Clawful Reflections

by Harper Lin

  “What do they want? Why are they in these mirrors?”

  The cats were pacing and hissing at their own mirrors as the things tried to reach for them but were stopped by the piles of purifying salt.

  Treacle was hunched and fluffed to three times his size. Marshmallow was a huge cat to begin with. On the attack, he looked like a saber-tooth tiger. And I couldn’t have been prouder of Peanut Butter, who was scratching and clawing at the greedy hands. But I was afraid he was getting too close.

  “Peanut Butter! Back up!” I shouted just as one of those sneaky arms grabbed hold of his front paw. “NO!”

  “Cath, don’t let go of your mirror!” I heard my aunt cry, but the words didn’t compute. I couldn’t let those things get Peanut Butter.

  I took three long strides across the floor, scooped him around the middle, and pulled. He bit and scratched, his tail whipping in all directions, before I dug my own fingers into the bluish-gray flesh of the creature on the other side of the mirror.

  “Don’t look in the mirror!” Aunt Astrid screamed.

  I didn’t. I didn’t want to see what was in there. Finally, the arm snapped back, and Peanut Butter and I toppled backward. He jumped up and positioned himself back in front of his mirror, keeping the monsters that were now angrier than ever at bay.

  When I turned to my big mirror, I was horrified to see something was crawling out of it.

  As if the arms weren’t gross enough, something seemed to be elongating itself as it writhed and pulled itself out of the mirror. I was only seeing it out of my peripheral vision. So, what it really looked like, I couldn’t say. But from where I was standing, it was like a worm with arms and a human-shaped head, and I think it had eyes because I was pretty sure I felt them staring at me.

  I jumped up, thankful for Aunt Astrid’s purifying salt that kept the monster from coming all the way out, and took hold of the large mirror from the right side, trying to dislodge it from where it was positioned.

  No matter how hard I pushed, my mirror seemed stuck, like a ripple of carpet or something was getting in the way. When I looked down, there were roots growing out of the bottom. They were pushing themselves into the hard wood of the floor.

  “What’s that?” I screamed.

  “Don’t look in the mirror, Cath! Just push!” Aunt Astrid yelled.

  I gritted my teeth, took a deep breath, and with a horrible, frustrated grunt, I pushed as hard as I could. Finally, something gave. I felt the roots crack and snap. The hand that had been latched onto my leg recoiled back inside the mirror, and I faced the thing to the wall.

  Before I could relax, I hurried to Aunt Astrid’s side and helped her turn her mirror around. The three remaining were smaller. Two hung on the wall. Quickly, we flipped them around as the hands and arms tried to swipe at us, pulling us toward our own reflections. The last one, the one on the floor where Peanut Butter stood, growling and hissing, I kicked over with my foot and was sure I heard it crack.

  Finally, all the mirrors were tended to. My aunt and I both collapsed on the sofa, sweating and panting.

  “What were those things in there?” I asked. “Why didn’t you warn me that there were going to be skeletal hands of death attached to wormy bodies of ickiness reaching out to try and stop us?”

  “Because.” My aunt smoothed her hair away from her face. “Those were the easy ones. I was just glad we hadn’t been too late and ran into…the big one.”

  “The big one? What is that?”

  “The Medusa Praesentia.” My aunt put her hand to her chest.

  “I’m sorry. Did you just say Medusa? Like the Medusa that looks at you and turns you to stone she’s so ugly?”

  My aunt nodded her head. “It’s nice you learned something about Greek mythology at school.”

  “Did we stop it?” I asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Then I don’t need to know anything more about the Medusa Praesentia. That can go on Cath’s list of things I don’t need to know, like algebra, basket weaving, and the life cycle of a fruit fly.”

  We sat in quiet for a few minutes before my aunt scared me with her next sentence.

  “Okay. Are you ready to do the same thing upstairs?”

  What could I say? Even if I said no, I was going to have to help. But when we got upstairs, Aunt Astrid stopped in her tracks.

