Mirror, Mirror

by Robb, J. D.

  I lean a hip against the stove and laugh, my arms crossed over my chest, and her head shoots up. She whirls to face me and I straighten, then freeze, stock-still.

  “Cassandra.” Her name flies off my lips like a wind.

  Her eyes seem to be looking right at me. Then she’s looking right through me. And then she walks toward me.

  I remain motionless. I want to touch her. I’m desperate to touch her. If I were alive I’d reach out and cup that dewy soft cheek, I’d move the curled tendril of hair behind her ear, and I’d lower my mouth to hers, to those tender lips . . .

  And then she’s walking through me. I moan. She gasps. For a long moment I feel as if I’ve been suffused with sunshine—the feeling you get when you lie on a beach with the sun beating hard into your body, when your insides stretch luxuriously in the heat and you feel like a cat on a windowsill.

  I can’t believe I’m feeling this. It’s heady, enveloping, and tactile in a way I haven’t felt since I was alive.

  She pulls her arms around herself and spins out of my sphere.

  “Is somebody there?” she whispers. Her eyes bounce off the walls and appliances like pinballs.

  She can’t see me.

  I swear in frustration and run a hand through my hair.

  She jumps again.

  “Cassandra!” I say, too loud, but she doesn’t react. “Cassandra,” I whisper, but the thread seems to have been cut. She looks again around the room, shakes her head as if ridding it of foolishness, and turns for the stairs.

  I am suddenly furious. The unfairness, the burden, the silence of the last twenty years threaten to split open my illusory head. I yell Asta’s name—I even call her Astrid—but nothing happens. Nothing but more silence. More isolation. More loneliness.

  I marshal my masculinity and decide to break something. I look around the room, and it’s all her stuff. I don’t want to break her stuff.

  So instead I follow her up the stairs like the starved, abandoned dog that I am.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Cassandra stretched languidly in her bed, her eyes opening to the new day, and immediately remembered the strange flashes of light she’d seen last month in the kitchen. She’d thought about the experience every day since it had happened, and she walked the rooms and hallways of the house with her eyes wide and the hairs on the back of her neck standing up, waiting for something similar to happen again. But nothing did.

  It had first been a mere flash. Then several flashes of shimmering light appeared in the kitchen as she was cleaning up after the move. For a split second she’d thought she’d seen a person leaning against the stove, but that must have been something she’d conjured from the corner of her eye.

  Then an even stranger thing had happened. When she’d walked in the direction of the flash, she reached a spot—around where her imaginary intruder had been standing—where she felt as if she’d walked through a bubble of frigidly cold air. It wasn’t a draft. Nothing was blowing. It was more of a thick, icy area that chilled her straight through, then released her back into the warmth of the house after a step or two.

  She hadn’t told anybody about it, but she’d dwelled on it constantly, and every time she turned on the stove, she waved a hand around the area where she’d felt it, or stepped tentatively into it, as if expecting to feel the chill again. Only to feel nothing. Just the same air as everywhere else in the room.

  She got up out of bed, pushed her feet into her slippers, and grabbed her robe off the back of the door. She was waiting to get her first heating bill before turning the thermostat up higher, but it was getting harder to get out of bed in the mornings as the October temperatures dropped at night.

  She headed for the kitchen, put the kettle on to boil, and sat down at the table with her decorating magazines. They were full of so many gorgeous rooms and color schemes she knew she’d never be able to decide what to do with the place. She’d probably end up with a mishmash of wildly divergent styles that startled people as they moved from one room to the next.

  Then again, she told herself for the umpteenth time, it was her house and she could do whatever she wanted to it. Her mother, Stephen, even Pamela, could hang if they didn’t like it.

  The kettle whistled and she rose to pour boiling water over her tea bag. As the steam billowed in the chilly room, she extended her hand out to that once-icy area again. Nothing.

