A Courtroom of Ashes

by C. S. Wilde

  He crosses his arms. “You know you’re in denial, right?”

  The telephone plays “Three Little Birds.” I let it ring.

  “I thought lawyers listened to conservative stuff,” John says. “Like classical music or opera.”

  The smile comes out before I realize it. “I prefer Bob Marley.”

  “Aren’t you going to answer?”

  What for? It’s all a dream…but I wonder if I should play along. Maybe Barbie is calling with a message I’ll want to hear, even if this is all in my head.

  “By the way, you should have woken up already,” John adds.

  He really has a talent for being annoying. I roll my eyes and pick up the phone.

  “Hello? Hi, Craig. Good to hear from you.” I wonder why Craig is in my dream. “Yeah, I had a lot of fun too. We should definitely do that again sometime. What’s that? Next Friday?” I glance quickly at the mirror to see John with an amused smile on his lips. “Friday, eight o’clock. Perfect. See you then!”

  “You realize you were playing with your hair?” John asks as I hang up.

  “So?”

  “It’s cute. But hey, this is actually quite convenient. If you call Craig tomorrow and he confirms your date, it’ll mean I’m not a dream.”

  “What? No, I’ll make a fool out of myself!”

  John shrugs. “Then you’ll never know, and you’ll miss your date.”

  “There’s no date!”

  “How sure are you?”

  I shoot him a look that says if I could, I’d strangle him. “Will you leave me alone?”

  John is silent for a while.

  Maybe I should see a psychiatrist, in case this isn’t a dream and I’m actually hallucinating.

  “What’s your name?” John asks. “You already know mine.”

  I think twice, thrice, but what harm could there be in telling my subconscious my own name?

  “Santana. Santana Jones.”

  I have to say I did a fine job imagining John. He’s absurdly handsome for a dream. For a living person too.

  He clasps his hands behind his back. “Santana? That’s a cool name.”

  I look down to the floor. “Yeah, my dad was a big fan of the musician.”

  “Delighted to meet you, Miss Jones.” He extends his hand for a shake but it bumps against the mirror. “Oh right. I forgot. You forget sometimes.” The longing in his voice is almost tangible.

  It’s sad when a promising man like John dies, but this is not Honest John. It’s a figure of my imagination. Still, I feel an inexplicable urge to console him.

  “I’m sorry for what happened to you.”

  “So am I.” He bows and starts to fade.

  4

  There’s no sign of John the next morning. It was just a crazy dream, naturally.

  When I open the door to my office, Mr. Baker is standing in front of my desk, arms crossed. He peers at me beneath his more-salt-than-pepper eyebrows, which perfectly match his short hair.

  He carries an old man’s wisdom behind his soft wrinkles, a wisdom much older than he is. But my favorite of all his features are his eyes: They’re hungry and constantly aware. They don’t belong to an old man. I want eyes like those when I’m his age.

  I walk in, pretending his presence is no big deal. I sit down and look up. He counters by looking down at me like my father did when I lost his Jim Rice-autographed baseball. I feel so small, but I’m not a little girl anymore, I’m a tough lawyer. And Mr. Baker isn’t my dad, he’s my boss. Besides, I can play this game a lot better than when I was nine.

  “I heard you didn’t take the Chase Mayhew case,” he says.

  “Pointless, sir.”

  He rubs his temples with his fingers. “Santana, that’s why we come to you when the rich and famous get into trouble. You’re our best defense attorney.”

  “But now that I’m junior partner, I can choose the cases I take.”

  Mr. Baker stops rubbing his forehead to look down at me with patronizing dark brown eyes. “When you were in law school, did you think you’d defend only the innocent, kiddo?”

  “No, sir. We’re both fully aware of that.”

  He gulps.

  Santana one, Mr. Baker zero.

  “Take the case.” He peers through me as if I’m made of glass. “Don’t let your past experiences stop you from doing what you were born to do.”

  I let that sink in silence. Low blow, Mr. Baker.

  He clears his throat. “Were the billable hours not high enough for you?”

  “Sir, for a criminal case they were downright astronomical. I could burn half of it.”

