The Mansion of Mirrors, page 12
29
It was no exaggeration when Starck said that there are also things of great beauty in Urari—and the breathtaking view that greets Lisa as her freshly opened eyes adjust to the light more than confirms his words.
They’re still driving in the desert, but it’s no longer the same monotonous landscape of rolling dunes. Now, the endless blanket of sand is broken by scattered rock formations, their veins glistening in the sunlight. At first glance, these rocky outcrops seem placed at random, but after observing them a while, it starts to feel like there’s a purpose to their placements. As if they form a hidden pattern—one that can only be fully grasped if seen from above. Everything in and around these small rock islands seems to flicker with an almost ethereal silvery glow. Even the birds hovering in the distance catch the sunlight in a way that makes them shimmer, like crystals suspended in the air.
“Oh, you’re awake?” sounds from the driver’s seat. “I was starting to worry. I know they say teenagers need more sleep than grown-ups, but you’re really going for the gold.”
Lisa unbuckles her seatbelt and leans in between the front seats. Michael is the one behind the wheel now. Apparently, he and Starck switched places while she was asleep, and now the librarian is taking a nap in the passenger seat.
Even though she’s still wary about his intentions, it’s definitely a point in his favor that Starck has handed over the wheel to them. For all he knows, he could wake up in a ditch while they’re already halfway to . . .
Yeah, well, that’s just it, isn’t it, sweetie? her mom’s voice begins, but Lisa, who isn’t in the mood for clever remarks and snide comments, simply ignores it and asks Michael what time it is.
“No idea.”
“How far have we driven?”
“Far.”
“You sound like you’re in a better mood today.”
In the front seat, Michael lets out a peculiar snorting sound. For a moment, Lisa thinks he might be choking on something, but then it dawns on her.
Suppressed laughter. The first laughter she has heard from him since . . . well, ever, actually. After all, they’ve only known each other for about a day, even though it feels like a lot longer.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe getting some sleep helped.”
“Have we passed any towns?”
Michael shakes his head.
“Not many—and definitely nothing worth stopping for. They were abandoned and wrecked, just like Attica. We did pass a sign about half an hour ago, though. Fifty miles to . . . Baxor or Baxan? It was something with B and X.”
“What about fuel?”
“Getting close to the red . . . but we’ve got a spare can in the trunk, so we should be good.”
Lisa stares at the road ahead, hoping he’s right. Running out of fuel all the way out here where the gray, cracked asphalt seems to stretch on forever wouldn’t be fun.
She pauses for a moment, expecting that the inner version of her mom’s voice must have something mocking to add to that thought, but all she hears is a rumble from her stomach.
“Do we have any food?”
“You bet,” Michael replies, his voice still carrying a hint of the chipper morning tone. “We’ve got a fine selection of canned goods in the trunk. I think I saw some cocktail sausages—if that sounds tempting.”
“Mmm . . . delicious!” Lisa hadn’t thought she’d ever use that word to describe long-shelf-life food and actually mean it, but right now, the idea of sinking her teeth into a cold cocktail sausage sounds amazing.
“I know, right?” Michael says, turning in his seat so he can wink at her. “You don’t mind waiting until we find a rest stop, do you? I haven’t seen any yet, but I’m sure there’s one just around the corner.”
Lisa rolls her eyes and makes a gesture with her hand in the air as if she’s giving him a smack on the cheek.
“You know what?” she says as he slows down and pulls over to the side of the road. “I’m not sure I like this chippery side of you.”
But she does. She really does.
After parking the car on the side of the road, they both get out and walk to the trunk, from which they grab a small stack of cans. They bring these with them to their dining area—a large, gray rock that sticks out of the sand about a hundred feet from where the car is parked.
For lack of a better option, the rock serves as a decent alternative to a classic wooden bench. Granted, its surface is burning hot, and it has got some rough spots that gnaw at Lisa’s thighs, but it’s the perfect size for the two of them and their small collection of canned goods.
As they sit there, Lisa’s gaze keeps drifting toward the car, where the librarian is still sleeping in the passenger seat.
Through the window, she can see the outlines of his wrinkled face and silver hair. He is no spring chicken, but despite him being well on his way to retirement age, he is undoubtedly the most capable of the three. At least as long as they’re out here.
“Do you trust him?” she asks when she catches Michael staring in the same direction.
“I haven’t decided yet,” he replies, picking up a small, rust-colored stone, examining it briefly, before tossing it back into the sand.
Lisa nods and wipes the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. Even though she has rolled up the legs of her jeans and is wearing nothing but a thin, pink T-shirt, the intense midday sun is relentless. She has nothing but her intuition—and the fact that her hair and T-shirt cling to her skin like a wetsuit—to back it up, but she’s convinced the temperature must be somewhere close to a hundred degrees. It seems completely insane that less than a day ago, she was shivering on a bench outside the school, surrounded by dry autumn leaves.
“How long have you been teaching at the school?” she asks.
“At Oakwood? Come January, it’ll be five years.” He winks at her and adds, “Imagine that—five whole years dealing with twisted teens.”
“Hey, hey. Remember, I’m one of them.”