  She took her tea and pushed through the swinging door into the dining room. As she passed her “new” farmhouse table—a gorgeous heavy country table made from old barn wood polished to a high sheen—she ran her fingers along the varnished top and smiled. Of all the things she’d bought to furnish the house, the table was her favorite. Not just because it was beautiful and unique and unusual, but because everyone had told her not to buy it, that it wouldn’t work in the room. But here it was, and it was perfect. Even Stephen admitted it.

  She passed the table to sit in the front room on the sofa and peruse her magazine. But she gazed back into the dining room from her perch and smiled again. She’d have to have a dinner party soon. She wanted to see her table piled with steaming dishes of savory food and surrounded by her closest friends.

  She sighed, cupping her hands around her mug, and turned her gaze to the fireplace, magazine open facedown on her lap.

  She should get some of those fake logs, she thought, so she could have an easy fire when she got up in the morning. She wanted to see those tiles glowing in the light from the flames. After a second she noticed that the rosette behind which she’d found the Night Prince had moved again.

  Setting her tea and magazine on the coffee table, she rose and moved to the mantel. She pushed the rosette back into place, then, on second thought, pushed it far to the right and poked a finger inside again.

  Her mouth dropped open and she inhaled sharply as she felt something. Another piece of paper. Had she missed it the first time? Another page from the book perhaps?

  As she dragged the paper out she could tell it was of a different weight than the page from the book, but nothing could have prepared her for what she saw when she unfurled it.

  The Night Prince, drawn in some kind of crayon, looked out at her once again, but next to him was a figure—a woman—and there was no mistaking that it was her.

  Cassandra yanked her hands back as if the picture were poisoned, then gripped them together in front of her as the paper rerolled itself. A chill shot up her spine and her heartbeat accelerated in her chest. She raised her head, looking around as if someone might be watching.

  The last picture was old, brittle, and dusty. It had obviously been there for years, she would swear it. But this one was new. This one showed her in the same clothes she’d worn on moving day. Standing next to the Night Prince.

  She gingerly unrolled the picture again and peered at it. So simple, yet so provocative.

  Who on earth could have done this? Pamela? She couldn’t draw at all, though she would probably remember Cassandra’s obsession with the Night Prince. Stephen? He wasn’t this creative, nor would he have reason to draw her with a character she’d once fancied herself in love with.

  It crossed her mind that this could be the work of some kind of stalker. But how would a stalker know about the picture? Or The Night Prince? No, this had to be from somebody who knew her.

  She had told her mother. Would her mother do something like this, in some misguided attempt to scare Cassandra into moving? She hadn’t been thrilled at Cassandra’s choice of houses, but then she was never thrilled with anything Cassandra did and she’d never resorted to this kind of tactic. No, it would be completely uncharacteristic.

  Not to mention that drawing her with the Night Prince was more likely to make her stay than anything else. It almost felt like a gift from the house. A welcome.

  She smiled, and looked around the room. “Are you here?” she asked aloud, as if her prince might magically appear if she just believed in him enough.

  Then she blushed at her silliness and
rerolled the picture. She gently inserted it back into the hole and straightened the rosette into place. Taking a step back, she gazed at the mantel. She’d leave it there. A secret between herself, the house, and the Night Prince.

  “Winning the lottery is enough luck for any lifetime,” she said decisively. “Expecting to find a real prince is asking too much.”

  After a second she moved the rosette off center again, to remind herself how lucky she was to have found even this Night Prince here, in her new home.

  I’M GETTING WORRIED. I SEEM TO BE MISSING MORE AND more time. I don’t know where I go or what I do, but when I reappear in my house I find it completely furnished and looking thoroughly lived in. If this woman is supposed to be “important” to me, I need to know how, and the only way to find out is to be here. So why am I not?

  I don’t know. And Asta is no help.

  But now that I’m here I’m going to do everything I can to stay and try to make contact.

  It’s the middle of the night and I’ve got an idea. I’ve been sitting by the bed, watching her sleep. Watching the way her eyes flicker with some dream, her dark lashes twitching against her skin. I imagine running a finger along those lashes and know they will feel soft as pussy willows.