  “Santana, the firm needs the money.”

  “We both know that the firm has plenty of money.”

  Mr. Baker sighs. He knows where I’m going, but I proceed anyway. “Chase’s high offer means one thing: no other high-profile lawyer wants him.” I lay a hand over my desk, fingers tip-toeing across the wood. “I had a look at the case. I’d have a better shot of breaking out of a supermax prison.”

  Mr. Baker sneers. “I thought you liked a challenge.”

  “He murdered his wife and child in cold blood and he doesn’t want to plead guilty. If he did, I’d try to get him a nice plea bargain.” I hesitate for a moment. “I know defending the guilty is the heart of the job, sir, but I’ve learned from my past. If a client is guilty of murder, I’ll throw in a plea bargain. If he doesn’t accept that, no deal. It’s how I want to do things from now on.”

  Even if I accepted the case, I’d still lose. There is no way Chase will get anything less than life.

  My fingers stop knocking on the desk and I meet Mr. Baker’s stare. “Between you and me, I wish he had done this in Texas. Bastard deserves the needle, sir.”

  Mr. Baker’s cheeks flush red. “Santana, we took an oath! I could have you disbarred for saying that.”

  Suddenly I’m nine again, feeling sorry for disappointing my dad.

  “Sir, you could also have me disbarred for lying in court.”

  The red in his cheeks vanishes. He expels a sigh I’m all too familiar with, an I-give-up sigh. It’s the same my dad let out when we couldn’t find the baseball after a half day’s search.

  “Kid, I can’t blame you. I wouldn’t want the case either, which is why I was hoping you’d take it.” He bites his lips. “All that money…”

  He goes for the door but stops when he grabs the knob. He turns back and glances at me with worry. Worry doesn’t suit Mr. Baker. It turns him into a much older man.

  “I hope you let him go gently. The guy is desperate by now.”

  I nod and he leaves. I had told Chase I would defend him the day hell froze, and then I showed him the way out. That was letting him down gently, wasn’t it?

  My attention falls on the phone and Chase Mayhew flees my mind. Like a siren, the phone lures me into calling Craig. It’s obvious John was a dream, but some confirmation would be nice.

  I resist for a few seconds but soon grasp the handset. I can’t believe I’m about to make a fool out of myself. The phone rings for what seems an eternity.

  “Hello?”

  It’s Craig. Of course it’s Craig, the proud owner of silky brown hair and black eyes that were fashioned to sweep women off their feet.

  “Hi!” I say a bit too cheerfully.

  “Hey, Santana, good talking to you yesterday. What’s up?”

  Yesterday really happened? Something akin to a brain freeze rips through my bones. “Ahh…I…I’ll have to meet you a bit later on Friday, s-say around nine?”

  “Oh, okay, fine by me.”

  “Great. Bye.” I slowly put the phone back in the base.

  Holy shit, I bought a haunted mirror. I talked to a real ghost yesterday, and the real Barbie tried to reach me from the dead. From the fucking dead! Oh God, this is all sinking in. I hear myself hyperventilating and put my head between my legs.

  It was all real.

  Slowly, I recompose. My inconvenient curiosity synd
rome takes over, and I immediately search the Internet for the homepage of Mirrors & Mirrors, the store where I bought the panels for my mirror wall. They must have an answer.

  I find their number and dial.

  “Mirrors & Mirrors, Jane speaking.”

  “Hi Jane, my name is Santana Jones, and I—”

  “Oh, I remember you! How are you Santana?”

  “I’m fine, thank you. Jane, I was wonder—”

  “Are you unhappy with your mirror?”

  I remember Jane, now: a tiny, overly friendly thing, that can’t shut up for a second. I talk quickly so she won’t interrupt me. “I’m actually calling to ask if you know the story behind my mirror wall.”

  “Oh, it’s a lovely one. It’s why the mirror is so special.” She means overpriced. “After the Second World War, General François Anton requested a room entirely made of mirrors. Shortly after the room was done, he ordered the panels to be destroyed, claiming that they were haunted. But his servants believed that breaking mirrors was bad luck and destroying a full room of them was surely madness. So they split the panels instead, and sold them throughout Europe. Your mirror wall is made from some of those panels.”