“Present company excluded, of course,” Michael says, smiling.
Lisa gives him a that’s more like it nod and brushes crumbs from her hands. Then, she carefully leans backward until her back rests against the rock’s uneven surface.
“But you like it, right? Your job, I mean.”
“A lot. Oakwood is a great place to work—good colleagues and, for the most part, good students. What about you? It’s your first year, right?”
“Yeah, I changed schools and started at Oakwood right after the summer break. My mom thought it would be good for me to get a fresh start after everything with my dad and Emma. She, um . . . no, we hoped it would be a clean slate—new surroundings and new friends who didn’t know the story.”
“And was it?”
“Nah, I wish it was, but apparently, that kind of thing is pretty hard to shake. Even though it’s been a long time, it still feels like people are afraid to talk to me. And if somebody actually tries, I freak out, thinking they just want all the gory details so they can tell it to their friends as soon as I turn my back. You know what I mean?”
“I think so,” Michael says. “I got a taste of it when I came back to work and walked into the teachers’ lounge.”
In the long silence that follows these words, the two of them remain on the rock beneath the blazing sun—Lisa halfway lying down, her upper body resting on one elbow, Michael sitting hunched, his arms dangling loosely between his knees. Both of them with their gazes directed toward the past, the same weary expression in their eyes.
When words finally break the silence between them, it’s Lisa who sits up and takes an initiative that in many ways is as unexpected to her as it appears to be to Michael.
“My little sister killed herself,” she says. “She, um . . . she killed my dad, and then she took her own life.”
While she waits for his reaction to having such a bomb dropped on him, Lisa steals a nervous glance at Michael. A part of her expects that, as a member of the Oakwood High staff, he already knows the story. But from the look on his face, he doesn’t.
Perhaps the inner version of her mom’s voice has been right all along. Perhaps her past takes up far less space in other people’s minds than she thinks.
Another thing that catches her off guard is Michael’s reaction once he recovers from the initial shock. Because he doesn’t drop his gaze when their eyes meet. He doesn’t look away like everyone else has. He’s shocked, affected, and probably feels sorry for her . . . but he doesn’t look away.
“I . . . I don’t know what to say, Lisa. That’s really terrible.”
“I know,” Lisa replies, nodding. “Emma’s mind was . . . she wasn’t well, and one day, something just snapped. She grabbed a kitchen knife, stabbed him to death with it, and then slit her own wrist afterward. And my mom was on the night shift, so, um . . . so I was the one who found them.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck,” Lisa repeats and sighs. “Finding them up in the bedroom was bad . . . but sitting alone in the kitchen afterward, waiting for the police, wasn’t much better, I can tell you that much.”
“No, I can only imagine.”
“She wasn’t always like that, though. Before her disease got really bad, she was the most awesome sister anyone could ask for. All my friends who had younger siblings were always complaining about them, but it was never like that with Emma and me. We always had fun together.”
“When did it start?”
“Her disease?”
“Yeah.”
Lisa thinks for a moment, then shakes her head.
“I’m not really sure, actually. I think she was diagnosed around nine—maybe a little earlier. But it didn’t get really bad until she hit puberty. That’s when she started shutting herself off and reaching her got harder and harder.”
“Even for you?”
“Even for me, yeah. She went from being a happy little kid to being . . . well, completely unpredictable.”
“That must have been very lonely for you. With you being so close before, I mean.”
Lisa nods and stares into the horizon, thinking that lonely is a good word to describe what it felt like to watch helplessly as the person she loved most went from being a fun and caring sister to an emotionally cold ghoul.
“You’re pretty good at this.”
“What do you mean?”
“This talking thing . . . or well, listening. It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about it with anyone.”
Michael shrugs and offers her a cautious smile but says nothing.
“It must be the five years of twisted teenagers you were talking about,” she says as she puts her hands on the stone and pushes herself up.
Deep down, though, she doubts that the explanation lies in Michael’s background as a psychology teacher. It’s more likely rooted in the fact that he has been—and in some ways still is—in the same boat as her.
30
“How was it?” Crane asks, while Tom swallows the last bite with a ferocity that doesn’t seem to wane, no matter how much he eats.
“Awesome,” Tom replies, pulling his lips up in a smile, the beard around his mouth speckled with soda drops and chocolate crumbs. “I can’t remember the last time I was this full.”
“Good. So can I count on having your full attention now?”
“Uh-huh,” Tom says, letting a burp slip out along with the words. “You’ve got my attention.” He pats his bloated stomach. “My stuffed-full attention.”
“Excellent, then it’s time for you to answer a couple of questions. Before I arrived, you met some other people here, right?”
“Yup. The crybaby, the girl, and an old fucker with a rifle. They tried to steal my jackpot. My food.”
“And they’re the ones who gave you that?” Crane asks, poking at the swelling on Tom’s temple.
“Hey, ouch!” Tom winces in pain and grabs his head. “Jeez! Yeah, it was them. Why’d you do that?”
Crane ignores the question. He just tilts his head and studies Tom, perhaps reconsidering his choice, wondering if the scrawny vagabond might actually be pretty useless after all.
