The next morning it all seemed like a shared bad dream. Mandy had not quite forgotten the shock of seeing the girl with the head wound in the mirror, but she could no longer work out why she had run from the room in terror, and sat on the step half naked and shaking for the better part of an hour. It seemed like an amazingly out of character thing for her to do, really. The two of them had not really spoken about it too much. Partly because Mandy didn't really want to discuss it, and partly because Jaime didn't want to push her into talking about it until she was ready. Mandy would much rather put it down to heatstroke and an over active imagination, than to anything more real - and more sinister - than that.
--
Alyssa stood in the middle of her room, looking around, and wondering how she could improve it. The room was one of three in the granny flat that was attached to the new house. The bedroom cum living room was the largest, and held a futon, a small computer desk, a bookcase and an entertainment centre. The living room gave on to the little kitchen by way of a breakfast bar. The kitchen was not much more than a microwave and a sink. Mandy had put a portable burner in one corner, but Alyssa had not yet bothered to work out how to operate it. She was quite content to join the rest of the family for meals, and so her kitchen held no more than a jar of instant coffee and a bottle of milk that was fast turning sour. An ensuite led off the kitchen.
There was not much room for movement, but the morning sun was slanting in through the curtains and falling in broad strokes across her face early in the morning, so she had resolved to move the futon against a different wall. Unfortunately, in order to do so, she would need to re arrange the whole room. She had sat down at her desk and drawn up a plan, and now she just needed to put it into place. For that, though, she was going to need some help.
--
Belle got home from school and wandered with Rudolph into her bedroom. She dropped her bag on the bed and then went into the kitchen to find something to eat. She was getting bread out to make a sandwich when she noticed voices coming from the other side of the kitchen wall. The ensuite in Alyssa's flat backed onto the kitchen in the house probably because the water supply was shared between the two. Now Belle paused, listening. She couldn't catch the words, but she recognised Alyssa's voice. The other voice was male, but didn't sound like Jaime. Besides, he wasn't home, his car wasn't in the driveway. Mandy wasn't here, she was off on another job interview, Belle guessed. She thought this over while she buttered the bread and layered sliced ham on it. The voices were laughing - Alyssa's voice unnaturally high pitched and the man's voice a low amused chuckle. Belle shoved the sandwich in her mouth, took a bite, and then went out to check on Rudolph's water bowl. She unharnessed him and left him there to drink while she investigated what was going on in the granny flat.
--
Still munching, Belle knocked on the door of Alyssa's flat, "Liss!" she called. From inside came the sound of a thud, scuffling, giggling, and finally footsteps. "What is it Belle?" Alyssa responded. Belle waited for the door to open before she replied.
"Just wondering what all the noise is about. Who's here?"
Alyssa hesitated slightly, and Belle imagined her looking over her shoulder at her guest. "Just a friend." she replied eventually.
Belle raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to introduce me then?" she asked, archly.
"Ahh. Yeah. Belle, this is Luke. Luke, my sister Belle. Luke's just been helping me move some furniture around."
Belle stuck her hand out in what she imagined was Luke's direction. He hadn't spoken yet, so it was difficult to judge. Eventually, he took it, pumped it perfuncturally twice, and said with a forced casualness, "Errr. Nice to meet you, Belle."
Belle smiled, "It's OK. I'm blind. You don't have to pretend you didn't notice." She couldn't be certain if this statement had made any difference to Luke. Or if it, what kind of difference. For someone who seemed quite talkative a few moments ago, he was being rather silent now. Belle had a feeling it wasn't just the fact that she was blind that was causing it. There was something else up, and it made Belle wonder what they were really up to. She didn't think it was just moving furniture somehow. She decided to make a graceful exit, and quiz Alyssa later on. She smiled again, in what she hoped was disarming and playful "Well, nice to meet you, Luke. See you at dinner, Liss."
She turned to go, and was negotiating the single step down into the yard, when a hand fell on her shoulder. Belle wheeled around, a slight smile still playing on her lips.
"Umm ... about dinner," Alyssa said. Belle looked expectant. "I won't be at dinner tonight. Can you tell Mum?"
"Yeah, sure." Belle allowed a pregnant pause to creep in. "What should I tell her?"
"Just ... tell her I'm out at the movies with some friends."
"Friends, huh?" Belle raised the eyebrow again.
Alyssa's voice took on a defensive tone as she said, "Yeah. Friends."
Belle smiled again, with false innocence, "OK, Liss. No problem. I'll tell her."
"Thanks" her sister replied wryly, "that'd be great."
Belle listened to her footsteps retreat into the flat, the door closing behind them. It wasn't long before she caught the murmer of Luke's voice again, and her sister's giggle. Yup, she thought to herself, not much furniture removal going on there. She thought "friends" might just be "friend", too. She gave herself a little chuckle as she walked back into the house, and whispered under breath, "Lyssa and Lu-uke, sittin' in a tree ..." somehow, the next line became "I told it a little worry", and suddenly it wasn't so funny any more.