  “It’s not up here,” she said. She went along every mirror in the hallway, in the bedrooms, in the bathrooms. “It’s not up here. If they had wanted the Medusa Praesentia to manifest, they’d have had to have all the mirrors working. They don’t even have them laid out correctly up here.”

  “I’m lost,” I said as the cats curled and wove back and forth along our feet.

  “Those mirrors downstairs were in a specific pattern. Anyone who comes across mirrors in that pattern will get sucked in. The things they’ll see, well, no need to go into all that. But every mirror in the house, and the more the better, has to be in a certain position. These are all just hung around willy-nilly. If the Lourdeses were dabbling with the Medusa Praesentia, they really did it wrong.”

  I snapped my fingers and rolled my eyes. “Wait! That’s what the cats said!”

  Now it was Aunt Astrid’s turn to look at me like I was screwy.

  “When I went to check on the cats, they told me that the Lourdeses had someone come in and repaint their house and rearrange all the furniture. I’m thinking they had the place redecorated so when they came home, it would be a nice surprise.”

  “Oh my,” Aunt Astrid huffed. “If we’ve got some sinister interior decorators looking to work their black magic on unsuspecting homeowners one interior design at a time, well, that just boils my water.”

  “Careful, Aunt Astrid. Young cats are in the room.”

  “How do we know who did this?” my aunt huffed with her hands on her hips.

  “I’ve got a hunch.” I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the business card I’d swiped from Mrs. Kitt’s fridge. “It could be the wrong folks. But Mrs. Kitt had an appointment with them before she…you know…petrified. I saw it scheduled on her calendar. Maybe they are a totally different redecorating service, or maybe they’d know who did the Lourdeses’ place. I think it’s worth a shot.”

  Before Aunt Astrid and I left the babe couple’s house, we had one last look around. We performed a quick cleaning spell, spreading a little sage smoke and some random sprinklings of salt around. The place felt light and airy when we left.

  “Their place is completely devoid of anything occult or traditionally religious or even supernatural,” Aunt Astrid said as she looked at their wedding picture and smiled. “Not even incense or one of those candles with the saints on them. That’s weird.”

  “That’s what I’ve said. They are a peculiar couple. I’d stay away at all costs.”

  “They aren’t dangerous.” My aunt rolled her eyes at me. “They are just very…blind. I think if they knew what happened here today, they’d go through great lengths to convince themselves it was all just a trick of the light.”

  “Some people can’t handle the truth,” I said.

  “Let’s go talk to Shesha at Nine Lemons in a Bowl. I’m interested if she can handle the truth.” My aunt looked like she meant business. We had no idea what to expect from Shesha, but when we saw her, we were not surprised.

  18

  Shesha

  Nine Lemons in a Bowl was not in a chain of stores. It wasn’t its own stand-alone store either. Nine Lemons in a Bowl was a business run from the home of Mrs. Shesha McDonald. Surprisingly, her home was quite modest, but what I saw said it wasn’t quantity with this woman. It was quality.

  “Can I help you laaadies?” she purred like a real live version of Catwoman. Her ensemble wasn’t too far off either, as she had tight black stretch pants and a gray top of the same kind of stretchy material. Her feet were bare, and I couldn’t help but notice her neck seemed abnormally long.

  “Yes.” Aunt Astrid introduced her
self and me before saying she’d heard through the Lourdeses that Nine Lemons in a Bowl was doing their interior decorating while they were travelling. “We were interested in the same kind of feng shui update to my home. Can we take a few moments of your time?”

  Shesha gave us a sly smirk, and her right eyebrow arched as if she were not surprised in the least that her reputation had reached us. Pretending to be a lot more decrepit than she really was, Aunt Astrid took Shesha’s hand. I followed behind them, taking an inventory of the stuff around the house.

  “Please, come right iiin.” She led us into what she called her sitting room. There was an old-fashioned desk with papers neatly piled on it. Behind it was one of those fancy chairs that was supposed to be good for your back. The windows had crystals hanging in them, as did the doorways. There were nine lemons in a bowl on the coffee table in front of where she had my aunt sit down. I casually strolled about the room. It was airy and open. But the stark white walls sort of made me feel like I was in a padded cell.