  I rub the bridge of my nose. I want to scream at her and tell her to give me a refund right now. But I guess that as soon as I mention the words ‘haunted’ and ‘mirror,’ she’ll tag me as bona fide lunatic. “If this general said the mirror panels were haunted, why on earth did you go all the way to Europe to recover them?”

  She seems surprised by the question or maybe by my tone. “The general was a madman, and here at Mirrors & Mirrors we take the old and turn it into new. We don’t just sell mirrors, we recycle history.”

  That she told me when I bought the mirror. Did she tell me the whole story? I must have switched off.

  “So basically you acquire haunted mirrors and resell them at high prices.”

  “Our mirrors don’t have ghosts in them, Miss Jones, they have history. That’s what we value.” She’s pissed. “You didn’t strike me as the kind of person who believes in the supernatural.”

  “I-I don’t.”

  She sighs. “Well then, anything else I might help you with?”

  I’m letting off steam at the wrong person. Jane has no idea what she and her store have done.

  “No, Jane. That would be all.”

  “Thank you for choosing Mirrors & Mirrors, Miss Jones.”

  ***

  John pops up as soon as I walk into my room.

  “Am I still a dream?”

  I grab my chest and try to calm my heartbeat. I’m not used to apparitions popping up in my bedroom, even if they’re as gorgeous as John Braver. Not to mention that he’s a ghost, a freaking real ghost, right there, staring at me. But he told me he wouldn’t hurt me, and I believed him. Still do.

  I let out a breath that carries all the remaining fear away. “Yes, John, you’re real.”

  “Oh, we’re on a first name basis now, Miss Jones?” He smiles, showing a set of flawless white teeth.

  “Maybe.” I tease, dragging a wisp of hair behind my ears. He looks at me as if I did something amusing. “Hmm, did you find my friend by any chance?”

  “I asked around,” he says. “No one knows a Barbara as you described. Could you tell me more about how you saw her?”

  I tell him and he listens, his right hand supporting his chin. When I’m done he says, “She linked with you, that’s for sure.”

  “Linked?”

  He scratches his head quickly, as if looking for the right words. “Spirits from my side can invade dreams or show themselves to you by creating a link. It’s easier to do it when the living sleep, but I’m doing it right now. Theoretically, we could track any person on earth, but it’s tough to have such a wide reach.”

  “So where’s my friend?”

  He shrugs. “Death is a big place.”

  Barbie could’ve been anywhere when she linked with me, and now she’s missing. I need to know that she’s okay; she must have had a reason to send me such an awful dream.

  John peers at me. “Maybe your dream was a metaphor or a problem with the linking process. Or…”

  “Or what?”

  “Or it could mean she’s in trouble.”

  I drop onto the bed, hands clenching the sheets. Deep down I know it’s true, I just didn’t want to feed the thought. Why would anyone slash Barbie’s throat after she died? It doesn’t make sense. Barbie doesn’t deserve the horror of being murdered twice.

  John’s palm presses against the mirror and he looks at me in a way that says everything will be okay. “I’ll do my best to find her, I promise.”

  “Thank you, John. I can’t beg—”

  John raises his head, eyes bulging like a wolf that catches the smell of danger in the air.

  The front door in the living room bursts open. I jolt up, adrenaline shooting up my body.

  “Come to the living room, Counselor,” orders a slurred voice down the hall.

  Shit. I know this voice. It’s Chase Mayhew.

  “Get the fuck out or I’ll call the police!” I yell.

  “Living room, Counselor, or you’ll be dead before they get here.”

  A cold blow punches me in the stomach. I look back at John, but what can he do? What can I do?

  Nothing.

  “I’m counting to five,” Chase urges. “Or I’m coming to get you.”

  Fear freezes me for a long moment, and the wish to curl up and pretend this isn’t happening takes over. But I’m Santana Jones. I won’t go down without a fight. My brain speeds up, thousands of ideas exploding in seconds. I’ll lock myself in the bedroom and call the police. He can’t break the door in the meantime…can he?