--
Mandy hadn't quite dared to look into the dressing table mirror since she saw the girl with the head wound. This morning, she had gotten dressed in front of the mirrored doors of the built-in wardrobe instead. She had done her hair in the fogged bathroom mirror - wiping patches of it clear with her bath towel and leaving smears of white thread all over it. Still, like the child who knows the monster is under the bed, and just because they can't see it doesn't mean it isn't, she had expected to see an ethereal figure behind her, had spent more time watching the background rather than her own reflection. She had chided herself over again for being over-cautious, superstitious, childish. She was an adult, she shouldn't be jumping at shadows, she reminded herself. There was no such thing as the boogey man and there was certainly no invisible, mortally wounded children in her bedroom who could be seen only as reflections. The very idea was absurd, the other mirrors in the house proved the fact - they were steadfastly free of ghostly images, except for those of her own house, and herself.
--
Belle got back into the house and found her mother cleaning up in the kitchen. The smell of onion and garlic was in the air, and although she could hear the hum of the oven fan she could not yet feel heat from it.
"What's for dinner?" she asked.
"I'm making a lasagne," Mandy replied, "I've done the mince and the bechamal sauce, I just need to put it all together now." She turned to Belle, throwing the damp tea towel over her shoulder. Belle felt the air move as it displaced around the towel, and shrunk back a little involuntarily. "How does that sound to you?"
Belle gave a smile, although she struggled a little. A deep feeling of unease had come over her. It was related to the discussion she had just had with her sister, but somehow that wasn't the root cause. "Sounds great! When will it be ready?"
"About half past seven, I guess. It's six now." she added.
Belle thought her mother sounded strained, even through the happy, everything is normal kind of tone she was using. "Oh, I was just out speaking to Allyssa," she mentioned casually.
Mandy didn't answer, she had her head in the pantry, hunting out lasagne sheets. Belle could hear tins, jars and boxes all shifting and something falling over. Mandy's under the breath curse, followed by her exclamation when she found what she was looking for. When Belle sensed she had Mandy's attention again, she continued, "Yeah, she said she was going out to a movie." Belle paused, "With a friend."
"What, tonight? Oh, what a pain. Still, never mind, more for us, huh?"
Belle could hear the smile in Mandy's voice, but somehow, she didn't believe it. It was there, but not quite real.
--
Jaime was not worried. Not at all. He was at his desk in the little consulting room, fiddling with an oversized paddlepop stick tongue depresser. He realised that Mandy had seen something in the vanity mirror that had frightened her. A movement in the trees outside, reflected from the window, or a piece of clothing, caught in the breeze. It had given her a fright, and she had reacted badly. It certainly wasn't a cause for alarm. He grabbed one of the wrapped lollies he bribed the children with, unwrapped it and put it in his mouth. She had been in a state of shock, but had come around quickly enough by the time she came inside. Probably the temperature had exacerbated the effects of the shock. She had run outside half naked, sat on the step in the baking heat and then a cool breeze as the sun dipped below the horizon. What might have passed in a few moments under normal circumstances had been made worse under those conditions. Jaime had been trained to think rationally, that every action must have an equal and opposite reaction, that every disease had symptoms, and every medication had side-effects. In this case, his rational mind told him there were perfectly explainable reasons why Mandy had reacted the way she had. He ran the tongue depressor through his fingers, twirling, twirling, the lolly dissolving in his mouth. His sub-conscious, however, tried to convince him otherwise. There was no way the vanity mirror could pick up a reflection of the trees blowing in the breeze, it said. Besides, the day had been still - hot and still. The temperature hadn't dropped that far, it said, not far enough to make the effects of Mandy's shock worse. Jaime attempted to stop this voice of un-reason. This harbinger of truths he didn't want to hear, didn't want to believe. Wouldn't believe. He looked to his computer to check the name of his next patient. Stood, and went to the waiting room to call them. When he returned, patient dutifully trailing behind him, he noticed the strips of balsa wood - what remained of the tongue depressor - on his desk, and quickly swiped away the mess into the bin.
--
Alyssa surveyed her room again, this time feeling more pleased. Luke had helped her move quite a lot of the bigger things, the whole time chatting away about things he and his mates had gotten up to, making her laugh so hard she grew too weak to help. Afterwards, Luke had gone down to the shops, brought back fish and chips, five DVDs and a plastic shopping bag of chocolate bars and bags of lollies. When he got in, he held it up sheepishly and said "I couldn't choose,". They had settled onto the futon - folded up now into a lounge - and watched a DVD together. They had never quite made it to a movie, despite what Allyssa had told Belle. Some time around midnight, after they had put the futon out and fallen asleep side by side, the second movie running unwatched as they slept in front of it, Luke had gotten up, stared silently at Alyssa as she slept on, and pulled the doona up around her shoulders. He stared for a little longer, then stepped out, closing the door silently behind him. Awake again now, basking in the warm glow that the encounter had left her with, Alyssa stood in the sunlit room and decided that she needed a reading nook. A couple of swathes of sheer fabric and some thumb-tacks would do it, she thought.