“You’d like to get back at them, wouldn’t you?” he suddenly says. “Pay them back for humiliating you. For trying to take your food. Wouldn’t that feel good?”
“Of course, but they’re long gone. The old guy had a car. They’ll be far away by now. Even if we had a car, we—”
“You’re forgetting something, Tom,” Crane says. “You’re forgetting who I am. What I’m capable of.”
He smiles and waits patiently while Tom’s mind races to put the pieces together. A moment later, Tom smiles too.
The mirrors, of course. If Tom knows where the three of them are going—and he thinks he does—Crane will be able to get there first through the mirrors. That way they’ll be able to catch the crybaby and his gang with their pants down.
“They drove south,” he says.
“On the main?”
“Yeah. I think they’re heading for the Mansion of Mirrors. At least one of them is. He has been dreaming about it. He told me when they had me tied up.”
Out of nowhere, the gnawing gut feeling pops up again—the same one Tom had when the crybaby told his sad story . . . and for some reason, it makes him doubt that Crane is going to keep his promise.
“And what about our deal?” he exclaims. “You said you’d tell me who I was . . . before Urari.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll fill in the gaps in your memory, but not before we’ve sorted out the other stuff.”
Beneath Crane’s voice lurks a barely concealed threat, making it clear that Tom can forget about getting any answers if there’s any more trouble—and he waits for Tom’s eyes to signal that the message has sunk in before he continues.
“If they really are dumb enough to head straight for the mansion right off the bat, they’ll undoubtedly try to stick to the larger cities. On the South Road, that’ll be Baixa and Soto. They’ll have to stop in both for fuel and food. Once they’ve passed Soto and begin their hike into the Wasteland, they’ll be left to survive with what they can carry, and nothing more.”
Crane hesitates, then raises his index finger close to Tom’s face—so close that it makes him go cross-eyed.
“However,” he says, “if they get that far, it also means that there are no more mirrors before they’re inside the mansion. That means we only get two good opportunities for taking out the girl and the librarian.”
“And the crybaby,” Tom interjects, but Crane immediately shakes his head.
“The girl and the helper are yours to do with as you please, but Michael is mine. I’ve got plans for him.”
“But . . .”
“No buts. He wants to go to the Mansion of Mirrors, and we’re not getting in the way of that. Touch him and you can forget all about our deal.”
Something about the look on Crane’s face makes Tom wince and take a step back. Maybe it’s the way the black-and-white contrast of his hair and skin is now broken by thick, blue-violet veins pulsing at his neck and temple. Maybe it’s the way his black eyes burn with a mixture of excitement and insanity. Whatever it is, it makes Tom swear, loud and clear, that he’ll keep his hands off the crybaby.
Part Five
Baixa
Prologue 5
To possess such untainted talent, as the young painter does, is a gift. Undoubtedly, that’s how many would see it. The scene in the finished painting has been recreated down to the smallest detail, exactly as he saw it in his dream. The girl at the center of the bloodbath kneels, clutching her own shoulders, just as he saw her. Meanwhile, the painting’s two other figures—the girl in the nightgown and the man on the bed, which both have left this world in different ways—cement the depth of her tragedy. Every element is an exact recreation of the image the boy saw in his dream.
A reflection, if you will.
A gift, yes. However, the boy’s talent is also—perhaps to a greater extent—a curse. For despite the maturity of the composition and despite the uncompromising depiction of the brutal motif, he is only a boy. A boy who is blessed and cursed with the ability to see things that no child should witness.
Whether or not he wants to.
31
“Jeez!” Tom shouts, spinning around himself with his arms raised above his head. “That was fucking crazy!”
Really, he ought to be confused as he has no clue where he is. Right now, however, the rush from traveling through the mirror drowns out everything else. The trip lasted only a few seconds—but the tingling sensation in his nerves lingers, broadcasting the same message to every part of his body: That traveling through mirrors is freaking awesome!
A short distance from him, Crane stands, his back resting against the wall in the narrow hallway. His bluish lips carry a faint smile, but above them his black eyes announce that his patience won’t stretch forever.
Slowly, Tom’s expression starts changing. His bright eyes squint, darting side to side in confusion.
“Baixa,” Crane says dryly.
“Oh, yeah . . . that’s right,” Tom mumbles, biting his lower lip.
“The girl, the old librarian, the crybaby,” Crane sighs.
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” Tom repeats—and this time there’s actually a bell ringing in the back of his mind.
He looks around again, examining the new environment. His gaze wanders from his new best friend’s pale face to the tall mirror that hangs on the wall. Next, he tilts his head back, following the line where the walls meet the ceiling, tracing it all the way around.
The ceiling has the yellowish hue you’d expect to find in the home of a heavy smoker, and Tom is pretty sure his nose picks up something that could be the scent of old tobacco smoke. Beneath it, though, there’s another smell hiding—something nauseating he can’t quite define. Mold? Mildew, perhaps?
He glances into the room at the end of the narrow hallway, hoping something in there might help him identify the smell. The only thing he can see from this angle is the side of a black leather couch. The leather is tattered, with several cracks where the stuffing pokes out. Like the ceiling, it carries a nicotine-stained yellowish hue.