  I quietly pick up the phone over my dresser. The line is filled with an eternal beep. He must have picked up the line in the living room.

  Bastard.

  “Counselor,” Chase says.

  I take a deep breath. My cell phone, where’s my cell phone? In my purse. Where’s my purse? In the living room. Damn.

  I can’t let him come to the bedroom. The only way out of here is the window, and from this height, that’s certain death. Maybe once I reach the living room I can try to run for the door. Yes, that’s what I’ll do.

  The carpet fibers tickle the soles of my feet as I walk to the living room. Chase eyes me as I go, an eagle stalking its prey. I consider locking myself in the bathroom, but without a phone, there’s no point.

  The corridor ends, and so do my hopes. Chase is at least five inches taller than me, all body-builder muscles. Right behind him is my gaping front door and to the left of the door, my purse.

  Every organ inside me quakes. My bladder will empty at any second. I’m alone with a guy who won the boxing world championship three times in a row, a drugged-up bull of a man who has been clobbered in the head so many times he’s lost all reason.

  “What can I do for you, Chase?” I ask in the most polite voice I can muster.

  He slaps his forehead three times, face closed in a V. He laughs as if he just heard the world’s funniest joke.

  “Screwed” doesn’t even begin to cover my current situation.

  “You’ll defend me and you’ll win.” He slaps his forehead again. “You always win. They’ll take me into custody tomorrow. Get me out or else.” He steps toward me and I shrink back. “Or else I’ll kill you, okay? I don’t want to do it, I don’t.” There’s drool on the sides of his mouth and his breath assaults my nostrils, intoxicating me with a sour smell. “But I will, okay? I will.”

  I can’t run for the door because he’s blocking my way. I’m at the mercy of a madman. I close my eyes, fighting back tears. I’ve never been this scared in my life.

  “Okay, okay…no problem, we’ll get—” my voice fails and I clear my throat. “We’ll get you out, I promise.”

  He squints at me with zero confidence.

  “You’re lying!” he barks, spit splashing against my face.

 
; Chase grabs my wrist and lifts me so high my toes barely touch the ground. The bones in my arm feel like they’re stretching from the inside, and when I try to scream, all that comes out is a pathetic yelp.

  “Chase, listen to me!” Pain stings from my arm to my rib cage. “I can’t defend you if I’m dead!”

  I see it in his eyes that he doesn’t care. He’s going to kill me.

  His fist closes in a ball and I prepare to meet John and Barbie face-to-face. Game over. I gave my best, but it wasn’t enough.

  I wish I had told Dad I loved him.

  Chase’s attention abruptly turns to some point behind me, and he releases my wrist. I bend over, massaging the skin and hoping the blood will flow back quickly.

  He squints at whatever is standing behind me. “What the fuck is this?”

  This is a man. His face is covered in black, slimy hair drenched with water. His skin is paper white, half covered in seaweed. His arm is missing. He’s black, gray, and blue, oscillating in the air like an old TV with bad reception. He stretches a nail-less hand to Chase and drones a warning composed by several wheezing breaths.

  “Leeeeave.”

  Chase steps back, horror stamped in his face. He smacks his forehead again and again and he doesn’t stop. “It’s not real,” he says, over and over.

  The ghost walks toward us, vanishing one moment and materializing closer the next. It’s spooky as hell, but I’m not scared. This apparition is saving my life.

  “Time to die,” the ghost drones.

  Chase screams deep from within his lungs, shoving me to the right and scurrying through the door.

  I quickly scavenge through my purse, find my cell phone, and call 911. They say the police will be here in a minute.

  The ghost stands at the gaping door, guarding me. His image doesn’t quiver anymore. I could almost mistake him for a normal guy dressed in a very cool Halloween costume.

  The ghost turns to face me when I approach. John has a boy’s smile on his face.

  “That was pretty cool,” he says.

  Relief washes through me. He looks like a nightmare, but he’s still the goofy guy I met. “How did you do that?”