--
Jaime had commented on Alyssa's absence from the dining table, and Mandy had responded with a raised eyebrow and the fact that she was out at the movies. Jaime pointed out that the lights were on in the granny flat and a strange car parked in the driveway. Mandy gave a strange look and Belle responded with a knowing, "Yes, she told me she's going to the movies ... with friends." Jaime looked confused at first, and then realised what was going on, "Oh," he replied, "with friends, huh? Seems as though the friends have decided to stay in, rather than go out."
Mandy gave a quiet chuckle. She knew exactly what was going on, had seen the lanky teenager go out for half an hour and come back with shopping bags and DVDs. A movie night was definitely what was happening, but not in the way that Alyssa had told Belle it was going to happen. At least, they didn't seem to be going out for it, anyway. Mandy laughed again, it reminded her of when she was a teenager - telling her parents one story and acting out another, thinking they never had a clue. It was only when she became a parent herself that she realised they had known all along, had just gone along with the story she told them in full knowledge of what was going on. And now her eldest was doing it to her too - wheels turn.
--
Memories are malleable. This has been proven through history - false memories implanted; misremembered facts; self-delusion; re-interpretation of history - and seen over and over throughout the human race. People do things, see things, take part in events, and afterwards, the memory of those events become what the person wants them to be. Good memories get coated in a layer of gloss; bad memories surrounded in shadow. Sometimes, memories are changed to suit - if a person is rewarded for a traumatic experience by being pitied and lavished with love, then that traumatic experience will be relived to the point that it no longer resembles fact. The person who remembers it still thinks it is was happened, even though the memory may have changed to be almost unrecognisable. If a good memory is tarnished - by a spurned lover, a death, or an embarresment - then that memory gets redrawn with shadows, and loses some of its sparkle. The remembered event is not what is important. What is important is the way the person doing the remembering does so.
--
On Sunday night, as the sun was sinking low in the sky, Jaime convinced Mandy to go for a walk with him along the beach. Alyssa had surfaced from her flat earlier in the day and sheepishly introduced Luke to them all before taking off in his car for dinner somewhere. Belle had looked on enviously, and then retreated to her room with her laptop. Mandy could hear the sound of her text-to-speech reader as she browsed Facebook behind the closed door.
The beach was deserted at this hour, except for one other couple like themselves, strolling the hard packed sand near the waterline in the gathering dusk. They walked hand-in-hand, not talking, just enjoying the feeling of being together, and being where they were. Mandy watched bare feet as she walked - watched the sand kicked up by her toes fling forward with every step, only to be flattened by the next. She kept an eye out for shells, seaweed, jellyfish and other flotsam as she went, stepping around them when neccesary, stopping and picking up an interesting shell and showing it to Jaime before throwing it back to be found by someone else. After some time of walking silently in this way, Mandy could sense an unease in Jaime and she turned to him to ask what was bothering him. He frowned, breathed in as though to speak, then let it out silently, uncertain how to start. She waited and eventually Jaime found an order for the words he had tumbling around in his head.
"What did you see that day?"
No further explanation was neccesary - Mandy knew exactly what he meant. She was quiet for a while - she, too, had trouble sorting out the words that would describe not just what she saw, but how she felt about it. How to describe the horror of the little girl, the blood pouring from between her fingers, the realism - the solidness - of the vision, the way she had not just seen the blood but smelled it, the fear she now had of mirrors, of reflections. Eventually, she opened her mouth, and let the words tumble out in their own way. She laid her heart and her mind bare, and afterwards felt somewhat cleansed and whole again. Jaime on the other hand, felt worse now that he knew the whole story. It hadn't been the wind, after all.
--
Mandy was at home on Monday, as every other Monday. This afternoon she was preparing a slow-cooked curry and meandering through a crossword puzzle. It sounded terribly idyllic, but Mandy felt like tearing the book apart in frustration. It wasn't that she she found the crosswords challenging, but that they weren't challenging enough, and she couldn't think of anything better to do. She had once heard someone say that they had "read the internet, and it's all boring". At the time she hadn't understood, but now she understood all too well. She had spent time on the computer, time doing crosswords, time cooking, time cleaning and time gardening. She had too much time, and not enough things to do in it. The more time she spent meandering around the house the more she felt alone and worried. Since the conversation with Jaime on the beach she had felt better about what she had seen in the mirror, but she still didn't feel entirely confortable with spending time alone in the house, either. She yearned for one of the girls to walk in and demand food, for Jamie to come home with a kiss and a suggestion for dinner.
She was trying to come up with a ten-letter word for "portend" when the phone rang. She was still sifting through possibilities as she stood and picked up the phone.
"Mandy Tibbots?" the woman on the other end asked.
"Yes, that's me."
"Oh, hi, Mandy. This is Elaine from the Riverview General Practice Centre."
Mandy's mind raced through names and interviews, trying to match the name to a medical centre. She had not quite managed this when the woman continued, "You came in and saw us last week, and we would like to offer you the position."
"Oh!" Mandy replied, surprised, "That's great!"
"Yes, we would love to have you on board, Mandy. When can you come in and get the details sorted out?"
Mandy floated through the rest of call, arranging to go to the surgery the next morning and pick up paperwork and a uniform. For the first time in days, ethereal figures in mirrors seemed a world away from reality. Which is exactly where they belonged, Mandy thought.
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