Jamie was busy in the office, looking things up on the internet. Mandy was asleep in bed, and the house was still except for the clicking of the mouse button as he browsed. He had been trying to make sense of what he had seen in the mirror on the weekend, and when thinking it through on his own had nearly driven him insane, he had decided to give Google a try. The only sites he could find though had been written, as far as he could tell, by members of the lunatic fringe. No solid information was forthcoming from this source, even though he had never really thought that there would be. It had given him an opportunity to think about the situation though, without irrationality and hysteria creeping in - well, aside from some of the web sites he had found anyway. The more he thought about, the more he realised that it must have been an optical illusion, or a kind of personal flight of imagination. Nothing else stood to reason. He had been working long hours, he had overslept, had an extremely hot shower. Of course he hadn't been thinking properly - who would have been in that situation? He had been feeling a little odd becaise of the strange little wory dolls that had been showing up recently, and that was in itself caused by stress, he realised. That, added to the big sleep in he had had, and it made sense that he had seen something a bit strange. He started shutting down the machine, thinking to himself that this was the only really plausible explanation for the whole event. Nothing to see here, move along, he thought to himself, and gave a little lopsided grin. As the computer tinkled its little goodbye tune, he pushed the keyboard back in under the desk on its rollers and got up. When he walked into the bedroom to get undressed, his eyes didn't fall on the vanity mirror.
--
When they had been talking about it over popcorn the other night, Belle's theory had seemed kind of crazy, but still a good explanation of what was going on. Now, wrapped in Luke's arms and considering sharing the story, Alyssa wasn't so sure. Now, the whole thing just seemed ridiculously far fetched and super crazy. She cuddled up closer to him on the futon, and raised her face for a kiss. He bent and obliged her, his lips lingering on hers. She closed her eyes in pleasure, and asked him wordlessly for more. When no kiss was coming, she opened her eyes again, planning on working her arms around his neck and bringing his face down to hers again. What she saw made her frown, though. His eyes were fixed on a middle distance over her shoulder, his face showing not fear or surprise, but a kind of confusion. She looked into his eyes, waiting for him to say something - an explanation. When the silence strated to string out, she turned to work out what he had seen. At first, she didn't see anything, and she turned back to him. He was still just staring, confusion playing across his face.
"Luke?" she asked, "Babe? What is it?" she frowned up at him, starting to get worried.
His eyes didn't move from their place, but he spoke, his voice papery and kind of thin, like a man of fifty, not one of 19, "The dolls ..."
Alyssa turned again then, and she finally saw them. Her heart leapt into her throat, just as Luke cleared his throat roughly and said, "Do you see them, Liss? They're little dolls. There's ... wow! There must be dozens of them! Hundreds, even. I just ... oh wow."
--
Belle was concentrating on her homework when she heard Alyssa's voice at the front door, "Belle! Come here! Quick!" she sounded excited, hyped, but there was a strange note to her voice too, that Belle thought was almost fear. Kind of the same tone of voice she heard froms her friends after they came out of a scary movie, or maybe off a rollercoaster. Kind of scared, but mostly excited.
"Coming!" she yelled back, and marked her place in her book. She stood, and made her way to the bedroom door, wondering where Rudolph was, since he didn't seem to be hanging around her bedroom. When she came around the corner and into the hallway leading to the front door, Alyssa told her to stop, and to put her hands on the carpet. Belle gave her what she hoped was an incredulous face.
"Come on, Belle! Just do it! Rudolph is here with me. Luke's here too." she added, almost as an afterhtought. Belle, grudgingly, did as she was told, and recoiled almost immediately. As soon as her fingers touched the carpet she felt as though she was going to black out, and she stumbled a few steps back towards her bedroom wall, bumping into the corner of the wall as she did, and banging her shoulder.
"What the hell?!" she cried. Suddenly, Rudolph was at her side, his wet nose pressed into her hand.
"Sorry Belle, but you wouldn't have believed it if I just told you. They're worry dolls ... hundreds of them, all over the floor. They're in the flat too. And in a path, all the way over to the house." Belle could hear Alyssa moving closer, jerkingly.
"Are you picking them up?" she asked her sister, her own voice trying to jump registers with nerves.
"Uh huh." Alyssa replied, "What else am I supposed to do with them?"
"Ugh, I guess so. I don't want to touch them." She paused, thinking, "Well, not unless I have to, I guess."
Alyssa stopped, her hand full of dolls that she hasd picked off the floor. Luke held a large plastic salad bowl that she was putting them into. "Why would you have to, Belle?" she said, her voice curious.
Belle shook her head, not willing to share this idea quite yet, "I'll tell you later."
Alyssa, not easily put off, put on her on best big sister voice and pointed out that Belle shouldn't be keeping secrets about somehting like this, it might end up being important.
"I'm not keeping secrets and you know it Liss. I've been thinking, that's all." Belle changed the subject, "So are these things just scattered everywhere or are they in a ... I don't know ... a trail or something?"
"It's definitely a trail, we've been following it from the flat."
