What the Dead Fear

by Lea Ryan

  Part 6

  Mordecai was a giant, not a fee-fi-fo-fum giant, but definitely over seven feet tall. His hair was a halo of stringy, sickly yellow. His face was gaunt, long nose like a bird. He had pale eyes like Gareth, a long coat like Gareth, but Mordecai’s outerwear appeared more beaten. His back humped so badly his body looked broken.

  He looked down on the two girls.

  "Whaddyou want?"

  "Mordecai, please let us hide. Gareth is hunting us."

  He grunted at Cricket, "Gareth is a twit. He's not hunting you."

  He looked at Juniper. Then Cricket looked at her too.

  "What did you do, girl?"

  "My friend, she's pregnant -", Juniper began.

  He stopped her with a raised hand.

  "I've heard enough." He grunted. "Come in. Touch nothing."

  Juniper was astounded by the hominess of the cottage. Judging by the shabby appearance of its occupant, she expected to be greeted by an equally shabby interior. She expected emptiness, grayness, little or no furniture.

  Rather, they were greeted by décor that would have befit a kindly, old granny's house - olive green easy chairs with knitted afghans folded over the back, a flower-patterned couch, warm wooden coffee tables complete with coasters, shelves laden with thick volumes and topped with taxidermy animals staring with marble eyes.

  "Mordecai, what have you done?" Cricket asked. "Did you take these things from the living?"

  Juniper picked up a cellular phone lying on a table next to the door. She flipped it open, pressed the button. No power. The numbers on the keypad were backward.

  "Don't judge me, imp." Mordecai settled his large frame into a recliner. "Don't tell Gareth unless you want to make an enemy of me."

  "How did you even do it?"

  "Wouldn't you like to know."

  Juniper put the phone back on the table and said, "You can do whatever you want."

  He harrumphed.

  "Hiding is not whatever I want."

  "Can I travel to the mortal plane from here? I left my friend with someone who wants to hurt her and her baby. I have to go back."

  Mordecai shook his head. "You have to be on the surface to cross." He rested his elbow on the arm of the too small chair and rested his forehead in the palm of his enormous hand.

  "That's not true. You're lying." Juniper accused.

  "What? Young lady, you may take your leave if - "

  She interrupted him, "How did you get all this stuff? You have a way. Tell us."

  He stared at Juniper.

  "They're just reflections. I didn't steal anything."

  Cricket gasped, "You still have the mirror. Where is it?"

  The frown on his face deepened.

  "You can't take it. The mirror is mine."

  "Just let us use it for a few minutes so she can see her friend. We won't take it, I promise."

  "Impossible."

  "If you don't let us use it, I will bring Gareth into this pit and show him what you've done, this place."

  "Insolence!" Mordecai slapped his big hands to the arms of the chair to steady himself as he stood. "You've forgotten the hierarchy, little one. I was a guardian." He bellowed down at the seemingly eight year old girl from his full height.

  "Well you aren't a guardian any longer. Stop arguing, old man. Get the mirror. There are two young lives at stake."

  Mordecai, grumbling and cursing, lumbered through a doorway.

  Juniper waited until he was out of the room before she spoke.

  "What does the mirror do exactly?"

  "Mordecai used it to observe the activities of the dead on the mortal plane."

  "Does Gareth have a mirror?"

  "Gareth doesn't need one. He's a generation younger and psychic. It's like evolution, only much faster."

  "I guess I should be thankful I don't have to deal with Gareth's successor."

  "The problem with Mordecai began when he took up watching the living instead of the dead.”

  Juniper was about to ask Cricket how she knew so much about Mordecai when he returned.

  Gilded, ancient looking figures like pharaohs, servants and livestock framed the reflective surface. At the top, a shining falcon spread its wings wide.

  Mordecai opened the hinged arm attached to the back of the large mirror to stand it upright on the coffee table. Juniper sat on the couch.

  "How do I do it?"

  "Touch the mirror. Say her name."

  Juniper did as she was told.

  The reflection of the cottage interior rippled and gave way to an image of the cluttered living room. It was daytime on the mortal plane. Sunlight streamed through the sliding glass balcony door to illuminate clusters of garbage, cans, half-eaten food hardening on plates and bowls.

  Nikki sat on the couch, rubbing a fresh welt on her jaw.