  “Well, thank you. You know, feng shui isn’t just a way to clear a path for positive energy, but it also invites prosperity, happiness, love. It depends on what you send out to the universe.” Shesha had a strange way of talking where she stretched out some of her words like uuuniverse or cucumber waaaterrr. “I studied the fine art of feng shui in the Orient. I was a student to Master Chen.”

  “Master Chen?” I asked. “Can I Google him?”

  “Well, you could try. But, you see, he is a bit of a luddiiite. Someone who is in opposition to technologyyy. There is very little written about him onliiine. He has gone through great lengths to ensure it staaays that way.”

  I shrugged and nodded as if that made perfect sense. It already sounded like a big steaming pile of hoo-ha. While I strolled near the desk, I tried to peek at the papers there. I saw a contract for what looked like a design gig. There were also three unopened envelopes from the utility company, phone company, and cable company, all made out to a Miss Sally Ann McDonald. I was sure somewhere in the world someone was named Shesha, but it wasn’t this woman.

  While I listened politely, I watched Aunt Astrid as she studied Shesha. There was something around the woman that had her attention. I’m not sure what it was, but I couldn’t wait to ask her.

  “So, Shesha, do your interior design methods incorporate any aspects of occultism or alternative religions?”

  “Heavens noooo.” With dramatic flourishes of her hands, she shook her head. “I follow the path of white light. That is what has brought me so much prosperity.” She waved her hand around her sitting room as if to verify the results that came by hanging crystals in certain corners and placing a red area rug against a south wall and a teal-colored one against a north wall. “There is no good or eeevil. Just energyyy. I find the ideas of those things to be rather aaantiquated.”

  Both Aunt Astrid and I ruffled at her words. The ignorance of some people was astounding. But if she didn’t believe in the supernatural, then how could she have unleashed the menace in the mirrors?

  I had to admit the room we were sitting in was spotlessly white. There were amazing paintings on the walls in huge ornate frames. Fresh flowers were on almost every table. Dark oak furniture contrasted the white amazingly. I especially liked the sliding wooden doors that she had shut when we arrived. They slid into the walls. A very cool feature. But there wasn’t a spot of dust anywhere. Not a drop of spilled coffee or wine. Not a sliver of chipped paint. Not in the immediate area. But as I strolled to the back of the room, I noticed something peeking from underneath those cool sliding doors. It looked like a skid mark of mud or dirt.

  “What would you charge to do an entire home of, say, seventeen hundred square feet?” I heard Aunt Astrid ask before I turned around to join the group.

  “I’d have to visit the house firrrst. I let the home tell me what to charrrge.”

  “The home?” I asked innocently.

  “You know that old saying if walls could taaalk? They speak to meee. They tell me where the pain is. Where the blockage is. Where things are moving freely and where they arrren’t.” She folded her hands in her lap and looked at me. “Once I assess the injuries, I can listen for the feee. It comes to me quite clearlyyy.”

  I’m sure it did. I wasn’t as intuitive as Aunt Astrid or Bea, but I was having a hard time believing what this woman said. If she was the mastermind behind unleashing the Medusa thingamabob in the Lourdeses’ home, I was a monkey’s aunt.

  “Do you have anyone else working with you?” my aunt asked.

  “I have a pool of contractorrrs, painterrrs, who do the heavy lifting for me.” She put her hand to her chest. “But I am the sole designer. Well, my husband does help at times. He’s also highly skilled in feng shui, but he’s participating in a convention circuit that has been moving for the past few months. Every week, he’s travelling to a different part of the countryyy. He’ll be baaack in two more weeeks.”

  “What about mirrors?” I asked. “Do you think they are good or bad for feng shui?”

  “I think they are wonderful, if not key, to successful energy transitioning. In fact, I’d say the more the beeetter. They not only reflect the good vibrations, but they do help make a space look bigger. Plus, who doesn’t want to see more of themseeelves?” She laughed, but nothing came out except a high-pitched sigh.