  Her hair is loose on the pillow, and for as long as I’ve been a phantom my sense of touch was the least missed of sensations until now. I want to feel that glossy thickness in my palms, clutch the silken strands in my fingers, and pull her close. Put my lips on hers, touch her tongue with mine.

  And I want to feel her hands on me. Feel her skin on mine. Body to body, flesh to flesh. But most of all I want her eyes, those fathomless dark eyes, to rest upon me, drink me in, see me.

  I am here! I want to shout. Feel me here.

  No, I think. Asta was wrong. I don’t need to be seen—not on TV and not here. Most of all I want her to hear me. Hear my voice. Hear my thoughts. My questions. The realization staggers me. It might be the most selfish thing I’ve ever wished, but I want this girl to know me. And I want to know her.

  Which is a helluva big surprise to me, guy voted most likely to dump you for no discernible reason by all of my ex-girlfriends. (I’m not kidding. This actually happened at my memorial service.)

  It’s not an option anymore, however. I’ve missed my chance to be heard, understood, loved. All I can do now is watch. And yearn.

  I bend over Cassandra, with my insubstantial body, and I draw myself close. With nothing but the most softhearted feeling, I lean in to kiss her, but just before my lips meet hers, her eyes open.

  I freeze, stunned, because this time I know with everything I am that she’s looking at me, seeing me.

  “It’s you,” she says, her voice soft and languid.

  Stunned, I say back, “It’s me.”

  The heart I recently remembered hammers in my spectral chest. It’s unclear if she heard me, but I know she sees me.

  Her lips curve and her eyelids drop again. “The man who disappeared.”

  “IT’S THE STRANGEST THING,” CASSANDRA TOLD PAMELA on the phone, as she pushed pieces of cantaloupe around in her bowl with a fork. “I found that picture, and then I dreamed of that guy, the one who used to live here. And it was so real.”

  “What was the dream?”

  “It was simple, really, he just leaned over me, and for a moment I thought he would kiss me. And when I opened my eyes I knew exactly who he was.”

  “Where were you, in the dream? Was something else going on? Like, were there other people around or were you someplace from your childhood?”

  Pamela loved analyzing dreams. And because Cassandra was so close to her she usually did a pretty good job of unraveling her subconscious.

  “That was the strangest part, that’s what was so real. I was here, in my bed. And it was like he woke me up, his breath on my cheek. I felt as if I knew him, like it was a memory of somebody I’ve loved forever. But then I opened my eyes from the dream, and I saw him still, and I knew this would be the first kiss he’d ever given me. Unfortunately I really woke up before he could.”

  She shivered, remembering it. The thing she’d felt most strongly when she opened her eyes was relief. As if she’d been waiting for him, and worried, and now she knew he was okay.

  She still felt that way.

  The Night Prince was here waiting for her, just as, on some level, she’d always believed he would be. But she couldn’t tell Pamela that, could she? Her sister would think she’d cracked.

  “Sometimes those dreams that feel so real happen because you’ve been sleeping with your eyes open. So you’re incorporating the actual room around you with the fantasy stuff your head’s making up. I think this is a coming-home dream. You’re feeling like you made the right decision about the house.”

  Cassandra laughed. “He’s a welcome-home gift from the house?”

  She got up from the table, put her bowl in the sink, and wandered through the dining room into the front parlor. She loved that she had a house with a “parlor.”

  “Exactly!” Pamela laughed. “Listen, I have to go. I’ve got a meeting and I’m already late, but let me know if you want me to stop by tonight and help with the unpacking.”

  “Oh no.” Cassandra waved a hand, casting a smile around the room. “I’ll be fine. I’m enjoying doing it myself.”

  Her eye caught on the rosette by the fireplace. It was still off center.

  “Okay, then. I’ll talk to you later!” Pamela hung up and Cassandra let her arm drop, turning the phone off with her thumb as she approached the fireplace.