  The brute, Greg, menaced over her, threatening her with a shaking fist.

  "Do it again. Bring back the devil."

  "I can't. I swear I don't know where she came from." Tears dripped from her face and she begged, "Please don't. You'll hurt the baby."

  She angled her stomach away from him and shielded it with one arm.

  Juniper had made the situation worse.

  Why wouldn't Nikki leave? Anywhere that Greg wasn't had to be better.

  He grabbed her collar, pulled her up.

  "You're so lucky to have me." Then he kissed her hard on the lips, too hard.

  Nikki grimaced but didn't pull away.

  "Nobody else would put up with your worthless ass." He released her. He tousled her hair as though she were a child, then sauntered into the kitchen.

  "That man is crazy on crazy." Juniper mumbled.

  "You see? The girl is fine. Time to put the mirror away." Mordecai reached for it.

  Something white flew from behind the kitchen wall and bounced across the table in the dining room.

  "Wait." She stopped him.

  Another dish, a plate, broke against the wall.

  "Shit." Juniper said to herself.

  Then came a glass and the voice of the brute, "Sick of wallowing in mess like a pig."

  He stalked back into the living room.

  "Clean this filth. This is what you should be doing for me. You respect me."

  On command, Nikki fell to her knees on the floor.

  Greg's face darkened to a malevolent purple. And the grin. He enjoyed the domination; he relished the control.

  “Clean, clean, clean!” Greg roared over her as she scrambled to gather the mess in her arms.

  Rage surged through Juniper. She clenched her fists, harder each time the man came closer to kicking Nikki. She could see in his eyes, he was contemplating it, the way he looked at her down on the floor, the way his eyes keep shifting to her stomach.

  A kick would end the pregnancy for sure, maybe even kill the baby, possibly Nikki too.

  The mirror was more than a window; it was a portal. Cricket had used the mirror in the mortal world to cross over.

  Juniper launched from her seat on the grandma couch.

  Greg pulled back his work boot clad foot.

  Juniper shut her eyes and dove headlong through the mirror as Cricket had done before.

  She passed through ice-cold darkness into daytime where the dead aren't permitted to travel. She swooped in from above on a gale. Greg felt her too.

  Her gust of wind threw back his hair. Shock replaced anger, and he stumbled backward against a chair at the table.

  "Get out!" she shouted.

  Juniper channeled her rage and shouldered into him as hard as she could.

  The brute landed on the table to bring the flimsy dining set crashing down.

  Sunlight in the room deepened to crimson.

  Gareth.

  This is how he would find her. Violations set off the psychic radar.

  A hand on the back of her collar yanked her back through the icy void, back to the living room which had also fallen under Gareth's red glow
.

  "You! In my house!" Mordecai threw her to the floor.

  He looked bigger than ever.

  Cricket appeared next to her.

  "We have to leave."

  Mordecai went on the rampage, knocking over everything his hands found - a lamp, a vase, a stack of books.

  "You led that bastard to my house."

  "He isn't here yet. We're going." Cricket hoisted Juniper to her feet.

  Mordecai stepped in front of them to bar the exit.

  "You will take her to Gareth." He told the little girl.

  "I will not."

  He bent over to grab her by the shoulders, breaking her hold on Juniper.

  "No!" She squirmed. "I won't. Let me go."

  "You have exposed my house. You will take her to him now." His eyes flared orange and locked onto hers. "As your guardian, I command you."

  Cricket stopped struggling. Her arms dropped to her sides.

  Mordecai released her.

  "What did you do?" Juniper swung the girl around.

  Her eyes were orange like the guardian's.

  "Now you'll see what she truly is." Mordecai bared his teeth.

  Cricket transformed. A thin, black arm with segmented fingers punched through the child arm from inside. The other arm did the same, and flakes of pale skin dissolved.

  Cricket's expression never deviated. She didn't wince when long legs sprouted beneath her, when the cherub head burst to let out the wide head of the thing inside.

  The monster grew, taller than Juniper, the furniture, even Mordecai himself. She was all black with antennae and bug eyes like a cricket. She stood on two legs.

  "Take her to Gareth now." He repeated.

  Monster that was Cricket lunged forward. It snatched Juniper's arm and before she could draw enough breath to scream, they were bounding off into the night.

  Mordecai called after them, "Seek me here no more. I must move my home because of you. Better, seek me nowhere."