“I have him. I have him,” she says, and
dances her little dance of glee. Carrapacchio watches her with undisguised
jealousy. The boy stands inside the mirror, hands against the glass….trapped in
its shining surface.
“I knew it. I knew he would succumb. I knew he’d
go in there of his own accord and now I have him. I have him,” and she twirls
around on her toes like a little girl, twinkling across the rugs, her skirts
flowing around her like a multi-coloured river, showing off her shapely legs.
She never looked so beautiful in her life. Carrapacchio never hated her so much
in his whole life. He knows he is looking at his end of days. His poor little
brain aches from the effort of trying to think up some scheme or other that will
get rid of this interloper. He just isn’t good at that kind of thing. But that
won’t stop him trying.
“I’m watching you, creep. No funny business
or I will put a scorpion down your pants. Ha, ha. That should spice up your
love-life.” She chuckles at her own wit and goes back to admiring her
handiwork.
The boy calls and bangs silently at the
mirror’s surface. All in vain. He isn’t going anywhere. Demona runs her fingers
lovingly down the front of the glass…she can almost taste him. The thought
excites her to the point where she is compelled to go and sit down and squeeze
her thighs together until the dizziness has passed.
“Heady stuff. Oh I am ready for this. I
shall be…….magnificent.” And with that she passes out on the bed and sleeps the
clock around.
On awakening she can see that Carrapacchio
has discovered the impregnability of the mirror. He sits to one side, exhausted
by his efforts, and yet he has made not a mark on it. The boy is still inside;
true he is sleeping now, but that doesn’t matter. He is safe. Now all Demona
has to do is implement part two of her plan.
“Up, you traitorous dog. We have things to
do,” she says, giving him a kick in the rear to hurry things up.
*
By midday the reporters were at the door.
The local TV station truck was parked in the street and people were swarming
all over their front lawn poking their cameras at the house.
“So,” said Clara, ever so slightly tipsy.
“Here we are.”
Samuel sat uncomfortably opposite her at the
kitchen table, not saying a word. Beulah sat cautiously on the side-lines, eyes
flicking from one parent to the other. She really didn’t want to be there but
she had no choice either.
“So,” said Clara again: the clock, the
knife, and the bottle – though now only half full – still on the table in front
of her. “Tell me…” She flung her eyes at Samuel. “Tell me what you make of the
situation?” she said ominously, indicating the headlines on the morning paper
on the table in front of her.
It read: “LOCAL NURSE ISOBEL WATTS KIDNAPS
COMA-BOY – RANSOMES HIM FOR HER SON’S RELEASE FROM PRISON” and underneath it, a
larger than life picture of Alice with the caption: “COMA-BOY’S AUNT TELLS THE
WHOLE STORY”
Samuel was trapped. He knew he had to say
something, but he would rather not because whatever he said would be wrong. There
was no escaping this one.
“I am so sorry,” he said, “I didn’t think
she’d….”
“You ‘didn’t think’……just about sums it up.
Well,” she said with a calmness that made his flesh creep. “I’m not going to
chase you out. No, no, no, no, no, no. I want you right here…..for when they
find Joshua. Because you see,” she said, waving the bottle in a circle around
her head. “You see…” and at this point, thinking of Joshua, she nearly broke
down and cried. But with a steely determination she hung on and pulled herself
together. “Because, you see – if he’s alive – well and good. But if he’s
not………………….I’m going to kill you.”
She gave a little drunken nod at this and
bit her lower lip.
“You will share his fate. You might not
think this is fair – but I hold you responsible – firstly for his being in a
coma, and secondly for your sister ruining our chances of ever getting him back
alive.”
She swayed in her seat as she spoke.
“You can run – I don’t care. I shall
dedicate my life to finding you and….” But she couldn’t go on and at that point
she just fell to pieces. Her body sagged as she sucked in a lungful of air and
began howling with pain. She had run out of resources. She could hold on no
more. Samuel caught her before she hit the floor and held her gently in his
arms. He rocked her back and forth while her body shook with grief. Beulah
watched with tears in her eyes. The full import of the tragedy had finally come
home to roost. Their lives were literally over. The family was finished,
smashed to bits. All hope was gone – just terrible emptiness – terrible pain.
They would never be the same again.
Eventually Samuel helped Clara up and
managed, with her one arm over his shoulder, to hoist her up the stairs and
into bed. But he couldn’t get her to let go of the bottle. She had a death like
grip on its neck.
“Samuel,” she said tearfully. “Sam…what are
we going to do?”
Once again Samuel knew he had to answer –
but he was damned either way.
The boy in the mirror looks out into a strange
bedroom. It is lit in the dim light from a streetlamp outside. He no longer
sees the ornate tent with that demon woman and her bizarre creature. He is
glad, for she gave him the creeps. He is far from happy though. He misses the
old lady and feels very lonely. He can’t move much either. He is but a two
dimensional being trapped in the surface of the mirror. He doesn’t know how he
got here. He only knows it had something to do with the young man he had been
watching. And the pretty lady.
Suddenly the lights come on and he sees the
pretty lady being helped into the room by a man. This must be her bedroom. Why
is he here? In her mirror.
He can’t hear anything, but he can see the
lady and the man are having some sort of fight. The lady looks drunk, for she
staggers and nearly falls, swinging her bottle around to try and keep her balance.
Now she is shouting at the man again and he is trying to calm her down. But he
has no luck. She swings around and flings the bottle straight at the mirror and
the boy breaks into a million pieces.
The sun poured in through the broken
skylight of the abandoned shed. The red bricks glowed rosily in the afternoon
light. Off to one side in a cosy corner stood a cot, with all sorts of
contraptions around it. These were the drip-feeds and urine bags that were attached
to the sleeping boy. Lying on the floor in front of the cot was a large, shaggy-haired
mongrel dog. In the beginning the old lady had chased it away, but it kept
coming back so eventually she gave up and just let it be.
Next to the cot was a chair and a coffee
table with a couple of books on it. The old woman was nowhere in sight, but had
she been there she would have noticed something unusual about the boy’s
condition. Under his closed eyelids there were some indications of REM sleep –
not much – just a flicker – and all was still again.