  After a few more questions, my aunt took one of Shesha’s business cards and promised to call as soon as she decided if she was really going to have her home redecorated.

  “Please, understand that time is of the esseeence,” Shesha said without smiling. “My schedule is booked for the next several mooonths. I can keep you on standby for anyone who caaancels. Otherwise, it may not be until the new year before I can get to you.”

  “I’ll take that into consideration, Shesha. Thank you again for your time.” Aunt Astrid held onto my arm as we left the lovely sitting room, crossed the foyer, and were just about out the front door when she turned around.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Shesha, but I have one more question. May I use your bathroom?” I looked at my aunt Astrid. It wasn’t that I doubted she needed to use the bathroom, but something in her tone of voice sounded funny to me.

  “Oh…um…of courrrse.” Shesha looked a bit disturbed by the request.

  How could she not expect someone to have to use the can at her business when her business was in her house? That was the price she had to pay for skimping on rent at a regular shop. At least, that was my opinion on the matter.

  “Just follow meee.”

  Aunt Astrid motioned for me to stay behind, and I got a vibe that she wanted me to just have a little lookie-loo while Shesha was escorting her to the bathroom. I walked across the parlor to the closed doors that slid into the walls and cracked them just an inch.

  I didn’t know what I was expecting. A black room with red pentagrams painted on the floor and walls or maybe a torture chamber or maybe even a room full of mirrors that were in the same crazy pattern as the mirrors at the Lourdeses’ house. Instead, I saw a messy living room with take-out boxes and soda bottles on almost every flat surface. There were a few pieces of clothing on the floor. The curtains were drawn so no one could see in. The skid marks on the ground led to a pair of dirty gym shoes.

  When I thought I heard the pat of Shesha’s feet on the floor, I quickly closed the door and stepped in front of one of the large paintings she had. Wherever she’d gotten it, it was very pretty.

  “That’s a silk desiiign from Master Chen’s priiivate collection. He gave that to me when I left the Orient.”

  “Asia is someplace I’d love to see someday,” I said. “Where were you, exactly?”

  “Oh, well, it’s hard to say. You see the study of feng shui is not something that can be learned in a classroom. It is an exercise in the freeing of the mind and opening oneself up to the direction of the positive energies around uuus.”

  What a load of bull, I thought.

  Just then my au
nt showed up. She reached her hand out for to me. Once she took hold, she thanked Shesha again, and we left.

  When we were off the Nine Lemons in a Bowl property and safely driving down the street back toward the café, I looked over at my aunt.

  “What’s your opinion?”

  “That is one of the biggest con artists I’ve ever seen,” Aunt Astrid said. “Feng shui is a lovely concept, and some people do find benefits in rearranging their furniture this way or that. But that woman is no more qualified to be arranging people’s interiors than the man on the moon.”

  I reported to my aunt what I saw in the other room. There was a definite “no feng shui zone” going on in there.

  “The more that woman talked, the more I could see the shifting levels of comfort around her. We were making her very uncomfortable,” Aunt Astrid said.

  “Why? I thought we were being pleasant as punch.”

  “I think she was afraid we were going to ask that one question she didn’t know the answer to and discover she was a fraud,” she said.

  “I’m finding it hard to believe the babe couple fell for this. They paid to have this woman work her magic in their home. The place looks like a furniture showroom.” I chuckled. “So, what does it all mean?”

  “It means that she arranged those mirrors in that house and accidentally called the Medusa Praesentia,” Aunt Astrid said. “The really sad thing is that this could happen again. The chances are slim that she’d get the exact same positioning, but what are the chances it even happened this one time?”

  “Okay, well, now what do we do? We’ve still got to check in with Bea and make sure she’s all right. You think since we turned the mirrors around and shifted things up, that she’s back to normal?”

  “That’s my hope.” Aunt Astrid seemed calm about the situation, but I had a weird tickle in my belly that was making me think that it couldn’t be that easy.