose I moved too fast because she scurried away, scared. I got to my knees, huffing. “If this is going to work, you have to trust me.”
“It’s a trick!” Isabelle said, and her voice broke to a scream.
I laughed, and it felt good to show positive emotion, feelings that had been suppressed by the darkness I’d been shrouded by.
She calmed and she showed her blue eyes. “You won’t hurt me?”
“Trust me, Isabelle,” I assured her.
“I didn’t like that man back there; please say he won’t come back.”
“I was angry…confused…but he’s gone now.”
“For good? Promise?” she asked.
“For good.” I offered my hand again, and this time sh
e took it. I gently pulled her from behind the panel. I patted her down with a genuine smile and stared into her blue eyes. “But if this is going to work, we have to set some ground, make promises.”
“All I want is for you to look after me.” She took my hands.
I gave her a hug, tight, holding the back of her hair. “And no more hiding in the walls?”
“There are no walls,” she smirked.
“Okay…when we rebuild the. And you must use the doors.”
“No hiding at all?”
“Only the normal places, like where a normal child would hide.”
“Normal?” She gifted me with a smile.
***
I checked the road both ways, and for midday traffic it was reasonably clear. The last time I had crossed this road was the day of the dare…Russian roulette with the road. But this time, there was no risk. In the distance a blue ford pickup was approaching. Perhaps it was just an eerie coincidence, but as the driver passed it was as if he recognised me. I don’t know why, but I held up my hand to him, maybe to say, ‘Hey, I’m here…you see me now’. But it couldn’t have been the same person…the same truck. The driver stared with a cigarette hanging from his lip, and eventually waved back, but only to the risk that he could actually know me. I have to admit, though, that it did make me chuckle.
I crossed the road, turning around before I reached the other side, and gave Isabelle a wave. She had taken Moms old room and watched from her bedroom window, smiling, content in herself. The house had mended itself. Isabelle showed me how useful the mirror could prove, and although a part of me didn’t want to abuse the power this relic emitted, it was a convenience I was happy to use.
Life was good…strange…different, but good. I could have chosen to destroy the mirror, and end it all, but I had a thought that perhaps I couldn’t finish it. Even if I was set free, I would be living my days looking over my shoulder. I couldn’t do that. And besides, I had grown attached to Isabelle like a young Father, or an older brother. I don’t think I could send her to hell.
I suppose I had grown to love her. She was happy…and so was I.
***
“Look at him.” Isabelle looked though the window, grimacing as she shielded the sunlight away from her eyes. “Look how happy he is.” She looked down at her doll, playing with her hair. The shadow figure, with its longs claws, stood tall behind her. “He doesn’t know how close we are, Father. He keeps the mirror in the basement. He knows that I know, but he trusts me. And I keep on taking from him, although he doesn’t know it. He loves me, and he doesn’t know how much I have taken.” She looked up at the figure, satisfied with herself. “You’ll be free soon, I promise,” she said with a nod. “Loneliness made him vulnerable to me…love made him vulnerable to us.” Isabelle looked back out of the window. Daniel was disappearing down the road. He gave her a final wave. “He won’t be gone long. He only leaves for an hour. But at least we can talk.” She weaved the dolls hair between her small fingers, continuing to stare at Daniel. She loved him when he was here…loved him like a Father. She grinned and her eyes darkened. She ripped off the dolls head, dropped it to the floor and left the room. She opened the door to Daniels room, saw him lying on the bed. The shadow figure had followed her. She went up to him, removed the book of Moby Dick off his chest and placed it on the bedside drawers. She combed his hair, plucking the strands from the teeth of the comb before returning it to the drawers. She placed it perfectly parallel to Moby Dick. She then pulled out a sewing needle, which had been stored in the mattress from the previous day-and all the other days before that-and injected the point into Daniels thumb. She used her nimble fingers and squeezed; the droplets of blood collected were saved on a silver ladies purse mirror Daniel had given her. He had said it belonged to his Grandmother. She closed the case and returned the sewing needle for tomorrow night. She put his thumb into her mouth and relished the blood until it seemingly stopped pumping.
She lowered herself to Daniels ear and caressed the words, “I have most of you, Daniel. And in time…I will have you all.”
Isabelle took her purse mirror down the stairs and into the basement. She opened the cupboard where Daniel had put the mirror, and pulled out the parcel, laying it flat on the ground. She unfolded the cloth until she recognised the black glass. She looked into the blackness hoping to see something, but saw nothing. Not even her own reflection. She opened the purse mirror and smeared her thumb through Daniels warm blood, drawing a five pointed star across the face of the relic.
The diagram glowed into fire. The blood was consumed, burning into black smoke and a little more of Daniel had gone.
THE END