--
Feeling a little bit like Hansel and Gretel, Alyssa and Belle followed the trail, assisted by Luke and Rudolph. Alyssa led the little group, gathering the dolls up in handfuls as she went, and putting them into the bowl held by Luke. Rudolph clung by Belle's leg, and gave a low growl if Alyssa missed one. He was as wary of the little figurines as Belle was, maybe because she was, and he was careful to make sure that Belle didn't accidentally get too close to one. The dolls wound through the house in an almost random fashion, and the bowl was clsoe to overflowing when it finally ended in Mandy's bedroom. Mandy and Jamie were out, conveniently, for dinner and a movie and - unbeknowst to the two girls - planning a weekend away on paper serviettes. Now, they crept into their mother's room, picking up the last few dolls that remained on the floor. Luke set the bowl down on the dressing table as Belle set foot into the room. Rudolph, beside her, paused at the entrance, raised his hackles, and growled. Belle, at the warning, took a step back into the adjoining dining room.
"I'm not going in there until Rudolph stops doing that." she pointed out.
Alyssa stood in the centre of the room, glanced at Luke as though to say "Sisters!", and then slowly turned around, looking into every corner of the room as she did so. Her reflection turned in the vanity mirror with her. Finally, she shrugged, "There's nothing here, Belle. I don't get it. It's just a room, nothing ...." She stopped suddenly, when she saw Luke's face. He had gone compeltely pale, even underneath his footballer's tan, and was pointing mutely at Alyssa's reflection. Alyssa's eyes followed his finger, looked puzzled, and then returned to his face, "What? Luke, what is it?" She suddenly felt cold all over. Belle took another step backwards out of the room, and Rudolph began to bark.
--
Luke was transfixed, Alyssa, Belle, even the barking Rudolph, had faded into another existence, he was aware of the noise they were making, he udnerstood on some level that Alyssa was calling his name, but it all seemed to be happening in some other place, some other time. Right now, he was watching a woman in the mirror. She was crying, crouching beside the end of Mandy's bed, her arms over her face and her head bowed down almost into her lap. She was screaming, but Luke heard nothing. He could see her body heaving with her wracking sobs, see her brace her body as she yelled out, but the only sounds he heard were the distant voices of his girlfriend, her sister, and the guide dog. Then, strangely and very suddenly, the woman in the mirror reared up as though terror had finally moved her to feet. She looked like she was about to take flight, to run from the room - straight past Alyssa (surely she would notice the scared woman then? he thought wildly) - but instead her eyes widened even further, her mouth opened in what should have been a blood curdling scream, if only he could hear it, and she flicked her body as though trying to avoid some unseen projectile. Luke watched as her hands suddnely flew up to her face as though to ward off an attacker and then, suddenly, horribly, the side of her face flattened grossly and immediately began to redden. He had time to see blisters raising on the strangely flat surface of her cheek, and turned around to flee the bedroom in utter horror as the woman finally dropped to the carpet, her mouth open in that silent scream, and blisters rising on her broken cheek. He threw up on the tiled floor of the dining room.
--
By the time Luke turned around and bolted out of the room, Belle and Alyssa had descended into an argument. Rudolph howled over them. Alyssa wanted Belle to come into the room, to see if she could 'sense' anything. Belle refused to be Alyssa's experimental lab rat and said that until Rudolph calmed down she wasn't taking another step. Alyssa acused Belle of being a scaredy cat, and Belle accused Alyssa of treating her like a canary in a cage down a coal mine. Rudolph continued to howl and Luke continued to be spaced out, staring into the mirror at something no one else could see, with his hands up to his mouth as though he was going to throw up. Which, of course, was exactly what he ended up doing. He was apologising profusely and asking for a cloth when finally Alyssa and Belle dropped the argument unresolved. Rudolph started to calm down, and Belle realised that she didn't know whether he had been barking because whatever he - and Luke - had sensed in the room, or because of the raised voices. Maybe both, she thought. When finally they had cleaned up the mess - with much protest and exclamations of "Ew!" and "Gross!" the three of them, and Rudolph, decided to head back to the flat. Alyssa ducked back into the room to grab the bowl of worry dolls, and took a good long hard look into the mirror. She saw nothing but her own reflection.
--
Back in the flat, they chatted. Luke was implored to tell all and, with a couple of interuptions while he hung his head over the toilet in the little bathroom, coughing up bile, he recounted the story of the woman he had seen in the mirror. The way she had been cowering and crying, then defensive and finally ... broken. He couldn't explain it. He tried, valiantly, and in the end he could just not find the words to explain what he had seen. He looked apoligetically first at Alyssa, and then at Belle. Belle had a strange look on her face, as though she was holding back a secret, and when Luke's words finally dried up at a loss, she took a deep breath and spoke quietly.
"It was a frying pan. She had been cooking bacon."
This was all Alyssa needed to suddenly see the connection. When Belle had described what she had intuited when she held the worry doll on the beach that night, she had said her face had felt like it was burning, but that she had been able to smell bacon. Alyssa had made a bad attempt at a joke that night, saying maybe the bacon had caught on fire. Maybe, Alyssa thought now, she had been closer than she realised with that joke. The bacon hadn't caught fire, but that woman's face had been hit with a bacon grease filled frying pan. A hot bacon grease filled frying pan. Alyssa winced just thinking of the pain that would cause. The question of course now became who was the woman? And what on earth were they going to about her?
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