  Every time she thought about this secret cubbyhole, the warmer it made her feel. It was as if the Night Prince really was trying to reach her.

  She pushed the rosette back into place. It slid easily. She didn’t need the reminder anymore, and she liked knowing no one else would find the hiding place. She’d leave the picture where it was, a secret between herself and the Night Prince, her dream prince.

  Smiling, she went back to the kitchen to clean up her dishes.

  DAMMIT! ASTA, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?

  Cassandra hasn’t taken my picture out. Hasn’t she looked in the hiding place?

  I move the rosette again. Perhaps she’ll look next time, but I have the unnerving feeling that I don’t have much time left. I don’t have a body, I technically don’t have a brain, but I do have intuitions and they are lit up and flashing like the dashboard on a nosediving airplane right now.

  Because apparently days have passed. Maybe more. Weeks? The place is furnished, put together. She’s bought new things. There are pictures on the walls, knickknacks on the tables, a small bit of clutter from everyday living.

  Where have I been?

  Asta! This isn’t fair. Shit, I know you don’t care about fair. But it isn’t right. I have to know the rules here. Am I stuck here forever? Hell, I’m not even a ghost. Nobody sees me, I can’t haunt anyone. Or at least I haven’t been able to in the past. Then again, I’ve never felt this way about anyone who’s been in the house before . . .

  Asta! This girl is important, you said it yourself, and I can feel it. But why? How? What the hell am I supposed to do?

  Suddenly a wind blows up, swirling around the house. Trees bend and sway and I feel it buffeting against my nonexistent body. My hair seems to be moving. I’m cold. I’m crushed by a tremendous feeling of gravity, something pressing down from overhead. I can’t breathe—but I don’t breathe, so what is this?

  Then I remember. It comes back like an electric shock, the night that this all began, out on the patio, my last night alive—

  Suddenly, here is Deirdra.

  She stands before me in the front room wearing spiked heels and tight white jeans, a tiny red top showing her midriff, her curly hair wild around her head.

  I remember how I once found her sexy. Now she’s as sexy as an asp with a fang in my femoral artery.

  Michael Prince, how lovely to see you again.

  She purrs in a way that turns th
e meaning of every word to its opposite.

  “Deirdra,” I say, and my voice comes out like peanut butter, blobby and thick with disuse.

  God’s gift to women.

  She strolls toward me, one long fingernail dragging along my cheek. Oddly, I feel this. Pain. It’s not a feeling I’ve missed, but any feeling is amazing.

  Handsome, smart, successful, a prince among men! Everything a woman could ever want.

  This is not flattery.

  How the fuck have you been?

  She asks this with a curl of her lip, then she slaps me across the face.

  You look like shit.

  I take a moment to gather myself, then say, “Well, I’ve been dead twenty years. It’s not a good look for me.”

  It doesn’t feel like twenty years, though. It feels like yesterday that she blew into my life and destroyed all that I was.

  She sneers.

  I’ll say. Look at you, in your twenty-year-old suit and your ridiculous hairstyle. Nobody’d want you now, I can tell you. You have passed your expiration date. You’re stale. Your stock has tanked. You are not even yesterday’s news anymore, Mike. You’re a loooooser.

  She forms her fingers into an L and puts it to her forehead.

  In all the years I’ve been gone I haven’t felt the rage I do now.

  “That’s right, Deirdra. I’ll give you that. I am a loser. I was a loser when you met me and I haven’t changed since. You spotted it and you could not have been more right. But you know what? I never did an intentionally mean thing to anybody in my life. I never once did something I knew would hurt someone, or took revenge on anyone for anything. And believe me, there were times I wanted to.”

  Well, aren’t you just a perfect fucking saint.

  Her eyes glitter like road ice in the glare of an oncoming semi.

  Maybe that was because everybody fawned over you, flattered you, told you that you were actually going somewhere—on television!